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

Champ_Pal said:
Its a difficult situation for Israel. Hamas is hiding in underground tunnels that pass through schools, daycares and hospitals.

I do not support killing of any people or community. But does Israel have a choice? Hamas is not there for peace. They want to wipe Israel off the map completely. You cannot make peace and talk sense to someone who wants to kill you no matter what.
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So what are the intentions of Israel here? are they doing a social work in Palestine?
 
Champ_Pal said:
Its a difficult situation for Israel. Hamas is hiding in underground tunnels that pass through schools, daycares and hospitals.

I do not support killing of any people or community. But does Israel have a choice? Hamas is not there for peace. They want to wipe Israel off the map completely. You cannot make peace and talk sense to someone who wants to kill you no matter what.
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Collective punishment is against international law.

Would you be okay if America does airstrike on a building in India just because call center scammers are operating from that building?

It is evil and illogical to kill 1000 people just to kill one targeted person.

Also, where is the proof there was tunnel underneath hospital? Doctors in those hospitals denied there were tunnels. Please show independent reference (not Israeli propaganda).
 
sweep_shot said:
Collective punishment is against international law.

Would you be okay if America does airstrike on a building in India just because call center scammers are operating from that building?

It is evil and illogical to kill 1000 people just to kill one targeted person.

Also, where is the proof there was tunnel underneath hospital? Doctors in those hospitals denied there were tunnels. Please show independent reference (not Israeli propaganda).
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You cannot compare scam call centers with what Hamas did on Oct 4. Once is a regular crime and the other is a terrorist attack.

If Hamas gives up their dreams of wiping off Israel off the map, then it makes sense to stop the war. But Hamas hides behind innocent women and children to do their dirty work. This is why I feel there is no proper solution to this conflict until either Hamas drops the weapons and surrenders or Israel themselves destroy entire Hamas.

Innocents are collateral damage. Every war has it. Its very unfortunate, but what is the solution? Would like to hear your opinion.
 

Gaza’s al-Fukhari is dangerously overcrowded as Israel pushes people south​

Al-Fukhari, Gaza Strip – Palestinians in Gaza who have spoken to Al Jazeera are weary and heartbroken from having to leave their homes and move repeatedly, seeking safety.

Many pray for an end to the displacement and suffering that has torn Gaza apart for more than 60 days.

In al-Fukhari south of the city of Khan Younis, the European Hospital and schools are filled beyond capacity with thousands of displaced people from Khan Younis itself and areas farther north.

They keep moving south because they are told by the Israeli army to do so, leaving areas they either lived in or were already displaced in, heading for so-called “safe zones” that the Israeli army has bombed anyway.

Dr Youssef Al-Akkad, director of the European Hospital, told Al Jazeera that his teams were overwhelmed with the sheer number of people and they are not trained or capable of providing them with aid.

“The displaced are in the hospital corridors, departments and garden. The lack of water will lead to infections, and cases of cholera have already started to appear. This is such a difficult and disastrous situation.”

The displaced people around the European Hospital, who were forced to camp in the streets due to the overcrowding, each has a story of suffering to tell. They hope that at al-Fukhari they have finally reached a safe area. Sadly, however, most of them no longer believe in the idea of a safe area.

Rula Musmah, 40, says: “I’ve never been through this before. We’ve been displaced four times until we got to the European Hospital, where there wasn’t even a single spot for us. I looked for a cafe where me and my three daughters can sleep at night, and during the day, we just sit in the street.”

Musmah and her daughters, who are aged 15 to 18, left Gaza City on October 14 when the army asked people to leave.

“We have a beautiful house in the industrial area, which we left because of the danger that our daughters would get hurt. We went to the Deir el-Balah camp, where we stayed with friends for more than a month. But the house there got so crowded as more displaced people came and the bombing intensified, so we decided to look for another safe place.

“We had been in Khan Younis for two weeks when the truce began. We were happy that we would have a short rest from the sound of the bombing even though nothing had changed. There was suffering in obtaining water and food, but we felt a little safe at the beginning. But then news began circulating that the Israeli government was threatening to move its operation to Khan Younis.

“I felt like my heart would just stop, I was so afraid. The [Israeli military] leaflets [to evacuate] began falling on the city again. We went looking for another place and didn’t find anything other than al-Fukhari. We were among hundreds of people, there was no room in the European Hospital or the schools. The schools can’t take any more people.”

Musmah’s eyes filled with tears, and her voice was choked with grief over ending up on the street.

No space left
With nowhere else to go, people started setting up tents on an empty lot near the entrance to the hospital. The lot itself had already been hit twice by Israel, but with no other options, hundreds of displaced people took shelter there.

Salem Awaida, 55, said he had managed to stay in his home in Khan Younis until recently. “I had displaced people from Shujayea in my house. I was taking care of them, and it was so busy I didn’t know how my day began or ended. Imagine my shock when they asked the people in the Sheikh Nasser neighbourhood to leave.

“I didn’t believe it at first and waited another day, but then there was a really bad night of bombing two days ago, a ‘belt of fire’ wrapped tight around the area, and this morning they said tanks had entered Khan Younis not very far from my neighbourhood. So me and my family of 10 and the displaced people staying with us all walked east to al-Fukhari.

“It wasn’t safe at all. It was a really rough night I went through at the European Hospital with bombing until the late hours and me sitting in the hospital garden. There was no space for me inside. Eventually, I went out to walk a little, trying to breathe, to think, and I found people setting up here in this empty lot, so I put up a tent for me and my family.

“We see missiles lighting up the sky at night, but I’m not afraid. After this long assault, death seems more merciful than anything.”

Al-Fukhari is not a well-serviced area. It has few supplies and little water, having relied in the past on getting supplies from Khan Younis, from which it is cut off right now by Israeli incursions.

This means it cannot support such a large number of displaced people, a fact that is spreading fear among them as they also worry about the spread of disease due to the lack of water and hygiene.

There are few shopowners, and they have very limited supplies.

“There are no shops here that sell vegetables, and there are no supplies we can buy. We rely only on the tiny amounts of UNRWA [UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees] aid,” Khaled Muammar, 32, said.

“There will be a famine because the city is besieged and we are deprived of access to the market to buy what our children need.”

Source: Al Jazeera
 
A lot of damage has been done and thousands of innocent lives have been taken in this fight. It must be stopped now and everyone should make some contribution in the ceasefire in its capacity.
 
hassan918 said:
A lot of damage has been done and thousands of innocent lives have been taken in this fight. It must be stopped now and everyone should make some contribution in the ceasefire in its capacity.
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With the IDF inside of Jabaliya and Shejaiya the end is not far of. These two areas have the best trained Hamas fighters.
 

Palestinians ‘going hungry’ as Israel pounds Gaza​


  • UN expert warns “every single Palestinian in Gaza is going hungry” as Israel continues its deadly bombardment of the enclave.
  • Al Jazeera denounces the killing of its journalist Anas al-Shifa’s 65-year-old father in an Israeli attack on home in northern Gaza.
  • Israel says will screen humanitarian aid at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing but supplies will still only enter Gaza via Egypt’s Rafah.
  • More than 18,200 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombardment since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel stands at 1,147.

Aljazeera
 

Israel settlers attack Palestinian farmers in Nablus​


Extremist Jewish settlers yesterday attacked Palestinian farmers and olive pickers in the town of Aqraba, south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank.

The Aqraba Municipal Council reported in a statement that a group of extremist settlers attacked olive pickers in the area of Old Yanun Street, and fired gunshots to intimidate them and force them to leave their land.

According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Israeli occupation forces and settlers have carried out a total of 333 attacks against Palestinian olive pickers since the start of the season in the first week of October.

Source : The Middle East Monitor
 
About fifth of buildings destroyed or damaged: UN

Nearly 40,000 buildings or about 18 percent of all pre-conflict structures have been damaged or destroyed in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, a UN assessment shows.

The latest estimate, based on a November 26 image, was produced by the United Nations Satellite Centre, where analysts examine very high resolution satellite images to find damaged buildings and publish maps that can guide relief work and rebuilding plans during natural disasters and conflicts.

Estimates such as this based on high-resolution satellite images might still under-estimate the scale of destruction since they do not show all building damage – for example, a collapsed building with an intact roof can look undamaged.


BBC
 

UN General Assembly set to demand Gaza ceasefire​


UNITED NATIONS, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly appeared set to demand on Tuesday an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the two-month long conflict between Israel and Hamas after the United States vetoed such a move in the Security Council.

Before the U.N. vote, U.S. President Joe Biden told a fundraising event for his 2024 re-election campaign that Israel was losing international support because of "indiscriminate bombing that takes place."

Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air, imposed a siege and launched a ground offensive in retaliation for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that Israel says killed 1,200 people and saw 240 people taken hostage. Gaza's health ministry says 18,205 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 50,000 wounded.

Most of the 2.3 million people in Gaza have been driven from their homes and the United Nations has given dire warnings about the humanitarian situation in the coastal enclave, saying that hundreds of thousands of people are starving.

No country has a veto power in the 193-member General Assembly, which is due to vote on a draft resolution that mirrors the language of one that was blocked by the United States in the 15-member Security Council last week.

General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight, reflecting a global view on the war.

The United States and Israel oppose a ceasefire because they believe it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead supports pauses in fighting to protect civilians and allow the release of hostages taken by Palestinian militants on Oct. 7.

"This war will end when we can answer the diplomat-babysitter test," Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said on Tuesday.

"Would those diplomats voting to save Hamas' skin at the United Nations feel safe babysitting children in Kfar Azza, Beeri and Nir Oz? For that to happen, Hamas must be destroyed. And that is exactly what we will do," he said.

The assembly vote takes place a day after 12 Security Council envoys visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, the only place where limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza. The United States did not send a representative on the trip.

"With each step, the U.S. looks more isolated from the mainstream of U.N. opinion," said Richard Gowan, U.N. director at the International Crisis Group.

In October the General Assembly called for "an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities" in a resolution adopted with 121 votes in favor, 14 against - including the U.S. - and 44 abstentions.

Some diplomats and observers predict the vote on Tuesday will garner greater support. A two-thirds majority is needed.

"The dynamics are different to those in October. The length and intensity of Israel's operations in Gaza have left many U.N. members convinced that a ceasefire is essential," Gowan said.

In October, Canada put forward an amendment to reject and condemn the Hamas attack in October, but it failed to get the two-thirds majority needed. Diplomats said the United States plans to put forward a similar amendment on Tuesday.

