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

[Saif]

MSF facing ‘critical’ medical supply shortage

Aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned of “critical” shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, with no resupply for more than two months as fighting between Israel and Hamas wears on.

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ISRAELI OFFENSIVE IN GAZA
MSF facing 'critical' medical supply shortage

Aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned of "critical" shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, with no resupply for more than two months as fighting between Israel and Hamas wears on.

The group known by its French initials MSF is "facing critical shortages of many things like gauze, gloves... things like that," Amber Alayyan, who works on the Palestinian territories for its French branch, told AFP on Wednesday.

The aid group warned last week in a statement it had been unable to bring any medical supplies into Gaza since the end of April and called on Israel to open more crossing points into the territory.

MSF staff have shifted to changing wound dressings every four days rather than the usual two to save on supplies

"We're seeing people who are injured in bombings, in shootings, in drone attacks," Alayyan said.

"We're seeing people who are living in such poor conditions that they're cooking on the floor."

MSF staff have shifted to changing wound dressings every four days rather than the usual two to save on supplies, paediatrician Alayyan added.

MSF now risks running out of vital medication such as anaesthetics needed for surgery.

"If we have to continue going like this... we won't be able to operate. We won't operate without anaesthesia," Alayyan said.

UNRWA, the United Nations body responsible for Palestinian refugees, estimated last month that around 10 children per day were losing one or both legs in Gaza.

Where MSF is involved, "most of the amputations... are being done as life-saving amputations," Alayyan said.

Afterwards, "we don't even have enough wheelchairs in our own hospital... much less prosthetic devices", she added.

With around 88,000 people wounded in Gaza, according to the health ministry, it will be a "proper catastrophe for years to come in terms of post-operative care, wound care, amputations, prosthetics", Alayyan said.

"Gaza itself needs to be rebuilt. So it's going to have to be rebuilt with wheelchair-accessible ramps all over the place for the thousands of people who are going to be in wheelchairs," she said.

"The offensive needs to stop... the healthcare system is completely destroyed."

After initially blocking all deliveries into Gaza, Israel reopened Kerem Shalom in December under international pressure.

An average of 250 trucks now cross the checkpoint daily according to COGAT, still well below UN figure of 500 aid and commercial trucks before the offensive.

Independent UN rights experts accused Israel on Tuesday of a "targeted starvation campaign" in the Gaza, where they said 34 Palestinians have died of malnutrition since October.​

 

[Saif]

Biden, US complicit in alleged war crimes

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said US President Joe Biden and his administration are complicit in what he called Israeli war crimes and violations of international law in the Gaza conflict, and he called for sanctions against Israel.

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Biden, US complicit in alleged war crimes
Says Erdogan

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese village of Tairharfa yesterday. Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, have exchanged near daily cross-border fire since the Gaza offensive began on October 7, stoking fears of an escalation into all-out war. Photo: AFP

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said US President Joe Biden and his administration are complicit in what he called Israeli war crimes and violations of international law in the Gaza conflict, and he called for sanctions against Israel.
In an interview with Newsweek during the Nato summit in Washington, Erdogan said Israel's "brutal murder" of civilians, its strikes on hospitals, aid centres and elsewhere constituted war crimes.

"The US administration, however, disregards these violations and provides Israel with the most support. They do so at the expense of being complicit in these violations," Erdogan was quoted as saying.​

 

[Saif]

Battles rock Gaza City after mass evacuation order

Heavy combat and bombardment hit Gaza City and other parts of the Palestinian territory on Friday as mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war raging into its...

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Battles rock Gaza City after mass evacuation order
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 13 July, 2024, 00:43

People walk on rubble at the damaged UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees building complex in western Gaza City's Al-Sinaa neighbouhood on Friday, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the besieged Palestinian territory. | AFP photo

Heavy combat and bombardment hit Gaza City and other parts of the Palestinian territory on Friday as mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war raging into its tenth month.

US President Joe Biden said at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday that US diplomats, despite problems, were making 'progress' with international mediators towards a ceasefire and stressed that 'it's time to end this war'.

Media linked to the territory's rulers Hamas, whose October 7 attack sparked the bloodiest ever Gaza conflict, said that Israeli forces had launched more than 70 new air strikes.

Gaza's health ministry reported 32 deaths, saying that the 'martyrs, a majority of them children and women, were taken to hospitals overnight, because of continued massacres'.

Israel's military said it was also fighting in the Rafah area, in the south, where its troops had 'eliminated numerous terrorists in close-quarters combat and aerial strikes'.

A major focus of recent battles and mass displacement has been the biggest urban area, Gaza City, where two weeks of fighting devastated the eastern district of Shujaiya.

Gaza's civil defence agency said dozens of bodies have been found under the rubble of what was now a 'disaster zone', with 85 percent of buildings uninhabitable.

Gaza City had been the focus of Israeli ground operations early in the war.

Israeli troops and tanks have, since Shujaiya, swept into other Gaza City districts to fight Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, including in the vacated headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinians UNRWA.

The army dropped thousands of leaflets Wednesday urging all Gaza City residents to flee the 'dangerous combat zone' — an area where the United Nations said up to 350,000 people were staying.

One of the newly displaced, Umm Ihab Arafat, sat with her children on a sand pile amid the rubble as the incessant hum of Israeli drones filled the sky.

'I have been displaced four times,' she said, pleading for a break for her and her children. 'They are entitled to rest, their eyes are full of horror and fear'.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that 'entire families are trapped and desperately seek security. The huge needs are beyond our capacity to respond'.

The ICRC said Gaza City's people had been instructed to move south "to areas that are overcrowded, lacking in essential services and are experiencing hostilities".

Israel and Hamas have engaged in months of indirect talks via Qatari and Egyptian mediators to reach a so far elusive truce and hostage release deal.

At the latest meeting in Doha on Wednesday, Israeli and US officials talked conditions for peace with Qatari mediators.

The head of Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency Ronen Bar was headed for talks in Cairo, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

Netanyahu again insisted that any deal must allow Israel to meet its war aims of bringing home all hostages and destroying Hamas.

He also said Israel needs to maintain control of Gaza's southern border to prevent 'weapons to be smuggled to Hamas from Egypt'.

A leading South African judge, whose country has brought Israel to the top world court over Gaza, said "hardly anything" will deter Israel's offensive.

Biden has laid out what he called an Israeli plan which would see a six week truce in which hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians in Israeli prisons would be freed. A second phase would see talks on a full end to the war.

Biden acknowledged Thursday that "difficult, complex issues" remain but insisted that 'we're making progress'. 'The trend is positive,' he said, 'and I'm determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now.'

Biden also stood firm on his decision to hold up delivery of massive 2,000-pound bombs, over concerns they could be used in populated areas, even as his administration moves forward on sending Israel less powerful 500-pound munitions.

He again pressed Israel for a 'day-after' plan for Gaza and spoke of his diplomacy to persuade Arab states to help with security.

Hamas has proposed an independent and non-partisan government for both post-war Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank during ceasefire negotiations, said Hossam Badran, a member of the group's political bureau.

The war started after Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel 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-ruled Gaza.

Israel also imposed a punishing siege on the territory of 2.4 million people, pushing many to the brink of starvation.

The World Health Organization said that only five trucks carrying medical supplies were allowed into Gaza last week, while over 70 more are waiting at the border.

A problem-plagued US effort to get aid in by sea will soon end permanently, the United States military said.

US troops built the $230-million pier but the temporary facility has been repeatedly damaged by poor weather.

Biden said he had been 'hopeful that would be more successful'.​

 

[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

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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.​