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

Does the killing of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon have the potential to expand the war beyond Gaza?

The killing of the Hamas political leader Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon has all the potential to ignite a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Israel insists that his assassination was not an attack on Lebanon but at the same time its enemies have warned of "punishment" over his death.

An Israeli spokesman said Saleh al-Arouri had died in a "surgical strike against the Hamas leadership" but Israel has also neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in the attack.

Hamas condemned the death, while Hezbollah said it was an assault on Lebanese sovereignty. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran.

Lebanon's prime minister, meanwhile, accused Israel of trying "to drag Lebanon into... confrontation".

Kobi Michael served as the deputy director general and head of the Palestinian desk at Israel's Ministry for Strategic Affairs. He's now a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, so Newsday asked him whether Israel was behind the drone attack on the senior Hamas leader.

"Saleh al-Arouri was considered to be a political leader; he was first of all a military leader responsible for many terror attacks... and tightening relations with Iran. This was part of the war. But Israel does distinguish between Hezbollah and Hamas and [in] this operation Hamas was the target, not Hezbollah."

Source: BBC
 
Biden under pressure to act amid new fears of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza

Rights advocates in the United States are urging President Joe Biden to end his administration’s “complicity” in Israeli rights abuses after key members of Israel’s government backed the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza.

Far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich said this week that Israel should “encourage emigration” from the coastal enclave, home to an estimated 2.3 million Palestinians.
Israel has been carrying out a military offensive in Gaza since October 7, resulting in an estimated 1.9 million Palestinians being internally displaced, according to the United Nations.

“If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after [the war ends] will be totally different,” Smotrich said on Sunday, calling for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians.

A day later, Ben-Gvir, who oversees national security, made a similar appeal, saying it was “a correct, just, moral and humane solution”, Israeli media outlets reported.

Their remarks are the latest by Israeli officials alluding to the prospect of resettling Palestinians outside of Gaza. Human rights and legal experts have warned that forced displacement constitutes a war crime under international law and could lead to ethnic cleansing.

“It’s not really ‘voluntary’ when you’re bombing homes and starving the entire population,” said Rasha Mubarak, a Palestinian American organiser.

Mubarak told Al Jazeera that the Biden administration has not only failed to condemn Israeli officials’ push to get Palestinians out of Gaza, but it has also contributed to the war by providing Israel with continued military aid and diplomatic support.

“They have played an immense part in this genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,” she said.

Source : Al Jazeera
 
Foreign Ministry says it has ‘zero budget’ for combating antisemitism abroad

Despite the recent surge in attacks and harassment against Diaspora Jews, Israel’s diplomatic service has no money to combat antisemitism abroad, the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Combating Antisemitism claimed on Wednesday.

“Until now, the ministry has invested hundreds of thousands of shekels in the fight to prevent antisemitism around the world,” but “today we are operating in a situation of zero budget and we cannot assist diplomats around the world in their activities against antisemitism,” Ruth Cohen-Dar, the director of the ministry’s Department for Combating Antisemitism, testified before the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs.

Since 2015, Netanyahu has overseen a significant shrinking of the Foreign Ministry’s budget, leading to repeated wage disputes — including one in 2019 during which Israeli embassies and consulates around the world shut down in protest after the treasury reportedly backtracked on previous agreements and said it would force the envoys to pay back thousands of dollars that they had been reimbursed for expenses.

Antisemitic incidents have risen precipitously across Europe and the United States since October 7, when thousands of terrorists burst through the Gaza border fence, massacring some 1,200 people, abducting over 240 and prompting a wide-ranging Israeli ground operation to dismantle the Hamas regime in Gaza.

A senior Israeli diplomat told The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity that Cohen-Dar was right.

"There has not been any substantial funding for the last couple of weeks and it’s not clear when there will be funding. This hinders our diplomatic activities very much and also those that have to do with fighting antisemitism.”

A second diplomat concurred, declaring that there were “a lot of activities that we could do” if money were available — such as creating classroom curricula in collaboration with education ministries abroad, organizing conferences, and hiring dedicated embassy staffers to deal with the issue.

“If I want to do a conference, I don’t have a budget to rent a hall. This is ridiculous. We’re not talking about millions,” the diplomat said.

And while Diaspora Affairs Ministry Deputy Director General Amit Efrati told the committee that his department had allocated NIS 8 million ($2.2 million) for protecting Jewish institutions around the world along with programs in Jewish schools, the diplomat said that this was not enough.

“You have to have someone on the ground” who can deal with the unique manifestation of antisemitism in each country and can cultivate “influential contacts with the local government and even lobby for laws” against antisemitism, they said.

But a ministry source told The Times of Israel that it’s misleading to say that there is no budget for combating antisemitism, explaining that the foreign service had yet to receive its overall 2024 budget and that there was no special budget category for dealing with the issue, which is subsumed under broader allocations for “public diplomacy.”

According to a report presented at the hearing by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, antisemitic incidents rose by 211 percent in Toronto and 162% in London since the outbreak of the current war.

Last month, the Anti-Defamation League reported that it had recorded 2,031 incidents in the US between October 7 and December 7, the highest-ever two-month number since it began tracking in 1979. In the UK, the Community Security Trust said that, as of mid-December, it had “recorded at least 2,093 antisemitic incidents,” which it said was “more antisemitic incidents than the total reported throughout the entire year prior to Hamas’s attack.”

“There has to be an organized action plan for combating antisemitism around the world,” MK Moshe Roth (United Torah Judaism), an American immigrant, demanded during the hearing.

Israel “should invest resources in filing lawsuits against organizations and institutions that are involved in the dissemination of antisemitism,” he said, arguing that Haredi Jews, “who are identified as Jews in the most distinct way, suffer from global antisemitism more than any other demographic.”

Source: Times of Israel

www.timesofisrael.com

Foreign Ministry says it has ‘zero budget’ for combating antisemitism abroad

'There has not been any substantial funding for the last couple of weeks,' diplomat tells Times of Israel
www.timesofisrael.com www.timesofisrael.com
 
By killing an Hamas leader in Lebanon, Israel has just shot itself on foot. Now they should remain ready for the devastation and war on two fronts.
 
US slams Israeli ministers' statements on resettlement of Palestinians outside Gaza

The US State Department on Tuesday slammed recent statements from Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir that advocated for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza, calling the rhetoric "inflammatory and irresponsible."

The comments from the ministers appeared to underscore fears in much of the Arab world that Israel wants to drive Palestinians out of land where they want to build a future state, repeating the mass dispossession of Palestinians when Israel was created in 1948.

Finance Minister Smotrich, one of the senior figures in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, called on Sunday for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave the besieged enclave. National Security Minister Ben-Gvir also said the war in Gaza presented an "opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza."

"This rhetoric is inflammatory and irresponsible. We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the government of Israel, including by the Prime Minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government," the State Department said in a statement, saying such statements should "stop immediately."

"We have been clear, consistent, and unequivocal that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel."

Smotrich's hard-right Religious Zionism Party draws support from Israel's settler community and helped Netanyahu secure the majority he needed to become prime minister for the sixth time a year ago. Remarks previously from Ben-Gvir have also irked US President Joe Biden, who said in December the Israeli minister and his allies want to have "retribution" against all Palestinians.

Source : Reuters
 
Education Department official resigns over Biden administration’s approach to Israel-Hamas war

A Department of Education political appointee resigned on Wednesday, citing in a letter the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The resignation by Tariq Habash, policy adviser in the DOE’s Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, comes as the conflict – which erupted with Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel – nears its third month with no sign of abating and follows a previous public departure from the administration over its handling of the war.

“It should go without saying that all violence against innocent people is horrific. I mourn each and every loss, Israeli and Palestinian,” Habash said in the two-page letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. “But I cannot represent an administration that does not value all human life equally. I cannot stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives.”

Asked for comment on Habash’s resignation, a Department of Education spokesperson said in a statement, “We wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

Speaking to CNN’s Abby Phillip on Wednesday, Habash called out President Joe Biden directly.

“The refusal by the president to call for an an immediate and permanent ceasefire is untenable with the belief by millions of Americans across this country,” he said on “NewsNight.”

Biden has faced mounting pressure to call for a ceasefire in the conflict. The president has touted his support for Israel to defend itself, but has also highlighted his administration’s push for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. And he’s urged Israel to focus on saving civilian lives, while warning that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu risks losing international support over its bombardment of Gaza.

The president said last month that the US “will continue to lead the world in humanitarian assistance to innocent Palestinian civilians, to emphasize to our friends, our Israeli friends, we need to protect civilian life.”

Habash’s resignation follows that of former State Department official Josh Paul, who in October announced that he would be departing “due to a policy disagreement concerning our continued lethal assistance to Israel.”

Habash called upon Biden: “He is the one who has the power with a phone call to end this violence, to make demands of the Israeli government, to end the indiscriminate violence against Palestinians,” he told Phillip.

Since the onset of the war, Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed at least 22,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

As a Palestinian American, Habash said in the letter that he had brought “a critical and underrepresented perspective” to the Biden administration’s “ongoing work on equity and justice.”

Habash also pointed in the letter to the impact of the conflict in the US where “Jewish, Muslim, and Arab students on college campuses have expressed feeling less safe.”

“The Department of Education must play an active role in supporting institutions as they respond to the needs of students, faculty, and staff. This includes protecting all students who choose to exercise their first amendment right to engage in nonviolent actions, including expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza who have suffered tremendously in recent weeks and for years before the current ongoing violence,” he wrote.

Source : CNN
 
Israeli military strikes south Lebanon stoking fears of widening conflict

Several Hezbollah members have been killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon in one of the deadliest days for the Iran-aligned group as cross-border fighting has escalated since the start of the Gaza war in October.

At least nine members of the group were killed in separate attacks on Wednesday, the Reuters news agency reported.

The Israeli military released nighttime videos of the attacks, including those on Hezbollah military infrastructure and “observation devices” in the village of Yaroun in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate, located across the border from the Israeli settlements of Yir’on and Avivim in northern Israel.

The grainy footage appears to show Israeli bombs hitting and destroying several residential buildings near other civilian buildings.

“Launches” were also detected crossing Lebanese territory that fell in open areas in northern Israel’s Goren settlement area, the Israeli military said.

Since October 8, continuing clashes at the border between the Israeli army and Hezbollah have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Lebanese civilians and more than 140 Hezbollah members. Israel and armed groups in southern Lebanon – some 200km (124 miles) from the Gaza Strip, particularly Hezbollah, have engaged in frequent back-and-forth exchanges across the United Nations-patrolled Israel-Lebanon border.



www.aljazeera.com

Israeli military strikes south Lebanon stoking fears of widening conflict

Attacks on Hezbollah military infrastructure follow the killing of Hamas leader in Beirut, which Israel has not claimed.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold public hearings in proceedings launched by South Africa against Israel over the Gaza war on Jan. 11 and 12, it said on Wednesday.

South Africa had asked the ICJ on Friday for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention in its crackdown against Hamas.

Israel had said it would appear before the court to contest the accusations.

The court usually takes one or two weeks to issue a decision on emergency measures after the hearings. The court's rulings are final but it has no authority to enforce them.


Source: Reuters
 
Israel dropped 65,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza in 89 days

'The weight of the explosives dropped by the army on the Gaza Strip exceeded 65,000 tonnes, which is more than the weight and power of three nuclear bombs like those dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.'

Source : The Middle East Monitor
 
The Bald Eagle said:
Israel dropped 65,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza in 89 days

'The weight of the explosives dropped by the army on the Gaza Strip exceeded 65,000 tonnes, which is more than the weight and power of three nuclear bombs like those dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.'

Source : The Middle East Monitor
Click to expand...
This is incomprehensible especially considering how small the land is. Every milestone they reach just seems so unbelievabale and the continued support of the US is sickening. Latest from US press conference: "I would just tell you that we have not seen anything that would convince us that we need to take a different approach in terms of trying to help Israel defend itself,”
This kind of unconditional support for a regime like Israel is kinda creepy
 
Saleh al-Arouri: Thousands attend Hamas deputy leader's funeral in Beirut

Thousands of people have attended the funeral in Beirut of Saleh al-Arouri, the top Hamas leader assassinated in a suspected Israeli attack in the Lebanese capital two days ago.

Crowds carried banners with his picture and waved Palestinian and Hamas flags through the streets amid the sound of music, prayers and heavy gunfire, while Hamas officials vowed to retaliate.

The assassination of Arouri was a blow for Hamas - he was a deputy Hamas leader and a key figure in the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the group's armed wing - and renewed fears of a wider war in the region. It also hit its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian-backed movement, as it struck Dahiyeh, a suburb of the city that is a stronghold for the group.

In Lebanon, again, the focus is on what Hassan Nasrallah, the influential Hezbollah leader, will decide to do.

Less than 24 hours after the attack, he addressed his followers, in a speech that had been scheduled to commemorate the Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, killed in a US drone strike four years ago. He could not ignore what had just happened in his own backyard.



www.bbc.com

Saleh al-Arouri: Thousands attend Hamas deputy leader's funeral in Beirut

Al-Arouri, a deputy political leader of Hamas, was killed in an attack in Beirut on Tuesday.
www.bbc.com
 
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has outlined proposals for the future governance of Gaza once the war between Israel and Hamas is over.

There would, he said, be limited Palestinian rule in the territory.

Hamas would no longer control Gaza and Israel would retain overall security control, he added.

Fighting in Gaza continued alongside the plan's publication, with dozens of people killed in the previous 24 hours, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due back in the region this week. He is expected to hold talks with Palestinian officials in the occupied West Bank and Israeli leaders.

Under Mr Gallant's now "four corner" plan, Israel would retain overall security control of Gaza.

