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[VIDEOS/PICTURES] Bloodshed in the land of Palestine - 2023 Edition

The continued slaughter of innocent Palestinians in Gaza confirms the passing of the ceasefire resolution in the UN is nothing but a sick joke. This has proved that the US and Israel are above international law and can do whatever they want with impunity including the act of genocide.

Shame on the western powers for allowing this barbarism to continue.
 
May ALLAH bless these people and destroy their enemies
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‘Don’t Appeal to the Arabs’ – Bereaved Wife of Ismail Haniyeh’s Son Speaks at His Funeral

the wife of Hazem, one of Haniyeh’s assassinated children, conveyed a powerful message at her husband's funeral. (Image: Palestine Chronicle, via video grab, social)
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Another iconic reaction was that of the wife of Hazem, one of Haniyeh’s assassinated children.
Hazem Ismail Haniyeh is the son of former Palestinian Prime Minister and the current leader of the political bureau of the Hamas Resistance movement.

He was assassinated with two of his brothers and a number of their children on the first day of the Muslim holiday, Eid Al-Fitr in Shati refugee camp, in northern Gaza.

The family was taking part in the holiday celebrations and were reportedly traveling in a car, on their way to greet other family members in the area.

They were all struck by Israeli missiles and drones, killing them instantly.

Ismail Haniyeh learned about the demise of his family during a visit to wounded Palestinian children who made it to Qatari hospitals in Doha.

Haniyeh’s reaction to the news is celebrated by Palestinians as the qualities of a true Palestinian leader, and is being compared to the attitude and language of current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, seen by most Palestinians as a collaborator with Israel.

Another iconic reaction was that of the wife of Hazem, one of Haniyeh’s assassinated children, which has been shared widely on social media and cited by Al-Jazeera.

What Did Ismail Haniyeh Say?
My children “stayed with our people in Gaza and did not leave the Strip,” Hanyeh was quoted by Al-Jazeera as saying.

“All our people and all the families of Gaza residents have paid a heavy price with the blood of their children, and I am one of them,” he said, adding that at least 60 members of his family were killed in the ongoing genocidal war.

“The occupation believes that by targeting the sons of leaders, it will break the resolve of our people,” he said, adding:

“We say to the occupation that this blood will only make us more steadfast in our principles and attachment to our land.”

“The enemy will not succeed in their goals and the castles will not fall. What the enemy failed to extract through killing, destruction, and genocide, they will not take in negotiations,” Haniyeh added.

What Did Hazem’s Wife Say?
Hazem’s wife also had a powerful message of her own.

“Give your greetings to all the martyrs,” Hazem’s wife said, while bidding farewell to her husband and children.

“We are among the patient (of God’s creations). I offered you to Allah, and may Allah (aid) me in my calamity.

“They failed (the Israelis) because Hazem lives. He did not die,” she continued.

Her most poignant message, however, was addressed to the Arab countries, which are not showing tangible support for the people of Gaza, despite six months of genocidal Israeli war.

“No one should appeal to the Arabs. They are the ones who need us; we don’t need them. They are the dead, and we are the living. You are the living and they are the dead,” she said, while touching the bodies of her husband and children.

“May Allah have mercy on you, Abu Amr (her husband),” she concluded, in a final message to her slain husband.

“Your Eid is in heaven, my dear.”

Who is Ismail Haniyeh?
Haniyeh, who was born in the Shati refugee camp in 1962, was the head of the Hamas list that won the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, and so became Prime Minister of the State of Palestine.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office in June 2007.

Haniyeh was the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from 2006 until February 2017, when he was replaced by Yahya Sinwar.

On May 6, 2017, he was elected chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau, replacing Khaled Mashaa,l and relocated from Gaza to Qatar.

Staggering Death Toll

Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 33,545 Palestinians have been killed, and 76,094 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.

(The Palestine Chronicle)
 
FearlessRoar said:
Shameful but not surprising.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1778806437365399665
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The German government has banned Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta from entering the country to join a conference on the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Abu Sitta served in Gaza during the first month of the genocide. He witnessed countless war crimes committed against the innocent people.

Quds News
 
Deadly violence after Israeli boy vanishes in West Bank

Violence has erupted during an Israeli search for a missing teenage boy in the occupied West Bank, with a Palestinian man killed and 25 reported hurt in clashes with Jewish settlers.

Israeli troops intervened after dozens of settlers stormed al-Mughayyir, a village near Ramallah, armed with guns and stones. The unrest later subsided.

Missing Benjamin Ahimeir, 14, has not been found. A huge search is under way.

Separately Israeli forces shot and killed two West Bank Palestinians.

One was confirmed by Hamas to be a local commander of the group. The Israeli military say Mohammed Daraghmeh was killed in a shoot-out with their troops.

Violence has escalated in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza started on 7 October, ignited by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel which killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Israel is on high alert after US officials said an Iranian strike against Israel might be imminent. Iran has vowed to retaliate for last week's deadly air strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria, in which several senior Iranian military figures died.

Israel has not commented but is widely considered to have carried out that attack targeting Iran's elite Quds Force.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said at least eight of those injured in the al-Mughayyir violence were hit by live fire.

It is not yet clear whether the man who died, 26-year-old Jehad Abu Alia, was shot by an armed settler or Israeli soldier.

The army says its forces managed to disperse the settlers who had entered the village. Troops have set up roadblocks in the area as the security forces continue searching for the Israeli boy, who had left a settler outpost, Malachi Hashalom, early on Friday.

His sister Hannah, quoted by AFP news agency, said he was familiar with the area, where he had often herded sheep.

The Palestinian health ministry says at least 460 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since 7 October.

Israeli sources say at least 13 Israelis have been killed there by Palestinians in the same period.

The surge in West Bank violence has prompted the US, UK and France to impose sanctions on some settlers for the first time.

But the casualties there are dwarfed by the Gaza war: more than 33,600 Gazans, the majority of them civilians, have been killed during Israel's campaign, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

On 7 October gunmen also took more than 250 people hostage. Israel says that of 130 hostages still in Gaza, at least 34 are dead.

BBC
 

Indian-origin Woman Arrested In US, Charged With Making Terror Threats Over Israel-Hamas Conflict​


An Indian-origin woman, identified as Riddhi Patel has reportedly been arrested in the United States and charged with making terror threats against the Mayor of California’s Bakersfield.

Speaking at a city council meeting on Wednesday, Riddhi Patel lashed out at officials and directed threats towards them for not backing a ceasefire resolution for the Israel-Hamas conflict.

A video of Riddi’s speech went viral on the internet wherein she expressed her desire for “oppressed minorities” to “guillotine” the city’s officials. “I remind you that these holidays that we practice, that other people in the global south practice, believe in violent revolution against their oppressors, and I hope one day somebody brings the guillotine and kills all of you,” she said in her speech.

According to an NDTV report, the Indian-origin woman made the threats during two separate speeches she delivered to the city council that evening.

She initiated her speech by citing support for the ceasefire resolution but anticipated its rejection and called the council members “horrible human beings”.

Subsequently, she criticised putting in additional security measures at the government buildings, like installing metal detectors, calling them attempts to “criminalise” protesters.

“You guys, those who vote to win in Bakersfield, parade Gandhi around and a Hindu holiday called Chaitra Navaratri that starts off this week. I remind you that these holidays that we practice, that other people in the global south practice, believe in violent revolution against their oppressors,” she said.

“We’ll see you at your house. We’ll murder you,” she concluded.

Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh responded to Riddhi’s statements, indicating to police officers present that action needed to be taken. “Ms Patel, that was a threat. What you said at the end and so the officers are going to escort you out and take care of that,” she said.

Riddhi was escorted out of the chambers and taken into custody by the police.

According to the Bakersfield Police, Riddhi faces 16 felony counts, including threatening with intent to terrorise and targeting city officials.

www.news18.com

Indian-origin Woman Arrested In US, Charged With Making Terror Threats Over Israel-Hamas Conflict | Video - News18

Learn about Riddhi Patel's arrest and charges after making threatening comments during Bakersfield City Council chambers.
www.news18.com www.news18.com
 
Rights groups sue Germany over arms exports to Israel

German and Palestinian human rights lawyers have filed a lawsuit at an administrative Berlin court, seeking to suspend export licenses issued by the German government for arms shipments to Israel, the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) said Saturday, Anadolu Agency reports.

The suit is on behalf of five Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip whose family members have been killed during Israeli rocket attacks, the EECHR said in a statement.

“A basic prerequisite for a rules-based and human rights-oriented German foreign policy is respect for the law in its own decision-making. Germany cannot remain true to its values if it exports weapons to a war where serious violations of international humanitarian law are apparent,” said ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck.

Source: The Middle East Monitor
 
Israel says Hamas has rejected latest ceasefire deal

We've also had news on the talks to try to secure a hostage-prisoner swap and ceasefire in Gaza.

Hamas has rejected the latest outline of a plan put forward by mediators, according to Israel's intelligence agency Mossad.

The Israeli agency says in a statement the rejection "proves that [Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya] Sinwar does not want a humanitarian deal and the return of the hostages".

Hamas "is continuing to exploit the tension with Iran, and is striving to unite the sectors and achieve a general escalation in the region", the statement continues.

"Israel will continue to strive to realize the objectives of the war with Hamas with full force, and leave no stone unturned to return the 133 hostages from Gaza forthwith."

BBC
 

IDF says troops built bridges for tanks to cross Wadi Gaza river and hit terror targets​


As the IDF continues a pinpoint operation against Hamas in the central Gaza Strip, the military says combat engineers built bridges for tanks to cross the Wadi Gaza river.

Two bridges were used by troops of the 401st Armored Brigade to carry out an offensive against several sites belonging to terror groups south of the stream.

The IDF says its 162nd Division continues to kill gunmen in the area, on the outskirts of Nuseirat camp.

The troops also uncovered and destroyed several rocket launchers, which were primed for attacks on Israel, the military says.

www.timesofisrael.com

IDF says troops built bridges for tanks to cross Wadi Gaza river and hit terror targets

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www.timesofisrael.com www.timesofisrael.com
 
It took just one strike from Iran to awake the dead conscience of G7
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The G7 statement also pledged to work "towards an immediate and sustainable ceasefire" in Gaza after more than six months of fighting.

- Leaders of the G7 nations condemned Iran's attack on Israel and said on Sunday they would work to try to prevent an "uncontrollable regional escalation" in the Middle East.

Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the G7, had called a meeting of G7 heads after U.S. President Joe Biden pledged a coordinated diplomatic response to the unprecedented drone and missile attack launched overnight by Iran.
"With its actions, Iran has further stepped toward the destabilization of the region and risks provoking an uncontrollable regional escalation. This must be avoided," a statement issued by Italy said.

The G7 leaders, who spoke for just under an hour on a video conference, called for Iran to exercise restraint.
"In this spirit, we demand that Iran and its proxies cease their attacks, and we stand ready to take further measures now and in response to further destabilizing initiatives," it said.
President Biden has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the U.S. will not take part in a counter-offensive against Iran if Israel decides to retaliate.

Iran launched the attack in response to a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in Syria on April 1 that killed top Revolutionary Guards commanders and followed months of clashes between Israel and Iran's regional allies, triggered by the war in Gaza.

The G7 groups the United States, Canada, Italy, Britain, France, Germany and Japan, as well as the European Union. Its foreign ministers are scheduled to meet over April 17-19 on the Italian island of Capri.

Source: Reuters
 

Army renews warnings to Palestinians not to return to northern Gaza​


The Israeli military renews warnings for Palestinians in Gaza not to return to the embattled territory’s north, a day after Gaza hospital officials said five people were killed as throngs of displaced residents tried to reach their homes in the war-torn area.

The military has reduced the number of troops it has in Gaza and has said it has loosened Hamas’s control over the north, but Israel is still carrying out airstrikes and targeted operations in the area against what it says are reorganizing forces.

Arabic-language military spokesman Avichay Adraee writes on X, formerly Twitter, that Palestinians should stay in southern Gaza, where they have been told to shelter, because the north is a “dangerous combat zone.”

People appear to be heeding the new warning, especially after the violence on Sunday.

Hospital authorities in Gaza said that five people were killed by Israeli forces while trying to travel north to their homes. The Israeli military has had no comment and the precise circumstances behind the deaths are not immediately clear.

www.timesofisrael.com

Army renews warnings to Palestinians not to return to northern Gaza

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www.timesofisrael.com www.timesofisrael.com
 
Palestinian doctors tell Al Jazeera they have discovered another mass grave in the vicinity of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, recently besieged by Israeli soldiers, with nine bodies believed to be those of patients found so far.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Fifteen more bodies recovered from Al-Shifa hospital area after Israeli military’s withdrawal


Fifteen bodies were recovered on Monday from around Al-Shifa hospital following the withdrawal of the Israeli military from the area two weeks ago, Gaza residents and medical crews told CNN.

