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

[Saif]

Palestinian prisoners face ‘all kinds of torture’

The head of the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital said yesterday after being freed from more than seven months of detention that he had been “tortured” by Israel.

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Palestinian prisoners face 'all kinds of torture'
Says Gaza hospital chief after release from Israeli detention centre

A man throws a bucket of water to dowse a fire in a building that was heavily damaged during an Israeli army raid on the Nur Shams camp for Palestinian refugees, east of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank yesterday. Photo: AFP

The head of the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital said yesterday after being freed from more than seven months of detention that he had been "tortured" by Israel.

Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya was among more than 50 Palestinians released and returned to Gaza for treatment, according to an Israeli minister and a medical source in the besieged territory.

Salmiya said he was put through "severe torture" during his detention, which left him with a broken thumb.

"Prisoners are subjected to all kinds of torture," he told a press conference. "Several inmates died in interrogation centres and were deprived of food and medicine."

"For two months no prisoner ate more than a loaf of bread a day," said Salmiya.

"Detainees were subjected to physical and psychological humiliation."

The medical chief said no charge had ever been made against him. Israeli forces detained Salmiya during one of a number of raids on Al-Shifa.

The hospital has largely been reduced to rubble by successive raids since Israel launched its assault on Gaza.

Salmiya and the other freed detainees crossed back into Gaza from Israel just east of Khan Yunis, a medical source at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah told AFP.​

 

[Saif]

Israel strikes Gaza as militants claim rocket barrage

Israeli forces struck southern Gaza’s main city on Monday after a rocket barrage claimed by militant group Islamic Jihad, and as shelling and fighting raged on across the...

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Israel strikes Gaza as militants claim rocket barrage
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 02 July, 2024, 00:36

Israeli forces struck southern Gaza's main city on Monday after a rocket barrage claimed by militant group Islamic Jihad, and as shelling and fighting raged on across the besieged Palestinian territory.

A group of Palestinian detainees meanwhile returned to the Gaza Strip, including the director of its biggest hospital who recounted 'severe torture' in Israeli custody.

The Israeli military said that about '20 projectiles were identified crossing from the area of Khan Yunis' in a rare salvo after nearly nine months of devastating conflict.

The rockets were aimed at Israeli communities near the Gaza border and were fired in retaliation for Israeli 'crimes... against our Palestinian people', said Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad which has fought alongside Hamas. Most launches were intercepted, the Israeli military said, reporting no casualties and saying artillery was 'striking the sources of the fire'.

Elsewhere in Gaza, witnesses and the civil defence agency reported Israeli air strikes including in the southern Rafah area and the central Nuseirat refugee camp.

Witnesses reported constant Israeli tank fire in Gaza City's Shujaiya district where battles raged for a fifth day, after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Israeli forces were engaged in a 'difficult fight'.

The military said troops 'eliminated numerous terrorists' in raids in Shujaiya, where air strikes also killed 'approximately 20' militants.

Israeli forces were also operating in Rafah and in central Gaza, a statement added.

Netanyahu, who recently declared that the 'intense phase' of the war was winding down, said on Sunday troops were 'operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, everywhere in the Gaza Strip'.

'This is a difficult fight that is being waged above ground and below ground' in tunnels.

The war started with Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,900 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Months of on-and-off talks towards a truce and hostage release deal have made little progress, with Hamas saying Saturday there was 'nothing new' in a revised plan US mediators presented late last month.

Israel has released Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, along with dozens of other detainees returned Monday to Gaza for treatment, according to a hospital source in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah.

Successive Israeli raids have reduced parts of Al-Shifa, the territory's largest medical complex, to rubble.

Israel has accused Hamas of using Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza as a cover for military operations and infrastructure, claims the militants have rejected.

Speaking after his release, Abu Salmiya said he had suffered 'severe torture' during his detention since November.

'Prisoners are subjected to all kinds of torture,' he told reporters in Khan Yunis.

'Detainees were subjected to physical and psychological humiliation' and 'several inmates died in interrogation centres and were deprived of food and medicine', he said.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not confirm the detainees' release and would not comment on the torture allegations.

According to Abu Salmiya, no charges were ever brought against him.

The European hospital in Khan Yunis said the head of its orthopaedic unit, Bassam Miqdad, was also among those freed.

The United Nations and relief agencies have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and threat of starvation the war and Israeli siege have brought for Gaza's 2.4 million people.

Israel's ground operation in Rafah since early May has led to the closure of a key aid crossing, and a US-built temporary pier meant to facilitate humanitarian shipments was again removed from the Gaza coast over the weekend because of high seas.

The war has also led to soaring tensions on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, where the army has traded fire with the Hezbollah movement, an Iran-backed Hamas ally.

In a displacement camp in Gaza's Deir al-Balah, pharmacist Sami Hamid said skin infections were on the rise, particularly among children, 'because of the hot weather and lack of clean water'.

'The number of skin infections has increased, especially scabies and chickenpox,' as have hepatitis cases probably linked to untreated sewage flowing right beside tents, said Hamid.

Wafaa Elwan, displaced from Gaza City, said 'no clean water' or basic hygiene products were available at the tent city.

'We no longer wash our children as before' and 'treatment is not widely available', Elwan said.

'My son can't stop scratching.'​

 

[Saif]

Israel pounds Gaza after evacuation order

Israeli forces carried out deadly strikes Tuesday on southern Gaza and battled militants after issuing an evacuation order which a UN agency said would impact 2,50,000 Palestinians...

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Israel pounds Gaza after evacuation order
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 03 July, 2024, 00:23

Displaced Palestinians from areas in east Khan Yunis arrive to the city as they flee after the Israeli army issued a new evacuation order for parts of the city and Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, amid the on-going conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. | AFP photo

Israeli forces carried out deadly strikes Tuesday on southern Gaza and battled militants after issuing an evacuation order which a UN agency said would impact 2,50,000 Palestinians.

Witnesses reported intense bombing and shelling around Khan Yunis, southern Gaza's main city, from which Israeli troops withdrew in early April after a devastating months-long battle.

A hospital source in the city said shelling killed eight people and wounded more than 30 others.

The bombardment came after a rocket barrage at southern Israel on Monday morning claimed by the militant group Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas.

This was followed by an order to evacuate most areas east of Khan Yunis and in Rafah along the borders with Israel and Egypt.

An AFP photographer saw Palestinians leave eastern Khan Yunis on foot, in cars and on horse or donkey carts, carrying their belongings with them.

Some displaced people with nowhere to go were sleeping on the streets, witnesses said.

Ahmad Najjar, a resident of the town of Bani Suhaila, said the Israeli evacuation order had caused 'a large displacement of residents' and spurred 'fear and extreme anxiety'.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees estimates that 'around 2,50,000 people have been impacted by these orders', said UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge.

'We expect that almost all of these people will move from this area,' she said.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said that 1.9 million people were now displaced in the territory, adding she was 'deeply concerned' by reports of new evacuation orders for Khan Yunis.

'Over 1 million people have been displaced once again, desperately seeking shelter and safety and 1.9 million people are now displaced across Gaza. I'm deeply concerned about reports of new evacuation orders issued in the area of Khan Yunis,' Sigrid Kaag told the UN Security Council.

