2024-05-16 18:36:34
Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that more troops would "enter Rafah" as military operations intensify in Gaza’s far-southern city, in remarks issued by his office Thursday.
The operation "will continue as additional forces will enter" the Rafah area, Gallant said, claiming that "several tunnels in the area have been destroyed by our troops... this activity will intensify".
"Hundreds of targets have already been struck, and our forces are manoeuvring in the area," he said according to a statement released by his office after he visited Rafah the previous day.
Israeli forces took control earlier in May of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, in a push launched in defiance of US warnings that around 1.4 million civilians sheltering there could be caught in the crossfire.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said "600,000 people have fled Rafah since military operations intensified" in Rafah.
2024-05-16 17:27:59
US troops early Thursday anchored a long-awaited temporary pier, meant to boost aid deliveries into war-ravaged Gaza, to a beach in the besieged Palestinian territory, the US military said.
"Today at approximately 7:40 am (0440 GMT) United States Central Command personnel supporting the humanitarian mission to deliver additional humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in need anchored a temporary pier to the beach in Gaza," CENTCOM said in a post on social media platform X.
The US military's CENTCOM, which operated in the Middle East, said that "as part of this effort, no US troops entered Gaza."
"Trucks carrying humanitarian assistance are expected to begin moving ashore in the coming days," it added, with UN agencies to "receive the aid and coordinate its distribution into Gaza".
2024-05-16 16:52:20
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that at least 35,272 people have been killed in the territory during more than seven months of war between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
The toll includes at least 39 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 79,205 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip.
2024-05-16 15:17:22
2024-05-16 12:37:34
Israel's military said Thursday that five soldiers had been killed by friendly fire in Gaza's north, where intense fighting has resumed more than seven months into its war against Hamas fighters.
The troops were killed on Wednesday at 7pm in the area of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, the military said in a statement.
The latest fatalities take to 278 the number of Israeli troops killed in the Gaza military campaign since the start of the ground offensive on October 27.
"Five soldiers of the 202nd Paratrooper Battalion were killed last night in a mass casualty incident as a result of fire by our forces," the military statement said, adding that seven other troops were wounded.
2024-05-16 11:45:21
2024-05-16 10:44:30
South Africa will ask the top UN court on Thursday to order an immediate halt to Israel's incursion in Rafah, describing it as a "genocidal" operation threatening the "very survival of Palestinians".
Top lawyers for Pretoria will kick off two days of hearings at the Peace Palace, home of the International Court of Justice, imploring judges to order a ceasefire throughout Gaza.
In a ruling that made headlines around the world, the ICJ in January ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocidal acts and enable humanitarian aid to Gaza.
But the court stopped short of ordering a ceasefire and South Africa's argument is that the situation on the ground — notably the Rafah operation — requires fresh ICJ action.
"As the overwhelming evidence demonstrates, the very manner in which Israel is pursuing its military operations in Rafah, and elsewhere in Gaza, is itself genocidal," South Africa said in its submission.
"It must be ordered to stop."
2024-05-16 10:19:45
2024-05-16 09:54:46
Ni'ma Ali Imad is desperate to get her wounded son Mohammed out of Gaza for the medical treatment that doctors say they cannot provide in the Palestinian enclave.
Five-year-old Mohammed lost his sight and suffered a head wound during Israeli shelling. But, like many other wounded Palestinians, he is stuck in a Gaza hospital waiting because the Rafah Crossing on the border with Egypt is closed.
Egypt blames the closure on Israeli military operations around Rafah. Israel, which seized control of the crossing last week, said on Tuesday it was up to Egypt to reopen it - remarks described by Cairo as "desperate attempts" to shift the blame.
2024-05-16 08:46:24
Arab leaders are gathering Thursday in Bahrain for a summit dominated by the Israel-Hamas war which has been raging in the Gaza Strip without a ceasefire in sight.
Heads of state and government began touching down on Wednesday in Manama, capital of the Gulf nation, where the flags of the Arab League's 22 members were flying.
It is the first time the bloc has come together since an extraordinary summit in Riyadh, capital of neighbouring Saudi Arabia, in November that also involved leaders from the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, based in the Saudi city of Jeddah.
2024-05-16 08:43:16
Fierce battle rages in Gaza’s north with Palestinian fighter groups countering invading Israeli troops with small-arms ambush attacks, with rockets and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Meanwhile, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said the “scale of the crisis defies imagination” in southern Gaza as Israeli artillery invades Rafah and mass displacement leaves people in need of food and water, while sanitation is also lacking.
2024-05-15 23:54:05
Hundreds of tons of aid are ready to flow into Gaza once the United States opens a temporary pier, US officials said Wednesday, as they also pushed for the reopening of a key land crossing.
In a briefing with reporters, US officials involved in the pier project, in which humanitarian aid will be screened and loaded in Cyprus before being offloaded into Gaza, repeated that it would become operational "in the coming days."
"Today we have hundreds of tons of aid ready for delivery and thousands of tons of aid in the pipeline," said Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of US Central Command which operates in the Middle East.
Cooper also warned that the United States would not tolerate attacks on the pier, saying it took the security of service members and humanitarian workers "very seriously".
"This is a 100 per cent humanitarian mission and any attack on those working on it — on this mission — is an attack on aid for the people of Gaza," he said.
2024-05-15 23:35:44
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday said he was opposed to Israeli military control or taking responsibility for the governance of the Gaza Strip after the ongoing war with Hamas.
"Since October, I have been raising this issue consistently in the cabinet, and have received no response," Gallant said in a televised statement.
"I must reiterate — I will not agree to the establishment of Israeli military rule in Gaza. Israel must not establish civilian rule in Gaza."
"I call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian control over the Gaza strip," Gallant said, calling for a "governing alternative to Hamas" immediately.
"The day after Hamas will only be achieved with Palestinian entities taking control of Gaza, accompanied by international actors, establishing a governing alternative to Hamas' rule," he said.
"This, above all, is in interest of the State of Israel."
2024-05-15 22:39:57
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday claimed that Israel would "set its sights" on Turkey if it succeeded in defeating Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"Do not think that Israel will stop in Gaza," Erdogan told his party lawmakers in the parliament in the capital Ankara.
"Unless it’s stopped... this rogue and terrorist state will set its sights on Anatolia sooner or later," he said, referring to the large Turkish peninsula also called Asia Minor that comprises more than half of Turkey’s territory.
"We will continue to stand by Hamas, which fights for the independence of its own land and which defends Anatolia," added Erdogan.
2024-05-15 21:10:11
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that eliminating Hamas in the Gaza Strip is necessary for any rise of alternative Palestinian governance there, as, he argued, leaving Hamas in place would pose a threat to potential successors.
In a video statement, Netanyahu also pushed back against Western criticism of Israel's military operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, saying: "The humanitarian catastrophe that was talked about hasn't materialised, nor will it materialise."
2024-05-15 19:52:56
KARACHI: A student organisation, Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT), has organised a signature campaign at the University of Karachi to show solidarity with the students participating in universities across the world, including the United States, against Israeli oppression and aggression in Gaza.
The signature drive, titled, "We are One", was organised to convey the message that students all over the world are united against the forces of evil.
2024-05-15 19:06:41
Ireland is certain to recognise Palestinian statehood by the end of May, the country's foreign minister said on Wednesday, without specifying a date.
"We will be recognising the state of Palestine before the end of the month," Micheal Martin, who is also Ireland’s deputy prime minister, told the Newstalk radio station.
In March the leaders of Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta said in a joint statement that they stand ready to recognise Palestinian statehood.
2024-05-15 18:20:20
2024-05-15 17:58:20
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it launched dozens of rockets at north Israel military positions Wednesday in retaliation for the killing of a member Israel said was a field commander.
Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday attacked "the Meron base with dozens of Katyusha rockets, heavy rockets and artillery shells" as well as targeting a barrack with "heavy rockets," the group said.
The attacks were "part of the response to the assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy in the south" the previous day, it said.
Israel’s army said sirens sounded in Meron on Wednesday without providing further details.
2024-05-15 17:13:42
Israel needs a clear and concrete plan for the future of Gaza where it faces the potential for a power vaccum that could become filled by chaos, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.
Israel's limited operation in Rafah has had a "negative impact" just as it was taking steps to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza, Blinken said during a press conference in Kyiv.
2024-05-15 14:30:17
The European Union on Wednesday urged Israel to end its military operation in Gaza's Rafah "immediately", warning that failure to do so would undermine ties with the bloc.
"Should Israel continue its military operation in Rafah, it would inevitably put a heavy strain on the EU's relationship with Israel," said the statement issued in the EU's name by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
"The European Union urges Israel to end its military operation in Rafah immediately," the statement said, warning it was "further disrupting the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza and is leading to more internal displacement, exposure to famine and human suffering."
The bloc said more than a million people in and around Rafah had been ordered by Israel to flee the area to other zones the UN says cannot be considered safe.
2024-05-15 13:30:09
Gun battles between Israel and Hamas intensified overnight into some of the fiercest in months in both northern and southern Gaza, both sides said on Wednesday.
Israeli tanks reached densely populated neighborhoods and narrow alleyways of the militant stronghold of Jabalia in the northeast, facing heavy resistance. Residents said the army destroyed clusters of homes there in areas where they had not invaded before.
Gaza's Civil Emergency Service and health ministry said rescue teams have been unable to reach areas where the army was operating to respond to calls for help.
2024-05-15 12:21:56
Palestinians said that they are facing a second Nakba, the forced displacement of the Palestinians in 1948. However, they say that this time they are alone.
It has been 76 years since the tragic event and back then all the Arab countries were united against Israel, Al Jazeera reported.
Palestinians say that whatever's happening in Gaza is the clear evidence of a second Nakba.
Recalling the first Arab-Israeli war, Adeeb Nazzal, from Qabatiya, said Iraqi soldiers had fought heroically side by side with Palestinians against Zionists in that war.
“Nowadays [Arab armies] have no say. Everyone is on their own. Everyone wants [to preserve] their own interests,” he said.
2024-05-15 11:30:00
The United Nations has launched an investigation into an unidentified strike on a UN car in Rafah on Monday that killed its first international staff in Gaza since October 7, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary General said.
The staff member, a retired Indian Army officer named Waibhav Anil Kale, was working with the UN Department of Safety and Security and was on route to the European Hospital in Rafah along with a colleague, who was also injured in the attack.
Israel has been moving deeper into Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than a million people had sought shelter, and its forces pounded the enclave's north on Tuesday in some of the fiercest attacks in months.
In a statement on Monday after Kale's death, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres reiterated an "urgent appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and for the release of all hostages," saying the conflict in Gaza was continuing to take a heavy toll "not only on civilians, but also on humanitarian workers".
His deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Tuesday the UN has established a fact-finding panel to determine the responsibility for the attack.
"It’s very early in the investigation, and details of the incident are still being verified with the Israeli Defence Force," he said.
There are 71 international UN staff members in Gaza currently, he said.
2024-05-15 10:45:00
US President Joe Biden's administration informed Congress on Tuesday of a $1 billion weapons package for Israel, official sources told AFP, a week after threatening to withhold some arms over concerns of a Rafah assault.
The administration informally notified the weapons package to Congress, which will need to approve it, a US official said, while a congressional aide who also requested anonymity said the weapons bought from US weapons makers amounted to around $1 billion.
The weapons would come out of a major $95 billion package recently approved by Congress in defense support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and the Biden administration has repeatedly said it planned to go ahead and appropriate the funds through purchases from US manufacturers.
The Biden administration also confirmed last week that for the first time it had halted a shipment including 2,000-pound bombs, fearing they would be used with devastating risks for civilians in Rafah.
Congress could still block the weapons sale to Israel, with left-leaning members of Biden's Democratic Party outraged by the toll on civilians in the Gaza war.
But the overall package passed despite opposition from the left, with the rival Republican Party almost unanimously in support of arms for Israel.
2024-05-15 09:37:50
The Israeli army has forced the Palestinians to evacuate large parts of northern Gaza where Hamas and Israeli soldiers are fighting, Al Jazeera reported.
Palestinian residents in Rafah said they could see smoke rising above the city’s eastern districts amid the sound of explosions.
According to the United Nations, at least450,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee Rafah in the past week as the Israeli army pushes deeper in their long-feared ground invasion.
2024-05-14 23:54:22
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan plans to travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend, a US official said on Tuesday as Israeli tanks pushed deeper into eastern Rafah, stoking fears of additional civilian deaths.
Additional details on his trip were not available.
The visit comes as the United States continues to press Israel to hold off on a major military ground incursion into Rafah, one of the border crossings in Gaza where more than a million people had been sheltering.
US and Israeli officials were scheduled to hold additional in-person discussions on Rafah but weeks have passed without a new date being set.
2024-05-14 23:45:49
After Israel blamed Egypt for Gaza aid blockade at Rafah crossing, Cairo denounced the former's statement what it described as "desperate attempts" to shift blame for the blockage of aid.
The Rafah crossing between Egypt and southern Gaza has been a vital route for aid to the coastal territory, where a humanitarian crisis has deepened and some people are at risk of famine.
"The foreign minister strongly denounced the desperate attempts of the Israeli side to hold Egypt responsible for the unprecedented humanitarian crisis facing the Gaza Strip," the ministry said in a statement.
"The foreign minister called on Israel to fulfil its legal responsibility as the occupying power, by allowing aid to enter through the land ports under its control."
Egypt has said that the crossing has remained open from its side throughout the conflict that began between Israel and Hamas on October 7.
2024-05-14 23:16:32
Israel said on Tuesday that it was up to Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing and allow humanitarian relief into the Gaza Strip, prompting Cairo to denounce what it described as "desperate attempts" to shift blame for the blockage of aid.
The Rafah crossing between Egypt and southern Gaza has been a vital route for aid to the coastal territory, where a humanitarian crisis has deepened and some people are at risk of famine.
"The key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends," Israel's Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz said in comments released by his office.
Katz said he had spoken with his British and German counterparts about "the need to persuade Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing", adding he would also speak with Italy's foreign minister later on Tuesday.
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which has governed Gaza, will not "control the Rafah crossing", Katz said, citing security concerns over which Israel "will not compromise".
2024-05-14 22:04:18
Israel’s foreign minister said that Egypt must be “persuaded” for reopening of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza to “allow the continued delivery of international humanitarian aid”.
Israel Katz said in a statement that “the key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends”. He also added that foreign critics blaming Israel for the humanitarian situation in the Strip are misguided, according to Al Jazeera.
2024-05-14 20:40:06
The Palestinian Authority's Majed Abu Ramadan said that responsibility for the dire state of Gaza Strip healthcare can be placed at the feet of Israel’s continued assault on the enclave.
Abu Ramadan also called for international intervention to save the health system in the Strip.
He added that the Palestinian Authority is working to send medical teams into Gaza to treat "difficult cases", in light of Israel's refusal to allow a "sufficient" number of wounded and ill Palestinians to leave the Strip for medical treatment.
2024-05-14 19:30:54
The Norwegian government Tuesday proposed 1 billion kroner ($92.5 million) in aid to Palestinians this year as humanitarian agencies warn of a looming famine in the Gaza Strip.
Figures in the revised budget presented on Tuesday, show a roughly quadrupling of the 258 million kroner provided in the initial finance bill adopted last year.
"The urgent need of aid in Gaza is enormous after seven months of war," Norway's Minister of International Development, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, said in a statement.
"The food situation in particular is critical and there is a risk of famine," she added, criticising "an entirely man-made crisis" and an equally "critical" situation in the West Bank.
2024-05-14 18:43:12
LONDON: British foreign minister David Cameron said that attacks on aid convoys headed for Gaza were "appalling" and that Israel must hold those responsible to account.
"Attacks by extremists on aid convoys en route to Gaza are appalling. Gazans are at risk of famine and in desperate need of supplies," Cameron wrote on X.
"Israel must hold attackers to account and do more to allow aid in – I will be raising my concerns with the Israeli government."
2024-05-14 18:01:05
ANKARA: Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Tuesday that Turkey decided to submit its declaration of official intervention in South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Earlier this month Fidan announced the decision to join the case launched by South Africa as Ankara stepped up measures against Israel over its assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 35,000 people and launched after resistance group Hamas' October 7 rampage.
"We condemned civilians being killed on October 7," he told a press conference with his Austrian counterpart.
"But Israel systematically killing thousands of innocent Palestinians and rendering a whole residential area uninhabitable is a crime against humanity, attempted genocide, and the manifestation of genocide," he added.
A foreign ministry official said Turkey had not yet submitted the formal application to the ICJ.
2024-05-14 16:58:03
The top UN court said it would hold hearings Thursday and Friday over South Africa's request to impose emergency orders on Israel to halt its Rafah offensive.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will hear lawyers from South Africa on Thursday, followed by Israel's response the next day, it said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Pretoria petitioned the ICJ for so-called provisional measures over the incursion into Rafah, asking the court to order Israel to "immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive."
It also requested the court to order Israel to take "all effective measures" to facilitate "unimpeded" access to humanitarian aid in Gaza.
In a ruling in mid-January that made headlines worldwide, the ICJ ordered Israel to do everything it could to prevent genocide during its Gaza offensive.
2024-05-14 15:01:55
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday voiced full confidence in Gaza Ministry of Health death toll figures after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.
Gaza's health ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of around 35,000, saying that around 25,000 of those have so far been fully identified. UN agencies have republished these figures.
"The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward," said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing, saying that there was "nothing wrong" with health ministry data.
2024-05-14 13:46:45
Talks over a ceasefire in Gaza have reached a stalemate because of Israel's operations in Rafah, Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on Tuesday.
Israeli operations in Rafah, which started this month, have closed a main crossing point for aid from the border with Egypt a move humanitarian groups say has worsened an already dire situation.
"Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately, things didn't move in the right direction and right now we are in a status of almost a stalemate. Of course, what happened with Rafah sent us backward," Sheikh Mohammed said at an economic forum in Doha.
Sheikh Mohammed, whose country has mediated heavily between Palestinian fighter group Hamas and Israel throughout the seven-month conflict, said Qatar would keep working to resolve the situation.
2024-05-14 12:39:55
Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 35,173 Palestinians and wounded 79,061 others since October 7, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said on Tuesday.
There have been 82 Palestinians killed and 234 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
2024-05-14 12:17:25
2024-05-14 11:57:56
2024-05-14 11:37:35
Celebrities who have remained silent on the crisis in Gaza are feeling the wrath of angry fans wielding the "digital guillotine" to block them on social media and streaming platforms.
Taylor Swift, Drake and many more have become targets of the "Block Out 2024" movement, which began on TikTok in response to the perceived disconnect between the glamorous Met Gala and the grim realities of the Israeli atrocities in Palestine.
For months, pro-Palestinian activists have flooded the comments sections of social media sites, urging stars to join calls for a ceasefire in Gaza’s deadliest war.
2024-05-14 10:37:05
A former US military intelligence official released a letter on Monday that explained to his colleagues at the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) that his November resignation was in fact due to "moral injury" stemming from US support for Israel's war in Gaza and the harm caused to Palestinians.
Harrison Mann, an Army major, would be the first known DIA official to quit over US support to Israel. A US airman fatally set himself on fire in February outside Israel's embassy in Washington and other military personnel have protested.
Mann said he kept quiet about his motives for resigning for months out of fear.
"I was afraid. Afraid of violating our professional norms. Afraid of disappointing officers I respect. Afraid you would feel betrayed. I'm sure some of you will feel that way reading this," Mann wrote in a letter shared with colleagues last month and published on his LinkedIn profile on Monday.
2024-05-14 09:17:14
The global charity against poverty and diseases Oxfam has issued a warning of spread of deadly diseases throughout Gaza specially Rafah, which it said was becoming a “lethal cocktail of over-crowding, sewage and hunger” because of relentless Israeli assaults.
“Israel’s military assault on Rafah could be devastating, not only because of the risk of mass civilian casualties, but also the repercussions of vast numbers of people being forced to move,” Oxfam’s Middle East Director Sally Abi Khalil said.
Warning of increasing risk of epidemic, Oxfam said Israeli attacks since October caused at least $210m worth of damage to Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure.
2024-05-13 23:32:23
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the killing of a staff member of the global organisation after one of its vehicles was struck in Gaza by Israeli occupation forces, leaving another staffer injured.
Guterres said on X, “humanitarian workers must be protected”
"I condemn all attacks on UN personnel and reiterate my urgent appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire & the release of all hostages," he added.
Earlier today, Israeli forces fired on a clearly marked UN vehicle in Rafah in southern Gaza killing one member of the UN's Department of Safety and Security and injuring another, in what the UN says is the first instance of the killing of a foreign member of its staff since Israel began its war on Gaza last October.
2024-05-13 23:02:05
Israeli settlers launched fresh attacks on Palestinians and set their land on fire in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Wafa news agency reported.
The attacks were carried out near the village of Madama south of Nablus. Israeli forces are preventing other Palestinians from accessing the area to stop the settlers, the news agency said.
In the Bethlehem area, settlers also stole large quantities of wheat and barley crops from Palestinian farmers.
The incident took place in the village of al-Minya southeast of Bethlehem, where settlers also attacked farmers and sheep herders, Wafa added.
2024-05-13 22:14:36
GAZA: Hamas' armed wing Al Qassam Brigades said on Monday it had lost contact with militants guarding four Israeli hostages, including US-Israeli citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, because of Israeli bombardment of Gaza over the past 10 days.
Goldberg-Polin,who previously pleaded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his release in a video message published by the group in late April, is one of more than 250 Israelis and foreigners kidnapped by Hamas-led fighters during their October 7 attack on Israel.
2024-05-13 21:01:12
Police moved in to end a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Amsterdam on Monday after protesters occupied university buildings in various Dutch cities to condemn Israel's war in Gaza, ANP news agency reported.
In local media footage, the students can be heard chanting at the police: "We are peaceful, what are you?" and "Shame on you".
Earlier on Monday, a Dutch protest group said it had occupied university buildings in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Groningen and Eindhoven.
The group told Reuters via email that the occupations would continue until the police broke them up and that the protesters would keep returning until the university meets their demands "for transparency (as well as) boycotting and divesting from Israeli institutions".
In a post on social media site X, Amsterdam police said the university had filed a police report against the protesters for acts of vandalism.
Police are making sure no one can enter the university buildings and will ask protesters to leave the premises voluntarily.
A spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam (UvA) confirmed the occupation and said it had advised people not affiliated with the protest to leave the building.
The Eindhoven University of Technology confirmed that there were "dozens of students peacefully protesting outside next to ten to 15 tents". The University of Groningen did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Footage from local media showed a few tents in front of one of the university buildings.
Students in the Netherlands have been protesting against Israel's war in Gaza since last Monday and Dutch riot police had previously clashed with protesters at the University of Amsterdam.
Students in the United States and Europe have been holding mostly peaceful demonstrations calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from the oppression of Palestinians.
2024-05-13 20:18:14
The UN agency for the Palestinians has said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “more than 150,000 pregnant women are facing terrible sanitary conditions and health hazards amid displacement and war” in Gaza.
The UN body reiterated called for an immediate ceasefire.
2024-05-13 19:03:38
2024-05-13 18:01:29
DUBAI: At least 35,091 Palestinians have been killed and 78,827 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday.
2024-05-13 17:03:24
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that the besieged Palestinian territory´s health system is "hours away" from collapse, after fighting has blocked fuel shipments through key crossings.
"We are just hours away from the collapse of the health system in the Gaza Strip due to the lack of the necessary fuel to operate generators in hospitals, ambulances, and (for vehicles to) transport staff," the ministry said in a statement.
2024-05-13 14:10:32
2024-05-13 12:19:27
2024-05-13 12:11:12
Israeli tanks, under cover from heavy fire from air and ground, pushed further into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, residents and Hamas media said, while airstrikes hammered Rafah in the south.
In Jabalia, tanks were trying to advance towards the heart of the camp, the biggest of Gaza's eight historic refugee camps. Residents said tank shells were landing at the centre of the camp and that air strikes had destroyed clusters of houses. Israeli troops forced hundreds of Palestinians housed in shelters to leave.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israel stepped up aerial and ground bombardments on the eastern areas of the city, killing people in an air strike on a house in the Brazil neighbourhood.
2024-05-13 12:05:48
The University of Cambridge’s most affluent college, Trinity College Cambridge has resolved to divest from arms corporations including Israel’s Elbit Systems, the Middle East Eye reported.
Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons corporation and the Cambridge’s college had an investment to the tune of £61,735 ($78,089) in that company.
2024-05-13 11:01:55
Pupils sitting cross-legged on the sand take classes in a tent near Khan Younis in Gaza. Two sisters connect online to a West Bank school from Cairo. A professor in Germany helps Palestinian students link up with European universities.
After watching their schools and universities be closed, damaged or destroyed in more than seven months of war, Gazans sheltering inside and outside the territory are doing what they can to restart some learning.
"We are receiving students, and we have a very large number of them still waiting," said Asmaa al-Astal, a volunteer teacher at the tent school near the coast in al-Mawasi, which opened in late April.
Instead of letting children lose a whole year of schooling as they cower from Israeli bombardment, "we will be with them, we will bring them here, and we will teach them," she said.
2024-05-13 09:58:03
WASHINGTON: An all-out Israeli offensive on the Gaza city of Rafah would provoke "anarchy" without eliminating Hamas, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday, as Washington stepped up a pressure campaign against such an assault.
Separately, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan emphasised Washington's concerns about an offensive in a call with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi.
"Mr. Sullivan reiterated President Biden´s longstanding concerns over the potential for a major military ground operation into Rafah, where over one million people have taken shelter," a White House readout of the phone call said.
2024-05-13 08:44:56
UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA has said that more than 300,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah since May 6, after Israeli forces launched a ground assault in the area.
The UNRWA said forced and inhumane displacement of Palestinians continued despite the fact that there was nowhere safe to go.
2024-05-13 08:30:24
Israel sent tanks into eastern Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday after a night of heavy aerial and ground bombardments, killing 19 people and wounding dozens of others, Palestinian health officials said.
The death toll in Israel's military operation in Gaza has now passed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. The bombardment has laid waste to the coastal enclave and caused a deep humanitarian crisis.
Israel says 620 soldiers have been killed in the fighting, more than half of them during the initial Hamas assault.
2024-05-12 23:56:48
WASHINGTON: Dozens of students walked out of Duke University's graduation ceremony Sunday as comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who has vocally supported Israel over its war in Gaza, received an honorary doctorate, videos posted on social media showed.
Accounts posting the footage said the students at the prestigious university were protesting the usually apolitical star's stance over Israel, which has drawn controversy. Students could be seen carrying a Palestinian flag.
It is the latest unrest over the war to rock US campuses, which have become a political flashpoint after weeks of protests that have seen thousands arrested.
2024-05-12 23:18:04
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that the United States and European countries were not doing enough to pressure Israel to agree a ceasefire in Gaza, after Palestinian resistance group Hamas' move to accept a truce proposal.
Turkey has denounced Israel's attacks on Gaza, called for an immediate ceasefire, and criticised what it calls unconditional support for Israel by the West.
Ankara has halted all trade with Israel and said it had decided to join South Africa's initiative to have Israel tried for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Speaking to Muslim scholars in Istanbul, Erdogan said Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal by Qatar and Egypt in a "step in the path toward a lasting ceasefire", but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government did not want the war to end.
"The response of the Netanyahu government was to attack the innocent people in Rafah," he said, referring to the Gazan city that Israel is targeting. "It has become clear who sides with peace and dialogue, and who wants clashes continuing and more bloodshed.
"And did Netanyahu see any serious reaction for his spoiled behaviour? No. Neither Europe nor America showed a reaction that would force Israel into a ceasefire."
2024-05-12 22:30:22
The Israeli military said on Sunday it opened a new humanitarian aid crossing into the Gaza Strip in coordination with the United States.
The crossing, called Western Erez, was opened in the northern Gaza Strip in order to transfer humanitarian aid, the military said in a statement.
2024-05-12 20:30:48
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in the Gazan city of Rafah, saying Israel lacked a "credible plan" to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering there.
Speaking to ABC News' "This Week", Blinken said that President Joe Biden remains determined to help Israel defend itself and that the shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was the only US weapons package being withheld.
That could change, he said, if Israel launches a full-scale attack on Rafah, which Israel says it plans to invade to root out fighters of the ruling Hamas militant group.
Biden has made clear to Israel that if it "launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we're not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation," said Blinken.
"We have real concerns about the way they're used," he continued. Israel needs to "have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven't seen."
2024-05-12 19:02:42
Egypt has announced that it would formally join the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice which accuses Tel Aviv of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the move comes due to the escalating Israeli aggression against Palestinian civilians, Al Jazeera reported.
“[It] comes in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the continued perpetration of systematic practices against the Palestinian people, including direct targeting of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure in the Strip, and pushing Palestinians to flee,” the ministry added.
2024-05-12 18:52:48
War-weary Gazans flooded towards coastal areas of the Gaza Strip's southern city of Rafah on Sunday, fleeing heavy bombardment in eastern zones after Israel ordered them to evacuate.
"We endured three days that can be considered hell," said Mohammed Hamad, a 24-year-old resident of eastern Rafah who was among the 300,000 Palestinians that Israel says have fled the fighting.
Despite international opposition to any major military operation in Rafah, Israel has shifted its focus to the heavily populated area in what it says is an effort to destroy the last bastion of Hamas.
Eastern parts of the city have been heavily bombarded in recent days, according to witnesses, as Israel sent tanks and ground troops into the areas in "targeted raids".
2024-05-12 16:22:02
At least 35,034 Palestinians have been killed and 78,755 others wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
2024-05-12 15:34:42
Britain's foreign minister David Cameron on Sunday said Israel should not carry out an offensive in the Gazan city of Rafah without a "clear plan" to protect people.
"For there to be a major offensive in Rafah, there would have to be an absolutely clear plan about how you save lives, how you move people out the way, how you make sure they're fed, you make sure that they have medicine and shelter and everything," he told Sky News television.
"We have seen no such plan ... so we don't support an offensive in that way," he added.
Israel launched more strikes on Hamas in Gaza on Sunday after it expanded an evacuation order for eastern Rafah. It said 300,000 people had fled the city in the Palestinian territory since the army urged people to leave.
2024-05-12 15:12:43
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday that a ground attack on Gaza's southern city of Rafah by Israel would be irresponsible and lead to a massive loss of civilian lives.
"We think an offensive on Rafah would be irresponsible. We warn against it," Scholz said at a webcast event organised by German newspaper group RND.
"We don't believe that there is any approach that would not lead in the end to incredible loss of human life of innocent civilians," Scholz said, adding that he had told this to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
2024-05-12 10:43:16
TEL AVIV: Thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government do more to secure the release of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip by fighter group Hamas.
Family members of the hostages, carrying pictures of their loved ones still in captivity, joined the crowds that demonstrated in Tel Aviv.
One of them was Naama Weinberg, whose cousin Itai Svirsky was abducted during Hamas' Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and, according to Israeli authorities, was killed in captivity. In a speech she referenced a video Hamas made public on Saturday, claiming that another of the Israeli captives had died.
"Soon, even those who managed to survive this long will no longer be among the living. They must be saved now," Weinberg said.
2024-05-12 10:27:45
Israeli forces last night carried out heavy bombardment in the the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported citing Wafa news agency.
The Palestinian news agency reported that “Israeli fighter jets carpet-bombed” eastern areas of Jabalia, leaving several Palestinians dead. Wafa further added that the exact number of casualties was not immediately clear.
2024-05-11 23:51:05
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces operating in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip are preventing Hamas from re-establishing its military capabilities there, Israel's military spokesperson said on Saturday.
"We identified in the past weeks attempts by Hamas to rehabilitate its military capabilities in Jabalia. We are operating there to eliminate those attempts," said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari during a briefing to reporters.
Hagari also said that Israeli forces operating in Gaza City's Zeitoun district killed about 30 Palestinian militants.
2024-05-11 23:22:40
The US has offered Israel’s military "sensitive intelligence" to target Hamas officials in Gaza in exchange for not launching a full-scale assault on overcrowded Rafah city, Al Jazeera cited a news report by Washington Post.
The reported that the US also offered other incentives not to launch a major operation in Rafah include information on the location of Hamas’s vast network of tunnels.
2024-05-11 22:22:56
Hezbollah says it launched multiple attacks on Israeli targets in the past few hours, with the latest using rockets to hit a site in the occupied Shebaa Farms.
In Kfarchouba, southern Lebanon, the Lebanese group said it hit the as-Summaqa site and achieved a direct strike with an unspecified weapon, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-05-11 22:01:43
The UN Human Rights Office has called for immediate halt to Israel's Rafah assault, saying that the evacuations are leading to forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza’s southernmost city.
“Worried about catastrophic impact of possible full-scale offensive on Rafah, including atrocity crimes,” it said in a post on X. “Civilians must be protected. The Rafah incursion must be stopped.”
2024-05-11 21:56:01
MALMO: Dutch contestant Joost Klein has been expelled from Saturday's Eurovision Song Contest final after a complaint by a member of the production crew, organisers said, adding to the headaches for host Sweden as it also grapples with anti-Israel protests.
The 68th version of the contest, normally a festival of catchy songs and tongue-in-cheek kitsch, is taking place amid protests in host city Malmo over the participation of Israel, due to its war in Gaza.
Billed as a feel-good celebration of European diversity, this year's contest has been thrust into the political spotlight with protesters — online and on the streets of Malmo — calling for Israel to be excluded from the competition.
Eurovision organisers have resisted such calls, but demanded that Israel tweak the lyrics of its original entry to remove what they said were references to Palestinian group Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which sparked its war on Gaza.
2024-05-11 21:08:19
Palestinian resistance group Hamas said on Saturday that another one of the hostages abducted during its October 7 attack on Israel has died.
Hamas released a video saying that Nadav Popplewell, who was taken hostage from the southern Israeli community of Kibbutz Nirim, died after being wounded in an Israeli strike in Gaza.
The Israeli military did not offer immediate comment on the latest video.
2024-05-11 20:43:24
Egypt has refused to coordinate with Israel on the entry of aid into Gaza from the Rafah crossing due to Israel's "unacceptable escalation", Egypt's state affiliated Alqahera News satellite TV reported on Saturday, citing a senior official.
2024-05-11 19:40:31
The Israeli army said rockets were launched Saturday from Rafah in southern Gaza towards the Kerem Shalom crossing, which was temporarily shut earlier this week after deadly fire.
"Four launches were identified that crossed from the Rafah area", the military said in a statement, adding that one rocket was intercepted by Israeli air defences "and the rest fell in open areas" around Kerem Shalom.
It added that "no injuries were reported."
2024-05-11 18:23:40
Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories: Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, on Saturday released a video of a man held hostage in Gaza by Palestinian fighters and seen alive in the footage.
The man is seen speaking in the 11-second clip, which is superimposed with text in Arabic and Hebrew that reads: "Time is running out. Your government is lying".
The video posted on the group's Telegram channel and showing the hostage speaking under duress, was the third time footage released in less than a month of captives held in Gaza.
2024-05-11 17:48:32
CAIRO: At least 34,971 Palestinians have been killed and 78,641 others wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.
2024-05-11 15:52:27
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Saturday about 300,000 people have left eastern Rafah for a humanitarian area since it ordered an evacuation of the southern Gaza city this week.
"So far, approximately 300,000 Gazans have moved towards the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi" since the order was issued on Monday, the military said in a statement.
On Friday, the United Nations said more than 100,000 people had fled Rafah in recent days.
The army’s calls for a "temporary evacuation" were being communicated to people through leaflets, mobile text messages, phone calls and broadcasts in Arabic, its statement said.
2024-05-11 14:14:29
Activists of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party waved the Palestinian national flags during a protest in Karachi to condemn Israel’s attack on Rafah on May 10, 2024.
They burnt an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and marched on different arteries in Saddar neighbourhood before reaching the Karachi Press Club.
2024-05-11 12:51:22
Israel on Saturday called on residents from more areas of Rafah in the Gaza Strip to evacuate and head to the "expanded humanitarian area" in Al-Mawasi, according to a post on social media site X by the military's Arabic spokesperson.
2024-05-11 12:32:31
2024-05-11 11:39:28
The UN Security Council on Friday called for an immediate and independent investigation into mass graves containing hundreds of bodies near hospitals in Gaza.
In a statement, members of the council expressed their "deep concern over reports of the discovery of mass graves, in and around the Nasser and Al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza, where several hundred bodies, including women, children and older persons, were buried."
The members stressed the need for "accountability" for any violations of international law and called on investigators to be given "unimpeded access to all locations of mass graves in Gaza to conduct immediate, independent, thorough, comprehensive, transparent and impartial investigations."
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly targeted since the Israeli military launched an operation in the Palestinian territory.
2024-05-11 10:57:12
The Biden administration on Friday said Israel's use of US-supplied weapons may have violated international humanitarian law during its military operation in Gaza, in its strongest criticism to date of Israel.
But the administration stopped short of a definitive assessment, saying that due to the chaos of the war in Gaza it could not verify specific instances where use of those weapons might have been involved in alleged breaches.
The assessment came in a 46-page unclassified State Department report to Congress required under a new National Security Memorandum (NSM) that President Joe Biden issued in early February.
The findings risk further souring ties with Israel at a time when the allies are increasingly at odds over Israel's plans to strike Rafah, a move Washington has repeatedly warned against.
The State Department's report included contradictions: It listed numerous credible reports of civilian harm and said Israel did not at first cooperate with Washington to boost humanitarian assistance to the enclave. But in each instance it said it could not make a definitive assessment whether any breaches of law had occurred.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said the administration had "ducked all the hard questions" and avoided looking closely at whether Israel's conduct should mean military aid is cut off.
"This report contradicts itself because it concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe violations to international law have occurred, but at the same time that says they're not finding non compliance," he told reporters.
2024-05-11 10:37:27
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Saturday the country's support for a Palestinian bid to become a full United Nations member was part of building momentum to secure peace in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Australia voted on Friday with the overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly in backing the resolution that would effectively recognise a Palestinian state. It recommended the Security Council "reconsider the matter favorably".
The United States had vetoed a recommendation that "the State of Palestine be admitted to membership" in a Security Council vote last month.
2024-05-11 09:51:59
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) hit out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday after the Israeli leader said the Gulf state could be involved in aiding a future government in Gaza after the war.
The prominent and influential Gulf state, is one of few Arab states with official diplomatic ties to Israel, which it has maintained through Israel's more than six-month war in Gaza, although relations appear to have become frayed.
Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan rebuked Netanyahu in an early morning post on X, saying Abu Dhabi denounced the Israeli leader's comments.
2024-05-11 09:08:47
2024-05-11 09:06:52
2024-05-11 08:50:40
The Biden administration on Friday said Israel's use of US-supplied weapons may have violated international humanitarian law during its military operation in Gaza, in its strongest criticism to date of Israel.
But the administration stopped short of a definitive assessment, saying that due to the chaos of the war in Gaza it could not verify specific instances where use of those weapons might have been involved in alleged breaches.
The assessment came in a 46-page unclassified State Department report to Congress required under a new National Security Memorandum (NSM) that President Joe Biden issued in early February.
The findings risk further souring ties with Israel at a time when the allies are increasingly at odds over Israel's plans to strike Rafah, a move Washington has repeatedly warned against.
2024-05-11 08:33:40
Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians in fresh ground and air attacks in Gaza City and Rafah. Journalist Bahaa Okasha, his wife and son were also killed during Israeli attack on their home in the Jabalia refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported quoting Wafa news agency as saying.
As per the Palestinian state news agency, more than 10 people were massacred and several others wounded including kids in Israeli assault on a house of al-Khatib family in Gaza’s az-Zawayda town.
Hamas fighters have put up resistance against advancing Israeli troops by ambush attacks and IEDs to defend the city sheltering more than 1.4 million Palestinians.
2024-05-10 23:58:20
CAIRO: Palestinian resistance group Hamas wants calmness and a real hostages for prisoners swap deal, but Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants the war to continue, Hamas senior official Khalil Al-Hayya said on Friday, adding Hamas did not suspend nor withdraw from the ceasefire negotiations.
2024-05-10 23:42:34
The Yemeni group has released aerial footage of the latest demonstrations in support of Palestinians and military operations against Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis have organised marches every Friday since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
2024-05-10 23:10:23
CAIRO: The Palestinian resistance group Hamas said on Friday efforts to agree to a ceasefire for the Gaza Strip were back at square one after Israel effectively rejected a proposal by international mediators.
Hamas said in a statement it would hold consultations with Palestinian factions to review its strategy for negotiations on halting seven months of war, triggered by its deadly attack on Israel on October 7.
2024-05-10 22:03:37
CAIRO: At least 34,943 Palestinians have been killed and 78,572 injured in Israel's military offensive in Gaza since October 7, Gaza's health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
2024-05-10 21:06:47
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said that the United Nations General Assembly's backing on Friday of a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member supports Palestinian efforts for another vote on the issue by the UN Security Council.
"Palestine will continue its endeavour to obtain full membership in the UN," Abbas added in a statement on Friday.
He said the resolution’s passage showed that the world stands with the rights and freedom of the Palestinian people, and against Israel’s occupation, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-05-10 21:04:51
JERUSALEM: Israel's foreign minister called a decision by the United Nations General Assembly to upgrade the status of Palestinians in the UN a "prize for Hamas," in a statement released by the minister's office on Friday.
"The absurd decision taken today at the UN General Assembly highlights the structural bias of the UN and the reasons why, under the leadership of UN Secretary-General Guterres, it has turned itself into an irrelevant institution," Israel's foreign minister Israel Katz said.
2024-05-10 20:54:44
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations General Assembly on Friday backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council "reconsider the matter favorably."
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognise a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.
The assembly adopted a resolution on Friday with 143 votes in favor and nine against — including the US and Israel — while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognises them as qualified to join.
The General Assembly resolution "determines that the State of Palestine ... should therefore be admitted to membership" and it "recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably."
2024-05-10 20:30:10
With Israel all set to invade Rafah, a UN General Assembly (UNGA) session on a resolution about “rights and privileges” for Palestine that would call on the Security Council to favourably reconsider Palestine’s request to become the 194th member of the UN has begun, Al Jazeera reported.
Addressing the session, Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said: “I stand before you as more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, 80,000 have been maimed, two million have been displaced, and everything has been destroyed.
“I stand before you as the Israeli prime minister is ready to kill thousands more to ensure his political survival.”
He added: “Your vote today of course says a lot about your solidarity with Palestine but also about who you are and what you stand for.”
2024-05-10 19:14:54
The main United Nations aid agency for Palestinians closed its headquarters in East Jerusalem after local Israeli residents set fire to areas at the edge of the sprawling compound on Thursday, the agency said.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNWRA, said in a post on the social media platform X that he had decided to close the compound until proper security was restored. He said Thursday's incident was the second in less than a week.
"This is an outrageous development. Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk," he said.
"It is the responsibility of the State of Israel as an occupying power to ensure that United Nations personnel and facilities are protected at all times," he said.
2024-05-10 17:30:06
Israeli tanks captured the main road dividing the eastern and western halves of Rafah on Friday, effectively encircling the entire eastern side of the city in the southern Gaza Strip.
Residents described almost constant explosions and gunfire east and northeast of the city on Friday, with intense fighting between Israeli forces and fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Hamas said it ambushed Israeli tanks near a mosque in the east of the city, a sign the Israelis had penetrated several kilometres from the east to the outskirts of the built-up area.
Israel has ordered civilians out of the eastern half of Rafah, forcing tens of thousands of people to seek shelter outside the city, previously the last refuge of more than a million who fled other parts of the enclave during the war.
Israel says it cannot win the war without assaulting Rafah to root out thousands of Hamas fighters it believes are sheltering there. Hamas says it will fight to defend it. Aid agencies say the battle puts hundreds of thousands of already displaced civilians in harm's way.
"It is not safe, all of Rafah isn't safe as tank shells landed everywhere since yesterday," Abu Hassan, 50, a resident of Tel al-Sultan west of Rafah told Reuters via a chat app.
"I am trying to leave but I can't afford 2,000 shekels to buy a tent for my family," he said. "There is an increased movement of people out of Rafah even from the western areas, though they were not designated as red zones by the occupation.
2024-05-10 16:34:46
Dwindling food and fuel stocks could force aid operations to grind to a halt within days in Gaza as vital crossings remain shut, forcing hospitals to close and leading to more children dying of hunger, United Nations aid agencies warned on Friday.
Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid and people into Gaza as part of Israel's military operation in Rafah, the enclave's southernmost city where around 1 million uprooted people have been sheltering.
2024-05-10 15:59:14
2024-05-10 14:42:20
UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA on Friday said since May 6 when Israeli artillery moved inwards Rafah intensifying bombardment on the city, more than 110,000 Palestinians have fled from the city.
The UNRWA said, “Nowhere is safe in the Gaza Strip and living conditions are atrocious.” It called again for an “immediate ceasefire”.
2024-05-10 14:37:47
The Israeli forces continue pounding the eastern part of Rafah forcing Palestinians to move to newly designated safe locations including Deir el-Balah city, where thousands of people are thronging, Al Jazeera reported.
Due to the enormous influx of people, the city is running out of space as well as resources specially water.
2024-05-10 14:07:23
Smoke was seen rising over Rafah on Friday, as ceasefire talks between Israel and Gaza ended with no deal.
Israeli forces also bombarded areas of Rafah on Thursday (May 9), Palestinian residents said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed US President Joe Biden's threat to withhold weapons from Israel if it assaults the southern Gaza city.
Israel says Hamas fighters are hiding in Rafah, where the population has been swelled by hundreds of thousands of Gazans seeking refuge from the bombardments that have reduced most of the coastal enclave to ruins.
Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 80,000, most of them civilians, in Gaza, the health ministry said.
2024-05-10 13:29:19
CAIRO: Egypt has said Hamas and Israel must show "flexibility" if they are to strike a deal for a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange in the seven-month war in the Gaza Strip, according to a foreign ministry statement released Friday.
The readout of a phone call between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said both diplomats agreed on "the importance of urging the parties to show flexibility and make all the necessary efforts to achieve a ceasefire agreement and put an end to the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza".
Hamas said early Friday that its negotiators at ceasefire talks this week in Cairo had left the city for Doha, saying Israel had "rejected the proposal submitted by the mediators and raised objections to it".
The group added it stood by the proposal, saying that "the ball is now completely in the hands of the occupation".
State-linked Egyptian outlet Al-Qahera News reported Thursday that Israeli negotiators had also left Cairo.
Friday's foreign ministry statement said the talks were in a "delicate phase", with Cairo expressing fears that a full-scale Israeli incursion into the crowded Gazan city of Rafah, which sits on Egypt´s border, could threaten the "stability and security" of the region.
2024-05-10 12:55:04
2024-05-10 11:45:52
2024-05-10 11:15:10
Palestinian fighter group Hamas said early Friday that its delegation attending Gaza ceasefire negotiations in Cairo had left the city for Qatar, adding the "ball is now completely" in Israel's hands.
"The negotiating delegation left Cairo heading to Doha. In practice, the occupation (Israel) rejected the proposal submitted by the mediators and raised objections to it on several central issues," the group said in a message to other Palestinian factions, adding it stood by the proposal.
"Accordingly, the ball is now completely in the hands of the occupation."
State-linked Egyptian outlet Al-Qahera News reported Thursday that representatives of both camps left Cairo after two days of negotiations aimed at finalising a ceasefire deal in the seven-month war in the Gaza Strip.
2024-05-10 10:15:53
The United Nations General Assembly on Friday is set to back a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and sending the application back to the UN Security Council to "reconsider the matter favourably."
The Palestinians are reviving their bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognise a Palestinian state - after the United States vetoed it in the 15-member UN Security Council last month.
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly on Friday will act as a global survey of support for the Palestinians. An application to become a full UN member first needs to be approved by the Security Council and then the General Assembly.
But while the General Assembly alone cannot grant full UN membership, the draft resolution being put to a vote on Friday will give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 — like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall — but it will not be granted a vote in the body.
Diplomats said the draft text is likely to get the support needed to be adopted.
2024-05-10 09:17:02
Commenting on the United States’ vetoing the UNSC resolution seeking Palestine’s full membership, Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations Munir Akram has lamented that permanent UN Security Council members did not reach a consensus to implement the crucial decision.
“The Israeli government is taking illegal actions in Gaza and the United Nations has fulfilled its responsibility in the Security Council and the General Assembly. However, permanent members did not agree to implement the decision of the UNSC,” he said.
The member states were bound to implement every decision of the UNSC, he said highlighting that there had been resolutions regarding human rights violations in Gaza.
Akram apprised that efforts were underway to negotiate a Gaza ceasefire at the UN. A special session of the UN regarding the Palestine’s membership would be held on Friday (today), he said.
“At the UN meeting, the Security Council will be asked to review its decision,” he said relaying that Palestine's full membership resolution was vetoed by the United States in the Security Council.
2024-05-10 08:54:09
European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič on Friday condemned the attack on UNRWA headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.
He demanded Israel to provide security to UN staff and prosecute the culprits.
“I call on the Israeli authorities to ensure the security and safety of UN staff and its premises and to prosecute those responsible for the attack,” he tweeted.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Thursday it was temporarily shuttering its east Jerusalem headquarters after "Israeli extremists" set fire to the perimeter following weeks of repeated attacks.
"This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA headquarters in occupied east Jerusalem," agency chief Philippe Lazzarini said on X, formerly Twitter, lamenting that it was the second attack on the compound in a matter of days.
He described how "a crowd accompanied by armed men were witnessed outside the compound chanting 'Burn down the United Nations'."
2024-05-10 08:38:42
Heavy clashes took place between Palestinian fighters and Israel’s military in the east of Rafah after the occupational forces launched operations in multiple areas, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.
A video clip doing rounds on social media platforms show an intimidated Palestinian family at a residence amid sounds of heavy machine-gun fire and explosions in what is being described as a “night of fire”.
2024-05-09 23:23:41
Hamas has called for a halt to airdrops of aids as parachute failure led to crashing of aid pallet into a ware, leaving two more Palestinians dead, Al Jazeera reported.
Residents had gathered there to collect relief supplies. A total of 21 people have been killed due to airdrops of aid going wrong, according to the Hamas authorities.
“We reiterate that airdrops pose a real danger to the lives of citizens and do not provide a real solution to alleviate the food crisis plaguing northern Gaza,” Salama Marouf, head of the Government Media Office in Gaza, said in a statement.
She called for the land crossings to reopen so humanitarian aid could be delivered to northern Gaza, where food shortages are at their worst.
2024-05-09 23:22:34
The Israeli forces have attacked middle and western parts of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, expanding its military aggressing in the besieged enclave amid calls of ceasefire by the international community.
“What we have been experiencing is mass destruction, lethal force being used on the ground against not only the eastern areas but also … in the middle and western parts [of Rafah],” Al Jazeera reported.
“Bombardment there continued without any kind of let up.”
2024-05-09 23:07:49
JERUSALEM: sraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to rebuff on Thursday a vow by U.S. President Joe Biden to halt some weapons supplies to Israel if it attacks Rafah, saying the country was prepared to stand alone if necessary.
"As I have already said, if we must, we shall fight with our fingernails," Netanyahu said in a video statement. "But we have much more than our fingernails, and with that strength of spirit, with God's help, together we shall be victorious."
2024-05-09 22:16:08
World Food Programme’s (WFP) Country Director Matthew Hollingworth warned of a complete halt to aid operations in Gaza as the UN agency’s main warehouse in Rafah is now inaccessible following Israel’s military action.
In an update posted on X, Hollingworth said the UN agency’s main warehouse in "Rafah is now inaccessible".
"No aid has entered from border crossings in southern Gaza in two days and only one bakery is still working," he said, adding, "Supplies of food and fuel in Gaza will only last 1-3 days. Without them, our operations will go into [a] standstill.”
2024-05-09 21:05:20
Climate activist Greta Thunberg joined thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Eurovision 2024 host city Malmo on Thursday to protest Israel's participation in the song contest ahead of this year's second semi-final.
Some 100,000 visitors have gathered in the southern Swedish city for the annual kitsch-fest, which is taking place amid protests and boycotts over the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
"Young people are leading the way and showing the world how we should react to this," Thunberg, 21, said, wrapped in a keffiyeh, the traditional scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
Israeli contestant Eden Golan, 20, will perform her song "Hurricane" in the second semi-final later on Thursday.
A large crowd of protesters gathered on Malmo's central square Stortorget, some 7 kilometres from the competition venue, waiving Palestinian flags and shouting "Boycott Israel".
Swedish authorities have heightened security and are bracing for possible unrest, and there was a significant police presence in the square, live footage showed.
2024-05-09 21:00:48
Israel undertaking a major Rafah operation will not advance the objective of both Washington and Tel Aviv of defeating the Hamas Palestinian group in Gaza, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
"Smashing into Rafah, in his view, will not advance that objective," Kirby said in a briefing with reporters.
2024-05-09 19:59:31
ANKARA: Israeli claims of Ankara easing its trade ban with Israel are "absolutely fictional and have nothing to do with reality," Turkish Trade Minister Omer Bolat said on Thursday, as Ankara introduced a three-month reprieve for companies with existing export deals to Israel.
Israel's foreign minister said on Thursday that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had retreated on his earlier position and lifted many of the trade restrictions he imposed on Israel.
Turkey stopped all exports and imports to and from Israel last week, citing "worsening humanitarian tragedy" in the Palestinian territories.
Turkey's trade ban with Israel will remain in place until a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and humanitarian aid flow to the region are secured, Bolat said in a post on X.
2024-05-09 18:19:25
CAIRO/GAZA: As Israeli forces mass on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Palestinians fear another "Nakba", when 700,000 of them were permanently driven from their homes at the creation of Israel in 1948.
Many people in Rafah, where over one million have been sheltering as Israel pounds the Gaza Strip in its war with Hamas, have been displaced several times over as the anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, approaches on May 15.
Having moved four times since leaving Gaza City in the north in October, Mohammad Emad and his family have now left Rafah for the central town of Deir Al-Balah.
"I used to hear tales of the Nakba from my father, who heard those stories from my grandfather. Now when I think about it and compare, I think what happened in 1948 it didn't come close to how brutal our present Nakba is," the 22-year-old told Reuters via a chat app.
In 1948, some Palestinians fled to neighbouring Arab states, including to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, where many of them or their descendants still live in refugee camps. Some went to Gaza. Israel disputes the account that they were forced out.
The uncertainty has returned, only this time the borders are closed and refuge is harder to find.
2024-05-09 17:40:41
BEIRUT: An Israeli air strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed four people on Thursday, according to Lebanon's civil defence, with security sources saying those killed were members of armed group Hezbollah.
The Israeli military did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday's strikes.
Lebanon's civil defence rescue force said it had pulled four bodies out of a car that had been scorched by an Israeli strike. Two security sources told Reuters the four killed were members of Hezbollah.
2024-05-09 16:15:51
DUBAI: At least 34,904 Palestinians have been killed and 78,514 injured in Israel's military offensive in Gaza since October 7, Gaza's health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
2024-05-09 15:06:34
Ireland’s state media had reported that recognition of a Palestinian state on May 21 by Ireland, Spain and other European Union countries was on the cards.
RTE News Wednesday said at least three sources had confirmed recognition of Palestine state by Ireland. One of the sources said, “A contact between Dublin and Madrid was established to jointly recognise Palestinian statehood.” Slovenia and Malta have also discussed the same, RTE News reported.
The report further added the European countries had been waiting for a vote by the United Nations General Assembly on May 10, which could lead to the recognition of Palestine as qualified to become a full UN member.
2024-05-09 15:05:06
2024-05-09 14:15:30
Dutch riot police broke up a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on Wednesday, battling demonstrators who had vowed to stay put until the institution severed all ties with Israel. The protesters said the Israeli institutions that the university works with profit from oppression of Palestinians.
Hundreds of protesters on the narrow streets outside, atop makeshift barriers of desks, bricks and wooden pallets, chanted slogans as police surrounded them and dragged many protesters away from campus.
Students in the Dutch capital have joined a wave of sit-ins and other actions at universities throughout Europe against Israel's war in Gaza, following larger-scale disturbances at US universities.
2024-05-09 12:41:45
2024-05-09 12:31:30
2024-05-09 12:23:33
2024-05-09 11:58:51
2024-05-09 10:58:17
2024-05-09 10:21:00
Palestinian fighter group Hamas said on Wednesday it was unwilling to make more concessions to Israel in negotiations over a ceasefire for Gaza, although talks were still underway in Cairo aimed at pausing Israel's seven-month-old offensive.
Israel continued tank and aerial strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Wednesday and has threatened a major assault on it. Its forces moved in via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, cutting off a vital aid route and the only exit for the evacuation of wounded patients.
Izzat El-Reshiq, a member of Hamas' political office in Qatar, said in a statement late on Wednesday that the group would not go beyond a ceasefire proposal it accepted on Monday, which would also entail the release of some Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinian women and children detained in Israel.
“Israel isn’t serious about reaching an agreement and it is using the negotiation as a cover to invade Rafah and occupy the crossing,” said Reshiq.
2024-05-09 09:54:44
US President Joe Biden for the first time publicly vowed to withhold weapons from Israel if its forces make a major invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza while negotiations in Cairo on a ceasefire plan for the enclave were due to continue on Thursday.
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah ..., I’m not supplying the weapons," Biden, whose administration has repeatedly asked Israel for its plan to protect civilians in Rafah, said on Wednesday in an interview with CNN.
Biden acknowledged that US bombs provided to Israel have killed Gaza civilians in the seven-month-old offensive aimed at annihilating Hamas.
2024-05-09 08:55:02
Helicopter gunships of Israeli forces fired missiles towards Gaza City’s Zeitoun area, whereas, artillery shelling and gunfire by the occupational military was also reported.
Gaza City's Sabra neighbourhood was reported to have been pounded by Israeli bombardment last night.
During the attacks, at least four Palestinians have been killed and 16 others wounded as Israeli forces bombed a residential house in the Tal as-Sultan area, west of Rafah city, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-05-09 08:49:54
US President Joe Biden told CNN on Wednesday he was working with Arab states that are prepared to rebuild Gaza and help with the transition to a two-state solution, following the war between Hamas and Israel.
2024-05-08 23:41:00
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has said that Washington didn't approve Israel's assault on Rafah, when asked whether it gave a green light to Israeli forces seizing Palestinian side of Rafah crossing.
“It did not happen with our approval," Miller said.
2024-05-08 22:59:03
LONDON: The main maternity hospital in the Gaza Strip's crowded southern city of Rafah has stopped admitting patients, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said on Wednesday.
The UNFPA told Reuters that the hospital, Al Helal Al Emirati Maternity Hospital, had been handling some 85 out of a daily total of 180 births in Gaza prior to an escalation of fighting between Hamas and Israeli troops on Rafah's outskirts.
Around half of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been crowded into Rafah after fleeing other parts of the enclave during seven months of war.
2024-05-08 22:15:11
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden's decision to hold up delivery of high payload munitions to Israel was taken over a possible Israeli offensive in Rafah that Washington believes could put Palestinian civilians at risk, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday.
Austin was the first senior Biden administration official to publicly explain what appeared to be a possible shift in US policy towards arming Israel. Biden had pledged his complete support for Israel following the Oct. 7 attack on the country by Palestinian resistance group Hamas, and he sent Washington's closest Middle East ally weaponry worth billions of dollars.
Austin stressed that the US commitment to Israel's defense remained "ironclad" and that the decision on suspending the munitions shipment was not final.
Still, he said the US preference would be that "no major combat take place in Rafah" and that at a minimum any Israeli operation must safeguard civilian lives.
"We've been very clear... from the very beginning that Israel shouldn't launch a major attack into Rafah without accounting for and protecting the civilians that are in that battlespace," Austin told a Senate hearing.
"And again, as we have assessed the situation, we have paused one shipment of high payload munitions," he told a Senate hearing.
"We've not made a final determination on how to proceed with that shipment."
2024-05-08 21:00:50
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel carried out heavy airstrikes in south Lebanon and Hezbollah said it had launched explosive drones and powerful rockets at Israeli targets on Wednesday in an escalation of seven months of hostilities in the border region.
Israeli attacks killed three people in Lebanon, security sources said.
The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel has rumbled on since October in parallel to the Gaza war, uprooting tens of thousands of people on both sides of the frontier and fuelling concern of a bigger war between the heavily armed adversaries.
The Israeli military said it had hit military structures and infrastructure belonging to the Iran-backed Hezbollah in three locations in south Lebanon, including more than 20 strikes on Hezbollah targets in the Ramyeh area.
Hezbollah said it had launched explosive drones at a military headquarters in the Israeli border town of Ya'ara, and fired its powerful Burkan rockets at a barracks in Biranit, among at least 10 attacks announced by the group on Wednesday.