Health workers and residents in northern Gaza have been searching and digging for what they believe are mass graves and looking for their loved ones, after they said Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinians and left their bodies to decompose during their two-week siege of the complex.

“We were called today to extract the bodies that are buried inside Al-Shifa medical complex. We came here at 9 a.m. with an excavator and excavated 15 bodies,” Adel Al-Mash-Harawi, an ambulance driver from Gaza told CNN from the site of the excavation.

Hundreds of bodies have been recovered from areas around the hospital complex since the siege ended April 1, a Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson told CNN last week.

Video filmed by CNN Monday shows medical workers, some wearing UN-marked vests, walking around the site over mounds of sand, digging up bodies. White body bags can be seen laying on the side of the excavation site, some marked with text reading “unidentified body” and some with names of people on them.

“Today I bid farewell to my mother who was inside Al-Shifa hospital during the invasion and attack by the vicious Israeli occupation on this medical complex that has been turned into a big mass of rubble,” Mohammad Al-Khateeb a resident of Gaza told CNN.

Al-Khateeb’s mother, Khawala Al-Khateeb, was 75 years old when she was brought to the hospital three days before the Israeli military siege on the complex and surrounding neighborhood of Al-Rimal, and was killed three days after, he said.

“The Israeli military deprived patients, nurses, doctors and the displaced of water, medicine and food,” he added.


 
Israeli army continues to operate in Gaza

Despite the ongoing tensions between Iran and Israeli, the Israeli army is continuing its operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli forces began a military operation in the town of Beit Hanoun, north east of the Gaza Strip, at dawn today, as dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles entered from the eastern and northern sides and surrounded three schools housing thousands of displaced people.

The raid began with intense air strikes and artillery shelling, followed by the entry of two squadrons of armoured vehicles and tanks.

Mohamed Muhanna, a local activist journalist, tells the BBC: "The Israeli troops advanced in Beit Hanoun and surrounded the schools with heavy fire cover, fire belts, and firing from Quadcopter drones at the school, which houses hundreds of displaced people."

In central Gaza, the IDF says aircraft and infantry have been in action against what they call Hamas compounds in the central Gaza strip.

BBC
 
Pro-Palestinian protesters have blocked major roads in the states of Illinois, California, New York and the Pacific Northwest, temporarily preventing travel into some of the United States’s most heavily used airports, onto the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridges and along a busy West Coast highway.

In Chicago, protesters linked arms and blocked lanes of Interstate 190 leading into O’Hare International Airport at about 7am (12:00 GMT) on Monday in a demonstration they said was part of a global “economic blockade to free Palestine”, according to Rifqa Falaneh, one of the organisers.

Protesters say they chose O’Hare in part because it is one of the largest airports in the US. Dozens were arrested, according to Falaneh. Chicago police said that “multiple people” were taken into custody after a protest where people obstructed traffic but did not provide a detailed count.

In California, demonstrators blocked lanes on the northbound I-880 in Oakland by chaining themselves to barrels, while a separate group of protesters with banners disrupted traffic on the southbound lanes. On the Golden Gate Bridge, protesters impeded traffic in both directions, displaying a banner that read, “Stop the world for Gaza.”

In Eugene, Oregon, protesters blocked Interstate 5, shutting down traffic on the major highway for about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, protesters marching into Brooklyn blocked Manhattan-bound traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Israeli authorities are holding the bodies of 26 Palestinian detainees, a regular practice which is criticised by human rights groups as collective punishment against bereaved families, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.


Al Jazeera
 
Israeli tanks push back into northern Gaza, warplanes hit Rafah, say residents

Israeli tanks pushed back into parts of the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday which they had left weeks ago, while warplanes conducted air strikes on Rafah, the Palestinians' last refuge in the south of the territory, killing and wounding several people, medics and residents said.

Residents reported an internet outage in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in northern Gaza. Tanks advanced into Beit Hanoun and surrounded some schools where displaced families have taken refuge, said the residents and media outlets of the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

"Occupation soldiers ordered all families inside the schools and the nearby houses where the tanks had advanced to evacuate. The soldiers detained many men," one resident of northern Gaza told Reuters via a chat app.

Beit Hanoun, home to 60,000 people, was one of the first areas targeted by Israel's ground offensive in Gaza last October. Heavy bombardment turned most of Beit Hanoun, once known as 'the basket of fruit' because of its orchards, into a ghost town comprising piles of rubble.

Many families who had returned to Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in recent weeks after Israeli forces withdrew, began moving out again on Tuesday because of the new raid, some residents said.

Palestinian health officials said an Israeli strike had killed four people and wounded several others in Rafah, where over half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are sheltering and bracing for a planned Israeli ground offensive into the city, which borders Egypt.

Just before midnight, an Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah and killed seven people, including children, and wounded several others, Palestinian health officials said. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Palestinian health officials and Hamas media said an Israeli airstrike had also killed 11 Palestinians, including children, in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

"My brothers were sitting by the door, my brother was injured, and his cousin too, and I lost my son, I do not have a house, nor a husband, nor anything anymore," said Wafaa Issa al-Nouri, whose son Mohammad and husband were killed in the strike.

"He was playing by the door, we didn't do anything, I swear we didn't do anything," she said.

The Hamas-run interior ministry also said an Israeli air strike had hit a police car in the Tuffah district of Gaza City, killing seven police officers.

GUNMEN TARGETED

After six months of fighting, there is still no sign of any breakthrough in U.S.-backed talks led by Qatar and Egypt to clinch a ceasefire deal in Gaza, as Israel and Hamas stick to their mutually irreconcilable conditions.

The Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the central Gaza Strip and that they had killed several gunmen who attempted to attack them.

"Furthermore, over the past day, IDF fighter jets and aircraft destroyed a missile launcher along with dozens of terrorist infrastructure, terror tunnels, and military compounds where armed Hamas terrorists were located," it added.

In Al-Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, residents said Israeli planes had bombed and destroyed four multi-storey residential buildings on Tuesday.

Israel is still imposing "unlawful" restrictions on humanitarian relief for Gaza, the U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday, despite assertions from Israel and others that barriers have eased.

The amount of aid now entering Gaza is disputed, with Israel and Washington saying aid flows have risen in recent days but U.N. agencies say it is still far below bare minimum levels.

Israel is under international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, especially northern areas where famine is expected by May, according to the United Nations.

Israel's military said it had facilitated the entry of 126 trucks into northern Gaza late on Monday from the south.

It also said it was working in collaboration with the World Food Program (WFP) to facilitate the opening of two more bakeries in northern Gaza after the first began operations on Monday with WFP help.

The Palestinian health ministry said more than 33,000 Palestinians have so far been killed by Israeli fire since Oct. 7, including 46 in the past 24 hours.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after militants of the Hamas group that has been running the territory attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

REUTERS
 

Muslim valedictorian’s California university speech canceled citing security reasons​


The University of Southern California, citing safety concerns and passions around the latest Middle East conflict, has canceled its valedictorian speech from a Muslim student who said she was being silenced by anti-Palestinian hatred for her views on human rights.

USC Provost Andrew Guzman said in a statement on Monday that the decision to scrub the traditional valedictorian address at next month’s graduation had “nothing to do with freedom of speech” and was simply aimed at protecting campus security.

The valedictorian, biomedical engineering major Asna Tabassum, in her own statement challenged the university’s rationale, questioning “whether USC’s decision to revoke my invitation to speak is made solely on the basis of safety.”

Guzman’s statement did not refer to Tabassum by name, or specify what about her speech, background or political views had raised concerns. Nor did it detail any particular threats.

The provost referred more broadly to how “discussion relating to the selection of our valedictorian had taken on an alarming tenor” in recent days.

“The intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, has grown to include many voices outside of USC and has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement,” he wrote.

As a consequence, “we have decided that our student valedictorian will not deliver a speech at commencement,” Guzman wrote, adding, “tradition must give way to safety.” The Los Angeles Times reported the decision was a first for USC.

Public safety officials and civil rights advocates have reported a rise in hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, Arabs and Palestinians in the United States, along with heightened tensions on college campuses related to the Israel-Gaza war, since the conflict erupted on Oct. 7.

According to Tabassum, who described herself as a “first-generation South Asian-American Muslim,” USC officials refused in an April 14 meeting with her to share details of the university’s security assessment.

USC, renowned for an intercollegiate athletic program whose football and other teams are known as the Trojans, did not respond to Reuters’ request for further comment.

Tabassum said she also was told USC possessed the ability “to take appropriate safety measures for my valedictory speech” but opted not to because a tougher security posture was “not what the university wants to ‘present as an image.’”

Instead, Tabassum said USC was “caving to fear and rewarding hatred,” which she said was being directed by “anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices” targeting her “because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all.”

Neither Tabassum nor USC made explicit mention of the Israel-Gaza war.

Trojans for Israel, a USC-based group, and We Are Tov (Hebrew for “good”), a group advocating support for Israel and Jews in collegiate life, had called for Tabassum’s removal as commencement speaker earlier this month, saying she had espoused antisemitic views in the past.

Local media reported both groups had mounted opposition to Tabassum based on her social media profile, including an Instagram account with a link directing users to a slideshow about “what’s happening in Palestine and how to help.” It advocated for “one Palestinian state” and “the complete abolishment of the state of Israel.”

Tabassum told an NBC News affiliate that she posted the link five years earlier and did not author the slideshow.

In her statement, Tabassum said her undergraduate minor studies in genocide resistance had shown her the danger of allowing “cries for equality and human dignity” to be deliberately conflated with “expressions of hatred.”

“Due to widespread fear, I was hoping to use my commencement speech to inspire my classmates with a message of hope,” she wrote.

Sonya Meyerson-Knox, spokesperson for the Jewish anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, said the USC episode was part of a larger pattern on US college campuses of students being censured as anti-Jewish for criticizing Israel’s government or for expressing support for Palestinian rights.

“Holding the government of Israel accountable for committing grave human rights violations and war crimes and possible genocide has nothing to do with antisemitism,” she said.

Other Jewish groups have countered that anti-Zionist rhetoric - sometimes marked by calls for Israel’s destruction or right to exist - frequently feeds overt forms of anti-Jewish hatred.

Tabassum was chosen valedictorian from nearly 100 applicants - submitted from among the more than 200 graduating seniors - who qualified for the honor based on their grade-point-averages, according to USC.

The university had not asked for an advanced copy of Tabassum’s address before withdrawing her invitation to speak, and she had not even begun working on her speech, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, an advocacy group that circulated her statement.

The council launched an online campaign calling for USC to reinstate Tabassum’s invitation to speak.

The May 10 commencement exercises, honoring this year’s class of 19,000-plus graduates, is expected to draw 65,000 people to the downtown Los Angeles campus of USC, long regarded as one of California’s most prestigious private universities.

 
The USA teaches the East about tolerance, despite its own society being quite intolerant.
 
Israel makes own decisions, Netanyahu says after Cameron talks

Benjamin Netanyahu has told UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron that Israel would "make its own decisions" over how to respond to an Iranian attack.

He said his government would "do everything necessary to defend itself" during talks the British government had hoped would help prevent escalation.

Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to retaliate to the unprecedented missile and drone assault at the weekend.

Lord Cameron told him any response should be "smart" and limited.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem after the meeting with Mr Netanyahu, Lord Cameron said he was there to "demonstrate our solidarity" after Iran's "appalling" attack.

He continued: "We hope that anything Israel does is as limited and as targeted and as smart as possible.

"It's in no-one's interest that we see escalation and that is what we said very clearly to all the people I've been speaking to here in Israel."

After the meeting, the Israeli prime minister said: "I want to make it clear - we will make our own decisions, and the State of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself."

Mr Netanyahu's remarks will reinforce the belief in western capitals that Israel is set to take action against Iran and there is a limit to how often they can call for restraint.

Israel is more than aware of concerns in Europe and the United States about the war escalating in the region.

However, western leaders may take comfort from the fact that Israeli leaders are trying to exploit the diplomatic support they have gained after Iran's attacks, which has seen international condemnation and the promise of new sanctions on Tehran.

It is possible Mr Netanyahu may not want to destroy that alliance with an act of retaliation that plunges the region into a full-scale war.

Lord Cameron is one of several Western foreign ministers who are expected to visit Israel in the coming days as part of a diplomatic drive to prevent that from happening.

Before meeting Mr Netanyahu, Lord Cameron held talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz.



www.bbc.com

Israel makes own decisions, Netanyahu says after Cameron talks

The UK foreign secretary tells Israeli leaders not to risk escalating tensions in the Middle East.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Spain leads European push to recognise Palestine, risking Israel’s wrath

Spain, Ireland, Malta and Slovenia are expected to make the move, which will hold historic symbolism but have a limited effect, say analysts.