Six consecutive days of intense battles followed a similar evacuation order issued last week for the Gaza City district of Shujaiya.

An AFP correspondent reported artillery shelling in the northern area on Tuesday, and witnesses said gun battles raged on.

The military said its forces were operating in Shujaiya, central Gaza and Rafah, where aircraft carried out strikes and troops 'ambushed an armed terrorist squad' in a car and killed them.

Over the past day, the Israeli air force 'struck approximately 30 terror targets' across Gaza, said a military statement.

In Shujaiya, Palestinian militants 'were eliminated and dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites above and below ground were dismantled, including tunnel shafts', it added.

In central Gaza, witnesses said strikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp where the Palestinian Red Crescent reported at least one dead, a child.

Mohamed al-Jalees, displaced from Shujaiya to Nuseirat, helped clear the rubble and search for survivors.

'A missile struck our neighbours' house,' he said. 'We rushed to check on them, and some were rescued alive (but) we found a martyred child.'

'I have been displaced here for nine months. This is our daily routine.'

Other parts of the Gaza Strip were reeling from continued fighting nearly nine months into the war, which was sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel and has led to a dire humanitarian crisis.

Months of on-and-off talks towards a truce and hostage release deal have made little progress, even after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared more than a week ago that the 'intense phase' of the war was winding down.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Monday that 'we've heard the Israelis talk about a significant downshift in their operations in Gaza'.

'It remains to be seen.'

The latest order to leave parts of southern Gaza follows an evacuation of Rafah nearly two months ago which had signalled the start of a long-feared Israeli offensive that has uprooted many Palestinians and blocked a key aid route.

Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive aimed at eradicating the Palestinians militants in Gaza has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The military announced two soldiers were killed in central Gaza, taking to 319 its death toll since ground operations began in late October.

Israeli authorities on Monday released Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital — the territory's largest medical complex, ravaged by Israeli raids — along with dozens of other detainees returned to Gaza for treatment.

Abu Salmiya said he had suffered 'severe torture' during his detention.

'Several inmates died in interrogation centres and were deprived of food and medicine,' he said after his release.

Israel has accused Hamas of using Al-Shifa and other hospitals as a cover for military operations, claims Gaza militants have rejected.

Netanyahu said the release had been made without his knowledge, and that Abu Salmiya belongs 'in prison' because Israeli hostages were 'murdered and held' in the hospital.

The director's return to Gaza was 'a serious mistake and a moral failure', Netanyahu said.

According to Abu Salmiya, Israel brought no charges against him during his seven-month detention.​

 

[Saif]

Heavy fighting rocks Gaza as thousands on move again

Israeli forces bombed and battled Hamas in Gaza City on Wednesday as tens of thousands of Palestinians scrambled for a safe haven after the army issued an evacuation order for a vast swathe in the territory’s south...

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Heavy fighting rocks Gaza as thousands on move again
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 04 July, 2024, 00:30

Israeli forces bombed and battled Hamas in Gaza City on Wednesday as tens of thousands of Palestinians scrambled for a safe haven after the army issued an evacuation order for a vast swathe in the territory's south.

Apache helicopters and Israeli quadcopter drones flew above Gaza City's Shujaiya district as heavy gunfire echoed through the streets, said AFP reporters.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a US media report saying his generals were urging a Gaza truce even with Hamas undefeated, stressing on Tuesday that 'this will not happen'.

Military chief Herzi Halevi meanwhile said Israel is engaged in 'a long campaign' to destroy Hamas over the October 7 attack and to bring home the hostages held by Palestinian militants.

The United Nations warned that the almost nine-months-old war had 'unleashed a maelstrom of human misery' and that the latest evacuation order had plunged yet more Palestinians into 'an abyss of suffering'.

Ten days after Netanyahu said the war's 'intense phase' was winding down, the Israeli military again rained down air strikes and artillery fire on militants in the Shujaiya district.

The air force struck 'over 50 terror infrastructure sites' across Gaza in 24 hours while ground troops 'eliminated terrorists', located tunnels and found weapons including AK-47 assault rifles, the military said.

The Israeli army — which issued an evacuation order for Shujaiya a week ago — on Sunday did the same for a larger area near Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south, raising fears of renewed heavy battles there.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have again taken to the road there, many bundling their scant belongings on top of cars or donkey carts as they sought safety elsewhere in the bombed-out wasteland.

The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 2,50,000 people had been impacted by the latest evacuation order that covers southern areas bordering Israel and Egypt.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the order covers 117 square kilometres, or 'about a third of the Gaza Strip, making it the largest such order since October'.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, told the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday that the war had now displaced 80 per cent of Gaza's population.

She also said not enough aid was reaching the besieged territory and that crossings must be reopened, particularly to southern Gaza, to avert a humanitarian disaster.

'Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been plunged into an abyss of suffering, their home lives shattered, their lives upended,' she said. 'The war has not merely created the most profound of humanitarian crises. It has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery.'

Amid the war, siege and mass displacement, more than 1,50,000 people have contracted skin diseases in the squalid conditions, said the World Health Organization.

Wafaa Elwan, a Palestinian mother of seven who now lives in a tent city by the sea, said: 'We sleep on the ground, on sand where worms come out underneath us.'

She said her five-year-old son, much of whose body was covered in rashes and welts, 'can't sleep through the night because he can't stop scratching his body'.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive since then has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that 'operational activities continue throughout the Gaza Strip'.

The Gaza civil defence agency said seven people were killed when a strike hit a family house north of Gaza City.

Another strike killed three people in a car at Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Deir al-Balah area, said an AFP reporter.

Air strikes also hit homes in Rafah, according to Gaza's government media office.

The New York Times has quoted Israeli security officials as saying top generals see a truce as the best way to secure the release of the remaining hostages, even if that meant not achieving all of the war goals.

Netanyahu, who heads a government including hardline right-wing parties, strongly rejected this on Tuesday and vowed Israel would not give in to the 'winds of defeatism'.

'The war will end once Israel achieves all of its objectives, including the destruction of Hamas and the release of all of our hostages,' he said.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah launches big attack on Israel

Lebanon's Hezbollah launched a big rocket and drone attack at Israel on Thursday and threatened to hit new targets in retaliation for the killing of a top commander, in the latest surge of violence in the steadily worsening conflict across the border. Sparked by the Gaza war, the conflict between

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Hezbollah launches big attack on Israel
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 04, 2024 20:06
Updated :
Jul 04, 2024 20:06

Rockets launched from Lebanon to Israel over the border are intercepted, amid the ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Israel, near the border with Lebanon, July 3, 2024. REUTERS
Lebanon's Hezbollah launched a big rocket and drone attack at Israel on Thursday and threatened to hit new targets in retaliation for the killing of a top commander, in the latest surge of violence in the steadily worsening conflict across the border.

Sparked by the Gaza war, the conflict between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel has been gradually intensifying for months, raising fears of a full-scale war, which both sides have indicated they want to avoid and diplomats are working to prevent.

