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

[Saif]

UN agency for Palestinians says has funds until end of September

Photo: AFP

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday it had enough funds to continue operating through September, following a pledging conference for the embattled body where UN chief Antonio Guterres pleaded for help from donors.

"We have worked tirelessly with partners to restore confidence in the agency," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said, after several nations withheld funding following Israeli allegations in January that a number of UNRWA's employees participated in the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Lazzarini said new pledges of funds would help ensure emergency operations until September.

Guterres had pleaded with donors to fund the embattled UN agency, warning that Palestinians would lose a "critical lifeline" without UNRWA.

"Let me be clear -- there is no alternative to UNRWA," he said.

"Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse in Gaza -- somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell," Guterres added.

According to Guterres, 195 UNRWA staff members have been killed in the war, the highest death toll for staff in UN history.

The US Congress has barred further funding for UNRWA. President Joe Biden's administration has instead directed funding for Palestinian civilians to other bodies while saying that UNRWA is uniquely equipped to distribute aid.

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

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

 

[Saif]

Israel attacks Palestinians from land, sea, air

Israel hammered the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land Monday as the war in the Palestinian territory showed no sign of abating, with Hamas saying it was pulling out of...

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Israel attacks Palestinians from land, sea, air
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 16 July, 2024, 01:08


A wounded Palestinian girl is treated at the al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat refugee Camp after the Israeli military bombardment of the United Nations-run Abu Oreiban School turned shelter where internally displaced Palestinians are living in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday. | AFP photo

Israel hammered the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land Monday as the war in the Palestinian territory showed no sign of abating, with Hamas saying it was pulling out of truce talks.

Shells rained down on the neighbourhoods of Tal Al-Hawa, Sheikh Ajlin and Al-Sabra in Gaza City, AFP correspondents reported, while eyewitnesses said the Israeli army had shelled the Al-Mughraqa area and the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said they had retrieved the bodies of five people, including three children, after Israeli air strikes in the Al-Maghazi camp, also in the central Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, eyewitnesses reported Israeli gunship fire east of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, and shelling and Apache helicopter attacks in western areas of the southernmost city of Rafah.

The relentless bombardments came as prospects dwindled for a truce and hostage release deal being secured any time soon.

Hamas said on Sunday it was withdrawing from ceasefire talks.

The decision followed an Israeli strike targeting the head of Hamas's military wing, Mohammed Deif, which the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said killed 92 people.

Deif's fate remains unknown, with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying there was 'no certainty' he was dead while a senior Hamas official told AFP that Deif was 'well and directly overseeing' operations.

Speaking after the strike on Al-Mawasi, a second senior official from the group cited Israeli 'massacres' and its attitude to negotiations as a reason for suspending negotiations.

But according to the official, Haniyeh told international mediators Hamas was 'ready to resume negotiations' when Israel's government 'demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal'.

Hamas on Monday lashed out at the US, accusing it of supporting 'genocide' by supplying Israel with 'internationally banned' weapons.

'We condemn in the strongest terms the... American disdain for the blood of the children and women of our Palestinian people... by providing all types of prohibited weapons to the 'Israeli' occupation,' a statement from the Hamas government media office said.

Talks between the warring parties have been mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with US support, but months of negotiations have failed to bring a breakthrough.

Israeli military offensive has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.

The war and accompanying siege have devastated the Palestinian territory, destroying much of its infrastructure, leaving the majority of its 2.4 million residents displaced and causing a dire shortage of food, medicines and other basic goods.

Among the devastated facilities have been multiple schools. On Sunday, Israeli forces struck a UN-run school in Nuseirat camp that was being used as a shelter for displaced people but which the military said 'served as a hideout' for militants.

The civil defence agency in Gaza said 15 people were killed in the strike, the fifth attack in just over a week to hit a school used as shelter by displaced Palestinians.​

 

[Saif]

UNRWA headquarters ‘flattened’ as destruction of Gaza continues

THE massacres of Palestinian civilians by Israel continue...

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UNRWA headquarters 'flattened' as destruction of Gaza continues
16 July, 2024, 23:11

Flaunting its genocidal intentions, the Israel Defence Forces levelled the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, writes Thomas Scripps

THE massacres of Palestinian civilians by Israel continue.

Artillery, drone and airstrikes were launched against the Nuseirat, al-Bureij and al-Maghazi refugee camps, the cities of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and Rafah in the south, and Gaza City in the north.

Two people were injured at a power station near Nuseirat, a day after the Abu Araban school in the camp was targeted — the fifth Israeli strike on a school-shelter in eight days — killing 15 people and wounding dozens. The Gaza health ministry announced Monday that the death toll had increased to 22. Thousands of displaced Palestinians had been housed in the complex.

Shelling in al-Bureij landed in a schoolyard, of Abu Helu School, injuring one person.

The Abu Araban massacre followed the slaughter of 92 people at al-Mawasi, a supposed 'safe zone', on Saturday. Thirty-year-old Aya Mohammad, a survivor of the attack, described Monday how 'the ground shook underneath my feet and the dust and sand rose to the sky and I saw dismembered bodies,' adding, 'Where to go is what everybody asks, and no one has the answer.'

Multiple homes were destroyed in Rafah, with the Israel Defence Forces launching missiles from helicopters. Ten dead bodies were pulled out of the wreckage. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in the city.

Flaunting its genocidal intentions, the Israel Defence Forces levelled the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations Palestinian relief agency UNRWA. Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini posted images of the destruction with the comment, 'UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened. Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.'

This followed a fresh round of unsubstantiated allegations by Israel that the agency is harbouring hundreds of Hamas agents. Earlier accusations were the pretext for the imperialist powers to cut all funding to the organisation responsible for feeding, educating and providing healthcare to 5.9 million Palestinians across the Middle East.

UNRWA's head of external relations Tamara al-Rifai told Al Jazeera the images were 'shocking' and noted that 190 UNRWA facilities, 'most of which served as shelters for displaced people', had now been attacked, with 500 killed in these facilities protected by international law, and 1,600 wounded.

Another four Gazans were killed in a strike that destroyed a house on as-Salam Street in Deir al-Balah, five in al-Maghazi, and three on al-Mansoura Street in Gaza City's Shujayea neighbourhood, reduced to ruins by a continuous Israel Defense Forces assault in the last two weeks.

Describing the attack in Deir al-Balah, Walid Thabet said, 'My mother, an elderly woman, was sitting with me upstairs. She went downstairs and after five minutes I pulled her out from under the rubble. We also pulled my sister out and my sister's children too.

'Those who died are my mother, my sister, and my sister's children. Children! One was two and a half years old, and the other two.'

Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum reported an 'intensification of bombardment' in the city, leaving behind 'a trail of destruction, causing a great deal of panic and frustration among the residents of neighbouring houses. Deir al-Balah is where Palestinians have been told to go and seek refuge.'

