Tag: israel gaza conflict

Hamas says studying new Israeli truce proposal, puts out new hostage video

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Hamas said on April 27 it was studying Israel’s latest counterproposal for a Gaza ceasefire, a day after media reports said a delegation from mediator Egypt was in Israel trying to jump-start stalled negotiations.

The armed wing of Hamas also released video footage of two men held hostage in Gaza, identified by Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum as Keith Siegel and Omri Miran.

Also read | The war on Gaza and America’s paradoxical role

The signs of fresh truce talks come after the United Nations warned that “famine thresholds in Gaza will be breached within the next six weeks” unless massive food assistance arrives.

Aid groups say Gaza’s already catastrophic humanitarian conditions would be worsened by Israel’s vow to attack Hamas fighters still in Rafah city in southernmost Gaza.

Rafah, on the border with Egypt, is crowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly seven months of war between Israel and the Islamist movement.

“We live in constant terror and fear of repeated displacement and invasion,” Nidaa Safi, 30, who fled Israeli strikes in the north and came to Rafah with her husband and children, told AFP.

The area comes under regular bombardment. Hospital officials said strikes in Rafah and elsewhere killed more than a dozen people overnight.

Among the dead were an entire family, their relative Mohammed Yussef said.

“Nobody left: the father, the mother, a girl and two boys” were killed when their house was targeted, he said.

Daily deaths

Khalil al-Hayya, deputy head of Hamas’s political arm in Gaza, said it had “received the official Zionist occupation response to the movement’s position, which was delivered to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13”.

In a statement, Hayya said Hamas “will study this proposal” before responding.

The movement has previously insisted on a permanent ceasefire, which Israel rejects.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been unsuccessfully trying to seal a new Gaza truce deal ever since a one-week halt to the fighting in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian intelligence services, reported “noticeable progress in bringing the views of the Egyptian and Israeli delegations closer”.

In early April, Hamas had said it was studying a proposal, after talks in Cairo, and Al-Qahera reported progress. Days later Israel and Hamas accused each other of undermining negotiations.

Dozens are dying in Gaza every day, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

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

Summit in Saudi

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,388 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, the health ministry said Saturday.

Israel estimates that 129 hostages seized by militants on October 7 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

Israeli demonstrators have intensified protests for their government to reach a deal that would free the captives, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

The latest hostage video comes just three days after Hamas released another video showing hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin alive.

Both Mr. Siegel and Mr. Miran appeared to speak under duress in the video.

“It’s time to reach a deal that will get us out of here safe and healthy… Keep protesting, so that there will be a deal now,” Miran said in the footage that appeared to have been recorded earlier this week.

U.S. citizen Siegel (64) broke down as he talked of their captivity. “We are in danger here, there are bombs, it is stressful and scary,” he said.

In its report on Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said “the only way to halt famine” is by “massive and consistent food assistance that can be delivered freely and safely”.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said this month that Israel planned to “flood Gaza” with aid, but the OCHA report cited continued “access constraints”.

A special meeting of the World Economic Forum set to begin Sunday in Saudi Arabia will have a strong focus on the war, including the humanitarian situation, organisers said.

A Royal Navy support ship has sailed from Cyprus to house hundreds of US army personnel building a jetty for aid sent by sea, a British defence source said.

Israeli Army spokesman Major Nadav Shoshani told a press briefing the military hoped the pier would be ready by early May.

Cyprus said the aid-laden Jennifer — which had previously returned after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers in Gaza — is now sailing back to the territory.

In Turkey, however, a “Freedom Flotilla” aimed at delivering aid was blocked after being denied use of two ships flying the Guinea-Bissau flag, with organisers blaming Israeli pressure on the West African nation.

Lebanon, West Bank deaths

The Gaza war has led to increased violence between Israel and Iran’s proxies and allies, in particular Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed three people on Saturday, including two members of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah said it fired “drones and guided missiles” at a base in northern Israel in response.

Israel’s military said its Iron Dome air defence system intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” and that fire was returned at the source of several anti-tank missiles launched from Lebanon.

Since October 7, more than 250 Hezbollah fighters and dozens of civilians have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Violence has also soared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians near the city of Jenin on Saturday, the army and Palestinian media reported.

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U.S., Britain strike Yemen’s Houthis in a new wave, retaliating for attacks by Iran-backed militants

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The United States and Britain struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on February 3 in a second wave of assaults meant to further disable Iran-backed groups that have relentlessly attacked American and international interests in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

The latest strikes against the Houthis were launched by warships and fighter jets. The strikes follow an air assault in Iraq and Syria on Feb. 2 that targeted other Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.

The Houthi targets were in 13 different locations and were struck by U.S. F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier and by the USS Gravely and the USS Carney Navy destroyers firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, the U.S. officials told The Associated Press. They were not authorised to publicly discuss the military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. warned that its response after the soldiers’ deaths at the Tower 22 base in Jordan last Sunday would not be limited to one night, one target or one group. But the Houthis have been conducting almost daily missile or drone attacks against commercial and military ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and they have made clear that they have no intention of scaling back their campaign. It was not immediately clear whether the allied assaults will deter them.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the military action, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, “sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels”.

A person holds a weapon as people rally to show support to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Sanaa, Yemen on February 2, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

He added, “We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways.”

The Defence Department said the strikes targeted sites associated with the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems and radars.

Saturday’s strikes marked the third time the U.S. and Britain had conducted a large joint operation to strike Houthi weapon launchers, radar sites and drones. The strikes in Yemen are meant to underscore the broader message to Iran that Washington holds Tehran responsible for arming, funding and training the array of militias behind attacks across the Mideast against U.S. and international interests over the past several months, including in Iraq and Syria by the rebels in Yemen.

Video shared online by people in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, included the sound of explosions and at least one blast was seen lighting up the night sky. Residents described the blasts as happening around buildings associated with the Yemeni presidential compound. The Houthi-controlled state-run news agency, SABA, reported strikes in al-Bayda, Dhamar, Hajjah, Hodeida, Taiz and Sanaa provinces

On Feb. 2 the U.S. destroyer Laboon and F/A-18s from the Eisenhower shot down seven drones fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the Red Sea, the destroyer Carney shot down a drone fired in the Gulf of Aden and U.S. forces took out four more drones that were prepared to launch.

Hours before the latest joint operation, the U.S. took another self-defence strike on a site in Yemen, destroying six anti-ship cruise missiles, as it has repeatedly when it has detected a missile or drone ready to launch.

The Houthis’ attacks have led shipping companies to reroute their vessels from the Red sea, sending them around Africa through the Cape of Good Hope — a much longer, costlier and less efficient passage. The threats also have led the U.S. and its allies to set up a joint mission where warships from participating nations provide a protective umbrella of air defense for ships as they travel the critical waterway that runs from the Suez Canal down to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Houthi supporters dance during a rally to show support to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Sanaa, Yemen qon February 2, 2024.

