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

[Saif]

30 killed in Gaza school strike

An Israeli strike on a school killed 30 people on Saturday, after a days-long military operation further south left around 170 dead, according to emergency services...

www.newagebd.net

30 killed in Gaza school strike
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 28 July, 2024, 00:39

An Israeli strike on a school killed 30 people on Saturday, after a days-long military operation further south left around 170 dead, according to emergency services.

The latest strike, which Israel said targeted 'terrorists', was at least the eighth time since July 6 a school has been hit, leaving a total of more than 100 people dead, based on figures given by the health ministry and a hospital source.

With most of the Gaza Strip's 2.4 million people displaced at least once during the war, many have sought refuge in school buildings including the one hit on Saturday.

The health ministry reported '30 martyrs and more than 100 wounded' in the strike on Khadija school in the central Deir el-Balah area.

Further south, in the Khan Yunis city area, around 170 people have been killed 'and hundreds wounded' in an Israeli operation since Monday, Gaza's civil defence agency said.

It issued the toll after the military warned of new operations in the Khan Yunis area, where troops had earlier recovered the bodies of five Israelis killed during the October 7 attack and held in Gaza since.

Egyptian state-linked media said Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators are to meet with Israeli negotiators in Rome on Sunday in the latest push for a Gaza truce, which critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have accused him of blocking.

Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,258 people. Its latest toll on Saturday included 83 deaths over the previous 48 hours.

In the southern city of Rafah, medics said four people were killed in an air strike on a house.

Al-Qahera News, which has links to Egyptian intelligence, reported on Friday that talks 'to reach agreement on a truce in Gaza' would take place in Rome on Sunday. US media outlet Axios separately reported that CIA Director Bill Burns was expected to attend.

The latest mediation efforts have focused on a ceasefire and hostage release accompanied by the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

In a meeting in Washington on Thursday, US President Joe Biden called on Netanyahu to 'finalise' a deal and 'reach a durable end to the war in Gaza', the White House said.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Saturday called for a 'political solution' to end the 'madness' in Gaza after the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said an Israeli strike on a school had killed 30 people.

'Ceasefire has to happen now. International Humanitarian Law has to be respected. Humanitarian assistance to civilians needs to be delivered at scale. Only a political solution will end this madness,' Borrell said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In another post, he said 'yet another attack on a school used as a shelter for internal displaced people in Khan Younis... At the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight'.

Irish prime minister Simon Harris on Saturday accused Israel of 'unconscionable violence' after the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli strike on a school had killed 30 people.

'This latest attack on a school by the Israeli military is a further demonstration of brutal, unconscionable violence,' Harris said in a statement.

'Targeting an area populated with displaced families is inhumane and despicable,' he added.

Israel said Saturday it targeted 'terrorists' in the strike—at least the eighth time since July 6 that a school has been hit by its forces.

Harris said it 'continues to use disproportionate force and is engaging in a war that is having an unacceptable level of civilian death and injury, especially to children'.

The Irish leader reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire alongside the release of all hostages held by Hamas and 'unimpeded access for aid' into Gaza.

'The bloodshed and suffering need to end,' Harris added.​

 

[Saif]

Indirect deaths in Gaza three to 15 times more than direct deaths: Lancet

As the Israeli genocidal war machine moved on to invade Gaza in late October last year, it was killing anyone who moved and destroying anything that stood. The Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) is both massacring Palestinians and destroying their physical and social infrastructure. Even before the cur

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Indirect deaths in Gaza three to 15 times more than direct deaths: Lancet
MUHAMMAD MAHMOOD
Published :
Jul 27, 2024 21:51
Updated :
Jul 27, 2024 21:51

Palestinian workers bury a body at a grave for victims killed in the Hamas-Israel conflict in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Janurary 30, 2024 — Xinhua Photo

As the Israeli genocidal war machine moved on to invade Gaza in late October last year, it was killing anyone who moved and destroying anything that stood. The Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) is both massacring Palestinians and destroying their physical and social infrastructure. Even before the current war, the Gaza strip was hermitically blockaded by Israel for 17 years, turning it into an open-air prison. In fact, the Israeli blockade rendered the impoverished Gaza Strip virtually "unliveable", a term used by the then UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk in 2018.

The Gaza Ministry of Health estimates that the total number of Palestinians dead exceeds 38,000, of which more than 15,000 are children in early July. The total number of casualties is well above 120,000 and most of its 2.3 million population are displaced. According to the Wall Street Journal, by mid-December last year almost 70 per cent of Gaza's 439,000 homes and half of its buildings have been destroyed or damaged. Now the situation is far worse.

According to a statement issued on June 19 by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, close to 70 per cent of Gaza's water, sanitation facilities and infrastructure have been destroyed or damaged, leading to the spreading of infectious diseases.

The Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) in pursuance of its genocidal war also destroyed the Gaza headquarters of UNRWA levelling it to the ground. UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini posted the images of destruction and commented, "UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened.''

A group of highly qualified independent UN experts declared early this month that because of a deliberate policy of mass starvation against Palestinians pursued by the Israeli government, famine has spread throughout the entire Gaza strip. The experts clearly condemned Israel deliberate policy of mass starvation in Gaza and said, "We declare that Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and resulted in famine across all of Gaza."

Compounding the food and water crisis is the pollution caused by mountains of solid waste piling up across whole of Gaza. The 2,000-pound bombs dropped by Israel are changing the landscape in Gaza. So far 14, 000 of these 2,000-pound bombs have been supplied by the US. Also, about 10 per cent of bombs dropped on Gaza did not explode on impact. It is reported that more than 10 explosions of these unexploded ordnance happen every week.

As murderous air assaults along with ground offensives continue, the Gaza Ministry of Health reports that 38,400 Palestinians have been killed and wounded more than 88,000 by the beginning of July. However, the Lancet, the prestigious British medical Journal calculates that 186,000 or more Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) in Gaza, accounting for 8 per cent of Gaza's pre-war population. The estimate is based on a conservative estimate of "indirect deaths" by the genocidal attack on Gaza. A similar percentage of the population of the US would be 26 million people.

This figure is far more than the figure of 37,396 provided by the Gaza Health Ministry at the time of the preparation of the study. The study pointed out that the estimated death toll is higher because the official death toll does not take into account thousands of dead buried under rubble and indirect deaths caused by the destruction of health facilities, food distribution systems and other public infrastructure.

The Lancet report noted, "In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000or more deaths could be attributed to the current conflict in Gaza."

But there are reasons to question the validity of these low benchmark assumptions given the fact that various Israeli ministers and officials have explicitly stated a goal of killing Palestinians through starvation and disease. A report published last month by the United Nations commission investigating the Gaza war said, "Israel has used starvation as a method of war, affecting the entire population of the Gaza Strip for decades to come, with particularly negative consequences for children."

The Lancet study further added that even if the Gaza war ends immediately, it will continue to cause many indirect deaths in the coming months and years through diseases. It further added that "collecting data is becoming increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of much of the infrastructure."

The Lancet report clearly demonstrates that the Gaza genocide is one of greatest acts of barbarism in modern history. Yet, the Lancet study has been barely reported in the US and Western mainstream media.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his murderous regime can act as they like because they enjoy the unconditional support of the US and the major European powers like the UK, France and Germany. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC). He travelled to Washington D.C. on July 24 where he addressed a joint session of Congress, essentially to provide a progress report to his principal supporters and paymasters in this genocide.

The Lancet report rightly observed that, "Documenting the true scale is crucial for ensuring historical accountability and acknowledging the full cost of the war. It is also a legal requirement."

Ever since the birth of organised Zionism in 1897, its followers have been determined to establish a Jewish state on a land not theirs but populated by Palestinians. If correctly contextualised, or more precisely it is vitally important to understand that Israel is a colonial settler state. Therefore, it would be impossible to understand the current Israeli genocide that is being carried out in Gaza without understanding the colonial settler context.

As such apartheid was knowingly and deeply entrenched in the construction of Israeli state from the beginning. As historian Rashid Khalili observes the conflict is not between two equal national movements fighting over the same land, but rather is "a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will."

It is evidently clear that the Zionist colonial settler apartheid state called Israel has been at war against Palestinians since its establishment in 1948 with the intent to establish complete control and sovereignty over Palestine. What is happening in Gaza now is not only a war but also genocide to achieve that goal.​

 

[Saif]

Israel vows to hit Hezbollah after rocket kills 12 on football field

Thousands of mourners attended funeral ceremonies on Sunday for the 12 children and teenagers killed by a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as Israel vowed swift retaliation against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams, th

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel vows to hit Hezbollah after rocket kills 12 on football field
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 28, 2024 23:55
Updated :
Jul 28, 2024 23:55

Majdal Shams, Golan Heights, July 28 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Thousands of mourners attended funeral ceremonies on Sunday for the 12 children and teenagers killed by a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as Israel vowed swift retaliation against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct. 7 assault sparked the war in Gaza. That conflict has spread to several fronts and now risks spilling into a wider regional conflict.

Israeli jets hit targets in southern Lebanon overnight but a stronger response was expected following a meeting of the security cabinet at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from a visit to the United States.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was every indication that the rocket, which hit a sports field where children were playing football, had been fired by Hezbollah and said Washington stood by Israel's right to defend itself.

But he said the US did not want a further escalation of the conflict, which has seen daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah along the border.

Britain expressed concern at further escalation while Egypt said the attack could spill "into a comprehensive regional war."
On the ground, families gathered for funerals in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognised by most countries.

Members of the Druze faith, which is related to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, make up more than half the 40,000-strong population of the Golan Heights. Large crowds of mourners, many in traditional high white and red Druze headwear, surrounded the caskets as they were carried through the village.

"A heavy tragedy, a dark day has come to Majdal Shams," said Dolan Abu Saleh, head of the Majdal Shams local council, in comments broadcast on Israeli television.

Hezbollah initially had announced it fired rockets at Israeli military sites in the Golan Heights, but said it had "absolutely nothing" to do with the attack on Majdal Shams.

ISRAEL BLAMES HEZBOLLAH

However, Israel said the rocket was an Iranian-made missile fired from an area north of the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon, placing the blame squarely on the Iranian-backed group and saying Hezbollah was "unequivocally responsible".

It was not immediately clear if the children and teenagers killed in the strike were Israeli citizens, but Israeli officials have vowed retaliation.

"The rocket that murdered our boys and girls was an Iranian rocket and Hezbollah is the only terror organization which has those in its arsenal," Israel's foreign ministry said.

Two security sources told Reuters Hezbollah was on high alert and had cleared out some key sites in both Lebanon's south and the eastern Bekaa Valley in case of an Israeli attack.

Lebanon's Middle East Airlines said it was delaying the arrival of some flights from Sunday night to Monday morning, without stating why.

In the southern port city of Tyre, a little over 20 km (12 miles) from the border, beachgoers were still streaming to the coast. "There's fear that Israel will react, but people are living their life normally," said Ali Husseini, manager of a beachside business in Tyr.

Israeli forces have been exchanging fire for months with Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon but both sides have appeared to be avoiding an escalation that could lead to all-out war, potentially dragging in other powers including the United States and Iran.

However, Saturday's strike threatened to tip the standoff into a more dangerous phase. United Nations officials urged maximum restraint from both sides, warning that escalation could "engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief."

