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

[Saif]

Flights again halted to Israel after Houthi missile lands near airport

European and U.S. carriers cancelled flights for the next several days after a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Sunday landed near Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, the country’s main international travel gateway. Many foreign airlines subsequently suspended flights to and fr

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Flights again halted to Israel after Houthi missile lands near airport
REUTERS
Published :
May 04, 2025 20:58
Updated :
May 04, 2025 20:58

Israeli police officers investigate a crater at the site of a missile attack, launched from Yemen, near Ben Gurion Airport, in Tel Aviv, Israel May 4, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Nir Elias

European and U.S. carriers cancelled flights for the next several days after a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Sunday landed near Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, the country’s main international travel gateway.

Many foreign airlines subsequently suspended flights to and from Tel Aviv after the missile hit, sending a plume of smoke into the air and causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.

Following a ceasefire deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas in January, foreign carriers had begun to resume flights to Israel after halting them for much of the last year and a half since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

That left flag carrier El Al Airlines - along with smaller rivals Arkia and Israir - with a near monopoly. El Al’s shares rose 7%, while Israir gained 4.1% in a flat broader Tel Aviv market on Sunday.

Delta Air Lines said it cancelled Sunday’s flight from JFK in New York to Tel Aviv and the return flight from Tel Aviv on Monday. United cancelled its twice daily flights between Tel Aviv and Newark while it monitors the situation.

Earlier, flights from Tel Aviv on Delta and United on Sunday morning departed about 90 minutes late.

Lufthansa Group, which includes Lufthansa, Swiss, Brussels and Austrian, said it had halted flights to and from Tel Aviv through Tuesday due to the current situation.

ITA said it had cancelled flights from Italy to Israel through Wednesday, while Air France cancelled flights on Sunday, saying customers were transferred to flights on Monday. TUS flights to and from Cyprus were cancelled through Monday, while Air India flights from New Delhi were halted on Sunday.

Ryanair suspended flights on Sunday but flights are still scheduled for Monday, according to the Israel Airports Authority. Wizz also halted flights.

“I’m afraid it’s going to be very difficult to go back to France because all European carriers, from what I see on the information (board), have cancelled. Lufthansa have cancelled, Swiss have cancelled, Brussels (Airlines), so no connection is possible,” said Michael Sceemes, 56, whose Air France flight was cancelled.

Aegean, flydubai and Ethiopian did not cancel flights.

El Al said it would reintroduce rescue flights to Israel from Larnaca and Athens for passengers stranded by foreign carriers at a cost of $99 and $149, respectively.

Udi Bar Oz, head of Ben Gurion Airport, said the airport was up and running less than 30 minutes after the missile hit a road nearby.

Claiming responsibility for the strike, the Houthis’ military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said Israel’s main airport was “no longer safe for air travel”.

The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, began targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping in late 2023, during the early days of the war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.

U.S. President Donald Trump in March ordered large-scale strikes against the Houthis to deter them from targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to respond to the Houthis. “We attacked in the past, we will attack in the future ... There will be more blows,” he said.​

 

[Saif]

Humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘beyond imagination’: UN agency

“The humanitarian situation throughout the Gaza Strip is beyond imagination,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East warned on Sunday. The UN agency said on social media platform X that “as the complete blocking of supplies essential fo

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘beyond imagination’: UN agency
Published :
May 04, 2025 21:06
Updated :
May 04, 2025 21:06

“The humanitarian situation throughout the Gaza Strip is beyond imagination,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East warned on Sunday.

The UN agency said on social media platform X that “as the complete blocking of supplies essential for survival enters its ninth week, there must be a concerted international effort to stop this humanitarian catastrophe from reaching a new unseen level,” reiterating its call for an urgent ceasefire, reports UNB.

Meanwhile, the Hamas-run media office warned of an imminent humanitarian disaster in Gaza due to the continued closure of the crossings and a stifling blockade lasting more than 60 days.

The office said in a press statement that “the Israeli occupation continues to prevent the entry of baby formula, nutritional supplements, and all forms of humanitarian aid, leaving more than 70,000 children hospitalized due to severe malnutrition.”

It added that more than 3,500 children under the age of five are at imminent risk of death from starvation.

The statement called on the international community to take urgent and immediate action to reopen crossings and allow the entry of baby formula and nutritional supplements into Gaza.