The draft General Assembly resolution to be voted on Tuesday also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and that the warring parties comply with international law, specifically with regard to the protection of civilians.

Source: Reuters
 
I don't think Israel is going to obey General Assembly. Israel will stop the war when he would want to.
 
UN General Assembly overwhelmingly demands Gaza ceasefire

UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution Tuesday demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza — a call the paralyzed Security Council has so far failed to make, piling pressure on Israel and Washington.

The body, which includes all 193 UN member nations, voted 153 in favor of the resolution, exceeding the 140 or so countries that have routinely backed resolutions condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Ten countries, including the United States and Israel, voted against, while 23 abstained.

General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight and reflect global views on the war in the Gaza Strip, as health authorities in the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave say the death toll from Israel’s offensive had passed 18,000.

The assembly vote comes a day after 12 Security Council envoys visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, the only place where limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza. The United States did not send a representative on the trip.

“With each step, the US looks more isolated from the mainstream of UN opinion,” said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group.

The United States and Israel oppose a ceasefire because they believe it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead supports pauses in fighting to protect civilians and allow the release of hostages taken by Palestinian militants in a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

In October the General Assembly called for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in a resolution adopted with 121 votes in favor, 14 against — including the US — and 44 abstentions.

Some diplomats and observers predict the vote on Tuesday will garner greater support. A two-thirds majority is needed.

“The dynamics are different to those in October. The length and intensity of Israel’s operations in Gaza have left many UN members convinced that a ceasefire is essential,” Gowan said.

Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air, imposed a siege and launched a ground offensive in retaliation for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that Israel says killed 1,200 people and saw 240 people taken hostage.

In October, Canada put forward an amendment to reject and condemn the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, but it failed to get the two-thirds majority needed. Diplomats said the United States plans to put forward a similar amendment on Tuesday.

The draft General Assembly resolution to be voted on Tuesday also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and that the warring parties comply with international law, specifically with regard to the protection of civilians.

Most of the 2.3 million people in Gaza have been driven from their homes and the United Nations has given dire warnings about the humanitarian situation in the coastal enclave, saying that hundreds of thousands of people are starving.



www.arabnews.com

UN General Assembly overwhelmingly demands Gaza ceasefire

UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution Tuesday demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza — a call the paralyzed Security Council has so far failed to make, piling pressure on Israel and Washington. The body, which includes all 193 UN...
www.arabnews.com www.arabnews.com
 
Israel sustains heavy military losses in Gaza, is undeterred by UN vote

Israeli colonel, lieutenant-colonel among those killed in Shejaia district of Gaza City.

Israel faced growing diplomatic isolation in its war in Gaza as the United Nations demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and U.S. President Joe Biden said "indiscriminate" bombing of civilians was costing international support.

With intense fighting now being waged simultaneously in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops on Wednesday reported their worst combat losses for more than a month, including a colonel, the highest-ranking officer yet killed in the ground campaign.

Israel on Wednesday reported 10 of its soldiers killed in the past 24 hours. In addition to a full colonel commanding a forward base, the dead included a lieutenant-colonel commanding a regiment. It was the worst one-day loss since 15 were killed on Oct. 31.

According to Israeli Army Radio, most of the deaths came in the Shejaia district of Gaza City in the north, when an infantry unit hunting Hamas gunmen entered a building and lost contact with the rear base. When another unit was sent in after them, bombs were set off in the building and gunmen opened fire.

The Israeli Defence Forces on Tuesday had said 105 of its troops had died since the ground invasion began in late October, with 20 of those deaths attributable to friendly fire or accidental causes.

Reference: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-hamas-war-day-68-1.7057428.

Israel has lost a lot of troops and equipment so far.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
hassan918 said:
I don't think Israel is going to obey General Assembly. Israel will stop the war when he would want to.
Click to expand...

I think Israel should be kicked out of UN since they don't respect UN's position.

Most countries voted against Israel anyway (voted for ceasefire).
 
Cricket Warrior said:
UN General Assembly overwhelmingly demands Gaza ceasefire

UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution Tuesday demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza — a call the paralyzed Security Council has so far failed to make, piling pressure on Israel and Washington.

The body, which includes all 193 UN member nations, voted 153 in favor of the resolution, exceeding the 140 or so countries that have routinely backed resolutions condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Ten countries, including the United States and Israel, voted against, while 23 abstained.

General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight and reflect global views on the war in the Gaza Strip, as health authorities in the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave say the death toll from Israel’s offensive had passed 18,000.

The assembly vote comes a day after 12 Security Council envoys visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, the only place where limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza. The United States did not send a representative on the trip.

“With each step, the US looks more isolated from the mainstream of UN opinion,” said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group.

The United States and Israel oppose a ceasefire because they believe it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead supports pauses in fighting to protect civilians and allow the release of hostages taken by Palestinian militants in a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

In October the General Assembly called for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in a resolution adopted with 121 votes in favor, 14 against — including the US — and 44 abstentions.

Some diplomats and observers predict the vote on Tuesday will garner greater support. A two-thirds majority is needed.

“The dynamics are different to those in October. The length and intensity of Israel’s operations in Gaza have left many UN members convinced that a ceasefire is essential,” Gowan said.

Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air, imposed a siege and launched a ground offensive in retaliation for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that Israel says killed 1,200 people and saw 240 people taken hostage.

In October, Canada put forward an amendment to reject and condemn the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, but it failed to get the two-thirds majority needed. Diplomats said the United States plans to put forward a similar amendment on Tuesday.

The draft General Assembly resolution to be voted on Tuesday also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and that the warring parties comply with international law, specifically with regard to the protection of civilians.

Most of the 2.3 million people in Gaza have been driven from their homes and the United Nations has given dire warnings about the humanitarian situation in the coastal enclave, saying that hundreds of thousands of people are starving.



www.arabnews.com

UN General Assembly overwhelmingly demands Gaza ceasefire

UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution Tuesday demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza — a call the paralyzed Security Council has so far failed to make, piling pressure on Israel and Washington. The body, which includes all 193 UN...
www.arabnews.com www.arabnews.com
Click to expand...

153 countries voted against Israel.
10 countries voted for Israel.
23 didn't vote.

A decisive global message to Israel.
 
Support for Hamas grows among Palestinians in West Bank

Since the war in Gaza began, Israel's military operations in the occupied West Bank have become more frequent, and more forceful.

The northern city of Jenin - the epicentre of these raids before the Hamas attacks - is now a weekly battleground.

The Palestinian teenagers I met who were running from the army there on Tuesday had the sceptical dismissive attitudes of much older men - mocking the Palestinian president and his appeals to the world for protection against Israel's occupation.

Behind them, Israel's armoured bulldozers and military jeeps moved around the entrance to Jenin refugee camp, explosions and gunfire from across the city echoing along the deserted, shuttered streets.

The walls of this city are covered with the pictures of young men killed by Israeli forces - some of them members of armed groups like Hamas, proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and others. The posters and the faces are refreshed, year after year.

Six men were killed in the operation here on Tuesday; four of them in a drone strike, witnesses said.

Israel says its operations in the West Bank are targeting members of armed groups, often those with Israeli blood on their hands.




www.bbc.com

Support for Hamas grows among Palestinians in West Bank

Israel aims to destroy the group in Gaza, but its influence is spreading in the occupied West Bank.
www.bbc.com
 
Hamas today took back territory from the terrorist IDF.

Israel has the most advanced weapons and technology, backed by the US and UK. But the IDF is the worlds most cowardly army in modern history.
 

Israel to pursue Gaza war 'with or without international support'​

Israel declared its determination Wednesday to press on with its Gaza war "with or without international support", after it came under mounting pressure even from key backer the United States.

Now in its third month, the war was launched after the unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that officials say killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

It has left Gaza in ruins, killing more than 18,600 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and causing "unparallelled" damage to roads, schools and hospitals.

The day after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly backed a non-binding resolution for a ceasefire, more strikes hit Gaza and battles raged, especially in Gaza City, the biggest urban centre, and Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south, AFP correspondents said.

Cold wintery rains lashed the territory, where the UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million population have been displaced, living in makeshift tents as vital supplies of food, drinking water, medicines and fuel run low.

Camped with thousands in the grounds of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza, Ameen Edwan said his family was unable to sleep.

"Rainwater seeped in. We couldn't sleep. We tried to find nylon covers but couldn't find any, so we resorted to stones and sand" to keep the rain out, he told AFP.

The United Nations warned the spread of diseases -- including meningitis, jaundice, impetigo, chickenpox and upper respiratory tract infections -- had intensified.

The World Health Organization said 107 trucks carrying humanitarian aid had entered the besieged territory from Egypt, well below the daily average of 500 before October 7.

- Gaza rocket fire -

Air raid sirens wailed in Sderot and other southern Israeli communities near Gaza as Palestinian militants fired rockets, most of which were intercepted.

Israel's military said sirens sounded in Ashdod city north of Gaza and in the Lakhish area. Social media footage showed a large fragment of an intercepted rocket had hit a supermarket.

The army said an air strike had hit a militant cell in Gaza City's Shejaiya district "that was en route to launch rockets toward Israel".

In Khan Yunis, a family mourned father of seven Fayez al-Taramsi, killed in a strike.

"How are we going to live after him?" one of his daughters said, crying and clutching his bloodied shirt. "He brought us to life."

In the October 7 attack -- the deadliest in Israel's 75-year history -- Hamas also seized around 240 hostages.

Determined to destroy Hamas and bring the hostages home, Israel began a devastating aerial and ground offensive.

It has lost 115 soldiers, including 10 in northern Gaza on Tuesday, its deadliest day since the ground assault began on October 27.

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution Tuesday demanding a ceasefire, backed by 153 of 193 nations -- surpassing the 140 or so that have routinely condemned Russia for invading Ukraine.

While Washington voted against, the resolution was supported by allies Australia, Canada and New Zealand, who, in a rare joint statement, said they were "alarmed at the diminishing safe space for civilians in Gaza".

- 'Nothing will stop us' -

US President Joe Biden told a campaign event Israel had "most of the world supporting it" immediately after October 7, but "they're starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place".

Biden, who toned down his comments later, on Wednesday met with families of American hostages from those the militants seized.

Despite the criticism from its main ally, Israel vowed to pursue its war.

"Israel will continue the war against Hamas with or without international support," said Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.

"A ceasefire at the current stage is a gift to the terrorist organisation Hamas, and will allow it to return and threaten the residents of Israel," Cohen told a visiting diplomat, quoted by his ministry.

Netanyahu later said Israel would persevere.

