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

[Saif]

Israel orders people in more areas of Gaza’s Rafah to evacuate

Israel called on Saturday for Palestinians in more areas of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah to evacuate and head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, in a further indication that the military is pressing ahead with its plans for a ground attack on Rafah. In a post on so

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel orders people in more areas of Gaza's Rafah to evacuate
REUTERS
Published :
May 11, 2024 18:54
Updated :
May 11, 2024 18:54

A man looks from a vehicle loaded with belongings, as Palestinians prepare to evacuate, after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of Rafah, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 11, 2024.

A man looks from a vehicle loaded with belongings, as Palestinians prepare to evacuate, after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of Rafah, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 11, 2024. Photo : Reuters/Hatem Khaled

Israel called on Saturday for Palestinians in more areas of Gaza's southern city of Rafah to evacuate and head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, in a further indication that the military is pressing ahead with its plans for a ground attack on Rafah.

In a post on social media site X, a military spokesperson also called on residents and displaced people in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, and 11 other neighbourhoods in the enclave to go immediately to shelters west of Gaza City.

The Palestinian health ministry said at least 37 Palestinians, 24 of them from central Gaza areas, were killed in overnight airstrikes across the enclave, including in Rafah.

"They threw fliers on Rafah and said, from Rafah to al-Zawayda is safe, people should evacuate there, and they did, and what has become of them? Dismembered bodies? There is no safe place in Gaza," Khitam Al-Khatib, who said she had lost at least 10 of her relatives in an airstrike on a family house earlier on Saturday, told Reuters.

Al-Zawayda is a small town in central Gaza Strip that has been crowded by thousands of the displaced from across the enclave.

The Israeli military said its aircraft struck tens of targets across the Strip over the past day, adding its ground troops had eliminated fighters in Zeitoun in recent hours.

In Rafah, residents told Reuters the new evacuation orders by the Israeli military covered areas in the centre of the city and left little doubt Israel planned to expand its ground offensive there.

"The situation is very difficult, people are leaving their homes in panic," said Khaled, 35, a resident of the Shaboura neighbourhood, an area where the new orders to leave have been issued.

The Israeli military said it was continuing precise operational activity against Hamas fighters in eastern Rafah and on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing.

Despite heavy U.S. pressure and alarm expressed by residents and humanitarian groups, Israel has said it will proceed with an incursion into Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced people have sought refuge during the seven-month-old war.

Israeli tanks captured the main road dividing Rafah's eastern and western sections on Friday, effectively encircling the eastern side in an assault that has caused Washington to hold up the delivery of some military aid to its ally.

Israel says it cannot win the war without rooting out thousands of Hamas fighters it believes are deployed in Rafah.

About 300,000 Gazans have so far moved towards Al-Mawasi, according to Israeli military estimates released on Saturday.

The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military operation in Gaza has killed close to 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. The bombardment has laid waste to the coastal enclave and caused a deep humanitarian crisis.

The latest evacuation orders came hours after internationally mediated ceasefire talks appeared to be faltering, with Hamas saying Israel's rejection of the truce offer it had accepted returned things to square one.

The Palestinian militant group also hinted it was reconsidering its negotiation policy. It did not elaborate on whether a review meant it would harden its terms for reaching a deal, but said it would consult with other allied factions.

Israel says it wants to reach a deal under which hostages would be released in exchange for the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, but that it is not prepared to end the military offensive.

'EXHAUSTED'

In Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands were sheltering, Palestinians mourned relatives during funerals on Saturday.

"Here they are, in pieces, here is my sister-in-law, without a head, my aunt is without a head, what is this injustice? Until when will this go on? We are exhausted, by God we are exhausted, I have lived in tents for the past seven months," said Khatib, sitting near bodies wrapped in white shrouds bearing the names of the dead men and women.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is under increasing pressure over its military campaign, including from longtime ally the United States.

The Biden administration said on Friday Israel's use of U.S.-supplied weapons may have violated international humanitarian law during its Gaza operation, in its strongest criticism to date of Israel.

