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

[Saif]

‘Humanity must prevail’

The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza entered its 12 month yesterday with little sign of respite for the people of the Palestinian territory or hope for Israeli hostages still held captive.

www.thedailystar.net

‘Humanity must prevail’

An injured Palestinian man takes part in a namaz-e-janaza over the bodies of his family members who were the victims of Israeli bombardment in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. Photo: AFP

The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza entered its 12 month yesterday with little sign of respite for the people of the Palestinian territory or hope for Israeli hostages still held captive.

The chances of a truce that would also free hostages held by Hamas in exchange for prisoners held by Israel appear slim, with both sides sticking doggedly to their positions.
​

• UN warns of "permanent damage" as Gaza children miss schooling for the second year​
• US, UK spy chiefs issue a joint call for a ceasefire​
• Israeli attacks kill 61 in Gaza in 48 hours​

Hamas is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that troops must remain on a key strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have all been mediating in an effort to bring about a ceasefire in the conflict that authorities in the Gaza say has killed at least 40,939 people.

According to the United Nations human rights office, most of the dead are women and children.

Israel's announcement last Sunday that the bodies of six hostages including a US-Israeli citizen had been recovered shortly after being killed sparked grief and anger in Israel.

Marking the anniversary, UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) chief Philippe Lazzarini posted on X yesterday: "Eleven months. Enough. No one can take this any longer. Humanity must prevail. Ceasefire now."

Meanwhile, the heads of the American and British foreign intelligence agencies yesterday said they are "working ceaselessly" for a cease-fire in Gaza, using a rare joint public statement to press for peace.

CIA Director William Burns and MI6 Chief Richard Moore said their agencies had "exploited our intelligence channels to push hard for restraint and de-escalation."

In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, the two spymasters said a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war "could end the suffering and appalling loss of life of Palestinian civilians and bring home the hostages after 11 months of hellish confinement."

International pressure to end the war was further underlined by Friday's shooting dead in the West Bank of a Turkish-American activist demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the occupied territory.

The family of 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi has demanded an independent investigation into her death, saying yesterday her life "was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military".

The UN rights office said Israeli forces killed Eygi with a "shot in the head".

Ankara said she was killed by "Israeli occupation soldiers", and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the Israeli action as "barbaric".

Washington called her death "tragic", and has pressed its close ally Israel to investigate.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- where about 490,000 people live -- are illegal under international law.

Since Hamas's October 7 attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 662 Palestinians in the West Bank which Israel occupied in 1967, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Eygi's death came on the day Israeli forces withdrew from a deadly 10-day raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, where AFP journalists reported residents returning home to widespread destruction.

AFP reporters said several air strikes and shelling rocked gaza overnight and early yesterday.

At least 61 Palestinians have been killed and 162 were injured in the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours, Palestinian Ministry of Health in the enclave said in the afternoon.

However, Al Jazeera later reported that a total of 24 people were killed in Israeli attacks since the early hours, up from the 18 we reported earlier.

As Gaza enters its second school year without schooling, most of its children are caught up helping their families in the daily struggle to survive amid Israel's devastating campaign.

Children trod barefoot on the dirt roads to carry water in plastic jerricans from distribution points to their families living in tent cities teeming with Palestinians driven from their homes. Others wait at charity kitchens with containers to bring back food.

Humanitarian workers say the extended deprivation of education threatens long-term damage to Gaza's children. Younger children suffer in their cognitive, social and emotional development, and older children are at greater risk of being pulled into work or early marriage, said Tess Ingram, regional spokesperson for UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children.

The longer a child is out of school, the more they are at risk of dropping out permanently and not returning," she said.

Gaza's 625,000 school-age children already missed out on almost an entire year of education. More than 90 percent of Gaza's school buildings have been damaged by Israeli bombardment, many of them run by UNWRA, the UN agency for Palestinians, according to the Global Education Cluster, a grouping of aid organizations led by UNICEF and Save the Children. About 85 percent are so wrecked they need major reconstruction — meaning it could take years before they are usable again. Gaza's universities are also in ruins. Israel contends that Hamas militants operate out of schools.