Houthi supporters dance during a rally to show support to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Sanaa, Yemen qon February 2, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

During normal operations about 400 commercial vessels transit the southern Red Sea at any given time.

The U.S. has blamed the Jordan attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias. Iran has tried to distance itself from the drone strike, saying the militias act independently of its direction.

Hussein al-Mosawi, spokesperson for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, condemned the earlier U.S. strike in Iraq and said Washington “must understand that every action elicits a reaction”. But in the AP interview in Baghdad, he also struck a more conciliatory tone. “We do not wish to escalate or widen regional tensions,” he said.

Mosawi said the targeted sites in Iraq were mainly “devoid of fighters and military personnel at the time of the attack.”

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that 23 people, all rank-and-file fighters, were killed. Iraqi government spokesperson Bassim al-Awadi said in a statement 16 people, including civilians, were killed and there was “significant damage” to homes and private properties.

The U.S. said it had informed Iraq about the operation before it started.

A U.S. official said an initial battle damage assessment showed the U.S. had struck each of its planned targets in addition to a few “dynamic targets” that popped up as the mission unfolded, including a surface-to-air missile site and drone launch sites. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that were not yet public, did not have a casualty assessment.

The Iraqi government has been in a delicate position since a group of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias calling itself Islamic Resistance in Iraq began launching attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria on Oct. 18. The group described the strikes as retaliation for Washington’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza.

Behind the scenes, Iraqi officials have attempted to rein in the militias, while also condemning U.S. retaliatory strikes as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and calling for an exit of the 2,500 U.S. troops who are in the country as part of an international coalition to fight IS. Last month, Iraqi and U.S. military officials launched formal talks to wind down the coalition’s presence, a process that will likely take years.

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U.S. hits hard at militias in Iraq and Syria, retaliating for fatal drone attack

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The U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on February 2, in the opening salvo of retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.

The massive barrage of strikes hit more than 85 targets at seven locations, including command and control headquarters, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, drone and ammunition storage sites and other facilities that were connected to the militias or the IRGC’s Quds Force, the Guard’s expeditionary unit that handles Tehran’s relationship with and arming of regional militias. And President Joe Biden made it clear in a statement that there will be more to come.

The U.S. strikes appeared to stop short of directly targeting Iran or senior leaders of the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force within its borders, as the U.S. tries to prevent the conflict from escalating even further. Iran has denied it was behind the Jordan attack.

It was unclear what the impact will be of the strikes. Days of U.S. warnings may have sent militia members scattering into hiding. With multiple groups operating at various locations in several countries, a knockout blow is unlikely.

Though one of the main Iran-backed militias, Kataib Hezbollah, said it was suspending attacks on American troops, others have vowed to continue fighting, casting themselves as champions of the Palestinian cause while the war in Gaza shows no sign of ending.

“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” Biden warned, adding, “let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.” He and other top U.S. leaders had been saying for days that any American response wouldn’t be just one hit but a “tiered response” over time.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the targets “were carefully selected to avoid civilian casualties and based on clear, irrefutable evidence that they were connected to attacks on U.S. personnel in the region.” He declined to detail what that evidence was.

The strikes took place over about 30 minutes, and three of the sites struck were in Iraq and four were in Syria, said Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of the Joint Staff.

U.S. Central Command said the assault involved more than 125 precision munitions, and they were delivered by numerous aircraft, including long-range B-1 bombers flown from the United States. Sims said weather was a factor as the U.S. planned the strikes in order to allow the U.S. to confirm it was hitting the right targets and avoiding civilian casualties.

It’s not clear, however, whether militia members were killed.

“We know that there are militants that use these locations, IRGC as well as Iranian-aligned militia group personnel,” Sims said. “We made these strikes tonight with an idea that there there would likely be casualties associated with people inside those facilities.”

Syrian state media reported that there were casualties but did not give a number. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 18 militants were killed in the Syria strikes.

Iraqi army spokesman Yahya Rasool said in a statement that the city of al-Qaim and areas along the country’s border with Syria had been hit by U.S. airstrikes. The strikes, he said, “constitute a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government, posing a threat that will pull Iraq and the region to undesirable consequences.”

Kirby said that the U.S. alerted the Iraqi government prior to carrying out the strikes.

The assault came came just hours after Biden and top defense leaders joined grieving families to watch as the remains of the three Army Reserve soldiers were returned to the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Just Friday morning, Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated earlier promises by Tehran to potentially retaliate for any U.S. strikes targeting its interests. We “will not start a war, but if a country, if a cruel force wants to bully us, the Islamic Republic of Iran will give a strong response,” Raisi said.

In a statement this week, Kataib Hezbollah announced “the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government.” But that assertion clearly had no impact on U.S. strike plans. Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the other major Iran-backed groups, vowed Friday to continue military operations against U.S. troops.

The U.S. has blamed the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a broad coalition of Iran-backed militias, for the attack in Jordan, but hasn’t narrowed it down to a specific group. Kataib Hezbollah is, however, a top suspect.

Some of the militias have been a threat to U.S. bases for years, but the groups intensified their assaults in the wake of Israel’s war with Hamas following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. The war has led to the deaths of more than 27,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and has inflamed the Middle East.

Iran-backed militia groups throughout the region have used the conflict to justify striking Israeli or U.S. interests, including threatening civilian commercial ships and U.S. warships in the Red Sea region with drones or missiles in almost daily exchanges.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said “this is a dangerous moment in the Middle East.” He said the U.S. will take all necessary actions to defend its interests and people, and warned, “At this point, it’s time to take away even more capability than we’ve taken in the past.”

As of Tuesday, Iran-backed militia groups had launched 166 attacks on U.S. military installations since Oct. 18, including 67 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and now one in Jordan, according to a U.S. military official. The last attack was Jan. 29 at al-Asad airbase in Iraq, and there were no injuries or damage.

The U.S., meanwhile, has bolstered defenses at Tower 22, the base in Jordan that was attacked by Iran-backed militants on Sunday, according to a U.S. official. While previous U.S. responses in Iraq and Syria have been more limited, the deaths of the three service members in Jordan crossed a line, the official said.

That attack, which also injured more than 40 service members — largely Army National Guard — was the first to result in U.S. combat deaths from the Iran-backed militias since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out. Tower 22 houses about 350 U.S. troops and sits near the demilitarized zone on the border between Jordan and Syria. The Iraqi border is only 6 miles (10 kilometers) away.

