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

[Saif]

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Israel intensifies Gaza bombardment as Trump visits Gulf
REUTERS
Published :
May 14, 2025 17:51
Updated :
May 14, 2025 17:51

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Israeli military strikes killed at least 70 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, local health authorities said, in an intensification of the bombardment as US President Donald Trump visits the Middle East.

Medics said most of the dead, including women and children, were killed in a barrage of Israeli airstrikes that targeted houses in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.

"Some victims are still on the road and under the rubble where rescue and civil emergency teams can't reach (them)," the health ministry statement said.

Israel's military had no immediate comment. It said it was trying to verify the reports.

Israeli press reports on Wednesday cited security officials as saying they believed Hamas military leader Mohammad Sinwar and other senior officials had been killed in a strike on Tuesday on what the Israeli military described as a command and control bunker under the European Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

There was no confirmation by the Israeli military or Hamas. On Wednesday, witnesses and medics said an Israeli airstrike hit a bulldozer that approached the area of the strike at the European Hospital, wounding several people.

Late on Tuesday, Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed militant group allied with Hamas, fired rockets from Gaza towards Israel. Shortly before the Israeli retaliatory strikes, Israel's military issued evacuation orders to residents in the area of Jabalia and nearby Beit Lahiya.

TRUMP VISIT

Palestinians hope Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will provide pressure for a reduction of violence. Hamas on Monday released Edan Alexander, the last known living American hostage it had been holding.

Trump said in Riyadh on Tuesday that more hostages would follow Alexander and that the people of Gaza deserved a better future. He is not visiting Israel during his Middle East trip.

Ceasefire efforts have faltered, with Hamas and Israel trading blame. Hamas talked to the United States and Egyptian and Qatari mediators to arrange Alexander's release, and Israel has sent a team to Doha to begin a new round of talks.

On Tuesday, Trump's special envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler met hostage families in Tel Aviv and said they could now see a better chance of an agreement for the hostages' release following the deal over Alexander.

The US has also presented a plan to reopen humanitarian aid deliveries in Gaza using private contractors. Israel, which imposed a total blockade of supplies going into Gaza from March 2, has endorsed the plan. It has been rejected by the United Nations and international aid agencies, and details, including funding and donors, remain unclear.

Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken as hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military campaign has killed more than 52,900 Palestinians, according to local health officials. It has left the small coastal enclave on the brink of famine, according to aid groups and international agencies.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza rescuers say 80 killed in Israeli strikes amid hostage release talks

Gaza rescuers said at least 80 people were killed in Israeli bombardment across the Palestinian territory on Wednesday

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Gaza rescuers say 80 killed in Israeli strikes amid hostage release talks
AFP Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
Published: 14 May 2025, 23: 01

A Palestinian man reacts as she checks the bodies of people killed in Israeli strikes on Jabalia, at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on May 14, 2025 AFP

Gaza rescuers said at least 80 people were killed in Israeli bombardment across the Palestinian territory on Wednesday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to US envoy Steve Witkoff about the release of hostages.

Negotiations for the release of the captives held in Gaza have been ongoing, with the latest talks taking place in the Qatari capital Doha, where US President Donald Trump was visiting on Wednesday.

Netanyahu's office said the premier had discussed with Witkoff and his negotiating team "the issue of the hostages and the missing".

Witkoff later said Trump had "a really productive conversation" with the Qatari emir about a Gaza deal, adding that "we are moving along and we have a good plan together".

Fighting meanwhile raged in Gaza, where civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP 80 people had been killed by Israeli bombardment since dawn, including 59 in the north.

AFP footage from the aftermath of a strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza, showed mounds of rubble and twisted metal from collapsed buildings.

Palestinians, including young children, picked through the debris in search of belongings.

Footage of mourners in northern Gaza showed women in tears as they kneeled next to bodies wrapped in bloodstained white shrouds.

"It's a nine-month-old baby. What did he do?" one of them cried out.

Hasan Moqbel, a Palestinian who lost relatives, told AFP: "There are no homes fit for living. I have no shelter, no food, no water. Those who don't die from air strikes die from hunger, and those who don't die from hunger die from lack of medicine."