Lebanon has asked the U.S to urge restraint from Israel, Lebanon's foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib told Reuters. Bou Habib said the US had asked Lebanon's government to pass on a message to Hezbollah to show restraint as well.

ALL-OUT WAR FEARED

Iran's foreign ministry warned Israel on Sunday against what it called any new adventure in Lebanon.

Syria's foreign ministry said it held Israel "fully responsible for this dangerous escalation in the region" and said its accusations against Hezbollah were false.

Two diplomats focused on Lebanon said all efforts were now needed to avoid an all-out war.

The conflict has forced tens of thousands of people in both Lebanon and Israel to leave their homes. Israeli strikes have killed some 350 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and more than 100 civilians, including medics, children and journalists.

The Israeli military said after Saturday's attack the death toll among civilians killed in Hezbollah attacks had risen to 23 since October, along with at least 17 soldiers.

Hezbollah is the most powerful of a network of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East and opened a second front against Israel shortly after Hamas' Oct. 7 assault.

Iraqi groups and the Houthis of Yemen have both fired at Israel, which earlier this month attacked the Red Sea port of Hodeidah in retaliation for a strike on Tel Aviv that killed one person. Hamas has also carried out rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon, as has the Lebanese Sunni group, the Jama'a Islamiya.

Druze communities live on both sides of the line between southern Lebanon and northern Israel as well as in the Golan Heights and Syria. While some serve in the Israeli military and identify with Israel, many feel marginalized in Israel and some also reject Israeli citizenship.​

 

[Saif]

Israel targets Hezbollah commander in south Beirut strike

Israel struck Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend, saying it had targeted the commander responsible for the attack

www.thedailystar.net

Israel targets Hezbollah commander in south Beirut strike

A general view shows Beirut's southern suburbs and surroundings after what security sources said was a strike on southern suburbs, Lebanon July 30, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Emilie Madi

Israel struck Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend, saying it had targeted the commander responsible for the attack.

"The IDF [army] carried out a targeted strike in Beirut on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians," the military said in a statement, referring to the Druze Arab town in the annexed Golan Heights where the children were killed on Saturday.

A source close to the Iran-backed militant group confirmed that "a leading commander" was the target of the strike, which hit near the group's decision making body, the Shura Council.

The source added that two people were killed in the strike, but was unable to confirm if the commander was among them.

Minutes after the explosions rocked Beirut, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted on social media site X that "Hezbollah crossed the red line".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had on Monday threatened a "severe response" to the attack which Israel and the United States have blamed on Hezbollah, though the group denies responsibility.

Following Saturday's strike, the international community had raced to head off any escalation that might tip the two into a first all-out conflict since 2006.

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said on Monday he had received assurances from international diplomats that there would be only a limited response.

"Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way... These are the assurances we've received," Bou Habib said in an interview with local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.

Analysts told AFP that they also expected Israel to temper its actions, with its leaders wary of having to fight a second war while its troops are still engaged in the Gaza Strip.

'Constant anxiety'

At least 531 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the near daily cross-border exchanges, according to an AFP tally. Most have been fighters, but the toll includes at least 105 civilians.

The violence has so far killed 22 soldiers and 25 civilians on the Israeli side, including in the Golan Heights, according to army figures.

There was further deadly violence earlier on Tuesday, with Israeli medics saying a 30-year-old civilian had been killed in the northern kibbutz of HaGoshrim. The military said it had killed a Hezbollah fighter during overnight strikes.

Druze residents of the Majdal Shams -- the vast majority of whom have rejected Israeli citizenship and identify as Syrians -- had opposed threats of retaliation for the deadly strike.

Scores of residents had come out to protest Netanyahu's visit after the burial of the last of the victims of the rocket strike.

A paramedic from Majdal Shams, Nabih Abu Saleh, told AFP his community was "against any Israeli response", and asked: "Who will we strike? Our people in Syria and Lebanon?"

A French diplomat told AFP earlier that Paris "alongside other partners, notably the United States, is making all-out efforts to call on the parties to exercise restraint and not to be drawn into spiralling violence".

Multiple international airlines suspended flights to Beirut ahead of Israel's retaliation, although the chairman of Lebanon's Middle East Airlines, Mohammed al-Hout, said Beirut airport, its only international facility, "is not exposed to any threat, it is supposed to be a neutral place", state media reported.

The Lebanese public, meanwhile, has been gripped by worry, with mother of two Cosette Beshara describing living "in a state of constant anxiety".

"I'm always thinking about how I will escape with my children if war breaks out," said the 40-year-old, adding that "life goes on in Lebanon... but always with a looming state of anxiety."

Khan Yunis operation

Hezbollah has said its attacks on northern Israel are in solidarity with Hamas and the people of Gaza, who have been under siege by Israel since October 7.

The Hamas attack on southern Israel that started the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Fighting has raged on unabated in the Gaza Strip, with the territory's civil defence agency saying on Tuesday that around 300 people had been killed in the southern city of Khan Yunis during an Israeli operation there that began on July 22.

"Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, the civil defence and medical teams have recovered approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

The military meanwhile said it had completed its operation in the Khan Yunis area, which had seen heavy fighting earlier this year, and had killed "over 150 terrorists".​

 

[Saif]

UK's Starmer says 'immediate steps' needed towards Gaza ceasefire

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Israel's President Isaac Herzog there needed to be "immediate steps" towards a ceasefire in Israel's conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza. "The Prime Minister said there must be immediate steps towards a ceasefire, so that hostages can be released and more

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

UK's Starmer says 'immediate steps' needed towards Gaza ceasefire
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 29, 2024 12:05
Updated :
Jul 29, 2024 12:05

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Israel's President Isaac Herzog there needed to be "immediate steps" towards a ceasefire in Israel's conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza.

"The Prime Minister said there must be immediate steps towards a ceasefire, so that hostages can be released and more humanitarian aid can get in for those in desperate need," Starmer's office said in a statement released on Sunday.

"The Prime Minister reiterated his ongoing support for Israel's right to self-defence in accordance with international law," the statement said.

Starmer met Herzog in Paris where both were attending the Olympics.

In a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Jul 7 shortly after Starmer took office, he "set out the clear and urgent need for a ceasefire," according to a previous British government statement.

Starmer on Sunday said there was no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas and expressed his condolences for the deaths of five hostages kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct 7 whose bodies had recently been recovered.

About 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage in the Oct 7 attack, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas chief Ismael Hania has been killed by Israel. I wonder who will lead Hamas against Israeli occupation forces now.

 

[Saif]

The killing of Hamas leader by the Israelis in Iranian soil proves that even the Iranian president is not safe from Israel.

 

[Saif]

Background of Ismael Hania.

 

[Saif]

Hamas says chief Haniyeh killed in ‘Zionist’ strike in Tehran

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran was “hit” and he was killed along with a bodyguard

en.prothomalo.com

Hamas says chief Haniyeh killed in 'Zionist' strike in Tehran
AFP
Published: 31 Jul 2024, 09: 57

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visits the Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon's top Sunni religious authority, in Beirut on 22 June, 2022AFP

Hamas said Wednesday its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he had been attending the inauguration of the country's new president.

"Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his headquarters in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president," the movement said in a statement.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh's residence in Tehran was "hit" and he was killed along with a bodyguard.

"The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred," said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Sepah news website.

Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend Tuesday's swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reports of Haniyeh's death.

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the October 7 attack, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.

The launched by Hamas on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal, but was already a well-known figure having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that year's parliamentary election.

Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lived in exile and splits his time between Turkey and Qatar.

He had travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the war, meeting both the Turkish and Iranian presidents.

Haniyeh was said to maintain good relations with the heads of the various Palestinian factions, including rivals to Hamas.

He joined Hamas in 1987 when the militant group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

It has hailed Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel but denied any involvement.​

 

[Saif]

Israel used waterboarding to torture them: UN report

Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the offensive in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a new report.

www.thedailystar.net

Israel used waterboarding to torture them: UN report

Smoke billows from burning tyres as Israeli soldiers deploy in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron yesterday, following a demonstration by Palestinians denouncing the killing of the leader of the Hamas group. Photo: AFP

Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the offensive in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a new report.

The 23-page report, released yesterday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention. It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of detainees by soldiers.

Based primarily on interviews with released detainees and other victims from October 7 to June 30, the UN report found that since the offensive began, "thousands of Palestinians" including medical staff, have been "taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded".

As of the end of June, Israel's prison service held more than 9,400 "security detainees", the report said, adding that those detained have been "held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention" and without a lawyer.

"At least 53 Palestinian detainees" are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities: report

"At least 53 Palestinian detainees" are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities, it said. It also detailed "allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men".

The report was released during an investigation by the Israeli army, which is questioning nine soldiers over allegations of "substantial abuse" of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel, reports Al Jazeera online.

Last week, eight Palestinian prisoners who were released by the Israeli army said they experienced torture during their time in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.

Former Palestinian detainees told the UN that they were held in "cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers".

The documented abuse included food, sleep and water deprivation and being burned with cigarettes.

"Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence," the report said.​

 

[Saif]

Destruction of water wells deepens misery

Israel’s military blew up more than 30 water wells in Gaza this month, a municipality official and residents said, adding to the trauma of airstrikes that have turned much of the Palestinian enclave into a wasteland ravaged by a humanitarian crisis.

www.thedailystar.net

Destruction of water wells deepens misery

Israel's military blew up more than 30 water wells in Gaza this month, a municipality official and residents said, adding to the trauma of airstrikes that have turned much of the Palestinian enclave into a wasteland ravaged by a humanitarian crisis.

Salama Shurab, head of the water networks at Khan Younis municipality, said the wells were destroyed by Israeli forces between July 18-27 in the southern towns of Rafah and Khan Younis.

The Israeli military did not respond to the allegations that its soldiers destroyed the wells.

It is not only ever-present danger from Israeli bombardment or ground fighting that makes life a trial for Gaza's Palestinian civilians. It is also the daily slog to find bare necessities such as water, to drink or cook or wash with.

People have dug wells in bleak areas near the sea where the bombing has pushed them, or rely on salty tap water from Gaza's only aquifer, now contaminated with seawater and sewage.

Children walk long distances to line up at makeshift water collection points. Often not strong enough to carry the filled containers, they drag them home on wooden boards.

Gaza City has lost nearly all its water production capacity, with 88 percent of its water wells and 100 percent of its desalination plants damaged or destroyed, Oxfam said in a recent report.

Palestinians were already facing a severe water crisis as well as shortages of food, fuel and medicine before the destruction of the wells, which has deepened the anguish brought on by the Gaza offensive, now in its 10th month.

COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military that manages humanitarian activities, told Reuters it has coordinated water line repairs with international organizations and "dozens" were done in the last month including one to the northern Gaza Strip.

Other work including power repairs at a desalination plant and construction of additional lines was under way.

Hamas fighters "have been known to attack civilian infrastructures and humanitarian aid routes, adding to the complexity and danger of delivering much-needed humanitarian aid to the region," COGAT said.

All Gazans can do is wait in long lines to collect water since US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to secure a ceasefire from Israel and its arch-foe Hamas. Not only is there a shortage of water, much of it is also contaminated.