As Israel’s war on Gaza rages on for a seventh month, with almost 34,000 Palestinians killed, Madrid wants to recognise Palestine as a state by July and is encouraging its neighbours to follow in its footsteps.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights, sees recognition as a way of reaching a two-state solution and a possible key to ending the devastating conflict that began in October.

“The time has come for the international community to once and for all recognise the State of Palestine,” he said in November. “It is something that many EU countries believe we have to do jointly, but if this is not the case, Spain will adopt its own decision.”

In all, 139 out of 193 United Nations member states consider Palestine as a state. Those which do include European nations such as Iceland, Poland and Romania, as well as countries like Russia, China and Nigeria.

The European Union as a whole does not recognise Palestine, nor do states including the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

Sanchez, who has discussed the issue on his recent trips abroad, has declared that his country has agreed with Ireland, Malta, and Slovenia on the need for recognition.

That four European governments are in favour of the move while others are against is a sign that the EU, as an institution, is deeply divided.

Earlier this week, Portuguese premier Luis Montenegro told Sanchez that his government would “not go as far” as Spain without a joint European approach.



www.aljazeera.com

Spain leads European push to recognise Palestine, risking Israel’s wrath

Spain, Ireland, Malta and Slovenia are expected to make the move, which will hold historic symbolism.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
Spain leads European push to recognise Palestine, risking Israel’s wrath

Spain, Ireland, Malta and Slovenia are expected to make the move, which will hold historic symbolism but have a limited effect, say analysts.

As Israel’s war on Gaza rages on for a seventh month, with almost 34,000 Palestinians killed, Madrid wants to recognise Palestine as a state by July and is encouraging its neighbours to follow in its footsteps.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights, sees recognition as a way of reaching a two-state solution and a possible key to ending the devastating conflict that began in October.

“The time has come for the international community to once and for all recognise the State of Palestine,” he said in November. “It is something that many EU countries believe we have to do jointly, but if this is not the case, Spain will adopt its own decision.”

In all, 139 out of 193 United Nations member states consider Palestine as a state. Those which do include European nations such as Iceland, Poland and Romania, as well as countries like Russia, China and Nigeria.

The European Union as a whole does not recognise Palestine, nor do states including the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

Sanchez, who has discussed the issue on his recent trips abroad, has declared that his country has agreed with Ireland, Malta, and Slovenia on the need for recognition.

That four European governments are in favour of the move while others are against is a sign that the EU, as an institution, is deeply divided.

Earlier this week, Portuguese premier Luis Montenegro told Sanchez that his government would “not go as far” as Spain without a joint European approach.



www.aljazeera.com

Spain leads European push to recognise Palestine, risking Israel’s wrath

Spain, Ireland, Malta and Slovenia are expected to make the move, which will hold historic symbolism.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
Expect nothing from the supports of Israel
====
The continuing escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran and the wars in Gaza and in Ukraine will dominate the agenda of the ministers from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Japan.

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies gathered on the Italian island of Capri on Wednesday for three days of talks overshadowed by expectations of an Israeli retaliation against Iran for missile and drone attacks.

For the latest updates on the Israel-Palestine conflict, visit our dedicated page.

Italy, which holds the G7’s rotating presidency, is pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza and a de-escalation of Middle East tensions, but Israel looks very likely to retaliate against Iran’s weekend attacks despite Western calls for restraint.

“No one has the right to believe that Israel can be wiped off the face of the earth. But this does not mean that we do not want peace,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told his fellow G7 ministers at the start of the gathering.

The G7 nations pledged support for Israel after the attack, which came in response to a presumed Israeli airstrike on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus on April 1 which killed two generals and several other Iranian officers.

The US said on Tuesday it was planning to impose new sanctions on Tehran’s missile and drone program in the coming days and expected its allies to follow suit.

Tajani said the issue would be discussed in Capri, adding that European Union foreign ministers had unanimously agreed to slap fresh economic penalties on those who armed Israel’s foes and those who attacked ships in the Red Sea.

The Iranian missiles and drones launched on Saturday were mostly shot down by Israel and its allies, and caused no deaths. But Israel says it must retaliate to preserve the credibility of its deterrents. Iran says it considers the matter closed for now but will retaliate again if Israel does.

Source: Al Arabiya
 

Hamas welcomes Turkish president's support for Palestinian resistance​


Hamas yesterday welcomed statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he affirmed his continued support for the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.

The Palestinian group expressed “deep appreciation and pride for [Erdogan’s] brave support of the movement and its resistance project in Palestine, when he likened the role of the Turkish national forces during the War of Independence to the role of the Hamas movement in its current struggle, in defence of the Palestinian people, their land and their sanctities.”

“These courageous statements and honourable positions of President Erdogan embody the historical and authentic position of the brotherly Turkish people, and our people will preserve them in their struggle, as a bold voice in standing with our people in the Gaza Strip,”the statement continued.

Erdogan said yesterday that he will continue to defend Palestine’s struggle and be “the voice of its oppressed people.”

Speaking at a parliamentary bloc meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan said that “there is no difference between the Turkish national forces during the War of Independence and the Hamas movement today,” stressing that he “understands the price of that” position.

www.middleeastmonitor.com

Hamas welcomes Turkish president's support for Palestinian resistance

Hamas yesterday welcomed statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he affirmed his continued support for the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. The Palestinian group expressed “deep appreciation and...
www.middleeastmonitor.com www.middleeastmonitor.com
 
Turkey is part of NATO, so Recep Tayyip Erdogan has to stop this drama immediately.
 
These hypocrites will never grant them one
====
Palestinian bid for UN membership set for Security Council vote

Palestinian and Israeli representatives have addressed the UNSC ahead of a vote on a resolution granting Palestinians full membership to the body.

A United Nations resolution granting the observer State of Palestine full membership at the international body would be an “important pillar in achieving peace in the region”, Ziad Abu Amr, UN special representative of the observer State of Palestine, has told the UN Security Council (UNSC) ahead of a vote.

“We are still longing to practice our right to self-determination, to live in freedom, security and peace in an independent state similar to other countries around the world,” Abu Amr said on Thursday, adding that Palestinians “made and continue to make great sacrifices to achieve this goal”.


The UNSC is set to vote later on Thursday on the Palestinian bid for full UN membership. The initiative, however, seems destined for failure given that a staunch Israeli ally, the United States, holds veto power.

Addressing the US and other countries that may oppose the resolution, Abu Amr dismissed claims that the resolution would imperil political negotiations and prospects for peace.

“To those who say that recognising the Palestinian state must happen through negotiations and not through a UN resolution, we say: ‘How was the State of Israel established? Wasn’t that through a UN resolution, which was Resolution 181?,” Abu Amr said.

“This resolution will not be an alternative to negotiations and to resolving pending issues, it will grant hope to Palestinians for an independent state after this hope dissipated,” he added.

“We hope you will give us the opportunity to become an integral part of the international community that is working to achieve international peace and security.”

Source: Al Jazeera
 
The UN Security Council is scheduled to vote on Thursday on whether to recommend that Palestine receive full UN membership, which would effectively recognize its statehood. The U.S., which has veto power, said it would vote against the resolution.


The New York Times
 
US raises Rafah concerns with Israel, discusses Iran attack

Senior U.S. officials raised concerns with their Israeli counterparts on Thursday about Israel's plans for military operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and the two sides also discussed Iran's drone-and-missile strike on Israel in a virtual meeting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's representatives agreed "to take these concerns into account" for any military action in Rafah, the White House said, amid heightened fears of the threat of regional war in the Middle East.

President Joe Biden has urged Israel not to launch a large-scale offensive in Rafah to avoid more Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, where Palestinian health authorities say more than 33,000 people have been killed in Israel's assault.

The war in Gaza was triggered by an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas militants, who killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies
The talks were a follow-up to a similar meeting held on April 1. That session concluded with tensions high and the two sides were far apart in their positions, according to people familiar with the matter.

The United States has been pressing Israel not to conduct a broad offensive in Rafah that would add to an increased civilian death toll but instead take a more targeted approach.

U.S. officials reportedly told the Israelis at the first meeting that their planning for Rafah was insufficient for evacuating and protecting the more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there, the last part of the enclave Israeli troops had not invaded in force.


 

EU Sanctions Several Israeli Settlers Over Violence in West Bank​


The European Union formally approved sanctions Friday on violent Israeli settlers, a procedural step that required weeks of technical work as the bloc tries to balance its support for Israel with the need to address the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The bloc agreed to impose travel bans and asset freezes on four settlers in the West Bank and two entities, according to an announcement in the EU’s Official Journal.

While EU member states had signed off on the move in March, the delay in finalizing the measure highlights the difficulty the EU has faced in reaching agreement on matters related to the Middle East conflict. The timing of this step wasn’t related to Iran’s recent drone and missile barrage in Israel, or Israel’s subsequent retaliation.

The bloc is struggling with how to impose its influence in the region as it calls for both Israel and Iran to show restraint and avoid escalation. While the EU has reaffirmed support for Israel after Iran’s attack, it is also seeking to refocus attention on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza due to Israel’s strikes there in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Separately, the EU is discussing imposing additional sanctions on Iran over its weekend strike on Israel, with foreign ministers aiming to broadly back the measures when they meet in Luxembourg on Monday. A legal proposal isn’t expected until after the meeting.

The bloc’s member states are in broad agreement on expanding an existing regime imposing sanctions on Iran over its weapons aid to Russia to also include missiles, according to a senior EU official, although there is no concrete evidence that Tehran has transferred those yet to Moscow.

In addition to hitting Iran’s drone-makers, the measures on Iran would target transfers of weapons to Iranian proxies in the Middle East, including Hezbollah, the official said, adding there is still a discussion about whether to list individual names related to Tehran’s ballistic missile production.

The EU official also said Iran’s attack on Israel has been a major strategic mistake because Israel benefits politically from it and it has relieved the government of some pressure over its actions in Gaza.

www.bnnbloomberg.ca

EU Sanctions Several Israeli Settlers Over Violence in West Bank - BNN Bloomberg

The European Union formally approved sanctions Friday on violent Israeli settlers, a procedural step that required weeks of technical work as the bloc tries to balance its support for Israel with the need to address the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
www.bnnbloomberg.ca www.bnnbloomberg.ca
 
Pro-Palestine activists defy Israel with Gaza-bound aid flotilla

TNA meets activists from Freedom Flotilla Coalition on the Akdeniz ship seeking to break the Israeli siege on Gaza, hoping to bring relief to its people

Palestine solidarity activists are preparing a flotilla to deliver urgently needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, vowing to break Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory on board the Akdeniz, a seven-floor passenger ship.

Currently docked in Istanbul, the boat will carry 800 people from over 30 nations, from Indonesia to Hawaii, and is expected to transport 5500 tonnes of aid to Gaza once it sets sail from Turkey in the coming days.

On Friday, reports in Israel media suggested the Israeli authorities are preparing to intercept it. The activists joining the Akdeniz will be mindful of a previous fatal attempt by a vessel of comparable size to set sail from Turkey to Gaza.

The Mavi Marmara was a Turkish aid ship, part of a flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip in May 2010. Israeli commandos intercepted the flotilla in international waters, boarded the Mavi Marmara, and killed nine Turkish activists, injuring several others. The incident sparked international condemnation and strained relations between Turkey and Israel.

The acquisition of the Akdeniz was made possible through the support of four million donors worldwide. Organised by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), a coalition of 12 countries including Turkey, in partnership with İnsani Yardım Vakfı (IHH), the mission aims to break the deadly siege that has severely impacted the lives of the people of Gaza for years amid Israel's genocidal war that has killed over 33,000 Palestinians since October 7.

Pro-Palestinian activist and human rights lawyer Huwaida Arraf, who was on the Mavi Marmara in 2010, announced she would join the flotilla nevertheless.

"While we recognize Israel's potential for intercepting the mission, we hope for a peaceful outcome. If they choose to attack, those on board are prepared to engage in nonviolent resistance," she told reporters on Thursday.

Source: The New Arab
 
Given the actions of Israel, the whole world needs to fire missiles at them
====
Death toll rises to 14 in Israeli raid on refugee camp in the West Bank, Palestinian health ministry says

Palestinians inspect the damage left by an Israeli operation at the Nur al-Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

Palestinian authorities say they have been able to retrieve a number of bodies and injured people from the camp, as the IDF has partially withdrawn from the area.

Videos filmed by residents show a bulldozer destroying a building as IDF vehicles leave the camp after more than 24 hours of the raid.

Palestinians gather next to an ambulance following an Israeli operation at the Nur al-Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

Other videos show ambulances entering the camp after the IDF withdraws. Residents tell CNN that Israeli forces have left the immediate area but are still present in the nearby city of Tulkarm.