Israel halted the flow of goods and supplies into Gaza on March 2 following the expiration of the first phase of a January ceasefire agreement with Hamas. The second phase has yet to be implemented due to a lack of consensus between the parties.​

 

[Saif]

Israel may seize all Gaza in expanded operation, officials say

Israel may seize the Gaza Strip and control aid in an expanded offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas that was approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet on Monday, officials said. An Israeli defence official said it would not be launched before US President Donal

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Israel may seize all Gaza in expanded operation, officials say
REUTERS
Published :
May 05, 2025 20:40
Updated :
May 05, 2025 20:40

Israeli tanks are positioned near the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, March 18, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Amir Cohen/Files

Israel may seize the Gaza Strip and control aid in an expanded offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas that was approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet on Monday, officials said.

An Israeli defence official said it would not be launched before US President Donald Trump concludes his visit next week to the Middle East.

The decision, after weeks of faltering efforts to agree a ceasefire with Hamas, underlines the threat that a war heaping international pressure on Israel amid dwindling public support at home could continue with no end in sight.

A government spokesman told journalists online that reserve soldiers were being called up to expand operations in Gaza, not to occupy it.

A report by Israel's public broadcaster Kan, citing officials with knowledge of the details, said the new plan was gradual and would take months, with forces focusing first on one area of the battered enclave.

Israeli troops have already taken over an area amounting to around a third of the Gaza Strip, displacing the population and building watchtowers and surveillance posts on cleared ground the military has described as security zones, but the new plan would go further.

One Israeli government official said the newly approved offensive would seize the entire territory of the Gaza Strip, move its civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas hands.

The defence official said aid distribution, which has been handled by international aid groups and U.N. organizations, would be transferred to private companies and handed out in the southern area of Rafah once the offensive begins.

The Israeli military, which throughout the war has shown little appetite for occupying Gaza, declined to comment on the remarks by government officials and politicians.

Israel resumed its offensive in March after the collapse of a US-backed ceasefire that had halted fighting for two months. It has since imposed a blockade of aid into the enclave, drawing warnings from the United Nations and international organizations that the 2.3 million population faces imminent famine.

The Israeli defence official said that Israel would hold on to security zones seized along the Gaza perimeter because they were vital for protecting Israeli communities around the enclave.

But he said there was a "window of opportunity" for a ceasefire and hostage release deal during a visit by Trump to the region next week.

"If there is no hostage deal, Operation "Gideon Chariots" will begin with great intensity and will not stop until all its goals are achieved," he said.

Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi rejected what he called "pressure and blackmail".

"No deal except a comprehensive one, which includes a complete ceasefire, full withdrawal from Gaza, reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, and the release of all prisoners from both sides," he said.

'OCCUPATION'

Israel has yet to present a clear vision for post-war Gaza after a campaign that has displaced most of Gaza's population and left it depending on aid supplies that have been dwindling rapidly since the blockade.

Ministers have said that aid distribution cannot be left to international organizations which it accuses of allowing Hamas to seize supplies intended for the civilian population.

Instead, officials have looked at plans for private contractors to handle distribution, through what the United Nations has described as Israeli hubs.

On Monday, Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said on X that Israel was demanding that the UN and non-governmental organisations shut down their aid distribution system in Gaza.

However, the decision to expand the operation was immediately hailed by Israeli government hardliners who have long pressed for a full takeover of the Gaza Strip by Israel and a permanent displacement of the population, along the line of the Riviera plans outlined by Trump in February.

"We are finally going to conquer Gaza. We are no longer afraid of the word 'occupation'," Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a pro-settler conference in an online discussion.

However, with Israel facing threats from the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, who on Sunday fired a missile that hit close to Ben Gurion Airport, an unstable Syria next door and a volatile situation in the occupied West Bank, the capacity for prolonged military operations faces constraints.

Israel's Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said on Sunday that the military has already begun issuing tens of thousands of call-up orders for its reserve forces, looking to expand the Gaza campaign.

Zamir, who took office in March, has pushed back against calls by government hardliners who want to choke off aid entirely and has told ministers aid must be let in soon, according to Kan.

The war was triggered by the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies, and saw 251 taken hostage into Gaza in the deadliest day for Israel in its history.

Israel's ground and air campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians according to local health authorities, and left much of Gaza in ruins.

