Tag: israel gaza

Israel pummels Gaza after U.S. Congress approves military aid

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April 24, 2024 10:10 pm | Updated 10:10 pm IST – Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories

Israel pounded Gaza with air strikes and artillery fire in its war against Hamas on Wednesday after the U.S. Congress approved $13 billion in military aid.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the Senate’s approval of the aid package already passed by the House of Representatives sent a “strong message to all our enemies” in a post on social media platform X.

U.S.-Israeli relations been strained by Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to send troops into the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where 1.5 million people are sheltering, many in makeshift encampments.

Also Read | Columbia University cites progress with Gaza war protesters following encampment arrests

Fears are rising that Israel will soon launch an assault on Rafah, which it says is the “last” major Hamas stronghold, but aid groups warn any invasion would create an “apocalyptic situation”.

Early Wednesday, hospital and security sources in Gaza reported Israeli air strikes in Rafah, as well as the central Nuseirat refugee camp.

An AFP correspondent and witnesses also reported heavy bombardment of several areas of northern Gaza during the night, while the Israeli military said its aircraft “struck over 50 targets” over the previous 24 hours.

New tent blocks

Mr. Netanyahu, however, has insisted the assault on Rafah will go ahead.

Citing Egyptian officials briefed on the Israeli plans, the Wall Street Journal said Israel was planning to move civilians from Rafah to nearby Khan Yunis over a period of two to three weeks.

Satellite images shared by Maxar Technologies showed new blocks of tents that had been set up in recent weeks in southern Gaza.

The Journal reported that Israel would then send troops into Rafah gradually, targeting areas where Hamas leaders are thought to be hiding in an operation expected to last six weeks.

Ismail al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas government media office said an invasion would be a “crime” and that central Gaza and Khan Yunis “cannot accommodate the numbers of displaced people in Rafah”.

The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,262 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The Israeli army announced the death of a soldier in Gaza, raising its losses to 261 since the ground operation began.

Israel estimates that 129 of the roughly 250 people abducted during the Hamas attack remain in Gaza, including 34 it says are presumed dead.

Hospital bodies

The U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday it was “horrified” by reports of mass graves found at the Gaza Strip’s two biggest hospitals after Israeli sieges and raids.

Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals during the war, accusing Hamas of using them as command centres and to hold hostages abducted on October 7. Hamas denies the accusations.

Also Read | The Gaza war needs a smart exit strategy 

Gaza’s Civil Defence agency said nearly 340 bodies were uncovered of people killed and buried by Israeli forces at the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

The Israeli army said claims it had buried Palestinian bodies were “baseless”, without directly addressing allegations that Israeli troops were behind the killings.

It said that “corpses buried by Palestinians” had been examined by Israeli troops searching for hostages and then “returned to their place”.

The European Union backed a call from U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk for an “independent” probe into the deaths at the two hospitals.

“This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances, because indeed it creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed,” EU spokesman Peter Stano said Wednesday.

U.N. human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said some of the bodies found at Nasser Hospital were allegedly “found with their hands tied and stripped of their clothes”, adding that efforts were underway to corroborate the reports.

Call to renew U.N. agency funding

The war has left much of Gaza’s medical system in ruins, with medics struggling to treat both casualties of the war and people with pre-existing conditions.

Amjad Aleway, an emergency doctor in Gaza City speaking in the ruins of Al-Shifa hospital, told AFP “the number of casualties is overwhelming, and we lack sufficient operating theatres to address them, nor do we have specialised facilities for patients with kidney and heart conditions”.

This image provided by Maxar Technologies, shows a rows of tents built near Khan Younis in Gaza on April 23, 2024.

This image provided by Maxar Technologies, shows a rows of tents built near Khan Younis in Gaza on April 23, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
AP

The European Union’s humanitarian chief Janez Lenarcic called on donor governments to fund the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which has been central to aid operations in Gaza.

His comment came after an independent report found “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” for its claim that UNRWA employs “terrorists”.

The report did find “neutrality-related issues”, such as agency staff sharing biased posts on social media.

After the report was released, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini called for an investigation into the “blatant disregard” for U.N. operations in Gaza, adding that 180 of the agency’s staff had been killed since the war began.

While some governments have renewed funding for the agency — including Germany, which announced it would resume cooperation on Wednesday — the United States and Britain are among the holdouts.

The White House would “have to see real progress” before it restores funding, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, there has been a surge in deadly violence in the occupied West Bank.

On Wednesday the Israeli military said it had killed a woman during an “attempted stabbing” near Hebron. The Palestinian health ministry identified her as Maimunah Abdel Hamid Harahsheh, 20.