"We stand in the sun, my eye hurts because of the sun, because we stand for long (hours) to (secure) water," said Youssef El-Shenawy, a Gaza resident.​

 

[Saif]

Calls for revenge at Iran funeral for Hamas chief Haniyeh

Iran held a funeral ceremony on Thursday with calls for revenge after the killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike blamed on...

www.newagebd.net

Calls for revenge at Iran funeral for Hamas chief Haniyeh
Agence France-Presse . Tehran 01 August, 2024, 23:06

Iranians take part in a funeral procession for late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Thursday ahead of his burial in Qatar.. | AFP photo

Iran held a funeral ceremony on Thursday with calls for revenge after the killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike blamed on Israel.

Thousands of mourners paid respects to Haniyeh as the Israeli military confirmed that an air strike in Gaza last month killed the Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh ahead of his burial in Qatar, having earlier threatened a 'harsh punishment' for his killing.

In Tehran's city centre, crowds, including women shrouded in black, carried posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags in a procession and ceremony that began at Tehran University, according to an AFP correspondent.

It came just hours after Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in a retaliatory strike in the south of Lebanon's capital Beirut, raising fears of a wider regional conflict as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues.

Shukr is to be buried on Thursday.

Senior Iranian officials including President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, General Hossein Salami, attended the ceremony for Haniyeh, state TV showed.

Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas's foreign relations chief, vowed during the funeral ceremony that Haniyeh's message will live on and 'we will pursue Israel until it is uprooted from the land of Palestine'.

Pezeshkian later told Hayya that Iran 'will continue to support with firmer determination the Axis of Resistance', Iran-aligned regional groups that include Hamas, the official IRNA news agency said.

The caskets, with a black-and-white pattern resembling a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, were borne on a flower-decorated truck through city streets jammed with mourners cooled by water spray on a hot day.

The New York Times, citing Iranian officials, reported that Khamenei has ordered Iran to strike Israel directly.

The international community called for calm and a focus on securing a ceasefire in Gaza—which Haniyeh had accused Israel of obstructing.

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut represented a 'dangerous escalation'.

The UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting Wednesday at Iran's request to discuss the incident.

In a phone call, the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt blamed Israel for rising tensions and 'stressed the need to work on de-escalation to prevent the region from slipping into a comprehensive regional conflict', Jordan's official Petra news agency reported.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday reiterated appeals for an end to fighting. He said achieving peace 'starts with a ceasefire' and called on 'all parties' to 'stop escalatory actions'.

But the prime minister of key ceasefire broker Qatar said Haniyeh's killing had thrown the whole Gaza war mediation process into doubt.

'How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?' Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on social media site X.

While Iran has blamed the attack on its arch-foe, Israel has declined to comment on Haniyeh's death. But it did claim the killing of Hezbollah commander Shukr, blaming him for a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The killings are the latest of several incidents that have inflamed regional tensions during the Gaza war which has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

Yemen's Huthi rebels declared three days of mourning for Haniyeh. Earlier this month they claimed a drone strike on Tel Aviv, their first fatal attack in Israel, which retaliated against Yemen's rebel-controlled Hodeida port.

In April, after a strike killed Revolutionary Guards at its consulate in Damascus, Iran made its first ever direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles.

Explosions later hit central Iran, in what US media said was Israeli retaliation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Concern over the fate of those still held has grown among Israelis, who have demonstrated by the tens of thousands demanding a deal to free them.

Haniyeh's killing 'was a mistake as it threatens the possibility of having a hostage deal,' said Anat Noy, a resident of Haifa.

Israel's retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

An Israeli military statement said Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas's armed wing, was killed by Israeli warplanes on July 13 in a strike in Gaza's Khan Yunis area.

Gazan health authorities said at the time that the strike killed more than 90 people but Hamas denied Deif was among them.​

 

[Saif]

Israel turned rogue state: Jordan

Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Thursday that Israel had turned ‘rogue’ state with its ‘assassination’ of the Hamas political leader and needed to be stopped...

www.newagebd.net

Israel turned rogue state: Jordan
Agence France-Presse . Amman/ Palestine 02 August, 2024, 00:05

Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Thursday that Israel had turned 'rogue' state with its 'assassination' of the Hamas political leader and needed to be stopped.

He said the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's lead negotiator in efforts for a truce and hostage release deal for Gaza, was a clear sign that Israel had decided to undermine the US-backed talks.

'Yesterday, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh. He was the one who was negotiating the exchange deal. So how on earth is a country that wants to conclude a deal killing the main interlocutor in those negotiations?' Safadi told a news conference.

'So when Netanyahu decided and sent his missiles to assassinate Haniyeh in Iran in violation of the sovereignty of another country and bringing escalation to a very high level, is that somebody who wants the deal to work?

'And all the work that has been done by Egypt, Qatar, and the US to bring a deal that would have brought a ceasefire, that would have released the hostages, that would have released prisoners, Israel decided to undermine all that'.

Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's death, but both Iran and Hamas said it was the result of an Israeli air strike in Tehran before dawn on Wednesday.

Safadi demanded action by the international community to rein Israel in.

'The Security Council must not allow a state that has turned rogue to impose more wars and more destruction on the region.'

Earlier on the day, the Israeli military announced that Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif had been killed in a strike it carried out last month in Gaza's southern area of Khan Yunis.

The military's confirmation it had killed Deif comes a day after the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which was announced by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hamas.

'The IDF (Israeli army) announces that on July 13th, 2024, IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,' a military statement said.

'Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th massacre,' the military said of the Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the death of 1,197 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said at the time of the July 13 strike that it killed more than 90 people but Hamas denied Deif was among them.

The suspected 2,000-pound bomb (900 kilogrammes0 around the house where Deif was said to have taken refuge with one of his deputies had left a giant crater.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday that the group was bound to respond to Israel's killing of its top military commander, saying his death and that of the Hamas leader 'crossed' red lines.

'The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable response,' he said in a speech broadcast at the funeral of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.

'You do not know what red lines you crossed,' he said, addressing Israel after separate strikes in Beirut and Tehran killed Shukr and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's killing, but it announced that it had 'eliminated' Shukr, describing him as Hezbollah's 'most senior military commander' and Nasrallah's 'right-hand man'.

Shukr, who used the nom de guerre Hajj Mohsen, led operations in south Lebanon, where the group says it has opened a 'support front', exchanging near-daily fire with Israel since war erupted in Gaza in October.

'We, on all the support fronts, have entered a new phase,' Nasrallah said, referring to Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups that have targeted Israel in support of Hamas after the Palestinian group launched an October 7 attack on Israel, triggering the war.

Meanwhile, Hamas called for a 'day of furious rage' for Friday, coinciding with the burial of its leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar.

Hamas in a statement on Thursday encouraged an outpouring of public anger following Haniyeh's killing in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel, as well as to protest the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

'Let roaring anger marches start from every mosque' following Friday prayers, the group said.

Haniyeh, who resided in exile in Qatar with other members of Hamas's political leadership, is to be buried in the Gulf state today after a public funeral held Thursday in the Iranian capital.

Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed Wednesday in a pre-dawn strike on their accommodation in Tehran, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said, in an attack that has stoked fears of a wider regional conflict.​

 

[Saif]

Turkey blocks NATO-Israel cooperation over Gaza war, sources say

Turkey has blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of the war in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until there is an end to the conflict, sources familiar with the process said. Israel carries the status of NATO partner and has fostered

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Turkey blocks NATO-Israel cooperation over Gaza war, sources say
REUTERS
Published :
Aug 01, 2024 20:22
Updated :
Aug 01, 2024 20:22

A journalist casts a shadow next to logos on the day of the NATO 75th Anniversary celebratory event in Washington, US, July 9, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

Turkey has blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of the war in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until there is an end to the conflict, sources familiar with the process said.
Israel carries the status of NATO partner and has fostered close relations with the military alliance and some of its members, notably its biggest ally the United States.

Prior to Israel's offensive in Gaza - prompted by Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct 7 rampage - NATO member Turkey had been working to mend its long-strained ties with Israel.

Since then, Ankara has been fiercely critical of Israel's operation in Gaza, which it says amounts to a genocide, and has halted all bilateral trade. It has also slammed many Western allies for their support of Israel.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Turkey had vetoed all NATO engagement with Israel since October, including joint meetings and exercises, viewing Israel's "massacre" of Palestinians in Gaza as a violation of NATO's founding principles.

A UN inquiry in June found that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war. It said Israel's actions constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses. Israel rejects this and says its operation in Gaza, which has killed nearly 40,000 people, aims to eradicate Hamas.

The sources said Turkey would maintain this block and not allow Israel to continue or advance its interaction with NATO until there was an end to the conflict, as it believes Israel's actions in Gaza violate international law and universal human rights.

After a NATO summit in Washington in July, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said it was not possible for NATO to continue its partnership with the Israeli administration.

Earlier this week, Israel's foreign minister urged the alliance to expel Turkey after Erdogan appeared to threaten to enter Israel, as it had Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in the past.​

 

[Saif]

Thousands bid farewell as Hamas chief laid to rest

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday after his killing in Tehran, an attack blamed on Israel that has heightened regional tensions as the...

www.newagebd.net

Thousands bid farewell as Hamas chief laid to rest
Agence France-Presse . Doha 03 August, 2024, 01:19

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday after his killing in Tehran, an attack blamed on Israel that has heightened regional tensions as the Gaza war dragged on.

Haniyeh was laid to rest in Lusail, north of the capital Doha, following funeral prayers at the Gulf emirate's largest mosque attended by thousands of people.

Haniyeh, the Palestinian armed group's political chief, played a key role in mediated talks aimed at ending nearly 10 months of war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.

The burial was restricted to a small number of people including one of Haniyeh's daughters, Sara, who shared a video on social media showing her pouring holy water over a pebble-topped grave before lowering her head to kiss it.

'In this moment, I buried my soul under the dirt and I departed. I departed with all the pain of the world in my ribs,' she captioned the video uploaded on X.

Mourners earlier on Friday lined up inside Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque, where Haniyeh's casket, draped in a Palestinian flag, was briefly carried in to the shouts of angry mourners.

Others prayed on mats outside in temperatures that reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit).

'He was a symbol, a resistance leader... people are angry,' said Taher Adel, 25, a Jordanian student residing in the Qatari capital.

Haniyeh's predecessor Khaled Meshaal spoke at the ceremony, saying the slain leader had 'served his cause, his people... and never abandoned them'.

Turkey and Pakistan announced a day of mourning on Friday to honour Haniyeh, while Hamas called for a 'day of furious rage'.

Many mourners in Doha wore scarves that combined the Palestinian flag with a checkered keffiyeh pattern and the message in English: 'Free Palestine'.

Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed in a pre-dawn 'hit' on their accommodation in Tehran Wednesday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said. Haniyeh was in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian a day earlier.

Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of the attack, has not directly commented on it.

The killing of Qatar-based Haniyeh is among several incidents since April that have sent regional tensions soaring during the Gaza war, which has drawn in Iran-backed armed groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

Iranian officials met with representatives of these groups on Wednesday to discuss the next steps, either 'a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a staggered response from each party', a source close to Lebanon's Hezbollah movement told AFP.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant met with his visiting British counterpart John Healey on Friday and stressed 'the importance of establishing a coalition' to support 'Israel's defence against Iran and its proxies', Gallant's office said.