But the administration stopped short of a definitive assessment, saying that due to the chaos of the war it could not verify specific instances where use of those weapons might have been involved in alleged breaches.​

 

[Saif]

Israel strikes Gaza as more Rafah evacuations ordered

At least 21 people were killed during strikes in central Gaza and taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah city

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Israel strikes Gaza as more Rafah evacuations ordered
AFPRafah, Palestinian Territories
Published: 12 May 2024, 09: 04

A woman and boy walk with belongings past barbed-wire fences as they flee from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on 11 May, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas.AFP

Israel on Saturday hit parts of Gaza including Rafah where it expanded an evacuation order, as the UN warned an outright invasion of the crowded city risked an "epic" disaster.

AFP journalists, medics and witnesses reported strikes across the coastal territory, where the UN says humanitarian relief is blocked after Israeli troops defied international opposition and entered eastern Rafah this week.

That effectively shut a key aid crossing and suspending traffic through another.

At least 21 people were killed during strikes in central Gaza and taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah city, a hospital statement said.

Bodies covered in white dust lay on the ground in a courtyard of the facility. A man in a baseball cap leaned over one body bag, clasping a dust-covered hand that protruded.

The feet of another corpse poked from under a blanket bearing the picture of a large teddy bear.

In Rafah, witnesses reported intense air strikes near the crossing with Egypt, and AFP images showed smoke rising over the city.

Other strikes occurred in north Gaza, witnesses said.

Hamas on Saturday accused Israel of "expanding the incursion into Rafah to include new areas in the centre and the west of the city".

Israeli troops on Tuesday seized and closed the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing -- through which all fuel passes into Gaza -- after ordering residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate.

The army said Saturday troops were fighting "armed terrorists" at the crossing and had found "numerous underground tunnel shafts".

Truce deal hopes fade

The war began with Hamas's unprecedented 7 October attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

During their attack, militants also seized hostages. Israel estimates 128 of them remain in Gaza including 36 who the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

While mediation efforts towards a truce and hostage release appeared to stall, Hamas's armed wing said a hostage who appeared in a video it released earlier on Saturday had died from wounds suffered in an Israeli strike.

The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said Nadav Popplewell, a British-Israeli man, had been wounded in a strike a month ago and died "because he did not receive intensive medical care because the enemy has destroyed the Gaza Strip's hospitals".

The Israeli military did not offer any comment on the earlier video and AFP was unable to independently verify its authenticity.

US President Joe Biden on Saturday said a ceasefire would be achieved "tomorrow" if Hamas released the hostages.


'What next?'

The new evacuation order for eastern Rafah, posted on X by Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee, said the designated areas had "witnessed Hamas terrorist activities in recent days and weeks".

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari later said "we have eliminated dozens of terrorists in eastern Rafah".

Israel on Saturday said 300,000 people had fled Rafah since an initial evacuation order, as more residents piled water tanks, mattresses and other belongings onto vehicles and prepared to flee again.

"We don't know where to go," said Farid Abu Eida, who was preparing to leave Rafah, having already been displaced there from Gaza City.

"There is no place left in Gaza that is safe or not overcrowded... There's nowhere we can go."

Journalists as well began dismantling their tents and packing their equipment to leave the city.

"Where to? After Rafah there is expulsion, not displacement. This is the question that Palestinians ask, what next?" said journalist Nabil Diab.

The evacuation order on Saturday told residents to go to the "humanitarian zone" of Al-Mawasi, on the coast northwest of Rafah.

That area has "extremely limited access to clean drinking water, latrines" and other basic services, said Sylvain Groulx, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) emergency coordinator in Gaza.

EU chief Charles Michel said on social media that Rafah civilians were being ordered to "unsafe zones", denouncing it as "unacceptable".​

 

[Saif]

‘Hot summer of protest’ waiting

About a dozen students arrested by police clearing a sit-in at a Denver college campus emerged from detainment to cheers from fellow pro-Palestinian protesters, several waving yellow court summons like tiny victory flags and imploring fellow demonstrators not to let their energy fade.

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'Hot summer of protest' waiting

A displaced Palestinian woman, who fled Jabalia after the Israeli military called on residents to evacuate, carries her belongings on her head as she makes her way towards Gaza City yesterday. Photo: Reuters

About a dozen students arrested by police clearing a sit-in at a Denver college campus emerged from detainment to cheers from fellow pro-Palestinian protesters, several waving yellow court summons like tiny victory flags and imploring fellow demonstrators not to let their energy fade.

