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

[Saif]

Israeli airstrikes kill 55, body of Thai hostage retrieved from Gaza

The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday, as Israeli airstrikes killed 55 people, according to local medics. Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinia

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israeli airstrikes kill 55, body of Thai hostage retrieved from Gaza

REUTERS
Published :
Jun 08, 2025 00:05
Updated :
Jun 08, 2025 00:05

Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Gaza City, June 7, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Ebrahim Hajjaj

The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday, as Israeli airstrikes killed 55 people, according to local medics.

Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian militant group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.

Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the U.S.- and Israeli-backed aid group, said on Saturday it was unable to distribute assistance to Palestinian civilians, blaming threats by Hamas, which Gaza’s dominant militant group denied.

Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.

There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.

The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.

Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as U.S., Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.

Medics in Gaza said 55 people in total were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the enclave on Saturday.

At least 15 Palestinians were killed and 50 wounded by airstrikes in the Gaza City district of Sabra in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, local health authorities said.

More than one missile landed in the area. The target seemed to have been a multi-floor residential building, but the explosion damaged several other houses nearby, according to witnesses and media.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment. It later warned people to evacuate the nearby district of Jabalia, saying it was going to strike there after rockets were launched by militants in the vicinity.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday that Gaza’s hospitals only had fuel for three more days and that Israel was denying access for international relief agencies to areas where fuel storages designated for hospitals are located.

There was no immediate response from the Israeli military or COGAT, the Israeli defence agency that coordinates humanitarian matters with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it had uncovered “an underground tunnel route, including a command and control center from which senior Hamas commanders” operated beneath the European Hospital compound in southern Gaza.

It added that it had located several bodies of militants whose identities were “under examination”.

The Israeli government and military said last month it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief, but Hamas did not confirm his death.

US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS

The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.

Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the GHF said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations.

The GHF, which has been fiercely criticised by humanitarian organisations for alleged lack of neutrality, said it was unable to distribute any humanitarian aid on Saturday because Hamas had issued “direct threats” against its operations.

“These threats made it impossible to proceed today without putting innocent lives at risk,” the GHF said in a statement in which it also said it intended to resume aid distribution “without delay”.

A Hamas official told Reuters he had no knowledge of such “alleged threats”.

On Wednesday, the GHF suspended operations and asked the Israeli military to review security protocols after Palestinian hospital officials said more than 80 people had been shot dead and hundreds wounded near distribution points between June 1-3.

Eyewitnesses blamed Israeli soldiers for the killings. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots on two days, while on Tuesday it said soldiers had fired at Palestinian “suspects” who were advancing towards their positions.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to the U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

The war erupted after Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.

Israel’s military campaign has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the coastal enclave.​

 

[Saif]

Israel army announces 4 soldiers killed in Gaza, thousands more troops needed

Israel's military announced Friday the deaths of four soldiers in Gaza, saying it needed thousands more troops to press its offensive, just as the premier's coalition faces the prospect of collapse over ultra-Orthodox conscription.

en.prothomalo.com

Israel army announces 4 soldiers killed in Gaza, thousands more troops needed
AFP Jerusalem
Published: 07 Jun 2025, 09: 45

An Israeli soldier stand atop a tank at a position along the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip on June 5, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. AFP

Israel's military announced Friday the deaths of four soldiers in Gaza, saying it needed thousands more troops to press its offensive, just as the premier's coalition faces the prospect of collapse over ultra-Orthodox conscription.

News of the soldiers' deaths came as Gaza's civil defence agency reported 38 killed Friday in Israeli attacks across the territory, where Palestinians observed the Eid al-Adha holiday under the shadow of war for a second consecutive year.

Military spokesman Effie Defrin said the four soldiers were killed as they "were operating in the Khan Yunis area, in a compound belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation".

"Around six in the morning, an explosive device detonated, causing part of the structure to collapse," he said, adding that five other soldiers were wounded, one of them severely.

"The losses suffered today by the occupation in Khan Younis... illustrate what the occupation forces will face wherever they are present," said a statement attributed to Abu Obeida, spokesman for the armed of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, while urging the Israeli public to "force its leaders to end the war of extermination or prepare to receive more of its sons in coffins".

The deaths bring to 429 the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza since the start of the ground offensive in late October 2023.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended his condolences to the soldiers' families, saying they "sacrificed their lives for the safety of all of us".