Israel's military on Wednesday urged residents in part of a Gaza City neighbourhood to evacuate, warning that its forces would "attack the area with intense force".

'Unjustifiable'

From the occupied West Bank, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday he favoured a "ceasefire at any price" in Gaza, accusing Netanyahu of wanting to continue the war "for his own reasons".

Mohammad Awad, an emergency doctor in northern Gaza's Indonesian Hospital, told AFP that supply shortages meant his department could not properly handle the flow of wounded from the Jabalia strike.

"There are not enough beds, no medicine, and no means for surgical or medical treatment, which leaves doctors unable to save many of the injured who are dying due to lack of care", he said.

Awad added that "the bodies of the martyrs are lying on the ground in the hospital corridors after the morgue reached full capacity. The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word."

Israel imposed an aid blockade on the Gaza Strip on 2 March after talks to prolong a 19 January ceasefire broke down.

The resulting shortages of food and medicine have aggravated an already dire situation in the Palestinian territory, although Israel has dismissed UN warnings that a potential famine looms.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, unimpeded humanitarian access and an immediate cessation of hostilities," in Gaza.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was "ever more dramatic and unjustifiable".

A US-led initiative for aid distribution under Israeli military security drew international criticism as it appears to sideline the United Nations and existing aid organisations, and would overhaul current humanitarian structures in Gaza.

'Full force'

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said the plan would make "aid conditional on forced displacement" and vetting of the population.

It added in a statement that Israel was creating "conditions for the eradication of Palestinian lives in Gaza".

Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18, with officials later talking of retaining a long-term presence in the Palestinian territory.

Following a short pause in air strikes during the release of US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander on Monday, Israel resumed its pounding of Gaza.

Netanyahu said on Monday that the military would enter Gaza "with full force" in the coming days.

He added that his government was working to find countries willing to take in Gaza's population.

The Israeli government approved plans to expand the offensive earlier this month, and spoke of the "conquest" of Gaza.

Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas's October 2023 attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

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 offensive has killed at least 52,928 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza air strikes kill over 100 as manhunt unfolds in West Bank

Palestinian rescuers reported more than 100 people killed Thursday in Israeli strikes on blockaded Gaza, where a US-backed organisation said it intends to begin distributing aid by the end of the month.

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Gaza air strikes kill over 100 as manhunt unfolds in West Bank
AFP Palestine
Published: 15 May 2025, 20: 36

People look for salvageable items in the rubble of a building hit in an Israeli strike in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on 15 May, 2025. Fighting has raged in Gaza, where civil defence officials told AFP 80 people were killed by Israeli bombardment on 14 May, including 59 in the north. AFP

Palestinian rescuers reported more than 100 people killed Thursday in Israeli strikes on blockaded Gaza, where a US-backed organisation said it intends to begin distributing aid by the end of the month.

In the occupied West Bank, raids were ongoing and roads blocked after Israel's military chief vowed to find the perpetrators of an attack that killed a pregnant Israeli woman.

Gaza's civil defence agency said the death toll from Israeli bombardment since dawn on Thursday had risen to 103.

Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza on 2 March, before resuming operations on 18 March, ending a six-week ceasefire.

"Israel's blockade has transcended military tactics to become a tool of extermination", Human Rights Watch (HRW) interim executive director Federico Borello said in a statement Thursday.

HRW said "the Israeli government's plan to demolish what remains of Gaza's civilian infrastructure and concentrate the Palestinian population into a tiny area would amount to an abhorrent escalation of its ongoing crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide".

Amir Selha, a 43-year-old Palestinian from north Gaza, reported "intense Israeli shelling all night".

"Tank shells are striking around the clock, and the area is packed with people and tents," he said.

He added that in early morning Israeli army drones dropped leaflets in his neighbourhood, warning residents to move south.

Most Gazans have been displaced at least once during 19 months of war between Israel and Hamas.

Israel says the pressure aims to force Hamas to free the remaining hostages seized in the October 2023 attack which triggered the war.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-supported NGO, said it would begin distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza this month after talks with Israeli officials.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, five European members of the UN Security Council said that they were "deeply concerned" at the Israeli plan, "which the United Nations has said would not meet humanitarian principles".

Evacuation orders

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that 2,876 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes on 18 March, taking the war's overall toll to 53,010.