The local municipality has warned it is no longer able to provide 700,000 people in the area with drinking water after running out of fuel.

Gaza's water supply across the enclave, restricted by Israel's siege even before the war, has been devastated. According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs says 67 per cent of the strip's water and sanitation system had been destroyed as of last month.

New and expectant mothers are especially affected. The UN reports that 95 per cent do not have enough to eat, with miscarriages already three times more likely than before the war in February, according to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health.

More than 13,000 women will give birth in Gaza in the next month and will have to rely on the three of the strip's thirteen remaining hospitals (23 no longer function) providing any pregnancy care at all.

Madeleine McGivern of Care UK told the Guardian: 'Women are giving birth without any pain relief whatsoever, living in fear, not being able to access any doctor or antenatal care, not knowing whether they'll give birth in a boiling hot tent or, if they are able to go to a hospital, risk being hit by a bomb or shot by a sniper on the way there or the way back.'

Compounding the food and water crisis is the pollution caused by mountains of solid waste piling up amid the evisceration of Gazan society — 330,000 tonnes across the whole territory, often within feet of refugee tent cities. Many Palestinians are forced to scavenge these sites for anything useful or saleable.

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Ahmed al-Fari, head of the children's departments at Nasser Hospital, commented, 'It is no secret that the biggest cause of intestinal infections currently occurring in the Gaza Strip is the contamination of the water supplied to these children.

Piles of waste join mountains of earth and debris. According to a UN assessment, the near 140,000 destroyed building in Gaza (65 per cent of them residential) have produced roughly 40 million tons of rubble, more than 15 years' work for a fleet of 100 lorries to clear.

The United States has sent 14,000 of these 2,000lb bombs to Israel since October.
Roughly 10 per cent of weapons dropped on Gaza fail to detonate on impact, according to Pehr Lodhammar, a former UN Mine Action Service chief for Iraq, leading, says Gaza's Civil Defence agency, to 'more than 10 explosions every week' of unexploded ordnance.

Amid the latest killings, it was the turn of David Lammy, foreign secretary in Britain's new Labour Party government, to tour Israel and sprinkle perfumed phrases about 'peace' and 'stability' on its fascist regime and genocidal war.

Arriving in Israel Sunday, he waded through the blood to shake the hand of murderer-in-chief Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and say, 'I'm here to push for a ceasefire. The loss of life over the last few months... is horrendous. It has to stop.'

A few more massacres later, he told the media ahead of a meeting with Netanyahu's partner in crime president Isaac Herzog on Monday, 'It's important that, whilst we are in a war, that war is conducted according to international humanitarian law.'

Herzog told the press conference after the meeting, 'The foreign secretary made clear that his country will continue to work and demand for the release of all the hostages… The bonds between the British and Israeli peoples are as strong and robust as they are historic and impactful — especially now, in facing the challenges ahead of us.'

Lammy told reporters an 'assessment' into arms sales to Israel had 'begun'.

To underscore the cynical character of such a pose, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that Lammy had given assurances that the UK would not withdraw its objections to the International Criminal Court's application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant. The objection to the arrest warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes was first raised by the former Conservative government of Rishi Sunak, but at the time Lammy said Labour would drop the legal challenge. The US was reported as lobbying Labour to reverse this position, with all too predictable success.

World Socialist Web Site, July 15. Thomas Scripps is the assistant national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in the United Kingdom.​

 

[Saif]

Israel carries out new raids in Gaza as Netanyahu visits US

Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the US Congress. The latest Israeli attacks destroyed homes in towns east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and thousands of people were forced to head west to seek

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel carries out new raids in Gaza as Netanyahu visits US
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 24, 2024 16:43
Updated :
Jul 24, 2024 16:43

Israeli soldiers travel in a military vehicle, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, by the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, July 23, 2024. Photo : Reuters/Amir Cohen/Files

Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the US Congress.

The latest Israeli attacks destroyed homes in towns east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and thousands of people were forced to head west to seek shelter, residents said.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received distress calls from residents trapped in their homes in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Younis, but were unable to reach the town.

Israel's military, which is trying to eradicate the Islamist militant group Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, said it had been operating in areas from which fighters had been able to fire rockets into Israel and attack Israeli troops.

Gaza health officials said Israeli military strikes in the past 24 hours had killed at least 55 people, the latest casualties in a war that health authorities in the enclave say has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.

"Where should we go? Shall we cross into the sea?" said Ghada, who has been displaced with her family six times during the war, said from Hamas City in northwestern Khan Younis.

"We are exhausted, starved, and want the war to end now, now not an hour later. Every day means more families are wiped off the registration book," she told Reuters via a chat app.

Local residents said they had been ordered to head west towards a designated humanitarian area, but that the area was now unsafe.

Israeli forces also carried out airstrikes on several areas of central and northern Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several Palestinians, health officials said.

Residents of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, said Israeli forces had blown up several houses in the west of the city.

PALESTINIANS CRITICISE US

Hamas-led fighters triggered the war on Oct. 7 by storming into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 captives, according to Israeli tallies. Some 120 hostages are still being held though Israel believes one in three are dead.

Some Palestinians who gathered at a hospital in Khan Younis before funerals criticised the United States, Israel's most important international ally, for welcoming Netanyahu.

The Israel leader was due to address Congress later on Wednesday and to meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would meet Netanyahu in Florida on Friday.

"The United States is a main partner in what is happening in Gaza. We are being killed because of the United States. We are being slaughtered by American planes, American ships, American tanks, and American troops," said Kazem Abu Taha, a displaced resident from Rafah.

A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, told Reuters: "The Congress invitation to Netanyahu to make a speech gives legitimacy to the crimes of the war of genocide in Gaza. Receiving a war criminal is a shame to all Americans."

Israel has rejected accusations brought by South Africa at the U.N.'s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against Palestinians. It has reacted angrily to a decision by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.

Netanyahu said this week a deal to release Israelis held captive in Gaza could be near. But Hamas officials said Netanyahu was stalling and that they had not seen any change in the Israeli stance that would allow an agreement to be reached.

Hamas wants a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says the war cannot end before Hamas is eradicated.​

 

[Saif]

Israel's war is having multiple ripple effects in Gaza

World leaders must recognise the urgency of interventions

www.thedailystar.net

Israel's war is having multiple ripple effects in Gaza
World leaders must recognise the urgency of interventions


VISUAL: STAR

The increasing deaths and displacement of Palestinians as well as outbreaks of diseases in Gaza demand a much greater pressure from the international community to bring Israel's genocidal campaign to an end. According to a report in this daily, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official recently said he was "extremely worried" over possible outbreaks in Gaza after poliovirus was detected in the sewage, warning that communicable diseases could cause more deaths than injuries. The WHO's head of health emergencies in the occupied Palestinian territories also said that the number of people now needing to be evacuated from Gaza for medical care may have risen to 14,000.