Also Friday, the Israeli military said its Arrow defense system intercepted a missile that approached the country from the Red Sea, raising suspicion it was launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The rebels did not immediately claim responsibility.

And a U.S. official said the military had taken additional self-defense strikes inside Yemen Friday against Houthi military targets deemed an imminent threat. Al-Masirah, a Houthi-run satellite news channel, said British and American forces conducted three strikes in the northern Yemeni province of Hajjah, a Houthi stronghold.

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Airstrikes hit camps in central Gaza as Biden administration approves new weapons sales to Israel

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Israeli warplanes struck two urban refugee camps in central Gaza on Saturday, as the Biden administration approved a new emergency weapons sale to Israel despite persistent international cease-fire calls over mounting civilian deaths, hunger and mass displacement in the enclave.

Israel says it is determined to pursue its unprecedented air and ground offensive until it has dismantled Hamas, a goal viewed by some as unattainable because of the militant group’s deep roots in Palestinian society. The United States has shielded Israel diplomatically and has continued to supply weapons.

Israel argues that ending the war now would mean victory for Hamas, a stance shared by the Biden administration which at the same time urged Israel to do more to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians.

The war, triggered by the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, has displaced some 85% of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents, sending swells of people seeking shelter in Israeli-designated safe areas that the military has nevertheless also bombed. That has left Palestinians with a harrowing sense that nowhere is safe in the tiny enclave.

Residents in the urban refugee camps of Nuseirat and Bureij, two recent hot spots of combat, reported Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday.

Nuseirat resident Mustafa Abu Wawee said a strike hit the home of one of his relatives, killing two people.

“The (Israeli) occupation is doing everything to force people to leave,” he said over the phone while searching along with others for four people missing under the rubble. “They want to break our spirit and will but they will fail. We are here to stay.”

A second strike late Friday in Nuseirat targeted the home of a journalist for Al-Quds TV, a channel linked to the group Islamic Jihad whose militants also participated in the Oct. 7 attack. The channel said the journalist, Jaber Abu Hadros and six members of his family were killed.

Bureij resident Rami Abu Mosab said sounds of gunfire echoed across the camp overnight, followed by heavy airstrikes Saturday.

With Israeli forces pushing deeper into Khan Younis and the camps of central Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into the already crowded city of Rafah at the southernmost end of Gaza in recent days.

Drone footage showed a vast camp of thousands of tents and makeshift shacks set up on what had been empty land on Rafah’s western outskirts next to U.N. warehouses. People arrived in Rafah in trucks, in carts and on foot. Those who did not find space in the already overwhelmed shelters put up tents on roadsides slick with mud from winter rains.

More US weapons for Israel

The State Department said Friday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress he approved a $147.5 million sale for equipment, including fuses, charges and primers, that is needed for 155 mm shells Israel bought previously.

It marked the second time this month that the Biden administration is bypassing Congress to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel.

The department cited the “urgency of Israel’s defensive needs” as a reason for the approval, and argued that “it is vital to U.S. national interests to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against the threats it faces.” The emergency determination means the purchase will bypass the congressional review requirement for foreign military sales. Such determinations are rare, but not unprecedented, when administrations see an urgent need for weapons to be delivered without waiting for lawmakers’ approval.

Mr. Blinken made a similar decision on December 9 to approve the sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than USD 106 million.

Both moves have come as President Joe Biden’s request for a nearly USD 106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs remains stalled in Congress, caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security. Some Democratic lawmakers have spoken of making the proposed USD 14.3 billion in American assistance to its Mideast ally contingent on concrete steps by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza during the war with Hamas.

Disease and Hunger are spreading

More than a week after a U.N. Security Council resolution called for the unhindered delivery of aid at scale across besieged Gaza, conditions have only worsened, U.N. agencies warned.

Aid officials said the aid entering Gaza remains woefully inadequate. Distributing goods is hampered by long delays at two border crossings, ongoing fighting, Israeli airstrikes, repeated cuts in internet and phone services and a breakdown of law and order that makes it difficult to secure aid convoys, they said.

Nearly the entire population is fully dependent on outside humanitarian aid, said Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. A quarter of the population is starving because too few trucks enter with food, medicine, fuel and other supplies — sometimes fewer than 100 trucks a day, according to U.N. daily reports.

U.N. monitors said operations at the Israeli-run Kerem Shalom crossing halted for four days this week because of security incidents, such as a drone strike and the seizing of aid by desperate Gaza residents.

They said the crossing reopened Friday, and that a total of 81 aid trucks entered Gaza through Kerem Shalom and the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border — a fraction of the typical prewar volume of 500 trucks a day.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization warned that the spread of disease is accelerating, particularly in southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands have crammed into an ever-shrinking area to flee airstrikes and advancing Israeli ground forces. The agency reported more cases of upper respiratory infections, diarrhea, lice, scabies, chickenpox, skin rashes and meningitis.

Rising Death Toll

The war has already killed over 21,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian deaths and injuries, saying the militants embed themselves within civilian infrastructure.

Israeli officials, meanwhile, have vowed to bring back more than 100 hostages still held by the militants after their Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war. The assault killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

The military says 168 of its soldiers have been killed since the ground offensive began.

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Yearender 2023 | 5 big tests for global diplomacy

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Let’s start with this week, and the end of the CoP 28, Climate Change summit held in Dubai, ended with a final document called the UAE consensus that agreed to a number of actions

The big takeaways: 

  1. Transition away from fossil fuel- oil, coal and gas in energy production, but no phase-out 
    Tripling of renewables by 2030 
  2. Methane: Accelerating and substantially reducing non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally, including in particular methane emissions by 2030 
  3. NetZero by 2050- this is meant to push India that has put 2070 as its netzero date, and China by 2060, to earlier dates 
  4. Loss and Damage fund adopted with about $750 million committed by Developed countries- most notably UAE, France, Germany, and Italy towards the fund set up during CoP28  

However, critics described the final document as “weak tea”, “watered down” and a “litany of loopholes”, and some criticised the UAE COP president directly for not ensuring stronger language against fossil fuels 

Where is the world ? 

1. Of the P-5- Leaders of US and China skipped the summit, Russian President Putin flew into Abu Dhabi with much fanfare, but didn’t go to CoP, and signed a number of energy deals. Leaders of UK and France attended CoP28

2. Small Island States and Climate vulnerable countries that bear the brunt of global warming were the most critical

Where is India? 

  1. India spoke essentially for the developing world, that does not want to commit to ending fossil fuel use that would slow its growth- and pushed for terms like phase-out and coal-powered plants to be cut out of the text.
  2. India has some pride in the fact that it has exceeded goals for its NDCs, and now is updating them- but is making it clear that it isn’t part of the global problem- contributing very little to emissions, and it won’t be pushed into being the solution 
  3. India is not prepared to bring forward targets for Net Zero or for ending coal use 
  4. PM Modi has now pitched to host CoP33 in 2028 

Let’s turn to the 2nd and 3rd big challenges to global diplomacy- and they came from conflict. 

