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

[Saif]

Houthis claim multiple attacks on oil tanker, cargo ships

Yemen's Houthi group said in a statement late Friday that they have launched multiple attacks against an oil tanker and other cargo ships, including a joint attack with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance. "Our armed forces carried out several qualitative military operations, including a joint military o

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Houthis claim multiple attacks on oil tanker, cargo ships
FE ONLINE DESK
Published :
Jun 29, 2024 10:34
Updated :
Jun 29, 2024 10:34

File photo
Yemen's Houthi group said in a statement late Friday that they have launched multiple attacks against an oil tanker and other cargo ships, including a joint attack with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance.

"Our armed forces carried out several qualitative military operations, including a joint military operation with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted the oil tanker WALER in the Mediterranean Sea with several drones while it was on its way to Haifa Port," Yahya Sarea, Houthi military spokesman, said in the televised statement aired by Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.

"Our naval forces carried out a military operation targeting the American ship DELONIX in the Red Sea with several ballistic missiles. The operation led to a direct hit on the ship," Sarea said.

He said, "We also targeted the ship JOHANNES MAERSK in the Mediterranean Sea with a winged missile, and the operation achieved its goal successfully," reports Xinhua.

"The operation was carried out simultaneously with the naval forces carrying out another military operation in the Red Sea against the ship LOANNIS. The ship was targeted by several unmanned boats," he added.

Since November last year, the Houthi group has been conducting drone and missile attacks in shipping lanes, claiming these actions are in solidarity with Palestinians amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

In response, the US-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted air raids and missile strikes against Houthi targets to deter the group, but this only led to an expansion of Houthi attacks to include US and British commercial vessels and naval ships.​

 

[Saif]

Israel strike on UN school in Gaza kills 16

The Hamas authorities in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced were sheltering killed 16 people.

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Israel strike on UN school in Gaza kills 16
Agence France-Presse. Palestinian Territories 07 July, 2024, 05:16

A boy inspects the rubble of a collapsed building in the aftermath of Israeli bombardment at the Jaouni school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on July 6, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. | AFP Photo

The Hamas authorities in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced were sheltering killed 16 people.

Israel's military said its aircraft had targeted 'terrorists' operating around the Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which condemned the strike as an 'odious massacre', said 50 injured were taken to hospital from the school.

Some 7,000 people were sheltering in the school at the time of the attack, the Hamas government press office said. Dozens of people scrambled through the rubble after the strike to find survivors.

The press office said the school was run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and most of the casualties were 'children, women, and elderly'.

'This is the fourth time they have targeted the school without warning,' said one woman, Samah Abu Amsha, who told how some children were killed as they read the Koran in a class when the missile hit.

'Shrapnel flew at me inside the classroom and the children were injured,' she told AFP.

Hamas called the attack 'a new massacre and crime committed by this criminal enemy as part of its war of genocide against our Palestinian people'.

The Israeli military said in a statement it 'struck several terrorists operating in structures located in the area of UNRWA's Al-Jawni school'.

'This location served as a hideout and operational infrastructure from which attacks against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip were directed and carried out,' it added, insisting that 'steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians'.

No place is safe

Israel has agreed to meetings with mediators on a ceasefire initiative but has kept up its offensive in the territory that started on October 7 after the Hamas attack on southern Israel.

UNRWA said two of its workers were killed in a strike at Al-Bureij, also in central Gaza, early Saturday. The agency has a major food warehouse in the district.

The Al-Aqsa hospital said nine other bodies were brought to its morgue from the strike.

The UN agency said 194 of its workers have now been killed since the war started.

An UNRWA spokesperson said that since the war began, more than half of the agency's facilities have been hit and many were shelters. 'As a result at least 500 people sheltering in those facilities have been killed,' the spokesperson told AFP.

Paramedics said 10 people, including three journalists, died in another strike on a house in Nuseirat on Saturday.

'Absolutely no place in the Gaza Strip is safe,' said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

The war began with the October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Hamas militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.

In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,098 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry there.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas clears the way for a possible cease-fire after dropping key demand, officials say

Hamas has given initial approval for a US-backed proposal for a phased cease-fire deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel give an up-front commitment for a complete end to the war, a Hamas and an Egyptian official said Saturday. The apparent compromise by the militant group — which c

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Hamas clears the way for a possible cease-fire after dropping key demand, officials say
Published :
Jul 06, 2024 19:58
Updated :
Jul 06, 2024 22:15

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk next to sewage flowing into the streets of the southern town of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, July 4, 2024. Hamas has given initial approval for a US-backed proposal for a phased cease-fire deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel gives an up-front commitment for a complete end to the war, a Hamas and an Egyptian official said Saturday July 6, 2024. Photo : AP/Jehad Alshrafi/Files

Hamas has given initial approval for a US-backed proposal for a phased cease-fire deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel give an up-front commitment for a complete end to the war, a Hamas and an Egyptian official said Saturday.

The apparent compromise by the militant group — which controlled Gaza before triggering the war with an Oct 7 attack on Israel — could help deliver the first pause in fighting since last November and set the stage for further talks on ending a devastating nine-month war. But all sides cautioned that a deal is still not guaranteed.

The two officials, who spoke on conditions of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations, said Washington's phased deal will first include a "full and complete" six-week cease-fire that would see the release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During these 42 days, Israeli forces would also withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza and allow the return of displaced people to their homes in northern Gaza, the pair said.

Over that period, Hamas, Israel and the mediators would also negotiate the terms of the second phase that could see the release of the remaining male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, the officials said. In return, Israel would free additional Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The third phase would see the return of any remaining hostages, including bodies of dead captives, and the start of a yearslong reconstruction project.

Hamas still wants "written guarantees" from mediators that Israel will continue to negotiate a permanent cease-fire deal once the first phase goes into effect, the two officials said.

The Hamas representative told The Associated Press the group's approval came after it received "verbal commitments and guarantees" from the mediators that the war won't be resumed and that negotiations will continue until a permanent cease-fire is reached.

"Now we want these guarantees on paper," he said.

Months of on-again off-again cease-fire talks have stumbled over Hamas' demand that any deal include a complete end to the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered to pause the fighting, but not end it altogether until Israel reaches its goals of destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities and returning all hostages held by the militant group.

Hamas has previously expressed concern Israel will restart the war after the hostages are released. Likewise, Israeli officials have said they are worried Hamas will draw out the talks and the initial cease-fire indefinitely, without releasing all the hostages.

Netanyahu's office did not respond to requests for comment, and there was no immediate comment from Washington.

On Friday, the Israeli prime minister confirmed that the Mossad spy agency's chief had paid a lightning visit to Qatar, one of the key mediators. But his office said "gaps between the parties" remained.

Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas' October attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

Since then, the Israeli air and ground offensive has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The offensive has caused widespread devastation and unleashed a humanitarian crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine, according to international officials. Israel says Hamas is still holding about 120 hostages — about a third of which Israel believes to have died.

In line with previous proposals, the deal would see around 600 trucks of humanitarian aid entering Gaza daily — including 50 fuel trucks — with 300 bound for the hard-hit northern of the enclave, the officials said. Following Israel's assault on the southernmost city of Rafah, aid supplies entering Gaza have been reduced to a trickle.

Saturday's news comes as fighting and Israel's ariel bombardment in Gaza continues unabated.

In the central city of Deir al-Balah, funeral prayers were held for 12 Palestinians, including five children and two women, killed in three separate strikes in central Gaza on Friday and Saturday, according to hospital officials. The bodies of the dead were taken to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where they were counted by AP journalists.

Two of those killed in one of the strikes that hit the Mughazi Refugee camp Friday were employees with the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees, the organization's director of communications told the AP. Juliette Touma added that a total of 194 workers with the UN agency have been killed by the conflict since October.

Earlier this week, some 250,000 Palestinians were affected by an Israeli evacuation order in the southern city of Khan Younis and the surrounding areas. Most Palestinians seeking safety are either heading to an Israeli-declared "safe zone" centered on a coastal area called Muwasi, or the nearby city of Deir al-Balah.

Ground fighting has also raged in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City for the past two weeks, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. Many sheltered in the Yarmouk Sports Stadium, one of the strip's largest soccer arenas.​

 

[Saif]

US complicity in Gaza genocide

The total number of Palestinians dead now exceeds 38,000, of which more than 15,000 are children. The number of casualties is well above 120,000 with most of the 2.3 million Gaza population displaced. According to a statement issued on June 19 by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees,

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

US complicity in Gaza genocide
MUHAMMAD MAHMOOD
Published :
Jul 06, 2024 21:30
Updated :
Jul 06, 2024 21:30

Palestinians walk in a market of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, on June 20, 2024 — Xinhua photo

The total number of Palestinians dead now exceeds 38,000, of which more than 15,000 are children. The number of casualties is well above 120,000 with most of the 2.3 million Gaza population displaced. According to a statement issued on June 19 by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, close to 70 per cent of Gaza's water, sanitation facilities and infrastructure have been totally destroyed or damaged, leading to the spreading of infectious diseases. According to the Wall Street Journal, by mid-December last year, almost 70 per cent of Gaza's 439,000 homes and half of its buildings were destroyed or damaged. Now the situation is far worse.