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.

Of the 251 hostages taken during the attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

The United Nations estimates that 70 per cent of Gaza is now either an Israeli-declared no-go zone or under evacuation order.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Basal said Israel was "employing a policy of shrinking areas and emptying populated regions to pressure and terrorise civilians".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday the military would enter Gaza "with full force" in the coming days.

Despite the bombardment, efforts are still under way for a new hostage release and ceasefire deal.

With US President Donald Trump touring Gulf Arab states, his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff discussed the hostages issue with Netanyahu on Wednesday.

Hamas accused Netanyahu of undermining ceasefire and hostage release efforts "through deliberate military escalation, showing indifference to his captives, endangering their lives".

In the northern West Bank, the Israeli military said a manhunt was under way after an attack that killed a pregnant woman.

Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said: "We will use all the tools at our disposal and reach the murderers in order to hold them accountable."

Calls for revenge

Users of Palestinian Telegram channels sharing information on West Bank checkpoints reported many road closures in the north of the territory on Thursday.

WhatsApp groups for Israeli settlers in the West Bank were rife with calls for vengeance in retaliation for the attack.

"To make sure this never happens again... we need real revenge! Erase every terror village," one user said.

In the northern village of Tammun, Israeli troops killed five Palestinians in a raid the military described as targeting buildings suspected of being used to plan attacks.

"The occupation forces killed five young men after besieging a house in the centre of the village," Tammun mayor Samir Qteishat told AFP.

The Israeli military said "soldiers identified armed terrorists who barricaded themselves in a building."

"Following an exchange of fire, five terrorists were eliminated, and an additional terrorist was apprehended," it said.

The West Bank has seen an upsurge in violence since the beginning of the Gaza war.​

 

[Saif]

WHO says Gaza's last cancer hospital stops working

The World Health Organization said Thursday that the last hospital in Gaza providing cancer and cardiac care had stopped functioning after an Israeli attack

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WHO says Gaza's last cancer hospital stops working

Photo: AFP

The World Health Organization said Thursday that the last hospital in Gaza providing cancer and cardiac care had stopped functioning after an Israeli attack.

The UN health agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X that an attack on Tuesday left the European Hospital in Khan Yunis "severely damaged and inaccessible".

It is "no longer functional", he said, adding that a WHO team had evacuated emergency medical staff who had worked through the attacks.

"A strike hit nearby just before the mission," Tedros said, adding that the staff had been taken to the Nasser Medical Complex.

The WHO chief said "the hospital's closure has cut off vital services including neurosurgery, cardiac care, and cancer treatment -- all unavailable elsewhere in Gaza."

"The shutdown also ends the facility's role as a key hub for medical evacuations, further straining the overwhelmed health system," Tedros said.

The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity also highlighted the impact of the closure.

"This was one of the last remaining lifelines in Gaza's shattered healthcare system," it said on X, saying that the Nasser hospital was now the only one functioning in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

Nasser, it added, "was also hit on the same day a few hours before the Gaza European Hospital for the second time in less than two months."

MSF said that the territory's remaining hospitals "mostly partially functional, are constantly overwhelmed."

"Repeated strikes on healthcare facilities are yet more examples of the Israeli authorities making the Strip unlivable."

Tedros insisted that "hospitals must be protected".

"They must never be militarised or targeted. Ceasefire," he declared.​

 

[Saif]

Deadly Israeli strikes pound Gaza as Trump says 'people are starving'

Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 250 people since Thursday morning, local health authorities said on Friday, one of the deadliest phases of bombardment since a truce collapsed in March and with a new ground offensive expected soon. The air and artillery strikes were focused on the nor

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Deadly Israeli strikes pound Gaza as Trump says 'people are starving'
REUTERS
Published :
May 16, 2025 19:30
Updated :
May 16, 2025 19:30

Palestinians make their way with belongings as they fled their homes, after Israeli air strikes, in the northern Gaza Strip May 16, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 250 people since Thursday morning, local health authorities said on Friday, one of the deadliest phases of bombardment since a truce collapsed in March and with a new ground offensive expected soon.

The air and artillery strikes were focused on the northern section of the tiny, crowded enclave, where dozens of people including women and children were killed overnight, said Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Khalil al-Deqran.

