Netanyahu says no one can halt Israel’s war against Hamas, including the world court

Netanyahu says no one can halt Israel’s war against Hamas, including the world court

Israel will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the world court, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on January 13, as the fighting in Gaza approached the 100-day mark.

Netanyahu spoke after the International Court of Justice at The Hague held two days of hearings on South Africa’s allegations that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, a charge Israel has rejected as libelous and hypocritical. South Africa asked the court to order Israel to halt its blistering air and ground offensive in an interim step.

Also read: Why has South Africa dragged Israel to the ICJ? | Explained

“No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks Saturday evening, referring to Iran and its allied militias.

The case before the world court is expected to go on for years, but a ruling on interim steps could come within weeks. Court rulings are binding but difficult to enforce. Netanyahu made clear that Israel would ignore orders to halt the fighting, potentially deepening its isolation.

Israel has been under growing international pressure to end the war, after its actions have killed more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza and led to widespread suffering in the besieged enclave, but has so far been shielded by U.S. diplomatic and military support.

Israel argues that ending the war means victory for Hamas.

The war was triggered by a deadly Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians. About 250 more were taken hostage, and while some have been released or confirmed dead, more than half are believed to still be in captivity. Sunday marks 100 days of fighting.

Fears of a wider conflagration have been palpable since the start of the war. New fronts quickly opened, with Iran-backed groups — Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria — carrying out a range of attacks. From the start, the U.S. increased its military presence in the region to deter an escalation.

Following a Houthi campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, the U.S. and Britain launched multiple airstrikes against the rebels Friday, and the U.S. hit another site Saturday.

In more fallout from the war, the world court this week heard arguments on South Africa’s complaint against Israel. South Africa cited the soaring death toll and hardships among Gaza civilians, along with inflammatory comments from Israeli leaders presented, as proof of what it called genocidal intent.

In counter arguments Friday, Israel asked for the case to be dismissed as meritless. Israel’s defence argued that the country has the right to fight back against “ruthless enemy”.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu and his Army chief, Herzl Halevi, said they have no immediate plans to allow the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, the initial focus of Israel’s offensive. Fighting in the northern half has been scaled back, with forces now focusing on the southern city of Khan Younis, though combat continues in parts of the north.

Netanyahu said the issue had been raised by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his visit earlier this week. The Israeli leader said he told Blinken that “we will not return residents (to their homes) when there is fighting.”

At the same time, Netanyahu said Israel would eventually need to close what he said were breaches along Gaza’s border with Egypt. Over the years of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, smuggling tunnels under Egypt-Gaza border had constituted a major supply line for Gaza.

However, the border area, particularly the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, is packed with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had fled northern Gaza, and their presence would complicate any plans to widen Israel’s ground offensive.

“We will not end the war until we close this breach,” Netanyahu said Saturday, adding that the government has not yet decided how to do that.

In Gaza, where Hamas has put up stiff resistance to Israel’s blistering air and ground campaign, the war continued unabated.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that 135 Palestinians had been killed in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall toll of the war to 23,843. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the ministry has said about two-thirds of the dead are women and children. The Ministry said the total number of war-wounded surpassed 60,000.

Following an Israeli airstrike before dawn Saturday, video provided by Gaza’s Civil Defense department showed rescue workers searching through the twisted rubble of a building in Gaza City by flashlight.

Footage showed them carrying a young girl wrapped in blankets with injuries to her face, and at least two other children who appeared dead. A boy, covered in dust, winced as he was loaded into an ambulance.

The attack on the home in the Daraj neighborhood killed at least 20 people, according to Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal.

Another strike late Friday near the southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border killed at least 13 people, including two children. The bodies of those killed, primarily from a family displaced from central Gaza, were taken to the city’s Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital where they were seen by an Associated Press reporter.

The Palestinian telecommunications company Jawwal said two of its employees were killed Saturday as they tried to repair the network in Khan Younis. They company said the two were hit by shelling. Jawwal said it has lost 13 employees since the start of the war.

Israel has argued that Hamas is responsible for the high civilian casualties, saying its fighters make use of civilian buildings and launch attacks from densely populated urban areas.

The Israeli military released a video Saturday that it said showed the destruction of two ready-to-use rocket launching compounds in Al-Muharraqa in central Gaza. A large grove of palm trees and some homes are seen in the frame. In the video, a rocket is being thrown into the air by the blast. The military said there had been dozens of launchers ready to be used.

Since the start of Israel’s ground operation in late October, 187 Israeli soldiers have been killed and another 1,099 injured in Gaza, according to the military.

More than 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced as a result of Israel’s air and ground offensive, and vast swaths of the territory have been leveled.

Only 15 of the territory’s 36 hospitals are still partially functional, according to OCHA, the United Nations’ humanitarian affairs agency.

Amid already severe shortages of food, clean water and fuel in Gaza, OCHA said in its daily report that Israel’s severe constraints on humanitarian missions and outright denials had increased since the start of the year.

The agency said only 21% of planned deliveries of food, medicine, water and other supplies have been successfully reaching northern Gaza.

American and other international efforts pushing Israel to do more to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians have met with little success.

Source link

#Netanyahu #halt #Israels #war #Hamas #including #world #court

Gaza war will continue for months, says Netanyahu

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza Strip, Gaza war, Hamas, Israeli strikes

Israeli strikes in central Gaza killed at least 35 people on December 31, hospital officials said, as fighting raged across the tiny enclave a day after Israel’s prime minister said the war will continue for “many more months,” resisting international calls for a cease-fire.

The military said Israeli forces were operating in Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, and residents reported strikes in the central region, the latest focus of the nearly three-month air-and-ground war that has raised fears of a regional conflagration.

Also Read | Netanyahu defends Israel’s unparalleled ‘morality’ in Gaza war

The U.S. military said its forces shot and killed several Iran-backed Houthi rebels when they tried to attack a cargo ship in the Red Sea, an escalation in a maritime conflict linked to the war. And an Israeli Cabinet minister suggested encouraging Gaza’s population to emigrate, remarks that could worsen tensions with Egypt and other friendly Arab states.

Israel says it wants to destroy Hamas’ governing and military capabilities in Gaza, from where it launched its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. The militants killed some 1,200 people after breaking through Israel’s extensive border defenses, shattering its sense of security. They also captured around 240 hostages, nearly half of whom were released during a temporary cease-fire agreement in November.

Just after midnight on New Year’s Day, Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets, setting off air raid sirens in southern and central Israel. No injuries were reported.

Displaced Palestinians found little to celebrate on New Year’s Eve in Muwasi, a makeshift camp in a mostly undeveloped area of southern Gaza’s Mediterranean coast designated by Israel as a safe zone.

“From the intensity of the pain we live, we do not feel that there is a new year,” said Kamal al-Zeinaty, huddled with his family around a fire inside a tent. “All the days are the same.”

Another relative, Zeyad al-Zeinaty, who fled with the family from the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, said his wife, brother and grandchildren are among many relatives he has lost in the war.

Israel’s unprecedented air and ground offensive has killed more than 21,800 Palestinians and wounded more than 56,000 others, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

The war has sparked a humanitarian crisis, with a quarter of Gaza residents facing starvation, according to the United Nations. Israel’s bombardments have leveled vast swaths of the territory, displacing some 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.

Israel expanded its offensive to central Gaza this week, targeting a belt of densely built-up communities that house refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants.

In Zweida, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 13 people and wounded dozens of others, according to witnesses. The bodies were draped in white plastic and laid out in front of a hospital, where prayers were held before burial.

“They were innocent people,” said Hussein Siam, whose relatives were among the dead. “Israeli warplanes bombarded the whole family.”

Officials from Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah said the 13 were among 35 bodies received on Sunday.

The Israeli military said it was battling militants in Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas leaders are hiding. It also said its forces operating in the Shati refugee camp, in northern Gaza, found a bomb in a kindergarten and defused it. Hamas continued to launch rockets toward southern Israel.

Israel has faced stiff resistance from Hamas since it began its ground offensive in late October, and the military says 172 soldiers have been killed during that time.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesman, said Sunday that Israel was withdrawing some forces from Gaza as part of its “smart management” of the war. He did not say how many, and held out the possibility they would return at a later point in the war.

Israeli media said up to five brigades, numbering thousands of soldiers, would be withdrawn, but it was not immediately clear if it represented a normal troop rotation or a new phase in the fighting. Hagari also said some reservists would return to civilian life to bolster Israel’s wartime economy.