"We will continue until the end. There is no question at all. I say this in light of great pain, but also in light of international pressure. Nothing will stop us. We are going until the end, until victory, nothing less than that," he said in a video statement.

Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, will travel to Israel on Thursday to meet Netanyahu, who has said there is "disagreement" with Washington over how a post-conflict Gaza would be governed.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday that any plan for post-war Gaza that does not involve the Palestinian militant group "or the resistance factions is a delusion".

Tuesday's UN vote came as Philippe Lazzarini, head of its Palestinian refugee agency, said Gazans were "running out of time and options".

The United States and Britain announced a new round of sanctions against Hamas over the October 7 attack, targeting "key officials who perpetuate Hamas's violent agenda".

- Gaza City hospital raid -

Gaza's hospital system is in ruins, and Hamas authorities said vaccines for children had run out, warning of "catastrophic health repercussions".

The World Bank in a new analysis warned that "the loss of life, speed and extent of damages... are unparallelled".

The Hamas-controlled health ministry said Israeli forces opened fire on wards of Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza, raising fears for the safety of 12 children in paediatric care.

The army has yet to comment, but Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals, schools, mosques and vast tunnel systems beneath them as military bases -- claims the group has denied.

Fears of the conflict broadening continued, with daily exchanges of fire along Israel's border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, and other Iran-backed groups targeting US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels had "crossed a red line", after repeatedly launching missiles and drones towards Israel and cargo ships in the Red Sea.

 
There is already lots of damage has been done and it was mainly because of the international aid. Not sure, how much resistance we are going to see from Hamas in the next few days or weeks even when Israel don't have a lot of international support.
 
hassan918 said:
There is already lots of damage has been done and it was mainly because of the international aid. Not sure, how much resistance we are going to see from Hamas in the next few days or weeks even when Israel don't have a lot of international support.
Click to expand...

Hamas are becoming more confident as each day passes. Watch their videos, these are not ordinary farmers with guns but well trained and very motivated in guerilla warfare. The more the IDF death numbers increase, the more pressure on Israel to leave. Israel wants the US to join the war, this was their goal from the beggining.
 
Los Angeles freeway blocked by Jewish protesters against Gaza war

Activists from a Jewish group demanding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip blocked traffic on a busy Los Angeles highway during Wednesday morning's rush hour and snarled traffic for miles, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The protesters from the If Not Now organization sat down on the southbound lanes of the 110 Freeway downtown at about 9 a.m., bringing commuters to a halt. The protesters wore black shirts reading "Not in Our Name" and held up placards demanding Israel halt military operations in Gaza.

Video on KCAL TV showed a few enraged motorists fighting with protesters before police arrived.

About 75 protesters were detained when CHP officers began clearing the highway around 10 a.m., the highway patrol said.

Israel's military campaign on Gaza has sparked protests in cities around the world.


 
Senior Israeli commanders and seven other soldiers have been killed by Hamas in an ambush in northern Gaza, where intense battles have been taking place in recent days.

As international pressure grows for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, with an intense aerial bombardment of the besieged territory continuing alongside ground operations, Israel has vowed to press on until it has eradicated Hamas. The military reported 10 soldiers had been killed in total over the last 24 hours, the worst day for soldier deaths since October.

Among the dead in the ambush were Col. Itzhak Ben Basat, 44, the most senior officer to have been killed in the ground operation, and Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg, a battalion commander.

Israel's bombardment of Gaza started in response to an attack by Hamas inside southern Israel on 7 October which killed 1,200 people and saw another 240 taken hostage into Gaza. The health ministry in the Hamas-run Strip say that 18,600 people have died, with many more wounded.

The ambush took place Tuesday in Shijaiyah, a suburb of Gaza City, when troops searching a cluster of buildings lost communication with four soldiers who had come under fire, the military said. When the other soldiers launched a rescue operation, they were ambushed with heavy gunfire and explosives. It came after repeated recent claims by the Israeli military that it had broken Hamas' command structure in northern Gaza and encircled remaining pockets of fighters.​

Source : The Independent, UK
 

David Cameron defends UK’s decision not to vote for UN resolution demanding ceasefire in Gaza – as it happened​


After pronouncing UK's decision not to vote for ceasefire resolution. UK government announced another big decision.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron announced on Thursday that extremist Israeli settlers responsible for violence and attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank will be barred from entering the UK.

"Extremist settlers, by targeting and killing Palestinian civilians, are undermining security and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians," David Cameron wrote on X.

He urged Israel to take stronger action to stop settlers' violence and emphasized that Tel Aviv must hold perpetrators accountable.

"We are banning those responsible for settler violence from entering the UK to make sure our country cannot be a home for people who commit these intimidating acts," he added.

Tensions have been running high across the West Bank amid an Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 283 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli fire and more than 4,000 others detained since then, according to Palestinian figures.

Source : Anadolu Ajansi.
 

Unguided ‘dumb bombs’ used in almost half of Israeli strikes on Gaza​

Almost half of the munitions Israel has used in Gaza since the war began have been unguided bombs, a U.S. intelligence assessment has found, a ratio that some arms experts say helps explain the conflict’s enormous civilian death toll.

The Israel Defense Forces has fired more than 29,000 air-to-ground munitions into the Palestinian enclave since Oct. 7, and only 55 to 60 percent of them have been precision-guided, according to a new assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The rest were what are known as “dumb bombs,” said two people familiar with the assessment who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.

The use of so many unguided bombs, first reported by CNN, is a concern among humanitarian groups and others amid growing calls inside and outside the United States for Washington to condition any further military aid to Israel on the immediate reduction of civilian deaths.

The Biden administration has thus far rejected such calls, fearing a backlash by Republicans and political attacks from powerful pro-Israel lobbying organizations. Instead, it has attempted to influence the Israeli government to scale back its military campaign using a series of high-level visits, including meetings in Tel Aviv on Thursday between national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The IDF did not respond to a request for comment.

Nearly 18,800 people have been killed and almost 51,000 wounded in Gaza over the past two months, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Under international law, weapons are considered indiscriminate if they cannot be directed at military targets.

“It is challenging in the best of circumstances to differentiate between valid military targets and civilians” there, said Brian Castner, senior crisis adviser and weapons investigator at Amnesty International. “And so just under basic rules of discretion, the Israeli military should be using the most precise weapons that it can that it has available and be using the smallest weapon appropriate for the target.”

Israel has been using “very, very large weapons,” Castner said. “And so when you’re using that in a densely populated area, even if you hit your valid military target, you’re far more likely to kill civilians nearby.”

In some instances, Israel’s use of unguided munitions is less problematic than in others, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter. Hitting tunnel entrances or buildings in less-populated areas, when Israeli planes will fly at low altitudes and release their payloads at close range — a tactic known as “dive bombing” — is viewed as more defensible by the Biden administration.

Overall, however, the administration considers the level of civilian casualties unacceptably high and has implored the Israelis to take greater caution. In a recent visit to Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli officials they had weeks, not months, to continue fighting at its current pace, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

When asked about the use of “dumb bombs,” State Department spokesman Matt Miller said he was not in a position to provide “judgment” on the matter. “There are different ways you can use any number of munitions,” he said.

Sullivan’s trip to Israel on Thursday marked the first in a string of visits planned by senior officials in coming days. All are expected to bring a stark message regarding Washington’s desire for a change to the pace of Israel’s aerial campaign. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to arrive Friday, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is due in Israel on Monday.

“Netanyahu has gone way too far and Jake Sullivan will be informing him that the bombing must be greatly limited or Israel will be without its last real friend,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said in a statement on social media.

White House spokesman John Kirby said Sullivan “discussed the next phase of Israel’s military campaign” with Netanyahu and “asked hard questions.”

“Jake also discussed efforts Israel is now undertaking to be more surgical and precise in their targeting and efforts that they are undertaking to help increase the flow of aid,” said Kirby.

Earlier this week, President Biden told attendees at a fundraiser that “the indiscriminate bombing that takes place” in Gaza was beginning to cost Israel support around the world, in some of the sharpest U.S. criticism yet of Israel’s approach to the war.

Kirby has said the president’s comments “reflected the reality of global opinion, which also matters.”

There has been growing international condemnation and concern over the scale of casualties in Gaza, with 153 nations voting Tuesday in favor of a U.N. General Assembly resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza — an increase of more than 30 votes since a similar motion in late October.

Frustrations are rising in Congress too, after the Biden administration invoked a sparingly used emergency provision to allow the State Department to approve the sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 tank shells, worth roughly $106 million, without first going through the normal congressional review channels. Lawmakers are also uncomfortable with the dearth of information made public about U.S. arms transfers, a process that has entailed a level of secrecy from the administration at odds with its approach to arming Ukraine.

“Do I have concerns? Yes, I do, in regard to that,” said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who added that he was informed by the administration ahead of the tank shells sale. “Not because it’s Israel or anyone else, because of any funding in that regards, it should come to us.”

Pressure has also been growing from rights groups and even within Biden’s own party, with calls for greater scrutiny over U.S. military support for Israel as well as the measures taken to protect civilians.

“We have documented a number of what we would argue are indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. ... I think this new information about the use of unguided bombs actually goes a long way to explain that,” said Castner, Amnesty International’s weapons investigator.

Even attempts to more precisely engineer the path of such missiles can’t necessarily mitigate the potential for civilian harm, according to analyses by Armament Research Services, commissioned by the International Committee of the Red Cross. “The predicted area in which they will fall is almost always larger than that of precision-guided equivalents,” the report said.

Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, said there is technology to help increase the accuracy of unguided missiles.

Israel has F-16s fitted with targeting pods, for instance, which use laser designators to improve accuracy when conducting dive-bomb attacks.

Still, accuracy can be affected by factors including the height of the aircraft, wind and weather conditions, and whether the aircraft launching the strike is being targeted from the ground.

Some experts said the reported use of unguided munitions was out of step with the United States’ own practice.

Marc Garlasco, a former military adviser at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the U.S. military relies “almost exclusively” on precision munitions. This is especially in true in conflicts where American commanders pursue targets in urban areas, he said “because of the likelihood of civilian harm as well as the potential for missing the target.”

“Israel has the most technologically advanced weapons in the world and their [precision-guided munitions] have an accuracy of three meters,” he said — but with unguided bombing, munitions can land as far as 30 meters, about 100 feet, away from their intended target.

Mick Mulroy, a Marine Corps and CIA veteran who went on to serve in the Trump administration, said Israel may be holding some of the precision “smart” bombs it has in reserve because they are more expensive and harder to come by.