Meanwhile, the death toll in the ongoing war has risen to 39,090 since October 7, as Khan Younis suffered one of its bloodiest days on Tuesday, with at least 89 Palestinians being killed. Thousands of people fled southern areas of the territory following the Israeli army's temporary evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis, including the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone. The order came days after the health ministry in Gaza said that 92 people were killed in a strike on Al-Mawasi, when Israel claimed it was targeting a Hamas commander. Such mass casualties, under the guise of Israel targeting Hamas militants, has tragically become the norm in Gaza.

The evacuation order for Al-Mawasi comes just two months after the Israeli military directed Palestinians to go there for their own safety. As a result, thousands of Palestinians, who were in Khan Younis after being displaced multiple times already, are having to flee the area in panic, carrying whatever little belongings they have left. These endless deaths, displacement and injuries to Palestinians can only be brought to an end by the international community putting enough pressure on Israel. Worryingly, however, there has been little response from the former so far, despite a number of directives and rulings from the International Court of Justice which, as recently as Friday, came down hard against Israel by calling its occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, and likening its laws in the occupied territories to "the crime of apartheid". This is deeply concerning.

It has been nearly 10 months since Israeli forces mounted the war against innocent Palestinians in Gaza. The population of the strip has already been through starvation; immeasurable amounts of violence has been inflicted upon them; and now with the threat of possible outbreaks hanging over them, we hope the international community will finally recognise the urgency with which it must act.​

 

[Saif]

Israel strikes Gaza as military recovers five captive bodies

Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Thursday, killing and injuring people according to Palestinian medical sources, as the military said it had recovered the bodies of five Israelis taken to Gaza by Hamas militants after they were killed on October 7...

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Israel strikes Gaza as military recovers five captive bodies
Agence France-Presse . Gaza 26 July, 2024, 00:13

Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Thursday, killing and injuring people according to Palestinian medical sources, as the military said it had recovered the bodies of five Israelis taken to Gaza by Hamas militants after they were killed on October 7.

A group supporting Israeli hostages still held in the Palestinian territory welcomed the rescue but alleged 'sabotage' of efforts to free others. The accusation from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum came with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a visit to Washington.

Netanyahu—whose critics accuse him of prolonging the fighting—is on Thursday to meet US president Joe Biden, who has been pushing a truce and hostage-release deal.

In a speech to the US Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu downplayed Palestinian civilian casualties during the more than nine months of war between Israeli forces and Hamas.

At least 39,175 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza since the war began.

The latest toll includes 30 deaths over the previous 24 hours.

Palestinian medical services on Thursday said their teams had transported four dead and 12 wounded after a strike on a house in the Gaza City area in the north of the territory.

An AFP correspondent reported air strikes and machine gun fire from tanks in Gaza City. To the south, witnesses said there was shelling in the Khan Yunis city and Rafah areas, as well as air strikes in Al-Qarara, near Khan Yunis.

Israel's military said the five bodies recovered from Gaza, including those of two soldiers and two reservists, had been returned to Israel following a rescue operation on Wednesday in Khan Yunis.

After the military warned it would 'forcefully operate' in the area, the Gaza health ministry on Monday said an Israeli operation had killed 70 people and wounded more than 200.

The five Israelis recovered had previously been announced as having died, and the military as well as the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said militants had killed them on October 7.

The Forum has regularly protested in Israel for a deal to get the remaining captives home.

On Thursday it demanded an urgent meeting with Israel's team for negotiating a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, saying a 'crisis of trust' had emerged.

Anti-government protesters who have also regularly demonstrated, sometimes by the tens of thousands, have accused Netanyahu of dragging out the war. So have some analysts.

Far-right members of Netanyahu's ruling coalition oppose a truce, which would involve Palestinian prisoners being freed in exchange for the hostages.

After Netanyahu's speech to Congress, Hamas issued a statement saying the Israeli premier 'thwarted all efforts aimed at ending the war and concluding a deal to release the prisoners,' despite Egyptian and Qatari mediation.

A senior US administration official said negotiations for a Gaza deal were in the last stretch and Biden would try to close some 'final gaps' with Netanyahu.

But a source with knowledge of the talks said separately that the arrival of an Israeli delegation in Doha for talks on Israeli demands for a deal had been postponed from Thursday to next week.

Washington has been increasingly alarmed by the humanitarian toll of the Gaza war, but in his speech to Congress, Netanyahu dismissed 'all the lies' about civilian fatalities.

He said 'the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare'.

AFP correspondents in Gaza have daily witnessed children and women brought into hospitals injured or dead.

In May, the United Nations said women and children made up at least 56 percent of those killed during the war, based on a breakdown provided by Gaza's health ministry at that time.

Washington on Wednesday criticised an Israeli bill that would declare the UN agency for Palestinian refugees—the main aid agency in Gaza—a terrorist organisation.

'UNRWA is not a terrorist organisation,' said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, urging a halt to the legislation.​

 

[Saif]

Battered Hamas confounds Israel's bid to declare victory

A still image taken from a video released by Hamas shows what it says are its fighters firing mortar shells at Israeli forces during Israel's ground offensive, in a location given as Gaza, obtained by Reuters on November 7, 2023. Hamas Military Wing/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Senior figures in

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Battered Hamas confounds Israel's bid to declare victory
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 25, 2024 21:03
Updated :
Jul 25, 2024 21:03

A still image taken from a video released by Hamas shows what it says are its fighters firing mortar shells at Israeli forces during Israel's ground offensive, in a location given as Gaza, obtained by Reuters on November 7, 2023. Hamas Military Wing/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Senior figures in Israel's government have said it is closing in on its war aims of defeating Hamas militarily and the return of hostages seized on Oct 7. But Hamas' survival as a guerrilla force and its sway in Gaza may overshadow any deal.

After nine months of pummelling by one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East, Hamas is much weakened from the force that carried out the cross-border attack on Israel on Oct 7.

Early in the war, Hamas propaganda videos showed well-drilled fighters in body armour and battle fatigues, their torsos wrapped with ammunition belts. Now, small groups of insurgents in T-shirts and trainers stage hit-and-run attacks in Gaza's bombed-out streets, the videos show.

Reuters spoke with three sources with knowledge of Hamas tactics, two former Hamas militants, three Palestinian officials, two Israeli military sources and an Israeli defence official to shed light on the group's losses and its strategy.

Two Israeli and two Palestinian sources told Reuters that a communications network built by Hamas before the war has been heavily damaged. That has left its command fragmented and reliant on messages delivered in person to avoid Israeli surveillance, the Palestinian sources said.

