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

[Saif]

But not for you, Palestinian

I HAVE a very intense relationship with water. As a result of a long-term health condition, I am often feeling very thirsty and drained. I cannot go more than perhaps 15 minutes without having a sup of water until I start to feel uncomfortable. On average people in the UK use 149 litres of...

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But not for you, Palestinian
Jonathan Woodrow Martin 21 August, 2024, 00:00

| Counter Punch/Nasser Nawaj’ah, B’Tselem

I HAVE a very intense relationship with water. As a result of a long-term health condition, I am often feeling very thirsty and drained. I cannot go more than perhaps 15 minutes without having a sup of water until I start to feel uncomfortable. On average people in the UK use 149 litres of water per-day, and although there is poverty in this country, and the water system is privatised, access to water is seen as a fundamental human right and cannot, by law, be cut off to domestic residences, even if bills are not paid.

In comparison, in Gaza right now, there is a war on the people, and their access to water. The occupying state has systematically destroyed and dismantled access to water. An Oxfam report has laid out the catastrophic drop in the level of water access and quality since the genocide began:

‘Since the Israeli offensive began following October 7, 2023, people in Gaza have had only 4.74 litres of water per person per day for all uses including drinking, cooking, and washing, which is a dramatic 94 per cent reduction in the amount of water available before. This is significantly below the internationally accepted minimum standard of 15 litres of water per person per day for basic survival in emergencies.’

The Palestinians in Gaza were already forced to rely on the occupation for much of their water supplies due to the illegal siege placed on them since 2006. The apartheid state are now using this construct to weaponise water to such an extreme level that people are being dehydrated to death and preventable and deadly diseases are spreading throughout the population. The occupation announced their intentions to the world, very early and very clearly on, in the genocide. On October 9, 2023, defence minister Yoav Gallant said: ‘I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.’ This included the cutting off of the water supplies and has expanded to the bombing and destruction of every attempt by Palestinians to alleviate this. In July alone, the genocidal forces blew up over 30 water wells in Khan Younis and Rafah in the south of Gaza and have almost completely destroyed the sanitation and sewage system throughout Gaza.

This is all meticulously detailed in the Oxfam report:

‘External supply from Israel’s national water company Mekorot fell by 78 per cent. Israel has destroyed 70 per cent of all sewage pumps and 100 per cent of all wastewater treatment plants, as well as the main water quality testing laboratories in Gaza.’

These are clear and defined wanton acts of genocide, being funded and supported to the hilt by the US, UK and other western countries who so dearly want us all to believe that they respect and value ‘human rights’.

We, the people of the UK, are supporting the building and operation of a water well in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza. Please donate and share to support the Palestinian people to have access to this fundamental and basic necessity to survival and life. The well may be targeted and attacked, but we must support Palestinians to stay in place, on their land. The occupying and genocidal state will not destroy the Palestinians or create an inch of space between us in our steadfast support for them.

We as allies must listen to Palestinians and stand with them. We must continue to support Palestinians to support themselves and stand with them in lockstep until they win their full liberation, and we must believe that day is coming, because it is coming.

CounterPunch.org, August 20. Jonathan Woodrow Martin is a graduate of HCRI institute at The University of Manchester.​

 

[Saif]

Why Israel-Hamas ceasefire keeps failing

Netanyahu has handcuffed every mediator of ceasefire deals, especially the US, by imposing conditions that Hamas will not accept.

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Why Israel-Hamas ceasefire keeps failing

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu draws a red line on the graphic of a bomb during his address at the 67th United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 27, 2012. FILE PHOTO: REUTERS

Yet again, another ceasefire deal for Gaza in Doha has been rejected to pardon a sliver of misery for the Palestinians suffering through the most devastating genocide in Gaza. US President Joe Biden had touted that the latest ceasefire deal was "closer than ever" to being achieved as risks of a wider war in the region sparked fear. But if one knows Benjamin Netanyahu, and the simple fact that he faces political death if the war ends, then hopeful words regarding any ceasefire deals should always be taken with a grain of salt. It was absolutely no coincidence that Netanyahu put five new conditions on the deal and thwarted the possibility of de-escalation in the region.

Hamas has opposed a continuing presence of Israelis in Gaza, and maintained that it will not accept a deal that is not permanent. And it is well-known that Netanyahu's extremist government does not want a permanent ceasefire. Hamas has rejected the latest deal, blaming it mainly on Netanyahu, stating that he is fully "responsible for the lives of his prisoners, who are exposed to the same danger that our [Palestinian] people are exposed to due to his continued aggression and systemic targeting of all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip."

Netanyahu's efforts to smash any efforts for a truce is so blatant that Israeli citizens have been regularly protesting against him, calling for his resignation and a ceasefire deal, which seem to now be synonyms. The families of hostages, as well as the opposition, members of the army and so on, have protested, and even Defence Minister Yoav Gallant bashed Netanyahu's lack of a "post-war" Gaza plan, admitting that it is Israel who has been the disrupter of the deals so far.

For the ninth time in 10 months, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting the Middle East as talks will resume again in Cairo. All these visits have mainly been to meet Israeli ministers, and all the energy spent has led to nothing tangible except the continuation of hellish extermination of Palestinians. Former US President Barack Obama's Secretary of State John Kerry also made a record number of visits to the region, but after his realisations, he delivered a blistering speech attacking Israel's settlement policy and Netanyahu's extremist government in 2016, stating, "The policies of this government—which the prime minister himself just described as 'more committed to settlements than any in Israel's history'—are leading… towards one state." His remarks were met with criticism, as Netanyahu and the apartheid regime of Israel prevailed in the US establishment.

Netanyahu has handcuffed every mediator of ceasefire deals, especially the US, by imposing conditions that Hamas will not accept, and conditions that he knows Hamas will not accept. The US has failed time and again to exert any real pressure—under a weak president—to make Israel agree to a ceasefire deal; Joe Biden remarked in the Time magazine, as recent as in early June, that there is "every reason" to draw the conclusion that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political self-preservation. Everything that has happened in the past few years has proven a fact that the US cannot deny, which is that the main weapon in Netanyahu's hand is the laxity in US diplomacy towards Israel, which has now morphed into a culture of deference.

The war, however, in many ways, is considered an "American war" with the US's involvement, backing and major backtracking from any solution proposed beforehand. But political calculations regarding the dynamics with Netanyahu suggest that it is now increasingly unobtainable for the US, under this administration, to end the war. One could argue that Blinken's efforts at so-called "peace" would have been more successful had he carried bags of rice and flour in his giant jet and given it to starving Palestinians in Gaza, instead of flying thousands of kilometres to talk and have expensive yet futile conversations.

Netanyahu and his cabinet were very clear in their aims to deliver a multi-dimensional blow, when they decided to assassinate Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political bureau in Tehran, right after Netanyahu's controversial visit to Washington, where he garnered shameless applause from members of Congress. Iran has maintained that it will retaliate, leaving the US in another precarious situation to deal with a wider eruption in the Middle East. Once again, the US is flexing muscle power with its fleet, sending stealthy fighters, dozens of F-22 Raptors, even a guided missile submarine along with a squadron of Marine Corps, not to mention bolstering US forces in its bases in the region—only to show its support for Israel. As the Democrats face a high-stake elections against Donald Trump where their support for Israel's genocide can play a "make or break" role for Vice-President Kamala Harris's election bid, Biden recently approved a further $3.5 billion of military aid to Israel, as Israel bombed a religious school, Al-Tabieen, and a mosque in Gaza, and parents and family members mourned hundreds of their lost ones, many of whose bodies were dismembered and collected in plastic bags—highlighting unspeakable brutality.

Anyone who has followed the biography of Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he has always held a dream of starting a war with Iran and dragging the US into it. US presidents, including Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden, have largely never shared Netanyahu's enthusiasm. Netanyahu has long considered Iran as Israel's primary threat to security; even in his address in Congress, he called protesters calling for a ceasefire "Iran's useful idiots," and said, "When we fight Iran, we are fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States." Similarly, in 2012, Netanyahu took a paper showing a graphic bomb to the United Nations General Assembly, and ridiculously made drawings on it on the podium, to demonstrate the grave threats of Iran's nuclear capabilities.

He had waged a public campaign and failed to convince former President Obama to withdraw the US from the Iran nuclear deal, which he achieved later in 2018 with Donald Trump, convincing him to also adopt a policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran, placing it under severe sanctions.

By eschewing reaching ceasefire deals in Gaza now, Netanyahu continues to feed his disturbing obsession with Iran; Netanyahu's "Iranian file is the file of life" is an age-old title by journalists in the region that he achieved for his scorched-earth policy towards Iran since becoming the prime minister of Israel. Even when Netanyahu faced trials and charges of corruption in 2021, he escalated half-covert attacks on Iran's facilities and attacks on Iranian shipping in the Persian Gulf. The political timing of the security crisis of immense "Iranian threats" came not-so-subtly with the goal of making it easier for Netanyahu to form another government under his leadership.