Israel recently stepped up its Gaza campaign in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose 7 October, 2023 attack sparked the war.

Conscription row

Asked by a reporter about the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription, which has emerged as a thorn in the side of Netanyahu's government, Defrin said "this is the need of the moment, an operational necessity".

The army was short around 10,000 soldiers, he added, including about 6,000 in combat roles, adding that "tens of thousands more notices will be issued in the upcoming draft cycle".

The conscription issue has threatened to sink Netanyahu's government, with ultra-Orthodox religious parties warning they will pull out of his coalition if Netanyahu fails to make good on a promise to codify the military exemption for their community in law.

At the same time, much of the public has turned against the exemption amid the increasing strain put on reservists' families by repeated call-up orders during the war.

In April, a military representative told a parliamentary committee that of 18,000 draft notices sent to ultra-Orthodox individuals, only 232 received a positive response.

Netanyahu's office announced shortly after 1:00 am on Friday that he had met with a lawmaker from his Likud party who has recently pushed for a bill aimed at increasing the ultra-Orthodox enlistment and toughening sanctions on those who refuse.

The premier's office said "significant progress was made", with "unresolved issues" to be ironed out later.

Netanyahu also faced scrutiny after he admitted to supporting an armed group in Gaza that opposes Hamas.

Knesset member and ex-defence minister Avigdor Liberman had told the Kan public broadcaster that the government, at Netanyahu's direction, was "giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons".

The European Council on Foreign Relations think tank describes the group a "criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks".​

 

[Saif]

Gaza rescuers say Israel fire kills 36 including 6 near aid centre

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Saturday, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution centre...

www.newagebd.net

Gaza rescuers say Israel fire kills 36 including 6 near aid centre
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City, Palestinian Territories 07 June, 2025, 19:09

Palestinians visit the graves of their loved ones on the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, on June 6, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Saturday, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution centre.

The shooting deaths were the latest reported near the aid centre run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund in the southern district of Rafah and came after it resumed distributions following a brief suspension in the wake of similar deaths earlier this week.

An aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was meanwhile nearing Gaza in a bid to highlight the plight of Palestinians in the face of an Israeli blockade that has only been partially eased.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), ‘six people were killed and several others wounded by the forces of the Israeli occupation near the Al-Alam roundabout’.

Gazans have gathered at the roundabout almost daily since late May to collect humanitarian aid from the GHF aid centre about one kilometre (a little over half a mile) away.

AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls compiled by the civil defence agency or the circumstances of the deaths it reports.

The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired ‘warning shots’ at individuals that it said were ‘advancing in a way that endangered the troops’.

Samir Abu Hadid, who was there early Saturday, told AFP that thousands of people had gathered near the roundabout.

‘As soon as some people tried to advance towards the aid centre, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire from armoured vehicles stationed near the centre, firing into the air and then at civilians,’ Abu Hadid said.

The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations in late May as Israel partially eased a more than two-month aid blockade on the territory.

UN agencies and major aid groups have declined to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.

Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.

The aid boat Madleen, organised by an international activist coalition, was sailing towards Gaza on Saturday, aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade and deliver aid to the territory, organisers said.

‘We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast,’ German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP. ‘We are all good,’ she added.

In a statement from London, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza -- a member organisation of the flotilla coalition -- said the ship had entered Egyptian waters.

The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies to ensure the safety of those on board, warning that any interception would constitute ‘a blatant violation of international humanitarian law’.

The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war and the Israeli military has made clear it intends to enforce the blockade.

‘For this case as well, we are prepared,’ army spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said on Tuesday, when asked about the Freedom Flotilla vessel.

‘We have gained experience in recent years, and we will act accordingly.’

A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach Israel’s naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead.

The Israeli military has stepped up its operations in Gaza in recent weeks in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.

During the attack, militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 the Israeli military says are dead.

In a special operation in the Rafah area on Friday, Israeli forces retrieved the body of Thai hostage Nattapong Pinta, Defence Minister Israel Katz said.

‘Nattapong came to Israel from Thailand to work in agriculture, out of a desire to build a better future for himself and his family,’ Katz said.

He was ‘brutally murdered in captivity by the terrorist organisation Mujahideen Brigades’, the minister charged.

The Mujahideen Brigades is an armed group close to Hamas ally Islamic Jihad that Israel has also accused over other deaths of hostages seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz near the border.