Even before the current war, the Gaza strip was blockaded by Israel for 17 years, turning it into an open-air prison. In fact, the Israeli blockade rendered the impoverished Gaza strip virtually "unliveable", a term used by the then UN special rapporteur Michael Lynk in 2018.

70 per cent of Gaza's population are refugees. They along with about 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland of historical Palestine during the Nakbain 1948. The massacres, the bulldozed villages and the ethnic cleansing of about a million of Palestinians in the Nakba have been meticulously documented, despite an extraordinary propaganda campaign to persuade American and European people into believing that these never happened. These Palestinians in Gaza are survivors of massacres and ethnic cleansing.

With the blessings of the British who ruled Palestine from 1917-1948, Palestine was formally partitioned, establishing Israel, a Zionist white European colonial settler state, what was meant to be a Palestinian one, thus turning Europe's longstanding problem of anti-Semitism into Palestine's Zionist problem.

In fact, Zionism, a white European colonial movement with white supremacist and fascistic ideologies spearheaded a drive to colonise Palestine with the active support from the UK. The 1917 promise (Balfour Declaration) given by the British of a "national homeland" for European Jews was a British colonial project promising a European ethnic group land in the Arab Middle East in Palestine.

Before the Balfour declaration was made public, it had been submitted and approved by US President Woodrow Wilson, in early 1918. It was also publicly endorsed by the French and Italian governments. Finally in 1948 with the blessing of the British rulers of Palestine at that time, Zionists were successful in establishing a racist colonial settler apartheid state in Palestine and named it Israel.

The policy of ignoring the historical context by the West in general and the US in particular has given rise to the current phase of the conflict. In fact, the UN secretary general pointed out that the October 7 attacks had a historical background.

Israel began its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza on October 27 when the Palestinian resistance group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7. Before starting the ground invasion of Gaza, Israel had launched one of the most destructive bombing campaigns in modern history. It is the active US support for Israel that emboldend Israel to undertake this genocide in Gaza.

The Wall Street Journal in an article titled "The Postwar Vision That Sees Gaza Sliced into Security Zones" reported a US and Israel plan to create fenced off geographic islands in Gaza to be guarded by the Israeli army. For Israel, "the final solution of the Palestinian problem" lies in all Palestinians in Gaza, either killed or exiled.

The US backed Israeli genocide in Gaza is now aimed at complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza. A leaked Israeli Ministry of Defence intelligence document six days after the Hamas attack calls for the forced transfer of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million Palestinians to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

To achieve that objective the US continues to send weapons to Israel to continue the massacre in Gaza in violation of the ceasefire order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been invited to address a joint session of the US Congress on July 24 even when the International Court of Justice is reviewing a request by its chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes, and crimes against humanity and murder.

According to Reuters, the US has sent 14,000, 2000-pound bombs to Israel since October for use in Gaza to enable Israel to continue with its genocide in Gaza. Thes bombs can destroy entire city blocks and can kill people up to 1,200 feet away. By sending these highly destructive bombs for use in impoverished densely populated urban areas, the US is knowingly aiding Israel to carry out planned genocide in Gaza.

Despite mounting international criticism of Israel's genocidal military campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, the US is continuing to fund, arm and politically and diplomatically supporting Israel's policy of genocide in Gaza. Recently, in a joint statement by 12 former US government officials said that the Biden administration was violating US laws through its support for Israel and finding loopholes to continue shipping weapons to its ally Israel.

These former officials further added that "America's diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to Israel ensured our undeniable complicity in the killing and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza."

Strangely enough, a very poor country like India now under the leadership of a Hindu supremacist prime minister Narendra Modi is also cashing on Israeli genocide in Gaza by exporting arms and ammunitions to Israel despite India's claim that it believes in dialogue and negotiations, not war.

According to The Wire, an Indian news media outlet, the Modi government licensed a shipment in January 2024, the very month the ICJ ruled that some of the acts committed by Israel in Gaza appear to fall within the provisions of the Genocide Convention. According to Al Jazeera, in the aftermath of Israel's bombing of a UN shelter in the Nuseirat camp in Gaza, a video of the remains of a missile reveals a label that clearly read: "Made in India."

The pattern of US support for Israel goes all the way back to its founding. During and following the 1948 Palestinian war after the partition, most Palestinians were driven out of their land. In fact, for decades the US has been providing unconditional support for Israel by using its UN Security Council veto on numerous occasions to shield Israel from international accountability.

The Jewish groups such as Haganah to Irgun, and the Stern Gang actively used terrorism to create fear among the Palestinians. Terrorism carried out by these groups in the 1940s played a significant role in creating the conditions that facilitated the founding of Israel, and the consequent creation of an Arab-Palestinian diaspora. In fact, Zionist terrorism was at the core of the idea of Israel.

The US was the first country to grant Israel recognition on May 14, 1948 and played the leading role in mobilising votes in the UN to recognise the new state of Israel within its illegally seized borders. Zionist militias and the Israeli army destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages. Israel also appropriated 78 per cent of the territory of Palestine, including the larger part of Jerusalem following the 1948 war. It was a catastrophic destruction and ethnic cleansing of Palestine and her people in1948. The 1967 war provided Israel with opportunity to further expand its territory including East Jerusalem.

The US also engineered the Oslo Accord and the Abrams Accord which are attempts to further consolidate Israel as the colonial settler state in occupied Palestine with the support of major Arab states as the British did with the collaboration of Hussein bin Ali Hashimi, the Sharif of Mecca to colonise Palestine thus paving the way for the creation of the colonial settler state leading to Nakba (catastrophe) to befall the Palestinians.

Israel with the support of the US and its European allies appears to be more emboldened than ever before to escalate its genocidal campaign against Palestinians. Yet, after fighting nine months to eliminate Hamas, their fighters within Gaza still manage to inflict serious casualties on Israeli troops and destroy tanks and personnel carriers.

Not only the international community failed to end the genocide in Gaza, but it also failed to delink humanitarian aid from political and military objectives. The Palestinian people themselves alone have always remained the source of resistance against the colonisation of their land. Now chances are a united Palestinian armed resistance will continue to grow and further strengthen to liberate their land.​

 

[Saif]

‘Bulldozed and shelled’

Tank tracks still fresh on his field in southern Gaza’s coastal area of Al-Mawasi, Nedal Abu Jazar lamented the damage offensive has wrought on his trees and crops.

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'Bulldozed and shelled'
Gaza farming sector ravaged by Israeli offensive now in its 10th month

Displaced Palestinians carry belongings as they walk in front of a destroyed building in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. An Israeli air strike on a house in the town of Zawayda, in central Gaza, killed at least six people and wounded several others. Photo: AFP

Tank tracks still fresh on his field in southern Gaza's coastal area of Al-Mawasi, Nedal Abu Jazar lamented the damage offensive has wrought on his trees and crops.

"Look at the destruction," the 39-year-old farmer told AFP, holding an uprooted tomato plant. He pointed to his greenhouse's metal frame and its white plastic sheeting strewn across the plot, inside an area designated a humanitarian zone by the Israeli army.

"People were sitting peacefully on their farmland ... and suddenly tanks arrived and fired at us, and then there were (air) strikes."

Abu Jazar said the Israeli operation in late June destroyed about 40 dunams (10 acres) of land and killed five labourers.

His is not an isolated case. Across Gaza, 57 percent of agricultural land has been damaged since the offensive began, according to a joint assessment published in June by the UN's agriculture and satellite imagery agencies, FAO and UNOSAT.

Across Gaza, 57 pc of agricultural land has been damaged since the offensive began: FAO

The damage threatens Gaza's food sovereignty, Matieu Henry of the Food and Agriculture Organization told AFP, because 30 percent of the Palestinian territory's food consumption comes from agricultural land.

"If almost 60 percent of the agricultural land has been damaged, this may have a significant impact in terms of food security and food supply."

The Gaza Strip exported $44.6 million worth of produce in 2022, mainly to the West Bank and Israel, with strawberries and tomatoes representing 60 percent of the total, according to FAO data.

The damage assessment on the agricultural land comes as the UN's hunger monitoring system estimated in June that 96 percent of Gaza faces high levels of acute food insecurity.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army said it "does not intentionally harm agricultural land".

In a statement, it said Hamas "often operates from within orchards, fields and agricultural land".

The impact is worse in the Palestinian territory's north, where 68 percent of agricultural land is damaged, although the southern area encompassing parts of Al-Mawasi has seen the most significant increase in recent months due to operations.

UNOSAT's Lars Bromley told AFP the damage is generally "due to the impact of activities such as heavy vehicle activity, bombing, shelling, and other conflict-related dynamics, which would be things like areas burning".

Near the southern city of Rafah, 34-year-old farmer Ibrahim Dheir feels helpless after the destruction of 20 dunams (five acres) of land he used to lease, and all his farming equipment with it.

"As soon as the Israeli bulldozers and tanks entered the area, they began bulldozing cultivated lands with various trees, including fruits, citrus, guava, as well as crops like spinach, molokhia (jute mallow), eggplant, squash, pumpkin and sunflower seedlings," he said, before listing more damage in a testimony of the area's past agricultural abundance.

Dheir, whose family exported its produce to the West Bank and Israel, now feels destitute. "We used to depend on agriculture for our livelihood day by day, but now there's no work or income."