2024-05-08 19:18:54
CAIRO\GAZA: As battles raged on the outskirts of Rafah on Wednesday with Israeli forces closing in, Palestinians were on the move again, abandoning neighbourhoods of the southern Gaza city and leaving them as ghost towns.
Israel has threatened a major assault on Rafah to defeat thousands of Hamas fighters it says are holed up there, but more than a million people are sheltering in the city, prompting warnings from the United Nations of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Israeli forces tasked with destroying the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, on Tuesday seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah, cutting off a vital route for aid into the enclave, where malnutrition is widespread.
Israel's military said it was conducting a limited operation in Rafah to kill fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which runs Gaza. It told civilians to go to an "expanded humanitarian zone" some 20 km (12 miles) away.
2024-05-08 17:49:46
The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday it strongly condemns Israel's takeover of the Rafah border crossing on the Palestinian side and warned of the consequences of military escalation.
2024-05-08 17:32:10
JERUSALEM: Israel sees no sign of a breakthrough in Egyptian-mediated talks on a truce with Hamas that would free some Gaza hostages, but is keeping its delegation of mid-level negotiators in Cairo for now, an Israeli official said on Wednesday.
William Burns, the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, was in Israel meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a possible suspension of the Israeli operation in Gaza's Rafah in return for a hostage release, the official added.
The US Embassy in Jerusalem had no comment on Burns' visit.
2024-05-08 16:14:30
CAIRO: At least 34,844 Palestinians were killed and 78,404 injured in Israel's military offensive in Gaza since October 7, Gaza's health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
2024-05-08 13:19:39
The Israeli military continued attack parts of eastern Rafah city overnight, clearing majority of the residential homes and farmland, Al Jazeera reported.
Moreover, there have been reports of moremore casualties being taken tofield hospitals in the western part of the city including the Kuwaiti Hospital.
2024-05-08 12:00:30
Israel was reopening Kerem Shalom crossing on its border with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, a statement from the Israeli agency in charge of it said, adding that aid trucks routed through from Egypt were already undergoing security inspections there.
Israel had closed Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday after a Palestinian shelling attack nearby killed four soldiers.
2024-05-08 11:35:43
Doctors Without Borders Executive Director Avril Benoit said that Israel's military onslaught against Rafah risks turning the refuge for civilians "into a graveyard".
In a social media post, Benoit said that "a further military escalation in Rafah would be a direct attack on a trapped population", urging Israel to halt its plans.
A military escalation in Rafah "would crush an already fragile humanitarian response at a time when health and humanitarian needs are soaring", Benoit said.
“For seven months, we have witnessed the indiscriminate killing of civilians, attacks on aid workers – including our own staff – the destruction of medical facilities, and the obstruction of lifesaving assistance,” the MSF chief said in a statement.
“We cannot imagine what a further escalation of this conflict would mean for people who have already suffered so much in this war without rules”.
2024-05-08 10:17:50
2024-05-08 08:49:14
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the situation in Gaza was "moving in the wrong direction" after Israel's assault on Rafah — the last place for refugees to take shelter.
Josep Borrell, EU'sforeign policy chief, said that "despite all the requests of the international community" for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to not attack Rafah, the assault had gone ahead.
“I am afraid that this is going to cause, again, a lot of casualties,” Borrell said.
“There are no safe zones in Gaza,” he added.
2024-05-07 23:55:45
In a bid to restore peace in war-torn Gaza, ceasefire talks in Cairo between delegates from Qatar, Hamas, Egypt and the US are currently under way, Egyptian state-linked media outlet Al-Qahera News reported.
“The Qatari and US delegation continue their discussions with the Egyptian delegation and that of Hamas,” the outlet reported, citing a “senior official”.
2024-05-07 23:19:30
Hamas official Osama Hamdan warned on Tuesday in a press conference in Beirut that if Israel's military aggression continues in Rafah, there will be no ceasefire deal.
2024-05-07 21:00:40
Israel will continue its operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah until Hamas forces in the area are destroyed or the group hands over one of the Israeli hostages it still holds, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday.
"This operation will continue until we eliminate Hamas in the Rafah area and the entire Gaza Strip, or until the first hostage returns," he said in a statement.
2024-05-07 18:30:39
At least 23 Palestinians, including six women and five children, were killed in overnight strikes in Rafah by the Israeli occupation forces, according to hospital records cited by Reuters news agency.
One man in Rafah, Mohamed Abu Amra, lost five close relatives in an attack that flattened his house.
"We did nothing … we don't have Hamas," said Abu Amra, whose wife, two brothers, sister, and niece were all killed. "We found fire devouring us. The house was turned upside down."
2024-05-07 16:49:10
UN agencies said on Tuesday the two main crossings into the southern Gaza Strip remained shut, virtually cutting off the Palestinian enclave from outside aid with few stocks positioned inside.
The global agency's humanitarian office spokesperson Jens Laerke told journalists Israel had shut both the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid and people as part of its military operation in Rafah, where around 1 million uprooted people are sheltering.
"The two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza are currently choked off," Laerke said, adding UN agencies had very low stocks inside the Gaza Strip since humanitarian supplies were consumed immediately. The enclave has just a one-day buffer of fuel stocks, he said.
"If no fuel comes in for a prolonged period of time it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave," he said.
UN agencies said they had pre-stocked some aid within Rafah but said there were very low supplies of water and high-energy nutrition supplies needed to treat malnourished children.
2024-05-07 15:03:15
The Israeli operation in Gaza's Rafah city a day after Hamas accepted a ceasefire deal marks another war crime by Israel, Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said on Tuesday.
"By carrying out a ground attack on Rafah, just a day after Hamas approved Qatar and Egypt's proposal for a ceasefire deal, Israel has added another to the war crimes it has committed in Palestinian territories since October 7," Yilmaz said on social media platform X. Ankara would continue working for the Israeli leadership to be legally punished, he added.
2024-05-07 12:01:56
British students set up pro-Palestinian protest encampments on Oxford and Cambridge universities' historic campuses on a cloudy spring Monday, in a show of solidarity with their American peers.
By early morning, students had erected dozens of brightly coloured tents on the lawns outside the relatively dull, yellow, 19th-century neo-Gothic Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Standing in front of the camps, some of which bore the black, white and green Palestinian flag, the students said they were joining 100 universities across the world to protest Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians so far.
The footage of protests in Britain was in stark contrast to the jarring scenes from the US over the past couple of weeks, where riot police wielding batons and flash-bang grenades dispersed and arrested hundreds of protesters. There was no visible police presence at the Oxford protest at the scene.
2024-05-07 11:51:51
The Israeli military took control of the vital Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Tuesday, pushing into the southern Gazan town after a night of air strikes and as prospects for a ceasefire deal hung in the balance.
The Palestinian fighter group Hamas said late on Monday it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal from mediators seven months into the war that has pushed more than a million Gazans into the south of the enclave.
Israel said the terms did not meet its demands and launched a military operation in Rafah.
"The Israeli occupation has sentenced the residents of the Strip to death after closure of the Rafah border crossing," said Hisham Edwan, spokesman for the Gaza Border Crossing Authority. It also condemned to death cancer patients due to the collapse of the healthcare system, he added.
2024-05-07 11:36:31
2024-05-07 11:31:34
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday he welcomed the decision by fighter group Hamas to accept a ceasefire in Gaza, which he said was made in line with Ankara's suggestion, adding he hopes Israel would do the same.
Turkey has denounced Israel's assault on Gaza, called for an immediate ceasefire, halted all trade with Israel, and announced its decision to join South Africa's application for Israel to be tried for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Erdogan called on Western countries to increase pressure on Israel's leadership to accept the ceasefire. Ankara has repeatedly complained of what it calls the unconditional support given to Israel by the West, particularly the United States.
2024-05-07 09:54:06
Palestinian fighter group Hamas on Monday agreed to a Gaza ceasefire proposal from mediators, but Israel said the terms did not meet its demands and pressed ahead with strikes in Rafah while planning to continue negotiations on a deal.
The developments in the seven-month-old war came as Israeli forces struck Rafah on Gaza's southern edge from the air and ground and ordered residents to leave parts of the city, which has been a refuge for more than a million displaced Palestinians.
Hamas said in a brief statement that its chief, Ismail Haniyeh, had informed Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the group accepted their proposal for a ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said later that the truce proposal fell short of Israel's demands but Israel would send a delegation to meet with negotiators to try to reach an agreement.
Qatar's foreign ministry said its delegation will head to Cairo on Tuesday to resume indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
2024-05-07 09:08:17
CAIRO: Hamas sent on Monday to mediators its response to a truce proposal which could be described as positive, a spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry said early on Tuesday.
A Qatari delegation will head to Cairo on Tuesday to resume indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas through the mediators, Majed Al-Ansari added in a statement.
Qatar, which alongside Egypt and the United States has played a mediation role in the talks, said it hoped the negotiations would culminate in an agreement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
2024-05-07 08:38:56
Israeli forces last night carried out air and ground raids in Rafah killing at least 12 people, while the occupational army’s tanks have moved closer to Rafah’s border crossing with Egypt, Al-Jazeera reported quoting Associated Press as saying.
On the other hand, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the fighter group had accepted a Gaza ceasefire proposal presented by mediators of Qatar and Egypt.
2024-05-07 04:00:17
In a significant development, the Qatari Foreign Ministry has announced that it would dispatch a delegation to Cairo on Tuesday morning. The purpose of this mission is to resume indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel.
In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said that his country hopes “that the talks will culminate in reaching an agreement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the exchange of prisoners and detainees, and the sustainable flow of humanitarian aid into all areas of the Strip”.
2024-05-07 03:59:56
In response to Israel's recent strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a US official has stated that these actions do not constitute a major military operation.
While expressing concern, the United States is specifically focused on preventing a large-scale offensive in densely populated areas of Rafah. According to the official, it appears that the Israeli forces are not currently engaged in such an operation.
The situation is being closely monitored by the international community as tensions persist in the region.
2024-05-07 03:00:35
Hamas reiterated that the resistance group would not budge from their demands of ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops, as their political chief Ismail Haniyeh discussed the ceasefire proposal with Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Haniyeh had a phone call with al-Nakhalah regarding the peace proposals put forward by mediators.
After the call, the group issued a statement, saying the two leaders emphasised that “resistance factions will not back down from their demands”, including a ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal of Israeli troops, an “honourable” exchange of prisoners, reconstruction of Gaza and the lifting of the siege.
“The two leaders also reviewed the procedures required to ensure the implementation of the agreement after the resistance took its decision based on a conscious vision of developments in the current situation at all levels,” a statement from Hamas said.
2024-05-07 02:47:05
Secretary-General United Nations Antonio Guterres, the Office for Humanitarian Affairs and the High Commissioner for Human Rights have expressed their concerns for the human rights of Palestinians.
They all said that an evacuation or ground operation would be unfeasible to carry out because there is no place safe for people to go in Gaza.
They pointed out that residents are being asked to relocate to an area that is already overcrowded and doesn’t have adequate services. They said that evacuation routes are likely to have mines and unexploded weapons in them.
Military action in Rafah would also hamper humanitarian operations, they expressed another of their concerns.
2024-05-07 02:46:37
Jordan's King Abdullah told US President Joe Biden in a private meeting on Monday that an Israeli offensive in Rafah would lead to a "new massacre" of Palestinian civilians and urged the international community to take urgent action.
"The king warned of the repercussions of the Israeli ground offensive on Rafah, which could cause a regional spillover of the conflict," a statement from the Jordan royal court said after Abdullah had lunch with Biden at the White House.
Israel carried out airstrikes in Rafah on Monday and told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the city where more than a million people uprooted by the seven-month war are crowded together.
On Sunday, Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly ruled that out. Hamas also attacked the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, which Israel said killed three of its soldiers.
In a phone call on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjmain Netanyahu, Biden pressed Netanyahu not to go ahead with a large-scale Israeli military offensive in Rafah. The US president has been vocal in his demand that Israel not undertake a ground offensive in Rafah without a plan to protect Palestinian civilians.
The Jordanian statement said Abdullah in his meeting with Biden "warned that the Israeli attack on Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinians are internally displaced as a result of the war on Gaza, threatens to lead to a new massacre."
"His Majesty stressed the importance of all efforts that seek an immediate ceasefire in Gaza," it said. "The king and the US president affirmed their commitment to working to reach a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza, stressing the importance of facilitating the delivery of sustainable humanitarian aid to the Strip in light of the dire needs."
The Biden administration and Israeli officials remain at odds over Israel's planned military incursion in the southern Gaza city of Rafah where it told Palestinians to start evacuating some parts on Monday.
Biden last met King Abdullah at the White House in February and the two longtime allies discussed a daunting list of challenges, including the looming Israeli ground offensive in southern Gaza and suffering of Palestinian civilians.
Jordan and other Arab states have been highly critical of Israel's actions and have been demanding a ceasefire since mid-October as civilian casualties began to skyrocket.
The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 77,000 wounded in Israel's assault, according to Gaza's health ministry.
2024-05-07 02:23:04
The ceasefire proposal agreed upon by Hamas in Gaza falls short of Israel's essential demands, says Ofir Gendelman, the Arabic language spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, Israel will send a delegation for talks, said Gendelman.
The war cabinet has unanimously decided to continue the operation in Rafah, aiming to exert military pressure on Hamas and achieve the goals of the conflict, including the release of kidnapped individuals.
“The war cabinet unanimously decided that Israel would continue the operation in Rafah in order to exert military pressure on Hamas,” Gendelman said.
2024-05-07 02:17:51
Israeli military has started conducting targeted strikes against Hamas targets in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
While Palestinians were celebrating Hamas' announcement of agreeing to a ceasefire proposal, ongoing bombardment and air strikes continued in the eastern part of Rafah.
Attacks have also been carried out in neighbourhoods designated as warzones, with flares fired in the sky over the area.
Palestinians have been instructed to flee from these zones for their safety.
Reports of injuries are coming in from different hospitals in the Rafah district. Despite the situation on the ground, Palestinians are closely following diplomatic efforts for a truce and waiting for Israel's response."
2024-05-07 02:17:28
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has welcomed the mediation effort saying he hopes that the Israeli government will commit to stopping the war in Gaza and withdraw from the enclave.
Moreover, Abbas said a ceasefire agreement was a top priority for since the first day of the war in Gaza, the Palestinian state news agency Wafa.
Abbas also called on the international community to put pressure on Israel and to continue efforts to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Wafa said.
2024-05-06 23:52:50
The United States is studying Hamas's response to a ceasefire proposal and will discuss it with allies in the Middle East in the coming hours, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Monday.
"I can confirm that Hamas has issued a response. We are reviewing that response now and discussing it with our partners in the region," Miller said on Monday afternoon, confirming that a response was received in the last hour or 90 minutes and that discussions would take place in the coming hours.
CIA director Bill Burns is in the region "working on this in real time," Miller said.
2024-05-06 21:55:45
Hamas said on Monday that it had accepted a Gaza ceasefire proposal from Egypt and Qatar.
The group said in a statement that its chief, Ismail Haniyeh, had informed Qatar's prime minister and Egypt's intelligence chief of its acceptance of their proposal.
There were no immediate details over what the agreement entailed.
2024-05-06 21:21:08
CAIRO: Saudi Arabia warned Israel against targeting Rafah as part of what it called a "bloody and systematic" campaign to storm all areas of Gaza and displace its citizens, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.
2024-05-06 19:32:48
RAFAH: Israel's military carried out airstrikes in Rafah on Monday, residents said, hours after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the southern Gaza city where more than a million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering.
Fears are growing of a full-blown assault in Rafah, long threatened by Israel, against holdouts of the Palestinian militant group Hamas as ceasefire talks in Cairo stall. Hamas official Izzat al-Rashiq said in a statement that any Israeli operation in Rafah would put the truce talks in jeopardy.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV said had targeted areas in eastern Rafah near neighbourhoods given evacuation orders.
Instructed by Arabic text messages, phone calls, and flyers to move to what the Israeli military called an "expanded humanitarian zone" around 20 km (12 miles) away, some Palestinian families began trundling away in chilly spring rain.
Some piled children and possessions onto donkey carts, while others left by pick-up or on foot through muddy streets.
2024-05-06 17:44:16
DUBAI: Hamas official Izzat al-Rashiq said in a statement on Monday that any Israeli military operation in the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, will put ceasefire negotiations in jeopardy.
2024-05-06 16:00:04
President Joe Biden will meet Jordan's King Abdullah II, at the White House on Monday with prospects for a Gaza ceasefire appearing slim and Hamas and Israeli officials blaming each other for the impasse.
On Sunday, Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly ruled that out.
A Jordanian diplomat told Reuters Monday's meeting between Biden and King Abdullah is not a formal bilateral meeting but an informal private meeting.
It comes as the Biden administration and Israeli officials remain at odds over Israel's planned military incursion in the southern Gaza city of Rafah where it told Palestinians to start evacuating some parts on Monday.
2024-05-06 15:50:30
An international charity based in the United Kingdom, Islamic Relief, said that it was "appalled" at the news that Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate from eastern Rafah.
"As we have seen over the past seven months, forcing so many people to move is impossible without serious humanitarian cost, and people will inevitably die as a result of the evacuation," the statement said on Monday.
The statement said that the area where people have been ordered to move – al-Mawasi – has been designated a so-called "safe humanitarian zone" but it is "not safe".
The charity said civilians sheltering there continue to face attacks and severe shortages of food, water and other vital aid.
2024-05-06 14:27:11
Sami Abu Zuhri, who is a senior official of Hamas, has said that the Israel's order to evacuate Rafah ahead of an expected offensive is a "dangerous escalation that will have consequences".
The Israeli military ordered the evacuation of some 100,000 people in the eastern part of the overcrowded city in southern Gaza.
2024-05-06 13:25:15
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said that it will not evacuate from Rafah where more than one million refugees are sheltering.
"An Israeli offensive in Rafah would mean more civilian suffering and deaths. The consequences would be devastating for 1.4 million people," said UNRWA on X.
"UNRWA is not evacuating: The Agency will maintain a presence in Rafah as long as possible and will continue providing lifesaving aid to people."
2024-05-06 11:59:28
Israeli military action in Rafah is required due to Hamas' refusals of mediated proposals for a Gaza truce under which the group would free some hostages, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement on Monday.
The statement said Gallant relayed that message in an overnight conversation with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
2024-05-06 11:45:42
An Israeli military spokesperson said that the it was evacuating “around 100,000 people” from eastern Rafah ahead of its planned ground invasion.
The international community has warned Israel that a military operation in Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering, would be "catastrophic".
2024-05-06 11:39:35
2024-05-06 10:23:15
The Israeli military has ordered Palestiniansliving in neighbourhoods in eastern Rafah – near the perimeter fence with Israel – to evacuate from the area, Al Jazeera reported citing Israeli media outlets.
The orderbefore a “military attack” and that the Palestinians are being told to move towards camps for displaced people in Khan Younis and al-Mawasi areas.
2024-05-06 08:35:19
The Israeli forces have started pounding Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering, killing at least 21 civilians, Al Jazeera reported.
The victims included many children.
The houses hit in Rafah included the homes of the Abu Lebda family, the Al-Attar family, the Shteiwi family, the Al-Hashash family, the Qishta family and the Armilat family.
2024-05-05 23:48:47
Amid the ongoing aggression on Gaza and the occupied West Bank by Tel Aviv’s forces, Hezbollah — a Lebanese group — has fired multiple rockets on northern Israel.
The group claimed that it carried out nine attacks on the Israeli positions today, picking up the pace of border clashes as Israel says it is gearing up for a looming assault on Rafah in Gaza.
Hezbollah targeted the settlement of Kfar Giladi, Yuval, al-Samaqa and al-Malkiyya, the group claimed.
2024-05-05 23:33:55
NEW YORK: A top UN official on Sunday accused Israel of continuing to deny the United Nations humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip, where the UN food chief warned a "full-blown famine" has taken hold in the north of the enclave of 2.3 million people.
While not a formal famine declaration, World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain said 1 in an NBC News interview broadcast on Sunday — that based on the "horror" on the ground: "There is famine, full-blown famine, in the north, and it's moving its way south."
The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, on Sunday accused Israel of continuing to deny the United Nations aid access in Gaza as it tries to avert famine.
"Only in the past 2 weeks, we have recorded 10 incidents involving shooting at convoys, arrests of UN staff including bullying, stripping them naked, threats with arms & long delays at checkpoints forcing convoys to move during the dark or abort," Lazzarini posted on X.
2024-05-05 22:22:24
DUBAI: At least 34,683 Palestinians have been killed and 78,018 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said on Sunday.
2024-05-05 21:08:18
CAIRO: Prospects for a Gaza ceasefire appeared slim on Sunday as Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly ruled that out.
The two sides blamed each other for the impasse.
In their second day of truce talks in Cairo with Egyptian and Qatari mediators, Hamas negotiators maintained their stance that any truce agreement must end the war, Palestinian officials said.
Israeli officials have not travelled to Cairo to take part in indirect diplomacy, but on Sunday Netanyahu reiterated Israel's aim since the start of the war nearly seven months ago: to disarm and dismantle the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas for good or else endanger Israel's future security.
The prime minister said Israel was willing to pause fighting in Gaza in order to secure the release of hostages still being held by Hamas, believed to number more than 130.
"But while Israel has shown willingness, Hamas remains entrenched in its extreme positions, first among them the demand to remove all our forces from the Gaza Strip, end the war, and leave Hamas in power," Netanyahu said. "Israel cannot accept that."
2024-05-05 20:16:49
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accused Hamas on Sunday of showing signs it was not serious about reaching a truce, and said that if so Israel would launch military actions in Rafah and other parts of the Gaza Strip "in the very near future".
2024-05-05 19:07:52
Israeli authorities shut down all the offices of Qatar-based news agency Al Jazeera, in areas under their jurisdiction.
2024-05-05 16:47:02
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has said that they are keen on reaching a comprehensive ceasefire that will end Israeli “aggression”, guarantee withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza, and achieve a serious captive swap deal.
In a statement, Haniyeh accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of continuation of the aggression and the expansion of the circle of conflict, and sabotaging the efforts made through the mediators and various parties”.
2024-05-05 14:31:49
2024-05-05 14:16:59
Palestinians look through the rubble of the destroyed Al-Shaer family home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, on Sunday, after an Israeli airstrike hit the building and the surrounding area overnight, residents said.
"Everyday there are strikes," said displaced Palestinians Umm Sakr Labad, "there’s no safety at all in Rafah."
Aref Al-Shaer, who lost his house in the airstrike, said he feared the world was under the false impression that Rafah was safe.
"They announced a ceasefire in the Security Council at UN, and nothing happened," he said.
2024-05-05 13:21:18
2024-05-05 12:04:32
Hamas negotiators began intensified talks on Saturday on a possible Gaza truce that would see the return to Israel of some hostages, a Hamas official told Reuters, with the CIA director present in Cairo.
The Hamas delegation arrived from the Palestinian movement's political office in Qatar, which, along with Egypt, has tried to mediate a follow-up to a brief November ceasefire amid international dismay over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the plight of its 2.3 million inhabitants.
Taher Al-Nono, a Hamas official and advisor to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, said meetings with Egyptian and Qatari mediators had begun and Hamas was addressing their proposals "with full seriousness and responsibility".
However, he reiterated a demand that any deal should include an Israeli pullout from Gaza and an end to the war, conditions that Israel has previously rejected.
"Any agreement to be reached must include our national demands; the complete and permanent ending of the aggression, the full and complete withdrawal of the occupation from Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced to their homes without restriction and a real prisoner swap deal, in addition to the reconstruction and ending the blockade," Nono told Reuters.
2024-05-05 11:44:27
Israeli forces Saturday claimed they killed five Palestinians, including four fighters of Hamas, in an overnight raid near the city of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank.
Hamas confirmed that four of the men killed during the raid in Deir al-Ghusun village were from its al-Qassam armed wing. The Palestinian health ministry said their bodies had been taken by the Israeli military.
There was no information about the fifth man, whose body was too disfigured for immediate identification, the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank said.
The Israeli military confirmed the deaths and said an Israeli officer from a special police unit was wounded in the operation it said targeted a Hamas cell responsible for numerous shooting and car bombing attacks.
It said the group was responsible for killing a reservist soldier and wounding a police officer in an attack last November and also carried out a car bombing attack in April which wounded two Israelis including a soldier.
2024-05-05 10:24:59
2024-05-05 09:42:09
Spokesperson for Hamas Osama Hamdan has stated that the fighter group needed a guarantee from the United States that the Israeli military would not invade Rafah after the ceasefire deal.
“We are still talking about the main issues, which are the complete ceasefire and complete withdrawal [of Israel] from Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview.
“Unfortunately, there was a clear statement from Netanyahu saying regardless of any ceasefire or not, he’ll continue the attack against Rafah – which means there will be no ceasefire.
“Our understanding to achieve a ceasefire means there will be no more attacks anywhere in Gaza, including Rafah,” he said.
2024-05-05 08:31:35
Police on Saturday arrested at least 25 pro-Palestinian protesters and cleared an encampment at the University of Virginia, the university said in a statement, as US campuses braced for more turmoil during graduation celebrations.
Tensions flared at UVA's campus in Charlottesville, where protests had been largely peaceful until Saturday morning, when police officers in riot gear were seen in a video moving on an encampment on the campus' lawn, cuffing some demonstrators with zip-ties and using what appeared to be chemical spray.
A group called UVA Encampment for Gaza that said earlier this week it had set up the encampment condemned the university's decision to call in police in a post on Instagram.
Dozens of people were arrested for criminal trespass outside the Art Institute of Chicago at a demonstration on Saturday after the institute called in police to remove protesters it said were illegally occupying its property, the Chicago Police Department said on X.
Many of the schools, including Columbia University in New York City, have called in police to quell the peaceful demonstrations.
Police have so far arrested over 2,000 protesters at colleges around the country.
2024-05-04 23:44:22
United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) chief Cindy McCain has said that northern Gaza was experiencing “full-blown famine”.
Thousands of Palestinians are starving after more than six months of war, he added.
“It’s horror. There is famine – full-blown famine – in the north and it’s moving its way south.”
2024-05-04 23:42:47
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said that Khan Younis-based Al-Amal hospital continued to operate partially and in a limited capacity despite the scale of destruction and limited resources in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
The medical group posted video of damage caused to the Khan Younis-based hospital and its surrounding areas, showing destroyed buildings and rubble everywhere after Israeli attacks.
2024-05-04 23:25:40
Students at Trinity College Dublin and Lausanne University in Switzerland have staged occupations to protest against Israel's war in Gaza, joining a wave of demonstrations sweeping US campuses.
In Dublin, students built an encampment on Friday that forced the university to restrict campus access on Saturday and close the Book of Kells exhibition, one of Ireland's top tourist attractions.
The camp was set up after the students' union said it had been fined 214,000 euros ($230,000) by the university for losses caused by protests in recent months, not exclusively over Gaza. The protesters were demanding that Trinity cut academic ties with Israel and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Students' union president Laszlo Molnarfia posted a photograph of benches piled up at the entrance to the building housing the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript created by Celtic monks in about 800 AD.
2024-05-04 22:02:29
At least 34,654 Palestinians have been killed and 77,908 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
2024-05-04 19:03:24
CAIRO: Hamas negotiators arrived in Cairo on Saturday for intensified talks on a possible Gaza truce that would see the return to Israel of some hostages, a Hamas official told Reuters, with the CIA director already present for the indirect diplomacy.
Egypt's state-affiliated Al-Qahera News TV channel also confirmed the arrival of the Hamas delegation in Cairo.
"The results today will be different. We have reached an agreement over many points, and a few point remain," one Egyptian security source told Reuters.
2024-05-04 15:56:15
Students at Trinity College Dublin protesting Israel's war in Gaza have built an encampment at the university on Saturday.
The camp was set up late on Friday after Trinity College's students' union said it had been fined 214,000 euros ($230,000) by the university for financial losses incurred due to protests in recent months not exclusively regarding the war in Gaza.
2024-05-04 14:53:18
2024-05-04 14:47:50
While the truce talks are underway in Egypt, the Israeli forces continue attacks across the Gaza Strip, including artillery shelling in Rafah, Al-Jazeera reported.
The online publication said last night at least three people were killed inside a residential home of Rafah. One of the victims was a local resident, while two were those who arrived here after being displaced from the enclave’s north.
2024-05-04 14:09:59
2024-05-04 14:03:44
Israeli forces on Saturday conducted a raid in the town of Deir al-Ghusun, near Tulkarm, surrounding a house and partially demolishing it.
Continuous exchange of fire could be heard in the area during the operation which started overnight and continued through the morning.
Violence in the West Bank has risen with frequent Israeli raids and rampages by Jewish settlers in Palestinian villages.
The West Bank and Gaza are among the territories which the Palestinians seek for an independent state. US-brokered peace talks broke down a decade ago.
2024-05-04 12:19:50
Across campuses where protests have broken out, students have called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to US military assistance for Israel, university divestment from arms suppliers and other companies profiting from the war, and amnesty for students and faculty members who have been disciplined or fired for protesting.
The students are protesting Israel's offensive in Gaza. Israel has killed over 34,000 citizens, according to local health authorities.
2024-05-04 10:51:40
Hamas said on Friday it was sending a delegation to Cairo to discuss a deal for a truce and the release of hostages in Gaza, hours after US CIA Director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital, according to Egyptian sources.
Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, has been leading efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas to broker a deal for a ceasefire in the conflict that began on October 7.
The Hamas and CIA officials will meet Egyptian mediators on Saturday, an Egyptian security source said, though it was unclear whether they would meet separately or together.
Hamas said its delegates were traveling to Cairo in a "positive spirit" after studying the latest proposal for a truce agreement.
"We are determined to secure an agreement in a way that fulfils Palestinians' demands," the Palestinian fighter group said in a statement.
2024-05-04 10:12:28
Scores of lawmakers from US President Joe Biden's Democratic Party told him on Friday that they believe there is sufficient evidence to show that Israel has violated US law by restricting humanitarian aid flows into war-stricken Gaza.
A letter to Biden signed by 86 House of Representatives Democrats said Israel's aid restrictions "call into question" its assurances that it was complying with a US Foreign Assistance Act provision requiring recipients of US-funded arms to uphold international humanitarian law and allow free flows of US assistance.
Such written assurances were mandated by a national security memorandum that Biden issued in February after Democratic lawmakers began questioning if Israel was upholding international law in its Gaza operations.
2024-05-04 08:46:13
Israel has threatened Hamas of ground invasion of Rafah if they did not agree to the ceasefire proposal in one week, Al-Jazeera reported.
Whereas, a Hamas delegation has arrived in Egypt in apparently a ‘do-or-die negotiations’ on a ceasefire deal. The fighter group is reportedly “determined to achieve an agreement”.
2024-05-03 23:33:13
CAIRO: A delegation from Palestinian militant group Hamas will visit Cairo on Saturday, a Hamas official told Reuters, amid expectations that they will deliver a written response to an Israeli proposal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release.
The Hamas official, who declined to be identified, spoke on Friday after CIA Director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital for meetings about the conflict in Gaza, according to an Egyptian security source and three sources at Cairo airport.
Egypt will receive a delegation in Cairo on Saturday to discuss developments in the Gaza truce, Egypt's state-affiliated Al Qahera news TV said on Friday, citing a senior Egyptian source.
Egypt made a renewed push to revive negotiations late last month. Cairo is alarmed by the prospect of an Israeli ground operation against Hamas in Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than one million people have taken shelter near the border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
2024-05-03 21:05:40
ISTANBUL: Turkey said on Friday it will not resume trade with Israel, worth $7 billion a year, until a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian aid are secured in Gaza, becoming the first of Israel's key commercial partners to take such a step.
Israel's "uncompromising attitude" and the worsening situation in Gaza's Rafah region, a refuge for displaced people that Israel has threatened to storm — prompted Ankara to halt all exports and imports, Trade Minister Omer Bolat said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz criticised Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's move, enacted late on Thursday, saying it breaks international trade agreements and was "how a dictator behaves".
The resistance group Hamas in Gaza, praised the decision as brave and supportive of Palestinian rights.
2024-05-03 20:11:22
Hamas leader Hossam Badran has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of undermining prospects for a truce in the war.
The top Hamas official told AFP that the group was in the process of conducting internal dialogues within its leadership and with allied groups before negotiators returned to Cairo to continue negotiations towards a truce.
He warned that Netanyahu’s repeated statements that he would send forces into Rafah were calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement”.
“Netanyahu was the obstructionist in all previous rounds of dialogue and previous negotiations, and it is clear that he still is,” the Hamas official added.
2024-05-03 18:52:56
With Tel Aviv’s forces continued massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the United Kingdom has announced fresh sanctions against “extremist Israeli groups” and a number of individuals who were involved in violence in the occupied West Bank.
According to a statement by the UK foreign ministry: “This latest package of sanctions targets two groups leading these attacks, and four individuals who are directly responsible for egregious violence against Palestinian civilians.”
2024-05-03 16:43:55
DUBAI: At least 34,622 Palestinians have been killed and 77,867 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
2024-05-03 15:48:02
An Israeli incursion in Rafah would put the lives of hundreds of thousands of Gazans at risk and be a huge blow to the humanitarian operations of the entire enclave, the U.N. humanitarian office said on Friday.
Israel has warned of an operation against Hamas in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where around a million displaced people are crowded together in shelters and makeshift accommodation, having fled months of Israeli bombardments since October 7.
"It could be a slaughter of civilians and an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire strip because it is run primarily out of Rafah," said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office, at a Geneva press briefing.
Aid operations run from Rafah included medical clinics and food distribution points, including centres for malnourished children, he said.
2024-05-03 14:57:43
2024-05-03 14:15:15
2024-05-03 13:55:30
In a joint letter to US President Joe Biden, 47 humanitarian organisations and NGOs have warned that no credible humanitarian plan could ensure safety of the estimated 1.3 million people currently sheltering in Rafah.
“Displaced Palestinians in Rafah are effectively trapped with no safe alternatives. Many of them are too young, elderly, sick, starving, injured, or disabled to move again,” they said.
“Even in the absence of further military escalation, overcrowded conditions, the near total collapse of sanitation infrastructure, the spread of disease, and a dire scarcity of food, water, and medicine in Rafah could kill thousands more by August,” the NGOs stated in the letter which ended with a call for Biden to use all the influence of his administration to “prevent such an operation occurring in order to avoid further catastrophic loss of civilian lives”.
2024-05-03 13:00:33
The law enforcement agencies across the United States have arrested about 2,200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators at college campuses since April 18, Al Jazeera reported quoting the Associated Press (AP) news agency as saying.
The AP report is based on calculation of the arrests announced by the university campuses and police department. The report said more than 56 incidents of arrest at various US colleges or universities took place in last two weeks.
2024-05-03 12:36:39
In his address at the preparatory Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers to the 15th Islamic Summit Conference of the OIC in Banjul, The Gambia, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Pakistan Mohammad Ishaq Dar highlighted Pakistan’s grave concern at the genocide and starvation in Gaza as well as Pakistan’s full support for the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.
2024-05-03 12:16:39
Police forcibly removed scores of defiant pro-Palestinian protesters at several colleges on Thursday, including taking down an encampment at UCLA in a jarring scene that underscored the heightened chaos that has erupted at universities this week.
In the pre-dawn hours, helmeted police swarmed a tent city set up at the University of California in Los Angeles, using flash bangs and riot gear to push through lines of protesters who linked arms in a futile attempt to halt their advance.
"I'm a student here," one UCLA protester told cameras as he was led away, his hands bound. "Please don't fail us. Don't fail us."
Hours later, the student, who would only give his first name as Ryan, was back on campus and vowed he would not stop fighting.
2024-05-03 10:07:04
Quebec Premier Francois Legault said on Thursday the encampment at Montreal's McGill University should be dismantled as more students erected pro-Palestinian camps across some of Canada's largest universities, demanding they divest from groups with ties to Israel.
The Canadian protests come as police have been arresting hundreds on US campuses and the death toll in Gaza has been mounting.
While McGill had requested police intervention, law enforcement had not stepped in Thursday to clear the encampment and did not respond to Reuters' questions about their plans. Students also set up encampments at Canadian schools including the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the University of Ottawa.
"We want the camp to be dismantled. We trust the police, let them do their job," a spokesperson for Legault said.
2024-05-03 11:30:17
The US on Thursday called on both Israel and Hamas to ensure that aid bound for civilians in Gaza is not disrupted, after a shipment from Jordan was attacked by Israeli settlers and subsequently diverted by Palestinian fighters.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken viewed the aid on Tuesday just before it departed from the headquarters of the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation in Amman bound for the newly opened crossing into Gaza at Erez.
Before the shipment reached the crossing, however, Jordan said it was attacked by Israeli settlers.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Blinken raised the incident with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday, and credited Israel for arresting three people involved in the attack.
2024-05-03 11:55:01
Israel has warned its citizens against travelling this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden’s Malmo city where protests are planned against Israel for its genocidal acts in Gaza.
Sweden has promised a dazzling show from May 7-11, but it will take place amid demonstrations over Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip, wherein the barbaric army has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Israel will take part in the second semi-final, and again on the day of the final, May 11.
"There's a certain feeling of apprehension, of tension. I can't say that I'm not worried," Felix Krausz Sjögren, a guide at the synagogue in Malmo, told Reuters.
2024-05-03 08:55:04
A UN Development Programme Thursday said rebuilding Gaza will cost an enormous amount of 30 to 40 billion dollars and require an unprecedented effort since World War II.
"The United Nations Development Programme's initial estimates for the reconstruction of... the Gaza Strip surpass $30 billion and could reach up to $40 billion," said Director of the United Nations Development Programme Regional Bureau for Arab States Abdallah al-Dardari, addressing a press conference in the Jordanian capital Amman.
"The scale of the destruction is huge and unprecedented... This is a mission that the global community has not dealt with since World War II," said Dardari.
He said that if Gaza's reconstruction had to be carried out through the normal process, "it could take decades, and the Palestinian people did not have the luxury of waiting for decades".
2024-05-03 08:51:45
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh Thursday discussed the ongoing Gaza ceasefire talks in separate phone calls with Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel and Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
A statement by the Palestinian fighter group said a delegation is set to visit Egypt soon for further ceasefire talks in the Gaza war.
The Egyptian state-affiliated Al-Qahera News quoted an unidentified high-level Egyptian source as saying that the Hamas delegation would arrive in Cairo in the next two days.
Speaking to Reuters, a Palestinian official close to the mediation also said the Hamas delegation's visit could take place in the next two days.
Another statement by Hamas on Thursday said that Haniyeh and Qatar's prime minister agreed to continue the ongoing discussions to "mature a deal" through Qatari and Egyptian mediation.
Egypt recently renewed its bid to push stalled negotiations between Israel and Hamas to agree a ceasefire in Gaza.
2024-05-02 23:41:56
In what can be called war crimes, a Palestinian boy lost his limbs while opening “booby-trapped food” in man-made famine-hit Khan Younis.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “A 14-year-old boy was seriously injured and sustained limb amputations after opening a booby-trapped can of food found while looking for his belongings in his house that had been shelled by Israeli forces in Khan Younis.”
The boy, who was wounded in the blast on Monday, is just one of “many people recently injured” from aid supplies rigged with hidden explosive charges, the UN body added.
2024-05-02 23:14:44
Israel's foreign minister has said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is breaking agreements by blocking ports for Israeli imports and exports.
"This is how a dictator behaves, disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements," Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted on X.
Katz said he instructed the foreign ministry to work to create alternatives for trade with Turkey, focusing on local production and imports from other countries.
Bloomberg reported on Thursday that Turkey had stopped all exports and imports to and from Israel, citing two Turkish officials.
The Turkish presidency, foreign and trade ministries were not immediately available for comment.
2024-05-02 22:37:20
A senior Palestinian doctor died in an Israeli prison after more than four months of detention, two Palestinian prisoner associations said on Thursday, blaming Israel for his death.
The associations said in a joint statement that Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopaedics at Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest medical facility, had been detained by Israeli forces while temporarily working at Al-Awada Hospital in north Gaza.
They called his death an "assassination" and said his body remained in Israeli custody.
An Israeli military spokesperson said that the prison service had declared Bursh dead on April 19, saying that he had been detained for national security reasons in Ofer prison. The spokesperson did not comment on the cause of death.
The Palestinian health ministry said in a statement that Bursh’s death raised to 496 the number of medical sector workers who had been killed by Israel since Oct 7. It added that 1,500 others had been wounded while 309 had been arrested.
2024-05-02 20:46:44
Ankara has suspended its trade with Tel Aviv as Israel continued brutalities in war-torn Gaza, Bloomberg reported quoting two Turkish officials familiar with the matter.
2024-05-02 16:24:55
At least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed and 77,816 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct 7, the health ministry in the enclave said in a statement on Thursday.
2024-05-02 12:51:49
Humanitarian aid arrived on Wednesday night to Gaza's Jabalia after Israel reopened the sole crossing on the northern edge of the strip, allowing aid trucks to pass through the Erez checkpoint following US demands to do more to address the growing humanitarian crisis.
Reopening the Erez crossing has been one of the main pleas of international aid agencies for months, to alleviate hunger which is believed to be most severe among the hundreds of thousands of civilians in the enclave's northern sector.
The Israeli government opened the crossing point the same day by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for more humanitarian aid deliveries into the territory.
The Erez crossing, primarily used for foot traffic, had remained closed since it was destroyed on October 7.
2024-05-02 11:20:09
Law enforcement officers massed by the hundreds on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles after darkness fell on Wednesday in preparation to clear out a pro-Palestinian protest camp which was attacked the night before by pro-Israel supporters.
Live television footage showed police in tactical gear filing onto the UCLA campus adjacent to a complex of tents occupied by throngs of demonstrators. Some of the activists were seen donning hard hats, goggles and respirator masks in anticipation of the raid a day after the university declared the encampment unlawful.
Hundreds of other pro-Palestinian activists assembled outside the tent city, chanted "Shame on you," to police, some beating drums and waving Palestinian flags, as officers marched onto the campus grounds. Many of the demonstrators wore the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarves.
2024-05-02 10:21:48
Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Wednesday it "was a beautiful thing to watch" New York police officers raiding a Columbia University building occupied by pro-Palestinian students, and called on officials to crack down on campus protests across the United States.
"New York was under siege last night," Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, praising the police officers for arresting about 300 protesters at Columbia and City College of New York who he referred to as "raging lunatics and Hamas sympathisers."
2024-05-02 08:55:07
UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said 75% of UN-coordinated aid missions to areas requiring coordination across Gaza were blocked or delayed this Monday by the Israeli forces near the checkpoint.
“One of those missions that went to the north was forced to wait for a total of over 9 hours – before departing, on its way north, and on the way back to Rafah – due to heighted security procedures at the checkpoint,” the UN OCHA said in a tweet.
2024-05-02 08:37:49
Mounting tensions on US campuses boiled over on Wednesday when pro-Israel supporters attacked an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA, hours after police arrested activists who occupied a building at Columbia University and cleared a tent city from its campus.
Eyewitness videos from the University of California at Los Angeles, verified by Reuters, showed people wielding sticks or poles to hammer on wooden boards being used as makeshift barricades to protect the pro-Palestinian protesters before police were called to the campus.
The university canceled classes for the day on Wednesday, and UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said the school would conduct an investigation "that may lead to arrests, expulsions and dismissals."
In a statement, Block said the "appalling" assault on pro-Palestinian demonstrators, which came hours after their encampment was declared an unlawful assembly by UCLA, was committed "by a group of instigators."
2024-05-01 23:26:09
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday he has still not seen a plan for Israel's planned offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah that would protect civilians, repeating that Washington could not support such an assault.
Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Jerusalem for two-and-a-half hours, after which Israel repeated that the Rafah operation would go ahead despite the US position and a stark UN warning that it would lead to "tragedy".
"We cannot, will not support a major military operation in Rafah absent an effective plan to make sure that civilians are not harmed and no, we've not seen such a plan," Blinken told reporters.
"There are other ways, and in our judgment better ways, of dealing with the ... ongoing challenge of Hamas that does not require a major military operation in Rafah," he said, adding that it was the subject of ongoing talks with Israeli officials.
2024-05-01 22:26:59
Colombia president Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday he will break diplomatic relations with Israel over its actions in Gaza.
Petro has already heavily criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and requested to join South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
2024-05-01 22:06:37
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Israel on Wednesday that progress on improving humanitarian access to Gaza is real but, given the immense need in the Palestinian enclave, it needs to be accelerated.
Blinken, who earlier met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told reporters that Israel has made important compromises over a proposal for a deal that would see hostages released in exchange for a ceasefire, but it was up to Hamas to take that deal.
2024-05-01 20:37:49
LOS ANGELES: Supporters of Israel attacked a pro-Palestinian protest camp at the University of California in Los Angeles on Wednesday, while New York's mayor said a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University broken up by police had been led by outsiders.
Witness footage from UCLA, verified by Reuters, showed people wielding sticks or poles to hammer on wooden boards being used as makeshift barricades to protect the pro-Palestinian protesters before police were deployed to the campus.
On the other side of the country, New York police arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in a building at Columbia University and removed a protest encampment on Tuesday night.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said about 300 people had been arrested and he blamed the protests on outside agitators, but without offering concrete evidence.
2024-05-01 18:24:14
The French foreign minister said on Wednesday diplomats were still working to secure a truce in the war between Israel and Hamas and the release of hostages held in Gaza.
The mediation efforts were intensifying following a renewed push led by Egypt to revive the stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.
Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne was updated on the negotiations by Egyptian officials when he made an unscheduled stop in Cairo after a five-day tour of the region.
"We came to coordinate our efforts for a truce. The messages given by France and its Arab partners in the region is that Israel pulls back on this offensive in Rafah," Sejourne said after meeting his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shukri.
He declined to say how optimistic he was of a deal being concluded or give details of where the negotiation stood.
2024-05-01 16:20:46
GAZA/DOHA: Asmaa al-Belbasi walks an hour to her nearest bakery each day to fetch bread for her children and other relatives in the north Gaza districts where aid agencies say famine still looms despite rising supplies.
The route can be dangerous, along streets strewn with rubble from blown-up buildings that are impassable to cars and with fighting between Hamas militants and Israeli forces still sporadically raging. Her journey shows how desperately Gazans need bread to stave off deadly hunger.
"Before they opened up the bakeries we would get corn flour, which you couldn't knead. It was like a log and would come out like a biscuit. After a day or two it'd be difficult to eat," she said, talking about the flour people in Gaza made from animal feed and baked on open fires.
When the first bakery opened using flour and fuel provided by the World Food Programme, unruly queues of hundreds of people crammed into nearby streets between the ruins of houses. The bakers had to employ dozens of stewards to maintain order.
A few more bakeries have now opened, some of them operating 24 hours a day, but while the queues are now smaller, Belbasi still waits at least 20 minutes each day for the two bags of flat pitta bread she needs for her large family, she says.
Restoring Gaza's bakeries and ensuring a regular supply of flour, water and fuel will be crucial to stopping famine spreading across the tiny, crowded enclave nearly seven months into the conflict.
2024-05-01 15:03:27
A British police officer has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly publishing an image in support of Hamas, a group banned in Britain as a terrorist organisation, police said on Wednesday.
Mohammed Adil, 26, from Bradford in northern England, was arrested last November and charged following an investigation by British counter-terrorism officers, Counter Terrorism Policing North East said in a statement.
2024-05-01 13:45:33
Amid growing calls for probe into alleged Israeli war crimes in its ongoing war in Gaza,prosecutors from the International Criminal Court (ICC) have questioned the staff of Gaza's Al-Shifa and Al-Nasser hospitals, Al Jazeera reported.
As per details, the development is part of ICC's ongoing efforts to probe if the mass graves discovered at the said hospitals amount to war crimes.
2024-05-01 11:18:09
The Israeli military Wednesday claimed to have targeted the bases of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
As per Arab media, no casualties have been reported in the attack so far.
2024-05-01 08:36:15
The United Nations warned that an Israeli assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip was "on the immediate horizon" and that "incremental" progress by Israel on aid access to the enclave could not be used to prepare for or justify an operation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for states with influence over Israel "to do everything in their power" to prevent an Israeli assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1.2 million displaced Gaza Palestinians are sheltering.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday to go ahead with a long-promised assault, whatever the response by Hamas to latest proposals for a halt to fighting in the nearly seven-month-long war and a return of Israeli hostages.
"The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon," said UN aid chief Martin Griffiths in a statement. "The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words."
2024-04-30 21:57:56
CAIRO: More than 34,535 Palestinians have been killed and 77,704 wounded in the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip since October 7 last year, the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday.
Israeli military strikes across Gaza in the past 24 hours killed 47 people and wounded 61, it said.
The Gaza Civil Emergency Service estimated that the bodies of a further 10,000 Palestinians were under the rubble of hundreds of destroyed buildings.
It said those figures had not been included in the updated health ministry death toll, which only registers bodies that are taken to hospitals.
"In light of the lack of heavy equipment, efforts to search for the bodies of the martyrs will remain insufficient and will not be enough to recover the bodies of thousands of them," it said.
2024-04-30 21:07:29
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that if the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues arrest warrants for government officials on charges related to the conduct of Israel'swar against Hamas it would be a scandal on a historic scale.
Israeli officials have expressed concern in recent days that the ICC is preparing warrants for senior government officials, in what would be the most serious international legal action taken against Israel since the Gaza war erupted in October.
The ICC — which can charge individuals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide — is investigating Hamas' October 7 cross-border attack and Israel's devastating military assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza, now in its seventh month.
Israel is not a member of the ICC and does not recognise its jurisdiction, but the Palestinian territories were admitted with the status of a member state in 2015.
In October ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said the court had jurisdiction over any potential war crimes committed by Hamas fighters in Israel and by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.
"The possibility that they will issue arrest warrants for war crimes against IDF (Israel Defence Force) commanders and state leaders, this possibility is a scandal on a historic scale," Netanyahu said in a video statement.
Netanyahu said that any ICC arrest warrants would not affect Israel's actions and, he said, would be the first time that a democratic country was accused by the court of war crimes.
"I want to make one thing clear: no decision, neither in The Hague nor anywhere else, will harm our determination to achieve all the goals of the war - the release of all our hostages, a complete victory over Hamas and a promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel," he said.
2024-04-30 19:58:18
Hundreds of students gathered at university campuses in Lebanon on Tuesday to protest against Israel, the country's first coordinated university protests over Gaza, which participants said were inspired by sit-ins in the United States.
Students, alumni and other Lebanese gathered at campuses in the capital Beirut and elsewhere on Tuesday, waving Palestinian flags and posters demanding their universities boycott companies that do business in Israel.
Rayyan Kilani, 21, who is graduating this semester from the 150-year-old American University of Beirut (AUB), said students had decided it was worth risking their degrees to show support for the Palestinian cause.
"Looking at the Palestinians in Gaza and students in Gaza that lost their universities, their lives and their families, a degree would not matter to us as much as a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea," she said.
"Of course we were inspired by the protests in the U.S. and Columbia University in specific."
Pro-Gaza demonstrations in much of the Arab world have been muted, though Lebanon has seen some demonstrations organised by Palestinian factions and the allied Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
2024-04-30 18:44:23
The International Court of Justice has decided against issuing emergency measures over German arms sales to Israel, reported Al Jazeera.
“The circumstances are not such as to require the exercise of its power under the article 41 of the statute to indicate provisional measures,” presiding Judge Nawaf Salam said.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague made its ruling on Nicaragua’s request that emergency measures be imposed on Germany over its support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Germany denied accusations, with its lawyer arguing that Nicaragua’s case was rushed, based on flimsy evidence and should be thrown out for lack of jurisdiction.
Germany is one of Israel’s biggest military suppliers, sending $353.7m in equipment and weapons in 2023.
2024-04-30 17:42:55
GENEVA: The UN human rights chief said on Tuesday he was "troubled" by heavy-handed actions taken by US security forces during attempts to break up pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.
"I am concerned that some of law enforcement actions across a series of universities appear disproportionate in their impacts," Volker Turk said in a statement sent to journalists, in which he made reference to arrests and sanctions of students.
"It must be clear that legitimate exercises of the freedom of expression cannot be conflated with incitement to violence and hatred," he added.
2024-04-30 15:52:12
Israel will carry out an operation against Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah regardless of whether or not a ceasefire and hostage release deal is reached, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
"The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all its objectives is out of the question," Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office.
2024-04-30 14:10:55
2024-04-30 13:45:48
2024-04-30 13:39:12
Rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have expressed the political will to seek reconciliation through dialogue at unity talks in Beijing, China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
The two factions have failed to heal political disputes since Hamas fighters expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip in a short war in 2007, and their talks took place against the backdrop of Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza.
"The Palestinian National Liberation Movement and Islamic Resistance Group representatives arrived in Beijing a few days ago for in-depth and candid dialogue," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular briefing.
"They agreed to continue the course of talks to achieve the realisation of Palestinian solidarity and unity at an early date."
2024-04-30 12:06:58
Eli Harel was an Israeli soldier in his early thirties when he was sent into Lebanon in 2006 to battle fighters from Hezbollah in a bloody, largely inconclusive month-long war.
Now 50, Harel is ready to rejoin the army to fight the same group if shelling along Israel's northern border turns into a full-blown war with Iran's most powerful regional proxy. This time Israeli forces would face some of the most challenging fighting conditions imaginable, he said.
"There are booby traps everywhere," he told Reuters. "People are popping up from tunnels. You have to be constantly on alert otherwise you will be dead."
Harel lives in Haifa, Israel's third biggest city, well within range of Hezbollah's weapons. Haifa's mayor recently urged residents to stockpile food and medicine because of the growing risk of all-out war.
2024-04-30 10:01:45
Students at Texas State University in San Antonio, Texas, joined the Gaza-related protests roiling university campuses across the US in recent weeks as students across demonstrate their anger over the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the complicity of their schools in it.
The pro-Palestinian rallies have sparked intense campus debate over where school officials should draw the line between freedom of expression and hate speech.
Across the state, at the University of Texas at Austin, campus police backed by Texas state troopers attempted to break up a large student protest using pepper spray and flash-bang charges, arresting at least 43 people, according to defence attorney George Lobb, who said he confirmed the number with court and jail staff processing the detentions.
Students protesting Israel's military offensive in Gaza, including some Jewish peace activists, have said they are being censured as antisemitic merely for criticising the Israeli government or for expressing support for Palestinian rights.
2024-04-30 09:44:30
2024-04-30 08:41:14
Israeli forces’ airstrikes have killed at least 34 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip including three people in the Nuseirat refugee camp and two in Gaza City.
The Wafa news agency reported that the killing raised the death toll in Gaza last day (Monday) to at least 34.
2024-04-30 08:17:15
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received a phone call on Monday from US President Joe Biden to discuss the latest developments in negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza and the dangers of a military escalation in Rafah, Egypt's presidency said.
The call also touched on the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, a main sticking point in any comprehensive ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, the spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency added.
Biden urged Sisi and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, whom he spoke to separately, to exert all efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas "as this is now the only obstacle to an immediate ceasefire and relief for the people of Gaza," the White House said.
2024-04-29 23:40:45
The US State Department found five units of the Israeli military responsible for gross violations of human rights in incidents that took place outside of Gaza before conflict broke out between Israel and Hamas in October, the State Department said.
Four of the units have effectively remediated the violations, while Israel has submitted additional information regarding the fifth unit and the US is continuing conversations with the government, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters.
2024-04-29 23:35:01
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday in Riyadh, where they discussed the urgent need to reduce tensions in the region, the US Department of State said in a statement.
Blinken also underscored the need for sustaining an increase in humanitarian assistance to Gaza, reaching an immediate ceasefire that secures the release of hostages and preventing the possible further spread of the conflict, the State Department said.
Blinken is in Saudi Arabia as part of a broader trip to the Middle East aimed at discussing with Arab partners post-war Gaza and to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take steps US President Joe Biden demanded this month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
2024-04-29 22:59:25
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Hamas to swiftly accept an Israeli proposal for a truce in the Gaza war and the release of Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian resistance group.
Hamas negotiators were expected to meet Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Monday to deliver a response to the phased truce proposal which Israel presented at the weekend.
"Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel," Blinken said at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
"The only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas. They have to decide and they have to decide quickly," he said. "I'm hopeful that they will make the right decision."
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who was also in Riyadh for the WEF meeting, also described the Israeli proposal as "generous".
It included a 40-day pause in fighting and the release of potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners as well as Israeli hostages, he told a WEF audience.
"I hope Hamas do take this deal and frankly, all the pressure in the world and all the eyes in the world should be on them today saying 'take that deal'," Cameron said.
2024-04-29 22:03:23
JERUSALEM: Israel is voicing concern that the International Criminal Court could be preparing to issue arrest warrants for government officials on charges related to the conduct of its war against Hamas.
The ICC — which can charge individuals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide — is investigating Hamas' October 7 cross-border attack and Israel's devastating military assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza, now in its seventh month.
In response to Israeli media reports that the ICC might soon issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli government and military officials, Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Sunday warned Israeli embassies to bolster their security because of the risk of a "wave of severe antisemitism".
"We expect the court (ICC) to refrain from issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli political and security officials," Katz said. "We will not bow our heads or be deterred and will continue to fight."
2024-04-29 20:58:23
Columbia University's president asked the students protesting in support of Palestinians to voluntarily disperse, without questioning the possible consequences if the encampment continues.
President Nemat Minouche Shafik said that talks with pro-Palestinian protesters who began camping on the Ivy League campus two weeks ago have failed, Al Jazeera reported.
Shafik, whose administration was criticised by a campus oversight panel on Friday for its response to the protests, said in a statement that organisers and academic leaders could not reach an agreement that would break a stalemate over the encampment, which the administration says violates university rules.
She said Columbia would not divest assets that support Israel's military, a key demand of the protesters, but the school has offered to invest in health and education in Gaza, and to improve the transparency of Columbia's direct investment holdings, according to Shafik's statement.
2024-04-29 19:55:52
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said in Riyadh that a 40-day ceasefire was offered to Hamas in Gaza, in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages, terming it a "generous" offer.
"The current proposal before Hamas includes the release of potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners,"Al Jazeera quoted Cameron.
"I hope Hamas accepts the proposal in front of them," he adds, saying that the war won’t end until all the captives are released.
Cameron also says that the Hamas leadership and those responsible for the October 7 attack need to leave Gaza in order "to have a political horizon for a two-state solution".
Hamas has repeatedly said that it wants a permanent end to the fighting, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
2024-04-29 18:35:36
CAIRO: At least 34,488 Palestinians have been killed and 77,643 were injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, a statement by Gaza's health ministry said on Monday.
Some 34 were killed and 68 injured in the last 24 hours, the statement added.
2024-04-29 16:49:07
RIYADH: Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Monday that Egypt was hopeful about a proposal for a truce and hostage release in the Gaza Strip but that it was waiting for a response on the proposal from Israel and Hamas.
Shoukry was speaking on a panel in Riyadh with Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who said the war in Gaza had turned "Israel into a pariah state".
2024-04-29 14:37:06
The United States has seen "measurable progress" in the humanitarian situation in Gaza over the past few weeks, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Monday, but urged Israel to do more.
Speaking in Riyadh at the opening of a US-Gulf Cooperation Council meeting, Blinken said the most effective way to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was to achieve a ceasefire. He also said Washington continued efforts to prevent the Gaza war from expanding.
2024-04-29 14:30:28
2024-04-29 14:11:25
Talks on a ceasefire in Gaza are progressing, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said on Monday in Riyadh, where he was due to meet other ministers of Arab and Western countries as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
"Things are moving forward but you always have to be careful in these discussions and negotiations. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic and we need a ceasefire," he told Reuters.
2024-04-29 14:06:16
2024-04-29 12:54:20
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, the first stop in a broader trip to the Middle East to discuss issues including the governance of Gaza once the war with Israel ends.
The top US diplomat heads to Israel later this week, where he is expected to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the concrete and tangible steps US President Joe Biden demanded this month to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
In Riyadh, Blinken is expected to meet with senior Saudi leaders and hold a wider meeting with counterparts from five Arab states – Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan – to further the discussions on what governance of the Gaza Strip would look like after the war, according to a senior State Department official.
Blinken is also expected to bring together Arab countries with the European states and discuss how Europe can help the rebuilding effort of the tiny enclave, which has been reduced to a wasteland in the six-month long Israeli bombardment.
2024-04-29 12:35:52
2024-04-29 11:01:58
Protests at US universities showed no sign of slowing over the weekend, with more arrests on campuses across the country and skirmishes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA, where a tent encampment was set up last week.
