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

[Saif]

https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/diplomacy/news/west-has-double-standards-regarding-palestine-pm-3627126

West has double standards regarding Palestine: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday censured Western countries for their double standards towards innocent Palestinian people.

"Western countries are showing double standard regarding the Palestinians," she said. The prime minister said this while handing over a cheque of Tk 5 crore in aid of the Palestinian people.

Palestine Ambassador Yousef SY Ramadan received the cheque on behalf of his country at PM's official residence Ganabhaban. PM's speech writer M Nazrul Islam briefed reporters after the call on.

Hasina said that Western countries always talk about human rights and education for all. "But they do not bother about the human rights violation of Palestinians, killing innocent people in there, they kept mum here," she said.

The prime minister appreciated the four NATO member countries who recently recognised Palestine as a state. She mentioned that people of Bangladesh have soft corner for the Palestinian people.

She said that people of Bangladesh could realise the pain and sufferings of the Palestinian people from their heart because in 1971 they had gone through same kind of situation.

"We had witnessed same kind of atrocities and killing of innocent people," she said. She recalled her own experience when she was in captivity in 1971 for nine months.

She also talked about her life in exile after the assassination of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. "So we could realise the pain and miseries of the Palestinian people," she said.

She mentioned that in every international forum across the globe she always expressed her concern for the Palestinian people. "In doing so I did not bother about anyone's red eyes," she said.

Ambassador Yousef Ramadan briefly described the miserable situation of his country due to the ongoing Israeli attacks. Ambassador-at-Large Mohammad Ziauddin and PM's Principal Secretary M Tofazzel Hossain Miah were among others present at the meeting.​

 

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Can Bangladesh push for two state solution based on 1947 borders.

United Nations Security Council should push for Two State Solution based on 1947 borders.

 

[Saif]

Netanyahu prolonging Gaza war: Biden

US president Joe Biden swiped at Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday, saying there was ‘every reason’ to conclude the Israeli prime minister...

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Netanyahu prolonging Gaza war: Biden
Agence France-Presse . Washington 04 June, 2024, 22:15

Joe Biden

US president Joe Biden swiped at Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday, saying there was 'every reason' to conclude the Israeli prime minister was dragging out the Gaza war to save himself politically.

Biden added that he had a 'major disagreement' with Netanyahu over the post-conflict future of Gaza, and said Israel had engaged in 'inappropriate' conduct during the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack.

More broadly, the 81-year-old pitched his case in the interview as better placed than election rival Donald Trump to secure the United States as 'the world power' on issues ranging from Ukraine to Taiwan and Gaza.

Speaking to Time days before his announcement of an Israeli proposal for a Gaza ceasefire deal that Netanyahu greeted coolly, Biden was asked if he believed the Israeli was dragging out the war for political self-preservation.

'There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion,' Biden replied. Biden admitted that he and Netanyahu, who have had tense relations as the death toll in Gaza has soared, were particularly at odds over the need to create a Palestinian state. 'My major disagreement with Netanyahu is, what happens after Gaza's over? What, what does it go back to? Do Israeli forces go back in?' said the Democrat.

'The answer is, if that's the case, it can't work.' The defence of Ukraine against Russia's invasion has been a cornerstone of Biden's foreign policy, and he argued he was better placed than Trump to continue that in a second term.

Biden said the Russian military had been 'freaking decimated' and added: 'Peace looks like making sure Russia never, never, never, never occupies Ukraine.'

He also lashed out at his Republican predecessor, who threatened to tear up longstanding US alliances and reached out to a number of authoritarian leaders while in power. 'All the bad guys are rooting for Trump, man,' Biden said.

'Name me a world leader other than Orban and Putin who think that Trump should be the world leader in the United States of America.'

To read the rest of the news, please click on the link above.​

 

[Saif]

Can Bangladesh push for two state solution based on 1947 borders.

United Nations Security Council should push for Two State Solution based on 1947 borders.

Bangladesh has been pushing for two state solution based on 1967 border by discussing it with United Nation's big players already. Bangladesh has been giving diplomatic support to Palestinian authority to the fullest extent. But Saudi Arabia's dubious role in Palestinian issue is a cause of concern for Palestinians.

