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

Israeli attacks kill at least 23 people in Gaza, medics say, as ceasefire hopes dim​


Israeli forces stepped up bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Sunday killing at least 23 people, Palestinian medics said, with over half the deaths in northern areas where the army has waged a month-long campaign it says is to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were “ethnic cleansing” aimed at emptying two north Gaza towns and a camp of their populations to create buffer zones. Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas militants who launch attacks from there.

Medics said at least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on houses in Beit Lahiya town and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps and the focus of the army’s new military offensive. The rest were killed in separate Israeli air strikes in Gaza City and the southern areas.

Israel has not commented on its military actions on Sunday in northern Gaza.

On Saturday, the Israeli military sent a new army division to Jabalia to join two other operating battalions, a statement said. It said that hundreds of Palestinian militants have so far been killed in the “battles” since the raid began on Oct. 5.

Meanwhile, COGAT, the Israeli army’s Palestinian civilian affairs agency, said it facilitated the launch of the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza on Saturday and that 58,604 children have received a dose.

The Gaza health ministry said Israel’s military offensive in northern Gaza was stopping them from vaccinating thousands of children in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun.

It said one clinic came under Israeli fire while parents brought their children for the anti-polio dose on Saturday, where four children were injured.

The head World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement the incident took place despite a humanitarian pause agreed upon by the two warring parties, Israel and Hamas, to allow the vaccination campaign.

“A @WHO team was at the site just before. This attack, during humanitarian pause, jeopardizes the sanctity of health protection for children and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X on Saturday.

“These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must be absolutely respected. Ceasefire!"” he said.

The Israeli military has not commented on Tedros’ remarks.

A larger ceasefire that would end the war and see the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held captive in Gaza as well as Palestinians jailed by Israel remains remote due to disagreements between Hamas and Israel.

Hamas wants an agreement to end the war permanently, refusing recent offers for temporary truces, while Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu says war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.

The war erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s retaliatory offensives have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of Gaza to rubble.

 
At least 12 killed in Gaza attacks as Israel bombards Kamal Adwan hospital

At least 12 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza, medics said, as Israeli forces continue to press their siege and ground assault on the northern part of the Palestinian territory.

Medics in Gaza told the Reuters news agency on Monday at least seven people were killed in an attack on the north Gaza city of Beit Lahiya.

Five others were killed in attacks in central and southern Gaza.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last partially functioning hospital in the north of the enclave, was being attacked by Israeli forces.


www.aljazeera.com

At least 12 killed in Gaza attacks as Israel bombards Kamal Adwan hospital

Hospital director says staff and patients were wounded at the last partially functioning hospital in northern Gaza.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
Protests erupt in Israel after Netanyahu fires defence minister

Protests have erupted in Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired the country's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Netanyahu said a "crisis of trust" between the two leaders led to his decision, adding that his trust in Gallant had "eroded" in recent months and Foreign Minister Israel Katz would step in to replace him.

Gallant said his removal was due to disagreement on three issues, including his belief that it is possible to get the remaining hostages back from Gaza if Israel makes "painful concessions" which it "can bear".

Many protesters on the streets were calling for Netanyahu to resign, and demanding the new defence minister prioritise a hostage deal.

Netanyahu and Gallant have long had a divisive working relationship. During the past year, there have been reports of shouting matches between the two men over Israel’s war strategy.

The former defence minister has also been unhappy at plans to continue to allow Israel’s Ultra Orthodox citizens to be exempt from serving in the military.

Months before the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Netanyahu had fired Gallant over political differences, before reinstating him following major public outcry.

But on Tuesday Netanyahu said: "In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and the minister of defence".

He said although there had been trust and "fruitful work" in the first months of the war, "during the last months this trust cracked".

Netanyahu added that "significant gaps were discovered between me and Gallant in the management of the campaign".

These were "accompanied by statements and actions that contradict the decisions of the government," he added.

Following the news, Gallant posted on social media that the "security of the state of Israel was and will always remain the mission of my life".

He later released a full statement on Tuesday night saying his removal from office had been "the result of disagreement on three issues".

He believed there should be no exceptions for military service, that a national inquiry was needed to learn lessons, and the hostages should be brought back as soon as possible.

In reference to the hostages, he said: "I determine that it is possible to achieve this goal. It requires painful concessions, which the state of Israel can carry and the IDF can bear."

One of those protesting following the announcement, Yair Amit, said Netanyahu is endangering the whole country and called on the prime minister to "step down from his office and to let serious people lead Israel".

A group representing the families of people taken hostage by Hamas in its 7 October attack also condemned Netanyahu's dismissal of Gallant, calling it a continuation of efforts to "torpedo" a release deal.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum called on the incoming defence minister to “express an explicit commitment to the end of the war and to carry out a comprehensive deal for the immediate return of all the abductees”.

Around 100 hostages out of 251 taken by Hamas on 7 October 2023 remain unaccounted for more than a year into the war.

His replacement Katz is seen as even more hawkish in terms of military strategy.

Another Netanyahu ally, Gideon Sa'ar - who previously held no cabinet portfolio- will become the new foreign minister.

Gallant's removal will come into effect in 48 hours. The appointment of the new ministers requires the approval of the government and then the Knesset.

Netanyahu first fired Gallant in March 2023 following their disagreement over controversial plans to overhaul the justice system.

But he was forced to retract the sacking following massive public protests in several cities in Israel - an event that became known as "Gallant Night."

In May this year, Gallant voiced open frustration at the government’s failure to address the question of a post-war plan for Gaza. Gallant wanted Netanyahu to declare publicly that Israel has no plans to take over civilian and military rule in Gaza.

It was a rare public sign of divisions within Israel's war cabinet over the direction of the military campaign.

“Since October, I have been raising this issue consistently in the cabinet,” Gallant said, “and have received no response".

Netanyahu responded by saying that he was "not ready to exchange Hamastan for Fatahstan," in reference to rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah.

Responding to Gallant's removal on Tuesday night, members of Israel's political opposition parties called for protests from the public.

Gallant’s dismissal also takes place on the day of the presidential election in the US- Israel’s key backer in its war in Gaza - a timing noted by several Israeli media outlets.

Gallant was viewed as having a much better relationship with the White House than Netanyahu.

A representative for the White House's National Security Council said on Tuesday: "Minister Gallant has been an important partner on all matters related to the defence of Israel. As close partners, we will continue to work collaboratively with Israel’s next minister of defence."

Observers note that Gallant's removal also comes at a time where Netanyahu is under pressure by far-right politicians to pass a bill which would have continued to allow Israel's ultra-Orthodox citizens to be exempt from serving in the military. Gallant had been a high-profile opponent of the bill.

BBC
 
Assailants shouting ‘free Palestine’ brutally attack Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam

Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv report being attacked in the streets of Amsterdam after the Israeli soccer team’s loss to local club Ajax, with video from the Dutch city showing brutal assaults by masked assailants, some of whom carry Palestinian flags and shout “free Palestine.”

Reports say several Israelis were injured, but there are no immediate details.

Some of the targeted Israelis’ passports were stolen by the attackers, according to Hebrew media outlets.

TIMES OF ISRAEL
 
BouncerGuy said:
Assailants shouting ‘free Palestine’ brutally attack Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam

Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv report being attacked in the streets of Amsterdam after the Israeli soccer team’s loss to local club Ajax, with video from the Dutch city showing brutal assaults by masked assailants, some of whom carry Palestinian flags and shout “free Palestine.”

Reports say several Israelis were injured, but there are no immediate details.

Some of the targeted Israelis’ passports were stolen by the attackers, according to Hebrew media outlets.

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Click to expand...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1854715333359091755
 
BouncerGuy said:
Assailants shouting ‘free Palestine’ brutally attack Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam

Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv report being attacked in the streets of Amsterdam after the Israeli soccer team’s loss to local club Ajax, with video from the Dutch city showing brutal assaults by masked assailants, some of whom carry Palestinian flags and shout “free Palestine.”

Reports say several Israelis were injured, but there are no immediate details.

Some of the targeted Israelis’ passports were stolen by the attackers, according to Hebrew media outlets.

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Click to expand...

Israel sends rescue planes after football fans reportedly attacked in Amsterdam​


The leaders of Israel and the Netherlands have condemned “antisemitic” attacks on fans of an Israeli football team after a game in Amsterdam, while a leading Jewish group has said the Dutch capital should be “deeply ashamed”.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, sent two rescue planes to Amsterdam after “a very violent incident” targeting Israeli citizens on Thursday, his office said.

Israel’s national security ministry urged its citizens in Amsterdam to stay in their hotel rooms, the prime minister’s office said in a second statement.

“Fans who went to see a football game encountered antisemitism and were attacked with unimaginable cruelty just because of their Jewishness and Israeliness,” Israel’s security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said in a post on X.

Amsterdam Police said on Friday they had launched “a major investigation into multiple violent incidents”. In a post on X the police said five people had been taken to hospital and 62 arrested. They said they were unable to confirm “reports regarding a possible hostage situation and missing persons”.

There were no reports of trouble during the match at the Johan Cruyff stadium, in which Ajax Amsterdam defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv 5-0. But 57 people were held after the game as pro-Palestinian protesters tried to reach the stadium, despite having been forbidden from demonstrating there.

Fans left the stadium without incident, police said, but later in the night various violent incidents targeting the Maccabi supporters were reported in Amsterdam city centre.

The Israeli military said on Friday it was preparing to immediately deploy a rescue mission in coordination with the Dutch government.

“The mission will be deployed using cargo aircraft and include medical and rescue teams,” the military said.

Video on social media showed crowds running through the streets and a man being beaten. The Guardian has not confirmed the veracity of the videos.

The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, phoned his Dutch counterpart, Caspar Veldkamp, on Friday to ask the Dutch government to help Israeli citizens arrive safely at the airport.

The Dutch prime minister, Dick Schoof, said he was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli civilians” that were “completely unacceptable”. He said he had spoken to Netanyahu by phone “to stress that the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted”.

In a social media post on Friday, Geert Wilders, who leads the far-right Freedom party, which is the largest part of the Dutch governing coalition, criticised his own government for a “lack of urgency”. He wrote: “Why is there no extra cabinet meeting? Where is the sense of urgency?”

Wilders, who is well known for his anti-Muslim positions and does not have a formal role in the government, said Dutch authorities “will be held accountable for their failure to protect” Israeli citizens.

In a tweet, Deborah Lipstadt, the US antisemitism envoy, said she was “deeply disturbed” by the attacks and called for an investigation.

Chanan Herztberger, the chair of the Central Jewish Consultation, the main umbrella body for the Jewish community in the Netherlands, said: “Amsterdam should be deeply ashamed, the Netherlands should be deeply ashamed.”

The attacks, he noted, had taken place on the evening the Dutch Jewish community had commemorated Kristallnacht, the 1938 state-sanctioned pogrom and murderous rampage in Nazi Germany and controlled territories that paved the way for the Holocaust.

“Our capital was the scene of a pogrom that would not have been out of place in Nazi Germany,” Hertzberger said, referring to “the antisemitic gangs who, under the guise of anti-Zionism, have been trying to make life impossible for Jews in the Netherlands for some time”.

“The terrible scenes we witnessed last night show that there is no time to wait before taking tough measures,” he added.

President Isaac Herzog was among senior Israeli politicians who said the violence recalled the attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen last year, as well as attacks on European Jews in the pogroms of previous centuries.

“We see with horror this morning, the shocking images and videos that since October 7th, we had hoped never to see again: an antisemitic pogrom currently taking place against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and Israeli citizens in the heart of Amsterdam,” he wrote on X.

Israel’s largest-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, quoted Israeli fans saying the attacks appeared to have been planned.

www.theguardian.com

Israel sends rescue planes after football fans attacked in Amsterdam

Israel’s national security ministry urges citizens in Dutch city to stay in their hotel rooms after ‘very violent incident’
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 

Gaza’s top Islamic scholar issues fatwa criticising 7 October attack​


The most prominent Islamic scholar in Gaza has issued a rare, powerful fatwa condemning Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the devastating war in the Palestinian territory.

Professor Dr Salman al-Dayah, a former dean of the Faculty of Sharia and Law at the Hamas-affiliated Islamic University of Gaza, is one of the region’s most respected religious authorities, so his legal opinion carries significant weight among Gaza’s two million population, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim.

A fatwa is a non-binding Islamic legal ruling from a respected religious scholar usually based on the Quran or the Sunnah - the sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad.

Dr Dayah’s fatwa, which was published in a detailed six-page document, criticises Hamas for what he calls “violating Islamic principles governing jihad”.

Jihad means “struggle” in Arabic and in Islam it can be a personal struggle for spiritual improvement or a military struggle against unbelievers.

Dr Dayah adds: “If the pillars, causes, or conditions of jihad are not met, it must be avoided in order to avoid destroying people’s lives. This is something that is easy to guess for our country’s politicians, so the attack must have been avoided.”

For Hamas, the fatwa represents an embarrassing and potentially damaging critique, particularly as the group often justifies its attacks on Israel through religious arguments to garner support from Arab and Muslim communities.

The 7 October attack saw hundreds of Hamas gunmen from Gaza invade southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign to destroy Hamas, during which more than 43,400 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Dr Dayah argues that the significant civilian casualties in Gaza, together with the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and humanitarian disaster that have followed the 7 October attack, means that it was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Islam.

Hamas, he says, has failed in its obligations of “keeping fighters away from the homes of defenceless [Palestinian] civilians and their shelters, and providing security and safety as much as possible in the various aspects of life... security, economic, health, and education, and saving enough supplies for them.”

Dr Dayah points to Quranic verses and the Sunnah that set strict conditions for the conduct of jihad, including the necessity of avoiding actions that provoke an excessive and disproportionate response by an opponent.

His fatwa highlights that, according to Islamic law, a military raid should not trigger a response that exceeds the intended benefits of the action.