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Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpasses 25,000 while the prolonged war divides Israelis

Post By World

January 22, 2024 03:42 am | Updated January 23, 2024 01:01 am IST – RAFAH, Gaza Strip

An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from southern Israel towards the Gaza Strip, in a position near the Israel-Gaza border, on Jan. 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Palestinian death toll from the war between Israel and Hamas has soared past 25,000, the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said Sunday, while the Israeli government appeared far from achieving its goals of crushing the militant group and freeing more than 100 hostages.

The death, destruction and displacement from the war is without precedent in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials say the fighting is likely to continue for several more months.

The conflict has divided ordinary Israelis and their leaders while the offensive threatens to ignite a wider war involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen that support the Palestinians. In Lebanon, Hezbollah forces have engaged in near-daily clashes with Israeli troops along the border.

Also Read: Israel-Hamas war | Timeline of major events from the first 100 days

An Israeli airstrike on Sunday hit a car near a Lebanese army checkpoint in the southern town of Kafra, killing at least one person and injuring several others, Lebanese state media reported. Their identities were not immediately clear. Israel’s military said its aircraft and tanks struck a number of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

The United States, which has provided diplomatic and military support for Israel’s offensive, has had limited success in persuading Israel to put civilians at less risk and to facilitate the delivery of more humanitarian aid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected U.S. and international calls for postwar plans that would include a path to Palestinian statehood. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the refusal to accept a two-state solution “totally unacceptable.”

“The Middle East is a tinderbox. We must do all we can to prevent conflict igniting across the region,” Guterres added Sunday. “And that starts with an immediate humanitarian cease-fire to relieve the suffering in Gaza.”

The war began with Hamas’ attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostages back to Gaza.

Israel responded with a bombing campaign and ground invasion that laid waste to entire neighborhoods in northern Gaza and spread south. Ground operations are now focused on the southern city of Khan Younis and built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Israel continues to carry out airstrikes throughout the besieged territory, including areas in the south where it told civilians to seek refuge. Many Palestinians have ignored evacuation orders, saying nowhere feels safe.

On Sunday, Israel’s military said the demolition last week of a key building at Israa University in Gaza was under review. It asserted that preliminary findings indicated Hamas had used the compound for military purposes. The university said earlier that the “attack” came weeks after Israeli forces occupied the building.

Since the war started, 25,105 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, while another 62,681 have been wounded, the Health Ministry said. The toll included the 178 bodies brought to Gaza’s hospitals since Saturday, Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said. Another 300 people were wounded in the past day, he said.

The overall toll is thought to be higher because many casualties remain buried under the rubble or in areas where medics cannot reach them, Al-Qidra said.

The Health Ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures but says around two-thirds of the people killed in Gaza were women and minors. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, but its casualty figures from previous wars were largely consistent with those of U.N. agencies and even the Israeli military.

The Israeli military says it has killed around 9,000 militants, without providing evidence, and blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because it positions fighters, tunnels and other militant infrastructure in dense neighborhoods, often near homes, schools or mosques.

The military says 195 soldiers have been killed.

The war has displaced some 85% of Gaza’s residents, with hundreds of thousands packing into U.N.-run shelters and camps in the southern part of the tiny coastal enclave. U.N. officials say a quarter of the population of 2.3 million is starving as a trickle of humanitarian aid reaches them because of the fighting and Israeli restrictions.

“Bread does not suffice for one hour,” said Ahmad Al-Nashawi, who accepted donated food at a camp of plastic tents in the southern city of Rafah. “You can see how many children we have other than women and men. What matters most for a child is to eat.”

Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to keep up the offensive until Israel achieves “complete victory” over Hamas and returns all remaining hostages. But even some top Israeli officials have begun to acknowledge that those goals might be mutually exclusive.

Hamas is believed to be holding the captives in tunnels and using them as shields for its top leaders. Israel has rescued one hostage, and Hamas says several have been killed in Israeli airstrikes or during failed rescue operations.

A member of Israel’s War Cabinet, former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, said last week that the only way to free the hostages was through a cease-fire. In an implicit criticism of Mr. Netanyahu, he said claims to the contrary amounted to “illusions.”

Hamas has said it will not free more hostages until Israel ends its offensive. The group is expected to make any further releases conditional on securing freedom for thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, including high-profile militants involved in attacks that killed Israelis.

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#Palestinian #death #toll #Gaza #surpasses #prolonged #war #divides #Israelis

Israel says it will defend itself against genocide accusations at International Court of Justice filed by South Africa

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Israel will defend itself before the United Nation’s top court against charges that it has engaged in genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, officials said on January 2, a rare engagement with the world body, which Israel often denounces as biased against it.