The military said Nattapong’s family and Thai officials had been notified of the operation to recover his body.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura said the country was ‘deeply saddened’ by his death.​

 

[Saif]

Egyptian, Turkish FMs discuss Gaza ceasefire efforts

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty reaffirmed Cairo's ongoing efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza during a phone call on Sunday with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said. The two ministers discussed the "brutal Israeli aggression" in Gaza and the worsening hum

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Egyptian, Turkish FMs discuss Gaza ceasefire efforts

FE ONLINE DESK
Published :
Jun 09, 2025 00:17
Updated :
Jun 09, 2025 00:17

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty reaffirmed Cairo's ongoing efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza during a phone call on Sunday with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said.

The two ministers discussed the "brutal Israeli aggression" in Gaza and the worsening humanitarian crisis in the enclave, reports Xinhua.

According to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Abdelatty highlighted Egypt's role in pushing for a ceasefire, the release of hostages and detainees, and the delivery of humanitarian, medical, and shelter aid to Gaza.

Türkiye has not issued an official statement, but Turkish media, citing unnamed diplomatic sources, said Fidan also spoke with his Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts on Sunday to discuss developments in Gaza and efforts to end the conflict.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza rescuers say Israeli fire kills 36, six near aid centre

Gaza's civil defence agency said Saturday that Israeli forces had killed at least 36 Palestinians, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution centre.

en.prothomalo.com

Gaza rescuers say Israeli fire kills 36, six near aid centre
AFP Gaza City, Palestine
Published: 08 Jun 2025, 10: 10

A plume of smoke erupts during Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip as pictured from across the border in southern Israel on 5 June, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. AFP

Gaza's civil defence agency said Saturday that Israeli forces had killed at least 36 Palestinians, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution centre.

The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired "warning shots" at individuals it said were "advancing in a way that endangered the troops".

The shooting deaths were the latest reported near the aid centre run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in the southern district of Rafah, and came after it resumed distributions following a brief suspension in the wake of similar deaths earlier this week.

Meanwhile, an aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was nearing Gaza in a bid to highlight the plight of Palestinians in the face of an Israeli blockade that has only been partially eased.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), "six people were killed and several others wounded by the forces of the Israeli occupation near the Al-Alam roundabout", where they had gathered to seek humanitarian aid from the distribution centre around a kilometre away.

AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls compiled by the civil defence agency or the circumstances of the deaths it reports.

Samir Abu Hadid, who was there early Saturday, told AFP that thousands of people had gathered near the roundabout.

"As soon as some people tried to advance towards the aid centre, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire from armoured vehicles stationed near the centre, firing into the air and then at civilians," Abu Hadid said.

The GHF said in a statement it had not distributed aid on Saturday because of "direct threats" from Hamas.

Later Saturday, the Israeli army said an operation in Gaza City resulted in the killing of Asaad Abu Sharia, reportedly head of the Mujahideen Brigades.

The armed group is close to Hamas ally Islamic Jihad that Israel has also accused over deaths of hostages seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz near the border.

The army said he had taken part in the bloody attack on Nir Oz when Hamas launched its 7 October, 2023 attack on Israel.

It said he was "directly implicated" in the killings of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, a family who became a symbol of seized hostages for many in Israel.

Activist boat nears Gaza

The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations in late May as Israel partially eased a more than two-month-long aid blockade.

UN agencies and major aid groups have declined to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.

On Saturday, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that the overall toll for the Gaza war had reached 54,772, the majority civilians. The UN considers these figures reliable.

The war was sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the UN warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.

The aid boat Madleen, organised by an international activist coalition, was sailing towards Gaza on Saturday, aiming to breach Israel's naval blockade and deliver aid to the territory, organisers said.

"We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast," German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP, saying they expected to reach Gaza by Monday.

The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before Hamas's October 2023 attack and the Israeli military has made clear it intends to enforce it.

A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach Israel's naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead.

Evacuation order

The Israeli military has stepped up its operations in Gaza in recent weeks in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.

On Saturday, the military issued evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in northern Gaza, saying they had been used for rocket attacks.

Also on Saturday, Hamas released a photograph of one of the remaining hostages, Matan Zangauker, appearing to be in poor health, with a warning that he would not survive.

His mother, Einav Zangauker, speaking at a protest in Tel Aviv, said "I can no longer bear this nightmare. The angel of death, Netanyahu, continues to sacrifice the hostages".