He also stresses that Muslim leaders are obligated to ensure the safety and well-being of non-combatants, including by providing food, medicine, and refuge to those not involved in the fighting.

“Human life is more precious to God than Mecca,” Dr Dayah states.

His opposition to the 7 October attack is especially significant given his deep influence in Gaza, where he is seen as a key religious figure and a vocal critic of Islamist movements, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

His moderate Salafist beliefs place him in direct opposition to Hamas’s approach to armed resistance and its ties to Shia-ruled Iran.

Salafists are fundamentalists who seek to adhere the example of the Prophet Muhammad and the first generations who followed him.

Dr Dayah has consistently argued for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate that adheres strictly to Islamic law, rather than the political party-based systems that Hamas and other groups advocate.

“Our role model is the Prophet Muhammad, who founded a nation and did not establish political parties that divide the nation. Therefore, parties in Islam are forbidden,” he said in a sermon he gave at a mosque several years ago.

He has also condemned extremism, opposing jihadist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and has used all of his platforms to issue fatwas on various social and political issues, ranging from commercial transactions, social disputes over marriage and divorce, to the conduct of political violence.

The fatwa adds to the growing internal debate within Gaza and the broader Arab world over the moral and legal implications of Hamas’s actions, and it is likely to fuel further divisions within Palestinian society regarding the use of armed resistance in the ongoing conflict with Israel.

Sheikh Ashraf Ahmed, one of Dr Dayah’s students who was forced to leave his house in Gaza City last year and flee to the south of Gaza with his wife and nine children, told the BBC: “Our scholar [Dr Dayah] refused to leave his home in northern Gaza despite the fears of Israeli air strikes. He chose to fulfil his religious duty by issuing his legal opinion on the attack”.

Ahmed described the fatwa as the most powerful legal judgment of a historical moment. “It’s a deeply well researched document, reflecting Dayah’s commitment to Islamic jurisprudence,” he said.

www.bbc.com

Gaza’s top Islamic scholar issues fatwa against October attack

It is an embarrassing critique for Hamas, which has used religious arguments to justify its actions.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns 'anti-Arab chants'

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned "anti-Arab chants" and an "attack on the Palestinian Flag" in Amsterdam.

In a statement on X, the ministry says it has called on the Dutch government to investigate the incident and to "protect Palestinians and Arabs" living in the Netherlands.

As we've reported, Amsterdam police earlier said supporters of Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv attacked a taxi and set a Palestinian flag on fire on Wednesday.

Videos posted to social media, verified by the BBC, show Maccabi Tel Aviv fans chanting racist slogans about Arabs and Palestinians. Other videos online show a Palestinian flag being torn from a building.

Police say violence continued into the early hours of Thursday, with Maccabi supporters becoming the target of "hit-and-run" attacks overnight in the capital. Five people were taken to hospital but were discharged this morning.

BBC
 

Dutch king speaks to Israeli president about violence​


The King of the Netherlands, King Willem-Alexander, has spoken to Israeli President Isaac Herzog about last night's violence in Amsterdam.

He told Herzog that both he and his wife are shocked by the violence.

"We cannot turn a blind eye to antisemitic behaviour in our streets," the king says, adding that history "has taught us how intimidation goes from bad to worse, with horrific consequences".

"Jews must feel safe in the Netherlands, everywhere and at all times. We put our arms around them and will not let them go."

BBC Sport
 

I feel ashamed about what happened in the Netherlands: Dutch PM
​

We're now hearing more from Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof.

Schoof says the the attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are a sign of "increasing antisemitism" in the Netherlands.

"I feel ashamed about what happened in the Netherlands," Schoof tells reporters on the side-lines of a European Union leaders' summit in Budapest. "It has been a dreadful night."

Schoof says he will leave the summit early to return to Amsterdam, adding that he hopes Israeli people will still feel safe in the Netherlands.

BBC Sport
 
Gaza: About 70% of people killed in the war are women and children, UN says

Nearly 70% of deaths in the Gaza war, which have been verified by the United Nations, were women and children, its Human Rights Office has said.

The UN has analysed killings in the first 11 months of the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Palestinian territory and managed to verify 8,119 victims, including 2,036 women and 3,588 children.

The 8,119 figure is considerably lower than the 43,000 deaths reported over the course of the 13-month-long war by the Hamas-run health ministry, although the UN does see these numbers as reliable.

Out of the verified deaths between 7 October 2023 and 2 September 2024, children represented almost half of the victims (44%) while women accounted for 26%.

The highest number of deaths was among children aged between five and nine years old, closely followed by those aged 10-14, and then babies aged up to and including four years old.

The youngest victim whose death was verified by the UN was a one-day-old boy, while the oldest was a 97-year-old woman.

In 88% of cases, five or more people were killed in the same attack - suggesting weapons were used across a wide area.


news.sky.com

Gaza: About 70% of people killed in the war are women and children, UN says

The highest number of verified deaths was among children aged between five and nine years old, according to the UN's Human Rights Office.
news.sky.com news.sky.com
 
Netanyahu appoints hardline backer of settlements as Israeli envoy to US

Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a hardline supporter of the war in Gaza and longtime backer of settlements in the West Bank as his ambassador to the US as Israel prepares for the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

Yechiel Leiter, an American-born rightwing publicist and former government aide who immigrated to Israel four decades ago, was announced as Israel’s next ambassador to Washington on Friday. His son, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was killed in fighting in northern Gaza last year.

Leiter is a “highly talented diplomat, an eloquent speaker, who has a deep understanding of American culture and politics”, Netanyahu said in a statement announcing the appointment. “I am convinced that Yechiel will represent the state of Israel in the best possible way, and I wish him success in his position.”

Leiter will replace the current ambassador, Michael Herzog, whose term will end on 20 January.

Leiter, who was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, has been a prominent rightwing thinker in Israel who was chief of staff to Netanyahu when he was finance minister and an aide to the late prime minister Ariel Sharon when he was a member of the Knesset.

According to Israeli media, Leiter has been affiliated with conservative policy centres including the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the Kohelet Forum.

Haaretz also reported that he was previously a member of the Jewish Defense League, which was founded by the far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane and was designated a terrorist organisation by the US for a series of attacks and assassinations. It was removed from that list due to inactivity.

Leiter is reported to live in a West Bank settlement north of Ramallah, and is a founder of the One Israel Fund, which fundraises for settlers. His appointment was lauded by Israel Ganz, a rightwing settler leader who called Leiter a “key partner in English-language advocacy for Judea and Samaria”, the biblical term used by Israeli settler communities to refer to the West Bank.

He has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s Abraham accords, meant to normalize Israel’s relations with several large Arab states, saying that they have split support in the Muslim world for the Palestinian cause. And has also called for ultimate Israeli “sovereignty” over the West Bank territories, a topic that will revive concerns about a potential annexation of the West Bank by the Netanyahu government.

Trump during his first term reversed the US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank were illegal under international law, and a number of settler leaders have said that Israel should formally annex the West Bank following Trump’s re-election to a second term.

Leiter’s son Moshe was killed in fighting in northern Gaza last year. He was Netanyahu’s guest when the prime minister visited Washington this summer during a contentious speech before a joint session of Congress.

At his son’s funeral at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem last November, Leiter addressed Joe Biden and the “rumors that you are putting pressure on Israel to hold off, to cease the offensive”.

“If those rumors are true – I hope they’re not – but if they are true, Mr President, I respectfully ask of you, here on my son’s grave, to cease and desist,” he continued. “Stand back, Mr President: don’t pressure us. Let us do what we know how to do, indeed what we must do, to defeat evil. This is a war of light against darkness, of truth against lies, of civility against murderous barbarism.

“Take it from one plain-speaking Scrantonian to another – we’re going to win this one, with you or without you,” he said. “We’re going win it hands down, because we are a people of survival, and this battle is one of survival.”

THE GUARDIAN
 
‘Strong likelihood’ of imminent famine in northern Gaza, food experts warn, as Israel continues siege

There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel claims to be pursuing a military offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas in the area.

“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.

The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which the UN said almost a year ago had been made “uninhabitable” by Israeli attacks, or face potential restrictions on US military aid.

The Biden administration has previously demanded that Israel allow in more aid but done little to enforce its requests, even reportedly ignoring its own agencies after they concluded that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine to Gaza. US law requires that weapons shipments be cut off to countries that prevent the delivery of US-backed aid.

Israel’s mission to the UN in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported. “If no effective action is taken by stakeholders with influence, the scale of this looming catastrophe is likely to dwarf anything we have seen so far in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023,” the FRC committee said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates there are between 75,000 and 95,000 people still in northern Gaza.

The Famine Review Committee said it could be “assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing” in north Gaza.

“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” the global hunger monitor said.

The US has said it is watching to ensure that its ally’s actions on the ground show it does not have a “policy of starvation” in the north, parts of which Israel has placed under a tight siege as part of what it claims is a military push against Hamas.

However, Palestinians as well as Israeli human rights groups and some Israel Defence Forces soldiers say Israel is putting into practice a blueprint known as the “generals’ plan”, a “surrender or starve” campaign aimed at depopulating northern Gaza.

Israel denies it is carrying out the plan, but earlier this week a military official told reporters it had “no intention” of allowing Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has suggested that the ethnic cleansing of Gaza by Israel had been prevented until now only by its people’s refusal to succumb to the intense pressure to flee their homes and by Arab resolve not to accept mass population transfers.

And while resettling or permanently reoccupying Gaza is not official Israeli policy, senior Israeli defence officials recently told the Israeli daily Haaretz that with no other alternatives on the table, the government is aiming to annex large parts of the territory.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on hospitals, school and homes sheltering already displaced people in the area, which many have been unable to flee.

More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s campaign in Gaza, according to local health officials, though experts say the true figure is likely to be much higher. Thousands are believed to remain buried under the rubble and tens of thousands more have been wounded.

It is not possible to verify the death toll independently as Israel does not allow foreign journalists in but according to a UN analysis of verified deaths released on Friday, nearly 70% of the people killed in the war in Gaza have been women and children.

At least 14 civilians were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza late on Friday and early on Saturday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. At least nine people were killed when Israeli fighter jets bombed tents housing displaced people in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

Al Jazeera reported that women and children were among the dead and that the tents were in the al-Mawasi area, which Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone” although it has repeatedly attacked it.

Another five were killed and others wounded when Israeli forces targeted a school housing displaced people in Gaza City. Al Jazeera reported two journalist siblings, Ahmad Abu Sakhil and Zahra Abu Sakhil, were among the dead together with their father, Muhammad.

It also reported that a “densely populated house” was hit in Beit Lahiya with at least one dead and others injured.

The FRC used an internationally recognised standard known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) in its findings. The IPC defines famine as when at least 20% of people in an area are suffering extreme food shortages, with at least 30% of children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

The IPC is an initiative involving UN agencies, national governments and aid groups that sets the global standard on measuring food crises.

The IPC warned last month that the entire Gaza Strip was at risk of famine, while top UN officials last week described the northern Gaza Strip as “apocalyptic” and said everyone there was “at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence”.

The amount of aid entering Gaza has plummeted to its lowest level in a year, according to UN data, and the UN has repeatedly accused Israel of hindering and blocking attempts to deliver aid, particularly to Gaza’s north.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, told the security council last month that the issue in Gaza was not a lack of aid, claiming more than a million tons had been delivered during the past year. He accused Hamas of hijacking the assistance.

Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that it was stealing aid and says Israel is to blame for shortages. Israel has repeatedly attacked aid convoys and aid workers as well as people waiting to receive food aid.

“The daily average number of trucks entering Gaza in late October was about 58 per day,” Jean-Martin Bauer, the UN World Food Programme’s director of food security and nutrition analysis, said on Friday. “We were getting about 200 a day in September and August, so that’s really a big, big decline.”

Aid agencies have previously said at least 600 trucks a day are needed to avert famine.

THE GUARDIAN
 
BouncerGuy said:
Assailants shouting ‘free Palestine’ brutally attack Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam

Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv report being attacked in the streets of Amsterdam after the Israeli soccer team’s loss to local club Ajax, with video from the Dutch city showing brutal assaults by masked assailants, some of whom carry Palestinian flags and shout “free Palestine.”

Reports say several Israelis were injured, but there are no immediate details.

Some of the targeted Israelis’ passports were stolen by the attackers, according to Hebrew media outlets.

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Click to expand...


https://twitter.com/x/status/1854923443763888149
 
Israeli strikes in Gaza kill at least 13, officials say, as first aid in weeks reaches the north

wo separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people, including women and children, in Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian medical officials said, as Israel announced the first delivery of aid in weeks to the war-battered northern Gaza.

One of the strikes hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City’s eastern Tufah neighborhood, killing at least six people, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. Two local journalists, a pregnant woman and a child were among the dead, the ministry said. The Israeli army said the strike targeted a militant belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, offering no evidence or further detail.

Another seven people were killed when an Israeli strike hit a tent in the southern city of Khan Younis where displaced people were sheltering, according to Nasser Hospital. It said the dead included two women and a child. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the blast.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said Saturday that 11 aid trucks containing food, water and medical equipment reached the far north of the enclave, including the urban refugee camp at Jabaliya. It is the first time any aid has reached the far north of the enclave since Israel began a fresh military campaign there last month.

The announcement comes days a ahead of a U.S. deadline demanding that Israel improve aid deliveries across Gaza. Experts have said there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza.

Israel’s new offensive has focusing on Jabaliya, a densely populated refugee camp where Israel says Hamas had regrouped. Other areas affected by the new campaign include Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, situated just north of Gaza City.

The U.N. estimates that tens of thousands of people remain in the area. Earlier this week, the Gaza Health Ministry said that there were no ambulances or emergency crews currently operating north of Gaza City.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli army has struck several schools and tent camps, packed with tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. The conflict has left 90% of Palestinians in Gaza displaced, according to U.N. figures.