South Africa launched the case Friday at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands, saying the magnitude of death, destruction and humanitarian crisis in Gaza from the Israeli military campaign against Hamas meets the threshold of genocide under international law. South Africa asked the court to order Israel to halt its attacks in Gaza.

Also read | Israel is fighting in the dark in Gaza

Israel dismisses international cases against it as unfair and biased and rarely cooperates. Its decision to respond to the charge signals that the government is concerned about the potential damage to its reputation.

Eylon Levy, an official in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, on Tuesday accused South Africa of “giving political and legal cover” to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that triggered Israel’s campaign.

“The state of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice at the Hague to dispel South Africa’s absurd blood libel,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the war until Hamas is crushed and the more than 100 hostages still held by the militant group in Gaza are freed, which he has said could take several more months.

But Israel is under growing international pressure to scale back the offensive ahead of a visit to the region by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has urged Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians. On Monday, Israel said it was withdrawing thousands of troops from other areas in a potential shift away from the massive air and ground operations that have devastated the Hamas-ruled enclave.

Still, heavy fighting continued Tuesday in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Israel’s onslaught in Gaza has been unprecedented in the century-old Mideast conflict, killing nearly 22,000 Palestinians and leveling large swaths of the tiny Mediterranean territory. Since the war began, Israel has banned entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies to its population of 2.3 million people, except for a trickle of aid that the U.N. says falls far below its needs.

Israel’s War Cabinet was to meet later Tuesday, Netanyahu’s office said. The agenda reportedly includes a discussion on postwar arrangements for Gaza, a highly polarizing issue in Israel.

Until now, Netanyahu has not presented any plan despite repeated U.S. requests. He has rejected proposals that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers pockets of self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, undergo reforms and then take over administration of Gaza as a precursor to Palestinian statehood.

The army said Monday that five brigades, or several thousand troops, would leave Gaza in the coming weeks. Some will head to bases for further training or rest, while many older reservists will go home. The war has taken a toll on the economy by preventing reservists from going to their jobs, running their businesses or returning to university studies.

The military has not said publicly whether the withdrawal reflects a new phase of the war. But the move is in line with the plans that Israeli leaders have outlined for a low-intensity campaign that focuses on remaining Hamas strongholds and could last for much of the year.

Israel has said it’s close to achieving operational control over most of northern Gaza, reducing the need for forces there. Yet fierce fighting has continued in other areas of the Palestinian territory, especially the south, where many of Hamas’ forces remain intact and where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced late Monday that residents from seven Israeli communities close to Gaza can return to their homes soon, one of the most concrete signs that the army feels confident it has minimized the threat of rocket launches from parts of Gaza.

Palestinians reported heavy airstrikes and artillery shelling overnight and into Tuesday in the southern city of Khan Younis and farming areas to the east, near the border with Israel. Fighting was also underway in and around the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

The army also issued evacuation orders to people living in parts of the camp of Nuseirat, near Bureij. The orders were delivered by phone and in leaflets dropped over the camp.

Even in Gaza City, which has been largely depopulated and where Israeli ground troops have been battling militants for over two months, residents said there were clashes in different neighborhoods, as well as in the nearby urban Jabaliya refugee camp.

The militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people, and 240 others were taken hostage.

Israel responded with an air, ground and sea offensive that has killed more than 21,900 people in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The Israeli military says 173 soldiers have died since it launched its ground operation.

Israel says, without providing evidence, that more than 8,000 militants have been killed. It blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll, saying the militants embed within residential areas, including schools and hospitals.

The war has displaced some 85% of Gaza’s population, forcing hundreds of thousands of people into overcrowded shelters or teeming tent camps in Israeli-designated safe areas that the military has nevertheless bombed. Palestinians are left with a sense that nowhere is safe.

In its case to the ICJ, South Africa accused Israel at the ICJ of “genocidal” acts that aim “to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.” It pointed to “indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants” as well as the Israeli siege. It argued that no attack on a state — even one ”involving atrocity crimes” — can justify violations of the 1948 convention against genocide.

Israel, a signatory to the convention, angrily rejected the charge. “The Jewish people know more than any other what genocide is,” national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot.

South Africa asked the court last week to issue an interim order for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza. The case, if it goes ahead, will take years, but an interim order could be issued within weeks.

The case came as Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a key component of Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul plan, which had deeply divided Israelis and threatened the military’s readiness before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

The Supreme Court ruling could help Israel at the International Court of Justice, since it and other international tribunals consider whether countries have their own independent judiciaries in deciding on whether to intervene.