Military chief Herzi Halevi told troops Israel would respond 'very strongly' to any attacks, an army statement said.

France urged its nationals visiting Iran to leave 'due to the increased risk of a military escalation'.

During the Gaza war, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire, and did so again on Friday.

In Gaza, the civil defence agency reported several people killed in the territory's north, and Israel's military said it had killed around 30 militants near Rafah, in the south.

Haniyeh's assassination came hours after Israel struck a southern suburb of Beirut, killing Fuad Shukr, the military commander of Lebanese Hamas ally Hezbollah.

Haniyeh's deputy, Saleh al-Aruri, was killed in Beirut early this year.

On Thursday Israel confirmed the death of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in a July strike in Gaza.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.

The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

The fighting has sparked a dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. On Friday, the UN Satellite Centre said nearly two-thirds of the buildings in Gaza, or 151,265 structures, have been damaged or destroyed during the war.

On Thursday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh in Tehran, having earlier threatened 'harsh punishment' for his killing.

The New York Times, citing Middle Eastern officials, has reported that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device planted weeks ago at a Tehran guesthouse.

Asked about the report, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told journalists 'there was no other Israeli aerial attack... in all the Middle East' on the night of Shukr's killing in Lebanon.

Israel said Shukr's assassination—for which Hezbollah said retaliation was 'inevitable'—was a response to rocket fire which killed 12 youths last week in the annexed Golan Heights.

Iranian news agency Fars said the US report was a 'lie', insisting that the Hamas leader was killed by a 'projectile'.

Analyst Hugh Lovatt said Haniyeh's killing 'will mean that a ceasefire deal with Israel is now totally off of the table'.

The White House said US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and affirmed his commitment to defend Israel's security 'against all threats from Iran'.

'We have the basis for a ceasefire (in Gaza)... They should move on it now,' Biden told reporters after the call.​

 

[Saif]

https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/world/asia/hamas-commander-deif-killed-in-gaza-in-july-israel-says

Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif killed in Gaza in July, Israel says
Published :
Aug 01, 2024 16:59
Updated :
Aug 01, 2024 17:01

The Israeli military announced on Thursday that a strike last month in the southern Gaza area of Khan Yunis had killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
The announcement came a day after the militant group's political leader Isamil Haniyeh was assassinated in Teheran.

"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) announces that on July 13th, 2024, IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike," the military said.

Deif is believed to have been one of the planners of Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel, which started the Gaza war, now ongoing for 300 days.

"Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th massacre," the military statement added.

The announcement coincided with crowds gathering in Tehran for the funeral of Haniyeh.

One of the most influential figures in Hamas, Deif has advanced through the group's ranks over 30 years, building its tunnel network and improving its bomb-making skills, AFP reported. He has been at the top of Israel's most wanted list for many years, held responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.​

 

[Saif]

Even in Palestine, birds shall return

ON JULY 26, senior United Nations officials briefed the UN Security Council about the terrible situation in Gaza. ‘More than two million people in Gaza remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale’, said deputy commissioner general Antonia De Meo of the...

www.newagebd.net

Even in Palestine, birds shall return
Vijay Prashad 04 August, 2024, 00:00

Charles Khoury (Lebanon), Untitled, 2020. | Dissident Voice

ON JULY 26, senior United Nations officials briefed the UN Security Council about the terrible situation in Gaza. 'More than two million people in Gaza remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale', said deputy commissioner general Antonia De Meo of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Within Gaza, the UN officials wrote, 625,000 children are trapped, 'their futures at risk'. The World Health Organisation has recorded 'outbreaks of hepatitis A and myriad other preventable diseases' and warns that it is 'just a matter of time' before a polio outbreak spreads amongst children. In early July, a letter in The Lancet from three scientists working in Canada, Palestine, and the United Kingdom suggested that if they applied a 'conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza'.

Two days before the UN Security Council meeting, on July 24, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed both chambers of the US Congress. Two months before this appearance, the International Criminal Court said it had 'reasonable grounds to believe' that Netanyahu bears 'criminal responsibility for… war crimes and crimes against humanity'. This judgment was utterly set aside by elected US representatives, who welcomed Netanyahu as if he were a conquering hero. Netanyahu's language was chilling: 'give us the tools faster, and we'll finish the job faster'. What is the 'job' that Netanyahu wants the Israeli military to finish? In January, the International Court of Justice reported a 'plausible claim of genocidal acts' by the Israeli army. So, is the 'job' that Israel wants to complete its genocide of the Palestinian people, accelerated by the increased provision of arms and funding by the US?

Despite Netanyahu's complaint that the US has not been sending sufficient weapons, in April the US government approved the sale of 50 F-15 bombers to Israel, worth $18 billion, and in early July said it would send nearly two thousand 500-pound bombs to be used in Gaza. Netanyahu wanted more then, and he wants more now. He wants to 'finish the job'. This genocidal language is sanctified by the US government, whose representatives accompanied the call for mass murder with a standing ovation.

Outside the halls of government, tens of thousands of people protested Netanyahu's visit to Congress. They are part of the phalanx of young people who have been involved in a cycle of protests against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and against the US government's total support of the violence. Netanyahu called the protestors 'Iran's useful idiots', a strange statement made by a foreign guest of the citizens who were exercising their democratic rights in their own country. The police used pepper spray and other forms of violence to contain the protests, which were peaceful and righteous.

While Washington welcomed the accused war criminal, Beijing hosted representatives of fourteen Palestinian factions who came to discuss their differences and find a way to build political unity against the Israeli genocide and colonisation. Just before Netanyahu entered the Congressional chamber, the fourteen representatives posed for a photograph at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Their agreement, the Beijing Declaration, advanced their commitment to work together against the genocide and the occupation and recognised that their disunity has only helped Israel.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a range of national liberation movements, such as those in South Africa and Palestine, were enfeebled and forced to make significant concessions in order to end conflicts with their colonisers. After several false starts, the apartheid regime in South Africa joined the Multi-Party Negotiating Forum in April 1993, which was the site of concessions made by the liberation forces (undermined by the assassination of communist leader Chris Hani that same month and by attacks from the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging). The negotiated transfer of power through the interim constitution of November 1993 did not dismantle structures of white power in South Africa. Meanwhile, in 1993 and 1995, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (agreed to the Oslo Accords, in which the PLO recognised the state of Israel and agreed to build a state of Palestine in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. Edward Said called the Oslo Accords a 'Palestinian Versailles', a judgment that seemed harsh at the time but which, in retrospect, is accurate.

Israel used the Oslo Accords to press its advantage, mainly by building illegal settlements across Palestinian land and by denying Palestinians the right to free passage through the three non-contiguous territories. In 1994, leading groups in the PLO created the Palestinian National Authority to bring the factions together in the new state project, but the groups that had rejected the Oslo Accords did not want to manage the occupation on Israel's behalf. In January 2006, Hamas won the largest bloc in the Palestinian legislative elections, with 74 out of the 132 seats, and by June 2007 Fatah and Hamas broke relations and ended the attempt to build a new, post-Oslo Palestinian national project.

In May 2006, from within Israel's harsh prisons, five Palestinians who represented the five main factions drafted the Prisoners' Document: Abdel Khaleq al-Natsh (Hamas), Abdel Raheem Malluh (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Bassam al-Saadi (Islamic Jihad), Marwan Barghouti (Fatah), and Mustafa Badarneh (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine). These five factions include two left formations, two Islamist formations, and the main national liberation platform. The eighteen-point document called upon various groups (including Hamas and Islamic Jihad) to reactivate the PLO as their joint platform, accept the Palestinian Authority as the 'nucleus of the future state', and retain the right to resist the occupation. In June, all parties signed a second draft of the document. Despite attempts to create unity, including during the Israeli assault on Gaza known as Operation Summer Rains (June to November 2006), no such convergence was possible. The animosity between the Palestinian factions remained.

This disunity has provided ample space for the Israeli occupation to deepen and for Palestinians to flounder without a central political project. Several attempts to bring Palestinian political groups into a serious dialogue have failed to provide any forward motion, including in Cairo in May 2011 and October 2017 and in Algiers in October 2022. Since last year, the Chinese government has worked with various regional states to invite the fourteen main Palestinian factions to Beijing for reconciliation talks. These factions are:
​

1. Arab Liberation Front​
2. As-Sa'iqa​
3. Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine​
4. Fatah​
5. Hamas​
6. Islamic Jihad Movement​
7. Palestinian Arab Front​
8. Palestinian Democratic Union​
9. Palestinian Liberation Front​
10. Palestinian National Initiative​
11. Palestinian People's Party​
12. Palestinian Popular Struggle Front​
13. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine​
14. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command)​

The Beijing Declaration, repeating the formulations in the Prisoners' Document, called for a Palestinian state to be established, for Palestinians' right to resist the occupation to be respected, for Palestinian political groups to form an 'interim national consensus government', and for the PLO and its institutions to be strengthened in order to advance their role in the struggle against Israel. Though the declaration, of course, called for an immediate ceasefire and an end to settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, its main focus was on political unity.

Whether this Chinese-brokered process will yield results when Palestinians sit down with Israelis is to be seen. Yet it nonetheless marks an advance in this direction and a possible turning point in the collapse of a unified Palestinian project that began in the wake of the 1995 Oslo II agreement. The Beijing Declaration is diametrically opposed to the vehemence of Netanyahu's speech in the US Congress: the latter genocidal and dangerous, the former seeks peace in a complex world.

Fadwa Tuqan (1917–2003), one of Palestine's most wondrous poets, wrote 'The Deluge and the Tree'. The fall of the tree, beaten down by the deluge, was not its end but a new beginning.

When the Tree rises up, the branches

shall flourish green and fresh in the sun,

the laughter of the Tree shall blossom

beneath the sun

and birds shall return.

Undoubtedly, the birds shall return.

The birds shall return.

The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (1962–2024) in Tehran (Iran) has made the situation deeply difficult, and will make it difficult for the birds to sing.

DissidentVoice.org, August 1. Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian and journalist, is author of 25 books, including The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli airstrikes kill nine in West Bank, including a Hamas commander

An Israeli airstrike in the occupied West Bank killed a Hamas commander and four Islamic Jihad fighters on Saturday, the militant groups' media reported, and the Israeli military said it had killed four more gunmen in a separate strike. The Israeli military said the first airstrike hit a vehicle i

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israeli airstrikes kill nine in West Bank, including a Hamas commander
REUTERS
Published :
Aug 03, 2024 19:47
Updated :
Aug 03, 2024 19:47

Palestinians inspect a vehicle damaged in an Israeli airstrike, in Zeita, near Tulkarm, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 3, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

An Israeli airstrike in the occupied West Bank killed a Hamas commander and four Islamic Jihad fighters on Saturday, the militant groups' media reported, and the Israeli military said it had killed four more gunmen in a separate strike.

The Israeli military said the first airstrike hit a vehicle in a town near the city of Tulkarm, targeting a militant cell it said was on its way to carry out an attack. A Hamas media outlet said a vehicle carrying fighters had been struck and that one of those killed was a commander of its Tulkarm brigades.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups claimed the other four men as its fighters.