The fighting has pushed much of Gaza’s population south, where people have flooded shelters and tent camps near the border with Egypt. Hundreds of thousands have sought shelter in the central town of Deir al-Balah. Israel has continued to carry out strikes in both areas.

Eman al-Masri, who gave birth to quadruplets a week ago at a hospital in Deir al-Balah, is now sheltering with them in a room with 50 other people at a school-turned-shelter. “There is a shortage of diapers, they are not available, and no milk,” she said.

The scale of the destruction and the exodus to the south has raised fears among Palestinians and Arab countries that Israel plans to drive Gaza’s population out and prevent it from returning.

On Sunday, Israel’s far-right finance minister said it should “encourage migration” from Gaza and re-establish Jewish settlements in the territory, where it withdrew settlers and soldiers in 2005.

“If in Gaza there were only 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs and not 2 million, the entire discussion about ‘the day after’ would be completely different,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Army Radio.

Mr. Smotrich has been largely sidelined by a war Cabinet that does not include him. But his comments risked worsening tensions with neighboring Egypt, which is deeply concerned about a possible mass influx of Palestinian refugees, along with other friendly Arab countries.

Later Sunday, an official in the prime minister’s office said Israel does not want to resettle Palestinians.

“Contrary to false allegations, Israel does not seek to displace the population in Gaza,” the official said in a statement to AP. “Subject to security checks, Israel’s policy is to enable those individuals who wish to leave to do so.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

Israel is also at odds with the United States, which has provided crucial military aid for the offensive, over Gaza’s future.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must maintain open-ended security control over the Gaza Strip. At a news conference Saturday, he said the war would continue for “many more months” and that Israel would assume control of the Gaza side of the border with Egypt.

Israel says Hamas has smuggled weapons from Egypt, but Egypt is likely to oppose any Israeli military presence there.

Mr. Netanyahu has also said he won’t allow the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority, which administers some parts of the occupied West Bank, to expand its limited rule to Gaza, where Hamas drove its forces out in 2007.

The U.S. wants a unified Palestinian government to run both Gaza and parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a precursor to eventual statehood. The last Israeli-Palestinian peace talks broke down over a decade ago, and Israeli governments since have been staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood.

Source link

#Gaza #war #continue #months #Netanyahu

Israel-Hamas war: Netanyahu will fight to ‘very end’ amid truce calls

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza attack, Hamas, Hostages, Israel Hamas war, Israel-Palestine Peace Process

The latest developments from the Israel Hamas war.

Communications partially restored in Gaza after three days of outage

Telecommunications have been partially restored in the Gaza Strip after three days of outage, the Palestinian operator Paltel announced.

The company reported in a press release the “gradual recovery” of the network, down since Thursday, in the centre and south of the territory.

UN aid trucks entering Gaza from Israeli territory – reports

The Egypt Red Crescent are reporting that UN aid trucks trucks have started to enter Gaza.

They say the trucks will go into the enclave as of Sunday for the first time since the war broke out.

The Israeli government body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, COGAT, explained that trucks would all undergo security checks. They’ll also be transferred directly to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing.

The crossing, which has borders with Israel-Gaza and Egypt-Gaza, has been closed since Hamas’s attacks on 7 October.

Israel’s security cabinet approved the reopening of the crossing for Gaza aid on Friday, following increased pressure from the US during a visit from White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Israeli army says it has discovered ‘largest tunnel’ dug under the Gaza Strip

The Israeli army has claimed to have discovered “the largest tunnel” that Hamas dug under the Gaza Strip.

An AFP photographer who was authorised to go there noted that it was of sufficient size to allow small vehicles to circulate.

“This massive network of tunnels, which divides into several branches, extends for more than four kilometres and arrives only 400 metres from the Erez crossing point” between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli armed forces said in a statement.

The tunnel is said to be equipped with a pipeline system, electricity, ventilation, sewers, communication networks and rails. Its floor is made of beaten earth and its walls are made of reinforced concrete, except at its outlet, reinforced by a metal cylinder approximately one and a half centimetres in diameter.

The Israeli army claims to have discovered a large number of weapons there ready to be used in the event of an attack by Hamas.

Nicknamed “the Gaza metro” by the Israeli military, the maze of galleries was first used to circumvent the blockade imposed by Israel after Hamas took power in the territory in 2007.

Hundreds of galleries have been dug under the border with Egyptian Sinai to move people, goods, weapons and ammunition between Gaza and the outside world.

In a study published on 17 October, the Institute of Modern Warfare at the American Military Academy West Point estimates the existence of some 1,300 galleries over 500 kilometres.

Colonna calls for ‘immediate and lasting truce’ in Gaza

The French Minister of Foreign Affairs has called for a “new immediate and lasting truce” in the Gaza Strip, saying she was “concerned” by the humanitarian situation and the fate of the hostages after more than two months of war.

“Too many civilians are being killed,” Catherine Colonna said after a meeting with her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, in Tel Aviv.

She stressed that the first week-long truce ended on 1 December had allowed the release of hostages – 105 of the 250 taken by force by Hamas during the 7 October attack – as well as an increase in humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza while evacuating injured people.

Colonna reiterated that three French people remain “detained, missing or hostages in the Gaza Strip” and that France is sparing no effort to free them.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen rebuffed her claims, calling any call for a ceasefire as an “error” and a “gift for Hamas”.

Netanyahu says Israel will fight ‘to the very end’ as ‘accidental’ killing of hostages adds to concern over wartime conduct

Israel pressed ahead with its Gaza offensive on Sunday after a series of shootings, including of three hostages who were shirtless and waving a white flag, raised questions about its conduct in a weeks-old war that has brought unprecedented death and destruction to the coastal enclave.

Speaking at a press conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the killing of the three captives – branded a ‘mistake’ – “has broken my heart, it has broken the entire nation’s heart.”

He claimed the remaining hostages held by Hamas would soon return home, but the distance between victory and disaster is “tiny”.

Hitting back on growing international pressure to stop the fighting, Netanyahu said, “we are determined to continue all the way to the very end” until “there will be no authority that will continue training for terror” in Gaza.

“After we have eradicated Hamas and Gaza will be demilitarised under the control of Israel there will be no-one who will educate their children to annihilate Israel,” he added.

UK and Germany call for ceasefire – marking a significant attitude shift

The UK’s foreign secretary David Cameron and his counterpart in Germany, Annalena Baerbock, have called for a “sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza – joining an increasing list of global powers putting pressure on Israel to stop the fighting.

In a joint article published in Welt am Sonntag and The Sunday Times, they wrote: “too many civilians have been killed”, adding that a ceasefire “leading to a sustainable peace” was needed.

“The sooner it comes, the better. The need is urgent,” Baerbock and Cameron wrote.

The move is particularly significant for the UK, whose Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has previously only lent his support to “humanitarian pauses” in the conflict – but his government has so far stopped short of calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in United Nation votes.

‘Mistake’ shootings draw scrutiny from the top of Israel’s government

Military officials said on Saturday that the three hostages who were mistakenly shot by Israeli troops had tried to signal that they posed no harm. It was Israel’s first such acknowledgement of harming hostages in a war that it says is largely aimed at rescuing them.

The three hostages, all in their 20s, were killed Friday in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, where troops are engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas. An Israeli military official said the soldiers’ behaviour was against the army’s rules of engagement and was being investigated at the highest level.

Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and accuses Hamas of using them as human shields. But Palestinians and rights groups have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of recklessly endangering civilians and firing on those who do not threaten them, both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, which has seen a surge of violence since the start of the war.

Israel on Friday said it was opening a military police investigation into the killing of two Palestinians in the West Bank after an Israeli rights group posted videos that appeared to show troops killing the men – one who was incapacitated and the second unarmed – during a raid.

Anger over the mistaken killing of the hostages, though, is likely to ramp up pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to renew Qatar-mediated negotiations with Hamas over swapping more of the remaining captives for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

Hamas has said there will be no further hostage releases until the war ends, and that it will demand the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.

Hamas released over 100 of more than 240 hostages captured on 7 October in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners during a brief cease-fire in November. Nearly all freed on both sides were women and minors. Israel has successfully rescued one hostage.