Earlier on Saturday, the IDF said its forces killed 10 "terrorists" and arrested eight wanted suspects during the extensive operation, which started on Thursday.

The health ministry and Palestinian news agency Wafa, meanwhile, have said at least one child and one teen are among those killed, and that the IDF has arrested young people en masse and destroyed key infrastructure.

The operation appears to be one of the largest in the West Bank since October 7.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for an operational update.

Source: CNN
 
Israeli strike kills 9 family members in Rafah

Five children aged one to seven and a 16-year-old girl were among the dead, along with two women and a man, according to the city's Al Najjar hospital, AFP reported.

"Nine martyrs including six children were pulled out from the rubble after Israeli air forces struck a house of the Radwan family in Tal al-Sultan in Rafah," Gaza Civil Defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said in a statement.

TEHRAN TIMES
 

US poised to impose sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank​


A unit of the Israel Defense Forces is facing US sanctions over its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, even as Congress voted for $26bn in new emergency aid to Israel.

According to a reports in the Israeli media, US state department officials have confirmed they are preparing to impose sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has been accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinians.

The highly significant move, which would be the first time the US government has targeted an IDF unit, sparked immediate anger among Israeli political leaders who vowed to oppose it.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Sunday that the US was also considering similar moves against other police and military units.

The sanctions, which would be imposed under the 1997 Leahy law, would prohibit the transfer of US military aid to the unit and prevent soldiers and officers participating in training either with the US military or in programmes that receive US funding.

Disclosure of the plans came as Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday night killed 18 people, including 14 children, according to health officials in Gaza.

The news of possible sanctions against the Netzah Yehuda battalion follows a statement by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Friday that he had made “determinations” over the claim that Israel had violated the Leahy law, which prohibits the provision of military assistance to police or security units that commit gross violations of human rights.

Since the law was enacted, US aid has been blocked to hundreds of units around the world accused of rights violations.

The state department has been investigating a number of Israeli security units, including police and military, for alleged violations, as senior Israeli officials indicated they had been lobbying against the imposition of any sanctions.

The Netzah Yehuda battalion, part of the Kfir brigade, was set up originally in 1999 to accommodate the religious beliefs of recruits from the ultra-Orthodox and national religious communities, including those from extremist settlements, and has historically been primarily deployed on the West Bank.

Soldiers from the unit were accused in the death of an 78-year-old US citizen, Omar Assad, who died of a heart attack in 2022 after being detained, bound, gagged and then abandoned by members of the unit. It was one of a number of high-profile incidents that have included claims of torture and mistreatment.

That case attracted scrutiny from the state department which demanded a criminal investigation.

The unit was later redeployed from the West Bank to northern Israel and has also been deployed in Gaza.

According to ProPublica last week, the state department had received a dossier on violations of the Leahy law in December.

The report that an IDF battalion is facing imminent sanctions, prompted a sharp response from senior Israeli figures, including the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The IDF must not be sanctioned!” he wrote on X. “I’ve been working in recent weeks against the sanctioning of Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with the American administration.

“At a time when our soldiers are fighting terrorist monsters, the intention to issue sanctions against a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low,” he added, committing to fight the move although it was not clear how.

“The Netza Yehuda battalion is an inseparable part of the Israel Defense Forces,” added Benny Gantz, a senior member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet and a former IDF chief of staff.

“It is subject to military law and is responsible for operating in full compliance with international law. The state of Israel has a strong, independent judicial system that evaluates meticulously any claim of a violation or deviation from IDF orders and code of conduct, and will continue to do so.”

Human rights organisations have long argued, however, that IDF’s military investigative system fails to properly investigate and prosecute human rights abuses committed by soldiers.

The reported plan to impose sanctions on the unit comes amid a mounting international sanctions campaign against Israelis involved in violence against Palestinians on the occupied West Bank which have seen new announcements targeting individuals and organisations almost monthly.

On Friday, the US and EU separately announced new sanctions against far right Israeli groups and NGOs linked to settler violence as well as high profile individuals, including Bentzi Gopstein, who has been a close political ally of Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The complex and conflicted international choreography of aid and sanctions relating to Israel, strikingly apparent this weekend and during Iran’s attack on Israel a week ago, appears designed to demonstrate that while its allies will support what it regards as Israel’s defence, they are determined to punish escalating extremist violence on the West Bank.

The Biden administration in particular has appeared more comfortable condemning Israeli actions policies in the West Bank than in Gaza, where Israel is fighting Hamas in a six-month conflict that has displaced more than 85% of the coastal strip’s population and killed 34,000 Palestinians, many of them civilian.

The latest incident, which Gaza health officials said had claimed the lives of 14 children, came in a pair of airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah, which has been bombed almost daily by Israel.

The first strike killed a man, his wife and their three-year-old child, according to the Kuwaiti hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant, and the doctors managed to save the baby, the hospital said.

The second strike killed 13 children and two women, all from the same family, according to hospital records. An airstrike in Rafah the night before killed nine people, including six children.

www.theguardian.com

Netanyahu vows to fight US sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank

Israeli leaders vow to oppose expected measures under Leahy law against the Netzah Yehuda battalion
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
FearlessRoar said:

US poised to impose sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank​


A unit of the Israel Defense Forces is facing US sanctions over its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, even as Congress voted for $26bn in new emergency aid to Israel.

According to a reports in the Israeli media, US state department officials have confirmed they are preparing to impose sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has been accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinians.

The highly significant move, which would be the first time the US government has targeted an IDF unit, sparked immediate anger among Israeli political leaders who vowed to oppose it.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Sunday that the US was also considering similar moves against other police and military units.

The sanctions, which would be imposed under the 1997 Leahy law, would prohibit the transfer of US military aid to the unit and prevent soldiers and officers participating in training either with the US military or in programmes that receive US funding.

Disclosure of the plans came as Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday night killed 18 people, including 14 children, according to health officials in Gaza.

The news of possible sanctions against the Netzah Yehuda battalion follows a statement by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Friday that he had made “determinations” over the claim that Israel had violated the Leahy law, which prohibits the provision of military assistance to police or security units that commit gross violations of human rights.

Since the law was enacted, US aid has been blocked to hundreds of units around the world accused of rights violations.

The state department has been investigating a number of Israeli security units, including police and military, for alleged violations, as senior Israeli officials indicated they had been lobbying against the imposition of any sanctions.

The Netzah Yehuda battalion, part of the Kfir brigade, was set up originally in 1999 to accommodate the religious beliefs of recruits from the ultra-Orthodox and national religious communities, including those from extremist settlements, and has historically been primarily deployed on the West Bank.

Soldiers from the unit were accused in the death of an 78-year-old US citizen, Omar Assad, who died of a heart attack in 2022 after being detained, bound, gagged and then abandoned by members of the unit. It was one of a number of high-profile incidents that have included claims of torture and mistreatment.

That case attracted scrutiny from the state department which demanded a criminal investigation.

The unit was later redeployed from the West Bank to northern Israel and has also been deployed in Gaza.

According to ProPublica last week, the state department had received a dossier on violations of the Leahy law in December.

The report that an IDF battalion is facing imminent sanctions, prompted a sharp response from senior Israeli figures, including the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The IDF must not be sanctioned!” he wrote on X. “I’ve been working in recent weeks against the sanctioning of Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with the American administration.

“At a time when our soldiers are fighting terrorist monsters, the intention to issue sanctions against a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low,” he added, committing to fight the move although it was not clear how.

“The Netza Yehuda battalion is an inseparable part of the Israel Defense Forces,” added Benny Gantz, a senior member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet and a former IDF chief of staff.

“It is subject to military law and is responsible for operating in full compliance with international law. The state of Israel has a strong, independent judicial system that evaluates meticulously any claim of a violation or deviation from IDF orders and code of conduct, and will continue to do so.”

Human rights organisations have long argued, however, that IDF’s military investigative system fails to properly investigate and prosecute human rights abuses committed by soldiers.

The reported plan to impose sanctions on the unit comes amid a mounting international sanctions campaign against Israelis involved in violence against Palestinians on the occupied West Bank which have seen new announcements targeting individuals and organisations almost monthly.

On Friday, the US and EU separately announced new sanctions against far right Israeli groups and NGOs linked to settler violence as well as high profile individuals, including Bentzi Gopstein, who has been a close political ally of Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The complex and conflicted international choreography of aid and sanctions relating to Israel, strikingly apparent this weekend and during Iran’s attack on Israel a week ago, appears designed to demonstrate that while its allies will support what it regards as Israel’s defence, they are determined to punish escalating extremist violence on the West Bank.

The Biden administration in particular has appeared more comfortable condemning Israeli actions policies in the West Bank than in Gaza, where Israel is fighting Hamas in a six-month conflict that has displaced more than 85% of the coastal strip’s population and killed 34,000 Palestinians, many of them civilian.

The latest incident, which Gaza health officials said had claimed the lives of 14 children, came in a pair of airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah, which has been bombed almost daily by Israel.

The first strike killed a man, his wife and their three-year-old child, according to the Kuwaiti hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant, and the doctors managed to save the baby, the hospital said.

The second strike killed 13 children and two women, all from the same family, according to hospital records. An airstrike in Rafah the night before killed nine people, including six children.

www.theguardian.com

Netanyahu vows to fight US sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank

Israeli leaders vow to oppose expected measures under Leahy law against the Netzah Yehuda battalion
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Click to expand...

Israel’s Netanyahu slams reported US plan to blacklist Netzah Yehuda military unit​


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned a reported US plan to sanction an ultra-Orthodox army battalion over human rights abuses in the West Bank, a move which could fuel tensions over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

“At a time when our soldiers are fighting terrorist monsters, the intention to sanction a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low,” Netanyahu wrote on X, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

The US is expected within days to announce the punitive measure, which would be the first time the US sanctions an Israeli army unit, Axios reported on Saturday, citing three people with knowledge of the matter in the US that it didn’t identify. The US Embassy in Israel declined to comment.

Blacklisting the Netzah Yehuda Battalion would prohibit it from receiving US military equipment or training.

It’s been accused of mistreating Palestinians, including in an incident in January 2022 when an elderly US-Palestinian man, Omar Assad, was found dead after his detention by members of the unit in the West Bank.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said he will reveal “in the days ahead” his determinations on whether specific Israeli military or police units are liable to be sanctioned under the so-called Leahy Law, which bars military assistance to other countries’ security forces that violate human rights.

Netanyahu has clashed repeatedly with President Joe Biden’s administration over its pressure to do more to protect civilians and work toward a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. He praised the US House passing a $26 billion aid bill for Israel on Saturday that includes both support for missile defenses and humanitarian help in Gaza, saying on X that it shows “strong bipartisan support for Israel.”

 
FearlessRoar said:

US poised to impose sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank​


A unit of the Israel Defense Forces is facing US sanctions over its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, even as Congress voted for $26bn in new emergency aid to Israel.

According to a reports in the Israeli media, US state department officials have confirmed they are preparing to impose sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has been accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinians.

The highly significant move, which would be the first time the US government has targeted an IDF unit, sparked immediate anger among Israeli political leaders who vowed to oppose it.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Sunday that the US was also considering similar moves against other police and military units.

The sanctions, which would be imposed under the 1997 Leahy law, would prohibit the transfer of US military aid to the unit and prevent soldiers and officers participating in training either with the US military or in programmes that receive US funding.

Disclosure of the plans came as Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday night killed 18 people, including 14 children, according to health officials in Gaza.

The news of possible sanctions against the Netzah Yehuda battalion follows a statement by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Friday that he had made “determinations” over the claim that Israel had violated the Leahy law, which prohibits the provision of military assistance to police or security units that commit gross violations of human rights.

Since the law was enacted, US aid has been blocked to hundreds of units around the world accused of rights violations.

The state department has been investigating a number of Israeli security units, including police and military, for alleged violations, as senior Israeli officials indicated they had been lobbying against the imposition of any sanctions.

The Netzah Yehuda battalion, part of the Kfir brigade, was set up originally in 1999 to accommodate the religious beliefs of recruits from the ultra-Orthodox and national religious communities, including those from extremist settlements, and has historically been primarily deployed on the West Bank.

Soldiers from the unit were accused in the death of an 78-year-old US citizen, Omar Assad, who died of a heart attack in 2022 after being detained, bound, gagged and then abandoned by members of the unit. It was one of a number of high-profile incidents that have included claims of torture and mistreatment.

That case attracted scrutiny from the state department which demanded a criminal investigation.

The unit was later redeployed from the West Bank to northern Israel and has also been deployed in Gaza.

According to ProPublica last week, the state department had received a dossier on violations of the Leahy law in December.