Netanyahu knows that a ceasefire deal would grant safety to Israeli citizens as well, but it conflicts with his aim to provoke a wider war with Iran. He has been touting messianic beliefs since October 7, 2023, because he has one aim: to use this unprecedented opportunity to rebuild the Israel that Ben-Gurion created, which can only and delusionally be done through the destruction of Iran and its axis. This warped logic is the only way to understand Netanyahu's politics.

By taking ceasefire deals off the table, manipulating the US and the West, Netanyahu may just be poised to engineer his dreams professionally. Iran is aware of the depth of the impasse and that the US carriers have been sent with the aim of messaging, not with the aim of igniting a war. But Netanyahu's actions have left Iran with very little options: to respond or not to respond. The wolf has managed to trap everyone in his sadistic quest to become a historical wartime figure. As invincible as he might think he is with a crown on his arrogant head, Iran and Hezbollah are significant powers, and no one knows the scale of Russia's involvement if Israel were to use "unconventional" weapons. Netanyahu is venturing into dangerous territories, putting Israel, the US, and the world on the brink of catastrophe.

Yousef SY Ramadan is the Palestinian ambassador to Bangladesh.​

 

[Saif]

Death ‘the only certainty’ for Palestinians in Gaza

In Gaza, death appears to be the “only certainty” for 2.4 million Palestinians with no way to escape Israel’s relentless bombardment, a UN official said Tuesday, recounting the growing desperation across the territory.

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Death ‘the only certainty’ for Palestinians in Gaza
Says UN official as Israeli strikes continue in enclave

In Gaza, death appears to be the "only certainty" for 2.4 million Palestinians with no way to escape Israel's relentless bombardment, a UN official said Tuesday, recounting the growing desperation across the territory.

"It does feel like people are waiting for death. Death seems to be the only certainty in this situation," Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA, told AFP from Gaza.

For the past two weeks, Wateridge has been in the Gaza Strip, witnessing the humanitarian crisis, fear of death and spread of disease as the offensive rages on.

"Nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe, absolutely nowhere is safe. It's absolutely devastating," Wateridge said from the Nuseirat area of central Gaza -- a regular target of Israel's aerial assaults.

Since fighting broke out in October, Israeli forces have pounded the besieged territory from the air, land and sea, reducing much of it to rubble.

Now in its eleventh month, the offensive has created an acute humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom have been displaced several times, running out of basic food and clean drinking water.

"We are facing unprecedented challenges when it comes to the spread of disease, when it comes to hygiene. Part of this is because of the Israeli imposed siege on the Gaza Strip," Wateridge said.

Israel's military campaign has killed at least 40,223 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Most of the dead in Gaza are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.

Tens of thousands of people have taken refuge in schools across the Gaza Strip, an increasingly regular target of Israeli missiles. Israel's military says these schools have been used as command and control centres by Hamas, a charge the group denies.

"Even a school is not anymore a safe place," said Wateridge. "It feels like you're never more than a few blocks away from the front line now." Tired of reacting to the Israeli military's "continuous" evacuation orders, more and more Gazans are reluctant to keep moving from place to place, Wateridge said.​

 

[Saif]

Israel kills top Fatah commander

Israel killed a senior commander from Fatah’s armed wing on Wednesday in a strike on Lebanon, leading to accusations from the Palestinian movement that Israel is trying to ‘ignite a regional war’...

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Israel kills top Fatah commander
Agence France-Presse . Sidon, Lebanon 22 August, 2024, 00:17

Israel killed a senior commander from Fatah’s armed wing on Wednesday in a strike on Lebanon, leading to accusations from the Palestinian movement that Israel is trying to ‘ignite a regional war’.

Fatah, the Palestinian movement based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said Khalil Maqdah was killed in a strike near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

The Israeli military said it targeted the brother of Mounir Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah’s armed wing. It accused them both of ‘directing attacks and smuggling weapons’ to the West Bank and collaborating with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

In response, the slain commander’s Fatah movement, which is headed by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and rivals the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas, accused Israel of bidding to trigger a wider regional war.

Maqdah’s killing marks the first such attack on a senior Fatah member in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement following the Gaza war.

The ‘assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region,’ Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah’s central committee, said in Ramallah.

It came only hours after US secretary of state Antony Blinken left empty-handed after a tour of the Middle East aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Blinken appealed to Hamas to urgently accept a US-backed truce proposal, while also entering into a public spat with Israel over its future presence in the besieged Palestinian territory.

‘Time is of the essence,’ Blinken said before flying out of Doha after stops in Qatar, Egypt and Israel on his ninth regional tour seeking to halt the Gaza war.

‘This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line,’ he said of the truce proposal.

The United States has presented ideas to bridge gaps and, through Qatar and Egypt, pressed Hamas to return to talks this week in Cairo.

But a day after Blinken said US ally Israel was on board, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by Israeli media as disagreeing on a key sticking point.

Netanyahu insisted Israel maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt that Israeli forces seized from Hamas, whom Israel says relies on secret tunnels to bring in weapons.

Blinken said Israel had already agreed on the ‘schedule and location’ of troop withdrawals from Gaza.

Since the conflict began, it was made ‘very clear that the United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel’, Blinken said when asked about Netanyahu’s remarks.

A senior US official called Netanyahu’s ‘maximalist statements’ unhelpful for reaching a truce.

Blinken acknowledged differences and called for ‘maximum flexibility’ from both Israel and Hamas.

Egypt, the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel, has been infuriated by the border takeover.

Hamas said it was ‘keen to reach a ceasefire’ but protested ‘new conditions’ from Israel in the latest US proposal.

On the ground, Gaza was again rocked by air strikes, AFP reporters, first responders and witnesses said.

The Israeli military said it struck about 30 targets throughout Gaza and that troops ‘eliminated dozens’ of militants.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said death appeared to be the ‘only certainty’ for Gaza’s 2.4 million people, with no way to escape Israel’s bombardment.

‘Absolutely nowhere is safe,’ said UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge. ‘People... feel like they’re being chased around in circles.

‘Death seems to be the only certainty,’ she told AFPTV.

As tensions escalated, Lebanon’s health ministry said earlier Israeli strikes in the country’s east killed one person and wounded 20, hours after four were killed in the south.

Cross-border skirmishes have taken place almost daily between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, but fears of a greater crisis soared when Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed on a visit to Tehran on July 31.

Iran has vowed retaliation, blaming Israel for the assassination, but has held off so far, with the United States sending additional forces and warning a wider war could destroy prospects for a Gaza ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in agreeing a deal to end fighting, free Israeli hostages and allow vital humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Netanyahu has faced public protests in Israel urging him to accept a truce, which would bring back hostages whose plight has plagued Israelis.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from tunnels in Gaza, some of whom were killed in its operations.

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 105 are still being held hostage inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,223 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

In a stark reminder of what’s at stake for Netanyahu, a young Israeli woman symbolising the 251 hostages called for their swift return.

‘Avinatan, my boyfriend, is still there, and we need to bring them back before it’s going to be too late. We don’t want to lose more people than we already lost,’ Noa Argamani said while visiting Japan.​

 

[Saif]

Ceasefire hopes fade as Gaza fighting rages

Hopes were dwindling on Thursday for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where fighting raged despite pressure from the United States on Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas to reach an agreement...

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Ceasefire hopes fade as Gaza fighting rages
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 22 August, 2024, 23:51

Hopes were dwindling on Thursday for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where fighting raged despite pressure from the United States on Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas to reach an agreement.

After more than 10 months of war, officials from the United States and Arab mediators Egypt and Qatar had been set to meet in Cairo for a new round of talks this week, but confirmation was still pending.

The war triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel has devastated Gaza, displaced nearly all its population at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

Diplomatic efforts have intensified amid the risk of a wider war following killings, widely blamed on Israel, that sparked threats of reprisals from Iran and its allies.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Wednesday ended his latest tour of the Middle East, aimed at finalising a ceasefire, without a breakthrough.

In a phone call later, president Joe Biden pushed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a deal, amid pressure from pro-Palestinian protesters at the US Democratic party’s convention ahead of a November presidential election.

‘The president stressed the urgency of bringing the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles,’ the White House said.

Biden also reassured him of the efforts of the United States — Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier — to support it against threats from Iran and its proxies.

Vice president Kamala Harris, the Democratic party’s candidate in the US presidential election, also took part in the call.

Netanyahu, a hawkish political veteran leading a fragile right-wing coalition, has reportedly disagreed on a key sticking point — the removal of Israeli troops from the border between Gaza and Egypt.

His office confirmed the phone conversation, without elaborating on its content.

Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted ‘officials knowledgeable about the negotiations’ as saying ‘the chances for a deal are slim’ but attempts were being made to hold talks in Cairo on Friday and Saturday.