Some 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes. They have crowded into the sprawling tent camps that lack water or sanitation systems, or UN and government schools now serving as shelters.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza: where sickness can be ‘death sentence’

In Gaza, falling ill can be a death sentence. Cancer patients are waiting to die, polio has returned, and many of the doctors and nurses who might have offered help are dead while the hospitals they worked at have been reduced to rubble.

www.thedailystar.net

Gaza: where sickness can be ‘death sentence’

​

• More than 41,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza; 92,000 wounded​
• At least 490 healthcare workers, including 55 specialist doctors, are among those killed​
• Almost all of Gaza's health facility destroyed​
• More than 90pc of children under 5-years-old suffer from infectious diseases​

In Gaza, falling ill can be a death sentence. Cancer patients are waiting to die, polio has returned, and many of the doctors and nurses who might have offered help are dead while the hospitals they worked at have been reduced to rubble.

Doctors and health professionals say that even if the Israel-Hamas war were to stop tomorrow, it will take years to rebuild the healthcare sector and people will continue to die because preventable diseases are not being treated on time.

"People are dying on a daily basis because they cannot get the basic treatment they need," said Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at rights group ActionAid Palestine.

Cancer patients "are waiting for their turn to die," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Last week, Israel and Hamas agreed on limited pauses in the fighting to allow children to be vaccinated against polio after a one-year-old baby boy was found to be partially paralysed from the disease, the first case in the crowded strip in 25 years.

But even as crowds gathered in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis for vaccinations on Sept. 5, bombs continued to fall in other areas with Gaza health officials saying an Israeli strike killed five people at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah.

"It will take long and so much effort in order to restore the level of care that we used to have in Gaza," said Mohammed Aghaalkurdi, medical programme lead at Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Every day he sees around 180 children with skin diseases that he "just cannot treat," he said.

"Due to vaccination campaign interruptions, lack of supplies, lack of hygiene items and infection prevention control material, it (healthcare) is just deteriorating."

Since October 7 last year, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's offensive in the enclave, according to the Gaza health ministry, with around 92,000 wounded.

But beyond the death toll from the fighting and airstrikes, people are also succumbing to illnesses that could be cured in normal circumstances.

As with the re-emergence of polio, children will bear the brunt of these long-term consequences, health experts say.

"We are talking about disabilities, we are talking about intellectual disabilities, mental health issues," said Aghaalkurdi.

"Things that will stick to the child until they die."

At least 490 healthcare workers have been killed since the conflict erupted, according to Gaza's health ministry. A Reuters investigation found that 55 highly qualified specialist doctors were among those killed.

With each specialist killed, Gaza has lost a source of knowledge and human connections, a devastating blow on top of the destruction of most of the Strip's hospitals.

Many people have become weak from a lack of food, as prices of basic commodities have more than quadrupled since the conflict began. When they become ill, they are also too frightened to journey to the few remaining hospitals, Jafari said.

Eighty-two percent of children aged between 6 and 23 months have limited access to quality food, according to a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises, and more than 90% of children under 5-years-old suffer from infectious diseases.

Meanwhile, skin diseases are rampant because of a lack of cleaning supplies and hygiene products, Jafari said. In markets, a bottle of shampoo can cost around $50.

Israel has severely restricted the flow of food and aid into Gaza, and humanitarian agencies have warned of the risk of famine.

Waseem Alzaanin, a general practictioner with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, said the lack of drugs, equipment and medical facilities is killing his cancer patients.

Gaza's only cancer centre was destroyed earlier this year, he said, and many of his stage-one cancer patients are now classified as stage-four.

"The most basic requirements are not present. We cannot do anything except give them painkillers and make them comfortable with what life they have left," he said.

"It is like a death sentence," he added. "Let us not kid ourselves. We have no medical system."​

 

[Saif]

Quarter of Gaza wounded have life-changing injuries: WHO

The World Health Organisation said on Thursday that at least a quarter of those hurt in the war raging in Gaza have suffered ‘life-changing injuries’, many requiring amputations and other...

www.newagebd.net

Quarter of Gaza wounded have life-changing injuries: WHO
Agence France-Presse . Geneva 12 September, 2024, 22:01

The World Health Organisation said on Thursday that at least a quarter of those hurt in the war raging in Gaza have suffered ‘life-changing injuries’, many requiring amputations and other ‘huge’ rehabilitation needs.

At least 22,500 of the people injured in Gaza in the 11 months since the war erupted will ‘requires rehabilitation services now and for years to come’, the WHO said in a statement.