The report that an IDF battalion is facing imminent sanctions, prompted a sharp response from senior Israeli figures, including the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The IDF must not be sanctioned!” he wrote on X. “I’ve been working in recent weeks against the sanctioning of Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with the American administration.

“At a time when our soldiers are fighting terrorist monsters, the intention to issue sanctions against a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low,” he added, committing to fight the move although it was not clear how.

“The Netza Yehuda battalion is an inseparable part of the Israel Defense Forces,” added Benny Gantz, a senior member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet and a former IDF chief of staff.

“It is subject to military law and is responsible for operating in full compliance with international law. The state of Israel has a strong, independent judicial system that evaluates meticulously any claim of a violation or deviation from IDF orders and code of conduct, and will continue to do so.”

Human rights organisations have long argued, however, that IDF’s military investigative system fails to properly investigate and prosecute human rights abuses committed by soldiers.

The reported plan to impose sanctions on the unit comes amid a mounting international sanctions campaign against Israelis involved in violence against Palestinians on the occupied West Bank which have seen new announcements targeting individuals and organisations almost monthly.

On Friday, the US and EU separately announced new sanctions against far right Israeli groups and NGOs linked to settler violence as well as high profile individuals, including Bentzi Gopstein, who has been a close political ally of Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The complex and conflicted international choreography of aid and sanctions relating to Israel, strikingly apparent this weekend and during Iran’s attack on Israel a week ago, appears designed to demonstrate that while its allies will support what it regards as Israel’s defence, they are determined to punish escalating extremist violence on the West Bank.

The Biden administration in particular has appeared more comfortable condemning Israeli actions policies in the West Bank than in Gaza, where Israel is fighting Hamas in a six-month conflict that has displaced more than 85% of the coastal strip’s population and killed 34,000 Palestinians, many of them civilian.

The latest incident, which Gaza health officials said had claimed the lives of 14 children, came in a pair of airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah, which has been bombed almost daily by Israel.

The first strike killed a man, his wife and their three-year-old child, according to the Kuwaiti hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant, and the doctors managed to save the baby, the hospital said.

The second strike killed 13 children and two women, all from the same family, according to hospital records. An airstrike in Rafah the night before killed nine people, including six children.

www.theguardian.com

Netanyahu vows to fight US sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank

Israeli leaders vow to oppose expected measures under Leahy law against the Netzah Yehuda battalion
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Click to expand...
Well it's a start - but the US may be shocked to know it's not just the Netza Yehuda unit that are committing human rights violations against Palestinians...
 
Israel vows to increase 'military pressure' on Hamas in 'coming days'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel will increase "military pressure" on Palestinian militant group Hamas in a bid to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza.

"In the coming days we will increase the military and political pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages," Netanyahu said in a video statement on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover, threatening to "deliver additional and painful blows" without specifying.

Despite an international outcry, Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the army will launch a ground assault on Rafah, a southern Gaza city so far spared an Israeli invasion where more than 1.5 million Palestinians have taken refuge.

The army has said some of the hostages abducted from southern Israel during Hamas's October 7 attack that sparked the war were being held in Rafah.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement later on Sunday that "the chief of staff has approved the next steps for the war," without offering details.

"On Passover, it will be 200 days of captivity for the hostages... We will fight until you return home to us."



Business Recorder
 
The evil mongers still not holding back
=====
Israeli intensifies attacks on Gaza’s refugee camps

You can hear the sound of Israeli drones across Rafah, including reconnaissance aircraft, flying low across the city. About 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are bracing themselves for the expansion of the ground invasion here.

They don’t know where to go. Rafah has been the last refuge for people here for the past six months.

People are still coming to terms with the aftermath of the past 24 hours. At least 24 people have been killed, mostly women and children, inside residential homes by Israeli strikes.

The Israeli military continues to pound the Gaza Strip, right now concentrating attacks in central areas where refugee camps are being repeatedly hit – their health facilities, residential buildings and infrastructure destroyed.

People are literally being herded from one place to another. Attacks are everywhere. We can safely say the entirety of the Gaza Strip has been equally targeted.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
The Israeli military's intelligence chief has resigned, saying he took responsibility for the failures before Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Major General Aharon Haliva would retire once his successor was selected.

In a letter, he acknowledged that his intelligence directorate "did not live up to the task we were entrusted with".

He is the first senior figure to step down over the attack, which were the deadliest in Israel's history.

Israeli military and intelligence officials missed or ignored multiple warnings before hundreds of Hamas gunmen breached the Gaza border fence that day and attacked nearby Israeli communities, military bases and a music festival.

About 1,200 Israelis and foreigners - mostly civilians - were killed and 253 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel responded by launching its most intense ever war in Gaza with the aims of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages.

More than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza - most of them children and women - have been killed in the conflict, the territory's Hamas-run health ministry says.

Source: BBC
 
Israeli troops storm back into eastern Khan Younis

sraeli troops fought their way back into an eastern section of Khan Younis in a surprise raid, residents said on Monday, sending people who had returned to abandoned homes in the ruins of the southern Gaza Strip's main city fleeing once more.

Elsewhere in Khan Younis, scores more bodies were recovered from what Palestinian authorities said were mass graves on the site of the city's main hospital, abandoned by Israeli troops. Further south there were fresh air strikes on Rafah, the last refuge where more than half of the enclave's 2.3 million people have sought shelter.

Israel abruptly pulled most of its ground troops out of the southern Gaza Strip this month after some of the most intense fighting of the seven-month-old war. Residents have begun making their way home to previously inaccessible neighbourhoods of what had been the enclave's second-biggest city, finding homes reduced to rubble and unrecovered dead in the streets.


tribune.com.pk

Israeli troops storm back into eastern Khan Younis | The Express Tribune

Scores found in mass graves at Khan Younis hospital, abandoned by Israeli troops, say Palestinian authorities
tribune.com.pk tribune.com.pk
 
Israeli leaders and military criticize reported US plans to sanction IDF unit

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers have sharply criticized reports of plans by the United States to sanction an Israeli military unit for alleged human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The allegations are said to implicate members of the Netzah Yehuda battalion of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the occupied West Bank, a unit established in 1999 comprising religious and Ultra-Orthodox Jews. They precede the Hamas-led attacks on October 7.

“Sanctions must not be imposed on the Israel Defense Forces!” Netanyahu posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday.

“In recent weeks, I have been working against the imposition of sanctions on Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with senior American government officials. At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low.

“The government headed by me will act by all means against these moves,” added Netanyahu.

Reports of the potential sanctioning came as Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday said that violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank increased in 2023 to its highest level since 2006. This was the case even before the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, HRW said, citing UN data.

Tensions over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza have spilled into the West Bank. Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 483 Palestinians there since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he made determinations about whether to cut funding to certain Israeli security units for reports of human rights abuses committed before October 7. He didn’t explicitly name Netzah Yehuda.


CNN
 
If nuclear bomb had been justified to test on some country then you who would that be
===
UN rights chief ‘horrified’ by mass grave reports at Gaza hospitals

UN rights chief Volker Turk has said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Nasser and Al Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies there, according to a spokesperson.

According to Reuters, Palestinian authorities reported finding bodies in mass graves at a hospital in Khan Younis this week after it was abandoned by Israeli troops. Bodies were also reported at the Al Shifa site following an Israeli special forces operation.

“We feel the need to raise the alarm because clearly there have been multiple bodies discovered,” said Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“Some of them had their hands tied, which of course indicates serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and these need to be subjected to further investigations.”

She added that the UN human rights office was working on corroborating Palestinian officials’ reports that 283 bodies were found at Nasser and 30 at Al Shifa. According to those reports, the bodies were buried beneath piles of waste and included women and older people.

Source: Reuters
 
Irish FM says Israel undermining UNRWA to remove ‘right to return’ of Palestinians: report

Ireland’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister Micheal Martin has accused Israel of deliberately undermining the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in a bid to remove “the right to return” for Palestinians, Al Jazeera reports, citing RTE.

UNRWA collectively recognises millions of displaced Palestinians who have a right to eventually return to their occupied land as stipulated under UN Resolution 194.

Martin, who is in Egypt and will visit the Gaza border crossing at Rafah, said Ireland’s decision to increase funding to UNRWA — despite the Israeli allegations that 12 staff had taken part in the October 7 attack — was now vindicated.

Source: Al Jazeera
 

Famine risk 'very high' in Gaza, especially in north, US official says​


WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - Israel has taken significant steps in recent weeks on allowing aid into Gaza, the U.S. special envoy for humanitarian issues said on Tuesday, but considerable work remained to be done as the risk of famine in the enclave is very high.

David Satterfield declined to say whether Washington was satisfied by Israel's moves, weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden demanded action to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying conditions could be placed on U.S. support for close ally Israel if it did not implement a series of "specific, concrete and measurable" steps.

"Israel has taken significant steps in these last two and a half weeks," Satterfield told reporters. "There is still considerable work to be done. But progress has been made."

The risk of famine throughout war-devastated Gaza, especially in the north, is "very high", he said, calling for more to be done to get aid to those in need in that part of the tiny, densely populated Palestinian territory.

The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza in the six months since Israel began an aerial and ground offensive against Gaza's ruling Islamist militant group Hamas.

Israel's military campaign has reduced much of the territory of 2.3 million people to a wasteland with an unfolding humanitarian disaster since October, when Hamas ignited war by storming into southern Israel.

The head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on Tuesday that the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza during April was 200 and that there had been a peak on Monday of 316.

"We have always stressed that we were in a man-made situation and it can only be addressed by political will and decisions, and the last few days show this is possible," he told reporters. "The more we sustain this, the more we will have a positive impact."

There was also now a focus on garbage collection, he added, especially in southern Gaza, in a bid to avoid disease outbreaks as the warmer weather approaches.

UNRWA has been described by top U.N. officials as the backbone of aid operations in Gaza. But earlier this year, Israel accused 12 UNRWA staff of taking part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks that triggered the Gaza war. Israel's allegations led 16 countries to pause or suspend funding of $450 million to UNRWA.

Lazzarini said UNRWA currently has enough funding to pay for operations until June. However, funding by the U.S. - UNRWA's biggest donor at $300 million to $400 million a year - has been suspended by the U.S. Congress until at least March 2025.

ension it will have sustainable impact on the agency. If it is a temporary suspension, I do believe we can find a temporary solution with some donors stepping in," Lazzarini said.

He also said there has been an "extraordinary kind of grassroots solidarity" with UNRWA, which had raised $100 million from online public donations in the past six months.

Source: Reuters
 
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini told Al Jazeera that attacks on his agency are part of an effort to strip Palestinians of their refugee status.

He added his agency is surviving ‘hand-to-mouth’ but can function at least through June.


Al Jazeera
 
UNRWA: Restart aid to Palestinian UN agency, EU urges

The EU has called on international donors to resume funding to Gaza's largest UN agency.

It comes after a review found that Israel had not provided evidence for its claim that thousands of UNRWA staff were members of terror groups.

Several nations halted funding to the agency after allegations that some employees took part in the Hamas attacks on Israel.

The US says it will not restart its aid until UNRWA makes "real progress".

UNRWA, which provides healthcare, education and humanitarian aid to Palestinians, employs 13,000 people in Gaza.

EU humanitarian chief Janez Lenarcic welcomed Monday's report for "underlining the agency's significant number of compliance systems in place as well as recommendations for their further upgrade".

He called on donor nations to support UNRWA, describing it as "the Palestinian refugees' lifeline".

This was echoed by Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, who hailed countries including Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Japan and Sweden for already resuming their funding.

The US, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Austria and Lithuania have not yet done so.

"In terms of our funding of UNRWA, that is still suspended," White House security spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.

"We're gonna have to see real progress here before that gets changed."

The deputy spokesman of the US State Department, Vedant Patel, said the government was looking closely at the report, adding "we of course continue to support UNRWA's important work, and it must continue".

Israel has accused more than 2,135 of the agency's staff of being members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad - proscribed terror organisations in Israel, the UK, US and other countries. But the UN's independent review, led by a former French foreign minister, said Israel was yet to provide "supporting evidence" for this claim.

While the report acknowledged UNRWA's "robust framework", it said it needed to do more to improve its neutrality, staff vetting and transparency.

The agency insists it carries out detailed reference checks on all employees, and shares staff lists with Israel.

Israeli authorities suggest the report ignores the severity of the problem, and claim UNRWA has systematic links to Hamas.

The EU's plea came as the US humanitarian envoy to Gaza, David Satterfield, repeated warnings that the risk of famine throughout the Palestinian territory - especially in the north - was very high.

The catastrophic situation has been caused by the siege Israel imposed after the 7 October attacks.

Around 500 trucks of aid were previously entering Gaza each day, but the figure collapsed following the start of the war.