As the latest violence played out in areas at or near the frontier - in keeping with the pattern of the last nine months - the sound of sonic booms rattled nerves for the second successive day in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.

Israeli jets broke the sound barrier over several areas of the country, Lebanon's National News Agency reported.

Hezbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and a swarm of drones at 10 Israeli military sites in retaliation for Israel's killing of Hezbollah commander Mohammed Nasser in the south on Wednesday. Nasser is one of the most senior Hezbollah commanders to be killed by Israel during the conflict.

The Israeli military said around "200 projectiles and over 20 suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory", a number of which were intercepted by Israeli air defences and fighter jets.

Israel's ambulance service said no casualties were reported. The Israeli military said some of the drones and interceptor shrapnel set off fires.

The Israeli air force "struck Hezbollah military structures" in the areas of Ramyeh and Houla", it said, referring to two villages in south Lebanon.

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, speaking at an event in Beirut commemorating Nasser, indicated his group would widen its targeting.

"The series of responses continues in succession, and this series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit," Safieddine said.

DIPLOMATIC PUSH

The United States has been leading diplomatic efforts to deescalate the fighting. Hezbollah has said it will not cease fire as long as Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The hostilities have inflicted a heavy toll on both sides of the frontier, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Amos Hochstein, a senior US official at the heart of the diplomacy, discussed French and American efforts to restore calm in meetings with French officials on Wednesday, a White House official said.

"France and the United States share the goal of resolving the current conflict across the Blue Line by diplomatic means, allowing Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return home with long-term assurances of safety and security," the official said, referring to the demarcation line between the two neighbours.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday Israeli forces were hitting Hezbollah "very hard every day" and will be ready to take any action necessary against the group, though the preference is to reach a negotiated arrangement.

Hezbollah also launched rockets at Israel on Wednesday in retaliation for Nasser's killing.

Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets along the border with Lebanon after its Palestinian ally Hams launched an attack on Israel on Oct 7, declaring its support for the Palestinians.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 300 Hezbollah fighters and some 90 civilians, according to Reuters tallies. Israel says fire from Lebanon has killed 18 soldiers and 10 civilians.​

 

[Saif]

Houthis claim multiple attacks on oil tanker, cargo ships

Yemen's Houthi group said in a statement late Friday that they have launched multiple attacks against an oil tanker and other cargo ships, including a joint attack with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance. "Our armed forces carried out several qualitative military operations, including a joint military o

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Houthis claim multiple attacks on oil tanker, cargo ships
FE ONLINE DESK
Published :
Jun 29, 2024 10:34
Updated :
Jun 29, 2024 10:34

File photo
Yemen's Houthi group said in a statement late Friday that they have launched multiple attacks against an oil tanker and other cargo ships, including a joint attack with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance.

"Our armed forces carried out several qualitative military operations, including a joint military operation with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted the oil tanker WALER in the Mediterranean Sea with several drones while it was on its way to Haifa Port," Yahya Sarea, Houthi military spokesman, said in the televised statement aired by Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.

"Our naval forces carried out a military operation targeting the American ship DELONIX in the Red Sea with several ballistic missiles. The operation led to a direct hit on the ship," Sarea said.

He said, "We also targeted the ship JOHANNES MAERSK in the Mediterranean Sea with a winged missile, and the operation achieved its goal successfully," reports Xinhua.

"The operation was carried out simultaneously with the naval forces carrying out another military operation in the Red Sea against the ship LOANNIS. The ship was targeted by several unmanned boats," he added.

Since November last year, the Houthi group has been conducting drone and missile attacks in shipping lanes, claiming these actions are in solidarity with Palestinians amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

In response, the US-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted air raids and missile strikes against Houthi targets to deter the group, but this only led to an expansion of Houthi attacks to include US and British commercial vessels and naval ships.​

 

[Saif]

Israel strike on UN school in Gaza kills 16

The Hamas authorities in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced were sheltering killed 16 people.

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Israel strike on UN school in Gaza kills 16
Agence France-Presse. Palestinian Territories 07 July, 2024, 05:16

A boy inspects the rubble of a collapsed building in the aftermath of Israeli bombardment at the Jaouni school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on July 6, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. | AFP Photo

The Hamas authorities in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced were sheltering killed 16 people.

Israel's military said its aircraft had targeted 'terrorists' operating around the Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which condemned the strike as an 'odious massacre', said 50 injured were taken to hospital from the school.

Some 7,000 people were sheltering in the school at the time of the attack, the Hamas government press office said. Dozens of people scrambled through the rubble after the strike to find survivors.

The press office said the school was run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and most of the casualties were 'children, women, and elderly'.

'This is the fourth time they have targeted the school without warning,' said one woman, Samah Abu Amsha, who told how some children were killed as they read the Koran in a class when the missile hit.

'Shrapnel flew at me inside the classroom and the children were injured,' she told AFP.

Hamas called the attack 'a new massacre and crime committed by this criminal enemy as part of its war of genocide against our Palestinian people'.

The Israeli military said in a statement it 'struck several terrorists operating in structures located in the area of UNRWA's Al-Jawni school'.

'This location served as a hideout and operational infrastructure from which attacks against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip were directed and carried out,' it added, insisting that 'steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians'.

No place is safe

Israel has agreed to meetings with mediators on a ceasefire initiative but has kept up its offensive in the territory that started on October 7 after the Hamas attack on southern Israel.

UNRWA said two of its workers were killed in a strike at Al-Bureij, also in central Gaza, early Saturday. The agency has a major food warehouse in the district.

The Al-Aqsa hospital said nine other bodies were brought to its morgue from the strike.

The UN agency said 194 of its workers have now been killed since the war started.

An UNRWA spokesperson said that since the war began, more than half of the agency's facilities have been hit and many were shelters. 'As a result at least 500 people sheltering in those facilities have been killed,' the spokesperson told AFP.

Paramedics said 10 people, including three journalists, died in another strike on a house in Nuseirat on Saturday.

'Absolutely no place in the Gaza Strip is safe,' said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

The war began with the October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Hamas militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.

In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,098 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry there.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas clears the way for a possible cease-fire after dropping key demand, officials say

Hamas has given initial approval for a US-backed proposal for a phased cease-fire deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel give an up-front commitment for a complete end to the war, a Hamas and an Egyptian official said Saturday. The apparent compromise by the militant group — which c

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Hamas clears the way for a possible cease-fire after dropping key demand, officials say
Published :
Jul 06, 2024 19:58
Updated :
Jul 06, 2024 22:15

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk next to sewage flowing into the streets of the southern town of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, July 4, 2024. Hamas has given initial approval for a US-backed proposal for a phased cease-fire deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel gives an up-front commitment for a complete end to the war, a Hamas and an Egyptian official said Saturday July 6, 2024. Photo : AP/Jehad Alshrafi/Files

Hamas has given initial approval for a US-backed proposal for a phased cease-fire deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel give an up-front commitment for a complete end to the war, a Hamas and an Egyptian official said Saturday.