Source link

#IsraelHamas #war #Netanyahu #fight #truce #calls

Israel’s mass arrest campaign isolates fighting age men as part of Gaza campaign

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza Strip, Israel Hamas war, Israel latest news, Israel-Palestine conflict, Israeli attack on Gaza, Jabaliya, palestine conflcit

The Israeli military has rounded up hundreds of Palestinians across the northern Gaza Strip, separating families and forcing men to strip to their underwear before trucking some to a detention camp on the beach, where they spent hours, in some cases days, subjected to hunger and cold, according to human rights activists, distraught relatives and released detainees themselves.

Palestinians detained in the shattered town of Beit Lahiya, the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya and neighborhoods of Gaza City said they were bound, blindfolded and bundled into the backs of trucks. Some said they were taken to the camp at an undisclosed location, nearly naked and with little water.

“We were treated like cattle, they even wrote numbers on our hands,” said Ibrahim Lubbad, a 30-year-old computer engineer arrested in Beit Lahiya on December 7 with a dozen other family members and held overnight. “We could feel their hatred.”

The roundups have laid bare an emerging tactic in Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza, experts say, as the military seeks to solidify control in evacuated areas in the north and collect intelligence about Hamas operations nearly 10 weeks after the group’s deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel. Militants killed about 1,200 people and abducted over 240 that day.

“This is already helping us, and it will be crucial for the next stage of the war,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “That’s the stage where we clean areas from all the remnants of Hamas.”

In response to questions about alleged mistreatment, the Israeli military said that detainees were “treated according to protocol” and were given enough food and water. The army spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said this week that arrests took place in two Hamas strongholds in northern Gaza and that detainees were told to strip to make sure they didn’t conceal explosives.

Hagari said the men are questioned and then told to dress, and that in cases where this didn’t happen, the military would ensure it doesn’t occur again. Those believed to have ties to Hamas are taken away for further interrogation, and dozens of Hamas members have been arrested so far, he said.

The others are released and told to head south, where Israel has told people to seek refuge, Hagari said.

Photos and video showing Palestinian men kneeling in the streets, heads bowed and hands bound behind their backs, sparked outrage after spreading on social media. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Monday said the United States “found those images deeply disturbing” and was seeking more information.

To Palestinians, it is a stinging indignity. Among those rounded up were boys as young as 12 and men as old as 70, and they included civilians who lived ordinary lives before the war, according to interviews with 15 families of detainees.

“My only crime is not having enough money to flee to the south,” said Abu Adnan al-Kahlout, an unemployed 45-year-old with diabetes and high blood pressure in Beit Lahiya. He was detained December 8 and released after several hours when soldiers saw he was too faint and nauseated to be interrogated.

“Do you think Hamas are the ones waiting in their homes for the Israelis to come find them now?” he asked. “We stayed because we have nothing to do with Hamas.”

Israeli forces have detained at least 900 Palestinians in northern Gaza, estimated Rami Abdo, founder of the Geneva-based advocacy group Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which has worked to document the arrests. Based on testimony it collected, the group presumes Israel is holding most detainees from Gaza at the Zikim military base just north of the enclave.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are believed to have stayed in the north despite the danger — unable to afford a ride, unable to abandon disabled relatives or convinced things are no safer in the overcrowded south, which also has come under daily bombardment.

Palestinians cowered with their families for days as Israel poured heavy machine-gun fire into Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya, the tank shelling and firefights with Hamas militants stranding families in their homes without electricity, running water, fuel or communications and internet service. Hundreds of buildings have been crushed by Israeli bulldozers, clearing paths for tanks and armored troop carriers.

“There are corpses all over the place, left out for three, four weeks because no one can reach them to bury them before the dogs eat them,” said Raji Sourani, a lawyer with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He said he saw dozens of dead bodies as he made his way from Gaza City to the southern border with Egypt last week. Israeli forces are holding one of his colleagues, human rights researcher Ayman al-Kahlout, in custody.

Palestinians recount similar terrifying scenes as the Israeli military combs through northern towns. Soldiers go door to door with dogs, using loudspeakers to call on families to come outside, residents said. Or they blast doors of homes open with a grenade, yelling at men to remove their clothes and confiscating money, IDs and cellphones.

In most cases, women and children are told to walk away to find shelter.

Some released detainees reported soldiers shouting sexually explicit insults at women and children and beating men with their fists and rifle butts after bursting into their homes. Others reported enduring humiliating stretches of near-nudity as Israeli troops took the photos that later went viral. Some guessed they were driven several kilometers (miles) before being dumped in cold sand.

The Israeli military declined comment on where the detainees were taken.

Abu Adnan al-Kahlout’s family believes its members were singled out for mistreatment because they share a last name with the spokesman for Hamas’ military wing better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Obeida. But family members — among them electricians, a tailor, a bureau chief for London-based news site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed and employees of Hamas’ political rival, the Palestinian Authority — insist they have nothing to do with Gaza’s Islamic militant rulers.

Three family members remain in Israeli custody. No one has heard from them in days. Other relatives, like 15-year-old Hamza al-Kahlout and 65-year-old Khalil al-Kahlout, returned home Dec. 8 to find their five-story building a charred skeleton. They fled to a nearby U.N. shelter at a school. But the Israeli military stormed the school and arrested them again as it pressed on with its crackdown.

Released detainees said their wrists were blistered from tightly drawn handcuffs. Exposed to the chill of night, they endured repeated questions about Hamas activities that most couldn’t answer. Soldiers kicked sand in their faces and beat those who spoke out of turn.

Several Palestinians held for 24 hours or less said they had no food and were forced to share three 1.5-liter bottles with some 300 fellow detainees. Construction worker Nadir Zindah said he was fed meager scraps of bread over four days in custody.

Darwish al-Ghabrawi, a 58-year-old principal at a U.N. school, fainted from dehydration. Mahmoud al-Madhoun, a 33-year-old shopkeeper, said the only moment that gave him hope was when soldiers released his son, realizing he was just 12.

Returning home brought its own horrors. Israeli soldiers dropped detainees off after midnight without their clothes, phones or IDs near what appeared to be Gaza’s northern border with Israel, those released said, ordering them to walk through a landscape of destruction, tanks stationed along the road and snipers perched on roofs.

“It was a death sentence,” said Hassan Abu Shadkh, whose brothers, 43-year-old Ramadan and 18-year-old Bashar, and his 38-year-old cousin, Naseem Abu Shadkh, walked shoeless over jagged mounds of debris until their feet bled. They begged the first person they saw for rags to cover their bodies.

Naseem, a farmer in Beit Lahiya, was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper as they made their way to a U.N. school in Beit Lahiya, Abu Shadkh said. His brothers were forced to leave their cousin’s body in the middle of the road.

Israeli officials say they have reason to be suspicious of Palestinians remaining in northern Gaza, given that places like Jabaliya and Shijaiyah, in eastern Gaza City, are well-known Hamas bastions.

“We will continue to dismantle each and every one of these Hamas strongholds until we finish in Jabaliya and Shijaiyah and then continue,” government spokesperson Eylon Levy said, signaling the military would widen its campaign as ground forces press deeper into the south, where over a million Palestinians have taken refuge.

He said the southern town of Khan Younis, now at the center of fighting, would be next.

“We will of course work out who needs to be arrested and detained and put to justice as a Hamas terrorist and who does not,” Levy said.

Human rights groups say mass arrests should be investigated.

“It isn’t clear on what basis Israel is holding them and it raises real serious questions,” said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s regional director. “Civilians must only be arrested for absolutely necessary and imperative reasons for security. It’s a very high threshold.”

Meanwhile, families plead for information about loved ones who disappeared. The International Committee of the Red Cross said its hotline had received 3,000 calls from people trying to connect with missing relatives from the beginning of the war until Nov. 29.

“I can’t take not knowing, I feel sick,” said 40-year-old Zindah, the construction worker, who arrived Monday by foot at the hospital in Deir al-Balah after four days in Israeli detention with his 14-year-old son, Mahmoud. “I don’t know where my wife and seven kids are. Are they alive? Are they dead? Are they in prison?”

Source link

#Israels #mass #arrest #campaign #isolates #fighting #age #men #part #Gaza #campaign

Israel-Hamas war: Hostage talks may resume after ‘mistake’ deaths

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas, Hostages, israel defense forces IDF, Israel Hamas war, Palestine

The latest developments from the Israel Hamas war.

‘Stop fighting and negotiate’ – families of hostages plead with Israeli government

Families of hostages held in the Gaza Strip have urged the Israeli government to end the fighting and carry out negotiations for their release, more than two months after the start of the war with Hamas.

“We only recover dead bodies. We want you to stop the fighting and start negotiations, said Noam Perry, the daughter of an Israeli held in Gaza, who was one of a number of speakers at a gathering of hostage families in Tel Aviv.

