Tag: Israel vs Palestine

Israel bombs Gaza as UN warns territory ‘uninhabitable’

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January 06, 2024 01:50 pm | Updated 01:51 pm IST – Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories

Israel bombed Gaza on January 6 as the United Nations warned the Palestinian territory has become “uninhabitable” after three months of fighting that threatens to engulf the wider region.

Israeli strikes were reported early January 6 on Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.

Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict, with the UN warning of a deepening humanitarian crisis as famine looms and disease spreads.

Abu Mohammed, 60, who fled to Rafah from the central Bureij refugee camp, told AFP Gaza’s future was “dark and gloomy and very difficult”.

With much of the territory already reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said that “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable”.

The UN’s children’s agency warned that clashes, malnutrition and a lack of health services had created “a deadly cycle that threatens over 1.1 million children” in Gaza.

Israeli forces were continuing “to fight in all parts of the Gaza Strip, in the north, centre and south”, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

Mr. Hagari said Israeli forces were maintaining a “very high state of readiness” near the border with Lebanon following the killing of a top Hamas commander in a strike in Beirut.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike, but a US defence official told AFP that Israel carried it out.

The war in Gaza was triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel launched by Hamas on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel, including at least 24 believed to have been killed.

In response, Israel has launched a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that have killed at least 22,600 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Also Read: What is the global fallout of two warfronts? | Explained

Fighting rages

AFP correspondents reported on January 5 that Israeli strikes had hit the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah as well as parts of central Gaza.

A hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah reported that 35 people had been killed there.

The Israeli army said its forces had “struck over 100 targets” across Gaza in the previous 24 hours, including military positions, rocket launch sites and weapons depots.

The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said it had recorded 162 deaths over the same period.

A fighter jet bombed the central area of Bureij overnight, killing “an armed terrorist cell”, the army said, after what it described as an attempted attack on an Israeli tank.

And a number of Palestinian militants were killed in clashes in Khan Yunis, a city that has become a major battleground, the army said.

Troops also uncovered tunnels under the Blue Beach Hotel in northern Gaza that had been used “by terrorists as shelter from where they planned and executed attacks”, according to the army.

AFPTV footage on Friday showed entire families, seeking safety from the violence, arriving in Rafah in overloaded cars and on foot, pushing handcarts stacked with possessions.

Palestinian girl Rofan Nasser, who was wounded in an Israeli strike in which her parents and three of her siblings were killed, is comforted by her grandmother at the European hospital, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, January 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

“We fled Jabalia camp to Maan (in Khan Yunis) and now we are fleeing from Maan to Rafah,” said one woman who declined to give her name. “(We have) no water, no electricity and no food.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported renewed shelling and drone fire in the area around Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis after seven displaced people, including a five-day-old baby, were killed while sheltering in the compound.

“We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe due to the spread of epidemics, with the hospital overcrowded with displaced people,” said a spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, meanwhile, slammed a proposal by two Israeli ministers to resettle Gazans outside the territory.

“It’s not up to Israel to determine the future of Gaza, which is Palestinian land,” Colonna told CNN on Friday.

Diplomatic push

Top Western diplomats were in the region as part of a fresh push to raise the flow of aid into the besieged territory and calm rising tensions.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on January 6 where he was due to discuss the Gaza war with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Istanbul, Turkey, January 5, 2024.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Istanbul, Turkey, January 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

Mr. Blinken will also visit several Arab states before heading to Israel and the occupied West Bank next week.

During his visit, Blinken plans to discuss with Israeli leaders “immediate measures to increase substantially humanitarian assistance to Gaza”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell travelled to Lebanon on Friday for talks on “all aspects of the situation in and around Gaza”, including escalating tensions with Israel.

Germany’s top diplomat, Annalena Baerbock, was also due to travel to the region, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

She plans to discuss “the dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza” and tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border, spokesman Sebastian Fischer said.

The war in Gaza and almost daily exchanges of cross-border fire between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group since October 7 have raised fears of a wider conflagration.

Those fears grew this week following the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri in Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that the group would swiftly respond “on the battlefield” to Aruri’s death.

Israel’s military that its fighter jets had conducted fresh strikes against Hezbollah targets just across the border.

