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

[Saif]

https://www.newagebd.net/post/middle-east/309749/israeli-strikes-in-gaza-kill-2

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 2

Agence France-Presse . Gaza City, Palestinian Territories 13 August, 2026, 22:33

Israeli settlers run as being chased by an Israeli military vehicle around Palestinian houses in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, on August 13, 2026. | AFP photo.

Israeli strikes in Gaza killed two people including a senior police officer on Thursday, health officials said, the second straight day of bombardment after a lull due to a US peace push.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas commander in the Khan Yunis area who it said had been planning attacks against troops, in the second such targeting in as many days.

‘The terrorist was struck in an aerial strike in order to remove the threat to IDF troops,’ the military said, adding that ‘steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians.’

Gaza’s civil defence agency, which operates as a rescue service under Hamas, said an airstrike west of Khan Yunis killed one person, with the city’s Nasser Hospital confirming the arrival of a body following the attack.

In a separate incident in Gaza City, the civil defence said one person was killed and several others injured in an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the Sheikh Ajlin neighbourhood.

Al-Shifa Hospital said it had received the body of Gaza City’s police governor Jamal Abu Kamil.

Gaza’s interior ministry confirmed Abu Kamil ‘was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike targeting his vehicle on Al-Rashid Street, southwest of Gaza City’.

When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was checking the reports.

Israel on Wednesday carried out its first airstrike in Gaza since August 3.

The hiatus in airstrikes came after US president Donald Trump’s announcement of a ‘major milestone’ in his plan to end the war.

Hamas had announced that it would disarm by giving its weapons to a nascent Palestinian governing committee.

Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’, in charge of implementing the ceasefire deal, had initially announced that Israel in turn would start a phased withdrawal from much of the Gaza Strip.

But prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday publicly rejected the deal and vowed no Israeli pullout, even after the Board of Peace reassured him that Israel would not have to withdraw until complete Hamas disarmament.

Israeli operations in Gaza have killed 1,260 Palestinians since the ceasefire, according to the territory’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks during the same period.​

 

[Saif]

https://www.newagebd.net/post/middle-east/309841/israel-blocks-activists-from-reaching-besieged-palestinian-families

Israel blocks activists from reaching besieged Palestinian families
New Age Desk 14 August, 2026, 23:11

Activists hold flags next to Israeli soldiers as they accompany Palestinian landowners to their property, which is at risk of being confiscated by Israeli settlers, in Beit Sahur, south of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank on Friday. | AFP photo

Israeli forces have prevented Israeli and foreign activists from reaching Palestinian families whose homes have been surrounded by settlers for nearly a week in the occupied West Bank town of Qusra, south of Nablus, reports Al Jazeera.

The activists were trying to deliver food and water to three homes in the Ras al-Ain area on Friday, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Al Jazeera’s Laith Jaar, reporting from Qusra, said that Israeli forces brought in reinforcements and stopped members of the Israeli group Peace Now from reaching the families after declaring the area a closed military zone.

Qusra mayor Abdel Azim Wadi told Wafa that Israeli forces had also forced Italian activists who managed to reach the homes earlier in the week to leave.

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Settlers began surrounding the homes earlier this week, blocking roads with stones, erecting a tent nearby, and preventing residents from entering or leaving freely.

Water and electricity supplies to the homes have also been cut. About 15 Palestinians, including two children, are living in the three homes and have struggled to obtain basic supplies, according to the United Nations.

The UN said they were ‘trapped inside their homes in a state of terror, unable to attend to their basic needs and without access to water or electricity’.

Israeli forces entered the area a day earlier and ordered the families to temporarily leave their homes. The residents refused to leave the area and instead gathered in one of the three houses, fearing their homes could be taken over if abandoned.

Jaar reported that settlers again attempted on Friday to erect a tent and establish an outpost near the homes before Israeli forces removed it.

Qusra has emerged as a flashpoint for settler violence in the northern occupied West Bank, with the UN saying earlier this year that it had recorded more settler attacks there than in any other occupied West Bank community.

The developments come as Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has ordered preparations for transferring responsibility for enforcing civilian law involving settlers in the occupied West Bank from the military to the Israeli police.

Political scientist Ibrahim Rabaia told Al Jazeera that the proposed move appeared to be driven by political considerations and questioned how broadly it could be implemented.

He said the military remains responsible for the occupied West Bank under the existing system, while coordination between the army and police already takes place.

Rabaia argued that transferring responsibilities would be unlikely to result in police preventing settlers from attacking Palestinian homes.

‘The police are controlled by national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who arms these settlers and supports them in the West Bank,’ he said.

Rabaia, an academic in political science and former managing editor of the journal Palestinian Affairs, said settlement expansion had reached an advanced stage, with infrastructure, funding and planning being put in place to create what he described as ‘a reality that cannot be reversed,’ including new areas capable of accommodating larger numbers of settlers in the future.​