During the October 2023 attack, militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 the Israeli military says are dead.​

 

[Sharma Ji]

Time for a Mohammed remix ?



@Mainerik

 

[Saif]

Israeli forces boarded Gaza-bound boat carrying Greta Thunberg, says Aid group

The organisers of a Gaza-bound aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists said Israeli forces intercepted the vessel on Monday, after Israel vowed to prevent it from reaching the Palestinian territory.

en.prothomalo.com

Israeli forces boarded Gaza-bound boat carrying Greta Thunberg, says Aid group
AFP Cairo
Published: 09 Jun 2025, 09: 53

The organisers of a Gaza-bound aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists said Israeli forces intercepted the vessel on 9 June 2025. Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC)

The organisers of a Gaza-bound aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists said Israeli forces intercepted the vessel on Monday, after Israel vowed to prevent it from reaching the Palestinian territory.

The Madleen aimed to deliver aid and challenge Israel's decades-long naval blockade of Gaza.

AFP lost contact with the activists onboard early Monday morning after the organisers said alarms sounded and life jackets were being prepared for a possible interception.

"Connection has been lost on the 'Madleen'. Israeli army have boarded the vessel," the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the activist group operating the vessel, posted on Telegram. It added that the passengers had been "kidnapped" by Israeli forces.

The activist group posted a series of pre-recorded videos from those onboard, including one from Thunberg.

"If you see this video we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters," she said.

Mahmud Abu-Odeh, a Germany-based press officer with the coalition, told AFP that "the activists seemed to be arrested".

Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered Israel's army to stop the ship from reaching Gaza or violating a blockade he described as needed to prevent Palestinian militants from importing weapons.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the activists' boat was instructed to change course as it approached "a restricted area" early Monday. About an hour later, it said the boat was being towed to Israeli shores.

"The passengers are expected to return to their home countries," the ministry wrote on social media.

"The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the 'celebrities' will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels," it added.

Swedish climate campaigner Thunberg is among a multi-national group of activists aboard the Madleen, which departed from Italy on 1 June to raise awareness about the humanitarian plight in Gaza.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of famine, malnutrition and disease throughout the 21 months of the Israel-Hamas war.​

 

[Saif]

Britain sanctions Israeli far-right ministers over Gaza comments

Britain and other allies imposed sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, on Tuesday over "their repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities", the UK's foreign ministry said. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway joined Britain

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Britain sanctions Israeli far-right ministers over Gaza comments

REUTERS
Published :
Jun 10, 2025 22:27
Updated :
Jun 10, 2025 22:27

Britain and other allies imposed sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, on Tuesday over "their repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities", the UK's foreign ministry said.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway joined Britain in freezing the assets and imposing travel bans on Israel's national security minister Ben-Gvir - a West Bank settler - and finance minister Smotrich.

"Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. These actions are not acceptable," British foreign minister David Lammy, along with the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway said in a joint statement.

"This is why we have taken action now to hold those responsible to account."

Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said the move was "outrageous" and the government would hold a special meeting early next week to decide how to respond to the "unacceptable decision".

Smotrich, speaking at the inauguration of a new settlement in the Hebron Hills, spoke of "contempt" for Britain's move.

"Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we cannot do it again. We are determined God willing to continue building."

Britain, like other European countries, has been increasing pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to end the blockade on aid into Gaza, where international experts have said famine is imminent.

In Tuesday's joint statement, allies tried to soften the blow by saying Britain reiterated its commitment to continuing "a strong friendship with the people of Israel based on shared ties, values and commitment to [its] security and future".

"We will strive to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate release of the remaining hostages by Hamas which can have no future role in the governance of Gaza, a surge in aid and a path to a two-state solution," the statement said.​

 

[Saif]

Macron calls for release of Gaza activists as thousands demonstrate

Tens of thousands of people staged rallies after Israel stopped the boat, the Madleen, that was carrying 12 activists.

en.prothomalo.com

Macron calls for release of Gaza activists as thousands demonstrate

AFP Nice, France
Published: 10 Jun 2025, 08: 40

Protestors hold signs and a Palestinian flag as they attend a demonstration to show their support for activists aboard a boat stopped by Israeli forces enroute to deliver aid to Gaza, in Toulouse, south-western France on June 9, 2025. AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Israel to quickly free activists, including Greta Thunberg, on a boat that was seized Monday as it headed for Gaza in an operation that sparked angry protests in several European cities.