As the size of the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California at Los Angeles expanded in recent days, counter-protesters have become increasingly vocal and visible on the campus, although both sides remained peaceful until Sunday.
That changed when some demonstrators broke through a barrier that the school had set up to separate the two factions, Mary Osako, UCLA's vice chancellor for UCLA strategic communications, said.
Members of both factions shoved one another and shouted slogans and insults, and in some cases traded punches. Pushing and shoving persisted for some time among pockets of demonstrators, but campus police armed with batons eventually separated the sparring groups.
"UCLA has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken about the violence that broke out," Osako said in a statement.
2024-04-29 10:11:43
At least 27 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes last night in Rafah and Gaza City, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli airstrikes on three houses in the southern Gaza city of Rafah killed 13 people and wounded many others, Reuters reported citing medics on Monday.
Gaza media outlets put the death toll at 15. While Al-Jazeera correspondents included five more deaths "from the attack on the al-Khawajat family home" which took the death toll to 20.
In Gaza City, in the north of the strip, Israeli planes struck two houses, killing and wounding several people, health officials said. Several of them later succumbed to their critical wounds.
The strikes on Rafah, where over a million people are sheltering from months of Israeli bombardment, came hours before Egypt was expected to host leaders of the fighter group Hamas to discuss prospects for a ceasefire agreement with Israel.
2024-04-29 00:01:04
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor is considering issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Al Jazeera reported quoting Israel’s Channel 12.
The report said that Israeli government had received indications from senior legal officials regarding the arrest warrants.
The ICC is currently investigating Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
In addition to Netanyahu, these investigations could lead to arrest warrants being issued for Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, the report added.
The Israeli newspaper Maariv also reported that Netanyahu is “frightened and unusually stressed” by the possibility of an ICC arrest warrant.
2024-04-28 22:46:16
JERUSALEM:The amount of humanitarian aid going into the Gaza Strip will be ramped up in the coming days, Israel's military said on Sunday.
"Over the last few weeks, the amount of humanitarian aid going into Gaza has significantly increased. In the coming days, the amount of aid going into Gaza will continue to scale-up even more," spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement.
"Food, water, medical supplies, shelter equipment and other aid - more of it is going into Gaza than ever before," Hagari said.
2024-04-28 21:55:11
NICOSIA: World Central Kitchen (WCK) said it would resume operations in the Gaza Strip on Monday, a month after seven workers of the US-based charity were killed in an Israeli air strike.
Prior to halting operations, WCK had distributed more than 43 million meals in Gaza since October, representing by its own accounts 62% of all international NGO aid.
The charity said it had 276 trucks with the equivalent of almost 8 million meals ready to enter through the Rafah Crossing and will also send trucks into Gaza from Jordan.
"The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire," said the charity's chief executive officer Erin Gore. "We are restarting our operation with the same energy, dignity, and focus on feeding as many people as possible."
2024-04-28 21:10:52
A Hamas delegation will visit Cairo on Monday for talks aimed at securing a ceasefire, a Hamas official told Reuters on Sunday, as mediators stepped up efforts to reach a deal ahead of an Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the delegation will discuss a ceasefire proposal handed by Hamas to mediators Qatar and Egypt, as well as Israel's response.
He did not disclose details of the latest proposals.
2024-04-28 19:30:33
At least 34,454 Palestinians have been martyred and 77,575 others wounded in Israeli aggression on Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the health ministry in the besieged enclave.
The ministry further said that some 66 more martyred and 138 others wounded over the past 24 hours.
2024-04-28 19:03:44
WASHINGTON: A Democratic senator on Sunday questioned whether the Biden administration was properly assessing whether Israel was complying with international law, following a Reuters report that some senior US officials did not find that country's assurances credible.
"This reporting casts serious doubt on the integrity of the process in the Biden administration for reviewing whether the Netanyahu government is complying with international law in Gaza," Senator Chris Van Hollen said in a statement.
The Reuters report found that some senior State Department officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find "credible or reliable" Israel's assurances that it is using U.S.-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law.
2024-04-28 14:19:21
2024-04-28 13:19:05
Hundreds of thousands of people joined a pro-Palestine march in central London on Saturday to show their support for the people of Palestine and demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Waving flags, drumming and chanting loud slogans, organisers from the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign said they were expecting hundreds of thousands of people to join the rally.
Israel has been launching a large-scale offensive against Hamas in Gaza since Oct 7, 2023 after the group carried out a surprise attack on southern Israel. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip from the ongoing Israeli attacks has risen to 34,388.
The protesters voiced their anger with what happening in Gaza.
"I think the main thing is just the silence of everyone else, I think that's what's really upsetting and with constantly seeing these just devastating images, just videos from everywhere, we feel its everybody's responsibility including ours and our children's to show that we are going to stand for what is right and you should stand for humanity and those people who are weak at any time. It doesn't matter who you are at the end of the day, this should never happen to anyone," said a demonstrator.
2024-04-28 11:32:49
France's foreign minister will push proposals to prevent further escalation and a potential war between Israel and Hezbollah during a visit to Lebanon on Sunday as Paris seeks to refine a roadmap that both sides could accept to ease tensions.
France has historical ties with Lebanon and earlier this year Stephane Sejourne delivered an initiative that proposed Hezbollah's elite unit pull back 10 km (6 miles) from the Israeli border, while Israel would halt strikes in southern Lebanon.
The two have exchanged tit for tat strikes in recent months, but the exchanges have increased since Iran launched a barrage of missiles on Israel in response to a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus that killed members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps' overseas Quds Force.
2024-04-28 11:21:34
Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at them from a vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the military said on Saturday.
The military released a photo of two automatic rifles that it claimed were used by several gunmen to shoot at the soldiers, at an outpost near the flashpoint Palestinian city of Jenin.
The Jenin Brigade, an umbrella group that includes armed factions such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, said the two gunmen were its members.
2024-04-28 09:22:41
Some senior US officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find "credible or reliable" Israel's assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.
Other officials upheld support for Israel's representation.
Under a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by President Joe Biden in February, Blinken must report to Congress by May 8 whether he finds credible Israel's assurances that its use of US weapons does not violate US or international law.
By March 24, at least seven State Department bureaus had sent in their contributions to an initial "options memo" to Blinken. Parts of the memo, which has not been previously reported, were classified.
The submissions to the memo provide the most extensive picture to date of the divisions inside the State Department over whether Israel might be violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
2024-04-28 08:58:43
At least seven Palestinians were killed in fresh Israeli forces’ assault on Gaza, climbing the death toll from another day of relentless bombings to 27, Al Jazeera reported. The publication said at least 10 of the victims were kids.
Meanwhile, Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya has said the group was reviewing a new Israeli truce proposal, as Israel’s foreign minister said a planned incursion of Rafah would be “suspended” if a hostage deal is secured.
2024-04-27 23:28:33
ISTANBUL: A humanitarian aid flotilla destined for Gaza was halted after Guinea Bissau decided to remove its flag from two vessels, activist group Freedom Flotilla Coalition said on Saturday.
"The Guinea-Bissau International Ships Registry (GBISR), in a blatantly political move, informed the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that it had withdrawn the Guinea Bissau flag from two of the Freedom Flotilla's ships, one of which is our cargo ship," the activists said.
The three-strong flotilla had been due to sail on Friday from ports in Turkey with more than 5,000 tonnes of aid on board, the activists said, and described the inspection and request by Guinea Bissau authorities as unusual and political.
GBISR was not immediately available for comment.
2024-04-27 22:49:46
Israel's foreign minister said on Saturday that a planned incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah could be suspended should there be a deal to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
"The release of the hostages is the top priority for us," said Foreign Minister Israel Katz during an interview with local Channel 12 television.
Asked if that included putting off a planned operation to eliminate Hamas battalions in the city of Rafah, Katz answered, "Yes."
He went on to say: "If there will be a deal, we will suspend the operation."
2024-04-27 21:13:07
The Israeli occupation forces killed Palestinian civilians in seven deadly airstrikes after designating different areas of the besieged enclave Gaza Strip as safe zones, NBC News unveiled findings of its latest investigation.
The attacks were carried out from January to April, as Israel's military bombarded Rafah from the air and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government signalled its intent to launch a full-scale ground invasion on Gaza’s southernmost city, which has now swelled to more than 1 million people.
NBC News camera crews filmed the bloody aftermath of the six strikes on Rafah itself and one strike farther north on the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, which was also designated safe by Israel.
The crews compiled the GPS coordinates of each strike, all of which hit an area identified by the Israeli military as an evacuation zone in an online interactive map it published on Dec. 1.
The map has not been updated since then and the Israel Defense Forces told NBC News in a statement Sunday that it remained accurate.
International aid agencies and Gazans have called the map confusing and difficult to read. Regular cellular and internet blackouts since the start of the war would also have made it difficult for civilians to access it.
The IDF dropped leaflets on multiple occasions in different neighbourhoods of Rafah to designate different refugee camps as safe, and asking residents to go there, which were later hit by airstrikes, the US broadcaster reported.
2024-04-27 19:51:45
Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has scheduled a visit to Saudi Arabia to hold Gaza talks which is likely to be held on Sunday and Monday. according to Turkish diplomatic sources cited by AFP.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Fidan will meet members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League in Riyadh, as well as foreign ministers from several Western countries.
They added that the talks will also cover the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
2024-04-27 19:03:56
Lebanon has moved towards accepting the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction to prosecute violations on Lebanese territory since October, in what Human Rights Watch said on Saturday was a "landmark step" towards justice for war crimes.
Lebanon has accused Israel of repeatedly violating its sovereignty and committing breaches of international law over the last six months, during which the Israeli military and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have traded fire across Lebanon's southern border in parallel with the Gaza War.
That cross-border shelling has killed at least 70 civilians, including children, rescue workers and journalists, among them Reuters visuals reporter Issam Abdallah, who was killed by an Israeli tank on October 13, a Reuters investigation found.
2024-04-27 16:51:08
RIYADH: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and several international officials will be in Riyadh this week for talks aimed at pushing for a peace agreement in Gaza to be held on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting, the WEF's president said on Saturday.
"We do have the key players now in Riyadh and hopefully the discussions can lead into a process towards reconciliation and peace," Børge Brende said at a news conference in Riyadh, adding that Gaza's humanitarian crisis would be on the agenda.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will attend the meetings alongside regional leaders including Qatar's prime minister, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Oman's crown prince and Bahraini officials, Brende said.
Egypt's foreign minister, Brende said, would be there to update officials on a round of talks Egyptian negotiators held in Israel on Friday in an effort to restart stalled efforts to end the war in Gaza and return the remaining Israeli hostages.
"There is now a bit of momentum for negotiations on the hostages and also a possible ceasefire," Brende said.
2024-04-27 15:28:57
At least 34,388 Palestinians have been killed and 77,437 others injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Some 32 have been killed and 69 others wounded over the past 24 hours, the ministry said.
2024-04-27 15:27:42
Aid shipments to Gaza from Cyprus resumed late on Friday, a Cypriot source said, with a ship carrying food to the besieged Palestinian enclave after a pause following Israel's killing of seven aid workers.
The World Central Kitchen NGO paused aid to review its activity in the territory after the early April attack, halting the direct shipments into Gaza from Cyprus.
A small cargo vessel left the port of Larnaca on Friday night with aid donated by the United Arab Emirates, a Cypriot source said.
2024-04-27 14:50:26
Berlin police Friday assaulted participants of a pro-Palestinian camp set up in front of the German parliament and the chancellery. The activists demanded the government to stop arms exports to Israel and end what they say is the criminalisation of the Palestinian solidarity movement.
Police dismantled tents, forcibly removed protesters and blocked the surrounding area to stop others arriving.
The action followed clashes between demonstrators and police on US campuses and a blockade at Paris's Sciences Po university, part of international protests to decry Israel's military campaign in Gaza and Western support for Israel.
The Berlin camp 'Besetzung Gegen Besatzung' - 'Occupy Against Occupation' - began on April 8, coinciding with the start of International Court of Justice hearings in Nicaragua's case against Germany for providing military aid to Israel.
2024-04-27 14:48:40
German Ambassador to Pakistan Alfred Grannas’s speech at an event encountered a protest by pro-Palestinians for his country’s suppressing the voices against Israeli apartheid state’s genocide in Gaza.
“Excuse me Mr ambassador, I’m shocked by the audacity that you are here to talk about civil rights, while your country is brutally abusing the people speaking for the rights of the Palestinian people,” a protestor was heard calling out the German ambassador at Asma Jahangir Conference 2024.
2024-04-27 14:33:54
The identification work of bodies uncovered at a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis is underway, which was occupied by Israeli forces until earlier this month.
A Palestinian civil defense team said on Thursday that 392 bodies were recovered from mass graves found around Nasser Hospital after Israeli forces departed the complex.
Sameh Hamad, a local criminal evidence administrator, said that staff took photos of these dead bodies in order to help relatives, friends and staff identify the deceased through clothing and other items.
"Our job is to document the crimes of the occupation, so we take photos of the bodies that we got out of the graves that were made during the occupation. We take photos of the clothes and everything that was on the bodies, so relatives could recognize them. Sometimes the landmark may be on the body itself, so it helps us a lot. This place contained three graveyards. The first place is in front of the mortuary of the hospital, the second is behind the mortuary, and the third place is in the north of 'Ind-Aldighma' behind me," said Hamad.
2024-04-27 14:28:58
2024-04-27 12:36:32
Students at the George Washington University in Washington, DC joined the nationwide Gaza protest encampment movement on Friday in a peaceful demonstration.
Police have clashed with students critical of the war and the Biden administration's support for Israel's war in Gaza, with nearly 550 arrests made over the protests in the last week across major US universities, according to a Reuters tally.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday protests at US universities over US-ally Israel's war in Gaza are a hallmark of American democracy, but criticised what he called the "silence" about Palestinian fighter group Hamas.
The war in Gaza continues to reverberate through US university campuses where students have camped out in tents as they protested Israel's actions in Gaza.
2024-04-27 12:31:52
American-Israeli anti-colonialism activist Miko Peled addressed the Gaza solidarity encampment at the Columbia University,
"The road to free Palestine goes through freeing Columbia University from Zionist occupation," he said.
Peled said Palestine will be free from the river to the sea. Zionism was without any doubt a racist genocidal ideology that produced an apartheid state that has been engaged in genocide for almost eight decades, he said.
“It only took three years after the end of the genocide in Europe for commencement of the genocide of Palestinian people,” he said.
2024-04-27 12:03:09
Airdrops of aid landed in Gaza on Saturday, while a blast and smoke were seen near its border with Israel as fighting in the strip continued in its seventh month.
Military vehicles moved along the Israel-Gaza border before at least one explosion was seen. Smoke rose after the blast. The exact cause and location of the blast are unclear.
Israel has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza health authorities.
2024-04-27 11:08:54
Columbia University's embattled president came under renewed pressure on Friday as a campus oversight panel sharply criticised her administration for clamping down on a pro-Palestinian protest at the Ivy League school.
President Nemat Minouche Shafik has faced an outcry from many students, faculty and outside observers for summoning New York police to dismantle a tent encampment set up on campus by protesters against Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.
After a two-hour meeting on Friday, the Columbia University Senate approved a resolution that Shafik's administration had undermined academic freedom and disregarded the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty members by calling in the police and shutting down the protest.
The senate, composed mostly of faculty members and other staff plus a few students, did not name Shafik in its resolution and avoided the harsher language of a censure.
2024-04-27 10:58:22
China will host Palestinian unity talks between fighter group Hamas and its rivals Fatah, the two groups and a Beijing-based diplomat said on Friday, a notable Chinese foray into Palestinian diplomacy amid the war in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, is the group whose fighters stormed into Israeli border areas on October 7. Israel has since then launched a full-fledged war in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
Fatah is the movement of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli occupied West Bank.
The two rival Palestinian factions have failed to heal their political disputes since Hamas fighters expelled Fatah from Gaza in a short war in 2007. Washington is wary of moves to reconcile the two groups, as it supports the PA but has banned Hamas as terrorists.
A Fatah official told Reuters a delegation, led by the group's senior official Azzam Al-Ahmed, had left for China. A Hamas official said the faction's team for the talks, led by senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk, would be flying there later on Friday.
"We support strengthening the authority of the Palestinian National Authority, and support all Palestinian factions in achieving reconciliation and increasing solidarity through dialogue and consultation," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a regular briefing on Friday, without confirming the meeting.
2024-04-27 09:52:13
The Dutch government on Friday said it would consider resuming funding for the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) in Gaza if the agency implements recommendations to strengthen its neutrality.
The decision follows an investigation by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna released on Monday into whether some UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 attack by Hamas.
The Colonna-led review of the agency's neutrality concluded Israel had yet to back up its accusations that hundreds of UNRWA staff were operatives in Gaza fighter groups.
2024-04-27 08:52:11
Israeli forces have killed at least 15 more people including women and kids in fresh attacks on Khan Younis, Rafah and Nuseirat refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported.
Gaza’s Civil Defence said exhumation of hundreds of bodies had been completed from a mass grave at the Nasser Medical Complex amid calls for an international probe into possible Israeli war crimes at the hospital.
2024-04-27 08:43:50
Hamas said it had received on Saturday Israel's official response to its latest ceasefire proposal and will study it before submitting its reply, the group's deputy Gaza chief said in a statement.
"Hamas has received today the official response of the Zionist occupation to the proposal presented to the Egyptian and the Qatari mediators on April 13," Khalil Al-Hayya, who is currently based in Qatar, said in a statement published by the group.
After more than six months of war with Israel in Gaza, the negotiations remain deadlocked, with Israel adamant not to end war as demanded by Hamas to release hostages.
2024-04-27 00:01:16
Lashing out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for its ongoing military aggression and brutalities in the besieged enclave, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dubbed the former as the “butcher of Gaza”.
Addressing the League of Parliamentarians for al-Quds (Jerusalem) in Istanbul, President Erdogan said: “Netanyahu, like villains before him, has etched his name in history with shame as the butcher of Gaza.”
He said that “no one can expect us to remain silent in the face of the genocide.”
Erdogan reiterated that Turkey will continue its efforts for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
2024-04-26 23:27:06
Palestinian group Hamas responded to the letter of 18 countries, including the United States (US), calling for the release of Israeli captives and said that it is "serious about releasing Israeli captives within the framework of an agreement" that also ensures the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group's political bureau, told Al Jazeera Arabic in a televised interview on Thursday it remains committed to achieving an agreement with Israel to end the war on Gaza, but only if its conditions including a lasting ceasefire are met.
In response, Hamas said it regretted that the letter did not address basic issues facing people in Gaza. It added that the letter failed to stress the necessity of a permanent ceasefire in the enclave and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Hamas said it remained open to any proposals that took into account the rights of Palestinians. The statement further called for the safe return of internally displaced people in Gaza and aid for reconstruction, as well as a pathway towards self-determination.
The countries that signed the letter to Hamas all have citizens believed to be still held captive in Gaza. Signatories included Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, the UK and the US.
2024-04-26 20:15:24
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened that the International Criminal Court's (ICC) rulings on the Palestinians' genocide case would "set a dangerous precedent" but would not affect Israel's actions.
"Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to undermine its basic right to defend itself,"Al Jazeera quoted the prime minister's statement shared online.
"While decisions made by the court in The Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they will set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures."
Last month, the Law for Palestine organisation made the first in a series of submissions to the ICC, accusing Israeli leaders of committing the crime of genocide committed against Palestinians.
"The 200-page document, drafted by 30 lawyers and legal researchers from across the world and reviewed by more than 15 experts, makes a compelling case for the genocidal intent as well as for the prosecutorial policy that the court has followed in other cases," the group's Anisha Patel and Hassan Ben Imran wrote in an opinion piece published by Al Jazeera.
"If the ICC fails to act once again, it risks undermining its own authority as an institution of international justice and the international legal regime as a whole," they said.
2024-04-26 19:59:43
An Egyptian delegation met Israeli officials on Friday, looking for a way to restart talks to end the war in Gaza and return the remaining Israeli hostages, an official briefed on the meetings said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel had no new proposals to make, although it was willing to consider a limited truce in which 33 hostages would be released, instead of the 40 previously under discussion.
"There are no current hostage talks between Israel and Hamas, nor is there a new Israeli offer in that regard," the official said. "What there is, is an attempt by Egypt to restart the talks with an Egyptian proposal that would entail the release of 33 hostages - women, elderly and infirm."
There was no decision on how long any truce would last but if such an exchange were agreed, the pause in fighting would be "definitely less than six weeks," the official said.
The visit by the Egyptian delegation followed Israeli media reports of a visit to Cairo on Thursday by the Israeli army chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, and Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence service.
Egypt, concerned about a potential influx of Palestinian refugees from neighbouring Gaza if the war continues with the long-promised Israeli offensive into the southern city of Rafah, has taken an increasingly active role in the negotiations.
"The Egyptians are really picking up the mantle on this. Egypt wants to see progress, not least because it's worried about a prospective Rafah operation," the official said.
Qatar, the previous main broker, had increasingly been excluded, according to the official, after failing to respond to Israeli demands to expel Hamas leaders from its territory or curb their finances.
"Qatar is still involved but in a lesser capacity," the official said. "It's clear to everyone they failed to deliver, even when it came to expelling Hamas or even shutting down their bank accounts."
2024-04-26 16:42:08
At least 34,356 Palestinians have been martyred and 77,368 others injured as Israel continues its military aggression in Gaza since October 7 last year, the Gaza health ministry confirmed.
2024-04-26 15:38:52
Students blocked access to Paris' prestigious Sciences Po university over the war in Gaza on Friday, demanding the institution condemn Israel's actions, in a protest that echoed similar demonstrations on US campuses.
Chanting their support for the Palestinians, the students displayed Palestinian flags at windows and over the building's entrance. Several wore the black-and-white keffiyeh head scarf that has become an emblem of solidarity with Gaza.
"When we see what is happening in the United States, and now in Australia, we're really hoping it will catch on here in France, the academic world has a role to play," said 22-year-old Hicham, a masters student in human rights and humanitarian studies at Sciences Po.
The students, he said, want Sciences Po to condemn Israel's actions.
"We're very happy that (students at) more and more universities are getting mobilised," said 20-year-old Zoe, a masters student in public administration at Sciences Po.
2024-04-26 15:34:06
2024-04-26 15:21:35
2024-04-26 15:20:04
2024-04-26 15:02:13
United States State Department’s spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa, Hala Rharrit, has resigned in protest of America’s policy on Gaza — at least the third high-profile resignation from the department, as pro-Palestinian demonstrations at university campuses across the country grow.
Rharrit was also the Dubai Regional Media Hub’s deputy director and joined the State Department almost two decades ago as a political and human rights officer, the department’s website showed.
“I resigned in April 2024 after 18 years of distinguished service in opposition to the United States’ Gaza policy,” Hala Rharrit wrote in a LinkedIn post, according to Al Arabiya.
“Diplomacy, not arms. Be a force for peace and unity,” she added.
A State Department spokesperson, when asked about the resignation in Thursday’s press briefing, said the department has channels for its workforce to share views when it disagrees with government policies. Under close questioning, Spokesperson Vedant Patel refused to go beyond saying, “This is a personal matter.”
Nearly a month earlier, Annelle Sheline of the State Department’s human rights bureau announced her resignation, and State Department official Josh Paul resigned in October.
2024-04-26 14:50:49
Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif will participate in the 15th Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Summit being held in Banjul, the Gambia from May 4 to 5, 2024.
The summit is being convened at a critical time for the Muslim Ummah as the war on the people of Gaza continues unabated. It would be an important occasion for the OIC leaders to deliberate upon the deteriorating situation in Gaza and project a strong, collective and unified stance on the Palestinian question.
At the summit, the PM will speak about Pakistan’s grave concern on the genocide in Gaza, the right to self-determination of the people of Jammu & Kashmir, imperatives of solidarity and unity of the Ummah, rising Islamophobia and terrorism and other contemporary global issues. He will also hold bilateral meetings with leaders of the Islamic world on the margins of the summit.
2024-04-26 13:46:46
A baby girl delivered from her dying mother's womb after an Israeli attack on her home in Gaza has died, BBC reported.
Medical workers performed a Caesarean section in a Rafah hospital to deliver babySabreen al-Sakani, after her mother —who was seven-and-a-half months pregnant — was injured in the strike.
The doctors resuscitated the baby using a hand pump to push air into her lungs. However, Sabreen lost her life on Thursday and was buried next to her mother after whom she was named.
Those who were killed in the strike were the woman’s husband Shukri and their three year-old daughter Malak.
"This child should have been in the mother's womb at this time, but she was deprived of this right," Dr Mohammed Salama, head of the emergency neo-natal unit at Emirati Hospital in Rafah, said after she was born.
2024-04-26 13:26:09
Pakistan has called on the United Nations and the world community to consider "further measures" against Israel to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to its “plausible genocide” of the Palestinian people in the besieged enclave.
Speaking in the United Nations Security Council’s ministerial-level debate on the Middle East situation, Ambassador Usman Jadoon, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, did not specify the measures but pointed out that Israel’s war in Gaza has spread the conflict to adjacent regions and further escalation must be prevented.
“Yet, unless Israel’s war machine is stopped from further slaughter in Gaza, there is an ever-present danger that war and violence will spread and possibly engulf the entire Middle East and beyond,” the Pakistani envoy said.
2024-04-26 11:23:59
The University of Southern California (USC) said on Thursday it has called off its main-stage graduation ceremony this year, one week after canceling the valedictorian speech by a Muslim student who said she was silenced by anti-Palestinian hatred.
New safety measures in place this year, such as additional screening procedures, will increase the processing time for guests "substantially," according to an update on USC's website.
"As a result, we will not be able to host the main stage ceremony that traditionally brings 65,000 students, families, and friends to our campus all at the same time," the update said.
Some students described the university's decision as a "shock."
2024-04-26 10:17:45
Several dozen students at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) joined the nationwide Gaza protest encampment movement on Thursday in a peaceful demonstration.
The “Palestinian Solidarity Encampment” was created overnight. Students used pallets and sheets of plywood to enclose a section of the student quad in front of Royce Hall. According to the encampment media team, the protesters are largely made up of students and alumni. They demand the University divest from corporations that “profit” from the Israel-Hamas war and call for an immediate cease-fire.
The war in Gaza continues to reverberate through US university campuses where students have camped out in tents as they protested Israel's actions in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian groups have called on universities to end investments in companies that support or profit from Israel's military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
2024-04-26 08:38:51
UN Secretary-General Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said it was “important that all forensic evidence (from Gaza’s mass graves) be well preserved”. He said a mandate from a UN legislative group was needed to allow the world body to take legal possession of the evidence amid calls for an international probe.
2024-04-26 08:30:53
Donald Trump on Thursday criticised the mostly peaceful protests on US college campuses over Israel's war in Gaza, describing them as "tremendous hate," while saying that the violence at a white nationalist rally in Virginia when he was president was by comparison "a little peanut."
Trump, the Republican candidate for president in the November elections, also sought to place blame for the campus protests on Democratic President Joe Biden.
In remarks to media following the day's testimony in his criminal trial in New York City, Trump referenced the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 between white nationalists and counter-protesters, in which one woman was killed, and claimed the current college protests over Israel were far worse.
"Charlottesville was a little peanut. And it was nothing compared to -- and the hate wasn't the kind of hate that you have here," Trump said, repeating an assertion he made on his social media platform on Wednesday.
2024-04-25 16:02:46
The law enforcers in the US on Wednesday arrested reporters covering protests outside university campuses across the country.
Dozens of students and teachers were also detained for protesting the US support for atrocities in Gaza, Palestine.
2024-04-25 23:15:09
A Palestinian civil defence team on Thursday called on the United Nations to investigate what it said were war crimes at a Gaza hospital, saying nearly 400 bodies were recovered from mass graves after Israeli soldiers departed the complex.
"There are cases of field execution of some patients while undergoing surgeries and wearing surgical gowns at the Nasser Medical Complex," the civil defence forces said at a press conference, without presenting any evidence.
Palestinian authorities have this week reported finding hundreds of bodies in mass graves at Nasser hospital, the main medical facility in central Gaza, after Israeli troops pulled out of the city of Khan Younis.
Bodies were also reported to have been found at the Al Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, which was targeted in an Israeli special forces operation
2024-04-25 22:05:14
Hamas has signalled to merge into the regular army and cease its counter-attacks against Israeli brutality on the condition that the independent Palestinian state is established, the group’s official Basem Naim told CNN Thursday.
Naim — who is a member of Hamas’ based in Istanbul — told the outlet referring to the group's armed wing: "If an independent state with its capital in Jerusalem, while preserving the right of return for refugees, [is created] Al Qassam could be integrated into [a future] national army.”
Mustafa Barghouti, President of the Palestinian National Initiative, was unaware of the proposal, however, suggested that “it would be a significant move if true.”
"It's significant in the sense that Palestinians are resisting occupation because there is an occupation," he toldmediaoutlet.
2024-04-25 21:39:04
A Palestinian civil defence team Thursday called on the United Nations to investigate war crimes at a Gaza hospital, saying nearly 400 bodies were recovered from mass graves after Israeli soldiers departed the complex.
"There are cases of field execution of some patients while undergoing surgeries and wearing surgical gowns at the Nasser Medical Complex," the civil defence forces said at a press conference.
Bodies were also reported to have been found at the Al Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, which was targeted in an Israeli special forces operation.
Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan has said his team is "actively investigating any crimes allegedly committed" in Gaza and that "those who are in breach of the law will be held accountable".
2024-04-25 18:37:42
Defending Columbia University students protesting against Israel, a Jewish-American professor said that she does not "feel threatened as a Jewish faculty member in any way by what's happening on this campus — except by the arrest of many of our students".
"I do not feel that this project is anti-Semitic in any way. I do feel that the students are highly critical of Israeli politics," Al Jazeera quoted Susan Bernofsky.
"And I do not feel threatened as a Jewish faculty member in any way by what’s happening on this campus — except by the arrest of many of our students."
The protesting students of Columbia University are calling for the end of Israel’s war on Gaza and divestment from companies that provide it with war-related products.
Yesterday, she wrote on X, former Twitter, to disapprove arrests of the protesting students.
2024-04-25 17:19:37
2024-04-25 16:57:22
At least 34,305 Palestinians have been killed and 77,293 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
2024-04-25 15:33:36
A Palestinian businessman displaced by the war in Gaza is bringing a taste of home for fellow refugees with a Shawarma restaurant he has opened in Cairo.
"The Restaurant of Rimal Neighbourhood" offers Shawarma, a Middle Eastern dish of thinly-sliced meat, and other Palestinian and Arab dishes.
"The name comes to eternalise Rimal, my neighborhood, and to eternalise my homeland too," said Basem Abu Al-Awn. "It is also to replace the restaurant I once had in Gaza. Two restaurants of mine, in addition to my house and the houses of my relatives, were destroyed," he said.
Abu Al-Awn hopes his time outside Gaza will be temporary and he is determined to return to the enclave once the war between Israel and Hamas is over.
"I will return, even if I have to set up a tent near to the rubble of my house. We are going back to Gaza and we will rebuild it," he told Reuters.
2024-04-25 13:19:31
Tensions between students of University of Southern California and police rose after LA Police Department personnel entered the campus.
An editor of the college’s newspaper, the Daily Trojan, Jonathan Park was quoted by CNN as saying, “When we saw the LAPD coming in from Vermont Avenue and working with campus officers, encircling on them, it definitely changed the mood.”
Park said Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were peaceful until scuffles broke out with police for putting up signs on trees.
The LAPD said 93 people were later arrested on suspicion of trespassing during Wednesday's demonstrations at California university.
2024-04-25 13:04:10
Protests against Israel filled streets in Brooklyn and escalated at universities across the United States, some of which included Jewish Passover Seders, as demonstrators demanded an end to civilian casualties in Gaza.
The growing protests follow mass arrests of demonstrators at some East Coast universities in recent days, and show a deepening dissatisfaction in the United States, historically Israel's most important ally, with the course of the war with Hamas.
2024-04-25 12:42:58
Legalising settler outposts in the Israeli-occupied West Bank would be "dangerous and reckless," the US State Department said on Wednesday in response to reports Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was pushing to do so.
Times of Israel reported that Smotrich wanted to begin the process of legalising 68 illegal outposts in the West Bank, calling it "one of the most dramatic expansions" for the settlement movement in decades.
"These reports about directives to support illegal outposts in the West Bank, we believe that to be dangerous and reckless," State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a daily briefing. The US opposes the settlements and believes they violate international law, he said.
Israel has settled the West Bank extensively since 1967, viewing it as the biblical Judea and Samaria and critical to Israel's security. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promoted settlement growth, which the US has criticised.
2024-04-25 11:19:12
2024-04-25 10:53:05
US officials have been in touch with Israeli counterparts about deeply disturbing reports of mass graves being found in Gaza, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday.
"Those reports were deeply disturbing," Sullivan said at a news briefing. "We have been in touch at multiple levels with the Israeli government. We want answers. We want to understand exactly what happened."
2024-04-25 09:56:07
Columbia University students heckled House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday as he visited the flashpoint of nationwide student demonstrations over the Israeli war in Gaza, even as the New York school agreed to 48 more hours of negotiations to end a protest encampment.
Johnson's visit, which he said was meant to support Jewish students intimidated by some anti-Israeli demonstrators, took place shortly after the university extended a deadline from Wednesday morning to Friday morning to reach an agreement to remove an encampment that has come to symbolise the campus protest movement.
Some of the campus protests taking place coast to coast were met with shows of force from law enforcement.
In Texas on Wednesday, state highway patrol troopers in riot gear and police on horseback broke up a protest at the University of Texas in Austin and arrested 20 people.
2024-04-25 08:45:08
Israeli forces shell multiple sites in the central Gaza Strip including Deir el-Balah and Wadi Gaza. Whereas, in north Gaza’s Jabalia and Gaza City, they carried out raids, shelling and airstrikes. Zeitoun area was specially pounded with strikes, Wafa news agency reported.
2024-04-25 08:34:10
Israeli warplanes pounded the northern Gaza strip for a second day on Wednesday in a fierce assault that has shattered weeks of comparative calm, and Israel said it was moving forward with plans for an all-out assault on Rafah in the south.
After an abrupt Israeli pullback at the start of this month, Palestinians at both ends of the Gaza Strip were again fleeing for their lives from bombing they described as some of the war's worst.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government said Israel was "moving ahead" with its plans for a ground operation on Rafah but gave no timeline.
At the White House, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was still talking with Israel about Rafah and officials from both countries expected to meet again in person soon.
2024-04-24 23:45:25
The number of detainees has increased to 8,445 after 15 more Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces overnight, including former prisoners.
The detentions took place in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron and occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera quoted the Commission for Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
“This brings the number of Palestinians detained by Israeli forces since October 7 to 8,445,” the organisations said.
2024-04-24 23:06:49
Ukraine and Israel were granted massive financial relief after months of heated negotiation in Congress amid their respective wars as US President Joe Biden signed four bills that also included a military assistance package to Kyiv and Tel Aviv Wednesday.
The package was passed Tuesday by the US Senate and is cumulatively estimated at $95 billion with $61 billion for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel, and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific.
Senator Bernie Sanders, who was against the bill wrote on X, former Twitter: "Enough is enough. No more money for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war machine.”
2024-04-24 22:46:07
US Gaza aid envoy David Satterfield is set to step down shortly and will be replaced by former senior United Nations official Lise Grande, two sources familiar with the issue told Reuters on Wednesday.
Satterfield was appointed six months ago as the US special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues with a specific focus on leading the US response to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
Grande is currently head of the independent US Institute of Peace. She previously worked for the United Nations for more than 25 years, a career that included running aid operations in Yemen, Iraq and South Sudan.
2024-04-24 20:19:07
Turkey on Wednesday accused the United States of having a policy of double standards on human rights, saying Washington's annual rights report failed to reflect Israel's assaults in Gaza.
Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement it was deeply concerned that the US report did not "duly reflect the ongoing inhumane attacks in Gaza".
The report was prepared with "political motives, far from impartiality and objectivity", it said, calling on Washington to cease its "double-standard policy on human rights".
2024-04-24 18:31:54
Germany has said it plans to resume cooperation with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), signalling a resumption of funding that was frozen after Israel accused 12 Unrawa staff of participating in the Hamas-led October 7 attack.
In a statement, the German foreign and development ministries urged Unrwa to swiftly implement the report's recommendations, including strengthening its internal audit function and improving external oversight of project management.
"In support of these reforms, the German government will soon continue its cooperation with Unrwa in Gaza, as Australia, Canada, Sweden and Japan, among others, have already done," the statement said.
"Germany will coordinate closely with its closest international partners on the disbursement of further funds. Unrwa's short-term financing needs in Gaza are currently covered by existing funds," it added.
2024-04-24 14:58:54
Hezbollah on Wednesday said that it launcheddrone attacks on Israeli bases north of the city of Acre after one of its fighters was killed,marking the deepest attack into Israeli territory since October 7, Al Jazeera reported.
The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of any of its facilities being hit by Hezbollah, but had said earlier that it intercepted two “aerial targets” off Israel’s northern coast.
2024-04-24 14:30:59
Google fired at least 20 additional workers this week for participating inrecent protests against the company’s work in Israel, Los Angeles Times reported.
This takes the total number number of terminated employees to more than 50,according to the No Tech for Apartheid Campaign, the advocacy group that organised the sit-ins.
Google issued a statement, confirming the development and saying that it did asa result of its investigation into the protests.
“Our investigation into these events is now concluded, and we have terminated the employment of additional employees who were found to have been directly involved in disruptive activity,” the company said. “To reiterate, every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings. We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed this.”
However, the protest group alleged that Google terminated some of the people whodidn’t participate directly in the events.
“Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” No Tech for Apartheid Campaign said in a statement. “Now, the corporation is lashing out at any worker that was physically in the vicinity of the protest — including those who were not at all involved in the campaign.”
The protest seeks the company to drop its cloud computing contract with the Israeli government and military, called Project Nimbus. The protest group demands Google to drop the project, protect Palestinian, Arab and Muslim employees and reinstate the workers who were terminated.
2024-04-24 13:30:00
JERUSALEM: Israel is poised to send troops into Rafah, the Gazan city it sees as the last bastion of Hamas, Israeli media reported on Wednesday, saying preparations were under way to evacuate war-displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there.
The Rafah sweep, postponed for several weeks amid disputes with Washington, will happen "very soon," the mass-circulation Israel Hayom newspaper said, citing a decision by the Israeli government after ceasefire talks with Hamas stalled.
Several other Israeli media outlets carried similar reports. Some noted footage on social media that appeared to show the erection of a tent city for Rafah evacuees.
2024-04-24 12:29:59
NEW YORK: Protests against Israel filled streets in Brooklyn and escalated at universities across the United States, some of which included Jewish Passover Seders, as demonstrators demanded an end to civilian casualties in Gaza.
The growing protests follow mass arrests of demonstrators at some East Coast universities in recent days, and show a deepening dissatisfaction in the United States, historically Israel's most important ally, with the course of the war with Hamas.
Pro-Palestinian protests have followed President Joe Biden, a self-declared "Zionist," for months. On universities, protests have recently grown to encampments that draw students and faculty of various backgrounds, including of Jewish and Muslim faiths, that host teach-ins, interfaith prayers, and musical performances.
A large Brooklyn street protest reached a standoff on Tuesday when New York police began to arrest people over disorderly conduct, restraining those who refused to move with zip ties.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations criticised the use of police force to stifle dissent, saying it undermined academic freedom.
"So does defaming and endangering Jewish, Muslim and Palestinian ... students based on suspiciously inflammatory remarks that a few unidentified, masked individuals have made outside of campus," Afaf Nasher, executive director of CAIR in New York, said in a statement.
Several campus protesters Reuters spoke to attributed the off-campus incidents to rogue provocateurs who are trying to hijack the protests' message.
"There are no universities left in Gaza. So we chose to reclaim our university for the people of Palestine," said Soph Askanase, a Jewish Columbia student who was arrested and suspended for protesting. "Antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism, in particular racism against Arabs and Palestinians, are all cut from the same cloth."
Other students blamed universities for failing to protect their right to protest or stand up for human rights.
"As a Palestinian student, I too did not feel safe for the past six months, and that was as a direct result of Columbia's one-sided statements and inaction," said Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia.
New York police arrested more than 120 protesters at New York University on Monday and more than 100 at Columbia University last week. Columbia canceled in-person classes at its Upper Manhattan campus on Monday in a bid to defuse tensions.
2024-04-24 11:28:37
The Israeli forces continued strikingnorthern Gaza whereamine has reportedly set in because of restrictions on aid, Al Jazeera reported.
The military shelled eastof Beit Hanoon and Jabalia and continued in areas such as Zeitoun as residents reported at least 10 strikes in few seconds along the main road.
“The bombing from tanks and planes didn’t stop,” said Um Mohammad, 53, a mother of six living 700 metres from Zeitoun. “I had to gather with my children and my sisters who came to shelter with me in one place and pray for our lives as the house kept shaking.”
Meanwhile, an airstrike killed a boy and injured several others in mosque, west of Beit Hanoon in Beit Lahiya. A medic was also killednear the town stadium.
2024-04-24 10:40:00
Three members belonging to same family in Rafah were killed by the Israelimilitary after they hit their home insouthern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, the strike also injured four other people.
2024-04-24 09:37:57
About half of Gaza's population, which is estimated to be some 2.3 million people, is starving, said the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), Al Jazeera reported.
The agency said that while WFP is providing food assistance to more than 1 million people in Gaza each month, the need was so acute that such efforts amount to "a drop in the ocean of needs".
The UN’s food relief agency also said a humanitarian ceasefire was needed immediately.
2024-04-23 21:54:19
The spokesperson for Hamas' armed wing al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Ubaida, called on Tuesday for an escalation across all fronts in a televised speech marking 200 days since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip on October 7.
In a video aired by Al Jazeera TV, Abu Ubaida praised Iran's attack on Israel on April 13, saying the direct strikes with explosive drones and missiles "set new rules, drew important equations, and confused the enemy and those behind it."
He also called for an escalation in the West Bank and Jordan calling it "one of the most important Arab fronts."
Jordan, which lies between Iran and Israel, intercepted and shot down dozens of Iranian drones that entered its airspace and were heading to Israel, two regional security sources said on April 13.
"We call on the Jordanian people to step up their actions and raise their voices," Abu Ubaida said.
He said Hamas was sticking to its demands at the ongoing ceasefire talks - that Israel ends its military offensive, pulls out forces from Gaza, allows the displaced to return to northern Gaza, and lifts the blockade.
"The government of the occupation is stalling in reaching a hostages-swap deal and is trying to obstruct efforts by the mediators to reach a ceasefire agreement," Abu Ubaida said.
Qatar and Egypt have been trying to mediate a ceasefire, but Qatar foreign ministry's spokesman said earlier on Tuesday all concerned parties should "show seriousness" in allowing such efforts to succeed.
2024-04-23 20:32:59
An Israeli attack on Iranian territory would bring about a complete change of "circumstances", Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi was quoted as saying on Tuesday by the official IRNA news agency.
Raisi, who is visiting Pakistan, was quoted as saying such an attack could possibly result in there be nothing left of the "Zionist regime".
2024-04-23 19:15:39
Lebanon's Hezbollah group said on Tuesday it had launched a drone attack against Israeli military bases north of the city of Acre, in its deepest strike into Israeli territory since the Gaza war began.
The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of any of its facilities being hit by Hezbollah, but had said earlier on Tuesday that it intercepted two "aerial targets" off Israel's northern coast.
Hezbollah said it acted in retaliation for an earlier Israeli attack killing one of its fighters. The group published what appeared to be a satellite photo, with the location of the strike symbolised by a flash with a red circle around it that sat halfway between Acre and Nahariyya to the north.
Israeli airstrikes killed two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, the military said earlier on Tuesday.
Hezbollah later confirmed the death of one of its fighters, Hussein Azkoul, but provided no further details.
A separate Israeli strike overnight Monday to Tuesday killed a fighter in Hezbollah's elite unit, Radwan Forces, the military said, though Hezbollah has not confirmed his death.
2024-04-23 15:36:33
Israel bombarded northern Gaza overnight in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, causing panic amongst residents and flattening neighbourhoods in an area from which the Israeli army had previously down its troops, residents said on Tuesday.
Army tanks made a new incursion east of Beit Hanoun on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, though they did not penetrate far into the city, residents and Hamas media said. Gunfire reached some schools where displaced residents were sheltering.
Shelling was intense east of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia and continued on Tuesday morning in areas such as Zeitoun, one of Gaza City's oldest suburbs, with residents reporting at least 10 strikes in a matter of seconds along the main road.
Just west of Beit Hanoun in Beit Lahiya, medics and Hamas media said strikes had hit a mosque and a crowd gathering on the coastal road to collect aid dropped from the air. Reuters could not immediately confirm those targets.
"It was one of those nights of horror that we had lived in at the start of the war. The bombing from tanks and planes didn't stop," said Um Mohammad, 53, a mother-of-six living 700 metres from Zeitoun.
2024-04-23 14:41:13
2024-04-23 14:28:15
UN rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday that he was "horrified" by the destruction of the Nasser and Al Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and reports of mass graves discovered there.
Turk, addressing a UN briefing via a spokesperson, also decried Israeli strikes on Gaza in recent days, which he said have killed mostly women and children.
He also repeated a warning against a full-scale incursion on Rafah, saying this could lead to "further atrocity crimes".
2024-04-23 13:12:59
At least 34,183 Palestinians have been killed and 77,143 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
2024-04-23 12:47:54
Police arrested dozens of people at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan on Monday, as the war in Gaza continued to reverberate through US university campuses.
The police crackdowns came after Columbia University canceled in-person classes on Monday in response to protesters setting up tent encampments at its New York City campus last week.
Demonstrators blocked traffic around Yale's campus in New Haven, Connecticut, demanding the school divest from military weapons manufacturers. Police arrested more than 45 protesters, according to the student-run Yale Daily News.
In New York, officers moved on the NYU crowd shortly after nightfall. Video on social media showed police taking down tents in the protesters' encampment. As demonstrators tussled with officers and chanted, "We will not stop, we will not rest. Disclose. Divest."
2024-04-23 09:54:40
Israel has yet to provide evidence for its accusations that hundreds of staff with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) are members of terrorist groups, according to a review of the agency's neutrality released on Monday that could prompt some donor countries to review funding freezes.
The United Nations appointed former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna to lead the UNRWA review of UNRWA's ability to ensure neutrality and respond to allegations of breaches in February after Israel accused 12 UNRWA staff took part in the Hamas-led Oct 7 attack.
UNRWA provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The review said UNRWA shares staff lists annually with the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
The review said Israel had not raised any concerns with UNRWA, based on those staff lists, since 2011. Then in March 2024, "Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations."
"However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this," the review said.
2024-04-23 09:49:36
2024-04-23 09:42:33
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday rejected suggestions that Washington might have a "double standard" when applying US law to allegations of abuses by the Israeli military in Gaza and said that examinations of such charges are ongoing.
"Do we have a double standard? The answer is no," Blinken told a news conference announcing the Department's annual human rights country reports.
"In general, as we're looking at human rights and the condition of human rights around the world, we apply the same standard to everyone. That doesn't change whether the country is an adversary, a competitor, a friend or an ally," he said.
"When it comes to allegations of incidents or whether it's violations of international humanitarian law, rights abuses...we have processes within the department that are looking at that incidents that have been raised. Those processes are ongoing," Blinken said.
2024-04-23 09:27:34
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron held phone calls on Monday with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to discuss ways of avoiding an escalation in the Middle East crisis, said France and Egypt.
The French presidency said Macron, in his call with Netanyahu, had reaffirmed Paris's desire to avoid an escalation in the Middle East and to stand up to what it said were Iran's efforts to destabilise the region.
The French presidency added that Macron had also reiterated to Netanyahu that France wanted an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza.
In a separate statement, Egyptian presidential spokesperson Ahmed Fahmy said Macron had also discussed the Middle East crisis with the Egyptian leader and that both Macron and Sisi had agreed on the need to avoid further regional escalation.
2024-04-23 10:00:00
Israel's aggression on Gaza has had "a significant negative impact on the human rights situation", said the US State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
The details in the report also demonstrate systemic discrimination against Palestinians in the judicial process.
There were several reports that Benjamin Netanyahu's government or its agents had "committed arbitrary or unlawful killings during" 2023, as well as “disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities", according to the State Department.
"Military law allowed the indefinite administrative detention without charge or trial of Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza detained or imprisoned within Israel," the report states.
"Israeli citizens who committed crimes within the West Bank were subject only to Israeli law and could only be tried in civilian courts within Israel, whereas Palestinians in the West Bank were subject to trial in Israeli military courts."
2024-04-23 09:02:12
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has urged donors to resume funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) which was halted after Israel accused the agency's members being linked to the October 7 attack directly, Al Jazeera reported.
The development comes after an independent review found Israel had provided "no evidence" of its claims of wrongdoing against the agency, which is the largest provider of services in Gaza.
UNRWA says it "welcomes the findings" of the report, which confirmed it had mechanisms in place to ensure "compliance with the principle of neutrality".
2024-04-22 23:57:05
Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou has said that the discovery of mass graves in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis is “new additional evidence … of the genocide” being carried against Palestinians by Israeli forces.
“The mass graves and daily genocide being committed against our people requires international and political pressure,” al-Qanou said in a statement.
He said the collapse of the healthcare sector in northern Gaza has also created a major “humanitarian disaster” with almost no functioning medical facilities and absence of medical supplies.
2024-04-22 19:13:52
Amid the ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza, Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares has called for a “permanent ceasefire” in the besieged enclave.
The foreign minister urged the international community not to remain indifferent and to act to achieve an urgent ceasefire in the war-torn Gaza. Albares warned of the “repercussions” if Israel invades Rafah.
Recognition of an independent Palestinian state is necessary to end the escalating violence in the Middle East, he said.
“The possibility of the conflict spreading to Lebanon worries us because its dimensions will change and because Lebanon is a fragile and tense state,” he warned.
2024-04-22 17:37:35
At least 34,151 Palestinians have been martyred and 77,084 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement today.
2024-04-22 15:29:45
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would fight against sanctions being imposed on any Israeli military units for alleged rights violations, after media reports said Washington was planning such a step.
Axios news site on Saturday reported that Washington was planning to impose sanctions on Israel's Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has operated in the occupied West Bank, though the Israeli military said it was not aware of any such measures.
On Friday, the United States announced a series of sanctions linked to Israeli settlers in the West Bank, in the latest sign of growing US frustration with the policies of Netanyahu, whose coalition government relies on settler parties.
2024-04-22 14:48:07
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday said Muslim countries should raise a collective voice until there was an end to the conflict in Gaza.
In a joint press conference along with Iranian President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi in Islamabad. PM Shehbaz said, "Iran has taken a strong and principled stand on Gaza."
2024-04-22 13:22:41
The Israeli government has accepted resignation of Head of Israeli Intelligence Directorate MG Aharon Haliva over the intelligence agency’s failures that led to the October 7 attack.
The Israeli chief of the general staff and minister of defence have accepted his resignation and decided that Haliva would retire from the Israeli Defence Force once his successor is appointed, the IDF announced this on its Telegram channel. He served for more than 38 years in the IDF.
"The intelligence division under my command did not live up to the task we were entrusted with. I have carried that black day with me ever since," he said in a resignation letter released by the military.
2024-04-22 11:52:21
Animators from Mexico, Lebanon and Colombia create animation to honour the children of Gaza and demand a ceasefire.
Israeli forces have killed more than 13,000 Palestinian children during its assaults on Gaza since October 7.
2024-04-22 11:48:03
2024-04-22 11:18:48
Lebanese fighter group Hezbollah said on Sunday it downed an Israeli drone that was on a combat mission in southern Lebanon.
The drone that was brought down above the Al Aishiyeh area in southern Lebanon was "waging its attacks on our steadfast people," a statement said by the group said.
Israeli forces and Lebanon's fighter group Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for over six months in parallel to the Gaza war, in the most serious hostilities since they fought a major war in 2006.
2024-04-22 11:17:27
A crowd of around 2,000 people protested in Paris against racism, Islamophobia and violence against children on Sunday after a court allowed their demonstration to go ahead.
Bans on protests have been more frequent in France in recent months amid tensions stirred by Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza. In a country that is home to large Muslim and Jewish communities, authorities have banned many pro-Palestinian demonstrations and public gatherings, citing the risk of antisemitic hate crimes and violence.
On Sunday, the protesters marched peacefully from the multi-ethnic Barbes neighbourhood towards Place de la Republique. Many chanted slogans remembering Nahel, a 17-year-old of North African descent who was fatally shot during a police traffic stop last year.
2024-04-22 10:33:36
A baby girl was delivered from the womb of a Palestinian killed along with her husband and daughter by an Israeli attack in the Gaza city of Rafah, where 19 people died overnight in intensified strikes, Palestinian health officials said.
The dead, killed in hits on two houses, included 13 children from one family, they said.
The baby, weighing 1.4 kg and delivered in an emergency C-section, was stable and improving gradually, said Mohammed Salama, a doctor caring for her.
Her mother, Sabreen Al-Sakani, had been 30 weeks pregnant.
2024-04-22 10:39:01
The Israeli military continued attacking Gaza, killing seven Palestinians in theNuseirat refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported.
The fresh attacks come a day after the Israeli troops killing 24 people by relentlessly bombingsouthern Rafah city.
Those who died also include 16children and six women.
2024-04-22 09:40:00
Hamas condemned theUnited States House of Representatives' approval ofmore than $26 billion foreign aid package for Israel, saying that it violated "all international laws and humanitarian norms", CNN reported.
The group says that the funding confirms US' complicity in Israeli aggression on Gaza which has "claimedthe lives of tens of thousands of innocent martyrs, in addition to the systematic destruction of cities and residential neighborhoods and all civil facilities and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip".
In the statement, Hamas said that theUS administration and President Joe Bidenbear personal "political, legal, and moral" responsibility for the Israeli assault on Gaza.
It added that the bill provides a “green light” for Israel to continue its "brutal aggression" in the strip
The US House passed the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act on Saturday with a vote of 366-58.
2024-04-22 08:35:42
The Israeli military concluded atwo-day operation in the Nur al-Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm inthe occupied West Bank, CNN reported on Sunday.
The forces killed at least 14 people,including one child, in the raid, according to thePalestinian Ministry of Health.
It added that an ambulance driver from the Palestine Red Crescent Society was killed when he was transporting people who were injured by the Israeli st
The settlers have killed at least483 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, according to the health ministry.
The IDF claimed that it killed "10 terrorists" and arrested "eight wanted suspects" during its "extensive counterterrorism" operation in West Bank.
2024-04-21 21:10:26
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the military will increase “pressure” on Hamas to get the hostages released in Gaza.
In a video statement, he said: “In the coming days we will increase the military and political pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages.”
The military would “deliver additional and painful blows” without specifying, Netanyahu added.
2024-04-21 17:09:48
Expressing his disappointment over Israeli strikes on southern Rafah, British Secretary of State for the Commonwealth Tariq Ahmad has said that they must stop this fighting immediately and bring an end to this conflict.
He said: “Appalled by the Israeli strike on a residential apartment in the densely populated Rafah in Gaza, which resulted in more children being killed. We must stop this fighting immediately and bring an end to this conflict.”
The overnight Israeli strikes on southern Rafah killed 13 children and two women, according to Gaza hospital records.
2024-04-21 14:04:02
Two Palestinian residents allegedly tried to shoot and stab Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and the soldiers responded with live fire, the military said.
The Israeli army said they were neutralised. A Reuters cameraman saw a body at the scene of the incident - a junction near the Palestinian city of Hebron. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.
2024-04-21 13:42:50
Pakistan dispatches its 8th tranche of humanitarian assistance for Gaza of 400 tonnes consisting of winterised tents, tarpaulins, blankets, medicines and food supplies through sea.
Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in a tweet on Sunday said, “The shipment will be received by the Pakistani Ambassador at Port Said, Egypt, and handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent for onward delivery to the people of Gaza.”
He said Pakistan remains committed to addressing the urgent humanitarian needs of our brothers and sisters in Gaza.
2024-04-21 12:43:04
The Israeli settlers who rampaged through the West Bank village of al-Mughayyer on April 12 came in greater numbers and carried more weapons than during any of the previous raids on the Palestinian community, residents said.
Days later, torched homes and cars still bear testament to the attack, which residents said lasted several hours and that they said Israeli soldiers did nothing to stop.
With few means to defend themselves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, they fear more such assaults on the village.
2024-04-21 12:24:38
2024-04-21 09:23:28
Israeli forces killed 14 Palestinians during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, while an ambulance driver was killed as he went to pick up wounded from a separate attack by violent Jewish settlers, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began an extended raid in the early hours of Friday in the Nur Shams area, near the flashpoint Palestinian city of Tulkarm and were still exchanging fire with armed fighters well into Saturday.
2024-04-21 09:06:20
Palestinian Civil Defence services have found a mass grave with 50 bodies at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Quds News Network reported.
The officials said, “Our teams continue their search and retrieval operations for the remaining martyrs in the coming days as there are still a significant number of them.”
The bodies were collected by Israeli military and buried inside Nasser Hospital. They were uncovered after the Israeli occupational forces withdrew from the southern city, which is now in ruins after months of Israeli bombardment and massacre.
2024-04-21 08:55:01
2024-04-21 08:33:06
The US House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners.
The legislation now proceeds to the Democratic-majority Senate, which passed a similar measure more than two months ago. US leaders from Democratic President Joe Biden to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had been urging embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote.
The Senate is set to begin considering the House-passed bill on Tuesday, with some preliminary votes that afternoon. Final passage was expected sometime next week, which would clear the way for Biden to sign it into law.
The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.
2024-04-20 23:45:24
Israeli citizens have continued to hold protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-led government as another series of demonstrations are likely to be held in the capital Tel Aviv and dozens of other locations across Israel tonight, local media reported.
The growing protests are placing more pressure on Netanyahu’s administration, which has faced widespread criticism over the security failure of the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October.
Over the past few weeks, thousands of Israelis have been protesting to demand the government secure a ceasefire deal that would also free Israeli captives held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza, as well as call for elections, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-04-20 23:24:55
Israeli settler militias and security forces stormed homes and properties of Palestinians in multiple areas of the occupied West Bank on Saturday.
Settler militias have attacked Palestinians on the highway between Ramallah and Jericho in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
Violent settler militias have recently targeted Palestinian homes and properties after the disappearance of a teenage Israeli settler who was found dead last week.
Several attacks by settlers and Israeli forces have been reported today, including:
An Israeli settler attack in Turmus Aya in the northeast of Ramallah, where cars and other properties were destroyed.
Israeli forces stormed the village of at-Tawani in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, raided a number of homes and closed all entrances leading to the town.
In the village of Al Saywah, locals reported that Israeli settlers were attacking people and homes with gunfire, with reports of at least three injuries among Palestinians.
2024-04-20 22:33:57
The total number of aid trucks, entering the war-torn Gaza Strip, daily ranges between 50 to 130, the government media office in the besieged enclave has said.
In a statement, the state media said the US had adopted Israeli “narrative” that around 300 aid trucks were entering the Gaza Strip daily, which “is a complete lie and a falsification of reality”.
The office said that the areas in northern Gaza were still suffering from a food crisis and that the only way to stop the famine in northern Gaza and address the food crisis across the whole enclave was to open all the crossings.
2024-04-20 19:27:01
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid there with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during a meeting in Istanbul, state broadcaster TRT said on Saturday.
The Turkish president and the Hamas head have held more than two-and-a-half hours of talks in Istanbul in which they discussed several issues related to the situation in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
The Israeli attacks on Palestinian soil, as well as steps for the “adequate and uninterrupted” supply of aid to Gaza and a “fair and lasting” peace in the region, according to the Turkish presidency’s communication office.
Turkey is committed to diplomatic efforts for an “immediate ceasefire” and the end of “massacres” in Gaza, Erdogan told Haniyeh, its statement said.
Erdogan also said it is “vital” that Palestinians “act with unity in this process. The strongest response to Israel and the path to victory lie in unity and integrity”.
Other topics included efforts to reach a ceasefire and increase the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
2024-04-20 17:46:57
Stressing the need to establish a Palestinian state, Turkish and Egyptian foreign ministers warned against the displacement of more Palestinians in Gaza.
“We should avoid any attempts to liquidate the Palestinian issue by displacing the Palestinian people,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said.
The Egyptian foreign minister’s comment came amid growing fears of a planned Israeli military operation into Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
2024-04-20 15:47:38
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said he addressed the "grave situation" in Gaza and how to step up humanitarian aid to the Israeli-besieged territory with Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry during a meeting on Saturday in Istanbul.