Israel has also been accused of slowing deliveries by subjecting trucks to complex and arbitrary checks, and last month the UN's top court ordered it to enable the unhindered flow of aid into Gaza.

Israel has pledged to gradually increase aid back to pre-war levels, and UNRWA figures show that on Monday 316 trucks entered Gaza, the highest number since the war began.

The average over the previous seven days, however, was 190.

Mr Satterfield said Israel needed to do everything possible to stop a famine and called on more to be done to deliver aid to those in need.

So far, more than 34,000 Palestinians - mostly women and children - have been killed during Israel's military campaign in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A separate UN investigation is looking at Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA staff took part in the 7 October attacks on Israel, which saw around 1,200 people killed and about 250 taken hostage.

UNRWA fired 10 of the 12 accused staff members who were still alive in the wake of the allegations.

BBC
 
Gaza based Hamas fighters released a video of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin — the first proof that he survived October 7 attack in retaliation to the occupation of Israel on Palestinian lands since 1948.

Goldberg-Polin, then 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ attacks on Israel when more than 1,200 people died and more than 200 people were taken hostage.

He is shown in the undated video with part of his left arm missing several inches above the hand.

Video filmed on October 7 showed Goldberg-Polin being taken hostage with his arm severely injured. A firsthand account from a young woman, who was in a bunker with him when Hamas attacked, said he had helped to throw grenades out, before his arm was blown off from the elbow down.

The latest video shows Goldberg-Polin sitting in a chair, addressing the camera. Gesturing occasionally with his injured arm, he identifies himself and gives his date of birth and parents’ names.

He says he has been “here for almost 200 days,” suggesting the video was filmed shortly before Tuesday, the 200th day of the war.

The Israeli-American accused Israel Prime Minister of making hurdles in deal between Hamas and Israel.


Samaa TV
 
Israel continues aggression in Gaza after US Congress approves military aid

Israel pounded Gaza with air strikes and artillery fire as its aggression continued on Wednesday after the US 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.

US-Israeli relations been strained by Israel’s aggression 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.

Fears are rising that Israel will soon launch an assault on Rafah, which it claims 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

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 claimed 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 the Hamas attack on October 7.

Israel then pursued a military offensive and its aggression has so far killed at least 34,262 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.

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

Israel claims 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 UN 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.

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 UN 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.

UN 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 UN 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”.

The European Union’s humanitarian chief Janez Lenarcic called on donor governments to fund the UN 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 UN 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 Israeli aggression 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.

SOURCE: AFP
 
May ALLAH bless and protect our brethren
====
Gaza Civil Defence issues heat warning to displaced Palestinians

As temperatures soar in the Gaza Strip, the Civil Defence has warned that conditions are ripe for “the expansion of the spread of epidemics and diseases among [displaced Palestinians], especially among children and pregnant women”.

“Drink plenty of water, try to ventilate the place, keep children away from the sun’s rays, especially at peak heat times, and be sure to wipe their bodies with cold water constantly”, spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said in a statement on Telegram, speaking to the thousands of displaced Palestinians currently sheltering in tents.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Israel intensifies strikes on Rafah ahead of threatened invasion

Israel stepped up airstrikes on Rafah overnight after saying it would evacuate civilians from the southern Gazan city and launch an all-out assault despite allies' warnings this could cause mass casualties.

Medics in the besieged Palestinian enclave reported five Israeli airstrikes on Rafah early on Thursday that hit at least three houses, killing at least six people including a local journalist.

"We are afraid of what will happen in Rafah. The level of alert is very high," Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, told Reuters on Thursday.

"Some are leaving, they are afraid for their families but where can they go? They are not being allowed to go to the north and so are confined to a very small area."

The Gaza Strip is about 40 km (25 miles) long and between about 5 km (3 miles) and 12 km (7.5 miles) wide and is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

In the seventh month of a devastating air and ground war, Israeli forces also resumed bombarding northern and central areas of the enclave, as well as east of Khan Younis in the south. Israel's stated goal is to destroy Hamas, though it is unclear how they would do so.

A United Nations team visiting a site for a staging area and pier for maritime aid operations was forced to take cover in a bunker on Wednesday after the area came under attack, a spokesperson said on Thursday.

They were there for "some time," but there were no injuries.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet was meeting "to discuss how to destroy the last vestiges, the last quarter of Hamas' battalions, in Rafah and elsewhere," government spokesperson David Mencer said.

He declined to say when or whether the classified forum might give a green light for a ground operation in Rafah.

Israel has killed at least 34,305 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities said on Thursday. The offensive has laid to waste much of the widely urbanised enclave, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and leaving many with little food, water or medical care.

A U.N. expert speaking after visits to Jordan and Egypt said aid agencies were seeing an increasing number of patients suffering from the acute lack of food in the enclave.

“What I've seen here was traumatising. Patients that previously arrived in Egypt primarily with explosive and other war injury related symptoms are now joined by increasing numbers of patients, often children, with chronic diseases and severe malnutrition,” Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, told reporters in Cairo.

Israel is retaliating against an Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people and led to 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Iranian-backed Hamas is sworn to Israel's destruction due to its occupation of Palestinian territories.

Escalating Israeli warnings about invading Rafah, the last refuge for around a million civilians who fled Israeli forces further north earlier in the war, have nudged some families to leave for the nearby al-Mawasi coastal area or try to make their way to points further north, residents and witnesses said.

But many were confused over where they should go, saying their experience over the past 200 days of war had taught them that no place was genuinely safe.

Mohammad Nasser, 34, a father-of-three, said he had left Rafah two weeks ago and now lived in a shelter in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza to avoid being caught by surprise by an Israeli invasion and unable to escape.

"We escape from one trap into another, searching for places Israel calls safe before they bomb us there. It is like the rat and trap game," he told Reuters via a chat app.

"We are trying to adapt to the new reality, hoping it will become better, but I doubt it will."

Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council said there appeared to be fewer people in Rafah, which borders Egypt. She said teams on the ground had said people expect an invasion after the Jewish Passover holiday ends on April 30.

A senior Israeli defence official said on Wednesday Israel was poised to evacuate civilians before its attack on Rafah and had bought 40,000 tents that could house 10 to 12 people each.

Satellite images of Mawasi between Rafah, Khan Younis and the sea, an area of sand beaches and fields and stretching only around 5 by 3 km (three by two miles), showed significant camp settlements erected over the past two weeks.

BOMBING AND BODIES

Meanwhile, a Palestinian civil defence team called on the United Nations to investigate what it said were war crimes at a Gaza hospital, saying nearly 400 bodies were recovered from mass graves after Israeli soldiers left the complex in Khan Younis.

The Israeli military said allegations by Palestinian authorities that its forces had buried the bodies were "baseless and unfounded".

In the north, Israeli forces continued to pound Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Zeitoun, with some residents saying Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants were fighting Israeli ground forces with anti-tank rockets, mortar bombs and sniper fire.

The Palestine Telecommunications Company said internet services had again been cut off in central and southern Gaza on Thursday, blaming Israeli military operations.

Such outages have compounded the obstacles confronting efforts to get emergency aid to stricken civilians.

An aid worker who was part of Belgium's development efforts in Gaza died in one Israeli strike, the Belgian government said on Thursday, adding it was summoning the Israeli ambassador over the incident.

REUTERS
 

State Department spokeswoman resigns in protest of Biden’s Gaza policy​


The Arabic language spokeswoman for the State Department has resigned from her post due to her opposition to the Biden administration’s policy on Gaza, Al Arabiya English has learned.

Hala Rharrit was also the Dubai Regional Media Hub’s deputy director and joined the Foreign Service in 2006 as a political officer.

“I resigned April 2024 after 18 years of distinguished service in opposition to the United States’ Gaza policy. Diplomacy, not arms. Be a force for peace and unity,” Rharrit posted on her LinkedIn page.

Her bio page on the State Department’s website says Rharrit is “passionate about diplomacy and breaking down barriers through communication and mutual understanding.”

Rharrit is the latest in a string of US diplomats to step down from their positions due to what they have criticized as unconditional support for Israel as it continues to bombard Gaza. The Israeli military campaign started following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, which killed an estimated 1,200 people. In response, Israel’s campaign has killed around 33,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. They do not differentiate between civilians and Hamas fighters killed, but it is believed that the majority were civilians.

Josh Paul, who was a director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, resigned in October. He also cited his disagreement with the Biden administration’s decision to provide weapons to Israel in the wake of the current Gaza war.

 
May ALLAH destroy the evil forces behind this inhumane attack
====
Baby saved from dead mother's womb in Gaza dies

A baby rescued from her dying mother's womb after an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza has died, the BBC has learned.

Baby Sabreen al-Sakani was delivered by Caesarean section in a Rafah hospital shortly after midnight on Sunday.

Amid chaotic scenes doctors resuscitated the baby, using a hand pump to push air into her lungs.

However she died on Thursday and has been buried next to her mother after whom she was named.

Baby Sabreen was among 16 children killed in two air strikes in Rafah last weekend. All were killed in a bombardment targeting the housing complex where they lived.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure.

Sabreen's mother, also called Sabreen, was seven-and-a-half months pregnant when the Israeli air strike on the al-Sakani family home took place just before midnight on Saturday as she, her husband Shukri and their three-year-old daughter Malak were asleep.

She suffered extensive injuries and her husband and Malak were killed, but the baby was still alive in her mother's womb when rescue workers reached the site.

They rushed Sabreen to hospital, where doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section to deliver the child.

It appeared that baby Sabreen had stabilised and she was subsequently placed in an incubator. At the time doctors described her condition as critical.

She weighed just 1.4kg (3.1 lbs) when she was born and was in severe respiratory distress, which doctors said was because she had been born prematurely.

"This child should have been in the mother's womb at this time, but she was deprived of this right," Dr Mohammed Salama, head of the emergency neo-natal unit at Emirati Hospital in Rafah, said after she was born.

Baby Sabreen's maternal grandmother, Mirvat al-Sakani, told the BBC the family had planned to adopt the child.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that of the more than 34,000 people killed in Gaza since the war began on 7 October, at least two-thirds are women and children.

Israel launched its offensive after about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners - mostly civilians - were killed and 253 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Source: BBC
 
Palestinian group Hamas has said it remains committed to achieving an agreement with Israel to end the war on Gaza, but only if its conditions including a lasting ceasefire are met.

Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s political bureau, said that Hamas “is serious about releasing Israeli captives within the framework of an agreement” that also ensures the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.


Al Jazeera
 
It’s time to declare Israel a rogue state

It is time for the international community to accept that Israel is a rogue actor and start treating it as such.

Another day, another tragedy in Gaza. At the time of writing, rescuers were pulling bodies out of the rubble after an Israeli air strike on a residential building in southern Gaza’s Rafah city. Meanwhile, a few miles away in Khan Younis, the grisly effort of digging up bodies buried in mass graves on the grounds of the Nasser Hospital continues. The Palestinian death toll is now more than 34,000 and 1.1 million people in Gaza are experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

The world is also on edge, as many fear a wider regional war after Iran sent a retaliatory barrage of drones and missiles into Israel, following Israel’s strike on the Iranian consular building in Damascus. Since then, Iran’s air defences brought down three suspected Israeli drones over the central city of Isfahan. Ignoring calls for caution from around the world, including its closest partner and protector – the United States, Israel remains determined to conduct a costly ground operation in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering. Commentators and political figures have declared that Israel is a “liability” and that its leaders have “lost” their way.

Is it then not time to pronounce Israel a rogue state?

The “rogue state” label has a sordid history. It has long been weaponised against states considered antagonistic to Western political interests. The label had its heyday during the Clinton years, when it was used for countries that were viewed as unpredictable, obstinate and, all in all, unwilling to follow international norms.

Eventually, the Clinton administration abandoned “rogue states” for the more politically correct label “states of concern”. But as the US-led “war on terror” divided the world between the good and the bad, the “rouge states” label was once again revived by the Bush administration as a catch-all term for countries that constituted the “world of evil”.

Undoubtedly, this label helps the West’s self-perception as a “force for good” in the world. But it also provides justification for the contemptuous treatment and isolation of rogue states – presumably to prevent them from “wrecking public order, setting off wars, and subverting whole areas of the world”.

The irony now is that Israel, often considered a beachhead of Western interests in the Middle East, seems to exhibit all the familiar features of a rogue state.

Indeed, it has violated all international norms and laws throughout its genocidal war on Gaza.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
UK forces may be deployed on the ground in Gaza to help deliver aid

British troops could be deployed on the ground in Gaza to help deliver aid via a new sea route, the BBC has learned.

The US has said no American forces would go ashore and an unnamed "third party" would drive trucks along a floating causeway onto the beach.

The UK is understood to be considering tasking British troops with this when the aid corridor opens next month.