Just how much staying power the student demonstrations over the war in Gaza that have sprung up in Denver and at dozens of universities across the United States will have is a key question for protesters, school administrators and police, with graduation ceremonies being held, summer break coming and high-profile encampments dismantled.

The student protesters passionately say they will continue until administrators meet demands that include permanent ceasefire in Gaza, university divestment from arms suppliers and other companies profiting from the war, and amnesty for students and faculty members who have been disciplined or fired for protesting.

Academics who study protest movements and the history of civil disobedience say it's difficult to maintain the people-power energy on campus if most of the people are gone. But they also point out that university demonstrations are just one tactic in the wider pro-Palestinian movement that has existed for decades, and that this summer will provide many opportunities for the energy that started on campuses to migrate to the streets.

Dana Fisher is a professor at American University in Washington, DC, and author of several books on activism and grassroots movements who has seen some of her own students among protesters on her campus.

She noted the college movement spread organically across the country as a response to police called onto campus at Columbia University on April 18, when more than 100 people were arrested. Since those arrests, at least 2,600 demonstrators have been detained at more than 100 protests in 39 states and Washington, DC, according to The Appeal, a nonprofit news organization.

"I don't see enough organizational infrastructure to sustain a bunch of young people who are involved in a movement when they are not on campus," Fisher said.

Students in Denver say the movement's spread from the coasts to the heartland and to smaller universities shows it has staying power. Student protests also have flared outside the US. They have vowed to continues protest as long as it takes to meet their demands.

They have pledged to be on the campuses during the summer break and even after that.

Fisher thinks the current campus demonstrations foreshadow a "long, hot summer of protest" about many issues, and that the Republican national convention in July and the Democratic national convention in August will be ripe targets for massive protest.

"And then you just plop right down in the middle of all that the presidential election?" she said. "It's a crazy recipe for one hell of a fall."​

 

[Saif]

Fighting rages across Gaza as death toll crosses 35,000

Israel struck Gaza on Sunday and troops were battling militants in several areas of the Hamas-run territory, where the health ministry said that...

www.newagebd.net

Fighting rages across Gaza as death toll crosses 35,000
Agence France-Presse . Rafah, Palestinian Territories 12 May, 2024, 21:14

Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on May 12, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. | AFP photo.

Israel struck Gaza on Sunday and troops were battling militants in several areas of the Hamas-run territory, where the health ministry said that the death toll in the war had exceeded 35,000 people.

More than seven months into the Israel-Hamas war, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged 'an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid' into the besieged Gaza Strip.

'But a ceasefire will only be the start,' Guterres told a donor conference in Kuwait. 'It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war.'

As Egyptian, Qatari and US mediation efforts towards a truce appeared to stall, US President Joe Biden said on Saturday a ceasefire could be achieved 'tomorrow' if Hamas released the hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attack that sparked the conflict.

AFP correspondents, witnesses and medics said Israeli air strikes pounded parts of northern, central and southern Gaza during the night and into Sunday morning.

The Israeli military said its jets had hit 'over 150 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip' over the past day.

In Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city which sits on the border with Egypt, the Kuwaiti hospital said Sunday it had received the bodies of '18 martyrs' killed in Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours.

The health ministry in the territory said that at least 63 people had been killed over the last 24 hours, bringing the overall death toll from Israel's bombardment and offensive in Gaza to at least 35,034 people, mostly women and children.

The war began with Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized hostages, of whom scores were freed during a one-week truce in November. Israel estimates 128 captives remain in Gaza, including 36 who the military says are dead.

Months after Israel said it had dismantled Hamas's command structure in northern Gaza, fighting has resumed in recent days in Jabalia refugee camp and Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said late on Saturday that 'in recent weeks we have identified attempts by Hamas to rebuild its military capabilities in Jabalia, and we are acting to destroy these attempts'. He also said there was an operation in Zeitun.

The military said on Sunday its troops were operating in Jabalia after launching an operation overnight.

AFP correspondents reported intense clashes and heavy gunfire from Israeli helicopters in the Zeitun area early Sunday, with medics and witnesses saying troops were fighting in Zeitun as well as Jabalia.