A multi-national force would take charge of rebuilding the territory after the widespread destruction caused by Israeli bombing.

Neighbouring Egypt would also have an unspecified role to play under the plan.

But the document adds that Palestinians would be responsible for running the territory.

"Gaza residents are Palestinian, therefore Palestinian bodies will be in charge, with the condition that there will be no hostile actions or threats against the State of Israel," Mr Gallant said.

The plan was not discussed in any detail in the cabinet meeting and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly commented on it. The meeting is reported to have broken up amid acrimony with some ministers angrily objecting to names put forward for an investigation into the events surrounding the 7 October attack by Hamas.

Talk of the "day after" in Gaza has led to deep disagreement in Israel.

Some far right-wing members of Mr Netanyahu's government have said that Palestinian citizens should be encouraged to leave Gaza for exile, with the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in the territory - controversial proposals that have been rejected as "extremist" and "unworkable" by other countries in the region and by some of Israel's allies.

While Mr Gallant's proposals may be regarded as more practical than those suggested by some of his cabinet colleagues, they are likely to be rejected by Palestinian leaders who say that Gazans themselves must be allowed to take full control of running the territory once this devastating war is over.

Mr Netanyahu has not publicly talked in any detail about how he thinks Gaza should be governed.

He has suggested that the war in Gaza may yet last several months, with the avowed goal being to completely crush Hamas.

Mr Gallant's plan also outlined how the Israeli military aims to proceed in the next phase of the war in Gaza.

He said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would take a more targeted approach in the north of the Gaza Strip, where operations will include raids, demolishing tunnels and air and ground strikes.

In the south, the Israeli military would continue to try to track down Hamas leaders and rescue Israeli hostages, he said.

On Thursday, the IDF said it had hit areas in Gaza's north and south, including Gaza City and Khan Younis.

It said it had conducted strikes on "terrorist infrastructure" and had killed people who it described as militants, who it said had tried to detonate an explosive next to soldiers.

It also announced that it had killed a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative, Mamdouh Lolo, in an air strike.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 125 people had been killed in the past 24 hours across the Strip.

A health ministry official said 14 people - including nine children - were killed by Israeli air strikes in al-Mawasi, to the west of Khan Younis.

The small town has been designated a "safe space" by Israeli forces for displaced Palestinians. The IDF has not commented on the claims made by Hamas.

"We were sleeping at midnight when a strike hit the camp on the tents, 4x2 tents where people were sleeping, most of them children," eyewitness Jamal Hamad Salah told Reuters news agency. "We found one body there that flew 40 metres away."

"There is nowhere safe in Gaza," aid agency Save the Children's country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, Jason Lee, said. "Camps, shelters, schools, hospitals, homes and so-called 'safe zones' should not be battlegrounds."

The total number of people killed in Gaza since the start of Israel's retaliatory campaign had reached more than 22,400 by Thursday - comprising almost 1% of the enclave's 2.3 million population, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

Israel's offensive started after Hamas gunmen launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage.

Source: BBC

www.bbc.com

Israeli minister outlines plans for Gaza after war

The plans are unveiled by the defence minister as fighting rages on in the Palestinian territory.
www.bbc.com
 
At least two rockets were fired from Lebanon at the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona.

Local authorities say one projectile was intercepted, while the second landed in open areas, causing no injuries.

Sirens had sounded in the city, as well as the adjacent community of Kfar Giladi.

Source: Times of Israel

www.timesofisrael.com

At least two rockets fired from Lebanon at Kiryat Shmona

* * *
www.timesofisrael.com www.timesofisrael.com
 
It looks like things are heating up between Lebanon and Israel. I've got a feeling we might see another war between them soon. Once that Gaza and Israel conflict started, it seems to me like there's no stopping these escalations.
 

Israel war on Gaza updates: South Gaza attacks to continue – Defence chief​

Israeli defence minister Gallant says military operations in south Gaza, which in the past have induced bombing of refugee camps and ‘safe zones’, will continue.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health says 125 people are killed and 318 injured in a 24-hour period.Thousands of people gather for senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri’s funeral in Beirut.

At least 22,438 people have been killed and at least 57,614 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll from the October 7 attack on Israel stands at 1,139.

Source : Al Jazeera
 
Israeli minister lays out post-war Gaza plan as fighting rages

Israel’s defense minister has publicly presented for the first time proposals for the post-war administration of Gaza, where officials said Friday unrelenting bombardment has killed dozens over 24 hours.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s plan for the “day after,” shared with the media late Thursday but not yet adopted by Israel’s war cabinet, says that neither Israel nor Hamas will govern Gaza and rejects future Jewish settlements there.

The minister’s broad outline was unveiled on the eve of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s fourth trip to the region since a Hamas attack on October 7 triggered the war.

Questions over the future of the besieged Palestinian territory have multiplied as Israel insists it will continue with its military operations despite international calls for a cease-fire.

Much of the Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble, while civilian deaths have soared and the UN has warned of a humanitarian crisis that has left hundreds of thousands displaced, facing famine and disease.

Bombing continued through the night in the southern areas of Khan Yunis and Rafah as well as parts of central Gaza, according to AFP correspondents.

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

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said it had recorded 162 deaths also over the past 24 hours.



 
Cricket Warrior said:
Israeli minister lays out post-war Gaza plan as fighting rages

Israel’s defense minister has publicly presented for the first time proposals for the post-war administration of Gaza, where officials said Friday unrelenting bombardment has killed dozens over 24 hours.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s plan for the “day after,” shared with the media late Thursday but not yet adopted by Israel’s war cabinet, says that neither Israel nor Hamas will govern Gaza and rejects future Jewish settlements there.
Click to expand...
So basically turn Gaza into an Israeli colony as the world watches.
 

Israel-Gaza war: Hezbollah claims 62 rockets fired at Israeli post - as key shipping route remains under threat​

Hezbollah claims it has fired 62 rockets at a key Israeli observation post as a "preliminary response" to the assassination of Hamas's deputy leader this week.

As tensions grow in the Middle East amid Israel's war in Gaza, fears of the conflict spreading to more Western commercial ships also remain - with Iran warning of an "all-out battle with the enemy".

On Saturday morning, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it hit an elevated hilltop that Israel relied on for "aerial observation" and "air control".

Sirens sounded across northern Israel, with its military saying "approximately 40 launches from Lebanon toward the area of Meron in northern Israel were identified", though there are no reports of casualties or damage.

Later on Saturday, Lebanon's Jama'a Islamiya said it had also fired two volleys of rockets at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, in the third operation claimed by the hardline Sunni Muslim group since the conflict began.

After meeting the Lebanese foreign minister in Beirut, the EU's senior diplomat Josep Borrell said he is seeing a "worrying intensification" of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border.

"Diplomatic channels have to stay open, war is not the only option - it's the worst option," he said, adding it is important that Lebanon not be dragged into the Gaza conflict.

Hezbollah had said the death of Saleh al Aroui - a founder of Hamas's military wing who was killed in an Israeli drone strike in a Beirut suburb on Tuesday - would not go unanswered.

Hezbollah's head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday being "silent" would leave all of Lebanon vulnerable to more attacks.

Analysts believe Israel's drone strike could be a message to Hamas's ally, Hezbollah, that even its prime stronghold of Dahiyeh is not beyond Israel's reach.

Danger for shipping routes

Meanwhile, as concerns grow over key shipping routes where Iran's allies have been attacking vessels, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards vowed on Saturday to reach "the enemy".

The UK's Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has since said attacks on Red Sea shipping routes may impact the British economy.

Asked whether the attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi militants in Yemen could mean rising prices in the UK, Mr Hunt told the BBC: "It may have an impact and we'll watch it very, very carefully."

British maritime security firm Ambrey said on Saturday it had received a report of a maritime security event in the Red Sea's Bab al Mandab area.

Without elaborating, it advised crews to minimise deck movements and that only essential crew should be on the bridge.

Later on Saturday, United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations reported six small craft approaching a merchant vessel to within one nautical mile in the area of the Red Sea near Yemen.

Guards commander Hossein Salami did not name a specific enemy in his speech, but 22 nations - including the UK - have agreed to join a US-led coalition to protect commercial routes in the Red Sea.

Since the conflict made Red Sea routes more dangerous, many shipping companies have switched to the longer and more costly route around Africa's Cape of Good Hope.

"We need to defend our national interests to wherever they extend," Mr Salami said in a televised speech.

"It will be harmful for the enemy to be found near and at a half distant. They should stay away from this area."

According to Iranian media, Iran's Alborz warship entered the Red Sea earlier this month to secure shipping routes.

Talks in Turkey

As neighbouring countries continue to criticise Israel, a Turkish court decided on Friday to formally arrest 15 people and deport eight others suspected of being linked to Israeli intelligence.

Israel continues to bombard Gaza in response to Hamas's 7 October attack, during which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 240 hostages were taken back to Gaza.

Israel believes 129 hostages remain, while Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says the onslaught has killed 22,722 Palestinians - 122 of those in the past 24 hours.

Much of Gaza has been laid to waste, with UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffith warning on Friday it has become a place of "death and despair".

Pro-Palestinian protests have continued around the world, with demonstrators staging a sit-in at Westminster Bridge in London on Saturday, with several arrests made.

Source: SKY
 
This war seems to be expanding and it is not a good sign for the entire region.
 

Israel war on Gaza: Children dying ‘in every possible way’​

On average, the number of children being killed every day in the enclave ‘is well over 100’, a Doctors Without Borders doctor warns.

At least 22 Palestinians killed after Israeli attacks targeted a house in Khan Younis overnight.
Israeli forces raiding locations across the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem with reports of fierce Palestinian resistance.

At least 22,722 people killed and 58,166 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll from the October 7 attack on Israel stands at 1,139.

Source : Al Jazeera
 
The Bald Eagle said:

Israel war on Gaza: Children dying ‘in every possible way’​

On average, the number of children being killed every day in the enclave ‘is well over 100’, a Doctors Without Borders doctor warns.

At least 22 Palestinians killed after Israeli attacks targeted a house in Khan Younis overnight.
Israeli forces raiding locations across the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem with reports of fierce Palestinian resistance.

At least 22,722 people killed and 58,166 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll from the October 7 attack on Israel stands at 1,139.

Source : Al Jazeera
Click to expand...
Curse be on the perpetrators of these evils. They can't escape their ignominious fate and God willing will suffer the worst possible endings to their own lives.
 

‘Israelis turned Palestine into hell’: Sri Lankan evacuees fear for family in Gaza​


When Fathima Rikaza left Gaza in November, it was to bring her children to safety and wait to return to her Palestinian husband’s homeland. She can only pray now that they will see their father again.

Rikaza married Abdul Lateef 14 years ago, when he came to Sri Lanka to study English. After living eight years in her native Colombo, they moved with their children to Gaza to visit his family.Her husband had a fruit shop and they decided to stay.“I opted to settle down,” she told Arab News. “Life was good.”

Then, in October, daily Israeli airstrikes deprived them of any sense of safety and peace.“Israelis turned Palestine into hell for us. We have practically lost everything,” she said.“Every minute anything could happen. We have kept an emergency backpack ready. It contained two dresses and a praying mat. And even at night we slept fully dressed, to run away anytime.”A month later, she and her four children were among the few thousand people with foreign passports who were evacuated from Gaza.Rikaza’s husband stayed behind with his ailing mother and disabled sister.

“My husband’s family lost 50 people. We did not know what would happen in the next minute,” she said.“It became difficult to stay there, so my husband asked me to go to the Rafah border and contact our Sri Lankan embassy, and they helped us.”They now live in Colombo with her sister.In Sri Lanka, her children can at least sleep, and she will be able to fulfill the promise she gave her husband that she would send them back to school.

Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza for the past three months has destroyed not only 70 percent of its homes, but also most of the enclave’s educational, healthcare, water, and electrical infrastructure.At least 22,600 people have been killed by the assault and nearly 60,000 wounded. Most are women and children.

Rikaza is thinking about them all the time.“I pray for the Palestinians,” she said.“They are loving, always ready to help. They made me feel at home. Even in those difficult times, they cared more to save me and my children than to protect their own life.”​

Source : Arab News
 
Armed fighting in Nablus as West Bank raids continue:

Israeli forces have arrested a young Palestinian after raiding her home in Nablus, according to video footage verified by Al Jazeera.

Armed fighting broke out in Nablus after Israeli forces stormed the city in the occupied West Bank at dawn on Sunday, according to video footage verified by Al Jazeera.

The raid on Nablus is one of several in the occupied West Bank tonight. Al Jazeera’s team in the occupied West Bank reports that Israeli forces have also raided:

Jenin
Hebron
Qalqilya
Jericho

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA​
 
Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, was killed when an Israeli missile directly hit the vehicle he was travelling in, in southern Gaza's Khan Younis.

Source: Middle East Eye
 
Israel says it has destroyed Hamas as a fighting force in north Gaza

The Israeli military says it has successfully destroyed Hamas as an organised fighting force in northern Gaza and has shifted its focus to the centre and south of the battered territory in a fresh stage of its war against the Palestinian militant group.

Three months after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war, the Israel Defense Forces’ chief spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said that 12 Hamas battalions based in north Gaza were no longer functioning as coherent fighting units.

About 8,000 militants had been killed, including key field commanders, and 30,000 weapons seized, Hagari said. Israeli intelligence estimates that Hamas has two dozen battalions in total and about 25,000 to 30,000 fighters.

“We have completed the dismantling of Hamas’s military framework in the northern Gaza Strip and will continue to deepen the achievement,” Hagari said in a briefing on Saturday evening.

“Now, we are focusing on dismantling Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip. We will do this differently, thoroughly, based on the lessons we have learned from the fighting so far.”