Whitehall sources said no decision had been made and the issue had not yet crossed the prime minister's desk.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Israeli army declined to comment.

Britain has been closely involved in planning the sea-borne aid operation and Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the UK continued to take "a leading role in the delivery of support in coordination with the US and other international allies".

The possible role for British forces - known as "wet boots" by military planners - would see them drive trucks off landing craft onto the temporary causeway and deliver aid to a secure distribution area ashore.

Although a huge effort would be made to protect allied forces both off and onshore, British troops would potentially face a higher risk of attack from Hamas and other armed groups.

On Wednesday, a United Nations team had to take cover when mortars landed near the planned distribution zone.

US defence officials confirmed an American army ship had begun work in the eastern Mediterranean to build a large floating pier.

Aid would be delivered there from Cyprus on large ships before being transferred into trucks and smaller landing craft. They said the floating causeway would be "several hundred metres long" and anchored firmly into the sand.

They said they hoped the new maritime corridor - which they call the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) operation - would ultimately deliver up to 150 trucks per day.

IDF vows to provide security for sea aid

The aim is to add to - but not replace - aid deliveries by land that are still insufficient to meet the need. On average about 220 aid trucks per day are currently getting into Gaza by road.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it will provide "security and logistics support for the JLOTS initiative… to enhance the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip".

Israel's military will be responsible for anchoring the floating causeway to the beach and has been practising how to do this with American forces further north on the Israeli coast.

In a briefing with journalists, a senior US military official said because there would be no American boots on the ground, hundreds of US soldiers and sailors would live and sleep at sea on a UK naval vessel, RFA Cardigan Bay.

He also made clear US forces would not take the aid ashore and instead that role would be carried out by a "significant partner". He confirmed this would be another nation, not a private military company.

"We have a third party who will be driving the trucks down the pier," the US military official said. "Just a point of emphasis, there will be no US military boots on the ground. So, a third party is driving those trucks."

Despite questioning from journalists, he refused to name the third party.

One UK source said nothing had been decided but there was a debate going on about "do we put wet boots on the beach, do we drive trucks onto the pier?".

The MoD declined to comment about the suggestion UK forces might drive trucks ashore, but Mr Shapps said the crew of RFA Cardigan Bay were central to the UK's contribution, adding: "It is critical we establish more routes for vital humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza."

He said specialist British military planning teams had been embedded within the US operational HQ in Tampa, Florida - as well as in Cyprus - for several weeks to help develop the safest and most effective maritime route.

The UK Hydrographic Office has also shared analysis of the Gazan shore with US planners to develop the pier.

More than six months into Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip, over half of its population of 2.2 million is crammed into the southern city of Rafah.

The UN has warned of a humanitarian catastrophe and Israel has faced international criticism for limiting the amount of aid reaching civilians by land.

Ziad Issa, the head of humanitarian policy at ActionAid, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Any way to deliver aid to Gaza is welcome and will help a bit, but the problem with this way of delivering aid is it's going to take time and there are lots of logistical uncertainties about it."

He said it would be more efficient to allow delivery trucks into Gaza via land crossings. Trucks "loaded with tonnes of medical supplies, with food" are currently waiting to enter Gaza but are not being allowed in by Israeli forces, Mr Issa said - and aid workers are calling for Israel to permanently open a land crossing at Erez.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began on 7 October.

The IDF launched the offensive after about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners - mostly civilians - were killed and 253 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

BBC
 
Hamas ‘reviewing Israel’s latest Gaza ceasefire proposal’

Hamas has said it is studying the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after media reports said a delegation from Egypt had arrived in Israel in an attempt to jumpstart stalled negotiations.

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

On Saturday Hamas also released a new video that appeared to show two Israeli hostages who have been held in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October assault on southern Israel.

The video is similarly filmed to previous hostage videos made public by the Islamist group. The two men, identified as Keith Siegel, 64, and Omri Miran, 47, speak individually in front of an empty background. They send their love to their families and ask to be released.

Miran was taken hostage from his home in the community of Nahal Oz in front of his wife and two young daughters.

Siegel, who is a dual US citizen, was taken captive along with his wife from another border town. She was later released during a brief November truce.

At one point Siegel breaks down crying as he recounts celebrating Passover with his family last year and expressing his hope that they will be reunited.

Aid groups say Gaza’s already catastrophic humanitarian conditions would be worsened by an invasion that Israel has vowed to carry out against Hamas battalions that remain in Rafah.



Rafah, on the border with Egypt, is crowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly seven months of war between Israel and Hamas. The area is regularly bombed. Hospital officials said strikes in Rafah and elsewhere killed more than 12 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.

Elsewhere in Rafah, people searched the rubble of homes that Abed al-Aziz Barhum said were “bombarded without prior warning”. He appealed to “all Arab people to support us against occupation and help us reach a ceasefire”.

Khalil al-Hayya, the 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 13 April”.

In a statement, Hayya said Hamas “will study this proposal” before responding. Hamas has previously insisted on a permanent ceasefire, which Israel rejects.

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

There has been “noticeable progress in bringing the views of the Egyptian and Israeli delegations closer”, said al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian intelligence services.

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.

As talks drag on, dozens of people in Gaza die every day, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

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

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,388 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry. At least 32 additional deaths are among the latest toll released on Saturday, it said.

An international summit will take place on Sunday in Saudi Arabia and will have a strong focus on the war, including the humanitarian situation, organisers said. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will be among leaders attending the World Economic Forum special meeting, they said.

Israel’s military said on Saturday that its aircraft had hit more than 25 militant targets over the previous day.

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

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

In its report on Friday, the UN’s 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”.

OCHA says rising temperatures are exacerbating Gaza’s sanitation crisis, and an infant girl has reportedly died in Rafah from extreme heat.

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

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 on Saturday.

The Gaza war has led to increased violence between Israel and Iran’s proxies and allies, in particular the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon.

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed three people on Saturday, including two members of Hezbollah, the movement and official media said.

The violence has fuelled fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
 
Hamas delegation due in Cairo on Monday for Gaza ceasefire talks

A Hamas delegation will visit Cairo on Monday for talks aimed at securing a ceasefire, a Hamas official told Reuters on Sunday, as mediators stepped up efforts to reach a deal ahead of an expected Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah.

The official, who asked not to be named, said the delegation will discuss a ceasefire proposal handed by Hamas to mediators from Qatar and Egypt, as well as Israel's response.

He did not disclose details of the latest proposals.
'
Another senior Hamas official told Reuters the delegation will fly to Cairo from Qatari capital Doha, adding it will be led by Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy to Hamas' Gaza chief.

The talks will take place between the Hamas delegation and the Qatari and the Egyptian mediators to discuss remarks the group has made over the Israeli response to its recent proposal.

Reuters
 
At least 13 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Rafah, medical officials say

Israeli air strikes on three houses in the southern Gaza city of Rafah killed 13 people and wounded many others, medics said on Monday.

Hamas media outlets put the death toll at 15.

In Gaza City, in the north of the strip, Israeli planes struck two houses, killing and wounding several people, health officials said.

The strikes on Rafah, where over a million people are sheltering from months of Israeli bombardment, came hours before Egypt was expected to host leaders of the Islamist group Hamas to discuss prospects for a ceasefire agreement with Israel.


Reuters
 

But the devil never stops a fight​

=====

Only US can halt Israel’s attack on Rafah, says Palestinian President Abbas​

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday only the United States could stop Israel attacking the border city of Rafah in Gaza, adding that the assault, which he expects to come within days, could force much of the Palestinian population to flee the enclave.

“We call on the United States of America to ask Israel to not carry on the Rafah attack. America is the only country able to prevent Israel from committing this crime,” Abbas told a special meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Israel, which has threatened for weeks to launch an all-out assault on the neighbourhood, last week stepped up airstrikes on Rafah.

Western countries, including Israel’s closest ally the United States, have pleaded with it to hold back from attacking the southern city, which abuts the Egyptian border and is sheltering more than a million Palestinians who fled Israel’s seven-month long assault on much of the rest of Gaza.

“What will happen in the coming few days is what Israel will do with attacking Rafah because all the Palestinians from Gaza are gathered there,” Abbas said, adding that only a “small strike” on Rafah would force the Palestinian population to flee the Gaza strip.

Source: Reuters
 
Gaza war: US 'hopeful' Hamas will accept Israel's new ceasefire offer

The US secretary of state hopes Hamas will accept what he has called Israel's "extraordinarily generous" offer for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal.

Antony Blinken was speaking as a Hamas delegation discussed the new proposal with mediators from Egypt and Qatar.

A source close to the talks told the BBC they were cautiously optimistic.

The proposal includes a 40-day truce in return for the release of hostages and the prospect of displaced families being allowed back to northern Gaza.

It reportedly also involves new wording on restoring calm meant to satisfy Hamas's demand for a permanent ceasefire.

The Israeli government is coming under growing pressure from its global allies and the families of the hostages to agree a deal.

Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group's cross-border attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 253 others were taken hostage.

More than 34,480 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

A deal agreed in November saw Hamas release 105 of the hostages in return for a week-long ceasefire and some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.


BBC
 
Israeli officials eye threat of ICC arrest warrants over war in Gaza

Israeli officials are growing wary that they could face prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the war in Gaza.

After days of conjecture in Israeli media, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said late on Sunday that it has issued warnings to senior political and military officials that they could soon face arrest warrants.

The ministry said it has informed Israeli missions of “rumours” concerning prosecutions.

The ICC has given no indication that warrants are imminent and has made no comment on the claims.

Israeli officials have referred in recent days to an ICC probe launched three years ago into possible war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian fighters going back to the 2014 Israel-Hamas war. The investigation is also charged with looking at Israel’s construction of settlements in occupied territory such as the West Bank.


AL JAZEERA
 
There is no doubt about this thing. Violation of human rights is at its peak atm and who else is the culprit but ISRAEL? USA himself is involved in this.

------------------------

US says Israeli army units violated human rights

The US state department has found five units of the Israeli military responsible for gross violations of human rights in individual incidents, but says they will continue to receive US military backing.

All the incidents involved took place outside of Gaza before the current war.

Israel took corrective action in four units, giving "additional information" on the fifth, the department says.

This means all the units remain eligible for US military assistance.

Washington is Israel's major military backer, supplying it with $3.8bn (£3bn) worth of weapons and defence systems per year.

The announcement is the first determination of its kind for any Israeli unit by the US government.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said five security forces units committed gross violations of human rights.

"Four of these units have effectively remediated these violations, which is what we expect partners to do," he said.

"For a remaining unit, we continue to be in consultations and engagements with the government of Israel; they have submitted additional information as it pertains to that unit," he added.

The department denies claims it backed down under political pressure by continuing military assistance to the unit despite being unable to say whether or not there had been any accountability in the case.

"We are engaging with them in a process, and we will make an ultimate decision when it comes to that unit when that process is complete," said Mr Patel.

All the incidents are believed to have taken place in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem in recent years.

Under America's "Leahy Law", sponsored in 1997 by then-Senator Patrick Leahy, a finding that a foreign military unit committed gross violations of human rights means it can be cut from receiving US military assistance.

The US government says it considers torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance and rape as such types of violations when implementing the Leahy law.

Even when there is such a finding, there is an exception to cutting military assistance if the state department is satisfied the cases have been dealt with and justice pursued by the government involved.

It says Israel did do this - so-called remediation - in four of the five units. However, the department declined to give any details of the incidents, the remediation, the units involved or evidence to support whether the remediation was effective.

The US was reportedly on the brink of announcing it would cut military aid to the fifth unit, but says new information from Israel means it will make a decision later.

The unit involved is widely reported to be the Netzah Yehuda battalion, a special men-only unit set up in 1999 where ultra-Orthodox Jews serve.

Israel investigated the battalion over the death of 80-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Assad who died after being bound and gagged by soldiers during a West Bank village search in 2022.

At the time the US called for a "thorough criminal investigation and full accountability".

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later said they regretted Mr Assad's death, and a commander would be "reprimanded" and two soldiers barred from senior positions for two years - but would not be prosecuted.

Asked about reports an IDF unit would be the first ever to face the US government designation under the Leahy Law, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on 19 April: "I made determinations. You can expect to see them in the days ahead."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to reject any sanctions on the country's military, saying he would "fight it with all my strength", while Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz spoke on the phone to Mr Blinken.

Pressed by the BBC on Monday over whether the state department had delayed or softened its position on withdrawing military assistance to the fifth unit, Mr Patel said officials would make a decision when their consultations with the Israeli government were complete.

BBC
 
The Weeknd, has donated $2 million through his charity XO Humanitarian Fund in an effort to provide 18 million loaves of bread to help the starving families in Gaza,

Canadian singer Abel Tesfaye, known by his stage name The Weeknd, has donated $2 million through his charity XO Humanitarian Fund in an effort to provide 18 million loaves of bread to help the starving families in Gaza, the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) announced.