"We have discussed what more we can do to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, and what can be done in the long run for a two-state solution," Fidan told a joint news conference with Shoukry.
2024-04-20 15:29:24
A huge blast at a military base in Iraq early on Saturday killed a member of an Iraqi security force that includes Iran-backed groups. The force commander said it was an attack while the army said it was investigating and there were no warplanes in the sky at the time.
Two security sources had said earlier that an airstrike caused the blast, which killed a member of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and wounded eight others at Kalso military base about 50 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad.
In a statement, the PMF said its chief of staff Abdul Aziz al-Mohammedawi had visited the location and "reviewed the details of the investigative committees present in the place that was attacked".
The Iraqi military said a technical committee was looking into the cause of an explosion and fire at the base, which it said happened at 1am on Saturday.
2024-04-20 15:13:32
Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 34,049 Palestinians and wounded 76,901 since October 7, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said on Saturday.
Thirty-seven Palestinians have been killed and 68 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added in a statement.
2024-04-20 14:39:22
People in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip expressed their disappointment over the US veto to deny Palestine's application for full membership in the United Nations in separate interviews with China Global Television Network (CGTN).
At a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, the United States voted a Palestinian request for full UN membership.
The 15-member council voted on a draft resolution that recommends to the 193-member UN General Assembly that "the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations."
The draft resolution received 12 votes in favor, two abstentions, and one vote against.
2024-04-20 12:24:17
The University of Southern California announced there will be no outside speakers and honorees at this year's main commencement ceremony after canceling its valedictorian speech from a Muslim student who said she was silenced by anti-Palestinian hatred.
"Given the highly publicised circumstances surrounding our main-stage commencement program, university leadership has decided it is best to release our outside speakers and honorees from attending this year's ceremony," the university said in a statement on Friday.
USC Provost Andrew Guzman said on Monday the speech of the Muslim valedictorian, biomedical engineering major Asna Tabassum, was canceled. Guzman said the decision to scrub the traditional address at next month's graduation was aimed at protecting campus security.
In an earlier statement, Tabassum said USC was "caving to fear and rewarding hatred," which she alleged was directed by "anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices."
2024-04-20 12:01:29
Demonstrators staged protest outside Columbia University, in solidarity with Pro-Palestinian organisers amid Israel's atrocities in Palestine, in New York on April 19, 2024.
Law enforcement officers broke up a protest at Columbia University on Thursday, arresting demonstrators who had occupied a campus lawn in support of the Palestinian people.
The protest began when the university's president, Nemat Shafik, testified before a Congressional committee about the school's response to anti-Semitism.
2024-04-20 10:43:51
Israeli forces last night carried out airstrikes on refugee tents and two apartments in Rafah city of the Gaza Strip, leaving at least eight members of a family dead.
First they attacked the tents, where Palestinians are sheltering after being displaced from different parts of the enclave. Then, two apartments were targeted when hundreds of people had gathered to recover the victims of the first bombardment.
2024-04-20 09:57:04
The US military's success helping Israel stop a massive wave of Iranian missiles and drones last weekend might suggest Washington is well prepared militarily for whatever comes next as Iran and Israel move from shadow warfare to direct confrontation.
But current and former US officials say US forces are not positioned for a major, sustained Middle East conflict and the Pentagon may have to revisit assumptions about military needs in the region if the crisis deepens.
"I don't think we have all the forces that we would want to support Israel if there was a direct war between them and Iran," said Michael Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East under the Trump administration.
2024-04-20 08:54:58
Israeli forces carried out worst destruction in decades during raids in the occupied West Bank’s Tulkarem City last day. Death toll in the city has risen to five and at least one injured, according to multiple media reports.
Israeli forces used heavy machinery including bulldozers to ruin arteries, shops, residential buildings and tore up the sewage lines in the Nur Shams refugee camp on Friday morning.
Palestinian fighters resisted to the Israeli military incursion.
Earlier in the day, bulldozers were seen moving on roads and causing damages to the road surfaces and pavements.
Until late on Friday night, ambulances were still barred from reaching the raid scenes to provide medical assistance to those in need, according to Reuters' witness.
2024-04-20 08:32:45
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Iran will respond at an immediate and "maximum level" if Israel acts against its interests.
"If Israel wants to do another adventurism and acts against the interests of Iran, our next response will be immediate and will be at the maximum level," Amirabdollahian said, speaking through a translator, in an interview with NBC News.
His comments follow reports of an Israeli strike on Iran early Friday.
2024-04-19 22:26:38
The United States has imposed sanctions on two Israeli entities for helping raise tens of thousands of dollars for two sanctioned settlers in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said: “Such acts by these organisations undermine the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank. We will continue to use our tools to hold those responsible accountable.”
According to the treasury, the Mount Hebron Fund launched an online fundraising campaign that raised $140,000 for settler Yinon Levi after he was sanctioned on February 1 for leading a group of violent settlers who assaulted Palestinian and Bedouin civilians, Al Jazeera reported.
The second entity, Shlom Asiraich, raised $31,000 on a crowdfunding website for David Chai Chasdai, who the US said initiated and led a riot in Huwara that resulted in the death of a Palestinian civilian.
2024-04-19 20:06:17
As many as 34,012 Palestinians have been martyred and 76,833 others wounded since October 7 as Israel continued its military aggression in Gaza Strip, according to the enclave's health ministry.
2024-04-19 18:07:43
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reiterated that Washington would not support Israel in Rafah operation.
He said the US believes that Israel can achieve its military objectives in Gaza without an all-out invasion of Rafah, which the Washington would not support.
“We believe that a major military operation with a large presence of civilian population would have terrible consequences for that population,” he said.
2024-04-19 16:49:10
Explosions echoed over an Iranian city on Friday in what sources described as an Israeli attack, but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation - a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war.
Iranian media and officials described a small number of explosions, which they said resulted from Iran's air defences hitting three drones over the city of Isfahan. Notably, they referred to the incident as an attack by "infiltrators", rather than by Israel, obviating the need for retaliation.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters there were no plans to respond against Israel for the incident.
"The foreign source of the incident has not been confirmed. We have not received any external attack, and the discussion leans more towards infiltration than attack," the official said.
2024-04-19 16:07:38
Israeli media cited foreign reports of an Israeli strike on Iran on Friday in the absence of official public comment, while Iranian television reports played down the attack - many not even mentioning the "Zionist entity", Iran's term for Israel.
The strike in the central city of Isfahan appears to have caused no significant damage and the muted way the story was told in both nations pointed to a determination, at least for now, not to further escalate their conflict.
In an interview with state TV, a resident of Isfahan described the explosions in the early hours of the morning as "nothing more than fire crackers".
2024-04-19 15:58:22
The Kremlin said on Friday it was studying information on Israel's reported strike on Iran and urged both sides to show restraint.
2024-04-19 15:52:55
Turkey on Friday called on all sides to refrain from steps that could lead to a wider conflict in the Middle East, after Israel reportedly attacked Iran in a tit-for-tat retaliation for Iran's strike.
In a statement, Turkey's foreign ministry said the priority of the international community should be "to stop the massacre in Gaza and to ensure lasting peace" in the region by establishing a Palestinian state.
2024-04-19 15:50:11
The Biden administration is considering more than $1 billion in new weapons deals for Israel, including tank ammunition, military vehicles and mortar rounds, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing US officials.
2024-04-19 15:31:18
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would not speculate on reports Israel had carried out an attack on Iranian soil on Friday.
"It's a developing situation, it wouldn't be right for me to speculate until the facts become clearer and we're working to confirm the details together with allies," Sunak said.
Sunak made the comments following a speech in central London.
"Significant escalation is not in anyone's interest. What we want to see is calm heads prevail across the region," he added.
2024-04-19 15:12:19
Egypt's foreign ministry said on Friday it was deeply concerned about an escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran, following reports of an Israeli attack on Iran.
Egypt also warned of the consequences of expanding the conflict and instability in the region.
2024-04-19 15:08:09
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Iran, Israel and their allies to refrain from escalation in the Middle East, after sources said Israel carried out an attack on Iranian soil on Friday.
"It is absolutely necessary that the region remains stable and that all sides restrain from further action," von der Leyen said alongside Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo in Lappeenranta, Finland, about 25 km (15 miles) from the Russian border.
2024-04-19 15:03:40
China opposes any action escalating tensions in the Middle East after the Israeli attack on Iran, a spokeperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday.
Several countries had already warned that a retaliatory attack by Israel against recent Iranian strikes could risk dragging the entire region into a wider regional war.
2024-04-19 15:01:00
Euro zone bond yields fell on Friday as investors tried to reduce risk before the weekend after reports of an Israeli attack on Iranian soil.
German 10-year bond yields DE10YT=RR, the benchmark for the euro zone bloc, fell 3.4 basis points (bps) to 2.46%, moving away from a more than six-week high touched on Tuesday.
2024-04-19 14:43:30
Pakistan on Friday expressed its disappointment on the United Nations Security Council’s inability to reach a consensus on Palestine’s full membership of the United Nations, also regretting the US decision to veto the draft resolution.
“Pakistan is deeply disappointed by the result of last night’s debate at the UNSC and its inability to reach a consensus and recommend Palestine’s membership to UNGA. We regret the US decision to veto the draft resolution granting full membership of the UN to Palestine,” Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in her weekly press briefing.
The proposal, submitted in the 15-member Council by Algeria, received 12 votes in favour, with the United States casting a negative vote and Switzerland and the United Kingdom abstaining.
A Council resolution requires at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes from its five permanent members — China, France, the Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — to pass.
“We believe, the time has come for admission of Palestine to the UN. This will be a step towards correcting the historic injustice suffered by Palestinians for over 75 years. It will affirm their right to self-determination,” she remarked.
2024-04-19 12:56:17
Oman, which has acted as a mediator in the Middle East, condemned on Friday the Israeli attack on Iranian soil, as well as "the repeated Israeli military attacks in the region", said a foreign ministry statement.
2024-04-19 12:42:38
France is calling for de-escalation in the Middle-East crisis, Deputy French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Friday, responding to reports that Israel launched an air attack on Iranian soil earlier that day.
"All I can say is that France's position is to call on all actors for de-escalation and restraint," Barrot told Sud Radio.
2024-04-19 12:13:49
Iran has no plan for immediate retaliation against Israel, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Friday, hours after sources said Israel launched an attack on Iranian soil.
"The foreign source of the incident has not been confirmed. We have not received any external attack, and the discussion leans more towards infiltration than attack," the Iranian official said on condition of anonymity.
2024-04-19 12:08:24
An Israeli missile attack targeted air defence positions in Syria's southern region, Syrian state media quoted a military source as saying on Friday.
2024-04-19 12:04:10
Britain's Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said he hoped that de-escalation between Israel and Iran was still possible, responding to reports Israel had launched an attack on Iranian soil on Friday.
"Whilst we don't know the details at the moment, my hope is that whatever has happened is of a nature where de-escalation can now be the way forward," Stride told GB News on Friday.
2024-04-19 12:03:06
Mini drones shot down by air defences in Isfahan were flown by "infiltrators from inside Iran", an Iranian analyst told State TV on Friday, after sources said Israel launched an attack on Iranian soil.
2024-04-19 11:54:25
Law enforcement officers broke up a protest at Columbia University on Thursday, arresting demonstrators who had occupied a campus lawn in support of the Palestinian people.
The protest began when the university's president, Nemat Shafik, testified before a Congressional committee about the school's response to anti-Semitism.
In a letter to the New York City Police Department, Shafik said that students who took part in the protest would be suspended. Local media reported that at least 30 protesters were arrested by police.
2024-04-19 11:41:15
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a photo that it said showed flashes in the sky of Isfahan city in Iran, after reports of explosions.
2024-04-19 11:31:08
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed on Friday there was no damage to Iran's nuclear sites in an alleged attack by Israel on Iran.
The agency continues to monitor the situation very closely and calls for extreme restraint from all sides, stressing that nuclear facilities should never be a target in military conflicts, it said in an X post.
2024-04-19 11:27:43
2024-04-19 10:51:50
Israel launched an attack on Iranian soil on Friday, sources said, in the latest tit-for-tat exchange between the two arch foes, whose decades of shadow war has broken out into the open and threatened to drag the region deeper into conflict.
Iranian media reported explosions, but an Iranian official told Reuters those were caused by air defense systems. State media said three drones over the central city of Isfahan had been shot down.
Israel's leadership and the military were silent early on Friday.
The United States received notification before Israel's attack, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters, which came days after Iran launched an unprecedented strike on Israel with a barrage of drones and missiles. Most of those were shot down.
2024-04-19 09:27:56
2024-04-19 09:20:25
Explosions heard in Isfahan were a result of the activation of Iran's air defence systems, an Iranian official told Reuters on Friday, adding that no missile attack was carried out against Iran.
2024-04-19 09:19:05
Nuclear sites in Iran's province of Isfahan remain unharmed, Iran's state TV said on Friday, as air defence systems were activated in the city of Isfahan against suspected drones.
2024-04-19 09:18:01
Air defence systems in the Iranian city of Isfahan were activated against "an object suspected to be a drone", sources told the semi-official Fars news agency on Friday, which added that three explosions were heard near an army base in the city's northwest.
2024-04-19 09:15:40
2024-04-19 09:06:08
2024-04-19 08:59:49
2024-04-19 08:31:01
Palestine Thursday condemned "in the strongest terms" the US veto of Palestine's bid for full membership in the United Nations UN.
Earlier in the day, the 15-member UN Security Council voted on a draft resolution that recommends to the 193-member UN General Assembly that "the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations."
The draft resolution received 12 votes in favour, two abstentions from the UK and Switzerland, and one vote against from the US.
The Palestinian Presidency said the American "veto" is unfair, immoral, and unjustified and defies the will of the international community, Palestine's official news agency WAFA reported.
The Palestinian Presidency noted that most of the countries in the world have recognised Palestine since the UN General Assembly voted in favour of upgrading Palestine's status to a non-member observer state in 2012.
2024-04-19 07:31:53
Following the reports of an explosion near the airport in Isfahan, Iran announced that all flights heading to the cities of Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, the airports of the West, North West and South West have been suspended.
The director of Iran’s public relations for an airport company made the announcement in an interview with state-run Mehr TV early on Friday.
The suspension of all flights is effective immediately, the director said, adding, however, flights have not been cancelled.
“Passengers should check the flight information before departure,” he added.
2024-04-19 07:10:52
WASHINGTON: Israeli missiles have hit a site in Iran, ABC News reported late on Thursday, citing a U.S. official, days after Iran launched a drone strike on Israel in response to an attack at the Iranian embassy in Syria.
Iran's Fars news agency said an explosion were heard at an airport in the Iranian city of Isafahan but the cause was not immediately known. Several Iranian nuclear sites are located in Isfahan province, including Natanz, centerpiece of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
Several flights were diverted over Iranian airspace, CNN reported.
Over the weekend, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles in a retaliatory strike after a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria.
Most of the drones and missiles were downed before reaching Israeli territory.
Iran told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday that Israel "must be compelled to stop any further military adventurism against our interests" as the U.N. secretary-general warned that the Middle East was in a "moment of maximum peril."
Israel had said it was going to retaliate against Iran's April 13 missile and drone attack.
Analysts and observers have been raising concerns about the risks of the Israel-Gaza war spreading into the rest of the region.
Israel's assault on Gaza began after Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's military offensive has killed over 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the local health ministry.
Iran-backed groups have declared support for Palestinians, launching attacks from Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
2024-04-19 07:09:05
Air Defence System has been activated in the Iranian province of Isfahan early on Friday, according to the US media.
2024-04-18 23:39:41
The humanitarian circumstances in Gaza are still dire and Israel needs to do more to allow more aid into the strip and coordinate with aid agencies on deconfliction, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Thursday.
"There has been some measurable progress that we've seen when it comes to humanitarian aid getting into Gaza," Patel told a press briefing. "But the circumstances within Gaza continue to be dire and more absolutely needs to be done. The crisis that we're seeing demands rapid expansion of these efforts."
2024-04-18 21:02:45
Algeria gave the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) a $15 million exceptional fund, Algerian state TV said early on Thursday.
UNRWA provides aid and essential services to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and across the wider region.
2024-04-18 17:50:08
At least 33,970 Palestinians have been killed and 76,770 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
2024-04-18 16:00:47
Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem won the prestigious 2024 World Press Photo of the Year award on Thursday for his image of a Palestinian woman cradling the body of her five-year-old niece in the Gaza Strip.
The picture was taken on Oct. 17, 2023, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where families were searching for relatives killed during Israeli bombing of the Palestinian enclave.
Salem's winning image portrays Inas Abu Maamar, 36, sobbing while holding Saly's sheet-clad body in the hospital morgue.
"Mohammed received the news of his WPP award with humility, saying that this is not a photo to celebrate but that he appreciates its recognition and the opportunity to publish it to a wider audience," Reuters' Global Editor for Pictures and Video, Rickey Rogers, said at a ceremony in Amsterdam.
2024-04-18 15:17:40
China and Indonesia have pledged to strengthen economic ties and maintain peace and stability in the region, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday after a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi, in Jakarta.
Wang also called for all parties in the Gaza conflict to exercise restraint, and said the United States should support a United Nations resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza.
"Both ministers expressed resentment over the humanitarian disaster due to the Palestine-Israel conflict. We agree that the UN Security Council resolution on a ceasefire must be fully implemented and without any condition," Wang said after the meeting, in remarks that were translated into Indonesian.
2024-04-18 12:51:38
The US House of Representatives will have its long-awaited vote on aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific as soon as Saturday, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday, paving the way for its possible passage despite fierce objections from the right wing of his conference.
The House Appropriations Committee unveiled legislation providing more than $95 billion in security assistance, including $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, of which $23.2 billion would be used to replenish US weapons, stocks and facilities.
The Israel bill totals $26.38 billion, some of which will cover the cost of US military operations responding to recent attacks. And $9.1 billion of the total is designated for humanitarian needs, something Democrats had demanded, although it bans any funding for the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
2024-04-18 10:41:47
2024-04-18 09:58:07
European Union leaders decided on Wednesday to step up sanctions against Iran after Tehran's missile and drone attack on Israel left world powers scrambling to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East.
The summit in Brussels is the first meeting of the EU's 27 national leaders since Saturday's attack, more than six months into the "war" between Israel and Palestinian fighters Hamas.
Israel has signalled it will retaliate but has not said how. EU leaders condemned the Iranian attack, reaffirmed their commitment to Israel's security and called on all sides to prevent more tensions, including in Lebanon.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was important that Israel "does not respond with a massive attack of its own."
2024-04-18 08:35:51
A man-made famine is "tightening its grip" across the Gaza Strip, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA warned on Wednesday as he accused Israel of blocking aid deliveries and seeking to end UNRWA's activities in the enclave.
"Today, an insidious campaign to end UNRWA's operations is underway, with serious implications for international peace and security," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told the 15-member UN Security Council.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Since war erupted six months ago between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, top UN officials have described UNRWA as the backbone of aid operations.
"Across Gaza, a man-made famine is tightening its grip," Lazzarini said. "In the north, infants and young children have begun to die of malnutrition and dehydration. Across the border, food and clean water wait. But UNRWA is denied permission to deliver this aid and save lives."
2024-04-17 23:43:28
The United States is deeply concerned by claims in a report from the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) that agency staff and others detained by Israeli forces in Gaza were subjected to ill-treatment, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Wednesday.
Washington will press Israel on the need for a full investigation into allegation regarding Unrwa staff, Patel said, after a report outlined incidents including severe beatings and detainees being forced to strip naked.
2024-04-17 23:22:01
Qatar's prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has said Doha is re-evaluating its role as mediator in negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli captives.
The Qatari premier said that some parties have used the mediation for "narrow political interest".
He added that while Qatar remains committed on mediation "humanitarian basis", there has been "abuse and harm" done related to Qatar's role, Al Jazeera reported.
Some parties have made "destructive" statements against Qatar, he added, without saying to whom he was referring.
2024-04-17 23:07:19
Palestinian journalist Mozaz Azaiza, who acted as the world’s "eyes and ears" in his native Gaza, has been named among “100 Most Influential People” of 2024 by Times magazine.
Motaz Azaiza, armed with a camera and a flak jacket marked “press,” the 25-year-old Palestinian photographer spent nearly four months documenting life under Israeli bombardment, as per the magazine,
His images offered a glimpse into Gaza that few in the international press— which has been all but barred from accessing the Strip — could rival.
Since evacuating Gaza in January, Azaiza’s role has shifted to raising awareness of the crisis—and to calling for international intervention.
2024-04-17 22:31:39
The United Nations Security Council has scheduled the vote in the 15-member council for Friday on a draft resolution put forth by Algeria seeking membership for the State of Palestine, Reuters quoted diplomats as saying.
The voting is set to happen at 3pm (19:00 GMT).
The draft resolution tabled by Algeria recommends to the 193-member UN General Assembly that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations”, diplomats said.
The resolution needs at least nine votes in favour to pass the Security Council and no vetoes from the US, Britain, France, Russia or China. Diplomats told Reuters the measure could have the support of up to 13 council members, but the US is expected to block the effort because it would effectively recognise a Palestinian state.
The US, Israel’s top ally, has long maintained that establishing an independent Palestinian state should happen through direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel and not at the UN.
Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state at the UN.
2024-04-17 21:51:03
Israel's cabinet on Wednesday approved a five-year, 19-billion-shekel ($5 billion) plan to rebuild and strengthen communities near the Gaza border after the Oct 7 attack by Hamas, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would invest the funds in housing, infrastructure, education, employment, health and other areas.
The Israeli PM said Hamas fighters wanted to "uproot us - but we will uproot them and deepen our roots".
"We will build the Land of Israel and protect our country."
His office said local communities would work with government ministries, and along with the business sector and philanthropy, to bring the region to be a "vital, flourishing and attractive area".
2024-04-17 19:35:43
Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas, during a visit to Qatar on Tuesday to discuss humanitarian aid to Gaza, ceasefire efforts and hostages, a Turkish diplomatic source said.
Haniyeh will visit Turkey at the weekend to hold talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
2024-04-17 17:43:18
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said on Wednesday talks on a Gaza ceasefire and a release of hostages are at a "delicate phase".
"We are trying as much as possible to address this stumbling block," he added, without giving further details.
2024-04-17 14:39:19
British Foreign Minister David Cameron said that it was clear that Israel had made the decision to respond to Iran's attack, Al Jazeera reported.
Speaking to reporters in Israel, Cameron said he hoped the retaliation would be carried out in a way that “minimised” escalation.
“It’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act,” Cameron said. “We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible.”
Britain wants to see coordinated sanctions against Iran, he added. “They need to be given a clear unequivocal message by the G7.”
2024-04-17 13:27:00
Non-government organisations (NGOs) have called for solutions to de-escalate the Middle East conflict and avoid theregion spiralling out of control.
“Drawing on our extensive collective experience in the region, we understand that crises in the Middle East often have far-reaching consequences beyond its borders,” a joint statement said.
“A regional conflict would likely result in significant global ramifications, including forced displacement and migration, disruptions to global supply chains and impacts on energy supplies.”
The signatories – which include the International Rescue Committee, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the Danish Refugee Council – called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to “prevent further human suffering” and to dampen heightened tensions.
2024-04-17 12:35:59
JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Wednesday held a telephonic conversation with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to convey his condolences over the martyrdom of latter's sons and grandchildren in an Israeli airstrike.
Lamenting the silence of the international community on the martyrdom of thousands of Palestinians, the JUI-F chief reiterated his resolve to stand by the people of Palestine in their struggle for freedom against Israeli occupation.
Meanwhile, Haniyeh thanked Maulana for raising voice for the Palestinians.
Furthermore, senior JUI-F leader MaulanaRashid Mehmood Soomro met the Hamas leader in Qatar and presented Fazl's condolence letter to him.
2024-04-17 12:06:11
The Israeli military said that it struckmore than 40 “terror targets” from the air over the last day, Al Jazeera reported.
The army said that the targets included "underground launching posts,boobytrapped structures,observation posts androcket launchers".
The airstrikes andsniper fire also killed "numerous" fighters, it said without providing precise figures.
Israel has killed at least 20 people since Tuesday afternoon includingfour children in a house in the centre of Rafah.
2024-04-17 10:59:52
About six missiles have been launched from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel, Al Jazeera reported.
Air attack sirens have been activated in Israel’s north, according to the report.
2024-04-17 10:34:24
The US and its allies planned fresh sanctions against Iran over its unprecedented attack on Israel, seeking to dissuade Israel from a major escalation as its war cabinet was set to meet for a third time on Wednesday to decide a response.
While Saturday night's attack caused no deaths and little damage, it has increased fears that violence rooted in the six-month-old Gaza war is spreading, with the risk of open war between long-time adversaries Iran and Israel.
Israel's military chief of staff Herzi Halevi had promised Iran's launch of more than 300 missiles, cruise missiles and drones at Israeli territory "will be met with a response", but gave no details.
An Israeli government source said the war cabinet session scheduled for Tuesday had been put off until Wednesday, without elaborating.
Hoping to steer Israel away from massive retaliation, the US and Europe flagged a toughening of economic and political sanctions against Iran.
The US is planning to impose new sanctions targeting Iran's missile and drone programme in the coming days and expects its allies will be following suit, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement on Tuesday.
2024-04-17 09:20:19
The Israeli military killed 18 people, including many children, after it attacked two refugee camps as Israel continues its bombardment of the Palestinian territory, Al Jazeera reported.
About 11 people have been killedin an Israeli air attack on the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza and while seven, including four children, were reportedly killedin an Israeli jet attack on a house in the Yabna refugee camp in Rafah.
2024-04-16 23:38:25
In order to help Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the United Nations will launch a $2.8bn global appeal for donations.
“Of course, 90% of it is for Gaza,” said Andrea De Domenico, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian territory.
The original plan had been $4bn for 2024 but budgeting was slashed given the “limited ability” of humanitarian aid distribution, De Domenico added.
2024-04-16 23:05:07
Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, called on states to ensure protection of Palestinians from attacks being carried out by the Israeli settlers and security forces in occupied West Bank.
In further remarks to reporters from Geneva, she urged countries "with influence to do everything in their power" to end violence in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
Shamdasani made the comments as attacks by settlers against Palestinians and their property continue to rise. At least four Palestinians have been killed in such attacks since Friday, and many have taken place with the support of Israeli soldiers.
"Dozens of Palestinians have reportedly been injured, including through the use of firearms, by settlers and by Israeli security forces, and hundreds of homes and other buildings as well as cars have been torched," Shamdasani said.
"Israel, as the occupying power, must take all measures in its power to restore and ensure as far as possible public order and safety in the occupied West Bank. This obligation includes protecting Palestinians from settler attacks and ending unlawful use of force against Palestinians by Israeli security forces," she added.
2024-04-16 19:41:11
In a bid to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East following Iran’s attack, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will travel to Israel today.
“Iran is playing with the fate of all people in the Middle East and has led an entire region to the brink of the abyss. The aim now is to stop Iran without further escalation. Iran’s plan to sow further violence must not work,” Baerbock said.
In a social media post, the FM said: “Israel has our full solidarity and can rely on us. We also do not forget the many dozens of Israeli hostages who are still being held captive in Hamas tunnels. They must finally be released.”
2024-04-16 15:54:40
Gaza's health crisis is likely to be worsened in coming days as the electrical generators powering Gaza's handful of remaining functional hospitals are on the verge of "going out", Al Jazeera reported citing the territory's health ministry.
Loss of the generators, which have been running round the clock, would be no less than"major health disaster", the ministry said while calling for the provision of new generators as well as restoration of electricity in the strip.
2024-04-16 15:28:54
Israel is still imposing "unlawful" restrictions on humanitarian relief for Gaza, the UN rights office said on Tuesday.
"Israel continues to impose unlawful restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance, and to carry out widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, at a press briefing in Geneva.
2024-04-16 14:12:10
The artist chosen to represent Israel at the prestigious Venice Biennale art fair said on Tuesday that she was refusing to open the national pavilion until there was a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza.
"I feel that the time for art is lost," Ruth Patir wrote in a statement on Instagram, explaining why she and the exhibits' two curators had decided to shutter the show.
"And so if I am given such a remarkable stage, I want to make it count," she said.
Almost 9,000 people, including artists and museum directors, signed an online appeal in February calling for Israel to be excluded from the Biennale art fair and accusing the country of genocide in Gaza during its war against Hamas.
2024-04-16 11:11:44
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank had to face wrath of Israeli forces and settlers both as they stormed several parts of the territory including military raids in Jenin and Tulkarem city on Tuesday.
Several Palestinians were wounded in the attacks, their homes, shops and vehicles were damaged as the settlers pelted them with stones and set some on fire.
2024-04-16 10:46:38
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held calls on Monday with counterparts in the Middle East and Europe, expressing support for Israel after attacks from Iran but also stressing regional stability to prevent conflict from spreading, the Pentagon said.
Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles on Saturday in a retaliatory strike after a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria. Most of the drones and missiles were downed before reaching Israeli territory.
The US was not informed by Iran in advance about its attack on Israel and Washington did not seek a conflict with Tehran, the Pentagon said.
2024-04-16 08:42:25
Israelis awaited word on how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would respond to Iran's first-ever direct attack as international pressure for restraint grew amid fears of an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
Netanyahu on Monday summoned his war cabinet for the second time in less than 24 hours to weigh a response to Iran's weekend missile and drone attack, a government source said.
Military Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said Israel would respond. He provided no details.
"This launch of so many missiles, cruise missiles, and drones into Israeli territory will be met with a response," he said at the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel, which sustained some damage in Saturday night's attack.
2024-04-15 23:10:32
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said that he spoke to his fellow G7 leaders, adding that they were united in their condemnation of Iran’s attack on Israel.
Addressing the parliament, he said: “We are urgently working with our allies to see what steps we can take together in a coordinated fashion to deter and condemn what Iran is doing.”
He said that the coordination of any measures, including sanctions, among allies would ensure they have maximum impact on Iran and those sanctioned.
2024-04-15 22:09:35
Humanitarian aid getting into the Gaza Strip has increased by a large amount in the last few days, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday, adding the United States needs to see that aid sustained.
"The aid has increased and quite dramatically in just the last few days," Kirby said in an interview with MSNBC. "That's important but it has to be sustained."
2024-04-15 20:42:01
At least five more people were martyred and more than a dozen others injured when Israeli fighter jets targeted a house in northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday evening.
According to the Wafa news agency, the Israeli air attacks levelled a mosque in the city and struck a residential tower in the camp.
2024-04-15 18:43:58
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dismiss Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as Tel Avi’s forces began dismantling the Gal Yosef outpost in the West Bank.
“Defence Minister Gallant’s decision to evacuate and destroy buildings on the Gal Yosef farm, where 14-year old Benjamin Achimeir was murdered, even during the week of shiva [mourning], represents terrible obtuseness, moral confusion, security folly and a violation of the dignity of the dead,” Ben-Gvir said.
“Instead of establishing and approving more farms and expanding Jewish settlements, we surrender to the enemy,” he said, adding, “The time has come for the prime minister to consider replacing Minister Gallant.”
2024-04-15 17:20:39
Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 33,797 Palestinians and wounded 76,465 since Oct 7, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry confirmed.
There have been 68 Palestinians killed and 94 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
2024-04-15 16:05:14
Israeli opposition leaderMK Yair Lapid has reprimanded PM Benjamin Netanyahu's government terming it as an "existential threat" to Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of his US visit, Lapid said that the current government has "destroyed Israeli deterrence".
"I was in Washington last week in a meeting with top administration officials. They are appalled by this government: The irresponsibility, the lack of professionalism, the failed management, the ingratitude," he said.
2024-04-15 13:42:51
Displaced Palestinians headed towards northern Gaza on Monday in an attempt to return to their homes following more than six months of an ongoing Israeli offensive.
Large crowds of people walked along the seacoast of Wadi Gaza in the Nusseirat camp area, which divides the north from the south, in the hope of being allowed to cross back.
Some people walked on foot, while others used bikes, wheelbarrows or donkey carts to transport their belongs and make their journeys.
There continues to be no clear directive from the Israeli army about the possibility of displaced families returning to their homes.
2024-04-15 13:22:24
The Iranian armed forces are monitoring closely on regional tensions and any new actions that harm Iran's national interests will prompt stronger response from the country, said Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday.
In a statement released on Sunday, Raisi said that Iran's military attack was made in response to Israel's aggressive actions against Iranian targets and interests, especially the attack on Iranian consulate in Syria.
Raisi also said that if Israel or its supporters insist on taking reckless actions, they will receive a more decisive response.
Chief of Staff of Iran's Armed Forces Mohammad Hossein Bagheri stated on the same day that this round of military strike has ended, and there are no plans for further strikes.
However, Iran will launch a larger military strike next time if Israel takes any action against it, he said.
2024-04-15 12:41:29
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron urged Israel not to respond to Iran's retaliatory attack, saying it should "think with head as well as heart" because Tehran's strike had been a near total failure.
"I think they're perfectly justified to think they should respond because they have been attacked, but we are urging them as friends to think with head as well as heart, to be smart as well as tough," Cameron told BBC TV.
He said he was urging Israel not to escalate the tensions in the Middle East.
"In many ways this has been a double defeat for Iran. The attack was an almost total failure, and they revealed to the world that they are the malign influence in the region prepared to do this. So our hope is that there won't be a retaliatory response," he told Sky News.
2024-04-15 12:20:42
2024-04-15 10:43:26
2024-04-15 10:35:31
US forces, supported by US European Command destroyers, on Saturday and Sunday destroyed more than 80 one-way attack drones and at least six ballistic missiles aimed at Israel from Iran and Yemen, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Monday.
This includes a ballistic missile on its launcher vehicle and seven UAVs destroyed on the ground prior to their launch in areas controlled by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, CENTCOM said in a post on X.
2024-04-15 10:31:04
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah received a phone call from his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian late on Sunday, during which they discussed developments in the region after Iran launched drones and missiles on Israel, Saudi Arabian state news agency reported.
"During the call, repercussions from developments in the situation in the region and the increasing escalation against the backdrop of the crisis in Gaza Strip were discussed," a statement from Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry said.
Qatar's foreign minister also held a call with Amirabdollahian on Sunday, expressing deep concern over developments in the region and reiterating their commitment to support efforts at achieving stability on all levels, Qatari state media reported.
2024-04-15 10:27:01
President Joe Biden has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would not participate in any Israeli counter-offensive against Iran, US officials said on Sunday.
Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night in response to a suspected Israeli attack on Iran's Syria consulate on April 1.
In a statement issued late on Saturday following the attacks, Biden said he told Netanyahu that Israel had "demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks."
Biden did not say in the statement if he and Netanyahu discussed a possible Israeli response or potential US involvement.
"We believe Israel has freedom of action to protect itself and defend itself, in Syria or elsewhere... That's a long-standing policy and that remains, but no we would not envision ourselves participating in such a thing," one senior US administration official said.
2024-04-15 09:45:45
Israeli Defence Force spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel was in a grave "significant 24-hour period" and was deliberating its next measures in response to Iran’s attack.
In an English statement, the spokesman said Iran wanted to escalate the war in the region, earlier through its proxies and now it "revealed" itself.
2024-04-15 08:42:51
Israel and Iran condemned each others’ actions in the recent weeks during a tense United Nations Security Council on Sunday.
Iran launched a swarm of explosive drones and fired missiles on Saturday in its retaliatory attack on Israeli territory, risking a major escalation.
The attack was in response to a suspected Israeli strike on Iran's embassy compound in Syria on April 1 that killed top Revolutionary Guards commanders and followed months of clashes between Israel and Iran's regional allies, triggered by the war in Gaza.
2024-04-15 05:29:39
UN Secretary-General Guterres stresses the imperative of an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, emphasising collective responsibility.
Iran's UN ambassador asserts the nation's attack on Israel as a legitimate act of self-defence.
Despite Tehran's claim of issuing a warning 72 hours prior, US officials deny receiving notice of the strike.
Israeli forces injured at least five Palestinians in the West Bank, sparking tensions in the region.
The G7 leaders condemn Iran, warning of escalating regional instability due to its actions.
Hezbollah praises Iran's response to Israeli aggression, hailing it as a prudent decision.
Meanwhile, Israel's war cabinet convenes to deliberate on a suitable response, with Minister Benny Gantz affirming retaliation against Iran at an opportune moment.
2024-04-15 03:14:00
UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivers a message of prudence to the global community in his address at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Al Jazeera reported.
Describing the Middle East as teetering on the edge, Guterres warns of the imminent peril of a catastrophic, all-encompassing conflict facing the region's inhabitants.
In his address to the Security Council, Guterres refrains from taking sides, instead delineating the imperative adherence to international law by all member states.
He highlights the egregious violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter during Israel's strike on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Damascus on April 1, while also condemning Iran's subsequent retaliatory actions against Israel.
Emphasising the necessity for restraint, Guterres underscores the fundamental responsibility of his role as secretary-general. While avoiding delving deeply into the intricacies of the situation, he acknowledges the gravity of the stakes involved, signaling the paramount importance of temperance in navigating the precarious geopolitical landscape.
2024-04-15 03:20:00
Israel's hopes for a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) statement condemning Iran's attacks could be dashed, Al Jazeera reported.
Despite their anticipation, consensus within the council was lacking, resulting in no condemnation being issued.
This outcome is reminiscent of the aftermath of Israel's April 1 attack on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Damascus, where similar calls for condemnation were thwarted by the United States, France, and the UK.
Now, the situation reverts to a familiar refrain of urging restraint, with all council members aligned in discouraging escalation. The onus is now squarely on Israel, as Iran has declared the matter resolved from their end.
2024-04-15 02:12:00
During a lengthy address at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Gilad Erdan, Israel's ambassador to the UN, articulated three key demands. Despite the rhetoric, Erdan's speech boiled down to specific objectives:
Firstly, Israel seeks a robust condemnation from the Security Council against Iran.
Secondly, Israel calls for increased sanctions by the UN, advocating for immediate implementation of measures outlined in the JCPOA nuclear deal.
Lastly, Israel urges the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a "terrorist organisation."
Primarily, Israel emphasises the necessity for sanctions, signalling their primary focus. The effectiveness of their advocacy remains to be seen, particularly regarding the implementation of desired measures.
Israel asserts its stance as the victim, portraying Iran as the aggressor responsible for spreading "terror" not only in Israel but across the broader region.
2024-04-14 23:44:11
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet favours a retaliation against Iran for its mass drone and missile attack but is divided over the timing and scale of any such response, Israeli officials said on Sunday.
The five-member cabinet, in which Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz have decision-making powers, met on Sunday and was expected to convene again for further discussions.
2024-04-14 23:30:53
2024-04-14 22:51:01
The United States had contact with Iran through Swiss intermediaries both before and after Tehran's mass drone and missile attack on Israeli territory overnight, a senior Biden administration official said on Sunday.
The official declined to provide details on the contact, saying only that the US and Iran had "a series of direct communications through the Swiss channel."
Asked about comments by Iran's foreign minister that Tehran had given regional countries 72 hours' notice of the attacks, the official said that was not true.
"They did not give a notification," the official said. "They were clearly intending to destroy and to cause casualties."
2024-04-14 21:16:41
Iran informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel, a Turkish diplomatic source told Reuters on Sunday, adding that Washington had conveyed to Tehran via Ankara that any action it took had to be "within certain limits".
Turkey, which has denounced Israel for its campaign on Gaza, said earlier on Sunday that it did not want a further escalation of tensions in the region.
The Turkish source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had spoken to both his US and Iranian counterparts in the past week to discuss the planned Iranian operation, adding Ankara had been made aware of possible developments.
"Iran informed us in advance of what would happen. Possible developments also came up during the meeting with Blinken, and they (the US) conveyed to Iran through us that this reaction must be within certain limits," the source said.
"In response, Iran said the reaction would be a response to Israel's attack on its embassy in Damascus and that it would not go beyond this."
2024-04-14 19:48:39
Israel will exact a price from Iran in response to its mass missile and drone attack when the time is right, centrist war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said.
"We will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us," Gantz said in a statement.
2024-04-14 16:30:54
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday that British military jets shot down drones launched by Iran in its attack on Israel and called for "calm heads to prevail" to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
"I can confirm that our planes did shoot down a number of Iranian attack drones," Sunak told broadcasters.
"If this attack had been successful, the fallout for regional stability would be hard to overstate. We stand by the security of Israel and the wider region, which is of course important for our security here at home, too. What we now need is for calm heads to prevail."
Sunak was due to join discussions between Group of Seven leaders later on Sunday.
"It's important that we coordinate with allies and we'll be discussing next steps at that moment," he said.
2024-04-14 16:24:44
President Joe Biden has said that the US will not support any Israeli counterattack against Iran,Axio quoted a senior White House official as saying.
The US president stated this during a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Biden and his senior advisers are highly concerned an Israeli response to Iran's attack on Israel would lead to a regional war with catastrophic consequences, US officials said.
2024-04-14 15:52:42
Iran's foreign ministry summoned on Sunday the ambassadors of Britain, France, and Germany to question what it referred to as their "irresponsible stance" regarding Tehran's retaliatory strikes on Israel, the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency reported.
The three European countries have condemned Iran's drone and missile attack against Israel, which went through Saturday night into Sunday and were in retaliation for Israel's bombing of its consulate in Syria on April 1.
The director for Western Europe at Iran's foreign ministry accused the three countries of "double standards" as they opposed earlier this month a Russian-drafted UN Security Council statement that would have condemned Israel's attack on Iran's embassy compound in Syria.
2024-04-14 14:00:38
Iran warned Israel on Sunday of a larger attack on its territory should it retaliate against Tehran's overnight drone and missile attack, adding that US bases would be targeted if Washington backs any Israeli military action against Iran.
Iran launched explosive drones and fired missiles at Israel late on Saturday in its first direct attack on Israeli territory, a retaliatory strike against Israel's bombing of its consulate in Syria's capital on April 1 that killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
"Our response will be much larger than tonight's military action if Israel retaliates against Iran," armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri told state TV, adding that Tehran warned Washington via Switzerland that any backing of Israeli retaliation against Iran would result in US regional bases being targeted.
2024-04-14 14:32:28
Russia said on Sunday it was extremely concerned by Iranian strikes on Israel and called on all parties to exercise restraint but said tensions would remain high until the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians was resolved.
"We express our extreme concern over another dangerous escalation in the region," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement on the Iranian attacks. "We call on all parties involved to exercise restraint."
Russia noted that Tehran had said the attack was made within the right to self defence after Israel's strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that Moscow condemned.
Russia said that the West had blocked attempts in the United Nations Security Council to respond to the Israeli strike on the consulate.
2024-04-14 14:00:08
Hamas has sent its response to the Gaza ceasefire proposal to Egyptian and Qatari mediators, in which it reaffirmed its demands, the Gaza-ruling movement said in a statement on Saturday.
Hamas reiterated its demands, including a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes, the facilitation of more relief supplies and aid into Gaza, and the start of reconstruction efforts in the coastal enclave.
In response to the ceasefire proposal delivered on April 8, Hamas stressed its readiness to conclude a serious prisoner-hostage exchange agreement with Israel.
2024-04-14 13:44:52
2024-04-14 12:50:33
Pakistan Sunday expressed its "deep concern" over the recent escalation in the Middle East following Iran's attack on Israel terming the development as a "failure of diplomacy".
"Pakistan is watching with deep concern the ongoing developments in the Middle East [...] Today’s developments demonstrate the consequences of the breakdown of diplomacy," the Foreign Office said in a statement.
Read more here.
2024-04-14 11:57:08
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday his country would achieve victory after the military said it shot down almost all the more than 300 drones and missiles launched by Iran in a sharp escalation of the Middle East conflict.
Tehran's attacks late on Saturday, launched after a suspected Israeli air strike on its embassy compound in Damascus on April 1 that killed officers of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, raised the threat of a wider regional conflict.
2024-04-14 10:25:13
Hamas has rejected the latest proposal for a deal to return Israeli hostages and Israel will continue to pursue its objectives in Gaza "with full force", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
The statement said that the rejection of the proposals showed that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, did not want a deal and was trying to exploit tensions with Iran and bring about a regional escalation of the conflict.
2024-04-14 10:23:41
2024-04-14 09:59:46
China is deeply concerned about escalation after Iran launched drones and missiles against Israel, a foreign ministry spokesperson said in remarks published on the ministry's website on Sunday.
"China calls on relevant parties to remain calm and exercise restraint to avoid further escalation of tensions," the spokesperson said in response to a question about Iran's strikes.
This round of tensions is a "spillover from the Gaza conflict," and quelling that conflict is "a top priority", the spokesperson said.
2024-04-14 09:30:57
President Joe Biden on Saturday condemned Iranian attacks on military facilities in Israel, pledged a coordinated G7 diplomatic response and said the United States had helped Israel take down "nearly all" of the attacking drones and missiles.
Biden said US forces and facilities had not been hit. He reiterated the ironclad US support for Israel's security in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he has had strained relations over Israel's handling of the war in Gaza.
"I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks – sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel," Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
"Tomorrow, I will convene my fellow G7 leaders to coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran's brazen attack," he said.
2024-04-14 07:15:37
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned Iran's drone attack on Israel, terming it a 'reckless' act.
In his statement released on late Saturday night, Sunak expressed his concern over the escalating regional tensions and the potential destabilisation of the region. He criticised Iran for its intent on "sowing chaos" and highlighted the risks associated with these strikes. He stressed, "'These strikes risk inflaming tensions and destabilising the region."
Sunak reaffirmed the UK's commitment to the security of Israel and all its regional partners, including Jordan and Iraq.
He emphasised that the UK, along with its allies, is working urgently to stabilise the situation and prevent further escalation. He stressed that no one wants to see more bloodshed.
"'The UK will continue to stand up for Israel's security and that of all our regional partners, including Jordan and Iraq," he said.
"Alongside our allies, we are urgently working to stabilise the situation and prevent further escalation. No-one wants to see more bloodshed."
2024-04-14 07:14:16
Saudi Arabia has expressed deep concern over the escalating military tensions in the region, following Iran's first direct attack on Israel, Al Arabiya reported Sunday.
The statement from the Kingdom's foreign ministry, released early on Sunday, highlighted the potential serious repercussions of such escalations.
The Kingdom urged all parties involved to exercise the utmost restraint to avoid the dangers of war and protect the people of the region. It also stressed the need for the UN Security Council to fulfil its responsibility to maintain international peace and security.
Saudi Arabia also warned of serious consequences if the crisis escalates further in the region.
2024-04-14 05:25:35
Iran issued a stern warning to Jordan amidst its ongoing retaliatory attacks on Israel, according to Iran's semi-official news agency, Fars.
A military source said that Iran is closely observing Jordan's actions. It warned that Jordan could become the "next target" if it showed any support for Israel during these attacks.
Iran's warning comes in the wake of a report by Reuters that Jordanian jets intercepted and downed dozens of Iranian drones flying towards Israel.
The drones were reportedly shot down over the northern and central regions of Jordan, specifically on the Jordanian side of the Jordan Valley, and were headed towards Jerusalem.
Some drones were also intercepted near the Iraqi-Syrian border. The military source in Iran stressed that the situation could escalate if it backed Israel.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani senator called the Jordanian king a traitor.
2024-04-14 05:20:00
Former president Donald Trump said that Israel would not have been attacked if he had been the president of the United States.
Taking to the social media platform, he raised alarm, saying, "ISRAEL IS UNDER ATTACK! This should never have been allowed to happen."
2024-04-14 05:05:00
US President Joe Biden said that he has met with his national security team for an update on Iran’s attacks on Israel.
He said on X, "Our commitment to Israel’s security against threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad."
2024-04-14 04:58:10
Iran’s mission to the UN said that its Sunday attack on Israel was conducted “on the strength of Article 51 of the UN Charter pertaining to legitimate defense.”
The UN mission of Iran said that drones and missiles attack comes in response to Israel’s April 1 attack on its embassy in Damascus, Syria.
With the attack, “The matter can be deemed concluded,” says Iran.
“However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY,” it said.
2024-04-14 04:06:09
Iran’s mission to the UN said that its Sunday attack on Israel was conducted “on the strength of Article 51 of the UN Charter pertaining to legitimate defense.”
The UN mission of Iran said that drones and missiles attack comes in response to Israel’s April 1 attack on its embassy in Damascus, Syria.
With the attack, “The matter can be deemed concluded,” said Iran, according to Al Jazeera.
“However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY,” it said.
2024-04-14 03:18:09
Israel's top-rated Channel 12 TV reported that Iran had launched a total of around 100 drones and cruise missiles at Israeli targets on Saturday and that some were shot down over Syria or Jordan.
2024-04-14 03:16:03
US and British warplanes have downed some Israel-bound Iranian drones over the Iraq-Syria border area, Israel's top-rated Channel 12 TV reported early on Sunday without citing sources.
2024-04-14 02:56:06
Lebanon announced the temporary closure of its airspace, Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV said late on Saturday.
2024-04-14 02:34:26
Iranian Defence Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani warned that Tehran will firmly respond to any country that "opens its airspace or territory for attacks on Iran by Israel", Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Sunday.
2024-04-14 02:31:14
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it launched dozens of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday, an attack that may trigger a major escalation between the regional archenemies, with the U.S. pledging to back Israel.
Israel's military said the drones, which Iraqi security sources said were seen flying over the country from Iran, would take hours to reach their targets.
Israeli Channel 12 said missiles Iran had launched would likely strike sooner but that some missiles and drones had been shot down over Syria or Jordan.
Iran has vowed retaliation for what it called an Israeli strike on its Damascus consulate on April 1 that killed seven Guards officers including two senior commanders and said its strike was a punishment for "Israeli crimes". Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the consulate attack.
2024-04-13 23:43:02
The United States has called on Iran to immediately release the Israeli-linked cargo ship it seized near the Strait of Hormuz.
The vessel was identified as the Portugal-flagged MSC Aries, which reportedly departed from a port in the United Arab Emirates en route to India.
The ship is associated with the London-based Zodiac Maritime, a part of the Zodiac Group run by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer and his family, Al Jazeera reported.
“We call on Iran to release the vessel and its international crew immediately,” said National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson.
“Seizing a civilian vessel without provocation is a blatant violation of international law, and an act of piracy by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.”
2024-04-13 21:46:04
Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, days after Tehran said it could close the crucial shipping route and warned it would retaliate for an Israeli strike on its Syria consulate.
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported that a Guards helicopter had boarded and taken into Iranian waters the Portuguese flagged MSC Aries, saying it was linked to Israel.
MSC, which operates the Aries, confirmed Iran had seized the ship and said it was working "with the relevant authorities" for its safe return and the wellbeing of its 25 crew.
2024-04-13 21:19:05
Canada has warned citizens to avoid all travel to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, upgrading its risk assessment of the region due to the increased threat of attacks on Israeli territory.
Foreign Minister Melanie Joly posted a statement on social media site X late on Friday and said Canadians already in the area should consider leaving by commercial means.
"With a heightened risk of attacks on Israeli territory, the regional security situation remains highly volatile & could escalate without notice," Joly posted.
The federal government had previously advised Canadians to avoid non-essential travel to the region.
US President Joe Biden said on Friday that he expected Iran to attack Israel "sooner, rather than later" and warned Tehran not to proceed.
2024-04-13 19:40:21
Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 33,686 Palestinians and wounded 76,309 since Oct 7, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said on Saturday.
There have been 52 Palestinians killed and 95 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
2024-04-13 15:41:09
A British-Palestinian doctor Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah, who has served in Gaza, explains how he was detained at an airport in Germany and subsequently deported.
2024-04-13 12:51:18
2024-04-13 12:47:34
Ireland is close to formally recognising a Palestinian state and would like to do so in concert with Spain and other like-minded countries, new prime minister Simon Harris said on Friday after meeting his Spanish counterpart.
Spain and Ireland, long champions of Palestinian rights, last month announced alongside Malta and Slovenia that they would jointly work toward the recognition of a Palestinian state. The efforts come as a mounting death toll in Gaza from Israel's offensive to rout out Hamas prompts calls globally for a ceasefire and lasting solution for peace in the region.
"Let me this evening say our assessment is that that point is coming much closer and we would like to move together in doing so," Harris said after meeting Sanchez, the first premier to visit Dublin since Harris became prime minister this week.
"When we move forward, we would like to do so with as many others as possible to lend weight to the decision and to send the strongest message. The people of Israel deserve a secure and peaceful future, so do the people of Palestine. Equal sovereignty, equal respect."
2024-04-13 09:34:26
German police cut the power and shut down a conference of pro-Palestinian activists on Friday after a banned speaker appeared by video link, organisers said.
The three-day Palestine Congress, promoted by pro-Palestinian groups including former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis's DIEM25 party, said it aimed to raise awareness of what it called Israel's "genocide" in Gaza.
The police banned the final two days of the event, citing concern about the potential for hate speech.
Among the speakers was activist Salman Abu Sitta, author of a January essay that expressed understanding for the Hamas militants who on October 7 raided Israel.
2024-04-13 09:03:33
US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel "sooner, rather than later" and warned Tehran not to proceed.
Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden said simply, "Don't," and he underscored Washington's commitment to defend Israel.
"We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed," he said.
Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of retaliation for an attack on Iran's embassy compound last week in Damascus that killed a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' overseas Quds Force and six other officers.
Israel did not claim responsibility for the airstrike on April 1.
2024-04-13 08:54:05
A senior Hamas official, Khaled Meshaal has vowed that the fighter group would "break the enemy soon".
He said this while mourning deaths of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s family members in Doha, Qatar.
Referring to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Meshaal said it was not the final round. "It is an important round on the path of liberating Palestine and defeating the Zionist project," he added.
2024-04-12 23:33:35
At least four Palestinians were injured after a group of armed Israeli settlers launched a new attack on the village of Khirbet Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Four Palestinians sustained “various injuries” when a number of Israelis from illegal settlements attacked residents near the entrance of the village, according to state news agency Wafa citing local sources.
Settlers also set several vehicles on fire, the sources added.
Earlier, a large group of settlers attacked another village near Ramallah, al-Mughayir, killing one Palestinian man.
Video posted on Instagram shows the smoking remains of several cars that were burned during an attack by Israelis from illegal settlements on the occupied West Bank town of al-Mughayyir, near Ramallah.
2024-04-12 19:22:30
A legal complaint has been filed in Germany by five Palestinians living in war-torn Gaza against the government for delivering weapons to Israel.
In a statement, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) said that the complaint seeks to “revoke the export licences issued by the German government for arms deliveries to Israel”.
2024-04-12 13:26:48
Al Jazeera correspondent reporting from the northern part of Nuseirat refugee camp reports artillery shelling, air strikes and constant shots from quadcopters.
Most people injured in these attacks are being transferred to al-Awda Hospital, a small health facility on the other side of the camp. The reason is that the road that goes to al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah city is quite dangerous, so there is a risk for civil defence crews to drive there.
Five people have been killed inside residential homes and evacuation centres in the camp.
2024-04-12 13:25:00
At least 33,634 Palestinians have been killed and 76,214 injured in Israel's military offensive in Gaza since Oct 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
In the past 24 hours, 89 Palestinians were killed and 120 were injured, the ministry added.
2024-04-12 12:14:49
An Israeli man, Shalom Avitan, 38, who was arrested in Malaysia last month carrying six guns and dozens of bullets, pleaded not guilty in a Kuala Lumpur court on Friday to charges of unauthorised trafficking and possession of firearms, his lawyer said.
Avitan arrived in Malaysia from the United Arab Emirates on March 12 on a French passport and was detained by police at a Kuala Lumpur hotel with a bag containing the weapons on March 27.
He produced an Israeli passport upon questioning, officials have said.
Malaysia has harsh penalties for gun offences. If convicted, Avitan could face up to 40 years in prison, and no less than six strokes of the cane.
Police are investigating Avitan's motives and have not ruled out the possibility that he could be part of an Israeli crime ring, or a spy. Officials have said Avitan claimed he was in Malaysia to hunt down another Israeli citizen over a family dispute.
A married Malaysian couple was charged earlier this week with supplying the firearms to Avitan. Police have detained eight other people, including two Turkish nationals and a Georgian man, in connection with the case, state media reported.
Authorities beefed up border security following Avitan's arrest, given the country's criticism of Israel's actions in the Gaza war. Malaysia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations.
2024-04-12 11:01:54
Israeli forces have killed one young man and injured two others during a raid in the Far’a refugee camp, south of Tubas in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
The slain man has been identified as Mohammed Essam Shahmawi who died after being shot in the head by Israeli forces, as confrontations erupted, according to Wafa.
During the raid, the Israeli military set up snipers at the entrance of the camp and flew reconnaissance drones over the skies, the Palestinian news agency reported.
2024-04-12 10:02:40
An Israeli attack to the north of the Nuseirat refugee camp has hit a school, according to an Al Jazeera Arabic report, citing Palestinian sources.
It said one person was killed and several injured.
2024-04-12 09:45:52
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that Israel would respond directly to any attack by Iran.
"A direct Iranian attack will require an appropriate Israeli response against Iran," Gallant told US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, according to remarks issued by his office.
The Pentagon said the two discussed the United States' "iron-clad" commitment to Israel's security against threats from Iran and its proxies.
"Echoing President Biden's unequivocal message to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Secretary Austin assured Minister Gallant that Israel could count on full US support to defend Israel against Iranian attacks, which Tehran has publicly threatened," the Pentagon said.
It added that a visit by the top US general for the Middle East, Army General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, to Israel had been moved up so he could meet with Israeli military leadership and discuss "current security threats." Kurilla has been travelling to Israel regularly in recent months.
2024-04-12 08:52:17
The US military said it had destroyed an anti-ship ballistic missile launched from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen.
US Central Command said in a written statement that no injuries or damage were reported to US, coalition or merchant vessels.
2024-04-12 08:46:37
At least 63 Palestinians were killed and45 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours, saidGaza’s Health Ministry on Friday.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said destruction in Khan Younis and damage to the medical sector "disproportionate to anything one can imagine" after the Israeli army withdrawal.
2024-04-11 23:18:13
The WAFA news agency reports that a 14-year-old girl has been taken into custody by Israeli forces close to the Dura town gate, which is located south of Hebron.
According to witnesses, Lana Shadi Abu Muqaddam was taking pictures of landscapes with her phone when she was taken into custody.
2024-04-11 21:52:01
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's far-right minister of national security, has pledged to harshen the conditions facing Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails.
“The days when terrorists celebrated in prisons are over!” he wrote on X.
2024-04-11 20:28:31
At least six people have been killed and others injured after Israeli forces bombarded Gaza City's Firas market, as per the witnesses who posted video of the aftermath on Telegram.
The injured individuals were transported to Ahli Arab Hospital. A middle-aged man with an abdominal wound was shown in one of the videos entering the hospital while he was supported by another man, according to Al Jazeera.
2024-04-11 19:56:18
2024-04-11 18:43:54
According to a statement from the Israeli military, Israeli fighter planes attacked a Hezbollah military base earlier today close to the border town of al-Dahira, as per a statement from the Israeli military.
The Israeli air attacks in the al-Dahira area were also reported by the Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar, which also stated that Israeli jets struck the village of Tayr Harfa in the south, according to Al Jazeera.
2024-04-11 16:57:38
Israel's military attack on Gaza has resulted in at least 33,545 Palestinian deaths and 76,094 injuries since October 7, as per a statement released by the Gaza health ministry on Thursday.
In the most recent instance of attacks on humanitarian relief workers in Gaza, Israeli gunfire strikes a UNICEF delivery convoy, according to Al Jazeera.
Ismail Haniyeh, the political commander, claims that despite Israel killing three of his sons and four grandchildren in a strike on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, Hamas will not back down in peace negotiations.
2024-04-11 16:12:29
The Kremlin on Thursday called for all countries in the Middle East to show restraint and prevent the region slipping into chaos.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there had been no requests for Russia to mediate between Israel and Iran, though Peskov said the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus was a violation of all the principles of international law.
Iran has vowed revenge for the April 1 airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus which killed a top Iranian general and six other Iranian military officers, further escalating tensions in a region already convulsed by the Gaza war.
2024-04-11 13:22:03
2024-04-11 13:16:40
2024-04-11 09:17:45
David Satterfield, US government's Gaza humanitarian envoy, has warned that the most of the residents of the besieged territory are facing famine, Al Jazeera reported.
"There is an imminent risk of famine for the majority, if not all, the 2.2 million population of Gaza," the official was quoted saying by Haaretz at a forum organised by the American Jewish Committee.