Hagari last week announced that the IDF had begun withdrawing five reservist battalions from Gaza, in a bid to ease the country’s economic burden and allow troops to “gather strength for the upcoming activities in the next year”.

More reservist units are set to be released from active duty in the coming weeks, said several people familiar with the matter.

While heavy air strikes and ground combat were still reported over the weekend in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and refugee camps in the territory’s centre, military analysts were clear that Israel had already moved into the war’s “low intensity” phase, at least in Gaza’s north.

This Phase of the war, according to Israeli war planners and US officials, will involve more targeted operations by smaller IDF forces in an effort to minimise Palestinian civilian casualties.More than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza so far, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory.The IDF has also begun creating a “buffer zone” inside Gaza, in some cases likely to stretch 1km into the territory, as part of new defences along the border.At least 1,200 Israelis were killed, and 240 taken hostage, during Hamas’s October 7 cross-border attack on the Jewish state. That sparked the devastating retaliatory air and ground offensive in Gaza, in which vast areas of the enclave have been reduced to rubble and international aid groups have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The fighting in Gaza comes as tensions escalate on Israel’s northern border with the Iran-backed Hizbollah movement based in Lebanon. Hizbollah has been trading almost daily cross-border fire with Israel since the war between Israel and Hamas began. Senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed last week in a suspected Israeli missile strike in Beirut.

Hizbollah launched about 60 rockets at Israel on Saturday morning in a move that the powerful militant group called “part of an initial response” to the Arouri killing.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken visited Jordan on Sunday as part of his latest trip to the region, aimed at reducing tensions and preventing the Gaza war from widening across the Middle East.

Israeli leaders have been counselling patience to their own public and the international community as they pursue their stated goal of dismantling Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza, and safely returning more than 130 remaining hostages held by the militant group.

They have also said they will pursue the removal of Hizbollah forces from the Jewish state’s northern border, to facilitate the return of 80,000 Israeli residents displaced from their homes by the fighting.

“This will take time. The fighting will continue throughout 2024, as we work according to a plan to achieve the war’s objectives,” Hagari said on Saturday.

Source: Financial Times

Israel says it has destroyed Hamas as a fighting force in north Gaza

War moves into fresh phase, says military, with more targeted focus on centre and south of Palestinian enclave
www.ft.com www.ft.com
 
Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief loses fifth family member in Israeli strike

The eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh was among two journalists killed in an Israeli air strike on a car near Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday.

Mustafa Thuria and Hamza Al-Dahdouh, a journalist with the Al Jazeera television network, were killed while they were travelling in a car, the health ministry and medics said.

Wael is particularly well known to viewers across the Middle East after he learned during a live broadcast in October that his wife, another son, daughter and grandson had been killed in an Israeli air strike.

The Gaza government’s media office said the two new deaths raised its own tally of journalists killed by the Israeli offensive to 109.

A video posted on an Al Jazeera-linked YouTube channel showed Wael crying next to his son’s body and holding his hand. Later, after his son’s burial, he said in televised remarks that journalists in Gaza would keep doing their job.

“All the world needs to see what is happening here,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the killing of the two journalists and said it had been a deliberate attack.

“We urge the International Criminal Court, the governments and human rights organisations, and the United Nations to hold Israel accountable for its heinous crimes and demand an end to the targeting and killing of journalists,” the network said in a statement.

Among journalists who have died covering the conflict was Reuters visuals journalist Issam Abdallah. A Lebanese citizen, he was killed on Oct 13 by an Israeli tank crew while filming cross-border shelling in Lebanon, a Reuters investigation has found.


Source: Dawn News
 
Palestinians would be so grateful to Blinken for this concession:

==


US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Palestinians must not be pressured into leave Gaza, and must be allowed to return to their homes once conditions allow.

Mr Blinken condemned statements by some Israeli ministers, who called for the resettlement of Palestinians elsewhere.

The US official was in Qatar on his latest Middle East tour.

His comments come following reports that dozens of people were killed at a refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Footage from Jabalia shows bodies lying in the rubble of a destroyed building - many of them women and children.

The Israeli military has not yet responded to the reports.

More than 60 Palestinians have reportedly also been killed in the past day in the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Jabalia camp has been hit several times since Israel began its war against Hamas following the unprecedented attack by Hamas gunmen on southern Israel on 7 October.

BBC
 
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi denounced on Monday the West’s “double standards” on Gaza, as she pledged continued support for Palestine.

Indonesia has long been a staunch supporter of Palestine, with its people and government seeing Palestinian statehood as mandated by their own constitution, which calls for the abolition of colonialism.

The Indonesian government has consistently condemned Israeli violence, while also rallying international support since Tel Aviv’s bombardment of Gaza escalated in early October.

Israel’s relentless military campaign has since killed more than 22,000 Palestinians and destroyed or damaged most homes in the besieged strip.

“The case of Palestine showed double standards from a number of countries in the world, especially those in the Global North,” Marsudi said during her annual press statement.

“Global North countries are suddenly quiet as they watch humanitarian violations. Where’s all the lectures they often give about human rights? Doesn’t Palestine have the same rights as the rest of us? Why does it seem like the nation of Palestine is below us?”

Indonesia was part of a ministerial committee assigned by the extraordinary joint Arab-Islamic Summit in November, which pushed for an end to Israel’s ongoing deadly onslaught on Gaza.

Members of the committee, chaired by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, met officials representing each of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to increase pressure on the West to reject Israel’s justification of its bombardment of Gaza as self-defense.

Marsudi noted that she would be representing Indonesia at the International Court of Justice on Feb. 19, where she is scheduled to speak at a public hearing to urge the ICJ to give an advisory opinion that strengthens Palestine’s legal standing.

The hearing at The Hague is a follow-up to a December 2022 resolution passed by the UN General Assembly calling on the ICJ to give an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

“The point is that the UN cannot forget the struggle of the nation of Palestine,” Marsudi added.

She also highlighted how the UN Security Council was unable “to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” referring to its failure to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire last month after it was vetoed by the US.

Speaking from the Merdeka Building in Bandung, West Java, Marsudi pointed out that the venue was a reminder of Indonesia’s “debt” to Palestine.

The building is a museum commemorating the 1955 Asian-African Conference, which had aimed to oppose colonialism and eventually led to the Non-Aligned Movement. Of more than two dozen countries which participated then, Palestine is the only one that has yet to gain its independence.

“This building is a reminder of a debt that we have yet to pay, and that is the independence of Palestine,” she said. “Indonesia will always fight for Palestine.”

Source: Arab News
 
Israeli strike kills Hezbollah commander from elite Radwan force in Lebanon: Security official

Israel killed a top commander of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in a strike on south Lebanon, a security source told AFP Monday, adding to fears the conflict in Gaza could spread.

Wissam Al Tawil, the deputy head of a unit within the elite Radwan force “had a leading role in managing Hezbollah’s operations in the south”, the security official said, requesting anonymity over security concerns.

The official added that he “was killed in an Israeli strike targeting his car in the south”.

Source: Gulf News

gulfnews.com

Israeli strike kills Hezbollah commander from elite Radwan force in Lebanon: Security official

Al Tawil had a leading role in managing Hezbollah’s operations in the south
gulfnews.com gulfnews.com
 
UN warns of worsening medical conditions at Gaza’ al-Aqsa Hospital

Majority of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been put out of action due to relentless Israeli bombardments of the besieged enclave, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday.

Remaining medical facilities face dire shortages, the Geneva-based UN agency noted.

At al-Aqsa Hospital, the last functioning hospital in central Gaza, a WHO team on Sunday witnessed what it said were “sickening scenes,” with patients being treated on blood-streaked floors, according to a social media post from WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“They’re treating children on the floor. … The floor is actually covered in blood. There are patients coming in every few minutes,” Sean Casey, the WHO emergency medical teams coordinator in Gaza, said in a video from the hospital.

He added that due to evacuation orders and the dangerous situation, there were only five doctors left to oversee hundreds of emergency cases and casualties. “It is really a chaotic scene.”

A UN team on Friday delivered medical supplies to Gaza authorities in Khan Younis, and WHO coordinator Casey said it was “the first time we’ve been able to make this delivery in about 10 days.”

“Hospitals have been running short on some supplies,” he said, adding that medical facilities were “working at two or three times their normal capacity.”

Echoing those concerns, Tedros, the WHO chief, in a post on X reported “immense needs” at the hospital,“especially health workers, medical supplies and beds. But staff said their greatest need was for their hospital, and its staff, patients and families there, to be protected from strikes and hostilities.”

More than 600 patients “and most health workers” had reportedly been forced to leave the facility, Tedros said, adding that it was “inconceivable” that the protection of health care could not be counted on.

According to the UN health agency, no hospitals are “fully functioning” in northern Gaza. Another WHO mission had to be cancelled to the north on Sunday, Tedros said, “due to dangers and lack of necessary permissions”. Elsewhere in Gaza, “a mere handful of health facilities operate”, the WHO chief said.

In recent days casualty numbers have “increased markedly”, Tedros continued, with “over 120 trauma cases and dozens of dead arriving per day due to increased shelling, gunshot wounds, crush injuries from collapsed buildings, and other war-related trauma”.

WHO is also involved in plans to deploy an emergency medical team to support medical teams at Al-Aqsa. “This will only be possible in a secure environment,” the UN health agency’s Director-General noted.

In a separate update on the emergency confirming “intense” Israeli strikes “across (central) Deir Al Balah governorate and the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah”, OCHA reported on Sunday evening that Israeli forces “struck targets in Gaza city, Jabaliya Camp, Tal Az Za’atar, and Beit Lahiya” causing “a very large number of fatalities” in the Al Fallouja area of Jabaliya Camp.

Rocket fire into Israel by Palestinian armed groups also continued, the UN aid office said, amid “ground operations and fighting…across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in additional fatalities”.

Latest data from the Gazan health ministry cited by the UN aid wing indicated at least 22,835 fatalities since Israeli military strikes began after October 7.

OCHA also noted reports of 225 Palestinian fatalities between Friday and Sunday and almost 300 injured, with 174 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza and more than 1,000 injured since ground operations began, according to the Israeli Defence Forces.

Amid ongoing deadly violence, UN Children’s Fund UNICEF estimated that there are now approximately 3,200 new cases of diarrhoea per day among under-fives. Before the escalation in hostilities, the average was 2,000 per month.

There is also dire concern for nine in 10 children under two years old who are now in “severe food poverty” and “only getting grains (including bread) or milk” to eat.


ARY
 
Israeli police have accidentally killed a young Palestinian girl after opening fire on a car suspected of a ramming attack, emergency services in Israel have said.

The border police said they fatally shot the girl, reported to be three or four years old, after firing at a couple in a car who, they said, rammed into two Israeli officers at a West Bank checkpoint.

The unidentified girl was in a van in front of the car which ploughed into the crossing near the Palestinian village of Biddu, just northwest of Jerusalem on Sunday evening.

Video footage from a security camera appeared to show a white car being driven into a pair of Israeli police officers at the checkpoint.

Police then chased after the vehicle, opening fire.

They hit a man and a woman inside the car, along with the girl in the vehicle in front, police said.

Israeli paramedics gave her age as three but Palestinian sources told the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, that she was four.

She was treated at the scene but pronounced dead by Israeli doctors, the Israeli ambulance services said, without giving the cause of death.



SKY News
 
Israeli delegation arrives in Egypt to resume talks on Gaza captives: Report

Egyptian sources have confirmed to the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper that an Israeli security delegation has arrived in Cairo with the aim of “resuming negotiations aimed at releasing Israeli prisoners held by resistance factions in Gaza”.

Citing sources in Egypt, the London-based outlet said that Cairo had suspended its mediation efforts after the assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in an Israeli drone strike on a Beirut suburb on January 2.

More than 240 people were taken captive by Hamas and other groups during the attack on Israel on October 7.

It’s believed some 128 remain captive in Gaza.
​
SOURCE: ALJAZEERA
 
Israeli army announces 4-hour suspension of attacks in central Gaza

The Israeli army has announced a four-hour suspension of military strikes in an area in central Gaza, purportedly to allow the safe passage of humanitarian supplies.

Avichay Adraee, the military’s spokesman for Arabic media, announced in a post on X there will be a “local and temporary tactical suspension of military activities for humanitarian purposes in the southeast of Deir el-Balah” that will last until 2pm local time (12:00 GMT).

He also said the corridor on Salah al-Din Street, designated for the passage of people and goods, has been closed and moved to al-Rashid (al-Bahr) Street.

According to Adraee, the new corridor will be open to movement from the north to the south of Gaza between 9am and 4pm.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA​
 

Joe Biden speech hijacked by Palestine protesters as President heckled by activists​


Pro-Palestinian protesters have interrupted President Joe Biden during his second campaign speech of the year.

Biden, 81, was addressing the audience at the Mother Emmanuel Church in South Carolina, when the protesters drowned him out with their calls for a ceasefire.

Biden then responded: "I understand they're passionate and I've been quietly working with the Israeli government to significantly reduce & get out of Gaza."

The President was speaking at the historically Black church in Charleston, where nine people were killed after a gunman opened fire on a Bible study group in 2015.

Biden during his speech
Biden said he has been working with the Israeli government to 'get out of Gaza'Reuters
"If you really care about the lives lost here you should honor the lives lost and call for a ceasefire in Palestine," one protester yelled.

This triggered a repeated chant of "ceasefire now" before the protesters were then removed from the room.

As he restarted his speech, the President was interrupted again, this time by a supportive audience member.

He told the 81-year-old that he is a "good man", which was met with applause.

Source: GBN
 

Muslim States Must Support "The Resistance With Weapons", Says Hamas Chief​

The time has come (for Muslim states) to support the resistance with weapons, said Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in a speech in Doha.​


Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh called on Muslim states on Tuesday to provide Palestinian operatives with weapons, as the group's war with Israel rages in the Gaza Strip.