One Palestinian source with knowledge of Hamas military tactics said personnel losses and the destruction of the communications network meant centralised decision-making had collapsed. Much of the vast tunnel network beneath Gaza has also been destroyed or compromised, the Israeli military has said.

But the guerrilla tactics adopted by Hamas cells in recent weeks are simply aimed at ensuring the group survives, ties down Israeli forces and inflicts losses, according to another Palestinian source with knowledge of Hamas military tactics.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, speaking to soldiers in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, said on Tuesday that Israel was close to defeating Hamas militarily, according to a statement from his office.

"We're eliminating Hamas as a military organisation," Gallant told the troops. "We're creating a situation that will allow us to make a deal to free our hostages."

Hamas seized around 250 hostages during the Oct 7 attack and killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Hamas and other militants are still holding 115 hostages, around a third of whom have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the USCongress on Wednesday during a trip to Washington, pledged the hostages would be released soon and laid out a post-war vision of a "demilitarized and deradicalised Gaza" led by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel.

Hamas dismissed Netanyahu's comments as "pure lies" and accused the Israeli leader of thwarting negotiations to end the war and reach a ceasefire deal to release the hostages - outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden in May and mediated by Egypt and Qatar.

Netanyahu, who will meet with Biden on Thursday, has said that victory will only be achieved when the military and governing capabilities of Hamas are eliminated and Gaza poses no further threat to Israel.

Hamas' founding charter in 1987 called for the destruction of Israel and it subsequently directed suicide bombings in Israeli cities and, with Iran's help, built an arsenal of rockets that it has launched into Israel in frequent conflicts.

'VERY FAR' FROM DESTROYING HAMAS

Hamas has insisted that, despite losses, its command structure remains in place, even if weakened.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that Israel's accounts exaggerate the extent of its losses: "Facts on the ground are completely different," he said.

In a statement on July 16 to mark nine months of that war, Israel's military said that it has killed or apprehended at least 14,000 Hamas fighters out of the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 fighters that the group had at the start of the conflict.

By comparison, Israel says just 326 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground offensive - just above the roughly 300 killed in a single day during Hamas' Oct 7 attack.

Crucially, the IDF has also said it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam brigades, and it was pursuing Hamas' top leaders as part of its aim of dismantling the group's capabilities.

An Israeli airstrike on July 13 in a humanitarian area in southern Gaza targetted Hamas' military chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel says masterminded the Oct 7 attack. The Gaza health ministry said at least 90 Palestinians were killed in the strike.

The Israeli military's chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said on July 19 there were increasing signs Deif was killed alongside another senior Hamas commander Rafa Salame, who Israeli officials believe was sitting next to him at the time and was also killed.

Palestinian sources have confirmed the deaths of several leading Hamas military commanders.  They include Ayman Nofal, and Ahmed Al-Ghandour, both members of the Higher Military Council, the top decision-making body of Hamas' armed wing. Saleh Al-Arouri, the deputy chief of Hamas, was also killed in Lebanon.

Yet Hamas fighters have drawn Israeli forces back into battle in the same areas of Gaza again and again, such as this week's fighting in Khan Younis, preventing the declaration of victory Netanyahu says he is determined to secure.

Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who leads Palestinian studies at Tel Aviv-based Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, said Israel would need more boots on the ground across more areas of Gaza to achieve its aim of eliminating Hamas.

"We are very far from the goal of destroying Hamas' government and military capacities. We are really not close to that," Milshtein said. He noted, however, that a purely military victory would in any case ignore the group's social, political and economic influence.

"We're continuing to treat an enemy who is multi-dimensional in its behaviour as a military threat only."

The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel called up around 300,000 reservists to mount its assault on Gaza, its largest mobilisation in decades. It began releasing them around four months later.

MOP-UP OPERATIONS

Israel's military response to Oct 7 has turned Gaza into a chaotic wasteland. More than 39,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian figures.

Hamas' armed wing began the war with 24 battalions. An Israeli military source told Reuters on July 11 that four remaining battalions in Gaza's southern Rafah area, where Israel has focused its most recent offensive, are "close to being dismantled."

To achieve the government's war aims, the Israel Defence Forces planned a three-tier offensive encompassing an initial aerial campaign, followed by a ground offensive and a final phase of mopping up operations.

Most of Gaza has been in phase 3 for around six months. Once the Israeli forces have stamped out Hamas' remaining battalions in Rafah, then all of Gaza will essentially be in phase 3, according to Israeli officials.

Hamas' missile and rocket arsenal, once put at 15,000 to 30,000 has also been heavily depleted. Israel's military estimates 13,000 at least have been fired. It has also seized caches of projectiles as it has swept almost every city in Gaza.

Kobi Michael, of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said Hamas was no longer an institutionalised army divided into conventional military units, with weapons manufacturing, training, intelligence and air, naval and cyber forces.

"We need to carry on until Hamas has no ability to rebuild," Michael said, suggesting the Israeli military would need to have access to Gaza even after the war to carry out operations against any remaining militant cells.

"The groundwork is being laid now for the IDF to operate in a similar way to the way it does in the West Bank. We are not there yet," he said.

But one source close to Hamas said the group has been preparing for years for a scenario where it would need to shift to guerrilla-style tactics to survive a conflict with Israel.

Key operations - including a foundry to make bombs and other weapons - were still operational, the source said. New recruits were also constantly joining Hamas' military wing, while the switch to guerrilla tactics had allowed the group to contain its losses, according to another source familiar with Hamas' tactics.

The network of tunnels, even after sections have been destroyed or compromised by Israeli forces, continue to hamper Israel's goal of eliminating Hamas, experts and two sources close to Hamas says.

"They show up from one shaft, destroy a tank, or prepare an ambush for another before they disappear until they reappear at another shaft," said a former Hamas militant familiar with the group's operations.

Some new tunnels, sources close to the group say, are being dug by hand. Reuters was unable to verify this independently.

An Israeli military official on Monday told Reuters that while a lot of Hamas military infrastructure, including tunnels, has been destroyed there was still much more to be done.​

 

[Saif]

Palestinian, Jewish protesters stage peace march

Chanting ‘yes, to peace, yes, to a deal’, hundreds of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis marched noisily through Tel Aviv on Thursday night, demanding an end to the...

www.newagebd.net

Palestinian, Jewish protesters stage peace march
Agence France-Presse . Tel Aviv 26 July, 2024, 23:11



Chanting 'yes, to peace, yes, to a deal', hundreds of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis marched noisily through Tel Aviv on Thursday night, demanding an end to the war in Gaza and the cycle of violence.

Their agenda starts with a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, but ultimately, they want to reboot Palestinian-Israeli relations, and breathe new life into the moribund peace movement.

'It basically went silent after October 7,' and the start of the war, Amira Mohammed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, said of the peace camp.

'The radicals became louder than the peace movement. So right now, we've got to be radical about the peace that we want.'