‘The huge surge in rehabilitation needs occurs in parallel with the on-going decimation of the health system,’ Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement.

According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, at least 41,118 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive following the October 7 attack by Hamas militants, while over 95,000 have been wounded.

The Hamas attack inside Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which also includes hostages killed in captivity.

Pointing to a fresh analysis of the types of injuries resulting from the conflict, the UN health agency said ‘many thousands of women and children’ figured among those badly injured and that many had suffered more than one injury.

It estimated there had overall been between 13,455 and 17,550 ‘severe limb injuries’, which it said were the main driver of the need for rehabilitation.

The report showed that between 3,105 and 4,050 limb amputations had occurred.

Other life-altering injuries including spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and major burn injuries, it said.

At the same time, WHO said only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are currently even partially functional, while primary health care services are frequently suspended or inaccessible due to insecurity, attacks and repeated evacuation orders.

Gaza’s only limb reconstruction and rehabilitation centre, located in Nasser Medical Complex and supported by WHO ceased functioning last December due to lack of supplies and specialised health workers.

‘Tragically, much of the rehabilitation workforce in Gaza is now displaced,’ the statement said.

Peeperkorn said that ‘patients can’t get the care they need’.

‘Acute rehabilitation services are severely disrupted and specialised care for complex injuries is not available, placing patients’ lives at risk,’ he said.

‘Immediate and long-term support is urgently needed to address the enormous rehabilitation needs.’​

 

[Saif]

US must intervene to stop Gaza carnage

Says ‘helpless’ UN chief as 16 more die in the Palestinian enclave

www.thedailystar.net

US must intervene to stop Gaza carnage
Says ‘helpless’ UN chief as 16 more die in the Palestinian enclave

Reuters file photo

UN chief Antonio Guterres, in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, said that the US must put more pressure on Israel to end its war on Gaza as the violence on the ground raged on today.

The message conveyed by Guterres to the US in the interview with Al Jazeera is that it must intervene, Tamer Qarmout, professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said.

Guterres said the US being "the only superpower that is enabling Israel to continue its war through funding weapons, arms and providing diplomatic protection", he said.

"The message is loud and clear: the US has to intervene", Qarmout quoted the UN chief as saying. "The US administration has been enabling this war to continue for too long."

However, Guterres acknowledged that the demand is very unlikely to be heard.

"I know the American political life sufficiently to know that will not happen," Guterres said.

The UN chief said it is, however, important to keep pressuring the US and make it clear that "the two-state solution must not be undermined".

Meanwhile, medical sources in Gaza yesterday confirmed at least 16 Palestinians' death in Israeli attacks since the early hours of the morning.

This number includes five members of the same family who, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence, were killed in an attack on al-Mawasi in south Gaza this morning. It said two children were among those killed.

Meanwhile, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today reiterated his "call for a ceasefire, which is critical for rebuilding the health system to cope with escalating needs" in Gaza.

He said on X: "Amid the ongoing hostilities, it is critical to ensure access to all essential health services, including rehabilitation to prevent illness and death."

In the Al-Jazeera interview, Guterres laid bare his helplessness in stopping the war.

"I have no power to stop the war. We have a voice, and that voice has been loud and clear to say from the beginning this war must stop. The suffering of the Palestinian people must stop and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people must be recognised."

Accusing the Security Council of "systematic failure" in ending the most dramatic conflicts that we face today, the UN chief said, "The geopolitical divide that exists among the major powers has created a situation in which any country or any movement anywhere in the world feels that they can do whatever they want because there will be no punishment."

"We must absolutely reject any prospective annexation of West Bank or the land grabbing or the illegal settlements that move on. The West Bank together with Gaza and East Jerusalem, which is part of the West Bank, must be the state of Palestine in the future," he added.

Meanwhile, one of two US aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the Middle East in part to deter Iran from carrying out a threatened attack against Israel has departed the region, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

The decision to end the dual-carrier presence came nearly three weeks after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group to remain in the Middle East, even after the arrival of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to replace it.

The Roosevelt has now departed the Middle East and is headed to the Asia-Pacific region, Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told a news briefing.

In West Bank, the families of Palestinians killed in an air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas held funerals today after Israeli forces withdrew following their latest raid in the territory.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that its forces were engaged in a "counter-terrorism operation" in the area of Tubas, in the northern West Bank.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the military withdrew Thursday evening, allowing the funerals to go ahead.