The military has continually accused Hamas of operating from within civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, U.N. facilities and hospitals. The contesting narratives over the use of schools and hospitals go to the heart of 13 month conflict.

In July, Israeli airstrikes hit a girls’ school in Gaza’s central city of Deir al-Balah, killing at least 30 people sheltering inside. Israel’s military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against its troops and store “large quantities of weapons.”

More than a year of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children. The war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.

SOURCE: https://apnews.com/article/israel-p...h-11-09-2024-e97ca8ab4ac8151281bab6895bb04404
 
US 'won’t accept Hamas presence in Qatar'

Senior US officials have reportedly said Washington will no longer accept the presence of Hamas representatives in Qatar, accusing the Palestinian group of rejecting the latest proposals to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage deal.

In anonymous briefings to the Reuters news agency, the officials said the Qatari government had agreed to tell Hamas to close its political office 10 days ago.

Hamas have had a political base in Doha since 2012, reportedly at the request of the Obama administration, to allow communication with the group.

The reports have been denied to the BBC by Hamas officials; Qatar has yet to comment.

The small but influential gulf state is a key US ally in the region. It hosts a major American air base and has handled many delicate political negotiations, including with Iran, the Taliban and Russia. Alongside the US and Egypt, the Qataris have also played a major role in rounds of so-far unsuccessful talks to broker a ceasefire in the year-long war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The latest round of talks in mid-October failed to produce a deal, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal. They have always called for a complete end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel has also been accused of rejecting deals. Days after being fired earlier this week, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of rejecting a peace deal against the advice of his security chiefs.

Dr H A Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), thinks the reports are credible. “I think we’re in the last phase before Hamas is forced to relocate,” he told me. “The writing on the wall has been there for months.”

The call for Hamas to be expelled from Qatar appears to be an attempt by the outgoing Biden administration to force some sort of peace deal before the end of his term in January.

Were Hamas to be forced to leave Doha, it is unclear where they would base their political office. Key ally Iran would be an option, although the assassination of former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July suggests they may be at risk from Israel if based there. It would also not give them anything close to the same diplomatic channels to the West.

A more likely option would be Turkey. As a Nato member but also a Sunni majority state, it would give the group a base from which to operate in relative safety. Last April President Erdogan hosted then Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and his delegation in Istanbul, where they talked about “what needs to be done to ensure adequate and uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and a fair and lasting peace process in the region".

The move would also most likely be welcomed by Ankara, which has often sought to position itself as a broker between east and west.

It is thought the personal safety of Hamas leadership is now a major concern for the group, which saw two leaders killed in less than four months. As well as Haniyeh’s death in July, in October Israel killed Yahya Sinwar in Gaza - he was the mastermind behind the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel.

According to the European Council of Foreign Relations, “Hamas has adopted a temporary model of collective leadership to mitigate the effect of future Israeli assassinations”.

Dr Hellyer thinks that nowhere “will give them protection from Israeli assassination attempts in the same way that being in Doha, where America has its largest military base in the region, did”.

The latest move comes as US officials appear increasingly frustrated with the approach the Israeli government has taken to ending the war. In October, the US Secretaries of State and Defense said if Israel did not allow more humanitarian aid into the territory within 30 days, they would face unspecified policy “implications”.

Last weekend a number of UN officials warned the situation in northern Gaza was “apocalyptic”. On Saturday the independent Famine Review Committee said there was a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas”.

The relationship between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu has deteriorated over the course of the war in Gaza, with increasing pressure from Washington to improve the humanitarian situation for the Palestinians and find some sort of negotiated settlement.

But, according to Dr Hellyer, US attempts at negotiation have been fatally flawed.

“By setting red lines and allowing Netanyahu to cross them without consequence, the Biden administration effectively encouraged further impunity. I don’t think any of this will change in the next 10 weeks,” he said.

Any overtures have been repeatedly rejected by Mr Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition, who will now also feel emboldened by the prospect of an incoming Donald Trump presidency.

While exactly what approach Donald Trump will take to the region remains uncertain, he is thought to be more likely to allow Israel to act on its terms.

He has previously said Israel should “finish what they started” in Gaza. During his last term in the White House, he took a number of steps deemed highly favourable to Israel, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

It has also been reported, however, that Trump told Netanyahu that he wants to see an end to the fighting by the time he takes office.

Either way, it seems likely that the current US administration will have less influence over the government in Jerusalem.

They may therefore believe the best way to force some sort of deal is to apply pressure on Hamas. Whether it pays off may depend on whether Qatar, so long a reliable ally, decides to go along with it.

BBC
 

Qatar to withdraw as key mediator from Gaza ceasefire talks: report​


Qatar would withdraw as a key mediator for Gaza negotiations unless Israel and Hamas fully committed to ceasefire efforts, a diplomatic source told AFP, in the biggest setback to efforts to reach a truce since the war started over a year ago.

"The Qataris informed both the Israelis and Hamas that as long as there is a refusal to negotiate a deal in good faith, they cannot continue to mediate," the source said on condition of anonymity.

"As a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose."

Qatar, with the United Sates and Egypt, has been engaged in months of fruitless negotiations to secure a deal that would end the war in Gaza and release the Israeli captives held by Hamas.

The source said Qatar had already "notified both sides, Israel and Hamas as well as the US administration" of its decision.

"The Qataris conveyed to the US administration that they would be ready to re-engage in mediation when both sides...demonstrate a sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table," the source added.

A senior Hamas official told AFP that the group had not received any indication from Qatar that it should leave the country.

"We have nothing to confirm or deny regarding what was published by an unidentified diplomatic source and we have not received any request to leave Qatar," the official said from Doha.

www.middleeasteye.net

Qatar to withdraw as key mediator from Gaza ceasefire talks: report

A diplomatic source says Doha would stop mediating talks unless Israel and Hamas committed more fully to negotiations
www.middleeasteye.net www.middleeasteye.net
 
Israeli strikes on Lebanon kill at least 31 people

A wave of Israeli strikes on eastern and southern Lebanon has killed at least 31 people, the Health Ministry said.

Twenty people were killed in raids on the Baalbek-Hermel region, including 11 in the Knaissseh locality. Another 14 people were wounded.
In the south, Israeli strikes killed at least 11 people, including six rescuers in a strike on the village of Deir Qanun, and five people in the southern village of Hanaway.

Saturday’s attacks came a day after the Health Ministry said seven people, including two children, were killed in strikes on the southern city of Tyre.

Source: Al Jazeera
 

www.yahoo.com

Qatar orders Hamas to leave in major blow to terror group’s leaders

Qatar has ordered Hamas to leave the country following pressure from the United States.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

​

Qatar orders Hamas to leave in major blow to terror group’s leaders​


Qatar has ordered Hamas to leave the country following pressure from the United States.

Doha reportedly told Hamas around 10 days ago it was “no longer welcome” after the US complained the group should not have refuge in the Gulf country.

In the final weeks of his presidency, Joe Biden had been urged to pressure Qatar over hosting the potential next generation of Hamas leaders.

Israel has repeatedly called on Qatar to impose harsher measures on the terror group who have a political office in the country.

Qatar is a major non-Nato ally but has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012 as part of an agreement with the US.

On Saturday, a senior Doha official told Reuters that Hamas’ office had been closed as it “no longer serves its purpose”.

The US is said to have made the demand for the office’s closure around two weeks ago, amid frustration at Hamas’ repeated rejections of ceasefire and hostage deals
 
Saudi crown prince says Israel committing 'genocide' in Gaza

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” in some of the harshest public criticism of the country by a Saudi official since the start of the war.

Speaking at a summit of Muslim and Arab leaders the prince also criticised Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran.

Israel has vehemently denied that its forces are committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In a sign of improving ties between rivals Riyadh and Tehran, Prince Mohammed also warned Israel against launching attacks on Iranian soil.

Saudi's de facto leader was joined by other leaders present in calling for a total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said it was a “failing of the international community” that the war in Gaza had not been stopped, accusing Israel of causing starvation in the territory.

Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud said: "Where the international community primarily has failed is ending the immediate conflict and putting an end to Israel’s aggression.”

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack, which saw hundreds of gunmen enter southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.

Israel retaliated by launching a military campaign to destroy Hamas, during which more than 43,400 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A report by the UN’s Human Rights Office found that close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period in Gaza were women and children.

Leaders at the summit also condemned what they described as Israel's “continuous attacks” against UN staff and facilities in Gaza.

Last month, the Knesset passed a bill to ban Unrwa, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, from operating in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, accusing the organisation of colluding with Hamas.

Several countries, including the US and the UK, have expressed serious concern about the move limiting the agency’s ability to transfer aid to Gaza.

In the backdrop of the well-attended summit, is Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Gulf leaders are aware of his closeness to Israel, but they also have good relations with him, and want him to use his influence and his fondness for deal-making to secure an end to conflicts in this region.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump is viewed much more favourably than Joe Biden, but his track record in the Middle East is mixed.

He pleased Israel and angered the Muslim world by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as the annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. He also secured the Abraham Accords in 2020 which saw the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and Sudan agree to do so.

One editorial in a leading Saudi newspaper today is titled: “A new era of hope. Trump’s return and the promise of stability.”

BBC
 
Israeli attacks killed at least 17 in strikes across Gaza various reports said on Tuesday, with around 11 of them killed in Al-Mawasi where forcibly displaced people were sheltering in tents

Rescue teams struggled to retrieve bodies from under the rubble in Gaza City after Israeli strikes targeted a home belonging to the Al-Amsi family located on the Al-Jalaa street.

Eyewitnesses told the Wafa news agency that large explosions could be heard from the building demolitions, as well as explosions in north Gaza.

The Israeli army also issued a forced evacuation order to 130 families in Beit Hanoun, with local sources stating that the army rounded people up under gunfire.

Eyewitnesses told Wafa that displaced people left their shelters and homes under shelling and gunfire and were forced to head towards Salah al-Din Street, a major road connecting north and south Gaza.

The director of the north Gaza Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, highlighted that the medical facility was the only remaining one in the area on Monday.

He added that the hospital’s emergency entrance had been bombed with three staff members wounded, one of them critically. Abu Safiya also said they had very little specialist equipment left but were having to carry out complex surgery on victims of Israeli bombing.

The Israeli army announced that four of their soldiers were killed in northern Gaza on Monday, which comes at the same time when the Qassam Brigades were publishing regular statements detailing operations and ambushes they had carried out against Israeli soldiers and tanks.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
US says Israel hasn't breached its law against blocking aid in Gaza

The US says Israel has not breached American laws on blocking aid supplies, after a 30-day deadline it gave Israel to boost humanitarian aid access in Gaza or risk having some military assistance cut off lapsed.

Officials said on Tuesday that Israel has taken a number of steps to address its demands to surge supplies into Gaza, but added that more progress must be made.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel cited the opening of a new land crossing, and deliveries resuming in the north - although he did not say any had entered the besieged Jabalia refugee camp.

Despite the US claims, the UN has warned that the amount of aid getting into Gaza is at its lowest level in a year.

A UN-backed report recently warned that there was an imminent likelihood of famine in northern Gaza, where hardly any aid has entered in the past month.

Joyce Msuya, the United Nations acting under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said international crimes were being committed in Gaza.

Ms Msuya briefed council members at the United Nations on Tuesday, reporting that Israeli authorities were blocking humanitarian assistance from entering North Gaza, where fighting continues.

She said 75,000 people remain there with dwindling supplies.

Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave Israel 30 days to ensure more aid trucks reached Gaza daily. That deadline expired on Tuesday.

A letter sent to the Israeli government demanded the country end the isolation of the besieged north, where aid groups warn that civilians are being starved amid Israel’s military offensive.

A group of eight humanitarian aid agencies said conditions had actually deteriorated since the letter was sent.

But the US reaction on Tuesday indicates that Washington will continue to supply weapons to its ally, despite growing warnings from aid groups about civilians being killed and displaced by Israel’s assault on the north.

The Israeli military, however, said it has been routing a Hamas resurgence in the region.

Israel says it has substantially increased the amount of aid getting into Gaza, and accuses aid agencies of failing adequately to distribute it.

In Beit Hanoun, which was besieged for more than a month, Ms Msuya said food and water reached shelters Monday only for Israeli soldiers to forcibly displace people from those areas Tuesday.

Ilze Kehris, assistant secretary general for human rights at the UN, said the pattern and frequency of Israel's attacks suggest systematic targeting of civilians.

Much of the death and destruction was caused by US weapons, given to Israel in order the help the fight Hamas.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas after the group's attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead; 251 others were taken hostage.

Since then, more than 43,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

BBC
 
Israeli forces kill 22 people in Gaza, force new displacement in the north

Israeli military strikes killed at least 22 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, as Israeli forces deepened their incursion into Beit Hanoun town in the north, forcing most remaining residents to leave.

Residents said Israeli forces besieged shelters housing displaced families and the remaining population, which some estimated at a few thousand, ordering them to head south through a checkpoint separating two towns and a refugee camp in the north from Gaza City.

Men were held for questioning, while women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, residents and Palestinian medics said.

Israel's campaign in the north of Gaza, and the evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the area, has fueled claims from Palestinians that it is clearing the area for use as a buffer zone and potentially for a return of Jewish settlers.

"The scenes of the 1948 catastrophe are being repeated. Israel is repeating its massacres, displacement and destruction," said Saed, 48, a resident of Beit Lahiya, who arrived in Gaza City on Wednesday.

"North Gaza is being turned into a large buffer zone, Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing under the sight and hearing of the impotent world," he told Reuters via a chat app.

Saed was referring to the 1948 Middle East Arab-Israeli war which gave birth to the state of Israel and saw the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home towns and villages in what is now Israel.

NO PLANS FOR SETTLERS' RETURN

The Israeli military has denied any such intention, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he does not want to reverse the 2005 withdrawal of settlers from Gaza. Hardliners in his government have talked openly about going back.