Farmer Abu Mahmoud Za'arab also finds himself with "no source of income". The 60-year-old owns 15 dunams (3.7 acres) of land on which crops and fruit trees used to grow.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli protesters step up push for Gaza truce deal

Israeli protesters chanting ‘we will not give up’ marched through Tel Aviv on Sunday, the second consecutive day of demonstrations in a stepped-up push for a deal to free...

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Israeli protesters step up push for Gaza truce deal
Agence France-Presse . Tel Aviv 08 July, 2024, 00:51

Women in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv take part in a demonstration for the release of hostages still held by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. | AFP photo

Israeli protesters chanting 'we will not give up' marched through Tel Aviv on Sunday, the second consecutive day of demonstrations in a stepped-up push for a deal to free hostages in Gaza.

A nationwide 'disruption day' began at 6:29 am, corresponding to the start of Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel that set off the war.

After nine months of fighting, Israel says 116 captives are still held by militants in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

'Enough is enough,' said Orly Nativ, a 57-year-old social worker from Tel Aviv who joined the hundreds of flag-wielding demonstrators.

They stopped traffic at an intersection in Tel Aviv, calling for the government to secure a deal to free the hostages still held by Palestinian militants Hamas.

'The government doesn't care what the people think, and they don't do anything to bring back our sisters and brothers from Gaza and take care of us and take care of what happened after October 7th,' Nativ said.

Another demonstrator, Yoni Peleg, called it 'a last cry out for help from the entire country to help us end the war, help us get our people.'

In Jerusalem, police stepped up security around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence before a planned rally there.

The night before, thousands of anti-government demonstrators blocked a highway in Tel Aviv. Some clashed with police on horseback before officers deployed water canon to force people from the road.

Protest organisers estimated around 176,000 people had by 9:00pm filled a Tel Aviv intersection which they call 'Democracy Square'. That would make it one of the biggest demonstrations since the war began.

Large protests, also demanding elections, have taken place across the Israeli city every Saturday night, with smaller ones thoughout the country to put pressure on Netanyahu's government to bring the hostages home.

The protests come as indirect truce negotiations between Israel and Hamas have regained momentum after months of failed diplomacy.

Netanyahu has consistently opposed any deal that allows Hamas to survive.

But pressure is mounting as families tire of arguing their loved ones' lives are worth more than declaring victory over Hamas.

'For the first time in many months, we feel there is a spark of hope,' Sachar Mor, a relative of hostage Ofer Kalderon, said at a separate rally held by the hostage families on Saturday night.

'This is an opportunity that cannot be missed.'

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants on that day, Israeli forces have rescued seven of them alive, and 80 Israelis were freed during the war's only truce, which lasted one week in November.

In response to the October 7 attack, Israel's military offensive has killed at least 38,153 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.​

 

[Saif]

Stranded aid trucks deepen Gaza hunger crisis

Hundreds of trucks loaded with food and water have been stranded on a scorching Egyptian road, some for nearly two months, awaiting permission to deliver the much needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

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Stranded aid trucks deepen Gaza hunger crisis

Hundreds of trucks loaded with food and water have been stranded on a scorching Egyptian road, some for nearly two months, awaiting permission to deliver the much needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

About 50 kilometres from the Gaza border, trucks carrying flour, water and other aid line a dusty road in both directions. The drivers say they have been waiting for several weeks in the searing Egyptian summer heat.

The standstill is exacerbating Gaza's dire humanitarian crisis after nine months of offensive. Aid groups warn there is a high risk of famine across the besieged coastal territory.

The truck drivers, parked on the outskirts of the Egyptian city of al-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula, say they have been unable to deliver humanitarian supplies ever since Israel expanded its offensive on the Gaza-Egypt border in May. Some food has had to be discarded, they said.

"I swear to God, before this load, we came here and stood for more than 50 days and eventually the load was returned because it had expired," said truck driver Elsayed el-Nabawi. Israeli military started its assault on the southern Gazan city of Rafah in May.​

 

[Saif]

Famine has spread throughout Gaza

The recent deaths of several more children from malnutrition in the Gaza Strip indicate that famine has spread throughout the enclave, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations said yesterday.

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Famine has spread throughout Gaza
Say UN experts after recent deaths of several more children from malnutrition

Palestinians collect water from a Unicef tanker in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. Israel pushed on with a major military offensive in Gaza City that the UN said has once again displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians. Photo: REUTERS

The recent deaths of several more children from malnutrition in the Gaza Strip indicate that famine has spread throughout the enclave, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations said yesterday.

Gaza health authorities say at least 33 children have died of malnutrition, mostly in northern areas which had until recently faced the brunt of the Israeli military campaign.

Since early May, the offensive has spread to southern Gaza, hitting aid flows into the enclave amid restrictions by Israel, which has accused UN agencies of failing to distribute supplies efficiently.

In yesterday's statement, the group of 11 rights experts cited the deaths of three children aged 13, 9-years-old and six months from malnutrition in the southern area of Khan Younis and the central area of Deir Al-Balah since the end of May.


"With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza," the experts said.

Their statement, signed by experts including the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, condemned "Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people".

Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva said the statement amounted to "misinformation".

"Israel has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip, recently connecting its power line to the Gaza water desalination plant," it added.​

 

[Saif]

Israel continues onslaught on eve of new truce talks

Israeli forces in war-ravaged Gaza City pushed on with a major offensive on Tuesday that has again displaced Palestinians, as UN experts said children were dying in a ‘starvation campaign’...

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Israel continues onslaught on eve of new truce talks
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 09 July, 2024, 23:37

Israeli forces in war-ravaged Gaza City pushed on with a major offensive on Tuesday that has again displaced Palestinians, as UN experts said children were dying in a 'starvation campaign'.

Troops, tanks and fighter jets swooped on Gaza's biggest urban area on the eve of new contacts in Qatar aiming for an eventual hostage-prisoner exchange and a truce in the war raging into its 10th month.

CIA director William Burns and Israel's Mossad chief David Barnea are due to travel to Qatar on Wednesday, after Burns held talks with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo.

Hamas has accused Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately escalating fighting in Gaza City and Rafah, in the territory's south, to thwart an agreement.

The Islamist group's Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh said he had made 'urgent contact' with mediators, warning that the 'catastrophic consequences' of the latest battles could 'reset the negotiation process to square one'.

Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, described the fighting in Gaza City in recent days as 'the most intense in months'.

Militants were fighting with rockets, mortars and explosives, it said.

After almost two weeks of battles in Gaza City's eastern Shujaiya district, Israeli forces have extended the fighting into the city's east, west and south.

Residents reported helicopter strikes, 'explosions and numerous gun battles' in the city's southwest.

The United Nations said tens of thousands of civilians have been affected by the surge in fighting since the first of three evacuation orders for Gaza City was declared on June 27.

Thousands were seen marching down dusty roads past bombed-out buildings, with mothers carrying babies and others packing belongings onto donkey carts.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was 'appalled' at the way civilians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times, have been ordered to head to areas where 'military operations are ongoing and where civilians continue to be killed and injured'.

Gaza City residents have now been told to move south to Deir al-Balah, which the UN office said 'is already seriously overcrowded' with displaced Palestinians.

Separately, independent UN rights experts accused Israel of carrying out a 'targeted starvation campaign' that has resulted in the deaths of Gazan children.

'Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence,' the experts said in a statement.

'Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since October 7, the majority being children,' said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

Israeli military offensive has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

The toll includes at least 50 killed over the past 24 hours, said a ministry statement on Tuesday.

Qatar and Egypt, supported by the United States, have been engaged in months of behind-the-scenes contacts to start truce talks and organise an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Hamas has signalled that it would drop its insistence on a 'complete' ceasefire — which Israel had repeatedly rejected — as a condition for starting talks.

Netanyahu's has set out conditions for talks, including that 'any deal will allow Israel to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved', including the destruction of Hamas.

As the Gaza war has raged on, Israel has also exchanged regular cross-border fire with Lebanon's Hezbollah, allies of Hamas, heightening fears of an all-out war.

Hezbollah on Tuesday released a video showing aerial surveillance footage it said was taken over intelligence and military positions in the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights.

The Lebanese government has supported the implementation of Resolution 1701, which called for armed personnel to pull back north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border with Israel.​

 

[Saif]

Israel orders Gaza evacuation after 29 killed at schools

Israel’s army dropped thousands of leaflets over war-torn Gaza City on Wednesday urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive through the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory...

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Israel orders Gaza evacuation after 29 killed at schools
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 11 July, 2024, 01:18

Israel's army dropped thousands of leaflets over war-torn Gaza City on Wednesday urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive through the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory.

The leaflets, addressed to 'everyone in Gaza City', set out designated escape routes and warned that the urban area, which had a pre-war population of over half a million, would 'remain a dangerous combat zone'.

Across Gaza, deadly strikes have hit four schools in four days, sparking rebukes from France and Germany which both labelled the attacks 'unacceptable'.

'We call for these strikes to be fully investigated,' said the French foreign ministry, highlighting a deadly strike on Tuesday on a school near the southern city of Khan Yunis.

'It is unacceptable that schools, especially those housing civilians displaced by the fighting, should be targeted.'

A deadly strike hit a school turned shelter in southern Gaza on Tuesday as Israeli forces in the war-ravaged territory's main city pushed on with a major offensive that has again displaced Palestinians.