Mulroy, speaking at an event hosted by the Middle East Institute, said it appears that Israel took a “heavy-handed” approach to its early operations in Gaza. The United States, he said, would probably have been more conservative and “not have taken many of the shots” that have received scrutiny.

 
Israel tells US it needs ‘months’ to defeat Hamas
Defence minister addresses US national security adviser as Biden administration presses for end to war

Israel will fight on until “absolute victory against Hamas”, the country’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told a senior official from the Biden administration, as another minister said the war could last “more than several months”.

Netanyahu’s comments were made to Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, during a visit to Israel hours after its defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told Sullivan that many more months were needed to defeat Hamas in Gaza.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office said: “I told our American friends – our heroic fighters have not fallen in vain. From the deep pain of their falling, we are more determined than ever to continue to fight until Hamas is eliminated – until absolute victory.”

Gallant earlier told Sullivan, apparently contradicting bullish daily updates from Israel’s military about the progress of its campaign, that the war “will require a period of time – it will last more than several months”. He said Hamas had “built infrastructure under the ground and above the ground and it is not easy to destroy them”.

Netanyahu met Sullivan and two other senior US officials along with other members of his war cabinet at the headquarters of Israel’s defence ministry, the Kirya, in Tel Aviv.

The comments were also a clear rebuff to the Biden administration, which has been pressing Israel to wind down its offensive, after the US president warned earlier this week that Israel was losing international support.

...
www.theguardian.com

Israel tells US it needs ‘months’ to defeat Hamas

Defence minister addresses US national security adviser as Biden administration presses for end to war
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Google staff protested the firm's involvement in providing technology to Israel during a vigil in London on Wednesday for a Palestinian colleague killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza.

The vigil was in honour of software engineer Mai Ubeid, who was a graduate of the Google-funded coding boot camp, Gaza Sky Geeks, and was in 2020 part of the Google for Startups acceleratorp rogramme.

Ubeid was killed on 31 October along with her entire family in a strike on Gaza.

Organised by Google staff and the No Tech For Apartheid campaign outside the firm's offices near King's Cross station, the vigil follows similar events carried out in the US cities of Seattle and New York.

"I think a lot of us came together today to commemorate [Ubeid] and to basically raise awareness and show Google and Amazon's leadership that a lot of us do care about this and stand in solidarity with Palestinians and we will not allow our technology to be used against innocent civilians," said Joseph, who described himself as an executive at Google
London.

Employees at Google have long criticised the company's commercial relationships with Israel.

Particular criticism has been levelled at Project Nimbus, a $1.2bn agreement for Google and Amazon to supply Israel and its military with cloud and computing services.

Although Google has in the past stressed that the project only provided "commercial" services for a number of Israeli government ministries, the finance ministry said when announcing the deal that Amazon and Google would be also providing services to "the defense establishment".

The vigil for Ubeid on Wednesday featured prayers from a rabbi and an imam mourning the 18,608 dead in Gaza, as well as the 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals killed in the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel.

Google staff at the vigil said they were angered that technology developed by their company could be complicit in Israeli military action and said there was a need for greater oversight of new tech.

"I 100 percent don't think it's ok for the products we are building being used for this and I think we are trying to voice our perspective inside [Google] and sometimes we feel like we're not heard," said Alma, a trust and safety specialist.

"We don't agree with Google products being used to kill civilians or non-civilians, anyone, any human - we're not ok with artificial intelligence being used in war to make life and death decisions," Alma added.

There have been complaints from staff inside Google since long before the 7 October attack that pro-Palestinian voices were not being tolerated - or even faced abuse - within the company.

Last month, an open letter organised by No Tech For Apartheid warned of "hate, abuse and retaliation" being meted out against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim employees at Google, and accused managers of acting to "question, report, and attempt to get fired Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Googlers who express sympathy with the plight of the besieged Palestinian people".

There was also an outcry last year after another former Google employee, Ariel Koren, accused the company of punishing her by forcing her to transfer to Brazil after she organised employee-led actions against Project Nimbus.

Joseph* said there was a lot of "pressure" at work on those with pro-Palestinian views.

"You have to be very careful with what you say in case you get incorrectly labelled as antisemitic, so you have to walk on eggshells," he told MEE.

"At the same time, I think a lot of us are sick of being silenced."

Source: Middle East Eye

www.middleeasteye.net

'Sick of being silenced': Google staff at vigil for slain Palestinian intern hit out at firm's Israel ties

Mai Ubeid, a software engineer, was killed along with her whole family in an Israeli air strike in Gaza on 31 October
www.middleeasteye.net www.middleeasteye.net
 
Qatar on Wednesday vowed to provide $50 million in humanitarian aid to residents of the Gaza Strip, who are currently impacted by Israel’s non-stop aggression and siege.

The aid package will benefit refugees, displaced persons, orphans and wounded individuals, an official statement posted on X read.

This came during Qatar’s participation in the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, held with the aim of improving conditions for refugees and host countries.

The forum, held every four years and organised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is taking place between 13 and 15 December this year.

Doha said it would also provide 100 scholarships to Palestinian students from Gaza enabling them to continue their university education in Qatar through the Al-Fakhoura programme.

Source : The New Arab
 

Indonesian Mosque in Gaza Destroyed by Israeli Attacks​


The Istiqlal Mosque in Gaza, built by the Indonesian government, has been destroyed completely by the Israeli attack. A Palestinian news agency Quds Network posted a photo of the destroyed mosque building on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Massive destruction in the Indonesian mosque due to Israeli shelling in Khan Yunis, the Gaza Strip,” Quds Network tweeted on Dec. 11.

The Indonesian Istiqlal Mosque in Gaza was inaugurated on February 22, 2022, as a symbol of Indonesia's brotherhood with Palestine. The mosque was built 44 years after the inauguration of the Grand Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta. The mosque was funded by the Indonesian people.

Israel has escalated its attacks on Khan Younis and declared the city a "dangerous combat zone”. Gaza's second-largest city, which was considered a safe zone at the beginning of the conflict, is now a scene of devastation and anguish.

People are terrified of Israeli attacks, and a scarcity of food and other basic necessities has pushed them to suffer amid brutal street warfare.

Source : Tempo
 
Israeli military says it killed three hostages held in Gaza after they were mistakenly identified as a threat.


BBC
 
Make no mistake the hideous and barbaric crimes the zionest extremists are causing have no bases for the false flag of October the 7th of which we are yet to see any evidence.

This was all pre planned, and yesterday's confirmation of no plans of a Two state solution by the zionest extremist confirmed that.

Surely now, the zionest sympathizing has no merits and this evil which is in the equal of the Nazis has to be condemned by every sane human.
 

Al Jazeera cameraman dies after missile strike in Gaza's Khan Younis, channel says​

An Al Jazeera cameraman injured in a missile strike on Gaza has died, the broadcaster says.

Two journalists working for the Qatari-based television network were hurt in the blast in southern Gaza, the channel reported earlier today.

Cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa has now died from his injuries, Al Jazeera says.

Chief correspondent Wael al Dahdouh was also wounded when a drone fired a missile at a school-turned-shelter in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Shrapnel from the attack hit Mr Dahdouh in his right arm. He was later taken to Nasser hospital for treatment, according to the channel.

Mr Daqqa also suffered shrapnel injuries and paramedics struggled to reach him, Hani Mahmoud, another Al Jazeera journalist, reported.

In a statement paying tribute to Mr Daqqa, Al Jazeera said: "It is with heavy hearts that we share the devastating news of the loss of our dedicated Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Dakka during the recent coverage in Gaza.

"His unwavering commitment to truth and storytelling has left an indelible mark on our team.

"Samer, whose lens captured the raw and unfiltered reality of life in Gaza, was not just a skilled professional but a compassionate soul who understood the power of visual storytelling.

"His courage in the face of adversity allowed the world to witness the untold stories of a region grappling with complex challenges.

"In the pursuit of truth, our cameraman faced immense risks to bring viewers a deeper understanding of the human experience in Gaza.

"His lens became a window into the lives of those affected by conflict, shedding light on stories that needed to be told."

The news comes a month-and-a-half after Mr Dahdouh's wife, 15-year-old son, seven-year-old daughter and his grandson were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike.

His family was seeking refuge in Nuseirat camp in the centre of Gaza when their home was reportedly struck by Israeli forces.

Source: SKY
 
A bullet doesn't see what's in front of it. Unfortunately, there have been many media people who've lost their lives in this fight.
 
Israeli military says its troops shot and killed three hostages by mistake
IDF identifies hostages killed as Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer El-Talalqa, saying they were mistakenly believed to be a threat

The Israeli military has said that its troops shot and killed three hostages being held by Hamas after mistakenly identifying them as a threat during fighting in a battle-torn neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The announcement on Friday came amid heavy fighting across the embattled territory that led to an influx of dead and wounded into hospitals in Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah.

Separately, the Qatar-based television network Al Jazeera said that one of its journalists was killed and and another was injured in a drone strike while reporting in Khan Younis.

The army identified the three killed hostages as Yotam Haim and Alon Shamriz, who were taken from Kfar Aza kibbutz during Hamas’s 7 October attack, and Samer El-Talalqa, taken from Nir Am kibbutz.

The hostages were killed in the Gaza City area of Shejaiya, where troops have been engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas militants in recent days.

The exact circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear. In a statement late on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “During combat in Shejaiya, the IDF mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat. As a result, the troops fired toward them and they were killed.”

Army spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said it was believed that the three had either fled their captors or been abandoned. “Perhaps in the last few days, or over the past day – we still don’t know all the details – they reached this area,” he said. He said the army expressed “deep sorrow” and was investigating.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement: “Together with the entire people of Israel, I bow my head in deep sorrow and mourn the death of three of our dear sons who were kidnapped. My heart goes out to the grieving families in their difficult time.”

Al Jazeera initially said that video journalist Samer Abu Daqqa and its chief correspondent in Gaza, Wael al-Dahdouh, had been injured by shrapnel when they were reporting at a school that had been hit by an earlier airstrike.

In a subsequent statement condemning the Israeli military, Al Jazeera attributed the injuries to a drone strike: “Following Samer’s injury, he was left to bleed to death for over five hours, as Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him, denying the much-needed emergency treatment.”

Dahdouh, who lost several members of his family in Israeli bombings last month, was wounded in the arm and transferred to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

...
www.theguardian.com

Israeli military says its troops shot and killed three hostages by mistake

IDF identifies hostages killed as Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer El-Talalqa, saying they were mistakenly believed to be a threat
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Now Israel have killed their own hostages. IDF say this was outside their rules of engagement and an investigation is underway.