It said, quoting the same source, that Netanyahu insisted on an Israeli army ‘presence along the Philadelphi Corridor’ and that the United States ‘demanded a significant withdrawal of troops’ in two stages.

The daily said ‘the Americans understood the mistake’ made by Blinken when he announced during his visit to Israel that Netanyahu had accepted a US proposal to bring the two sides closer together and that ‘the ball was now in Hamas’s court’.

It said US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk had been sent to Cairo to prepare for the meeting and to seek to resolve the Philadelphi Corridor issue.

Hamas on Sunday said the US proposal ‘responds to Netanyahu’s conditions’ and accused him of ‘obstructing an agreement.’

In its statement, Hamas cited Netanyahu’s ‘insistence on continuing to occupy’ the Philadelphi corridor and two other areas, which Israel sees as important for preventing the flow of weapons into Gaza.

The Islamist group said it was keen to reach a ceasefire but protested ‘new conditions’ from Israel in the latest US proposal.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,265 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths. The UN rights office says most dead are women and children.

Palestinian militants also seized 251 hostages, of whom 105 remain in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.

On the ground, Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least three people were killed and 10 children wounded in an Israeli strike Wednesday on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.

The Israeli military said Thursday that it ‘conducted a precise strike on a weapons storage facility’ near a Hamas command-and-control centre inside a compound that previously served as a school.

The United Nations says Israel has struck at least 23 schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza since July 4

Troops ‘eliminated’ more than 50 militants in the past 24 hours and intensified operations in the Khan Yunis area and the outskirts of Deir el-Balah, the military said.

A civil defence spokesperson reported bombings in the Nuseirat and Maghazi refugee camps, and east of Khan Yunis.

Witnesses reported seeing heavy Israeli shelling in Khan Yunis as well as clashes between Palestinian militants and the army in the Netzarim junction further north.

Violence has also escalated in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian territory’s health ministry said three people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Tulkarem refugee camp on Thursday.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli negotiators in Cairo for Gaza talks

Israeli negotiators were in Cairo yesterday for talks on a Gaza truce, a spokesman said, but a dispute over the presence of Israeli troops on Gaza’s southern border remained among sticking points.

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Israeli negotiators in Cairo for Gaza talks
Hamas slams Netanyahu’s ‘refusal’ to reach final truce deal; 18 more Palestinians killed in strikes

Palestinians stand on the balcony of a damaged flat in the vicinity of a building which was levelled by Israeli bombing in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The photo was taken on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Israeli negotiators were in Cairo yesterday for talks on a Gaza truce, a spokesman said, but a dispute over the presence of Israeli troops on Gaza's southern border remained among sticking points.

Mossad spy agency chief David Barnea and Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet domestic security service, were in the Egyptian capital and "negotiating to advance a hostage (release) agreement", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP.

Egypt with fellow mediators Qatar and the United States are trying to reach a deal that would end more than 10 months of offensive in the enclave.

A Hamas official yesterday accused Israel's prime minister of refusing to agree to a final truce accord for Gaza. But Hamas representatives were not taking part and an official from the movement, Hossam Badran, told AFP that Netanyahu's insistence that troops remain on the Philadelphi border strip reflects "his refusal to reach a final agreement".

Witnesses yesterday reported combat in the Gaza Strip's north, heavy shelling in the centre, and tank fire in the far south near Rafah city. Israeli attacks have killed 18 Palestinians since yesterday morning in Gaza, as it continues to expand its ground operation in Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah.

Israel's military campaign has killed 40,283 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The United Nations said tens of thousands of civilians have been on the move again this week from Deir el-Balah and the southern city of Khan Yunis after Israeli military evacuation orders, which precede military operations.

The offensive has displaced about 90 percent of Gaza's population, often multiple times, leaving them deprived of shelter, clean water and other essentials as disease spreads, the UN said.

"Civilians are exhausted and terrified, running from one destroyed place to another, with no end in sight," Muhannad Hadi, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said late Thursday. "This cannot continue," he said.

Israel's military yesterday said that over the past day troops had "eliminated dozens of militants" around Khan Yunis and Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza.

In April the military had pulled troops out of Khan Yunis after months of devastating fighting, yet has found itself having to resume operations there, leaving civilians feeling they have nowhere to turn.

"Every time we arrive somewhere, we get a new evacuation order two days later. This is no way to live," said Haitham Abdelaal.

The Israeli military recovered the remains of six hostages from a tunnel in the Khan Yunis area this week, and on Thursday said bullets had been found in their bodies.​

 

[Saif]

Border corridor becomes sticking point in Gaza truce talks

A narrow stretch of land along the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt has emerged as the main stumbling block in negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

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Border corridor becomes sticking point in Gaza truce talks
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 24 August, 2024, 01:28

Pro-Palestine protesters march in the street near the United Centre where the Democratic National Convention is being held on Thursday in Chicago, Illinois. Tension between police and protesters is heightened due to violent protests in downtown Chicago earlier this week. | AFP photo

A narrow stretch of land along the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt has emerged as the main stumbling block in negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants his country to permanently control the Philadelphi — or Salaheddin — Corridor, which it seized during the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack.

The patrol road protected by barbed wire runs for 14 kilometres along the border and is about 100 metres wide at its narrowest point, with tunnels said to be dug under it and used for smuggling.

It was built by the Israeli military when Gaza was under its direct occupation between 1967 and 2005, and has become a key target in Israel’s current offensive against Hamas.

As Israeli negotiators hold talks in Cairo on a potential Gaza truce and hostage release deal, the Philadelphi Corridor has become the primary sticking point.

Netanyahu contends that Israeli control is necessary ‘in order to prevent Hamas from rearming itself’, a statement from his office said on Thursday.

Hamas, which is not attending the latest round of talks in Egypt, demands a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

A high-ranking Egyptian official this week similarly called for a ‘complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor and the Palestinian Rafah terminal’ — a key crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt.

A 2005 agreement between Israel and Egypt established the corridor as a buffer zone, as part of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that year.

It was meant to facilitate control over movement in and out of Gaza and discourage incursions and smuggling.

Some houses had to be demolished to make way for the corridor, which has also accentuated the division between the Gaza side of Rafah, in the territory’s far south, and the town’s Egyptian side — a remnant of British colonial policies.

When Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza in September 2005, Egypt set up a force dedicated to guarding the border with around 750 personnel.

To avoid breaching demilitarisation clauses in the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, the Egyptian force’s stated purpose was to fight ‘terrorism’ in the area.

On the Gaza side, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas — whose Palestinian Authority ruled the territory at the time — deployed guards to secure the Philadelphi Corridor.

But in June 2007, militant group Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip after rivalry with Abbas’s Fatah party prevented the Islamist movement from assuming the leadership despite a landslide election win.

The border area subsequently became the focus of growing concern about arms trafficking, which fed the arsenal of local armed groups.

Hundreds of tunnels are said to have been dug under the Philadelphi Corridor that have been used for smuggling everything from weapons to cars, drugs and even food like Kentucky Fried Chicken.

According to international organisations, armed fighters have criss-crossed through these underground routes, while smugglers have facilitated the travel of civilians for varied reasons — including medical appointments and attending weddings.

For Palestinians, the tunnels have been a way of getting around the Israeli land, sea and air blockade imposed on the entire Gaza Strip when Hamas seized power.

When Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in 2013, Cairo moved to destroy many of the tunnels, accusing Palestinian militants of using them to smuggle arms and fighters to jihadist groups in the neighbouring Sinai Peninsula.

Last week the Israeli military announced it had destroyed some 50 tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor.

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war after the October 7 attack, Netanyahu has stressed the strategic importance of the border area.

In May, the Israeli military said it had assumed ‘operational control’ of the route.

Diaa Rashwan, head of the Egyptian government’s State Information Service, in January told pan-Arab news channel Al-Ghad that such an ‘occupation’ was ‘forbidden by virtue of the agreement’ between the two countries.

It would even constitute a ‘threat of violation of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty’, Rashwan said.

The US-brokered 1979 agreement was the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza talks set to resume in Cairo as fighting rages

Negotiators geared up for a crucial weekend of Gaza ceasefire talks Saturday, as Hamas said it was sending delegates to Cairo but would not participate in the discussions, and fighting raged in the Palestinian territory....

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Gaza talks set to resume in Cairo as fighting rages
Agence France-Presse . Cairo 24 August, 2024, 22:06

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on August 23, 2024 reportedly shows Israeli soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip. | AFP photo.

Negotiators geared up for a crucial weekend of Gaza ceasefire talks Saturday, as Hamas said it was sending delegates to Cairo but would not participate in the discussions, and fighting raged in the Palestinian territory.

The United States, Egypt and Qatar have spent months trying to broker an end to the war in Gaza between Hamas Palestinian militants and Israel.