Hours later, a second strike targeted another group of armed militants who had fired on troops, Israel's military said, during what it described as a counter-terrorism operation in Tulkarm.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said five men had been killed in the first strike and WAFA said four people died in the second. It said their identities were not immediately clear.

Violence in the West Bank was on the rise before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and has risen since, with frequent Israeli raids in the territory, which is among those that the Palestinians seek for a state.

There has also been an increase in anti-Israeli street attacks by Palestinians.

GAZA STRIKES

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli airstrikes killed six people in a house in the southern area of Rafah on Saturday and two others in Gaza City, further north, Gaza health officials said.

At least 31 Palestinians were killed across the enclave on Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

The Israeli military said its forces had struck militants and destroyed Hamas infrastructure in Rafah and elsewhere in the enclave.

At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. The offensive was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 abducted, according to Israeli tallies.

An Israeli delegation was due in Cairo over the weekend to discuss a possible hostage release and Gaza ceasefire deal.

Chances of a breakthrough appear low as regional tension has soared following the assassination of Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, a day after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a top military commander from Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Haniyeh's death was one in a series of killings of senior Hamas figures as the Gaza war nears its 11th month and concern grows that the conflict is spreading across the Middle East.

Hamas and Iran have both accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and have pledged to retaliate. Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the death.

Hezbollah, like Hamas, is backed by Iran and has also vowed revenge.​

 

[Saif]

Israel strike kills 17 at school compound: Gaza officials

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli bombardment of a school compound in Gaza City killed at least 17 people Saturday, as Israel's military reported it had hit a Hamas command centre.

en.prothomalo.com

Israel strike kills 17 at school compound: Gaza officials
AFP Gaza Strip
Published: 04 Aug 2024, 11: 31

Palestinians inspect the site of Israeli strikes on a school sheltering displaced people, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Gaza City, 4 August, 2024.Reuters

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli bombardment of a school compound in Gaza City killed at least 17 people Saturday, as Israel's military reported it had hit a Hamas command centre.

"There are 17 martyrs and several wounded due to Israeli shelling on Hamama school," the agency said in a statement, updating an earlier toll of 10 killed.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it had hit a Hamas command and control centre located inside the compound.

At least 30 dead in Gaza school airstrike, Israel says targeted militants

Earlier, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the compound was housing Palestinians displaced from their homes in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants.

Israel's military said the compound was being used by Hamas militants to manufacture weapons, adding it was a "hiding place for Hamas terrorists".

It has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilian facilities as command and control centres or to hide their commanders and militants. The Palestinian group denies the accusation.

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October, which resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's military campaign has killed at least 39,550 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.​

 

[Saif]

Fears of Middle East war grow after Hamas leader's killing

US would move warships and fighter jets to the region, while Western governments called on their citizens to leave Lebanon

en.prothomalo.com

Fears of Middle East war grow after Hamas leader's killing
AFP Beirut
Updated: 04 Aug 2024, 09: 21

Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system over the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel, on 4 August, 2024.AFP

Middle East tensions soared Saturday as Iran and its allies readied their response to the assassination of Hamas's political leader, blamed on Israel, spurring fears of a regional war.

Israel ally the United States said it would move warships and fighter jets to the region, while Western governments called on their citizens to leave Lebanon -- where the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement is based -- and airlines cancelled flights.

The killing this week of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, hours after the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah's military chief in Beirut, has triggered vows of vengeance from Iran and the so-called "axis of resistance".

Iran-backed groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Israel on Saturday again traded fire with Hezbollah, carried out a deadly raid in the occupied West Bank, and struck a school compound in Gaza City in an attack that the Hamas-ruled territory's civil defence agency said killed at least 17 people.

Numerous schools turned into displacement shelters have been hit across Gaza in recent weeks, with Israel insisting the facilities had been used by militants. Hamas denied using civilian infrastructure for military activities.

Haniyeh was buried on Friday in Qatar, where he had been based. Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of carrying out the attack, has not directly commented on it.

Iran said on Saturday it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets.

The Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.

It said an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln would be deployed, as well as additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers and a new fighter squadron.

US President Joe Biden, at his beach home in Delaware, was asked by reporters if he thought Iran would stand down.

"I hope so," he said. "I don't know."

Soon after, Hezbollah announced it had fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at the northern Israeli settlement of Beit Hillel.

They said it was in response to an Israeli attack on Kfar Kela and Deir Siriane in southern Lebanon which, it said, had injured civilians.

Earlier Saturday, Hezbollah announced the deaths of two of its fighters, including a 17-year-old from Deir Siriane.

Take 'any ticket available'
In Beirut, 20-year-old student Diana Abu Aasel told AFP she feared "something bad will happen to my family and friends.

"If there is war, I don't think I will be able to bear staying" in Lebanon, she said.

Crowds of thousands rallied Saturday in Morocco, Jordan and Turkey to denounce Haniyeh's killing and show solidarity with Palestinians, AFP correspondents reported.

Haniyeh's killing is among a series of attacks since April that have heightened fears of a regional conflagration.

His death came hours after Israel struck south Beirut, killing Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.

Both Britain and the United States on Satuday urged their citizens in Lebanon to leave immediately.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its unprecedented 7 October attack which triggered war in Gaza and resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,550 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Haniyeh was Hamas's lead negotiator in efforts to end the war. His killing raised questions about the continued viability of efforts by Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators to broker a truce and exchange of hostages and prisoners.

Hamas officials but also some analysts and protesters in Israel have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war to safeguard his ruling hard-right coalition.

Protesters in several Israeli cities Saturday renewed their calls for a hostage-release deal.

Disease spreading in Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke separately with his French and British counterparts on Saturday about the situation in the Middle East, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

Blinken, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne all agreed on the need for restraint on all sides in the region, Miller said in a statement.

Violence has also surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian official sources said two Israeli air strikes killed nine people in the north of the territory Saturday.

The military said it had "eliminated terrorist cells".

The war in Gaza has caused widespread destruction and displaced almost the entire population of the territory where, the UN said on Friday, public health conditions "continue to deteriorate".

It said nearly 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A, spread by contaminated food and water, have been reported since the war began.

Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since October, saying it is acting in support of Hamas.

Several airlines have suspended flights to Beirut and Tel Aviv.

Flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain halted until at least Tuesday, their parent company said Saturday.

Turkish Airlines on Saturday cancelled its night-time flights to Tehran for the second night running, AFP correspondents noted.​

 

[Saif]

Israel’s actions a recipe for regional disaster

Global forces must urge for peace deal

www.thedailystar.net

Israel's actions a recipe for regional disaster
Global forces must urge for peace deal

Visual: Star

When the world is pushing for peace in the form of a ceasefire in Gaza, the assassination of Hamas' top leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran has derailed that hope. Analysts fear this event could have far-reaching consequences in the whole Middle East, leading to a full-on regional conflict. And such fears cannot be dismissed completely at this point, given the tensions that have built up in the region.

Senior officials of Hamas have said the death of Haniyeh, who had been a top negotiator in the ceasefire talks, means their fight against Israel would intensify. While Israel has not publicly acknowledged its role in the killing, The New York Times reports that several US officials assess that the country was indeed responsible. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden said the killing "doesn't help" efforts to secure a ceasefire. In almost 11 months, amid widespread destruction in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly thwarted talks of truce, clearly indicating that it has no intention of stopping the atrocities. If the reports are accurate, this is just the newest manufactured obstacle.

Israel is already facing global condemnation for its genocide, which has claimed the lives of over 39,000 people in Gaza. Besides such heinousness, it is also attacking people in foreign lands, beyond its jurisdiction, which is absolutely unacceptable and is a recipe for greater turmoil. A recent instance of this is Israel's airstrikes and artillery fire on Lebanon, leading to multiple deaths. Unsurprisingly, this has forced Hezbollah to resume rocket and artillery attacks on Israel. The group's chief Hassan Nasrallah has said that Israel "crossed red lines" after killing its top military commander earlier in Beirut. It's quite obvious: attacks lead to retaliation, and the cycle of violence continues. But this simple reality is being constantly ignored.

After Haniyeh's killing, US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators are desperately trying to salvage ceasefire talks, but for them to be successful, both parties have to be on the same page. They are, however, dealing with a country that does not want peace, for why else would it strike a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing 15, on Friday. Nevertheless, global actors must stand against this genocide, and continue to condemn and pressurise Israel, if they want to ensure peace for the Middle East. Given that the violence has kept expanding, it is high time for it to end before the entire region becomes engulfed in further turmoil.​

 

[Saif]

Israel confirms killing Al Jazeera journalist, says he was Hamas operative

The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that it had killed Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul in an airstrike in Gaza, saying he was a Hamas operative who had taken part in the 7 October attack on Israel

en.prothomalo.com

Israel confirms killing Al Jazeera journalist, says he was Hamas operative
Ashish BasuJerusalem
Published: 02 Aug 2024, 09: 10

The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that it had killed Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul in an airstrike in Gaza, saying he was a Hamas operative who had taken part in the 7 October attack on Israel.

Al-Jazeera dismissed what it said were "baseless allegations" which it said were an attempt to justify the deliberate killing of its journalists.

"The network condemns the accusations against its correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul, without providing any proof, documentation or video," it said in a statement, adding that it reserved the right to take legal action against those responsible.

The Qatari broadcaster said on Wednesday that Al-Ghoul and cameraman Ramy El Rify were both killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza City while on an assignment to film near the house of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas chief killed in Iran earlier on the same day.

The Israeli military said Al-Ghoul was a member of the elite Nukhba unit who took part in the 7 October attack and instructed Hamas operatives on how to record operations, and it said he was involved in recording and publicizing attacks on Israeli troops.

"His activities in the field were a vital part of Hamas' military activity," it said in a statement.

Al-Jazeera said Al-Ghoul had worked for the network since November 2023 and his only profession was as a journalist.

It said he had been arrested and detained at Al-Shifa Hospital in the northern part of the Gaza Strip when it was taken by Israeli forces in March before being released, which it said "debunks and refutes their false claim of his affiliation with any organisation."

The Israeli government has banned Al-Jazeera from operating in Israel, accusing it of posing a threat to national security.

Al Jazeera, which has been heavily critical of Israel's campaign in Gaza, has denied inciting violence.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said the deaths of the two Al-Jazeera crews raised to 165 the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire since 7 October.​

 

[Saif]

Israel returns more than 80 Palestinian bodies to Gaza

Israel returned the bodies of more than 80 Palestinians killed in its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli airstrikes killed at least 18 more people yesterday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

www.thedailystar.net

Israel returns more than 80 Palestinian bodies to Gaza
Keeps up military pressure in the enclave

Israel returned the bodies of more than 80 Palestinians killed in its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli airstrikes killed at least 18 more people yesterday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

Yamen Abu Suleiman, the director of the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said it was unclear whether the bodies had been dug up from cemeteries by the army during the ground offensive, or whether they were "detainees who had been tortured and killed."

"The occupation provided us with no information about the names, or ages, or anything. This is a war crime, a crime against humanity," Abu Suleiman said.