It’s unclear what concrete effects an ICJ ruling against Israel would have, but it would likely isolate the country politically and economically. “Israel can’t afford to ignore this,” said Barak Medina, a law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The judicial overhaul itself, meanwhile, appears to have been defeated. Netanyahu and his allies seem unlikely to revive the divisive initiative during wartime. Elections are widely expected once the fighting winds down, and widespread anger in Israel over intelligence and security failures linked to the Hamas attack could mean a poor showing for those in power now.

Netanyahu’s coalition could propose a watered-down version, but it would have to be passed by parliament, a process that would reopen deep divisions within Israeli society and generate even more anger at the prime minister, already blamed by many for the failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attack.



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Israeli forces bombard central Gaza in apparent move toward expanding ground offensive

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Israeli forces bombarded Palestinian refugee camps in central Gaza and issued orders telling residents to evacuate the area on December 26, signs that the military plans to expand its ground offensive into a third section of the besieged territory.

The opening of a potential new battle zone threatens to bring a new wave of destruction and displacement in a war that Israel has said will last for months as it vows to crush Hamas after its October 7 attack. Israeli forces have been engaged in heavy urban fighting in northern Gaza and the southern city of Khan Younis, driving Palestinians into ever-smaller parts of the territory in search of refuge.

Despite international pressure for a cease-fire and U.S. calls for a reduction in civilian casualties, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday warned that the fight “isn’t close to finished.”

Israel’s offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than 20,900 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, whose count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Meanwhile, there were new signs of the Israel-Hamas war enflaming tensions around the region. An Israeli airstrike in Syria killed an Iranian general, bringing vows of revenge from Iran. U.S. warplanes hit Iranian-backed militias in Iraq that had carried out a drone strike that wounded American soldiers there.

Residents of central Gaza on Tuesday described a night of shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps. The camps are built-up towns, housing Palestinians driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war and their descendants — and now are also crowded with people who fled the north.

“The bombing was very intense,” Radwan Abu Sheitta, a Palestinian teacher said by phone from his home in Bureij. “It seems they are approaching,” he said of Israeli troops.

In the afternoon, the Israeli military issued an order calling on residents to evacuate a belt of territory the width of central Gaza, including Bureij, urging them to move to the nearby town of Deir al-Balah. Hamas’ military arm, the Qassam Brigades, said its fighters struck two Israeli tanks east of Bureij. Its report couldn’t be independently confirmed, but it suggested Israeli forces were moving toward the camp.

Throughout the war, a constellation of Iranian-backed militia groups around the region have stepped up attacks in support of Hamas. So far, all sides have appeared to calibrate the violence to stay short of sparking an all-out conflict, but the fear is that an unexpected escalation could spiral out of control.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq carried out a drone strike on a U.S. base in Irbil in northern Iraq on Monday, wounding three American servicemembers, one of them critically, according to U.S. officials. It was the latest in more than 100 attacks that militias have carried out on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

In response, American warplanes before dawn Tuesday hit three locations in Iraq connected to one of the main militias, Kataib Hezbollah.

The Israeli strike on Monday hit a neighborhood of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing Gen. Seyed Razi Mousavi, an adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The strike hit as he was entering a farm reportedly used as an office of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the district of Sayeda Zeinab on Damascus’ outskirts, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel faces a “multi-arena war” from seven different fronts — Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. “We have responded and acted already on six of these fronts,” he told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Almost daily, Hezbollah and Israel exchange volleys of missiles, airstrikes and shelling across the Israeli-Lebanese border. Around 150 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, mostly fighters from Hezbollah and other groups but also 17 civilians. At least nine soldiers and four civilians have been killed on the Israeli side.

In the Red Sea, attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen against commercial ships have disrupted trade and prompted a U.S.-led multinational naval operation to protect shipping routes.

An Israeli move into central Gaza would further shrink the area into which Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced to squeeze to escape the fighting. Already more than 85% of the population has been driven from their homes.

Deir al-Balah and Rafah — in the far south on the Egyptian border — have been overwhelmed with displaced people, even as Israel continues to bombard them. U.N. officials say a quarter of the population is starving under Israel’s siege, which allows only a trickle of food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies into the territory.

A strike Tuesday hit a family home in Mawasi, a rural area in the province of Khan Younis on Gaza’s southern coastline that Israel declared a safe zone for people to take shelter. One woman was killed, and at least eight other people were wounded, according to a cameraman working for The Associated Press at the nearby hospital. There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military on the strike.