 

[Deleted due to Error (Muji Iqbal)]

Bangladesh has been pushing for two state solution based on 1967 border by discussing it with United Nation's big players already. Bangladesh has been giving diplomatic support to Palestinian authority to the fullest extent. But Saudi Arabia's dubious role in Palestinian issue is a cause of concern for Palestinians.

Saudi Arabia will do what is in its national interests. They also know two state solution is the only answer to the problem.

 

[Saif]

Israel bombs Gaza as mediators to discuss truce, hostage plan

Israel’s military pounded central Gaza with heavy air strikes on Wednesday as US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators planned to resume talks on a truce and hostage release deal...

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Israel bombs Gaza as mediators to discuss truce, hostage plan
Agence France-Presse . Bureij, Palestinian Territories 06 June, 2024, 00:09

Israel's military pounded central Gaza with heavy air strikes on Wednesday as US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators planned to resume talks on a truce and hostage release deal.

Tensions were high in annexed east Jerusalem where thousands of police were deployed to guard Israel's annual 'flag march' that has sparked clashes between Jews and Arabs in previous years.

The Israel-Hamas war, raging in Gaza since the Palestinian group's October 7 attack, has revived a global push for Palestinians to be given a state of their own.

Slovenia on Tuesday became the latest country to recognise a state of Palestine, breaking with the long-held view of Western powers that Palestinians can only gain statehood as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.

This follows the same move made last week by Spain, Ireland and Norway.

Their action, which has infuriated Israel, means that 146 out of the 193 UN member states now recognise a Palestinian state.

They include most Middle Eastern, African, Latin American and Asian countries, but not the United States, Canada, the majority of western Europe, Australia, Japan or South Korea.

In April, the United States used its veto at the UN Security Council to prevent a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member state.

Urban combat and shelling rocked Gaza's southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border, the last area hit by the Israeli ground invasion launched in northern Gaza in late October.

But fighting has also flared again in central areas, where the army said 'troops have started targeted operational activity in the areas of Bureij and eastern Deir al-Balah, both above and below ground'.

'The activity started with a series of air strikes on terror targets, including military compounds, weapons storage facilities and underground infrastructure,' it said.

'During the strikes, several Hamas terrorists were eliminated.'

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[Saif]

Israel’s strike on UN school in Gaza kills 27

The Israeli military said Thursday it had carried out a deadly strike on a UN school in Gaza that it said housed a Hamas compound, with the militant group saying the attack killed at least 27 people.

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Israel's strike on UN school in Gaza kills 27
Agence France-Presse. Palestinian Territories 06 June, 2024, 11:46

Palestinians take to the road in Al-Maghazi as they flee their displacement camps due to heavy Israeli bombardment of the central Gaza Strip on June 5, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. | AFP Photo

The Israeli military said Thursday it had carried out a deadly strike on a UN school in Gaza that it said housed a Hamas compound, with the militant group saying the attack killed at least 27 people.

The military said it 'eliminated' several 'terrorists' after its jets 'conducted a precise strike on a Hamas compound embedded inside an UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat', in central Gaza. UNRWA is the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Hamas's media office said the strike killed at least 27 people and wounded dozens more, calling it a 'horrific massacre... that shames humanity'.

Gaza's bloodiest ever war was sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.

Israel's ensuing bombardment and ground offensive have killed at least 36,586 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Israel has faced growing diplomatic isolation over its conduct of the war, with cases against it before two international courts, and several European governments recognising a Palestinian state.

Israel has frequently accused Hamas and its allies in Gaza of using schools, health facilities and other civilian infrastructure as operational centres -- charges the militants deny.

UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since January, when Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 employees in the territory of being involved in the October 7 attack.

Its chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said last week that Israel 'must stop its campaign against UNRWA' in an opinion article published by the New York Times.

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[Saif]

Israel pounds Gaza refugee camp

Israeli forces bombarded a Gaza refugee camp on Friday after a deadly strike on a UN-run school there, as the war sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on...