I guess killing Palestinian civilians is neither outside those rules of engagement nor worthy of investigation.
 
"We are here to tell the people of Gaza that we have not forgotten them."

Thousands of football fans gather in Qatar's Education City Stadium to help raise funds and show solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid Israel’s war

Al Jazeera

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John Mearsheimer: Israel is choosing ‘apartheid’ or ‘ethnic cleansing’​

US political scientist John Mearsheimer on Israel’s ‘punishment campaign’ against the civilian population in Palestine.

Israel has gone far beyond “going after Hamas” in the first 10 weeks of its war on Gaza, according to one of the United States’ leading political scientists, John Mearsheimer.

He tells host Steve Clemons that murdering hundreds of civilians daily and starving the rest is a “punishment campaign” and “should be unacceptable to decent people all over the world”. In this episode, Mearsheimer, who teaches international relations at the University of Chicago, looks into Israel’s long-term strategies and explains why the elites in the US, Europe and the Arab world are not taking concrete steps to stop Israel’s bombing campaign.​

Source : Al Jazeera
 
Hezbollah announced on Saturday that its fighters had targeted three Israeli military sites along Lebanon’s southern border, resulting in “many casualties and injuries among Israeli soldiers”, Anadolu Agency reports. The Lebanon-based group said in a statement that its forces “targeted the Ramim and Metulla military sites.”

The group also “targeted the Israeli military site of Birket Rishe off the Lebanese border with a guided missile,” the statement added. It claimed that the target was hit with complete “accuracy,” resulting in “many casualties and injuries among Israeli soldiers.” Meanwhile, the Israeli army claimed on Saturday that it had shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) near the Lebanese border.

In a statement, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said: “Following a warning about the infiltration of a hostile aircraft in the north of the country, the air defense fighters intercepted a hostile aircraft that crossed from Lebanese territory to Israeli territory.”

“Another hostile aircraft that crossed the territory of Lebanon and fell in the Margaliot area was also detected,” he added. "The Israel Defense Forces attacked Lebanese territory with artillery,” he added.

Source : Middle East Monitor​
 
Israel bombards northern and southern Gaza

Israeli forces bombarded targets across Gaza on Saturday including a YMCA building, with dozens of Palestinians reported killed or wounded, despite a renewed US call to scale down the campaign and focus on Hamas leaders.

In Khan Younis in the south, Palestinian health officials said the Nasser Hospital had received 20 Palestinians killed in air strikes overnight, in addition to dozens of wounded, including women and children.

Palestinian health officials also said Israeli strikes on Gaza City in the north had hit the YMCA headquarters, which is sheltering hundreds of displaced people and reported several dead and wounded.

The official WAFA news agency said at least three dozen people had been killed in strikes on three houses in the Jabalia refugee camp, which health officials were unable to confirm. Gaza’s health ministry has said Israel’s ground offensive and the targeting of medical facilities have made it hard to gather information about casualties in northern Gaza.

Rescue workers believed some casualties remained buried under the rubble in some of those areas.

Gaza residents also reported intense overnight fighting and bombardment in Sheijaia, Sheikh Radwan, Zeitoun, Tuffah and Beit Hanoun in the north, and in the centre, east and north of Khan Younis.

“The Gaza Strip turned into a ball of fire overnight, we could hear explosions and gunshots echoing from all directions,” Ahmed, 45, an electrician and father of six, told Reuters from a shelter in central Gaza.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, brought a message to Israel on Thursday and Friday to scale down the campaign and transition to more narrowly targeted operations against Hamas leaders, US officials said.

During the visit, Israeli officials publicly emphasised that they would continue the war until they eradicate Hamas. Washington appeared to acknowledge disagreement, as Sullivan said the timing was under “intensive discussion” between the allies.

An Israeli military official said three hostages killed mistakenly in Gaza by Israeli forces had been holding up a white flag, according to an initial inquiry.

The incident happened in an area of intense combat where Hamas militants operate in civilian attire and use deception tactics, the official said, but the hostages were fired upon against Israel’s rules of engagement.

Israel, which said it recovered the bodies of three other hostages killed by Hamas, believes around 20 of more than 130 hostages still held in Gaza are dead.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had bombed a building in Jabalia from the air after its forces came under fire and Hamas militants were seen on the roof. It was unclear if the building was one of those that WAFA said had been hit.

The military also said it had killed militants holed up in two school buildings in Gaza City, and raided apartments in Khan Younis stocked with weapons, uncovering what it described as underground infrastructure used by Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza and that Israel has vowed to destroy.

“Every day the situation gets worse. Food gets less, water gets worse, only death, fear and destruction get greater,” said Samira, 40, a mother of four, who is displaced in Rafah, near the southern border with Egypt.

“I can’t handle the children anymore. They’re terrified and so am I. Every night we think it might be our last night. The bombing doesn’t stop,” she told Reuters by phone.

With intense fighting across the Gaza Strip and aid organisations warning of a humanitarian catastrophe, the United States has said Israel risks losing international support with “indiscriminate” air strikes.

In a surprise cross-border attack on Oct. 7, Hamas militants rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and capturing 240 hostages. Israel’s counterattack has killed close to 19,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities, with thousands more feared buried under rubble.

Combat has intensified in the past two weeks since the collapse of a week-long truce that had allowed dozens of hostages to be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli and Qatari officials were set to meet in Norway on Saturday in an effort to revive talks about the release of hostages in Gaza in return for a ceasefire and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In signs of the wider ramifications of the conflict, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis said they had attacked the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat with a swarm of drones, one of several drone incidents reported in the region on Saturday.

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes over the past two months, many several times.

After Sullivan left, Israel said it would open the Kerem Shalom crossing, the main road link into Gaza, for aid shipments for the first time in the war, allowing in 200 trucks per day.

The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said it had taken 1.4 million people into its facilities, now so overcrowded that there were 486 people for every toilet in its shelters in Rafah.

Around 1,000 refugees have been wounded in those shelters since Oct. 7 and at least 288 killed, along with 135 UNRWA workers, the agency said.

Tensions have also soared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces detained 16 Palestinians overnight, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Association, taking the number of arrests there since Oct. 7 to 4,520.



www.brecorder.com

Israel bombards northern and southern Gaza

CAIRO/GAZA: Israeli forces bombarded targets across Gaza on Saturday including a YMCA building, with dozens of...
www.brecorder.com
 
Israel opens aid crossing to Gaza while stepping up bombardment

Israel opened a direct crossing for aid into Gaza for the first time on Sunday in its more than two-month-old war on Hamas while also stepping up attacks on the Palestinian enclave, saying military pressure was the only way its hostages would be freed.

The Israeli attacks took place amid fierce fighting the length of the coastal strip, according to residents and fighters, with communications down for a fourth day, making it hard to reach the wounded.

"The communication blackout in #Gaza is the longest since the start of the Israeli escalation," the Palestinian Red Crescent said on X, adding that its teams were also hampered by shelling. Telecommunications were gradually being restored in central and southern areas, telecoms companies said later.

Hopes for peace had been raised on Saturday when a source said Israel's spy chief had spoken on Friday with the prime minister of Qatar, which mediated hostage releases in return for a week-long ceasefire and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners.

In a further positive sign, the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza opened for aid trucks on Sunday for the first time since the outbreak of war, officials said, in a move to double the amount of food and medicine reaching Gazans.

But Israel cast doubt on whether the aid would be distributed, accusing aid officials of not distributing aid that had crossed from Egypt, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "fight to the end". Aid agencies say aid distribution has been disrupted by the violence.

Hamas said it would not discuss freeing any more of those captured when its fighters raided southern Israel on Oct. 7 while Israel continues its attacks.



tribune.com.pk

Israel opens aid crossing to Gaza while stepping up bombardment | The Express Tribune

Intense airstrikes in Gaza as Israel steps up attacks amid communication blackout
tribune.com.pk tribune.com.pk
 
Three Israeli hostages mistakenly killed by soldiers in Gaza on Friday had used leftover food to write signs pleading for help, Israel says.

The men had been staying at the building next to where they were shot "for some period of time", according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Officials have admitted that killing the men who were holding a white flag was a breach of "rules of engagement".

Israel is under increasing pressure for a deal to free more hostages.

About 120 are believed to be still in captivity in the Gaza Strip.


BBC
 
UN security council to vote on ceasefire call

The United Nations security council will vote on Monday on a new resolution calling for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, as Washington shows growing impatience with key ally Israel.

Agence France-Presse reports that the vote comes days after the US blocked a previous security council resolution that would have called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the battered Palestinian territory. But in the general assembly, the UN’s 193 members voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire, with 153 in favour.

The coming security council resolution was introduced by Arab countries that had come away from last Tuesday’s general assembly vote bolstered by such broad international support, though the latest text’s fate remains uncertain.

The Guardian
 
Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan calls on US to use influence over Israel to stop attacks on Gaza

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Sunday called on the US to use its influence over Israel to stop the attacks on the Gaza Strip during his talks with his American counterpart Antony Blinken, Anadolu Agency reports.

According to diplomatic sources, Fidan discussed regional and global issues as well as Ankara-Washington relations with Blinken over the phone.

During discussions about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Fidan pointed out that the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is deteriorating and urged the US to exert pressure on Israel to halt the attacks.

The Turkish foreign minister also emphasized that Israel should be brought to the table to begin a political process aimed at realizing a fair and lasting peace based on a two-state solution, following the establishment of a complete cease-fire.

According to the sources, both leaders emphasized the importance of bilateral relations in keeping with the spirit of the US-Türkiye alliance, while Sweden’s NATO membership, the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Ankara, and cooperation in the defense industry were also discussed.

Source : The Middle East Monitor
 
Here are the latest developments in Gaza and the occupied West Bank as Israel continues its bombardment of the besieged enclave.
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Several Palestinians from Gaza held by Israel in a military detention facility have died in unclear circumstances, according to a report in Haaretz on Monday.

Hundreds of Palestinians in the besieged enclave have reportedly been arrested by Israeli soldiers and taken to a detention facility near Beersheba, in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

Several of those taken have since died, with the circumstances of their deaths not being explained by Israeli authorities.

Israel's military told Haaretz those dead in the facility were "terrorists", and the deaths were now under investigation.

Those detained are kept in fenced compounds with their eyes covered and hands cuffed for most of the day.

Lights are switched on all night long in the prison compound and detainees sleep on thin mattresses on the floor, the report added.