The U.N. Security Council last week called for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to Gaza. But so far there has been little concrete sign of a change in entry of aid, which the U.N. has said it struggles to distribute because many areas are cut off by fighting.

Israel has vowed to continue fighting to eliminate Hamas’ military and governing capabilities in Gaza, after the militants carried out their shock attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 240 hostage. Israel says it also aims to free the more than 100 hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.

Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll in Gaza, citing the militants’ use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, without presenting evidence.

People prepare to bury Palestinians, who were killed by Israeli strikes and fire, after their bodies were released by Israel, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at a mass grave in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on December 26, 2023
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

Israeli troops have been engaged in nearly two months of ground combat with Hamas and other militants in northern Gaza and weeks of urban fighting in Khan Younis. The battles and bombardment have leveled large swaths of both areas.

In the north, troops are focusing on the Gaza City neighborhood of Daraj Tufah, believed to be one of Hamas’ last strongholds in the area, according to reports from Israeli military correspondents, who receive briefings from army commanders.

The reports said the army is aiming to destroy an estimated 70% of Hamas infrastructure, leaving the remainder for further operations during lower intensity phases of fighting.

Still, Hamas fighters have shown a tough resilience. The Israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers Tuesday, bringing the total killed in the ground offensive to 158. Militants late Monday launched a barrage of rockets into Israel, triggering air raid sirens in the southern city of Ashkelon. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

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Israeli ground forces move into south of Gaza

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December 04, 2023 05:00 pm | Updated 07:43 pm IST – Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories

Israel has moved ground forces into the south of Gaza in its war on Hamas, witnesses said on December 4, despite global concern over mounting civilian deaths and fears the conflict will spread elsewhere in the Middle East.

Dozens of Israeli tanks as well as armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers entered the south of the territory near the city of Khan Yunis, which is crowded with internally displaced Palestinians, witnesses told AFP.

Amin Abu Hawli, 59, said the Israeli vehicles were “two kilometres (1.2 miles) inside” Gaza in the village of al-Qarara, while Moaz Mohammed, 34, said Israeli tanks were rolling down the strip’s main north-south highway, the Salah al-Din road.

Weeks after Israel sent ground forces and tanks into northern Gaza, the army has been air-dropping leaflets in the besieged territory’s south, especially around Khan Yunis, telling Palestinians there to flee to other areas.

Also read | Israel knew about Hamas attack over a year in advance: report

The Army “continues to expand its ground operation against main Hamas fronts in the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said Sunday. “Wherever there is a Hamas stronghold, the IDF operates.”

Full-scale fighting resumed Friday after the collapse of a week-long truce brokered by Qatar, the United States and Egypt, during which Israel and Hamas had exchanged scores of hostages and prisoners.

Air strikes have since intensified in Gaza’s south, said James Elder, a spokesman for the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF.

“Despite what has been assured, attacks in the south of Gaza are every bit as vicious as what the north endured,” he posted Monday on X, formerly Twitter.

“Somehow, it’s getting worse for children and mothers.”

Israel has vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the Islamist militant group‘s October 7 attacks that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel’s military said Sunday it had carried out around 10,000 air strikes in total, while Gaza militants had resumed rocket salvos into Israel, most of which had been intercepted.

The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 15,500 people have been killed in Gaza, about 70% of them women and children — a death toll that has sparked global alarm and mass demonstrations.

– ‘No safe place’ –

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said as a UN agency estimated around 1.8 million people in Gaza, roughly 75 percent of the population, had been displaced.

The Israeli army said Monday three more soldiers had been killed in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, raising the number of troop deaths there to 75.

The fatalities brought the number of Israeli defence personnel killed since October 7 — among them those killed in the Hamas attacks themselves and including soldiers, reservists, kibbutz guards and others — to 401.

Under the temporary truce that expired Friday, 80 Israeli hostages were freed, in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. More than two dozen Thai and other captives were also released from Gaza.

With at least 137 hostages still held in Gaza, according to the Israeli military, Hamas has ruled out more releases until a permanent ceasefire is agreed.

More air strikes have rained down on northern Gaza where the Hamas-run government and the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the entrance of the Kamal Adwan hospital was hit late Sunday.

Several people were killed in the strike, Wafa said, while Hamas accused Israel on Telegram of a “grave violation” of humanitarian law. Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Israel says Hamas uses hospitals and other civilian infrastructure for military purposes, an accusation the militant group denies.

Nine-year-old Huda, who was wounded in the head, arrived at the Deir al-Balah hospital with a Red Cross convoy bringing casualties from northern Gaza.