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Israel pounds Gaza refugee camp
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 08 June, 2024, 00:48

Members of a United Nations investigation team visit a school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees which was hit during an Israeli army strike the day before, in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on Friday, amid the on-going conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. | AFP photo

Israeli forces bombarded a Gaza refugee camp on Friday after a deadly strike on a UN-run school there, as the war sparked by Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel entered its ninth month.

The conflict has killed thousands, laid waste to much of the Gaza Strip, uprooted most of its 2.4 million population and put them at risk of starvation.

Efforts to mediate the first ceasefire since a week-long pause in November appear to have stalled, only a week after US president Joe Biden offered a new roadmap.

Hamas has yet to respond to Biden's proposal, while Israel has expressed openness to discussions but remains committed to its goal of destroying the Palestinian Islamist group.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, said at least 37 people were killed in Thursday's Israeli strike on the UN-run school in Nuseirat camp.

The Israeli military said its fighter jets killed nine 'terrorists' in three classrooms where about 30 militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad were hiding.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering at the school, which was 'hit without prior warning'.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres described the strike as 'horrific', while Egypt's foreign minister Ahmed Abu Zeid condemned what he called the 'deliberate bombing of an UNRWA school'.

'Israeli violations of Palestinian rights continue day after day, in full view of the civilised world,' Zeid said on X.

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[Saif]

Israel kills 210 Gazans to rescue four hostages

Abbas calls for emergency UNSC session on 'bloody massacre'

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Israel kills 210 Gazans to rescue four hostages
Abbas calls for emergency UNSC session on 'bloody massacre'

Israeli tank manoeuvres near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Israel, June 8, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Amir Cohen
Israeli forces rescued four hostages held by Hamas since October in a raid in Gaza today while over 200 Palestinians were killed in airstrikes in the same area, according to Hamas officials, in one of the bloodiest Israeli assaults of the war.

It was not immediately clear if the hostage rescue and the Israeli air assault were part of the same operation but both took place in central Gaza's al-Nuseirat, a densely built-up and often embattled area in the eight-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian territory's ruling Islamist group.

An Israeli military spokesperson said the hostage rescue operation unfolded under fire in the heart of a residential neighbourhood, where he said Hamas had been hiding captives among Gaza civilians under guard by armed militants.

Israeli forces returned fire, including with airstrikes, added the spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. An Israeli special forces commander was killed during the operation, a police statement said.


Israel named the rescued hostages as Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41. They were taken to hospital for medical checks and were in good health, the military said.

They were all kidnapped from the Nova music festival during the raid by Hamas-led Palestinian groups on Israeli towns and villages near Gaza on Oct 7.

Since then, Israel's bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed at least 36,801 Palestinians, according to an updated tally by the territory's health ministry today.

To read the rest of the news, please click on the link above.​

 

[Saif]

D-8 urges world to up pressure on Israel

An alliance of mostly Muslim-majority countries including Turkey, Egypt and Iran on Saturday demanded full Palestinian membership of the United Nations and greater...

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D-8 urges world to up pressure on Israel
Agence France-Presse . Istanbul 09 June, 2024, 01:02

An alliance of mostly Muslim-majority countries including Turkey, Egypt and Iran on Saturday demanded full Palestinian membership of the United Nations and greater international pressure on Israel amid the Gaza war.

The D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation, which also includes Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan, called for an immediate ceasefire in the devastated Palestinian territory, where Israel has been battling Hamas militants for more than eight months.

Foreign ministers from the group meeting in Istanbul called on the United States to lift its veto on full Palestinian UN membership and on all countries to "exert diplomatic, political, economic and legal pressure" on Israel.

They also urged states to ensure Israel complies with the International Court of Justice's decisions, withdraws from the southern Rafah governorate and guarantees the safe entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Denouncing an "ongoing genocide and grave violations of international law", the group called on states to contribute to and join legal proceedings against Israel at international courts.

The eight countries also demanded an end to arms and ammunition deliveries to Israel and that all measures be taken to protect Palestinian civilians, rejecting any attempted forced displacement.

They advocated a two-state solution based on 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital and a guarantee mechanism to protect a future settlement.