Israel defied international opposition this week and sent tanks and troops into eastern Rafah, effectively shutting a key aid crossing.

On Saturday, the Israeli military expanded an evacuation order for eastern Rafah and said 300,000 Palestinians had left the area.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, gave a similar estimate of 'around 300,000 people' who have fled Rafah over the past week, decrying in a post on X the 'forced and inhumane displacement of Palestinians' who have 'nowhere safe to go' in Gaza.

And the UN's human rights chief Volker Turk on Sunday warned that the evacuation orders, 'much less a full assault', could not be 'reconciled with the binding requirements of international law' or two recent rulings by the International Court of Justice on Israel's conduct of the war.

Palestinians in Rafah, many of them displaced by the fighting elsewhere in the territory, piled water tanks, mattresses and other belongings onto vehicles and prepared to flee again.

'The artillery shelling didn't stop at all' for several days, said Mohammed Hamad, 24, who has left eastern Rafah for the city's west.

'We will not move until we feel that the danger is advancing to the west,' he told AFP.

'There is no safe place in Gaza where we can take refuge.'

Residents were told to go to the 'humanitarian zone' of Al-Mawasi on the coast northwest of Rafah, though aid groups have warned it was not ready for an influx of people.

EU chief Charles Michel said on social media that Rafah civilians were being ordered to 'unsafe zones', denouncing it as 'unacceptable'.

Hisham Adwan, spokesman for the Gaza crossings authority, told AFP on Sunday that the Rafah crossing has remained closed since Israeli troops seized its Palestinian side on Tuesday, 'preventing the entry of humanitarian aid' and the departure of patients needing medical care.

He said Israeli forces 'have advanced from the eastern border' about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 miles) into Rafah.

At the Kerem Shalom crossing, site of multiple clashes, the army said it had intercepted two launches fired at the crossing from Rafah.

Israel began what it termed a 'limited' operation in Rafah this week, while the international community has repeatedly condemned the possibility, long-threatened by the Israeli government, of a full-scale ground invasion of the city.

Israel's close ally the United States paused the delivery of 3,500 bombs as it appeared ready to invade Rafah.

Protests against the war spread to Saturday's Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden, where thousands rallied outside the Malmo Arena condemning Israel's participation.

Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv on Saturday, Israeli protesters again took to the streets to pressure their government to do more to reach a truce and hostage release deal.

The rally came hours after Hamas's armed wing said a hostage, Israeli-British man Nadav Popplewell, had died in captivity. The Israeli military did not offer any comment on the Hamas video statement.​

 

[Saif]

Israel lacks ‘credible plan’ to safeguard Rafah civilians, says Blinken

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in the Gazan city of Rafah, saying Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering there. Speaking to ABC Ne

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel lacks 'credible plan' to safeguard Rafah civilians, says Blinken
REUTERS
Published :
May 12, 2024 22:06
Updated :
May 12, 2024 22:06

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to the press at the port of Ashdod, in Ashdod, Israel, May 1, 2024. Photo : Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in the Gazan city of Rafah, saying Israel lacked a "credible plan" to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering there.

Speaking to ABC News' This Week, Blinken said that President Joe Biden remains determined to help Israel defend itself and that the shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was the only U.S. weapons package being withheld.

That could change, he said, if Israel launches a full-scale attack on Rafah, which Israel says it plans to invade to root out fighters of the ruling Hamas militant group.

Biden has made clear to Israel that if it "launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we're not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation," said Blinken.

"We have real concerns about the way they're used," he continued. Israel needs to "have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven't seen."

Rafah is hosting some 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them displaced from elsewhere in Gaza by fighting and Israeli bombardments, amid dire shortages of food and water.

The death toll in Israel's military operation in Gaza has now passed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct 7 in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel says 620 soldiers have been killed in the fighting.​

 

[Saif]

1,000 Hamas members hospitalised in Turkey

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that more than 1,000 members of the Palestinian group Hamas were being treated in hospitals across Turkey, reiterating his stance that Hamas was a “resistance movement”.