The detainees include some who were arrested during Hamas' surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October, which killed around 1,200 people. Scores of others have been detained since Israel's ground operation in the enclave in late October.

Women and children detained

Women and children have also been arrested by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, and are being held in a detention facility near Jerusalem, the report added.

MEE reported last week that the Israeli army had arbitrarily detained dozens of women and girls from Gaza without disclosing their whereabouts or the charges they face.

According to a Haaretz report last week, only around 10 to 15 percent of Palestinians detained by Israel in Gaza in recent days are connected with Hamas.

Palestinians from Gaza are being held under the "unlawful combatants law", which human rights activists and legal experts have long argued is a means used by Israel to detain civilians based on little evidence and without a fair trial.

The law states that an Israeli court must review the incarceration order within 14 days and subsequently every six months.

The Israeli military told Haaretz those from Gaza detained were being held "due to probable cause that they were involved in terrorist activity".

MEE obtained a list of full names, ages and professions of 25 people among those arrested by Israel earlier this month in the enclave.

That list, as well as eyewitness accounts, indicate that those detained are academics, journalists, teachers at UN-run schools, school students, blue-collar workers, and employees with the Palestinian Authority.

Israel's military has killed nearly 19,000 Palestinians in attacks since 7 October, most of them women and children.

Source: Middle East Eye

www.middleeasteye.net

Palestinian detainees from Gaza die in Israeli custody, says report

Hundreds held in Israeli prison compound without beds and lights switched on all night long, according to Haaretz
www.middleeasteye.net www.middleeasteye.net
 
daytrader said:
UN security council to vote on ceasefire call

The United Nations security council will vote on Monday on a new resolution calling for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, as Washington shows growing impatience with key ally Israel.

Agence France-Presse reports that the vote comes days after the US blocked a previous security council resolution that would have called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the battered Palestinian territory. But in the general assembly, the UN’s 193 members voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire, with 153 in favour.

The coming security council resolution was introduced by Arab countries that had come away from last Tuesday’s general assembly vote bolstered by such broad international support, though the latest text’s fate remains uncertain.

The Guardian
Click to expand...

These votes are useless. Need some concrete actions.

UN needs to send troops there.
 

Gaza health ministry says Israeli strikes kill 110 in Jabalia​

At least 110 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes in northern Gaza's Jabalia area, the Hamas-run health ministry says, as fighting continues across the Palestinian territory.

Fifty people were reportedly killed and dozens trapped under rubble when three homes in Jabalia refugee camp were hit.

Videos showed the bodies of small children lined up at a medical centre.

The Israeli military said it had been conducting operations against Hamas "terrorist infrastructure" in Jabalia.

It came as the US defence secretary arrived in Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli leaders that were expected to focus on how to lower the intensity of the fighting to protect civilians.

The UN Security Council was also expected to vote later on a resolution calling for an "urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities", amid reports of discussions on a potential new deal to secure the release of more Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

Gaza has been devastated by 10 weeks of war triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas gunmen on southern Israel on 7 October, in which at least 1,200 people - mostly civilians - were killed and about 240 taken hostage.

Since then, more than 19,400 people have been killed in Gaza, about 70% of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

When asked about the Jabalia strikes by AFP news agency, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stressed that it went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

"When planning a target, the IDF devotes significant time and resources to preparing the attack and where feasible, uses various tools, including advance warnings, roof knocking, street knocking, target clearing operations and a variety of professional calculations," it said.

The IDF separately announced that its troops had been conducting operations in Jabalia and that they had uncovered cash worth almost $1.4m (£1.1m) in suitcases alongside weapons in the home of a senior Hamas figure.

Gaza's health ministry also said that a 13-year-old girl was killed when an Israeli tank shell hit the maternity building of Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday night.

The girl, Dina Abu Mohsen, had been receiving treatment after losing a leg in a previous strike in al-Amal that killed her parents and two brothers, it added.

Another eight people, including journalist Haneen al-Qashtan, were reportedly killed in a strike in Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was expected to tell Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and war cabinet in their meetings on Monday that Israel had to move away from its major combat operations to a more limited conflict targeting Hamas while shielding civilians.

At a news conference with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Mr Austin said protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza was "both a moral duty and a strategic imperative".

Asked about a transition to lower intensity warfare, he stressed: "This is Israel's operation, and I'm not here to dictate timelines or terms."

The UK, Germany and France added to the growing global pressure for a ceasefire over the weekend, saying that too many civilians had been killed.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed those comments on Monday, saying: "We are witnessing an appalling lack of distinction in Israel's military operation in Gaza."

In Israel, there are calls for any pause in the fighting to be linked to a new hostage release deal, after last week's mistaken killing by Israeli forces of three men who had been held captive in Gaza.

In another development on Monday, Human Rights Watch accused Israel's military of "using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare".

"Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel, while wilfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival," it alleged.

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy called the report "a lie".

"Israel has excess capacity to inspect more than twice as many aid trucks as are entering Gaza. We're still pumping water into Gaza through two pipelines and have placed no restrictions on entry of food and water. Direct your anger to Hamas, which hijacks aid," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Source: BBC
 
It is very much possible that the actual number of deaths are higher than we are getting in the news.
 
The United States vowed Monday it would continue to arm Israel in its campaign against Hamas, even as it called for more humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the devastated Gaza Strip.

Fighting raged on in the third month of the bloodiest ever Gaza war, with the Hamas-run health ministry reporting another 110 people killed in strikes on the Jabalia camp near Gaza City.

The UN Security Council in New York was set to vote on another call for a cease-fire in the besieged territory, after previous bids were vetoed by Israel’s key ally the US.

But the vote was postponed until Tuesday as negotiations continued over the text of the document, diplomatic sources at the United Nations told AFP.
 
hassan918 said:
It is very much possible that the actual number of deaths are higher than we are getting in the news.
Click to expand...

That's probably true.

There are probably many more dead bodies underneath those rubbles.

Official figure says about 19,000 people in Gaza died. Imagine the real number.

May Allah (SWT) protect them.
 
British FM David Cameron traveling to Paris, Rome for Gaza talks

Cameron will meet with French President Macron and Italian Prime Minister Meloni during the Tuesday stops to address the “desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza”, according to a UK government press release.

During the trip, Cameron will “reiterate his call for a sustainable ceasefire” and push for better European coordination to bring life-saving aid into Gaza, the release says.
​
ALJAZEERA
 
At least 20 killed in strikes on residential buildings in Rafah

There was more death and destruction overnight, mainly in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

In Rafah city (southern Gaza), at least 20 people were killed overnight.

Three residential buildings in one area were destroyed. Initially, the number of people reported killed was nine, but as people worked to pull people from the rubble, the death toll is now 20.

There is fear that more people are trapped under the rubble.

Other deaths were reported from the central part of the Gaza Strip, including those in Deir al-Balah, al-Maghazi and al-Bureij refugee camps – where residential buildings were also targeted.
​
ALJAZEERA
 
Israeli strikes hit Rafah houses, at least 20 killed – Gaza health ministry

Israeli missiles and air strikes on the Rafah area in southern Gaza struck three houses killing at least 20 Palestinians, Gaza health officials said on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have crammed into Rafah on Gaza’s border with Egypt to escape Israeli bombardments further north, despite fears that they will also not be safe there.

Early on Tuesday residents in Khan Younis, a city also in southern Gaza, reported fierce gunbattles between militant Hamas fighters and Israeli forces. Israeli tanks and planes bombed areas near the city center, residents said.

A World Health Organization official said on Monday that the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza that Israeli troops raided last week is no longer functioning and patients including babies have been evacuated,

“We cannot afford to lose any hospitals,” said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for Gaza.

Peeperkorn also said about 4,000 displaced people taking refuge in the grounds of the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis were at risk as Israel pursues military operations there.

The Gaza health ministry said on Monday that 19,453 Palestinians had been killed and 52,286 wounded in the Israeli assault on the Hamas-ruled enclave in more than two months of warfare.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to achieve total victory over Hamas, whose fighters killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages in a surprise Oct. 7 raid into Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s intensifying retaliation against Hamas has increased concern among governments and international organizations over the civilian death toll, hunger and homelessness.

Father-of-four Raed, 45, who has moved his family twice, said Gazans were exhausted trying to stay alive.

“Money has lost its value, most of the items are not available. We rose from our beds after surviving a night of bombardment to tour the streets searching for food, we got tired,” he said in the Rafah area. “We want peace, truce, ceasefire, whatever they call it, but please stop the war.”


 
Progress in talks among Qatar, CIA, Mossad

There are talks now underway to explore the potential for a new truce.

Sources briefed on the talks told us that the meeting between Qatar’s prime minister, the CIA chief and Mossad’s chief, which took place on Monday in Warsaw, was positive. They managed to tussle with some quite different aspects of the agreement.

Now, the Qatari negotiators are in touch with both Hamas and the Israelis on the potential to resume the talks and also put together a new truce. So this is quite a significant development.
​
SOURCE: ALJAZEERA
 
German police raid pro-Palestinian feminist group

Police in Berlin, Germany's capital, conducted on Wednesday a raid targeting members of a pro-Palestinian, left-wing feminist group, German media reported.

The Zora group is accused of backing the radical, left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The European Union and the United States list the group as a terrorist organization.

The GDP police trade union representative for the Berlin area, Benjamin Jendro, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that around 200 officers took part in the operation.

They searched six flats, an office and a cafe in the districts of Neukölln, Friedrichshain, Karlshorst, Wedding, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg and Wedding, the BZ newspaper reported.

There are six suspects, five of whom are said to belong to the group Zora.

German outlets reported that the raid was mainly prompted by a statement the group posted on its Instagram account on October 12. The statement was titled: "No liberation of women without the liberation of Palestine."

In the statement, the group argues that while the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which launched the October 7 terror attacks on Israel, has no interest in fighting the patriarchy, it is important to "strengthen the progressive forces that are also part of the Palestinian resistance" such as the PFLP.

The PFLP has historically been keen on organizing women and recruiting them in its activities.

The Zora group describes itself on its own website as an "independent, anti-capitalist organization for young women."

In a statement on December 15, the group criticized the "repression" it said the German state was exercising against both Palestinian solidarity and the fight against violence against women. It particularly noted increased searches against pro-Palestinian individuals since a ban on the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

"These are carried out on people who the state suspects of being close to the network, which in the reality of the racist authorities means that in this country you have to fear a search simply because you are Palestinian," the group said.

In early November, the German Interior Ministry banned both Samidoun and Hamas. The latter is designated as a terrorist organization in several countries, including Germany.