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants from Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups also took 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 36,801 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.​

 

[Saif]

UN official blasts West’s double standards

The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to housing has rebuked countries he accused of bias on Israel’s offensive on Gaza following a deadly attack by Tel Aviv on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the enclave.

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ISRAEL'S DEADLY ATTACK ON GAZA REFUGEE CAMP
UN official blasts West's double standards

The UN's special rapporteur on the right to housing has rebuked countries he accused of bias on Israel's offensive on Gaza following a deadly attack by Tel Aviv on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the enclave.

"Countries that celebrate the release of four Israeli hostages without saying a word about the hundreds of Palestinians killed and thousands held in arbitrary detention by Israel, have lost moral credibility for generations and don't deserve to be on any UN human rights body," Balakrishnan Rajagopal said on X about the attack that took place on Saturday.

Earlier, the Israeli army announced that it had launched attacks on various locations in the central part of the Gaza Strip and had successfully rescued four captives alive from two different areas.

Citing a US official, CNN reported that an American unit in Israel aided the efforts to rescue the hostages.

US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were among leaders who greeting their release even as they have also called for a truce.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell welcomed the hostage release and said reports "of another massacre of civilians are appalling... the bloodbath must end immediately".

The Gaza-based Government Media Office said that at least 274 Palestinians were killed and more than 400 injured on Saturday in severe Israeli airstrikes targeting Nuseirat refugee camp, areas east of Deir al-Balah, and al-Bureij and al-Maghazi camps in central Gaza, coinciding with a sudden incursion of vehicles east and northwest of Nuseirat.

More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the offensive began on October 7, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli offensive, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine, reports Middle East Monitor Online.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge.

"My child was crying, afraid of the sound of the plane firing at us," said one Gaza woman, Hadeel Radwan, 32, recounting how they fled the intense combat as she carried her seven-month-old daughter.

"We all felt that we wouldn't survive," she told AFP. Israel's top diplomat rejected unspecified accusations "of war crimes" in the operation.​

 

[Saif]

UN Security Council backs plan for Israel-Hamas ceasefire

The United Nations Security Council on Monday adopted a US-drafted resolution backing a proposal outlined by President Joe Biden for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip

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UN Security Council backs plan for Israel-Hamas ceasefire
Israel attack on Rafah

Smoke rises after an Israeli strike as Israeli forces launch a ground and air operation in the eastern part of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on May 7, 2024. FILE PHOTO: REUTERS

The United Nations Security Council on Monday adopted a US-drafted resolution backing a proposal outlined by President Joe Biden for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Russia abstained from the vote, while the remaining 14 council members voted in favor. The US had finalised its text on Sunday after six days of negotiations among the council.

Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire plan on May 31 that he described as an Israeli initiative. Some Security Council members questioned whether Israel had accepted the plan to end the fighting in Gaza.

The resolution welcomes the new ceasefire proposal, "which Israel accepted, calls upon Hamas to also accept it, and urges both parties to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition."

"We're waiting on Hamas to agree to the ceasefire deal it claims to want," US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council before the vote. "With every passing day, needless suffering continues."

The resolution also goes into detail about the proposal, and spells out that "if the negotiations take longer than six weeks for phase one, the ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue."

The council in March demanded for an immediate ceasefire and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas.

For months, negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have been trying to mediate a ceasefire. Hamas says it wants a permanent end to the war in the Gaza Strip and Israeli withdrawal from the enclave of 2.3 million people.

Israel is retaliating against Hamas, which rules Gaza, over an October 7 attack by its militants.

More than 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, according to Israeli tallies. More than 100 hostages are believed to remain captive in Gaza.

Israel launched an air, ground and sea assault on the Palestinian territory, killing more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.​

 

[Saif]

Many in Gaza back to eating ‘one meal per day’

Israel’s relentless bombardment and obstruction of humanitarian efforts are making it nearly impossible for aid agencies to reach starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

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ISRAELI OFFENSIVE IN PALESTINIAN ENCLAVE
Many in Gaza back to eating 'one meal per day'

Israel's relentless bombardment and obstruction of humanitarian efforts are making it nearly impossible for aid agencies to reach starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The flow of aid into Gaza has remained scarce, with many people now eating "only one meal per day", said Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary.