Up to 24 of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza are believed to be alive. Families fear that the fighting will endanger their loved ones while critics say Israel risks being drawn into a long guerrilla war with limited gains and no clear strategy.

Successive surveys have shown dwindling public support for the war among Israelis, many of whom prefer to see a ceasefire deal reached and more hostages released.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 19 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said two Israeli air strikes killed at least 19 people in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory’s north early Monday...

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Israeli strikes kill 19 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 06 May, 2025, 00:06

Palestinians inspect the debris of a Palestinian house, after it was demolished by Israeli forces, in the village of al-Mughayyer, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on May 5, 2025. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said two Israeli air strikes killed at least 19 people in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory’s north early Monday.

‘Our teams found 15 martyrs and 10 wounded, mostly children and women, after an Israeli strike on three apartments’ northwest of Gaza City, said the agency’s spokesman, Mahmud Bassal.

Four other people were killed and four wounded in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, he said.

The Israeli military has yet to comment on the reported strikes.

It has intensified aerial bombardments and expanded ground operations in the Gaza Strip since resuming its offensive in the Palestinian territory on March 18.

Israel blocked the entry of all aid into the besieged territory of about 2.4 million people on March 2.

Israel says the blockade and intensified bombardments aim to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages held in Gaza.

Militants in the territory still hold 58 hostages seized in Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.

The army says 34 of them are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.

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

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 52,535 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes on school housing displaced and market kill 38 in Gaza, medics say

Israeli airstrikes on a school housing conflict-displaced families and close to a crowded market and restaurant in Gaza City killed at least 38 people on Wednesday, local health authorities said. Medics said two strikes targeted the Karama School in Tuffah, a suburb of Gaza City, killing 15. Later

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israeli strikes on school housing displaced and market kill 38 in Gaza, medics say
REUTERS
Published :
May 07, 2025 20:59
Updated :
May 07, 2025 20:59

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on an UNRWA school sheltering displaced people, in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip, May 7, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Israeli airstrikes on a school housing conflict-displaced families and close to a crowded market and restaurant in Gaza City killed at least 38 people on Wednesday, local health authorities said.

Medics said two strikes targeted the Karama School in Tuffah, a suburb of Gaza City, killing 15. Later in the day, an Israeli strike near a restaurant and market in the city killed at least 23 people, including women and children, medics said.

There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Reuters footage of the scene near the market showed wounded men being rushed away on the back of pickups and carts. Ambulances sped down shattered streets and a woman in tears carried a baby away from the scene, with two young children beside her.

"The blood was like a lake, oh my baby, pools of blood," she can be heard screaming.

Ahmed Al-Saoudi said he witnessed the airstrike near the market.

"People come to the market to get what they need if they can find it ... Neither the people nor the animals were safe. Neither the young nor the old," he said.

An image posted on social media showed what appeared to be a family of three - mother, father and son - lying dead on the street in pools of blood. The young boy was carrying a pink backpack. Reuters could not immediately verify the image that was purportedly from the scene near the restaurant.

Two Israeli airstrikes on another school, housing displaced people in Bureij camp in central Gaza, killed at least 33 people, including women and children, on Tuesday, local health authorities said. The Israeli military said it struck "terrorists" operating from a command center in the compound.

The strike smashed classrooms, destroyed furniture and left a large crater in the school campus. On Wednesday, survivors sifted through rubble to look for some of their belongings.

"What happened is an earthquake. The Israeli occupation hit a school housing children. They are children," said eyewitness Ali Al-Shaqra. He said the school housed 300 families.

"Here is the building; it was razed to the ground. We cannot find the gas cylinder, the flour bag we had, the kilo of rice, or the meal we got from the Tukkiyah (community kitchen). Thank God we are left with the clothes we had on," Shaqra added.

In Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, residents and Hamas sources said Israeli forces, who have taken control of the city, continued to blow up and demolish houses and buildings.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, said on Wednesday their fighters had detonated a pre-planted minefield targeting an Israeli armoured force east of Khan Younis in the south. They said they inflicted casualties, followed by mortar shelling of the area.

AID HALTED

Israel resumed its offensive in March after the collapse of a U.S.-backed ceasefire that had halted fighting for two months. It has since imposed an aid blockade, drawing warnings from the UN that the 2.3 million population faces imminent famine.