"We see countries of the world pouring weapons into the occupation (Israel)... The time has come (for Muslim states) to support the resistance with weapons, because this is... not the battle of the Palestinian people alone," Haniyeh said in a speech in Doha, according to a transcript shared by the group with journalists.

Source: NDTV
 
The Bald Eagle said:

Muslim States Must Support "The Resistance With Weapons", Says Hamas Chief​

The time has come (for Muslim states) to support the resistance with weapons, said Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in a speech in Doha.​


Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh called on Muslim states on Tuesday to provide Palestinian operatives with weapons, as the group's war with Israel rages in the Gaza Strip.

"We see countries of the world pouring weapons into the occupation (Israel)... The time has come (for Muslim states) to support the resistance with weapons, because this is... not the battle of the Palestinian people alone," Haniyeh said in a speech in Doha, according to a transcript shared by the group with journalists.

Source: NDTV
Click to expand...
Even the announcement of such intentions on part of Muslim states can bring Israel to its toe.
 
BouncerGuy said:
Israeli delegation arrives in Egypt to resume talks on Gaza captives: Report

Egyptian sources have confirmed to the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper that an Israeli security delegation has arrived in Cairo with the aim of “resuming negotiations aimed at releasing Israeli prisoners held by resistance factions in Gaza”.

Citing sources in Egypt, the London-based outlet said that Cairo had suspended its mediation efforts after the assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in an Israeli drone strike on a Beirut suburb on January 2.

More than 240 people were taken captive by Hamas and other groups during the attack on Israel on October 7.

It’s believed some 128 remain captive in Gaza.
​
SOURCE: ALJAZEERA
Click to expand...

Israel seems to have softened up a bit.

They lost around 170 soldiers in Gaza; real number is probably higher than that. They also lost many tanks/equipment.

Around 12500 soldiers have become disabled (reference: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/...aeli-soldiers-disabled-israeli-outlet-reports).

They also lost the PR war; most of the countries are siding with Palestine.
 
Blinken tells Israel to avoid ‘further civilian harm’ in Gaza

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged Israel to avoid further civilian harm in its war on Gaza and to seek a path towards the creation of a Palestinian state as a way to resolve the long-running wider conflict.

In a Tel Aviv meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Blinken “stressed the importance of avoiding further civilian harm and protecting civilian infrastructure in Gaza”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

He reaffirmed US “support for Israel’s right to prevent the terrorist attacks of October 7 from being repeated”, Miller added, and “reiterated the need to ensure lasting, sustainable peace for Israel and the region, including by the realisation of a Palestinian state”.

The top US diplomat is on his fourth visit to the Middle East since the war broke out on October 7 when Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel that killed 1,139 people, according to Israeli authorities. Israel responded with a devastating bombardment and a ground invasion of Gaza that has destroyed much of the territory and killed more than 23,200 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian officials.

The secretary of state voiced hope that, after the war, Israel could push on with its efforts towards regional integration following its US-brokered normalisation deals with the United Arab Emirates and other states.

“I think there actually are real opportunities there, but we have to get through this very challenging moment,” Blinken said after meeting Foreign Minister Israel Katz.



www.aljazeera.com

Blinken tells Israel to avoid ‘further civilian harm’ in Gaza

In Tel Aviv, US secretary of state says sustainable peace in the region includes the creation of a Palestinian state.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
U.N. experts condemn ‘extrajudicial’ killing of Hamas figure in Lebanon

U.N. experts in international law on Tuesday condemned the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri and other fighters in drone strikes on Lebanon, saying this amounted to the crimes of extrajudicial killings and murder.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it assassinated Arouri but his demise came a month after Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet vowed to hunt down Hamas in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar even if took years, following Hamas’s cross-border rampage from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7.

“Killings in foreign territory are arbitrary when they are not authorised under international law,” the two U.N. Special Rapporteurs, Ben Saul and Morris Tidball-Binz, said in a statement issued in Geneva.

“Israel was not exercising self-defence because it presented no evidence that the victims were committing an armed attack on Israel from Lebanese territory.”

Arouri was killed last week by a drone in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the stronghold of Hamas’ Iranian-backed Lebanese ally Hezbollah, in an attack widely attributed to Israel.

The U.N. Special Rapporteurs also said there was “no legal basis for geographically unlimited attacks against members of an armed group wherever they are”.

Hezbollah has been firing guided rockets and other weapons across Lebanon’s southern border at Israeli positions since Israel went to war with Hamas in Gaza three months ago, and Israel has launched air and artillery strikes in Lebanon.

Israeli forces also killed Wissam Tawil, a top Hezbollah commander, in a strike in south Lebanon on Monday, sources familiar with the heavily armed Shi’ite group’s operations said.

Hezbollah retaliated on Tuesday, hitting Israeli army headquarters in Safed, northern Israel, with drones.



www.brecorder.com

U.N. experts condemn ‘extrajudicial’ killing of Hamas figure in Lebanon

GENEVA: U.N. experts in international law on Tuesday condemned the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri...
www.brecorder.com
 
'Deep concern' for patients and staff at Gaza's al-Aqsa hospital

Doctors from the UK who have been working at what they say is the only functioning hospital in the central Gaza Strip have told the BBC of their "deep concern" for patients and staff remaining there - as fighting between the Israeli military and Hamas has reportedly intensified in nearby areas.

Deborah Harrington, an obstetrician who has been working at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah with the British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), said the fighting meant there has been "a real decrease" in the number of staff able to work at the facility over the past two weeks.

At the same time, she said some 600 to 700 patients were still being treated inside the hospital daily, and that hundreds of displaced people were sheltering there or in the immediate vicinity.

"Without any functioning or sufficient healthcare staff, it will be an unmitigated disaster for those people living in Middle Gaza," another member of the team, surgeon Nick Maynard, told the BBC.

When asked about the reports, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC: "The forces closest to there are 1.5km (0.9 miles) away and there is no activity there."

Hospitals are specifically protected under international humanitarian law. Any military operation around hospitals must take steps to spare patients, medical staff and other civilians inside them.

On Sunday, MAP and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) announced that their staff had been "forced to withdraw and cease activities" as a result of what they called "increasing Israeli military activity around the al-Aqsa Hospital".

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also said it had "received troubling reports of increasing hostilities and ongoing evacuation orders near the vital al-Aqsa hospital... which according to the facility's director forced over 600 patients and most health workers to leave".

He stated that al-Aqsa was "the most important hospital remaining in Gaza's Middle Area and must remain functional, and protected, to deliver its lifesaving services".

"Further erosion of its functionality cannot be permitted - doing so in the face of such trauma, injury and humanitarian suffering would be a moral and medical outrage," he warned.

Speaking to the BBC from Cairo airport, Mr Maynard, a senior surgeon and clinical lead with MAP who worked at al-Aqsa's surgical unit for two weeks, said he and his team were told to evacuate from Gaza last Friday.

"I was operating on a serious blast injury during the day, and at about 15:00 I finished in theatres to come out to find that there had been an attack on the intensive care unit (ICU)." He added: "We were told we had to leave."

Two other doctors said they had been told of an incident at the ICU, and had later seen pictures shared on social media of a bullet embedded into the ICU building's wall - but none of them witnessed the incident themselves.

The BBC was not able to verify the reports. Asked about the incident specifically, the IDF said it was "not aware of an air strike regarding the incident in question".

Another doctor placed at al-Aqsa with MAP, James Smith, told the BBC that he had heard gunfire on several days.

"It's worth stressing that the sound would travel, so it was maybe 1km or 2km (0.6-1.2 miles) away," he said, adding that it could occasionally be heard from the hospital courtyard.

Shelling was reported in the vicinity of the hospital on Tuesday, the UN said.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported on Tuesday that 57 dead and 65 injured people had been brought to al-Aqsa hospital over the previous 24 hours but provided no further details.

The BBC has verified footage posted on social media in recent days, in which plumes of smoke and the sound of gunshots can be heard in the surrounding area - though we could not verify where the shots were coming from and who was firing.

Pictures posted on social media also showed leaflets apparently dropped by the IDF, which warned residents of several neighbourhoods to the north that they were now in a "dangerous combat zone" and called on them to urgently evacuate for their own safety. They did not include the area directly around al-Aqsa hospital.

The doctors the BBC spoke to also said they were told about the leaflets, but had not seen them themselves.

Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams co-ordinator who visited al-Aqsa hospital on the weekend, said the facility was now near an evacuation zone.

The IDF said "no specific evacuation notice had been given to" al-Aqsa.

Dr Harrington said two nurses who worked at al-Aqsa's emergency room had been killed in the last two weeks as a result of fighting, while another staff member who had already been displaced once had her house bombed.

Dr Smith said: "Many Palestinian healthcare workers have expressed that they have felt that it is too unsafe to go back to the hospital.

"Certainly some people I've been in touch with haven't gone back since Friday."

He added that he and his colleagues remained concerned for those still in the hospital.

"There are many patients who physically cannot move, the elderly, people with disabilities, many patients on the neo-natal unit, many people recovering post-operative care who cannot move, and thousands of internally displaced people living within the hospital compound or in the immediate vicinity of the hospital."

The three doctors from the UK said they witnessed "horrific" injuries and challenging conditions inside al-Aqsa hospital.

"We had no running water in theatres, so we had no ability to scrub up and wash," Mr Maynard said of the surgical unit. "We just had to use alcohol gel before operating."

"There were no drapes to cover the patients in theatres, so we had to use makeshift gowns to try to keep the patients sterile and clean.

"Instruments were limited, there were very limited sutures for stitching," he added.

Recalling what the emergency room was like to work in, Dr Harrington said: "There were often no trolleys, so we were managing patients on the floor, which is filthy, which is cold.

"Sometimes oxygen tubing couldn't even reach those patients. We were putting in chest drains in completely unsanitary conditions, affording patients no dignity."

She said there was often no morphine or other pain relief.

"I can't get out of my mind - a child came in alive, literally burnt to the bone, their hands were contracting. Their face was just charcoal, and they were alive and talking. And we had no morphine," she said.

"I won't be able to wipe that memory and the smell, being treated on the floor."

Dr Smith, an emergency doctor, also described how many patients arrived with "horrific, traumatic injuries", ranging from burns to amputations and serious shrapnel injuries.

"We saw people with traumatic amputations. I saw a child, around one year old, who had had two limbs traumatically amputated, and the other two were severely damaged."

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update that "intense Israeli bombardments from air, land, and sea" continued across much of Gaza on Tuesday, particularly in the Deir al-Balah southern Khan Younis areas.

"The offensive in these areas results in the killing and injury of many people and having devastating consequences for tens of thousands of civilians, many of whom had already fled for safety from Gaza City and the north to central and southern Gaza," it warned.

Israel says it is carrying out military operations in Gaza to "eradicate" Hamas and rescue hostages taken by the group.

It says it tries to avoid harm to civilians and blames Hamas for embedding fighters among them.

The war was triggered by an unprecedented cross-border attack by Hamas gunmen on southern Israel on 7 October, in which at least 1,300 people were killed - most of them civilians - and about 240 others taken hostage.

More than 23,350 people have been killed in Gaza - mostly children and women - during the 13 weeks of fighting since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Source: BBC

www.bbc.com

'Deep concern' for patients and staff at Gaza's al-Aqsa hospital

Three UK doctors who worked at al-Aqsa hospital warn of a "disaster" as fighting nearby intensifies.
www.bbc.com
 

Blinken tells Abbas US backs 'tangible steps' for Palestinian state​

US top diplomat Antony Blinken told Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday that Washington supports "tangible steps" towards the creation of a Palestinian state.

Abbas is later set to discuss a "push for an immediate ceasefire" in talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba.

As the US secretary of state arrived under tight security in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, protesters held up signs that read "Stop the genocide", "Free Palestine" and "Blinken out".

Blinken reiterated Washington's longstanding position that a Palestinian state must stand alongside Israel, "with both living in peace and security", State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Palestinian statehood was anticipated following the Oslo Accords of the 1990s but talks have been moribund for years.

The Israeli government has shown no interest in reviving negotiations and the Palestinian leadership remains split between the Palestinian Authority, headed by Abbas, and Hamas which rules Gaza.

In talks with Abbas in the occupied West Bank, Blinken mentioned "increased volatility" in the territory, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in raids by the Israeli military or attacks by Jewish settlers in recent months.

As part of efforts to stabilise the territory, Blinken called on Israel to hand over revenues owed to the Palestinians in full.

Blinken "underscored the United States' position that all Palestinian tax revenues collected by Israel should be consistently conveyed to the Palestinian Authority in accordance with prior agreements," Miller said.

Israel has for years withheld part of the funds, over issues including payments to Palestinian prisoners and more recently the Gaza war.

Global concern has flared over the spiralling humanitarian crisis, and Blinken -- while voicing continued US political and military support for top regional ally Israel -- has urged steps to reduce the surging civilian death toll.

Dire shortages brought by an Israeli siege mean the "daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high," Blinken said on Tuesday at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Amid the latest round of US crisis diplomacy, the Gaza war raged on unabated. The Israeli army said it had killed dozens of "terrorists" and hit another 150 targets in Gaza's central Maghazi and southern Khan Yunis areas.

Israeli troops claimed to have found 15 tunnel shafts as well as rocket launchers, missiles, drones and explosives in Al-Maghazi and destroyed machinery for producing the rockets that have been fired at Israel.

The Gaza health ministry confirmed on Wednesday that at least 23,357 people have been killed in Israel’s relentless military campaign in more than three months of war between Palestinian resistance group Hamas and Israel.