Israel has intensified its bombardment and built-up armour along the border despite growing international pressure for it to resume ceasefire talks and end its blockade of Gaza, where an international hunger monitor has warned of famine.

US President Donald Trump on Friday backed aid for the Palestinians, saying people in Gaza are starving and adding that he expected "a lot of good things" in the next month.

Asked whether he supported Israeli plans to expand the war in Gaza, Trump told reporters: "I think a lot of good things are going to happen over the next month, and we're going to see. We have to help also out the Palestinians. You know, a lot of people are starving on Gaza, so we have to look at both sides."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 5 that Israel was planning an expanded and intensive offensive against Hamas as his security cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.

An Israeli defence official said at the time that the operation would not be launched before Trump concluded his visit to the Middle East, which is expected to end on Friday.

Israel's declared goal in Gaza is the elimination of Hamas, which attacked Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.

Its military campaign has devastated the enclave, pushing nearly all inhabitants from their homes and killing more than 53,000 people according to Gaza health authorities, while aid agencies say its blockade has caused a humanitarian crisis.

Heavy strikes on Friday were reported in the northern town of Beit Lahiya and in the Jabalia refugee camp, where Palestinian emergency services said many bodies were still buried in the rubble.

Israel's military said its air force had struck more than 150 targets across Gaza, saying these included anti-tank missile posts, terrorist cells, military structures and operational centres.

STRIKES

In Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, men picked through a sea of rubble following the night's strikes, pulling out sheets of metal as small children clambered through the debris.

Around 10 bodies draped in white sheets were lined up on the ground before being taken to hospital. Women sat crying nearby and one lifted a corner of a sheet to gaze at the dead person's face.

Ismail, a man from Gaza City who gave only his first name, described a night of horror. "The non-stop explosions resulting from the airstrikes and tank shelling reminded us of the early days of the war. The ground didn't stop shaking underneath our feet," Ismail told Reuters via a chat app.

"We thought Trump arrived to save us, but it seems Netanyahu doesn't care, neither does Trump," he added.

Israel has faced increasing international isolation over its campaign in Gaza, with even the United States, its staunchest ally, expressing unease over the scale of the destruction and the dire situation caused by its blockade on the delivery of food and other vital aid.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was "troubled" by the humanitarian situation in the enclave.

Netanyahu has dispatched a team to Doha to take part in ceasefire talks with Qatari mediators but he has ruled out concessions, saying Israel remains committed to defeating Hamas.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents some of the families and supporters of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, said that Israel risked missing a "historic opportunity" to bring them home as Trump wound up his visit to the Middle East.

"We are in dramatic hours that will determine the future of our loved ones, the future of Israeli society, and the future of the Middle East," the group said in a statement.​

 

[Saif]

More Hollywood stars join protest letter over Gaza 'genocide'

Hollywood heavyweights Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Riz Ahmed and Guillermo del Toro have added their names to a letter condemning the film industry's silence on what it called "genocide" in Gaza, the organisers confirmed Friday.

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More Hollywood stars join protest letter over Gaza 'genocide'
AFP Cannes
Published: 16 May 2025, 18: 34

The Hollywood sign AFP file photo

Hollywood heavyweights Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Riz Ahmed and Guillermo del Toro have added their names to a letter condemning the film industry's silence on what it called "genocide" in Gaza, the organisers confirmed Friday.

The petition, signed by more than 370 actors and filmmakers, also denounced Israel's killing of Fatima Hassouna, the young Gaza photojournalist featured in the documentary 'Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk', which premiered at the Cannes film festival Thursday.

The organisers of the letter said the French actor Juliette Binoche, who is chairing the jury at Cannes, also added her name to the letter, along with Rooney Mara, US indie director Jim Jarmusch and 'Lupin' star Omar Sy.

Binoche had initially seemed to pull back from supporting it as the festival opened on Tuesday, instead delivering a tribute to Hassouna, who was killed with 10 members of her family the day after she learned the film would be shown at Cannes.

"She should have been here tonight with us," an emotional Binoche said at the opening ceremony.

The growing protest comes after several days of mounting bloodshed in the besieged Palestinian territory, with 120 people killed on Thursday and 50 reported dead since midnight.