It said forces have killed hundreds of Hamas militants in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun during its new military offensive, which began more than a month ago. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad armed wing claimed killing several Israeli soldiers during ambushes and anti-tank rocket fire.

Efforts by Arab mediators, Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have so far failed to end the war in Gaza, with Hamas and Israel trading the blame for the lack of progress.

Speaking on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel "has accomplished the goals that it set for itself" by taking out Hamas' leadership and ensuring the group is unable to launch another massive attack. "This should be a time to end the war," he said.

"We also need to make sure we have a plan for what follows," he said, "so that if Israel decides to end the war and we find a way to get the hostages out, we also have a clear plan so that Israel can get out of Gaza and we make sure that Hamas is not going back in."

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Blinken's comments showed: "We are facing one enemy and that the U.S. enmity against the Palestinian people is no less than that of the occupation."

On Tuesday, the United States stressed at the United Nations that "there must be no forcible displacement, nor policy of starvation in Gaza" by Israel, warning such policies would have grave implications under U.S. and international law.

Medics said five people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a group of people outside Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, while five others were killed in two separate strikes in Nuseirat in central Gaza Strip where the army began a limited raid two days ago.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, one man was killed and several others were wounded in an Israeli airstrike, while three Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Shejaia suburb of Gaza City, medics added.

Later on Wednesday, an Israeli strike on a house in western Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip killed eight people, medics said.

Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel last October, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past year, Palestinian health officials say, and Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland of wrecked buildings and piles of rubble, where more than 2 million Gazans are seeking shelter in makeshift tents and facing shortages of food and medicines.

REUTERS
 

HRW accuses Israel of war crime of forced displacement in Gaza​


Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by deliberately causing the mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

About 1.9 million people - 90% of Gaza’s population - have fled their homes over the past year, and 79% of the territory is under Israeli-issued evacuation orders, according to the UN.

HRW’s report says this amounts to “forcible transfer” and that “evidence shows it has been systematic and part of a state policy”. It also says Israeli actions appear to “meet the definition of ethnic cleansing”.

Israel has said the report is "completely false and detached from reality".

"Contrary to claims in HRW's report, Israel's efforts are directed solely at dismantling Hamas's terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza," Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson of Israel's ministry of foreign affairs posted on X.

He added Israel will "continue to operate in accordance with the law of armed conflict".

HRW has also accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields by operating inside homes and civilian infrastructure.

The report was published as Israeli forces continued a ground offensive in northern Gaza that has displaced up to 130,000 people over the past five weeks.

The UN has said 75,000 people remain under siege with dwindling supplies of water and food in the towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, where the Israeli military says it is preventing a Hamas resurgence.

Source: BBC
 
Qassam Brigades claims killing of 3 Israeli soldiers in north Gaza

Hamas fighters attacked Israeli troops in northern Gaza, kill three in besieged Beit Lahiya.

“Qassam fighters managed to kill three Zionist soldiers at point-blank range in the vicinity of Abbas Kilani roundabout, north of Beit Lahiya city,” the armed group said in a statement on Telegram.

Beit Lahiya is a city in the north of the Gaza Strip close to Jabalia and Beit Hanoon. All three cities are severely affected by the month-long Israeli army incursion.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are trapped without access to food, water, and medicine as Israel refuses entry of humanitarian aid.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Hamas ready for Gaza ceasefire 'immediately' - but claims Israel has put forward no 'serious proposals' in months

Hamas says it is ready to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal "immediately" but claims it has not had any "serious proposals" from Israel in months, an official for the group has told Sky News.

Dr Basem Naim also suggested Hamas has no regrets about the 7 October attacks which killed 1,200 Israelis last year, despite the ensuing war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

He accused Israel of "big massacres" in Gaza and said Hamas has not received any "serious proposals" for a ceasefire since the assassination of its leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Appearing on The World With Yalda Hakim, he said the last "well-defined, brokered deal" was on 2 July.

"It was discussed in all details and I think we were near to a ceasefire... which can end this war, offer a permanent ceasefire and total withdrawal and prisoner exchange.

"Unfortunately [Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu preferred to go the other way," Dr Naim said.

Asked about the upcoming change in administration in the US, Dr Naim said Hamas is calling on "any president" - including Donald Trump - to take the necessary steps to stop the war immediately.

'I am an innocent Palestinian civilian'

Dr Naim was also asked if last year's brutal attack on Israel by Hamas triggered the escalation in violence the world has seen in Gaza.

He replied: "It is exactly as if you are accusing the victims for the crimes of the aggressor."

But Hakim pressed him, asking: "But Dr Naim, you're also speaking as though you are talking as an innocent Palestinian civilian. Your movement launched an attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead and several hundred people who weren't in the military - innocent civilians, women and children - taken into Gaza. So you launched an attack which triggered then the events of the last year?"

In response, Dr Naim claimed that a week before 7 October 2023, hundreds of Palestinians were killed near the Gaza border and that people were starving.

"It is an act of defence," he said of the 7 October attacks.

He added: "I am a member of Hamas, but at the same time I am an innocent Palestinian civilian because I have the right to live a free and dignified life and I have the right to defend myself - to defend my family."

Asked whether he regrets the attack on Israel, he replied: "Do you believe that a prisoner who is knocking the door or who is trying to get out of the prison, he has to regret his will to be?

"This is part of our dignity. Part of our dignity... to defend ourselves. To defend our children."

At least 1,200 people were killed and about 250 people taken captive during the Hamas attacks on Israel last year, according to Israeli authorities. Almost 100 hostages remained in captivity in Gaza a year on from the attacks.

On Thursday, Hakim also asked Israel's ambassador to the United Nations for his response to the UN saying that the majority of those killed in Gaza have been women and children.

Danny Danon said: "First, I doubt those numbers. We regret the loss of life of civilians but when you look at the proportion of casualties to civilians and militants, you can understand that we are doing everything we can to minimise those numbers.

"Unfortunately we regret them, but the number of civilian casualties is very low compared to other conflicts."

'We regret the loss of civilian life in Gaza'

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said on Thursday that 43,736 people have been killed in Gaza in the fighting that has raged for more than a year now since 7 October. More than 103,000 Palestinians have been injured, the ministry said.

SOURCE: https://news.sky.com/story/hamas-re...rward-no-serious-proposals-in-months-13254181
 
Four bodies retrieved following Israeli bombing of Gaza City

The Palestinian Civil Defence agency says its teams retrieved the bodies of four people after an Israeli air raid targeted central Gaza City.

Several Palestinians were injured following an attack on a house belonging to the Ayoub family at al-Shaabiyah Junction in the city, it said.

Earlier, civil defence teams recovered the body of at least one person killed in an Israeli attack on a house belonging to the al-Arjani family, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera
 
www.theguardian.com

Rightwing settlers in Israel welcome ‘dream team’ of Trump and his hardline appointments

Palestinian groups shocked by US president-elect’s favouring of outspoken supporters of far-right activists in the region
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

A Green light for total Annexation of Palestinian territory. This was clearly pre planned, with October 7th used as the go ahead. And with this Aipac Elected US government in place, the zionest extremists will kill off the Palestinians , which will further proof, a two state solution was always lip service.
 
aboveandbeyond said:
www.theguardian.com

Rightwing settlers in Israel welcome ‘dream team’ of Trump and his hardline appointments

Palestinian groups shocked by US president-elect’s favouring of outspoken supporters of far-right activists in the region
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

A Green light for total Annexation of Palestinian territory. This was clearly pre planned, with October 7th used as the go ahead. And with this Aipac Elected US government in place, the zionest extremists will kill off the Palestinians , which will further proof, a two state solution was always lip service.
Click to expand...

Netanyahu never seemed interested in a two-state solution.

As a matter of fact, Israel's end game is probably to grab lands from nearby countries too (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria etc.).

en.wikipedia.org

10 agorot controversy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Almost 100 Gaza food aid lorries violently looted, UN agency says

A convoy of 109 UN aid lorries carrying food was violently looted in Gaza on Saturday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says.

Ninety-seven of the lorries were lost and their drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload their aid after passing through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing with southern Gaza, in what is believed to have been one of the worst incidents of its kind.

Eyewitnesses said the convoy was attacked by masked men who threw grenades.

Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini did not identify the perpetrators, but he said the “total breakdown of civil order” in Gaza meant it had “become an impossible environment to operate in”.


www.bbc.com

Almost 100 Gaza aid lorries violently looted, UN agency Unrwa says

Drivers in Saturday's convoy were forced at gunpoint to unload their food supplies, according to Unrwa.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Cricket Warrior said:
Almost 100 Gaza food aid lorries violently looted, UN agency says

A convoy of 109 UN aid lorries carrying food was violently looted in Gaza on Saturday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says.

Ninety-seven of the lorries were lost and their drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload their aid after passing through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing with southern Gaza, in what is believed to have been one of the worst incidents of its kind.

Eyewitnesses said the convoy was attacked by masked men who threw grenades.

Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini did not identify the perpetrators, but he said the “total breakdown of civil order” in Gaza meant it had “become an impossible environment to operate in”.


www.bbc.com

Almost 100 Gaza aid lorries violently looted, UN agency Unrwa says

Drivers in Saturday's convoy were forced at gunpoint to unload their food supplies, according to Unrwa.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
Click to expand...

What scumbags! Looting aid trucks.

May Allah's Curse be upon these looting scumbags.
 
These guys are so pathetic and shameless that they are now looting aid trucks and people are still defending them. Shame on them
 

Turkiye refuses to let Israel’s president use its airspace​


President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkiye refused to allow his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog to use the country’s airspace to travel to the COP29 UN Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan.
“We did not allow the Israeli president to use our airspace to attend the COP summit. We suggested alternative routes and other options,” Erdogan told reporters at the G20 Summit in Brazil.
“But whether he was able to go or not, I honestly don’t know.”
Turkiye withdrew its ambassador in Israel for consultations after Israel launched its war on Gaza a year ago. But Turkiye has not officially severed its ties with Israel and its embassy remains open and operational.
Click to expand...

Source: https://aje.io/ufj18q?update=3336856 (Al-Jazeera).
 

Virtually no aid has reached besieged north Gaza in 40 days, UN says​


Palestinians are "facing diminishing conditions for survival" in parts of northern Gaza under siege by Israeli forces because virtually no aid has been delivered in 40 days, the UN has warned.

The UN said all its attempts to support the estimated 65,000 to 75,000 people in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia this month had been denied or impeded, forcing bakeries and kitchens to shut down.

Earlier this month, a UN-backed assessment said there was a strong likelihood that famine was imminent in areas of northern Gaza.

The Israeli military has said its six-week-long offensive targets regrouping Hamas fighters, and that it is facilitating civilian evacuations and supply deliveries to hospitals.

Hundreds of people have been killed and between 100,000 and 130,000 others have been displaced to Gaza City, where the UN has said essential resources like shelter, water and healthcare are severely limited.

UN agencies had planned 31 missions to the besieged areas of North Gaza governorate between 1 and 18 November, according to the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Twenty-seven were rejected by Israeli authorities and the other four were severely impeded, meaning they were prevented from accomplishing all the work they set out to do.

"This is happening when the IPC Famine Review Committee said just 11 days ago that parts of northern Gaza face an imminent risk of famine - and that immediate action is needed in days, not weeks," UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

"The result is that bakeries and kitchens in North Gaza governorate have shut down, nutrition support [for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women] has been suspended, and the refuelling of water and sanitation facilities has been completely blocked."

Mr Dujarric said access to the three barely functional hospitals there also remained severely restricted, amid what he called "desperate shortages" of medical supplies and fuel.

On Sunday, a World Health Organisation-led mission to Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia was able to deliver 10,000 litres of fuel and transfer 17 patients, three unaccompanied children and 22 caregivers to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

However, Mr Dujarric said the aid workers were forced to offload all the food supplies and some of the medical supplies they were transporting at an Israeli military checkpoint before reaching the hospital.

The director of Kamal Adwan, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, warned on Wednesday that the situation there was becoming "even more catastrophic".

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry cited him as saying that the hospital had 85 patients receiving "the minimum level of healthcare" and that it needed children’s food and infant formula to treat an increasing number of malnutrition cases.

Since Tuesday, 17 children had arrived at the emergency room showing signs of malnutrition and an elderly man had died due to severe dehydration, he added.

There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

But data from the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, Cogat, said 472 aid lorries had entered northern Gaza via the Erez West crossing as of 17 November, without specifying whether any of that aid was allowed into the besieged areas.

Cogat also said it was continuing to work with international partners to “facilitate broad humanitarian responses for the civilian population in Gaza".

On Monday, a boy from Beit Lahia told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme that he and his family had fled to Gaza City after the Israeli military dropped leaflets from a quadcopter, ordering their immediate evacuation.

"The road from Beit Lahia to Gaza [City] was rough and bumpy with no transport available for us. When we arrived, we didn’t find anything... neither food nor drink. We headed to the schools, but there was no space left because the number of displaced... was huge," he said.

"As a result, we were thrown into the streets and didn’t know where to go. We are six families living in the streets, sitting on sand, dirt and debris.”

The IDF said in a statement on Monday that its forces had killed "dozens of terrorists in close-quarters encounters and through targeted strikes" in the Beit Lahia area over the past week.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency told AFP news agency that a drone had killed two people, including a 15-year-old girl, at a school sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahia.

The agency's first responders had also recovered the bodies of seven people killed in an overnight Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia, he added.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 43,980 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.

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Virtually no aid has reached north Gaza in 40 days, UN says

The UN says bakeries and kitchens have shut down due to limited supplies in the region.
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Israeli strikes kill 48 people in Gaza, hospital in north makes distress call

Israeli forces killed at least 48 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including a rescue worker, health officials said, as troops deepened an incursion along the territory's northern edge, bombarding a hospital and blowing up homes.

Medics said at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza earlier on Wednesday, and at least 10 people remained missing as rescue operations continued. Another man was killed in tank shelling nearby, they said.