Mohammed said that included an 'acknowledgement of the power dynamic between occupier and occupied' as well as 'accountability on both sides'.

'We can't stop violence with more violence,' said teacher Carmit Bar Levy, 49.

'We need to ensure a good life for both Palestinians and Jews inside of Israel. We have to acknowledge they have the same right to live here as us.'

She said there was a growing sense since the outbreak of the war that the status quo could not hold.

'Peace is the only way forward,' said Marcelo Oliki, 64, a survivor of the Hamas-attacks on Kibbutz Nirim.

'There are children, women and babies dying just across the border from me. There are people there who are grieving too, just like me, and that want peace, too, like me.'

An Israeli military commander said Friday that troops in the country's north were preparing for 'a decisive offensive' against Lebanon's Hezbollah after months of deadly cross-border exchanges.

Israeli forces have traded near-daily fire with Hamas ally Hezbollah since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on southern Israel started the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

Major General Ori Gordin, Israel's commanding officer in the north, told troops that "we have already eliminated more than 500 terrorists in Lebanon, the great majority of them from Hezbollah", an army statement said.

According to an AFP tally, more than nine months of violence have killed at least 523 people in Lebanon.

Most of them, 342 people, have been confirmed to be Hezbollah militants but the tally also includes 104 civilians. Gordin did not mention civilian casualties.

In northern Israel, at least 18 Israeli soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to the military.

The exchanges of fire have been largely restricted to the border areas and displaced tens of thousands of Lebanese as well as Israeli residents.

The Israeli military has 'destroyed thousands' of targets across the border, Gordin said.

The statement said troops were now preparing 'for the transition to offence'.

'When the moment comes and we go on the offensive, it will be a decisive offensive,' Gordin added.

Iran-backed Hezbollah says it is acting in support of Hamas with its attacks on Israel since October 8.

The escalating violence and unsuccessful mediation efforts have raised fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in 2006.

Israel has demanded that parts of southern Lebanon be cleared of Hezbollah militants in line with a UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas leader in West Bank dies in Israeli custody, says Palestinian government body

A Hamas leader in the West Bank died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, a Palestinian governmental body said early on Friday. Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died after being transferred to a hospital from the Ramon jail in southern Israel, the Palestinian Commission o

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Hamas leader in West Bank dies in Israeli custody, says Palestinian government body
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 26, 2024 19:47
Updated :
Jul 26, 2024 19:47


Palestinians protest the death of Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, a Hamas leader in the West Bank who died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, according to a Palestinian governmental body, in Aqaba, near Tubas, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 26, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

A Hamas leader in the West Bank died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, a Palestinian governmental body said early on Friday.

Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died after being transferred to a hospital from the Ramon jail in southern Israel, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs said in a statement.

"Before his arrest, he was suffering from serious health problems and needed intensive medical follow-up. However, from the moment of his arrest, Sheikh Abu Ara, like all prisoners, has faced unprecedented crimes ... since the beginning of the war of extermination."

Abu Ara, who was arrested in October last year, was subjected to torture and deprived of medical treatment, the Palestinian body said. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

At least 18 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the start of the Gaza war on Oct. 7, the Palestinian Prisoners Association said last month.

Hamas-led attackers killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 captives, according to Israeli tallies. Some 120 hostages are still being held, though Israel believes a third of them are dead.

Gaza health authorities say more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed and most of Gaza's 2.3 million people displaced by fighting that has destroyed much of the enclave and created a humanitarian disaster.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah rocket kills 11 at Golan Heights football ground, Israel vows response

A rocket attack on a football ground in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed 11 people including children on Saturday, Israeli authorities said, blaming Hezbollah and vowing to respond against the Iran-backed Lebanese group

www.thedailystar.net

Hezbollah rocket kills 11 at Golan Heights football ground, Israel vows response


Israeli officials respond after rockets were launched across Lebanon's border with Israel which, according to Israel's ambulance services, people were killed, at a soccer pitch in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, July 27, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad


Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah denies any role

Israel's Katz: 'We are approaching moment of an all-out war'

Israeli PM Netanyahu flying back early from US

A rocket attack on a football ground in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed 11 people including children on Saturday, Israeli authorities said, blaming Hezbollah and vowing to respond against the Iran-backed Lebanese group.

Hezbollah denied any responsibility for the strike, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since the start of the conflict in Gaza.

"The Hezbollah attack today crossed all red lines, and the response will be accordingly. We are approaching the moment of an all-out war against Hezbollah and Lebanon," Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Axios.

In a written statement, Hezbollah said: "The Islamic Resistance has absolutely nothing to do with the incident, and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard". The group had earlier announced several rocket attacks targeting Israeli military positions in other locations from Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire in areas at or near the Lebanese-Israeli border since the eruption of the Gaza war, in a conflict that has stirred fears of a full-blown conflict between the heavily armed adversaries.

The Israeli ambulance service said 13 more people were wounded by a rocket fired from Lebanon that hit a football pitch in the Druze village of Majdal Shams.

"We witnessed great destruction when we arrived at the soccer field, as well as items that were on fire. There were casualties on the grass and the scene was gruesome," Idan Avshalom, a medic with the Magen David Adom ambulance service, said.

A witness told Reuters: "It landed in the soccer pitch, all of them are children ... many bodies and remains are in field we don't know who they are." She asked not to be named.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already due to head back from the United States to Israel overnight on Saturday, said he would bring his flight forward and convene his security cabinet upon arrival.

His far-right coalition ally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, called for tough retaliation, including against Hezbollah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

"For the death of children, Nasrallah should pay with his head. All of Lebanon should pay," Smotrich posted on X. "The prime minister should return immediately. This is the time for actions."

Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the UNIFIL peacekeeping force which operates in southern Lebanon, told Reuters its force commander was in contact with authorities in both Lebanon and Israel "to understand the details of the Majdal Shams incident and to maintain calm".

ATTACKS FROM LEBANON

Hezbollah is the most powerful of a network of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that have entered the fray in support of their Palestinian ally Hamas since October.

Iran-backed Iraqi groups and the Houthis of Yemen have both fired at Israel. Hamas has also carried out rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon, as has the Lebanese Sunni group, the Jama'a Islamiya, since October.

The Israeli-occupied Golan Heights were part of Syria until 1967, when Israel captured most of the area in the Middle East war, annexing it in 1981. That unilateral annexation was not recognised by most countries, and Syria demands the return of the territory.

More than 40,000 people live on the Israeli-occupied Golan, more than half of them Druze residents. The Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam.

The attack on the soccer pitch followed an Israeli strike in Lebanon that killed four militants on Saturday. Two security sources in Lebanon said the four fighters killed in the Israeli strike on Kfarkila in southern Lebanon were members of different armed groups, with at least one of them belonging to Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted a military structure belonging to Hezbollah, after identifying a militant cell entering the building.