'Schindler's List' star Ralph Fiennes as well as Richard Gere, Mark Ruffalo, Guy Pearce, Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem, and directors David Cronenberg, Pedro Almodovar, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Leigh said they were "ashamed" of their industry's failure to speak out about Israel's siege of Gaza in the original letter.

In her Cannes speech Tuesday Binoche also referenced the Israeli hostages taken by Palestinian group Hamas in its 7 October, 2023 assault on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.

'Sicko' and 'Bowling for Columbine' director Michael Moore and French actor Camille Cottin of 'Call My Agent' fame are among other entertainment industry figures who have added their names to the letter since Tuesday.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 88 in Gaza as Hamas urges blockade lift

Rescuers said Israeli strikes on Gaza killed nearly 90 people on Friday, while Hamas demanded the United States press Israel to lift a sweeping aid blockade in return for a US-Israeli hostage released by the group.

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Israeli strikes kill 88 in Gaza as Hamas urges blockade lift
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 17 May, 2025, 01:39

Rescuers said Israeli strikes on Gaza killed nearly 90 people on Friday, while Hamas demanded the United States press Israel to lift a sweeping aid blockade in return for a US-Israeli hostage released by the group.

In early March, shortly before the collapse of a two-month ceasefire in its war against Hamas, Israel re-imposed a total blockade on the Gaza Strip, where aid agencies have warned of critical shortages of everything from food and clean water to fuel and medicines.

US president Donald Trump acknowledged on Friday that ‘a lot of people are starving’ in the besieged Palestinian territory.

‘We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of,’ Trump told reporters in Abu Dhabi, on a regional tour that excluded key ally Israel.

Israel says its decision to cut off aid to Gaza was intended to force concessions from militant group Hamas, which still holds dozens of Israeli hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war.

Hamas on Monday freed Edan Alexander, the last living hostage with US nationality, after direct engagement with the Trump administration that left Israel sidelined.

As part of the understanding with Washington regarding Alexander’s release, senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu on Friday said the group was ‘awaiting and expecting the US administration to exert further pressure’ on Israel ‘to open the crossings and allow the immediate entry of humanitarian aid’.

Nunu’s remarks come a day after Hamas had warned Trump that Gaza was not ‘for sale’, responding to the US president again suggesting he could take over the Palestinian territory and turn it into ‘a freedom zone’.

On the ground, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Friday killed at least 88 people.

Umm Mohammed al-Tatari, 57, told AFP that she was awoken by a pre-dawn attack on northern Gaza. ‘We were asleep when suddenly everything exploded around us.’

‘Everyone started running. We saw the destruction with our own eyes. There was blood everywhere, body parts and corpses.’

‘There is no safety. We could die at any moment,’ said 33-year-old Ahmed Nasr, also from northern Gaza.

At the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, AFPTV footage showed mourners crying over the bodies of their loved ones.

‘They were innocent people,’ said Mayar Salem. ‘Only their remains are left... They were my sisters and daughters.’​

 

[Saif]

Gaza rescuers say 50 killed in Israeli strikes since midnight

"There is a massive wave of displacement among civilians"

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Gaza rescuers say 50 killed in Israeli strikes since midnight

A Palestinian mother cries, holding the body of her baby, at the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. The baby was killed in an Israeli air strike. Photo: AFP

Gaza's civil defence agency said Friday that 50 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory since midnight.

"The number of martyrs killed in Israeli shelling targeting civilian homes in the northern Gaza Strip between midnight and early this morning has risen to 50... Our teams are still working in those areas," civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP.

A doctor at the Indonesian Hospital in the northern city of Beit Lahia, who requested anonymity, told AFP that 30 dead and dozens of wounded, mostly children and women, had arrived at the hospital.

Mohammed Saleh, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, told AFP that the hospital had received five dead and "more than 75 injured" as a result of the bombardment.

"The Israeli occupation bombed the house next to mine, hitting it directly while its residents were inside," Yousef Al-Sultan, 40, from the al-Salatin area, west of Beit Lahia, told AFP, reporting "air strikes, artillery shelling and gunfire from quadcopter drones."

"There is a massive wave of displacement among civilians. Fear and panic grip us in the middle of the night," he said.​