[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

Israeli strike kills 22 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday that an overnight Israeli air strike in the northern part of the Palestinian territory killed at least 22 people, including women and children...

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Israeli strike kills 22 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 11 December, 2024, 22:36

Two boys sit on plastic chairs amidst debris near the rubble and remains of a collapsed building in Gaza City on Wednesday amid the on-going war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday that an overnight Israeli air strike in the northern part of the Palestinian territory killed at least 22 people, including women and children.

‘At least 22 people were martyred in the massacre committed by the occupation military after it bombed a house belonging to the Abu al-Tarabish family near Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza,’ agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

Bassal said that an Israeli jet had fired three missiles at the house around midnight, adding the strike completely destroyed the three-storey structure.

More than 50 people were living in the house, he said, with many still under the rubble.

‘Rescuers were unable to evacuate the martyrs or the wounded until this morning,’ said Jaber Alian, 30, who witnessed the strike from a house near the hospital.

He said there were several other bombings across the northern parts of the territory during the night.

The Israeli military confirmed it carried out a strike in the Jabalia area near the Kamal Adwan hospital on Tuesday night.

‘According to an initial examination, the number of casualties resulting from the strike published in the media is inaccurate and does not align with the information held by the Israeli military,’ it said in a statement.

‘The military is continuing to examine the incident.’

It did not give a toll of its own from the strike.

For several weeks, the Israeli military has been engaged in a sweeping operation in northern Gaza, particularly in Jabalia, where it says Hamas militants had been regrouping.

In another strike in central Gaza on Wednesday morning, at least seven people were killed when an Israeli warplane struck the house of the Al-Bayoumi family in Nuseirat refugee camp, Bassal said.

The military, meanwhile, said two projectiles crossed from central Gaza into Israel on Wednesday, but were intercepted by the air force.

The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 last year, resulting in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The count includes hostages who died or were killed while being held in Gaza after they were seized by Palestinian militants during the attack.

Militants abducted 251 hostages, 96 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 44,805 people, a majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry that is considered reliable by the UN.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 36

At least 36 Palestinians were killed early yesterday in Israeli bombings of various areas in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

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Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 36

Children, women among casualties; Israel, Palestinians explore truce with US envoy

At least 36 Palestinians were killed early yesterday in Israeli bombings of various areas in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Children and women were among seven killed when a residential building in Gaza City's al-Jalaa Street was bombed, WAFA said. Another 15 were killed in the bombing of a house where displaced people were taking shelter, west of Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, the agency added.

In the western area of Rafah city, south of the Gaza Strip, 13 Palestinians were killed and others were injured, according to WAFA, in a strike that hit people providing aid.

Earlier, medics said at least 30 people were also wounded in the Rafah attack, with several in critical condition.

In the city of Khan Younis, another group of men tasked with security for aid shipments was hit by a separate Israeli airstrike that wounded several of them, medics said. At least 44,835 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023.

Meanwhile, Israelis and Palestinians are signalling new efforts to forge a ceasefire deal, their first in a year, to pause the fighting in Gaza and return to Israel at least some of the 100 hostages still held in the Palestinian enclave.

The guarded optimism emerges as US President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel yesterday before heading to Egypt and Qatar, co-mediators with the US on a deal.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 20 in Gaza

Israeli troops killed at least 20 Palestinians, most of them in the northern Gaza Strip, on airstrikes and other attacks on targets that included a school sheltering displaced Gazans, medics and residents said yesterday.

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Israeli strikes kill 20 in Gaza
Troops raid school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Beit Hanoun

Israeli troops killed at least 20 Palestinians, most of them in the northern Gaza Strip, on airstrikes and other attacks on targets that included a school sheltering displaced Gazans, medics and residents said yesterday.

They said at least 11 of the dead were killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City houses. The others were killed in the towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia camp.

Residents said clusters of houses were bombed and some set ablaze in the three towns. The Israeli army has been operating in the towns for over two months.