2. Russian war in Ukraine:

The war in Ukraine is heading to its 2 year mark 

  • In a 4-hour long Press Conference this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear the war in Ukraine will not end until Russian goals are met- of demilitarization and “denazification” of Ukraine- certainly looking more confident about the way the war is moving 
  • The OHCHR estimates civilian casualties in Ukraine since February 2022, including in territory now controlled by Ukraine, and Russia is more than 40,000, with conflicting figures that total 500,000 military casualties- which are contested 
  • As aid begins to dwindle to its lowest point since February 2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been travelling to the US, trying to raise support for more funds and arms 

How is the world faring? 

  1. The UN Security Council is frozen over the issue, with Russia vetoing any resolutions against it. 
  2. On the One Year anniversary of the Russian invasion the UNGA passed a resolution calling on Russia to “leave Ukraine”- 141 countries in favour, 32 abstentions including India, and 7 against 
  3. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Putin, however, no country Mr. Putin has visited, including China, Central Asia, UAE, Saudi Arabia etc have enforced it 
  4. After a near breakdown in talks at the G20 in Delhi, India was able to forge a consensus document that brought the world together for a brief moment- the document didn’t criticize Russia but called for peace in Ukraine, something Kiev said it was disappointed by 

India: 

  1. India has continued to abstain at the UN, no criticism of Russia, and continued to buy increasing amounts of Russia oil that have increased a whopping 2,200% since the war began 
  2. India has also continued its weapons imports from Russia, although many shipments have been delayed due to Russian production and the payment mechanism problem 
  3. However, India has clearly reduced its engagement with Moscow- PM Modi will be skipping the annual India-Russia for the 2nd year now, and India dropped plans to host the SCO summit in person, making it virtual instead 

3. October 7 attacks and Israel Bombing of Gaza  

2023 is now known as the year of 2 conflicts- with many questioning whether the US can continue to funding its allies on both. 

-The current turn of the conflict began on October 7, as the Hamas group carried out a number of coordinated terror strikes in Israeli settlements along the border with Gaza- brutally killing 1,200, taking 240 hostages, with allegations of beheading and rape against the Hamas terrorists. 

– Israel’s retaliation, pounding Gaza residents for more than 2 months in an effort to finish Hamas and rescue the hostages has been devastating- with 29,000 munitions dropped, more than 18,000 killed, more than 7,000 of them children and as every kind of infrastructure in North and South is being flattened, more than 1.8 million people, 80% of the population is homeless 

Where is the world? 

– The UNSC is again paralysed, with the US vetoing every resolution against Israel 

– The UNGA has passed 2 resolutions with overwhelming support in October 120 countries, or 2/3rds present voted in favour of a ceasefire, in December 153 countries, 4/5ths of those present voted in favour, with severe criticism of Israel’s actions 

– Several countries have withdrawn their diplomats from Tel Aviv, but Arab states who have held several conferences have not so far cut off their ties with Israel 

– Netanyahu has rejected the UN calls, said the bombing wont stop until Hamas is eliminated 

– The global south has voted almost as a bloc, criticizing Israel for its disproportionate response and indiscriminate bombing 

Where is India? 

  1. When the October 7 attacks took place, India seemed to change its stance, issuing strong statements on terrorism, calling for a zero tolerance approach. In UNGA vote in September ,India abstained, a major shift from its past policy 
  2. However, as the death toll from Israel’s bombardment has risen, and the global mood has shifted, India moved closer to its original position, expressing concern for Palestinian victims and sending aid, and then this week, voting for the UNGA resolution, which marked the first time India has called for a ceasefire. 
  3. The shifts and hedging in position has left India without a leadership role in the conflict, away from both the global south and South Asia itself 

4. Afghanistan – Taliban and Women 

  • This is an area where the world has scored a big F for failure. 2 and a half years after the Taliban took over Kabul, there is little hope for loosening its grip on the country. 
  • The interim government of the Taliban, which includes many members on the UN terrorist lists remains in place, and no women with no talks about an inclusive or democratic, more representative government taking place 
    With the economy in shambles, sanctions in place and aid depleted, 15 million Afghans face acute food insecurity, and nearly 3 million people face severe malnourishment or starvation. An earthquake this year compounded problems Adding to the misery, 500,000 Afghan refugees have been sent back from Pakistan, and they lack food clothing or shelter. 
  • Girls are not allowed to go to school in most parts of the country, female students can’t pursue higher studies, and women are not allowed to hold most jobs, or use public places, parks, gyms etc 
  • While the UN doesn’t recognize the Taliban, nearly 20 countries, including India now run embassies in Kabul, and most countries treat the Taliban as the official regime 
  • No country today supports or gives more than lip service to the armed resistance or even democratic exiles in different parts of the world 

Where is India? 

  • India has reopened its mission in Kabul and as of last month, the Embassy of the old democratic regime in Delhi was forced to shut down due to lack of funds and staff- it has now been reopened by Afghan consuls in Mumbai and Hyderabad, who engage the Taliban regime, although they still bear the old democratic regime’s flag. 
  • India has sent food and material aid to Afghanistan- first through Pakistan, and then via Chabahar, and Indian officials regularly engage the Taliban leadership in Kabul 
  • Unlike its policy from 1996-01 towards the Taliban, India has not taken any Afghan refugees, rejected visas for students, businesspersons and even spouses of Indian citizens 
  • India does not support the armed resistance or any democratic exiles, and is not taking a leadership role on the crisis, yielding space to China and Russia instead 

5. Artificial Intelligence 

Finally to the global diplomacy challenge the world is just waking up to- AI 

  • For the past few decades, military powers have been developing AI to use in robotic warfare and more and more sophisticated drone technology as well as other areas
  •  Industry has also worked for long on different AI applications in machine intelligence from communication, r&d, to machine manufacture and 
  • However, the use of AI in information warfare has now become a cause for concerns about everything from job losses to cyber-attacks and the control that humans actually have over the systems and the world is looking for ways to find common ground on regulating it 
  • Last month the UK hosted the first Global AI summit- with PM Rishi Sunak bringing in US VP Harris, EU Chief Von Der Leyen and UNSG chief Guterres and others to look at ways –countries agreed on an AI panel resembling the Inter
  • Governmental Panel on Climate Change to chart the course for the world 
  • India hosted this year’s version of the Global Partnership on AI session in Delhi this month, comprising 28 countries and EU that look at “trustworthy development, deployment, and use of AI” – also at the Modi-Biden meeting in Washington this year, India and the US have embarked upon a whole new tech partnership 

Clearly the AI problem and its potential is a work in progress, and we hope to do a full show on geopolitical developments in AI when we return with WorldView next year. 