The apparent compromise by the militant group — which controlled Gaza before triggering the war with an Oct 7 attack on Israel — could help deliver the first pause in fighting since last November and set the stage for further talks on ending a devastating nine-month war. But all sides cautioned that a deal is still not guaranteed.

The two officials, who spoke on conditions of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations, said Washington's phased deal will first include a "full and complete" six-week cease-fire that would see the release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During these 42 days, Israeli forces would also withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza and allow the return of displaced people to their homes in northern Gaza, the pair said.

Over that period, Hamas, Israel and the mediators would also negotiate the terms of the second phase that could see the release of the remaining male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, the officials said. In return, Israel would free additional Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The third phase would see the return of any remaining hostages, including bodies of dead captives, and the start of a yearslong reconstruction project.

Hamas still wants "written guarantees" from mediators that Israel will continue to negotiate a permanent cease-fire deal once the first phase goes into effect, the two officials said.

The Hamas representative told The Associated Press the group's approval came after it received "verbal commitments and guarantees" from the mediators that the war won't be resumed and that negotiations will continue until a permanent cease-fire is reached.

"Now we want these guarantees on paper," he said.

Months of on-again off-again cease-fire talks have stumbled over Hamas' demand that any deal include a complete end to the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered to pause the fighting, but not end it altogether until Israel reaches its goals of destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities and returning all hostages held by the militant group.

Hamas has previously expressed concern Israel will restart the war after the hostages are released. Likewise, Israeli officials have said they are worried Hamas will draw out the talks and the initial cease-fire indefinitely, without releasing all the hostages.

Netanyahu's office did not respond to requests for comment, and there was no immediate comment from Washington.

On Friday, the Israeli prime minister confirmed that the Mossad spy agency's chief had paid a lightning visit to Qatar, one of the key mediators. But his office said "gaps between the parties" remained.

Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas' October attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

Since then, the Israeli air and ground offensive has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The offensive has caused widespread devastation and unleashed a humanitarian crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine, according to international officials. Israel says Hamas is still holding about 120 hostages — about a third of which Israel believes to have died.

In line with previous proposals, the deal would see around 600 trucks of humanitarian aid entering Gaza daily — including 50 fuel trucks — with 300 bound for the hard-hit northern of the enclave, the officials said. Following Israel's assault on the southernmost city of Rafah, aid supplies entering Gaza have been reduced to a trickle.

Saturday's news comes as fighting and Israel's ariel bombardment in Gaza continues unabated.

In the central city of Deir al-Balah, funeral prayers were held for 12 Palestinians, including five children and two women, killed in three separate strikes in central Gaza on Friday and Saturday, according to hospital officials. The bodies of the dead were taken to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where they were counted by AP journalists.

Two of those killed in one of the strikes that hit the Mughazi Refugee camp Friday were employees with the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees, the organization's director of communications told the AP. Juliette Touma added that a total of 194 workers with the UN agency have been killed by the conflict since October.

Earlier this week, some 250,000 Palestinians were affected by an Israeli evacuation order in the southern city of Khan Younis and the surrounding areas. Most Palestinians seeking safety are either heading to an Israeli-declared "safe zone" centered on a coastal area called Muwasi, or the nearby city of Deir al-Balah.

Ground fighting has also raged in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City for the past two weeks, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. Many sheltered in the Yarmouk Sports Stadium, one of the strip's largest soccer arenas.​

 

[Saif]

US complicity in Gaza genocide

The total number of Palestinians dead now exceeds 38,000, of which more than 15,000 are children. The number of casualties is well above 120,000 with most of the 2.3 million Gaza population displaced. According to a statement issued on June 19 by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees,

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

US complicity in Gaza genocide
MUHAMMAD MAHMOOD
Published :
Jul 06, 2024 21:30
Updated :
Jul 06, 2024 21:30

Palestinians walk in a market of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, on June 20, 2024 — Xinhua photo

The total number of Palestinians dead now exceeds 38,000, of which more than 15,000 are children. The number of casualties is well above 120,000 with most of the 2.3 million Gaza population displaced. According to a statement issued on June 19 by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, close to 70 per cent of Gaza's water, sanitation facilities and infrastructure have been totally destroyed or damaged, leading to the spreading of infectious diseases. According to the Wall Street Journal, by mid-December last year, almost 70 per cent of Gaza's 439,000 homes and half of its buildings were destroyed or damaged. Now the situation is far worse.

Even before the current war, the Gaza strip was blockaded by Israel for 17 years, turning it into an open-air prison. In fact, the Israeli blockade rendered the impoverished Gaza strip virtually "unliveable", a term used by the then UN special rapporteur Michael Lynk in 2018.

70 per cent of Gaza's population are refugees. They along with about 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland of historical Palestine during the Nakbain 1948. The massacres, the bulldozed villages and the ethnic cleansing of about a million of Palestinians in the Nakba have been meticulously documented, despite an extraordinary propaganda campaign to persuade American and European people into believing that these never happened. These Palestinians in Gaza are survivors of massacres and ethnic cleansing.

With the blessings of the British who ruled Palestine from 1917-1948, Palestine was formally partitioned, establishing Israel, a Zionist white European colonial settler state, what was meant to be a Palestinian one, thus turning Europe's longstanding problem of anti-Semitism into Palestine's Zionist problem.

In fact, Zionism, a white European colonial movement with white supremacist and fascistic ideologies spearheaded a drive to colonise Palestine with the active support from the UK. The 1917 promise (Balfour Declaration) given by the British of a "national homeland" for European Jews was a British colonial project promising a European ethnic group land in the Arab Middle East in Palestine.

Before the Balfour declaration was made public, it had been submitted and approved by US President Woodrow Wilson, in early 1918. It was also publicly endorsed by the French and Italian governments. Finally in 1948 with the blessing of the British rulers of Palestine at that time, Zionists were successful in establishing a racist colonial settler apartheid state in Palestine and named it Israel.

The policy of ignoring the historical context by the West in general and the US in particular has given rise to the current phase of the conflict. In fact, the UN secretary general pointed out that the October 7 attacks had a historical background.

Israel began its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza on October 27 when the Palestinian resistance group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7. Before starting the ground invasion of Gaza, Israel had launched one of the most destructive bombing campaigns in modern history. It is the active US support for Israel that emboldend Israel to undertake this genocide in Gaza.

The Wall Street Journal in an article titled "The Postwar Vision That Sees Gaza Sliced into Security Zones" reported a US and Israel plan to create fenced off geographic islands in Gaza to be guarded by the Israeli army. For Israel, "the final solution of the Palestinian problem" lies in all Palestinians in Gaza, either killed or exiled.

The US backed Israeli genocide in Gaza is now aimed at complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza. A leaked Israeli Ministry of Defence intelligence document six days after the Hamas attack calls for the forced transfer of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million Palestinians to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

To achieve that objective the US continues to send weapons to Israel to continue the massacre in Gaza in violation of the ceasefire order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been invited to address a joint session of the US Congress on July 24 even when the International Court of Justice is reviewing a request by its chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes, and crimes against humanity and murder.