“She doesn’t answer me any more,” said her bereaved father Abdelkarim Abu Warda.

– ‘Too many innocents killed’ –

Israel’s ally the United States has intensified calls for the protection of Gaza’s civilians, with Vice President Kamala Harris saying that “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed”.

A White House official said Sunday the United States believes Israel is “making an effort” to minimise civilian casualties in Gaza.

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said those killed “would still be alive” had Hamas not carried out the October 7 attacks.

Israel said Monday it was not seeking to force Palestinian civilians to permanently leave their homes, even as it acknowledged conditions in Gaza were “tough”.

Any suggestion of Palestinian dispersal is highly contentious in the Arab world as the war that led to Israel’s creation 75 years ago gave rise to the exodus or forced displacement of 760,000 Palestinians.

Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said Monday: “We are not trying to displace anyone, we are not trying to move anybody from anywhere permanently.

“We have asked civilians to evacuate the battlefield and we have provided a designated humanitarian zone inside the Gaza Strip,” he said, referring to a tiny coastal area of the territory named Al-Mawasi.

With fears of a wider regional conflagration rising, a US destroyer shot down multiple drones over the Red Sea while assisting commercial ships on Sunday, according to the US Central Command.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels — who said they targeted two of the ships –— launched a series of drones and missiles towards Israel in recent weeks and seized a cargo vessel last month.

In Iraq, an air attack killed at least five pro-Iranian militants on Sunday, according to Iraqi security sources, a day after Baghdad warned Washington against “attacks” on its territory.

Fighting also flared on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

The Israeli army said it had launched artillery strikes in response to cross-border fire, and its fighter jets hit targets linked to Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The Israel-occupied West Bank has also seen a surge in violence since October.

The Palestinian Authority’s health ministry said two Palestinians had been shot dead in an Israeli raid on the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, adding that Israeli forces kept the two bodies.



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Blog: Blog – “Use Moral Compass”: Father’s Letter To Daughter On Israel-Hamas War

Post By Stock , , ,

Dear Ira,

You turned 18 a couple of days ago! An adult. How time flies!

Hey, remember a few years ago, you told me, ‘Papa, I think God is like a moral compass thingy for me’. You were so right. Being compassionate, humane, and fair, being able to listen and be sensitive to the needs and feelings of others that you share this world with – that is what having a ‘moral compass’ is. And believe me, the world needs that right now.

Your social media feeds must be full of videos from Gaza and Israel, isn’t it? Rockets being fired, indiscriminate bombings, destroyed buildings, people dead, people injured, people in fear, people who have lost loved ones. Thousands, literally, have been killed in the last one week.

There’s also a lot of anger, with most people taking sides. Ministers of the Israeli government, politicians from countries allied to them, raging against Hamas, the Palestinian militant group whose rocket attack on 7th October set off this round of violence. At the same time, some governments friendly to the Palestinians, members of the Palestinian diaspora across the world, and other folks, are calling out the chronic violence committed against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank over the years by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).

So what does your just-turned-18 moral compass ‘thingy’ say? Something is off, right? Here is Hamas, and the IDF, both indulging in extreme violence, both numb to the destruction they are causing, both trying to explain their violence as ‘just’ – isn’t there actually something terribly wrong with both of them?

To my mind, Hamas and the Israeli war machine are two sides of the same coin that is defined by one word – violence. Both are practically addicted to violence, and share a terrible worldview – that the problems of the world can only be addressed by resorting to bombings and killings, and through instilling fear and terror among those opposed to them. Both see the human cost, military and civilian, as acceptable collateral damage.

And so, surely, both need to be condemned. Plain and simple.

I can see that you get it. And yet, amazingly, a lot of people don’t. The really worrying thing is that many of those who don’t get it, are people currently in charge of the world. Sample this –

“We kiss the hands of those who planned the attack on the Zionist regime,” said Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, soon after the Hamas attacks. Iran, as you know, is Hamas’s biggest supporter. “The great liberation has begun,” said a big billboard in Tehran. Their logic is simple, the enemy of my enemy, is my friend. Iran and Israel are sworn enemies. US too, calls Iran a fundamentalist, regressive, rogue nation. More about this in a minute.

Then, on the other side, here are statements from Israel’s leaders – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tweet, describing Hamas – ‘They are savages’. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defence Minister said – “We are fighting against human animals”

On 7th October, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, which started with literally firing around 5,000 rockets into the country, which killed hundreds, including civilians. Alongside, teams of Hamas militia crossed into Israel, some of them targeting civilians. Reports say Hamas killed 260 Israeli youth attending a music festival. An unknown, but large number of Israeli citizens have also been taken hostage, and Hamas has said it may execute one hostage for every Israeli bombing, and even broadcast the execution.

