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

[Saif]

Israel using aid blockage as ‘weapon of war’

A top Palestinian official yesterday told the International Court of Justice that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza as a “weapon of war”, at the start of a week of hearings at the UN’s top court.

www.thedailystar.net

Israel using aid blockage as ‘weapon of war’
Palestinian official tells ICJ as food runs out in the tiny Palestinian enclave

A Palestinian mother cries, holding the body of her baby, at the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday. The baby was killed in an Israeli air strike. Photo: AFP

A top Palestinian official yesterday told the International Court of Justice that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza as a "weapon of war", at the start of a week of hearings at the UN's top court.

Israel is not participating at the ICJ but hit back immediately, dismissing the hearings as "part of the systematic persecution and delegitimisation" of the country.

The ICJ is hearing dozens of nations and organisations to draw up a so-called advisory opinion on Israel's humanitarian obligations to Palestinians, more than 50 days into its total blockage on aid entering war-ravaged Gaza.

Top Palestinian official Ammar Hijazi told judges that "all UN-supported bakeries in Gaza have been forced to shut their doors".

"Nine of every 10 Palestinians have no access to safe drinking water. Storage facilities of the UN and other international agencies are empty," added Hijazi.

"These are the facts. Starvation is here. Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war," concluded the Palestinian representative.

Speaking in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the case in The Hague was "part of a systematic persecution and delegitimisation of Israel".

"It is not Israel that should be on trial. It is the UN and UNRWA", he told reporters, referring to the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees.

Israel has banned UNRWA from operating on Israeli soil.

UNRWA Secretary-General Philippe Lazzarini urged Israel "as an occupying power" to "provide services or facilitate their delivery -- including through UNRWA -- to the population it is occupying".

In December, the UN's General Assembly asked the ICJ for an advisory opinion "on a priority basis and with the utmost urgency".

The UN asked judges to clarify Israel's legal duties towards the UN and its agencies, international organisations or third-party states to "ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population".

Israel strictly controls all inflows of international aid vital for the 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

It halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of a ceasefire that had significantly reduced hostilities after 15 months of war.

Israel resumed air bombardment on March 18, followed by renewed ground attacks.

This has triggered what the UN has described as "likely the worst" humanitarian crisis the occupied Palestinian territory has faced since the Israeli offensive started on October 7, 2023.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 52,243 people in Gaza since October 2023, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Sunday had killed 50 people in the territory.

At least 2,111 Palestinians have been killed since March 18.

The UN considers the ministry's figures reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘live-streamed genocide’ in Gaza

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a ‘live-streamed genocide’ by forcibly displacing most Gazans and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe — allegations Israel dismissed as ‘blatant lies’.

www.newagebd.net

Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘live-streamed genocide’ in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 29 April, 2025, 22:28

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a ‘live-streamed genocide’ by forcibly displacing most Gazans and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe — allegations Israel dismissed as ‘blatant lies’.

The UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, warned Israel’s blockade on aid had become a ‘silent killer’ in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, with children and the sick suffering the most.

In its annual report, Amnesty said Israel was acting with ‘specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide’.

The Gaza war erupted after the Palestinian militant group Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of Gaza and a ground offensive that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,365 dead.

‘Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,’ Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said.

‘States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools.’

Gaza’s civil defence agency on Tuesday said Israeli strikes killed at least seven people, including four in tents for displaced people near Al-Iqleem in southern Gaza.

‘I just want to lay my head on a pillow and sleep. We don’t want to be collecting remains (of body parts),’ said Widad Fojo, who lost relatives in one of the strikes.

Israel resumed its Gaza offensive on March 18 after a two-month ceasefire, saying it aimed to secure the release of hostages.

‘We will bring them back,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, referring to captives held in Gaza.

Amnesty said it had ‘documented multiple war crimes by Israel’, including attacks on civilians, and that Israel had ‘deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe’.

The London-based rights group said 1.9 million people — about 90 per cent of Gaza’s population — had been forcibly displaced.

Israel rejected the report, accusing Amnesty of spreading Hamas propaganda.