According to Reuters, the US has sent 14,000, 2000-pound bombs to Israel since October for use in Gaza to enable Israel to continue with its genocide in Gaza. Thes bombs can destroy entire city blocks and can kill people up to 1,200 feet away. By sending these highly destructive bombs for use in impoverished densely populated urban areas, the US is knowingly aiding Israel to carry out planned genocide in Gaza.

Despite mounting international criticism of Israel's genocidal military campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, the US is continuing to fund, arm and politically and diplomatically supporting Israel's policy of genocide in Gaza. Recently, in a joint statement by 12 former US government officials said that the Biden administration was violating US laws through its support for Israel and finding loopholes to continue shipping weapons to its ally Israel.

These former officials further added that "America's diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to Israel ensured our undeniable complicity in the killing and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza."

Strangely enough, a very poor country like India now under the leadership of a Hindu supremacist prime minister Narendra Modi is also cashing on Israeli genocide in Gaza by exporting arms and ammunitions to Israel despite India's claim that it believes in dialogue and negotiations, not war.

According to The Wire, an Indian news media outlet, the Modi government licensed a shipment in January 2024, the very month the ICJ ruled that some of the acts committed by Israel in Gaza appear to fall within the provisions of the Genocide Convention. According to Al Jazeera, in the aftermath of Israel's bombing of a UN shelter in the Nuseirat camp in Gaza, a video of the remains of a missile reveals a label that clearly read: "Made in India."

The pattern of US support for Israel goes all the way back to its founding. During and following the 1948 Palestinian war after the partition, most Palestinians were driven out of their land. In fact, for decades the US has been providing unconditional support for Israel by using its UN Security Council veto on numerous occasions to shield Israel from international accountability.

The Jewish groups such as Haganah to Irgun, and the Stern Gang actively used terrorism to create fear among the Palestinians. Terrorism carried out by these groups in the 1940s played a significant role in creating the conditions that facilitated the founding of Israel, and the consequent creation of an Arab-Palestinian diaspora. In fact, Zionist terrorism was at the core of the idea of Israel.

The US was the first country to grant Israel recognition on May 14, 1948 and played the leading role in mobilising votes in the UN to recognise the new state of Israel within its illegally seized borders. Zionist militias and the Israeli army destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages. Israel also appropriated 78 per cent of the territory of Palestine, including the larger part of Jerusalem following the 1948 war. It was a catastrophic destruction and ethnic cleansing of Palestine and her people in1948. The 1967 war provided Israel with opportunity to further expand its territory including East Jerusalem.

The US also engineered the Oslo Accord and the Abrams Accord which are attempts to further consolidate Israel as the colonial settler state in occupied Palestine with the support of major Arab states as the British did with the collaboration of Hussein bin Ali Hashimi, the Sharif of Mecca to colonise Palestine thus paving the way for the creation of the colonial settler state leading to Nakba (catastrophe) to befall the Palestinians.

Israel with the support of the US and its European allies appears to be more emboldened than ever before to escalate its genocidal campaign against Palestinians. Yet, after fighting nine months to eliminate Hamas, their fighters within Gaza still manage to inflict serious casualties on Israeli troops and destroy tanks and personnel carriers.

Not only the international community failed to end the genocide in Gaza, but it also failed to delink humanitarian aid from political and military objectives. The Palestinian people themselves alone have always remained the source of resistance against the colonisation of their land. Now chances are a united Palestinian armed resistance will continue to grow and further strengthen to liberate their land.​

 

[Saif]

‘Bulldozed and shelled’

Tank tracks still fresh on his field in southern Gaza’s coastal area of Al-Mawasi, Nedal Abu Jazar lamented the damage offensive has wrought on his trees and crops.

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'Bulldozed and shelled'
Gaza farming sector ravaged by Israeli offensive now in its 10th month

Displaced Palestinians carry belongings as they walk in front of a destroyed building in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. An Israeli air strike on a house in the town of Zawayda, in central Gaza, killed at least six people and wounded several others. Photo: AFP

Tank tracks still fresh on his field in southern Gaza's coastal area of Al-Mawasi, Nedal Abu Jazar lamented the damage offensive has wrought on his trees and crops.

"Look at the destruction," the 39-year-old farmer told AFP, holding an uprooted tomato plant. He pointed to his greenhouse's metal frame and its white plastic sheeting strewn across the plot, inside an area designated a humanitarian zone by the Israeli army.

"People were sitting peacefully on their farmland ... and suddenly tanks arrived and fired at us, and then there were (air) strikes."

Abu Jazar said the Israeli operation in late June destroyed about 40 dunams (10 acres) of land and killed five labourers.

His is not an isolated case. Across Gaza, 57 percent of agricultural land has been damaged since the offensive began, according to a joint assessment published in June by the UN's agriculture and satellite imagery agencies, FAO and UNOSAT.

Across Gaza, 57 pc of agricultural land has been damaged since the offensive began: FAO

The damage threatens Gaza's food sovereignty, Matieu Henry of the Food and Agriculture Organization told AFP, because 30 percent of the Palestinian territory's food consumption comes from agricultural land.

"If almost 60 percent of the agricultural land has been damaged, this may have a significant impact in terms of food security and food supply."

The Gaza Strip exported $44.6 million worth of produce in 2022, mainly to the West Bank and Israel, with strawberries and tomatoes representing 60 percent of the total, according to FAO data.

The damage assessment on the agricultural land comes as the UN's hunger monitoring system estimated in June that 96 percent of Gaza faces high levels of acute food insecurity.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army said it "does not intentionally harm agricultural land".

In a statement, it said Hamas "often operates from within orchards, fields and agricultural land".

The impact is worse in the Palestinian territory's north, where 68 percent of agricultural land is damaged, although the southern area encompassing parts of Al-Mawasi has seen the most significant increase in recent months due to operations.

UNOSAT's Lars Bromley told AFP the damage is generally "due to the impact of activities such as heavy vehicle activity, bombing, shelling, and other conflict-related dynamics, which would be things like areas burning".

Near the southern city of Rafah, 34-year-old farmer Ibrahim Dheir feels helpless after the destruction of 20 dunams (five acres) of land he used to lease, and all his farming equipment with it.

"As soon as the Israeli bulldozers and tanks entered the area, they began bulldozing cultivated lands with various trees, including fruits, citrus, guava, as well as crops like spinach, molokhia (jute mallow), eggplant, squash, pumpkin and sunflower seedlings," he said, before listing more damage in a testimony of the area's past agricultural abundance.

Dheir, whose family exported its produce to the West Bank and Israel, now feels destitute. "We used to depend on agriculture for our livelihood day by day, but now there's no work or income."

Farmer Abu Mahmoud Za'arab also finds himself with "no source of income". The 60-year-old owns 15 dunams (3.7 acres) of land on which crops and fruit trees used to grow.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli protesters step up push for Gaza truce deal

Israeli protesters chanting ‘we will not give up’ marched through Tel Aviv on Sunday, the second consecutive day of demonstrations in a stepped-up push for a deal to free...

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Israeli protesters step up push for Gaza truce deal
Agence France-Presse . Tel Aviv 08 July, 2024, 00:51

Women in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv take part in a demonstration for the release of hostages still held by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. | AFP photo

Israeli protesters chanting 'we will not give up' marched through Tel Aviv on Sunday, the second consecutive day of demonstrations in a stepped-up push for a deal to free hostages in Gaza.