In Beit Hanoun, Israeli forces besieged families sheltering in Khalil Aweida school before storming it and ordering them to head towards Gaza City, the medics and residents said.

Medics said several people were killed and wounded during the raid on the school while the army detained many men. The number killed was not immediately clear.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army. Since October last year, Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed almost 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.

Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing to depopulate the areas at the northern edge to create a buffer zone. Israel denies it and says the campaign targets Hamas members and aims to prevent them from regrouping.

A bid by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to reach a truce has gained momentum in recent weeks, yet there has been no news of a breakthrough.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 40 Palestinians

Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera said its cameraman Ahmed al-Louh was killed ‘in an Israeli bombardment’ that targeted Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza...

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Israeli strikes kill 40 Palestinians
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 16 December, 2024, 04:22

Gaza civil defence agency said that Israeli strikes across Palestine on Sunday killed at least 40 people, including several children, an Al Jazeera TV cameraman and three rescuers.

Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera said its cameraman Ahmed al-Louh was killed ‘in an Israeli bombardment’ that targeted Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed Louh was killed in the strike that ‘targeted the Civil Defence site’ in Nuseirat camp, also killing three members of the rescue agency.

The Israeli military confirmed in a statement that it killed Louh, claiming that he was an Islamic Jihad member and ‘previously served as a platoon commander’ for the militant group which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza.

The military said the civil defence site was being used as a ‘command and control centre’ by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Israel’s military has repeatedly accused Al Jazeera journalists of links to Hamas or its ally Islamic Jihad.

Al Jazeera has fiercely denied the accusations and said Israel -- which has passed a law to ban the network -- has systematically targeted its employees in Gaza.

Louh is the fifth Al Jazeera journalist to be killed since the war in Gaza began, and the network's office in the territory has been bombed.

Later on Sunday, Bassal told AFP that an Israeli strike on a school used as shelter by displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza’s main city killed at least 12 people, including a number of children.

‘One missile hit the third floor of the school’ in Khan Yunis, also injuring 35 people, Bassal said.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was looking into the report.

Another strike on a house in Shujaiya, east of Gaza City, killed six people, according to the civil defence spokesman.

Bassal earlier told AFP that rescuers working through the night recovered the bodies of 18 people, including three children.

He also reported more dead in a strike on a house in central Gaza City and another that his a tent sheltering dozens of displaced people in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

AFP images showed distraught relatives mourning the bodies of loved ones at a hospital in Gaza City. Some corpses lay on the floor covered in blankets.

On Sunday, the military confirmed it had carried out strikes in the northern Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia areas.

‘The troops struck dozens of terrorists from both the air and ground and additional terrorists were apprehended’ in Beit Hanoun, it said.

‘In Beit Lahia, troops eliminated terrorists and located and dismantled large quantities of weapons, including explosives and dozens of grenades,’ Israel’s military said.

The statement did not specify when these operations took place.

The military also said it targeted a clinic in northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of using it as a ‘command and control centre’ and storage site for weapons.

The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Since then, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,976 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

The violence has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million population, with many people forced to flee multiple times.

The Israeli military has been conducting a large-scale operation in northern Gaza for several weeks, stating that its objective is to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.

In early December, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres highlighted the devastating toll of the conflict and the urgent need for international action.

‘Malnutrition is rampant... Famine is imminent. Meanwhile, the health system has collapsed,’ Guterres said.

Medics in Gaza report severe shortages of medicines in hospitals amid the ongoing military assault.

‘We are suffering from a shortage of medical staff as a result of the targeting and the martyrdom of a large number of doctors and nurses,’ said Hossam Abu Safiyeh, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, in a statement o journalists.

He said Israeli air strikes and shelling continued to target the hospital and surrounding areas, exacerbating the crisis and endangering both patients and staff.

Israel’s military has denied targeting the hospital directly.​

 

[Saif]

18 more Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported Sunday that overnight Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory killed at least 18 people, including four displaced individuals who had sought refuge in a tent.