The war, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, has devastated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its population at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

The White House said progress had been made at the latest round this week, although the possible permanent presence of Israeli troops along the Gaza-Egypt border has emerged as a major sticking point.

Previous bouts of optimism during months of on-off ceasefire and hostage release negotiations have always proven unfounded.

A senior Hamas official said a delegation from the Islamist group was heading to Cairo, but that they would not engage in the talks. Instead, they would meet with senior Egyptian officials for updates on the negotiations.

The delegation would ‘be briefed... but this does not mean it will take part in the negotiations’, the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said Hamas would insist Israel withdraw all its forces from all of Gaza, including ‘from the border area with Egypt’, known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

The basis of the talks is a framework which US President Joe Biden outlined on May 31, and which he described as an Israeli proposal.

A second Hamas official on Saturday reiterated that ‘the leadership of Hamas, including its leader Yahya Sinwar’ had already agreed to the Biden plan and want it put into effect without ‘amendment of its wording.’

The three-phase plan outlined by Biden and endorsed by the UN Security Council would initially see hostages exchanged for Palestinians in Israeli jails during what Biden called a ‘full and complete ceasefire’ lasting six weeks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since insisted on keeping troops along the corridor, arguing Israel needs to prevent Hamas from rebuilding its strength by smuggling in arms from Egypt.

The White House said CIA chief William Burns was among US officials taking part in the Cairo talks, alongside the heads of Israel’s spy agency and domestic security service.

An Egyptian source close to the talks said the United States was ‘discussing with mediators new proposals to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas’.

The source said Sunday’s ‘enlarged round of negotiations’ would be a ‘pivotal step in formulating an agreement that will be announced if Washington can pressure Netanyahu.’

Fighting raged in Gaza on Saturday, with AFP correspondents and civil defence rescue sources reporting ongoing Israeli artillery fire and air strikes across the Hamas-run territory.

In Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood, gunfire and explosions echoed as Palestinian militants clashed with Israeli soldiers, an AFP correspondent added.

An overnight strike on a house west of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza killed 11 people, including a woman and four children, a doctor at Nasser Hospital said.

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday reported 69 deaths in the previous 48 hours.

The Israeli military said it ‘eliminated’ dozens of militants in close-quarters combat and strikes in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah over the past day.

Tens of thousands of civilians were on the move from Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis after Israeli evacuation orders, which precede military operations, the United Nations said on Thursday.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,334 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Palestinian militants also seized 251 hostages, of whom 105 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

Israel’s military recovered the remains of six hostages from a tunnel in the Khan Yunis area this week, and said bullets were found in their bodies.

Netanyahu faces regular protests by hostage supporters demanding a deal to bring them home.

Efforts to reach a Gaza truce and avert a wider war intensified after the killings of two senior Iran-backed militants last month sparked threats of reprisals from Tehran and allies including Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, who blamed Israel.

As the threats rise, some Israelis have taken matters into their own hands by building bomb shelters at home, after putting it off for years.

‘We now worry more, because Hezbollah can reach us with their missiles,’ said 79-year-old Jeff Lederer, a family doctor in Tel Mond, north of Tel Aviv. ‘We are also afraid of being shot at by Iran.’

Gazans said they were desperate for an end to the war.

‘We are tired and hope that the negotiations persist, the siege is lifted, and the war stops,’ Umm Muhammad Wadi, a displaced woman in Deir el-Balah, told AFP.​

 

[Saif]

হা'ই'ফা'র গুরুত্বপূর্ণ স্থাপনা ই'রা'কে'র ইসলামিক রেজিস্ট্যান্সের ড্রোন হামলা

 

[Saif]

UN humanitarian operations in Gaza forced to halt: official

The United Nations said Monday it had been forced to halt its humanitarian operations in Gaza due to a new Israeli evacuation order for the Deir al-Balah area, a senior UN official said

www.thedailystar.net

UN humanitarian operations in Gaza forced to halt: official

Photo: AFP

The United Nations said Monday it had been forced to halt its humanitarian operations in Gaza due to a new Israeli evacuation order for the Deir al-Balah area, a senior UN official said.

"We are not operating today. As of this morning, we're not operating in Gaza," the official said, adding that since the start of the war the UN has sometimes had to "delay or take a pause."

"This is not a decision that we're saying we're stopping to operate, but practically we cannot operate," the official said.​

According to the official, the UN "had relocated most of our personnel in our operations" to Deir al-Balah following a Rafah evacuation order several months ago.

 

[Saif]

Gaza death toll rises to 40,476

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 40,476 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants, now in its 11th month...

www.newagebd.net

Gaza death toll rises to 40,476
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 27 August, 2024, 23:29

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 40,476 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants, now in its 11th month.

The toll includes 41 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to ministry figures, which also list 93,647 people as wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.

The Israeli military said it rescued an Israeli hostage in Gaza on Tuesday. Kaid Farhan Alkadi, a 52-year-old Israeli Bedouin, was abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the military said in a statement.

‘Alkadi was rescued in a complex operation in the southern Gaza Strip,’ the statement said, adding that he was in a stable condition and being transferred to a hospital for a medical check-up.

Alkadi is from Rahat, a predominantly Arab town. On October 7, he had been working as a guard at a warehouse in southern Israel when he was seized by militants.

Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum described his rescue as ‘miraculous’.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ‘working tirelessly to bring all our hostages back’, in a video issued shortly after he spoke with Alkadi.

The United States struck a cautious note of optimism on Monday regarding efforts to clinch a Gaza ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages.

Their fate is central to on-going truce talks in Cairo, with relatives and supporters piling pressure on the Israeli government in weekly protests demanding their return home.

In Washington, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters ‘there continues to be progress’ and that the talks would continue and involve ‘working groups’ for several days.

A key sticking point in the talks has been Israel’s insistence on keeping control of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, to stop Hamas from rearming, something the militant group has refused to countenance.

Cairo, which has been mediating the talks alongside Qatar and the United States, insisted on Monday that ‘it will not accept any Israeli presence’ along the corridor, Egyptian state-linked Al-Qahera news reported, citing a high-level source.

The more than 10 months of war in Gaza have so far seen only one truce that lasted for a week starting November 24.

During that period 105 hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

Tuesday’s hostage rescue came as the violence showed no signs of abating in a war that has ravaged Gaza, displaced nearly all of its population at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

It also came as the United Nations warned of the worsening humanitarian situation in the territory, where the Israeli army ordered a new evacuation and carried out more deadly strikes.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said such orders ‘severely’ hampered its ‘ability to deliver essential support and services’.​

 

[Saif]

Deadly Israeli raids in West Bank as Gaza war rages

The war in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, while Israel’s offensive has caused widespread destruction and displacement

en.prothomalo.com

Deadly Israeli raids in West Bank as Gaza war rages
AFP Jenin, Palestinian Territories
Published: 29 Aug 2024, 09: 07

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on 28 August 2024 reportedly shows an Israeli main battle tank during operations to investigate and destroy a tunnel in the central Gaza corridor by the 16th Brigade AFP

Israel launched a large-scale operation Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, where the military said it killed Palestinian fighters, as the nearly 11-month-old Gaza war showed no signs of abating.

The military said its forces killed nine militants while the Palestinian health ministry reported 11 deaths in the West Bank, where violence has surged during the war sparked by Gaza rulers Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel.

Children were among those killed, according to the United Nations, while Hamas said the fatalities included three members of its armed wing in the Jenin refugee camp.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, while Israel’s offensive has caused widespread destruction and displacement.

Early Wednesday, Israel launched coordinated raids across four northern West Bank cities -- Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem -- where the military has focused much of its recent operations.

Armoured columns entered two refugee camps, in Tulkarem and Tubas, as well as Jenin, where an AFP correspondent said gunfire and explosions were heard into the evening.

The Red Crescent said the Palestinian health authority claimed Israeli forces killed 11 people and wounded 24 in the raids. Its West Bank chief Younes al-Khatib said ambulances came under Israeli fire and “one of our staffers was hit”.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the Israeli operations took place “in close proximity to four hospitals” and at least some “have been surrounded”, affecting the movement of medical teams.

Guterres “calls for an immediate cessation of these operations,” a later statement from his office said.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia and headed home to “follow up on the latest developments”, Palestinian official media said.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II told visiting US lawmakers a Gaza truce was needed “to stop the cycle of violence in the region”, according to a royal statement.

Violence also raged in the Gaza Strip, where the civil defence agency reported Israeli strikes killed at least 12 people, and in Lebanon, where Israel’s military said it killed a “significant” Palestinian militant.

Israel ‘destroyed’ infrastructure

In the West Bank, Tulkarem Governor Mostafa Taqataqa told AFP the raids were “a dangerous signal and unprecedented”.