At least 30 rockets were then fired from Lebanon across the border, the military said.

Hezbollah earlier claimed at least four attacks, including with Katyusha rockets, in retaliation for the Kfarkila attacks.​

 

[Saif]

30 killed in Gaza school strike

An Israeli strike on a school killed 30 people on Saturday, after a days-long military operation further south left around 170 dead, according to emergency services...

www.newagebd.net

30 killed in Gaza school strike
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 28 July, 2024, 00:39

An Israeli strike on a school killed 30 people on Saturday, after a days-long military operation further south left around 170 dead, according to emergency services.

The latest strike, which Israel said targeted 'terrorists', was at least the eighth time since July 6 a school has been hit, leaving a total of more than 100 people dead, based on figures given by the health ministry and a hospital source.

With most of the Gaza Strip's 2.4 million people displaced at least once during the war, many have sought refuge in school buildings including the one hit on Saturday.

The health ministry reported '30 martyrs and more than 100 wounded' in the strike on Khadija school in the central Deir el-Balah area.

Further south, in the Khan Yunis city area, around 170 people have been killed 'and hundreds wounded' in an Israeli operation since Monday, Gaza's civil defence agency said.

It issued the toll after the military warned of new operations in the Khan Yunis area, where troops had earlier recovered the bodies of five Israelis killed during the October 7 attack and held in Gaza since.

Egyptian state-linked media said Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators are to meet with Israeli negotiators in Rome on Sunday in the latest push for a Gaza truce, which critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have accused him of blocking.

Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,258 people. Its latest toll on Saturday included 83 deaths over the previous 48 hours.

In the southern city of Rafah, medics said four people were killed in an air strike on a house.

Al-Qahera News, which has links to Egyptian intelligence, reported on Friday that talks 'to reach agreement on a truce in Gaza' would take place in Rome on Sunday. US media outlet Axios separately reported that CIA Director Bill Burns was expected to attend.

The latest mediation efforts have focused on a ceasefire and hostage release accompanied by the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

In a meeting in Washington on Thursday, US President Joe Biden called on Netanyahu to 'finalise' a deal and 'reach a durable end to the war in Gaza', the White House said.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Saturday called for a 'political solution' to end the 'madness' in Gaza after the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said an Israeli strike on a school had killed 30 people.

'Ceasefire has to happen now. International Humanitarian Law has to be respected. Humanitarian assistance to civilians needs to be delivered at scale. Only a political solution will end this madness,' Borrell said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In another post, he said 'yet another attack on a school used as a shelter for internal displaced people in Khan Younis... At the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight'.

Irish prime minister Simon Harris on Saturday accused Israel of 'unconscionable violence' after the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli strike on a school had killed 30 people.

'This latest attack on a school by the Israeli military is a further demonstration of brutal, unconscionable violence,' Harris said in a statement.

'Targeting an area populated with displaced families is inhumane and despicable,' he added.

Israel said Saturday it targeted 'terrorists' in the strike—at least the eighth time since July 6 that a school has been hit by its forces.

Harris said it 'continues to use disproportionate force and is engaging in a war that is having an unacceptable level of civilian death and injury, especially to children'.

The Irish leader reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire alongside the release of all hostages held by Hamas and 'unimpeded access for aid' into Gaza.

'The bloodshed and suffering need to end,' Harris added.​

 

[Saif]

Indirect deaths in Gaza three to 15 times more than direct deaths: Lancet

As the Israeli genocidal war machine moved on to invade Gaza in late October last year, it was killing anyone who moved and destroying anything that stood. The Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) is both massacring Palestinians and destroying their physical and social infrastructure. Even before the cur

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Indirect deaths in Gaza three to 15 times more than direct deaths: Lancet
MUHAMMAD MAHMOOD
Published :
Jul 27, 2024 21:51
Updated :
Jul 27, 2024 21:51

Palestinian workers bury a body at a grave for victims killed in the Hamas-Israel conflict in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Janurary 30, 2024 — Xinhua Photo

As the Israeli genocidal war machine moved on to invade Gaza in late October last year, it was killing anyone who moved and destroying anything that stood. The Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) is both massacring Palestinians and destroying their physical and social infrastructure. Even before the current war, the Gaza strip was hermitically 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.

The Gaza Ministry of Health estimates that the total number of Palestinians dead exceeds 38,000, of which more than 15,000 are children in early July. The total number of casualties is well above 120,000 and most of its 2.3 million population are displaced. 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 have been destroyed or damaged. Now the situation is far worse.

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 destroyed or damaged, leading to the spreading of infectious diseases.

The Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) in pursuance of its genocidal war also destroyed the Gaza headquarters of UNRWA levelling it to the ground. UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini posted the images of destruction and commented, "UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened.''

A group of highly qualified independent UN experts declared early this month that because of a deliberate policy of mass starvation against Palestinians pursued by the Israeli government, famine has spread throughout the entire Gaza strip. The experts clearly condemned Israel deliberate policy of mass starvation in Gaza and said, "We declare that Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and resulted in famine across all of Gaza."

Compounding the food and water crisis is the pollution caused by mountains of solid waste piling up across whole of Gaza. The 2,000-pound bombs dropped by Israel are changing the landscape in Gaza. So far 14, 000 of these 2,000-pound bombs have been supplied by the US. Also, about 10 per cent of bombs dropped on Gaza did not explode on impact. It is reported that more than 10 explosions of these unexploded ordnance happen every week.

As murderous air assaults along with ground offensives continue, the Gaza Ministry of Health reports that 38,400 Palestinians have been killed and wounded more than 88,000 by the beginning of July. However, the Lancet, the prestigious British medical Journal calculates that 186,000 or more Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) in Gaza, accounting for 8 per cent of Gaza's pre-war population. The estimate is based on a conservative estimate of "indirect deaths" by the genocidal attack on Gaza. A similar percentage of the population of the US would be 26 million people.

This figure is far more than the figure of 37,396 provided by the Gaza Health Ministry at the time of the preparation of the study. The study pointed out that the estimated death toll is higher because the official death toll does not take into account thousands of dead buried under rubble and indirect deaths caused by the destruction of health facilities, food distribution systems and other public infrastructure.

The Lancet report noted, "In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000or more deaths could be attributed to the current conflict in Gaza."

But there are reasons to question the validity of these low benchmark assumptions given the fact that various Israeli ministers and officials have explicitly stated a goal of killing Palestinians through starvation and disease. A report published last month by the United Nations commission investigating the Gaza war said, "Israel has used starvation as a method of war, affecting the entire population of the Gaza Strip for decades to come, with particularly negative consequences for children."

The Lancet study further added that even if the Gaza war ends immediately, it will continue to cause many indirect deaths in the coming months and years through diseases. It further added that "collecting data is becoming increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of much of the infrastructure."