Stressing that the threat of famine is real, as assesses by the international community, experts and Washington itself, the envoy underscored Tel Aviv's "obligation' to help the civilians in Gaza.
2024-04-10 22:03:53
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's eldest son confirmed in a Facebook post that his three brothers were killed. "Thanks to God who honoured us by the martyrdom of my brothers, Hazem, Amir and Mohammad and their children," wrote Abdel-Salam Haniyeh.
2024-04-10 21:32:36
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday the killing of three of his sons in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza will not affect the group's demands in ceasefire negotiations.
Haniyeh spoke to Al Jazeera TV soon after his sons died when a car they were driving in was targeted in Gaza's Al-Shati camp.
The three sons - Hazem, Amir and Mohammad - were killed after the car they were driving in was bombed in Gaza's Al-Shati camp, Hamas said. Two of Haniyeh's grandchildren were also killed in the attack and a third was wounded, Hamas media said.
"Our demands are clear and specific and we will not make concessions on them. The enemy will be delusional if it thinks that targeting my sons, at the climax of the negotiations and before the movement sends its response, will push Hamas to change its position," Haniyeh told pan-Arab Al Jazeera TV.
"The blood of my sons is not dearer than the blood of our people," said Haniyeh, who is based abroad in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar.
Haniyeh has been the tough-talking face of Hamas' international diplomacy as war with Israel has raged back in the Gaza Strip, where his family home was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike back in November.
2024-04-10 21:00:08
Three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza, Hamas-affiliated news agency Shehab said on Wednesday.
2024-04-10 19:30:12
Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 33,482 Palestinians and wounded 76,049 since October 7, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said on Wednesday.
There have been 122 Palestinians killed and 56 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
2024-04-10 15:44:38
2024-04-10 14:42:38
2024-04-10 12:41:29
US President Joe Biden said in an interview published on Tuesday that Israel should allow more food and medicine into Gaza.
"What I'm calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country," Biden said interview.
2024-04-10 10:40:08
The Pakistani nation Wednesday marked Eid ul Fitr with prayers for brethren in Gaza, who have been facing death and destruction for the past six months at the hands of oppressive Israeli forces.
At least 33,360 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in six months of war, which began on October 7, Gaza's health ministry said in its latest update, with thousands more dead feared unrecovered in the rubble.
Read complete story here.
2024-04-10 08:56:15
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's approach to the war in Gaza is a "mistake," US President Joe Biden said in an interview published on Tuesday, offering further criticism of Israel's handling of the conflict.
"I think what he's doing is a mistake. I don't agree with his approach," Biden said in comments to Univision, a US Spanish-language TV network.
Biden has also previously called Israel's bombing in Gaza "indiscriminate, opens new tab" and its military actions "over the top, opens new tab."
2024-04-09 23:38:56
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has said that his country’s position on arms sales to Israel remains unchanged.
Addressing a joint press conference with his US counterpart, Cameron said: “The latest assessment leaves our position on export licenses unchanged. This is consistent with the advice that I and other ministers have received.”
“And as ever, we will keep the position under review.”
2024-04-09 22:48:11
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that there is no force in the world that can stop Tel Aviv from invading Rafah.
Israel would proceed with its goal of eliminating all of Hamas’ brigades, including in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, he added.
“There is no force in the world that will stop us. There are many forces that are trying to do so, but it will not help since this enemy, after what it did, will never do it again,” Netanyahu said.
2024-04-09 19:52:23
Israel denied access to 40% of all food aid missions in Gaza, said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
It further said that access for the UNRWA is particularly strained with Israel blocking all its food convoys since March – and blocking all its food convoys to the north of the enclave since January, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-04-09 15:31:17
The war in Gaza is "an utter catastrophe", New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told the United Nations in a speech on Tuesday.
Peters, who is also deputy prime minister, condemned Hamas for its October 7 attack, but said many more have been killed in Gaza and that "millions" have been displaced.
"Palestinian civilians must not be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas," he said.
In his speech, Peters also called on Israel to "do everything in its power to enable safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access" into Gaza and reiterated New Zealand’s support for a two-state solution.
“Achieving this will require serious negotiations by the parties and must involve a Palestinian state," said Peters.
2024-04-09 15:14:58
Germany denied on Tuesday that it was aiding genocide in Gaza by selling Israel arms in a suit to the top UN court by Nicaragua reflecting mounting legal action in support of Palestinians.
Germany has been one of Israel's staunchest allies since the October 7 attacks and ensuing Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip. It is one of its biggest arms suppliers, sending 326.5 million euros ($353.70 million) in military equipment and weapons in 2023, according to Economy Ministry data.
Germany and other Western nations have faced street protests, various legal cases, and accusations of hypocrisy from campaign groups who say Israel has killed too many Palestinian civilians in its six-month military assault.
But Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, legal adviser for the German Foreign Ministry, told the International Court of Justice judges that Nicaragua's case was rushed and based on flimsy evidence.
Arms exports were scrutinised to ensure adherence to international law, she said.
2024-04-09 14:59:57
France's foreign minister said on Tuesday that pressure, and possibly sanctions, must be imposed on Israel to open crossings to get humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
"There must be levers of influence and there are multiple levers, going up to sanctions to let humanitarian aid cross check points," Stephane Sejourne told RFI radio and France 24 television
"France was one of the first countries to propose European Union sanctions on Israeli settlers who are committing acts of violence in the West Bank. We will continue if needed to obtain the opening of humanitarian aid," he said.
Some 33,207 Palestinians have been killed in six months of conflict, Gaza's health ministry said on Monday. Most of the enclave's 2.3 million people are homeless and many at risk of famine.
2024-04-09 12:30:05
Turkey will impose restrictions on the export of products from 54 different categories to Israel until a ceasefire is declared in Gaza, the Turkish Trade Ministry said on Tuesday, adding the measures would take effect immediately.
In a statement following Ankara's announcement that it would be taking measures after Israel rejected its request to take part in an aid air-drop, the ministry said the restrictions would include iron and steel products, construction equipment and products, machines and more.
2024-04-09 10:54:35
2024-04-09 10:33:53
2024-04-09 10:30:38
Representative Nancy Pelosi, former House speaker and a key ally of Joe Biden, signed a letter on Friday from dozens of congressional Democrats to the president and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging a halt to weapons transfers to Israel.
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
Israel's military assault on Gaza has come under increasing international criticism as the Gaza health ministry has reported more than 33,000 people have died in the war and the narrow coastal enclave suffers widespread hunger.
Support from Pelosi, a veteran member of Biden's Democratic Party, for stopping the transfer of weapons to Israel showed that the view is increasingly becoming mainstream in the party.
2024-04-09 09:20:09
Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel's proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.
However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.
A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza's last refuge for displaced Palestinians.
Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.
Burn's presence underlined rising pressure from Israel's main ally the US for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.
But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: "We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this."
Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.
"There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks," the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. "There is no progress yet."
2024-04-09 00:06:38
A Hamas official said on Monday that no progress was made at a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo also attended by Israeli, Qatar and US representatives, after the Egyptian hosts said headway had been achieved on the agenda.
Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday after the arrival on Saturday of CIA Director William Burns, whose presence underlined rising US pressure for a deal that would free hostages held in Gaza and get aid to isolated civilians.
"There is no change in the position of the occupation and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks," the Hamas official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
"There is no progress yet."
2024-04-08 20:35:58
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have called for efforts by the international community to halt Israeli military aggression in Gaza and mitigate humanitarian impact besides emphasising the need to advance the peace process.
The regional and global developments of mutual interest, including the worrying situation in Gaza were discussed in a meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as the former was on a three-day visit to the Kingdom.
Both sides underscored the imperative for the international community to pressure Israel to cease hostilities, adhere to international law, and facilitate unhindered humanitarian aid access to Gaza, according to a joint statement issued on today on the meeting between the two leaders took place at Al-Safa Palace here.
The two sides discussed the need for advancing the peace process in accordance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly as well as the Arab Peace Initiative aimed at finding a just and comprehensive solution, to establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
2024-04-08 15:47:15
Israel is yet to provide a satisfactory explanation for the death of seven aid workers last week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday as Australia appointed a senior former military official to study Israel's inquiry into the incident.
Israel said on Friday its soldiers mistakenly believed they were attacking Hamas fighters when air strikes killed the mostly international group of World Central Kitchen staff, including Australian "Zomi" Frankcom. Two officers have been dismissed and others reprimanded.
Albanese said the explanation for the deaths was not adequate. Given that almost 200 aid workers had been killed in the conflict, Israel also needed to provide more information about what it would do to prevent similar events in the future, he added.
"We don't find the explanations to be satisfactory to this point," he said in an interview on state broadcaster ABC. "We need proper accountability, we need full transparency about the circumstances and I think that is what the Australian public would expect."
2024-04-08 12:28:55
Nicaragua is set to ask the International Court of Justice on Monday to order Berlin to halt military arms exports to Israel and reverse its decision to stop funding UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
The two-day hearings on emergency measures are part of a wider case brought by Nicaragua which accuses Germany of violating the Genocide Convention and the laws of war with its support for Israel.
German officials have said the ICJ case is not justified, and Berlin will present its side in court Tuesday.
Germany has been one of Israel's staunchest allies.
2024-04-08 12:09:31
2024-04-08 10:56:18
Israeli military has rounded up at least 23 Palestinians during raids in the Hebron area of occupied West Bank last night, Al Jazeera reported quoting Wafa as saying.
The occupational forces raided other locations too in the West Bank, including Tulkarem where Israeli bulldozers were seen in the streets.
2024-04-08 10:45:02
2024-04-08 10:21:15
Nearly 50,000 Israelis took to the streets in West Jerusalem on Sunday, urging their government to sign a ceasefire deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza.
Sunday also marks the six-month duration since the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out on Oct 7, 2023.
The protesters expressed hope that Israeli hostages will be brought back home early and safely and that Gaza people will resume normal life.
"First of all, I want people to live in peace here, you know. That's the number one thing to have and this is taking a while. It's not an easy thing to do. In the meanwhile, it's first and foremost the return of our civilians, the return of all Israelis," said Shai, a protester.
"For me the hostages, plus also the atrocities in Gaza, the whole region, the hatred is everywhere and there's so many Gaza children dead and soldiers of us are dying, and tens of thousands of innocent Gaza people. Everything is going worse and worse and worse, just more and more war, more and more hatred," said Daniel, another protester.
2024-04-08 09:11:17
Talks on a truce in the Gaza conflict are making progress in Cairo and all parties have agreed on basic points, Egypt's Al-Qahera News state-affiliated TV channel said early on Monday, citing a senior Egyptian source.
Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for fresh talks on a potential ceasefire in the six-month conflict, following the arrival on Saturday of US CIA Director William Burns.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas and none of the parties to the Cairo talks has confirmed the Al-Qahera news report.
According to Al-Qahera, the Hamas and Qatar delegations left Cairo and will return within two days to agree on the terms of a final agreement, while the Israel and US delegations will leave within a few hours. It added that consultations will continue in the next 48 hours.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel would not agree to a ceasefire without the release of hostages, while Hamas reiterated its demands, which include a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a return of displaced people.
Netanyahu said that despite growing international pressure, Israel would not give in to "extreme" demands from Hamas.
2024-04-07 23:51:29
Israeli troops that have pulled out of Gaza on Sunday did so to prepare for future operations, including in the enclave's southern city of Rafah, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said.
"The forces are exiting and preparing for their next missions, we saw examples of such missions in the Shifa operation, and also of their coming mission in the Rafah area," Gallant said at a meeting with military officials, according to a statement from his office.
2024-04-07 20:50:36
Iran's armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri has said that the Israeli attack on Tehran’s embassy in Damascus would not go unanswered.
He said that Tehran will choose the time and manner of its response to Israel’s bombing of its embassy in the Syrian capital on April 1, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
Bagheri said that Iran would carry out a retaliatory operation with precision, causing the “Zionist regime to regret their actions”.
He described the attack on Iran’s embassy as a “suicide” mission by Israel.
2024-04-07 18:04:07
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel would not agree to a ceasefire after six months of war against Hamas in Gaza until the hostages being held in Gaza are released.
His comments made at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting came as a new round of truce talks in Egypt are set to begin.
Netanyahu said that despite growing international pressure, Israel would not give in to "extreme" demands from Gaza's rulers Hamas, which sparked the war on Oct 7 with its deadly attack on southern Israel.
2024-04-07 15:42:51
The Israeli military has withdrawn all ground troops from the southern Gaza Strip except for one brigade, a military spokesperson said on Sunday.
The military did not immediately provide further details. It was unclear whether the withdrawal would delay a long-threatened incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which Israeli leaders have said is needed to eliminate Hamas.
The withdrawal comes as Egypt prepares to host a new round of talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Israel's offensive in Gaza has focused in the past months on the south of the Palestinian enclave, despite once declaring it a safe zone.
2024-04-07 12:01:56
The Israeli military published the names on Sunday of four soldiers killed in the Gaza Strip, bringing to 604 its losses in ground fighting there as the genocide in Gaza reached the half-year mark.
The four commandos died on Saturday in southern Gaza, the military said in a statement that followed weeks of relatively low Israeli casualties. Hamas had claimed an ambush against Israeli forces in the southern town of Khan Younis on Saturday.
2024-04-07 11:18:45
2024-04-07 11:04:04
A British Royal Navy ship will supply aid to Gaza as part of an international effort to help set up a new humanitarian maritime corridor in early May, the foreign office and ministry of defence said on Saturday.
The multinational effort, involving the United States, Cyprus and other partners, will develop a new temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, British foreign minister David Cameron said.
"The situation in Gaza is dire and the prospect of famine is real. We remain committed to getting aid to those who so desperately need it," Cameron said in a statement.
Cameron has also pledged 9.7 million pounds ($12.26 million) for aid equipment and logistical expertise to help set up the maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza, his office said.
2024-04-07 10:54:31
At least 33,137 Palestinians have been killed and 75,815 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday.
2024-04-07 10:27:54
A Hamas delegation headed by the group's deputy chief in Gaza, Khalil Al-Hayya, will go to Cairo on April 7 for Gaza ceasefire talks, in response to an invitation extended by Egyptian mediators, the group said in a statement on Saturday.
US CIA Director Bill Burns arrived in Cairo on Saturday evening to attend Sunday's talks, sources at Cairo airport told Reuters. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and an Israeli delegation were expected to take part in the talks as well, Egypt's Al Qahera news reported on Saturday.
Hamas reiterated its demands issued in a March 14 proposal prior to a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that was passed on March 25.
The demands include a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a return of the displaced, and a "serious" exchange deal of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, the statement said.
2024-04-06 23:49:16
Unicef Executive Director Catherine Russell has said that more than “13,000 children” were killed and “countless” others sustained injuries during the Israeli aggression on Gaza.
“Homes, schools and hospitals in ruin. Teachers, doctors and humanitarians killed. Famine is imminent. The level and speed of destruction are shocking. Children need a ceasefire NOW,” Russell wrote on X handle, formerly known as Twitter.
2024-04-06 22:16:48
Amid the reports that Israel is planning to invade Rafah, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has warned that the attack would lead to another massacre.
Safadi said several UN agencies – including UNICEF, WHO, OCHA, UNRWA and WFP – have “spoken of the horror Israel brought on Gaza”.
“It’s time their call for ending this brutality was heeded. UNICEF is now focusing on the fear for the lives of 600,000 boys and girls in Rafah if an invasion is allowed. It must not be allowed,” he added.
2024-04-06 20:52:31
Representative Nancy Pelosi, former House speaker and a key ally of Joe Biden, signed a letter on Friday from dozens of congressional Democrats to the president and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging a halt to weapons transfers to Israel.
Support from Pelosi, a veteran member of Biden's Democratic Party, for stopping the transfer of weapons to Israel showed that the view is increasingly becoming mainstream in the party.
Friday's letter called on the Biden administration to conduct its own probe into an Israeli airstrike that killed seven staff of the aid group World Central Kitchen on Monday.
"In light of the recent strike against aid workers and the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis, we believe it is unjustifiable to approve these weapons transfers," the letter said. It was signed by Pelosi and 36 other Democrats including Representatives Barbara Lee, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
2024-04-06 18:49:43
A Hamas delegation headed by the group's deputy chief in Gaza, Khalil Al-Hayya, will go to Cairo on April 7 for Gaza ceasefire talks, in response to an invitation extended by Egyptian mediators, the group said in a statement on Saturday.
Hamas reiterated its demands issued in a March 14 proposal prior to a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that was passed on March 25.
The demands include a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a return of the displaced, and a 'serious' exchange deal of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, the statement said.
2024-04-06 15:14:53
2024-04-06 13:40:50
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that he was "deeply troubled" by reports that the Israeli military was using artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool to identify its targets in Gaza, which has resulted in "high level of civilian casualties".
"AI should be used as a force for good to benefit the world; not to contribute to waging war on an industrial level, blurring accountability," he wrote on X.
The report triggered criticism from the world leadership in the wake of recent killings of seven aid workers by the Israeli army that Israel called a “grave mistake.”
2024-04-06 13:22:16
Israeli police arrested at least 16 Palestinians who came to offer Fajr prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, Al Jazeera quoted the Times of Israel as saying.
They arrested the Palestinian citizens during the Laylat-ul-Qadr, the holiest night of Ramadan. Tensions at Al-Aqsa Mosque are high as Israel does not allow a vast majority of citizens living in West Bank entry to the mosque.
2024-04-06 11:34:57
2024-04-06 11:06:31
Israel's decision to open up some new corridors for humanitarian aid in Gaza will still not be enough to prevent starvation in Gaza, said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday.
"Following widespread condemnation of the killing of 7 WCKitchen staffers by IDF and mounting international pressure, the Israeli gov will open some corridors for humanitarian aid. It's not enough to prevent starvation in #Gaza," wrote Borrell on X.
"The binding UN Security Council Resolution 2728 must be implemented. Now." he added.
2024-04-06 10:25:26
The Israeli military dismissed two officers and formally reprimanded senior commanders after an inquiry into the killing of seven aid workers in an air strike in Gaza this week found serious errors and breaches of procedure, the military said.
The inquiry found Israeli forces mistakenly believed they were attacking Hamas fighters when drones hit the three vehicles of the World Central Kitchen aid group late on Monday night, and that standard procedures had not been followed.
"The strike on the aid vehicles is a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures," the military said in a statement issued on Friday.
The killing of the seven aid workers, who included citizens of Britain, Australia and Poland, a dual US-Canadian national and a Palestinian colleague, stirred global outrage this week.
2024-04-06 10:30:00
The United States is on high alert and preparing for a possible attack by Iran targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Israel's strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria, a US official said on Friday.
"We're definitely at a high state of vigilance," the official said in confirming a CNN report that said an attack could come in the next week.
Suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran's embassy in Damascus on Monday in a strike that killed an Iranian military commander and marked a major escalation in Israel's war with its regional adversaries.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has said that seven Iranian military advisers died in the strike, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in its Quds Force, which is an elite foreign espionage and paramilitary arm.
Iran has said it reserves the right "to take a decisive response."
US President Joe Biden discussed the threat from Iran in a phone call on Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Our teams have been in regular and continuous contact since then. The United States fully supports the defence of Israel against threats from Iran," a senior Biden administration official said.
2024-04-06 09:19:21
US President Joe Biden urged the leaders of Egypt and Qatar to pressure Hamas to agree to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal ahead of a fresh round of talks this weekend in Cairo.
A senior Biden administration official said Biden wrote letters to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, on the state of the hostage talks and "he urged them to secure commitments from Hamas to agree and abide by a deal."
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Biden told Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to empower his negotiators in Cairo so that a deal can be reached as soon as possible.
The US and its allies view a ceasefire as essential to allowing more humanitarian aid to get into Gaza amid fears of famine among the Palestinians there.
Under the most recent proposal, Israel and Hamas would agree to a six-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of sick, elderly and wounded hostages held by Hamas. Progress on a deal has been stalled for weeks.
2024-04-05 23:45:35
GENEVA: The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution seeking accountability of Israel over “possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip”.
The resolution was moved by Pakistan on behalf of all the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states except Albania, Al-Jazeera reported.
The motion also calls for a halt to all arms sales to Israel as it has martyred over 33,000 Palestinians so far amid the ongoing aggression on Gaza and the West Banks.
Today’s vote marked the first time that the UN’s top rights body has taken a position on the nearly six-month war, highlighting warnings of “genocide” in the conflict.
The motion was approved with 28 of the council’s 47 member states voting in favour. The US and Germany were among the six countries that opposed it, while France, Albania and 11 other countries abstained.
2024-04-05 21:00:57
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that he sincerely hopes Israel quickly and effectively boosts aid access to the Gaza Strip, describing the situation in the Palestinian enclave after six months of war as "absolutely desperate".
Israel has approved the reopening of the Erez crossing into northern Gaza and temporary use of Ashdod port in southern Israel after US President Joe Biden demanded steps to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying conditions could be placed on US support for Israel if it did not act.
"When the gates to aid are closed, the doors to starvation are opened. More than half the population — over a million people — are facing catastrophic hunger. Children in Gaza today are dying for lack of food and water," Guterres told reporters.
"This is incomprehensible, and entirely avoidable," he said. "Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people."
Global outrage at the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people escalated after an Israeli airstrike on Monday killed seven people working for US-based food charity World Central Kitchen.
2024-04-05 20:21:27
Human rights lawyers said on Friday that they had filed an urgent appeal against Germany's government to stop exports of war weapons to Israel, citing reasons to believe they were being used in ways violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
A Dutch court has ordered the Netherlands to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used for attacks on civilian targets in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip, where tens of thousands have been killed.
The Berlin case, brought by several organisations including the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), Law for Palestine and the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, was filed in an administrative court on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza.
2024-04-05 15:07:17
Political parties including Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) carried out rallies across the country in support of the Palestinians and against the Israeli aggression in Gaza on Quds Day.
The rallies are being staged in different cities across the country including Quetta, Muzaffarabad, Kashmore, Bhalwal, Parachinar, Chichawatni, Rajanpur and Jacobabad.
2024-04-05 14:24:44
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, although Israel dismissed it as a "distorted text".
Twenty-eight countries voted in favour, 13 abstained and six opposed the resolution, including the United States and Germany. The adoption prompted several representatives to the Council to cheer and clap.
The resolution stressed "the need to ensure accountability for all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in order to end impunity".
It also expressed "grave concern at reports of serious human rights violations and grave breaches of international humanitarian law, including of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory".
2024-04-05 13:15:09
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called upon international community to pressurise Israel to stop its oppression against Palestinians.
In his message on the International Day of Al-Quds and Juma tul Wida, he strongly denounced the Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
He said since October last year, 32,000 Palestinians including 17,000 children have been martyred and 70,000 others injured in Gaza. Hospitals, refugee camps and children's schools have deliberately been targeted and access to humanitarian aid has been blocked.
He regretted that despite the ceasefire resolution by the UN security council, the unprovoked bombing on innocent civilians in Gaza is still continuing.
The prime minister said Pakistan will continue to provide moral and diplomatic support to armless Palestinian brothers and sisters until the liberation of the Palestinians from the Israeli occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state according to the pre-1967 borders.
PM Shehbaz appealed the Muslims across the world including in Pakistan to remember their Palestinian and Kashmiri brothers and sisters on the occasion of Juma tul Wida and pray to God Almighty for the ease of their difficulties.
He also appealed the nation to pray for the peace and security and development and prosperity of Pakistan on the occasion of Juma tul Wida.
2024-04-05 12:16:14
2024-04-05 12:08:06
Israeli police fired tear gas to disperse worshippers after dawn prayers in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Friday (April 5).
Worshippers were performing dawn prayers (Fajr) on the last Friday of Ramadan at al-Aqsa, regarded by Muslims as Islam's third holiest site.
The Israeli police unit said in a statement that thousands of worshippers attended the prayers, but there were brief incidents of incitements and police officers took action.
The hill on which the mosque sits is also the most sacred site for Jews, who call it the Temple Mount.
Palestinian worshippers said Israeli authorities have restricted their access to al-Aqsa since the start of Israel's war in Gaza on October 7.
2024-04-05 11:40:07
President Joe Biden threatened on Thursday to condition support for Israel's offensive in Gaza on its taking concrete steps to protect aid workers and civilians, seeking for the first time to leverage US aid to influence Israeli military behaviour.
Biden's warning, relayed in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, followed a deadly Israeli attack on World Central Kitchen aid workers that spurred new calls from Biden's fellow Democrats to place conditions on US aid to Israel. Israel said the attack was a mistake.
The US president, a lifelong supporter of Israel, has resisted pressure to withhold aid or halt the shipment of weapons to the country. His warning marked the first time he has threatened to potentially condition aid, a development that could change the dynamic of the nearly six-month-old war.
Biden "made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers," the White House said of the leaders' phone call. It said the call lasted about 30 minutes.
2024-04-05 11:30:48
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has reportedly suspended "coordination of humanitarian aid with Israel' after Israeli forces" killing seven aid workers of World Central Kitchen in Gaza.
Israeli media outlet, i24NEWS reported the news citing official sources. The media outlet said the UAE foreign ministry "expressed outrage" with the Israeli envoy over the mishap.
The foreign ministry of Israel is now trying to mend relations with the oil-rich country.
2024-04-05 11:18:48
2024-04-05 10:24:50
The Israeli cabinet has approved reopening the Erez crossing into Gaza and the temporary use of Ashdod port for aid deliveries in response to White House pressure to step up humanitarian aid into Gaza, the Times of Israel reported on Friday.
Israel will also increase the amount of aid from Jordan moving through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the newspaper reported.
2024-04-05 10:22:02
2024-04-05 08:43:42
WASHINGTON: US CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to travel to Cairo this weekend to meet with his Egyptian and Israeli counterparts and the Qatari prime minister to try to reach a breakthrough in talks on releasing hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on social media site X on Thursday, citing two sources.
2024-04-05 08:42:44
WASHINGTON: The United States was looking into a media report that the Israeli military has been using artificial intelligence to help identify bombing targets in Gaza, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told CNN in an interview on Thursday.
The report in +972 Magazine and Local Call was published on Wednesday.
Separately, Kirby was also asked in the interview about an Axios report that the Israeli security cabinet had approved the opening of the Erez crossing with Gaza to allow more humanitarian aid to go in. He said if true, the report was welcome news.
2024-04-05 08:41:58
UNITED NATIONS: International aid groups said on Thursday there is nothing more they can do to protect staff in the Gaza Strip and that it is up to Israel to avoid killing them as the United Nations appealed for direct humanitarian coordination with the Israeli military.
The UN says at least 196 humanitarian workers have now been killed in the six-month-long war as Israel retaliates against Hamas in Gaza over a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group.
While some aid groups have suspended operations following the strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy on Monday, none have said they plan to withdraw from Gaza despite the repeated attacks on aid operations in Gaza. The United Nations warns a famine is imminent.
The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza.
"Every day we are forced to decide whether to suspend an operation or to proceed with an operation — and often the decision is to suspend because we don't have the proper security conditions in place," Scott Paul, associate director for peace and security at Oxfam America, told reporters.
"One of the things that would probably improve the system ... is for us to have the ability to have more direct contact with the military as opposed to going through a number of layers of military-civilian coordination as it does now," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday.
Israel also said on Thursday it would adjust war tactics.
"The rules of war require that those fighting always know the difference between military targets and humanitarian relief workers," said Bushra Khalidi, an Oxfam policy adviser.
"If there's any ever any doubt, it's on Israel to avoid harming us," she said, adding that aid groups make their staff as visible as possible in an effort to protect them.
Celebrity chef Jose Andres, who founded World Central Kitchen, told Reuters that Israel had targeted his aid workers "systematically, car by car." Israeli government spokesperson Raquela Karamson responded on Thursday: "This was unintended."
Louise Bichet, head of the Middle East department for Doctors of the World/Médecins du Monde, said her organization's offices in Gaza City had been partly destroyed "even though we had clearly communicated our GPS coordinates and it was very well known by the Israeli army."
"This shows the failure of the deconfliction process and poses a serious question ... (about) the understanding and respect of IHL (international humanitarian law) by the state of Israel," she said.
Isabelle Defourny, president of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) France, said the humanitarian coordination system was not working and that she could not imagine how it could be improved when there was a "lack of proportionality" in how Israel was conducting the war.
"They know where we are, what we do, where we will work," she said. "Despite that ... there are security incidents."
2024-04-05 08:38:52
WASHINGTON: If Israel does not change how it is carrying out its war in Gaza, the US will change its policy toward Israel, White House spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.
Kirby's comments to reporters came a few hours after US President Joe Biden gave his strongest public rebuke toward Israel since the start of its war with Hamas, warning American policy on Gaza will be determined by whether Israel takes steps to address the safety of Palestinian civilians and aid workers.
2024-04-04 23:49:15
With Israel continued to target Gaza unabated, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Tel Aviv to protect civilians in the besieged enclave.
Addressing a press conference in Brussels, Blinken said: “Right now, there is no higher priority in Gaza than protecting civilians, surging humanitarian assistance, and ensuring the security of those who provide it. Israel must meet this moment.”
2024-04-04 22:37:11
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Thursday there has been no progress in Gaza ceasefire talks despite the Palestinian group showing flexibility.
Hamdan said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was placing obstacles hindering both parties from reaching an agreement, and that he is "not interested" in releasing Israeli hostages.
"The occupation government is still evading, and negotiations are stuck in a vicious circle", Hamdan said at a press conference held in Beirut.
Egyptian and Qatari efforts, backed by the United States, have so far failed to achieve a ceasefire.
2024-04-04 21:08:39
The Doctors Without Borders medical charity (MSF) said on Thursday it rejected Israel's position that an airstrike which killed seven aid workers was a "regrettable incident", saying many humanitarian personnel have been attacked previously.
"We do not accept the narrative of regrettable incidents," Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of MSF International, said at a press conference in Geneva.
"We do not accept it because what has happened to World Central Kitchen and MSF's convoys and shelters is part of the same pattern of deliberate attacks on humanitarians, health workers, journalists, UN personnel, schools and homes."
He added: "We have been saying it for weeks now: this pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence."
Seven workers from World Central Kitchen, which provides food relief in crisis and conflict zones, were killed when their convoy was hit on Monday night shortly after they oversaw the unloading of 100 tons of food brought to the Palestinian enclave by sea.
2024-04-04 19:57:04
The European Union should debate whether to continue its strategic relationship with Israel if the European Commission finds that Israel has breached humanitarian law in its war on Gaza, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told Qatari TV channel Al Jazeera.
2024-04-04 17:00:06
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Wednesday urged Israel to take concrete steps to protect aid workers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza "after repeated coordination failures" when he spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Thursday, the Pentagon said.
The call for steps followed an Israeli attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza this week.
"Secretary Austin expressed his outrage at the Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid convoy that killed seven aid workers, including an American citizen," a statement of the call between the two defense leaders said.
Austin also urged Gallant to conduct "a swift and transparent" investigation, to share the conclusions publicly, and to hold those responsible to account, the Pentagon said.
2024-04-04 15:34:52
More than 33,037 Palestinians have been killed and 75,668 have been injured in Israeli military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Some 62 Palestinians were killed and 91 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-04-04 14:26:34
2024-04-04 14:00:33
Three former Supreme Court justices have joined more than 600 members of the British legal profession in calling for the government to halt arms sales to Israel, saying it could make Britain complicit in genocide in Gaza.
Echoing the growing number of opposition politicians who have called for a halt to British arms sales, the three justices joined other barristers, former judges and legal academics in urging Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to change policy.
Sunak has faced growing political pressure after seven aid workers, including three British nationals, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in the besieged enclave this week.
2024-04-04 11:48:06
2024-04-04 11:44:03
Israel's explanation for the deaths from an air strike in Gaza of seven aid workers, including Australian woman Zomi Frankcom, was "not good enough", Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday.
Israel said on Tuesday it mistakenly killed workers of charity World Central Kitchen, drawing widespread condemnation from the United States and several allies. The dead included citizens of Australia, Britain and Poland as well as Palestinians and a dual citizen of the US and Canada.
"We need to have accountability for how it has occurred, and what is not good enough is the statements that have been made, including that this is just a product of war," Albanese said during a press conference in Sydney.
2024-04-04 10:42:49
Assistant Professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University Marc Owen Jones has said it was evident that Israel was utilising untested Artificial Intelligence (AI) to carry out genocide in Gaza.
“This is an AI-assisted genocide, and going forward, there needs to be a call for a moratorium on the use of AI in the war,” the assistant professor said.
2024-04-03 21:18:39
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing growing political pressure to stop selling weapons to Israel after seven aid workers, including three British nationals, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
The three main British opposition parties and some lawmakers in the governing party on Wednesday said the British government should consider suspending arm sales.
The Liberal Democrats called for arms exports to Israel to be suspended, while the Scottish National Party also backed that move and said parliament should be recalled from its Easter break to discuss the crisis.
2024-04-03 18:41:38
The European Union on Wednesday condemned an airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1 that killed seven people and called on countries in the region to show restraint.
Iran blamed Israel for the attack, which killed two of its generals and five military advisers at its embassy compound in Damascus. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike, one of the most significant yet on Iranian interests in Syria.
"In this highly tense regional situation, it is imperative to show utmost restraint," Peter Stano, a spokesperson for the executive European Commission, said in a post on X.
"The principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises and personnel must be respected in all cases and in all circumstances in accordance with international law."
2024-04-03 14:33:46
Founder ofWorld Central Kitchen,José Andrés, wrote an oped for an Israeli website after seven of his staff members were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
“The air strikes on our convoy were not just some unfortunate mistake in the fog of war. It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by the [Israeli military],” writes Andrés. “It was also the direct result of his [PM Netanyahu’s] government’s policy to squeeze humanitarian aid to desperate levels.”
“The Israeli government needs to open land routes to food and medicine today. It needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. It needs to start the long journey to peace today.”
2024-04-03 13:11:35
World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday said that malnutrition among children in Gaza wasspreading at a record pace, Al Jazeera reported.
“WFP is providing desperately needed food to 1.45 million people in #Gaza each month, but as #famine closes in, we need more access. We need a ceasefire,” the organisation said on X.
2024-04-03 12:20:07
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said that based on an assessment, she believes that the seven aid workers in Gaza were "intentionally killed" in a bid to scare donors of humanitarian relief and ensure the continued starvation of Palestinians.
A day earlier, Israeli military killed seven members of World Central Kitchen which included foreign nationals as well as a Palestinian.
Albanese said that the killings were carried out deliberately so that "donors would pull out and civilians in Gaza would continue to be starved quietly".
“Israel knows Western countries and Arab countries won’t move a finger for the Palestinians,” she said on social media.
2024-04-03 10:25:47
World leaders are condemning the killing of seven aid workers by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, calling for an urgent investigation into the matter.
The aid workers included foreign nationals and a Palestinians and they worked forWorld Central Kitchen to provide food to the people in Gaza.
UN Secretary-General Guterres says the Israeli attack that killed the staff members brings the number of aid workers killed in Gaza to 196 — including more than 175 members of UN staff.
“This is unconscionable,” Guterres said.
2024-04-02 23:24:49
Amid the ongoing killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces, over 33,000 people, including 6050 students, have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7 last year.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 10,219 students have been injured in the occupied West Bank and the besieged enclave so far.
5,994 students were martyred in the besieged coastal enclave, while the remaining 56 in the West Bank.
2024-04-02 22:25:11
The cost of damage to Gaza's critical infrastructure between October andJanuary is estimated at about $18.5 billion, according to a joint World Bank and the United Nations report released on Tuesday.
2024-04-02 21:02:36
Second largest relief organisation in Gaza after UNRWA, Anera has announced suspending its humanitarian operations for Palestinians in besieged enclave of Gaza following a fierce Israeli attack, leaving at least seven aid workers of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) dead yesterday.
The killing of WCK humanitarians, occurring less than a month after the still-unexplained killing of Anera staff member Mousa Shawwa, alongside the loss of numerous other aid workers and their families, has led our team to conclude that delivering aid safely is no longer feasible,” Anera said in a statement on its website.
“The ongoing targeting of humanitarian workers and the lack of adequate safety measures demand thorough investigation and immediate action. Israel bears the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the unhindered delivery of urgent humanitarian assistance and basic services to those in need,” it said.
2024-04-02 20:42:22
Britain on Tuesday summoned the Israeli ambassador over the deaths of aid workers in Gaza, the foreign ministry said.
"I set out the government's unequivocal condemnation of the appalling killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including three British Nationals," Britain's Minister for Development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell, said.
"I requested a quick and transparent investigation, shared with the international community, and full accountability."
Separately, Foreign Secretary David Cameron posted on X that he had spoken with his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz to underline that the deaths were "completely unacceptable".
"Israel must urgently explain how this happened and make major changes to ensure safety of aid workers on the ground," Cameron said in the post.
2024-04-02 15:58:12
2024-04-02 15:40:41
2024-04-02 15:22:42
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that an independent, professional expert body would investigate the deaths of seven people working for the World Central Kitchen in Gaza, which the NGO said was the result of an Israeli air strike.
Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the incident would be investigated in the "Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism", which his statement called an "independent, professional, and expert body" without giving details.
He said he had spoken to the WCK founder, Chef Jose Anders and expressed deepest condolences.
2024-04-02 15:18:42
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday that the destruction of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza amounted to "ripping the heart out" of the health system of the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
"Destroying Al Shifa means ripping the heart out of the health system," said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.
"It was the place people go to for the kind of care that a really good health system provides, that we in all our societies expect to have should we be in need."
2024-04-02 15:04:36
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks in Paris on Tuesday after a Washington-based NGO was struck by an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza, adding pressure on the United States to toughen its stance in the war between Israel and Hamas.
Blinken arrived in the French capital before heading to Brussels for a NATO ministerial meeting on Wednesday.
He is scheduled to visit, with Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, a weapons' factory providing howitzer canons to Ukraine, before meeting with Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne and with President Emmanuel Macron.
2024-04-02 14:55:37
2024-04-02 14:16:46
Iran will retaliate for a suspected Israeli air strike against its consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Tuesday, a day after seven Iranian military commanders were killed in the attack.
"Having failed to destroy the will of the resistance front, the Zionist regime (Israel) has put blind assassinations back on its agenda to save itself. It must know that it will never achieve its goals and that this cowardly crime will not go unanswered," Raisi said, according to state media.
Israel has long targeted Iran's military installations in Syria and those of its proxies, but Monday's attack was the first time it apparently hit the vast embassy compound itself. An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment.
2024-04-02 13:04:45
Japan on Tuesday said it will lift its suspension of funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) as the relief body works to regain trust after an allegation that some of its staff were involved in the October 7 attack on Israel.
Japan, the sixth-biggest donor to the agency, and 15 other countries paused about $450 million in funding following the allegation by Israel in January, throwing the agency's operations in the war-torn Gaza Strip into turmoil.
Countries including Australia and Canada have since restored funding to the UNRWA, the largest relief body operating in Gaza, which has been besieged by Israel since the attack.
Japan's Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said the agency's role in addressing the Gaza crisis was "indispensable" even as it works to improve governance and manage risks.
2024-04-02 13:00:03
Expressing condolences, the Cyprus foreign ministry hasdemanded a "swift and conclusive investigation" into killing of aid workers by Israeli military in Gaza.
2024-04-02 11:24:55
Reported discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians reached a record high in the US in 2023, driven by rising Islamophobia and bias as the Israel-Gaza war raged late in the year, data from an advocacy group showed on Tuesday.
Complaints totalled 8,061 in 2023, a 56% rise from the year before and the highest since the Council on American-Islamic Relations began records nearly 30 years ago. About 3,600 of those incidents occurred from October to December, CAIR said.
Human rights advocates have similarly reported a global rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism since the latest eruption of conflict in the Middle East.
US incidents have included the fatal October stabbing of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume in Illinois, the November shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont and the February stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas.
2024-04-02 10:43:40
Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday confirmed that aid worker Lalzawmi "Zomi" Frankcom had been killed in an air strike in Gaza and demanded accountability for her death.
2024-04-02 10:36:29
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan plans to travel to Saudi Arabia this week for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid a US push for progress toward normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Talks on normalisation had been put on ice in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack by Palestinian Hamas fighters on southern Israel and Israel's indiscriminate military assault on Gaza, but conversations have resumed in recent months.
A US official said Sullivan planned talks with the crown prince to check in on the issue but did not expect a major breakthrough.
2024-04-02 09:24:14
At least five employees of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) non-governmental organisation, including foreigners, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said late on Monday.
Those killed in the incident in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah included citizens of Poland, Australia and Britain, as well as one Palestinian, a spokesperson for the media office said.
"We are aware of reports that members of the World Central Kitchen team have been killed in an IDF attack while working to support our humanitarian food delivery efforts in Gaza," WCK posted on X. "This is a tragedy. Humanitarian aid workers and civilians should NEVER be a target. EVER."
In a statement, Hamas said the attack aimed to "terrorise" workers of international humanitarian agencies and deter them from pursuing their missions.
Commenting on the reports, the Israeli military said it was conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of what it called a tragic incident.
"The IDF makes extensive efforts to enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid, and has been working closely with WCK in their vital efforts to provide food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza," the military statement said.
2024-04-01 23:56:13
Senior US and Israeli officials discussed the Biden administration’s alternative proposals to a looming military invasion of Rafah by Tel Aviv.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “If they are going to move forward with a military operation, we have to have this conversation,”
“We have to understand how they’re going to move forward.”
She said that National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was leading the discussions on the US side.
2024-04-01 21:57:07
The Israeli parliament has passed a law to ban Al Jazeera — a Qatar-funded news channel predominately covering Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and occupied West Bank — from broadcasting in Israel.
Netanyahu had called for the Knesset to pass the bill and has promised to “immediately act to close Al Jazeera”, according to AFP and the Times of Israel.
The law passed its final reading by a 70-10 vote on Monday evening and also gives the government the authority to close the offices of foreign channels in Israel, Al-Jazeera reported.
In a social media post sent out shortly after the Israeli parliament passed the bill, the prime minister welcomed the law, and said that Al Jazeera would “no longer broadcast from Israel”.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said earlier today that Al Jazeera would be “closed in the coming days”.
2024-04-01 21:49:51
At least eight people, including a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was reportedly killed during an Israeli strike in Damascus, capital of Syria.
According to Syrian state news agency, SANA, the Iranian consulate building in Damascus was targeted and reduced to rubble.
2024-04-01 19:32:14
At least 32,845 Palestinians have been killed and 75,392 injured in Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip since Oct 7, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said on Monday.
There have been 63 Palestinians killed and 94 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
2024-04-01 15:10:52
The United States and Israel are expected to conduct an online meeting today to discuss about a planned operation in Rafah.
An Israeli source told AFP: “The meeting is scheduled for today. It will be online. There may be a meeting in person later this week.”
2024-04-01 12:52:34
Israel's Red Sea port city of Eilat came under an aerial attack on Monday that caused no casualties, the military said, and an Iranian-backed fighter group in Iraq issued a claim of responsibility.
The military's statement said a flying object launched from east of Israel had struck a building in Eilat. It did not elaborate on the object or the provenance. Sirens went off in the city but there was no interception by air defences, it said.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a militia, said in a statement that it had attacked a "vital objective" in Israel "using appropriate weapons". It did not offer further details.
Eilat has come under repeated missile and drone attack from the Houthi movement in Yemen during Israel's almost six-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza.
2024-04-01 12:07:34
Israeli forces have withdrawn from Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital after a two-week operation during which they killed a large number of Palestinians including alleged fighters, the military said on Monday.
It said the sweep of what had been the enclave's biggest hospital before the war had been conducted "while preventing harm to civilians, patients and medical teams".
2024-04-01 11:33:08
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will undergo surgery on Sunday for a hernia, his office said, at a time when he is waging a brutal war in Gaza, and less than a year after he was fitted with a pacemaker.
"On Saturday night, during a routine checkup for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a hernia was found," his office said in a statement, adding that the 74-year-old leader will be under general anaesthetic during his surgery later on Sunday.
Signalling his condition was not serious, Netanyahu's office announced he would hold a news conference at 1630 GMT, before the procedure.
"I assure you that I will get through this treatment successfully and return to action very quickly," Netanyahu told reporters at the conference.
2024-04-01 10:35:40
The World Health Organisation (WHO) director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday urged Israel to allow safe evacuation of patients from al-Shifa Hospital, where at least 21 patients have died since Israeli siege began more than 13 days ago.
“Hostilities continue around the hospital according to updates from Al-Shifa hospital in #Gaza reported by a health worker inside the hospital. 107 patients are in an inadequate building, within the hospital compound, lacking needed health support, medical care and supplies. Patients have been moved multiple times within the hospital compound since the siege began.
“Among the patients are four children and 28 critical patients lacking necessary means of care - no diapers, urine bags, water to clean wounds. Many have infected wounds and are dehydrated,” he said.
The WHO chief said since a day ago only one bottle of water remained for every 15 people. Contagious diseases were spreading because of extremely unsanitary conditions, and a lack of water, he maintained.
“Food is extremely limited – this is potentially life-threatening for diabetic patients whose condition is worsening,” he added.
The WHO has also said that at least four people were killed in an Israeli air attack on the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza.
2024-04-01 09:06:58
The United States and Israel are expected to hold a virtual meeting on Monday to discuss the Biden administration's alternative proposals to an Israeli military invasion of Rafah, Axios reported on Sunday citing three Israeli and US officials.
2024-03-31 22:51:03
In order to “get it over quick”, US Republican Congressman Tim Walberg has suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza “like Nagasaki and Hiroshima”.
His remarks provoked anger and were widely condemned by the people while his office insisted it was “metaphorical”.
2024-03-31 19:59:22
At least 32,782 Palestinians have been killed and 75,298 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
2024-03-31 18:10:40
In his Easter message, Pope Francis has reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in war-torn Gaza and the release of all captives.
Addressing tens of thousands gathered at St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Francis said: “I appeal once again that access to humanitarian aid be ensured to Gaza, and call once more for the prompt release of the hostages seized on last October 7 and for an immediate ceasefire in the Strip.
“How much suffering we see in the eyes of children, the children have forgotten to smile in those war zones. With their eyes, children ask us: Why? Why all this death? Why all this destruction? War is always an absurdity and a defeat,” he added.
2024-03-31 15:45:46
2024-03-31 15:40:18
Israel's central bank chief on Sunday called on the government to enact responsible fiscal policy by reining in non-defence spending to offset any further expansion in the military budget.
Lawmakers this month approved an amended 2024 state budget that added tens of billions of shekels to fund Israel's war against the Palestinian fighter group Hamas in Gaza, as the conflict nears six months.
Amir Yaron, governor at the Bank of Israel, said that in order to establish the size of the defence budget in an informed manner, a committee should be established soon, with the participation of defence and civilian functions.
"It should delineate Israel’s defence needs in the coming years and formulate an appropriate multi-year budget program that will take into account all the ramifications on the economy," he said in a letter to cabinet ministers and parliament members in the central bank's 2023 annual report.
2024-03-31 12:27:14
Three United Nations observers and a translator were wounded on Saturday when a shell exploded near them as they were carrying out a foot patrol in south Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping mission said, adding it was still investigating the origin of the blast.
The UN peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL, as well as unarmed technical observers known as UNTSO, are stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel, known as the Blue Line.
2024-03-31 11:22:38
2024-03-31 11:09:51
2024-03-31 11:03:52
2024-03-31 10:58:49
Truce talks between Israel and Hamas will resume on Sunday in Cairo, the latest attempt to bring about a pause after nearly six months of war in the Gaza Strip, Egypt's Al Qahera News TV reported on Saturday, citing a security source.
An Israeli official told Reuters that Israel will send a delegation to Cairo on Sunday. A Hamas official however told Reuters the group would wait to hear from Cairo mediators on the outcome of their talks with Israel first.
The warring sides have stepped up negotiations, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, on a six-week suspension of Israel's offensive in return for the proposed release of 40 of the 130 hostages held by the Palestinian fighter group in Gaza.
2024-03-31 10:24:19
Israeli forces shot dead a 13-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid in the occupied West Bank, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Saturday, an incident which the Israeli military said was under review.
There were confrontations with Israeli forces at the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin city, during a pre-dawn military raid there, the Wafa report said. The Israeli military claimed that a number of Palestinian fighters had shot at its troops, who returned fire.
A report was later received regarding a Palestinian minor who was killed, the military said.
"The circumstances of the incident are under review," it said in a statement to Reuters.
The teen's death was confirmed by Fawaz Hammad, director of Al-Razi Hospital in Jenin, Wafa said.
2024-03-31 10:21:09
At least 32,705 Palestinians have been killed and 75,190 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.
2024-03-31 09:43:07
More than 400 Palestinians includingpatients, war-displaced and healthcare staff have been killed by the Israeli forces during their siege of the Al-Shifa Hospital.
The forces attack the medical facility for 13 dayswhere they claimed to have killed a number of fighters, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-03-30 23:34:26
Irked by the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israelis staged protest demonstration in Tel Aviv against the government and calling for the release of captives taken on October 7.
2024-03-30 22:27:47
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Saturday that "famine" in Gaza can be dealt with in a short time if Israel opened the land crossings for aid to enter.
Safadi made the comments at a press conference with his Egyptian and French counterparts in Cairo.
2024-03-30 19:45:54
A second shipment of aid carrying almost 400 tons of food for Gaza left Cyprus's Larnaca port on Saturday, a Reuters witness said.
The aid will be taken to Gaza by a cargo ship and a platform towed by a salvage vessel.
It will be the second dispatch of aid via Cyprus, where Cypriot authorities have established, in cooperation with Israel, a maritime corridor to facilitate pre-screened cargoes arriving directly in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
2024-03-30 14:14:32
Malaysian authorities have arrested three people suspected of supplying firearms to a 36-year-old man carrying an Israeli passport, who was detained this week at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, police said on Saturday.
The man, arrested with a bag containing six handguns and 200 bullets, had arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport from the United Arab Emirates on March 12 using what authorities believed to be a fake French passport, Inspector-General of Police Razarudin Husain told a press conference late on Friday.
2024-03-30 12:01:54
2024-03-30 11:40:43
The US welcomes the nomination of a new Palestinian Authority (PA) cabinet, the US State Department said on Friday.
"A revitalised PA is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza and establishing the conditions for stability in the broader region," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
2024-03-30 10:24:55
2024-03-30 10:17:00
Malaysia has arrested an armed man at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, its top police official said, describing the 36-year-old as a suspected Israeli spy.
The man, who was found carrying six handguns and 200 bullets, had arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport from the United Arab Emirates on March 12 using what authorities believed to be a fake French passport, Inspector-General of Police Razarudin Husain told a press conference late on Friday.
The suspect turned over an Israeli passport upon questioning by police, Razarudin said.
Razarudin said police was investigating the possibility that the man could be a member of Israeli intelligence, though the suspect told authorities he had entered Malaysia to hunt down another Israeli citizen due to a family dispute.
2024-03-30 08:54:17
WASHINGTON: The US in recent days authorised the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, two sources familiar with the effort said on Friday, even as Washington publicly expresses concerns about an anticipated Israeli military offensive in Rafah.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, said the sources, who confirmed a report in the Washington Post.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally.
The package comes as Israel faces strong international criticism over its continued bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza and as some members of President Joe Biden's party call for him to cut US military aid.
The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticised the Biden administration's steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity.
Biden on Friday acknowledged "the pain being felt" by many Arab Americans over the war in Gaza and over US support for Israel and its military offensive.
Still, he has vowed continued support for Israel despite an increasingly public rift with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House declined comment on the weapons transfers.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision on weapons follows a visit to Washington by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week when he discussed Israel's weapons needs with US counterparts.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Gallant, apparently seeking to cool US-Israeli tensions, said he stressed the importance of US ties to his country's security and of maintaining Israel’s "qualitative military edge" in the region, including its air capabilities.
2024-03-29 23:42:31
With Israel and Hamas geared up for another round of mediated negotiations in Qatar, the latter alleged that the former’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-led government’s policies were killing the captives in besieged Gaza.
Earlier today, Hamas released posters showing that Israeli captives face the same dire conditions as Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
“My suffering increases every day because of Netanyahu’s policy, and I am still waiting for my release,” said one of the posters that shows a captive as a missile is seen coming down.
“I was watching your demonstrations demanding my release and I had hope,” another said.
2024-03-29 22:58:25
Denouncing Israel for its deadly air raids on Syria, Russia’s foreign ministry termed it a breach of the country’s sovereignty.
In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that such attacks are “fraught with extremely dangerous consequences”.
The attack on Syria’s Aleppo province is Israel’s deadliest in months, killing at least 42 people including 36 Syrian soldiers.
2024-03-29 20:43:17
Famine is both a risk and quite possibly present in at least some areas of the northern Gaza Strip, a senior US State Department official said on Friday, while adding that a scarcity of trucks was an obstacle to getting more aid into the densely populated enclave under Israel siege.
"While we can say with confidence that famine is a significant risk in the south and center but not present, in the north, it is both a risk and quite possibly is present in at least some areas," the official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
Earlier this month a global authority on food security — backed by the United Nations — warned that famine was imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July.
Malnutrition and food insecurity have probably exceeded famine levels in Gaza's north, and hunger-linked death rates were likely to do so soon, said the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
2024-03-29 18:32:27
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to send delegations to Egypt and Qatar, where negotiators have been trying to secure the release of Israeli hostages as part of a possible Gaza ceasefire deal, his office said on Friday.
Netanyahu's office said he spoke with the heads of Israeli intelligence agencies Shin Bet and Mossad and "approved that delegations on their behalf go in the coming days to Doha and Cairo," with a mandate to push forward with negotiations.
2024-03-29 16:20:41
At least 32,623 Palestinians have been killed and 75,092 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Friday.
2024-03-29 11:58:22
Thousands of Jordanians rallied near the Israeli embassy on Thursday in a fifth day of large protests against Israel, calling for an end to Jordan's unpopular peace treaty with its neighbour to the west.
The protesters in an affluent neighbourhood of Amman carried Palestinian flags and chanted: "They said Hamas is terrorist. All of Jordan is Hamas."
"No Zionist embassy on Jordanian land," protesters also cried, demanding that authorities close the embassy and end a 1994 peace treaty that normalised ties with Israel.
Placards declared "Amman-Gaza one destiny", while other posters depicted Hamas' masked military spokesman, Abu Obaida, who has become a folk hero for many in the Arab world.
The Israeli embassy, where protesters have gathered for five straight days, has long been a flashpoint when violence has escalated between Palestinians and Israel.
2024-03-29 11:32:44
The United States' top general has said that Israel had not received every weapon it has asked for, in part because some of it could affect the US military's readiness and there were capacity limitations.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally. The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticised the Biden administration's steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity.
"Although we've been supporting them with capability, they've not received everything they've asked for," said General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Some of that is because they've asked for stuff that we either don't have the capacity to provide or not willing to provide, not right now," Brown added, while speaking at an event hosted by the Defence Writers Group.
2024-03-29 10:57:07
2024-03-29 10:14:20
At least 12 Palestinians were killed on Thursday in an Israeli strike that targeted a house in Gaza's Rafah, health officials told Reuters.
2024-03-29 10:30:00
Israeli strikes on the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early on Friday killed 38 people, including five members of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, two security sources said.
The Syrian defence ministry said earlier on Friday that a number of civilians and military personnel were killed after Israel launched attacks against Aleppo.
The Israeli airstrikes targeted several areas in Aleppo's countryside at about 1:45am local time, the ministry said a statement.
The airstrikes coincided with drone attacks carried out from Idlib and western rural Aleppo that the ministry described as having been conducted by "terrorist organisations" targeting civilians in Aleppo and its surroundings.
However, the ministry did not mention a specific death toll or clarify whether the casualties were caused by the Israeli airstrikes or the attacks by militant groups.
"The aggression resulted in the martyrdom and injury of a number of civilians and military personnel and caused material losses to public and private property," the statement said.
The Israeli military declined comment.
2024-03-29 09:30:27
IsraeliPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the army is "preparing to enter Rafah", the southern city of Gaza where over one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
“We conquered the north of the Gaza Strip and Khan Younis. We have secured the strip, and we are preparing to enter Rafah,” said Netanyahu.
He insisted that all of Israel’s assets must be “used wisely in the negotiations that I conduct myself every day.”
2024-03-28 23:32:30
France’s Foreign Ministry says it will provide more than 30 million euros ($32.41m) to UNRWA this year to support its operations.
“We will make our contributions while ensuring that the conditions are met for UNRWA to fulfil its missions in a spirit devoid of incitement to hatred and violence," the ministry's spokesperson Christophe Lemoine said.
He, however, did not specify when the next payment to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees would be made.
2024-03-28 23:12:03
Judges at the International Court of Justice on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel to take all the necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies without delay to the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The court said the Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life and famine and starvation are spreading.
2024-03-28 20:01:19
Kuwait has handed its annual $2 million contribution to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the Kuwaiti state news agency KUNA reported on Thursday.
UNWRA said on Tuesday it had sufficient funds to run its operations until the end of May after many donors paused their funding over Israeli accusations that some staff took part in Hamas' Oct 7 attack, which triggered war in Gaza.
UNRWA provides aid and essential services to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and across the wider region.
2024-03-28 15:52:07
2024-03-28 15:30:17
Israeli soldiers have been posting photos and videos of themselves toying with lingerie found in Palestinian homes, creating a dissonant visual record of the war in Gaza as a looming famine intensifies world scrutiny of Israel's offensive.
In one video, an Israeli soldier sits in an armchair in a room in Gaza grinning, with a gun in one hand and dangling white satin underwear from the other over the open mouth of a comrade lying on a sofa.
Elsewhere, another soldier sits atop a tank holding a female mannequin dressed in a black bra and helmet and says: "I found a beautiful wife, serious relationship in Gaza, great woman."
The two videos shot by Israeli soldiers are among dozens of posts in which troops in Gaza are shown displaying lingerie, mannequins, and in some cases both. The lingerie images have been viewed tens of thousands of times - nearly half a million in one case - after being reposted by Younis Tirawi, who describes himself as a Palestinian reporter.
Approached about images he reposted to his more than 100,000 followers on X between Feb. 23 and March 1, Tirawi provided links to the original posts by IDF soldiers. Reuters then independently verified eight posted on Instagram or YouTube.
2024-03-28 12:59:11
The US State Department official working for human rights and democracy in the Middle East, Annelle Sheline thinks whatever credibility the US had as a human rights advocate had almost entirely vanished since the war in Gaza broke out.
2024-03-28 12:47:54
Israel has asked the White House to reschedule a high-level meeting on military plans for Gaza's southern city of Rafah that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had abruptly cancelled, officials said on Wednesday, in an apparent bid to ease tensions between the two allies.
Netanyahu called off a planned visit to Washington by a senior Israeli delegation after the US allowed passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the United Nations on Monday, marking a new war-time low in his relations with President Joe Biden.
The suspension of this week's meeting put a new obstacle in the way of efforts by the US, concerned about a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to get Netanyahu to consider alternatives to a ground invasion of Rafah, the last relatively safe haven for Palestinian civilians.
2024-03-28 10:15:57
Ireland said on Wednesday it would intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel, in the strongest signal to date of Dublin's concern about Israeli operations in Gaza since Oct. 7.
Announcing the move, Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said that while it was for the World Court to decide whether genocide is being committed, he wanted to be clear that Hamas' Oct. 7 attack and what is happening in Gaza now "represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale."
"The taking of hostages. The purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians. The targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure. The indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The use of civilian objects for military purposes. The collective punishment of an entire population," Martin said in a statement.
"The list goes on. It has to stop. The view of the international community is clear. Enough is enough."
2024-03-28 12:35:13
Last few months have seen a significant shift in Americans’ sentiments towards Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip, with 55 percent disapproving of Israeli actions.
Gallup conducted the survey between March 1 and 20. The number of those who approved Israeli military action in Gaza in November has dropped from 50% to 36%, whereas those who disapproved Israeli atrocious assault has jumped from 45% to 55%.
“Seventy-four percent of US adults say they are following news of the Israeli-Hamas situation closely, similar to the 72% Gallup measured in November. One-third of Americans (34%) say they are following the situation “very closely”,” Gallup reported.
Gallup said US support for its ally’s actions in the war was slipping.
2024-03-28 11:41:56
Pakistan and Jordan have stressed the need for an urgent ceasefire and for increased and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting reported.
The urgency was expressed in a telephonic conversation between Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar and Jordanian deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Thursday.
Both discussed the Gaza situation and strongly condemned the inhumane and barbaric acts of Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people.
2024-03-28 11:26:39
Hundreds of Jordanians are daily holding protests for last few days outside Israeli embassy in Amman, the capital and largest city of Jordan.