Tulkarem municipal worker Hakim Abu Safiyeh said Israeli forces “attacked the infrastructure, in particular in the city of Tulkarem and the Nur Shams camp” and “destroyed” water and sewage systems.

Israeli bulldozers dug up asphalt from the streets, with the army saying it was looking for roadside bombs.

Ahmed Zahran, from the Red Crescent, said that “medical teams have been hindered since the start of the assault”, with entrances to Nur Shams camp and hospitals closed.

The army reported no casualties on its side in exchanges with militants.

The military carries out daily raids in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, but it is rare for these to happen in multiple cities simultaneously.

Such incursions have intensified since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government with far-right settler ministers took office in December 2022.

According to military spokesman Nadav Shoshani, Wednesday’s operation was not “extremely different” from regular activity.

But Foreign Minister Israel Katz called it “a war” aiming to “dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructure”.

Posting on social media platform X, he appealed for Israeli forces to act “with the same determination... (as) in Gaza, including temporary evacuation of residents.”

The vast majority of Gazans have been compelled to flee their homes.

The UN Human Rights Office said Israel’s raids risk “deepening the already catastrophic situation” in the West Bank.

Since 7 October, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 637 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to UN figures, and Palestinian attacks have killed at least 19 Israelis, officials say.

Israel’s ‘expansion’ of war

Washington on Wednesday announced sanctions on an Israeli settler group the State Department said was involved in violence against Palestinians and the forced displacement of some 250 villagers earlier this year.

Netanyahu’s office said he viewed the new sanctions “with utmost severity”.

Jordan, which borders the West Bank and Israel, called for international action to stop “the radicalism of this Israeli government”.

“Israel’s expansion of its war against Palestinians in the occupied WB is a dangerous escalation that must be stopped,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on X.

Hamas official Izzat Rishq saw it as a call to “expand the spiral of destruction and genocide”.

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian movement allied with Hamas which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, denounced an “open war” by Israel.

Israel’s military later said a strike in the Syria-Lebanon border area killed a “significant” Islamic Jihad operations officer. A Syrian war monitor reported four dead.

‘Our children are dying’

In Gaza, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said “nearly 650 patients have fled” the area around Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir el-Balah following Israeli evacuation orders.

Dujarric said Israeli forces shot at a UN humanitarian vehicle Tuesday, hitting it 10 times, even though it was “part of a convoy that had been fully coordinated” with the military.

An Israeli military spokesman had no immediate comment.

The UN’s World Food Programme said it was pausing its staff movements in Gaza “until further notice” after the “totally unacceptable” incident.

Hamas’s 7 October attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinian militants also seized 251 people during the attack, 103 of whom are still captive in Gaza including 33 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,534 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Mediation seeking an end to the war continued in Qatar where an Israeli delegation was present Wednesday, said a source close to the negotiations.

In central Gaza’s Nuseirat, Samia Baker said the makeshift displacement camp she now lives in “is the street of death”.

“We have no water, the children have no food, no clothes, we have nothing,” she said. “We appeal to the world to help us get out of this place. Our children are dying.”​

 

[Saif]

Israel air strike kills three on third day of West Bank raid

Israel said it killed three Hamas militants in an air strike in the occupied West Bank on Friday, taking the death toll from a large-scale military operation now in its...

www.newagebd.net

Israel air strike kills three on third day of West Bank raid
Agence France-Presse . Jenin, Palestinian Territories 31 August, 2024, 01:40

Israel said it killed three Hamas militants in an air strike in the occupied West Bank on Friday, taking the death toll from a large-scale military operation now in its third day to at least 19.

A top UN aid official meanwhile questioned ‘what has become of our basic humanity’, as the war raged on in Gaza where humanitarian operations struggled to respond.

In the United States, vice president Kamala Harris pledged she will not change Washington’s policy of supplying weapons to Israel if elected to the top job in November. But she stressed it was time to ‘end this war’ in Gaza.

Israel has described its raids on towns and refugee camps across the northern West Bank as ‘counter-terrorism’ operations.

They have killed at least 19 Palestinians since Wednesday, the military and the Palestinian health ministry said.

Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have said at least 13 of those killed were their fighters.

The military said it killed three Hamas militants in an air strike near the northern city of Jenin on Friday.

Witnesses said the strike hit a car in the town of Zababdeh, southeast of the city.

Israeli troops pulled back from other West Bank towns late Thursday but fighting raged on around Jenin, long a hub of militant activity.

An AFP journalist reported loud explosions from the city’s refugee camp and thick plumes of smoke rising from the area.

In Gaza, Israeli artillery pounded western areas of Gaza City early Friday, an AFP journalist said, while a medical source at the southern Nasser Hospital said an Israeli strike killed three people near the southern city of Khan Yunis.

The World Health Organisation said Israel had agreed to at least three days of ‘humanitarian pauses’ in parts of Gaza, starting Sunday, to facilitate a vaccination drive after the territory recorded its first case of polio in a quarter of a century.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the measures were ‘not a ceasefire’ in the nearly 11-month war.

The Israeli assault on the West Bank has caused significant destruction, especially in Tulkarem, whose governor Mustafa Taqatqa described the raids as ‘unprecedented’ and a ‘dangerous signal’.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said at least 45 people had been detained in the West Bank since Wednesday. An Israeli military spokesman said ‘10 wanted individuals were arrested’.

Britain on Friday said it was ‘deeply’ concerned by the raids, urging Israel to ‘exercise restraint’ and adhere to international law.

France said the Israeli operations ‘worsen a climate of unprecedented instability and violence’, while Spain denounced ‘an outbreak of violence which is clearly unacceptable’.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.

Nineteen Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.

Israeli shelling in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed two people on Friday, the civil defence agency in the Hamas-ruled territory said.

The acting head of the UN humanitarian office, Joyce Msuya, said ‘more than 88 per cent of Gaza’s territory has come under an Israeli order to evacuate at some point’, adding civilians were being forced into just 11 per cent of the Gaza Strip.

‘It forces us to ask: what has become of our basic sense of humanity?’

Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinians militants also seized 251 hostages, 103 of whom are still captive in Gaza including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,602 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The war has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

The military on Friday said it had wrapped up a month-long operation in southern and central Gaza that it said killed more than 250 Palestinian fighters.

Some Palestinians returned to find massive destruction in parts of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

In Khan Yunis, Amal al-Astal, 48, said: ‘We found our house destroyed and our neighbours’ houses destroyed as well. One of our neighbours’ corpses was decomposed there.’

Mohamed Abu Thuria said he had ‘found massive destruction everywhere’ on returning to Deir el-Balah.

The Gaza war has drawn in Iran-backed fighters from across the region, including Lebanon and Yemen, sparking fears that it could spread into a wider conflagration.

UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix on Friday warned that ‘there is still a very significant risk of escalation at the regional level’.​

 

[Saif]

Israel, Hamas set three-day pauses in fighting for Gaza polio vaccinations

Israel's military and Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for the first round of vaccination of 640,000 children against polio, a senior WHO official said on Thursday. The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel, Hamas set three-day pauses in fighting for Gaza polio vaccinations
REUTERS
Published :
Aug 30, 2024 10:35
Updated :
Aug 30, 2024 10:35

Israel's military and Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for the first round of vaccination of 640,000 children against polio, a senior WHO official said on Thursday.

The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, with the pauses scheduled to take place between 6 am and 3 pm (0300-1200 GMT), said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's senior official for the Palestinian territories.

He said the campaign would start in central Gaza with three consecutive daily pauses in fighting, then move to southern Gaza, where there would be another three-day pause, followed by northern Gaza. Peeperkorn added there was an agreement to extend the pause in each zone to a fourth day if needed.

"From our experience, we know an additional day or two is very often needed to achieve sufficient coverage," Mike Ryan, WHO emergencies director, told the UN Security Council on Thursday during a meeting on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

A second round of vaccination would be required four weeks after the first round, said Peeperkorn.

"At least 90% of coverage is needed during each round of the campaign in order to stop the outbreak and prevent international spread of polio," Ryan said.

The WHO confirmed on Aug 23 that one baby has been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in Gaza in 25 years.

"We are ready to cooperate with international organisations to secure this campaign, serving and protecting more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip," Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters.

The Israeli military's humanitarian unit (COGAT) said on Wednesday that the vaccination campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military "as part of the routine humanitarian pauses that will allow the population to reach the medical centres where the vaccinations will be administered."

EVACUATION ORDERS

Israel was continuing a "focused and intensive effort" to deliver aid to Gaza and coordinate the polio vaccination campaign with WHO and UN children's agency UNICEF, Oren Marmorstein, spokesperson for Israel's foreign affairs ministry, posted on X.

Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood said it was important that Israel facilitate access and "ensure periods of calm and refrain from military operations during vaccination campaign periods." He added that the United States urged "Israel to avoid further evacuation orders during this period."