Later on Wednesday, health officials said 15 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.

In the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike killed seven Palestinians, including a girl, in Al-Mawasi, a humanitarian-designated area in western Khan Younis, Gaza medics said. Palestinian and U.N. officials say no place in the enclave is safe.

Another air strike on a house in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City killed four people, while a strike killed three Palestinians and wounded at least 20 others at a school sheltering displaced families in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.


 
US vetoes UN security council push to call for ceasefire in Gaza

The US has vetoed a UN security council push to call for a ceasefire in Gaza that Washington said would have emboldened Hamas.

The resolution demanded “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in the war between Israel and the Palestinian group, along with “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.

The UN security council voted 14-1 in favor of the resolution sponsored by the 10 elected members on the 15-member council, but it was not adopted because of the US veto.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said the resolution “was not a path to peace, it was a road map to more terror, more suffering and more bloodshed.

“Many of you attempted to pass this injustice. We thank the United States for exercising its veto.”

Robert Wood, deputy ambassador to the UN, said that the US position remained that there had “to be a linkage between a ceasefire and the release of hostages”.

The war was triggered by the assault on Israel by Hamas militants on 7 October 2023, a cross-border raid that killed 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The health ministry in Gaza said the death toll from the resulting war had reached 43,985 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.

Of 251 hostages seized during the 7 October attack, 97 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Almost all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced by the war, which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.

Hamas condemned Washington as a “partner in the aggression against our people …

“It is a criminal, kills children and women and destroys civilian life in Gaza.”

Since the beginning of the conflict, the security council has struggled to speak with one voice, as the United States has used its veto power several times, although Russia and China have as well.

“China kept demanding stronger language,” said a US official who also claimed that Russia had been “pulling strings” with the countries responsible for pushing the latest resolution.

The few resolutions that the United States has allowed to pass by abstaining stopped short of calling for an unconditional and permanent ceasefire.

In March, the council called for a temporary ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but this appeal was ignored by the warring parties.

And in June, the 15-member body pledged support for a US resolution that laid out a multistage ceasefire and hostage release plan that ultimately went nowhere.

“We regret that the council could have incorporated compromise language the UK put forward to bridge the existing gaps ... With that language, this resolution should have been adopted,” Wood, the US envoy, said following the vote.

Ondina Blokar Drobic, Slovenia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, said “we regret the veto was cast, even more since this war, with its humanitarian impact and spillover effect, amounts to a serious threat to international peace and security”.

Some diplomats have expressed optimism that following Donald Trump’s election win, Joe Biden might be more flexible in his few remaining weeks in power.

They hoped for a repeat of December 2016 when then-president Barack Obama’s second term was finishing and the council passed a resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories, a first since 1979.

The United States refrained from using its veto then, a break from traditional US support for Israel on the sensitive issue of settlements.

“Once again, the US used its veto to ensure impunity for Israel as its forces continue to commit crimes against Palestinians in Gaza,” Human Rights Watch said.

The resolution vetoed on Wednesday calls for “safe and unhindered entry of humanitarian assistance at scale”, including in besieged northern Gaza, and denounces any attempt to starve Palestinians.

Majed Bamya, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, said Wednesday that “there’s no justification whatsoever for vetoing a resolution trying to stop atrocities”.

SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/20/un-gaza-vote-veto
 

ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas commander​


Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister, as well as Hamas's military commander.

A statement said a pre-trial chamber had rejected Israel’s challenges to the court’s jurisdiction and issued warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

A warrant was also issued for Mohammed Deif, although the Israeli military has said he was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July.

The judges found “reasonable grounds” that the three men bore "criminal responsibility" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Both Israel and Hamas have rejected the allegations.

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ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas commander

International Criminal Court judges say there are “reasonable grounds” they bore "criminal responsibility" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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Netanyahu attacks ICC war crimes arrest warrants

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned as "antisemitic" a decision by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for war crimes against him and ex-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

He said the ICC was "falsely" accusing them "of deliberately targeting civilians, this when we do everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties".

The ICC also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif. Israel says he was killed in Gaza in July.

ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the three men bore "criminal responsibility" for crimes during the war between Israel and Hamas.

US President Joe Biden called the ICC move against Israeli officials "outrageous".

"Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence - none - between Israel and Hamas," Biden said in a statement. "We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security."

Both Israel and Hamas reject the allegations made by the ICC.

In a statement on Thursday, Netanyahu said: "The antisemitic decision of the international court in The Hague is a modern Dreyfus trial, and it will end the same way."

He was referring to a high-profile case of antisemitism in France just over a century ago.

"The court in The Hague accuses us of a deliberate policy of starvation," the Israeli PM said.

"This when we have supplied Gaza with 700,000 tons of food to feed the people of Gaza. We issue millions of text messages, phone calls, leaflets to the citizens of Gaza to get them out of harm's way - while the Hamas terrorists do everything in their power to keep them in harm’s way, including shooting them, using them as human shields."

Netanyahu said Israel would "not recognise the validity" of the ICC's decision.

Just this week, the UN warned that Palestinians were "facing diminishing conditions for survival" in parts of northern Gaza under siege by Israeli forces because virtually no aid had been delivered in 40 days.

Gallant said the ICC placed "the state of Israel and the murderous leaders of Hamas in the same row and thus legitimises the murder of babies, the rape of women and the abduction of the elderly from their beds”.

Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister, told the BBC that while he was critical of Netanyahu's handling of the conflict with Hamas, he did not agree with the ICC's decision.

"Israel has not committed genocide or war crimes that deserve these charges against the prime minister and the minister of defence," Olmert told Radio 4's World Tonight programme.

Hamas made no mention of the Deif warrant but said the move against Netanyahu and Gallant constituted an "important historical precedent, and a correction to a long path of historical injustice against our people".

Palestinians in Gaza expressed hope Israeli leaders would now be brought to justice.

Israel denies the allegation that its forces are committing genocide in Gaza, which is the subject of a separate case before the International Court of Justice.

The impact of the warrants announced by the ICC will depend on whether the court's 124 member states - which do not include Israel or its ally, the US - decide to enforce them or not.

Several European countries have said they respect ICC decisions. Downing Street said the British government respected the independence of the ICC.

The prosecutor's case against the three men stems from 7 October 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign to eliminate Hamas, during which at least 44,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

For Deif, an ICC pre-trial chamber found reasonable grounds to believe he was "responsible for the crimes against humanity of murder; extermination; torture; and rape and other form of sexual violence; as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture; taking hostages; outrages upon personal dignity; and rape and other form of sexual violence".

It also said there were reasonable grounds to believe the crimes against humanity were "part of a widespread and systematic attack directed by Hamas and other armed groups against the civilian population of Israel".

For Netanyahu and Gallant, who was replaced as defence minister earlier this month, the chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that they "each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts".

It also found reasonable grounds to believe that "each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population".

BBC
 

Hamas claims Israeli hostage killed in IDF attack on northern Gaza​

Hamas's armed wing has said an Israeli hostage has been killed in northern Gaza.

The militant group said the female hostage died after the area was struck by Israel Defence Forces.

A spokesperson for Hamas's armed wing said: "After re-establishing contact with resistance fighters assigned to protect Israeli prisoners, it was confirmed that one Israeli female prisoner was killed in an area under heavy Israeli bombardment in northern Gaza".

Al Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obaida, added: "Another female prisoner remains in critical danger."

He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and army leaders "bear full responsibility for the lives of their prisoners" adding: "They are the ones who insist on causing their suffering and death."

The IDF is yet to comment on the claims.

It is believed there are still 101 Israeli hostages in Gaza, who Mr Netanyahu has vowed to locate.

Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 120 Palestinians over the last 48 hours, according to Palestinian medics.

The health officials said on Saturday, a hospital on the northern edge of the area was hit, wounding medical staff and damaging equipment.

Hussam Abu Safiya, director at Kamal Adwan hospital, one of three medical facilities in northern Gaza, said it is barely operational.

He claimed ongoing Israeli bombardment appeared to be aimed at forcing hospital staff to evacuate - something they have refused to do since the incursion began.

The IDF said earlier this week it wasn't aware of a strike near Kamal Adwan and didn't respond to claims about other attacks.

Source: SKY
 
Gangsters block aid distribution in south Gaza

Amid severe food shortages in Gaza, increasingly violent thefts by criminal gangs are now the main obstacle to distributing supplies in the south, aid workers and locals say.

They allege that armed men operate within plain sight of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a restricted zone by the border.

The BBC has learnt that Hamas - sensing an opportunity to regain its faltering control - has reactivated a special security force to combat theft and banditry.

After gangsters robbed nearly 100 UN lorries, injuring many of the Palestinian drivers, on 16 November - one of the worst single losses of aid during the war - a number of alleged looters were then killed in an ambush.

A notorious Gazan criminal family then blocked the main Salah al-Din Road leading from Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing point for two days last week.

Witnesses said iron barriers were erected and lorries trying to access the aid distribution point were fired at.

“Law and order have broken down in the area around the Kerem Shalom crossing, which remains the main entry point of goods, and gangs are filling the power vacuum,” says Sam Rose, deputy director of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in Gaza.

“It’s inevitable after 13 months of intense conflict - things fall apart.”

As the rainy winter weather begins, humanitarian officials say solving the worsening situation is critical to meet the huge, deepening needs of most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population - now displaced to the centre and south.

“It is tactical, systematic, criminal looting,” says Georgios Petropoulos, head of the UN’s humanitarian office, Ocha, in Gaza.

He says this is leading to “ultra-violence” in all directions - “from the looters towards the truckers, from the IDF towards the police, and from the police towards the looters”.

There has been increased lawlessness in Gaza since Israel began targeting police officers early this year, citing their role in Hamas governance.

“Hamas’s security control dropped to under 20%,” the former head of Hamas police investigations told the BBC, adding: “We are working on a plan to restore control to 60% within a month.”

Some displaced Gazans in the south welcome the new Hamas efforts against criminal gangs.

“Killing the thieves who stole aid is a step in the right direction,” exclaims one man, Mohammed Abu Jared.

However, others see them as a cynical attempt to take control of lucrative black markets.

“Hamas is killing its competitors in stealing aid,” says Mohammed Diab, an activist in Deir al-Balah. “A big mafia has finished off a small mafia.”

Many see Hamas’s attempts to take a lead against the criminality as the direct consequence of Israels’ failure to agree on a post-war plan in Gaza.

There are currently no alternatives to replace the Islamist movement and armed group which Israeli leaders pledged to destroy after last year’s deadly 7 October attacks.

The chaos comes at a time when aid entering the Palestinian territory has dropped to some of the lowest levels since the start of the war.

While the threat of famine is greatest in besieged parts of the north where Israel is conducting a new, intense military offensive, in the south there are also major shortages of food, medicines and other goods.

“Prices of basic commodities are sky-rocketing - a bag of flour costs more than $200 (£160), a single egg $15 - or else goods are simply not available,” Sam Rose of Unrwa says.

Every day in the past week, Umm Ahmed has stood with her children in a huge queue outside a bakery in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where ultimately some loaves are given out.

“My children are very hungry every day. We can’t afford the basics. It’s constant suffering. No food, no water, no cleaning products, nothing,” she says.

“We don’t want much, just to live a decent life. We need food. We need goods to come in and be distributed fairly. That’s all we’re asking for.”

The US has been pressing for Israel to allow more aid lorries into Gaza.

However, Israeli officials say that the main reason that their goal of 350 a day has not been reached is the inability of the UN and other international aid agencies to bring enough lorries to the crossings.

Aid workers reject that. They are urgently calling for many entry restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities to be lifted, and for more crossing points to be opened and secured so they can collect and distribute supplies.

They say the breakdown in public order needs to be addressed and that Israel, as an occupying power, is obliged to provide protection and security.

The BBC was told that thefts often happen in clear sight of Israeli soldiers or surveillance drones - but that the army fails to intervene.

Stolen goods are apparently being stored outside or in warehouses in areas under Israeli military control.

The IDF did not respond to BBC requests for comment on how it combats organised looting and smuggling. It has previously insisted that it takes countermeasures and works to facilitate the entry of aid.

Early in the war, as food became increasingly scarce, desperate Gazans were sometimes seen stealing from incoming aid lorries.

Soon, cigarette smuggling became a huge business with gangs holding up convoys at gunpoint after they arrived from Egypt’s Rafah crossing and, after this shut in May, Kerem Shalom.

A cigarette packet can sell for exorbitant amounts in Gaza: while a packet of 20 cost about 20 shekels ($5.40) before the war, now a single cigarette can cost 180 shekels ($48.60).

Cigarettes are being found within the frames of wooden aid pallets and inside closed food cans, indicating that there is a regional racket involved in smuggling.

For the past six weeks, the Israeli authorities have banned commercial imports, arguing that these benefit Hamas.

This has added to the decrease in the supply of food, which is in turn driving the rise in armed looting.

Stolen goods, from flour to winter shelters, sent as international donations and meant to be given as free handouts to needy people can only be bought at extortionate prices on Gaza’s black market.

Meanwhile, months’ worth of donated supplies are being held back in Egypt due to hold-ups in aid delivery.

In recent days, local media reports are suggesting that Israel is now studying the option of delivering aid to Gaza by means of a private, armed American security contractor.

While nothing has yet been officially announced, aid workers are worried.

Georgios Petropoulos of Ocha questions which donor countries would want supplies distributed this way.

“How safe is it really going to be?” he asks: “I think it will be a vector for more bloodshed and violence.”

BBC
 
Turkey is ready to contribute in “any way possible” toward a ceasefire in Gaza, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the country’s parliament on Wednesday

“To stop the massacre in Gaza and to establish a permanent ceasefire, we as Turkey are ready to contribute in any way possible,” Erdogan said.

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that the United States will “make another push” with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, release the hostages and “end the war without Hamas in power.”