If this threat wasn’t inhuman enough, the response of Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is almost as callous – ‘We can’t worry about the hostages too much, now is the time to be cruel…’. This sums up how numb both sides are to violence, where even the likelihood of collateral deaths, even of their own people, no longer matters.

While this is the immediate picture, let’s rewind a bit as well. Even if we travel back just 15 years, we can see how the violence has been constant, on a huge, agonizing scale. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since 2008, 6,407 Palestinians and 308 Israelis have died in conflict situations. Also 152,560 Palestinians and 6,307 Israelis injured. The dead include 1,440 Palestinian children, and 25 Israeli children.https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

People even play politics over these numbers. Some say that the much higher Palestinian casualties show that the IDF is the bigger perpetrator. Some point back at Hamas’s ‘terror’ tactics over the years, including the use of suicide bombers. But to my mind, these massive numbers on both sides, only point towards blind bloodlust. How can both sides not see that violence is not working? The IDF’s violence is not making the lives of Israelis safer. Hamas’s violence is not protecting the Palestinians either.

Unfortunately, far from calling on them to back down, over the years, both sides have only had almost unstinted support from their respective ‘backers’. Israel has the United States, and several other Western nations in its corner, while Hamas has Iran fully committed to its cause. This gives both Israel and Hamas almost limitless funding, arms, and logistical support. Both sides justify their violence by pointing at the other – Hamas points at Israel’s systematic choking of all economic growth in the West Bank, and particularly in Gaza. You will repeatedly hear of Gaza being described as the world’s largest ‘open air jail’, as access into and out of Gaza has been controlled by Israel for decades – from livelihoods, to food, to medical and building supplies.

Human rights activists and countries supporting the Palestinians say that the anger from Israel’s aggression, from the choking of Gaza, to the extending of Israeli settlements beyond agreed boundaries, fuels anger and support for Hamas. Israel says its actions are ‘retaliatory’ and it is Hamas’s violence that must first end.

Religion is the other dangerous dimension and for long, many have made it a Jewish vs Muslim confrontation. You would have noticed how a few days back students in Harvard University, who supported the Palestinians, were called out as ‘anti-Semites’. The irony, of course, is that there are so many Christian supremacists, who are in fact anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim (but that’s the subject of a another letter, so..)

But surely all this must be called out. We can’t be tricked into a ‘chicken-and-egg’, or a ‘who-started-it’ debate. That debate will never end. Someone will take you back to the Arab-Israeli 1967 war, someone will take you back a 100 years to the British ‘promise’ of a Jewish nation in Palestine, someone will take you back to the Crusades. Ugghh! No, we are not going to fall for that.

Let me end by mentioning a political leader who is getting it right. That guy is Hamza Yousaf, the First Minister of Scotland (essentially Scotland’s PM!). Of Pakistani origin, he’s already a path-breaker, by being Scotland’s first South Asian First Minister. Yousaf’s Palestinian origin father-in-law and Scottish mother-in-law are currently stranded in Gaza. They had gone to meet an ailing relative. Even as he went on air, expressing his helplessness at not knowing if they were safe, he stayed away from taking sides. At a prayer service in memory of a Glasgow resident killed in the Hamas attack, Yousaf told the Jewish community, ‘Your grief is my grief.’ He later met up with Palestinians and categorically stated that the loss of innocent lives in both Israel and Gaza cannot be justified, and called for the opening of humanitarian corridors in Gaza.

Now that is statesmanship! This man is a Muslim, leading a Western power. But instead of succumbing to the pressures of ‘picking a side’, of doing what may be ‘politically popular’ in Scotland, he came out squarely against violence, in any form, being practised by any one, for any reason. Like Hamza Yousaf, it is time for other world leaders, and even for all of us people who choose our leaders, to reclaim and get back to using our ‘moral compass thingy’.

It’s your world now. Become a ‘moral compass’ evangelist in your corner of the world.

Love,

Papa

(Rohit Khanna is a journalist, commentator and video storyteller. He has been Managing Editor at The Quint, Executive Producer of Investigations & Special Projects at CNN-IBN, and is a 2-time Ramnath Goenka award winner)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.

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Israeli air strikes pound Gaza as death toll climbs on both sides

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Israel battered Gaza on October 8 after suffering its bloodiest attack in decades, when Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns killing 600 and abducting dozens more, as the spiralling violence threatened a major new war in West Asia.