The Lancet report clearly demonstrates that the Gaza genocide is one of greatest acts of barbarism in modern history. Yet, the Lancet study has been barely reported in the US and Western mainstream media.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his murderous regime can act as they like because they enjoy the unconditional support of the US and the major European powers like the UK, France and Germany. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC). He travelled to Washington D.C. on July 24 where he addressed a joint session of Congress, essentially to provide a progress report to his principal supporters and paymasters in this genocide.

The Lancet report rightly observed that, "Documenting the true scale is crucial for ensuring historical accountability and acknowledging the full cost of the war. It is also a legal requirement."

Ever since the birth of organised Zionism in 1897, its followers have been determined to establish a Jewish state on a land not theirs but populated by Palestinians. If correctly contextualised, or more precisely it is vitally important to understand that Israel is a colonial settler state. Therefore, it would be impossible to understand the current Israeli genocide that is being carried out in Gaza without understanding the colonial settler context.

As such apartheid was knowingly and deeply entrenched in the construction of Israeli state from the beginning. As historian Rashid Khalili observes the conflict is not between two equal national movements fighting over the same land, but rather is "a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will."

It is evidently clear that the Zionist colonial settler apartheid state called Israel has been at war against Palestinians since its establishment in 1948 with the intent to establish complete control and sovereignty over Palestine. What is happening in Gaza now is not only a war but also genocide to achieve that goal.​

 

[Saif]

Israel vows to hit Hezbollah after rocket kills 12 on football field

Thousands of mourners attended funeral ceremonies on Sunday for the 12 children and teenagers killed by a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as Israel vowed swift retaliation against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams, th

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel vows to hit Hezbollah after rocket kills 12 on football field
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 28, 2024 23:55
Updated :
Jul 28, 2024 23:55

Majdal Shams, Golan Heights, July 28 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Thousands of mourners attended funeral ceremonies on Sunday for the 12 children and teenagers killed by a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as Israel vowed swift retaliation against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct. 7 assault sparked the war in Gaza. That conflict has spread to several fronts and now risks spilling into a wider regional conflict.

Israeli jets hit targets in southern Lebanon overnight but a stronger response was expected following a meeting of the security cabinet at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from a visit to the United States.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was every indication that the rocket, which hit a sports field where children were playing football, had been fired by Hezbollah and said Washington stood by Israel's right to defend itself.

But he said the US did not want a further escalation of the conflict, which has seen daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah along the border.

Britain expressed concern at further escalation while Egypt said the attack could spill "into a comprehensive regional war."
On the ground, families gathered for funerals in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognised by most countries.

Members of the Druze faith, which is related to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, make up more than half the 40,000-strong population of the Golan Heights. Large crowds of mourners, many in traditional high white and red Druze headwear, surrounded the caskets as they were carried through the village.

"A heavy tragedy, a dark day has come to Majdal Shams," said Dolan Abu Saleh, head of the Majdal Shams local council, in comments broadcast on Israeli television.

Hezbollah initially had announced it fired rockets at Israeli military sites in the Golan Heights, but said it had "absolutely nothing" to do with the attack on Majdal Shams.

ISRAEL BLAMES HEZBOLLAH

However, Israel said the rocket was an Iranian-made missile fired from an area north of the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon, placing the blame squarely on the Iranian-backed group and saying Hezbollah was "unequivocally responsible".

It was not immediately clear if the children and teenagers killed in the strike were Israeli citizens, but Israeli officials have vowed retaliation.

"The rocket that murdered our boys and girls was an Iranian rocket and Hezbollah is the only terror organization which has those in its arsenal," Israel's foreign ministry said.

Two security sources told Reuters Hezbollah was on high alert and had cleared out some key sites in both Lebanon's south and the eastern Bekaa Valley in case of an Israeli attack.

Lebanon's Middle East Airlines said it was delaying the arrival of some flights from Sunday night to Monday morning, without stating why.

In the southern port city of Tyre, a little over 20 km (12 miles) from the border, beachgoers were still streaming to the coast. "There's fear that Israel will react, but people are living their life normally," said Ali Husseini, manager of a beachside business in Tyr.

Israeli forces have been exchanging fire for months with Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon but both sides have appeared to be avoiding an escalation that could lead to all-out war, potentially dragging in other powers including the United States and Iran.

However, Saturday's strike threatened to tip the standoff into a more dangerous phase. United Nations officials urged maximum restraint from both sides, warning that escalation could "engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief."

Lebanon has asked the U.S to urge restraint from Israel, Lebanon's foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib told Reuters. Bou Habib said the US had asked Lebanon's government to pass on a message to Hezbollah to show restraint as well.

ALL-OUT WAR FEARED

Iran's foreign ministry warned Israel on Sunday against what it called any new adventure in Lebanon.

Syria's foreign ministry said it held Israel "fully responsible for this dangerous escalation in the region" and said its accusations against Hezbollah were false.

Two diplomats focused on Lebanon said all efforts were now needed to avoid an all-out war.

The conflict has forced tens of thousands of people in both Lebanon and Israel to leave their homes. Israeli strikes have killed some 350 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and more than 100 civilians, including medics, children and journalists.

The Israeli military said after Saturday's attack the death toll among civilians killed in Hezbollah attacks had risen to 23 since October, along with at least 17 soldiers.

Hezbollah is the most powerful of a network of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East and opened a second front against Israel shortly after Hamas' Oct. 7 assault.

Iraqi groups and the Houthis of Yemen have both fired at Israel, which earlier this month attacked the Red Sea port of Hodeidah in retaliation for a strike on Tel Aviv that killed one person. Hamas has also carried out rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon, as has the Lebanese Sunni group, the Jama'a Islamiya.

Druze communities live on both sides of the line between southern Lebanon and northern Israel as well as in the Golan Heights and Syria. While some serve in the Israeli military and identify with Israel, many feel marginalized in Israel and some also reject Israeli citizenship.​

 

[Saif]

Israel targets Hezbollah commander in south Beirut strike

Israel struck Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend, saying it had targeted the commander responsible for the attack

www.thedailystar.net

Israel targets Hezbollah commander in south Beirut strike

A general view shows Beirut's southern suburbs and surroundings after what security sources said was a strike on southern suburbs, Lebanon July 30, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Emilie Madi

Israel struck Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend, saying it had targeted the commander responsible for the attack.

"The IDF [army] carried out a targeted strike in Beirut on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians," the military said in a statement, referring to the Druze Arab town in the annexed Golan Heights where the children were killed on Saturday.

A source close to the Iran-backed militant group confirmed that "a leading commander" was the target of the strike, which hit near the group's decision making body, the Shura Council.

The source added that two people were killed in the strike, but was unable to confirm if the commander was among them.