Source: DW

t.co

German police raid pro-Palestinian feminist group – DW – 12/20/2023

The raids were part of a probe into allegations that members of the group Zora were using emblems of the PFLP, which Israel, the EU and the US have designated a terrorist organization.
t.co t.co
 
They are not just engaging in genocide, they are also erasing their identities and heritages.
 
Hamas chief in Egypt for talks on Gaza truce and hostage release

The leader of Hamas travelled to Egypt on Wednesday as hopes grew that Israel and the Palestinian militant group may be inching toward another truce and hostage release deal in the Gaza war.

The Qatar-based Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh, arrived in Cairo for discussions on the "aggression in the Gaza Strip and other matters", the group said in a statement.

He was due to meet Egypt's spy chief for talks on "stopping the aggression and the war to prepare an agreement for the release of prisoners", a source close to the group told AFP.

Haniyeh -- who earlier met Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Qatar -- was heading a "high-level delegation" to Egypt, a frequent mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, the source said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told hostage families late Tuesday that he had twice sent his spy chief to Europe in efforts intended to "free our hostages".

"It's our duty, I'm responsible for the release of all the hostages," the premier told the relatives of some of the 129 captives still believed to be held in Gaza.

"Saving them is a supreme task.

"I have just sent the head of Mossad to Europe twice to promote a process to free our hostages. I will spare no effort on the subject, and our duty is to bring them all back."

US news site Axios reported Monday that Mossad chief David Barnea had met CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Europe.

Qatar, backed by Egypt and the United States, helped broker a week-long truce in November in which 80 Israeli hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

A source close to Hamas told AFP the Egypt talks would focus on proposals including a week-long truce that would see the release of 40 Israeli hostages, including women, children and male non-combatants.

The truce would be open to extension if there is agreement on new conditions for further releases, the source said, adding that the proposals had been discussed between Qatar and Israel with the knowledge of the US administration.

The war began when Hamas militants burst out of Gaza on October 7, killing around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel began a campaign of bombardment, and then a ground invasion, that Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says have killed 19,667 people, mostly women and children.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog also said Tuesday his country was "ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid in order to enable the release of hostages".

Another Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, meanwhile, released video footage it claimed showed two hostages in its custody in Gaza, ramping up pressure on Israel.

The UN Security Council was set to vote later Wednesday on a resolution calling for a pause in the conflict, three diplomatic sources told AFP, after two previous votes were delayed as members wrangled over wording.

The US vetoed a previous ceasefire resolution, sparking condemnation by humanitarian groups, which urged more action to help civilians caught in the conflict.

For now, fighting was raging unabated after Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that troops were expanding operations in southern Gaza's Khan Yunis area.

"We must dismantle Hamas, and it will take as long as needed," he said, as the army reported 133 soldiers had been killed since ground operations began in late October.

Hamas sources said Wednesday at least 11 people were killed overnight in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip.

In Khan Yunis, residents searched by hand through the rubble of a building completely flattened by a strike.

The house was "full of people, full of human beings, why did they bomb it? What's the reason?" said one distraught young resident, Amr Sheikh-Deeb.

"We managed to remove some bodies, but where are the rest of them? What did these people do?"

The UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million residents have been displaced and concerns are growing about the limited ability of aid groups to help.

"Amid displacement at an unimaginable scale and active hostilities, the humanitarian response system is on the brink," said Tor Wennesland, the UN's special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.

Gazans are facing a perilous winter, and the UN children's agency warned that "child deaths due to disease could surpass those killed in bombardments".

The United States, while strongly backing Israel, has also urged it to protect civilians in Gaza.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron called on Israel to take a "much more surgical, clinical and targeted approach" in its battle against Hamas.

The Gaza war has sparked fears of regional escalation and seen Israel trade deadly cross-border fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels, meanwhile, have repeatedly fired missiles and drones at vessels passing through the Red Sea that they say are linked to Israel, in a show of support for Palestinians.

Major shipping firms have diverted their vessels as a result, taking the much lengthier route around Africa.

It now includes warships from the United States, which has its USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the area, as well as Britain, Canada, France, Italy and other countries.

A top Huthi official warned the rebels will keep up their attacks and that any country that acts against them "will have its ships targeted in the Red Sea".

Source: France 24

www.france24.com

Hamas chief in Egypt for talks on Gaza truce and hostage release

The leader of Hamas travelled to Egypt on Wednesday as hopes grew that Israel and the Palestinian militant group may be inching toward another truce and hostage release deal in the Gaza war.
www.france24.com www.france24.com
 
The council was initially going to vote on the draft resolution on Monday, but it has now been pushed back to Wednesday amid talks aimed at getting Joe Biden's administration to abstain or vote in favour of the resolution.

A UN Security Council vote on a resolution to increase much-needed aid deliveries to Gaza has been delayed as talks continue to avoid a third US veto over a halt in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

The 15-member council was initially going to vote on the resolution drafted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday, but it has now been pushed back to Wednesday amid talks aimed at getting Joe Biden's administration to abstain or vote in favour of the resolution.

It has been repeatedly delayed as the US and UAE are struggling to agree on language calling for a cessation of hostilities and a proposal to have the UN monitor aid into the besieged enclave.

Hamas chief in Egypt for 'intensive' talks - live updates

"We're still working through the modalities of the resolution," US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday afternoon when the vote was still set to go ahead later that day.

He added: "It's important for us that the rest of the world understand what's at stake here and what Hamas did on 7 October and how Israel has a right to defend itself against those threats."

Pressure is growing on the US to support a ceasefire, after international condemnation of civilian casualties in Gaza.

The draft resolution would demand Israel and Hamas allow land, sea and air deliveries of aid throughout Gaza and ask the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres to establish a mechanism to monitor humanitarian assistance.

The US and Israel oppose a ceasefire because they believe it would only benefit Hamas. The US has previously vetoed similar motions on the Security Council.

Washington has instead supported pauses in the fighting to protect civilians and allow the release of hostages taken by the militant group.

The draft resolution on Monday morning called for an "urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities", but this was watered down in the draft circulated on Tuesday which now "calls for the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities".

Limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza via the Rafah crossing from Egypt, under Israeli monitoring, but UN officials and aid workers have argued relief levels fail to satisfy the most basic needs of Gazans.

Some 102 aid trucks and four tankers of fuel entered Gaza via Rafah and 79 trucks entered via the newly-opened and Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday.

"This is well below the daily average of 500 truckloads (including fuel and private sector goods) that entered every working day prior to 7 October," it said in a statement.

The 193-member UN General Assembly demanded a humanitarian ceasefire earlier this month, with 153 states voting in favour, but days later the move was vetoed by the United States at the Security Council.

A seven-day pause in fighting saw Hamas release some Israeli hostages while some Palestinians were freed from Israeli jails, as well as an increase in aid to Gaza - but that ended on 1 December.

It comes as Hamas' political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, arrived in Egypt's capital Cairo for talks amid negotiations over the ceasefire and the release of more hostages held by the militant group.

Source: Sky News

news.sky.com

UN Security Council vote on Gaza aid delayed again over talks with US on ceasefire

The council was initially going to vote on the draft resolution on Monday, but it has now been pushed back to Wednesday amid talks aimed at getting Joe Biden's administration to abstain or vote in favour of the resolution.
news.sky.com news.sky.com
 
FearlessRoar said:
They are not just engaging in genocide, they are also erasing their identities and heritages.
Click to expand...

Yup.

This is not just a war on Hamas. This is a Palestinian genocide. This is also turning out to be a land grab (like they have been doing for decades).

Israel seems to want to take over Gaza, West Bank, and possibly lands from other nearby countries also. Greater Israel project?
 
sweep_shot said:
Yup.

This is not just a war on Hamas. This is a Palestinian genocide. This is also turning out to be a land grab (like they have been doing for decades).

Israel seems to want to take over Gaza, West Bank, and possibly lands from other nearby countries also. Greater Israel project?
Click to expand...
Certainly, and I believe Hamas is currently helpless now as none of Muslim country stood up in favor of them in terms of actions. Their leader is already in Egypt for negotiations.
 
Hamas Leader Haniyeh Arrives in Cairo to Discuss Gaza Truce

The head of Hamas’ political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for talks aimed at brokering a new ceasefire deal between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Resistance, France 24 reported.

The French news agency quoted a source in the Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas as saying that Haniyeh and his delegation will hold several meetings there, most notably with the director of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel.

According to the source, the discussions will address “stopping the aggression and war in preparation for a prisoner exchange deal, ending the siege on the Gaza Strip, introducing aid, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and the return of the displaced to their cities and villages in Gaza and the northern Gaza Strip.”

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Tuesday that informed Israeli sources confirmed that Tel Aviv is determined to achieve a breakthrough in the talks, despite knowing that it will pay a heavy price.

Source : The Palestine Chronicles
 
I don't know whether World has become dumb or what. They must end the bloodbath in Palestine or else risk a major war in the region engulfing other countries also.
 
Palestinian death toll in Gaza nears 20,000 with nearly 2 million people displaced

Israeli forces killed 25 people in bombings in southern Gaza, hit a refugee camp in the north and raided one of the area’s last operating hospitals, as the number of Palestinians killed in the territory climbed towards 20,000.

The death toll from airstrikes and grim conditions for nearly 2 million people displaced from their homes with little access to food, clean water or sanitation is fuelling growing international anger, even among Israel’s close allies.

In Rafah in southern Gaza, a series of Israeli airstrikes hit three adjacent homes killing 25 people, according to Palestinian media reports, and a further 10 were killed in a strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in the north.

Recent attacks inside a church compound and a school in Gaza, and a raid that shut down one of the last operating hospitals in Gaza City, have also heightened concerns about protection of civilians as a report of prisoner deaths in Israeli custody in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has raised fresh questions about how Israel is prosecuting its war.

The US appears increasingly isolated in its steadfast support for a military campaign now entering its 11th week as the UN security council was weighing up a new resolution calling for the suspension of hostilities to allow for greater flows of humanitarian aid under UN monitoring.

The 14 other council members were locked in negotiation with the US on wording that would avoid a repeat US veto and the vote was postponed until Wednesday amid disagreements between US diplomats and the White House, which was insisting on a text that put less pressure on Israel and gave it a more explicit role in deciding what goods could enter Gaza, according to sources at the UN.

Source : The Guardian
 

Poll Finds Wide Disapproval of Biden on Gaza, and Little Room to Shift Gears​

Voters broadly disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the bloody strife between Israelis and Palestinians, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found, with younger Americans far more critical than older voters of both Israel’s conduct and of the administration’s response to the war in Gaza.