A nationwide 'disruption day' began at 6:29 am, corresponding to the start of Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel that set off the war.

After nine months of fighting, Israel says 116 captives are still held by militants in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

'Enough is enough,' said Orly Nativ, a 57-year-old social worker from Tel Aviv who joined the hundreds of flag-wielding demonstrators.

They stopped traffic at an intersection in Tel Aviv, calling for the government to secure a deal to free the hostages still held by Palestinian militants Hamas.

'The government doesn't care what the people think, and they don't do anything to bring back our sisters and brothers from Gaza and take care of us and take care of what happened after October 7th,' Nativ said.

Another demonstrator, Yoni Peleg, called it 'a last cry out for help from the entire country to help us end the war, help us get our people.'

In Jerusalem, police stepped up security around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence before a planned rally there.

The night before, thousands of anti-government demonstrators blocked a highway in Tel Aviv. Some clashed with police on horseback before officers deployed water canon to force people from the road.

Protest organisers estimated around 176,000 people had by 9:00pm filled a Tel Aviv intersection which they call 'Democracy Square'. That would make it one of the biggest demonstrations since the war began.

Large protests, also demanding elections, have taken place across the Israeli city every Saturday night, with smaller ones thoughout the country to put pressure on Netanyahu's government to bring the hostages home.

The protests come as indirect truce negotiations between Israel and Hamas have regained momentum after months of failed diplomacy.

Netanyahu has consistently opposed any deal that allows Hamas to survive.

But pressure is mounting as families tire of arguing their loved ones' lives are worth more than declaring victory over Hamas.

'For the first time in many months, we feel there is a spark of hope,' Sachar Mor, a relative of hostage Ofer Kalderon, said at a separate rally held by the hostage families on Saturday night.

'This is an opportunity that cannot be missed.'

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants on that day, Israeli forces have rescued seven of them alive, and 80 Israelis were freed during the war's only truce, which lasted one week in November.

In response to the October 7 attack, Israel's military offensive has killed at least 38,153 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.​

 

[Saif]

Stranded aid trucks deepen Gaza hunger crisis

Hundreds of trucks loaded with food and water have been stranded on a scorching Egyptian road, some for nearly two months, awaiting permission to deliver the much needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

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Stranded aid trucks deepen Gaza hunger crisis

Hundreds of trucks loaded with food and water have been stranded on a scorching Egyptian road, some for nearly two months, awaiting permission to deliver the much needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

About 50 kilometres from the Gaza border, trucks carrying flour, water and other aid line a dusty road in both directions. The drivers say they have been waiting for several weeks in the searing Egyptian summer heat.

The standstill is exacerbating Gaza's dire humanitarian crisis after nine months of offensive. Aid groups warn there is a high risk of famine across the besieged coastal territory.

The truck drivers, parked on the outskirts of the Egyptian city of al-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula, say they have been unable to deliver humanitarian supplies ever since Israel expanded its offensive on the Gaza-Egypt border in May. Some food has had to be discarded, they said.

"I swear to God, before this load, we came here and stood for more than 50 days and eventually the load was returned because it had expired," said truck driver Elsayed el-Nabawi. Israeli military started its assault on the southern Gazan city of Rafah in May.​

 

[Saif]

Famine has spread throughout Gaza

The recent deaths of several more children from malnutrition in the Gaza Strip indicate that famine has spread throughout the enclave, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations said yesterday.

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Famine has spread throughout Gaza
Say UN experts after recent deaths of several more children from malnutrition

Palestinians collect water from a Unicef tanker in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. Israel pushed on with a major military offensive in Gaza City that the UN said has once again displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians. Photo: REUTERS

The recent deaths of several more children from malnutrition in the Gaza Strip indicate that famine has spread throughout the enclave, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations said yesterday.

Gaza health authorities say at least 33 children have died of malnutrition, mostly in northern areas which had until recently faced the brunt of the Israeli military campaign.

Since early May, the offensive has spread to southern Gaza, hitting aid flows into the enclave amid restrictions by Israel, which has accused UN agencies of failing to distribute supplies efficiently.

In yesterday's statement, the group of 11 rights experts cited the deaths of three children aged 13, 9-years-old and six months from malnutrition in the southern area of Khan Younis and the central area of Deir Al-Balah since the end of May.


"With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza," the experts said.

Their statement, signed by experts including the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, condemned "Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people".

Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva said the statement amounted to "misinformation".

"Israel has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip, recently connecting its power line to the Gaza water desalination plant," it added.​

 

[Saif]

Israel continues onslaught on eve of new truce talks

Israeli forces in war-ravaged Gaza City pushed on with a major offensive on Tuesday that has again displaced Palestinians, as UN experts said children were dying in a ‘starvation campaign’...

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Israel continues onslaught on eve of new truce talks
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 09 July, 2024, 23:37

Israeli forces in war-ravaged Gaza City pushed on with a major offensive on Tuesday that has again displaced Palestinians, as UN experts said children were dying in a 'starvation campaign'.

Troops, tanks and fighter jets swooped on Gaza's biggest urban area on the eve of new contacts in Qatar aiming for an eventual hostage-prisoner exchange and a truce in the war raging into its 10th month.

CIA director William Burns and Israel's Mossad chief David Barnea are due to travel to Qatar on Wednesday, after Burns held talks with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo.

Hamas has accused Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately escalating fighting in Gaza City and Rafah, in the territory's south, to thwart an agreement.

The Islamist group's Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh said he had made 'urgent contact' with mediators, warning that the 'catastrophic consequences' of the latest battles could 'reset the negotiation process to square one'.

Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, described the fighting in Gaza City in recent days as 'the most intense in months'.

Militants were fighting with rockets, mortars and explosives, it said.

After almost two weeks of battles in Gaza City's eastern Shujaiya district, Israeli forces have extended the fighting into the city's east, west and south.

Residents reported helicopter strikes, 'explosions and numerous gun battles' in the city's southwest.

The United Nations said tens of thousands of civilians have been affected by the surge in fighting since the first of three evacuation orders for Gaza City was declared on June 27.

Thousands were seen marching down dusty roads past bombed-out buildings, with mothers carrying babies and others packing belongings onto donkey carts.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was 'appalled' at the way civilians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times, have been ordered to head to areas where 'military operations are ongoing and where civilians continue to be killed and injured'.

Gaza City residents have now been told to move south to Deir al-Balah, which the UN office said 'is already seriously overcrowded' with displaced Palestinians.

Separately, independent UN rights experts accused Israel of carrying out a 'targeted starvation campaign' that has resulted in the deaths of Gazan children.

'Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence,' the experts said in a statement.

'Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since October 7, the majority being children,' said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

Israeli military offensive has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

The toll includes at least 50 killed over the past 24 hours, said a ministry statement on Tuesday.

Qatar and Egypt, supported by the United States, have been engaged in months of behind-the-scenes contacts to start truce talks and organise an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Hamas has signalled that it would drop its insistence on a 'complete' ceasefire — which Israel had repeatedly rejected — as a condition for starting talks.