A hospital source in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza said at least 29 people were killed when the school was hit in nearby Abasan.

Three previous Israeli strikes since Saturday on schools across Gaza used by displaced Palestinians have killed a total of at least 20 people, according to officials and rescuers.​

 

[Saif]

MSF facing ‘critical’ medical supply shortage

Aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned of “critical” shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, with no resupply for more than two months as fighting between Israel and Hamas wears on.

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ISRAELI OFFENSIVE IN GAZA
MSF facing 'critical' medical supply shortage

Aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned of "critical" shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, with no resupply for more than two months as fighting between Israel and Hamas wears on.

The group known by its French initials MSF is "facing critical shortages of many things like gauze, gloves... things like that," Amber Alayyan, who works on the Palestinian territories for its French branch, told AFP on Wednesday.

The aid group warned last week in a statement it had been unable to bring any medical supplies into Gaza since the end of April and called on Israel to open more crossing points into the territory.

MSF staff have shifted to changing wound dressings every four days rather than the usual two to save on supplies

"We're seeing people who are injured in bombings, in shootings, in drone attacks," Alayyan said.

"We're seeing people who are living in such poor conditions that they're cooking on the floor."

MSF staff have shifted to changing wound dressings every four days rather than the usual two to save on supplies, paediatrician Alayyan added.

MSF now risks running out of vital medication such as anaesthetics needed for surgery.

"If we have to continue going like this... we won't be able to operate. We won't operate without anaesthesia," Alayyan said.

UNRWA, the United Nations body responsible for Palestinian refugees, estimated last month that around 10 children per day were losing one or both legs in Gaza.

Where MSF is involved, "most of the amputations... are being done as life-saving amputations," Alayyan said.

Afterwards, "we don't even have enough wheelchairs in our own hospital... much less prosthetic devices", she added.

With around 88,000 people wounded in Gaza, according to the health ministry, it will be a "proper catastrophe for years to come in terms of post-operative care, wound care, amputations, prosthetics", Alayyan said.

"Gaza itself needs to be rebuilt. So it's going to have to be rebuilt with wheelchair-accessible ramps all over the place for the thousands of people who are going to be in wheelchairs," she said.

"The offensive needs to stop... the healthcare system is completely destroyed."

After initially blocking all deliveries into Gaza, Israel reopened Kerem Shalom in December under international pressure.

An average of 250 trucks now cross the checkpoint daily according to COGAT, still well below UN figure of 500 aid and commercial trucks before the offensive.

Independent UN rights experts accused Israel on Tuesday of a "targeted starvation campaign" in the Gaza, where they said 34 Palestinians have died of malnutrition since October.​

 

[Saif]

Biden, US complicit in alleged war crimes

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said US President Joe Biden and his administration are complicit in what he called Israeli war crimes and violations of international law in the Gaza conflict, and he called for sanctions against Israel.

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Biden, US complicit in alleged war crimes
Says Erdogan

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese village of Tairharfa yesterday. Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, have exchanged near daily cross-border fire since the Gaza offensive began on October 7, stoking fears of an escalation into all-out war. Photo: AFP

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said US President Joe Biden and his administration are complicit in what he called Israeli war crimes and violations of international law in the Gaza conflict, and he called for sanctions against Israel.
In an interview with Newsweek during the Nato summit in Washington, Erdogan said Israel's "brutal murder" of civilians, its strikes on hospitals, aid centres and elsewhere constituted war crimes.

"The US administration, however, disregards these violations and provides Israel with the most support. They do so at the expense of being complicit in these violations," Erdogan was quoted as saying.​

 

[Saif]

Battles rock Gaza City after mass evacuation order

Heavy combat and bombardment hit Gaza City and other parts of the Palestinian territory on Friday as mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war raging into its...

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Battles rock Gaza City after mass evacuation order
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 13 July, 2024, 00:43

People walk on rubble at the damaged UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees building complex in western Gaza City's Al-Sinaa neighbouhood on Friday, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the besieged Palestinian territory. | AFP photo

Heavy combat and bombardment hit Gaza City and other parts of the Palestinian territory on Friday as mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war raging into its tenth month.

US President Joe Biden said at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday that US diplomats, despite problems, were making 'progress' with international mediators towards a ceasefire and stressed that 'it's time to end this war'.

Media linked to the territory's rulers Hamas, whose October 7 attack sparked the bloodiest ever Gaza conflict, said that Israeli forces had launched more than 70 new air strikes.

Gaza's health ministry reported 32 deaths, saying that the 'martyrs, a majority of them children and women, were taken to hospitals overnight, because of continued massacres'.

Israel's military said it was also fighting in the Rafah area, in the south, where its troops had 'eliminated numerous terrorists in close-quarters combat and aerial strikes'.

A major focus of recent battles and mass displacement has been the biggest urban area, Gaza City, where two weeks of fighting devastated the eastern district of Shujaiya.

Gaza's civil defence agency said dozens of bodies have been found under the rubble of what was now a 'disaster zone', with 85 percent of buildings uninhabitable.

Gaza City had been the focus of Israeli ground operations early in the war.

Israeli troops and tanks have, since Shujaiya, swept into other Gaza City districts to fight Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, including in the vacated headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinians UNRWA.

The army dropped thousands of leaflets Wednesday urging all Gaza City residents to flee the 'dangerous combat zone' — an area where the United Nations said up to 350,000 people were staying.

One of the newly displaced, Umm Ihab Arafat, sat with her children on a sand pile amid the rubble as the incessant hum of Israeli drones filled the sky.

'I have been displaced four times,' she said, pleading for a break for her and her children. 'They are entitled to rest, their eyes are full of horror and fear'.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that 'entire families are trapped and desperately seek security. The huge needs are beyond our capacity to respond'.

The ICRC said Gaza City's people had been instructed to move south "to areas that are overcrowded, lacking in essential services and are experiencing hostilities".

Israel and Hamas have engaged in months of indirect talks via Qatari and Egyptian mediators to reach a so far elusive truce and hostage release deal.

At the latest meeting in Doha on Wednesday, Israeli and US officials talked conditions for peace with Qatari mediators.

The head of Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency Ronen Bar was headed for talks in Cairo, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

Netanyahu again insisted that any deal must allow Israel to meet its war aims of bringing home all hostages and destroying Hamas.

He also said Israel needs to maintain control of Gaza's southern border to prevent 'weapons to be smuggled to Hamas from Egypt'.

A leading South African judge, whose country has brought Israel to the top world court over Gaza, said "hardly anything" will deter Israel's offensive.

Biden has laid out what he called an Israeli plan which would see a six week truce in which hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians in Israeli prisons would be freed. A second phase would see talks on a full end to the war.

Biden acknowledged Thursday that "difficult, complex issues" remain but insisted that 'we're making progress'. 'The trend is positive,' he said, 'and I'm determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now.'

Biden also stood firm on his decision to hold up delivery of massive 2,000-pound bombs, over concerns they could be used in populated areas, even as his administration moves forward on sending Israel less powerful 500-pound munitions.

He again pressed Israel for a 'day-after' plan for Gaza and spoke of his diplomacy to persuade Arab states to help with security.

Hamas has proposed an independent and non-partisan government for both post-war Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank during ceasefire negotiations, said Hossam Badran, a member of the group's political bureau.

The war started after Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Israel also imposed a punishing siege on the territory of 2.4 million people, pushing many to the brink of starvation.

The World Health Organization said that only five trucks carrying medical supplies were allowed into Gaza last week, while over 70 more are waiting at the border.

A problem-plagued US effort to get aid in by sea will soon end permanently, the United States military said.

US troops built the $230-million pier but the temporary facility has been repeatedly damaged by poor weather.

Biden said he had been 'hopeful that would be more successful'.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas for independent Palestinian government in post-war Gaza

Hamas is suggesting during ceasefire negotiations that an independent government of non-partisan figures run Gaza after war and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement’s political bureau said Friday....

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Hamas for independent Palestinian government in post-war Gaza
Agence France-Presse. Gaza City 12 July, 2024, 21:59

Palestinians make their way over the dirty of rubble past destroyed buildings after the Israeli military withdrew following a two-week offensive from the Shujaiya neighbourhood, east of Gaza City on July 11, 2024. | AFP photo

Hamas is suggesting during ceasefire negotiations that an independent government of non-partisan figures run Gaza after war and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement's political bureau said Friday.

'We proposed that a non-partisan national competency government manage Gaza and the West Bank after the war,' Hossam Badran said in a statement about the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas with mediation from Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.

'The administration of Gaza after the war is a Palestinian internal matter without any external interference, and we will not discuss the day after the war in Gaza with any external parties', Badran added.

A Hamas official told AFP the proposal for a non-partisan government was made 'with the mediators'.

The government will 'manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the initial phase after the war, paving the way for general elections' said the official, who did not want his name disclosed.

Badran's remarks came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Israel retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, Gaza territory along the border with Egypt. This condition conflicts with Hamas's position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.

Netanyahu said on Thursday that control of the Philadelphi corridor is part of efforts to prevent 'weapons to be smuggled to Hamas from Egypt.'

The negotiations are occurring in Doha, Qatar and Cairo, Egypt with the aim of bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza as well as the return of hostages still held there by Hamas.