Voters are also sending decidedly mixed signals about the direction U.S. policy-making should take as the war in Gaza grinds into its third month, with Israelis still reeling from the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, thousands of Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the Biden administration trying to pressure Israel to scale back its military campaign. Nearly as many Americans want Israel to continue its military campaign as want it to stop now to avoid further civilian casualties.

That split appears to leave the president with few politically palatable options.

The findings of the Times/Siena poll hold portents not only for Mr. Biden as he enters the 2024 re-election year but also for long-term relations between the Jewish state and its most powerful benefactor, the United States.

The fractured views on the conflict among traditionally Democratic voter groups show the continued difficulty Mr. Biden faces of holding together the coalition he built in 2020 — a challenge that is likely to persist even as economic indicators grow more positive and legal troubles swirl around his expected opponent, former President Donald J. Trump.

Source : The New York Times
 

Hamas leader visits Egypt amid intensive talks on new ceasefire​

CAIRO/GAZA/JERUSALEM, Dec 20 (Reuters) - The leader of Hamas paid his first visit to Egypt for more than a month on Wednesday, a rare personal intervention in diplomacy amid what a source described as intensive talks on a new ceasefire to let aid reach Gaza and free more hostages.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who normally resides in Qatar, typically wades publicly into diplomacy only when progress seems likely. He last travelled to Egypt in early November before the announcement of the only deal on a ceasefire in the Gaza war so far, a week-long pause that saw the release of about 110 of 240 hostages taken by Hamas in its Oct. 7 rampage into Israel.

Islamic Jihad, a smaller Palestinian militant group that is also holding hostages in Gaza, said its leader would also visit Egypt in coming days to discuss a possible end to the conflict.

A source briefed on negotiations said envoys were intensively discussing which of the hostages still held by Palestinian Islamist militants in Gaza could be freed in a new truce and what prisoners Israel might release in return.

Israel was insisting all remaining women and infirm men among hostages be released, the source said, declining to be identified. Palestinians convicted of serious offences could be on the list of prisoners to be freed by Israel.

Later on Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden said he did not expect a second Israel-Hamas hostage release deal to be struck soon, though he added in remarks to reporters: "We're pushing."

A United Nations Security Council vote on a bid to boost aid to the Gaza Strip has again been delayed at the request of the U.S., diplomats said.

Nearly 20,000 deaths have been confirmed dead by the Gazan health ministry, with several thousand more bodies believed to be trapped under rubble. Israel says Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people, mainly civilians, on Oct. 7.

NETANYAHU DEFIANT ON CEASEFIRE CALLS
There remains a huge gulf between the two sides' publicly stated positions on any halt to fighting. Hamas rejects any further temporary pause and says it will discuss only a permanent ceasefire. Israel has ruled that out and says it will agree only limited humanitarian pauses until Hamas is defeated.

"Hamas' stance remains: they don't have a desire for humanitarian pauses. Hamas wants a complete end to the Israeli war on Gaza," a Palestinian official said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated that the war would end only with Hamas eradicated, all hostages freed and Gaza posing no more threat to Israel.

"Whoever thinks we will stop is detached from reality...All Hamas terrorists, from the first to the last, are dead men walking," he said in a statement on Wednesday.

Israel has faced increasing pressure from its Western allies to curb a military onslaught in Gaza that has laid waste to much of the densely populated coastal enclave.

The U.S., Israel's closest ally, has stepped up calls in the past week for it to scale down its all-out war into a focused campaign against Hamas leaders and end what Biden has called "indiscriminate bombing" causing huge civilian casualties.

In a serious spillover from the war, Yemen's Houthi forces have been firing missiles and drones at commercial shipping in the Red Sea to underline support from Iran's Arab militia proxies for the Palestinians against Israel, and the U.S. this week set up a multinational force to ward off the attacks.

On Wednesday, the Houthis' leader warned they would strike U.S. warships if their forces were targeted by Washington.

INTENSIFYING WAR
Inside Gaza, Reuters saw wounded victims of Israeli bombing, including at least two small children covered in blood and dust, carried into the Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. At the hospital morgue, women wearing black abaya robes wailed by bodies laid out in black bags and white shrouds.

Since the last truce collapsed on Dec. 1, the war has entered a more intensive phase, with ground combat previously confined to the northern half of the Gaza Strip now spread across the length of the territory.

International aid groups say Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven to the brink of catastrophe by wholesale destruction that has driven 90% of them from their homes and left many malnourished and gravely short of clean water and medical care.

In the north, which Israeli forces claimed to have largely subdued last month, fighting has been fiercer than ever. Flames and smoke towered into the sky as seen from across the boundary fence in Israel, as Israeli warplanes pounded the area at dawn.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces had besieged its ambulance depot in Jabalia, a northern settlement that has been embattled for weeks. There are 127 people in the facility including workers, displaced people and wounded.

In the south, where most civilians are now sheltering after fleeing other areas, there has been intense fighting around the centre of Khan Younis, which Israeli forces have partly stormed.

Hamas has waged guerrilla-style warfare based on a vast web of underground tunnels where it has hidden fighters, weaponry and, Israel says, political leaders and armed-wing commanders.

On Wednesday, Israel's military said soldiers had unearthed a network of tunnels, accessed by spiral staircases and an elevator, running deep beneath central Gaza City from properties registered to Yahya Sinwar and other senior Hamas figures. They had used the tunnels for "protected daily movement", it said.

Reuters could not independently verify the information provided. Israel has yet to find Hamas leaders despite taking control of some areas of Gaza. It accuses Hamas of purposely locating tunnels and other military infrastructure among civilians and using them as human shields. Hamas denies this.

Source: Reuters
 
It seems Hamas is serious towards the ceasefire but Netanyahu wants this war to carry on for another few weeks at least.
 
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that fighting terrorism did not mean "to flatten Gaza", referring to Israel's response to an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on October 7.

"We cannot let the idea take root that an efficient fight against terrorism implies to flatten Gaza or attack civilian populations indiscriminately," Macron told the France 5 broadcaster.

He called on Israel "to stop this response because it is not appropriate, because all lives are worth the same and we defend them".


Source: NDTV
 
The Bald Eagle said:
I don't know whether World has become dumb or what. They must end the bloodbath in Palestine or else risk a major war in the region engulfing other countries also.
Click to expand...

Perhaps they are hopeful of a final solution like Hitler aimed for in the second world war.
 
The Bald Eagle said:
I don't know whether World has become dumb or what. They must end the bloodbath in Palestine or else risk a major war in the region engulfing other countries also.
Click to expand...

The world has always been dumb. Historians estimate that only during the period 27 BC to 180 AD did humanity live without conflict.

We are a warring species and have always been.
 
An Israeli commander has pledged that the "entire" Gaza Strip will be razed to the ground.

Yair Ben David, a commander in the 2908th Battalion, said in a video posted on social media, that they had “entered Beit Hanoun and did there as Shimon and Levi did in Nablus,” referring to the biblical story in which all the male inhabitants of the city were massacred.

“The entire Gaza should resemble Beit Hanoun,” he added, referring to the ruined city in northern Gaza.

“Gaza must look like Beit Hanoun today.”

David said that the destruction was “only the beginning” and would instil “fear among the nations around us, in the cities of Lebanon, in the cities of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and among all those sitting around us who think it's possible to harm the dignity of the people of Israel.”

On Wednesday, the Israeli army said it was concluding offensives in "Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, Shejaiya, and Daraj-Tuffah,” in northern Gaza.

Following Israeli evacuation orders, the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million population fled to designated “safe” areas in the south.

But southern cities like Khan Younis have emerged as one of the main battlegrounds of the conflict.

More than two months of relentless Israeli bombardment and ground offensives that began after a surprise Hamas offensive on 7 October have pulverised the besieged Strip, killing over 20,000 people and displacing more than 85 percent of the population. More than a third of Gaza’s homes have been destroyed.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed on Thursday that there were no functional hospitals left in northern Gaza, with only nine out of 26 health facilities “partially functioning”- all of them based in the south.

On Monday, Israeli politician David Azoulay called for the forced displacement of Palestinians to Lebanon and the flattening of Gaza, which he said should be turned into a museum "just like in Auschwitz," the Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that combating terrorism did not mean "to flatten Gaza

"We cannot let the idea take root that an efficient fight against terrorism implies to flatten Gaza or attack civilian populations indiscriminately," Macron told the France 5 broadcaster.


Source: Middle East Eye

www.middleeasteye.net

Israeli commander vows to flatten 'entire' Gaza Strip

Israeli commander says the rest of Gaza will be reduced to rubble like the northern city of Beit Hanoun
www.middleeasteye.net www.middleeasteye.net
 
Of course, it is evident from their actions that they want to flatten the Gaza Strip.
 
Israel’s Ceasefire Offer – What We Know So Far

Hamas informed the mediators that it is not ready to discuss any humanitarian or comprehensive deal without a ceasefire.
Israeli media reported details of an offer made by the Israeli government to mediators regarding a new prisoner exchange deal. The offer was reportedly rejected by the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, which refused to start negotiations without a ceasefire.

According to Al-Jazeera, Israeli Channel 13 reported that the Israeli proposal included the release of 30 to 40 captives currently held by Hamas in exchange for the release of prominent Palestinian detainees, a partial withdrawal from some areas in the besieged Strip, and a humanitarian truce for a period of two weeks to a month.

For its part, the Jerusalem Post newspaper reported that Israel informed Qatar that it was ready for a one-week truce, in exchange for the release of 40 captives held by Hamas.

The newspaper quoted senior Israeli officials and a foreign source as saying that Israel sent a proposal via Qatar to Hamas to reach a new agreement to release the “hostages.”

On the other hand, Al-Jazeera learned from sources close to the prisoner exchange negotiations that Hamas informed the mediators that it is not ready to discuss any humanitarian or comprehensive deal without a ceasefire.

The sources also confirmed to Al-Jazeera that the current visit of the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, to Cairo, is not aimed at discussing the details of a new prisoner deal, but rather the lift of the Gaza siege and the entry of humanitarian aid.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the negotiations “were set to include, for the first time, representatives of Hamas ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has also said that Israel must implement a ceasefire before negotiations could start.”

Moreover, the PIJ “also demands that Israel free all of its thousands of Palestinian prisoners in return for the over 100 hostages remaining in Gaza.”

Source : The Palestine Chronicle
 
Israel is in a fool's paradise they can't wipe out Hamas instead would end up wiping their own existence due to their stupid policies.
 
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