Tens of thousands of people staged rallies after Israel stopped the boat, the Madleen, that was carrying 12 activists.

In France, rallies in Paris and at least five other cities were called by left wing parties. Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of the France Unbowed (LFI) party, called the seizure of the Gaza boat by the Israeli military “international piracy”.

In Switzerland, several hundred people blocked train stations in Geneva and Lausanne to protest Israel’s military operations in Gaza, media reports said.

Some 300 protesters carrying Palestinian flags occupied two tracks at Geneva’s main station for about an hour, leading to delays and cancellations, the reports said. A similar protest was staged in nearby Lausanne where police cleared the tracks.

Macron meanwhile urged the immediate liberation of French nationals among the 12 activists on the vessel.

Macron had “requested that the six French nationals be allowed to return to France as soon as possible,” his office said.

Protestors hold signs and a Palestinian flag as they attend a demonstration to show their support for activists aboard a boat stopped by Israeli forces enroute to deliver aid to Gaza, in Toulouse, south-western France on June 9, 2025 AFP

France was “vigilant” and “stands by all its nationals when they are in danger,” he added. The French government had also called on Israel to ensure the “protection” of the activists. Macron also called the humanitarian blockade of Gaza “a scandal” and a “disgrace”.

Israel’s foreign ministry said earlier that “all the passengers of the ‘selfie yacht’ are safe and unharmed”, and it expected the activists to return to their home countries.

Israel has virtually sealed off Gaza as part of its military operation in the Palestinian territory since the Hamas militant group’s attacks on Israel on 7 October, 2023.​

 

[Saif]

Last days of Gaza

THIS is the end. The final blood-soaked chapter of the genocide. It will be over soon. Weeks. At most. Two million people are camped out amongst the rubble or in the open air. Dozens are killed and wounded daily from Israeli shells, missiles, drones, bombs and bullets...

www.newagebd.net

Last days of Gaza
12 June, 2025, 00:00

The genocide is almost complete. When it is concluded it will have exposed the moral bankruptcy of western civilisation, writes Chris Hedges

THIS is the end. The final blood-soaked chapter of the genocide. It will be over soon. Weeks. At most. Two million people are camped out amongst the rubble or in the open air. Dozens are killed and wounded daily from Israeli shells, missiles, drones, bombs and bullets.

They lack clean water, medicine and food. They have reached a point of collapse. Sick. Injured. Terrified. Humiliated. Abandoned. Destitute. Starving. Hopeless.

In the last pages of this horror story, Israel is sadistically baiting starving Palestinians with promises of food, luring them to the narrow and congested nine-mile ribbon of land that borders Egypt. Israel and its cynically named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, allegedly funded by Israel’s ministry of defence and the Mossad, is weaponising starvation.

It is enticing Palestinians to southern Gaza the way the Nazis enticed starving Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to board trains to the death camps. The goal is not to feed the Palestinians. No one seriously argues there is enough food or aid hubs. The goal is to cram Palestinians into heavily guarded compounds and deport them.

What comes next? I long ago stopped trying to predict the future. Fate has a way of surprising us. But there will be a final humanitarian explosion in Gaza’s human slaughterhouse. We see it with the surging crowds of Palestinians fighting to get a food parcel, which has resulted in Israeli and U.S. private contractors shooting dead at least 130 and wounding over seven hundred others in the first eight days of aid distribution.

We see it with Benjamin Netanyahu’s arming ISIS-linked gangs in Gaza that loot food supplies. Israel, which has eliminated hundreds of employees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, doctors, journalists, civil servants and police in targeted assassinations, has orchestrated the implosion of civil society.

I suspect Israel will facilitate a breach in the fence along the Egyptian border. Desperate Palestinians will stampede into the Egyptian Sinai. Maybe it will end some other way. But it will end soon. There is not much more Palestinians can take.

We — full participants in this genocide — will have achieved our demented goal of emptying Gaza and expanding Greater Israel. We will bring down the curtain on the live-streamed genocide. We will have mocked the ubiquitous university programs of Holocaust studies, designed, it turns out, not to equip us to end genocides, but deify Israel as an eternal victim licensed to carry out mass slaughter.