The war began on October 7 with Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.​

 

[Saif]

At least 71 killed in Israeli airstrikes at Gaza humanitarian camp

Israel says it target Hamas military chief, Hamas denies

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At least 71 killed in Israeli airstrikes at Gaza humanitarian camp
Israel says it target Hamas military chief, Hamas denies

Palestinians react near damage, following what Palestinians say was an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 13, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Mohammed Salem

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 71 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza on Saturday, the enclave's health ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted Hamas' military chief Mohammed Deif.

Hamas said in a statement that Israeli claims that it had targeted leaders of the group were false and aimed at justifying the attack.

The Israeli military said that the strike against Deif also targeted Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas' Khan Younis Brigade, describing them as two of the masterminds of the October 7 attack that triggered the nine-month war in Gaza.

Deif has survived seven Israeli assassination attempts, the most recent in 2021 and has topped Israel's most wanted list for decades, held responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.

The Gaza health ministry said at least 71 Palestinians had been killed in the strike and 289 injured, the deadliest toll in weeks.

Al-Mawasi is a designated humanitarian area to which the Israeli army has repeatedly urged Palestinians to head to after issuing evacuation orders from other areas.

The Israeli military published an aerial photo of the site, which Reuters was not immediately able to verify, where it said "terrorists hid among civilians".

"The location of the strike was an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings, and sheds," it said in a statement.

A military official told journalists in an online briefing the area was not a tent complex, but an operational compound run by Hamas and that several more militants were there, guarding Deif.

It was unclear whether Deif was killed. "We are still checking and verifying the results of the strike," the military official said.

Many of those wounded in the strike were taken to the nearby Nasser Hospital, which hospital officials said had been overwhelmed and was "no longer able to function" due to the intensity of the Israeli offensive and an acute shortage of medical supplies.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was holding special consultations, his office said, in light of "developments in Gaza". It was unclear how the strike would affect ceasefire talks underway in Doha and Cairo.

The Hamas-run media office said at least 100 people had been killed and wounded, including members of the Civil Emergency Service.

A senior Hamas official did not confirm whether Deif had been present and called the Israeli allegations "nonsense".

"All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence," Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding the strike showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal.

Separately, at least 10 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a prayer hall at a Gaza camp for displaced people West of Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said.

ATTACK 'SURPRISING', SAY WITNESSES

Reuters footage showed ambulances racing towards the area amidst clouds of smoke and dust. Displaced people, including women and children, were fleeing in panic, some holding belongings in their hands.

Witnesses said the attack came as a surprise as the area had been calm, adding more than one missile had been fired. Some of the wounded who were being evacuated were rescue workers, they said.

"They're all gone, my whole family's gone.. where are my brothers? They're all gone, they're all gone. There's no one left," said one tearful woman, who did not give her name.

"Our children are in pieces, they are in pieces. Shame (on you)," she added.

Rising up the Hamas ranks over 30 years, Deif developed the group's network of tunnels and its bomb-making expertise, Hamas sources say.

In March, Israel said it killed Deif's deputy, Marwan Issa. Hamas has since neither confirmed, nor denied his death.

Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel has retaliated by military action in Gaza that has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, medical authorities in Gaza say.​

 

[Saif]

UN agency for Palestinians says has funds until end of September

Photo: AFP

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday it had enough funds to continue operating through September, following a pledging conference for the embattled body where UN chief Antonio Guterres pleaded for help from donors.

"We have worked tirelessly with partners to restore confidence in the agency," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said, after several nations withheld funding following Israeli allegations in January that a number of UNRWA's employees participated in the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Lazzarini said new pledges of funds would help ensure emergency operations until September.

Guterres had pleaded with donors to fund the embattled UN agency, warning that Palestinians would lose a "critical lifeline" without UNRWA.

"Let me be clear -- there is no alternative to UNRWA," he said.

"Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse in Gaza -- somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell," Guterres added.

According to Guterres, 195 UNRWA staff members have been killed in the war, the highest death toll for staff in UN history.

The US Congress has barred further funding for UNRWA. President Joe Biden's administration has instead directed funding for Palestinian civilians to other bodies while saying that UNRWA is uniquely equipped to distribute aid.

The conflict started with Hamas's October attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.​

 

[Saif]

Israel attacks Palestinians from land, sea, air

Israel hammered the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land Monday as the war in the Palestinian territory showed no sign of abating, with Hamas saying it was pulling out of...

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Israel attacks Palestinians from land, sea, air
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 16 July, 2024, 01:08

A wounded Palestinian girl is treated at the al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat refugee Camp after the Israeli military bombardment of the United Nations-run Abu Oreiban School turned shelter where internally displaced Palestinians are living in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday. | AFP photo

Israel hammered the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land Monday as the war in the Palestinian territory showed no sign of abating, with Hamas saying it was pulling out of truce talks.

Shells rained down on the neighbourhoods of Tal Al-Hawa, Sheikh Ajlin and Al-Sabra in Gaza City, AFP correspondents reported, while eyewitnesses said the Israeli army had shelled the Al-Mughraqa area and the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said they had retrieved the bodies of five people, including three children, after Israeli air strikes in the Al-Maghazi camp, also in the central Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, eyewitnesses reported Israeli gunship fire east of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, and shelling and Apache helicopter attacks in western areas of the southernmost city of Rafah.

The relentless bombardments came as prospects dwindled for a truce and hostage release deal being secured any time soon.

Hamas said on Sunday it was withdrawing from ceasefire talks.

The decision followed an Israeli strike targeting the head of Hamas's military wing, Mohammed Deif, which the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said killed 92 people.

Deif's fate remains unknown, with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying there was 'no certainty' he was dead while a senior Hamas official told AFP that Deif was 'well and directly overseeing' operations.

Speaking after the strike on Al-Mawasi, a second senior official from the group cited Israeli 'massacres' and its attitude to negotiations as a reason for suspending negotiations.

But according to the official, Haniyeh told international mediators Hamas was 'ready to resume negotiations' when Israel's government 'demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal'.

Hamas on Monday lashed out at the US, accusing it of supporting 'genocide' by supplying Israel with 'internationally banned' weapons.

'We condemn in the strongest terms the... American disdain for the blood of the children and women of our Palestinian people... by providing all types of prohibited weapons to the 'Israeli' occupation,' a statement from the Hamas government media office said.

Talks between the warring parties have been mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with US support, but months of negotiations have failed to bring a breakthrough.

Israeli military offensive has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.

The war and accompanying siege have devastated the Palestinian territory, destroying much of its infrastructure, leaving the majority of its 2.4 million residents displaced and causing a dire shortage of food, medicines and other basic goods.

Among the devastated facilities have been multiple schools. On Sunday, Israeli forces struck a UN-run school in Nuseirat camp that was being used as a shelter for displaced people but which the military said 'served as a hideout' for militants.

The civil defence agency in Gaza said 15 people were killed in the strike, the fifth attack in just over a week to hit a school used as shelter by displaced Palestinians.​

 

[Saif]

UNRWA headquarters ‘flattened’ as destruction of Gaza continues

THE massacres of Palestinian civilians by Israel continue...

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UNRWA headquarters 'flattened' as destruction of Gaza continues
16 July, 2024, 23:11

Flaunting its genocidal intentions, the Israel Defence Forces levelled the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, writes Thomas Scripps

THE massacres of Palestinian civilians by Israel continue.

Artillery, drone and airstrikes were launched against the Nuseirat, al-Bureij and al-Maghazi refugee camps, the cities of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and Rafah in the south, and Gaza City in the north.

Two people were injured at a power station near Nuseirat, a day after the Abu Araban school in the camp was targeted — the fifth Israeli strike on a school-shelter in eight days — killing 15 people and wounding dozens. The Gaza health ministry announced Monday that the death toll had increased to 22. Thousands of displaced Palestinians had been housed in the complex.

Shelling in al-Bureij landed in a schoolyard, of Abu Helu School, injuring one person.

The Abu Araban massacre followed the slaughter of 92 people at al-Mawasi, a supposed 'safe zone', on Saturday. Thirty-year-old Aya Mohammad, a survivor of the attack, described Monday how 'the ground shook underneath my feet and the dust and sand rose to the sky and I saw dismembered bodies,' adding, 'Where to go is what everybody asks, and no one has the answer.'

Multiple homes were destroyed in Rafah, with the Israel Defence Forces launching missiles from helicopters. Ten dead bodies were pulled out of the wreckage. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in the city.

Flaunting its genocidal intentions, the Israel Defence Forces levelled the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations Palestinian relief agency UNRWA. Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini posted images of the destruction with the comment, 'UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened. Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.'

This followed a fresh round of unsubstantiated allegations by Israel that the agency is harbouring hundreds of Hamas agents. Earlier accusations were the pretext for the imperialist powers to cut all funding to the organisation responsible for feeding, educating and providing healthcare to 5.9 million Palestinians across the Middle East.

UNRWA's head of external relations Tamara al-Rifai told Al Jazeera the images were 'shocking' and noted that 190 UNRWA facilities, 'most of which served as shelters for displaced people', had now been attacked, with 500 killed in these facilities protected by international law, and 1,600 wounded.