They have demanded from the government to end the peace treaty with Israel, as the Israeli forces are committing a "plausible genocide" in the Gaza Strip.
2024-03-28 11:09:20
2024-03-28 09:34:26
Read post on X here.
2024-03-27 22:52:41
A United Nations expert who published a report saying there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas said on Wednesday she had received threats throughout her mandate.
Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza, presented a report entitled "Anatomy of a Genocide" to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, which Israel said it "utterly rejects".
Asked whether her work on the report had caused her to receive threats, Albanese said: "Yes, I do receive threats. Nothing that so far I considered needing extra precautions. Pressure? Yes, and it doesn't change either my commitment or the results of my work."
2024-03-27 20:09:49
Spanish military planes air dropped 26 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip on Wednesday and Madrid called on Israel to open land border crossings to prevent a famine, the Foreign Ministry said.
The operation, carried out in coordination with Jordan and co-financed by the European Union, dropped more than 11,000 food rations to alleviate the "catastrophic levels of food insecurity" faced by up to 1.1 million people in Gaza, the ministry said in a statement.
"Spain insists on the opening of the land crossings as an indispensable measure to avoid a famine situation," it added.
Other Western countries, including the United States, France and Germany, have also resorted to air drops to deliver aid to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza after nearly six months of war between Israeli forces and Hamas.
2024-03-27 20:06:18
A United Nations expert who published a report saying there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas said on Wednesday she had received threats throughout her mandate.
Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza, presented a report entitled "Anatomy of a Genocide" to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, which Israel said it "utterly rejects".
Asked whether her work on the report had caused her to receive threats, Albanese said: "Yes, I do receive threats. Nothing that so far I considered needing extra precautions. Pressure? Yes, and it doesn't change either my commitment or the results of my work."
2024-03-27 18:43:28
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday his cancellation of a planned visit to Washington by top aides this week was meant to show Hamas that Israel would not bend to growing international pressure to halt the war in Gaza.
"It was a message first and foremost to Hamas: 'Don't bet on this pressure, it's not going to work,'" he said in videoed comments at a meeting with visiting US Senator Rick Scott.
2024-03-27 16:28:15
At least 32,490 Palestinians have been killed and 74,889 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday.
There have been 76 Palestinians killed and 102 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
2024-03-27 15:00:00
At least 27 people including 23 children have starved to death in Gaza as a result of what international bodies say is Israel’s use of hunger as a weapon of war.
“It’s a very cruel, slow death,” Dr Omar Abdel-Mannan, a British-Egyptian paediatrician and neurologist who has volunteered in Gaza, told Al Jazeera.
“You basically just waste away.”
2024-03-27 14:40:00
The Israeli forces said that they are continuing to besiege Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital where they have claimedto have killed a number of fighters.
The army said that its forces killedfighters and seized weapons in al-Amal and al-Qarara neighbourhoods of Khan Younis, adding that they killed at least onefighter in central Gaza.
According to Wafa news agency, the Israeli strikes killed severalcivilians in Gaza over the last 24 hours.
2024-03-27 13:40:00
Francesca Albanese, theUN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, said that Israel has destroyed Gaza by its relentless attacks since October.
Francesca made these comments at the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
“The harrowing number of deaths, the irreparable harm done to those who survive, the systematic destruction of every aspect necessary to sustain life in Gaza — from hospitals to schools, from homes to arable land — and the particular harm to hundreds of thousands of children and to pregnant and young mothers,” she said.
Francesca added that Israel'sactions can only be interpreted as constituting “prima facie evidence of an intention to systematically destroy the Palestinians as a group”.
2024-03-27 12:40:00
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir accused US President Joe Biden of "tacitly supporting Israel’s enemies" includingHamas’s leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, The New York Times reported.
“Presently, Biden prefers the line of Rashida Tlaib and Sinwar to the line of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir,” he told the NYT. “I would have expected the president of the United States not to take their line, but rather to take ours.”
“[Biden has] constantly sought to impose restrictions on Israel and talks about the rights of the other side, who include, I remind you, many terrorists who want to destroy us,” he said.
2024-03-27 11:47:45
US DefenceSecretary Lloyd Austin told Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant that the safety of civilians in Rafah is a top priority, Al Jazeera reported.
Gallant travelled to the Pentagon for the in-person meeting on Tuesday.
His comments came after Israel's decision to start ground operation in Rafah where 1.3 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
2024-03-27 10:40:00
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that Israel was is experiencing "unprecedented political isolation", a day after the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
"Israel is now losing political cover and protection, as we saw [on Monday] in the resolution issued by the Security Council," he said during a visit to Iran.
2024-03-27 09:38:29
Qatar's Foreign Ministry said that negotiation talks are ongoing in Doha ona ceasefire-for-captives deal between Israel and Hamas, Al Jazeera reported.
“The efforts are ongoing and that in its own right is a good thing certainly. As I said, I don’t have any update over the timelines of how we can gauge optimism over the current situation but we remain hopeful,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said.
Ansari said that no one pulled out of themediated talks following a report by Reuters claiming that the Israeli delegation left Doha as discussions were “at a dead end”.
2024-03-26 22:57:41
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said it was a moral and strategic imperative to protect Palestinian civilians in the war between Israel and Hamas and that the humanitarian catastrophe in besieged Gaza was getting worse.
Austin was speaking at the start of a meeting with Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon as relations between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sank to a wartime low.
"In Gaza today, the number of civilian casualties is far too high and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low," Austin said, sitting across from Gallant.
"Gaza is suffering a humanitarian catastrophe and the situation is getting even worse," Austin said, using some of his most forceful language so far.
2024-03-26 20:52:38
GENEVA: The UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) has sufficient funds to run its operations until the end of May after many donors paused their funding over Israeli accusations that some staff took part in Hamas' Oct 7 attack, UNRWA's head said on Tuesday.
"What I can say today is that we can run our operation until the end of May, whereas a month ago I had just the visibility for the next week or two weeks," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told Reuters in Geneva.
"But that shows also how bad the financial situation of the organisation is."
2024-03-26 19:42:18
Twelve people have drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities said on Tuesday, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel's military campaign.
Video of the air drop obtained by Reuters showed crowds of people running towards the beach, in Beit Lahia in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled onto the sand.
It is the latest in a string of incidents involving deaths during aid deliveries in the tiny, crowded Palestinian enclave where some people are foraging for weeds to eat and baking barely edible bread from animal feed.
2024-03-26 19:41:44
GENEVA: A United Nations expert told the global body's Human Rights Council on Tuesday that she believed that Israel's military campaign in Gaza since Oct 7 amounted to genocide and called on countries to immediately impose sanctions and an arms embargo.
Israel, which did not attend the session, rejected her findings.
"It is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of and to present my findings," Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, told the UN rights body in Geneva, presenting a report called "The Anatomy of a Genocide".
"I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met," she said, citing more than 30,000 Palestinians killed among other acts.
"I implore member states to abide by their obligations, which start with imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel and so ensure that the future does not continue to repeat itself," she said, prompting a burst of applause.
2024-03-26 17:09:14
At least 32,414 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday.
There were 81 Palestinians killed and 93 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
2024-03-26 15:51:10
2024-03-26 15:41:45
2024-03-26 15:05:34
A WHO-led team evacuated two critically-ill children from a hospital in war-stricken northern Gaza, footage released by the WHO on Monday showed.
The children, who were evacuated from the Kamal Adwan Hospital on Saturday, were taken to a makeshift International Medical Corps field hospital in southern Gaza, where they will receive further treatment for their conditions. The children include six-year-old Fadi, who suffers from cystic fibrosis and acute malnutrition, and Nour, who has leukemia. Both Fadi and Nour, along with some of their family members, will eventually be transferred to Egypt for further treatment, the WHO said.
Facing a dire lack of supplies, services and medicine, Kamal Adwan Hospital staff and the children’s families had sent several appeals to the international community for the quick evacuation of the two children, the WHO said.
2024-03-26 14:49:31
Israel accused Hamas on Tuesday of posing "delusional" demands in indirect negotiations on a Gaza truce, saying in a statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office that these showed the Palestinian fighters were not interested in a deal.
In the Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated talks, Hamas has sought to parlay any ceasefire into an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli forces. Israel rules this out, saying it would pursue efforts to dismantle Hamas.
2024-03-26 13:09:46
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh will travel to Tehran on Tuesday to meet Iranian officials, a day after the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian group, Iran's official Press TV reported.
It will be Haniyeh's second visit to Iran since the outbreak of the war on October 7.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani called Monday's resolution a "positive step".
"A more important step is effective action for its implementation," said Kanaani.
Hamas welcomed the UN resolution but said the ceasefire needs to be permanent.
2024-03-26 10:05:25
The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 32,333, the Gaza-based Health Ministry said on Monday.
Over the past day, the Israeli army carried out 11 military actions in the Gaza Strip, killing 107 people and wounding 176 others, said the ministry.
This brought the death toll to 32,333 and injuries to 74,694 since the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out on October 7, 2023, according to the ministry.
Israel has been launching a large-scale offensive in the Gaza Strip for several months now.
2024-03-26 11:22:46
2024-03-26 11:11:06
The diplomatic crisis that erupted one month ago when Brazil's president likened the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War Two has begun to calm down, Israel's envoy in Brasilia said on Monday.
"We are trying to lower the flames, and we are hopeful," Ambassador Daniel Zonshine said in an interview with Reuters. "It will take time to get back to full relations," he added.
2024-03-26 10:42:39
Britain's Royal Air Force airdropped more than 10 metric tons of food supplies into Gaza for the first time on Monday, Britain's defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The aid, which consists of water, rice, cooking oil, flour, tinned goods and baby formula, will support the people of Gaza," the ministry said.
2024-03-26 09:28:46
Leaders around the world have welcomed the resolution passed by the United Nations calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza with the UNSecretary-General António Guterres saying that it must be implemented, Al Jazeera reported.
This was the first time the UNSecurity Council passed a resolution demanding animmediate ceasefire in Gaza.Fourteen countries voted in favour of the resolution, however, the United States — which is Israel's main ally — abstained.
2024-03-25 23:50:08
Pakistan has welcomed the United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in warn-torn Gaza for the holy month of Ramadan.
In a statement, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said: “We also welcome the Security Council’s call for allowing free flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance, and ensuring protection of civilians in the entire Gaza Strip.”
Over the course of past six months, Pakistan has repeatedly expressed its strong and unequivocal condemnation of the indiscriminate use of force by Israel, calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian assistance to the besieged people of Gaza, return of the displaced Palestinians, and ensuring accountability for the crimes being committed by Israel with impunity, she added.
The spokesperson further said that Islamabad calls for expeditious implementation of the UNSC resolution adopted today, hoping that it will serve as a first step towards ending Israel’s brutal onslaught, ensuring a permanent ceasefire, and helping address the prevailing grave humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“Pakistan will continue to voice its support for a just, comprehensive and durable solution through the establishment of a secure, viable, contiguous and sovereign State of Palestine on the basis of the pre-June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital,” she added.
2024-03-25 20:44:05
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he would not send a delegation as planned to Washington after the United States did not veto a UN Security Council proposal calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office, said that Washington's failure to veto the proposal was a "clear retreat" from its previous position, and would hurt war efforts against Hamas in Gaza as well as efforts to release over 130 hostages.
"In light of the change in the American position, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided the delegation would not leave," his office said.
The high-level delegation was due to travel to Washington to discuss a planned Israeli military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
2024-03-25 20:17:18
2024-03-25 19:43:58
The United Nations Security Council on Monday demanded an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages after the United States abstained from the vote.
The remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution, which was proposed by the 10 elected members of the body.
Washington had been averse to the word ceasefire earlier in the nearly six-month-old war in the Gaza Strip and had used its veto power to shield US ally Israel as it retaliated against Hamas for an Oct 7 attack that Israel says killed 1,200 people.
But amid growing global pressure for a truce in the war that has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, the US abstained from the vote on Monday to allow the Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire for the month of Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks.
2024-03-25 18:24:01
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for a massive supply of aid to Gaza to fight starvation, saying there was a growing international consensus to tell Israel a ceasefire is needed in its war on Hamas.
Speaking on a visit to Jordan, Guterres said he also saw a growing consensus for telling Israel that any ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost town on the Egyptian border, could mean a humanitarian disaster.
Israel should lift all obstacles to aid into Gaze and allow convoys of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA into northern Gaza where starvation is looming, Guterres said.
"It is absolutely essential to have a massive supply of humanitarian aid now. This means opening more entry points, this means a concentration of efforts of all entities and without obstacles and limitations from the Israeli side," Guterres said.
During a tour of a centre in Jordan's Wihdat camp where UNRWA provides health and education services, the top UN official said that the agency was a lifeline of hope and dignity for millions of refugees across the region.
"The decision not to allow UNRWA'S convoys to go to northern Gaza where we have a dramatic starvation situation is totally unacceptable and those that took that decision must assume the responsibility facing history of the consequences of the decision," Guterres added.
2024-03-25 17:22:55
JERUSALEM: Israel told four European countries on Monday that their plan to work toward recognition of a Palestinian state constituted a "prize for terrorism" that would reduce the chances of a negotiated resolution to the conflict between the neighbours.
Spain said on Friday that, in the name of Middle East peace, it had agreed with Ireland, Malta and Slovenia to take first steps toward recognising statehood declared by the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.
"Recognition of a Palestinian state following the October 7 massacre sends a message to Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist organisations that murderous terror attacks on Israelis will be reciprocated with political gestures to the Palestinians," Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X.
"A resolution of the conflict will only be possible through direct negotiations between the parties. Any engagement in the recognition of a Palestinian state only distances reaching a resolution and increases regional instability."
2024-03-25 15:23:52
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said during a visit to Jordan on Monday that there is a growing international consensus to tell Israel that a ceasefire is needed and that an assault on Rafah would cause a humanitarian disaster.
"We see a growing consensus emerging in the international community to tell the Israelis that the ceasefire is needed and I also see a growing consensus, I heard in the US, I heard from the European Union, not to mention of course the Muslim world, to tell clearly to Israelis that any ground invasion of Rafah could mean a humanitarian disaster," Guterres told a news conference.
Guterres also pledged for continued funding for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), which he said is the "one ray of light in a darkening world."
2024-03-25 15:05:16
Palestinians in Gaza’s Rafah searched through rubble for their belongings in a badly damaged home following an Israeli airstrike which killed seven people, according to health officials.
Umm Muhammad Al-Kurdi said several members of her family were killed. “They were having Iftar (breaking their Ramadan fast). They hadn’t finished their Iftar, my family. Then he (referring to her son) called me and said ‘my grandfather’s house has been hit by a strike'," said Al-Kurdi.
Rafah, Gaza's southernmost town on the Egyptian border, has become the last refuge for half of Gaza's uprooted population.
Al-Kurdi said, "There is a no safe area (when it comes to) the Jewish [Israelis]. There is no safe area at all. They told them to move to the south; here is the south. Where is the safety? Where is the safety? There is no safety. They bombed them while they were sitting (there), they hadn’t finished their Iftar. My brother was performing ablution and getting ready to pray. They bombed him. He is gone. Alaa has been martyred. Alaa has died."
2024-03-25 14:41:25
2024-03-25 12:54:53
2024-03-25 12:39:25
Israeli forces besieged two more Gaza hospitals on Sunday, pinning down medical teams under heavy gunfire, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said one of its staff was killed when Israeli tanks suddenly pushed back into areas around Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis, amid heavy bombardment and gunfire.
Israeli forces began operating around Al-Amal, the military said, following "precise intelligence."
Israeli armoured forces sealed off Al-Amal Hospital and carried out extensive bulldozing operations in its vicinity, the Red Crescent said in a statement.
"All of our teams are in extreme danger at the moment and are completely immobilised," it said.
2024-03-25 12:19:01
Riot police fired teargas to push back hundreds of Jordanian demonstrators marching on the Israeli embassy in Amman on Sunday in protest at Israel's latest storming of hospitals in Gaza and mounting civilian deaths.
The authorities had earlier deployed riot police to disperse demonstrators gathered in the Kaloti mosque in the capital who were planning to march on the heavily fortified Israeli embassy nearby.
Several protesters were beaten and several arrested as they tried to break a heavy police cordon around the embassy, witnesses said.
Police were not immediately available for comment.
2024-03-25 12:15:24
Israel signalled openness on Sunday to allowing the return of Palestinians displaced from the northern Gaza Strip as part of truce talks, an apparent accommodation of a core Hamas demand.
The warring sides have stepped up negotiations, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, on a six-week suspension of Israel's offensive in return for the proposed release of 40 of the 130 hostages still held by the Palestinian fighter group in Gaza.
2024-03-25 12:08:37
2024-03-25 11:54:10
2024-03-25 11:33:19
The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Sunday Israel had informed the UN that it will no longer approve UNRWA food convoys to the north of Gaza.
"This is outrageous and makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man-made famine. These restrictions must be lifted," UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said on social media platform X.
2024-03-25 11:27:13
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is travelling to the Middle East on Sunday because not enough help is getting to Gaza and the Israeli government must open the border crossings to a lot more aid, she said in a statement.
Ahead of her trip to Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Baerbock said every aid crate sitting on trucks in front of Gaza's border fences is one too many.
2024-03-25 10:30:00
Qatar's State Minister for International Cooperation, Lolwah Alkhater, has discussed humanitarian aid and ceasefire in Gaza withUN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian AffairsMartin Griffiths.
They stressed the need for a ceasefire and to open border crossings “to bring more more humanitarian aid into the strip,” according to a statement shared by Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on social media.
Griffiths last week decried the “imminent” famine in Gaza, saying that the “international community should hang its head in shame for failing to stop this”.
2024-03-25 09:23:27
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in a number of Israeli air attacks on Gaza over the past 24 hours, according toWafa news agency.
At least 18 civilians were killed in Israeli bombing ofa home on Al-Bi’ah Street in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
Meanwhile, over 27Palestinians, including women and children, were killed by bombs targeting five homes in Rafah in southern Gaza.
According to Wafa, Israeli military has killed anunspecified number of people in theimmediate vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital.
2024-03-24 23:06:18
Germany’s Foreign Office has condemned the announcement earlier this week by the Israeli government that it is “illegally” confiscating over 800 hectares of Palestinian land and declaring them state-owned Israeli land.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, the FO said: “This would be the largest appropriation in over 30 years.”
“The settlements violate international law and fuel further tensions in this extremely fragile situation.”
2024-03-24 20:24:08
The only effective and efficient way to deliver heavy goods to meet Gaza's humanitarian needs is by road and includes an exponential increase in commercial deliveries, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday.
Speaking during a visit to Egypt, Guterres also warned of the impact the war in Gaza was having around the globe.
"The daily assault on the human dignity of Palestinians is creating a crisis of credibility for the international community," he said.
2024-03-24 16:40:51
At least 32,226 Palestinians have been killed and 74,518 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
There have been 84 Palestinians killed and 106 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
2024-03-24 13:00:32
The Israeli forces killed at least six people, including three children, from the same family inrelentless air strikes overnight on Rafah city, Al Jazeera reported.
The forces targeted a residential home in Rafah, killing six and critically injuring remaining family members who were rushedto the Najjar Hospital.
People are still being removed from under the rubble.
2024-03-24 12:00:07
The United States has made a "bridging proposal" for the number of jailed Palestinians to be released by Israel in exchange for every hostage freed by Hamas in any new Gaza truce, an Israeli official briefed on the Qatar-hosted talks said on Saturday.
An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea has been in Doha for indirect negotiations with Hamas, which CIA director William Burns is helping Qatari and Egyptian officials to mediate.
Hamas wants to parlay any deal into a permanent end to the fighting - short of a formal peace.
"During the negotiations, significant gaps came to light on the question of the ratio" of prisoners to be released for each of the 40 hostages whose potential recovery is under discussion, said an Israeli official, who requested anonymity.
"The United States put a bridging proposal on the table, to which Israel responded positively. Hamas' response is pending."
2024-03-24 10:54:19
A group of17 US Democratic senators has asked the Biden administration to reject Israeli claims of complying with international human rights law in Gaza, according to The Washington Post.
The senators urged the USState Department to reject any assurances from Israel given its “excessively burdensome restrictions… on the flow of aid from land crossings into Gaza and within Gaza”.
2024-03-24 09:45:43
The Israeli forces opened fire onPalestinians waiting for aid, killing at least 19 civilians, witnesses toldAl Jazeera.
Alaa al-Khudary, a witness at the scene, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli forces shot at the crowd, leaving “many dead” and leaving others wounded while they tried to get “a bite to eat” for their children.
The Israeli army denied firing on the crowd.
2024-03-23 23:44:08
Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said it “destroyed enemy forces” trying to penetrate an area surrounding the al-Shifa Hospital using mortar shells, reported Al Jazeera.
A rocket hit a group of Israeli soldiers barricaded inside a building in the vicinity of the besieged hospital, killing and wounding an unidentified number of troops, it said.
2024-03-23 21:06:50
A long line of blocked relief trucks on Egypt's side of the border with the Gaza Strip where people face starvation is a moral outrage, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said during a visit to the Rafah crossing on Saturday.
It was time for Israel to give an "ironclad commitment" for unfettered access to humanitarian goods throughout Gaza, said Guterres, who also called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
The UN would continue to work with Egypt to "streamline" the flow of aid into Gaza, he said in comments made in front of the gate of the Rafah crossing, an entry point for aid.
"Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other," he said. "That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage."
2024-03-23 17:05:04
The Indian navy handed over 35 Somali pirates to the police in Mumbai on Saturday, after 100 days of anti-piracy operations east of the Red Sea, where piracy has resurfaced for the first time in nearly a decade.
India, the largest national force in the Gulf of Aden and northern Arabian Sea region, captured the pirates from the cargo ship Ruen last week, three months after it was hijacked off the Somali coast.
Taking advantage of Western forces' focus on protecting shipping from attacks in the Red Sea by Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi militants, pirates have made or attempted more than 20 hijackings since November, driving up insurance and security costs and adding to a crisis for global shipping companies.
With the attacks by the Houthis, who claim solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza during Israel's war against Hamas, and the surge in piracy, commercial traffic through the region has halved since November as ships take the longer route around southern Africa, India's navy said.
2024-03-23 15:35:40
Israeli forces fighting in Gaza have killed more than 170 gunmen during their days-long raid at the Palestinian enclave's main hospital, the military said on Saturday.
Israeli troops entered Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the early hours of Monday morning and have been combing through the sprawling complex, which the military says is connected to a tunnel network used as a base for Hamas and other Palestinian fighters.
"Thus far, the forces eliminated more than 170 terrorists in the area of the hospital, questioned over 800 suspects, and located numerous weapons and terror infrastructure," the military said.
2024-03-23 13:29:03
As Gaza remains gripped byhumanitarian catastrophe amid Israeli attacks, the USHouse of Representativesapproved a $1.2 trillion funding bill that would ban funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Al Jazeera reported.
This move was denounced by Palestinian rights advocates, with Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), calling the passage of the bill “an incredible moral failure”.
“Our political process has chosen to cut US funding to literally the only entity that can address the level of suffering and scale of suffering that’s happening in Gaza right now,” Berry told Al Jazeera.
2024-03-23 12:24:07
Israel's foreign minister has urged more countries to follow the United States and ban funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
He made these remarks following the ban on UNRWA funding by the US as part ofa $1.2 trillion spending package that passed in the Congress overnight.
Israel Katz said on X: “The historic ban on US funding to UNRWA that passed today with an overwhelming bipartisan support, demonstrates what we knew all along: UNRWA is part of the problem and cannot be part of the solution. UNRWA will not be a part of Gaza’s landscape in the aftermath of Hamas.”
“Thousands of UNRWA employees are involved in Hamas terror activities and their facilities were used for terrorist purposes,” he claimed.
“I urge more countries to follow the US and ban funding to this organisation.”
2024-03-23 11:05:32
Four children were among the fivePalestinians who were killed by Israeli forces after they attacked a house insouthern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.
The two-storey house, located between the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, was bombed at dawn. A number of deaths and woundedin Khan Younis were also reported after the attack.
2024-03-23 09:12:19
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Egypt's border with Gaza on Saturday to renew pleas for a ceasefire that could bring relief to a territory devastated by more than five months of war between Israel and Hamas.
His trip comes as Israel threatens to launch a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, just over the border from Egypt, despite international appeals against such an attack.
A majority of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are sheltering around Rafah. Though conditions are worse in the north of the strip, the plight of civilians across the territory has deteriorated sharply as the conflict has ground on.
Guterres will visit Al Arish in Egypt's northern Sinai, where much of the international relief for Gaza is delivered and stockpiled, and the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, one of the entry points for the aid.
He is expected to visit a hospital in Al Arish and meet UN humanitarian workers in Rafah.
As hopes for a truce during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan have faded and the humanitarian situation in Gaza has become more desperate, the United States and other countries have sought to use air drops and ships to deliver more relief.
But humanitarian agencies say that only about one-fifth of the required amount of supplies has been entering Gaza, and that the only way to meet needs in coastal enclave is to rapidly accelerate deliveries by road.
Israel, which has vowed to destroy Hamas and is worried that the Palestinian militant group will divert aid, has kept all but one of its land crossings into the enclave closed.
2024-03-22 20:51:16
32,070 Palestinians have been killed and 74,298 have been injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
2024-03-22 18:48:49
The United Nations Security Council on Friday failed to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal after Russia and China, who are permanent members, voted against the measure proposed by the United States.
The resolution called for an "immediate and sustained ceasefire" lasting roughly six weeks that would protect civilians and allow for the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said it was exceedingly politicised and contained an effective green light for Israel to mount a military operation in Rafah.
2024-03-22 17:12:18
Israeli forces have detained hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters including a number of security officials and military commanders during its extended raid into Gaza's main hospital, the military's main spokesperson said.
It says troops have killed hundreds of fighters in the operation and also detained over 500 suspects, including 358 members of the resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the largest number captured at the same time since the beginning of the war nearly six months ago.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel's main military spokesperson, said special forces units had used "deception tactics" to surprise the fighters and had severely damaged Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Among the detainees were three senior Islamic Jihad military commanders and two Hamas officials responsible for operations in the occupied West Bank as well as other Hamas internal security officials.
"Those who did not surrender to our forces fought against our forces and were eliminated," Hagari told a briefing late on Thursday, during which he displayed a composite picture of what were described as detainees.
2024-03-22 15:21:54
2024-03-22 15:02:55
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Friday after a visit to Cairo and Saudi Arabia, in a further push to reach a ceasefire deal between the Palestinian fighter group Hamas and Israel.
His visit comes as the US planned to put a resolution calling for an immediate truce in Gaza to a vote of the UN Security Council, intensifying pressure on its ally.
Negotiations, mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, centred on a truce of around six weeks that would allow the release of 40 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israeli jails, paving the way for more aid to enter an enclave where famine looms due to extreme food shortages.
In Cairo, Blinken said the United States and Saudi Arabia have made "good progress" in talks on normalising ties between the kingdom and Israel.
2024-03-22 14:57:55
2024-03-22 14:42:54
2024-03-22 14:34:53
2024-03-22 14:02:52
2024-03-22 12:43:07
Finland will resume funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, its foreign trade and development minister said on Friday.
Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after mere allegations by Israel on some staff members of the agency.
"UNRWA improving its risk management, meaning preventing and initiating close monitoring for misconduct, provides sufficient guarantees for us at this point to continue our support" Foreign Trade and Development Minister Ville Tavio said. He said the Finnish money would be earmarked for risk management.
Countries including Canada, Australia and Sweden have also restored funding to the UNRWA, while several Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia have increased funding.
2024-03-22 11:28:26
Israeli state media channel, the Israel Broadcasting Authority has said more than 17 Israeli military personnel were wiped out in Hezbollah’s attacks since October 7.
The media outlet said most of the soldiers were killed by anti-tank missiles and drones launched by the fighter group from Lebanon.
2024-03-22 11:18:16
Australia and Britain said in a joint statement on Friday there were potentially devastating consequences of an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah in Gaza.
"Given the large number of displaced persons taking refuge in the area and lack of safe spaces in Gaza, ministers shared deep concern at the potentially devastating consequences for the civilian population of an expanded Israeli military operation in Rafah," the statement said.
2024-03-22 10:53:26
Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, increasing to 10 the number of Palestinians killed in the territory over 24 hours, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Since the Gaza war began, Israel has stepped up military raids in the West Bank, where violence had already been surging for over a year. UN records show that Israeli forces or settlers have killed hundreds of Palestinians in West Bank clashes since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.
A 19-year-old Palestinian died after being shot by Israeli forces in El Bireh near Ramallah on Thursday morning, the Palestinian health ministry said, and another man died after being shot in the area of Jericho. WAFA said they were wounded during confrontations with Israeli forces.
South of Bethlehem, Israeli forces shot dead a 63-year-old Palestinian near the settlement of El'azar, WAFA reported.
2024-03-22 10:45:21
2024-03-22 10:42:42
European Union leaders called on Thursday for an "immediate" humanitarian pause in Gaza that would lead to a ceasefire.
"Strong and unified statement of EU leaders on the Middle East at #EUCO tonight!" Charles Michel, the president of the council, posted on social media platform X.
"The EU calls for an immediate humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable ceasefire."
2024-03-22 10:37:49
Israel's spy chief was due to travel to Qatar on Friday for ceasefire negotiations while the US planned to put a resolution calling for an immediate truce in Gaza to a vote of the UN Security Council, intensifying pressure on its ally.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday in Cairo he believed talks mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt could still reach a ceasefire deal between the Palestinian fighter group Hamas and Israel.
Negotiations in Qatar centred on a truce of around six weeks that would allow the release of 40 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israeli jails, paving the way for more aid to enter an enclave where famine looms due to extreme food shortages.
2024-03-22 08:41:23
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant will travel to Washington seeking more weapons from its long-time ally for its Gaza offensive as talks for the ceasefire continue in Qatar, according to an Axios report, citing two anonymous Israeli and US officials.
The report said the Israeli minister would request an expedited delivery of arms.
Gallant, who is expected to arrive in Washington on Sunday, reportedly told US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on a phone call that the weapons will include not only short-term requests related to Israel’s war on Gaza, but long-term purchases such as F-35 and F-15 fighter jets.
The Axios report stated that Israel is concerned the US could “slow-walk” the delivery of weapons in light of mounting scrutiny the Biden administration is facing for arming Israel’s war on Gaza.
However, Israel on Thursday submitted written assurances to the State Department that weapons it has received from the US are not being used to violate international law in Gaza, as part of a new national security memorandum issued by Biden in February.
2024-03-21 23:50:02
Stressing the need for consensus over “immediate and sustained ceasefire” between Hamas and Israel amid the bloodshed of thousands of Palestinians by Tel Aviv’s forces, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Washington is continuing to push for a truce.
“The US continues to push for an agreement in negotiations in Doha, Qatar,” he noted.
“There’s difficult work to get there, but I believe it’s still possible,” Blinken said, adding: “These are difficult days, but this only reinforces our desire to get to better days.”
2024-03-21 21:24:09
At least 25 Palestinians, including two children and former detainees, have been arrested during raids across the occupied West Bank by the Israeli forces, besides declaring it a closed military zone on Thursday.
The occupation forces used 50 military vehicles and bulldozers to carry out raids at Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported, adding that four Palestinians were also killed during the raid.
The martyred Palestinians were identified as Ahmad Ahmad Marwan Mahammad Abu Ali, 22, and Abdullah Mahmoud Al-Qaisi, 20, WAFA reported quoting medical sources, adding that Nidal Mamoun Abu Obaid, 23, and Iyad Nidal Azmi Kanouh, 19, were also martyred after Israeli drones targeted a site in the Al-Manshiya neighborhood of the Nur Shams camp.
After conducting searches and subjecting residents to interrogation, the occupation forces withdrew after causing large-scale destruction of the infrastructure such as roads in the Jabal Al-Saleheen neighborhood of the camp.
2024-03-21 20:02:32
Amid worsening hunger crisis and Israeli aggression in the besieged Gaza, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for an immediate ceasefire in the enclave.
In a statement, he said that air and sea deliveries were welcome but not enough to respond to the growing needs in the Strip.
“Only the expansion of land crossings will allow large scale aid deliveries to prevent famine,” he said.
Tedros added that the WHO was supporting the set-up of a nutrition stabilisation centre at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, in northern Gaza, and of as a second one in Rafah, in the south, to treat children with severe acute malnutrition at risk of imminent death.
2024-03-21 15:52:46
Satellite images analysed by the United Nations Satellite Centre show that 35% of the Gaza Strip's buildings have been destroyed or damaged in the Israel offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
Israel's assault, launched on October 7, has killed nearly 32,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the enclave.
In its assessment, the United Nations Satellite Centre, UNOSAT, used high-resolution satellite images collected on February 29 and compared them with images taken before and after the start of the latest conflict.
It found that 35% of all buildings in the Gaza Strip - 88,868 structures - had been damaged or destroyed.
Among these, it identified 31,198 structures as destroyed, 16,908 as severely damaged, and 40,762 as moderately damaged.
2024-03-21 15:33:51
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Cairo on Thursday for talks with Arab officials to push for a ceasefire in Gaza, after Israel's prime minister told US Republicans there would be no let-up in the war against Hamas.
In Gaza itself, Israel's military offensive centred on the Al Shifa hospital, the only partially working medical facility in the north of the Strip, for a fourth day, and local residents said they had seen buildings in flames inside the complex.
2024-03-21 15:26:20
2024-03-21 15:08:48
More than 31,988 Palestinians have been killed and 74,188 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday.
Some 65 Palestinians were killed and 92 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added in a statement.
2024-03-21 14:50:40
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the kingdom's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and efforts to increase aid to Palestinians.
Blinken began a tour of the Middle East on Wednesday.
2024-03-21 14:41:02
2024-03-21 01:09:31
Days after his visit to Washington, during which he questioned US President Joe Biden about his country’s response to the Israeli massacre in Gaza and drew a comparison between Palestinian and Irish people, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar announced to step down as taoiseach [Irish prime minister], for “mainly” political reasons, CNN reported.
Varadkar would stay in the premier’s office till a successor replaces him in April, when the parliament would resume after recess.
“I am resigning as president and leader of Fine Gael [party] effective today, and will resign as taoiseach [Irish prime minister] as soon as my successor is able to take up that office,” the PM said.
He considered himself no longer the “best man” to run the affairs of the country in the top slot.
After being elected his party’s leader, Varadkar became Ireland’s youngest prime minister in 2017.
2024-03-21 11:43:56
Nearly 70 former US officials, diplomats and military officers on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to warn Israel of serious consequences if it denies civil rights and basic necessities to Palestinians and expands settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
"The United States must be willing to take concrete action to oppose" such practices, the group said in an open letter to Biden, "including restrictions on provision of (US) assistance (to Israel) consistent with US law and policy."
Among the signatories were more than a dozen former ambassadors, as well as other retired State Department officials and former Pentagon, intelligence and White House officials, including Anthony Lake, a national security adviser to former President Bill Clinton.
The letter underscored rising dismay in the United States over Israeli operations in Gaza after October 7.
2024-03-21 11:28:24
In the Jabalia refugee camp, hungry Gazans hold out pots to receive soup during the holy month of Ramadan.
As other Muslims around the world consume traditional Ramadan meals and desserts to break their fast after sunset, residents of the besieged strip are lucky to find a few scraps of food, or sips of water, after more than five months of Israeli bombardment in its war with Hamas.
The United Nations human rights chief on Tuesday said Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid for Gaza may amount to a starvation tactic that could be a war crime, after a UN-backed report found famine is likely by May without an end to the fighting.
2024-03-21 11:06:03
Israel's military on Wednesday admitted it had killed around 90 Palestinians and arrested 160 in a raid on Gaza's Al Shifa hospital. Hamas said those killed were just wounded patients and displaced persons, while Israel claimed it killed gunmen during the raid.
Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital before the war, is now one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in the north of the territory, and had also been housing displaced civilians.
The Israeli military said in a statement, "Over the past day, the troops have eliminated terrorists and located weapons in the hospital area, while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment."
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of Gaza government media office, said all of those killed had been wounded patients and displaced persons inside the hospital.
"The Israeli occupation army practices lying and deception in spreading its narrative as part of justifying its continuous and law-breaking crimes, which violate international law, international humanitarian law," he said.
2024-03-21 10:13:50
US Secretary Antony Blinken has said that the stakeholders are nearing reaching a consensus on the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Speaking to Arab media, Bliken said that Washington seeks the war to stop so that they can move towards the future of the Gaza Strip.
On the issue of Israel's ongoing offensive, the official said that the US "does not support" Tel Aviv's plans to launch a large scale ground assault on Rafah.
2024-03-20 23:23:55
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that preparations were underway for the invasion of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip but that such an action "will take some time".
In the statement, Netanyahu said that he will soon approve a plan for the evacuation of Palestinian civilians from fighting areas after having green-lit the military's operational plans for Rafah.
2024-03-20 19:25:11
A Saudi-funded humanitarian agency pledged on Wednesday to boost the kingdom's funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) by $40 million, according to a statement.
The donation by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief), which is dedicated to Gaza, comes as UNRWA faces a severe funding crunch after the United States and Britain paused support following Israel's accusations that a dozen of its 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the October 7 Hamas attack on the country.
UNRWA manages shelters, and provides food and healthcare for nearly 2 million people in Gaza, according to its website.
2024-03-20 17:16:04
Amid ongoing Israeli aggression against Gazans, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former foreign policy adviser Jared Kushner sparked a backlash by suggesting that Israel should "clean up" Gaza and move Palestinians to the Israeli Negev desert.
"Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods," Kushner, who is a former property dealer married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, said in an interview last month at Harvard University hosted by professor Tarek Masoud.
"If you think about all the money that's gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done," Independent UK quoted Kushner.
2024-03-20 14:32:43
The Israeli forces are continuing their ground operation inside the Al-Shifa Hospital and around it for thethird day in a row, Al Jazeera reported.
The military has destroyed three residential buildings throughmassive air strikes in these areas, injuring several people.
The medical enclave is now completely out of service after the Israeli aggression as the military claims that Hamas fighters are operating inside it.
2024-03-20 13:01:53
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returns to the Middle East on Wednesday for his sixth visit since the start of Israel's invasion of Gaza to push for a deal to secure a temporary pause in fighting and the release of hostages.
Blinken will meet Saudi leaders in Jeddah and Egyptian leaders in Cairo to discuss talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar on an agreement as well as efforts to get more aid into Gaza, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Talks on a ceasefire are resuming this week in Qatar, but weeks of tough negotiations have yet to forge an agreement between Israel and Hamas that Washington hopes will help alleviate the humanitarian crisis gripping Gaza.
Blinken said he would also pursue conversations on arrangements for governance, security and redevelopment of post-conflict Gaza.
"We’ve been doing a lot of work since January, particularly with our Arab partners, and we’ll be pursuing those conversations, as well as discussing what is the right architecture for lasting regional peace," Blinken said at a news conference during at a previous stop in Manila.
2024-03-20 12:00:45
The Israeli military, in increased attacks on civilians, targeted a family home in Gaza, killing 15 people, themajority women and children, Al Jazeera reported.
“Unfortunately, women, children and the neighbours were struck here,” the brother of the owner of the Miqbil family home hit by raids told Al Jazeera. “They were peace-loving people, sleeping after having their last meal before fasting.
“Despite all this, we say praise be to God. Due to lack of resources, bodies remain under the rubble and we are unable to retrieve them.”
2024-03-20 11:02:01
US Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, has endorsedIsrael’s claims that it is abiding by international law in its handling of weapons and humanitarian aid in Gaza.
According to a report by HuffPost, the envoy endorsed theIsraeli claim in a diplomatic cable sent to the State Department on Tuesday.
An official, who read the cable, said that Lew made“an absurd argument” given “the record-breaking rates of children killed and starved to death in Gaza”.
2024-03-20 10:00:00
Israel continues to regularly bomb Rafah, the city in southern Gaza, which was once designated as a safe zone for civilians which shelters over a million displaced Palestinians, Al Jazeera reported.
“There is no safe area, they are saying that this is a safe area but there are no safe areas. They are hitting from every direction, they don’t care about people […] They displace us from here to there – we don’t know where to go,” says Ibrahim Hassouna, a displaced Palestinian.
2024-03-20 09:27:17
The World Health Organization said that the more and more children in Gaza are on the verge of dying due to extreme malnutrition caused byacute hunger.
Moreover, newborns in Gaza are "simply dying because of low birth weight", said the WHO.
2024-03-19 23:53:16
Expressing her grief and annoyance over the ongoing genocide of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces and food crisis in Gaza, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said: “We’re seeing mass starvation now and famine before our very eyes. I think we, as humanity, need to look at ourselves in horror and dismay and to be really worried that we have set an example.”
Pandor said that Israel was setting a precedent for some world leaders to defy the top UN court as she again alleged a campaign of “mass starvation” in Gaza.
The foreign minister said that Israel defied a January ruling by the International Court of Justice to prevent “acts of genocide” during its bloody war.
2024-03-19 22:05:19
The UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) chief and staff should be able to visit the agency's fields of operation, including in Gaza, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Tuesday.
Patel said the free movement of international workers is a key part of the humanitarian response and the United States would continue to work with Israel and other appropriate interlocutors to push for that, after UNRWA and Egypt said Israel had denied the head of the refugee agency entry to the Gaza Strip on Monday.
2024-03-19 21:02:04
Italy is opposed to a ground incursion by Israeli forces into the Gaza Strip's southern city of Rafah, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday.
"We will reiterate our opposition to military action on the ground by Israel in Rafah that could have even more catastrophic consequences for the civilians crowded in that area," Meloni told lawmakers in Senate.
She added that the opening of new land routes and a maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza, to ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave, was a priority.
2024-03-19 20:48:43
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spurned a plea from Joe Biden to call off a planned ground assault of Rafah, the last refuge in Gaza for more than a million displaced people, where Israel believes Hamas fighters are holed up.
Netanyahu told lawmakers on Tuesday he had made it "supremely clear" to the U.S. president "that we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there's no way to do that except by going in on the ground".
The two leaders spoke by phone on Monday. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington believed a ground assault on Rafah would be a "mistake" and that Israel could achieve its military aims by other means.
Washington has launched a new diplomatic push for a ceasefire in the nearly six-month-old war to free hostages and bring in food aid to stave off famine.
2024-03-19 19:34:52
Six-year-old Fadi al-Zant is acutely malnourished, his ribs protruding under leathery skin, his eyes sunken as he lays in bed at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where famine is bearing down.
Fadi's spindly legs can no longer support him enough to walk.
Photographs of Fadi from before the war show a smiling, healthy-looking child, standing in blue denims next to his taller twin with his hair brushed. A short video clip shows him dancing at a wedding with a little girl.
Fadi suffers from cystic fibrosis. Before the conflict, he was taking medicine that his family can no longer find and eating a carefully balanced variety of food no longer available in the Palestinian enclave, according to his mother Shimaa al-Zant.
"His condition is getting worse. He is getting weaker. He keeps losing his ability to do things," she said in a video obtained by Reuters from a freelancer. "He can no longer stand. When I help him stand up, he falls straight away."
2024-03-19 16:26:57
Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson on Tuesday said that the mediators are not close to a ceasefire deal for Gaza but still hopefull to reach an agreement.
2024-03-19 13:26:39
Providing more humanitarian aid into Gaza as well as discussing post-war planning for the enclave are among the topics US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will discuss with Saudi Arabian and Egyptian officials during his visit to the Middle East this week, which aims to reaching a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
"One hundred percent of the Gaza population is in need of humanitarian assistance," Blinken said, adding that it was "absolutely incumbent" upon Israel to prioritise assistance for those in desperate need.
Extreme shortages of food in parts of the Gaza Strip have already exceeded famine levels, and mass death is now imminent without an immediate ceasefire and surge of food to areas cut off by fighting, global hunger monitor Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification has said.
"We've also impressed upon Israel the imperative of having a plan for Gaza for when the conflict ends, which we hope will be as soon as possible, consistent with Israel's needs to defend itself and make sure Oct. 7 can never happen again," Blinken added.
2024-03-19 12:08:10
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday his upcoming trip to the Middle East had several aims, including reaching a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas and securing the release of hostages.
The visit will be to "discuss the right architecture for lasting regional peace", he said at a press conference during a visit to Manila.
2024-03-19 12:03:11
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday expressed concern around Israel's planned offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah in a call with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to push into Rafah in Gaza's southern tip, where more than half of the territory's 2.3 million residents have been sheltering to escape an Israeli assault farther north.
U.S. President Joe Biden warned Netanyahu on Monday that an Israeli military operation in Rafah would deepen anarchy in Gaza and they agreed that teams from each side would meet in Washington to discuss it, according to the White House.
2024-03-19 11:51:58
2024-03-19 10:19:56
More people in the United States are taking to street to show their support for Palestinians and call for a complete ceasefire in the war-torn Gaza Strip, as humanitarian crisis continues to deepen in the region since the escalation of Palestine-Israel conflict began on Oct 7, 2023.
The march in New York City was organised by the Palestinian-led community group 'Within Our Lifetime', and participants stretched for several blocks as they travelled from the Brooklyn Museum to the Brooklyn Bridge, chanting "Free, free Palestine!"
The demonstration was part of a string of protests around New York City, which took place a day after Israeli forces began what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called "the second stage of the war."
"We're here because this is the 6th and most destructive and terrorising attack on Gaza in the last 16 years. We're here because all of the institutions of this country (the US) that also settles on stolen land are complicit in sustaining Israel's settler colonial rule. We're here because people in Gaza are not only calling for a ceasefire which we demand, but also for a complete end of the siege of Gaza and colonisation of Palestine, so that this never happens again," said a demonstrator.
2024-03-19 09:21:10
Israel and Hamas on Tuesday resumed indirect negotiations on truce in Gaza in Qatar's capital, Doha, Al Jazeera reported citing Axios.
An Israeli delegation headed by Mossad chief David Barnea met with Qatari and Egyptian mediators led by Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.
According to a senior Israeli official, the current round of talks could take at least two weeks and that the Israeli delegation will stay in Doha for the detailed talks with Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
“It is going to be a long, difficult and complex process but we want to try and get a deal,” the official was quoted as saying.
2024-03-19 09:17:51
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for immediate action to prevent the famine in northern Gaza, saying that the disaster was "entirely manmade".
"We must act now to prevent the unthinkable, the unacceptable, the unjustifiable," he wrote on X.
2024-03-18 23:58:43
The Israeli forces have destroyed almost 300 houses of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7, said the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Over 1,600 Palestinians have been displaced within the occupied terrorist, including East Jerusalem, since that time.
“The majority of those displaced (903) were during operations carried out by Israeli forces, especially in refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm, followed by displacement due to the lack of Israeli-issued permits (640), and displacement due to the demolition of homes on punitive grounds (138).”
2024-03-18 21:50:35
Israeli forces have claimed killing 20 Palestinian gunmen in Gaza's Al Shifa hospital and apprehended dozens of fighters, the Israeli military said on Monday.
The military said that it was "continuing to thwart terrorist activity in the Shifa hospital".
2024-03-18 20:55:29
THE HAGUE: Israel has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) not to issue emergency orders for it to step up humanitarian aid to Gaza to address a looming famine, dismissing South Africa's request to do so as "morally repugnant".
In a legal filing to the United Nations' top court, made public on Monday, Israel said it "has real concern for the humanitarian situation and innocent lives, as demonstrated by the actions it has and is taking" in Gaza during the war.
Lawyers for Israel denied allegations of deliberately causing humanitarian suffering in the enclave, where thousands have died and hunger is rising, and said South Africa's repeated requests for additional measures were an abuse of procedures.
The filing said South Africa's accusations in its request for new measures, filed March 6, are "wholly unfounded in fact and law, morally repugnant, and represent an abuse both of the Genocide Convention and of the court itself".
The new exchange between the parties is part of South Africa's ongoing case accusing Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attacks.
2024-03-18 19:38:37
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday said a report backed by the global agency saying that famine is now imminent in northern Gaza was an "appalling indictment" of conditions on the ground.
"This is an entirely manmade disaster — and the report makes clear that it can be halted," Guterres told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York, calling on Israel to ensure access for humanitarian goods throughout Gaza.
2024-03-18 18:39:15
Famine is imminent and likely to occur in the next two months in northern Gaza, a UN-backed report said on Monday, after more than five months of war which have shattered the Palestinian territory, killed thousands and cut off supplies.
Across the whole of the besieged enclave, the number of people at risk of "catastrophic hunger" has risen to 1.1 million, about half the population, the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said.
The assessment by the UN-backed initiative — a scale used by UN agencies, regional bodies and aid groups that sets the global standard on measuring food crises — comes amid global pressure on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave of 2.3 million people.
Some 300,000 are cut off by fighting in the north.
"Famine is now projected and imminent in the North Gaza and Gaza Governorates and is expected to become manifest during the projection period from mid-March 2024 to May 2024," it said.
2024-03-18 16:00:28
The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on Monday the hunger in the Gaza Strip is "man-made".
"We are engaged in a race against the clock to try to reverse the impact of the spreading hunger and the looming famine in the Gaza Strip," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said during a press conference in Cairo with Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry.
The crisis can be resolved and reversed through proper political will and Gaza can be "flooded" with food through the crossings, he added.
2024-03-18 15:41:57
The European Union's foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell said on Monday that he was confident the EU would find an agreement on Monday to impose sanctions on both Hamas and violent Israeli West Bank settlers.
"It seems that today all will agree on putting sanctions on both Hamas and the violent settlers who are harassing Palestinians in the West Bank," he told reporters ahead of a foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.
The EU is close to agreeing sanctions on Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank after Hungary signalled an end to its opposition, European diplomats said on Friday.
2024-03-18 15:31:39
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that Israel is provoking famine in Gaza and using starvation as a weapon of war.
"In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine, we are in a state of famine, affecting thousands of people," Borrell said at the opening of a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza in Brussels.
"This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine."
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz in a response urged Borrell to "stop attacking Israel and recognise our right to self-defense".
2024-03-18 14:41:33
More than 31,726 Palestinians have been killed and 73,792 have been injured in Israeli military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Some 81 Palestinians were killed and 116 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-03-18 14:37:40
Israel will send a high-level delegation headed by its Mossad chief to Qatar on Monday for mediated talks with Hamas designed to secure a six-week Gaza truce under which the Palestinian fighters would free 40 hostages, an Israeli official said.
This stage of the negotiations could take at least two weeks, the official estimated, citing difficulties that Hamas' foreign delegates may have in communicating with the group in the besieged enclave after more than five months of war.
2024-03-18 12:39:50
At least 80 Palestinians were detained by Israeli soldiers as they raided Shifa Hospital in Gaza, according to a report by Al Jazeera on Monday, citing the Times of Israel.
According to the Israeli publication, citing its military, Hamas fighters and the occupational military "exchanged fire" inside the building. Just one Israeli soldier sustained a "light injury" and, the IDF claimed, several Hamas militants were killed and injured.
The lives of hundreds of displaced citizens, patients, and medical personnel taking refuge at the hospital have been put in danger by Israeli soldiers breaking into the facility, according to the Gaza health ministry.
2024-03-18 11:41:44
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz questioned the terribly high costs of Israel's offensive in Gaza on Sunday, saying the world could not simply stand by and watch as Palestinians risk starvation in the enclave.
Speaking after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Scholz said he had shared his concerns about the high number of civilian casualties and insufficient aid reaching Gaza where aid agencies say famine is looming.
While many countries have expressed similar concerns, the warning was unusually stark for the German leader, who has continuously underscored Israel's right to defend itself after an October 7 attack.
Germany has been one of Israel's staunchest allies alongside the United States, underlining its duty to stand by the country's side in atonement for its perpetration of the Nazi Holocaust.
"The more desperate the situation of the people in Gaza becomes, the more this begs the question: No matter how important the goal, can it justify such terribly high costs, or are there other ways to achieve your goal?" Scholz said in English at a joint appearance with Netanyahu.
"We cannot stand by and watch Palestinians risk starvation," he said. "That's not us. That is not what we stand for."
2024-03-18 11:30:31
The ministry of health in Gaza Monday said around 30,000 Palestinians were trapped in Shifa Hospital as Israeli snipers and quadcopters were targeting anyone who tried to make a movement, Al Jazeera reported.
Those trapped, amid Israeli forces’ raid, include displaced Palestinians, injured patients and medical staff, the ministry said in a message on Telegram.
The ministry relayed that the current raid on the health facility was Israel’s fourth since October 7.
2024-03-18 10:27:10
The Israeli military said on Monday its troops conducted a "precise operation" in the compound of Gaza's Shifa Hospital during which there was an exchange of fire with Palestinian fighters.
It said soldiers entering the compound were fired on. "The troops responded with live fire and hits were identified. Our troops are continuing to operate in the area of the hospital."
2024-03-18 09:18:51
The Israeli military has killed more than13,000 children in Gaza since October 7 while others are being affected fromsevere malnutrition and do not “even have the energy to cry”, said the UN’s children’s agency, UNICEF.
“Thousands more have been injured or we can’t even determine where they are. They may be stuck under rubble… We haven’t seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the CBS News network.
2024-03-17 22:44:36
With Israel continues grave human rights violation and barbarism in occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza and the West Bank, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on Rafah invasion.
The Israeli prime minister made the remarks during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
He said they had a “very serious and important conversation among friends”.
Netanyahu said Scholz emphasised protecting civilians and increasing humanitarian aid during their meeting.
He further said “Hamas has to be eliminated”, adding that he wanted to proceed with a ground attack on Rafah after moving the population.
“Peace is unsustainable without a strong Israel,” he said.
2024-03-17 21:03:28
EU's Von Der Leyen has said that it is critical to achieve an agreement on a ceasefire in Gaza rapidly now.
2024-03-17 19:41:36
The large number of civilian casualties that would result from an Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah would make regional peace "very difficult", German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday after talks with Jordanian King Abdullah.
This is one of the main arguments he will bring to talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later on Sunday during his whirlwind trip to the region, he said.
"Right now, it is about ensuring we come to a long-lasting ceasefire," Scholz said after talks with Abdullah at his private residence in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.
"That would enable us to prevent such a ground offensive from taking place."
Asked if he was prepared to exert pressure on Netanyahu to stop such an assault, Scholz said it was "very clear we must do everything so the situation does not get worse than it already is."
"Israel has every right to protect itself .. At the same time, it cannot be that those in Gaza who fled to Rafah are directly threatened by whatever military actions and operations are undertaken there."
2024-03-17 18:33:25
CAIRO: Trucks of flour have reached northern Gaza for distribution to areas that have had no aid in four months, Palestinian media reported on Sunday, with famine looming in the enclave and truce talks between Israel and Hamas due to resume in Qatar.
A convoy of 12 trucks arrived in the north on Saturday — six in Gaza City and six in the Jabalia refugee camp — carrying supplies to also be distributed to the northernmost areas of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, the media and residents said.
The Hamas-linked Home Front media outlet reported that the aid was distributed by the "Popular Committees", a group that includes leaders of powerful clans in Gaza. A Hamas source said the route was secured by Hamas security personnel.
2024-03-17 17:17:13
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel's allies have a short memory regarding Hamas' October 7 attack, and that Israel would push on with its Gaza offensive despite growing international pressure.
"To our friends in the international community I say: is your memory so short? So quickly you forgot about October 7, the worst massacre committed against Jews since the Holocaust?" Netanyahu said at the start of his cabinet meeting.
"So quickly you are ready to deny Israel the right to defend itself against the monsters of Hamas?"
Netanyahu reiterated that Israel would push on with its offensive in Gaza, including in the city of Rafah, while evacuating civilians from combat zones.
2024-03-17 15:57:09
UNITED NATIONS: The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Sunday implored Israel "in the name of humanity" not to begin an assault on Rafah, where the majority of Gaza''s population is fleeing.
"I''m gravely concerned about reports of an Israeli plan to proceed with a ground assault on Rafah," WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X.
"Further escalation of violence in this densely populated area would lead to many more deaths and suffering," he added.
"In the name of humanity, we appeal to Israel not to proceed and instead to work towards peace.
2024-03-17 14:56:57
At least 31,645 Palestinians have been killed and 73,676 injured since October 7 in Israel's military offensive on the Gaza Strip, the enclave's health ministry said on Sunday.
2024-03-17 14:28:30
US and Jordanian aircraft on Saturday dropped food supplies to Palestinian civilians trapped in the Gaza Strip in a joint humanitarian aid operation, US Central Command said.
The airdrops by a US Air Force C-130 aircraft and a Royal Jordanian Air Force C-130 aircraft came as the main UN agency working in the enclave said that one in three children under age two is acutely malnourished. It warned of looming famine.
In a statement, US Central Command called the airdrops "part of a sustained effort and we continue to plan follow-on aerial deliveries."
Queen Rania of Jordan, in a CNN interview, called the airdrops "literally just drops in the ocean of unmet needs" and she accused Israel of "cutting off everything that is required to sustain a human life: food, fuel, medicine, water."
Countries should not be using the airdrops "as an excuse" for not pressing Israel into agreeing to an "immediate and sustained ceasefire, opening all access points into Gaza", she said.
2024-03-17 12:39:21
The main UN aid agency operating in Gaza said on Saturday that acute malnutrition is rising more quickly in the north of the enclave as Israel prepared to send a delegation to Qatar for new ceasefire talks.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said one in three children under the age of 2 in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished amid growing pressure on Israel over looming famine in the embattled enclave.
Israel said on Friday it would send a delegation to Qatar for more talks with mediators after Hamas presented a new proposal for a ceasefire with an exchange of hostages and prisoners.
The delegation will be led by the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeking to convene the security cabinet to discuss the proposal before the talks start.
2024-03-17 12:20:42
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Israel on Saturday to allow humanitarian aid access to Gaza on a larger scale, ahead of a two-day trip to the Middle East.
Scholz will travel to the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba on Saturday to meet on Sunday with Jordan's King Abdullah before flying on to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"It is necessary for aid to reach Gaza on a larger scale now. That will be a topic that I also have to talk about," Scholz told journalists ahead of his trip.
He also voiced concern about Israel's planned offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. "There is a danger that a comprehensive offensive in Rafah will result in many terrible civilian casualties, which must be strictly prohibited," he added.
Germany's air force dropped pallets with four tons of relief goods by air into the enclave. "Every package counts. But airdrops are just a drop in the ocean," the foreign ministry said on the social media platform X.
2024-03-17 11:24:37
The head of Israeli intelligence is expected to lead ceasefire talks with mediators which resume in Qatar on Sunday in direct response to a new proposal from Hamas, a source close to the talks told Reuters on Saturday.
The talks between Mossad head David Barnea, Qatar’s prime minister and Egyptian officials will focus on remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas including over prisoner releases and humanitarian aid, the source said.
Israel had said on Friday it would be sending a delegation to Doha, but did not spell out when it would do so or who would take part. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to convene the security cabinet before the talks.
Israeli officials were not immediately available to comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
2024-03-17 11:16:22
A second cargo of food aid was ready to depart by sea from Cyprus to Gaza on Saturday, the island's president said, after a first aid shipment landed in the besieged Palestinian enclave overnight.
Almost 200 tonnes of food arrived in the enclave late on Friday, the first shipment in a new aid route to the Gaza Strip, devastated by five months of war.
"The first ship has started its return to Cyprus, and we are ready to dispatch the second ship," Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides told journalists.
The second ship, with 240 tonnes of aid, was moored at Larnaca port awaiting a signal to sail.
US based charity World Central Kitchen (WCK), which arranged the mission with the UAE and Spanish charity Open Arms with support from the Cypriot government, said the new shipment included pallets of canned goods and bulk products.
2024-03-17 10:09:28
The main UN aid agency operating in Gaza said on Saturday that acute malnutrition was accelerating in the north of the Palestinian enclave as Israel prepared to send a delegation to Qatar for new ceasefire talks on a hostage deal with Hamas.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said one in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished, putting more pressure on Israel over the looming famine.
On Friday, Israel said it would send a delegation to Qatar for more talks with mediators after its enemy Hamas presented a new proposal for a ceasefire with an exchange of hostages and prisoners.
The delegation will be led by the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, a source familiar with the talks said, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeking to convene his security cabinet to discuss the proposal before the talks start. Netanyahu's office has said the latest Hamas offer was still based on "unrealistic demands."
2024-03-16 23:45:14
Israeli settlers attacked homes of Palestinians in two villages south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, reported Al Jazeera.
The Wafa news agency cited unnamed sources as saying the village of Burin was attacked by settlers who pelted Palestinians with stones and fired live ammunition into the air as a threat. No injuries were reported.