Israel and Qatar could revive hostage release talks after captive deaths

Three Israeli hostages who were mistakenly shot by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip had been waving a white flag and were shirtless when they were killed, an Israeli military official said on Saturday.

Anger over the mistaken killings is likely to increase pressure on the Israeli government to renew Qatar-mediated negotiations with Hamas over swapping more captives for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Hamas has conditioned further releases on Israel halting its punishing air and ground campaign in Gaza, now in its 11th week.

The account of how the hostages died also raised questions about the conduct of Israeli ground troops. Palestinians on several occasions reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire as civilians tried to flee to safety.

The military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to brief reporters in line with military regulations, said it was likely that the hostages had been abandoned by their militant captors or had escaped. The soldiers’ behavior was “against our rules of engagement,” the official said, and was being investigated at the highest level.

The victims are Yotam Haïm, a 28-year-old heavy metal drummer, Samer al-Talalqa, a 25-year-old Bedouin, and Alon Lulu Shamriz, 26, the Israeli army announced, specifying that the bodies had been repatriated to Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately regretted “an unbearable tragedy” which plunges “the entire State of Israel into mourning”, while in Washington the White House spoke of a “tragic error”.

Israel and Qatar will try to revive talks over the release of the remaining hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, according to a new report.

The Wall Street Journal says David Barnea, the director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency is to meet with Qatari prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Norway today.

Talks are set to involve discussions on how hostages could be released in return for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, the WSJ says.

They reported, however, that the discussions will likely face “significant” roadblocks – not least disputes over the possible terms with Hamas.

As of Saturday, more than 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza.

The nation is mourning the death of the three hostages killed “by mistake” by its own soldiers in the Gaza Strip, where the army is increasing air raids despite pressure from its American ally for more restraint.

Three Israeli hostages who were said to have been “misidentified” as a “threat” were killed by soldiers operating in Shujaiya, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Shortly after the announcement, hostage families and supporters marched with photos of captives in front of the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv to demand an immediate agreement for their release.

Hundreds of protesters marched alongside the families as they blocked main roads in the city and spilled red paint in the street – meant to symbolise the blood of hostages.

Protestors screamed “deal, now!” shouted for the release of all the hostages. The protests lasted for several hours.

IDF to conduct four-hour ‘tactical pause’ in Rafah to allow aid in

The Israeli military – also known as the IDF – is set to conduct “tactical pauses” to allow for the replenishing of supplies in southern Gaza on Saturday.

That’s according to the Israeli office for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

In a post on X – formerly Twitter – COGAT said the said today’s “pause” would take place in the Tel al Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, between 10am and 2pm local time.

Previous such pauses have taken place in the Al Salam and Al Shabura neighbourhoods in Rafah on Wednesday and Thursday, according to posts on COGAT’s account on X.

Communications blackout and spiralling hunger compound misery in Gaza Strip

A prolonged communications blackout that severed telephone and internet connections compounded the misery Saturday in the besieged Gaza Strip, where a United Nations agency said hunger levels had spiralled in recent days.

Internet and telephone lines went down on Thursday evening and were still inaccessible on Saturday morning, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org.

The situation is hampering aid deliveries and rescue efforts as Israel’s war against Gaza’s ruling militant group Hamas stretches into the 11th week.

The ongoing offensive has flattened much of northern Gaza and driven 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes. Displaced people have squeezed into shelters mainly in the south in a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has expressed unease over Israel’s failure to reduce civilian casualties and its plans for the future of Gaza, but the White House continues to offer wholehearted support with weapons shipments and diplomatic backing.

Palestinian media: ‘Dozens killed’ in Jabalia airstrikes

Palestinian media has announced that dozens of people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza.

The WAFA news agency said on Saturday that at least 14 Palestinians died after two houses in Jabalia city – some 4km north of Gaza city – were hit.

WAFA added that dozens more had died in a separate airstrike that hit another home in the area, while adding that a number of civilians were trapped under rubble.

It has not yet been possible to independently verify the reports but the claims come following Friday’s meeting between the US and Israel, where the US put pressure on Israel to scale down its war against Hamas in the near future.

Al Jazeera condemns Israel over journalist death

Dozens of journalists have attended the funeral of a cameraman for Al Jazeera.

Samer Abudaqa was killed and another colleague injured in an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Qatari-based channel reported.

“It is with heavy hearts that we share the devastating news of the loss of our dedicated Al Jazeera cameraman, Samer Abudaqa,” Mohamed Moawad, an editor at the channel, wrote.

Al Jazeera previously reported that its Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, and Abu Daqa, were injured at a school in Khan Younes “following what is believed to be an attack by Israeli drone”.

In a statement on their website, the broadcaster wrote: “Al Jazeera Media Network condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli drone attack on a Gaza school that resulted in the killing of cameraman Samer Abudaqa.”

“The Network holds Israel accountable for systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families.”

AbuDaqa’s body was carried through the crowd to Khan Younis, before being buried in a hole dug by colleagues.

“Working in the press is dangerous,” lamented the journalist’s mother, Oum Maher Abou Daqa, accusing Israel of targeting “journalists, particularly those who work for Al Jazeera.”

Asked by the AFP, the Israeli army assured that it never “deliberately targets journalists” and takes “all possible operational measures to protect civilians and journalists”.

Nevertheless, more than 60 journalists and media workers, mostly Gazans, have died since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel on 7 October, according to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists.

Source link

#IsraelHamas #war #Hostage #talks #resume #mistake #deaths

Nine Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza City ambush

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas, israel defense forces IDF, Israel Hamas war, soldier, The Gaza Strip

Israeli troops are still locked in heavy combat with Hamas fighters in and around Gaza City, more than six weeks after invading the territory’s north.

Palestinian militants carried out one of the deadliest single attacks on Israeli soldiers since the Gaza invasion began, killing at least nine in an urban ambush, the military said Wednesday, a sign of the stiff resistance Hamas still poses despite more than two months of devastating bombardment.

The ambush in a dense neighbourhood came after repeated recent claims by the Israeli military that it had broken Hamas’ command structure in northern Gaza, encircled remaining pockets of fighters, killed thousands of militants and detained hundreds more.

The tenacious fighting underscores how far Israel appears to be from its aim of destroying Hamas — even after the military unleashed one of the 21st century’s most destructive onslaughts. Israel’s air and ground assault has killed more than 18,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health officials. Gaza City and surrounding towns have been pounded to ruins. Nearly 1.9 million people have been driven from their homes.

The resulting humanitarian crisis has sparked international outrage. The United States has repeatedly called on Israel to take greater measures to spare civilians, even as it has blocked international calls for a ceasefire and rushed military aid to its close ally.

Clashes raged overnight and into Wednesday in multiple areas, with especially heavy fighting in Shijaiyah, a dense neighbourhood that was the scene of a major battle during the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.

“It’s terrifying. We couldn’t sleep,” Mustafa Abu Taha, a Palestinian agricultural worker who lives in the neighbourhood, said. “The situation is getting worse, and we don’t have a safe place to go.”

The ambush took place Tuesday in Shijaiyah, where troops searching a cluster of buildings lost communication with four soldiers who had come under fire, the military said. When the other soldiers launched a rescue operation, they were ambushed with heavy gunfire and explosives.

Among the nine dead were Col. Itzhak Ben Basat, 44, the most senior officer to have been killed in the ground operation, and Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg, a battalion commander.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “very difficult day,” but he rejected international calls for a ceasefire.

“We are continuing until the end, there is no question. I say this even given the great pain and the international pressure. Nothing will stop us, we will continue until the end, until victory, nothing less,” he said in a talk with military commanders.

Suffering in the South

Heavy rainfall overnight swamped tent camps in Gaza’s south, where Israel has told people to seek refuge, even as that region has also come under daily bombardment.

In the central city of Deir al-Balah, the storm brought cold winds and flooded a sheltered area behind a hospital, sending torrents of water coursing between the tents. “The situation is catastrophic,” said Ibrahim Arafat, a father of 13 who fled Shijaiyah.

Because of the fighting and Israel’s blockade of Gaza, the health care system and humanitarian aid operations have collapsed in large parts of the territory, and aid workers have warned of starvation and the spread of disease among displaced people.

Israel invaded southern Gaza nearly two weeks ago, and heavy fighting has continued in its first target — the city of Khan Younis. Israeli strikes overnight hit two residential buildings in and around the city.