The mantra of never again is a joke. The understanding that when we have the capacity to halt genocide and we do not, we are culpable, does not apply to us. Genocide is public policy. Endorsed and sustained by our two ruling parties.

There is nothing left to say. Maybe that is the point. To render us speechless. Who does not feel paralysed? And maybe, that too, is the point. To paralyse us. Who is not traumatised? And maybe that too was planned. Nothing we do, it seems, can halt the killing. We feel defenseless. We feel helpless. Genocide as spectacle.

I have stopped looking at the images. The rows of little shrouded bodies. The decapitated men and women. Families burned alive in their tents. The children who have lost limbs or are paralysed. The chalky death masks of those pulled from under the rubble. The wails of grief. The emaciated faces. I can’t.

This genocide will haunt us. It will echo down history with the force of a tsunami. It will divide us forever. There is no going back.

And how will we remember? By not remembering.

Once it is over, all those who supported it, all those who ignored it, all those who did nothing, will rewrite history, including their personal history. It was hard to find anyone who admitted to being a Nazi in post-war Germany, or a member of the Klu Klux Klan once segregation in the southern United States ended.

A nation of innocents. Victims even. It will be the same. We like to think we would have saved Anne Frank. The truth is different. The truth is, crippled by fear, nearly all of us will only save ourselves, even at the expense of others. But that is a truth that is hard to face. That is the real lesson of the Holocaust. Better it be erased.

In his book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad writes: ‘Should a drone vaporise some nameless soul on the other side of the planet, who among us wants to make a fuss? What if it turns out they were a terrorist? What if the default accusation proves true, and we by implication be labeled terrorist sympathisers, ostracised, yelled at? It is generally the case that people are most zealously motivated by the worst plausible thing that could happen to them.

‘For some, the worst plausible thing might be the ending of their bloodline in a missile strike. Their entire lives turned to rubble and all of it preemptively justified in the name of fighting terrorists who are terrorists by default on account of having been killed. For others, the worst plausible thing is being yelled at.’

You cannot decimate a people, carry out saturation bombing over 20 months to obliterate their homes, villages and cities, massacre tens of thousands of innocent people, set up a siege to ensure mass starvation, drive them from land where they have lived for centuries and not expect blowback.

The genocide will end. The response to the reign of state terror will begin. If you think it won’t you know nothing about human nature or history. The killing of two Israeli diplomats in Washington and the attack against supporters of Israel at a protest in Boulder, Colorado, are only the start.

Chaim Engel, who took part in the uprising at the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in Poland, described how, armed with a knife, he attacked a guard in the camp.

‘It’s not a decision,’ Engel explained years later. ‘You just react, instinctively you react to that, and I figured, “Let us to do, and go and do it.” And I went. I went with the man in the office and we killed this German. With every jab, I said, “That is for my father, for my mother, for all these people, all the Jews you killed.”’

Does anyone expect Palestinians to act differently? How are they to react when Europe and the United States, who hold themselves up as the vanguards of civilisation, backed a genocide that butchered their parents, their children, their communities, occupied their land and blasted their cities and homes into rubble? How can they not hate those who did this to them?

What message has this genocide imparted not only to Palestinians, but to all in the global south?

It is unequivocal. You do not matter. Humanitarian law does not apply to you. We do not care about your suffering, the murder of your children. You are vermin. You are worthless. You deserve to be killed, starved and dispossessed. You should be erased from the face of the earth.

‘To preserve the values of the civilised world, it is necessary to set fire to a library,’ El Akkad writes: ‘To blow up a mosque. To incinerate olive trees. To dress up in the lingerie of women who fled and then take pictures. To level universities. To loot jewelry, art, food. Banks. To arrest children for picking vegetables. To shoot children for throwing stones.

‘To parade the captured in their underwear. To break a man’s teeth and shove a toilet brush in his mouth. To let combat dogs loose on a man with Down syndrome and then leave him to die. Otherwise, the uncivilised world might win.’

There are people I have known for years who I will never speak to again. They know what is happening. Who does not know? They will not risk alienating their colleagues, being smeared as an antisemite, jeopardising their status, being reprimanded or losing their jobs.

They do not risk death, the way Palestinians do. They risk tarnishing the pathetic monuments of status and wealth they spent their lives constructing. Idols. They bow down before these idols. They worship these idols. They are enslaved by them.

At the feet of these idols lie tens of thousands of murdered Palestinians.

ScheerPost.com, June 10. Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for the New York Times.​