Qatar, a key mediator in the indirect hostage talks between Hamas and Israel, suspended its role after concluding that the two sides are no longer negotiating in good faith, and the Hamas office in Doha was subsequently closed.

Last week, Turkey denied reports that Hamas had relocated its political bureau to Turkey. The US had warned Ankara against hosting Hamas leaders, saying there “can be no more business as usual” with the Palestinian militant group.

Erdogan was speaking to parliament hours after a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel came into effect.

“We are pleased with the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon that came into force this morning. We expect all sides, especially Israel, to fulfill their responsibilities, to the letter, in order to maintain quiet in the field,” he added.

Source: CNN
 
Israel to appeal against ICC arrest warrants

Israel has informed the International Criminal Court that it will appeal against arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

The warrants were issued for the Israeli prime minister, Mr Gallant and senior Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al Masri by the ICC last week.

They are for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the war in Gaza.

Israel has rejected the court's jurisdiction and denies committing war crimes in Gaza.


SKY News
 

Israel building new military dividing line across Gaza, satellite images suggest​


Israel is creating a new military dividing line in Gaza, separating off the far north of the strip, satellite images studied by BBC Verify appear to show.

Troops are in control of, and are clearing, an area across the width of north Gaza. Satellite images and videos show that hundreds of buildings have been demolished between the Mediterranean Sea and the Israel border, mostly through controlled explosions.

Images also show Israeli troops and vehicles have been stationed across the new divide. Analysts said the images suggest Gaza is being split into zones to make it easier to control.

An IDF spokesperson told the BBC it was "targeting terrorist operatives and infrastructure" in north Gaza.

Dr H A Hellyer, a Middle East security expert from the Rusi think tank, said the satellite images suggested Israel was preparing to block Palestinian civilians from returning to the north Gaza governorate. More than 100,000 people have already been displaced from the far north of Gaza, according to the UN.

Images appear to show two long sections of road on either end of the strip being connected by cleared land through an urban area. Buildings are being demolished between the two sections of road, with a clear pattern visible since early October.

This partition stretches about 5.6 miles (9km) across Gaza, from east to west, dividing Gaza City and the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in north Gaza.

The BBC has been told that there is a tactical route between Jabalia and Gaza City, which is part of operational activities targeting Hamas in Jabalia.

Videos filmed by the IDF and posted online show several multi-storey buildings being destroyed in controlled explosions since the beginning of October.

The graphic below shows examples geolocated by BBC Verify along the new corridor.

An IDF spokesperson told the BBC that it had no intention of destroying civilian infrastructure "without operational necessity" to neutralise Hamas.

Other footage shows IDF Humvee vehicles being driven through the cleared area from the direction of Israel. Humvees are not as heavily armoured as other military vehicles - and Dr Hellyer told the BBC that they were unlikely to be used unless the military was confident about their safety, indicating that Israeli troops are in control of the area.

Some analysts believe the IDF’s presence could indicate a permanent military partition – giving it control of who can travel between the Gaza and the North Gaza governorates.

Dr Hellyer said of the IDF: “They’re digging in for the long term. I would absolutely expect the north partition to develop exactly like the Netzarim Corridor.”

The BBC has previously documented how two partitions have been constructed in Gaza since the start of the current war. The Netzarim Corridor splits an area south of Gaza City, while the Philadelphi Corridor gives the IDF control of land running the length of Gaza’s border with Egypt.

BBC analysis of this new partition in the north shows a similar pattern to the construction of the previous corridors over the past year, with existing and newly built roads being connected and military positions emerging at regular intervals. Buildings and agricultural land are cleared so roads can be paved and military infrastructure built.

Dr Eado Hecht from the Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (Besa), an Israeli think tank specialising in national security and foreign policy, agreed that the data showed a new dividing line, but questioned whether it was designed to be permanent.

“There is a new partition corridor separating Gaza City and the northern towns of the Gaza Strip. The goal is to cut off the Hamas - and other organizations' - forces that have returned to that area from support and the ability to retreat, so they can be dealt with more effectively.”

Israel has denied that it is implementing the "General’s Plan". Under the strategy, devised by former general Giora EIland, civilians would be told to leave the north, supplies would be blocked and the area would become a military zone. Those who remained would be treated as combatants and faced with the choice of “surrender or starve", with the aim of putting pressure on Hamas to release its hostages.

In a statement to the BBC, an IDF spokesperson said: "The IDF operates according to well-established military plans, and the claim that the IDF is implementing this specific plan is incorrect."

But concerns have mounted over the safety of the thousands of Palestinian civilians who remain in besieged towns in north Gaza.

The UN and aid charities have raised significant concerns about the situation in the north of Gaza. While thousands of people have been displaced, the UN says over 65,000 people could remain in the area.

The UN also said that "virtually no aid" has entered parts of the North Gaza governorate in 40 days on 20 November. A spokesperson on 26 November said that Palestinians were facing “facing critical shortages of supplies and services, as well as severe overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions” due to the blockade.

Earlier this month, a UN-backed assessment said there was a strong likelihood that famine was imminent in the besieged areas of northern Gaza.

BBC analysis shows around 90% of north Gaza has been subject to evacuation orders since the start of October. Videos posted on social media document people being moved south of the new partition. It is not clear if and when they will be able to return, but Israel’s foreign minister has insisted civilians will be allowed to return after the war.

Satellite images show the displacement of people in north Gaza. Large groups of tents, erected as temporary shelter, disappear. In the area left behind, there are often destroyed buildings and other examples of military activity.

While the IDF appears to have established enough control in the area to travel in lightly armoured vehicles, heavy fighting has also persisted in the area between IDF troops and Hamas fighters.

Videos posted by Hamas fighters show clashes with IDF tanks in the area around the dividing line.

Experts disagree over how long the new partition might be intended to remain in place. Dr Hellyer suggested that it could form the basis of plan to expel Palestinians from the area permanently.

"Personally I think they're going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months," he said. "They won't call them settlements. To begin with they'll call them outposts or whatever, but that's what they'll be and they'll grow from there."

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that troops should occupy Gaza and "encourage" about half of Palestinian civilians to leave the territory within two years.

But the Israeli government denies that it plans to build settlements in Gaza once the war ends, and Dr Hecht dismissed such suggestions as nothing more than a "dream" for some ultranationalist ministers.

"All three corridors (Philadelphi in the south, Netzarim just south of Gaza City and the new one just north of Gaza City) are for control purposes," Dr Hecht said.

"The duration of their existence depends on when the war ends and in what manner it ends.”

www.bbc.com

Israel building new military dividing line across Gaza, satellite images suggest

Satellite images show the IDF has destroyed hundreds of buildings in north Gaza as it creates the divide.
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Israeli airstrikes kill at least 26 Palestinians as military intensifies Gaza incursion

Israeli military strikes killed at least 26 Palestinians across Gaza on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up their bombardment of central areas and tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the enclave.

The escalation came a day after Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah began a ceasefire in Lebanon, halting more than a year of hostilities and raising hopes among many Palestinians in Gaza for a similar deal with Hamas, which rules the enclave.

"I hope a ceasefire will happen like it did in Lebanon... I just want to take my children to see my land, my house, to see what they did to us, I want to live in safety," said Amal Abu Hmeid, a displaced woman in Gaza.

"God willing we will have a truce," she said, sitting in the courtyard of a school sheltering displaced families in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

The courtyard was filled with dirt and water streamed in from where people did their laundry. Clothes were airing outside classrooms as children played nearby.

"(Life) was beautiful (before the war)... Now there is nothing beautiful, it's all gone. Our houses are gone, our brothers are gone, and no one is left. Now we hardly get... one meal a day. We can’t even get bread," Abu Hmeid told Reuters.

Announcing the Lebanon accord on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said he would now renew his push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, urging Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.

Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.

The ceasefire in the parallel conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, took effect before dawn on Wednesday, bringing a halt to hostilities that had escalated sharply in recent months and overshadowed the conflict in Gaza.


tribune.com.pk

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 26 Palestinians as military intensifies Gaza incursion | The Express Tribune

Escalation comes a day after Israel and Hezbollah began a ceasefire in Lebanon
tribune.com.pk tribune.com.pk
 

Apartheid regime just digging it's grace​

====

Israeli military to remain in Gaza for years, food minister says​


The Israeli military will remain in Gaza for many years, fighting against fresh Hamas recruits in the territory and could be responsible for delivery of humanitarian aid there, a senior Israeli minister has said.

The comments by Avi Dichter, Israel’s minister for food security and a member of the Israeli security cabinet, confirm an emerging picture of a long-term deployment of Israeli troops inside Gaza, with no immediate Israeli plan for any other administration to govern the territory’s 2.3 million people and begin reconstruction there.

“I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor],” Dichter said.

Reservists who recently served in Gaza have described to the Guardian the scale of the new military infrastructure built in the territory by Israel. This includes extensive new camps and roads across a swath of northern and central Gaza.

One recently demobilised officer said he had spent much of the previous 70 days demolishing houses to clear more ground for what had become a series of big military bases in Gaza’s Netzarim corridor, a military zone that has been established between the Mediterranean coast and Gaza’s eastern perimeter fence.

“That was the only mission. There was not a single construction left that was taller than my waist anywhere (in the corridor), except our bases and observation towers,” he said.

The eyewitness accounts confirm reporting by Israeli media of extensive construction by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the Netzarim corridor and elsewhere in Gaza.

So much explosive has been used to destroy buildings to the north and south of the Netzarim corridor that some units have run short, other demobilised reservists said.

“We are not again at the beginning … but we’re definitely not at the beginning of the end because we still have a lot of work to do,” Dichter said last Sunday in a press briefing in Jerusalem.

Israeli military strikes killed at least 21 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the territory.

The escalation came a day after Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah began a ceasefire in Lebanon, halting more than a year of hostilities and raising hopes among many Palestinians in Gaza for a similar deal with Hamas, which ruled the territory from 2007 until the current conflict.

Source: The Guardian
 
Hamas open to ‘all ideas’ ahead of Gaza truce talks in Egypt

Hamas is open to discussing “all ideas and proposals”, an unnamed official told AFP news agency, as representatives arrived in Cairo for talks on a possible ceasefire in Gaza.

The Palestinian group has “not received any new offer or proposal so far”, it quoted the official as saying.

But Hamas “is open to discussing all ideas and proposals that lead to the end of the war, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced, the entry of humanitarian and relief aid, and a serious deal to exchange prisoners”, he said.

The talks come after a ceasefire went into effect Wednesday between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah after a US-led effort to broker a truce.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
UN suspends aid deliveries through main Gaza crossing

The UN agency providing aid to Palestinians has said it is suspending deliveries through the main crossing between Israel and Gaza because of security concerns.

The head of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, said two recent convoys had been looted by armed gangs near the Kerem Shalom crossing and called on Israel to maintain law and order.

Israel has previously said that it facilitates the passage of aid into Gaza and accused Hamas of hijacking and stealing deliveries.

Kerem Shalom is the main route for delivering aid to the more than two million people in Gaza, which the UN has warned is on the brink of famine.

Recent weeks have seen a series of increasingly violent thefts by criminal gangs, which aid workers have said are now the main obstacle to the distribution of supplies.

On 16 November, a convoy of 109 lorries carrying food was attacked by masked men who held the drivers at gunpoint before stealing 97 of the lorries.

A notorious Gazan criminal family later blocked the main road leading away from Kerem Shalom for two days, erecting iron barriers and reportedly firing on lorries trying to access an aid distribution point.

Aid workers and locals have also alleged that armed men operate within plain sight of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a restricted zone at the Israel-Gaza border.

Announcing the pause in deliveries, Mr Lazzarini said the road away from the crossing "has not been safe for months", citing the theft of five more lorries on Saturday as well as the incident last month.

The announcement also followed the death of three people employed by World Central Kitchen (WCK), a food charity, and two others in an Israeli strike on Saturday.

Israel said the target of the strike was a WCK employee who had taken part in the 7 October attacks.

"The delivery of humanitarian aid must never be dangerous or turn into an ordeal," Mr Lazzarini said.

He said there had been a "breakdown of law and order" and that the responsibility to protect aid workers lay with Israel.

"They must ensure aid flows into Gaza safely and must refrain from attacks on humanitarian workers," he said.

Israel has in recent months opened a number of other crossings into central and northern Gaza following international pressure to increase the flow of aid, but Kerem Shalom remains the one through which most aid enters Gaza.


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UN suspends aid deliveries through main Gaza crossing

Unrwa said the Kerem Shalom crossing is not safe and called on Israel to ensure the flow of aid.
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All martyrs of freedom
====

Gaza death toll rises

At least 44,466 people have been killed and 105,358 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the enclave’s Health Ministry says.

Of those, 37 Palestinians were killed and 108 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry added.

Source: Al Jazeera
 

Israel says deaths of six hostages in Gaza probably linked to Israeli strike​


The deaths of six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered from Gaza in August were probably linked to an Israeli strike near where they were being held, the Israeli military said on Wednesday.

“At the time of the strike, the military had no information, not even a suspicion, that the hostages were in the underground compound or its vicinity,” the military said in a statement about the investigation into the hostages’ deaths.

“Had such information been available, the strike would not have been carried out.”

The statement said it was “highly probable that their deaths were related to the strike near the location where they were held,” although the precise circumstances were still not clear.

The most plausible scenario was that they were shot by militants around the time of the strike, it said. It was also possible that they had already been killed previously, or that they were shot after they were already dead.

“Due to the extended time that had passed, it was not possible to determine clearly the cause of the death of hostages or the exact timing of the gunfire.”

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters, which advocates for the return of more than 100 Israeli and foreign hostages still believed held in Gaza, said the findings “serve as yet another proof that the lives of hostages face constant, daily danger ... Time is of the essence.”

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities across the border on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Fewer than half of the hostages were freed during the war’s only ceasefire, which lasted for a week in Nov. 2023.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 44,500 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza, much of which has been reduced to rubble.