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1,000 Hamas members hospitalised in Turkey
Claims Turkey's Erdogan, says US, Europe not doing enough to pressure Israel into Gaza truce

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that more than 1,000 members of the Palestinian group Hamas were being treated in hospitals across Turkey, reiterating his stance that Hamas was a "resistance movement".

Speaking at a press conference after talks with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Ankara, Erdogan also said he was saddened by the Greek view that deems Hamas a terrorist organisation.

On Sunday evening, Erdogan said that the United States and European countries were not doing enough to pressure Israel to agree a ceasefire in Gaza, after Palestinian group Hamas' move to accept a truce proposal.

Turkey has denounced Israel's attacks on Gaza, called for an immediate ceasefire, and criticised what it calls unconditional support for Israel by the West.

Ankara has halted all trade with Israel and said it had decided to join South Africa's initiative to have Israel tried for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

"It has become clear who sides with peace and dialogue, and who wants clashes continuing and more bloodshed."

— Says President Erdogan

Speaking to Muslim scholars in Istanbul, Erdogan said on Sunday evening that Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal by Qatar and Egypt in a "step in the path toward a lasting ceasefire", but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government did not want the offensive to end.

"The response of the Netanyahu government was to attack the innocent people in Rafah," he said, referring to the Gazan city that Israel is targeting. "It has become clear who sides with peace and dialogue, and who wants clashes continuing and more bloodshed.

"And did Netanyahu see any serious reaction for his spoiled behaviour? No. Neither Europe nor America showed a reaction that would force Israel into a ceasefire."

Erdogan's intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met with Hamas leaders in Doha on Sunday to discuss ceasefire talks and the access of humanitarian aid into Gaza, a Turkish security source said.

Israel's military conduct in Gaza has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks, as the civilian death toll and devastation in the enclave mount.​

 

[Saif]

Fighting rocks Gaza despite US warning

Israel battled Hamas in Gaza on Monday, including in far-southern Rafah, despite US warnings against a full-scale invasion of the crowded city and...

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Fighting rocks Gaza despite US warning
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 13 May, 2024, 20:52

Israeli army battle tanks move near the border with the Gaza Strip at a location in southern Israel on Monday, amid the on-going conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and the Hamas movement. | AFP photo.

Israel battled Hamas in Gaza on Monday, including in far-southern Rafah, despite US warnings against a full-scale invasion of the crowded city and of the threat of post-war 'anarchy' across the Palestinian territory.

Clashes also raged in northern and central Gaza as Israel marked a sombre Memorial Day, which is followed by Independence Day from Monday night, more than seven months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack.

Israelis marked a moment's silence and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that 'our war of independence is not over yet. It continues even today We are determined to win this struggle.'

AFP correspondents in Gaza reported helicopter strikes and heavy artillery shelling in the east of Rafah, as well as battles in northern Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp and Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood.

Israel last week defied a chorus of warnings, including from top ally Washington, and sent tanks and troops into the east of Rafah, the city on the Egyptian border where some 1.4 million Palestinians had sought shelter.

This has sparked an exodus of nearly 3,60,000 people from Rafah so far, said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, which warned that 'no place is safe' in the largely devastated territory.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Sunday that Washington had not seen any credible Israeli plan to protect civilians in Rafah, and that 'we also haven't seen a plan for what happens the day after this war in Gaza ends'.

'Israel's on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,' he told NBC.

Fighting has raged in northern Gaza where — months after Israel declared Hamas's command structure had been dismantled — an Israeli army spokesman said there were 'attempts by Hamas to rebuild its military capabilities'.

'The army threw leaflets and sent a message on mobile phones warning everyone to leave Jabalia' refugee camp, said one displaced Palestinian, Umm Adi Nassar, after arriving in Gaza City.

'This is not the first time we have been displaced,' she said. 'Every time we try to return and settle, there is an invasion operation, and the army with its air planes and tanks bombards the houses and kills people.'

Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also said that its militants were engaged in ground battles in Rafah and Jabalia.

A strike overnight on a house in Rafah killed at least four people, said the city's Kuwaiti hospital.

Rafah residents on Monday received more evacuation orders through phone calls and text messages, prompting yet more people to leave their homes, witnesses said.