Israeli troops have already taken over an area amounting to around a third of Gaza, displacing the population and building watchtowers and surveillance posts on cleared ground the military has described as security zones.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will expand the offensive against Hamas after his security cabinet approved plans that may include seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.

But an Israeli defence official said on Monday the operation would not be launched before U.S. President Donald Trump concludes his visit next week to the Middle East, and there was a "window of opportunity" for a ceasefire and hostage release deal during Trump's visit.

A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday Hamas would not agree to any interim truce in return for a resumption of aid for a few days, and insisted on a full ceasefire deal to end the war.

Basem Naim said Hamas would not accept "desperate attempts before Trump's visit, through the crime of starvation, the continuation of genocide, and the threat of expanding military action to achieve a partial agreement that returns some (Israeli) prisoners in exchange for a few days of food and drink."

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's campaign has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Hamas-run health authorities, and reduced much of Gaza to ruins.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said two local journalists, Nour Abdu and Yehya Sbeih were killed in Wednesday's attacks, raising the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire since the war began to 214.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas insists on ‘comprehensive’ deal to end Gaza war

Hamas insisted on Wednesday on a ‘comprehensive’ agreement to end its war with Israel, as rescuers said Israeli bombardment of Gaza killed at least 26 people amid a growing humanitarian catastrophe...

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Hamas insists on ‘comprehensive’ deal to end Gaza war
Israel strikes kill 26
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 08 May, 2025, 00:45

Hamas insisted on Wednesday on a ‘comprehensive’ agreement to end its war with Israel, as rescuers said Israeli bombardment of Gaza killed at least 26 people amid a growing humanitarian catastrophe.

A two-month ceasefire in the war collapsed in March, with Israel resuming intense strikes and imposing a total aid blockade on the Palestinian territory.

Israel demands the return of all hostages seized in Hamas’s unprecedented October 2023 attack and Hamas’s disarmament, which the group has rejected as a ‘red line’.

Hamas has consistently demanded that a truce deal must lead to the war’s end, a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a surge in humanitarian aid.

‘Hamas and the resistance factions insist on reaching a comprehensive agreement and a full package to end the war and aggression, along with a roadmap for the day after,’ political bureau member Bassem Naim said Wednesday.

‘There are desperate attempts ahead of US president Donald Trump’s visit to the region to force through a partial deal that would return some Israeli captives in exchange for a limited number of days of food and water — without any guarantees from any party to actually end the war,’ he said.

Trump is due in the Gulf next week for talks with the heads of state of powerful monarchies.

Israel this week drew widespread condemnation over its plans for an expanded Gaza offensive, which an official said would entail the ‘conquest’ of the Palestinian territory.

Before that phase begins, a senior Israeli security source had said that the timing of troop deployments allowed a ‘window of opportunity’ for a possible hostage deal coinciding with Trump’s Middle East trip.

‘We want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible,’ Trump said at the White House, without elaborating.

In Gaza, rescuers said strikes killed 26 people, 15 in a strike on a school.

‘Our teams retrieved 15 martyrs and 10 injured individuals after Israeli occupation aircraft targeted the Al-Karama school, which shelters displaced persons in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City,’ spokesman Mahmud Basal said.

He had earlier reported a toll of 11 killed in strikes on the territory.

One strike hit a house in the southern city of Khan Yunis, where eight members of the Al-Qidra family were killed and 12 wounded, Bassal said.

The ages of the dead ranged from two to 54, he added.

AFP footage from Khan Yunis’s Nasser Hospital showed wounded children crying on hospital beds while bodies covered in blankets arrived in ambulances.

‘They were sleeping and the house collapsed on them,’ said Abir Shehab, adding her brother had been killed.

‘We die of hunger, we die of war, we die of fear, we die of everything, and the whole world stands by and watches us die,’ she said.

Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the strikes.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday at least 2,545 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign, bringing the war’s overall toll to 52,653.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

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

On Tuesday, Hamas said it was pointless to continue ceasefire talks with Israel, accusing it of waging a ‘hunger war’ on Gaza.

France’s president Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that the situation in Gaza was ‘the most critical we have ever seen’.

In Madrid, Spain, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway and Slovenia in a joint statement said they ‘firmly reject any demographic or territorial change in Gaza’.