"This is not only in the south, but also in the north" of Gaza, said Khoudary, adding that markets are largely empty and what food available is hard to afford for most people.

Khoudary has sent an update from Deir el-Balah's Al-Aqsa Hospital, where she said an extra emergency department has been opened to deal with the massive influx of injured patients.

The hospital, running on just one generator, remains flooded with sick and injured patients, and is performing surgeries on an "hourly basis", she said.

Israeli forces have withdrawn from the eastern part of Deir el-Balah, but civil defence teams were able to bring the bodies of five people who were killed in the area.

Israeli forces take a position in a street during a raid in the al-Faraa camp for Palestinian refugees near Tubas city in the occupied West Bank yesterday. Photo: AFP
There have been a couple of air strikes in the area after the Israeli forces withdrew, as well as intensive artillery shelling throughout the night.

Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud has spoken to residents of the Nuseirat refugee camp who witnessed the Israeli military's operation there on Saturday that killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians.

Anaas Alayan, one resident of the camp, said Israeli special forces committed mass "executions" on the street. "I went down to the street and found bodies everywhere," he told Al Jazeera.

The military, which rescued four Israeli captives during the operation, killed at least 274 Palestinians, including at least 64 children during the day-time assault, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

The camp is now left with a "trail of destruction", according to Mahmoud.

With many of Gaza's water wells and pipelines destroyed in the offensive, accessing water has become a daily struggle for Palestinians in the coastal enclave.

Anas al-Jamal, a pregnant woman in the enclave, tells Al Jazeera she has to leave her home every day to search for water to carry home. "The water scarcity is severely affecting me because I'm supposed to rest and avoid strenuous physical activity," al-Jamal told Al Jazeera. "We're really struggling."

Israel's military offensive has killed at least 37,124 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the territory's health ministry.

The toll includes at least 40 deaths over the past 24 hours, the ministry said yesterday.

The offensive has brought widespread devastation to Gaza and displaced most of its 2.4 million inhabitants, reports AFP.​

 

[Saif]

Baby Ahmad was beheaded by Israel, with a US bomb

AHMAD Al-Najjar was a happy one-year old child from Gaza. He loved trampolines, balls, and cats. Born as the youngest of his four siblings, his father liked to call him ‘bobba’ or ‘baby.’..

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Baby Ahmad was beheaded by Israel, with a US bomb
11 June, 2024, 00:00

Photo of 18-month-old Ahmad Al-Najjar (right), photo of his father holding up his beheaded corpse (left) (screenshot). | Scheerpost.com

On Sunday night, May 26, Ahmad became the symbol of the unspeakable horror of genocide in Gaza after Israel bombed his family tent in north Rafah, writes Seraj Assi

AHMAD Al-Najjar was a happy one-year old child from Gaza. He loved trampolines, balls, and cats. Born as the youngest of his four siblings, his father liked to call him 'bobba' or 'baby.'

On Sunday night, May 26, Ahmad became the symbol of the unspeakable horror of genocide in Gaza after Israel bombed his family tent in north Rafah, killing him along with his mother, Faten, his sister, Houda, and his brother, Arkan. Though he was bombed beyond recognition, Ahmad was the most recognisable victim of the tents massacre in Rafah, which burned alive, beheaded, and killed at least 45 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and wounded hundreds others.

Rafah's tents massacre was one of the most heinous assaults on Palestinian civilians in recent memory. International media and Palestinian sources reported that Israel blitzed the camp where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in tents with seven massive US bombs weighing 2,000 pounds each. Meanwhile, weapons experts told CNN and The New York Times that they identified the remains of Boeing-made GBU-39s in the rubble.

The bombarded refugee tents had been designated by Israel as a 'safe area' for civilians. Rafah was described by UNICEF officials as 'a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza.' It was believed to be Gaza's last refuge, and the limit of the Biden administration's 'red line' in Gaza. This grim reality, however, did not prevent the Biden administration from shipping thousands of bombs and weapons to Israel, despite Israel's repeated threats to invade Rafah. As Israeli forces were pounding Rafah's refugee camps, US presidential candidate Nikki Haley was in Israel signing 'finish them' on the very US bombs that were used to slaughter children in Gaza.