While Israel has vowed to destroy remaining Hamas forces in Rafah, the New York Times cited unnamed US officials as saying that both US and Israeli intelligence suggested the group's leader Yahya Sinwar was not hiding there.

Sinwar — who has not been seen since the October 7 attack which Israel says he orchestrated — 'most likely never left the tunnel network' under southern Gaza's main city of Khan Yunis, the newspaper said.

Amid the fighting, Egyptian, Qatari and US mediation efforts towards a truce appeared to have stalled.

UN chief Antonio Guterres urged 'an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid' into Gaza.

As Israel marked its Memorial Day, sirens sounded across the country at 11:00am (0800 GMT), prompting a two-minute silence in honour of fallen soldiers and civilian victims of attacks.

Memorial Day comes ahead of the country's 76th Independence Day, beginning Monday at sunset, when Israelis celebrate the creation of their state in 1948.

Palestinians remember Israel's establishment as the 'Nakba', or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were expelled or pushed out of their homes amid the war, and commemorate it annually on May 15.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized some 250 hostages, scores of whom were freed during a week-long truce in November. Israel estimates 128 captives remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.

Israel's bombardment and offensive in Gaza have killed at least 35,091 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Israel's military says 272 soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza on October 27.

The war has displaced most Gazans, many multiple times.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Sunday that Israel's latest evacuation orders were 'forcing people in Rafah to flee anywhere and everywhere'.

Umm Mohammed Al-Mughayyir, who has had to move her family seven times to escape the fighting, said: 'We have reached a point where we wish for death.'

Residents were told to head to the Al-Mawasi 'humanitarian zone' on the coast northwest of Rafah, though aid groups have warned it is not ready for an influx of people.

Hisham Adwan, spokesman for the Gaza crossings authority, said on Sunday the Rafah crossing with Egypt has remained closed since Israeli troops seized its Palestinian side last Tuesday, 'preventing the entry of humanitarian aid'.

The health ministry said Monday that Gaza's health system was 'hours away' from collapse after fighting has blocked fuel shipments through key crossings.

Israel's military said Sunday it had opened a new border crossing into northern Gaza as 'part of the effort to increase aid routes'.​

 

[Saif]

Fierce fighting rocks Gaza after US warning of post-war ‘anarchy’

Fierce fighting rocks Gaza as Israel battles Hamas despite US warnings of post-war ‘anarchy’. Clashes spread across Gaza, with Israel defying international calls for restraint and facing warnings of a potential power vacuum and insurgency.

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Fierce fighting rocks Gaza after US warning of post-war 'anarchy'
Amid the fighting, Egyptian, Qatari and American mediation efforts towards a truce appeared to have stalled

AFPRafah, Palestinian Territories
Published: 13 May 2024, 19: 29

This picture taken from Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip shows destroyed buildings in the Palestinian territory on 14 May, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas

Israel battled Hamas in Gaza on Monday, including in far-southern Rafah, despite US warnings against a full-scale invasion of the crowded city and of the threat of post-war "anarchy" across the Palestinian territory.

Clashes also raged in northern and central areas of the besieged Gaza Strip, AFP correspondents and witnesses said, as Israel prepared to mark a sombre Independence Day, beginning Monday night, more than seven months into the war sparked by Hamas's 7 October attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Memorial Day event that "our war of independence is not over yet. It continues even today ... We are determined to win this struggle."

AFP correspondents reported helicopter strikes and heavy artillery shelling in the east of Rafah, as well as battles in northern Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp and Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood.

Israel last week defied international warnings, including from its top ally Washington, and sent tanks and soldiers into the east of Rafah, a city on the Egyptian border where some 1.4 million Palestinians had sought shelter.

This has sparked an exodus of nearly 360,000 people from Rafah so far, said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, which warned that "no place is safe" in the largely devastated territory.

A smoke plume from an explosion billows in the Gaza Strip as seen from a position along Israel's southern border with the Palestinian territory on 13 May, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant group HamasAFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that Washington had not seen any credible Israeli plan to protect civilians in Rafah, and that "we also haven't seen a plan for what happens the day after this war in Gaza ends".

"Israel's on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas," he told NBC.

Fighting has raged in northern Gaza where -- months after Israel declared Hamas's command structure had been dismantled -- an Israeli army spokesman said there were "attempts by Hamas to rebuild its military capabilities".