The toll includes 147 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, while 59,410 people have been wounded across the Palestinian territory since war erupted on October 7, 2023.

Thousands of Gazans are reported to be missing as Israel’s relentless bombardment has reduced much of the city to rubble

The war started when Hamas launched its unprecedented October 7 attack, which resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel. Militants also took around 250 hostages, of whom Israel says 132 remain in Gaza including at least 25 believed to have been killed.

The Israeli army says 186 of its soldiers have been killed inside Gaza.

Source : The Express Tribune
 
Q&A: Former Biden appointee says US policy is ‘dehumanising’ Palestinians

A Palestinian American and political appointee in the United States Department of Education, Habash drew headlines last week when he became the second official to publicly resign from the administration of President Joe Biden over its response to the war in Gaza.

Since October, Israel has bombarded the Palestinian enclave, killing more than 23,210 people. But the White House has continued to voice staunch support for Israel, its top ally in the Middle East.

Habash said he resigned because he could no longer “represent an administration that does not value all human life equally”.

“I cannot stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives, in what leading human rights experts have called a genocidal campaign by the Israeli government,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

Other administration staffers and former Biden campaign workers have also spoken out since the war began on October 7, following Hamas’s attacks in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people. In letters and other statements, the staffers urged the president to demand a ceasefire.

Yet, while Biden and his senior officials have called on Israel to do more to minimise civilian casualties, Washington remains opposed to a ceasefire. The US stands with Israel in its mission to “ensure that October 7 never happens again”, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a news conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Al Jazeera host Nick Clark spoke to Habash about his decision to resign and the effect US support for Israel has had on Palestinians as the war on Gaza continues.

Source : Al Jazeera
 
Cricket Warrior said:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold public hearings in proceedings launched by South Africa against Israel over the Gaza war on Jan. 11 and 12, it said on Wednesday.

South Africa had asked the ICJ on Friday for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention in its crackdown against Hamas.

Israel had said it would appear before the court to contest the accusations.

The court usually takes one or two weeks to issue a decision on emergency measures after the hearings. The court's rulings are final but it has no authority to enforce them.


Source: Reuters​
Click to expand...

The hearing is now underway:

Proceedings at the ICJ have started.

Joan Donoghue, current president of the ICJ, is introducing South African Judge Dikgang Ernest Moseneke and Israeli Judge Aharon Barak, who have both taken oaths as ad hoc judges for this case.

ALJAZEERA​
 
The Bald Eagle said:
Sooner or later this occupant state is going to perish like all other occupyiing force oof the past.
Click to expand...

Israel is way way too powerful of a state to just perish on it's own, even if we consider that possibility.

If you find yourself praying for the decimation of Israel as a whole, you're also pretty much wishing (indirectly) for the deaths of millions and millions of Palestinians, Jordanians , Lebanese, Syrians and possibly even Egyptians and Iranians.
 
South Africa had filed an application at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to institute proceedings against Israel . The application to the world court concerns alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Genocide Convention in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. A very impressive 22 minute opening argument by South African lawyer Adila Hassim at the ICJ today . Watch it if so inclined !
 
Last edited by a moderator:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended a trip across the Middle East, amid continuing battles between Israel and Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

Offering Palestinians a path to statehood can stabilise the Middle East and isolate Iran, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said as he wrapped his latest visit to the region amid Israel’s continuing war on Gaza.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the US top diplomat said the region faced two paths, the first of which would see “Israel integrated, with security assurances and commitments from regional countries and as well from the United States, and a Palestinian state – at least a pathway to get to that state”.

“The other path is to continue to see the terrorism, the nihilism, the destruction by Hamas, by the Houthis, by Hezbollah, all backed by Iran,” he said.

“If you pursue the first path … that’s the single best way to isolate, to marginalise Iran and the proxies that are making so much trouble – for us and for pretty much everyone else in the region.”

Blinken’s visit came a day after Egypt and Jordan warned that Israel’s military campaign, which has killed more than 23,000 people in Gaza according to the Health Ministry in the Palestinian territory, must not displace the strip’s 2.3 million people or end in an Israeli occupation.

Troubles in the region
Blinken’s comments came after he visited several allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey in an effort to prevent the Gaza war setting off a regional conflagration.

Israel’s northern border with Lebanon has seen almost daily exchanges of fire between the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah and Israeli forces for the past three months.

While the artillery exchanges have largely remained confined to areas along the border,

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Israel, which since October has been fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has denied allegations that it has committed war crimes.

In comments after the United States and Britain launched strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen in response to the movement's attacks on ships in the Red Sea, Jordanian Foreign Minster Ayman Safadi said the international community ha failed to act to stop Israeli "aggression" against Palestinians which was endangering the region's security.

"The Israeli aggression on Gaza and its continued committing of war crimes against the Palestinian people and violating international law with impunity are responsible for the rising tensions witnessed in the region," Safadi said in remarks carried by state media. The stability of the region and its security were closely tied, Safadi said.

The international community is at a humanitarian, moral, legal and security crossroads. Either it shoulders its responsibilities and ends Israel's arrogant aggression and protect civilians, or allows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist ministers to drag us to a regional war that threatens world peace," Safadi said.

He said Israel was pushing the region towards more conflict "by continuing its aggression and its attempt to open new fronts," and that Israeli military actions against civilians in Gaza met the legal definition of genocide.

Israel on Friday rejected as "grossly distorted" accusations brought by South Africa at the U.N.'s top court that its military operation in Gaza was a state-led genocide campaign against the Palestinian population.

It has said its forces abide by international law while fighting Palestinian militants in Gaza who operate in densely populated civilian areas.

Source : The Hindustan Times
 
San Francisco school district provides teachers with materials for students on 'Israeli terrorism'

Teachers in San Francisco Unified School District were provided by officials with educational resources to lead classroom discussions on "war, terrorism, colonization, and seeking peace," according to documents obtained by National Review.

The news outlet reported that one of the resources provided for teachers "promotes multiple anti-Zionist articles and viewpoints, including an article published by Jerome Slater at the Middle East Policy Council."

"In the article," the report continued, "Slater blames Israel for Hamas violence and speculates that failed Palestinian resistance efforts have made Palestinian terrorism a last resort."

"While all terrorism is morally wrong, it is still possible and perhaps necessary to make some distinctions," the article reads. "There can be degrees of moral wrong; we commonly make such distinctions and consider mitigating circumstances, especially between moral wrongs committed in pursuit of just causes and the double moral wrong of injustices done for unjust causes … For several reasons, Israeli terrorism has been morally worse than that of the Palestinians."

National Review gave examples of other educational materials provided to San Francisco Unified School District teachers and discovered by Parents Defending Education, including materials asking teachers to consider how they can "educate in hopes of a truly just and lasting peace in Israel-Palestine" and ask students "how has the decades long conflict between Israel and Palestine taken shape over time to this current conflagration?"

"The need for educational resources on antisemitism within a pedagogic framework of collective liberation is particularly important for this moment–as rising white nationalist violence targets many of our communities, including Jews, Muslims, Black people, immigrant communities, trans and queer people, among others, and as false charges of antisemitism are directed at seekers of Palestinian justice," according to the video's description on YouTube.

Local students in the district made news when they staged a walk-out in "support of Palestine" in October, per the San Francisco Examiner. Students were also supported by teachers and San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Hillary Ronen.

Source: Fox News

www.foxnews.com

San Francisco school district provides teachers with materials for students on 'Israeli terrorism'

Teachers in San Francisco were provided with educational resources to lead classroom discussions on Hamas terrorism and "Israeli terrorism," according to the National Review.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
 
Israeli forces struck Gaza late Friday into early Saturday as the war against Hamas militants neared 100 days.

Agence France-Presse quoted witnesses as saying Israeli shelling Friday had hit areas between Gaza's southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah. The main internet provider in Gaza said all internet and telecommunications services were cut Friday as a result of the Israeli bombardment.

The Israeli military said its forces killed three militants who attacked a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank Friday. In a statement, the military said the militants infiltrated the Adora settlement, some 20 kilometers west of Hebron City. The military said soldiers had come under fire during a search of the area.

Andrea De Domenico, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said Friday that Israel has been "very systematic in not allowing us to support hospitals, which is something that is reaching a level of inhumanity that, for me, is beyond comprehension."

Gaza Strip telecom provider Paltel reported Friday that fighting in the enclave has caused all communications services to be cut across the territory.

From its official X social media account, formerly Twitter, Paltel said cellular, landline, and internet services across Gaza were cut "due to the ongoing aggression." The Hamas-controlled territory has seen repeated telecommunications blackouts in the past 100 days because of the fighting and the lack of fuel for electricity.

The United Nations expressed concern about new evacuation orders issued Thursday in southern Gaza by the Israeli military. The office of humanitarian affairs says the residents in a 4.6-square-kilometer area in Al Mawasi and several blocks near Salah Ad Deen Road have been told to move to Deir al Balah, where the Israel Defense Forces continue to conduct airstrikes.

“More than 18,000 people and nine shelters, accommodating an unknown number of internally displaced people, are expected to be affected by this latest round of orders,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters Friday.

A journalist for Agence France-Presse reported that strikes and artillery shelling had hit areas between the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, which is crowded with people who fled from the north.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported Friday that about 151 Palestinians had been killed and 248 more wounded in Israeli airstrikes in the past 24 hours. In a statement, the ministry said at least 23,708 people — two-thirds of them women and children — have been killed since the conflict started.

The October 7 Hamas terror attack inside southern Israel triggered the war. Fighters killed 1,200 people and kidnapped about 240 others. Since then, Israel has told Palestinians in northern Gaza to move south as it launched a ground invasion to decapitate Hamas, which is an EU- and U.S.-designated terror group.

The United Nations has said 1.9 million people — nearly 85% of Gaza’s population — are now crammed into an ever-shrinking area in the central and southern Gaza Strip and living in horrific conditions. Food, clean water, medical supplies, even toilets are in short supply. Malnutrition is rising, and humanitarians cannot get adequate aid supplies into Gaza.

“Providing humanitarian assistance across Gaza is almost impossible,” U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told a Security Council meeting Friday.

He and other U.N. officials are also concerned about statements from some Israeli political figures urging the mass transfer of Palestinians from Gaza to third countries.

“These statements raise grave concerns about the possible forcible mass transfer or deportation of the Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip, something that would be strictly prohibited, of course, under international law,” Griffiths said.

The head of the U.N. Human Rights New York office told the meeting that Israel’s evacuation orders failed “to meet the necessary conditions for lawfulness, therefore potentially amount to forcible transfer — a war crime.”

Ilze Brands Kehris said Palestinians must have an “ironclad guarantee” that they will be able to return home. She underscored that Israel, as the occupying power, must support their return by restoring essential services and facilitating the necessary reconstruction of Gaza.

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. was also clear that civilians must not be forced to leave Gaza “under any circumstances.” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington rejects statements by Israeli ministers and lawmakers calling for their resettlement outside Gaza.

“These statements, along with statements by Israeli officials calling for the mistreatment of Palestinian detainees or the destruction of Gaza, are irresponsible, inflammatory and only make it harder to secure a lasting peace,” Thomas Greenfield said.

VOA

www.voanews.com

3 Palestinian Youths Killed in Israeli Settlement

Israel continues bombardment of Gaza
www.voanews.com www.voanews.com
 
Hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets across the world to protest against the war in Gaza, as it nears the 100-day mark, and to demand an end to Israel’s offensive.

At rallies on Saturday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, people gathered at the United States embassy to send a message to Israel’s staunch ally. The US has vetoed United Nations resolutions backed by a vast majority of the UN Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire.

“We’ve spoken to people here who say they’ve come to show solidarity with Palestinians. People are holding up placards that read: ‘Stop the genocide’, as well as ‘Bombing children is not self-defence’,” said Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur.

The demonstrations are part of a “global day of action for Palestine” and to call for an end to the bloodshed that has killed 23,843 people and wounded more than 60,317, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel on Friday rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza during a public hearing at the International Court of Justice, claiming the case filed by South Africa with the top UN court was a distortion of truth that amounted to libel.

Its arguments were based on its alleged right to self-defence following the attack by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,139 people, as well as what it said was a lack of genocidal intent against the Palestinian people.

Last month, Malaysia’s government said it would no longer allow Israeli-owned ships to dock in Malaysian ports. It also said any vessel en route to Israel would not be allowed to unload cargo at any Malaysian port.

The protest movement in Malaysia, organised in collaboration with dozens of NGOs, said it aimed to educate people not only about the atrocities that are happening in Gaza, but also about the history of the occupation.

Thousands of people also gathered outside the US embassy in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, waving Indonesian and Palestinian flags and holding signs that read “Boycott Israel” and “Ceasefire Now.”

Source : Al Jazeera
 
Thousands call for release of hostages at pro-Israel rally in London

Thousands have attended a pro-Israel rally in London to mark 100 days since the 7 October attacks and call for the release of all hostages from Gaza.

People gathered in Trafalgar Square carrying Israeli flags and holding pictures of some of the 105 people still believed to be being held.

A chant of "Bring them home now" was also heard.

It comes as Israel faces mounting international pressure over the civilian toll of its operation in Gaza.

The London event coincides with a 24-hour rally being held in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

Speakers in London included Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who appeared remotely on a large screen and said that "this battle belongs to the whole free world".

Israeli singer Miri Mesika was also scheduled to perform.

People in the crowd told the BBC they were worried the hostages were being forgotten and that they felt compelled to attend and show support for Israel.

Speaking from a stage set up beneath Nelson's Column, one organiser said he had "never been prouder to be Jewish".

The audience also heard from Conservative peer Lord Pickles and Labour MP Christian Wakeford.