WV Take: What’s WV take on the year gone by? Simply put, this has been a year that has seen global consensus and global action weaker than ever before. As anti-globalisation forces turn countries more protectionist and anti-immigration, as less countries are willing to follow the international rule of law, humanitarian principles, the entire system of global governance has gone into decline. India’s path into such a future is three fold- to strengthen the global commons as much as possible, to seek global consensus on futuristic challenges and to understand the necessity for smaller, regional groupings for both security and prosperity alternatives. 

WV Yearender Reading recommendations: 

  1. India’s Moment: Changing Power Equations around The World by Mohan Kumar, former diplomat, now an academic and economic expert- this is an easy read that will make a lot of sense 
  2. Unequal: Why India Lags Behind its Neighbours- by Swati Narayan. This is a startling work of research, with a compelling argument on the need to pay more attention to Human Development Indices 
  3. India’s National Security Challenges: Edited by NN Vohra, with some superb essays on the need for a national security policy and defence reforms 
  4. The Age of AI: And Our Human Future by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher 
    Conflict: A Military History of the Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine by Andrew Roberts and Retd Gen David Petraeus 
  5.  The Power of Geography: Ten Maps that Reveal the Future of Our World by Tim Marshall and Future of Geography : How Power and Politics in Space will Change Our World

Script and Presentation: Suhasini Haidar

Production: Kanishkaa Balachandran & Gayatri Menon

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Israel presses on with Gaza bombardments, including in areas where it told civilians to flee

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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 U.S. 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,” U.N. 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.”

Mr. 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.”

Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt are effectively sealed, leaving Palestinians with no option other than to seek refuge within the territory. The overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,400, the majority of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory, whose counts do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

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. It has said 93 Israeli soldiers have died since the ground offensive began.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said its forces fought and killed Hamas militants and found weapons inside a school in Shijaiyah in a densely populated neighbourhood of Gaza City. It said soldiers discovered a tunnel shaft in the same neighbourhood where they found an elevator, and in a separate incident, militants shot at troops from an UN-run school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun. Hamas said on Saturday it had continued its rocket fire into Israel.

Residents reported airstrikes and shelling in Gaza’s north and south, including the city of Rafah, which lies near the Egyptian border and where the Israeli army had ordered civilians to move to.

Two hospitals in central and southern Gaza received the bodies of a total of 133 people from Israeli bombings over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said.

Israel has been trying to secure the military’s hold on northern Gaza, where furious fighting has underscored heavy resistance from Hamas. Tens of thousands of residents are believed to remain despite evacuation orders, six weeks after troops and tanks rolled in during the war sparked by Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 raid targeting civilians in Israel.

About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas raid, and more than 240 taken hostage. A temporary truce saw hostages and Palestinian prisoners released, but more than 130 hostages are believed to remain in Gaza.

On Saturday, a kibbutz that had come under attack on Oct. 7 announced that 25-year-old hostage Sahar Baruch had died in captivity. His captors said Baruch was killed during a failed rescue mission by Israeli forces early Friday. The Israeli military has only confirmed that two soldiers were seriously wounded in an attempted hostage rescue and that no hostages were freed.

More than 2,200 Palestinians have been killed since the Dec. 1 collapse of the truce, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

With only a trickle of humanitarian aid getting into just a few parts of the Gaza Strip, residents were reporting severe food shortages.

“I am very hungry,” said Mustafa al-Najjar, sheltering in a U.N.-run school in the devastated Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. “We are living on canned food and biscuits and this is not sufficient.”

While the adults can cope with the hunger, “it’s extremely difficult and painful when you see your young son or daughter crying because there are hungry and you are not able to do anything,” he said.

Despite growing international pressure, the Biden administration remains opposed to an open-ended cease-fire, arguing it would enable Hamas to continue posing 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.

“We have not given a firm deadline to Israel, not really our role,” deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told a security forum a day before the U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council. “That said, we do have influence, even if we don’t have ultimate control over what happens on the ground in Gaza.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant argued that “a cease-fire is handing a prize to Hamas, dismissing the hostages held in Gaza, and signalling terror groups everywhere.”

A delegation of foreign ministers from mainly Arab nations and Turkey was in Washington to push the U.S. to drop its objections to an immediate cease-fire. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Friday ahead of a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel’s bombardment and siege of Gaza is a war crime that is destabilising the region.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the U.S. veto showed Washington’s isolation.

“The American political system is now helpless on issues related to Israel. Therefore, Israel acts recklessly on this issue and continues its oppression.,” Mr. Fidan told Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu and broadcaster TRT.

Mr. Fidan and the Palestinian, Saudi, Indonesian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Qatari and Nigerian Ministers met with Mr. Blinken to press for an end to the fighting, while the group is to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Melanie Joly on Saturday.

As fighting resumed after a brief truce more than a week ago, the U.S. 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 Khan Younis, sending tens of thousands more fleeing.

“It was a night of heavy gunfire and shelling as every night,” Taha Abdel-Rahman, a Khan Younis resident, said by phone early Saturday.

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

Israel has designated a narrow patch of barren coastline in the south, Muwasi, as a safe zone. But Palestinians who have headed there portrayed a grim picture of desperately overcrowded conditions with scant shelter and poor hygiene facilities.

“We didn’t see anything good here at all. We are living here in a tough cold. There are no bathrooms. We are sleeping on the sand,” said Soad Qarmoot, who was forced to leave her home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

“I am a cancer patient,” Qarmoot said late Friday as children circled a wood fire for warmth. “There is no mattress for me to sleep on. I am sleeping on the sand. It’s freezing.”

Imad al-Talateeny, a displaced man from Gaza City, said the area lacks basic services to accommodate the growing number of displaced families.

“I lack everything to feel a human,” he said, adding that he had a peaceful, comfortable life before the war in Gaza City. “Here I’m not safe. Here I live in a desert. There is no gas, no water. The water that we drink is polluted water.”

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Blinken wraps up frantic Mideast tour with tepid, if any, support for pauses in Gaza fighting

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a gruelling Middle East diplomatic tour on Monday in Turkey after only limited success in efforts to forge a regional consensus on how best to ease civilian suffering in Gaza as Israel intensifies its war against Hamas.

In the Turkish capital of Ankara, Mr. Blinken met with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan following a frantic weekend of travel that took him from Israel to Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq, to build support for the Biden administration’s proposal for “humanitarian pauses” to Israel’s relentless military campaign in Gaza.