The four men buried in Tubas today were killed in an air strike at dawn on Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

A fifth fatality from the same strike was buried on Friday in Tamoun, also in the northern West Bank.

Since the Israeli offensive in Gaza began on October, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. It also wounded more than 92,000 people.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 679 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli military or settlers since October 7.​

 

[Saif]

Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation

Israel faced international condemnation Thursday after a strike killed 18 people at a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians in war-torn Gaza, where the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants

en.prothomalo.com

Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation
AFP Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories
Published: 13 Sep 2024, 09: 57

Palestinians search in the rubble for survivors at the site of an Israeli strike in the Shejaiya suburb east of Gaza City on 12 September, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian militants AFP

Israel faced international condemnation Thursday after a strike killed 18 people at a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians in war-torn Gaza, where the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.

The attack flattened part of the UN-run Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat on Wednesday, leaving only a charred heap of rebar and concrete.

"For the fifth time, Israeli forces bombed the UNRWA-run Al-Jawni School, killing 18 citizens," Gaza civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal wrote on Telegram, referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA later said six of its staff had been killed in two Israeli strikes on the school and its surroundings, calling it the highest death toll among its team in a single incident.

"Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people," it said on X. "Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target."

UN chief Antonio Guterres branded the strike "totally unacceptable". His spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that women and children were also among the 18 dead.

The Israeli military said it had conducted a "precise strike" on Hamas militants within the school grounds. It did not elaborate on the outcome, but said "numerous steps" were taken to reduce the risk to civilians.

EU outrage

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was "outraged" by the deaths and that the strikes showed a "disregard of the basic principles" of international humanitarian law.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: "We need to see humanitarian sites protected, and that's something that we continue to raise with Israel".

Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said UNRWA had not provided the names of its killed workers, "despite repeated requests".

He said a military inquiry found that "a significant number of the names (of the dead) that have appeared in the media and on social networks are Hamas terrorist operatives".

In response, UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma said the agency was "not aware of any such requests", that it provided Israel each year with a list of its staff and that it "called repeatedly" on Israel and Palestinian militants "to never use civilian facilities for military or fighting purposes".

She said the agency was "not in a position to determine" if the school had been used by Hamas for military purposes, but UNRWA had "repeatedly called for independent investigations" into "these very serious claims".

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the school was "no longer a school" and had become "a legitimate target" because it was used by Hamas to launch attacks.

UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid into Gaza, has been in crisis since Israel accused a dozen of its 30,000 employees of being involved in the 7-October attacks that sparked the war.

The UN immediately fired the implicated staff members, and a probe found some "neutrality related issues" but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its main allegations.

'Going through hell'

Survivors of the strike scrambled to recover bodies and belongings from the rubble, saying they had to step over "shredded limbs".

"I can hardly stand up," a man holding a plastic bag of human remains told AFP.

"We've been going through hell for 340 days now," he said.

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said after the school strike that at least 220 members of the agency's staff had been killed in the war.

"Humanitarian staff, premises & operations have been blatantly & unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war", he said on X.

Across Gaza, many school buildings have been repurposed to shelter displaced families, with the vast majority of the territory's 2.4 million people repeatedly uprooted by the war.

A UN report published Thursday found that Gaza's economy was now less than one-sixth of the size it had been in 2022.

"It will take decades to bring Gaza back to where it was in October 2023",

UN Trade and Development economist Mutasim Elagraa warned: "It will take decades to bring Gaza back to where it was in October 2023."

No truce breakthrough

In Gaza City, civil defence spokesman Bassal said two children were among seven people killed in two strikes in the Zeitun neighbourhood, while two people were killed in the Jabalia camp.

Medical sources said five people were killed in strikes in the southern province of Khan Yunis.

The bloodshed shows no signs of abating despite months of ceasefire negotiations mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States.

A Hamas delegation met Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Doha on Wednesday, the Palestinian Islamists said, though there was no indication of a breakthrough.

Hamas's 7-October attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. The count includes hostages killed in captivity.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said that the head of the elite Unit 8200, responsible for signals intelligence, Brigadier General Yossi Sariel, would resign over the failure to prevent the attack.

Israel's retaliation has killed at least 41,118 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN human rights office says most of the dead have been women or children.​