Lord Pickles said that Gaza could be rebuilt and peace brought to the Middle East, but that such a process could only begin if "we bring the hostages home".

Security for event was tight and attendees had to wait in long queues before being allowed to enter the square.

The weeks following the 7 October attacks saw what the Metropolitan Police described as a "massive increase" in antisemitic incidents in London.

The attacks saw Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups cross into Israel and carry out attacks on civilian and military targets, killing around 1,200 people and taking an estimated 240 hostages.

A six-day ceasefire at the end of November saw 105 hostages released. Israel believes around 105 are still alive in Gaza, while a number of others are either unaccounted for or known to have died.

Following the attacks, Israel launched a ground invasion and bombing campaign in Gaza with the stated aim of destroying Hamas and removing the group from power in the territory.

On Saturday, thousands attended a march on Westminster calling for an end to the operation and a ceasefire in Gaza.

Israel is also facing a case at the International Court of Justice, brought by the South Africa, accusing it of committing genocide.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry says that more than 23,000 people have so far been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its campaign.

Source: BBC

www.bbc.com

Thousands call for release of hostages at pro-Israel rally in London

People gathered in Trafalgar Square carrying Israeli flags and pictures of those being held in Gaza.
www.bbc.com
 
Israel kills more than 100 people in overnight attacks on Gaza Strip

More than 100 Palestinians were killed and many others injured in Israel's overnight air and land attacks in various parts of the Gaza Strip, official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Sunday, as Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian enclave entered its 100th day.

“The bodies of 50 civilians were pulled out from the rubble following the bombardment of a three-story residential building in the densely populated Al-Daraj neighborhood in the heart of Gaza City,” the news agency said.

“The building housed families of Al-Shobaki, Al-Zoukh, Hassouna, and Al-Qasim,” it added.

The majority of those killed and injured were transported to Al-Shifa Medical Complex and Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the city, it added.

In a separate attack, five Palestinians were killed, and ten others sustained injuries due to artillery shelling targeting the Sabra and Al-Zeitoun neighborhoods in the city, according to the Wafa news agency.

Israel’s artillery and navy also carried out attacks on the homes of Palestinians living in the Tal Al-Hawa and Sheikh Ajleen areas, southwest of Gaza City.

In the central Gaza Strip, three bodies were pulled out from the rubble after “their home was hit with missiles in the Al-Sawarha area, along with six more fatalities retrieved from the Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij refugee camps,” the news agency said.

In Khan Younis, more than 30 Palestinians, including children and women, were killed in an Israeli bombing targeting their houses.

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, January 7, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

At least 23 people were killed in air strikes on two houses near the Egyptian border and on a vehicle carrying mostly displaced passengers.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group which Tel Aviv claims killed 1,200 people in Israel.

At least 23,843 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 60,317 injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure is damaged or destroyed.

Around 5,875 Palestinians have been detained in 100 days of Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank, a local nongovernmental organization said Sunday.

“The detainees included 335 children and 200 women,” the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a statement.

More than 2,856 Palestinians have been held without trial or charge under Israel’s notorious policy of administrative detention since Oct. 7, the NGO said.

“This figure takes the number of administrative detainees in Israeli prisons to more than 3,290 Palestinians,” it added.

According to figures released by prisoners’ affairs groups, at least 8,800 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons.


Source: Tribune
 
Cricket Warrior said:
Israel kills more than 100 people in overnight attacks on Gaza Strip

More than 100 Palestinians were killed and many others injured in Israel's overnight air and land attacks in various parts of the Gaza Strip, official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Sunday, as Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian enclave entered its 100th day.

“The bodies of 50 civilians were pulled out from the rubble following the bombardment of a three-story residential building in the densely populated Al-Daraj neighborhood in the heart of Gaza City,” the news agency said.

“The building housed families of Al-Shobaki, Al-Zoukh, Hassouna, and Al-Qasim,” it added.

The majority of those killed and injured were transported to Al-Shifa Medical Complex and Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the city, it added.

In a separate attack, five Palestinians were killed, and ten others sustained injuries due to artillery shelling targeting the Sabra and Al-Zeitoun neighborhoods in the city, according to the Wafa news agency.

Israel’s artillery and navy also carried out attacks on the homes of Palestinians living in the Tal Al-Hawa and Sheikh Ajleen areas, southwest of Gaza City.

In the central Gaza Strip, three bodies were pulled out from the rubble after “their home was hit with missiles in the Al-Sawarha area, along with six more fatalities retrieved from the Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij refugee camps,” the news agency said.

In Khan Younis, more than 30 Palestinians, including children and women, were killed in an Israeli bombing targeting their houses.

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, January 7, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

At least 23 people were killed in air strikes on two houses near the Egyptian border and on a vehicle carrying mostly displaced passengers.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group which Tel Aviv claims killed 1,200 people in Israel.

At least 23,843 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 60,317 injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure is damaged or destroyed.

Around 5,875 Palestinians have been detained in 100 days of Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank, a local nongovernmental organization said Sunday.

“The detainees included 335 children and 200 women,” the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a statement.

More than 2,856 Palestinians have been held without trial or charge under Israel’s notorious policy of administrative detention since Oct. 7, the NGO said.

“This figure takes the number of administrative detainees in Israeli prisons to more than 3,290 Palestinians,” it added.

According to figures released by prisoners’ affairs groups, at least 8,800 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons.


Source: Tribune
Click to expand...
Had Muslims been a force today the coward Israel govt would not have dared to even stare at them.
 
Woman Killed In Israel Suspected Ramming Attack

A woman was killed and 17 people were injured in a suspected car ramming in central Israel Monday, medics said, as police arrested two Palestinians over the attack.

Police said the two suspects stole vehicles and ran over a number of people in different areas of Raanana, a city north of the commercial hub of Tel Aviv.

AFP footage from one of the sites showed a white sedan with its front crumpled against a lamppost next to a bus stop.

Dozens of police and medics were on the scene at the cordoned-off street, and heavily armed security forces carried out searches nearby.

Medics from the Magen David Adom emergency service said 17 people were wounded, including two seriously while the rest suffering less serious injuries.

Meir hospital near Raanana confirmed that one woman had died.

"A wounded woman who arrived in a critical condition after having been hit by a vehicle has died of her injuries despite our efforts to save her," the hospital said in a statement.

Hospitals in the area said the wounded included nine children, one of whom was seriously hurt.

Source: Barrons

www.barrons.com

Woman Killed In Israel Suspected Ramming Attack

A woman was killed and 17 people were injured in a suspected car ramming in central Israel Monday, medics said, as police arrested two Palestinians over the attack.
www.barrons.com www.barrons.com
 
Hamas appears to show dead bodies of two hostages after warning Israel

Hamas appeared to show the dead bodies of two Israeli hostages on Monday after warning Israel they might be killed if it did not stop its bombardment of Gaza.

A new video released by the Palestinian militant group purportedly showed the bodies of Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, who had appeared in an initial video on Sunday.

It also showed a third Israeli hostage, Noa Argamani, 26, saying the two were killed by "our own IDF strikes," referring to the Israeli military.

Israel's defence minister accused the Palestinian militant group of carrying out 'psychological abuse'.

The three are among some 240 people taken hostage by Islamist Hamas militants during a surprise cross-border rampage into southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Around half of those hostages were released during a short-lived November truce, but Israel says 132 remain in Gaza and that 25 have died in captivity.

The three Israelis were shown in a Hamas video on Sunday in which the group urged the Israeli government to halt its aerial and ground offensive and bring about their release.

It ended with the caption: "Tomorrow (Monday) we will inform you of their fate."

On Monday, keeping up the psychological pressure, Hamas released a video clip featuring the faces of the three hostages and offering three options: all three are killed, "some are killed, some are injured", or all three are spared. It ended with the message: "Tonight we will inform you of their fate."



Source: Reuters
 

Hostages seen in Hamas video as White House urges Israel to scale back offensive​

Hamas has aired a video of three Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza, urging Israel to halt its offensive and bring about their release.

The undated 37-second video shows Noa Argamani, 26, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, who were among those taken by Hamas fighters during the 7 October attacks.

Sky News has chosen not to share the Hamas video.

It comes as the White House said it was "the right time" for Israel to scale back its military operations in Gaza.

Much of the densely-populated strip of land has been razed to the ground by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), and the Hamas-run health ministry says some 24,100 people have been killed and nearly 61,000 wounded.

Around half of the 240 hostages taken by Hamas were released during the short-lived November truce, but Israel says 132 remain in Gaza and that 25 have died in captivity.

Speaking on CBS, White House national security council spokesman John Kirby said the US has been speaking to Israel "about a transition to low-intensity operations" in Gaza.

"We believe it's the right time for that transition. And we're talking to them about doing that," he said on Face The Nation.

The war has sent tensions soaring across the region, with Israel trading fire almost daily with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group and Iranian-backed militias attacking US targets in Syria and Iraq.

In addition, Yemen's Houthi rebels have been targeting international shipping, drawing a wave of UK and US air strikes last week.

Source: SKY
 
FearlessRoar said:
Woman Killed In Israel Suspected Ramming Attack

A woman was killed and 17 people were injured in a suspected car ramming in central Israel Monday, medics said, as police arrested two Palestinians over the attack.

Police said the two suspects stole vehicles and ran over a number of people in different areas of Raanana, a city north of the commercial hub of Tel Aviv.

AFP footage from one of the sites showed a white sedan with its front crumpled against a lamppost next to a bus stop.

Dozens of police and medics were on the scene at the cordoned-off street, and heavily armed security forces carried out searches nearby.

Medics from the Magen David Adom emergency service said 17 people were wounded, including two seriously while the rest suffering less serious injuries.

Meir hospital near Raanana confirmed that one woman had died.

"A wounded woman who arrived in a critical condition after having been hit by a vehicle has died of her injuries despite our efforts to save her," the hospital said in a statement.

Hospitals in the area said the wounded included nine children, one of whom was seriously hurt.

Source: Barrons

www.barrons.com

Woman Killed In Israel Suspected Ramming Attack

A woman was killed and 17 people were injured in a suspected car ramming in central Israel Monday, medics said, as police arrested two Palestinians over the attack.
www.barrons.com www.barrons.com
Click to expand...
Israel will never have peace or a normal society as long as it continues to subjugate a population against their will.

Without offering the Palestinians a political horizon, this attack and Oct 7 will happen over and over again. I'm not calling for it or condoning it, that's just a plain fact.
 
One killed, 17 injured in twin attacks in Israeli city of Raanana

A woman in her 70s was killed Monday and 17 other people were injured in twin attacks in the central Israeli city of Raanana, according to hospitals treating the victims.

Israeli police said two suspects stole vehicles and ran over a number of people in the city north of Tel Aviv, in what it called a “suspected hit-and-run terror attack.”

The suspects, who were from the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank and were related to each other, have been detained, police said.

A hospital outside Tel Aviv said it was treating seven children injured in the attacks.

A 16-year-old boy who suffered a serious head injury was in surgery, and six other children aged between 10 and 16 were in “mild to moderate” condition, according to Dr. Ron Barnett, director of the department of emergency medicine at the Schneider Center for Pediatrics.

The attacks came the day after Israel’s war against Hamas passed the 100-day mark.

Without claiming responsibility, Hamas said the attacks were “a natural response to the occupation’s massacres and its continued aggression against our Palestinian people” and called for more attacks against Israel.

Police said sweeps were still being conducted in the area to ensure there were no further threats.



 
@JaDed

On another thread, you asked this:

JaDed said:
Oh Sir in that logic Saudi has been bombing Yemen why the outrage when Israel is doing it?
Click to expand...

I didn't want to go off-topic on that thread. So, I am responding to you here:

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

Did Saudis displace the Yemenis like Israel has been doing?

Please learn about Israeli takeover of Palestinian lands since 1947. Please read about Israeli settler violence and illegal settlement building. Palestinian land has been shrinking gradually.
 
sweep_shot said:
@JaDed

On another thread, you asked this:



I didn't want to go off-topic on that thread. So, I am responding to you here:

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

Did Saudis displace the Yemenis like Israel has been doing?

Please learn about Israeli takeover of Palestinian lands since 1947. Please read about Israeli settler violence and illegal settlement building. Palestinian land has been shrinking gradually.
Click to expand...
Please learn what? You are on about light being brought to south Asia by these rulers that murdered non-Muslims in droves kindly don’t tell me to learn anything.
 
JaDed said:
Please learn what? You are on about light being brought to south Asia by these rulers that murdered non-Muslims in droves kindly don’t tell me to learn anything.
Click to expand...

Where did I say that? Where did I support unjust murders?

Does supporting Mughal Empire mean supporting murders? Are you high?

You definitely need to learn about Israeli atrocities because you have demonstrated you are misinformed.
 

Palestinian envoy Husam Zomlot says UK guilty of hypocrisy​

The Palestinians' top envoy to the UK has accused the government of "double standards and hypocrisy" in its policies towards them.

Husam Zomlot criticised PM Rishi Sunak for opposing an application at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in the war in Gaza.

The UK had suffered "reputational damage" in the Middle East, he said.

But he welcomed a recent decision by the government to ban violent Israeli settlers from entering the UK.

Last month, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on X that settlers responsible for attacks on Palestinians would be barred. The move followed the announcement of a similar plan by the US.

"[This is] welcomed," said Mr Zomlot. "In my opinion that was a very significant moment - not because of the policy itself but because this is the first time in 75 years the UK takes any step that has to do with sanctions [on Israel]."

There has been a reported rise in violence by settlers in recent months, especially since the mass Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October and the Israeli military campaign in Gaza which followed.

There are about 700,000 Jewish settlers who live in some 140 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war and claimed by Palestinians for a future state.

The settlements are considered illegal by most of the international community, though Israel disputes this.