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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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Israel-Hamas war, Day 30 updates | Over 30 killed in Israeli bombing on Al-Maghazi camp in Gaza: Hamas-run Health Ministry

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The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says around 9,500 people, mostly women and children have since been killed in Israeli strikes and the intensifying ground campaign

November 05, 2023 06:48 am | Updated 12:11 pm IST

Palestinians comfort a crying man after losing relatives under the rubble of a destroyed house following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
| Photo Credit:
AP

On Saturday, two strikes hit a U.N. 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.

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.

Also read | Israel-Hamas war, Day 29 updates

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 PM 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.

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, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged an immediate cease-fire to allow aid in.

(With inputs from agencies)

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  • November 05, 2023 12:11

    Will open Gaza evacuation route again despite Saturday attack: IDF

    Despite coming under attack on Saturday in an attempt to open the road, Israel Defence Forces have said that they will try to reopen a corridor for Gazan civilians in the north of the Strip to escape south on Sunday, The Times of Israel reported.

    Despite being attacked while attempting to restore the route on Saturday, Israeli officials said they would let Gazan civilians in the northern part of the Strip flee south on Sunday, according to IDF Arabic Spokesman Avichay Adraee.

    – ANI

  • November 05, 2023 11:55

    ‘A curse to be a parent in Gaza’: More than 3,600 Palestinian children killed in just 3 weeks of war

    ‘A curse to be a parent in Gaza’: More than 3,600 Palestinian children killed in just 3 weeks of war

    Israel says its airstrikes target Hamas militant sites and infrastructure, and it accuses the group of using civilians as human shields.

  • November 05, 2023 10:11

    “What Hamas did was horrific…what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable”: Barack Obama

    In a strong condemnation of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, former U.S. President Barack Obama has said that the conflict is the “century-old stuff” that has now come to the fore and blamed social media for amplifying the divisions, according to the New York Times.

    Not only did he condemn the October 7 assault on Israel that killed many innocent Israelis but he also underlined the sufferings of the civilians in Palestine.

    “What Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it,” Mr. Obama said, adding, “And what is also true is that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable.”

    – ANI

  • November 05, 2023 09:40

    Analysis | Why did Hamas launch a surprise attack on Israel?

    Why did Hamas launch a surprise attack on Israel? | Analysis

    Israel faced largest attack in 50 years from Hamas militants using various methods. 40 killed, hundreds injured. Netanyahu declared war. Possible factors: deteriorating Palestine-Israel relations, Israel’s internal issues, normalisation talks with Saudi Arabia.

  • November 05, 2023 09:20

    Explained | On the legality of Israel’s occupation

    Official Israeli statistics show that Jewish settlers existed in historical Palestine even before the state of Israel was declared in 1948. A UNGA resolution had earlier sought to partition British mandate Palestine. But as the U.N. partition plan was rejected by the Arabs and the British mandate was coming to an end, Zionists went ahead declaring independence, triggering the first Arab-Israel war. When the war was over, Israel had captured more territories than what the U.N. plan had proposed and some 7,00,000 Palestinians were displaced. Historical Palestine was divided into the State of Israel (including West Jerusalem), the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) that was taken over by Jordan and the Gaza Strip (controlled by Egypt). Tensions kept rising between Israel and three countries in the region — Egypt, Jordan, and Syria — which led to the six-day war of 1967. The war resulted in Israel capturing the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, along with Syria’s Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.

    Read more here

  • November 05, 2023 08:59

    U.S. and Arab partners disagree on the need for a cease-fire as Israeli airstrikes kill more civilians

    The United States and Arab partners disagreed Saturday on the need for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip as Israeli military strikes killed civilians at a U.N. shelter and a hospital, and Israel said the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers were “encountering the full force” of its troops.

    Large columns of smoke rose as Israel’s military said it had encircled Gaza City, the initial target of its offensive to crush Hamas. Gaza’s Health Ministry has said more than 9,400 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in nearly a month of war, and that number is likely to rise as the assault continues.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan on Saturday 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.

    – AP

  • November 05, 2023 08:28

    Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader taunts Israel, U.S. in first speech since Israel-Hamas war

    Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the militant Lebanese Hezbollah group taunted Israel in his remarks, which were broadcast via a video-link on Friday. It was his first address to supporters since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, sparked by the Palestinian militants’ deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel.