It also quoted Suleiman Dawabsheh, head of the village council of Duma, as saying Israeli settlers stormed a community and threatened residents with forcible eviction.
2024-03-16 22:56:20
Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi has said that the troops are on alert as the country is engaged in a “multi-front war” with Palestinians in occupied areas during Ramadan, reported Al Jazeera.
“We are more alert this month. Really be very vigilant, very careful, with very good security,” he said in a video released by the Israeli military, adding Israel is engaged in a “multi-front war” with Palestinians in occupied areas as well as fighters in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
2024-03-16 20:32:50
At least 31,553 Palestinians have been killed, and 73,546 injured since October 7, in Israel's military offensive on the Gaza Strip, the enclave's health ministry said on Saturday.
Some 63 Palestinians were killed and 112 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
Here are the latest casualty figures:
Gaza
Occupied West Bank
Israel
In Israel, officials revised the death toll from the October 7 attacks down from 1,405 to 1,139, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-03-16 17:45:19
One in three children under age 2 in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished and famine is looming, the main UN agency operating in the Palestinian enclave said on Saturday.
"Children's malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza," the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said in a social media post.
2024-03-16 15:21:03
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has called for “a courageous and humanitarian international position through a binding resolution in the UN Security Council to force the occupation to cease fire immediately”.
“The ceasefire is the only way to protect civilians and stop Netanyahu’s use of their lives as a card for blackmail,” it said on X.
2024-03-16 12:37:23
Palestinians in Gaza held the first Friday prayers of Ramadan outside the ruins of a mosque levelled in Israel's offensive, one of hundreds the Gaza authorities say have been damaged or destroyed in Israeli attacks since October.
Scores of worshippers knelt in rows in the street by the wreckage of the al-Farouk mosque in Rafah, laying out their prayer mats in the shadow of a white minaret marking all that remains of the otherwise flattened building.
The words "Al-Farouk mosque" were painted on the side of a marquee in the street serving as a temporary place of worship, amid surrounding urban desolation.
Abu Jehad, a lawyer who fled to Rafah from his home in Gaza City, said he had attended Friday prayers in a field. "The whole land is the land of God, so we can pray anywhere. The occupation can't deprive us of that," said the father of six, referring to Israel.
People were praying in tents, damaged mosques and the streets, said Abu Jehad, who was reached by phone.
2024-03-16 12:19:08
The White House on Friday said a proposal from Hamas fighters on a Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal is certainly within the bounds of what is possible and expressed cautious optimism.
Hamas has presented a Gaza ceasefire proposal to mediators and the US that includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for freedom for Palestinian prisoners, 100 of whom are serving life sentences, according to a proposal seen by Reuters.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the proposal was "certainly within the bounds in broad brush strokes ... of the deal we've been working on now for several months."
"We're cautiously optimistic that things are moving in the right direction but that doesn't mean that it's done," Kirby told reporters.
2024-03-16 11:37:38
President Joe Biden Friday condemned what he termed an ugly resurgence of Islamophobia since the October 7 start of the Israel-Gaza war but a leading Muslim advocacy group dismissed his comment and urged a change in US policy instead.
Biden issued his statement on the International Day to Combat Islamophobia, established in 2022 by the United Nations on March 15, the anniversary of the 2019 Christchuch, New Zealand, mosque shootings in which 51 people were killed during Friday prayers.
Human rights advocates have cited a rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism in the US and elsewhere.
US incidents that raised alarm include the fatal October stabbing of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume in Illinois, the November shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont, and the February stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas.
2024-03-16 11:14:51
A Marshall Islands-flagged liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanker reported two explosions near the ship as it travelled off the coast of Yemen's port city of Hodeidah, the third merchant vessel attack of the past 48 hours, British security firm Ambrey said on Friday.
The crew from the ship involved in the latest Red Sea incident was US-owned until recently, Ambrey said.
The Master of a merchant vessel located in a similar area reported an explosion a distance off the vessel's starboard beam, according to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKTMO). Reuters was not immediately able to verify if the same ship was the subject of the two reports.
In solidarity with Palestinians against Israel's war in Gaza, Houthi fighters in Yemen have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since mid-November.
Their attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to take longer and more expensive journeys around the southern end of Africa.
There was no damage or crew injuries reported to ships involved in the earlier attacks.
2024-03-16 10:00:04
Israel on Friday approved a potential assault on the Gaza city of Rafah while also keeping ceasefire hopes alive with plans to send another delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible hostage deal with Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he had okayed a plan to attack the city on the southern edge of the shattered Palestinian enclave where more than half of its 2.3 million residents are sheltering after five months of war.
Global allies and critics have urged Netanyahu to hold off attacking Rafah, fearing mass civilian casualties. But Israel says it is one of the last strongholds of Hamas whom it has pledged to eliminate and that residents will be evacuated.
2024-03-15 19:31:13
Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Friday criticised the "unilateral" designation by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of an ally and leading business figure as prime minister with a mandate to help reform the Palestinian Authority (PA) and rebuild Gaza.
Mohammad Mustafa's appointment comes after mounting pressure to overhaul the governing body of the occupied Palestinian territories and improve governance in the occupied West Bank where it is based.
Hamas said the decision was taken without consulting it despite recently taking part in a meeting in Moscow also attended by Abbas's Fatah movement to end long-time divisions weakening Palestinian political aspirations.
"We express our rejection of continuing this approach that has inflicted and continues to inflict harm on our people and our national cause," Hamas said in a statement.
"Making individual decisions and engaging in superficial and empty steps such as forming a new government without national consensus only reinforces a policy of unilateralism and deepens division."
At a time of war with Israel, Palestinians needed a unified leadership preparing for free democratic elections involving all components of their society, it added.
2024-03-15 17:34:52
DUBAI: Egypt is hoping to reach a deal within a few days for a ceasefire in Gaza that would boost aid deliveries and allow displaced people in the enclave's south to move back north, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Friday.
Sisi also warned against the danger of an Israeli incursion into the city of Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million people have sought shelter next to Gaza's border with Egypt.
Aid officials have warned of looming famine in the coastal enclave, home to 2.3 million people, with the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip's ruling Palestinian Islamist group Hamas now in its sixth month.
"We wish within a few days at most to reach a ceasefire and not to have a negative development that could affect the situation," Sisi said in comments recorded during a visit to a police academy.
"We are talking about reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, meaning a truce, providing the biggest quantity of aid," he said. This would include "curbing the impact of this famine on people, and also allowing for the people in the centre and the south to move towards the north, with a very strong warning against incursion into Rafah".
Sisi added: "We warned of what is happening, that aid not entering would lead to famine."
2024-03-15 14:47:24
Australia will resume funding to the United Nations' main Palestinian relief agency, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Friday, almost two months after pausing ties over mere allegations that some of the agency's employees participated in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Australia had consulted with UNRWA and other donors and was satisfied the aid agency was not a terror organisation, Wong said. New and additional safeguards would protect aid money, and A$6 million ($3.9 million) in paused funding would be released immediately, she said.
"We have children and families that are starving and we have a capacity along with the international community to assist them," Wong said at a news conference.
"We know that UNRWA is central and vital to delivering that assistance."
2024-03-15 12:49:59
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly of Pakistan on Friday unanimously approved a resolution condemning Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip.
The resolution moved by Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Shazia Marri condemned the Israeli aggression and demanded immediate ceasefire.
It urged the government to play a more proactive role in pushing the global community for intervention in the conflict to enforce a ceasefire in Gaza.
The lower house offered Fateha for more than 35,000 Palestinians martyred during months-long Israeli aggression in Gaza.
2024-03-15 12:16:51
At least 29 Palestinians were killed while awaiting aid in two separate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said.
In the first incident, Palestinian health officials in the coastal enclave said eight people were killed in an airstrike on an aid distribution centre in Al-Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Later, at least 21 people were killed and more than 150 wounded by Israeli gunfire at a crowd awaiting aid trucks at a northern Gaza roundabout, Gaza's health ministry said.
In a statement, Israel's military denied attacking aid centres, describing the reports as "false."
"As the IDF assesses the incident with the thoroughness that it deserves, we urge the media to do the same and only rely on credible information," the statement said.
2024-03-15 12:14:36
The US on Thursday finalised its draft UN Security Council resolution on the Israel-Hamas war, traditionally the final step before asking for a vote on the text that would back international efforts to broker an immediate ceasefire as part of a hostage release deal.
The final draft, seen by Reuters "unequivocally supports international diplomatic efforts to establish an immediate and sustained ceasefire as part of a deal that releases the hostages, and that allows the basis for a more durable peace to alleviate humanitarian suffering."
It was not immediately clear when or if the US would ask the 15-member council to vote on the text negotiated over the past month. To pass, a resolution needs at least nine votes and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, Russia or China.
The US could still make further changes to the draft.
2024-03-15 11:53:57
Thousands in Israel took to the streets on Thursday in two separate protests, one demanding an immediate release of hostages from Gaza and another calling for drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into the military.
The protests were public displays of growing divisions in Israeli society and politics five months into the Gaza war.
Protesters calling for the release of hostages marched from a Tel Aviv square carrying enlarged images of women held in Gaza, briefly blocking the highway at one point.
"Bringing them back as soon as possible will be the only image of victory from this damned war," one woman yelled into a megaphone. Others chanted: "Deal, now!"
2024-03-15 11:20:17
The leader of Yemen's Houthis, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said on Thursday the group's operations targeting vessels will escalate to prevent Israel-linked ships from passing through the Indian Ocean towards the Cape of Good Hope.
"Our main battle is to prevent ships linked to the Israeli enemy from passing through not only the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but also the Indian Ocean towards the Cape of Good Hope. This is a major step and we have begun to implement our operations related to it," al-Houthi said in a televised speech.
The group has been attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November 2024 in solidarity with Palestinians during Israel's war in Gaza.
Around 34 Houthi members have been killed since the group began the attacks, al-Houthi added.
2024-03-15 11:11:53
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the state-run Palestinian news agency WAFA said on Thursday.
Mustafa's appointment comes after mounting pressure to reform the governing body of the occupied Palestinian territories and improve its governance in the occupied West Bank where they are based.
The new prime minister was assigned to lead the relief and rebuilding of the Gaza Strip, and reform the institutions of the Palestinian Authority, WAFA added.
The PA held administrative control over Gaza until 2007 after Hamas won the 2006 elections in the occupied territories and expelled it from the strip.
2024-03-15 10:47:13
Italy has continued to export arms to Israel, the Italian defence minister said on Thursday, despite assurances last year that the government was blocking such sales following Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip.
However, Guido Crosetto told parliament that only previously signed orders were being honoured after checks had been made to ensure the weaponry would not be used against Gaza civilians.
Under Italian law, arms exports are banned to countries that are waging war and those deemed to be violating international human rights.
Crosetto announced last year following the explosion of violence in Gaza that the Italian authority which oversees the sale of military goods, known as Uama, had blocked authorisation of the transfer of arms to Israel.
However, picking apart data from statistics agency ISTAT, independent media outlet Altreconomia this week reported that Italy had exported 2.1 million euros ($2.30 million) in arms and munitions to Israel in the last three months of 2023.
2024-03-15 10:39:58
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said a new Gaza truce proposal presented by the fighter group Hamas to mediators on Thursday was still based on "unrealistic demands."
The statement said an update on the issue will be presented to the war cabinet and extended security cabinet on Friday.
2024-03-15 10:26:50
Palestinian fighter group, Hamas said on Thursday it presented to mediators a comprehensive vision of a truce deal that is based on stopping the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, providing relief and aid, the return of displaced Gazans to their houses, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
The vision also included the group's stance on the prisoners-hostages exchange deal, Hamas added in a statement, but did not elaborate.
2024-03-14 23:02:20
The European Union's top humanitarian aid official said on Thursday he had seen no evidence from Israel to back its accusations against staff from the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), which should continue playing a "critical" role in Gaza.
UNRWA, which provides aid and services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and across the region, has been in crisis since Israel accused a dozen of its staff of involvement in the Oct 7 Hamas attacks against Israel.
The allegations prompted UNRWA's biggest donor, the United States, and some others to pause funding, putting the agency's future in doubt.
The head of UNRWA earlier this month expressed cautious optimism that some donors would soon return, though US officials said Washington's pause in funding might become permanent due to opposition in Congress.
2024-03-14 21:58:51
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif lauded Qatar's contribution to peace efforts in war-torn Gaza as Israel continued massacre of Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
During a meeting with Qatar’s ambassador to Pakistan Ali Mubarak Ali Essa Al-Khater, who called on him in Islamabad today, PM Shehbaz thanked Amir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Deputy Amir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani for their warm messages of felicitations on his re-election as the premier.
Talking about the Israel’s war crimes and grave human right violations in the Strip, the PM said: “It is disappointing that violence is continuing in Gaza even during the holy month of Ramadan.”
2024-03-14 20:50:43
The Palestinian Ministy of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has slammed Israel for imposing restrictions on access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque ahead of the first Friday of Ramadan.
In a statement on X quoted by Al-Jazeera, the ministry said that the Israeli army had put in place iron gates at three of the main entrances to the compound "in blatant violation of international law" and in breach of its obligations as an occupying power.
The Palestinian foreign ministry urged the international community to intervene and defend international laws and provisions.
On the other hand, Israeli police earlier denied setting up new barriers and dismissed the news as rumours aimed at "raising tensions." It said maintenance work was being carried out to replace the security gate.
2024-03-14 19:19:55
2024-03-14 15:49:29
There are already pockets of famine in Gaza and it could spread to the whole region, the EU's humanitarian aid and crisis management chief Janez Lenarcic said on Thursday.
Speaking to journalists, he urged Israel to open more road routes to deliver aid to Gaza.
Lenarcic said air drops and sea corridor would not make up for opening more land routes to deliver aid to Gaza.
2024-03-14 15:44:09
In Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, an Israeli missile hit a house, killing nine people on Thursday, Palestinian medics said. Residents said Israeli aerial and ground bombardments continued overnight on areas across the enclave including in Rafah in the south, where over a million displaced people are sheltering.
2024-03-14 15:43:07
Israeli forces gunned down six Palestinians and wounded dozens of others as crowds of residents awaited aid trucks in Gaza City, Gaza health ministry officials said on Thursday.
Palestinians were rushing to get aid supplies at the Kuwait roundabout in northern Gaza City late on Wednesday evening when Israeli forces opened fire, residents and health officials said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident.
The conflict in Gaza has displaced most of the enclave's 2.3 million population and there have been chaotic scenes and deadly incidents at aid distributions as desperately hungry people scramble for food.
On February 29, Palestinian health authorities reported that Israeli forces shot dead more than 100 Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery near Gaza City.
2024-03-14 15:31:58
At least 31,341 Palestinians have been killed and 73,134 wounded in Israel's military offensive on the Gaza Strip since October 7, the enclave's health ministry said on Thursday.
2024-03-14 12:42:40
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired one anti-ship ballistic missile from Yemen into the Gulf of Aden, but it caused no damage to any vessels.
"The missile did not impact any vessels and there were no injuries or damage reported," CENTCOM added in a statement early on Thursday.
"United States Central Command then successfully engaged and destroyed four unmanned aerial systems (UAVs) and one surface-to-air missile in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, it said, adding "it was determined these weapons presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region."
Acting in solidarity with Palestinians since mid-November against Israeli military's carrying out bloodshed in Gaza, Houthi fighters have launched drones and missiles warning to halt Israeli trade through international commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden.
2024-03-14 12:29:29
Israel will try to "flood" the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid from a variety of entry points, the main military spokesman said on Wednesday as international pressure mounted to address the growing problem of hunger in the besieged enclave.
After more than five months of war in Gaza, aid agencies have warned that the area's 2.3 million population face a growing risk of famine unless food supplies are stepped up sharply and they have accused Israel of not doing enough to ensure sufficient aid gets through.
Israel says it has placed no limits on the amount of aid that it will allow in to Gaza, and blames failures by the aid agencies for delays but it has faced mounting demands even from its closest allies to do more.
"We are trying to flood the area, to flood it with humanitarian aid," military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a group of foreign reporters.
2024-03-14 11:51:15
Washington is working to coordinate a multinational effort to set up a maritime aid corridor into Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, part of a US strategy of "flooding the zone" with humanitarian assistance.
President Joe Biden last week announced plans for the US military to set up a dock on Gaza's Mediterranean coast that will enable distribution of up to two million meals a day in Gaza. Aid agencies say five months of war between Israel and Hamas has driven much of the population there to the brink of famine.
Blinken held a video conference on Wednesday with officials from Cyprus, Britain, the UAE, Qatar, the European Union and the United Nations to discuss getting the new route up and running.
The US was also working with Israel on the corridor, also supported by Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Canada, but it would take time to establish the corridor, Blinken told reporters at the State Department.
"I want to emphasise it is a complement to, not a substitute for, other ways of getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza, and in particular overland routes remain the most critical way to get assistance in and then to people who need it," Blinken said.
2024-03-14 10:43:56
The Biden Administration is expected to impose new sanctions on two illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank that were used as a base for attacks by "extremist" Israeli settlers against Palestinians, Axios reported late on Wednesday, citing three US officials.
The sanctions, expected to be imposed as soon as Thursday, are intended to send a message that the US is not only targeting individuals but also entities involved in providing logistical and financial support to attacks against Palestinians, Axios said citing one US official.
New sanctions will also be imposed on three Israeli settlers, the US officials told Axios. The US State Department did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the Axios report.
The administration also said in February that Israel's expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank was inconsistent with international law, signalling a return to long-standing US policy on the issue that had been reversed by the previous administration of Donald Trump.
Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Palestinians want as the core of an independent state. It has built Jewish settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and biblical ties to the land.
2024-03-13 22:56:28
An Italian appeals court refused on Wednesday to send a suspected Palestinian man to Israel, saying he risked "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" if he was extradited.
The man, named by the court as Anan Kamal Afif Yaeesh, 36, was one of three Palestinians arrested in central Italy on suspicion they were planning attacks in an unspecified country.
Israel applied for the extradition of Yaeesh, but his lawyer opposed the request, presenting reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on prison conditions for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
In a written ruling, a panel of three judges in the central city of L'Aquila sided with the defence, saying Yaeesh would face "acts constituting a violation of human rights" if the extradition request was granted.
2024-03-13 22:16:18
Israeli lawmakers gave their final approval on Wednesday to an amended 2024 state budget that adds tens of billions of shekels to fund Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, as the conflict runs into its sixth month.
The amended budget adds more spending on defence and compensation to households and businesses hurt by the war, which was sparked by Hamas' shock attack on Israel on Oct 7.
Members of the Knesset, or parliament, voted 63-55 in favour of the spending package of 584 billion shekels ($160 billion), or 724 billion including debt repayment. The plan also includes higher allocations for health, education, police and welfare.
2024-03-13 20:02:03
An Israeli drone strike on a car outside the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Wednesday killed a member of Hamas from the nearby Palestinian camp of Rashidieh, Israeli and Hamas officials said.
A Hamas source, speaking to Reuters, identified the member as Hadi Mustafa but said he was not a senior figure. Hamas's Al Aqsa television said Mustafa was a leader of the group's armed wing.
The Israeli military confirmed it had killed Mustafa in southern Lebanon and called him a "significant" Hamas operative, alleging he was responsible for attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.
Two security sources said a Syrian man who was passing by on his motorcycle was also killed in the strike, after earlier saying that the two fatalities had been in Mustafa's car.
All three sources said the drone, which they identified as Israeli, hovered in the air above the site of the strike for several minutes after it was carried out.
2024-03-13 19:39:50
Here are the latest Palestinian casualty figures as of March 13
Gaza
Occupied West Bank
2024-03-13 17:57:02
Turkey views the airdrop of humanitarian aid to Gaza and a plan to deliver aid via a maritime route as positive developments, but thinks they fall short of resolving the core problem, the foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.
NATO member Turkey has been very critical of Israel for its attacks on Gaza and backed steps to try its leadership at the World Court for genocide. It has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire, sent thousands of tons of aid and urged the West to exert pressure on Israel for increased aid flows.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oncu Keceli told reporters at a briefing in Ankara that Turkey had sent 9,000 tons of medical equipment and aid for infants, as well as many parachutes to Jordan for the air drops, but added these were not enough to alleviate the struggle of Gazans.
"We view the United States searching for a solution to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as the result of the pressure imposed on it by the global public. On the other hand, we say that the real source of the problem needs to be solved," he said.
"Attempting to send aid via air, sea is admirable in a way. But focusing on such palliative solutions rather than focusing on the real issue seems, to us, as seeking to escape from the root of the issue," he said, adding that Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his delegation conveyed this to U.S. officials during talks in Washington last week.
Keceli said sending in aid by ground was easier, cheaper and more effective.
2024-03-13 14:04:30
US officials are preparing for a pause on funding the main UN agency for Palestinians to become permanent due to opposition in Congress, even as the Biden administration insists the aid group's humanitarian work is indispensable.
The United States, along with more than a dozen countries, suspended its funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in January after Israel accused 12 of the agency's 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the October 7 Hamas attack.
The UN has launched an investigation into the allegations, and UNRWA fired some staff after Israel provided the agency with information on the allegations.
2024-03-13 12:32:23
A Greek military vessel serving in the European Union's naval mission in the Red Sea has shot at two drones and pushed them back, a Greek Defence Staff official said on Wednesday.
The EU's mission in the Red Sea, dubbed Aspides, was launched in February to help protect the key maritime trade route from drone and missile attacks by Yemen's Houthis, who say they are retaliating against Israel's invasion of Gaza.
Greece has supplied a frigate in the mission.
2024-03-13 10:34:53
EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was "not anatural disaster”, accusing Israel of using starvation as a “weapon of war”.
“This is a man-made crisis,” Borrell told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
“When we look for alternative ways of providing support by sea or by air, we have to remind that we have to do it because the natural way of providing support to roads is being closed — artificially closed — and starvation is being used as a war arm.”
2024-03-13 10:02:29
Israeli forces killed at least four people Palestinians including a teenage boy as it carried outmore raids in the West Bank overnight,destroying infrastructure.
The little boy, who was among the victims, wasplaying with firecrackers, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-03-12 23:49:49
US military officials said on Tuesday that American forces had conducted a humanitarian assistance airdrop into northern Gaza on Tuesday along with Jordan's air force.
2024-03-12 23:26:33
US President Joe Biden would not support an Israeli military operation in Rafah that does not protect civilians, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday, noting that the White House has yet to see a credible plan to do so.
Biden believes the path to peace and stability in the region "does not lie in smashing into Rafah, where there are 1.3 million people, in the absence of a credible plan to deal with the population there," Sullivan said.
2024-03-12 22:19:41
US Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns said on Tuesday there was "still a possibility" of a Gaza ceasefire deal, although many complicated issues remain.
"I think there's still the possibility of such a deal. And as I said, it won't be for lack of trying on our part, working very closely with our Israeli, Qatari, and Egyptian counterparts. This is a very tough process. I don’t think anyone can guarantee success. The only thing I think you can guarantee is that the alternatives are worse," he told a House of Representatives hearing.
2024-03-12 21:04:34
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he was devastated to learn that dual US-Israel citizen Itay Chen was killed in Hamas' Oct 7 attack on Israel.
"I reaffirm my pledge to all the families of those still held hostage: we are with you. We will never stop working to bring your loved ones home," Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
Chen, who was serving in the Israeli army near the Gaza border, was earlier believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas.
2024-03-12 18:40:26
2024-03-12 17:10:51
At least 72 more Palestinians were martyred and 129 sustained injuries as Israel continued massacre of civilians unabated in the besieged enclave, even in the holy month of Ramadan, according to the health ministry.
At least 31,184 people in Gaza have been killed and 72,889 wounded by Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave since October 7, the ministry added.
2024-03-12 17:07:54
LAHORE: In a display of unwavering solidarity and humanitarian commitment, Alkhidmat Foundation Pakistan hasdispatched Ramadan food packages and a state-of-the-art ambulance to assist over 15,000 familiesto alleviate their suffering amid ongoing war.
The shipment, comprising 20 substantial trailers laden with 400 tons of essential food items, along with a modern ambulance, equipped with advanced medical facilities, were sent-off to Gaza from Ismailia, Egypt, through the Rafah border crossing.
2024-03-12 15:27:19
A coalition of progressive groups is asking US President Joe Biden and other Democratic Party officials to not accept endorsements or contributions from a pro-Israel group and its affiliated super PACs.
The "Reject AIPAC" coalition, which includes congressional group Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America group, is directed at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and affiliated groups. AIPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee, and the groups have already spent millions of dollars in the 2024 US elections cycle.
The groups' campaign accompanies an increasingly organised movement within the Democratic Party protesting Biden's support of Israel. Israel has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians in its military’s attacks on Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave, which has created a humanitarian catastrophe.
"The coalition has been in the works for many months to get organizations together that have recognised the destructive influence of AIPAC," Ashik Siddique, a co-chair for the Democratic Socialists of America, said.
The Reject AIPAC coalition said on Monday it was calling on the entire Democratic Party to not accept support from AIPAC, adding that the group takes millions of dollars from donors who also support Republican interests.
Asked for comment, AIPAC said in a statement that its sole criteria for evaluating candidates from both parties is their position on strengthening the US-Israel relationship.
2024-03-12 14:33:12
The number of antisemitic incidents in Switzerland has leapt since the Israel military’s aggression in the Gaza Strip on October 7, according to a report published on Tuesday.
The study by the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) and the Foundation against Racism and Antisemitism (GRA) showed the number of "real world" incidents shot up to 155 in 2023 - most of these after Oct. 7 - from 57 the previous year.
The "unprecedented increase" in cases included ten physical assaults, against one in the previous year, the study said, along with verbal insults, graffiti and antisemitic placards.
One of the most notorious recent cases occurred on March 2, when an orthodox Jewish man was stabbed and left with life-threatening injuries by a Swiss teenager.
The incident, described by SIG as the most serious antisemitic hate crime in Switzerland in two decades, caused widespread shock and concern, and led to enhanced security for Jewish sites in Zurich, where the attack took place.
2024-03-12 12:06:04
A ship taking almost 200 tonnes of food to Gaza left a port in Cyprus early Tuesday in a pilot project to open a new sea route of aid to a population on the brink of famine.
The charity ship Open Arms was seen sailing out of Larnaca port in Cyprus, towing a barge containing around 200 tonnes of flour, rice and protein.
2024-03-12 11:53:31
Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Monday demanded the United Nations Security Council "put as much pressure as possible" on Palestinian fighters Hamas to release the people it took hostage during the October 7 attack on Israel.
"We are asking you to condemn the sexual violence crimes these barbarians committed," Katz told the Security Council without providing an ounce of evidence about sexual violence. He also urged the body "to put as much pressure as possible on the Hamas organisation to release immediately and unconditionally all the kidnapped hostages."
He called for sanctions to be imposed on Hamas, accusing the group of crimes.
2024-03-12 11:24:12
Yemen's Houthi group fired missiles at a Liberian-flagged container ship in the Red Sea but the US Central Command claimed on Tuesday that it did not hit the vessel.
CENTCOM said two anti-ship ballistic missiles were fired at the Pinocchio from Yemeni territory, resulting in no damage or injuries.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea earlier on Tuesday said the group had targeted and hit the ship, which he described as "American".
The Pinocchio is a Liberian-flagged container ship owned by Singapore-registered company OM-MAR 5 INC, according to shipping databases operated by Equasis and the UN's International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
Sarea said the Houthi group would escalate their military operations during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in solidarity with Palestinians in response to the war in Gaza.
2024-03-12 10:22:22
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was undermining Israel with his approach to the war in Gaza and urged the country to change course or lose even more international support.
US President Biden said on Saturday that Netanyahu was "hurting Israel more than helping" by conducting the war in a way contrary to the country's values.
Asked about his comments on Tuesday, Wong agreed and said international support for Israel would continue to fray unless it addressed the "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza.
"October 7th was a terrorist attack and the world was rightly very sympathetic to and in solidarity with Israel at that time," Wong said at the Australian Financial Review Business Summit on Tuesday.
"I think the world is horrified with the current situation ... and I would say that unless Israel changes its course it will continue to lose support."
2024-03-12 09:04:13
In a bombshell report compiled by the US intelligence agencies, it has been revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “viability as a leader” is “in jeopardy”.
The assessment was made in an annual report on the national security threats facing the United States that was presented to Congress on Monday.
“Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections,” the report said.
“A different, more moderate government is a possibility.”
The prime minister has faced fierce criticism for his government’s failure to predict or forestall the October 7 attack in which 1,200 Israelis.
The intelligence report notes that the Israeli population broadly supports the destruction of Hamas. But its assessment of Netanyahu’s political fortunes nevertheless delivers a stark report on a leader President Joe Biden once claimed to “love.”
2024-03-11 22:19:38
Lebanon's Hezbollah group said it carried out a drone attack on Monday against an Israeli air defence outpost across the border in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
It said the rare attack, in which it deployed four drones, hit their target with "accuracy" in what it said was another operation in support of Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.
The Iran-aligned Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been exchanging fire along Lebanon's southern border since October, when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, facing war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
2024-03-11 20:24:26
Here are the latest Palestinian casualty figures as of March 11
Gaza
Occupied West Bank
2024-03-11 16:46:10
JERUSALEM/CAIRO: Israel was checking on Monday if Hamas's second-highest military leader died in an air strike, media said, as talks stumbled to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza war to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
If his death is confirmed, Marwan Issa would be the highest-ranking official from the resistance movement martyred by Israel in the more than five-month war that has pulverised the Palestinian enclave and killed thousands.
Israeli Army Radio said Israel had bombed the Al-Nusseirat camp in central Gaza on Saturday night, where it had intelligence about the location of Issa, second-in-command of Hamas's military wing the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades.
The attack martyred five people, the report said.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel was checking if the fatalities included Issa. Neither the Israeli military nor Hamas officials immediately commented on the media reports.
Issa is high on Israel's most wanted list, together with military wing head Mohammed Deif and Hamas's Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, who are believed to have masterminded the October 7 attack that triggered the conflict.
Issa's death, if confirmed, could also complicate efforts to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages, although Israel says talks are ongoing through Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
2024-03-11 15:32:53
2024-03-11 15:27:50
2024-03-11 13:21:35
At least 31,112 Palestinians have been killed and 72,760 wounded since October 7 in Israel's military offensive on the Gaza Strip, the enclave's health ministry said on Monday.
2024-03-11 10:07:19
When Holocaust drama "The Zone of Interest" was named best international feature, director Jonathan Glazer addressed the Israel-Gaza conflict in his acceptance speech.
"Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza. All the victims of this dehumanisation. How do we resist?" he said to cheers and applause.
A handful of celebrities, including Eilish, Mahershala Ali and Mark Ruffalo, wore red pins calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Outside, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters angered by the Israel-Gaza conflict shouted and slowed traffic in the streets surrounding the Dolby Theatre. "While you're watching, bombs are dropping," one sign read.
2024-03-11 09:13:55
As stars began arriving to walk the red carpet, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters angered by the Israel-Gaza conflict shouted and slowed traffic in the blocks surrounding the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
"While you're watching, bombs are dropping," one sign read.
On the red carpet, Oscar nominees, including Billie Eilish and Mark Ronson, wore red lapel pins calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Actor Mark Ruffalo praised the protesters as he entered the theater and raised a clenched fist. "We need peace," he said.
2024-03-11 08:48:25
Palestinians prepared for Ramadan in a sombre mood with heightened security measures by Israeli police and the spectre of war and hunger in Gaza overshadowing the normally festive Muslim holy month as talks to secure a ceasefire stalled.
Thousands of police have been deployed around the narrow streets of the Old City in Jerusalem, where tens of thousands of worshippers are expected every day at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, one of the holiest sites in Islam.
The area, considered the most sacred place by Jews who know it as Temple Mount, has been a longstanding flashpoint for trouble and was one of the starting points of the last war in 2021 between Israel and Hamas.
That 10-day conflict has been dwarfed by the current Israeli aggression in Gaza, which is now in its sixth month.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, said in a post on X that the month of Ramadan should "bring a ceasefire for those who have suffered the most" but instead for Gazans "it comes as extreme hunger spreads, displacement continues & fear + anxiety prevail amid threats of a military operation on #Rafah".
2024-03-11 00:05:37
Almost 5,500 students have been martyred in Gaza during the ongoing Israeli aggression, confirmed Sadeq al-Khadour, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Education.
“More than 261 faculty have been killed since the war began,” he said.
“Almost 286 out of 307 government school buildings sustained some damage,” Al Jazeera reported, quoting the official.
“We must remember that 620,000 students in the Gaza Strip have been out of school since October 7, including 320,000 in government facilities and 300,000 in UNRWA and private schools.”
2024-03-10 22:56:25
Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz said on Sunday the international community must assume its responsibilities to halt what he called "brutal crimes" against Palestinians in Gaza.
In a speech read on his behalf by Saudi Minister of Media Salman al-Dosari to mark the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the King also said the international community must help provide safe humanitarian passages in the enclave.
2024-03-10 20:54:18
Egypt was in contact with senior Hamas and Israeli figures as well as other mediators on Sunday in an effort to restart negotiations for a truce in the Gaza Strip during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on Monday or Tuesday, two Egyptian security sources said.
Egypt's contacts with Hamas and Israeli intelligence agency Mossad on Sunday were carried out under a mandate from the Egyptian presidency in an effort to bring the two sides' divergent positions together, the sources said, without providing further details.
Israel's Mossad said on Saturday that efforts to secure a deal were ongoing, despite dimming hopes for securing a truce before Ramadan starts.
2024-03-10 18:43:38
Joe Biden said Benjamin Netanyahu's approach to the war in Gaza was "hurting Israel more than helping Israel" in an interview aired Saturday, as the US leader's impatience with his Israeli counterpart grows increasingly visible.
With Gaza's humanitarian crisis growing more dire and Biden's left flank in uproar, the US president made contradictory remarks as to the question of a "red line" over Israel's threatened offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza.
Netanyahu "has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas," Biden said, but added that "he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken."
"In my view he is hurting Israel more than helping Israel," he said.
As to Israel's potential invasion of Rafah, where some 1.5 million of the territory's 2.4 million residents are now crammed, Biden was ambiguous.
"It is a red line," the 81-year-old Democrat said, immediately adding: "I am never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical.
"There is no red line (in which) I want to cut off all weapons so they don't have the Iron Dome (air defense system) to protect them."
2024-03-10 16:43:47
Palestinians prepared for Ramadan in sombre mood with heightened security measures by Israeli police and the spectre of war and hunger in Gaza overshadowing the normally festive Muslim holy month as talks to secure a ceasefire stalled.
Thousands of police have been deployed around the narrow streets of the Old City in Jerusalem, where tens of thousands of worshippers are expected every day at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, one of the holiest sites in Islam.
Depending on lunar observations, Ramadan will begin on Monday or Tuesday of this week.
But in contrast to previous years, the usual decorations around the Old City have not been put up and there was a similar sombre tone in towns across the occupied West Bank, where around 400 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with security forces, or Jewish settlers since the start of the war.
"We decided this year that the Old City of Jerusalem won't be decorated out of respect for the blood of our children and the elders and the martyrs," said Ammar Sider, a community leader in the Old City.
2024-03-10 14:02:49
At least 31,045 Palestinians have been killed and 72,654 have been wounded since October 7 in Israel's military offensive on the Gaza Strip, the enclave's health ministry said on Sunday.
2024-03-10 13:27:45
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is to attend the opening of the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam on Sunday amid a planned protest against Israel's killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.
The museum told media that it had invited Herzog before Israel's offensive in Gaza which has turned many neighbourhoods into ruins.
It said in a statement it recognised that Herzog's attendance raised questions but added that he represented the homeland of Dutch Holocaust survivors who emigrated to Israel.
"We express our deep concern regarding the upcoming opening of the Dutch National Holocaust Museum, where Israeli President Herzog is scheduled to attend," the Dutch Jewish anti-zionist organisation Erev Rav said.
2024-03-10 12:39:17
The US Army has dispatched a ship to send humanitarian aid to Gaza, Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday, days after President Joe Biden vowed to build a temporary pier to supply the besieged enclave.
The General Frank S. Besson left Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia "less than 36 hours after President Biden announced the US would provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza by sea," CENTCOM said in a statement.
The logistics support vessel is "carrying the first equipment to establish a temporary pier to deliver vital humanitarian supplies," it said.
2024-03-10 11:24:35
US President Joe Biden said in an MSNBC interview Saturday that Israel’s threatened invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza would be his “red line” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but then immediately backtracked, saying there was no red line and "I’m never going to leave Israel."
In a somewhat contradictory exchange with his interviewer, Biden said "they cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after" Hamas fighters.
Biden and his aides have urged Netanyahu in strong terms not to launch a major offensive in Rafah until Israel crafts a plan for mass evacuation of civilians from the last area of Gaza it has not yet invaded with ground forces. More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are sheltering in the Rafah area.
2024-03-10 09:27:42
Canada will resume funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency, International Aid Minister Ahmed Hussen said on Friday, becoming one of the first international donors to announce such a move.
Ottawa paused funding on January 26 after Israel alleged some of the staff at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) agency had been involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
"Canada will be lifting its temporary pause on funding to (UNRWA)," Hussen said in a statement, but did not say exactly when this would happen. "UNRWA plays a vital role in Gaza."
2024-03-10 08:47:45
Efforts to secure a deal on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza are ongoing, Israel's intelligence agency Mossad said on Saturday, despite dimming hopes for a truce during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Mossad chief David Barnea met on Friday with his US counterpart, CIA Director William Burns, to promote a deal that would see hostages released, Mossad said in a statement. US President Joe Biden said on Saturday that Burns remained in the region.
"Contacts and cooperation with the mediators continue all the time in an effort to narrow the gaps and reach agreements," Mossad said in the statement, which was distributed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the apparent deadlock in talks in the run-up to Ramadan, which begins on or around March 10.
2024-03-09 23:50:36
Efforts to secure a deal on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza were still ongoing, according to a statement by Israel's intelligence agency Mossad on Saturday, despite dimming hopes for a truce during the holy month of Ramadan.
Mossad chief David Barnea met on Friday with his US counterpart William Burns to promote a deal that would see hostages released, Mossad said in a statement distributed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
"Contacts and cooperation with the mediators continue all the time in an effort to narrow the gaps and reach agreements," Mossad said.
2024-03-09 22:16:36
2024-03-09 20:47:14
A ship laden with relief supplies for Gaza was preparing to depart Cyprus on Saturday as part of efforts to aid a population on the brink of famine.
The European Commission has said a maritime aid corridor between Cyprus and Gaza could start operating as early as this weekend in a pilot project run by an international charity and financed by the UAE.
The Open Arms, a vessel owned by a Spanish NGO and more accustomed to rescuing migrants at sea, was expected to be deployed in the first mission.
It was still at the port of Larnaca in Cyprus on Saturday afternoon, live images from Reuters TV showed, and authorities could not give a precise departure time.
Cyprus lies about 210 miles north-west of Gaza, or about 15 hours sailing time.
2024-03-09 19:36:41
Thousands of protesters have gathered in London, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza as Israel continues massacre of Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
Protesters are expected to march from Hyde Park to the US Embassy on the southern bank of the River Thames.
2024-03-09 18:18:30
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency is at "risk of death" after a string of donors suspended their funding over Israeli allegations some staff took part in the October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said.
"The agency is at risk of death, it is risking dismantlement," Lazzarini told Swiss broadcaster RTS in an interview aired on Saturday.
"What is at stake is the fate of the Palestinians today in Gaza in the short term who are going through an absolutely unprecedented humanitarian crisis."
2024-03-09 18:15:21
2024-03-09 18:14:51
2024-03-09 18:07:48
At least 30,960 Palestinians have been killed and 72,524 wounded since October 7 in Israel's military offensive on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.
Some 82 Palestinians were killed and 122 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-03-09 18:05:21
Turkish President Recep Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Ankara "firmly backs" Palestinian group Hamas, France 24 reported.
"No-one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organisation," he said in a speech in Istanbul. "Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them."
2024-03-09 17:54:37
American and French forces downed dozens of drones in the Red Sea on Saturday after Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis targeted bulk carrier Propel Fortune and US destroyers in the Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea since November in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians during the war in Gaza.
The group's military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech on Saturday they targeted the cargo vessel and "a number of US war destroyers at the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with 37 drones".
US Navy ships and aircraft shot down 15 uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) by the Houthis in the Red Sea area, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said earlier on Saturday.
The military was responding to a large-scale attack the group launched into the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden between 4am and 6:30am (1300-1530 GMT), CENTCOM said in a post on social media platform X.
The UAVs were determined to present "an imminent threat to merchant vessels, US Navy, and coalition ships in the region", it said.
A French warship and fighter jets also shot down four combat drones that were advancing towards naval vessels belonging to the European Aspides mission in the region, a French army statement said.
"This defensive action directly contributed to the protection of the cargo ship True Confidence, under the Barbados flag, which was struck on March 6 and is being towed, as well as other commercial vessels transiting in the area," it said.
2024-03-09 17:53:28
Israel struck one of the largest residential towers in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, residents said, stepping up pressure on the last area of the enclave it has not yet invaded and where over a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
The 12-floor building, located some 500 metres from the border with Egypt, was damaged in the strike. Dozens of families were made homeless though no casualties were reported, according to residents. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident.
One of the tower's 300 residents told Reuters that Israel gave them a 30-minute warning to flee the building at night.
"People were startled, running down the stairs, some fell, it was chaos. People left their belongings and money," said Mohammad Al-Nabrees, adding that among those who tripped down the stairs during the panicked evacuation was a friend's pregnant wife.
A Rafah-based official with the Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority that has limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, another Palestinian territory, said he feared that hitting the Rafah tower was a sign of an imminent Israeli invasion.
2024-03-09 17:53:13
Sweden said on Saturday it would resume suspended payments to the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), with a grant of 200 million crowns ($20 million).
Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after accusations by Israel that a dozen of the agency's 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The Swedish government said it had resumed payments after UNRWA agreed to strengthen internal controls and to extra checks on its employees, among other measures.
2024-03-08 23:21:52
Amid worsening hunger crisis and ongoing Israeli aggression in war-torn Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says it was up to Hamas to agree to a ceasefire.
“The ball is in their court. We’re working intensely on it and we’ll see what they do,” Blinken said ahead of a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
Blinken expressed support for a Palestinian state and encouraged “administrative reforms” of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in order to govern the enclave after the war.
2024-03-08 21:09:01
Women's Day? At a tent in Rafah where Um Zaki said she was boiling porridge on an open flame to stave off the hunger of her six children, the holiday passed as a cruel joke.
"Now, all our days look the same. The days of feasts, happy occasions, nice food, laughter and hope, are all gone because of the war," she told Reuters by phone.
"What is Women's Day? We are deprived of the minimal rights, we are deprived of living. Every day women die by Israeli bombs."
International Women's Day, March 8, is typically a major public holiday in the Palestinian territories, when Gaza families put on their finest clothes and flock to hotels and restaurants to celebrate their mothers, daughters and sisters.
Now, with Gaza's 2.3 million residents nearly all homeless and all struggling for survival, it was painful even to think of such things.
On a day she would normally wear makeup, her face was now streaked with soot from open air cooking fires, Um Zaki said. She started to tell of how her intimate laundry was strung outside the tent on a line for all to see. Another woman near her cried into the phone: "Women's Day! There is no Women's Day in Gaza. In Gaza we are close to Doomsday because of Israel!"
2024-03-08 18:26:43
2024-03-08 16:20:53
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she expected a maritime aid corridor to start operating between Cyprus and Gaza this weekend, taking desperately needed aid to besieged Palestinians.
Von der Leyen said a pilot test run of food aid collected by a charity group and supported by the United Arab Emirates could be leaving Cyprus as early as Friday from the port of Larnaca in Cyprus.
"We are launching this Cyprus maritime corridor together, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States," Von der Leyen said after a visit to facilities in Cyprus.
"We are now very close to opening this corridor, hopefully this Saturday-Sunday and I'm very glad to see an initial pilot will be launched today," she said alongside Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
One aid group, World Central Kitchen (WCK), is currently gathering food supplies in Larnaca for the people of Gaza, with support from the UAE.
2024-03-08 12:57:51
In a fiery 2024 State of the Union speech, US President Joe Biden said he had been working for an immediate ceasefire for the last six weeks between Hamas fighters and Israel, and he warned Israel against using aid to Gaza as a bargaining chip.
2024-03-08 11:39:04
International focus should be on large-scale distribution and entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza by land, but any way to deliver more aid is "obviously good," the United Nations said on Thursday after the US announced plans to build a sea port.
"Any way to get more aid into Gaza, whether by sea or airdrop, is obviously good," said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric when asked about the plan for a temporary port on Gaza's Mediterranean coast to receive humanitarian assistance.
Delivery of aid by land, however, is more cost- and volume-effective, Dujarric said, and "we need more entry points and we need a larger volume of aid to come in by land."
The UN has warned that at least 576,000 people in Gaza — one-quarter of the population — are on the brink of famine.
2024-03-08 10:43:19
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday said Ottawa had not decided whether it would resume funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency after Israel levelled allegation that some staff had been involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Earlier this week the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Associated Press cited unnamed government sources as saying Canada would reverse its Jan 26 decision to pause any additional funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
But Trudeau, asked directly whether this was the case, said Ottawa was waiting for the results of an internal United Nations probe into the Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA staff had been involved in the attacks.
"We're not making any announcements today ... we will continue to look at this situation. We will continue to watch the UN as it looks into what's happening within this organisation," he told reporters in Toronto.
A total of 16 donors, including the United States and Britain, have paused their funding to UNRWA.
"The ongoing humanitarian crisis and disaster in Gaza is heart-wrenching for everyone. We know how important it is to get aid into Gaza," said Trudeau, saying people in the enclave faced starvation. Local Gaza health officials say almost 31,000 people have died in Israel's offensive.
2024-03-08 10:40:43
Israel welcomes a US plan to build a "temporary dock" on the Gaza coast to deliver humanitarian aid by sea and will coordinate development of the project with the United States, an Israeli official said on Thursday.
Israel "fully supports" creation of such a facility, the official said on condition of anonymity after US officials said President Joe Biden would announce in his State of the Union speech that the US military will construct a port to receive food, medicine and other supplies for civilians in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
2024-03-08 08:49:55
Hamas on Thursday left Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo where there was no sign of progress due to Israel’s lack of interest just days before the start of Ramadan, while the US blamed the Palestinian fighter group for failure to strike a deal on Israeli hostages.
Israel blamed Hamas for the lack of agreement after four days of talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt about a 40-day ceasefire and itself did not attend the talks amid fears violence could escalate during the Muslim fasting month.
Egyptian security sources said talks, taking place without an Israeli delegation in Cairo, would resume on Sunday, the expected start of Ramadan.
Senior US administration officials said the onus was on Hamas to complete a hostage deal and attributed the delay to what they claimed as Hamas so far not agreeing to release sick and elderly hostages.
A Hamas official told Reuters the United States was in partnership with Israel and that such comments were misleading. Hamas has insisted that a ceasefire deal include a process toward ending the war altogether.
Hamas said earlier in a statement the delegation left Cairo to speak to the movement's leaders, "with negotiations and efforts continuing to stop the aggression, return the displaced and bring in relief aid to our people."
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters Israel had been "thwarting" efforts to conclude a ceasefire deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his intention on Thursday of pressing on with the military campaign in Gaza.
Israel has previously said its aim is to destroy Hamas and that any ceasefire must be temporary. It has also pressed for a list of hostages still alive and held by Hamas in Gaza.
"Needless to say, Israel will do whatever it takes to release our hostages... unfortunately, it is Hamas who is the stumbling block right now by not telling us who is alive and who they have in their custody," Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said. While, Hamas said it was impossible to give an exact count of the hostages amid the raging war as different groups had different number of people with them.
2024-03-07 23:04:39
Spain will give the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA an additional 20 million euros ($21.88 million) in aid, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Thursday.
This will be on top of the 3.5 million euros the country has already pledged in February.
The new funds are aimed at "supporting the organisation in its humanitarian work in Gaza and meeting the food, education and health needs of the nearly six million Palestinian refugees in the region," Albares said after meeting UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini in Madrid.
2024-03-07 20:18:45
Israel will push on with its offensive against Hamas, including into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite growing international pressure to stop, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
"There is international pressure and it's growing, but particularly when the international pressure rises, we must close ranks, we need to stand together against the attempts to stop the war," he said.
Addressing a graduation ceremony at a training school for Israeli army officers, Netanyahu also said Israel must push back against a "calculated attempt" to blame it for Hamas' crimes.
He added that Israel would operate throughout Gaza, "including Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold".
"Whoever tells us not to act in Rafah is telling us to lose the war and that will not happen," Netanyahu said.
2024-03-07 18:42:03
China on Thursday said that it supported Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations, urging a certain UN Security Council member to stop laying obstacles to that end.
“We call for a more broad-based, more authoritative, and more effective international peace conference to work out a timetable and road-map for the two-state solution,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a press conference held on the sidelines of the second session of the 14th National People’s Congress.
Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, called the failure to end the humanitarian disaster caused by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict today in the 21st century “a tragedy for humanity and a disgrace for civilization”.
“Nothing justifies the protraction of the conflict, or the killing of the civilian population,” he said. “The long occupation of the Palestinian territories is a fact that should not be ignored anymore, and that the long-cherished aspiration of the Palestinians for an independent state should not be evaded anymore,” he added.
2024-03-07 17:23:55
2024-03-07 16:22:33
Hamas' delegation left Cairo on Wednesday with Gaza ceasefire talks ongoing until an agreement is reached with Israel, the Palestinian group said in a statement.
2024-03-07 14:22:45
Two Belgian ministers have called for Israel's exclusion from the Eurovision Song Contest while the Gaza war is ongoing as a punitive measure for the toll on Palestinian civilians.
Controversy over the conflict has hit various cultural events, with organiser The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) resisting calls from some artists and activists for Israel to be dropped from Europe's May 7-11 annual song competition.
Belgium's French-speaking Culture Minister Benedicte Linard and Flemish counterpart Benjamin Dalle added their voices.
"Just like Russia has been excluded from competitions and Eurovision following its invasion of Ukraine, Israel should be excluded until it puts an end to its flagrant violations of international law, which are causing thousands of victims, especially children," she said on X.
2024-03-07 14:03:22
2024-03-07 13:37:26
In a speech at the Australian National University in Canberra, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the differences in the West's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza defied reason.
Anwar, who heads a Muslim majority nation, wondered, "Why ... has the West been so vociferous, vehement, and unequivocal in the condemnation of the Russia invasion of Ukraine while remaining utterly silent on the relentless, bloodletting inflicted on innocent men, women and children of Gaza."
The Malaysian prime minister attended an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Australia that ended on Wednesday.
The joint Australia-ASEAN statement on Wednesday reiterated concern over the "dire" humanitarian situation in Gaza, as well as calling for the release of hostages held in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
2024-03-07 12:36:41
Sweden has initiated a meeting with Israel's foreign ministry and several European Union member states as well as others "to convey the urgent need to improve humanitarian access to Gaza", Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Thursday.
"The life and health of children in Gaza must be protected," Kristersson said on social media X without providing more detail.
Aid delivery in the Palestinian enclave has collapsed, with only a fraction of the food needed getting in and very little reaching the northern areas where hospitals say children have started dying of malnutrition.
2024-03-07 12:26:57
A Houthi missile attack allegedly killed three seafarers on a Red Sea merchant ship on Wednesday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said, the first fatalities reported since the Iran-aligned Yemeni group began strikes against shipping in one of the world's busiest trade lanes.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, which set the Greek-owned, Barbados-flagged ship True Confidence ablaze around 50 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen's port of Aden.
The Houthis have been attacking ships in a campaign in solidarity with Palestinians demanding the world to stop the Israeli war in Gaza.
Britain and the United States have been launching strikes against the Houthis.
2024-03-07 11:09:23
The United Nations will assess on Thursday how it can use an Israeli military road bordering the Gaza Strip to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians in the north of the Palestinian enclave, a senior UN aid official said.
The UN has warned that at least 576,000 people in Gaza – one-quarter of the population – are on the brink of famine.
Jamie McGoldrick, U.N. aid coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the UN had been pushing Israel for weeks to use the Gaza border fence road and had received much more cooperation from Israel in the past week.
Palestinian officials say more than 100 people were killed last Thursday trying to reach an aid convoy near Gaza City, most of them shot by Israeli troops. Israel's military, which had been overseeing the private aid deliveries, said most of them died in a stampede.
"Since the incident last week, I think Israel saw quite clearly how difficult it is to deliver assistance," McGoldrick told reporters, adding that the UN had seen "much more cooperation from Israel as a result of that realisation."
2024-03-07 09:30:58
Humanitarian aid for Gaza is expected to sail from Cyprus in coming days, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear which country was supplying the aid, where it would land or how it would be distributed. The source said aid was being coordinated with the United Arab Emirates.
"They want the aid to be dispatched before the start of Ramadan" on Sunday, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Delivering aid to Gaza has become urgent as a humanitarian crisis there deepens.
The Gaza health ministry said two Palestinians, aged 15 and 72, died of dehydration and malnutrition on Wednesday, raising the toll of such deaths to 20.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was due in Cyprus late Thursday and was to visit on Friday the port of Larnaca, which has been identified as a launch point for aid shipments.
Cyprus lies 370 km (230 miles) northwest of Gaza in the Mediterranean and is the closest European Union state to the region.
2024-03-07 08:42:36
The US said on Wednesday that talks on a ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza could still reach an agreement between Hamas and Israel as the enclave's humanitarian crisis prompted South Africa to ask the World Court for new emergency measures.
Negotiators from Hamas fighters, Qatar and Egypt — but not Israel — are trying to secure a 40-day ceasefire in time for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins early next week.
Despite speculation negotiations were at an impasse, the US said on Wednesday that a truce accord was still possible.
"We continue to believe that obstacles are not insurmountable and a deal can be reached ... so we're going to continue to push for one," US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in Washington.
But South Africa, which in January brought a case at the World Court in The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, on Wednesday asked the court to order new emergency measures including a stop to hostilities because Palestinian civilians were facing starvation.
"The threat of all-out famine has now materialised. The court needs to act now to stop the imminent tragedy," the South African presidency said in a statement.
The Gaza health ministry said two Palestinians, aged 15 and 72, died of dehydration and malnutrition in Al Shifa and Kamal Adwan hospitals on Wednesday, raising the toll of such deaths in just over a week to 20. Reuters could not verify the deaths.
2024-03-06 23:31:24
As part of its efforts to support Israel amid its ongoing aggressing and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the United States “quietly” approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Tel Aviv since October 7 last year, the Washington Post reported.
All but a couple of weapons transfers were processed without public debate “because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the executive branch to individually notify Congress, according to US officials and lawmakers”, reported the newspaper.
2024-03-06 23:08:46
Two seafarers were killed in a Houthi missile attack on a Red Sea merchant ship on Wednesday, British and US officials said, the first fatalities reported since the Yemeni group began strikes against shipping in one of the world's busiest sea lanes.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, which set the Greek-owned, Barbados-flagged ship True Confidence ablaze around 50 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen's port of Aden.
In a statement on X directly responding to the Houthi claim, Britain's embassy wrote: "At least 2 innocent sailors have died. This was the sad but inevitable consequence of the Houthis recklessly firing missiles at international shipping. They must stop."
"Our deepest condolences are with the families of those that have died and those that were wounded."
A senior US official also confirmed two sailors had died.
2024-03-06 22:31:40
2024-03-06 21:33:49
Amid the ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza, another Palestinian journalist Muhammad Salama along with his family was martyred in an airstrike on his home in Deir el-Balah city, according to the Gaza Media Office.
Salama was a television presenter for the Palestinian Al-Aqsa channel.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said 132 journalists have been killed in the besieged strip since the start of the war.
2024-03-06 21:10:37
The Greek-owned cargo ship True Confidence was hit by a missile about 50 nautical miles southwest of the Yemeni port of Aden on Wednesday in an attack presumed to come from Houthi forces, the ship's owner and operator said.
The bulk carrier was drifting with a fire continuing onboard, their statement said, adding that no information was available on the status of 20 crew members and three armed guards onboard.
But a shipping source said three sailors were missing from the Barbados-flagged bulk carrier and four others were badly burned.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Houthi militants in Yemen have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against international commercial shipping since mid-November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians to oppose Israel's military actions in Gaza.
2024-03-06 17:25:11
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will travel to Cyprus this week as the bloc explores a possible humanitarian corridor through the Mediterranean island to support the population in Gaza, her spokesperson said on Wednesday.
"Our efforts are focused on making sure that we can provide aid to Palestinians," the spokesperson told journalists, adding: "We all hope that this opening (of the corridor) will take place very soon."
In Nicosia, a government spokesperson said: "On Friday she will visit, along with the (Cypriot) president, the infrastructure related to some phases of the plan."
Cyprus, located some 370 km (230 miles) northwest of Gaza, is the closest European Union member state to the region. It has campaigned for months for the creation of a sustained, one-way sea route carrying aid directly to the enclave.
2024-03-06 15:29:27
The death toll in Gaza caused by malnutrition and dehydration has risen to 18, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
“The famine is deepening and will claim thousands of lives if the aggression is not halted and humanitarian and medical aid is not immediately brought in,” it said in a statement.
The ministry added that Israel was “deliberately” starving thousands of hungry people in northern Gaza and called on the international community and the UN to halt the war and avoid a “health catastrophe”.
2024-03-06 14:42:01
Hamas has said that Israel is evading demands for a ceasefire when it has shown the flexibility required to reach a truce that stops the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.
These demands include a permanent ceasefire, the return of the displaced Palestinians in Gaza to their homes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and the entry of humanitarian aid, according to Al Jazeera.
“We will continue to negotiate through our brotherly mediators to reach an agreement that fulfils the demands and interests of our people,” Hamas said in a statement.
2024-03-06 12:45:24
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry demanded the Israeli authorities open the border crossings to allow aid into the Gaza Strip as it condemned the prevention of the entry of aid especially into northern Gaza.
“Israel's focus on giving approvals to open sea lanes and preventing the passage of aid through land is aimed at the occupation government’s plan to perpetuate the occupation, the separation of the West Bank from the Gaza Strip, and the displacement of our people,” a ministry statement said.
2024-03-06 11:02:52
A World Health Organization (WHO) official said that over 8,000 patients in Gaza needed to be evacuated for medical treatment, Al Jazeera reported.
Dr Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said that about 6,000 people needed to be referred for war-related injuries and ailments.
These patients have multiple trauma injuries, burns and amputations.
Meanwhile, the other 2,000 patients required care for cancer and other serious chronic illnesses.
The WHO said moving such patients out of Gaza would relieve some of the strain on the medics and hospitals that are struggling to keep functioning in a war zone.
2024-03-06 09:58:42
The Israeli forces killed three Palestinians and injured an unknown number of others in an overnight attack on the home of the Al-Attar family in the city of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, reported Wafa news agency.
Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp was also bombed by the Israeli artillery and fighter planes overnight.
2024-03-06 09:24:58
Israel is blocking attempts by the UN agency to deliver food aid to north Gaza amid famine-like conditions in the besieged enclave where children are dying due to malnutrition, Al Jazeera reported.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said an aid convoy was denied entry to north Gaza by Israel's military, preventing the first attempt by the UN agency to deliver aid there since February 20
2024-03-05 23:37:39
An exchange of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages in Gaza can only happen after a ceasefire, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said, as ceasefire talks in Cairo between Hamas, Egypt and Qatar continued with no sign of a breakthrough.
Hamdan, speaking at a press conference in Beirut, repeated his group's conditions for a deal; an end to Israel's military offensive, a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, and the return of displaced Palestinians to homes they have fled in other parts of Gaza.
"In the past two days, the movement presented its position on the proposal put forward by the brotherly Qatari and Egyptian mediators. We reaffirmed our conditions for a ceasefire: a full pullout from the Strip and the return of the displaced from areas they left, in particular in the north," he said.
2024-03-05 21:50:02
Expressing serious concerns over the ongoing food crisis in Gaza, caused by the Israeli forces, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said: “When children are starting to die from starvation, that should be a warning like no other.”
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, OCHA spokesperson said: “If not now, when is the time to pull the stops, break the glass, flood #Gaza with the aid that it needs?"
2024-03-05 20:21:08
Pakistan has called for decisive action to hold Israel accountable for its human rights violations and war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.
In a statement at the informal plenary meeting at the General Assembly, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN and Acting Chair of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Munir Akram reiterated the unwavering commitment to upholding the rights of Palestinian refugees including their right to return.
He underscored the OIC enduring support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Radio Pakistan reported.
Expressing gratitude to the President for convening the meeting to discuss UNRWA, Ambassador Akram commended Commissioner General Lazzarini for his important briefing.