A strike on a home near the main highway between Khan Younis and the southern border town of Rafah killed two boys, ages 2 and 8, a woman in her 80s and a woman in her 30s, according to Mohammed al-Beiyouk, a relative of the deceased. Another strike killed a baby and his grandfather, according to hospital records at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

The military rarely comments on individual strikes. Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames the high toll on Hamas because it conceals fighters, tunnels and weapons in residential areas.

Videos show Israeli soldiers acting ‘maliciously’

Several viral videos and photos of Israeli soldiers behaving in a derogatory manner in Gaza have emerged in recent days, creating a headache for the Israeli military as it faces an international outcry over its tactics and the rising civilian death toll in its punishing war against Hamas.

In response, the Israeli army has pledged to take disciplinary action in what it says are a handful of isolated cases.

Among the scenes that have caused dismay and anger are clips of Israeli soldiers apparently rummaging through private homes in Gaza, destroying plastic figurines in a toy store, or trying to burn food and water supplies in the back of an abandoned truck. Troops have been depicted with their arms slung around each other, chanting racist slogans as they dance in a circle.

The videos seem to have been uploaded by soldiers themselves during their time in Gaza.

Such videos are not a new or unique phenomenon in Israel or around the world. Over the years, a significant number of soldiers have been caught on camera acting inappropriately or maliciously in myriad conflict zones.

Critics, though, say these new videos – which have been largely shrugged off in Israel – reflect a national mood that is highly supportive of the war in Gaza, with little empathy for the plight of Gaza’s civilians.

“The dehumanisation from the top is very much sinking down to the soldiers,” Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which has long documented Israeli abuses against Palestinians, told the Associated Press.

Israel has been embroiled in fierce combat in Gaza since 7th October, when Hamas militants raided southern Israel and killed about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and took about 240 hostages.

‘There are no people who are uninvolved’ – IDF

In one video of IDF forces on the ground, troops are seen riding bicycles through rubble. In another, a soldier appears to have moved Muslim prayer rugs into a bathroom, while another video shows boxes of lingerie found in a Gaza home. Yet another clip shows a soldier trying to set fire to shipments of food and water, both extremely scarce in Gaza.

In one photograph, a soldier poses next to words spray-painted in red on a pink building that read: “Instead of erasing graffiti, let’s erase Gaza.”

A video posted by conservative Israeli media personality Yinon Magal on X, formerly Twitter, shows dozens of soldiers dancing in a circle, apparently in Gaza, and singing a song that includes the words, “Gaza we have come to conquer… We know our slogan – there are no people who are uninvolved.”

The video, which Magal took from Facebook, has been viewed almost 200,000 times on his account and widely shared on other accounts.

Magal said he did not know the soldiers involved – but the Associated Press has verified backgrounds, uniforms and language heard in the videos and found them to be consistent with independent reporting.

Magal said the video struck a chord among Israelis because of the popular tune and because Israelis need to see pictures of a strong military. It is based on the fight song of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team, whose hard-core fans have a history of racist chants against Arabs and rowdy behaviour.

“These are my fighters, they’re fighting against brutal murderers, and after what they did to us, I don’t have to defend myself to anyone,” Magal told The Associated Press.

He condemned some of the other videos that have surfaced, including the ransacking of the toy store, apparently in the northern area of Jebaliya, in which a soldier smashes toys and decapitates a plastic figurine, as destruction that is unnecessary for Israel’s security objectives.

The Israeli military’s spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, has actually condemned some of the actions seen in the recent videos.

“In any event that does not align with IDF values, command and disciplinary steps will be taken,” he said.

The videos emerged just days after leaked photos and video of detained Palestinians in Gaza, stripped to their underwear, in some cases blindfolded and handcuffed, also drew international attention. The army says it did not release those images, but Hagari said this week that soldiers have undressed Palestinian detainees to ensure they are not wearing explosive vests.

Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas official, aired the video of the soldier in the toy shop at a news conference in Beirut. He called the footage “disgusting.”

Hamas, too, has come under heavy criticism for releasing a series of videos of Israeli hostages, clearly under duress. Hamas militants also wore bodycams during their rampage on 7th October, capturing violent images of deadly attacks on families in their homes and revellers at a dance party.

Eran Halperin, a professor with Hebrew University’s psychology department who studies communal emotional responses to conflict, said that in previous wars between Israel and Hamas, there may have been more condemnation of these types of photos and videos from within Israeli society.

But he said the October attack, which exposed deep weaknesses and failures by the army, caused trauma and humiliation for Israelis in a way that hasn’t happened before.

“When people feel they were humiliated, hurting the source of this humiliation doesn’t feel as morally problematic,” Halperin told AP.

“When people feel like their individual and collective existence is under threat, they don’t have the mental capacity to empathise or apply the moral rulings when thinking about the enemy.”

Source link

#Israeli #soldiers #killed #Gaza #City #ambush

Israeli Defence Minister resists pressure to halt Gaza offensive, says campaign will ‘take time’

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza civilian death, hamas terror attack on Israel, Hamas terrorists, Israel Hamas war, israel retaliation on Gaza, Israeli military, tunnels built by Hamas, Yoav Gallant

Israel’s Defence Minister on Monday, December 11, 2023, pushed back against international calls to wrap up the country’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, saying the current phase of the operation against the Hamas militant group will “take time.

Yoav Gallant, a member of Israel’s three-man war cabinet, remained unswayed by a growing chorus of criticism over the widespread damage and heavy civilian death toll caused by the two-month military campaign. The U.N. secretary-general and leading Arab states have called for an immediate cease-fire. The United States has urged Israel to reduce civilian casualties, though it has provided unwavering diplomatic and military support.

Israel launched the campaign after Hamas militants stormed across its southern border on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping about 240 others.

Two months of airstrikes, coupled with a fierce ground invasion, have resulted in the deaths of over 17,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory. They do not give a breakdown between civilians and combatants but say that roughly two-thirds of the dead have been women and minors. Nearly 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.

In a briefing, Mr. Gallant refused to commit to any firm deadlines, but he signaled that the current phase, characterized by heavy ground fighting backed up by air power, could stretch on for weeks and that further military activity could continue for months.

“We are going to defend ourselves. I am fighting for Israel’s future,” he said.

Mr. Gallant said the next phase would be lower-intensity fighting against “pockets of resistance” and would require Israeli troops to maintain their freedom of operation. “That’s a sign the next phase has begun,” he said.

Mr. Gallant spoke as Israeli forces battled militants in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, where the military opened a new line of attack last week. Battles were also still underway in parts of Gaza City and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, where large areas have been reduced to rubble and many thousands of civilians are still trapped by the fighting.

Israel has pledged to keep fighting until it removes Hamas from power, dismantles its military capabilities and gets back all of the hostages. It says Hamas still has 117 hostages and the remains of 20 people who died in captivity or during the initial attack. More than 100 captives were freed last month during a weeklong truce.

Mr. Gallant keeps a framed picture on the desk of his spacious office with pictures of all the children taken hostage. All but two are marked with small hearts, signaling their release from captivity.

In central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike overnight flattened a residential building where some 80 people were staying in the Maghazi refugee camp, residents said.

Ahmed al-Qarah, a neighbor who was digging through the rubble for survivors, said he knew of only six people who made it out. “The rest are under the building,” he said. At a nearby hospital, family members sobbed over the bodies of several of the dead from the strike.

In Khan Younis, Radwa Abu Frayeh saw heavy Israeli strikes overnight around the European Hospital, where the U.N. humanitarian office says tens of thousands of people have sought shelter. She said one strike hit a home close to hers late Sunday.

“The building shook,” she said. “We thought it was the end and we would die.”

Mr. Gallant blamed Hamas for the heavy civilian death toll, saying that the militant group maintains a network of tunnels underneath schools, streets and hospitals.

He claimed that Israel has inflicted heavy damage on Hamas, killing half of the group’s battalion commanders and destroying many tunnels, command centers and weapons facilities.

Israeli officials have said some 7,000 Hamas militants — roughly one-quarter of the group’s fighting force — have been killed throughout the war and that 500 militants have been detained in Gaza the past month. The claims could not be independently verified. Israel says 104 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive.

The result, he said, is that in the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas has been reduced to “islands of resistance” acting on the whims of local commanders.

In southern Gaza, he said the situation is different. “They are still organized militarily,” he said.

Mr. Gallant also said Israel has recovered “hundreds of terabytes” of information about Hamas from computers its troops have seized.