The bodies will be screened and examined in an attempt to determine the causes of death and in an attempt to identify them. They will later be buried in a mass grave at a cemetery near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

The 84 bodies arrived in more than 15 bags, each containing several bodies, Abu Suleiman added. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the return of the bodies. In the past, Israel has said it returned bodies after checks they were not Israeli hostages.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli Hostages Families Forum asked why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would allow the handover of Palestinian bodies without a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

"Why are bodies being returned outside the framework of a comprehensive deal? Such an agreement could bring back living hostages for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial," they said in a statement.

In southeast Khan Younis, residents said Israeli aerial and tank shelling continued overnight, including in areas for which Israel had issued evacuation orders, saying Hamas members had been waging attacks from there.

An Israeli air strike killed eight Palestinians in a vehicle on the road near Khan Younis yesterday. The Israeli military said it had killed Abdel-Fattah Al-Zriei, whom it said was involved in the weapons manufacturing department in Hamas.​

 

[Saif]

Is Zionism reaching its demise?

Israel can kill several million of people in the Middle East and destroy it. But what happens then?

www.thedailystar.net

Is Zionism reaching its demise?

Over the last ten months, many Jews around the world, especially young Jews, have been taking a moral stand against Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians that began in 1947, not October 7, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS

It is increasingly becoming clear--even to some Western observers—that the "Zionist project" is running its course. It had an extraordinary run, but it has now reached the end of its settler-colonial track.

The creation of this exclusionary settler-colonial Jewish state was a historical anomaly, among the greatest blunders of Western civilisation in the twentieth century. Despite the deep alliance—between Western and Eastern European Jews and their Western tormentors—that established Israel in the mid-20th century, this Jewish state could not in the long run resist the deep logic of history. A few sober Israelis too can read the writing on the wall.

At the same time, no one doubts that Israel is capable of inflicting devastating harm in the Middle East. For sure, Israel could kill several million Iranians and Arabs with its arsenal of neutron bombs. But what happens then? Where would that leave the Jewish state?

Say they've destroyed the Middle East, and Netanyahu, Biden and Saudi Arabia's MBS is flying to a new Iranian capital—since they will have obliterated Tehran—to celebrate their victory over Iran, and then fly to Riyadh to seal an enduring Saudi-Israeli alliance, guaranteed for a thousand years by the US, especially if Trump wins the upcoming elections. It is likely that the inimitable Thomas Friedman will be rooting for this scenario in his next New York Times op-ed.

In order to prevent Israel from launching its neutron bombs, the Western powers that birthed and nurtured the Zionist project must now take responsibility for their historic blunder, and manage the transition of this abnormal Jewish state to a normal one that accords equal rights to all its inhabitants—Jews and Arabs alike. Western powers have shielded Israel for seven decades and the result is a brutal genocide with catastrophic implications for the region. It is now time, for them, to make amends.

Acting resolutely and quickly, the United Nations Security Council needs to sanction Israel until it ends its long-standing violations of multiple international laws. Simultaneously, the US, Britain and Germany will need to shut off their arms pipeline to Israel. If Israel refuses to agree to a permanent ceasefire, then the UNSC may also need to impose an embargo on Israel. The suggestions presented here are often counteracted by abusing "anti-Semitism." Before this article falls into that trope, I must make it clear that I oppose Zionism not because it is led by Jews, but because of what Zionism proposed to do, what it has done, and continues to do to the Palestinians. Had this exclusionary settler-colonial project been perpetrated by Palestinians, Pakistanis or any country in the world—I would have held the same view.

Future historians of Zionism will acknowledge that Zionism was a trap set up by British anti-semites—in addition to securing control in the oil-rich Middle East—to diminish the population of Jews in Europe. The original Zionist leaders—overambitious and myopic—especially those in the British parliament, sold their Zionist vision with ease to Jews, who had just suffered from the world's most horrific, traumatising genocide, the Holocaust. The evolution of Zionism, from its often-claimed founding father—Theodor Herzl—to "Social Zionism" in the 1900s, which promoted class collaboration with the Jewish bourgeoisie and as well as support for imperialism and colonialism.

It is quite astonishing how a brilliant people who produced perhaps a fourth of the world's most extraordinary minds—from the mid-19th to mid-20th century—espoused two flawed utopian visions, Communism and Zionism, that might dazzle with their surface brilliance, but were not aligned with the heavenly forces.

The first utopian vision, because of its extreme demands on human nature, collapsed in 1990. Totalitarian socialism also blocked the transition—when the historic window was still open—from the destructive capitalism of the 19th century to humane, democratic socialist alternatives.

The second utopian vision may have run its course, but while the vast Soviet Union—a superpower with the second largest military and a vast nuclear arsenal—imploded itself, without causing any spillover wars—Israel, the embodiment of the Zionist utopia, threatens its neighbours with nuclear apocalypse.

Israeli Jews cannot save Israel from itself, but the Jewish diaspora has a chance—because of its distance from the war and from the current militarist regime of Israel—to use its influence and organising powers to try to reorient the ruling elites in the US, Canada and Uk towards rescuing Jews in Palestine from the Zionist quagmire. But is this even possible since Zionism has dominated the discourse in the Jewish diaspora too?

Nevertheless, there are signs that important sections of Jewish diaspora are beginning to see past their own propaganda. Over the last ten months, many Jews, especially young Jews, have been taking a moral stand against Israel's genocidal war against Palestinians that began in 1947, not October 7, 2023. Also, for the first time, the International Court of Justice has spoken if not clearly and loudly. The International Criminal Court too has filed applications for warrants for the arrest of two Israeli leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. While none of these have stopped Israel's atrocities, one wonders how long it can go on. Such larger-than-life projects that inflict mass sufferings have fallen in history. It is possible that the extreme form of Zionism that underlines the brutal extermination of a population while being opposed by people of the world—will come to an end.

The Jewish diaspora can and should mobilise to save Israel's Jews from the worst instincts of its right-wing Messianic government. For more than 76 years, the Jewish diaspora has mobilised in support of Israeli governments, no matter their crimes against Palestinians. It is time now to show restraint to Israel's extremist leadership. It may not be too late. There may still be time to do the right thing.

M. Shahid Alam is Emeritus Professor, Department of Economics, Northeastern University. He is the author of Israeli Exceptionalism (Springer, 2008) and Yardstick of Life (KDP, 2024), a book of poetry.​

 

[Saif]

Israel intensifying attacks on Gaza schools

Last week more than 100 people were killed after Israel hit a school in Gaza City sheltering displaced Palestinians, as the United Nations accused Israel of intensifying attacks on schools.

www.thedailystar.net

Israel intensifying attacks on Gaza schools
Says UN as data shows 564 schools have been directly hit or damaged since the offensive began

Palestinians react as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. An estimated 495,000 people in Gaza – or 22 percent of the population – are “experiencing an extreme lack of food,” according to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report. Photo: REUTERS

Last week more than 100 people were killed after Israel hit a school in Gaza City sheltering displaced Palestinians, as the United Nations accused Israel of intensifying attacks on schools.

The targeting of al-Talbin School on Saturday during dawn prayers triggered global outrage.

Paramedics at the scene described the carnage as horrific, with "bodies ripped to pieces". Israel claimed that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters were operating from the school – a claim that was rejected by Hamas.

Israel has repeatedly attacked Gaza's schools, hospitals and universities, claiming the buildings were used for military purposes without providing any proof.

According to data compiled by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), up to July 6, 564 schools in the Gaza Strip have been directly hit or damaged by Israeli attacks.

With numerous evacuation orders since the offensive in Gaza began on October 7, schools have often been used to shelter nearly two million displaced Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, schools are considered civilian objects and should be protected from attacks. However, within a 10-day period in August, Israeli forces struck five schools in Gaza City, killing more than 179 people and injuring scores more.

At least 15 people were killed and more than 29 injured in an Israeli strike on the Dalal al-Mughrabi School on August 1, according to officials.

Two days later, strikes on Hamama and al-Huda schools killed 17 and injured more than 60 people, reports Al Jazeera online.

On August 4, at least 30 people were killed and 19 others injured after Israel struck Nassr and Hassan Salameh schools in the Nassr neighbourhood in Gaza City.

Israel bombed Abdul Fattah Hamouda and az-Zahra schools, killing 17 and injuring dozens more on August 8.

The worst attack in recent weeks was on al-Tabin School, which Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary said was hit by at least three missile attacks.

The UN's special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, condemned the attack.

"Israel is genociding the Palestinians, one neighbourhood at the time, one hospital at the time, one school at the time, one refugee camp at the time, one 'safe zone' at the time. With US and European weapons," she posted on X.

In July, a similar cluster campaign targeting school shelters across the Gaza Strip killed nearly 50 people within a week.

Almost 85 percent of school buildings in Gaza have been damaged, with nearly all schools in North Gaza either being "directly hit" or damaged. This is followed by Gaza City, where more than 90 percent of the schools have been damaged or destroyed.​

 

[Saif]

From Nakba to second intifada

SO IN 1948, Israel captured 78 per cent of Palestine (the UN Partition plan had originally given Israel 55 per cent although Jews formed only one-third of the population at the time). To...

www.newagebd.net

From Nakba to second intifada

SO IN 1948, Israel captured 78 per cent of Palestine. To accomplish this, they terrorised the Palestinians and violently drove 750,000 people from their homes. Having won this much through ethnic cleansing, they set their sights on more. In 1967, Israel attacked the surrounding states in a war, and captured the remaining 22 per cent: seizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, it seized the Golan Heights from Syria, and Gaza Strip and Sinai peninsula from Egypt.

Palestinians resisted in many ways. What took the headlines was the audacious militant tactics of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, a self-styled guerilla movement led by Yassir Arafat that became notorious for a series of plane hijackings. There were other groups like the one that carried out an attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics of 1972, killing several of them. Most of these attacks were carried out by Palestinians in exile in the diaspora and were spectacular but ineffective in realizing Palestinian demands. It wasn’t until 1987 that there was a mass popular uprising in the Occupied Territories. Known as the first intifada, this uprising erupted out of frustration with the PLO’s strategy. Nevertheless, the PLO ended up claiming the mantle of representative of the Palestinians in the negotiations to resolve the crisis precipitated by the intifada. But when the negotiations happened in Oslo in 1993, Arafat negotiated away everything except for the bare minimum. In return, what did he get? Arafat and the PLO were able to return to the Occupied Territories from exile and establish the Palestinian Authority, with its own security and police force. As Edward Said and Noam Chomsky argued back then, Israel subcontracted the task of policing the area to the PA while giving the Palestinians little to no civil and political control.

The Oslo agreements were vague. They called for Israel to carry out troop withdrawals from the Occupied Territories in three phases, but they left open the question of the extent of the withdrawal. And only the land that Israel seized in 1967 was up for negotiation anyway, which meant that 78 per cent of what was historically Palestinian land was negotiated away by the PLO when it surrendered in 1993. In either case, these phased withdrawals never took place, and by 1998 the so-called ‘liberal Zionist’ Ehud Barak made his ‘generous offer’ of skipping the troop withdrawals and moving straight away to final status negotiations regarding the future of Jerusalem.

This was the pattern throughout the so-called peace process of the 1990s — Israeli offers, usually termed ‘generous’ by a compliant Western media, that were designed to be rejected by the Palestinians, so that no real progress would be made towards a viable Palestinian state, while Israeli settlements would continue to expand.