‘The radical anti-Israel organisation Amnesty has once again chosen to publish baseless lies against Israel,’ said foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein.

‘Israel is targeting only terrorists and never civilians. Hamas, on the other hand, deliberately targets Israeli civilians and hides behind Palestinian civilians, stealing humanitarian aid intended for the people of Gaza and causing suffering for both Palestinians and Israelis,’ he said.

UNRWA said children and the sick were suffering the most.

‘Children in Gaza are going to bed starving. The ill and the sick are not able to get medical care because of shortages in supplies in hospitals and clinics,’ its spokeswoman Juliette Touma said.

‘Gaza has become a land of desperation. The siege on Gaza is a silent killer, a silent killer of children, of older people, of the most vulnerable in the community.’

UNRWA also said more than 50 of its staff, including teachers and doctors, had been abused by Israeli forces in detention.

‘They have been treated in the most shocking & inhumane way. They reported being beaten + used as human shields,’ UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.

Israel has accused some UNRWA employees of involvement in the October 7 attack and has subsequently banned the agency from operating within its territory.

Amnesty said the war represented a collective failure by the international community.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty’s regional director, said Palestinians had endured ‘extreme levels of suffering while the world showed a ‘complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it’.

Separately, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said Israel released from detention on Tuesday a medic held since a deadly attack on ambulances in southern Gaza on March 23.

The attack had left 15 medics and emergency responders dead, which an Israeli military investigation said was a result of ‘operational’ failures on part of the troops on the ground.​

 

[Saif]

'We are breaking the bodies and minds of children of Gaza', says WHO Executive Director

The minds and bodies of children in Gaza are being broken following two months of aid blockade and renewed strikes, the Executive Director of the World Health Organization Emergencies programmes said on Thursday. Since Mar 2 Israel has blocked the entry of medical, fuel, and food supplies into Gaz

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

'We are breaking the bodies and minds of children of Gaza', says WHO Executive Director
REUTERS
Published :
May 02, 2025 15:24
Updated :
May 02, 2025 15:24

Palestinian kids stand at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 7, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

The minds and bodies of children in Gaza are being broken following two months of aid blockade and renewed strikes, the Executive Director of the World Health Organization Emergencies programmes said on Thursday.

Since Mar 2 Israel has blocked the entry of medical, fuel, and food supplies into Gaza.

"We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit," Deputy Director General Michael Ryan told reporters at the WHO's headquarters.

"As a physician I am angry. It is an abomination," he said.

Israel says the decision to block the supplies was aimed at pressuring Hamas to free hostages as the ceasefire agreement stalled.

"The current level of malnutrition is causing a collapse in immunity," Ryan said, warning that cases of pneumonia and meningitis in women and children could increase.

Israel has previously denied that Gaza was facing a hunger crisis. It has not made clear when and how aid will be resumed.

Israel's military accuses Hamas of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.

The United Nations warned this week that acute malnutrition among Gaza's children was worsening.​

 

[Saif]

Activist aid ship hit by drones on way to Gaza, NGO says

A ship carrying humanitarian aid and activists for Gaza was bombed by drones in international waters off Malta early on Friday, its organisers said, alleging that Israel was to blame. The Israeli foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegation by the Freedom

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Activist aid ship hit by drones on way to Gaza, NGO says
REUTERS
Published :
May 02, 2025 20:49
Updated :
May 02, 2025 20:49

A tug vessel puts out a fire on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla vessel Conscience outside Maltese territorial waters in this handout picture provided by Malta Goverment Department of Information, May 2, 2025. Photo : Goverment of Malta/Handout via REUTERS

A ship carrying humanitarian aid and activists for Gaza was bombed by drones in international waters off Malta early on Friday, its organisers said, alleging that Israel was to blame.

The Israeli foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegation by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an international non-governmental group.

The Maltese government said the vessel and its crew were secured in the early hours of the morning after a nearby tug assisted with firefighting operations, but the NGO and Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said the ship was still in danger.

Thunberg told Reuters she was in Malta and had been supposed to board the ship as part of the Freedom Flotilla's planned action in support of Gaza, which is under blockade and bombardment by Israel.