Despite the reported battlefield setbacks, Hamas on Monday fired a barrage of rockets that set off sirens in Tel Aviv, where Mr. Gallant’s office and Israeli military headquarters are located.

One person was lightly wounded, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. Israel’s Channel 12 television broadcast footage of a cratered road and damage to cars and buildings in a suburb.

The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, described a harrowing journey through the battle zone in northern Gaza by a U.N. and Red Crescent convoy over the weekend that made the first delivery of medical supplies to the north in more than a week. It said an ambulance and U.N. truck were hit by gunfire on the way to Al-Ahly Hospital to drop off the supplies.

Hundreds trapped

The convoy then evacuated 19 patients but was delayed for inspections by Israeli forces on the way south. OCHA said one patient died, and a paramedic was detained for hours, interrogated and reportedly beaten.

The fighting in Jabaliya has trapped hundreds of staff, patients and displaced people inside hospitals, most of which are unable to function.

Two staff members were killed over the weekend by clashes outside Al-Awda Hospital, OCHA said. Shelling and live ammunition hit Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, killing an unknown number of displaced people sheltering inside, it said. It did not say which side was behind the fire.

With Israel allowing little aid into Gaza and the U.N. largely unable to distribute it amid the fighting, Palestinians face severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods.

Israel said it will start conducting inspections of aid trucks Tuesday at its Kerem Shalom crossing, a step meant to increase the amount of relief entering Gaza. Currently, Israel’s Nitzana crossing is the only inspection point in operation. All trucks then enter from Egypt through the Rafah crossing. Aid workers, however, say they are largely unable to distribute aid beyond the Rafah area because of the fighting elsewhere.

Israel has urged people to flee to what it says are safe areas in the south. The fighting in and around Khan Younis has pushed tens of thousands toward the town of Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt.

Still, airstrikes have continued even in areas to which Palestinians are told to flee.

A strike in Rafah early Monday heavily damaged a residential building, killing at least nine people, all but one of them women, according to Associated Press reporters who saw the bodies at the hospital.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders said people in the south are also falling ill as they pack into crowded shelters or sleep in tents in open areas.

Nicholas Papachrysostomou, the group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said “every other patient” at a clinic in Rafah has a respiratory infection after prolonged exposure to cold and rain. In shelters where hundreds share a single toilet, diarrhea is widespread, particularly among children, he said.

Source link

#Israeli #Defence #Minister #resists #pressure #halt #Gaza #offensive #campaign #time

A look inside the lives of the youngest former Israeli hostages

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas, Hostage taking, Hostages, Israel, Israel Hamas war

Doctors warn the weeks these children spent in captivity will take its toll even more as the conflict continues.

After seven weeks held hostage in the tunnels of Gaza, they are finally free to laugh and chat and play. Some of the children who have come back from captivity, though, are still reluctant to raise their voices above a whisper.

In theory, they can eat what they want, sleep as much as they choose and set aside their fears. In practice, however, some have had to be convinced there’s no longer a need to save a cherished bit of food in case there is none on offer later.

86 Israelis released during a short-lived truce between their government and Hamas are home.

The attack on 7 October wreaked by Palestinian militants on roughly 20 towns and villages, though, has left many of the children among them without permanent homes to go back to. Some of their parents are dead and others are still held hostage – foreshadowing the difficulty of days ahead.

Step by step, these children, the mothers and grandmothers who were held alongside them, as well as their extended families are testing the ground for a path to recovery. No one, including the physicians and psychologists who have been treating them, is sure how to get there or how long it might take.

It was clear as soon as the youngest were helped from helicopters that captivity had been brutal.

“They looked like shadows of children,” said Dr. Efrat Bron-Harlev of Schneider Children’s Medical Centre in suburban Tel Aviv, who helped treat more than two dozen former captives, most of them youngsters.

Some had not been allowed to bathe during the entirety of their captivity. Many had lost up to 15% of their total weight, but were reluctant to eat the food they were served.

Asked why, the answer came in whispers: “’Because we have to keep it for later.’”

One 13-year-old girl recounted how she’d spent the entirety of captivity believing that her family had abandoned her, a message reinforced by her kidnappers, Bron-Harlev said.

“They told me that nobody cares for you anymore. Nobody’s looking for you. Nobody wants you back. You can hear the bombs all around. All they want to do is kill you and us together,” the girl told her doctors.

After enduring such an experience, “I don’t think it’s something that will leave you,” Dr. Yael Mozer-Glassberg, who treated 19 of the children released explains. “It’s part of your life story from now on.”

In the days since the hostages were freed, nearly all have been released from hospitals and rejoined their families, including some welcomed back by thousands of well-wishers.

Doctors and others charged with treating the former hostages spent weeks preparing for their return. But the realities of caring for so many who endured such extremes has stunned physicians, starting with the reluctance of many children to speak.

“Most of them talk about needing to be very quiet. At all times. Not to stand up. Not to talk. Of course, not to cry. Not to laugh. Just to be very, very quiet,” said Bron-Harlev.

“What these children have gone through is simply unimaginable.”

Despite that, at times now some appear to be thriving.

Noam Avigdori, 12, who was released with her mother, has spent the past week trading jokes with her father, meeting with friends and has even ventured out to a store.

“When I say, ‘Noam, do this, go do that,’ she says, ‘Dad, you know what happened to me.’ And she knows that she can squeeze that lemon and.… she’s enjoying it,” her father, Hen Avigdori, said in an interview.

But there are also nights when his daughter wakes up screaming, he added.

Nearly all those who have been freed have said little publicly about the conditions of their captivity. Their families say officials have told them not to disclose details of their individual treatment, for fear of putting those still being held in further jeopardy.

Interviews with their families, doctors and mental health professionals, as well as statements released by officials and others make clear that while all the hostages suffered, show their experiences in captivity varied significantly.

Some were isolated from their fellow hostages. Others, like Noam Avigdori and her mother, Sharon, were held together with relatives, making it possible for the 12-year-old to act as something like an older sibling to the young cousins who were held with her.

“Everyone who was with a family member or with friends was in much better condition” when they were released, said Dani Lotan, a clinical psychologist at Scheider who treated some of the former hostages.

That varies, though, even within families.

In the weeks they were imprisoned, Danielle Aloni and her 5-year-old daughter, Emilia, established a close friendship with one of the imprisoned Thai farm workers, Nutthawaree Munkan. Last week, after all were released, the girl sang to a delighted Munkan when they were reunited in a video call, reciting the numbers she learned in Thai during captivity.

But Emilia’s cousins, 3-year-old twins, are having a difficult time since their return.

In captivity, Sharon Aloni was held with her husband and one of their twin girls in a small room, together with eight or so others. The couple spent “10 agonising days” believing their other daughter had been killed, when she was snatched away shortly after they were taken into Gaza.

That lasted until the day Sharon insisted to her husband that she could hear the cries of their missing daughter, Emma. Minutes later, a woman appeared without explanation to bring them the child, a joyous reunion that allowed mother and daughters to stay together throughout the remainder of their captivity – but a couple of days before they were released, the girls’ father was taken away and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Now free, the girls wake up crying in the middle of the night, Moran Aloni said. Emma won’t allow anyone to leave her side. They have got used to speaking with volume again, but their mother still whispers.

Many former hostages have recounted being given meagre amounts of food, although rations seemed to vary from group to group with little explanation.

One family told doctors they were each given a biscuit with tea at 10 every morning and, from time to time, a single dried date. At 5pm they were served rice. It wasn’t enough, but day after day of worry left their appetites to wither.

One 15-year-old girl recounted not eating for days so she could give her share of the food to her 8-year-old sister.

Some of the 23 Thai hostages released recently told caregivers they were each given roughly a half litre of water and then had to make it last for three days. Sometimes, they said, it was saltwater.

One group of former captives reported being allowed to bathe just three times over seven weeks with buckets of cold water – but, according to doctors, one child never bathed at all.

The process of recuperation from such prolonged trauma will be slow and piecemeal, doctors say. While the adults may be better able to process what they have experienced compared to the child victims, their recovery poses its own challenges.

Many, particularly the older and infirm, remain weak after losing significant amounts of weight due to the meagre rations provided by their captors. When they speak, their families hear notes of resilience, but also of fragility.

Yaffa Adar, 85, a Holocaust survivor who was seized from her kibbutz and hustled into Gaza on a golf cart, talks at length with her family about her time in captivity. The days since have become more difficult as she grapples with what happened to her and the community she cherished, granddaughter Adva Adar said.