Minutes after the explosions rocked Beirut, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted on social media site X that "Hezbollah crossed the red line".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had on Monday threatened a "severe response" to the attack which Israel and the United States have blamed on Hezbollah, though the group denies responsibility.

Following Saturday's strike, the international community had raced to head off any escalation that might tip the two into a first all-out conflict since 2006.

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said on Monday he had received assurances from international diplomats that there would be only a limited response.

"Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way... These are the assurances we've received," Bou Habib said in an interview with local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.

Analysts told AFP that they also expected Israel to temper its actions, with its leaders wary of having to fight a second war while its troops are still engaged in the Gaza Strip.

'Constant anxiety'

At least 531 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the near daily cross-border exchanges, according to an AFP tally. Most have been fighters, but the toll includes at least 105 civilians.

The violence has so far killed 22 soldiers and 25 civilians on the Israeli side, including in the Golan Heights, according to army figures.

There was further deadly violence earlier on Tuesday, with Israeli medics saying a 30-year-old civilian had been killed in the northern kibbutz of HaGoshrim. The military said it had killed a Hezbollah fighter during overnight strikes.

Druze residents of the Majdal Shams -- the vast majority of whom have rejected Israeli citizenship and identify as Syrians -- had opposed threats of retaliation for the deadly strike.

Scores of residents had come out to protest Netanyahu's visit after the burial of the last of the victims of the rocket strike.

A paramedic from Majdal Shams, Nabih Abu Saleh, told AFP his community was "against any Israeli response", and asked: "Who will we strike? Our people in Syria and Lebanon?"

A French diplomat told AFP earlier that Paris "alongside other partners, notably the United States, is making all-out efforts to call on the parties to exercise restraint and not to be drawn into spiralling violence".

Multiple international airlines suspended flights to Beirut ahead of Israel's retaliation, although the chairman of Lebanon's Middle East Airlines, Mohammed al-Hout, said Beirut airport, its only international facility, "is not exposed to any threat, it is supposed to be a neutral place", state media reported.

The Lebanese public, meanwhile, has been gripped by worry, with mother of two Cosette Beshara describing living "in a state of constant anxiety".

"I'm always thinking about how I will escape with my children if war breaks out," said the 40-year-old, adding that "life goes on in Lebanon... but always with a looming state of anxiety."

Khan Yunis operation

Hezbollah has said its attacks on northern Israel are in solidarity with Hamas and the people of Gaza, who have been under siege by Israel since October 7.

The Hamas attack on southern Israel that started the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Fighting has raged on unabated in the Gaza Strip, with the territory's civil defence agency saying on Tuesday that around 300 people had been killed in the southern city of Khan Yunis during an Israeli operation there that began on July 22.

"Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, the civil defence and medical teams have recovered approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

The military meanwhile said it had completed its operation in the Khan Yunis area, which had seen heavy fighting earlier this year, and had killed "over 150 terrorists".​

 

[Saif]

UK's Starmer says 'immediate steps' needed towards Gaza ceasefire

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Israel's President Isaac Herzog there needed to be "immediate steps" towards a ceasefire in Israel's conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza. "The Prime Minister said there must be immediate steps towards a ceasefire, so that hostages can be released and more

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

UK's Starmer says 'immediate steps' needed towards Gaza ceasefire
REUTERS
Published :
Jul 29, 2024 12:05
Updated :
Jul 29, 2024 12:05


British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Israel's President Isaac Herzog there needed to be "immediate steps" towards a ceasefire in Israel's conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza.

"The Prime Minister said there must be immediate steps towards a ceasefire, so that hostages can be released and more humanitarian aid can get in for those in desperate need," Starmer's office said in a statement released on Sunday.

"The Prime Minister reiterated his ongoing support for Israel's right to self-defence in accordance with international law," the statement said.

Starmer met Herzog in Paris where both were attending the Olympics.

In a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Jul 7 shortly after Starmer took office, he "set out the clear and urgent need for a ceasefire," according to a previous British government statement.

Starmer on Sunday said there was no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas and expressed his condolences for the deaths of five hostages kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct 7 whose bodies had recently been recovered.

About 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage in the Oct 7 attack, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas chief Ismael Hania has been killed by Israel. I wonder who will lead Hamas against Israeli occupation forces now.

 

[Saif]

The killing of Hamas leader by the Israelis in Iranian soil proves that even the Iranian president is not safe from Israel.

 

[Saif]

Background of Ismael Hania.

 

[Saif]

Hamas says chief Haniyeh killed in ‘Zionist’ strike in Tehran

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran was “hit” and he was killed along with a bodyguard

en.prothomalo.com

Hamas says chief Haniyeh killed in 'Zionist' strike in Tehran
AFP
Published: 31 Jul 2024, 09: 57


Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visits the Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon's top Sunni religious authority, in Beirut on 22 June, 2022AFP

Hamas said Wednesday its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he had been attending the inauguration of the country's new president.

"Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his headquarters in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president," the movement said in a statement.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh's residence in Tehran was "hit" and he was killed along with a bodyguard.

"The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred," said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Sepah news website.

Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend Tuesday's swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reports of Haniyeh's death.

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the October 7 attack, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.

The launched by Hamas on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal, but was already a well-known figure having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that year's parliamentary election.

Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lived in exile and splits his time between Turkey and Qatar.

He had travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the war, meeting both the Turkish and Iranian presidents.

Haniyeh was said to maintain good relations with the heads of the various Palestinian factions, including rivals to Hamas.

He joined Hamas in 1987 when the militant group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

It has hailed Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel but denied any involvement.​

 

[Saif]

Israel used waterboarding to torture them: UN report

Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the offensive in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a new report.

www.thedailystar.net

Israel used waterboarding to torture them: UN report

Smoke billows from burning tyres as Israeli soldiers deploy in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron yesterday, following a demonstration by Palestinians denouncing the killing of the leader of the Hamas group. Photo: AFP

Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the offensive in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a new report.

The 23-page report, released yesterday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention. It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of detainees by soldiers.

Based primarily on interviews with released detainees and other victims from October 7 to June 30, the UN report found that since the offensive began, "thousands of Palestinians" including medical staff, have been "taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded".

As of the end of June, Israel's prison service held more than 9,400 "security detainees", the report said, adding that those detained have been "held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention" and without a lawyer.

"At least 53 Palestinian detainees" are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities: report

"At least 53 Palestinian detainees" are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities, it said. It also detailed "allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men".

The report was released during an investigation by the Israeli army, which is questioning nine soldiers over allegations of "substantial abuse" of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel, reports Al Jazeera online.

Last week, eight Palestinian prisoners who were released by the Israeli army said they experienced torture during their time in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.

Former Palestinian detainees told the UN that they were held in "cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers".

The documented abuse included food, sleep and water deprivation and being burned with cigarettes.

"Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence," the report said.​