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

[Saif]

Hamas for independent Palestinian government in post-war Gaza

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Saif]

At least 71 killed in Israeli airstrikes at Gaza humanitarian camp

Israel says it target Hamas military chief, Hamas denies

www.thedailystar.net

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ATTACK 'SURPRISING', SAY WITNESSES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Saif]

UN agency for Palestinians says has funds until end of September

Photo: AFP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Saif]

Israel attacks Palestinians from land, sea, air

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hamas said on Sunday it was withdrawing from ceasefire talks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Saif]

UNRWA headquarters ‘flattened’ as destruction of Gaza continues

THE massacres of Palestinian civilians by Israel continue...

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

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

THE massacres of Palestinian civilians by Israel continue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Saif]

Israel carries out new raids in Gaza as Netanyahu visits US

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

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PALESTINIANS CRITICISE US

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Saif]

Israel's war is having multiple ripple effects in Gaza

World leaders must recognise the urgency of interventions

www.thedailystar.net

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

VISUAL: STAR

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

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

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

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