However, Mr Zomlot condemned a government bill banning public bodies from boycotting economic activity with Israel or Israeli settlements. The bill passed its third and final reading in the House of Commons last Wednesday and will now go to the House of Lords.

"This is the inconsistency," Mr Zomlot said at a news conference in London. "Where are you [the UK] exactly? Do you consider Israel's occupation of the 1967 borders to be a military occupation and colonisation?

"There is such inconsistency in the UK policy that I... no longer understand if you ask me "What is the UK policy vis-a-vis Palestine?" I don't know. Inconsistent, contradictory."

Mr Zomlot, who is the Head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, also rebuked Prime Minister Sunak for rejecting South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide.

The ICJ began hearing the case at the end of last week.

A spokesperson for the prime minister said Mr Sunak believed the allegation was "completely unjustified and wrong."

"The UK government stands by Israel's clear right to defend itself within the framework of international law," the spokesperson said.

The UK's opposition to South Africa's genocide allegation, said Mr Zomlot, was "a self-appointment as international judges, it's intervention and interference in the international judicial system".

The UK, he said, was guilty of "double standards" and "hypocrisy" in its approach to Israel and international law.

The envoy accused Israel of an "unprecedented manmade humanitarian disaster" in Gaza, and called on the international community to demand a ceasefire.

"Nothing comes before an immediate ceasefire," he said. "This remains our top, top priority."

Source: BBC
 
The role from all the superpowers towards a ceasefire in Gaza has been a bit disappointing so far.
 

Ben & Jerry's board calls for Israel ceasefire​

The ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's has called for a "permanent and immediate ceasefire" in Gaza, jumping into the heated debates over the conflict.

The move is in keeping with the brand, which previously tried to stop sales in West Bank and East Jerusalem, provoking a clash with owner Unilever.

It comes as global boycotts have hit major US firms such as Starbucks over their perceived support of Israel.

The Ben & Jerry's board said the firm stood up for peace.

"Promoting peace has been an integral part of Ben & Jerry's DNA for four decades," said Anuradha Mittal, the head of the board, who also runs the left-leaning think tank the Oakland Institute.

"Today, Ben & Jerry's Board stands steadfast with that principle by calling for peace and a permanent and immediate ceasefire."

There have been heated debates in the US and elsewhere over how firms and institutions should respond to the brutal attack on Israeli's by Hamas on 7 October, and the response by Israel's military Gaza.

McDonald's and Starbucks have blamed backlash against their brands on misinformation on social media.

Even internal communications have often been fraught.

While many US firms were quick to condemn the Hamas brutality, they have been quieter as the conflict continues.

Unilever declined to comment on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for Ben & Jerry's said the statement calling for a ceasefire was made on behalf of its independent board and it had no additional comment.

"Ben & Jerry's has a long history of supporting peace and peace building," the spokesperson added.

"It is stunning that millions are marching around the world but the corporate world has been silent," Ms Mittal told the FT, which first reported the comments.

Ben & Jerry's is known for its political activism.

In 2000, when it was purchased by manufacturing giant Unilever, it preserved its right to have an independent board to guide its social mission.

It has often taken stances aligned with the left on issues like LGBTQ+ rights and climate change.

In 2021, before the current flare-up in violence, Ben & Jerry's had already provoked one row when it spoke up about the treatment of Palestinians.

It said it no longer wanted its ice cream to be sold in parts of Palestine illegally occupied by Israelis including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The stance prompted warnings from the Israeli government and led the prominent Jewish organisation, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, to respond with calls for a boycott of "anti-semitic ice cream".

Politicians in some US states, including most recently North Carolina, also moved to withdraw state pensions and other money from Unilever over the issue.

Over the objections of Ben & Jerry's, Unilever eventually sold the Israeli branch to a local operator with a settlement that allowed sales to continue under different branding.

Ms Mittal shared her personal views on the conflict in Gaza in December, criticising Israel's action in Gaza. It prompted the Simon Wiesenthal Centre to take to social media again criticising Ben & Jerry's.

The post, which the Wall Street Journal reported was deleted after the newspaper asked about it, was controversial as it carried a picture of Ms Mittal and provoked online abuse directed at her personally.

Activist investor Nelson Peltz, a board member at Unilever, later resigned from his position at the centre.

Source: BBC
 

Medicine for Hostages, Palestinian Civilians Due to Reach Gaza After Agreement​


Medicine for hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza is to be delivered Wednesday under a deal brokered by France and Qatar.

France said the medication is destined for 45 hostages who have chronic illnesses, and that the delivery will be made with the help of the International Red Cross.

Qatar said the agreement also included medicine and other humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

As the Israel-Hamas war rages in its fourth month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated that a "pathway to a Palestinian state" is essential for peace in the Middle East.

Israel would not “get genuine security absent that," the top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Blinken said if Israel and several Arab countries work together, they could isolate Iran, which he called "the biggest concern in terms of security," as well as its proxies. Those include Yemen's Houthi rebels who have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea.

"The problem is getting from here to there, and of course, it requires very difficult, challenging decisions. It requires a mindset that is open to that perspective," Blinken said.

But he said currently "we're in the midst of what is human tragedy in so many ways in the Middle East right now — for the Israelis and Palestinians alike."

A day earlier, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said during a Davos panel that his country agreed "regional peace includes peace for Israel" and responded "certainly" when asked if Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel as part of a larger political agreement.

Source: VOA
 

‘Gaza Must be Occupied, Palestinians Forced to Migrate’ – Ben-Gvir​


The interview with Israel’s Channel 13 news on Wednesday, Ben-Gvir reportedly said “Gaza must be occupied. Stay inside it and encourage the voluntary migration of its residents.”

“If we win the war, it will be practically accomplished,” he added, according to the Anadolu news agency.

The Security Minister further criticized the course of Israel’s military action in Gaza."My critique of the war’s course is clear: progress must be made to bring about a resolution,” he said, the report continues.

“The soldiers are doing an excellent job, but in the mini-cabinet (Israeli cabinet), you must give them (the soldiers) support to resolve it,” he added.

Ben-Gvir is further reported as expressing hope that elements of the Likud party would not hinder the progress achieved in the war.

He also said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Likud, is leading negotiations with the There is a Future party led by opposition leader Yair Lapid, “to bring them into the government at my expense.”
Statements Condemned by Other Countries
This is not the first time that senior Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, have issued statements calling for the forced displacement of Palestinians.

Ministers including Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Knesset member for the Likud party Danny Danon have called for encouraging the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from the besieged enclave.

In December, Netanyahu reportedly told his ruling Likud Party members that “our problem is the countries that are willing to absorb (them), and we are working on it.”
Source : The Palestine Chronicle
 
Israel emerged as one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists in 2023, according to a report by a press freedom watchdog, with the number of reporters behind bars soaring after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

In its annual snapshot of jailed journalists published on Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found that Israel was the joint sixth biggest jailer of journalists in 2023, alongside Iran.

There were 17 Palestinian reporters held in Israeli jails as of December 1, the CPJ said. By comparison, the previous year one Palestinian reporter was held in an Israeli prison, according to the New York-based non-profit group.

“Israel has appeared several times on CPJ’s annual census, but this is the highest number of arrests of Palestinian journalists since CPJ began documenting arrests in 1992 and the first time Israel has ranked among the top six offenders,” read the report.

All those held in Israeli prisons were detained in the occupied West Bank after the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, when Hamas fighters launched a surprise assault into southern Israel, killing at least 1,139 people, mostly civilians, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on official statistics. Around 240 others were taken captive, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel responded with a devasting bombardment and ground offensive on Gaza. More than 24,600 people have been killed in the Israeli assault, according to Palestinian officials.

In the more than three months since the Gaza war started, violence has soared in towns and cities across the West Bank, with Israeli forces conducting near-daily raids and mass arrests.

According to the new report, most of the journalists arrested were held under administrative detention – a practice where Israeli authorities hold detainees without charge or trial for up to six months. The detention can be extended based on “secret evidence” that neither the detainees nor their lawyers are allowed to see.

Due to the lack of information on the reason behind the jailing, the CPJ said it has been difficult to establish why the 17 journalists had been arrested. Several of the reporters’ families said they believe they were jailed for messages posted on social media, the report said.

The CPJ’s list is a snapshot of people incarcerated on December 1, and it does not include those imprisoned or released throughout the year. As of January 17, at least 19 reporters were still in jail, the CPJ said.

The Gaza war has also seen a spike in the number of journalists killed in the region. As of mid-January, 83 reporters have been killed since the start of the conflict. At least 67 were Palestinians, four were Israeli and three were Lebanese, according to the CPJ.

Since the start of 2024, the committee recorded that at least six journalists were killed, including Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh. He was the fourth member of Dahdouh’s close family to have been killed in the war.

The report found that 320 journalists were in prison worldwide on December 1 of last year, the second-highest number recorded since the committee began documenting arrests in 1992. The total marks a fall from a record global high in 2022 when more than 360 reporters were behind bars.

This represents “a disturbing barometer of entrenched authoritarianism and the vitriol of governments determined to smother independent voices”, read the report.

“Some governments go a step further, using transnational repression to threaten and harass reporters beyond their own borders,” it added.

China is the worst offender, with 44 journalists in jail, followed by Myanmar (43) and Belarus (28).

More than 65 percent of those listed in the census are accused of spreading false information and of “terrorism in retaliation for their critical coverage”.

In 66 cases, those held have not yet been told of the charges they are facing, read the report.

Source: Al Jazeera

www.aljazeera.com

Israeli arrests of Palestinian journalists soared in 2023: CPJ

More than a dozen Palestinian journalists held in Israeli jails since the start of the Gaza war on October 7.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
Israel-Hamas war: In a first, the European Parliament calls for a 'permanent ceasefire'

The European Parliament has for the first time called for a "permanent ceasefire" in Gaza and the start of political efforts to find a solution to the war between Israel and Hamas.

The resolution, which is purely symbolic and carries no legal weight, was approved with 312 votes in favour, 131 against and 72 abstentions in Strasbourg's plenary chamber on Thursday after a compromise was made to appease centre-right lawmakers.

The ceasefire plea represents a significant shift in the Parliament's previous position, agreed in October, which called for a humanitarian "pause" to step up the flow of aid reaching Gaza's civilians. That vote in October had passed with 500 votes in favour, 21 against and 24 abstentions.

Thursday's sharpened call comes as the Gaza death toll tops 24,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, since the start of the Israeli offensive.

While the hemicycle's left-leaning and centrist groups had openly backed the ceasefire call, members of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the largest group in the chamber, had expressed reservations.

An amendment specifying that the ceasefire should be conditional on the release of all hostages held in Gaza and the "dismantling" of Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organisation in the EU, secured the backing of EPP lawmakers.

"Sustainable peace cannot exist as long as Hamas and other terrorist groups hijack the Palestinian cause and threaten the existence of Israel, the only democracy in the region," Antonio López-Istúriz, an EPP lawmaker, said at the plenary.

Responding to the resolution, a representative of the Israeli mission to the EU told Euronews that it shows the Parliament "has an understanding of the cause of the war and the means to end it."

"We are pleased that the resolution states clearly that a ceasefire is provided upon the unconditional release of all hostages and the dismantling of the terrorist organization Hamas," the representative added.


EU lawmakers also condemned Israel's "disproportionate" military response in Gaza and supported a European initiative to resume the so-called two-state solution, a long-term diplomatic solution which would secure statehood for the Palestinians.

Several versions of the text and dozens of amendments were filed in anticipation of the vote, reflecting the variety of viewpoints across the hemicycle.

In a sign of the difficult political wrangling that was needed to get the resolution over the line, Hilde Vautmans, a Belgian MEP for the liberal Renew Europe group, urged the hemicycle to find unity after hours of negotiations over the past few days.

She said ahead of the vote that the EU's "international credibility" was at stake.

Bruno Lété, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told Euronews that although purely symbolic, calls from EU and world leaders can have an effect.

"We've seen (...) some EU leaders, leaders in the Arab world, and even close allies of Israel such as the United States, calling on Israel to show more restraint in its actions in Gaza," Lété explained. "I think partially it works. We've seen Israel now withdrawing partially from the Gaza Strip."

But, Lété added, the condition of eradicating Hamas from the Gaza Strip will be difficult to fulfil, and that both warring parties would need to comply with a ceasefire agreement.

"We've already seen statements by Israeli officials saying that (...) we are satisfied with the level of eradication of the network in Gaza," he said. "But we also see reports, showing that Hamas is actually returning to some of the areas that Israel supposedly had under control."

"If Hamas doesn't comply, it leaves little choice to Israel then to return to to its action. So both parties have to show a certain willingness to work towards a ceasefire," he went on.

The European Council, which represents the bloc's 27 member states, has not yet unanimously agreed to call for a ceasefire, despite pleas from countries such as Belgium, Ireland and Spain. So far, their official line is "humanitarian pauses and corridors," a wording that implies a temporary, rather than continued, interruption of hostilities.

A European Council summit in December ended with no new conclusions on Gaza, despite seventeen EU member states, a majority of the bloc, backing a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire just days earlier.



www.euronews.com

Israel-Hamas war: European Parliament calls for 'permanent ceasefire'

The European Parliament has for the first time called for a "permanent ceasefire" in Gaza and the start of political efforts to find a solution to the war between Israel and Hamas. #EuropeNews
www.euronews.com www.euronews.com
 
The Israel-Gaza war has created a new "radicalisation moment" in the UK with the potential to push more people towards terrorism, the head of counter-terrorism policing has said.

Matt Jukes said "extraordinary amounts" of online comment, amplified by misinformation and AI-generated false images, had fuelled the "intense risk".

He compared the effect of the conflict to wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

There have now been 33 arrests under terrorism laws related to Israel-Gaza.