“She’s incredibly mentally strong, but you can see how the hell got into her soul,” the younger Adar said. “It’s in the way she looks at the world, the way she looks at people.”

In the hospitals, doctors, social workers and psychologists were careful about how they talked with the former hostages, not wanting to magnify their trauma.

As they settle in back at home, however, both children and adults are confronting the toll of the October attack that captivity kept hidden from them.

Throughout the seven weeks she was held, Shoshan Haran, her daughters and grandchildren had to wonder what had happened to her husband.

“We had to tell them my father was murdered,” Yuval Haran said.

In the days ahead, experts say the hostages and their families will face questions about how to move forward without those who were killed or remain missing – but for most, it is far too soon.

Source link

#lives #youngest #Israeli #hostages

Israel-Hamas war: UNRWA calls Gaza ‘hell on earth’ as fighting goes on

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas, Israel Hamas war, Palestine, refugee children, The Gaza Strip

The latest developments from the Israel-Hamas war.

Hamas: No hostage will leave Gaza ‘alive’ without ‘negotiations’

Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas’s Qassam Brigades has announced that Israeli captives, taken during the attack on 7 October, will not be released by military force.

“We tell the Israelis that Netanyahu, Gallant, and others in the war cabinet cannot bring back their captives without negotiations. The latest killing of a captive they tried to take back by force proves that,” he said in a pre-recorded video message.

Gaza health ministry: 18,000 Palestinians killed since start of war

The Hamas-led Gaza health ministry has announced that some 18,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war broke out on 7 October.

That number is up from the figure of 17,700 reported yesterday.

The health ministry recorded a further 297 deaths and more than 550 injuries over the past 24 hours.

The ministry also added a total of 49,500 people have been injured since the start of the conflict.

The figures have not been independently verified. Israeli officials repeatedly say they believe the number to be significantly lower, accusing Hamas of inflating estimates.

Thousands of Moroccans take to the streets to denounce Gaza ‘genocide’

Several thousand of Moroccans have taken to the streets of Rabat, demonstrating to denounce a “genocide” in Gaza and demand a break in relations with Israel.

A large crowd marched in the centre of the capital, behind a large banner declaring “against the Holocaust in Gaza” and for “repealing normalisation”.

Since the end of 2020, the kingdom has established all-out relations with Israel in return for the recognition by the United States of Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

Waving Palestinian flags and wearing keffiyehs, demonstrators marched against “war crimes and genocide” in Gaza at the call of the “national action group for Palestine”, bringing together left-wing groups and the Islamist Party of justice and development.

UN: Food ‘used as weapon of war’ in Gaza

UNRWA’s commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini has claimed that, in Gaza, “humanitarian aid has been made conditional. Humanitarian assistance is withheld or delivered according to political and military agendas to which the United Nations is not privy”.

The head of the UN agency providing relief to Palestinian refugees was writing an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times.

He added that “food, water and fuel are being systematically used as weapons of war in Gaza, as is disinformation”.

“Attacking and trying to discredit humanitarian organisations such as [UNRWA] is yet another means of waging war and compromising the humanitarian response, further weakening the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure,” Lazzarini added.

In the article, he also wrote that “humanitarian aid is a strategic dimension of foreign policy and diplomatic competition – an instrument of power and war.  In Gaza, humanitarian assistance is being manipulated to serve political and military objectives, another breach among many in this war”.

Netanyahu expresses ‘dissatisfaction’ to Putin over Russian vote at UN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his “dissatisfaction” to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday after Russia voted in favour of a ceasefire between Palestinian Hamas and Israel in Gaza at the UN Security Council.

“The Prime Minister expressed his dissatisfaction with the anti-Israel positions adopted by Russian delegates at the UN and other forums,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said, following a telephone conversation between the two leaders.

The statement also added that Netanyahu “strongly criticised the dangerous cooperation between Russia and Iran”.

The comments come as Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, says “Hamas attacks do not justify punishment of Palestinian people”.

Saying it is not acceptable for Israel to use Hamas’s attack on 7 October as justification for the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, he added that the offensive “did not happen in a vacuum”.

He also renewed calls for international monitoring on the ground in Gaza.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has blamed the war between Israel and Hamas on the apparent failure of years of US diplomacy in the Middle East on a frequent basis.

Experts say he’s keen to position Russia as an important player within the region.

Guterres deplores UN ‘paralysis’ over Gaza

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has deplored the “paralysis” of the United Nations in the face of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, saying he regretted that the Security Council had not voted in favour of a ceasefire.

Speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar, Guterres said the Security Council was “paralysed by geostrategic divisions”, thus compromising its ability to find solutions to the war.

“The authority and credibility of the Security Council have been seriously compromised” by its late response to the conflict, a damage to its reputation aggravated by the veto opposed Friday by the United States to a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, he said.

The draft resolution was prepared after the UN Secretary General’s unprecedented invocation of Article 99 of the United Nations Charter, allowing him to draw the attention of the Security Council to a matter which “could endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.

“I reiterated my call to declare a humanitarian ceasefire… unfortunately, the Security Council failed to do so,” Guterres said, adding, “I can promise that I will not give up.”

The Americans, the closest allies of Israel, reiterated their hostility to a cease-fire on Friday.

“We are at serious risk of the collapse of the humanitarian system,” Guterres also warned at the Doha forum.

“The situation is rapidly evolving into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for the Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.”

War in Gaza is having ‘catastrophic’ impact on health – WHO boss

The war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas is having a “catastrophic” impact on health, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), has said.

“The impact of the conflict on health is catastrophic” and health workers are “doing their best in unimaginable conditions”, he said, at the opening of a special WHO meeting on sanitary conditions in the Palestinian territories.

Fighting ramps up further still as US lends support

Heavy fighting raged into Sunday in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, as Israel pressed ahead with its offensive after the US blocked the latest international efforts to halt the fighting and rushed more munitions to its close ally.

Israel has faced rising international outrage and calls for a cease-fire after the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians and the displacement of nearly 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people within the besieged territory, where UN agencies say there is no safe place to flee.

The United States has lent vital support to the offensive once again in recent days, by vetoing United Nations Security Council efforts to end the fighting that enjoyed wide international support. They have also pushed through an emergency sale of over $100 million (€93m) worth of tank ammunition to Israel.

The US has pledged unwavering support for Israel’s goal of crushing Hamas’ military and governing abilities in order to prevent any repeat of the 7 October attack that triggered the war.

Israeli forces continue to face heavy resistance, even in northern Gaza, where entire neighbourhoods have been flattened by air strikes and where troops have been operating for over six weeks.

In Khan Younis, where ground forces moved in earlier this month, residents said they heard constant gunfire and explosions through the night as warplanes bombarded areas in and around the southern city, Gaza’s second largest.

Situation in Gaza ‘hell on earth’ – UNRWA chief

Speaking at the Doha Forum currently taking place in Qatar, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has called for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire while decrying the devastating humanitarian toll in Gaza. He also warned that the region is akin to “hell on earth”.

“By any description, it is definitely the worst situation I have ever seen,” Philippe Lazzarini said.

“People are coming to the UN to seek protection, but even the blue flag is not protected anymore. By any account, the situation has reached a catastrophic nature,” he added.

Lazzarini said the world has failed the Palestinian people, also warning that the UNRWA is on the verge of collapse in Gaza..

Nowhere safe for Gazans to go?

Israel ordered the evacuation of the northern third of the territory, including Gaza City, early in the war, but tens of thousands of people are believed to have remained there, fearing that the south would be no safer or that they would never be allowed to return to their homes.

With the war in its third month, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,700, the majority women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying it uses civilians as human shields in dense residential areas. The military says 97 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive. Palestinian militants have also continued firing rockets into Israel.

Israel says it has provided detailed instructions for civilians to evacuate to safer areas, even as it continues to strike what it says are militant targets in all parts of the territory. Thousands have fled to the southern town of Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt in recent days – one of the last areas where aid agencies are able to deliver food and water.

Israel has designated a narrow patch of barren southern coastline, Muwasi, as a safe zone. But Palestinians described desperately overcrowded conditions with scant shelter and no toilets. They faced an overnight temperature of around 11 degrees Celsius (52 degrees Fahrenheit).

Alleged antisemitic attack in New York sees Shtreimel stolen from Jewish man

A neighbourhood watch group – Boro Park Shomrim – in New York city has released footage appearing to show a motorcyclist snatching and stealing a shtreimel hat from a Hasidic man in Brooklyn, a district of New York City.