“All of this is a work in progress,” Mr. Blinken said before leaving Turkey. “We don’t obviously agree on everything, but there are common views on some of the imperatives of the moment that we’re working on together.”

Mr. Blinken’s shuttle diplomacy came as Israeli troops surrounded Gaza City and cut off the northern part of the besieged Hamas-ruled territory. Troops are expected to enter the city Monday or Tuesday, and are likely to face militants fighting street by street using a vast network of tunnels. Casualties will likely rise on both sides in the month-old war, which has already killed more than 9,700 Palestinians.

The top U.S. diplomat hopes that pauses in the war would allow for a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of hostages captured by Hamas during the militants’ deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians — while also preventing the conflict from spreading regionally.

“We’ve engaged the Israelis on steps that they can take to minimise civilian casualties,” Mr. Blinken said before leaving Ankara. “We’re working, as I said, very aggressively on getting more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”

“We are very focused on the hostages held by Hamas, including the Americans, and we are doing everything possible to bring them home,” he added.

Mr. Blinken did not meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has been highly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an outlier among NATO allies in not expressing full support for Israel’s right to defend itself.

As the Blinken-Fidan meeting got underway, dozens of protesters from an Islamist group waved Turkish and Palestinian flags and held up anti-U.S. and anti-Israel placards outside the Foreign Ministry. Police earlier in the day dispersed a group of students marching toward the ministry chanting “murderer Blinken, get out of Turkey!”

Also Monday, about 150 people rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, carrying a large banner that read: “No to genocide!”

It was the second day of protests denouncing Blinken’s visit. On Sunday, pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with Turkish riot police outside the U.S.-Turkish Incirlik military air base in the southern city of Adana. Police fired tear gas and water cannon as the demonstrators tried to cross fields to enter the base.

Mr. Blinken’s mission, his second to the region since the war began, has found only tepid, if any, support for his efforts to contain the fallout from the conflict. Israel has rejected the idea of pauses while Arab and Muslim nations are instead demanding an immediate cease-fire as the casualty toll soars among Palestinian civilians under Israeli bombardments of Gaza.

U.S. officials are seeking to convince Israel of the strategic importance of respecting the laws of war by protecting non-combatants and significantly boosting deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s beleaguered civilian population.

It remained unclear, however, if Netanyahu would agree to temporary, rolling pauses in the massive operation to eradicate Hamas — or whether outrage among Palestinians and their supporters could be assuaged if he did.

Already Jordan and Turkey have recalled their ambassadors to Israel to protest its tactics and the tide of international opinion appears to be turning from sympathy toward Israel in the aftermath of Oct. 7 to revulsion as images of death and destruction in Gaza spread around the world.

On Saturday in the Jordanian capital of Amman, both the Egyptian and Jordanian Foreign Ministers appeared at a joint news conference with Mr. Blinken. The two said Israel’s war had gone beyond self-defence and could no longer be justified as it now amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

That sentiment was echoed by tens of thousands of demonstrators who marched in the streets of world capitals over the weekend to protest Israel and condemn U.S. support for Israel.

From Turkey, Mr. Blinken headed to Asia where the Gaza conflict will likely share top billing with other international crises at a series of events in Japan, South Korea and India — including Russia’s war on Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

On Sunday, Mr. Blinken flew from the occupied West Bank, where he held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

When word spread of Mr. Blinken’s arrival in the West Bank city of Ramallah, dozens of Palestinians turned out to protest, holding signs showing dripping blood and with messages that included, “Blinken blood is on your hands.” The meeting with Abbas ended without any public comment.

The Palestinian Authority administers semiautonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It has not been a factor in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when Hamas seized control after winning in elections there a year earlier. Mr. Abbas himself is unpopular among Palestinians.

American forces in the region face a surge of attacks by Iranian-allied militias in Iraq and elsewhere. U.S. forces shot down another one-way attack drone Sunday that was targeting American and coalition troops near their base in neighbouring Syria, a U.S. official said. From Baghdad, Mr. Blinken travelled to Turkey.

The Biden administration, while remaining the strongest backer of Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, is increasingly seeking to use its influence with Israel to try to temper the effect of Israel’s weeks of complete siege and near round-the-clock air, ground and sea assaults in Gaza, home to 2.3 million civilians.

Arab states are resisting American suggestions that they play a larger role in resolving the crisis, expressing outrage at the civilian toll of the Israeli military operations and believing Gaza to be a problem largely of Israel’s own making.

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Blinken visits West Bank as fierce fighting roils Gaza

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November 05, 2023 08:31 pm | Updated 08:32 pm IST – Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories

Top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to the occupied West Bank on Sunday, meeting the Palestinian president as Israel pressed on with its deadliest campaign yet in Gaza to destroy Hamas.

Mr. Blinken arrived in Ramallah under tight security one day after meeting in Jordan with Arab Foreign Ministers angered by mounting civilian deaths in Gaza, where the Hamas-run Health Ministry said dozens were killed in a strike on a refugee camp.

In his sit-down with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Mr. Blinken said Palestinians in Gaza “must not be forcibly displaced”, and the pair discussed “the need to stop extremist violence against Palestinians” in the West Bank, a U.S. State Department spokesman said.

Israel has repeatedly urged Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to head south as fighting intensified, spurring fears of mass displacement.

Mr. Abbas denounced “the genocide and destruction suffered by our Palestinian people in Gaza at the hands of Israel’s war machine, with no regard for the principles of international law,” according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Washington has rebuffed calls for a ceasefire, instead backing Israel’s goal of crushing Hamas militants who staged the deadliest attack in the country’s history on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

Israel has relentlessly bombarded the besieged Gaza Strip in response, levelling entire city blocks and killing more than 9,770 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Mr. Blinken last week told a Senate hearing Mr. Abbas’s Palestinian Authority should retake control of Gaza, even though it currently exercises only limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought to sideline it.

The Israel-Hamas war has exacerbated tensions in the West Bank, where more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces and in settler attacks, including three young men killed by Israeli forces on Sunday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In the Gaza Strip, ground battles raged on Sunday in the north, where Israeli troops tightening their encirclement of Gaza City were seen engaged in house-to-house combat as tanks and armoured bulldozers churned through the sand in footage released by the Army.

In a video taken from Israel’s Sderot along the border with the Gaza Strip, an Israeli flag was seen raised on top of a destroyed building.

Since Israel sent ground forces into the north of the narrow Palestinian territory late last month, “over 2,500 terror targets have been struck” by “ground, air and naval forces”, the army said on Sunday.

Leaflets dropped by the Army again urged Gaza City residents to evacuate south between 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) and 2 p.m. (1200 GMT), a day after a U.S. official said at least 350,000 civilians remained in and around the city that is now an urban war zone.