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18 more Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 15 December, 2024, 22:55

Displaced Palestinian children search in a garbage bin in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported Sunday that overnight Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory killed at least 18 people, including four displaced individuals who had sought refuge in a tent.

Agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP that rescuers worked through the night, recovering the bodies of 18 people, while dozens more were injured in the ‘ongoing aggression and Israeli aerial and artillery bombardment’ across Gaza.

Bassal reported that the dead included four people killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in central Gaza City.

Another four were killed, and eight injured, when an Israeli missile struck a tent sheltering dozens of displaced people in Deir el-Balah city, in central Gaza.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday that at least 44,976 people have been killed in more than 14 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.

The toll includes 46 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 106,759 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

AFP photographs showed heart-wrenching scenes as relatives retrieved the bodies of their loved ones from a hospital in Gaza City, while others lay covered in blankets within the facility’s ward.

On Saturday, Bassal said that Deir el-Balah’s mayor, Diab al-Jaro, was killed in a similar strike.

The Israeli military later claimed responsibility for that strike, accusing Jaro of being ‘an operative in Hamas’s military wing’.

The war has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million population, with many forced to flee multiple times.

The Israeli military has been conducting a sweeping operation in northern Gaza for several weeks, stating that its objective is to prevent the regrouping of Hamas fighters.

Gaza’s civil defence agency reports that the operation has resulted in hundreds of deaths, while the Israeli military claims it has eliminated dozens of militants.

Medics in Gaza report severe shortages of medicines in hospitals amid the ongoing military assault.

The fighting has also resulted in casualties among healthcare workers, further straining the healthcare system.

‘We are suffering from a shortage of medical staff as a result of the targeting and the martyrdom of a large number of doctors and nurses,’ said Husam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, in a statement to journalists.

Abu Safiya added that Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling have continued to target the hospital and its surrounding areas, exacerbating the crisis and endangering both patients and medical crew.

The Israeli military has denied targeting the hospital directly.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes Monday across the territory killed at least 12 people, the majority displaced Palestinians taking shelter in a house in the north...

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Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 18 December, 2024, 22:35

A Palestinian girl waits for a food portion at a distribution centre south of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, amid the on-going war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes Monday across the territory killed at least 12 people, the majority displaced Palestinians taking shelter in a house in the north.

More than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, the violence raged on even as the United States expressed ‘cautious optimism’ about the prospects of reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that 10 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli strike at dawn hit a house in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, where several displaced families had sought refuge.

Later on Wednesday, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia said that ‘gunfire and tank shells’ caused a fire in the intensive care unit, with some patients suffering burns.

Hospital director Hossam Abu Safia said that staff had to quickly move all patients out of the intensive care unit.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.

Elsewhere in northern Gaza, Bassal said a child was killed and several others wounded in a strike that hit a house in Jabalia, where Israeli forces have focused their operations in recent months.

Overnight, a tent in an Israeli-designated safe zone in the southern Gaza Strip was hit, killing one Palestinian, according to the civil defence spokesman.

Parties to long-stalled ceasefire talks said a deal could be secured soon to halt the fighting and release hostages held in Gaza.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday that ‘cautious optimism is a fair way to characterise it, though very much tempered by realism’.

Hamas said the current talks were ‘serious and positive’, while Israeli defence minister Israel Katz described the two sides as closer to a deal than ever before.

The war was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 45,059 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Prioritise reconstruction of Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon: Prof Yunus

Urges decisive, collective action to end Israeli forces' brutalities

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Prioritise reconstruction of Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon: Prof Yunus
Urges decisive, collective action to end Israeli forces' brutalities

Photo: PID

Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus today said it is crucial to move beyond humanitarian interventions and shift focus towards the reconstruction of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

"Let D-8 therefore kickstart a process, with an approximate estimation of the costs of reconstruction in Palestine and Lebanon," he said, adding that they can thereon press on formulation of international strategies for resource mobilisation.