 
At least 10 people killed in Israeli attack on al-Mawasi

At least 10 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on al-Mawasi in southern Gaza

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Amnesty International accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza

Human rights group Amnesty International has concluded that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the legal threshold for genocide in a damning new report.

The report published on Thursday, titled, “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, is the culmination of months of research by Amnesty, including extensive witness interviews, analysis of “visual and digital evidence”, including satellite imagery, and statements made by senior Israeli government and military officials.

Amnesty said the Israeli military has committed at least three of the five acts banned by the 1948 Genocide Convention, including indiscriminate killings of civilians, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and “deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”.

“Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International.

“Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza,” Callamard said.

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“It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice [ICJ] ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” she said.

“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now,” she added.

Callamard said that taking into “account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation” in which the Israeli military’s crimes against the civilian population of Gaza have been committed, “we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza”.

‘Seismic, shameful failure’

The Israeli military’s argument that it is lawfully targeting Hamas and other fighters who are located among the civilian population of Gaza – and that it is not deliberately targeting the Palestinian people – does not stand up to scrutiny, Amnesty said.

“The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks,” the rights group said.

“Regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent,” it said.

Amnesty also said that it found “no evidence” that the reported diversion of humanitarian aid by armed groups in Gaza “could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid” to the civilian population of the war-torn territory.

Officials in Israel have consistently rejected allegations of committing genocide in Gaza, claiming they are acting in self-defence following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and that criticising their war is anti-Semitic.

The Amnesty report, however, also states that the crimes documented in Gaza were often “preceded by officials urging their implementation”.

More than 100 statements by Israeli military and government officials were reviewed in the report that “dehumanised Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them”.

Of those statements, 22 were made by senior officials in charge of managing the war on Gaza and “appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent”.

“This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground” who made calls to “erase” Gaza and celebrated “the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities”, Amnesty said.

Amnesty’s Callamard said the international community was also guilty of a “seismic, shameful failure” in Gaza by failing to “press Israel to end its atrocities”.

By delaying calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and continuing to send weapons to Israel, the international community’s failure “will remain a stain on our collective conscience”, Callamard said.

“Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law,” she said.

“States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies.”

SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024...accuses-israel-of-committing-genocide-in-gaza
 

29 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza hospital​


Medical staff forced to leave Kamal Adwan Hospital after Israeli attacks
As we’ve been reporting, the Israeli army stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza under the cover of heavy artillery and machineguns.

An ambulance was also targeted outside the facility while several patients were detained.

The hospital’s medical director described the situation in and around the hospital as catastrophic.

On Thursday, Israeli drones shot and killed at least seven Palestinians inside the hospital.

A medical team from Indonesia was forced to evacuate the hospital after only recently having arrived there to provide assistance.

“We just came from Kamal Adwan Hospital,” Faradina Sulistiyani, a general surgeon from the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee Indonesia, said. “There were two warnings for us to evacuate the hospital and they are heavily bombing the hospital now. There are a lot of medical staff and patients out there.”

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Gaza peace deal possible before Trump inauguration, Qatar’s PM says

Momentum has returned to the Gaza peace talks and an agreement is possible before Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, Qatar’s prime minister has said.

Speaking at the annual Doha forum, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said the two key issues were whether there was willingness to have a prisoner hostage exchange, and whether there was a desire to end the war.

He said Qatar had stepped back from its role of mediator a few months ago because some countries were exploiting the process for political reasons, but added: “There had been a lot of encouragement to secure a deal before the president comes to office so we are trying to get things back on track.”

Al Thani implied that he had received assurances from the US president-elect’s advisers about their determination to reach a negotiated settlement. He said: “We have sensed after the election that the momentum is coming back.” Comparing Trump’s approach with that of Joe Biden, he said: “There will be some differences, but we did not see any disagreement on the goal of ending the war. That was very important for us to understand.”

He said the gaps between Hamas and Israel were not substantial, but that he was trying to protect the negotiations because in the past everything had been put into the public domain, leading to disappointment.

It is understood the disagreements between Hamas and Israel largely revolve around whether Israel is prepared to accept that a ceasefire reflects a permanent end to the conflict, and not a temporary respite in which there is an exchange of Palestinian political prisoners and Israeli hostages.

This issue has dogged the talks for months, but the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may feel his options are more limited if Trump insists he wants the war to be brought to an end. Israel has been silent on its future intentions for the administration of Gaza.

Referring to the spread of the conflict, Al Thani said: “We have been trying to warn everyone in the world that the situation in Gaza is going to expand.”

SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...sible-before-trump-inauguration-qatar-pm-says
 

Melbourne synagogue fire 'likely' terror act, police say​


A fire which ripped through Melbourne's Adass Israel synagogue is being treated as a likely terror attack, Australian police say.

Three suspects are being hunted over Friday's early-morning blaze, which left one man with a minor burn to his hand and caused extensive damage.

Witnesses say they saw masked figures spreading what appeared to be an accelerant in the building, before setting it alight.

Victoria Police say they have no evidence that further antisemitic attacks are planned, but patrols are being increased to reassure the community.

After a meeting with Australian Federal Police and domestic spy agency Asio, the state police force said additional "intelligence" had led them to conclude the incident should be treated as a probable terror attack.

Commissioner Shane Patton said police had no information before the fire to suggest an arson attack was imminent.

He declined to provide any further details on the investigation while it continued.

Mr Patton's declaration came a day after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the incident as "quite clearly terrorism" while acknowledging police were still to make up their minds. He called his description a "personal view".

On Monday, state Premier Jacinta Allan said the terror designation meant police would now have extra resources for their investigation.

Jewish community leaders have said they believe the attack is an escalation of a recent documented increase in antisemitism in Australia, and that it has heightened fears of violence.

A few worshippers were inside the building at the time of the fire, and have described hearing banging and seeing a window smash, before liquids were thrown inside and lit on fire.

"The whole thing took off pretty quickly," synagogue board member Benjamin Klein, who spoke to witnesses, told The Age newspaper.

After officers at the scene were confronted by angry and scared worshippers on Friday, Mr Patton said police were focused on ensuring their safety.

"We have... extra police officers deployed in those areas where there are high numbers of Jewish persons living and congregating," he said.

Allan also called for the city to rally behind its Jewish communities.

"We cannot let this conflict overseas continue to be a cloak for behaviour like [this]."

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Melbourne synagogue fire 'likely' terror act, police say

Three suspects are being sought over the fire, which injured one person and caused extensive damage.
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Israel kills 25 Palestinians in airstrike on home in northern Gaza

The Israeli army killed two Palestinian families late Monday after bombing a home that was sheltering them in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

"The Israeli army bombed a house that was sheltering two families from the Al-Kahlout clan, consisting of 25 individuals, burying them under the rubble," said Abdel Rahman Al-Kahlout, a relative of the families.

"Israel has committed another massacre, wiping out two families entirely from the civil registry,” he added.

The first family included the father, his children, their spouses and grandchildren, while the second family consisted of the father, mother and their two daughters.

Al-Kahlout noted that the two families had fled to Beit Hanoun from the Jabalia refugee camp during an ongoing military operation.

He said their bodies remain trapped under the rubble of the destroyed house and in the street as rescue operations are impossible due to the dire security situation.

The assault was the latest episode in a genocidal war launched by Israel on Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in October last year, killing more than 44,700 people, mostly women and children.

Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.

SOURCE: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-eas...n-airstrike-on-home-in-northern-gaza/3419636#
 
Israeli attacks on the north and centre of the besieged Gaza Strip have killed dozens of people, medical sources say

The Israeli army in the early hours of Wednesday bombed a residential building in Beit Lahiya, near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, which has been under an even tighter siege for more than two months.

The attack killed at least 20 people, including women and children, but there were fears the death toll could rise. Local media reports said at least 30 displaced people were living in the multistorey home of the Abu Tarabish family before it was struck.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Israel minister tells US ‘currently a chance’ for Gaza hostage deal

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on Wednesday that there was “currently a chance” for a deal to release the remaining hostages held in Gaza for more than 14 months.

“There is currently a chance for a new deal”, Katz told Austin in a phone call, according to a readout from his office.

“We are hoping for the release of all the hostages, including US citizens,” he said.

The US, along with Egypt and Qatar, has been unsuccessfully attempting to mediate a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas for more than a year.

Palestinian took 251 people hostage during Hamas’s surprise attack on October 7, 2023. A total of 96 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.

In recent days, there have been signs that months of failed negotiations might be revived and a breakthrough achieved.


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Israel minister tells US ‘currently a chance’ for Gaza hostage deal

JERUSALEM: Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on Wednesday that there was...
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Israeli strikes kill 12 guarding Gaza aid lorries, medics say​


At least 35 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, including 12 guarding incoming aid lorries, local medics and the Hamas-run Civil Defence authority say.

Seven guards were killed in a strike in Rafah while protecting aid lorries from violent armed theft, which UN workers say is the main obstacle to getting supplies into southern Gaza. Another attack left five guards dead in Khan Younis.

The Israeli military said it "conducted precise strikes on armed Hamas terrorists" who had planned to hijack the lorries.

In a separate Israeli attack, 15 people were killed near Nuseirat refugee camp, the Civil Defence said.

"The occupation once again targeted those securing the aid trucks," Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal told the AFP news agency.

He added that around 30 people, most of them children, were also wounded in the two strikes.

The lorries were carrying flour to warehouses belonging to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Mr Basal said.

Recently - amid severe food shortages - UN workers say violent armed thefts have been the main obstacle to getting aid into the southern part of Gaza. Civilians, as well as remnants of Hamas police, have mobilised to try to counter the gangs.

Hamas says Israeli military strikes have killed at least 700 police tasked with securing aid lorries in Gaza since the latest war began on 7 October 2023.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: "Overnight, following intelligence information indicating the presence of Hamas terrorists, the IDF conducted precise strikes on armed Hamas terrorists gathered at two different meeting points in southern Gaza."

It added that "all of the terrorists that were eliminated were members of Hamas and planned to violently hijack humanitarian aid trucks and transfer them to Hamas".

Separately, Israeli air strikes on two homes near Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, and Gaza City, in the north, killed 21 more people, the Civil Defence said.

At least six children were among the 15 people killed in Nuseirat, while the bodies of six other people were found after a strike on an apartment in Gaza City, Mr Basal said.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the Palestinian group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 44,800 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

After months of failed international efforts to end the war, Israel's defence minister has told his US counterpart there is a chance for a new deal that would allow the return of all of the remaining hostages, including American citizens.

Other reports have suggested a limited deal with Hamas is being discussed.

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Israeli strikes kill people guarding aid lorries, Gaza medics say

The Israeli military says it targeted two groups of Hamas members who planned to hijack the lorries.
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Israeli forces killed 30 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 99 others over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry in the besieged enclave says.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who is visiting the region, says a ceasefire deal “can happen” as talks to end the war and release captives in Gaza continue.


Al Jazeera
 
UN General Assembly demands ‘immediate’ ceasefire in Gaza, supports UNRWA

The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and expressed support for the work of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

The assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.

A second resolution expressing support for UNRWA and deploring a new Israeli law that would ban the UN agency’s operations in Israel was carried with 159 votes in favour, nine against and 11 abstentions.

That resolution demands that Israel respect UNRWA’s mandate and calls on the Israeli government “to abide by its international obligations, respect the privileges and immunities of UNRWA and uphold its responsibility to allow and facilitate full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian assistance in all its forms into and throughout the entire Gaza Strip”.

Both votes culminated two days of speeches at the UN where speaker after speaker called for an end to Israel’s 14-month war on the Palestinian territory that has killed at least 44,805 people – mostly Palestinian women and children – and wounded 106,257.

“Gaza doesn’t exist any more,” Slovenia’s UN Ambassador Samuel Zbogar told the General Assembly meeting. “It is destroyed. Civilians are facing hunger, despair and death,” he said.

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“There is no reason for this war to continue. We need a ceasefire now. We need to bring hostages home now,” he added.

Algeria’s deputy UN ambassador Nacim Gaouaoui addressed the world’s inability to stop the war in Gaza: “The price of silence and failure in the face of the Palestinian tragedy is a very heavy price, and it will be heavier tomorrow.”

Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, reporting from UN headquarters in New York, said “the message is clear with these two resolutions”.

“Number one, UNRWA needs to be protected and their mandate needs to be protected and bolstered. Of course, Israel is trying to destroy UNRWA. They’ve made that very clear for many months now,” Elizondo said.

“And the second message that it sends is the overwhelming majority of the world is calling for, again, an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” he said.

Israel, US votes against UN resolution

Israel and its staunchest ally, the United States, were in a tiny minority of countries and their representatives speaking and voting against the resolutions at the UN.

US Deputy UN Ambassador Robert Wood reiterated Washington’s opposition to the ceasefire resolution in advance of the vote and criticised the Palestinians for again failing to mention Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which killed an estimated 1,139 people and saw more than 200 Israelis taken captive in Gaza.

“At a time when Hamas is feeling isolated due to the ceasefire in Lebanon, the draft resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza risks sending a dangerous message to Hamas that there’s no need to negotiate or release the hostages,” he said.

In advance of the UN vote, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon accused supporters of the resolutions of complicity with Hamas.

“By demanding a ceasefire today without addressing the hostages, this assembly will once again side with those who weaponise human suffering,” Danon said.

While UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding, General Assembly resolutions are not, though they do reflect world opinion.

The Palestinians and their supporters went to the General Assembly after the US vetoed a Security Council resolution on November 20 demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire.

The language of the ceasefire resolution adopted by the assembly is the same as the text of the vetoed Security Council resolution, and demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties,” while also reiterating a “demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.

Hamas issued a statement welcoming the resolution. “Throughout this aggression, we have consistently expressed our willingness to respond to any decisions or initiatives leading to a ceasefire,” said the armed group on Thursday.