UN rights chief Volker Turk voiced concerns Wednesday that Israel’s plans to expand its offensive aim to create conditions threatening Palestinians’ ‘continued existence’ in Gaza.

‘There is no reason to believe that doubling down on military strategies, which, for a year and eight months, have not led to a durable resolution, including the release of all hostages, will now succeed,’ he said.

‘Instead, expanding the offensive on Gaza will almost certainly cause further mass displacement, more deaths and injuries of innocent civilians, and the destruction of Gaza’s little remaining infrastructure.’

Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa, not affiliated to Hamas, urged the world to put a stop to the ‘deliberate humanitarian crime’ of famine, which he said was being perpetrated in Gaza.

‘We appeal to the conscience of humanity. Do not let the children of Gaza starve to death,’ he said.​

 

[Saif]

Obscenity of collective punishment in Gaza

MAYBE you remember an incident like this from your schooldays. Someone in your class has done something wrong, like pass around a caricature of the principal, and the teacher decides to punish the whole class by taking away your recess. Maybe this...

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Obscenity of collective punishment in Gaza
by John Feffer 10 May, 2025, 00:00

Counterpunch/Jaber Jehad Badwan

MAYBE you remember an incident like this from your schooldays. Someone in your class has done something wrong, like pass around a caricature of the principal, and the teacher decides to punish the whole class by taking away your recess. Maybe this is done to force the culprit to confess, or to pressure you and your classmates to point the finger. It’s a clever method of drafting students to help police the classroom.

Such tactics of collective punishment have fallen out of favour for obvious reasons. They’re unfair. They don’t change behaviour. They teach all the wrong lessons and make kids hate school.

Oh, and such tactics are also against the Geneva Conventions. According to an article of the Conventions related to the status and treatment of protected persons, ‘No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.’

It might seem ridiculous to apply the Geneva Conventions to the classroom, even if some schools resemble warzones. But there has been a recent trend to condemn the tactics of collective punishment at schools and reference the principles designed to safeguard civilians.

Even as the classroom becomes more respectful of children’s rights, the world of geopolitics has continued to embrace principles of collective punishment. What is war, ultimately, but the punishment of the entire population for the actions of the few? Economic sanctions, even the supposedly ‘smart’ variety, end up hurting people who have nothing to do with the policies of their leaders. And all those ‘beautiful’ tariffs end up raising prices for millions of consumers who are not connected in the least to the practices of government or corporations.

But there is no more egregious example of collective punishment in the world today than the tragedy currently unfolding in Gaza.

Ongoing Violations

ON OCTOBER 7, 2023, Hamas carried out a horrifying attack on Israel that left over a thousand dead and over 200 in captivity. Israel almost immediately declared war on Hamas. It then set about forcing all the residents of Gaza to pay for the crimes of a few.

The punishment has been appalling. More than 52,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza health ministry. But this number is probably an undercount by 40 per cent, according to an article in The Lancet, if all war-related deaths like those from a ravaged health system are included. The vast majority of these tens of thousands of deaths — around 70 per cent — are women and children.

These casualty numbers must now reflect deaths by starvation, as Israel has blocked all humanitarian aid to Gaza for the last two months. Israel has deployed this tactic to pressure the Palestinian population to force Hamas to capitulate and release the couple dozen Israeli hostages it continues to hold. No food, no medicine and no fuel has made it into the enclave. In addition to starvation, people are dying because they don’t have access to common life-saving drugs.

The New York Times reports that the ‘only food available to many Gazans — particularly those among the 90 per cent of the population that is displaced and mostly living in tents — comes from local charity kitchens, some of which have been looted as the hunger crisis deepens.’ Compounding the tragedy is the fact that food and medicine is readily available nearby, but Israel is blocking its delivery.

The Israeli government claims that it is only targeting Hamas. But it continues to kill civilians indiscriminately in air strikes, including this week at a crowded restaurant and a school. It claims that Hamas fighters are hiding in hospitals, which justifies the destruction of the entire medical infrastructure of the area. Even if this assertion were true, and Israel has provided little in the way of proof, all of the civilian deaths would still qualify as collective punishment. It would still be a war crime.

Clayton Dalton was part of a medical mission that visited Gaza during the two-month ceasefire that began in January. In The New Yorker, he described this scene at a ruined hospital in northern Gaza.