Evacuation orders

Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also said that its militants were engaged in ground battles in Rafah and Jabalia.

A strike overnight on a house in Rafah killed at least four people, said the city's Kuwaiti hospital which had received the bodies.

Rafah residents on Monday received more evacuation orders through phone calls and text messages, sending yet more people to start packing and leave their homes, witnesses said.

While Israel has vowed to destroy remaining Hamas forces in Rafah, the New York Times cited unnamed US officials as saying that both US and Israeli intelligence suggested the group's leader Yahya Sinwar was not hiding there.

Sinwar -- who has not been seen since the 7 October attack which Israel says he orchestrated -- "most likely never left the tunnel network" under southern Gaza's main city Khan Yunis, the Times said.

Amid the fighting, Egyptian, Qatari and American mediation efforts towards a truce appeared to have stalled.

UN chief Antonio Guterres urged on Sunday "an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid" into Gaza.

Moment of silence

As Israel marked its Memorial Day, sirens sounded across the country at 11:00 am (0800 GMT), prompting a two-minute silence in honour of fallen soldiers and civilian victims of attacks.

Memorial Day comes ahead of the country's 76th Independence Day, beginning Monday at sunset, when Israelis celebrate the creation of their state in 1948.

Israeli army battle tanks move near the border with the Gaza Strip at a location in southern Israel on 13 May, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and the Hamas movementAFP

Palestinians remember Israel's establishment as the "Nakba", or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of people were expelled or pushed out of their homes amid the war, and commemorate it annually on 15 May.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized some 250 hostages, scores of whom were freed during a week-long truce in November. Israel estimates 128 captives remain in Gaza, including 36 who the military says are dead.

Israel's bombardment and offensive in Gaza have killed at least 35,034 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Israel's military says 272 soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza on 27 October.

'We wish for death'

The war and siege have displaced most Gazans, many multiple times.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X on Sunday that Israel's latest evacuation orders were "forcing people in Rafah to flee anywhere and everywhere".

Umm Mohammed Al-Mughayyir, who has had to move her family seven times to escape the fighting, said: "We have reached a point where we wish for death."

Residents were told to head to the Al-Mawasi "humanitarian zone" on the coast northwest of Rafah, though aid groups have warned it is not ready for an influx of people.

Hisham Adwan, spokesman for the Gaza crossings authority, told AFP on Sunday the Rafah crossing with Egypt has remained closed since Israeli troops seized its Palestinian side on Tuesday, "preventing the entry of humanitarian aid".

The health ministry said Monday that Gaza's health system is "hours away" from collapse, after fighting has blocked fuel shipments through key crossings.

Israel's military said Sunday it had opened a new border crossing into northern Gaza as "part of the effort to increase aid routes".

In a sign of growing regional tensions, Egypt -- the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979 -- said it would formally support an International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa, accusing Israel of genocidal acts in the war.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli tanks push into Rafah

Israel’s military operation in Rafah has set truce negotiations with Hamas ‘backward’, mediator Qatar said on Tuesday, adding that talks have reached...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli tanks push into Rafah
New Age Desk 15 May, 2024, 00:43

People move past destroyed buildings along a street in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday amid the on-going conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. | AFP photo

Israel's military operation in Rafah has set truce negotiations with Hamas 'backward', mediator Qatar said on Tuesday, adding that talks have reached 'almost a stalemate', reports AFP.

'Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately things didn't move in the right direction and right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate,' prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told the Qatar Economic Forum.

'Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward.'

Qatar, which has hosted Hamas's political office in Doha since 2012, has been engaged — along with Egypt and the United States — in months of behind-the-scenes mediation between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.

'There is no clarity how to stop the war from the Israeli side. I don't think that they are considering this as an option even when we are talking about the deal and leading to a potential ceasefire,' Sheikh Mohammed said.

Israeli politicians were indicating 'by their statements that they will remain there, they will continue the war. And there is no clarity on what Gaza will look like after this', he added.

Meanwhile, Israeli tanks forged deeper into eastern Rafah on Tuesday, reaching some residential districts of the southern border city where more than a million people had been sheltering, raising fears of yet further civilian casualties, reports Arab News.