It is the children of Gaza who are forced to live the most unspeakable horrors while being denied the same outrage that Israel's invented horrors have generated among US and Western politicians

Widely circulated footage from the massacre showed a night of unspeakable horror: bodies burned to ashes, charred and blackened beyond recognition; beheaded children, decapitated and ripped apart by US bombs; parents clutching their dead and burned children, screaming in horror; rescuers pulling people's charred remains from the burning tents; wounded victims transferred to the hospital with horrific and gruesome injuries.

But the most horrifying footage from that night showed a man holding up what appeared to be the body of a small child who had been beheaded. It belonged to Baby Ahmad, who was wearing black pants and an orange shirt that night. His left leg was also severed in the blast. The family never found Ahmad's head, and they buried him without it. He was put in the same body bag with his sister Houda. His mother and brother Arkan were buried in separate body bags.

His surviving brothers, Muhammad and Yamin, both saw the ravaged body of their little brother that night. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Ahmad's father, Abdel Hafez, and two brothers, the only survivors of the family, speak up about the unspeakable horror they had to endure that night.

'I did not believed he was beheaded in the bombing until I saw it with my own eyes at the Tal As-Sultan clinic,' says Abdel Hafez. 'His head was separated from his body.'

To read the rest of the news, please click on the link above.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas accepts UN-backed Gaza truce plan

Hamas accepts a UN resolution backing a plan to end the war with Israel in Gaza and is ready to negotiate details, a senior official of the Palestinian group said on...

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Hamas accepts UN-backed Gaza truce plan
New Age Desk 12 June, 2024, 00:05

Children wait for food being distributed at a camp for internally displaced people where they live due to the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, amid the on-going conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. | AFP photo

Hamas accepts a UN resolution backing a plan to end the war with Israel in Gaza and is ready to negotiate details, a senior official of the Palestinian group said on Tuesday in what America's top diplomat called 'a hopeful sign,' reports The Algemeiner.

Conversations on plans for Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war ends will continue on Tuesday afternoon and in the next couple of days, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said in Tel Aviv after talks with Israeli leaders. 'It's imperative that we have these plans,' he added.

Blinken met Israeli officials on Tuesday in a push to end the eight-month-old Israeli air and ground war against Hamas in Gaza, a day after president Joe Biden's proposal for a truce was approved by the UN Security Council.

Ahead of Blinken's trip, Israel and Hamas both repeated hardline positions that have undermined previous mediation to end the fighting, while Israel has pressed on with its campaign in central and southern Gaza.

The United States on Tuesday promised more than $400 million in new aid for the Palestinians at an emergency summit in Jordan, where world leaders backed a US push for a ceasefire as the only ultimate solution to help war-ravaged Gaza.

Jordan and Egypt called the urgent talks on the Dead Sea as aid groups warned conditions were worse than ever in Gaza, with virtually the whole population of more than two million people relying on sporadic aid deliveries.

On Tuesday, however, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, who is based outside Gaza, said the group, which rules the Palestinian enclave, accepted the ceasefire resolution and was ready to negotiate over the details. It was up to Washington to ensure that Israel abides by it, he added.

He said Hamas accepted the formula stipulating the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a swap of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.

'The US administration is facing a real test to carry out its commitments in compelling the occupation to immediately end the war

in an implementation of the UN Security Council resolution,' Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

Blinken said the Hamas statement was 'a hopeful sign' but definitive word was still needed from the Hamas leadership inside Israeli-besieged Gaza. 'That's what counts, and that's what we don't have yet.'

The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists stormed into southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, killing more than 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages.

Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities.

Biden's proposal envisages a ceasefire and release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel in stages, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the war.

Israel has said it will agree only to temporary pauses in the war until Hamas is defeated, while Hamas has countered it will not accept a deal that does not guarantee the war will end.

Blinken, speaking to reporters before departing for neighbouring Jordan, said his talks were also addressing day-after plans for Gaza, including security, governance, and rebuilding the enclave.

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