‘We entered a large storage room in the corner of the ICU which was crammed with medical devices: ultrasound machines, IV pumps, dialysis machines, blood-pressure monitors. Each had apparently been destroyed by a bullet — not in a pattern one would expect from random shooting but, rather, methodically. I was stunned. I couldn’t think of any possible military justification for destroying lifesaving equipment.’

Visiting doctors also started documenting another horrifying statistic: the number of children shot in the head, as if deliberately executed. There have been dozens of such casualties, some of the children just a few years old. Adam Hamawy, a plastic surgeon from New Jersey, told This American Life:

‘These are little children that are being shot, and these aren’t stray bullets. These are aimed. They’re precise. So a stray bullet will explain one or two of them. It’s not going to explain the string of precise, targeted shootings that are being done on children since October.’

The Geneva Conventions do not seem to apply to school-age children in Gaza. They, along with so many other Palestinians, are the victims of collective punishment.

Naming and not shaming

ISRAEL has been cited numerous times for war crimes in Gaza. Human rights organizations — Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International — have published periodic reports on Israeli violations. The United Nations has condemned Israel for crimes against humanity. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

If anything, the Netanyahu government has only increased its violations in the face of these condemnations. This week, it announced an escalation in its post-ceasefire campaign to defeat Hamas. Israel has called up more soldiers to invade Gaza, push inhabitants to a small enclave in the south, and occupy most of the strip. More extremist members of Netanyahu’s cabinet call for the expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza, and it’s beginning to look as if this is the unstated goal of the Israel government.

Although Netanyahu faces increased protests from its own citizenry — including thousands of reservists and the former head of the Mossad spy agency — several powerful countries are standing with the Israeli leader. Even as it has axed a huge amount of US foreign aid, the Trump administration has used executive powers to skirt Congress and transfer billions of dollars of military assistance to Israel. India, too, has ignored global public opinion to continue to send weapons and technology to Israel. Other far-right wing leaders — Javier Milei in Argentina, Viktor Orban in Hungary — have also maintained good relations with Netanyahu.

Which means that Israel continues to act with impunity in its punishment of Palestinians.

Much has been written about the proper terms to describe Israeli actions in Gaza. The Israeli government defends its campaign as a ‘just war’ against Hamas. Critics have accused the government of committing genocide.

The actual conditions on the ground — the starvation, the toddlers shot in the head, the widespread displacement and destruction of communities — stand by themselves. Lawyers and politicians can throw terms at each other, ‘just war’ versus ‘genocide,’ but there is no getting around the plain, brutal facts. Even the term ‘collective punishment,’ in its abstraction, fails to capture the horror.

In JM Coetzee’s novel Elizabeth Costello, the eponymous character must give a paper at a conference on evil. She’s been reading a work of fiction about the failed effort to assassinate Hitler and the cold-blooded execution of the plotters. She is taken aback by the details in the book about the manner of the execution. Why is it necessary to read these horrible details, she wonders? There is no good reason for the novelist to imagine this manifestation of evil for it is, in a word, ‘obscene.’

‘Obscene because such things ought not to take place, and then obscene again because having taken place they ought not to be brought into the light but covered up and hidden for ever in the bowels of the earth, like what goes on in the slaughterhouses of the world, if one wishes to save one’s sanity.’

The details of what’s happening in Gaza are similarly obscene. But, like the facts of the Nazi atrocities, they must not be ignored. The Israeli government has banned journalists from visiting Gaza. The Trump administration is helping out by penalizing the airing of these details and the campus protests against the US facilitation of these crimes, all under the guise of preventing ‘anti-Semitism.’ These are outrages.

In this age of ‘alt news’ and rampant disinformation, presidential fabrications and threats to defund public media, facts still matter. The world must face the facts of Israeli atrocities in Gaza, not despite but because they are obscene.

Counterpunch.org, May 9. John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus.​

 

[Saif]

GAZA TRUCE: Hamas meetings with mediators yeild no progress

A Hamas delegation held two meetings with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Doha this week but they produced no breakthrough in the search for a Gaza truce, sources close to the group said Friday.

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GAZA TRUCE: Hamas meetings with mediators yeild no progress
Agence France-Presse . Cairo 09 May, 2025, 22:46

A Hamas delegation held two meetings with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Doha this week but they produced no breakthrough in the search for a Gaza truce, sources close to the group said Friday.