“With famine looming in Gaza, Abel’s generous support will provide vital relief for thousands of Palestinian families who battle the grip of hunger every day. We are tremendously grateful for his contribution, compassion, and for his unwavering advocacy for WFP and the people of Palestine,” said Corinne Fleischer, the WFP’s Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe.

According to a news release from the WFP, The Weeknd’s donation will provide over 1,500 metric tonnes of fortified wheat flour, which can make over 18 million loaves of bread and help feed more than 157,000 Palestinians for one month.

The funding builds on the original $2.5 million, equivalent to four million emergency meals, that the singer directed to WFP’s Gaza response in December 2023. It provided 820 metric tonnes of food parcels to feed more than 173,000 Palestinians for two weeks.

Source: Dawn News
 

Gaza: Israeli PM Netanyahu says Rafah attack will happen regardless of deal​


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will launch an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah regardless of truce talks with Hamas.

It comes amid ongoing attempts to try to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and hostage releases.

But at a meeting of hostages' relatives, Mr Netanyahu said he would invade "with or without" a deal.

His comments follow renewed warnings by the US against a Rafah invasion unless civilians were properly protected.

In a phone call with Mr Netanyahu on Sunday, US President Joe Biden "reiterated his clear position" on Rafah, a White House statement said. Mr Biden has previously described an invasion of Rafah as a "red line".

On Tuesday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said an assault on Rafah would be an "unbearable escalation", appealing for "all those with influence over Israel to do everything in their power to prevent it".

More than half of Gaza's 2.5m population is in Rafah, having fled there to escape fighting in other parts of the territory. Conditions in the overcrowded city are dire, and displaced people there have spoken of a lack of food, water and medication.

The West Bank-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday that an invasion of Rafah would be the "biggest catastrophe in the Palestinian people's history".

Israeli sources told the Reuters news agency on Monday that plans to attack Rafah would be shelved in favour of a "sustained period of calm" if a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israeli was reached.

Days earlier, Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Israeli Channel 12 television that "if there will be a deal, we will suspend the [Rafah] operation".

But on Tuesday Mr Netanyahu insisted that the war would continue until Israel had achieved all of its objectives in Rafah.

"The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question," he said.

"We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there with or without a deal, in order to achieve the total victory," according to a statement issued by Mr Netanyahu's office.

It said the families urged the prime minister and his national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, to continue the war and ignore mounting international pressure. Many hostage families however have publicly demonstrated for the government to agree to a deal to return their loved ones at any cost.

About 130 hostages from among 253 kidnapped by Hamas during its unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October remain unaccounted for. At least 34 of them are presumed dead. The rest have been released or rescued.

Indirect talks have been at an impasse for weeks, although the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said on Monday that he hoped Hamas would accept what he has called Israel's "extraordinarily generous offer" for a truce.

Meanwhile the head of the UN's refugee organisation has warned that the looming invasion was causing people in Rafah to live in a state of "constant traumatic stress disorder".

"People have not yet been asked to evacuate from Rafah, but there is a sense that if there is no deal this week that could happen," Philippe Lazzarini told reporters.

"My colleagues on the ground are describing constant state of trauma among the people."

Mr Netanyahu also denounced as "a scandal on a historical scale" recent reports, citing Israeli officials, that the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague could be preparing to issue arrest warrants for Israeli government leaders and military commanders on charges related to the war.

"I want to make one thing clear: no decision, neither in The Hague nor anywhere else, will harm our determination to achieve all the goals of the war," the prime minister said.

"Israel expects the leaders of the free world to come out strongly against this scandalous step, a step that will harm the self-defence capacity not only of the State of Israel, but of all democracies in the world."

There has been no announcement from ICC Prosecutor Karim Kahn KC.

However, his office has been formally investigating alleged war crimes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip since June 2014, and Mr Khan has confirmed that the investigation will cover the 7 October attack and the ensuing war.

Israel has never ratified the Rome Statute, the ICC's founding treaty, and Mr Netanyahu insisted that the ICC had "no authority" over the country. However, the ICC ruled in 2015 that it had jurisdiction because the Palestinians had ratified the treaty.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday that the US - which has also not ratified the Rome Statute - did not believe the court has jurisdiction and did not support the investigation.

Source: BBC
 

The Weeknd donates $2 million in food relief to Gaza​


Renowned Canadian artist The Weeknd donated $2 million in food relief for Gaza, his second donation to the besieged Strip since the conflict began, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) announced earlier this week.

The Weeknd’s donation is expected to help feed thousands of Palestinians, who are in dire need of assistance.

The WFP Goodwill Ambassador and multi-platinum global recording artist, also known as Abel Tesfaye, is allocating $2 million from his XO Humanitarian Fund toward WFP’s humanitarian response efforts in Gaza, the statement said.

“This support will provide over 1,500 metric tons of fortified wheat flour, which can make over 18 million loaves of bread that can help feed more than 157,000 Palestinians for one month,” WFP noted.

The Gaza Strip has seen relentless bombardment in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. The war on Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to authorities.

Much of the Strip has been reduced to rubble and response to the humanitarian crisis has been challenging with organizations saying that there have been obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza.

The Weeknd’s new contribution builds on another $2.5 million, equivalent to four million emergency meals, that he directed to WFP’s Gaza response in December 2023.

“It provided 820 metric tons of food parcels to feed more than 173,000 Palestinians for two weeks. Additionally, Tesfaye is making an urgent appeal to fans, calling on them to give what they can by donating towards WFP’s efforts in Gaza,” WFP said in the statement, adding that more than 1 million Palestinians “face catastrophic levels of hunger across Gaza and need urgent support.”

 

These criminals need to be sanctioned​

=====

Israel under pressure to let more aid into Gaza as hostage talks continue​

Israel’s leaders were under renewed pressure to allow more aid into Gaza on Wednesday after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told Benjamin Netanyahu to “accelerate and sustain improvements” during recent days in the amount of humanitarian assistance reaching the territory.

Humanitarian agencies say that though the number of lorries entering Gaza after being vetted by Israel has increased significantly, these still deliver only a fraction of what is needed.

Blinken “reiterated the importance of accelerating and sustaining that improvement” in a two-hour meeting in Jerusalem with the Israeli prime minister, the state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said.

Israel on Wednesday reopened the Erez crossing, the sole crossing on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, after months of requests from international aid agencies, while the US is building an offshore pier to allow deliveries of aid by sea. Goods are now arriving via the port of Ashdod, a short drive from the devastated territory.

Earlier this week, UN secretary-general António Guterres said there had been incremental progress toward averting “an entirely preventable, human-made famine” in the northern Gaza Strip, but called on Israel to do more. Humanitarian agencies say they still face bureaucratic obstacles as well as grave logistical difficulties inside Gaza. Some aid officials have disputed Israeli methods of counting trucks and their loads entering the territory.

Jordan’s foreign ministry on Wednesday said Israeli settlers attacked two of its humanitarian aid convoys as they made their way towards Gaza through the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The lorries, carrying food, flour and other aid, managed to continue on their journey and reach their destination, the ministry added in a statement. Honenu, an Israeli legal aid agency, said four men who had “blocked aid trucks going to Gaza” near the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim were arrested by Israeli police.

Source: The Guardian
 
Blinken presses Hamas to seal cease-fire with Israel, says ‘the time is now’ for a deal

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hiked up pressure on Hamas on Wednesday to accept the latest proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, saying the “time is now” for an agreement that would free hostages and pause the nearly seven months of war in Gaza.

But a key sticking point appeared to remain — whether the deal would completely end Israel’s offensive as Hamas has demanded.

Blinken met with Israeli leaders throughout the day on the last stop of his seventh visit to the region since the war erupted in October, trying to push through what has been an elusive deal between Israel and Hamas. The U.S. and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar hope to avert an Israeli offensive into the southern Gaza town of Rafah, where some 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering.

Throughout months of talks, Hamas has said the freeing of all the hostages it holds must bring a permanent halt to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

The proposed deal now at the center of talks raises that possibility, according to leaked details that were confirmed by an Egyptian official and a Hamas official. But Hamas is seeking to strengthen the language to ensure a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the entire Gaza Strip, the Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal negotiations. The group said it is likely to give its response to the proposal on Thursday.


apnews.com

Blinken presses Hamas to seal cease-fire with Israel, says 'the time is now' for a deal

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Israeli leaders in his push for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas to impress on them that “the time is now" for an agreement that would free hostages and bring a pause in the nearly seven months of war.
apnews.com apnews.com
 
Turkey halts trade with Israel over 'humanitarian tragedy' in Gaza

Turkey has suspended all trade with Israel over its offensive in Gaza, citing the "worsening humanitarian tragedy" in the strip.

The Turkish trade ministry said the measures would be in place until Israel allowed an "uninterrupted and sufficient flow" of aid into Gaza.

Trade between the two countries was worth almost $7bn (£5.6bn) last year.

Israel's foreign minister accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of acting like a "dictator".

Israel Katz said on X that Mr Erdogan was "disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen and ignoring international trade agreements".

He added that he had instructed the foreign ministry to find alternatives for trade with Turkey, with a focus on local production and imports from other countries.

In a statement, Turkey said the trade suspension covered "all products".

"Turkey will strictly and decisively implement these new measures until the Israeli government allows an uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza."

In 1949, Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognise Israel. But relations have worsened in recent decades.

In 2010, Turkey broke off diplomatic ties with Israel after 10 pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed in clashes with Israeli commandos who boarded a Turkish-owned ship trying to break Israel's maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Relations were restored in 2016, but both countries expelled each other's top diplomats two years later in a dispute over Israel's killing of Palestinians amid protests on the Gaza-Israel border.

Mr Erdogan has become increasingly strident in his criticism of Israel since the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October last year.

In January, he said the military offensive that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched in response was "not any less than what Hitler did".

Mr Netanyahu responded: "Erdogan, who commits genocide against the Kurds, who holds a world record for imprisoning journalists who oppose his rule, is the last person who can preach morality to us."

Earlier this week, Israel reopened the Erez Crossing into northern Gaza for aid lorries

Israel has come under increasing criticism for conditions in the Gaza Strip. A UN-backed assessment said last month that 1.1 million people were facing catastrophic hunger and that famine was imminent in northern Gaza by May.

On Thursday, the White House said a pier built by the US military to facilitate the flow of aid into the territory would be open within days.

The US has published photos showing logistics vessels and personnel assembling the floating pier from steel segments, next to a US Navy ship.

However, the UN says a maritime corridor can never be a substitute for delivery by land, and that land routes are the only way to bring in the bulk of supplies needed.

Earlier this week, Israel reopened the Erez Crossing into the northern Gaza strip for aid convoys, under pressure from its Western allies and following repeated appeals from international aid organisations.

However, Jordan said some of its aid lorries were attacked by Israeli settlers before reaching the crossing.

A recent UN-backed report offered hard statistical evidence that the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza was turning into a man-made famine.

The UN's most senior human rights official, Volker Türk, told the BBC that there was a "plausible" case that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

Israel denies limiting aid deliveries and has blamed the UN for failing to distribute it to those in need inside Gaza.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to the group's attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 253 others were taken hostage.

More than 34,500 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel and Hamas that "the time is now" for a deal to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza and free the remaining hostages held there. He said a deal was on the table and Hamas should agree to it.

Mediators are awaiting a response from Hamas to the latest proposal.

It reportedly involves a 40-day ceasefire and the release of more than 30 Israeli hostages in exchange for many more Palestinian prisoners.

BBC
 
I believe there is a drama behind it.

==================================

The UK Foreign Ministry has announced sanctions on "extremist Israeli groups" and individuals responsible for violence in the occupied West Bank

The statement targets two groups and "four individuals" involved in violence against Palestinian civilians.

Quds News Network
 

Hezbollah claims two attacks on Israeli positions​


The armed Lebanese group says it has targeted two Israeli positions over the past few hours.

Hezbollah said it launched a missile at a gathering of Israeli soldiers near the town of Yaroun in southern Lebanon.

The second attack, which it said inflicted casualties, hit the Kfarchouba hills after the group detected Israeli intelligence-gathering infrastructure.

Al Jazeera
 

Body of Israeli previously presumed a captive is found​

An Israeli citizen who was previously believed to have been kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 has been declared dead after his body was found in Israeli territory.

The Israeli military said on X that the death of Elyakim Libman was confirmed based on “findings that were identified following a complex investigation” carried out by the army, police, forensic authorities and the Health Ministry.

The victim’s family has been informed. Libman reportedly was working as a security guard at the Supernova desert dance party on October 7.

Al Jazeera
 
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