The chief adviser made the remarks while delivering the speech during a special session on humanitarian crisis and reconstruction challenges in Gaza and Lebanon on the sidelines of the D-8 Summit.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi chaired the session.

The United Nations has cautioned that removing the 40 million tonnes of rubble left in the wake of Israel's bombardment could take at least 15 years, Yunus said.

"We understand that the rubble may contain over 10,000 bodies of the deceased. And this is also contaminated with asbestos," he said.

Yunus said Bangladesh commends the government of Egypt for convening this special session.

"We gather at a time when Israeli aggression and the 14-month long brutal genocide against the Palestinian people continue unabated in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Words should suffice little," he said.

To say the least, Yunus said, they are in utter dismay at Israel's blatant disregard to long-held international norms, laws and conventions.

"The ways the hostilities in Lebanon are spreading, there are heightened fears of further escalation. This can lend to dire and long-term consequences for peace and stability across the region, impacting global society and polity, not just economy," he said.

From Cairo, Yunus said, they must voice their unity and unwavering commitment, in solidarity with their Palestinian brothers and sisters, at this existential time in their history.

"Throughout our history, Bangladesh has stood firmly in support of the Palestinian cause. We consistently condemned the illegal occupation and the violent repression carried out by Israel," said the chief adviser.

He said they remain steadfast in advocating a just and lasting solution, through a two-State solution to the crisis, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and harmony.

"Palestine has to emerge as a fully independent and viable State based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital," Yunus said.

"This is what we also articulated in detail before the International Court of Justice this February as the Court finally called Israel's occupation illegal, in its Advisory Opinion," he added.

Bangladeshis are profoundly concerned over the current state of affairs and Palestinians are no expendable people, Yunus said. "Every Palestinian life matters."

The chief adviser said it is not an issue that merely concerns the Muslims.

"Rather, a universal cause where human dignity is tested. It is about universal pledge to protect the vulnerable. It is indeed our moral duty to stand by them, resolutely."

There are around six million Bangladeshi migrant workers and expatriate professionals, across the region, including in Lebanon who have been making significant contributions to the development of the countries across the Middle East, Yunus said.

"Their safety and security are at risk. We call upon all actors and stakeholders, indeed beyond the region, to take decisive and collective actions to end the brutalities unleashed by the Israeli forces," he said.

The massacres in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, are clear violations of international law, and constitute war crimes.

"Those responsible must account. That is why, last November, Bangladesh stood up at the International Criminal Court asking for expeditious investigations into the heinous crimes against humanity," Yunus said.

Such actions on accountability can deter the perpetrators against further and future atrocities, he said.

"Alongside, let us intensify our efforts on realisation of a viable two-state solution," Yunus said.​

 

[Saif]

Israel committing ‘acts of genocide’

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.

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Israel committing ‘acts of genocide’
Says HRW over restriction of Gaza water supply

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.

"This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to an 'act of genocide' under the Genocide Convention of 1948," Human Rights Watch said in its report.

Israel has repeatedly rejected any accusation of genocide, saying it has respected international law and has a right to defend itself after the cross-border Hamas-led attack from Gaza on October 7, 2023.

MSF accuses Israel of 'ethnic cleansing' in Gaza

In a statement on X, Israel's foreign ministry wrote: "The truth is the complete opposite of HRW's lies."

Although the report described the deprivation of water as an act of genocide, it noted that proving the crime of genocide against Israeli officials would also require establishing their intent. It cited statements by some senior Israeli officials which it said suggested they "wish to destroy Palestinians" which means the deprivation of water "may amount to the crime of genocide".

In a separate report released yesterday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) accused Israel of causing widespread devastation in Gaza and noted "signs of ethnic cleansing" in the north of the Palestinian territory.

"What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive," Lama Fakih, Human Rights Watch Middle East director told a press conference.​