‘Egyptian officials met twice with a high-level Hamas delegation led by chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya and Qatari officials on Wednesday and Thursday in Doha,’ one source said.

A second source said the talks were ‘serious’ but made ‘no concrete progress’.

Israel’s military resumed its offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month truce that saw a surge in aid into the war-ravaged territory and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Israel announced plans on Monday to expand its military campaign, drawing a chorus of international criticism.

Israel’s military has said the expanded operations approved by the security cabinet on Sunday would include displacing ‘most’ of Gaza’s population.

An Israeli security source said there was still a ‘window of opportunity’ for a hostage release deal to be struck to coincide with US president Donald Trump’s May 13 to 16 visit to the region.

But one of the sources close to Hamas said Friday: ‘We do not expect an agreement to be concluded’ by then.

The comment came after Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal for a 45-day truce with hostages to be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a relaxation of the devastating aid blockade Israel imposed on Gaza on March 2.

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said Wednesday that the group insisted on a ‘comprehensive agreement’ to end the war.

Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

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

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 52,760 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations regards as reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strike kills five in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Saturday that five people were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent in Gaza City, all members of single family according to relatives.

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Israeli strike kills five in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 11 May, 2025, 01:21

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Saturday that five people were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent in Gaza City, all members of single family according to relatives.

‘Three children, their mother and her husband were sleeping inside a tent and were bombed by an [Israeli] occupation aircraft,’ family member Omar Abu al-Kass told AFP.

The strikes came ‘without warning and without having done anything wrong,’ added Abu al-Kass, who said he was the children’s maternal grandfather.

AFP images from the scene showed mourners, some of them weeping, gathering alongside five white shrouds of different sizes.

‘Five martyrs and wounded in an [Israeli] occupation air strike on a tent in the Sabra neighbourhood’ of Gaza City, civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

The Israeli army, which resumed its offensive in Gaza on March 18 ending a two-month truce, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the strike.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, which killed 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israeli retaliation has killed at least 52,787 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Israel’s continuing defiance of international law

‘IN THE beginning was the word,’ John 1:1 commences like Genesis, connecting the God of Israel to the word. And the deliverance of the word is confirmed by the Ten Commandments being physically handed to Moses and the Israelites, legend has it, on Mount Sinai. It was a defining moment in Jewish...

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PALESTINIAN LIVES

Israel’s continuing defiance of international law
Daniel Warner 12 May, 2025, 00:00

‘IN THE beginning was the word,’ John 1:1 commences like Genesis, connecting the God of Israel to the word. And the deliverance of the word is confirmed by the Ten Commandments being physically handed to Moses and the Israelites, legend has it, on Mount Sinai. It was a defining moment in Jewish reverence for words and the law. But much has changed since those Biblical times.

The United Nations General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice to give a non-binding advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations to facilitate aid into Palestinian territory. Starting April 28, for one week, diplomats and lawyers from 40 countries and three multilateral organisations argued in the Hague to try to force Israel to allow aid to enter. Once again Israel chose to ignore the ICJ, considered the World Court. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar called it ‘another shameful proceeding’ meant to delegitimise Israel.


How to understand Israel’s continuing defiance of international law, including its blockade of aid to Palestinians? Since March 2, 2025, Israel has cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million people still trapped in the Gaza Strip. Stockpiles of food have virtually run out. ‘It’s about the survival of millions of Palestinians,’ Alain Pellet, an advocate for Palestine and an eminent French professor and international lawyer, pleaded before the Court.

The hearings were technical, legal arguments about Israel’s obligations as the occupying power in Gaza and the West Bank and as a member of the United Nations. The precise title of the hearings was ‘Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organisations and Third States in and relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.’ The GA demand for an advisory opinion resulted from the October 2024 Israeli parliament’s vote that prohibits the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

UN legal counsel Elinor Hammarskjöld said Israel has clear obligations as an occupying force to facilitate aid under international humanitarian law. ‘These obligations,’ she said, ‘entail allowing all relevant UN entities to carry out activities for the benefit of the local population.’