    Read more here

  • November 05, 2023 08:10

    Explained | Understanding U.S.-Israel relations

    The U.S. had supported the idea of a Jewish homeland even before the state of Israel was declared within historical Palestine in 1948. On March 3, 1919, two years after the Balfour Declaration, in which the British government declared its support for the creation of a “Jewish homeland in Palestine”, President Woodrow Wilson said, “The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth.” In 1922 and 1944, the U.S. Congress passed resolutions endorsing the Balfour Declaration. The U.S. was the first country that recognised Israel in 1948.

    Read more here

  • November 05, 2023 07:28

    Explained | Why did India abstain from the call for truce?

    External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that India’s vote was consistent with its stand on terrorism, adding that India takes a strong position on it because Indians are “big victims of terrorism”. In particular, government sources said that UNGA resolution (A/ES-10/L.25) lacked an “explicit condemnation” of the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas, in which 1,405 Israelis were killed, and about 240 were taken as hostages by Hamas militants. The UNGA resolution did condemn acts of violence against Palestinian and Israeli civilians “including terrorism”, and also called for the immediate unconditional release of the hostages. However, India had wanted more, voting in favour of an amendment authored by Canada, that would have inserted more specific references, that was not passed by the UNGA.

    Read more here

  • November 05, 2023 06:50

    Over 30 killed in Israeli bombing on Al-Maghazi camp in Gaza: Hamas-run Health Ministry

    More than 30 people were killed in an Israeli bombing on a refugee camp in central Gaza late Saturday, the Hamas-run health ministry there said, amid ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas militants.

    “More than 30 (dead) arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the massacre committed by the occupation in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip,” health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement.

    Hamas said in a statement posted on Telegram that Israel had “directly” bombed citizens’ homes, adding that most of the dead were women and children.

    – AFP

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Israel-Hamas war, Day 23 LIVE updates | Gaza civilians should move south where humanitarian efforts ‘will be expanding’: Israeli military

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The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli strikes had killed 7,703 people, mainly civilians, including more than 3,500 children

October 29, 2023 07:46 am | Updated 10:55 am IST

The Israeli military fires shells toward the Gaza Strip on October 28, 2023.
| Photo Credit:
AFP

Israel’s army relentlessly hammered the territory on October 28 after fierce overnight bombardment that rescuers said destroyed hundreds of buildings three weeks into a war sparked by the deadliest attack in the country’s history.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned that there was a potential for thousands more civilians to die if Israel presses a major ground offensive in Gaza. The U.N. rights chief also condemned the Internet and telecommunications blackout that has hit the Palestinian enclave since Friday.

The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli strikes had killed 7,703 people, mainly civilians, including more than 3,500 children.

Also Read | Israel-Hamas war Day 22 updates

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that fighting inside the Gaza Strip would be “long and difficult”, as Israeli ground forces operate in the Palestinian territory for more than 24 hours. The Israeli military spokesman said the country is expanding its ground operation in Gaza with infantry and armoured vehicles backed by “massive” strikes from the air and sea.

Israel unleashed its bombing campaign after Hamas gunmen stormed across the Gaza border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing more than 220 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

Meanwhile, the United Nations on Friday overwhelmingly called for an immediate humanitarian truce and demanded aid access to the besieged Gaza Strip and protection of civilians. India was among the 45 countries who abstained from voting.

(With inputs from agencies)

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  • October 29, 2023 10:55

    Explained | How much financial aid does U.S. provide to Israel?

    The Biden administration on October 20 sought emergency assistance from the U.S. Congress amounting to $14.3 billion in aid to Israel amid the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza Strip.

    In an address to the nation, U.S. President Joe Biden declared his support for Israel [and Ukraine as well, against Russia] and said that the urgent funding for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, as well as humanitarian aid and border management is a “smart investment that’s going to pay dividends for American security for generations.”

    Read more here

  • October 29, 2023 10:37

    PM Modi discusses humanitarian assistance with Egypt’s El-Sisi as Israel attacks Gaza

    PM Narendra during the weekend spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to discuss the latest in the Israel-Palestine conflict which reached a critical stage with Israeli forces rolling into the north Gaza during late Saturday. The discussion indicated fast moving international exchanges among the key stakeholders as Prime Minister Benyanmin Netanyahu asserted that Israel will fight a “long and difficult” war against Hamas in Gaza.