These include people arrested for comments or slogans on protests. Officers would not confirm if terror plots had been detected.

The official government estimate of the threat of a terror attack remains at "substantial" - the third highest level of five - meaning an attack is "likely".

Briefing reporters on the threat of terrorism, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes said there had been 3,000 referrals to a counter-terrorism unit which monitors suspicious activity online.

700 had been identified as having a link to the UK, and potentially breaking the law. Some young children, including 11 and 12 year-olds, had been "engaging in troubling conversations".

"All of that online material is part of a dangerous climate," Matt Jukes said. It had created a "radicalisation moment, with the potential to push people towards terrorism".

"This is not simply rhetoric, we are seeing the signs of that intense risk," he added.

There was a 13% increase in referrals in 2023 to the government's Prevent programme, which assesses the risk of radicalisation and attempts to intervene.

Mr Jukes said potential terror attacks might not come immediately and "radicalisation can have a long tail".

But he warned: "In my seat you tend to look at dashboards of indicators and there are needles on that dashboard that are moving in the wrong direction."

Detectives remain most concerned by the threat of a "lone actor" attack, possibly by "chaotic" individuals with poor mental health.

A team of more than 20 officers is now dedicated to investigating potential war crimes, including allegations relating to Israel-Gaza.

This has received 92 referrals connected with the conflict, of which 73 were against Israel and 19 against Hamas. Investigations are at an early "review" stage.

The police have been criticised for dedicating resources to war crimes offences which include "crimes against humanity", genocide and torture.

But senior officers stress that for every £100 pounds spent on counter-terrorism policing, only 30p goes on investigating war crimes.

"We should not allow the UK to be a safe haven for war criminals," Mr Jukes said.

Senior officers also say the UK has a legal duty to support the work of the International Criminal Court, and coroners' inquests into the deaths of British nationals.

The problem detectives face is that they might receive "dossiers" of evidence that war crimes have been committed, but no first or second-hand eye witness accounts.

Information tends to come from law firms, non-government organisations such as charities, and "people in the middle of conflict".

The counter-terrorism command is also dealing with an increased threat from hostile states, principally Russia, Iran and China.

In a recent case, an Austrian man, Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev, was jailed for three years after being spotted by security guards carrying out "hostile reconnaissance" on an Iranian media company in Chiswick, London, which had been threatened due to its reporting on Iran.

Police are also concerned states targeting the UK are paying criminals to carry out their activities, because an organised crime gang may find it easier to operate across borders and move weapons than a spy.

A new investigations team has been set up to counter hostile states, closely linked to the security and secret intelligence services, MI5 and MI6.

Source: BBC

www.bbc.com

Gaza war creating a radicalisation moment, senior UK police officer says

A senior police officer warns the conflict could push more people towards terrorism.
www.bbc.com
 
Israeli drones attack hospital in southern Gaza as battles rage

The Palestinian Red Crescent accused Israel of firing on Friday at a hospital in Khan Younis, as a major advance in the main city in the southern Gaza Strip threatened the few healthcare facilities still open.

The Red Crescent said displaced people were injured "due to intense gunfire from the Israeli drones targeting citizens at Al-Amal Hospital" as well as the rescue agency's base.

Nearby in the same city, Israeli tanks were also approaching Gaza's biggest remaining functioning hospital, Nasser, where people reported hearing shellfire from the west. Residents also reported fierce gun battles to the south.

Around 85% of the 2.3 million population have been driven to seek shelter in the south, according to the UN.



www.newarab.com

Israeli drones attack hospital in south Gaza's Khan Younis

The Israeli military has pushed further south into the Gaza Strip, as it pounded the enclave's second largest city and attacked the last operating hospital.
www.newarab.com www.newarab.com
 
Eisenkot: Key Israeli war leader challenges Netanyahu over Gaza strategy

A key member of Israel's war cabinet has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of not telling the truth about the country's military goals in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu has publicly rejected the US push for a future Palestinian state and insisted the offensive would continue "until complete victory".

But Gadi Eisenkot - whose son was killed fighting in Gaza - said those advocating "absolute defeat" of Hamas were not "speaking the truth".

The retired general also said Mr Netanyahu shared "sharp and clear responsibility" for failing to protect his country on 7 October and urged fresh elections, saying there was "no trust" in Israel's current leadership.

Hamas killed around 1,300 people and took 240 hostages in their surprise attack on southern Israel.

A key member of Israel's war cabinet has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of not telling the truth about the country's military goals in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu has publicly rejected the US push for a future Palestinian state and insisted the offensive would continue "until complete victory".

But Gadi Eisenkot - whose son was killed fighting in Gaza - said those advocating "absolute defeat" of Hamas were not "speaking the truth".

The retired general also said Mr Netanyahu shared "sharp and clear responsibility" for failing to protect his country on 7 October and urged fresh elections, saying there was "no trust" in Israel's current leadership.

Hamas killed around 1,300 people and took 240 hostages in their surprise attack on southern Israel.

A recent poll found that just 15% of Israelis want him to keep his job after the war.

And while most Israelis continue to support military action against Hamas, the majority now say they want to prioritise bringing the remaining 130 or so hostages home, over the potentially impossible aim of destroying Hamas.

His latest comments on a future Palestinian state are also a repudiation of Arab attempts to mediate in the conflict.

Saudi Arabia has dangled before him the prize of normalising ties with Israel as part of a ceasefire deal that includes a two-state solution.

But Israel's prime minister seems to have staked his political survival on a hard-line anti-Palestinian position.

No longer can he sell himself as "Mr Security" after the worst attacks in Israel's history happening under his watch.

Now it's "Mr No Independent Palestine": a position he believes will chime with the public mood here that, while increasingly out of love with its prime minister, is still too traumatised to conceive of a Palestinian state next door.


www.bbc.com

Eisenkot: Key Israeli war leader challenges Netanyahu over Gaza strategy

Gadi Eisenkot condemns the prime minister, who insists Israel's offensive will go on until "complete victory".
www.bbc.com
 
Trudeau balancing act on Israel-Gaza annoys both sides of debate

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tried to walk a fine line on the Israel-Gaza conflict. But by seeking to appeal to all sides, he has pleased no-one.

On Thursday, Israel's envoy to Canada had a request for Mr Trudeau - that Canada "leave no room for misinterpretation" on a matter that the ambassador said was "crystal clear".

The matter was South Africa's allegation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel, accusing it of genocide in Gaza. Israel has slammed the claim as false and "grossly distorted".

It was not the first time Canada's prime minister has been asked to define his country's position on the case currently before the UN's highest court.

Over the last few days, Mr Trudeau was asked to clarify numerous times where Canada stands on the ICJ case, after its close allies - including the US and the UK - rejected it.

Mr Trudeau first told reporters that while Canada supports the ICJ, that did not mean it supported "the premise" of the case, a statement that was widely interpreted as a dismissal.

He then said that Canada would abide by any ruling issued by the ICJ, but refused to comment on whether Canada agreed with the genocide allegation.

It was the latest in a string of public statements that have led to accusations that Canada is mincing its words on a conflict that has sharply divided Canadians and much of the world.

Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative opposition party, said at a press conference last week that Mr Trudeau "sends out some of his MPs to claim that they support calling Israel genocidal when they are talking to one group of voters. And then he sends out another group to say that they're against calling Israel genocidal."

Throughout the conflict, Mr Trudeau has been broadly in line with Canada's Western allies, repeatedly condemning Hamas's deadly attack on 7 October, while saying that Israel has right to defend itself. Like the US, UK, European Union and others, Canada classifies Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

At the same time, he has also underscored the need to protect civilian lives and allow humanitarian aid inside Gaza.

And on Thursday, he criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his statements against a future two-state solution, saying that Canada believed it was "the only way forward" for peace in the region.

When pushed, however, Mr Trudeau has struggled to clearly explain Canada's position on the ongoing war, frustrating allies and opening himself up to criticism.

"Almost every step he's taken in this conflict has had the effect of upsetting everyone at different times," said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, which regularly polls Canadians on national issues.

That includes members of his own Liberal caucus, who, like the public, are deeply divided on the matter.

On 20 October, Mr Trudeau was met with boos and shouts of "shame" at an Ontario mosque, where he made an unannounced visit. That same day, he was sent a letter signed by 23 members of his own caucus urging him to advocate for a ceasefire.

But when Canada backed a UN General Assembly resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire on 12 December - a break from its historic support for Israel - tensions flared within Mr Trudeau's caucus.

Liberal MP Anthony Housefather publicly criticised the government at the time, saying it was "unacceptable" for Canada to throw its weight behind a ceasefire resolution that did not explicitly ask Hamas to drop its weapons.

The response forced the Trudeau government to release a lengthy statement explaining its vote and reiterating its support for Israel.

Some have argued Mr Trudeau's vagueness may be part of a larger political calculus, especially given where most Canadians stand on the issue.

Polling done by Ms Kurl's institute in November indicated that among Liberal voters, an almost identical number of people - about 20% - sympathise with either Israelis or Palestinians.

Meanwhile, a large chunk of Canadians - about 31% - sympathise with both equally.

"In terms of the overall population, there is perhaps more of an understanding that this issue is profoundly complex," Ms Kurl said.

Still, the apparent ambiguity may be costing Mr Trudeau's Liberals some support, at a time when they are trailing behind Mr Poilievre's party in the polls.

Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations at the University of Toronto, said he had seen an "unprecedented change" in what traditionally has been very strong support for the Liberal party within Canada's Jewish community.

The prime minister's stance was not viewed as "a lack of clarity", he said, but rather as "a huge moral and ethical failure" at a time when antisemitic incidents were on the rise in Canada.

Meanwhile, many Muslims are also frustrated with Mr Trudeau's lack of consistency, and with the country's politicians in general, according to Stephen Brown, head of the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

"You would never have seen that response prior to the conflict," said Mr Brown about the prime minister being booed at a mosque. The ambiguity was especially "hurtful", he said, at a time when Islamophobic incidents in Canada had also spiked.

While Mr Trudeau has irked both sides, Ms Kurl noted that his comments, at least so far, have not caused any members of his own Liberal party to defect, despite "very passionate voices" within it.

"It has been perhaps outwardly awkward for the prime minister," Ms Kurl said. But "he has managed to keep his caucus together
​
BBC
 

Senior Iran Revolutionary Guard officials killed in Syria strike blamed on Israel​

Five senior members of Iran's security forces have been killed in a suspected air strike on the Syrian capital.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard blamed Israel for the attack, which it said killed its military advisers as well as a number of Syrian forces.

Israel has not commented. For years it has carried out strikes on Iranian-linked targets in Syria.

Such strikes have intensified since the Israel-Gaza war began following Hamas's 7 October attacks on Israel.

Iran's foreign ministry said the attacks were an "aggressive and provocative" act by Israel, urging international actors to condemn them.

Senior figures among the Revolutionary Guard - a major military, political and economic force in Iran - have been present in Syria since the civil war began there in 2011, helping to support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against widespread rebellion to his rule.

Saturday's attack took place in the Mazzeh neighbourhood, south-west Damascus, an area home to a military airport, as well as the UN headquarters in Damascus, embassies and restaurants.

Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency said the attacks killed the IRGC's Syria intelligence chief and his deputy, as well as other Guard members.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based campaign group, said 10 people were killed in the strikes, including leaders of the Revolutionary Guard.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency quoted a military source as saying it had managed to stop some of the missiles, but that the attacks - which it said had hit a residential building - killed and injured some civilians. Buildings were also destroyed, it said.

A resident told AFP news agency that they saw "explosions" in the western Mazzeh area and "a large cloud of smoke".

"The sound was similar to a missile explosion, and minutes later I heard the sound of ambulances," he added.

Videos, which the BBC has not verified, showed a large cloud of smoke and buildings destroyed.

Last month a suspected Israeli air strike just outside Damascus killed a senior IRGC commander.

The Middle East has been on heightened alert since 7 October, when Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel, killing about 1,300 people, mainly civilians, and taking 240 hostages back to Gaza. More than 132 hostages are thought to still be held in the territory.

More than 24,900 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military response, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel says its ground and air operation in Gaza is aimed at destroying Hamas.

The conflict has raised concerns about a wider war spreading around the region, particularly between fierce rivals Israel and Iran, and amid a series of overlapping crises.

Israel is targeting the Palestinian group Hamas, which is supported by Tehran. It has been carrying out precision strikes across the border in Syria for some time now, bombing weapons supplies heading for its Iran-backed foe, Hezbollah, or taking out key figures in that supply chain, and it is also exchanging fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria are also targeting US forces in the region, and the US and UK have struck the Houthis - another Iran-backed group - in Yemen, who have been attacking ships in the Red Sea.

Fears about an even wider conflict were further heightened this week, when Iran exchanged strikes with its neighbour Pakistan.

On Tuesday, Iran admitted carrying out a missile and drone attack in south-western Pakistan, killing two children, saying it was targeting an "Iranian terrorist group" in Pakistan.

Days later, Islamabad hit back, launching strikes it said were targeting "terrorist hideouts" in south-eastern Iran, killing nine people.

Although both sides insisted they were targeting militant bases in each other's countries, Iran and Pakistan withdrew their ambassadors from the respective capitals.

But following talks, diplomatic ties were restored.

Iran has hit targets in Pakistan, Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey has also bombed Kurdistan, while Jordan has attacked drug smugglers across its border with Syria.

The US is still hitting ISIS in Syria and simultaneously fighting off drone strikes by Iran's proxies there and in Iraq.

There is no common policy behind these attacks, other than the well-worn pretext of "acting in national self defence".

Source: BBC
 
This war seems to be expanding beyond Palestine and this is not a good sign for the entire region.
 
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