Other experts agreed. ‘Israel must facilitate full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian provision to the population of Gaza, including food, water and electricity, and must ensure access to medical care in accordance with international humanitarian law,’ Sally Langrish, legal director and advisor at the UK’s foreign office, argued, specifically citing articles 59 and 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that outlines the obligations of an occupying power. ‘The occupying power must facilitate relief schemes by all means at its disposal,’ she added. ‘This obligation is unconditional.’

Already in July 2024, the ICJ had ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories including the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem was illegal under international law. In an advisory opinion, the Court ordered Israel to end its occupying presence as well as to make reparations for damages done. ‘This illegality relates to the entirety of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967,’ the court said in a statement.

Not having followed the 2024 ICJ opinion about its occupation, how does Israel now justify not allowing aid into the occupied territories? Israel maintains that UNRWA should not be allowed to function. In January 2024, Israel accused 12 UNRWA workers of involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks. However, a UN investigation of the accusations, published in April 2024, found no evidence of wrongdoing. The report noted that Israel had not responded to requests for names and information or given evidence of any previous concerns about UNRWA. UNRWA has denied these accusations, saying there is ‘absolutely no ground for a blanket description of ‘the institution as a whole’ being ‘totally infiltrated.’’

My former colleague and former secretary-general of the Institute of International Law, Marcelo Kohen, representing Jordan, pleaded before the Court that, ‘Israel’s primary obligation is to respect the Palestinian’s people’s right to self-determination.’ That is, Israel should not ‘hinder the realisation of this right, to adopt all necessary and measures to protect the Palestinian civilian population.’ According to Kohen, Israel, cannot obstruct the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, a right confirmed by GA Resolution 78/192 of December 2023.

On the other side, the US argued that ‘There are serious concerns about UNRWA’s impartiality, including information that Hamas has used UNRWA facilities and that UNRWA staff participated in the 7 October terrorist attack against Israel,’ according to Josh Simmons, of the U.S. State Department legal team. ‘Given these concerns, it is clear that Israel has no obligation to permit UNRWA specifically to provide humanitarian assistance. UNRWA is not the only option for providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza,’ he added. Israel boycotted the hearings but submitted written objections. (The US and Hungary were the only countries that supported Israel’s position before the Court.)

What are the constraints on an occupying power? According to a US State Department legal adviser; ‘An occupational power retains a margin of appreciation concerning which relief schemes to permit. Even if an organisation offering relief is an impartial humanitarian organisation, and even if it is a major actor, occupation law does not compel an occupational power to allow and facilitate that specific actor’s relief operations.’

But Marcelo Kohen and the renown international jurist and legal scholar Georges Abi-Saab refuted this argument in a commentary in EJIL TALK!: ‘When occupation ceases to be a provisional factual situation and turns into an open-ended political project, the rules of military occupation no longer apply… The protection afforded to the civilian population, the territory, and its resources is then governed – more comprehensively – by other bodies of international law, notably international human rights law, the right to self-determination, and the right to humanitarian assistance, none of which permit derogation in the name of military necessity or the security interests of the occupying power.’

In addition to the legal questions about Israel’s blocking aid and its obligations as an occupying power, there are larger legal and moral questions about Israel’s actions since October 7, 2023. Already in January 2024, The ICJ found it ‘plausible’ that Israel had committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention. The Court’s president, Joan Donoghue, delivered a provisional order that Israel must ensure, ‘with immediate effect,’ that its forces not commit any of the acts prohibited by the Convention. (Just recently, on May 4, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel, once again, is ‘on the eve of a forceful entry to Gaza.’)

Furthermore, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister on November 21, 2024, for being ‘Allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.’

As far as the United States’ continuing complicity with Israel is concerned, during an early April 2025 drop by to the White House, Netanyahu said; ‘This was a very productive visit, a very warm visit…’ ‘[W]arm visit’ to Washington by someone ‘Allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts’?

(As a reminder about Trump and respect for the law: He swore on January 20, 2025, ‘I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ When asked in a recent television interview whether, as president, he needed to ‘uphold the Constitution of the United States,’ Trump replied, ‘I don’t know.’)

Israel, a self-proclaimed Jewish state, should be an example of respect for the rule of law. Its defiance of the ICJ and ICC, and continuing alliance with the United States’ non-respect for the rule of law is contrary to all the country claims to be as well as contrary to the very foundations of its religious and cultural heritage.

Counterpunch.org, May 9. Daniel Warner is the author of ‘An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations’.​