Netanyahu's has set out conditions for talks, including that 'any deal will allow Israel to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved', including the destruction of Hamas.

As the Gaza war has raged on, Israel has also exchanged regular cross-border fire with Lebanon's Hezbollah, allies of Hamas, heightening fears of an all-out war.

Hezbollah on Tuesday released a video showing aerial surveillance footage it said was taken over intelligence and military positions in the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights.

The Lebanese government has supported the implementation of Resolution 1701, which called for armed personnel to pull back north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border with Israel.​

 

[Saif]

Israel orders Gaza evacuation after 29 killed at schools

Israel’s army dropped thousands of leaflets over war-torn Gaza City on Wednesday urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive through the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory...

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Israel orders Gaza evacuation after 29 killed at schools
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 11 July, 2024, 01:18

Israel's army dropped thousands of leaflets over war-torn Gaza City on Wednesday urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive through the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory.

The leaflets, addressed to 'everyone in Gaza City', set out designated escape routes and warned that the urban area, which had a pre-war population of over half a million, would 'remain a dangerous combat zone'.

Across Gaza, deadly strikes have hit four schools in four days, sparking rebukes from France and Germany which both labelled the attacks 'unacceptable'.

'We call for these strikes to be fully investigated,' said the French foreign ministry, highlighting a deadly strike on Tuesday on a school near the southern city of Khan Yunis.

'It is unacceptable that schools, especially those housing civilians displaced by the fighting, should be targeted.'

A deadly strike hit a school turned shelter in southern Gaza on Tuesday as Israeli forces in the war-ravaged territory's main city pushed on with a major offensive that has again displaced Palestinians.

A hospital source in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza said at least 29 people were killed when the school was hit in nearby Abasan.

Three previous Israeli strikes since Saturday on schools across Gaza used by displaced Palestinians have killed a total of at least 20 people, according to officials and rescuers.​

 

[Saif]

MSF facing ‘critical’ medical supply shortage

Aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned of “critical” shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, with no resupply for more than two months as fighting between Israel and Hamas wears on.

www.thedailystar.net

ISRAELI OFFENSIVE IN GAZA
MSF facing 'critical' medical supply shortage

Aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned of "critical" shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, with no resupply for more than two months as fighting between Israel and Hamas wears on.

The group known by its French initials MSF is "facing critical shortages of many things like gauze, gloves... things like that," Amber Alayyan, who works on the Palestinian territories for its French branch, told AFP on Wednesday.

The aid group warned last week in a statement it had been unable to bring any medical supplies into Gaza since the end of April and called on Israel to open more crossing points into the territory.

MSF staff have shifted to changing wound dressings every four days rather than the usual two to save on supplies

"We're seeing people who are injured in bombings, in shootings, in drone attacks," Alayyan said.

"We're seeing people who are living in such poor conditions that they're cooking on the floor."

MSF staff have shifted to changing wound dressings every four days rather than the usual two to save on supplies, paediatrician Alayyan added.

MSF now risks running out of vital medication such as anaesthetics needed for surgery.

"If we have to continue going like this... we won't be able to operate. We won't operate without anaesthesia," Alayyan said.

UNRWA, the United Nations body responsible for Palestinian refugees, estimated last month that around 10 children per day were losing one or both legs in Gaza.

Where MSF is involved, "most of the amputations... are being done as life-saving amputations," Alayyan said.

Afterwards, "we don't even have enough wheelchairs in our own hospital... much less prosthetic devices", she added.

With around 88,000 people wounded in Gaza, according to the health ministry, it will be a "proper catastrophe for years to come in terms of post-operative care, wound care, amputations, prosthetics", Alayyan said.

"Gaza itself needs to be rebuilt. So it's going to have to be rebuilt with wheelchair-accessible ramps all over the place for the thousands of people who are going to be in wheelchairs," she said.

"The offensive needs to stop... the healthcare system is completely destroyed."

After initially blocking all deliveries into Gaza, Israel reopened Kerem Shalom in December under international pressure.

An average of 250 trucks now cross the checkpoint daily according to COGAT, still well below UN figure of 500 aid and commercial trucks before the offensive.

Independent UN rights experts accused Israel on Tuesday of a "targeted starvation campaign" in the Gaza, where they said 34 Palestinians have died of malnutrition since October.​

 

[Saif]

Biden, US complicit in alleged war crimes

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said US President Joe Biden and his administration are complicit in what he called Israeli war crimes and violations of international law in the Gaza conflict, and he called for sanctions against Israel.

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Biden, US complicit in alleged war crimes
Says Erdogan

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese village of Tairharfa yesterday. Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, have exchanged near daily cross-border fire since the Gaza offensive began on October 7, stoking fears of an escalation into all-out war. Photo: AFP

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said US President Joe Biden and his administration are complicit in what he called Israeli war crimes and violations of international law in the Gaza conflict, and he called for sanctions against Israel.
In an interview with Newsweek during the Nato summit in Washington, Erdogan said Israel's "brutal murder" of civilians, its strikes on hospitals, aid centres and elsewhere constituted war crimes.

"The US administration, however, disregards these violations and provides Israel with the most support. They do so at the expense of being complicit in these violations," Erdogan was quoted as saying.​

 

[Saif]

Battles rock Gaza City after mass evacuation order

Heavy combat and bombardment hit Gaza City and other parts of the Palestinian territory on Friday as mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war raging into its...

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Battles rock Gaza City after mass evacuation order
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 13 July, 2024, 00:43

People walk on rubble at the damaged UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees building complex in western Gaza City's Al-Sinaa neighbouhood on Friday, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the besieged Palestinian territory. | AFP photo

Heavy combat and bombardment hit Gaza City and other parts of the Palestinian territory on Friday as mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war raging into its tenth month.

US President Joe Biden said at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday that US diplomats, despite problems, were making 'progress' with international mediators towards a ceasefire and stressed that 'it's time to end this war'.

Media linked to the territory's rulers Hamas, whose October 7 attack sparked the bloodiest ever Gaza conflict, said that Israeli forces had launched more than 70 new air strikes.

Gaza's health ministry reported 32 deaths, saying that the 'martyrs, a majority of them children and women, were taken to hospitals overnight, because of continued massacres'.

Israel's military said it was also fighting in the Rafah area, in the south, where its troops had 'eliminated numerous terrorists in close-quarters combat and aerial strikes'.

A major focus of recent battles and mass displacement has been the biggest urban area, Gaza City, where two weeks of fighting devastated the eastern district of Shujaiya.

Gaza's civil defence agency said dozens of bodies have been found under the rubble of what was now a 'disaster zone', with 85 percent of buildings uninhabitable.

Gaza City had been the focus of Israeli ground operations early in the war.

Israeli troops and tanks have, since Shujaiya, swept into other Gaza City districts to fight Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, including in the vacated headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinians UNRWA.

The army dropped thousands of leaflets Wednesday urging all Gaza City residents to flee the 'dangerous combat zone' — an area where the United Nations said up to 350,000 people were staying.