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Wednesday said aid operations in Gaza were "heavily restricted by hostilities, insecurity, and mass evacuation orders affecting aid transport routes and facilities."

Acting UN aid chief Joyce Msuya said on Thursday that for the first time in the nearly 11-month long war Israel had reversed an evacuation order for three blocks in Deir al-Balah, adding: "Our teams are working to confirm if we can now return to the premises we had to leave on 25 August."

The evacuation orders issued on Sunday had "led to the largest relocation of UN staff since we were forced to leave northern Gaza in October 2023," Msuya said, affecting some 200 staff, more than a dozen guesthouses used by the UN and aid groups and four UN warehouses.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli troops on day four of deadly West Bank raid

Israel pressed on with a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank against Palestinian militants for a fourth day Saturday, as fierce fighting raged in the nearly 11-month Gaza war...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli troops on day four of deadly West Bank raid
Agence France-Presse . Jenin 01 September, 2024, 00:26

Israel pressed on with a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank against Palestinian militants for a fourth day Saturday, as fierce fighting raged in the nearly 11-month Gaza war.

Despite the clashes in Gaza, a local health official in the Hamas-run territory said polio vaccinations had begun there.

The World Health Organization says Israel has agreed to a series of three-day ‘humanitarian pauses’ to facilitate a mass vaccination campaign after the first confirmed case in Gaza in 25 years, although officials had said it was expected to begin on Sunday.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the pauses are ‘not a ceasefire’.

As clashes and explosions persisted in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, Israel’s military said two Palestinians were killed while preparing to carry out separate bombings overnight in the southern West Bank.

Hamas hailed the twin attacks as a ‘heroic operation’.

Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, said it ‘congratulates’ those involved in what it called a ‘coordinated attack’.

The Israeli army described a vehicle explosion at a petrol station in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc as ‘an attempted car bombing by a terrorist’ who was later killed.

An army officer ‘was moderately injured, and a reservist officer responsible for the security in a nearby community sustained minor injuries’, it said in a statement.

In the second incident, the head of security in the Israeli settlement of Karmei Zur engaged in a car chase with a ‘terrorist’ who had infiltrated the settlement compound, leading to a collision and ‘the terrorist being neutralised shortly after’, the statement said.

‘During the confrontation, an explosive device in the terrorist’s car detonated,’ it added.

At least 20 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army since Wednesday in simultaneous raids in several cities across the northern West Bank.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have said at least 13 of the dead were members of their armed wings.

Since Friday, soldiers have concentrated their operations on the city of Jenin and its refugee camps, long a bastion of Palestinian armed groups fighting against Israel.

On Saturday morning, an AFP photographer in Jenin heard ongoing clashes in the city, where the streets were mostly empty save for armoured vehicles, including one that blocked access to the government hospital.

‘I think it’s the worst day since the start of the raid... We hear from time to time clashes and sometimes there is big bombing,’ said hospital director Wisam Bakr.

Water and electricity were cut off from the hospital during the raid, forcing it to rely on a generator and water tank, he told AFP.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’s October 7 attack.

The United Nations said Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.

Nineteen Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.

Among those killed since Wednesday were an 82-year-old man, said the Palestinian news agency Wafa, and two teenagers, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which said another 55 had been wounded.

Britain, France and Spain expressed concerns about Israel’s West Bank operation, with Madrid denouncing ‘an outbreak of violence which is clearly unacceptable’.

In Gaza, Israel pushed on with its deadly offensive in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said rescuers had pulled 29 bodies from the rubble since dawn and transported dozens of wounded to hospitals across the devastated territory.

On Friday, a medical source at the southern Nasser Hospital said an Israeli strike killed three people near the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Israeli shelling in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed two people on the same day, the civil defence agency said.

The fighting has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 40,691 people in Gaza.

The war has drawn in Iran-backed groups from around the region and raised fears of a wider conflict.

On Saturday, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it had launched ‘explosives-laden drones’ at Israel’s Beit Hillel barracks ‘in response’ to Israeli attacks.​

 

[Saif]

Israel recovers hostage bodies from Gaza

Israel announced Sunday its troops had found six dead hostages in a Gaza tunnel, as Israeli police said a ‘shooting attack’ in the occupied West Bank killed three officers...

www.newagebd.net

Israel recovers hostage bodies from Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 01 September, 2024, 23:46

Israel announced Sunday its troops had found six dead hostages in a Gaza tunnel, as Israeli police said a ‘shooting attack’ in the occupied West Bank killed three officers.

The deadly shooting near Hebron added to surging violence in the West Bank, which is separated from Gaza by Israeli territory and where Israel has since Wednesday carried out a large-scale military operation that has sparked international concern.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, ‘humanitarian pauses’ in the nearly 11-month war between Israel and Hamas were set to take place to facilitate a massive polio vaccination drive which a health official said had begun.

Israel’s military said the remains of six hostages were recovered Saturday ‘from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area’ in southern Gaza and formally identified in Israel.

They were named as Carmel Gat, who was taken from a kibbutz community near the Gaza border, as well as Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino, US-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Russian-Israeli Alexander Lobanov, who were seized by Palestinian militants from a music festival site.

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said all six ‘were abducted alive on the morning of October 7’ and ‘brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them’.

US president Joe Biden said he was ‘devastated and outraged’ by their deaths, but told reporters he was ‘still optimistic’ a Gaza truce and hostage release deal can be reached.w

‘It’s time this war ended,’ said Biden, whose administration has been involved in ceasefire mediation efforts along with Qatar and Egypt.

EU top diplomat Josep Borrell said he was ‘horrified at the murder’ of the hostages, and British prime minister Keir Starmer expressed shock at their ‘senseless’ killing.

The six were among 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7 attack that triggered the on-going war, 97 of whom remain captive in Gaza including 33 the army says are dead. Scores were released during a negotiated one-week truce in November.

Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said a negotiated ‘deal for the return of the hostages’ was urgently needed.

‘Were it not for the delays, sabotage and excuses’ in months of mediation efforts, the six hostages ‘would likely still be alive’.

The families called for a nationwide general strike from Sunday night to force the government to reach a deal to secure the release of those still held.

A senior Hamas official said that ‘some’ of the six had been ‘approved’ for release in a potential hostage-prisoner swap as part of a deal yet to be agreed.

Critics in Israel have accused prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political gain.

Speaking to Lobanov’s parents on Sunday, Netanyahu said: ‘I would like to tell you how much I regret and request forgiveness for not succeeding in bringing Sasha back alive.’

Qatar-based Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said the six were ‘killed by Zionist Israeli bombing’, an accusation the military denied.

Netanyahu blamed Hamas leaders ‘who kill hostages and do not want an agreement’, vowing to ‘settle the score’ with them.

Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 40,738 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The fighting has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis. Water, sanitation and medical facilities have been ravaged, contributing to the spread of preventable disease.

After the first confirmed polio case in 25 years, a Gaza health official said vaccinations began Saturday ahead of a wider campaign.

The World Health Organisation has said Israel agreed to a series of three-day ‘humanitarian pauses’ to facilitate the campaign that aims to reach some 6,40,000 children.

On Sunday, it was formally launched at three health centres in central Gaza, said Yasser Shaaban, director of Al-Awda hospital.

‘We hope this vaccination campaign for children will be calm,’ said Shaaban, noting there were ‘a lot of drones’ flying overhead.

Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, later said nearly 2,000 children were vaccinated initially Sunday.

But she added that they were anxious about later: ‘If the bombing continues after 2:00pm this is of course going to impact the vaccination campaign, the only way to do this is a ceasefire.’

Wateridge later reported a strike in the Nuseirat area.

The civil defence agency said an Israeli air strike killed two people in Gaza City further north, where an AFP correspondent also reported shelling early Sunday.

Israeli forces and Palestinian militants were battling in the West Bank Sunday, five days into major coordinated raids Israel’s military has described as ‘counter-terrorism’ operations.

A ‘shooting attack’ near Tarqumiya checkpoint in the Hebron area in the southern West Bank killed three people on Sunday, Israel’s emergency medical service said. The police said they were all members of the force.

The military said several assailants may have been involved.

In the northern West Bank, an AFP photographer saw Israeli bulldozers in Jenin’s city centre, a day after a local official said soldiers had destroyed most of the streets and power and water had been cut off in the adjacent refugee camp.

At least 22 Palestinians, including 14 claimed by militant groups, have been killed by the Israeli military since the start on Wednesday of simultaneous raids across the northern West Bank.

A 20-year-old soldier was killed Saturday.

The United Nations said Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.