Israel's international allies and aid groups have repeatedly warned against a ground incursion into refugee-packed Rafah, where Israel says four Hamas battalions are holed up.

The World Court, also known as the International Court of Justice, said it would hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss a request by South Africa seeking new emergency measures over the Rafah incursion, which Qatar says has stalled efforts to reach a ceasefire.

South Africa's demand is part of a case it brought against Israel accusing it of violating the genocide convention in Gaza, and which Israel has called baseless. Israel will provide its views on the latest petition on Friday, the ICJ said.

Israel has vowed to press on into Rafah even without its allies' support, saying the operation is necessary to root out remaining Hamas fighters.

'The tanks advanced this morning west of Salahuddin Road into the Brzail and Jneina neighbourhoods. They are in the streets inside the built-up area and there are clashes,' one resident told Reuters via a chat app.

Palestinian residents of western Rafah later said they could see smoke billowing above the eastern neighbourhoods and hear the sound of explosions following an Israeli bombardment of a cluster of houses.

Hamas's armed wing said it had destroyed an Israeli troop carrier with an Al-Yassin 105 missile in the eastern Al-Salam district, killing some crew members and wounding others.

In a round-up of its activities, the IDF said its forces had eliminated 'several armed terrorist' cells in close-quarter fighting on the Gazan side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. In the east of the city, it said it had also destroyed militant cells and a launch post from where missiles were being fired at IDF troops.

Israel issued evacuation orders for people to move from parts of eastern Rafah a week ago, with a second round of orders extending to further zones on Saturday.

They are moving to tracts of land such as Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip bordering the coast that aid agencies say lacks sanitary and other facilities to host an influx of displaced people.


UNRWA, the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza, estimates some 4,50,000 people have fled Rafah since May 6, warning 'nowhere is safe,' in the enclave of 2.3 million.

The war has pushed much of Gaza's population to the brink of famine, the UN says, and has devastated its medical facilities, where hospitals, if working at all, are running short of fuel to power generators and other essential supplies.

James Smith, a British emergency room doctor volunteering in hospitals in southern Gaza, said he had been told by a World Health Organisation official that some emergency fuel had made it into the Gaza Strip, potentially enough for six days.

Fighting across the Strip has intensified in recent days, including in the north, with the Israeli military heading back into areas where it had claimed to have dismantled Hamas months ago. Israel says the operations are to prevent Hamas, which runs Gaza, from rebuilding it military capacities.

The Palestinian death toll in the war has now surpassed 35,000, according to Gaza health officials, whose figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters. It said that 82 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours, the highest death toll in a single day in many weeks.

Israel launched its Gaza operation following a devastating attack on October 7 by Hamas-led gunmen who rampaged through Israeli communities near the enclave, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

In the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north, bulldozers demolished clusters of houses to make a new road for tanks to roll through into the eastern suburb.

In northern Gaza's Jabalia, a sprawling refugee camp built for displaced Palestinians 75 years ago, residents said Israeli forces were trying to reach as deep as the camp's local market under heavy tank shelling.​

 

[Saif]

Bangladesh condemns Israeli attacks on humanitarian convoy to Gaza

Breaking News, International News & Multimedia

thedailynewnation.com

Bangladesh condemns Israeli attacks on humanitarian convoy to Gaza
14 May 2024, 5:25 pm

BSS: Bangladesh has condemned the recent attacks perpetrated by Israeli extremist settlers in Palestine on a Jordanian humanitarian convoy to Gaza via the Beit Hanoun Crossing meant for civilian aid in Gaza.

"It is the responsibility of the Israeli Occupation authorities to put an end to these settlers' violence and to protect humanitarian convoys," according to a statement issued by the Bangladesh foreign ministry today.

It said Bangladesh underscored the need for the signatory parties to uphold the International humanitarian law (IHL) which clearly lays out the responsibilities of states and non-state armed groups for rapid and unimpeded passage for all humanitarian aid.

"As we express our support and solidarity with the Jordanian government in their endeavors to serve humanity through its humanitarian aid, we call upon Israeli Occupation Authorities to allow unhindered access of humanitarian aid to Gaza as enshrined in the International Humanitarian Law," read the statement.​