Another four Gazans were killed in a strike that destroyed a house on as-Salam Street in Deir al-Balah, five in al-Maghazi, and three on al-Mansoura Street in Gaza City's Shujayea neighbourhood, reduced to ruins by a continuous Israel Defense Forces assault in the last two weeks.

Describing the attack in Deir al-Balah, Walid Thabet said, 'My mother, an elderly woman, was sitting with me upstairs. She went downstairs and after five minutes I pulled her out from under the rubble. We also pulled my sister out and my sister's children too.

'Those who died are my mother, my sister, and my sister's children. Children! One was two and a half years old, and the other two.'

Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum reported an 'intensification of bombardment' in the city, leaving behind 'a trail of destruction, causing a great deal of panic and frustration among the residents of neighbouring houses. Deir al-Balah is where Palestinians have been told to go and seek refuge.'

The local municipality has warned it is no longer able to provide 700,000 people in the area with drinking water after running out of fuel.

Gaza's water supply across the enclave, restricted by Israel's siege even before the war, has been devastated. According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs says 67 per cent of the strip's water and sanitation system had been destroyed as of last month.

New and expectant mothers are especially affected. The UN reports that 95 per cent do not have enough to eat, with miscarriages already three times more likely than before the war in February, according to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health.

More than 13,000 women will give birth in Gaza in the next month and will have to rely on the three of the strip's thirteen remaining hospitals (23 no longer function) providing any pregnancy care at all.

Madeleine McGivern of Care UK told the Guardian: 'Women are giving birth without any pain relief whatsoever, living in fear, not being able to access any doctor or antenatal care, not knowing whether they'll give birth in a boiling hot tent or, if they are able to go to a hospital, risk being hit by a bomb or shot by a sniper on the way there or the way back.'

Compounding the food and water crisis is the pollution caused by mountains of solid waste piling up amid the evisceration of Gazan society — 330,000 tonnes across the whole territory, often within feet of refugee tent cities. Many Palestinians are forced to scavenge these sites for anything useful or saleable.

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Ahmed al-Fari, head of the children's departments at Nasser Hospital, commented, 'It is no secret that the biggest cause of intestinal infections currently occurring in the Gaza Strip is the contamination of the water supplied to these children.

Piles of waste join mountains of earth and debris. According to a UN assessment, the near 140,000 destroyed building in Gaza (65 per cent of them residential) have produced roughly 40 million tons of rubble, more than 15 years' work for a fleet of 100 lorries to clear.

The United States has sent 14,000 of these 2,000lb bombs to Israel since October.
Roughly 10 per cent of weapons dropped on Gaza fail to detonate on impact, according to Pehr Lodhammar, a former UN Mine Action Service chief for Iraq, leading, says Gaza's Civil Defence agency, to 'more than 10 explosions every week' of unexploded ordnance.

Amid the latest killings, it was the turn of David Lammy, foreign secretary in Britain's new Labour Party government, to tour Israel and sprinkle perfumed phrases about 'peace' and 'stability' on its fascist regime and genocidal war.

Arriving in Israel Sunday, he waded through the blood to shake the hand of murderer-in-chief Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and say, 'I'm here to push for a ceasefire. The loss of life over the last few months... is horrendous. It has to stop.'

A few more massacres later, he told the media ahead of a meeting with Netanyahu's partner in crime president Isaac Herzog on Monday, 'It's important that, whilst we are in a war, that war is conducted according to international humanitarian law.'

Herzog told the press conference after the meeting, 'The foreign secretary made clear that his country will continue to work and demand for the release of all the hostages… The bonds between the British and Israeli peoples are as strong and robust as they are historic and impactful — especially now, in facing the challenges ahead of us.'

Lammy told reporters an 'assessment' into arms sales to Israel had 'begun'.

To underscore the cynical character of such a pose, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that Lammy had given assurances that the UK would not withdraw its objections to the International Criminal Court's application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant. The objection to the arrest warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes was first raised by the former Conservative government of Rishi Sunak, but at the time Lammy said Labour would drop the legal challenge. The US was reported as lobbying Labour to reverse this position, with all too predictable success.

World Socialist Web Site, July 15. Thomas Scripps is the assistant national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in the United Kingdom.​

 

[Saif]

Israel carries out new raids in Gaza as Netanyahu visits US

Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the US Congress. The latest Israeli attacks destroyed homes in towns east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and thousands of people were forced to head west to seek

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel carries out new raids in Gaza as Netanyahu visits US
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 24, 2024 16:43
Updated :
Jul 24, 2024 16:43

Israeli soldiers travel in a military vehicle, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, by the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, July 23, 2024. Photo : Reuters/Amir Cohen/Files

Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the US Congress.

The latest Israeli attacks destroyed homes in towns east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and thousands of people were forced to head west to seek shelter, residents said.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received distress calls from residents trapped in their homes in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Younis, but were unable to reach the town.

Israel's military, which is trying to eradicate the Islamist militant group Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, said it had been operating in areas from which fighters had been able to fire rockets into Israel and attack Israeli troops.

Gaza health officials said Israeli military strikes in the past 24 hours had killed at least 55 people, the latest casualties in a war that health authorities in the enclave say has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.

"Where should we go? Shall we cross into the sea?" said Ghada, who has been displaced with her family six times during the war, said from Hamas City in northwestern Khan Younis.

"We are exhausted, starved, and want the war to end now, now not an hour later. Every day means more families are wiped off the registration book," she told Reuters via a chat app.

Local residents said they had been ordered to head west towards a designated humanitarian area, but that the area was now unsafe.

Israeli forces also carried out airstrikes on several areas of central and northern Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several Palestinians, health officials said.

Residents of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, said Israeli forces had blown up several houses in the west of the city.

PALESTINIANS CRITICISE US

Hamas-led fighters triggered the war on Oct. 7 by storming into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 captives, according to Israeli tallies. Some 120 hostages are still being held though Israel believes one in three are dead.

Some Palestinians who gathered at a hospital in Khan Younis before funerals criticised the United States, Israel's most important international ally, for welcoming Netanyahu.

The Israel leader was due to address Congress later on Wednesday and to meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would meet Netanyahu in Florida on Friday.

"The United States is a main partner in what is happening in Gaza. We are being killed because of the United States. We are being slaughtered by American planes, American ships, American tanks, and American troops," said Kazem Abu Taha, a displaced resident from Rafah.

A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, told Reuters: "The Congress invitation to Netanyahu to make a speech gives legitimacy to the crimes of the war of genocide in Gaza. Receiving a war criminal is a shame to all Americans."

Israel has rejected accusations brought by South Africa at the U.N.'s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against Palestinians. It has reacted angrily to a decision by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.

Netanyahu said this week a deal to release Israelis held captive in Gaza could be near. But Hamas officials said Netanyahu was stalling and that they had not seen any change in the Israeli stance that would allow an agreement to be reached.

Hamas wants a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says the war cannot end before Hamas is eradicated.​

 

[Saif]

Israel's war is having multiple ripple effects in Gaza

World leaders must recognise the urgency of interventions

www.thedailystar.net

Israel's war is having multiple ripple effects in Gaza
World leaders must recognise the urgency of interventions

VISUAL: STAR

The increasing deaths and displacement of Palestinians as well as outbreaks of diseases in Gaza demand a much greater pressure from the international community to bring Israel's genocidal campaign to an end. According to a report in this daily, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official recently said he was "extremely worried" over possible outbreaks in Gaza after poliovirus was detected in the sewage, warning that communicable diseases could cause more deaths than injuries. The WHO's head of health emergencies in the occupied Palestinian territories also said that the number of people now needing to be evacuated from Gaza for medical care may have risen to 14,000.

Meanwhile, the death toll in the ongoing war has risen to 39,090 since October 7, as Khan Younis suffered one of its bloodiest days on Tuesday, with at least 89 Palestinians being killed. Thousands of people fled southern areas of the territory following the Israeli army's temporary evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis, including the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone. The order came days after the health ministry in Gaza said that 92 people were killed in a strike on Al-Mawasi, when Israel claimed it was targeting a Hamas commander. Such mass casualties, under the guise of Israel targeting Hamas militants, has tragically become the norm in Gaza.

The evacuation order for Al-Mawasi comes just two months after the Israeli military directed Palestinians to go there for their own safety. As a result, thousands of Palestinians, who were in Khan Younis after being displaced multiple times already, are having to flee the area in panic, carrying whatever little belongings they have left. These endless deaths, displacement and injuries to Palestinians can only be brought to an end by the international community putting enough pressure on Israel. Worryingly, however, there has been little response from the former so far, despite a number of directives and rulings from the International Court of Justice which, as recently as Friday, came down hard against Israel by calling its occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, and likening its laws in the occupied territories to "the crime of apartheid". This is deeply concerning.

It has been nearly 10 months since Israeli forces mounted the war against innocent Palestinians in Gaza. The population of the strip has already been through starvation; immeasurable amounts of violence has been inflicted upon them; and now with the threat of possible outbreaks hanging over them, we hope the international community will finally recognise the urgency with which it must act.​

 

[Saif]

Israel strikes Gaza as military recovers five captive bodies

Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Thursday, killing and injuring people according to Palestinian medical sources, as the military said it had recovered the bodies of five Israelis taken to Gaza by Hamas militants after they were killed on October 7...