Twenty-three Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to official figures.​

 

[Saif]

Beyond bombs and bullets: the full tally of Gaza’s dead

ISRAEL’S assault on Gaza has now officially surpassed the gruesome milestone of 40,000 Palestinians dead, but in counting only those killed in direct acts of violence that number captures just a fraction of the human loss...

www.newagebd.net

Beyond bombs and bullets: the full tally of Gaza’s dead
03 September, 2024, 00:00

| Counter Punch/WAFA

For every person killed by direct violence in recent wars, another three to 15 died due to conflict-induced factors, mainly preventable diseases and hunger that resulted from losing access to healthcare, shelter, food, and clean drinking water, writes Spencer Osberg

ISRAEL’S assault on Gaza has now officially surpassed the gruesome milestone of 40,000 Palestinians dead, but in counting only those killed in direct acts of violence that number captures just a fraction of the human loss.

‘Most civilian casualties in war are not the result of direct exposure to bombs and bullets,’ noted a 2017 study published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, ‘they are due to the destruction of the essentials of daily living, including food, water, shelter, and health care.’

This broader understanding of conflict casualties was applied to Gaza in a July study published in The Lancet, one of the world’s premier medical journals. The study found that at that time, it was plausible to assume that Israel’s military campaign would be responsible for the deaths of some 186,000 people.

To calculate this number, the authors started with the almost 37,400 direct deaths the Gaza health authorities had confirmed as of June 19, with Israeli intelligence services themselves deeming the authority’s counting reliable. The authors then cited a survey of armed conflicts over the last several decades that showed the ratio of direct to indirect deaths was roughly between 1:3 and 1:15.

In other words, for every person killed by direct violence in recent wars, another three to 15 died due to conflict-induced factors, mainly preventable diseases and hunger that resulted from losing access to healthcare, shelter, food, and clean drinking water. The Lancet authors then assumed a rather conservative ratio of 1:4 direct to indirect deaths in Gaza — 37,400 direct deaths plus 149,600 indirect deaths — to arrive at their estimate.

Notably, while Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel killed more than 1,000 people, the direct-to-indirect casualty ratio is not applicable given that the wider Israeli population was not denied the necessities of life for any significant period.

In Gaza, the 1:4 ratio is conservative given that the Israeli air force has subjected Gaza to the most intense bombing campaign in history. In the first 200 days of the onslaught alone, the Israeli air force dropped 20 times more bombs per square kilometer on Gaza than the US did during nine years of the Vietnam War, previously history’s most intense bombing campaign that had itself dwarfed those during World War II. This has left most buildings in Gaza damaged or destroyed and 80 percent of the population displaced, often numerous times.

The Israeli army has also blocked most food, water, fuel, electricity, and humanitarian and medical supplies from entering the strip since October 7. Today, this has left almost half a million Gazans facing ‘catastrophic’ levels of food insecurity, according to the UN, with more than 1.6 million people suffering from acute respiratory infections, jaundice, and diarrhoea, 20 of the strip’s 36 hospitals inoperable and the remainder ‘partially functional.’

The impact of losing access to healthcare is starkly illustrated by the example of pregnant women in Gaza, estimated at 50,000 when the war began. Many have miscarried and are having stillbirths, faced C-sections with unsensitized equipment and without anaesthetic, while increasing numbers of newborns are ‘simply dying,’ according to the World Health Organization, because starving mothers are giving birth to critically underweight babies.

The Israeli campaign in Gaza — for which the world’s top two international courts are pursuing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Israeli state and its leaders — has continued unabated since The Lancet published its study. With no reason to believe that the 1:4 ratio of direct to indirect deaths has decreased, the 40,000 Gazans now confirmed killed by violent means entails that the total deaths attributable to the Israeli campaign would be pushing past 200,000. That is 9 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population.

The Israeli army claimed in August that it had killed 17,000 Hamas fighters. While yet to comment on this latest assertion, Hamas itself has said previous Israeli statements of its losses were inflated by more than two-thirds. Regardless of which is closer to the truth, what the range makes clear is that combatants make up a fraction of the 200,000 total deaths for which Israel is responsible.

To properly place the Gaza death toll within the context of historical atrocities, consider that the first extermination camp the Nazis established during WWII, near Chelmno in German-occupied Poland, massacred at least 172,000 innocent people, while the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan during the same war and their radioactive aftermath are estimated to have killed more than 210,000 souls.

Perhaps most tragically, Gaza Health Ministry figures show that of the 40,000 direct deaths reached by August, 41 per cent were children younger than 18 years old. Children tend to be disproportionately affected by the harms of armed conflict. Thus, it is likely that the ratio of indirect deaths within this age bracket is greater than for the general population. However, using The Lancet’s 1:4 ratio as a baseline, it is plausible to assume that the number of children Israel’s Gaza campaign will be responsible for killing is at least 82,000.

For perspective, three children who were laid side-by-side holding hands would take up roughly a meter’s width on average. Some 82,000 children laid side-by-side would form a line over 27 kilometres long. An average person standing on a flat plain would see that line of dead children stretch from them to the horizon and well beyond. That person would have to walk for five and a half hours to reach the end of the line. The drive would take more than 15 minutes on the highway, traveling at 100 km per hour.

All that would apply if today the war ended. As of this writing, however, Israel was still bombing Gaza and blocking access to life’s necessities, thereby ensuring the line of bodies will continue stretching well into the distance.

CounterPunch.org, September 2. Spencer Osberg is a senior editor at Badil, a Beirut, Lebanon initiative committed to restoring the media’s crucial function to uphold political accountability.​

 

[Saif]

Israelis go on strike for Gaza deal after hostage deaths

Strike action brought parts of Israel to a halt on Monday in a bid to raise pressure on the government to secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, after the military recovered the bodies of six captives that the health ministry said had been ‘murdered’ by Hamas...

www.newagebd.net

Israelis go on strike for Gaza deal after hostage deaths
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 03 September, 2024, 00:12

Strike action brought parts of Israel to a halt on Monday in a bid to raise pressure on the government to secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, after the military recovered the bodies of six captives that the health ministry said had been ‘murdered’ by Hamas.

Relatives and demonstrators have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of not doing enough to bring the hostages back alive, and during mass rallies on Sunday called for a truce deal to help free dozens who remain captive.

The military said on Sunday the bodies of six hostages, who were all captured alive during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war, had been recovered from a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip, prompting outpourings of grief and fury.

The Israeli health ministry said post-mortem examinations showed the six had been ‘murdered with several close-range gunshots’ shortly before they were found by troops.

The Histadrut trade union called a nationwide strike beginning at 6:00am (0300 GMT) ‘for the return’ of the remaining 97 hostages, including 33 the military says are dead.

Several major cities across Israel joined the strike, closing schools and municipal services for several hours. Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv was operating ‘as usual’, a spokeswoman said, but takeoffs were halted for two hours.

In Jerusalem and some other cities, life appeared to go on as usual. Some private companies, like public transportation providers, have partially suspended operations in support of the strike.

The strike followed a day of mass protests on Sunday that saw tens of thousands on the streets of Tel Aviv and elsewhere, part of a series of anti-government rallies during the war. On Monday, protesters again blocked roads in Tel Aviv.

Histadrut chief Arnon Bar-David said he wanted to ‘stop the abandonment of the hostages’, adding that ‘only our intervention can shake those who need to be shaken’, an apparent reference to top Israeli decision-makers who have opposed a truce or stalled in months of negotiations.

Out of 251 hostages seized during the October 7 attack, only eight have been rescued alive by Israeli forces but scores were released during a one-week truce in November — the only one so far.

Mediation efforts led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt since then have repeatedly stalled.

US president Joe Biden is due to convene a meeting with his negotiating team later on Monday to ‘discuss efforts to drive towards a deal that secures the release of the remaining hostages’ following ‘the murder’ in captivity of the six including US-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the White House said.

Israel named the five others as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino and Russian-Israeli Alexander Lobanov.

On Sunday, Biden said he was ‘still optimistic’ a deal could be reached.

Yair Keshet, uncle of hostage Yarden Bibas, said during Sunday’s protest in Tel Aviv that the government needed to ‘stop everything and to make a deal’, which campaigners say is the best option to ensure the return of the remaining captives.

On the ground in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, civil defence rescuers said an Israeli strike on Sunday killed 11 people at a school where Israel’s military said a Hamas command centre was based.

The fighting continued on Monday, coinciding with the second day of localised ‘humanitarian pauses’ to facilitate a vaccination drive after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years.

An AFP correspondent reported some air strikes overnight, and the civil defence agency said artillery shelling and gunfire rocked Gaza City, where two people were killed when a missile hit a residential block.

Louise Wateridge, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 87,000 children received a first dose of the polio vaccine on Sunday in central Gaza.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini called the inoculation campaign a ‘race against time to reach just over 6,00,000 children’ in the war-torn territory of 2.4 million people.

‘For this to work, parties to the conflict must respect the temporary area pauses,’ he said.

The Israeli military campaign against Hamas has so far killed at least 40,738 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The October 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians and including hostages killed in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The war has sent regional tensions soaring, with violence surging in the occupied West Bank, which is separated from Gaza by Israeli territory.