In the latest strikes in Gaza, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said, Israeli bombing of Al-Maghazi refugee camp late Saturday killed 45 people, with an eyewitness reporting children dead and homes smashed.

“An Israeli air strike targeted my neighbours’ house in Al-Maghazi camp, my house next door partially collapsed,” said Mohammed Alaloul, 37, a journalist working for the Turkish Anadolu Agency.

Mr. Alaloul told AFP his 13-year-old son, Ahmed, and his four-year-old son, Qais, were killed in the bombing, along with his brother.

A military spokesperson said Israel was looking into whether its forces had been operating in the area at the time of the bombing.

During a visit to Qatar, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called for “an immediate, durable and observed humanitarian truce” that could “lead to a ceasefire”, though Netanyahu has rejected talk of a truce until Hamas releases all hostages.

Mr. Blinken faced a rising tide of anger in meetings with Arab Foreign Ministers in Jordan on Saturday, where he reaffirmed U.S. support for “humanitarian pauses” to ensure desperate civilians get help.

Mr. Blinken left the West Bank for Cyprus, the nearest EU member state to the Gaza Strip which last week said it was working towards establishing a maritime corridor for aid to Gaza.

Later Mr. Blinken was expected in Turkey whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held Netanyahu personally responsible for Gaza’s growing civilian death toll.

Turkey on Saturday said it was recalling its ambassador to Israel and breaking off contacts with Netanyahu.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, whose country has been acting as the sole conduit for foreigners to escape the Gaza Strip and for aid to get in, called for an “immediate and comprehensive ceasefire”.

The call was echoed by thousands of protesters in Washington in solidarity with Palestinians, one of multiple rallies held from Indonesia to Iran as well as in European cities.

“The violence in Gaza has been prolonged and indiscriminate — it’s not a war but a massacre,” 27-year-old Indonesian protester Dwi Nurfitriani said during a march in Jakarta.

Thousands also demonstrated in Israel on Saturday as pressure mounts on Netanyahu over his government’s lack of preparedness for the October 7 attacks and its handling of the hostage crisis.

In Tel Aviv, relatives and friends of some of the hostages chanted “bring them home now”, while in Jerusalem, hundreds came together outside Mr. Netanyahu’s residence with more explicit calls for his resignation.

Hamas said late Saturday the evacuation of dual nationals and foreigners from Gaza was being suspended until Israel lets some wounded Palestinians reach Rafah so they can cross the border for hospital treatment in Egypt.

A senior White House official said Hamas had tried to use a U.S.-brokered deal opening the Egyptian border crossing to get its cadres out, calling it “just unacceptable”.

Concluding a two-day visit to Egypt, Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Programme, on Sunday appealed for more aid for Gaza, stressing that trucks allowed in so far are no match for needs on the ground.

“Right now, parents in Gaza do not know whether they can feed their children today and whether they will even survive to see tomorrow,” she said after visiting the Rafah border crossing.

“Today, I’m making an urgent plea for the millions of people whose lives are being torn apart by this crisis.”

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Warplanes strike Gaza refugee camp as Israel rejects U.S. push for a pause in fighting

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November 05, 2023 08:15 pm | Updated November 06, 2023 01:55 am IST – DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip

Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. The strike came as Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush the territory’s Hamas rulers, despite U.S. appeals for a pause to get aid to desperate civilians.

Also read | Israel-Hamas war, Day 30 updates 

The soaring death toll in Gaza has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire.

Israel has rejected the idea of halting its offensive, even for brief humanitarian pauses proposed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his current tour of the region. Instead, it said that Hamas was “encountering the full force” of its troops.

“Anyone in Gaza City is risking their life,” Israel’s Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant said.

Large columns of smoke rose as Israel’s military said it had encircled Gaza City, the initial target of its offensive. Gaza’s Health Ministry said more than 9,700 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in nearly a month of war, and that number is likely to rise.

Airstrikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza overnight, killing at least 40 people and wounding 34 others, the Health Ministry said. It said first responders and residents were still digging through the rubble, hoping to find survivors.

An Associated Press reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, who had been brought in after the strike. A surviving child was led down the hospital corridor by an adult holding her hand, her clothes caked in dust, an expression of shock on her face.

Arafat Abu Mashaia, who lives in the camp, said the Israeli airstrike flattened several multi-story homes where people forced out of other parts of Gaza were sheltering.

“It was a true massacre,” he said early Sunday while standing on the wreckage of destroyed homes. “All here are peaceful people. I challenge anyone who says there were resistance (fighters) here.”

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The camp, a built-up residential area, is located in the evacuation zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians in Gaza to seek refuge as it focuses its military offensive on the north.

Despite such appeals, Israel has continued its bombardment across Gaza, saying it is targeting Hamas fighters and assets everywhere and accusing it of using civilians as human shields. Critics say Israel’s strikes are often disproportionate, considering the large number of women and children killed.

Mr. Blinken met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, a day after meeting with Arab foreign ministers in neighbouring Jordan. Abbas has had no authority in Gaza since Hamas routed forces loyal to him in 2007.

Mr. Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, who insisted there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released.

Arab leaders have called for an immediate cease-fire. But Mr. Blinken said that “would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7,” when the group launched a wide-ranging attack from Gaza into southern Israel, triggering the war.

He said humanitarian pauses can be critical in protecting civilians, getting aid in and getting foreign nationals out, “while still enabling Israel to achieve its objective, the defeat of Hamas.”

Egyptian officials said they and Qatar were proposing humanitarian pauses for six to 12 hours daily to allow aid in and casualties to be evacuated. They were also asking for Israel to release a number of women and elderly prisoners in exchange for hostages, suggestions Israel seemed unlikely to accept. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press on the discussions.

Swaths of residential neighbourhoods in northern Gaza have been levelled in airstrikes. The U.N. office for humanitarian affairs says more than half the remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, are sheltering in U.N.-run facilities. But deadly Israeli strikes have also repeatedly hit and damaged those shelters.

Israeli planes dropped leaflets urging people to head south from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Few appear to have heeded a similar order the day before.

An Israeli airstrike overnight struck a water well in Tal al-Zatar in northern Gaza, cutting off water for tens of thousands of people, the Hamas-run municipality in the town of Beit Lahia said in a statement early Sunday.

The U.N. said about 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70% of the population, have fled their homes. Food, water and the fuel needed for generators that power hospitals and other facilities is running out.

The war has stoked tensions across the region, with Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group repeatedly trading fire along the border.

In the occupied West Bank, at least two Palestinians were shot dead during an Israeli arrest raid in Abu Dis, just outside of Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The military said a militant who had set up an armed cell and fired at Israeli forces was killed during the raid.

At least 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war, mainly during violent protests and gun battles during arrest raids.