One of the newly displaced, Umm Ihab Arafat, sat with her children on a sand pile amid the rubble as the incessant hum of Israeli drones filled the sky.

'I have been displaced four times,' she said, pleading for a break for her and her children. 'They are entitled to rest, their eyes are full of horror and fear'.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that 'entire families are trapped and desperately seek security. The huge needs are beyond our capacity to respond'.

The ICRC said Gaza City's people had been instructed to move south "to areas that are overcrowded, lacking in essential services and are experiencing hostilities".

Israel and Hamas have engaged in months of indirect talks via Qatari and Egyptian mediators to reach a so far elusive truce and hostage release deal.

At the latest meeting in Doha on Wednesday, Israeli and US officials talked conditions for peace with Qatari mediators.

The head of Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency Ronen Bar was headed for talks in Cairo, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

Netanyahu again insisted that any deal must allow Israel to meet its war aims of bringing home all hostages and destroying Hamas.

He also said Israel needs to maintain control of Gaza's southern border to prevent 'weapons to be smuggled to Hamas from Egypt'.

A leading South African judge, whose country has brought Israel to the top world court over Gaza, said "hardly anything" will deter Israel's offensive.

Biden has laid out what he called an Israeli plan which would see a six week truce in which hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians in Israeli prisons would be freed. A second phase would see talks on a full end to the war.

Biden acknowledged Thursday that "difficult, complex issues" remain but insisted that 'we're making progress'. 'The trend is positive,' he said, 'and I'm determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now.'

Biden also stood firm on his decision to hold up delivery of massive 2,000-pound bombs, over concerns they could be used in populated areas, even as his administration moves forward on sending Israel less powerful 500-pound munitions.

He again pressed Israel for a 'day-after' plan for Gaza and spoke of his diplomacy to persuade Arab states to help with security.

Hamas has proposed an independent and non-partisan government for both post-war Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank during ceasefire negotiations, said Hossam Badran, a member of the group's political bureau.

The war started after Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Israel also imposed a punishing siege on the territory of 2.4 million people, pushing many to the brink of starvation.

The World Health Organization said that only five trucks carrying medical supplies were allowed into Gaza last week, while over 70 more are waiting at the border.

A problem-plagued US effort to get aid in by sea will soon end permanently, the United States military said.

US troops built the $230-million pier but the temporary facility has been repeatedly damaged by poor weather.

Biden said he had been 'hopeful that would be more successful'.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas for independent Palestinian government in post-war Gaza

Hamas is suggesting during ceasefire negotiations that an independent government of non-partisan figures run Gaza after war and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement’s political bureau said Friday....

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Hamas for independent Palestinian government in post-war Gaza
Agence France-Presse. Gaza City 12 July, 2024, 21:59

Palestinians make their way over the dirty of rubble past destroyed buildings after the Israeli military withdrew following a two-week offensive from the Shujaiya neighbourhood, east of Gaza City on July 11, 2024. | AFP photo

Hamas is suggesting during ceasefire negotiations that an independent government of non-partisan figures run Gaza after war and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement's political bureau said Friday.

'We proposed that a non-partisan national competency government manage Gaza and the West Bank after the war,' Hossam Badran said in a statement about the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas with mediation from Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.

'The administration of Gaza after the war is a Palestinian internal matter without any external interference, and we will not discuss the day after the war in Gaza with any external parties', Badran added.

A Hamas official told AFP the proposal for a non-partisan government was made 'with the mediators'.

The government will 'manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the initial phase after the war, paving the way for general elections' said the official, who did not want his name disclosed.

Badran's remarks came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Israel retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, Gaza territory along the border with Egypt. This condition conflicts with Hamas's position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.

Netanyahu said on Thursday that control of the Philadelphi corridor is part of efforts to prevent 'weapons to be smuggled to Hamas from Egypt.'

The negotiations are occurring in Doha, Qatar and Cairo, Egypt with the aim of bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza as well as the return of hostages still held there by Hamas.

The war began on October 7 with Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.​

 

[Saif]

At least 71 killed in Israeli airstrikes at Gaza humanitarian camp

Israel says it target Hamas military chief, Hamas denies

www.thedailystar.net

At least 71 killed in Israeli airstrikes at Gaza humanitarian camp
Israel says it target Hamas military chief, Hamas denies

Palestinians react near damage, following what Palestinians say was an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 13, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Mohammed Salem

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 71 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza on Saturday, the enclave's health ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted Hamas' military chief Mohammed Deif.

Hamas said in a statement that Israeli claims that it had targeted leaders of the group were false and aimed at justifying the attack.

The Israeli military said that the strike against Deif also targeted Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas' Khan Younis Brigade, describing them as two of the masterminds of the October 7 attack that triggered the nine-month war in Gaza.

Deif has survived seven Israeli assassination attempts, the most recent in 2021 and has topped Israel's most wanted list for decades, held responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.

The Gaza health ministry said at least 71 Palestinians had been killed in the strike and 289 injured, the deadliest toll in weeks.

Al-Mawasi is a designated humanitarian area to which the Israeli army has repeatedly urged Palestinians to head to after issuing evacuation orders from other areas.

The Israeli military published an aerial photo of the site, which Reuters was not immediately able to verify, where it said "terrorists hid among civilians".

"The location of the strike was an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings, and sheds," it said in a statement.

A military official told journalists in an online briefing the area was not a tent complex, but an operational compound run by Hamas and that several more militants were there, guarding Deif.

It was unclear whether Deif was killed. "We are still checking and verifying the results of the strike," the military official said.

Many of those wounded in the strike were taken to the nearby Nasser Hospital, which hospital officials said had been overwhelmed and was "no longer able to function" due to the intensity of the Israeli offensive and an acute shortage of medical supplies.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was holding special consultations, his office said, in light of "developments in Gaza". It was unclear how the strike would affect ceasefire talks underway in Doha and Cairo.

The Hamas-run media office said at least 100 people had been killed and wounded, including members of the Civil Emergency Service.

A senior Hamas official did not confirm whether Deif had been present and called the Israeli allegations "nonsense".

"All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence," Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding the strike showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal.

Separately, at least 10 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a prayer hall at a Gaza camp for displaced people West of Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said.

ATTACK 'SURPRISING', SAY WITNESSES

Reuters footage showed ambulances racing towards the area amidst clouds of smoke and dust. Displaced people, including women and children, were fleeing in panic, some holding belongings in their hands.

Witnesses said the attack came as a surprise as the area had been calm, adding more than one missile had been fired. Some of the wounded who were being evacuated were rescue workers, they said.

"They're all gone, my whole family's gone.. where are my brothers? They're all gone, they're all gone. There's no one left," said one tearful woman, who did not give her name.

"Our children are in pieces, they are in pieces. Shame (on you)," she added.

Rising up the Hamas ranks over 30 years, Deif developed the group's network of tunnels and its bomb-making expertise, Hamas sources say.

In March, Israel said it killed Deif's deputy, Marwan Issa. Hamas has since neither confirmed, nor denied his death.

Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel has retaliated by military action in Gaza that has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, medical authorities in Gaza say.​