At least 24 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched simultaneous raids on Wednesday across the northern West Bank. Militant groups have claimed 14 of the dead as members.

A shooting Sunday in the southern West Bank killed three Israeli police officers, authorities have said. The military said the suspected assailant was ‘eliminated’ following a manhunt.

Middle Eastern and Western governments as well as UN officials have called on Israel to end the large-scale operations in the Palestinian territory, which it has occupied since 1967.

In the city of Jenin, the streets were largely deserted and most shops were closed on Monday, after loud explosions and clashes were heard during the night.

Israeli bulldozers in the Jenin city centre and other areas have caused damage to infrastructure including water systems, officials have said.

‘No one dares to go out,’ said Jenin resident Adel Marai Egbaria.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli PM signals no appetite for Gaza truce

Remains defiant amid mounting criticism at home, abroad; 18 more die in Gaza

www.thedailystar.net

Israeli PM signals no appetite for Gaza truce
Remains defiant amid mounting criticism at home, abroad; 18 more die in Gaza

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a college sheltering displaced people, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in the northern Gaza Strip, September 3, 2024. Photo: Reuters

Concerns grew today over the chances of securing a Gaza truce, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected making any "concessions" in stalled talks towards a hostage release deal.

Netanyahu told a televised press conference at the end of a day of nationwide protests that he would "not give in to pressure" to renege on demands in indirect negotiations with Hamas to end the war, now nearing its 12th month.

Analyst Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group said Netanyahu's remarks showed "he won't stop the war... until Hamas surrenders, and he basically announced there won't be a hostage deal".

Gripped by grief and fury after six dead hostages were recovered from Gaza, Israelis took to the streets on Sunday and Monday to ramp up pressure on their government to secure the release of the remaining captives.

The military said the six were all captured alive during Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war, and shot dead by the captors shortly before troops had found them.

"These murderers executed six of our hostage," said Netanyahu, who has increasingly faced accusations from critics in Israel as well as Hamas officials and analysts of prolonging the war for political gain.

US President Joe Biden, who on Monday met negotiators working alongside Qatar and Egypt to try to secure a truce deal, replied "no" when asked by reporters in Washington if he thought Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a hostage deal.

The veteran Israeli leader, whose ruling coalition relies on the support of far-right ministers opposed to a truce, insisted that "we say yes" while it is Hamas that has refused to make concessions.

"I will not give in to pressure," Netanyahu told the press conference, saying Israel must control Gaza's border with Egypt, the Philadelphi Corridor, to stop Hamas from re-arming.

Israeli left-leaning daily Haaretz said Netanyahu was "masking his motives with security concerns" but said he was primarily concerned with his own political survival.

"His coalition... might unravel if a Gaza deal goes through," it said.

Netanyahu "wants to occupy Gaza on some level indefinitely" and was now "just saying it more openly", Zonszein told AFP.

Despite "huge opposition" among Israelis who support a Gaza deal, "there's also nobody in the political realm that's able to challenge him," said the analyst.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967 and maintained troops and settlers there until 2005, when it withdrew but imposed a crippling blockade and, since the start of the current war, a siege.

Meanwhile, in West Bank, Israeli forces were operating today in the northern areas nearly a week into military raids in the occupied territory that the Palestinian health ministry said killed at least 27.

An Israeli air strike overnight that the military said targeted militants in Tulkarem killed a 15-year-old Palestinian, said a hospital source in the city.

The correspondent said paved streets had been overturned by Israeli bulldozers in several areas, which the army says is a way to detonate explosive devices hidden under roads.

The Jenin city council said that 70 percent of roads and streets have been destroyed since the start of the raid.

Fighting meanwhile raged on in Gaza. At least 16 people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks since dawn, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Earlier, civil defence rescuers reported two killed, including a child, in an Israeli strike that hit a displacement camp near Khan Yunis today.

The civil defence agency as well as witnesses and AFP correspondents reported more air strikes and artillery shelling across southern and central Gaza.

Israel's military campaign against Gaza has so far killed at least 40,819 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

With Gaza lying in ruins and the majority of the 2.4 million residents forced to flee, often taking refuge in cramped and unsanitary conditions, disease has spread.

After the first confirmed polio case in 25 years, a vaccination drive got underway Sunday with localised "humanitarian pauses" to the fighting.

The World Health Organization today said more than 161,000 children received an initial dose. It added that the first round would take another 10 days.​

 

[Saif]

Time for a Gaza truce deal: US

The United States said on Tuesday it was time to ‘finalise’ a deal between Israel and Hamas to end the Gaza war, after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to bow to pressure...

www.newagebd.net

Time for a Gaza truce deal: US
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 05 September, 2024, 00:25

The United States said on Tuesday it was time to ‘finalise’ a deal between Israel and Hamas to end the Gaza war, after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to bow to pressure.

Washington would work ‘over the coming days’ with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar ‘to push for a final agreement,’ said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

He was speaking after Netanyahu rejected ‘concessions’ in indirect negotiations with Hamas, despite growing domestic and international pressure following the recovery by Israel’s military of six killed hostages from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

‘It is time to finalise that deal,’ Miller said.

The United States on Tuesday unsealed a raft of ‘terrorism’ and other charges against six Hamas leaders related to the group’s October 7 attack on Israel which sparked the war in Gaza.

Those targeted in the February charges include Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar and his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh, who had been engaged in truce talks when he was killed in July in an attack blamed on Israel.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk called for an ‘independent, impartial and transparent investigation’ into reports that the six captives recovered dead from Gaza had been summarily executed.

Despite increasing grief and fury among Israelis, who have taken to the streets to pressure the government and express concern for the fate of the hostages, Netanyahu said he would ‘not give in to pressure’.

The Israeli prime minister ‘has been ruining our chances to get a deal with Hamas to return our hostages alive,’ Tel Aviv protester Jonathan Edan said Tuesday.

‘The only thing he wants to survive is his political career and his coalition,’ the 26-year-old said.

The Israeli premier on Monday said ‘the achievement of the war’s objectives’ requires control of the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, to stop Hamas from rearming.

Egypt on Tuesday rejected accusations its Gaza border was being used to arm Hamas, accusing Netanyahu of seeking to ‘distract Israeli public opinion and obstruct reaching a ceasefire deal’.

Saudi Arabia backed Cairo and expressed its ‘strong condemnation and denunciation of the Israeli statements regarding the Philadelphi Corridor’, in a foreign ministry statement.

US president Joe Biden, meeting with negotiators, replied ‘no’ when asked if he thought Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a hostage deal.

Hamas has long demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and Egyptian officials have objected to an Israeli military presence on the border.

Netanyahu ‘wants to occupy Gaza on some level indefinitely’ and was now ‘just saying it more openly’, analyst Mairav Zonszein said.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967 and maintained troops and settlers there until 2005, when it withdrew but imposed a crippling blockade and, since the start of the current war, a total siege.

Increasing the pressure on Israel, Britain on Monday said it would suspend some arms exports, citing a ‘clear risk’ they could be used in a serious breach of international humanitarian law.

On Tuesday, the civil defence spokesman in Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli raid on a college killed two people and wounded 30.

Israel’s military said it had targeted ‘Hamas terrorists’ at a Gaza City college.

The civil defence agency, witnesses and AFP correspondents also reported air strikes and shelling across southern and central Gaza.

As Israeli forces keep up their bombardment of Gaza, the military said Wednesday it ‘intercepted a hostile UAV that approached Israel from the east’ of the country bordering Jordan.

Soldiers also pressed ahead with a week-long assault in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces have killed at least 30 Palestinians across the northern West Bank since August 28, the territory’s health ministry says, while Israel’s military reported one soldier killed in the ‘counter-terrorism’ raids.

Israeli troops have destroyed infrastructure and hindered medics, with the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA saying Israeli forces refused its attempt on Tuesday to reach the community in Jenin.

An AFP journalist saw Palestinian medics trying to pass Israeli troops to reach people trapped in Jenin refugee camp, only to turn back.

‘The situation is very catastrophic,’ said volunteer medic Faraj al-Jundi, after being denied entry.

‘We tried to help with what we could.’

Israel’s campaign against Hamas since October 7 has killed at least 40,819 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians and including hostages killed in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the attack, 97 remain in Gaza including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. Scores were released during a one-week truce in November — the only one so far.

Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said Monday remaining hostages would return ‘inside coffins’ if Israel maintains its military pressure on the territory.

With Gaza in ruins and the majority of its 2.4 million residents forced to flee, often taking refuge in cramped and unsanitary conditions, disease has spread.

After the first confirmed polio case in 25 years, a vaccination drive began Sunday amid localised ‘humanitarian pauses’ in the fighting.

More than 1,61,000 children have now received a first vaccine dose in central Gaza, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday. It aims to fully vaccinate more than 6,40,000 children altogether.​