In the year 2000 the Second Intifada was sparked by former Israeli general Ariel Sharon ‘visiting’ the Al Aqsa Mosque compound with a thousand soldiers.

Ariel Sharon was at the time an opposition member of the Israeli parliament, and a member of the right-wing Likud Party. He was known as the butcher of Beirut for greenlighting the 1982 massacre of around 3000 Palestinians and Lebanese inhabitants of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Phalangist militias.

In retrospect, it’s clear that Ariel Sharon’s provocative action of entering the Al Aqsa compound with a thousand armed soldiers signalled the end of the so-called ‘peace process’ that had played out through the 1990s.

In the fighting that followed, Israel used its now-familiar tactic of relentless artillery and air bombardment of refugee camps. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed and the resistance responded with a spate of suicide bombings that took the lives of Israeli settlers.

BDS breaks with status quo

FOR those of us involved in Palestine solidarity efforts in the US those were difficult years. At the time, I was on the International Committee of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right of Return Coalition. Al Awda was the only Palestine-solidarity group that stood for the principle of self-determination for Palestinians in all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea. By emphasising the right of return, Al Awda held to the solution of a single democratic state with freedom for all — the vision that had united Palestinians until Oslo. But Al Awda and its tiny cohort of allies on the left were very much on the margins of the discussion, to the extent that there was one at all. On one side, the establishment consensus was for a two-state solution, the framework for which was apparently codified in the Oslo Accords. Every escalation in violence had been successfully blamed on the Palestinians. On the other side, with the PLO co-opted by the occupation, the only ones left fighting were Hamas and its militant wing, the Al-Qassem Brigades. Secular left organisations like the DFLP and PFLP had been more or less neutralised by Israeli repression and, it must be said, by Fatah and Hamas.

So those of us who stood for Palestinian liberation including the right-of-return for refugees were a small minority within the Palestine solidarity movement. To the extent that there was a solidarity movement at all we spent most of our time debunking the various ‘generous offers’ made by the Israelis but there was little to point to as a focal point for our solidarity. The mainstream consensus was for a two-state solution, while the one-staters, so to speak, had a politics and used tactics — such as suicide bombings — that we could defend but not advocate. There was no Palestinian leadership or campaign that we could identify with or point to as a viable alternative.

It was in this context, in 2005, that the BDS Movement was launched. I remember well the anticipation and excitement with which we greeted its announcement. The initial call explicitly drew parallels with the boycott of apartheid South Africa a decade or two earlier, and ended with these words:

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organisations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.

These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognise the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

— Ending its occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall

— Recognising the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

— Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolutions

Some activists at the time dismissed it as too gradualist. Boycotting, after all, isn’t as glamorous as protesting, striking, or occupying a college campus. But these activists failed to appreciate that in fact the BDS call was a strategic breakthrough in that it ruptured the consensus around two-states by insisting on the right of return. This was and is a radical demand; for the right of return to be successfully implemented would require a transformation of the Jewish-supremacist state into a truly democratic and inclusive one.

The following year, in 2006, Hamas won the elections in Gaza and engaged in a brief tussle with Fatah over leadership over the Palestinian movement. In the end, Hamas retained control in the Gaza Strip, while Fatah remained in power in the West Bank, and with the Palestinian movement clearly divided, Ariel Sharon announced the so-called ‘unilateral withdrawal’ from Gaza, whereby the Occupation forces withdrew and subsequently encircled and enforced the tightest siege on a people in modern history. Various efforts to break the siege were met with violence by the occupation forces, such as in 2010, when the Freedom Flotilla, led by the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship laden with humanitarian aid, was raided and captured, and several aid workers were killed by the Israelis.

BDS in present context

IT WAS out of this open-air prison that Palestinian fighters broke through on October 7 to launch the attacks that triggered the current phase of Israel’s genocide.

From the Palestinian perspective, the current crisis must appear as a confirmation of the BDS campaign’s central premise: that the two-state solution is a dead end, and a just peace can only come about with self-determination for the Palestinians in the context of a single, secular and democratic state with equal rights for all, including the right of return for refugees.

For the last few months, millions of people around the world have taken to the streets to protest the genocidal war, horrified by the images flooding their social media feeds. One might well ask: What can a boycott movement achieve in the face of the Zionists’ settler-colonial aim to annex all of Gaza and the West Bank and to create, as the right-wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu would have it, Israeli dominance over all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea? And what can a boycott movement achieve in the face of the unflinching support given to the Zionist state by virtually every Western government, especially the United States?

The BDS campaign is one part of a multi-pronged struggle that Palestinians have waged for their freedom and self-determination. It was launched in 2005 through a call for boycott of, divestment from, and sanctions on, Israel, issued by a large coalition of Palestinian civil society. Some 170 organisations, representing virtually all of Palestinian civil society, endorsed the initial call. It’s worth noting that a call for an academic boycott of Israel had already gone out a year earlier; the BDS campaign took this up and expanded it into a comprehensive strategy of boycott, divestment, and sanctions, modelled on a similar campaign that had helped coalesce international solidarity with the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. The Palestinian BDS National Committee was formed to coordinate this campaign.

The BDS campaign has called for targeted and focused consumer boycotts of companies profiting from Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and Gaza and of companies directly tied to Israel. In particular, the BDS campaign has called for a global boycott of HP, Soda Stream, Puma, and other consumer brands.

Interestingly enough, from our perspective here in Dhaka, the BDS Movement website does NOT list Coke as one of its targets for boycott. Nor for that matter does it mention McDonalds or Starbucks. But recently it’s these companies that have emerged as targets of global boycotts, fuelled largely by social media campaigns. This is a reflection of the global ripples of dissent that the genocide in Gaza has set off.

In a country where we haven’t seen mass protests against the genocide we have nevertheless seen a mass response to the call to boycott Coke, and all thanks to a single commercial. This is interesting. In the commercial, a man refuses to drink Coca Cola because it comes from Israel. Now the ad doesn’t actually mention Israel by name, and it’s worth thinking about why the territory remains unnamed—is Israel already a pariah state? In either case, the ad mocks the man’s objection, presenting it as mere hearsay or rumour, and the shopkeeper schools the man on Coca Cola’s global presence. What finally convinces the man to accept the bottle of coke is the shopkeeper’s declaration that Coca Cola even has a factory in Palestine.

The backlash all over social media was immediate and unrelenting, as people pointed out that Coca Cola does indeed have a factory in Palestine, and it is in the settlement of Atarot in East Jerusalem. Bangladeshis responded en masse, and Coca Cola’s sales in Bangladesh have reportedly fallen dramatically in the few weeks since the commercial aired. In a sense, this is a vindication of the boycott strategy, at least in so far as it can be seen to have an impact on the company’s profits.

Consumer boycotts are notoriously difficult to coordinate or sustain, which is why, although the BDS campaign calls for a boycott of all Israeli products, it strategically focuses on those companies and products that have a direct hand in the Occupied Territories and are thus more likely to trigger mass boycotts. In addition to consumer boycotts that one can do privately and individually, the BDS campaign calls for collective campaigns to get companies to pull out of the Occupied Territories. Thanks to years of organising, companies like Veolia, Orange, G4S, General Mills, and others have exited the Israeli market because of BDS campaigns. It’s these collective efforts that are the most successful both in terms of their impact on the Israeli economy and in terms of their capacity to mobilise and strengthen solidarity movements and organisations. The campaign also calls for a cultural and academic boycott of Israel. A recent book on this subject, Towers of Ivory and Steel, by Maya Wind, does a great job of casting a spotlight on Israeli universities, which have been deeply complicit in the settler-colonial project in diverse ways.

In addition to these targeted boycotts, the BDS movement calls for divestment campaigns to get local universities, municipalities, banks, and investment funds to divest from Israeli companies, especially those involved in the OT. Divestment has emerged as the key demand of the student protesters at campuses across the US, UK, and Canada this past year, thanks in large part to the brave students at Columbia University who launched a campus sit-in and faced massive police repression.

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

 

[Saif]

400 Hezbollah men dead in 10 months of Israel clashes

Ten months of cross-border violence between Hezbollah and Israeli forces has killed senior commanders and several hundred fighters from the Iran-backed group, causing destruction and...

www.newagebd.net

400 Hezbollah men dead in 10 months of Israel clashes
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 15 August, 2024, 22:26

Ten months of cross-border violence between Hezbollah and Israeli forces has killed senior commanders and several hundred fighters from the Iran-backed group, causing destruction and displacing tens of thousands on both sides.

Hezbollah has seen more fighters killed since October than when it last went to war with Israel in the summer of 2006.

AFP looks at the mounting toll for the Shia Muslim movement, which has been trading near-daily fire with the Israeli army in support of Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

Israeli strikes have killed key Hezbollah commanders in recent months, the most senior of them top operations chief in south Lebanon Fuad Shukr, who died in a raid on Beirut’s southern suburbs on July 30. Hezbollah has vowed to respond to his killing.

In January, a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, Wissam Tawil, was killed in an Israeli strike on his vehicle in south Lebanon.

Two out of its three area commanders in south Lebanon have also been killed — Mohammed Nasser and Taleb Abdallah.

Hezbollah divided its operations in south Lebanon into three areas following the 2006 war, each with its own ‘military formation, commander, personnel, weapons and capacities’, the group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah said last month.

He said south of the Litani river comprised two areas: a western sector, covered by Hezbollah’s Aziz unit, and an eastern sector running to the contested Shebaa Farms manned by the group’s Nasr unit, which opened Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks in October.

The third sector, north of the Litani river up to the coastal city of Sidon, is covered by the group’s Badr unit.

Aziz unit commander Nasser was killed in an Israeli strike last month, while Nasr unit commander Abdallah was killed in a raid the month before.

Israel has repeatedly said it has killed other Hezbollah fighters whom it has called ‘commanders’.

The violence has killed some 570 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters from Hezbollah but also including dozens from allied armed groups including Hamas, according to an AFP tally, with at least 118 civilians among the dead.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to military figures.

Hezbollah has issued statements announcing the deaths of more than 370 members who have been killed in Lebanon, according to the AFP tally.

The Lebanese group has mostly described them as ‘martyred on the road to Jerusalem’, the phrase it uses to refer to those killed in Israeli strikes.

Another 25 have been killed in neighbouring Syria, where Israel has for years carried out strikes on army positions and pro-Iran fighters, also seeking to cut off Hezbollah supply lines to Lebanon from Tehran.

According to the statements, around 320 of the slain Hezbollah fighters were from south Lebanon, with some 60 from the eastern Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria.

Several south Lebanon villages close to the Israeli border each count around a dozen slain fighters, the statements have indicated.

Around 70 per cent of the more than 230 fighters killed since late January, when Hezbollah began to provide the year of birth on its death statements, were aged 40 or under.

At least six were aged 20 or under, with three born the same year as the 2006 war or after it.

A source close to Hezbollah, requesting anonymity, told AFP that fewer than 300 fighters from the group were killed in the 2006 conflict.

Hezbollah has said it is seeking to tie up Israeli military resources in the country’s north in support of ally Hamas.

The escalating attacks have raised fears of a broader conflict, and Lebanon has been on edge since Shukr’s death.

Earlier this month, the heavily armed group said it had carried out 2,500 ‘military operations’ against Israel since October.