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Israel strikes Gaza as military recovers five captive bodies
Agence France-Presse . Gaza 26 July, 2024, 00:13

Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Thursday, killing and injuring people according to Palestinian medical sources, as the military said it had recovered the bodies of five Israelis taken to Gaza by Hamas militants after they were killed on October 7.

A group supporting Israeli hostages still held in the Palestinian territory welcomed the rescue but alleged 'sabotage' of efforts to free others. The accusation from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum came with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a visit to Washington.

Netanyahu—whose critics accuse him of prolonging the fighting—is on Thursday to meet US president Joe Biden, who has been pushing a truce and hostage-release deal.

In a speech to the US Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu downplayed Palestinian civilian casualties during the more than nine months of war between Israeli forces and Hamas.

At least 39,175 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza since the war began.

The latest toll includes 30 deaths over the previous 24 hours.

Palestinian medical services on Thursday said their teams had transported four dead and 12 wounded after a strike on a house in the Gaza City area in the north of the territory.

An AFP correspondent reported air strikes and machine gun fire from tanks in Gaza City. To the south, witnesses said there was shelling in the Khan Yunis city and Rafah areas, as well as air strikes in Al-Qarara, near Khan Yunis.

Israel's military said the five bodies recovered from Gaza, including those of two soldiers and two reservists, had been returned to Israel following a rescue operation on Wednesday in Khan Yunis.

After the military warned it would 'forcefully operate' in the area, the Gaza health ministry on Monday said an Israeli operation had killed 70 people and wounded more than 200.

The five Israelis recovered had previously been announced as having died, and the military as well as the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said militants had killed them on October 7.

The Forum has regularly protested in Israel for a deal to get the remaining captives home.

On Thursday it demanded an urgent meeting with Israel's team for negotiating a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, saying a 'crisis of trust' had emerged.

Anti-government protesters who have also regularly demonstrated, sometimes by the tens of thousands, have accused Netanyahu of dragging out the war. So have some analysts.

Far-right members of Netanyahu's ruling coalition oppose a truce, which would involve Palestinian prisoners being freed in exchange for the hostages.

After Netanyahu's speech to Congress, Hamas issued a statement saying the Israeli premier 'thwarted all efforts aimed at ending the war and concluding a deal to release the prisoners,' despite Egyptian and Qatari mediation.

A senior US administration official said negotiations for a Gaza deal were in the last stretch and Biden would try to close some 'final gaps' with Netanyahu.

But a source with knowledge of the talks said separately that the arrival of an Israeli delegation in Doha for talks on Israeli demands for a deal had been postponed from Thursday to next week.

Washington has been increasingly alarmed by the humanitarian toll of the Gaza war, but in his speech to Congress, Netanyahu dismissed 'all the lies' about civilian fatalities.

He said 'the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare'.

AFP correspondents in Gaza have daily witnessed children and women brought into hospitals injured or dead.

In May, the United Nations said women and children made up at least 56 percent of those killed during the war, based on a breakdown provided by Gaza's health ministry at that time.

Washington on Wednesday criticised an Israeli bill that would declare the UN agency for Palestinian refugees—the main aid agency in Gaza—a terrorist organisation.

'UNRWA is not a terrorist organisation,' said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, urging a halt to the legislation.​

 

[Saif]

Battered Hamas confounds Israel's bid to declare victory

A still image taken from a video released by Hamas shows what it says are its fighters firing mortar shells at Israeli forces during Israel's ground offensive, in a location given as Gaza, obtained by Reuters on November 7, 2023. Hamas Military Wing/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Senior figures in

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Battered Hamas confounds Israel's bid to declare victory
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 25, 2024 21:03
Updated :
Jul 25, 2024 21:03

A still image taken from a video released by Hamas shows what it says are its fighters firing mortar shells at Israeli forces during Israel's ground offensive, in a location given as Gaza, obtained by Reuters on November 7, 2023. Hamas Military Wing/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Senior figures in Israel's government have said it is closing in on its war aims of defeating Hamas militarily and the return of hostages seized on Oct 7. But Hamas' survival as a guerrilla force and its sway in Gaza may overshadow any deal.

After nine months of pummelling by one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East, Hamas is much weakened from the force that carried out the cross-border attack on Israel on Oct 7.

Early in the war, Hamas propaganda videos showed well-drilled fighters in body armour and battle fatigues, their torsos wrapped with ammunition belts. Now, small groups of insurgents in T-shirts and trainers stage hit-and-run attacks in Gaza's bombed-out streets, the videos show.

Reuters spoke with three sources with knowledge of Hamas tactics, two former Hamas militants, three Palestinian officials, two Israeli military sources and an Israeli defence official to shed light on the group's losses and its strategy.

Two Israeli and two Palestinian sources told Reuters that a communications network built by Hamas before the war has been heavily damaged. That has left its command fragmented and reliant on messages delivered in person to avoid Israeli surveillance, the Palestinian sources said.

One Palestinian source with knowledge of Hamas military tactics said personnel losses and the destruction of the communications network meant centralised decision-making had collapsed. Much of the vast tunnel network beneath Gaza has also been destroyed or compromised, the Israeli military has said.

But the guerrilla tactics adopted by Hamas cells in recent weeks are simply aimed at ensuring the group survives, ties down Israeli forces and inflicts losses, according to another Palestinian source with knowledge of Hamas military tactics.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, speaking to soldiers in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, said on Tuesday that Israel was close to defeating Hamas militarily, according to a statement from his office.

"We're eliminating Hamas as a military organisation," Gallant told the troops. "We're creating a situation that will allow us to make a deal to free our hostages."

Hamas seized around 250 hostages during the Oct 7 attack and killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Hamas and other militants are still holding 115 hostages, around a third of whom have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the USCongress on Wednesday during a trip to Washington, pledged the hostages would be released soon and laid out a post-war vision of a "demilitarized and deradicalised Gaza" led by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel.

Hamas dismissed Netanyahu's comments as "pure lies" and accused the Israeli leader of thwarting negotiations to end the war and reach a ceasefire deal to release the hostages - outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden in May and mediated by Egypt and Qatar.

Netanyahu, who will meet with Biden on Thursday, has said that victory will only be achieved when the military and governing capabilities of Hamas are eliminated and Gaza poses no further threat to Israel.

Hamas' founding charter in 1987 called for the destruction of Israel and it subsequently directed suicide bombings in Israeli cities and, with Iran's help, built an arsenal of rockets that it has launched into Israel in frequent conflicts.

'VERY FAR' FROM DESTROYING HAMAS

Hamas has insisted that, despite losses, its command structure remains in place, even if weakened.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that Israel's accounts exaggerate the extent of its losses: "Facts on the ground are completely different," he said.

In a statement on July 16 to mark nine months of that war, Israel's military said that it has killed or apprehended at least 14,000 Hamas fighters out of the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 fighters that the group had at the start of the conflict.

By comparison, Israel says just 326 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground offensive - just above the roughly 300 killed in a single day during Hamas' Oct 7 attack.

Crucially, the IDF has also said it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam brigades, and it was pursuing Hamas' top leaders as part of its aim of dismantling the group's capabilities.

An Israeli airstrike on July 13 in a humanitarian area in southern Gaza targetted Hamas' military chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel says masterminded the Oct 7 attack. The Gaza health ministry said at least 90 Palestinians were killed in the strike.

The Israeli military's chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said on July 19 there were increasing signs Deif was killed alongside another senior Hamas commander Rafa Salame, who Israeli officials believe was sitting next to him at the time and was also killed.

Palestinian sources have confirmed the deaths of several leading Hamas military commanders.  They include Ayman Nofal, and Ahmed Al-Ghandour, both members of the Higher Military Council, the top decision-making body of Hamas' armed wing. Saleh Al-Arouri, the deputy chief of Hamas, was also killed in Lebanon.

Yet Hamas fighters have drawn Israeli forces back into battle in the same areas of Gaza again and again, such as this week's fighting in Khan Younis, preventing the declaration of victory Netanyahu says he is determined to secure.

Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who leads Palestinian studies at Tel Aviv-based Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, said Israel would need more boots on the ground across more areas of Gaza to achieve its aim of eliminating Hamas.

"We are very far from the goal of destroying Hamas' government and military capacities. We are really not close to that," Milshtein said. He noted, however, that a purely military victory would in any case ignore the group's social, political and economic influence.

"We're continuing to treat an enemy who is multi-dimensional in its behaviour as a military threat only."

The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel called up around 300,000 reservists to mount its assault on Gaza, its largest mobilisation in decades. It began releasing them around four months later.

MOP-UP OPERATIONS

Israel's military response to Oct 7 has turned Gaza into a chaotic wasteland. More than 39,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian figures.

Hamas' armed wing began the war with 24 battalions. An Israeli military source told Reuters on July 11 that four remaining battalions in Gaza's southern Rafah area, where Israel has focused its most recent offensive, are "close to being dismantled."

To achieve the government's war aims, the Israel Defence Forces planned a three-tier offensive encompassing an initial aerial campaign, followed by a ground offensive and a final phase of mopping up operations.

Most of Gaza has been in phase 3 for around six months. Once the Israeli forces have stamped out Hamas' remaining battalions in Rafah, then all of Gaza will essentially be in phase 3, according to Israeli officials.