    The discussion also indicates the importance that India attaches to the role of Egypt in ensuring humanitarian assistance to Gaza Strip where most of the Israeli military action is focusing right now. On October 22 India sent humanitarian relief meant for Gaza to Egypt’s El Arish airbase. However, Palestinian ambassador to India Adnan Abu Al-Haija had told The Hindu that much of the relief material that various countries have been sending for Gaza remained stuck inside Egypt because of intense military activity by Israel as well as because of shortage of fuel for the trucks inside Gaza.

    Read more here

  • October 29, 2023 10:10

    Gaza civilians should move south where humanitarian efforts ‘will be expanding’: Israeli military

    The Israeli military on Sunday told civilians in Gaza to move to the south of the besieged Strip, where it said humanitarian efforts “will be expanding”.

    “Tomorrow, the humanitarian efforts to Gaza, led by Egypt and the United States, will be expanding,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a statement recorded on Saturday.

    – AFP

  • October 29, 2023 09:59

    Israel pounds Gaza as Red Cross warns of ‘intolerable’ suffering

    Israel further intensified its attacks on Gaza Sunday, warning its war on Hamas would be “long and difficult”, as calls mounted to end the violence and the Red Cross warned of “intolerable” suffering.

    The United Nations said thousands more civilians could die in Gaza as Israel announced the war had entered a “second stage”, with ground forces still operating inside the Hamas-run territory more than 24 hours after entering it on Friday.

    Relentless Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 8,000 people, half of them children, the Hamas-controlled health ministry in the territory said Saturday.

    – AFP

  • October 29, 2023 09:45

    Hamas ready to release Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners

    Hamas’s top leader in Gaza Yehia Sinwar said the Palestinian militant groups are ready to release Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s jails.

    “We are ready immediately to have an exchange deal that includes releasing all prisoners in the prisons of the Zionist occupation enemy in return for the release of all prisoners held by the resistance,” he said in a comment posted Saturday evening on Hamas media groups.

    The Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, dismissed the offer as “psychological terror” andsaid Israel is working on multiple channels to free the hostages.

    – AP

  • October 29, 2023 09:34

    No international aid entered the Gaza Strip on Saturday

    No international aid entered the Gaza Strip on Saturday, as the communications blackout created by Israel continued.

    Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent, told The Associated Press that no aid trucks entered Gaza on Saturday because communication was impossible and teams inside Gaza couldn’t connect with Egyptian Red Crescent or United Nations personnel.

    Before Saturday, a total of 84 aid trucks were let into Gaza, a tiny amount for a population of 2.3 million people in need of power, food, medical supplies and clean drinking water.

    – AP

  • October 29, 2023 08:55

    Gaza connectivity ‘being restored’: Internet monitor Netblocks

    Internet connectivity in the Gaza Strip is being restored, the global network monitor Netblocks said Sunday.

    “Real-time network data show that internet connectivity is being restored in the #Gaza Strip,” the company wrote on X, formerly Twitter, while an AFP employee in Gaza City said shortly after 4 a.m. (0200 GMT) that he could use the internet and phone network and had contacted people by phone.

    – AFP

  • October 29, 2023 08:37

    India abstains from UNGA vote on Israel, says terrorism is a ‘malignancy’ without naming Hamas

    Terrorism is a “malignancy” and knows no borders, nationality or race and the world should not buy into any justification of terror acts, India has told the U.N. General Assembly as it abstained on a resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

    India on Friday abstained in the UN General Assembly on a Jordanian-drafted resolution titled ‘Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations’ that called for an immediate humanitarian truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict and unhindered humanitarian access in the Gaza strip.

    Read more here

  • October 29, 2023 08:22

    Israel says its war can both destroy Hamas and rescue hostages

    The Israeli military has sought to assure the public it can achieve the two goals of its war on Hamas simultaneously — toppling the strip’s militant rulers and rescuing some 230 hostages abducted from Israel.

    But as the army ramps up airstrikes and ground incursions on the blockaded enclave, laying waste to entire neighborhoods in preparation for a broader invasion, the anguished families of hostages are growing increasingly worried those aims will collide — with devastating consequences.

    – AP

  • October 29, 2023 08:02

    Telephone, internet gradually returning in Gaza

    Telephone and internet communications are returning gradually to the Gaza Strip, several Palestinian media outlets said early on Sunday.

    – Reuters

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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.

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“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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