Israeli air strikes hit housing blocks, tunnels, a mosque, and the homes of Hamas officials in Gaza, killing more than 370 people, including 20 children, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance for this black day”.

In a sign the conflict could spread beyond blockaded Gaza, Israel exchanged artillery and rocket fire with the Lebanon-based Iran-backed Hezbollah militia. In Alexandria, two Israeli tourists were shot dead along with their Egyptian guide.

Gunbattles continue

In southern Israel, Hamas gunmen were still fighting Israeli security forces 24 hours after a surprise, multi-pronged assault of rocket barrages and bands of gunmen who overran army bases and invaded border towns.

Follow live updates here

“My two little girls, they’re only babies. They’re not even five years old and three years old,” said Yoni Asher, who had seen video of gunmen seizing his wife and two small daughters after she took them to visit her mother, he said.

Israel’s military, which faces questions over its failure to prevent the attack, said it had regained control of most infiltration points along security barriers, killed hundreds of attackers and taken dozens more prisoner.

“We’re going to be attacking Hamas severely and this is going to be a long, long haul,” an Israeli military spokesperson told reporters. The military said that it had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers around Gaza, a narrow strip that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, and was starting to evacuate all Israelis living around the frontier of the territory.

Shelling in Gaza

“This is my fifth war. The war should stop. I don’t want to keep feeling this,” said Qassab al-Attar, a Palestinian wheelchair user in Gaza whose brothers carried him to shelter when Israeli forces shelled their house.

More than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have sought refuge in schools run by the United Nations, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency said.

The attack by Hamas, launched at dawn on Saturday, represented the biggest and deadliest incursion into Israel since Egypt and Syria launched a sudden assault in an effort to reclaim lost territory in the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago.

At least 600 people have been killed, according to reports by Israeli TV stations. Israel has not released an official toll.

The conflict could undermine U.S.-backed moves towards normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia – a security realignment that could threaten Palestinian hopes of self determination and hem in Hamas’ main backer, Iran.

Tehran’s other main regional ally, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fought a war with Israel in 2006 and said that its “guns and rockets” stand with Hamas. “We recommend Hezbollah not to come into this and I don’t think they will,” Israel’s army spokesperson said.

Israeli hostages

The debris from Saturday’s attack still lay around southern Israeli towns and border communities on Sunday morning and Israelis were reeling from the sight of bloodied bodies lying on suburban streets, in cars and in their homes.

Palestinian fighters escaped back into Gaza with dozens of hostages, including both soldiers and civilians. Hamas said it would issue a statement later on Sunday saying how many captives it had seized.

About 30 missing Israelis attending a dance party that was targeted during Saturday’s attack emerged from hiding on Sunday, Israeli media reported.

The capture of so many Israelis, some filmed being pulled through security checkpoints or driven, bleeding, into Gaza, adds another layer of complication for Netanyahu after previous episodes when hostages were exchanged for many Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas fired more rocket salvoes into Israel on Sunday, with air raid sirens sounding across the south, and the Israeli military said it would combine an evacuation of border areas with a search for more gunmen.

Retaliatory strikes

Israeli air strikes on Gaza began soon after the Hamas attack and continued overnight and into Sunday, destroying the group’s offices and training camps, but also houses and other buildings.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that 370 people had been killed and 2,200 wounded in the retaliatory strikes.

In Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, people searched through the remains of a mosque early on Sunday. “We ended the night prayers and suddenly the mosque was bombed. They terrorised the children, the elderly and women,” said resident Ramez Hneideq.

The escalation comes against a backdrop of surging violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian authority exercises limited self-rule, opposed by Hamas that wants Israel destroyed.

Conditions in the West Bank have worsened under Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-right government with more Israeli raids and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages, and the Palestinian Authority called for an emergency Arab League meeting.

Stalled peacemaking

Peacemaking has been stalled for years and Israeli politics have been convulsed this year by internal wrangles over Mr. Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the assault that began in Gaza would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem. Gazans have lived under an Israeli-led blockade for 16 years, since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. “How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognise the rights of our people?” he said.

Western countries, led by the United States, denounced the attack. U.S. President Joe Biden issued a blunt warning to Iran and other countries: “This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks.

Across West Asia, there were demonstrations in support of Hamas, while Iran and Hezbollah praised the attack.

That Israel was caught completely off guard was lamented as one of the worst intelligence failures in its history, a shock to a nation that boasts of its intensive infiltration and monitoring of militants.

The main Tel Aviv Stock Exchange indices fell 6% on Sunday and investors expected the violence to prompt a move into gold and other safe-haven assets.



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