Hamas' missile and rocket arsenal, once put at 15,000 to 30,000 has also been heavily depleted. Israel's military estimates 13,000 at least have been fired. It has also seized caches of projectiles as it has swept almost every city in Gaza.

Kobi Michael, of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said Hamas was no longer an institutionalised army divided into conventional military units, with weapons manufacturing, training, intelligence and air, naval and cyber forces.

"We need to carry on until Hamas has no ability to rebuild," Michael said, suggesting the Israeli military would need to have access to Gaza even after the war to carry out operations against any remaining militant cells.

"The groundwork is being laid now for the IDF to operate in a similar way to the way it does in the West Bank. We are not there yet," he said.

But one source close to Hamas said the group has been preparing for years for a scenario where it would need to shift to guerrilla-style tactics to survive a conflict with Israel.

Key operations - including a foundry to make bombs and other weapons - were still operational, the source said. New recruits were also constantly joining Hamas' military wing, while the switch to guerrilla tactics had allowed the group to contain its losses, according to another source familiar with Hamas' tactics.

The network of tunnels, even after sections have been destroyed or compromised by Israeli forces, continue to hamper Israel's goal of eliminating Hamas, experts and two sources close to Hamas says.

"They show up from one shaft, destroy a tank, or prepare an ambush for another before they disappear until they reappear at another shaft," said a former Hamas militant familiar with the group's operations.

Some new tunnels, sources close to the group say, are being dug by hand. Reuters was unable to verify this independently.

An Israeli military official on Monday told Reuters that while a lot of Hamas military infrastructure, including tunnels, has been destroyed there was still much more to be done.​

 

[Saif]

Palestinian, Jewish protesters stage peace march

Chanting ‘yes, to peace, yes, to a deal’, hundreds of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis marched noisily through Tel Aviv on Thursday night, demanding an end to the...

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Palestinian, Jewish protesters stage peace march
Agence France-Presse . Tel Aviv 26 July, 2024, 23:11

Chanting 'yes, to peace, yes, to a deal', hundreds of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis marched noisily through Tel Aviv on Thursday night, demanding an end to the war in Gaza and the cycle of violence.

Their agenda starts with a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, but ultimately, they want to reboot Palestinian-Israeli relations, and breathe new life into the moribund peace movement.

'It basically went silent after October 7,' and the start of the war, Amira Mohammed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, said of the peace camp.

'The radicals became louder than the peace movement. So right now, we've got to be radical about the peace that we want.'

Mohammed said that included an 'acknowledgement of the power dynamic between occupier and occupied' as well as 'accountability on both sides'.

'We can't stop violence with more violence,' said teacher Carmit Bar Levy, 49.

'We need to ensure a good life for both Palestinians and Jews inside of Israel. We have to acknowledge they have the same right to live here as us.'

She said there was a growing sense since the outbreak of the war that the status quo could not hold.

'Peace is the only way forward,' said Marcelo Oliki, 64, a survivor of the Hamas-attacks on Kibbutz Nirim.

'There are children, women and babies dying just across the border from me. There are people there who are grieving too, just like me, and that want peace, too, like me.'

An Israeli military commander said Friday that troops in the country's north were preparing for 'a decisive offensive' against Lebanon's Hezbollah after months of deadly cross-border exchanges.

Israeli forces have traded near-daily fire with Hamas ally Hezbollah since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on southern Israel started the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

Major General Ori Gordin, Israel's commanding officer in the north, told troops that "we have already eliminated more than 500 terrorists in Lebanon, the great majority of them from Hezbollah", an army statement said.

According to an AFP tally, more than nine months of violence have killed at least 523 people in Lebanon.

Most of them, 342 people, have been confirmed to be Hezbollah militants but the tally also includes 104 civilians. Gordin did not mention civilian casualties.

In northern Israel, at least 18 Israeli soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to the military.

The exchanges of fire have been largely restricted to the border areas and displaced tens of thousands of Lebanese as well as Israeli residents.

The Israeli military has 'destroyed thousands' of targets across the border, Gordin said.

The statement said troops were now preparing 'for the transition to offence'.

'When the moment comes and we go on the offensive, it will be a decisive offensive,' Gordin added.

Iran-backed Hezbollah says it is acting in support of Hamas with its attacks on Israel since October 8.

The escalating violence and unsuccessful mediation efforts have raised fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in 2006.

Israel has demanded that parts of southern Lebanon be cleared of Hezbollah militants in line with a UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas leader in West Bank dies in Israeli custody, says Palestinian government body

A Hamas leader in the West Bank died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, a Palestinian governmental body said early on Friday. Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died after being transferred to a hospital from the Ramon jail in southern Israel, the Palestinian Commission o

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Hamas leader in West Bank dies in Israeli custody, says Palestinian government body
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 26, 2024 19:47
Updated :
Jul 26, 2024 19:47

Palestinians protest the death of Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, a Hamas leader in the West Bank who died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, according to a Palestinian governmental body, in Aqaba, near Tubas, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 26, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

A Hamas leader in the West Bank died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, a Palestinian governmental body said early on Friday.

Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died after being transferred to a hospital from the Ramon jail in southern Israel, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs said in a statement.

"Before his arrest, he was suffering from serious health problems and needed intensive medical follow-up. However, from the moment of his arrest, Sheikh Abu Ara, like all prisoners, has faced unprecedented crimes ... since the beginning of the war of extermination."

Abu Ara, who was arrested in October last year, was subjected to torture and deprived of medical treatment, the Palestinian body said. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

At least 18 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the start of the Gaza war on Oct. 7, the Palestinian Prisoners Association said last month.

Hamas-led attackers killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 captives, according to Israeli tallies. Some 120 hostages are still being held, though Israel believes a third of them are dead.

Gaza health authorities say more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed and most of Gaza's 2.3 million people displaced by fighting that has destroyed much of the enclave and created a humanitarian disaster.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah rocket kills 11 at Golan Heights football ground, Israel vows response

A rocket attack on a football ground in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed 11 people including children on Saturday, Israeli authorities said, blaming Hezbollah and vowing to respond against the Iran-backed Lebanese group

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Hezbollah rocket kills 11 at Golan Heights football ground, Israel vows response

Israeli officials respond after rockets were launched across Lebanon's border with Israel which, according to Israel's ambulance services, people were killed, at a soccer pitch in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, July 27, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad


Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah denies any role

Israel's Katz: 'We are approaching moment of an all-out war'

Israeli PM Netanyahu flying back early from US

A rocket attack on a football ground in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed 11 people including children on Saturday, Israeli authorities said, blaming Hezbollah and vowing to respond against the Iran-backed Lebanese group.

Hezbollah denied any responsibility for the strike, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since the start of the conflict in Gaza.

"The Hezbollah attack today crossed all red lines, and the response will be accordingly. We are approaching the moment of an all-out war against Hezbollah and Lebanon," Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Axios.

In a written statement, Hezbollah said: "The Islamic Resistance has absolutely nothing to do with the incident, and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard". The group had earlier announced several rocket attacks targeting Israeli military positions in other locations from Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire in areas at or near the Lebanese-Israeli border since the eruption of the Gaza war, in a conflict that has stirred fears of a full-blown conflict between the heavily armed adversaries.

The Israeli ambulance service said 13 more people were wounded by a rocket fired from Lebanon that hit a football pitch in the Druze village of Majdal Shams.

"We witnessed great destruction when we arrived at the soccer field, as well as items that were on fire. There were casualties on the grass and the scene was gruesome," Idan Avshalom, a medic with the Magen David Adom ambulance service, said.

A witness told Reuters: "It landed in the soccer pitch, all of them are children ... many bodies and remains are in field we don't know who they are." She asked not to be named.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already due to head back from the United States to Israel overnight on Saturday, said he would bring his flight forward and convene his security cabinet upon arrival.

His far-right coalition ally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, called for tough retaliation, including against Hezbollah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

"For the death of children, Nasrallah should pay with his head. All of Lebanon should pay," Smotrich posted on X. "The prime minister should return immediately. This is the time for actions."

Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the UNIFIL peacekeeping force which operates in southern Lebanon, told Reuters its force commander was in contact with authorities in both Lebanon and Israel "to understand the details of the Majdal Shams incident and to maintain calm".

ATTACKS FROM LEBANON

Hezbollah is the most powerful of a network of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that have entered the fray in support of their Palestinian ally Hamas since October.

Iran-backed Iraqi groups and the Houthis of Yemen have both fired at Israel. Hamas has also carried out rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon, as has the Lebanese Sunni group, the Jama'a Islamiya, since October.

The Israeli-occupied Golan Heights were part of Syria until 1967, when Israel captured most of the area in the Middle East war, annexing it in 1981. That unilateral annexation was not recognised by most countries, and Syria demands the return of the territory.

More than 40,000 people live on the Israeli-occupied Golan, more than half of them Druze residents. The Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam.

The attack on the soccer pitch followed an Israeli strike in Lebanon that killed four militants on Saturday. Two security sources in Lebanon said the four fighters killed in the Israeli strike on Kfarkila in southern Lebanon were members of different armed groups, with at least one of them belonging to Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted a military structure belonging to Hezbollah, after identifying a militant cell entering the building.

At least 30 rockets were then fired from Lebanon across the border, the military said.

Hezbollah earlier claimed at least four attacks, including with Katyusha rockets, in retaliation for the Kfarkila attacks.​