Thousands of Israelis protested outside Mr. Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem on Saturday, urging him to resign and calling for the return of roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu has refused to take responsibility for the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people. Ongoing Palestinian rocket fire has forced tens of thousands of people in Israel to evacuate their homes.

In another reflection of widespread anger in Israel, a junior government Minister, Amihai Eliyahu, suggested in a radio interview Sunday that Israel could drop an atomic bomb on Gaza. He later walked back the remarks, saying they were “metaphorical.” Netanyahu issued a statement saying the Minister’s comments were “not based in reality” and that Israel would continue to try to avoid harming civilians.

Among the Palestinians killed in Gaza are more than 4,800 Palestinian children, the Gaza Health Ministry said, without providing a breakdown of civilians and fighters.

The Israeli military said 29 of its soldiers have died during the ground operation.

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Israeli strikes kill multiple civilians at shelters in Gaza combat zone, as Blinken seeks more aid

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Israeli military strikes killed multiple civilians Saturday at a UN shelter and hospital in the main combat zone in the Gaza Strip as the assault intensified on the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers, amid growing international uproar over the soaring death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis.

Israel’s military said it had encircled Gaza City, the target of its offensive to crush Hamas, but on Saturday offered a three-hour window for residents trapped by the fighting to flee south.

The new attacks came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the region seeking ways to ease the plight of civilians caught in the fighting. He met with Arab Foreign Ministers on Saturday in Jordan, the day after talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released.

Egyptian officials said they and Qatar were proposing humanitarian pauses for six to 12 hours daily to allow aid in and casualties to be evacuated. They were also asking for Israel to release a number of women and elderly prisoners in exchange for hostages held by Hamas — suggestions Israel seems unlikely to accept. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press on the discussions.

The Israeli military has repeatedly demanded that northern Gaza’s 1.1 million residents flee south as it escalates bombardment of the north and tightens the noose around Gaza City. However, some of those traveling south were killed during their journey in recent days, and Israel has continued bombing in the south, saying it is striking Hamas targets.

With wide swaths of residential neighbourhoods levelled in airstrikes, most of northern Gaza’s remaining residents, estimated at around 3,00,000, have sought shelter in UN-run schools and in hospitals where they hope they’ll be safe. But deadly Israeli strikes have also repeatedly hit and damaged those shelters.

On Saturday, two strikes hit a UN school-turned-shelter just north of Gaza City, killing several people in tents in the schoolyard and women who were baking bread inside the building, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Initial reports indicated that 20 people were killed but the agency has not yet been able to verify the figure, said spokeswoman Juliette Touma.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported that 15 persons were killed at the school where thousands have sought shelter and another 70 people wounded.

Also Saturday, two people were killed in a strike by the gate of Nasser Hospital in Gaza City, according to Medhat Abbas, spokesman for the Health Ministry.

About 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70% of the population, have fled their homes, according to the U.N.

With food, water and the fuel needed for generators that power hospitals and other facilities running out, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged an immediate cease-fire to allow aid in.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is horrific,” Mr. Guterres said late on Friday in an unusually blunt statement. “An entire population is traumatised, nowhere is safe.”

Bread dough lies on the ground near cooking utensils, damaged chairs and other belongings following a strike at a UN-run school sheltering displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip November 4, 2023.
| Photo Credit:
REUTERS

Mr. Guterres said he had not forgotten the slaughter of civilians at the hands of Hamas militants when they launched their attack on Israel almost a month ago, but said civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected. He also said civilians must not be used as human shields, and called upon Hamas to release all of the roughly 240 hostages it has.

The family home of Hamas’ exiled leader Ismail Haniyeh, in the Shati refugee camp on the northern edge of Gaza City, was hit Saturday morning by an airstrike, according to the Hamas-run media office in Gaza. It had no immediate details on damage or casualties and there was no immediate comment.

Overnight strikes also hit the western outskirts of the city and near Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City. Another strike hit a building close to the entrance of the hospital’s emergency ward on Saturday afternoon, injuring at least 21, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Despite Israel’s call for civilians to flee south, strikes have continued there as well.

Raed Mattar, who was sheltering in a school in the southern town of Khan Younis after fleeing the north early in the war, said Saturday that he regularly heard explosions, apparently from airstrikes.

“People never sleep,” he said. “The sound of explosions never stops.”

In the center of Khan Younis, an airstrike early Saturday destroyed the home of a family, with first responders pulling three bodies and six injured people from the rubble.

Among those killed was a child, according to an Associated Press cameraman at the scene.

The Israeli military said ground forces were also now operating in the south, with an armored and engineering corps working to remove booby traps from buildings.

During the operation the military said fighters were seen exiting a tunnel and they were killed by Israeli troops.

The military said there were also numerous attacks staged from tunnels on Israeli forces in the northern Gaza strip.

Elsewhere, skirmishes along Israel’s northern border continued Saturday morning as the Israeli military said it had struck militant cells in Lebanon trying to fire at Israel, as well as a Hezbollah observation post.

Throughout the war, Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, have traded fire almost daily along the Lebanese border, raising fears of a new front opening there.

Palestinians react following a strike at a UN-run school sheltering displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip November 4, 2023.

Palestinians react following a strike at a UN-run school sheltering displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip November 4, 2023.
| Photo Credit:
REUTERS

On Friday in Tel Aviv, on his third trip to Israel since the war began, Blinken pushed President Joe Biden’s calls for a brief halt in the fighting to address the worsening humanitarian crisis. But Netanyahu said there could be no humanitarian pause until Hamas releases all the hostages it holds.

On Saturday he held meetings in Amman with diplomats from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Authority, who remain angry and deeply suspicious of Israel.

In addition to aid distribution, allowing foreigners out and the release of hostages, Blinken is looking to get Jordan and other Arab states to begin to think about the future of Gaza if and when Israel succeeds in wresting control from Hamas.

There was consensus among Arab governments involved in discussions with the U.S. to resist “any talks” on the postwar period in Gaza before establishing a cease-fire and allowing the delivery of more humanitarian aid and fuel to Gaza, according to the Egyptian officials.

More than 9,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza so far, including more than 3,900 Palestinian children, the Gaza Health Ministry said, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters.

More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack. Rocket fire by Gaza militants into Israel persists, disrupting life for millions of people and forcing an estimated 250,000 to evacuate. Most rockets are intercepted.

Twenty-four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation.

The overall toll is likely to rise dramatically as the assault on densely built-up Gaza City continues.

More than 386 Palestinian dual nationals and wounded exited Gaza into Egypt on Friday, according to Wael Abou Omar, the Hamas spokesperson for the Rafah border crossing. That brings the total who have gotten out since Wednesday to 1,115.

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