It claimed to have targeted ‘border positions’ 1,328 times and ‘military barracks’ 391 times, using a variety of weapons including artillery, rockets, ‘guided missiles’ and ‘air defence weapons’.

The group has also released three videos purportedly showing surveillance drone footage taken by the group across the border, widely viewed as a potential bank of targets in case of all-out war.

The footage includes aerial images of military positions in northern Israel and the annexed Golan Heights, as well as sensitive areas in and around the port city of Haifa.​

 

[Saif]

Pressure mounts on Israel as Gaza truce talks to resume in Qatar

Diplomatic pressure mounted on Israel Friday to secure a truce that could avert a wider war after more than 10 months of fighting in Gaza, as mediators prepared to meet for...

www.newagebd.net

Pressure mounts on Israel as Gaza truce talks to resume in Qatar
Agence France-Presse . Doha, Qatar 17 August, 2024, 00:49

Palestinians flee with their belongings Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Friday, amid the on-going conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. | AFP photo

Diplomatic pressure mounted on Israel Friday to secure a truce that could avert a wider war after more than 10 months of fighting in Gaza, as mediators prepared to meet for a second day of talks in Qatar.

Months of effort by international negotiators have yet to secure a truce or hostage release deal but regional tensions have since soared, underscoring the urgency of a ceasefire agreement.

Hamas Palestinian militants were absent, saying they had agreed to terms and urging the United States to pressure Israel.

The risk of a broader Middle East war has surged since the July 31 killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran and its allied groups in the region blamed Israel and vowed revenge.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the talks had ‘a promising start’ but ‘there remains a lot of work to do’.

The United States, Israel’s main ally and military supplier, has been mediating with Qatar and Egypt, alongside intensive efforts by other nations pushing for a truce.

‘This is a dangerous moment for the Middle East. The risk of the situation spiralling out of control is rising,’ British foreign secretary David Lammy said ahead of his visit to Israel with French foreign minister Stephane Sejourne.

In meetings with Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, Britain’s foreign ministry said they would ‘stress there is no time for delays or excuses from all parties on a ceasefire deal’ in Gaza.

Katz told his visiting counterparts he expects foreign support ‘in attacking’ Iran if it strikes Israel.

Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war that resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead. Some were freed during a one-week truce in November.

On Thursday the toll from Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza topped 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.

While the Qatar talks take place with a team sent by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, bombs have continued to fall in the Palestinian territory.

‘Why did Netanyahu send a delegation to the talks while we are being killed here?’ in Jabalia, Mohammed al-Balwi asked among the concrete debris left from an air strike Thursday in north Gaza.

They had found ‘limbs on the ground’, he said.

On Friday Gaza’s civil defence agency said its crews recovered five bodies from a bombed apartment building in Gaza City, near Jabalia.

Witnesses reported air raids in central Gaza and near the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Israel’s military said rockets had been fired on Thursday from Khan Yunis toward Kissufim, just outside Gaza.

On Friday the military cited rocket and other fire in announcing new evacuation orders for the Khan Yunis region, from which troops had withdrawn four months ago.

Netanyahu says Israel must have ‘total victory’ but troops have found themselves returning to fight again in Khan Yunis and northern Gaza where, in January, the military declared the Hamas command structure dismantled.

Israeli aircraft struck more than 30 militant targets in Gaza over the previous day, the military said on Friday.

The death of Hamas leader Haniyeh came hours after an Israeli strike killed Fuad Shukr, a top operations chief of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has exchanged near-daily cross border fire with Israeli forces.

The Gaza war has also drawn in Tehran-aligned groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

On Thursday the US military said its forces destroyed a ‘ground control station’ operated by Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who have for months fired missiles and drones at shipping in waterways vital to world trade off Yemen.

The Huthis, like Hezbollah, say they are acting in support of the Palestinians.

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

The Palestinian foreign ministry on Friday described as ‘organised state terrorism’ a Jewish settler attack on a Palestinian West Bank village the previous day.

Israeli officials condemned the incident, the latest of its kind, and the White House called it ‘unacceptable’.

The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said ‘settlers’ bullets’ killed one man and critically wounded another during the attack in Jit, near Nablus.

The Israeli military said dozens of Israeli civilians, some masked, entered Jit and ‘set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails’.

The Qatari foreign ministry said Gaza truce negotiations would continue on Friday.

Mediators are seeking to finalise details of a framework initially outlined by US president Joe Biden in May, and which he said Israel had proposed.

While Hamas is not directly taking part in the Qatar talks, an official of the Islamist movement, Osama Hamdan, said the group would join if the meeting set a timetable for implementing what Hamas had already agreed to.

Hamas officials, some analysts and protesters in Israel have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages again took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Thursday. ‘Make deals not war!’ one of their signs said.

Far-right members crucial to Israel’s ruling coalition oppose any truce, and Netanyahu has called Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar ‘the only obstacle to a hostage deal’.​

 

[Saif]

Israel slaughters Palestinians with western arms

WHILE many are earnestly pointing at the devastation of war, the rampant human rights violations and the deliberate relegation of international and humanitarian law, there are those who see war from an entirely different perspective: profits...

www.newagebd.net

Israel slaughters Palestinians with western arms
Ramzy Baroud 20 August, 2024, 00:00

Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee a makeshift camp for displaced people in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip after Israeli tanks took position on a hill overlooking the area on August 18, amidst the conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. | Agence France-Presse/Bashar Taleb

WHILE many are earnestly pointing at the devastation of war, the rampant human rights violations and the deliberate relegation of international and humanitarian law, there are those who see war from an entirely different perspective: profits.

For the merchants of war, the collective pain and misery of whole nations is dwarfed by the lucrative deals of billions of dollars generated from weapons sales.

The great irony is that some of the loudest advocates of human rights are, in fact, the ones who are facilitating the global arms trade. Without it, human rights would not be violated with such impunity.

The Geneva Academy, a legal research organisation, says that it currently monitors about 110 active armed conflicts worldwide. Most of these conflicts are taking place in the global south, though many of these cases are either exacerbated, funded or managed by western powers or western multinational corporations.

Of the 110, 45 armed conflicts are taking place in the Middle East and North Africa region, 35 in the rest of Africa, 21 in Asia and six in Latin America, according to the Academy.

The worst and bloodiest of these armed conflicts is currently taking place in Gaza, one of the poorest and most isolated regions in the world.

To estimate the future death toll resulting from the war in Gaza, one of the world’s most respected medical journals, the Lancet, undertook a thorough research entitled ‘Counting the dead in Gaza: Difficult but essential’.

The approximation was based on the death toll figure produced as of June 19, when Israel had then reportedly killed 37,396 Palestinians.

Lancet’s new number was horrifying, even though the medical journal said that its conclusions were based on conservative estimates of indirect deaths vs direct deaths that often result from such wars.

Should the war end today, meaning June 19, 7.9 per cent of the population of the Gaza Strip will die because of the war and its aftermath. That’s ‘up to 186,000 or even more deaths’, according to the Lancet.

Palestinians in Gaza are not dying because of an untraceable virus or a natural disaster, but in a merciless war that can only be sustained through massive shipments of arms, which continue to flow to Israel despite the international outcry.

On January 26, the International Court of Justice resolved that it had enough evidence to suggest that genocide was being committed in Gaza. On May 20, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, added his voice, this time speaking of deliberate acts of ‘extermination’ of Palestinians.

Yet, weapons continued to flow, mostly coming from western government. The main source of weapons is, unsurprisingly, the United States, followed by Germany, Italy and Britain.

Despite announcements by some European countries that they are curtailing or even freezing their weapons supplies to Israel, these governments continue to find legal caveats to delay the outright ban. Italy, for example, insists on respecting ‘previously signed orders’ and the UK has suspended the processing of arms export licenses ‘pending a wider review’.

Washington, however, remains the main supplier of arms to Tel Aviv. In 2016, both countries signed another memorandum of understanding that would allow Israel to receive $38 billion of US military aid. That was the third MoU signed between the two countries, and it was intended to cover the period between 2018 to 2028.

The war, however, prompted US policymakers to go even beyond their original commitment, by assigning yet another $26 billion ($17 billion in military aid), knowing full well that the majority of Gaza victims, per United Nations estimates, are civilians, mostly women and children.

Therefore, when the US urges an end to the war in Gaza while continuing to flood Israel with more weapons, the logic seems utterly flawed and entirely hypocritical.

The same hypocrisy applies to other, mostly western countries, which brazenly pose as defenders of human rights and international peace.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the world’s top ten exporters of major arms between 2019 and 2023 include six western countries. The US alone has a 42 per cent share of global arms exports, followed by France at 11 per cent.

The total arms export of the top six western states amounts to nearly 70 per cent of the global share.

If we consider that the vast majority of armed conflicts are all taking place in the Global South, the obvious conclusion is that the very west that purportedly champions global peace, democracy and international law is the very entity that also fuels wars, armed conflicts and genocide.

For the Global South to take charge of its future, it must fight against this obvious injustice. They cannot allow their continents to continue to serve as mere markets for western arms. The blood of Arabs, Africans, Asians and South Americans should not be spilled to sustain the economies of western countries.

True, it will take much more than limiting the arms trade to end global conflicts, but the free flow of weapons to conflict zones will continue to feed the war machine, from Gaza to Sudan and from Congo to Burma and beyond.

One can continue to argue that Israel must respect international law, and that Burma must respect human rights. But what use are mere words when the wWest continues to provide the murder weapon, with no moral or legal accountability?

CounterPunch.org, August 19. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’ (Clarity Press, Atlanta).​

 

[Saif]

Blinken says Gaza talks 'maybe the last' chance for truce

US secretary of state Antony Blinken, in Israel to push for a Gaza truce, said on Monday ongoing negotiations were "maybe the last" chance to reach an agreement to end the war.

en.prothomalo.com

Blinken says Gaza talks 'maybe the last' chance for truce
AFP
Updated: 19 Aug 2024, 15: 16

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (Centre-R) looks on after his arrival in Tel Aviv on August 18, 2024 AFP

US secretary of state Antony Blinken, in Israel to push for a Gaza truce, said on Monday ongoing negotiations were "maybe the last" chance to reach an agreement to end the war.

"This is a decisive moment -- probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security," Blinken said as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

The top US diplomat said President Joe Biden had sent him "to get this agreement to the line and ultimately over the line".

"It is time for it to get done. It's also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process," Blinken said.

"We're working to make sure that there is no escalation, that there are no provocations, that there are no actions that in any way could move us away from getting this deal over the line, or, for that matter, escalating the conflict to other places, and to greater intensity."

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel, is scheduled to meet later on Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The visiting secretary of state said it was a "fraught moment" in Israel and warned against any moves that could heighten regional tensions, following threats from Iran and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah to avenge the recent killings of two militant leaders.

Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said Israelis wanted to see the return "as soon as possible" of hostages still held in Gaza since the 7 October attack that triggered the war.

"There is no greater humanitarian objective, and there's no greater humanitarian cause, than bringing back our hostages," Herzog told Blinken.​

 

[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...

www.newagebd.net

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.

www.thedailystar.net

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.

www.thedailystar.net

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’...

www.newagebd.net

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...

www.newagebd.net

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.

www.thedailystar.net

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.

www.newagebd.net

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....

www.newagebd.net

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.​