The group alleged the attack was an antisemitic incident and urge anyone with information to get in touch with the local police force.

Detentions of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers increase

In recent days, videos and photos have emerged showing the detention of dozens of men who were stripped to their underwear, bound and blindfolded. The Israeli military says it is detaining people as it searches for remaining pockets of Hamas fighters.

Israel’s Channel 13 TV broadcast footage showing dozens of detainees stripped to their underwear with their hands in the air. Several held assault rifles above their heads, and one man could be seen slowly walking forward and placing a gun on the ground before returning to the group. Israeli media pointed to such scenes as evidence that Hamas was collapsing in the north.

Men from a separate group of detainees who were released on Saturday told The Associated Press they had been beaten and denied food and water.

Osama Oula said Israeli troops had ordered him and others out of a building in Gaza City before bounding their hands with zip ties, beating them for several days and giving them little water to drink. Ahmad Nimr Salman showed his hands, marked and swollen from the zip ties.

He said the troops asked if they were with Hamas. “We say ‘no,’ then they would slap us or kick us.” He said his 17-year-old son Amjad is still held by the troops.

The group was released after five days and told to walk south. Ten freed detainees arrived at a hospital in Deir al-Balah on Saturday after flagging down an ambulance. The Israeli military had no comment when asked about the alleged abuse.

Source link

#IsraelHamas #war #UNRWA #calls #Gaza #hell #earth #fighting

Israel-Hamas war: Gaza death toll rises as US ceasefire veto condemned

Post By World Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza City, Hamas, Israel, Israel Hamas war, Palestine

The latest developments from the Israel-Hamas war.

Gaza death toll rises to 17,700 with a further 48,780 wounded

The health ministry in Gaza has announced that the death toll in the war-torn region has risen to at least 17,700.

They added that at least another 48,780 people have been wounded in ongoing Israeli attacks.

“The crimes and genocide against the people of Gaza are beyond any description… Ending Palestinian existence with American and European support is inhuman,” the ministry’s spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

UN aid official warns that half of all Gazans are starving

A senior UN aid official has indicated that the food and aid issues are getting significantly worse in Gaza.

Carl Skau, the deputy director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), warned during an interview with Reuters that some nine out of 10 people in the Palestinian territory are not able to eat every day – and added that half the population is starving.

In the interview, Skau explained that nothing had prepared him for the despair, chaos and fear he found when visiting Gaza.

He added that conditions on the ground are making deliveries near impossible and that just a tiny fraction of the food supplies needed are coming into the region.

Tens of thousands take to London’s street to protest war

For the eighth week in a row, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of the UK, protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza in London and other cities in the nation.

Most are chanting ‘ceasefire now’ and the majority of the grounds are angry with the government, moreso still since they abstain from voting at the UN Security Council on an immediate ceasefire.

Hamas hostage killed – Haaretz report

It has been reported that Hamas hostage Sahar Baruch has been killed.

The 25-year-old was among the hostages kidnapped by the Hamas militant group on 7 October.

In a joint statement issued to Haaretz, Kibbutz Be’eri and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said: “It is with great sadness and a broken heart that we announce the murder of Sahar Baruch who was kidnapped from his home by Hamas terrorists to Gaza on Black Saturday and murdered there”

“His brother Idan was murdered by Hamas on 7 October. We share in the unbearable grief of his parents, Tami and Roni, his brother, Guy and Niv, his family and all his loved ones,” they added.

“We will demand the return of his body as part of any hostage return deal. We will not stop until everyone is at home.”

The death comes following Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades announcing on Friday via Telegram that a number of its fighters had discovered a special forces unit mounting a rescue attempt and attacked it.

In the process, they say they killed and wounded several soldiers, including one Israeli soldier – named as Sahar Baruch.

Man arrested at pro-Palestine march in London, accused of racially aggravated public order offence

A man has been arrested in London on suspicion of an apparently racially aggravated public order offence during a pro-Palestine march in the capital city.

London’s Metropolitan police force say the man was carrying a placard which made comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.

Thousands are expected to attend the march in the city. An exclusion zone has been put in place prohibiting any protesters from assembling around the Israeli embassy.

UN veto: Abbas holds US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ in Gaza

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said that he holds the United States “responsible for the bloodshed” in Gaza, after their veto of a UN resolution for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in the Palestinian territory.

The Americans, allies of Israel, reiterated their hostility to a cease-fire on Friday.

Describing the American position as “immoral”, President Abbas said he held Washington “responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip at the hands of Israeli occupying forces.”

According to a statement from his office, the United States is “partners” with Israel in its “crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing and war”, whether committed in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

“This policy is becoming a danger for the world and a threat to international security and peace,” added Mr. Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh had already described the failure at the UN as a “shame” and “a new licence given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy and displace”.

Palestinian death toll rises to 17,487

Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry has announced that the death toll from the start of the conflict on 7 October has risen to 17,487.

In a statement, spokesman Dr Ashraf Al-Qedra said that 70% of those killed were children and women.

Al-Qedra added that in the past 24 hours 71 fatalities had arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Arab-Islamic committee calls on US to step up ceasefire pressure on Israel

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with the Arab-Islamic Summit Ministerial Committee in Washington DC.

Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs says the Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani were also in attendance.

“During the session… members of the ministerial committee stressed their call for the United States to play a broader role in pressuring the Israeli occupation for an immediate ceasefire,” the ministry said in a statement on X – formerly Twitter.

It also added that members of the committee also expressed “their disappointment at the failure of the UN Security Council, for the second time, to vote on a resolution for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip for humanitarian reasons, after the United States used its veto power.”

‘Relentless’ bombardments hit Gaza Strip

Israeli warplanes struck parts of the Gaza Strip overnight into Saturday in relentless bombardments, including some of the dwindling slivers of land Palestinians had been told to evacuate to in the territory’s south.

The latest strikes came a day after the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, despite it being backed by the vast majority of Security Council members and many other nations. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining.

“Attacks from air, land and sea are intense, continuous and widespread,” UN

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said before the vote. Gaza residents “are being told to move like human pinballs – ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival.”

Guterres told the council that Gaza was at “a breaking point” with the humanitarian support system at risk of total collapse, and that he feared “the consequences could be devastating for the security of the entire region.”

In response to the US vetoing the resolution, Hamas branded the nation’s decision ‘inhumane’.

No escape for many Palestinians

Gaza’s borders with Israel and with Egypt are effectively sealed, leaving Palestinians with no option other than to try to seek refuge within the territory.

The overall death toll in Gaza since the start of the war has surpassed 17,400, the majority of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, accusing the militants of using civilians as human shields, and says it’s made considerable efforts with its evacuation orders to get civilians out of harm’s way.

On Saturday, Gaza residents reported airstrikes and shelling in the northern part of the strip as well as in the south, including the city of Rafah, which lies near the Egyptian border and where the Israeli army had ordered civilians to evacuate to.

The main hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah received the bodies of 71 people killed in bombings in the area over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said Saturday morning. The hospital also received 160 wounded, the ministry said. In the southern city of Khan Younis, the bodies of 62 people and another 99 wounded were taken to Nasser Hospital over the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

Why has there been no ceasefire – or renewed truce agreement?

More than 2,200 Palestinians have been killed since the collapse of the truce on 1 December.

About two-thirds of that number were women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Despite growing international pressure, the Biden administration remains opposed to an open-ended cease-fire, arguing it would enable Hamas to survive and pose a threat to Israel.

Officials have expressed misgivings in recent days about the rising civilian death toll and dire humanitarian crisis, but have not pushed publicly for Israel to wind down the war, now in its third month.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has argued a cease-fire would be a victory for Hamas. “A cease-fire is handing a prize to Hamas, dismissing the hostages held in Gaza, and signalling terror groups everywhere,” he said.

As fighting resumed after a brief truce more than a week ago, the US urged Israel to do more to protect civilians and allow more aid to besieged Gaza. The appeals came as Israel expanded its blistering air and ground campaign into southern Gaza, especially the southern city of Khan Younis, sending tens of thousands more fleeing.

Airstrikes were reported overnight in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where resident Omar Abu Moghazi said a strike hit a family home, causing casualties.

There were also airstrikes and shelling in Gaza City and other northern parts of the strip.

Source link

#IsraelHamas #war #Gaza #death #toll #rises #ceasefire #veto #condemned

Cart