The NGO published video footage, filmed in darkness, showing a fire on one of its ships, the Conscience. The footage showed lights in the sky in front of the ship and the sound of explosions could be heard.

"Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade (of Gaza) and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters," it said.

The Maltese government said maritime authorities had received a mayday call shortly after midnight local time from a vessel outside of territorial waters, with 12 crew members and four civilians on board, reporting a fire.

It said a nearby tug headed to the scene and launched firefighting operations and a Maltese patrol vessel was dispatched. After several hours, the vessel and its crew were secure, it said, adding that crew had refused to board the tug.

'BREAK THE BLOCKADE'

But the Freedom Flotilla said in a statement on its website that the alleged drone strikes had caused "a substantial breach in the hull".

"The drone strike appears to have deliberately targeted the ship's generator, leaving the crew without power and placing the vessel at great risk of sinking," it said.

A spokeswoman for the group, Caoimhe Butterly, said the attack took place as the ship was preparing for activists to board from another vessel. A transfer at sea had been planned rather than the ship going to harbour, for bureaucratic reasons, she said.

Thunberg said that as far as she knew, the vessel was still at the location where it had been attacked and still in imminent danger.

"This attack caused an explosion and major damage to the vessel, which made it impossible to continue the mission," she said in a Zoom interview.

"I was part of the group who was supposed to board that boat today to continue the voyage towards Gaza, which is one of many attempts to open up a humanitarian corridor and to do our part to keep trying to break Israel's illegal siege on Gaza," she said.

Thunberg and the NGO said there were 30 people on board, not 16 as the Maltese government said.

The coalition said it had been organising a non-violent action under a media blackout in order to avoid any potential sabotage.

The Gaza war started after Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages to Gaza in the October 7, 2023 attacks, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's offensive on the enclave killed more than 52,000, according to Palestinian health officials.

Since March 2, Israel has completely cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the enclave, and food stockpiled during a ceasefire at the start of the year has all but run out.

Another coalition ship on a similar mission to Gaza in 2010 was stopped and boarded by Israeli troops, and nine activists died. Other ships have similarly been stopped and boarded, without loss of life.

Hamas issued a statement about the incident off Malta, accusing Israel of "piracy" and "state terrorism".​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 29 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 29 people Friday in the Palestinian territory, devastated by war and under a total Israeli aid blockade for two months.

www.newagebd.net

Israeli strikes kill 29 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 03 May, 2025, 01:26

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 29 people Friday in the Palestinian territory, devastated by war and under a total Israeli aid blockade for two months.

Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after the collapse of a ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting.

Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said.

Another six people were killed in a separate strike targeting the Al-Masri family home in the northern city of Beit Lahia, he added.

In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more, the civil defence agency reported.

Elsewhere across the Gaza Strip, at least eight additional fatalities were reported in similar attacks, the agency said.

Since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, at least 2,326 people have been killed, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The war erupted after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel says its renewed military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.

Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of the ceasefire which had come into effect on January 19.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming.

On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the ‘verge of total collapse’.

‘This situation must not — and cannot — be allowed to escalate further,’ Pascal Hundt, ICRC deputy director of Operations said in a statement.

Meanwhile, A group of activists organising an aid boat for Gaza said it was attacked on Friday by drones in international waters off Malta as they headed towards the Palestinian territory, accusing Israel of attacking the vessel.

The Maltese government said it responded to a distress call from the vessel and offered immediate support.

It said all crew members were safe, while making no mention of an alleged attack.

‘At 00:23 Maltese time (2223 GMT on Thursday), the Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship came under direct attack in international waters,’ the activist group said in a statement.

‘Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull,’ it added, blaming Israel.

‘Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the on-going blockade and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.’

The Israeli military did not provide an immediate response when contacted by AFP.

The strike, the activists said, appeared to target the boat’s generator.

Following the distress call, the Malta Vessel Traffic Services body dispatched a tugboat and offered support.

‘The tug arrived on scene and began firefighting operations. By 0128 hrs, the fire was reported under control,’ the Maltese statement said.​