The group blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the United States for the persistent fighting.

Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said last week, during the first day of debate in the assembly’s special session on the issue, that Gaza is “the bleeding heart of Palestine”.

“The images of our children burning in tents, with no food in their bellies and no hopes and no horizon for the future, and after having endured pain and loss for more than a year, should haunt the conscience of the world and prompt action to end this nightmare,” Mansour said.

SOURCE:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024...ds-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza-supports-unrwa
 
Last bone surgeon in northern Gaza killed, Palestinians say

A doctor believed to be the last remaining orthopaedic surgeon in northern Gaza has been killed by Israeli tankfire, according to Palestinian officials.

Dr Sayeed Joudeh died on Thursday while he was on his way to work.

He was a surgeon at Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said it was unaware of the incident, but it was investigating.

The grandfather had come out of retirement to help during the war.

Last month speaking at a press conference at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, he held up a placard that read "Save US".

It didn't work.

"On his way to al-Awda Hospital to evaluate a patient, one of the tanks fired on him directly," according to Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

"Unfortunately, he was killed instantly."

But some eyewitnesses say Dr Joudeh was shot by a drone.

Israel does not allow foreign journalists unrestricted access to Gaza.

But from Jerusalem, I spoke to Louise Wateridge from the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza.

"It's devastating for his family. It's devastating for people in the north who are relying on so few doctors," said Ms Wateridge.

"Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are not hospitals anymore," she said.

"There's no sanitation. There are hardly any doctors. There's no medical equipment. Patients are dying needlessly."

Ms Wateridge described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as apocalyptic.

For more than two months much of Northern Gaza has been under Israeli siege and bombardment.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas operatives who have been regrouping there.

On 7 October last year, Hamas launched an attack in southern Israel killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

In retaliation, Israel launched a massive operation inside the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of eliminating Hamas.

So far, at least 44,875 people have been killed and more than 100,000 injured - mostly civilians, the Hamas-run health ministry says. The UN regards these figures as reliable.

At least 30 of them were killed - and another 50 wounded - in an Israeli strike on a post office turned shelter for displaced people in central Gaza on Thursday night, according to local medics.

Locals say Gazans displaced by the 14-month conflict were sheltering there and that many members of one extended family had been killed.

The Israeli military said it was targeting a senior Islamic Jihad member behind attacks on Israeli civilians and troops.

It accused the armed group of exploiting Gaza's civilians as human shields for its activities.

BBC
 
Israel to shut embassy in Ireland over ‘extreme anti-Israel policies’

Israel said on Sunday it would close its Dublin embassy due to the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israel policies” including recognition of a Palestinian state and support for international legal action against its war in Gaza.

Israel recalled its ambassador after Ireland’s decision on a Palestinian state in May, and was further angered last week when Dublin backed South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide.

“The decision to close Israel’s embassy in Dublin was made in light of the extreme anti-Israel policies of the Irish government,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.


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Israel to shut embassy in Ireland over ‘extreme anti-Israel policies’

Israel said on Sunday it would close its Dublin embassy due to the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israel policies”...
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Israeli airstrikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, tanks push south​


Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 14 Palestinians on Tuesday, at least 10 of them in one house in Gaza City, medics said as tanks pushed deeper towards the western area of Rafah in the south.

Medics said the Israeli airstrike on the house in the Daraj suburb of Gaza City destroyed the building and damaged nearby houses. Four other people were killed in two separate airstrikes in the city and the town of Beit Lahiya north of the enclave said medics, medics added.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israeli tanks pushed deeper toward the western area of Mawasi, known as a humanitarian-designated area, residents said.

Heavy fire from tanks rolling into the area forced dozens of families sheltering there to flee northwards toward Khan Younis.

The war began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel then launched an air and land offensive that has killed more than 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

The campaign has displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.

 
Hamas fighters clash with Israeli army in north Gaza

In statements on Telegram, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, says that it has attacked and destroyed an Israeli army troop carrier in Jabalia refugee camp.

The group also claims it killed three Israeli soldiers, attacking them from point-blank range, adding that its fighters observed helicopters evacuating the soldiers.

Major population centres of north Gaza – Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon – have been under non-stop Israeli attack for the last several weeks, our correspondent on the ground says.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
All the madness from the apartheid regime cost the world the lost of a lot of valuable lives. IA the despots will meet their desired end one day.
Screenshot_20241218-202719.jpg
 
Israeli forces continue to pound Gaza, killing at least 14 Palestinians in the besieged north, including children and a doctor at al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

The United Nations says Israel has again denied its requests to get aid to starving people in Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, which have been under an Israeli siege and blockade for more than 70 days.


Al Jazeera
 
Human Rights Watch says Israel's deprivation of water in Gaza is act of genocide

Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.

"This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to an 'act of genocide' under the Genocide Convention of 1948," Human Rights Watch said in its report.

Israel has repeatedly rejected any accusation of genocide, saying it has respected international law and has a right to defend itself after the cross-border Hamas-led attack from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023 that precipitated the war.

Although the report described the deprivation of water as an act of genocide, it noted that proving the crime of genocide against Israeli officials would also require establishing their intent. It cited statements by some senior Israeli officials which it said suggested they "wish to destroy Palestinians" which means the deprivation of water "may amount to the crime of genocide".

"What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive," Lama Fakih, Human Rights Watch Middle East director told a press conference.

Human Rights Watch is the second major rights group in a month to use the word genocide to describe the actions of Israel in Gaza, after Amnesty International issued a report that concluded Israel was committing genocide.

Both reports came just weeks after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. They deny the allegations.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines the crime of genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

The 184-page Human Rights Watch report said the Israeli government stopped water being piped into Gaza and cut off electricity and restricted fuel which meant Gaza's own water and sanitation facilities could not be used.

As a result, Palestinians in Gaza had access to only a few litres of water a day in many areas, far below the 15-liter-threshold for survival, the group said.

Israel launched its air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities across the border 14 months ago, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins.

SOURCE: https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...vation-water-gaza-is-act-genocide-2024-12-19/
 
More than 640 athletes killed in Gaza

More than 14 months of Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 45,206 Palestinians.

Among them are at least 644 athletes, including 359 football players, according to the Palestinian Football Association.

At least 91 of them were children, it said.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Israel media report accuses troops of indiscriminate killing of Gaza civilians

Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli daily that has faced severe criticism from the country's right-wing government, quoted soldiers, career officers and reservists who said commanders were given unprecedented authority to operate in the Gaza Strip.

They alleged commanders had ordered or allowed the killing of unarmed women, children and men in the Netzarim Corridor, a seven-kilometre-wide (4.3-mile-wide) strip of land that cuts across Gaza from Israel to the Mediterranean, and which has been turned into a military zone.

The report quoted an officer who recalled an incident in which a commander had announced that 200 militants were killed, when actually "only 10 were confirmed as known Hamas operatives".

Soldiers meanwhile told Haaretz they received questionable orders to open fire on "anyone who enters" Netzarim.

"Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist -- no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone's a terrorist," a soldier quoted a battalion commander as saying.

The soldiers also described how division commanders received "expanded powers" allowing them to bomb buildings or launch air strikes that previously required approval from the army's top echelons.

The allegations contained in the Haaretz report could not be independently verified.

In a statement to AFP, the military rejected the accusations.

"All activities and operations conducted by (Israeli army) forces in the Gaza Strip, including in the Netzarim Corridor, are carried out in accordance with structured combat procedures, plans and operational orders approved by the highest ranks in the (army)," it said.

'No innocents in Gaza'

The military added that "all strikes in the area (of Netzarim) are conducted in accordance with the mandatory procedures and protocols, including targets that are struck in an urgent time frame due to essential operational circumstances where ground forces face immediate threats".

"Incidents that give rise to concerns of deviations from IDF's orders or ethical standards are thoroughly examined and addressed."

Many soldiers who spoke to Haaretz pointed to a specific commander, Brigadier General Yehuda Vach, who last summer took charge of Division 252, which has been based in Netzarim.

One of the soldiers said of Vach -- who was born in the settlement of Kiryat Arba in the occupied West Bank -- that "his worldview and political positions were clearly driving his operational decisions".

Another soldier said Vach had declared "there are no innocents in Gaza".

The military told AFP that the "statements attributed to him... were not made by him".

"Any claim asserting otherwise is entirely baseless."

The Haaretz report said Israeli soldiers spoke to the newspaper so that the Israeli "people need to know how this war really looks like, and what serious acts some commanders and fighters are committing inside Gaza".

"They need to know the inhuman scenes we're witnessing".

Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the current war, also reacted to the Haaretz report.

It said the testimonies offered "new evidence of unprecedented war crimes and full-fledged ethnic cleansing operations, carried out in an organised manner".

Hamas, which has also been accused of indiscriminate killings of Israelis and other civilians on October 7 last year, demanded that the United Nations and the International Court of Justice "document these testimonies and take the necessary steps to stop the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip".

SOURCE: https://www.france24.com/en/live-ne...s-of-indiscriminate-killing-of-gaza-civilians
 

Savages never feel embarrassed to kill innocents, but they can't escape their fate​

====

Israel kills 7 children from one family in air strike on Gaza​


An Israeli air strike has killed 12 members of a family, including seven children, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Civil Defence rescue agency has reported.

A video posted by the agency on its Telegram channel on Friday evening showed its staff retrieving victims from under the rubble of the Khallah family home in Jabalia.

“All of the martyrs are from the same family, including seven children, the oldest aged six,” civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal told the AFP news agency.

Basal added that the air raid injured 15 other people.

The Israeli army told AFP it had struck “several terrorists who were operating in a military structure belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation and posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the area”.

“According to an initial examination, the reported number of casualties resulting from the strike does not align with the information held by the IDF,” it added.

Source: Al Jazeera
 

Hamas, two other Palestinian groups say Gaza ceasefire deal ‘closer than ever’​

Hamas and two other Palestinian groups have said that a Gaza ceasefire deal with Israel is “closer than ever”, provided Israel does not impose new conditions, AFP reports.

“The possibility of reaching an agreement (for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange deal) is closer than ever, provided the enemy stops imposing new conditions,” Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a rare joint statement issued after talks in Cairo.

Source: AFP reports
 
The Bald Eagle said:
“The possibility of reaching an agreement (for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange deal) is closer than ever, provided the enemy stops imposing new conditions,” Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a rare joint statement issued after talks in Cairo.
Click to expand...
Sounding so desperate for mercy.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Israeli attacks across Gaza kill 58 Palestinians in a day​

Three killed in Israeli attacks south of Gaza

At least three more Palestinians have been killed and others wounded as a result of Israeli air attacks on southern Gaza.

Two people were killed in Rafah, while one person was killed and dozens wounded in a separate attack on the Bani Suheila roundabout east of Khan Younis. The video below, released by the Palestinian Civil Defence, shows a rescue operation after the attack in Rafa
h.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Meanwhile Hamas and Palestinian Authority are fighting on Westbank over control of it. What a great bunch of people. :rolleyes:

www.yahoo.com

A new front in the Middle East: Militants battle Palestinian Authority in sprawling refugee camp

For more than a week, the sprawling Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank has echoed to the sound of heavy gunfire – with masked snipers on roof tops and muffled explosions within its warren of alleyways.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

A new front in the Middle East: Militants battle Palestinian Authority in sprawling refugee camp​

Kareem Khadder, Tim Lister and Nadeen Ibrahim, CNN
Mon, December 23, 2024 at 4:56 AM EST

For more than a week, the sprawling Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank has echoed to the sound of heavy gunfire – with masked snipers on roof tops and muffled explosions within its warren of alleyways.
But the combat has not involved the Israeli military, which has launched countless raids in recent years against what it calls terrorists in the camp, a stronghold of resistance to the Israeli occupation.
This fight is between Palestinians: the security forces of the Palestinian Authority and militant groups aligned with Hamas who say the PA has sold out to Israel.
The authority, which is supported by the West, launched its largest security operation in years to dislodge the militant groups in an attempt to show that it can handle the security situation in the West Bank as it eyes control over a post-war Gaza.

But the operation appears only to have stiffened resistance and alienated many of the thousands of civilians who live there. And they have gained little ground, with militants still in control of much of the camp.
The authority’s security forces have tried to arrest dozens of men they describe as outlaws trying to “hijack” the camp, which was established for Palestinians uprooted from their homes after Israel’s creation in 1948 and is now a built-up area that is home to some 25,000 people.

Hamas describes the fighters in the camp as the “resistance” – a coalition of militant groups that sees the authority and its security forces as doing Israel’s bidding.

The militant factions include the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Qassem Brigades, who fight under the banner of the Jenin Battalion.
The authority says that its forces have “advanced in very important ways” in the camp. But they have little of the technology and weaponry the Israeli military can bring to bear, and on Sunday a member of the Palestinian Presidential Guard was killed by militants’ gunfire.

One militant leader has also been killed, as have three teenagers, the youngest of them 14. Each side blamed the other for their deaths.

The flare in violence caps off a deadly year in the area. Israel conducted a days-long raid in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas, in the northern West Bank, in September, killing at least 39 people and leaving widespread destruction, according to the authority’s health ministry and United Nations. Among them were at least nine militants, according to public statements from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
 
Israel provides full support for theft of aid in Gaza: Media Office

The Gaza Government Media Office says in a statement on Telegram that Israel provides full support for the theft of aid and kills security personnel to starve civilians.

Israel has killed 723 policemen and aid security personnel since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza on October 7 last year, according to the latest statistics published by the office.

The army often targets policemen guarding aid shipments, followed by attacks by protected armed gangs, and steals humanitarian aid as part of the starvation war imposed by Israel as collective punishment on the residents of Gaza.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation,” it said.

The statement added: “We call on the international community, the United Nations, and human rights and humanitarian organisations to intervene urgently and pressure the Israeli occupation to ensure the flow of aid without any obstacles.”

Source: Al Jazeera
 
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