He extended heartfelt appreciation to UNRWA for its crucial role in providing services and relief to the distressed population of Gaza.
He praised UNRWA's role as a lifeline for Palestinian refugees over the past 75 years, providing vital humanitarian relief to millions, despite the ongoing brutal onslaught by Israeli forces.
Emphasising the urgent need for sustained funding for UNRWA, Ambassador Munir Akram urged donors to reconsider their decision to suspend funds.
Ambassador Munir Akram demanded an immediate ceasefire and the provision of emergency humanitarian assistance to the besieged people of Gaza, facilitated by UNRWA.
2024-03-05 19:35:43
Hamas negotiators will remain in Cairo for another day at the request of mediators, keeping ceasefire talks going after two days with no breakthrough, an official from the resistance group said on Tuesday.
"The delegation will remain in Cairo on Tuesday for more talks, they are expected to wrap up this round later today," a Hamas official told Reuters.
Egypt's Qahera television also reported the talks had been extended for a third day, but said they were "facing difficulties".
2024-03-05 17:17:51
United Nations organisations said on Tuesday that child malnutrition levels in northern Gaza were "particularly extreme" and about three times higher than in the south of the Palestinian enclave where more aid has been available.
Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said that one-in-six children under two years of age were acutely malnourished in northern Gaza.
"This was in January. So the situation is likely to be greater today," Peeperkorn added, referring to when the data was recorded.
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said malnutrition rates for children under five in northern Gaza, where access to aid has been highly limited since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, were three times higher than those in Rafah in the south
Elder said this showed that "when that trickle of aid can come in, it does make a life-saving difference."
2024-03-05 15:07:26
At least 30,631 Palestinians have been killed and 72,043 have been wounded in Israeli military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Some 97 Palestinians were killed and 123 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-03-05 14:39:00
Ceasefire talks between Hamas and mediators broke up on Tuesday in Cairo with no breakthrough, with just days left to halt fighting in time for the start of Ramadan.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told Reuters the fighter group had presented its proposal for a ceasefire agreement to the mediators during two days of talks, and was now waiting for a response from the Israelis, who stayed away from this round.
"(Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu doesn't want to reach an agreement and the ball now is in the Americans' court" to press him for a deal, Naim said.
Israel has declined to comment publicly on the talks in Cairo.
A source told Reuters earlier that Israel was staying away because Hamas had rejected its demand to furnish a list of all hostages who are still alive. Hamas said this was impossible without a ceasefire first as hostages were scattered across the war zone and held by separate groups.
The Cairo talks had been billed as a final hurdle to reach the war's first extended ceasefire - a 40-day truce during which dozens of hostages would be freed and aid would be pumped into Gaza to stave off a manmade famine, ahead of Ramadan, which is due to begin at the start of next week.
Egyptian security sources said on Monday they were still in touch with the Israelis to allow the negotiations to continue without an Israeli delegation present.
Washington, which is both Israel's closest ally and a sponsor of the ceasefire talks, has said an Israeli-approved deal is already on the table and it is up to Hamas to accept it. Hamas disputes this account as an attempt to deflect blame from Israel if the talks collapse with no deal.
The United States has also called on Israel to do more to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where more than 30,000 people have been killed by Israel's assault, launched after Hamas attacks that killed 1,200 people in October.
2024-03-05 12:15:01
The "uncommitted" movement to pressure US President Joe Biden to change his policy on Israel has landed in Minnesota, where activists hope a coalition of progressive Democrats and Muslim Americans will fuel a strong protest vote on Super Tuesday.
Minnesota is not a battleground state, given Democrats' historic strength there, so any uncommitted vote won't carry the same impact as Michigan's unexpectedly large protest last week, which won two delegates for the Democratic National Convention in August.
Still the vote is being closely watched as a gauge of Biden's strength within his own party.
"This will be another protest vote against Biden with the aim of stopping the war," said Jaylani Hussein, co-chair of the Abandon Biden movement in Minnesota, one of several groups pushing the vote with phone banks, texting campaigns, and events in mosques and other community centers.
Hussein, who estimates the Midwestern state has about 250,000 Muslims, said the effort in the Minnesota Democratic primary aims to get at least 10,000 votes checking the "uncommitted" option instead of backing Biden, but the numbers could end up being higher.
Some organisers tried to lower expectations Monday.
"The Michigan effort was months in the making...we don't have that in Minnesota, the organisers on the ground don't have the kind of grassroots muscle," said an uncommitted organiser, who did not wish to be named.
The uncommitted movement is asking Biden to back a permanent ceasefire and halt aid to Israel. Biden's early and strong support of Israel and his refusal to condition military aid on not killing innocent people or destroying infrastructure has sparked outrage in key parts of his coalition that could affect his chances of reelection against likely Republican rival Donald Trump.
Biden, 81, faces low general approval ratings and concern about his age, as does Trump, 77. If Trump is reelected, he is expected to be a strong supporter of Israel and its right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
2024-03-05 11:39:22
2024-03-05 10:58:43
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has apprised the United Nations General Assembly that UNRWA was in “uncharted territory” with “serious” consequences for global and regional security if more funding was not obtained.
Lazzarini said it was impossible to adequately describe the suffering in Gaza as doctors were amputating limbs of children without anesthetic. He said over 100 people were killed a few days ago while desperately seeking food. Whereas, babies, just a few months old, were dying of malnutrition and dehydration, he said.
“The death toll in Gaza is staggering. More than 30,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in just 150 days; 5% of the population is dead, injured or missing. It is impossible to adequately describe the suffering in Gaza,” the UNRWA chief said.
2024-03-05 09:15:43
The Israeli military has been captured by Al Jazeera cameras while opening fire on the Palestinian citizens seeking aid at the Kuwaiti roundabout in Gaza City. This was the second attack on aid seekers by the Israeli occupational forces in Gaza City within two days.
Meanwhile, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has apprised the United Nations General Assembly that UNRWA was in “uncharted territory” with “serious” consequences for global and regional security if more funding was not obtained.
Lazzarini said it was impossible to adequately describe the suffering in Gaza as doctors were amputating limbs of children without anesthetic amid. He said over 100 people were killed a few days ago while desperately seeking food. Whereas, babies, just a few months old, were dying of malnutrition and dehydration, he said.
“The death toll in Gaza is staggering. More than 30,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in just 150 days; 5% of the population is dead, injured or missing. It is impossible to adequately describe the suffering in Gaza,” the UNRWA chief said.
2024-03-04 23:50:18
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has arrived in Turkey on a three-day visit amid the ongoing Israeli aggression on besieged Gaza and the West Bank.
During his visit, Abbas is expected to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other high officials.
Matters related to Israeli brutalities, ceasefire, and humanitarian aid to people in Gaza are expected to be discussed during the meetings.
He is accompanied by the secretary-general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Hussein al-Sheikh, according to the Wafa news agency.
2024-03-04 22:58:24
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said on Monday the Iran-aligned group had targeted the "Israeli ship MSC SKY" in the Arabian sea.
Houthi have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against international commercial shipping since mid-November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel's military actions in Gaza.
Their Red Sea attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa, and stoked fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread to destabilise the wider Middle East.
"The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a targeting operation against an Israeli ship MSC SKY in the Arabian Sea with a number of suitable naval missiles, and the hit was accurate and direct," Sarea said in a televised speech.
2024-03-04 21:09:21
Hamas and Egyptian mediators said on Monday they were pressing on with talks on securing a ceasefire in Gaza, despite an Israeli decision not to send a delegation.
The ceasefire talks, which began on Sunday in Cairo, are billed as a final hurdle to establish the first extended ceasefire of the five-month-old war, in time for the Ramadan Muslim fasting month which is expected to begin on Sunday.
"Talks in Cairo continue for the second day regardless of whether the occupation's delegation is present in Egypt," a Hamas official told Reuters on Monday.
Two Egyptian security sources said mediators were in touch with the Israelis, allowing negotiations to continue despite the delegation's absence.
2024-03-04 20:25:24
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates slammed on Monday that the Israeli raids, detentions, and movement restrictions have turned the lives of Palestinians into "an unbearable hell" amid disturbing international silence.
The ministry also warned of “serious risks of plunging the occupied West Bank into "violence and anarchy."
"Our people need international protection now more than ever as a prerequisite to ending the occupation and apartheid," Al-Jazeera reported.
2024-03-04 19:31:56
US Special Envoy Amos Hochstein said on Monday that a truce in Gaza would not necessarily bring an automatic end to hostilities across Lebanon's southern border and he warned about the risks of an escalation of the conflict.
"Escalation will not resolve this crisis - and escalation will certainly not help Lebanon rebuild and advance forward at this critical time in Lebanon's history, the US diplomat said, adding: "But a temporary ceasefire is not enough. A limited war is not containable. And the security paradigm along the blue line has to change in order to guarantee everyone’s security."
Hochstein is visiting Beirut as part of diplomatic efforts to end four months of exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel taking place in parallel to the Gaza war.
2024-03-04 16:43:37
The United Nations human rights chief on Monday it was imperative to avoid any exacerbation of the war in Gaza, warning that any conflagration could have broad repercussions across the Middle East and beyond the region.
Addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Volker Turk said the war in Gaza, which has been raging since the October 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen in southern Israel, had already spilled over to neighbouring countries.
"I am deeply concerned that in this powder keg, any spark could lead to a much broader conflagration," said Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"This would have implications for every country in the Middle East, and many beyond it."
Turk described the military escalation in southern Lebanon between Israel, Hezbollah, and other armed groups as "extremely worrying".
"It is imperative to do everything possible to avoid a wider conflagration," he said.
2024-03-04 15:22:20
Israeli forces swept into the Palestinians' administrative capital of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank overnight, killing a 16-year-old in a refugee camp during their biggest raid into the city in years, Palestinian sources said on Monday.
Witnesses in Ramallah said Israeli forces had driven dozens of military vehicles into the city, which is the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces shot and killed 16-year-old Mustafa Abu Shalbak while raiding Am'ari refugee camp.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said confrontations broke out as Israeli forces stormed the camp, "during which live bullets were fired at Palestinian youths", wounding Abu Shalbak in the neck and chest.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Violence has surged across the West Bank in parallel to the Gaza war, as Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 400 Palestinians. Israel regularly raids Palestinian areas across the territory it occupied in 1967.
Israeli forces also tore up a main road in the West Bank city of Tulkarm during a raid there, witnesses said.
WAFA also reported that Israeli forces had stormed the West Bank city of Nablus, and blew up the home of a man previously accused by Israel of carrying out an attack in which a British-Israeli mother and her two daughters were killed in April in the West Bank.
The man, Moaz al-Masri, was killed by Israeli forces in Nablus last May.
Israeli forces detained at least 55 Palestinians in raids across the West Bank overnight, according to The Palestinian Prisoners Club.
2024-03-04 14:56:38
US envoy Amos Hochstein will visit Beirut on Monday (today) to continue diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict across the Lebanese-Israeli border and bringing stability, a senior Lebanese official and a White House official said on Sunday.
The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in hostilities for months in parallel to the Gaza war. It has marked the worst conflict between the heavily armed adversaries since a 2006 war, fuelling fears of an even bigger confrontation.
Lebanon deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab, one of the officials due to meet Hochstein, told Reuters he believed the timing of his visit pointed to progress in efforts to secure a Gaza truce "within the next few hours or days."
"If this happens, I believe that Hochstein's visit this time will be of great importance to follow up on the truce on our southern borders and to discuss what is needed for stability and ending the possibility of the expansion of the war with Lebanon," he said.
The White House official did not offer further details about the visit.
Washington has said a ceasefire deal in the Gaza war is close and is aiming to have it be in effect by the start of Ramadan, a week away.
Israel however boycotted talks in Cairo on Sunday after the Palestinian fighter group Hamas rejected its demand for a complete list of hostages that are still alive, an Israeli newspaper reported.
Hezbollah has publicly indicated that it would halt its attacks on Israel from Lebanon when the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip stops, but that it was also ready to keep on fighting if Israel continued hostilities.
Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati told Reuters on Thursday that a halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip as early as this week would trigger indirect talks to end hostilities along Lebanon's southern border with Israel.
Bou Saab said Hochstein had "serious ideas that may provide the beginning of a sustainable solution, stability, and banishing the spectre of war that will not be in anyone’s interest".
Hochstein, who visited Beirut in January, previously brokered a rare diplomatic deal between Lebanon and Israel in 2022 to delineate their maritime border.
Hezbollah has not been a direct party to his diplomatic efforts. Instead his ideas have been passed on by Lebanese mediators. The group wields significant influence over the Lebanese state.
More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip in the Israeli offensive launched after October 7, according to Gaza health authorities.
2024-03-04 10:43:36
Mother of the newborn Palestinian twins Wesam and Naeem Abu Anza, who were born during the conflict between Israel and Hamas and were killed in Israeli air strikes, reacts during their funeral as mourners bury the bodies, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 3, 2024.
2024-03-04 09:40:50
Several Arab foreign ministers discussed the Israel assault in Gaza at talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, state media reported on Sunday.
The ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan met at the 159th regular session of the Foreign Ministerial Council held on Saturday at the GCC headquarters.
Joint ministerial meetings between the GCC countries and Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan were held to further strengthen cooperation and discuss urgent matters related to besieged Gaza.
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan participated in the meeting, presided over by Prime Minister of Qatar and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed Al-Thani.
GCC Secretary General Jassim Al-Budaiwi said: “We gather today as we are faced with horrific scenes of what our brothers, the Palestinian people, are being subjected to in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
“We condemn all types of violence and indiscriminate bombing carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip, in light of the … systematic destruction of civilian facilities and infrastructure, including residential buildings, schools and hospitals.”
The forum underlined the Israeli forces’ atrocities in the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Palestinian and the destruction of infrastructure, cutting off vital resources and aid to the population crammed into small space.
2024-03-04 08:42:12
US Vice President Kamala Harris bluntly called out Israel on Sunday for not doing enough to ease a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza as the Biden administration faces increasing pressure to rein in its close ally while it wages war with Hamas fighters.
Harris, speaking in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where state troopers beat US civil rights marchers nearly six decades ago, called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept a deal to release hostages in return for “at least 6-week” cessation of hostilities.
But she directed the bulk of her comments at Israel in what appeared to be the sharpest rebuke yet by a senior leader in the US government over the conditions in the coastal enclave.
"People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane and our common humanity compels us to act," Harris said at an event to commemorate the 59th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" in Alabama. "The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses," Harris said.
Her comments reflected intense frustration, if not desperation, within the US government about the war, which has hurt President Joe Biden with left-leaning voters as he seeks re-election this year.
Harris said Israel must open new border crossings, not impose "unnecessary restrictions" on aid delivery, protect humanitarian personnel and convoys from becoming targets, and work to restore basic services and promote order so that "more food, water and fuel can reach those in need."
The United States carried out its first air drop of aid in Gaza on Saturday and Harris is scheduled to meet with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantzon Monday at the White House, where she is expected to deliver a similarly direct message.
Israel boycotted Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo on Sunday after Hamas rejected its demand for a complete list naming hostages that are still alive, according to an Israeli newspaper.
"Hamas claims its wants a ceasefire. Well, there is a deal on the table. And as we have said, Hamas needs to agree to that deal," Harris said. "Let's get a ceasefire. Let's reunite the hostages with their families. And let's provide immediate relief to the people of Gaza."
'FIGHT FOR FREEDOM IS NOT OVER'
After concluding her remarks about the Middle East, Harris, the first Black and Asian American woman to serve as No. 2 to the commander-in-chief, turned her attention to the events of Selma and the ongoing effort to address racial inequality.
"Today we know our fight for freedom is not over," she said. "Because in this moment we are witnessing a full-on attack on hard fought, hard won freedoms, starting with the freedom that unlocks all others: the freedom to vote," Harris said, citing laws in states across the country that ban ballot drop boxes, limit early voting and, in Georgia, made it illegal to give food and water to people waiting in line to vote.
At the beginning of their time in office, Biden appointed Harris to lead their administration's efforts to advance voting rights, but the effort largely fizzled without enough votes in Congress to pass new laws on the issue.
2024-03-03 23:58:48
A senior Hamas source, speaking to Al Jazeera, provided insights into the current status of negotiations aiming to cease hostilities in Gaza.
Emphasising their earnest efforts, the source stated they are actively working towards an agreement to halt aggression, facilitate aid entry, and ensure the return of displaced people, particularly in the north.
The goal also includes a complete withdrawal of the occupation. The Hamas delegation is in Cairo to meet with Egyptian and Qatari counterparts, present the movement's vision.
The source underlined that the occupation delegation's presence in Cairo is not a primary concern. Importantly, specific dates for reaching an agreement have not been officially announced, while the occupation's approach to both field and negotiation battles is characterised by confusion and randomness.
2024-03-03 22:23:28
Ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Cairo hit a roadblock as Israel reportedly boycotted the talks citing Hamas' rejection of its demand for a comprehensive list identifying hostages still alive, according to an Israeli newspaper.
While a Hamas delegation was present in Cairo for the discussions, no Israeli representatives were reported by the evening. Unidentified Israeli officials cited Hamas's refusal to provide clear answers as the reason for not dispatching the Israeli delegation, as reported by Ynet, the online version of Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Washington has expressed optimism about an imminent ceasefire agreement, aiming to halt the conflict for six weeks before the start of Ramadan. However, both parties have shown little indication of backing down from their respective demands in public statements.
Although a Palestinian official stated that the deal was "not yet there" after the Hamas delegation's arrival, there was no official comment from the Israeli side. Sources suggested that Israel insisted on receiving Hamas's full list of hostages still alive, a demand reportedly rejected by Hamas.
2024-03-03 19:01:20
JERUSALEM: Israel has agreed to revise the lyrics of its potential submission to the Eurovision Song Contest after the contest organisers took issue with verses that appeared to reference Hamas' October 7 attack, Israel's national broadcaster Kan said on Sunday.
Eurovision, which this year will take place on May 7-11 in the Swedish city of Malmo, bills itself as a non-political event and can disqualify contestants deemed to have breached that rule. Broadcaster Kan is tasked with choosing Israel's entry.
The leading Israeli submission is "October Rain", a ballad sung by female soloist Eden Golan.
According to lyrics leaked to the media, and later confirmed by Kan, it includes lines such as "There's no air left to breathe" and "They were all good children, each one of them".
Kan said it has asked the writers of "October Rain" and second-place finalist "Dance Forever" to revise their lyrics, while also preserving their artistic freedom. It will then officially choose the song to send the Eurovision committee.
2024-03-03 17:56:30
CAIRO/RAFAH: A delegation from Hamas arrived in Cairo on Sunday for crunch talks on a Gaza ceasefire, billed as a potential final hurdle towards an agreement that would halt the fighting for six weeks.
Washington said a ceasefire deal was already "on the table", approved by Israel and awaiting only a sign-off from the militants. But the warring sides gave away little information on the state of any progress.
After the Hamas delegation arrived, a Palestinian official told Reuters the deal was "not yet there". From the Israeli side, there was no official confirmation even that its delegation was attending.
One source briefed on the talks had said Israel could stay away from Cairo unless Hamas first presented a full list of hostages who are still alive, a demand that a Palestinian source said Hamas had so far rejected as premature.
Still, a US official told reporters: "The path to a ceasefire right now literally at this hour is straightforward. And there's a deal on the table. There's a framework deal."
2024-03-03 15:26:33
At least 30,410 Palestinians have been killed and 71,700 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
2024-03-03 13:21:11
The Israeli military said on Sunday it intensified operations in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, “destroying dozens of Hamas targets” in a blitz of air and artillery strikes.
The air force and artillery hit about 50 targets within six minutes, the Israeli military claimed, in a bid to "intensify operational achievements in the area."
"During the strikes, the troops destroyed infrastructure and eliminated Hamas fighters who were operating from civilian facilities in urban areas," it said.
Residents in the area said they were surprised by the swift advancement of Israeli tanks, which sparked fresh battles with Palestinian gunmen. In one housing project some families took to social media, saying they were unable to leave their homes with the tanks in the streets.
Palestinian fighter group Islamic Jihad said it attacked two tanks with rockets and blew up a building where soldiers had entered.
Khan Younis has been a focus of Israel's military offensive in recent weeks.
2024-03-03 12:46:31
Mediators are expected to reconvene in Cairo as soon as Sunday and search for a formula acceptable to Israel and Hamas for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, sources with knowledge of talks said, as pressure mounted for a pause in fighting by Ramadan.
Israeli and Hamas delegations were expected to arrive in Cairo on Sunday, two Egyptian security sources said, though another source briefed on the talks said Israel would not send a delegation until it got a full list of hostages who are still alive.
Hopes for the first pause in fighting since November rose this week after a previous round of talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt in Doha and indications from US President Joe Biden that an agreement was close.
Hamas has not backed away from its position that a temporary truce must be the start of a process towards ending the war altogether, the Egyptian sources and a Hamas official said.
However, the Egyptian sources said assurances had been offered to Hamas that the terms of a permanent ceasefire would be worked out in second and third phases of the deal. The duration of the initial pause, a phase expected to last about six weeks, had been agreed upon, the sources said.
Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the assurances and whether they were sufficient to move forward with the six-week pause.
"When it comes to ending the war and pulling out forces out of Gaza, gaps remain unbridged," a Palestinian official familiar with mediation efforts said. The official did not immediately confirm the Cairo talks.
A senior US administration official said on Saturday that the framework for a six-week pause was in place, with Israel's agreement, and now depended on Hamas agreeing to release hostages it has held in Gaza since its attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
"The path to a ceasefire right now literally at this hour is straightforward. And there's a deal on the table. There's a framework deal. The Israelis have more or less accepted it," the official told reporters. "The onus right now is on Hamas."
For its part, Israel will not take part in more talks until Hamas clarifies the number of hostages slated to go free and how many are still alive, the source briefed on the talks said.
Hamas said this week that in total around 70 captives had been killed due to Israel's military operations.
Israel also wants Hamas to agree to a ratio of Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for each hostage, said the source, who declined to be identified further. "No delegation will be going to Cairo until Hamas provides answers," the source said.
A draft proposal indicated progress on a number of issues and proposed an overall ratio of 10 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel for each hostage.
2024-03-03 10:48:46
A senior Houthi leader said on Saturday he held British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his government responsible for the sinking of the UK-owned Rubymar.
Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of Yemen's Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, also said on X: "Sunak has a chance to recover the Rubymar by allowing aid trucks into Gaza."
Yemen's internationally recognised government said earlier on Saturday that the Rubymar, which was attacked by Houthi fighters last month, had sunk in the Red Sea and warned of an "environmental catastrophe" from the ship's cargo of fertiliser.
2024-03-03 10:27:53
The Israeli military on Saturday promised an exhaustive and truthful investigation into the deaths of Palestinians queuing for aid in Gaza this week, an incident that has drawn condemnations and calls for an international inquiry.
Gaza Health authorities said 118 people were killed in Thursday's “massacre” incident because of Israeli fire.
Israel disputed those figures and said most victims were trampled or run over as crowds swarmed aid trucks. An Israeli official also said troops had "in a limited response" later fired on crowds they felt had posed a threat.
"We are investigating this incident, we have all the documentation that we need in order to carry out an exhaustive, truthful investigation into the facts of this incident and we will present our findings," spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in Tel Aviv.
The incident has underscored the collapse of orderly aid deliveries in areas of Gaza occupied by Israeli forces, with no administration in place and the main UN agency UNRWA hamstrung by an inquiry into alleged links with Hamas.
With a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, many countries have urged a ceasefire, but US President Joe Biden said Thursday's incident will complicate talks at which a deal involving a truce and hostage release is being sought.
2024-03-03 10:00:32
US Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz at the White House on Monday as Washington seeks to reach a deal for a temporary ceasefire and increase the flow of aid to Gaza.
The talks, first reported by Reuters, are expected to span topics including reducing Palestinian civilian casualties, securing a temporary ceasefire, the release of hostages held in Gaza and increasing aid to the territory, a White House official said.
"The Vice President will express her concern over the safety of the as many as 1.5 million people in Rafah," the official said, adding that Israel also had a "right to defend itself in the face of continued Hamas terrorist threats."
A statement from Gantz confirmed that he would meet with Harris, as well as with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Republican and Democratic members of US Congress.
"Minister Gantz personally updated the prime minister on his own initiative on Friday of his intention to travel, in order to coordinate the messages to be transmitted in the meetings," the statement said.
Gantz, Israel's former military chief and defense minister, is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main political rival in opinion polls. His trip to Washington risks upsetting Netanyahu, who has been subject to criticism by US President Joe Biden.
In December, Biden said that Israel was losing support over its "indiscriminate" bombing of Gaza and that Netanyahu should change, exposing a rift in relations with the Israeli prime minister.
Harris and Gantz will also discuss planning for after the war ends to revitalise Gaza under the Palestinian Authority, the White House official said.
The US military on Saturday carried out its first airdrop of humanitarian aid into Gaza and aid agencies warned of a growing humanitarian disaster in the Palestinian enclave as Israel pressed on with its offensive.
2024-03-03 09:29:13
The Houthi Transport Ministry in Yemen said on Saturday there had been a "glitch" in undersea communication cables in the Red Sea as a result of actions by US and British naval vessels.
The actions "endangered the security and safety of the international communications and the flow of information," the ministry said in a statement, reported by the Houthi-run Saba news agency, without giving details.
"Any glitch in these cables as a result of the militarisation of the Red Sea by US and British naval vessels represents a serious threat to the information security and economic and social stability for all countries of the world," the statement read.
The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, have launched exploding drones and missiles at commercial vessels since November 19 as a protest against Israel's military operations in Gaza.
The United States and Britain have carried out several strikes against Houthi targets in response.
2024-03-03 08:59:02
Mediators expected to reconvene in Cairo as soon as Sunday and search for a formula acceptable to Israel and Hamas for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, sources with knowledge of the talks said, after foreign governments resorted to airdrops to aid desperate civilians in the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli and Hamas delegations were expected to arrive in Cairo on Sunday, two Egyptian security sources said, although another source briefed on the talks said Israel would not send a delegation until it got a full list of hostages who are still alive.
Hopes for the first pause in fighting since November rose last week after a previous round of talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt in Doha and indications from US President Joe Biden that agreement was close.
A senior US official said on Saturday that the framework for a six-week pause in fighting was in place, with Israel's agreement, and now depended on Hamas agreeing to release hostages it has held in Gaza since its attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
"The path to a ceasefire right now literally at this hour is straightforward. And there's a deal on the table. There's a framework deal. The Israelis have more or less accepted it," the official told reporters. "The onus right now is on Hamas."
Biden has said he hopes a ceasefire will be in place by the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which starts on March 10.
Biden and other world leaders are under growing pressure to ease the increasingly desperate plight of Palestinians after five months of war and Israeli blockade of Gaza. The United Nations says a quarter of the population - 576,000 people - is one step from famine.
Gaza health authorities reported that Israeli forces killed 118 people trying to reach a relief convoy near Gaza City on Thursday, prompting global outrage over the humanitarian catastrophe. A day later Biden announced plans for the US airdrop on Saturday, which also involved Jordanian forces.
Other countries including Jordan and France had already conducted airdrops of aid into Gaza.
2024-03-02 23:41:04
Israel has agreed to a six-week ceasefire and the ball was then in Hamas’s court, Al Jazeera reported, quoting a US official.
During an interaction with journalists in a conference call, the US official said: “Israel has basically accepted a six-week ceasefire.”
“Israelis agreed to a six-week ceasefire, now it’s up to Hamas to agree,” the official added.
2024-03-02 22:02:55
The death toll from the inhumane attack by Israeli forces on aid seekers in Gaza surged to 116, the Ministry of Health confirmed Saturday.
In a statement, the ministry feared the causalities would increase due to lack of medical facilities and closure of borders.
2024-03-02 21:25:58
WASHINGTON: The US military on Saturday carried out its first airdrop of aid into Gaza after the deaths of Palestinians queuing for food underlined the growing humanitarian catastrophe in the crowded coastal enclave after months of Israeli military operations.
Other countries including Jordan and France have already conducted airdrops of aid into Gaza, where the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says a quarter of the population — 576,000 people — are one step from famine.
The US airdrop used C-130 transport aircraft which dropped more than 38,000 meals along Gaza's Mediterranean coastline, the US military said in a statement. Jordanian forces also took part in the operation.
"We are conducting planning for potential follow-on airborne aid delivery missions," the statement said.
A US official told Reuters the airdrops took place over southwestern Gaza and the town of Mawasi.
2024-03-02 18:03:41
At least 10 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday that hit a tent in Rafah, the Gaza health ministry said.
The airstrike took place over an area where displaced Palestinians have been taking shelter, outside the Emirate Hospital in the suburb of Tel Al-Sultan of southern Gaza's Rafah.
The health ministry in Gaza said a medic working at the hospital was among those killed. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
2024-03-02 15:53:44
An Israeli drone strike killed three Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon on Saturday, security sources in Lebanon said, the latest to die in months of cross-border hostilities that have been fought in parallel to the Gaza war.
The men were killed when the car they were in was targeted on a coastal road near the town of Naqoura around 8:30am, the sources said. One of the men was a weapons technician, one of the sources said.
The Israeli army said one of its aircraft had struck a vehicle in south Lebanon transporting a number of fighters who launched rockets into Israeli territory.
Israeli strikes since October have killed more than 200 Hezbollah fighters and some 50 civilians in Lebanon, while attacks from Lebanon into Israel have killed a dozen Israeli soldiers and five civilians. Tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese have fled villages on both sides of the frontier.
Hezbollah said it carried out an attack on an Israeli military headquarters in the village of Liman using an explosive drone at 5:40am on Saturday, reporting a direct hit.
The Israeli army said its jets struck "Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure" in the Labbouneh area at the Israeli border on Saturday, in addition to two Hezbollah military compounds hit overnight in another frontier area.
2024-03-02 15:43:44
The European Commission will pay 50 million euros ($54 million) to beleaguered UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) but hold back 32 million euros while it deals with Israeli allegations that 12 staff took part in the October 7 attacks on Israel.
In an announcement on Friday, the European Union's executive body also said it would increase overall aid to Palestinians by 68 million euros this year to help civilians facing "terrible conditions" in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
UNRWA provides aid and basic services in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere in the Middle East. It was thrown into crisis based on Israeli allegation in January that 12 of its 13,000 staff in the enclave were involved in the attack by Palestinian fighter group Hamas.
The UNRWA dismissed all the accused staff. But it warned its operations would be "severely compromised" after many major donors, including the United States, Britain and several European Union countries, suspended payments or said they would not approve new funding until the matter was resolved.
The European Commission, one of UNRWA's biggest donors, had been due to pay 82 million euros around now to the agency.
But, seeking to balance different views among EU countries and in its own ranks, the commission said it would pay 60% now and the rest in two installments of 16 million euros each as UNRWA addressed issues arising from the allegations.
"The 1st transfer is already an important step to alleviate the situation in Gaza," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on social media platform X.
"By continuing to fund it, the EU acknowledges UNRWA as an irreplaceable actor."
UNRWA's boss, Philippe Lazzarini, said the Commission's decision will support the agency in delivering "lifesaving and essential services" to Palestinian refugees. But he added that UNRWA needed all 82 million euros as soon as possible.
"The full disbursement of the EU contribution is key to the agency's ability to maintain its operations in a very volatile area," he said.
As well as dismissing the accused staff, the United Nations is investigating the allegations and has also commissioned a review of UNRWA's adherence to neutrality.
2024-03-02 13:01:03
Israeli forces Saturday in air strikes targeted three residential houses sheltering more than 85 unarmed Palestinians in Deir el-Balah and Jabalia areas of the Gaza Strip. The continuous strikes left 17 dead and dozens others wounded, Al Jazeera reported.
“Israeli jets targeted two houses east of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the killing of 15 people. The jets also attacked a house in northern Gaza that killed two people,” the Palestinian Wafa news agency quoted medical sources as saying.
2024-03-02 12:36:53
Seven hostages who have been held in Gaza were killed as a result of the Israeli military's bombardment of the enclave, Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for Hamas' armed wing al-Qassam brigades said on Friday.
He did not include details, like a timeline, backing up the claim.
The Al-Qassam brigades claimed that the number of hostages killed due to Israel's military operations in Gaza has now exceeded 70 captives, Abu Ubaida added in a statement on Telegram.
Israeli officials have generally declined to respond to Hamas' public messaging on the hostages, casting it as psychological warfare.
Israel has in its military assault on the Gaza Strip killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.
During a week-long truce in late November, Hamas freed more than 100 Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for Israel's releasing about 240 Palestinian people.
Hamas at the outset of the war threatened to execute hostages in retaliation for Israeli military strikes, and Israel has accused it of having executed at least two of the dead hostages recovered by the Israeli military.
2024-03-02 12:17:15
Israel is supportive of a US plan to airdrop food and supplies into the Gaza Strip in the coming days, White House spokesman John Kirby said on Friday.
"The Israelis have tried airdrops themselves and they're supportive of our efforts to do the same," Kirby told reporters in Washington.
2024-03-02 08:54:22
US President Joe Biden announced on Friday plans to carry out a first military airdrop of food and supplies into Gaza, a day after the deaths of Palestinians queuing for aid threw a spotlight on an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the crowded coastal enclave.
Biden said the US airdrop would take place in the coming days but offered no further specifics. Other countries, including Jordan and France, have already carried out airdrops of aid into Gaza.
"We need to do more and the United States will do more," Biden told reporters, adding that "aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough."
At the White House, spokesperson John Kirby stressed that airdrops would become "a sustained effort." He added that the first airdrop would be likely to be military MREs, or "meals ready-to-eat."
"This isn’t going to be one and done," Kirby said.
Biden told reporters that the US was also looking at the possibility of a maritime corridor to deliver large amounts of aid into Gaza.
The airdrops could begin as early as this weekend, officials said.
At least 576,000 people in the Gaza Strip - one quarter of the enclave's population - are one step away from famine, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces had killed more than 100 people trying to reach a relief convoy near Gaza City early on Thursday. Palestinians face an increasingly desperate situation nearly five months into the Israeli aggression that began on Oct. 7.
Israel blamed most of the deaths on crowds that swarmed around aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over. An Israeli official also said troops had "in a limited response" later fired on crowds they felt had posed a threat.
With people eating animal feed and even cactuses to survive, and with medics saying children are dying in hospitals from malnutrition and dehydration, the UN has said it faces "overwhelming obstacles" getting in aid.
While it is unclear which type of aircraft will be used, the C-17 and C-130 are best suited for the job.
David Deptula, a retired US Air Force three-star general who once commanded the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, said airdrops are something the US military can effectively execute.
"It is something that's right up their mission alley," Deptula told Reuters.
"There are a lot of detailed challenges. But there's nothing insurmountable."
The United States and others also expect aid would be boosted by a temporary ceasefire, which Biden said Friday he hoped would happen by the time of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which starts on March 10.
ISRAEL 'AWARE' OF AIRDROP
Still, there have been questions about the effectiveness of air dropping aid into Gaza.
A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the airdrops would have only a limited impact on the suffering of those in Gaza.
"It doesn't deal with the root cause," the official said, adding that ultimately only opening up land borders could deal with the issue in a serious manner.
Another issue, the official added, was that the US could not ensure that the aid simply didn’t end up in Hamas’ hands, given that the United States did not have troops on the ground.
"Humanitarian workers always complain that airdrops are good photo opportunities but a lousy way to deliver aid," Richard Gowan, the International Crisis Group's UN Director, said. Gowan said that the only way to get enough aid was through aid convoys which would follow a truce.
"It is arguable that the situation in Gaza is now so bad that any additional supplies will at least alleviate some suffering. But this at best a temporary band aid measure," Gowan added.
Under pressure at home and abroad, another US official said the Biden administration was looking at shipping aid by sea from Cyprus, some 210 nautical miles off Gaza's Mediterranean coast.
At the White House, Kirby acknowledged that the airdrops into Gaza were "extremely difficult" because of the dense population and ongoing conflict.
The US for months has been calling for Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, something Israel has resisted.
Kirby noted that Israel had tried to airdrop supplies into Gaza and it was supportive of the US airdropping aid.
"We are aware of the humanitarian airdrop," said an Israeli official in Washington.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not reply to a question on whether the US had sought Israeli agreement in advance on the air drops or was coordinating the effort with it.
Biden's announcement of the fresh aid to Gaza was marred by gaffes as he twice confused it for Ukraine.
The UN delivered aid to besieged northern Gaza for the first time in over a week on Friday, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The UN delivered medicines, vaccines and fuel to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The World Food Programme said 10 days ago that it was pausing deliveries of food aid to northern Gaza until conditions in the Palestinian enclave allow for safe distribution.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said on Friday that during February an average of nearly 97 trucks were able to enter Gaza each day, compared with about 150 trucks a day in January, adding: "The number of trucks entering Gaza remains well below the target of 500 per day."
2024-03-01 22:21:35
Israeli settlers built symbolic houses on the Gaza border and demanded their government to take permanent control of the besieged enclave and build settlements in the Palestinian territory.
“We must settle. We must spread Jewish towns all over the Gaza Strip,” one Israeli woman told Al Jazeera.
2024-03-01 20:13:57
Egypt's foreign minister said on Friday Cairo was hopeful that talks initiated by Qatar could agree on a ceasefire in Gaza before the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Gaza truce talks have been taking place in Paris since last week in what appears to be the most serious push for weeks to halt the fighting in the Palestinian enclave between Israeli forces and Hamas militants and to secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages.
"I can say that we have reached a point of understanding, we will still exert every effort with our brothers in Qatar and the US and others close to the negotiations. We are hopeful that we can reach a cessation of hostilities and exchange of hostages," Minister Sameh Shoukry said at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey.
"Everyone recognises that we have a time limit to be successful before the start of Ramadan," he said.
2024-03-01 18:28:45
People in the Gaza Strip are risking their lives to find food, water, and other supplies such is the level of hunger and despair amid the unrelenting Israeli assault, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.
"The system in Gaza is on its knees, it's more than on its knees," WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva. "All the lifelines in Gaza have more or less been cut."
Lindmeier said this had created a "desperate situation", as seen on Thursday, when more than 100 people seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza were killed.
Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces shot dead the Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery. Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded the aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over.
"People are so desperate for food, for fresh water, for any supplies that they risk their lives in getting any food, any supplies to support their children, to support themselves," Lindmeier said.
While aid is reaching southern parts of the Gaza Strip, it is too slow to avert a hunger crisis even there. Aid barely makes it to northern areas that are further from the main border crossing and only accessible through more active battle fronts.
"The food supplies have been cut off deliberately. Let's not forget that," Lindmeier said.
2024-03-01 15:33:35
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said the deaths of dozens of people waiting for an aid convoy in Gaza was "a nightmare" and called for an end to fighting in the enclave.
Gaza health authorities said more than 100 Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces. Israel challenged the death toll.
"When it comes to what happened in Gaza today ... I must say I think this is a nightmare," Joly told reporters in Ottawa. "We need to make sure that international aid is sent into Gaza and that people are protected when they go and get that aid."
2024-03-01 14:21:52
Speaking on France Inter radio on Friday, Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said Paris would back the United Nations' call for an independent investigation.
"The humanitarian situation has been catastrophic for several weeks now and what happened is indefensible and unjustifiable. Israel needs to be able to hear it and it needs to stop," Sejourne told France Inter.
"We have gone a step further, people are fighting for food and there are riots. I heard the request from the Secretary General of the United Nations to open an independent investigation and I think that France will support this," Sejourne said.
2024-03-01 14:07:18
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday he was angered by the shooting of more than 100 Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza and demanded "truth and justice" regarding the role of Israeli soldiers in the incident.
Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces on Thursday shot dead more than 100 Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery. Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over.
"Deep indignation at the images coming from Gaza where civilians have been targeted by Israeli soldiers. I express my strongest condemnation of these shootings and call for truth, justice, and respect for international law," Macron said in a post on X.
He said it was imperative for an immediate ceasefire in the war to be put in place.
2024-03-01 13:53:39
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday said the killing of over 100 people seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza was a situation that would require an effective independent investigation.
Speaking in St. Vincent and the Grenadines ahead of a regional summit, Guterres said he was "shocked" by the latest episode in the war with Israel, in which Palestinian authorities say over 30,000 civilians have been killed since October 7. More than 70,000 others are wounded while scores stuck under rubble with fate of most of them unknown.
Responding to questions on the failure of a recent Security Council resolution seeking a ceasefire, Guterres said worsening geopolitical divides have "transformed the veto power into an effective instrument of paralysis of the action of the Security Council."
"I am totally convinced that we need a humanitarian ceasefire and we need the unconditional and immediate release of hostages and that we should have a Security Council able to achieve these objectives," Guterres said.
2024-03-01 13:04:44
French President Emmanuel Macron called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Friday and said the situation in Gaza is "terrible".
"Deep indignation at the images coming from Gaza where civilians have been targeted by Israeli soldiers. I express my strongest condemnation of these shootings and call for truth, justice, and respect for international law," Macron said in a post on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
2024-03-01 10:35:55
Veteran left-wing political maverick George Galloway won a vote to become the new lawmaker for the English town of Rochdale on Friday, vowing to be a thorn in the side for the opposition Labour Party before a national election it is tipped to win.
After running a pro-Palestinian campaign, Galloway won over many of Rochdale's Muslim community by attacking both Labour and Britain's governing Conservatives for supporting Israel in its war against Hamas, making a foreign conflict the major issue - unusual in a by-election when local concerns usually dominate.
Elected to parliament for the seventh time, Galloway will be an irritant to Labour, a party he once belonged to before being ejected for criticising then-prime minister Tony Blair over the Iraq War. He even went so far as saying the assassination of Blair would be "morally justified" for Britain's involvement.
His victory underlines the divisions in Britain over the Israel-Hamas war, which is in its fifth month and has brought protesters onto British streets in support of both sides.
Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza, the health authorities say.
British lawmakers have faced threats to do more to bring an end to the fighting in Gaza.
With the national election later this year, Galloway's return to parliament will be short-lived but explosive. He has accused Labour leader Keir Starmer of being in the "pocket of Israel".
Galloway won 12,335 votes compared with 6,638 for second-placed David Tully, an independent candidate. The former Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, came fourth after the opposition party pulled its support from him after he was recorded espousing conspiracy theories about Israel.
"(Labour leader) Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza," Galloway said in his victory speech.
Turnout was low at 39.7%.
It will be the first time Galloway's left-wing Workers Party of Britain has been represented in parliament.
For some in Rochdale, a former cotton mill town near to Manchester, the so-called by-election, triggered by the death of Labour lawmaker Tony Lloyd last month, had failed to offer them a clear choice of someone determined to help their town, ranked in the top 5% most deprived English local authorities in 2019.
Galloway also campaigned to reinstate maternity services in Rochdale but it was his message on Gaza that rang loudest.
He has vowed to speak out on Gaza in the parliament, challenging Labour, which initially gave full backing to Israel following the October 7 attack. The party has since shifted its position to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
It is a headache Starmer could do without. He has struggled to maintain party unity over its position on Gaza. He avoided having to put the divisions on show last week when his party was allowed to put forward its own stance on a ceasefire.
Galloway, a colourful figure, will try to exploit Labour's divisions.
"I will go into the House of Commons like a tornado... if you elect me. (Prime Minister) Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer will be terrified as they see me coming through the doors," he told voters, according to the Times newspaper.
2024-03-01 08:51:55
Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces on Thursday shot dead more than 100 Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery, but Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over.
At least 112 people were killed and more than 280 wounded in the incident near Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said.
The loss of civilian lives was the biggest in weeks. Hamas said the incident could jeopardise talks in Qatar aimed at securing a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages it is holding. When asked if he thought it would complicate the talks, US President Joe Biden said: "I know it will."
2024-02-29 23:49:42
United States President Joe Biden and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani Thursday underscored that the release of hostages would result in an immediate and sustained ceasefire in Gaza over a period of at least six weeks
In a telephonic conversation, both leaders also discussed planning to surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza and how the ceasefire under the hostage deal would further help enable those efforts and ensure that assistance reached civilians in need throughout the besieged enclave.
In a statement, the White House said that Biden and Sheikh Tamim also discussed “the tragic and alarming incident earlier today in northern Gaza”, where Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid.
“Both leaders grieved the loss of civilian lives and agreed that this incident underscored the urgency of bringing negotiations to a close as soon as possible and expanding the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” read the statement.
2024-02-29 22:58:53
Israeli protesters continued to block the humanitarian aid meant for hunger-hit people in the besieged Gaza.
“Israeli protesters again blocked aid trucks en route to Gaza via [Karem Abu Salem] Kerem Shalom crossing,” the Israeli rights group Gisha said in a social media post.
Israeli journalist Oren Ziv also reported that right-wing Israeli settlers entered the Erez crossing with Gaza, calling on the government to allow them to settle the strip.
In a video shared by Ziv, soldiers stand by or talk with the crowd as settlers work to build a structure in the background.
2024-02-29 20:26:02
2024-02-29 18:31:00
Jordan and Egypt Thursday strongly condemned the “inhumane” Israeli attack on the people waiting for aid in the besieged Gaza.
“We condemn the inhumane Israeli targeting of… unarmed Palestinian civilians in the Nabulsi roundabout in the northern Gaza,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said.
“We consider targeting peaceful citizens rushing to pick up their share of aid a shameful crime and a flagrant violation of international law,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, Jordan’s foreign ministry said: “We condemn the Israeli occupation forces’ brutal targeting of the gathering of Palestinians who were waiting for aid on the Nabulsi roundabout near Al-Rashid Street in Gaza,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
2024-02-29 15:57:53
Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting for aid near Gaza City leaving more than 70 dead and 280 wounded, with one hospital saying it had received 10 bodies and dozens of injured patients, Gaza Health Ministry said on Thursday.
A spokesperson for Israel's military avoiding taking responsibility for the bloodbath said he had no knowledge of any shelling at that location.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said the incident took place at al-Nabusi roundabout west of Gaza City in the northern part of the enclave.
Medical teams were unable to cope with the volume and severity of injuries from dozens of wounded people who arrived at al-Shifa hospital, Qidra said.
The head of Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza City, Hussam Abu Safieyah, said it had received 10 dead bodies and dozens of wounded patients from the incident west of the city.
"We don't know how many there are in other hospitals," Safieyah told Reuters by phone.
Hamas warned in a statement that the incident could lead to the failure of talks aimed at a deal on a truce and hostage release.
2024-02-29 15:26:31
UN human rights chief Volker Turk on Thursday said war crimes had been committed by all parties in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, calling for them to be investigated and for those responsible to be held accountable.
"Clear violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws, including war crimes and possibly other crimes under international law, have been committed by all parties," Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"It is time - well past time - for peace, investigation and accountability."
Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 people and captured 253 hostages in an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.
Following that, Israeli forces have massacred more than 30,000 people and wounded over 70,000 others in Gaza as many more casualties are expected in absence of international military intervention to stop the war.
Turk, who was presenting a report on the human rights situation in Gaza and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said his office had recorded "many incidents that may amount to war crimes by Israeli forces".
He said there were also indications that Israeli forces have engaged in "indiscriminate or disproportionate targeting" in violation of international law.
2024-02-29 15:09:17
The mounting death toll from Israel's military offensive on the Gaza Strip is a concrete, daily reality for Ibrahim Ahmed: instead of building houses as he did before the war, he digs graves.
Displaced from his home, like most of Gaza's population of 2.3 million, Ahmed spends his days at Tal Al-Sultan cemetery in the Rafah area, preparing rows of graves in the sandy terrain and marking them with cement blocks for lack of gravestones.
"As a human being who has feelings, it feels heavy to go from building villas and apartments, which I love, to building graves," said Ahmed.
"My job was difficult, yes, but I'd go home with a sense of achievement. I made new things, every day a different building, a different decor. I went home in a good mood."
Now, every day brings dead bodies and processions of bereaved relatives.
"I see different people but with the same faces, with the same suffering. It's depressing," said Ahmed.
"We have two mass graves here, nearly 80 martyrs over here, and 100 more martyrs over there."
2024-02-29 11:48:26
More than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel's war with Hamas began in October, CNN reported citing the health ministry in the besieged enclave on Thursday.
The towering figure in Gaza highlights the months-long ordeal for Palestinians, displaced by Israel's bombing and ground raids, that resulted in a humanitarian crisis.
Despite global pressure, Israel's campaign in Gaza has maintained support from the US, its key ally and largest military aid supplier.
The death toll highlights fearsmore than 1 million people are crammed in Rafah, where Israel is expected to launch a fresh offensive at the beginning of the Holy month of Ramadan.
Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters but has said in recent updates that around 70% of the casualties are women and children.
Israel estimates about 10,000 Hamas fighters have been killed since October 7. Over 1,200 people in Israel were killed during Hamas’ attacks on that day, and more than 250 were taken hostage in Gaza.
CNN said that it cannot independently verify the casualty tolls in Gaza or the Israeli estimates of Hamas fighters killed.
2024-02-29 09:50:06
When Dearborn Heights resident Ahmed Alhumadi voted in the Michigan Democratic primary, he looked at his options and he felt he only had one choice. He voted for "uncommitted," joining a massive protest vote against President Joe Biden over his support of Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
"I put my opinion uncommitted because of the Gaza situation. We need a president who can help make peace in the Middle East which is good but so far we don’t see anything from Biden and hopefully he will come to his mind and change his position," he said.
With 95% of the votes counted, Biden won Tuesday's (February 27) primary with 81%, but 13%, or more than 100,000 people, cast "uncommitted" ballots in a state where a large Arab American community and other progressive Democrats vented their anger at Biden's support of an Israeli offensive in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.
That anger has grown as deaths climbed in Gaza, famine looms and much of the 2.3 million population became homeless.
Just over 101,000 voters cast uncommitted ballots, far more than the 10,000 organizers said they sought and prompting some to speak of plans for a nationwide movement. The votes are enough to send two 'uncommitted' delegates to the Democrats' national convention in August.
Hamline University Political Science Professor David Schultz said Biden cannot afford to lose Michigan in the general election if he hopes to win re-election.
Michigan has some 200,000 Arab American voters, more than Biden's slim 155,000 margin of victory in 2020. Trump won Michigan over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by fewer than 11,000 votes.
Arab Americans and Muslims are united in their support of Palestinians, according to Christopher Newport University Assistant Professor Youssef Chouhoud who said the issue may send many of the voters to the Republican Party in the long run, even if they're unlikely to vote for Trump, who is not seen to have a more favorable policy toward Palestinians.
Schultz said it may become part of what political scientists call a critical realignment, where key demographic groups shift political allegiance. Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans may become important swing voters if they continue to band together to wield their political influence.
2024-02-29 08:58:35
CAIRO/DUBAI/JERUSALEM: Hamas called on Wednesday for Palestinians to march to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque at the start of Ramadan, raising the stakes in ongoing negotiations for a truce in Gaza, which US President Joe Biden hopes will be in place by then.
The call by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh followed comments by Biden that an agreement could be reached between Israel and Hamas as soon as next week for a ceasefire during the Muslim fasting month expected to start this year on March 10.
Israel and Hamas, which both have delegations in Qatar this week hammering out details of a potential 40-day truce, have said there is still a big gulf between them, and the Qatari mediators say there is no breakthrough yet.
Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem's old city, one of the world's holiest sites for Muslims and the most sacred for Jews, has long been a flashpoint for potential violence, particularly during religious holidays.
With war raging in Gaza, Israel has said it may set limits to worship at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan, according to its security needs. Many Palestinians reject any such restrictions on their access to the site.
"This is a call on our people in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to Al-Aqsa since the first day of Ramadan," said Haniyeh.
Israeli government spokesperson Tal Heirich described Haniyeh's remarks as "very unfortunate" and accused him of "trying to drag us to wars on other fronts".
"We certainly don't want that. We certainly will do whatever it takes to keep the calm," she said.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas's aim was to take pressure off its fighters in Gaza by forcing Israel to shift security resources to Jerusalem and the West Bank.
"We musn't give them that. On the one hand we are operating against terrorist elements and on the other hand it is our obligation to allow freedom of worship, and I think we will reach the right arrangements that would allow that."
Hamas, which precipitated the war in Gaza by attacking Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies, has said it will not free all its captives without a comprehensive deal to end the war.
Israel, which has assaulted the Gaza Strip, killing 30,000 people according to Palestinian health authorities, says it will agree only to temporary pauses in fighting to release hostages, and will not end the war until Hamas is eradicated.
In a televised speech, Haniyeh said Hamas was showing flexibility in negotiations with Israel, but at the same time was ready to continue fighting. Israel has said any deal with Hamas would require the group to drop what Israel describes as "outlandish demands".
In the most serious push so far for an extended ceasefire, Hamas is weighing a proposal, agreed by Israel at talks with mediators in Paris last week, for a 40-day truce.
A senior source close to the talks said the Paris text would see Israeli troops pull out of populated areas, and around 40 hostages go free, including women, those under 19 or over 50 and the injured, in exchange for around 400 Palestinian detainees.
But it does not appear to meet Hamas's demand for a permanent end to the war and Israeli withdrawal, or resolve the fate of dozens of Israeli hostages who are fighting-age men.
HANIYEH CALLS FOR MORE SUPPORT FROM ARAB STATES
Haniyeh also called on the self-styled Axis of Resistance - allies of Iran including Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq - as well as Arab states, to step up their support for Palestinians in Gaza suffering under Israel's assault and blockade.
"It is the duty of the Arab and Islamic nations to take the initiative to break the starvation conspiracy in Gaza," Haniyeh said.
One Palestinian official with knowledge of the ceasfire talks told Reuters mediation efforts were intensifying, but there was no certainty of success.
"Time is pressuring because Ramadan is closing in, mediators have stepped up their efforts," said the official, "It is early to say whether there will be an agreement soon, but things are not stalled," he said.
Israeli Defence Minister Gallant, asked about Biden's optimistic comments that a deal could be reached by next week, said: "Who am I to express an opinion about what the president said? I very much hope that he is right."
Food aid reaching Gaza has severely declined over the past month, and international aid agencies say residents are close to famine. Israel says its blockade on Gaza is essential in its war against Hamas and that it is allowing in humanitarian supplies.
On Wednesday, Israel said it had cooperated with the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, France and the United States in an airdrop of food aid to southern Gaza.
In Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million population is sheltering, several masked men armed with clubs and some with guns toured the markets in what they said was a bid to keep prices in check.
Their head scarves read 'Committee of People's Protection.' A masked spokesman told reporters they were formed to back the Hamas-led interior ministry, and make sure people weren't being exploited.
Aid agencies say the situation is most dire in the north of the Gaza Strip, which has been almost entirely cut off. Gaza's health ministry said on Wednesday that four children had died as a result of malnutrition and dehydration at northern Gaza's Kamal Adwan hospital, which had earlier said it was halting operations as it had run out of fuel.
The Israeli military said it was checking the report.
2024-02-29 03:09:31
US President Joe Biden's administration is considering airdropping aid into Gaza as land deliveries becomes increasingly difficult, Axios reported on Wednesday, citing four U.S. officials.
2024-02-29 00:01:15
Six children have died ofdehydration and malnutrition at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, bringing the death toll from hunger in the territory today to six.
Earlier, the Gaza health ministry said that four children died due to dehydration and malnutrition at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza.
Meanwhile, five others are in a critical condition.
2024-02-28 22:14:08
President Joe Biden, in an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, disclosed that an agreement had been reached with Israel in principle to cease fire in Gaza during Ramazan, which would let them move in directions where Saudi Arabia and other countries would be ready to recognise Israel as a state.
Read more here.
2024-02-28 21:16:07
The rubble and twisted metal of Kamel Ajour's smashed-up Gaza bakery underscores one reason starving people in the north of the bombarded enclave are reduced to eating raw cactus leaves after nearly five months of Israel's military campaign.
Bread will be critical to any sustained effort to relieve Palestinian hunger, with one in six children in northern Gaza wasting from malnutrition, but most bakeries lie in rubble from Israeli bombardment and aid deliveries of flour are rare.
"We have five bakeries. This bakery was bombed and other bakeries have been damaged. We have three bakeries that can become functional," said Ajour, in a video obtained by Reuters in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza City in the north of the strip.
A crane lifted equipment from the ruins that Ajour hoped to salvage. Inside, the metal ovens and trays were piled ramshackle amid the wreckage.
"It is most important to have a ceasefire and for bakeries to function again so we can find something to eat, and for our children, our loved ones, our families," said Basel Khairuldeen in Gaza City.
With bakeries destroyed or unable to function for lack of fuel, people have had to bake bread themselves as best they can over fires made with wood salvaged from ruined buildings.
Even small amounts of flour are often impossible to find, or too expensive to buy when available. People make bread from animal feed and birdseed. Most say they can only eat once a day at most.
2024-02-28 17:08:04
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday the group was showing flexibility in negotiations with Israel over the Gaza war but at the same time was ready to continue fighting.
In a televised speech, Haniyeh also called on Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray on the first day of Ramadan on March 10, raising the stakes in the indirect talks for a truce deal to have come into force by then.
Haniyeh also called on the self-styled Axis of Resistance — allies of Iran consisting of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — as well as Arab states, to step up their support for the Palestinians in Gaza.
"It is the duty of the Arab and Islamic nations to take the initiative to break the starvation conspiracy in Gaza", Haniyeh said, referring to what Palestinians say appears to be a deliberate policy by Israel to deny them food.
2024-02-28 12:05:48
Gaza's Al-Awda Hospital, one of the few partially operational medical facilities in the territory's north, has been forced to halt all surgical procedures due to the destruction of two of its operating rooms, Al Jazeera reported quoting the hospital's Acting Director Mohamed Salha.
"This means that all medical services related to obstetrics and gynaecology have stopped completely [...] We were the only hospital in northern Gaza for orthopaedic surgeries. There is no other alternative place in northern Gaza or Gaza City because the health ministry’s hospitals are out of service completely," he told the news outlet.
2024-02-28 10:07:17
2024-02-28 14:21:45
At least 29,954 Palestinians have been killed and 70,325 injured in Israel's military assault on Gaza since October 7, Gaza's health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
2024-02-28 08:15:10
The UN has lamented the "systematic denial of access" to parts of Gaza amid worsening humanitarian crises in the beleaguered territory, Al Jazeera reported.
In a statement, OCHA said that the body has not been able to execute necessary aid deliveries due to its convoys being attacked leaving it unable to reach northern, and southern parts of Gaza safely.
2024-02-27 23:30:55
In what can be called a war crime, the Israeli forces attacked Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis as many as 40 times in one month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed.
Ghebreyesus said that the WHO, UN and Palestine Red Crescent (PRCS) transferred 24 patients out of the hospital over the weekend, with the facility reeling under an Israeli siege and constant attacks.
“The WHO, UN and PRCS reached besieged Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, over the weekend and transferred 24 patients, including one pregnant woman, one mother and a newborn.”
“The hospital experienced 40 attacks from 22 January to 22 February, which killed at least 25 and left it incapacitated. 31 patients are still in the hospital.”
2024-02-27 21:15:47
At least nine more Palestinians were martyred in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, as Israel continued unabated bombardment in the besieged enclave.
According to Arab media, nine bodies have been retrieved from under the rubbles of a building destroyed during the attack.
2024-02-27 18:49:09
Despite Israel’s brutal war crimes and human rights violations during the ongoing aggression in Gaza, Sumayya Wushah, an 11-year-old girl and journalist-in-the-making, said: “I am not afraid.”
Wushah said she is not afraid to report from the Gaza Strip, where more than an estimated 100 journalists have been killed by oppressor forces since October 7.
“My mother and father were concerned when I started because they know that journalists are being targeted. But when they saw that I was determined to work in the field of journalism, they agreed,” she added.
2024-02-27 17:26:44
2024-02-27 15:44:19
At least 29,878 Palestinians have been killed and 70,215 injured in Israel's assault on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Tuesday.
In the last 24 hours, 96 Palestinians were killed and 172 were injured, the ministry added.
2024-02-27 15:09:43
Hezbollah said on Tuesday it had launched a volley of rockets at an Israeli aerial surveillance base in response to the Israeli military's deepest attack yet into Lebanese territory.
Israeli warplanes struck the Bekaa Valley on Monday, killing at least two Hezbollah members in the military's furthest reach into Lebanese territory since hostilities erupted with the Iran-backed group last October, sources in Lebanon said.
The Israeli army said it had struck Hezbollah air defences in the area in response to the downing of an Israeli drone, which Hezbollah said it had shot down with a surface-to-air missile earlier on Monday.
In retaliation for the Bekaa strikes, Hezbollah fired 60 rockets on Monday at an Israeli army station in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The group did not say how many rockets were fired on Tuesday morning but said it was a "large volley".
The attacks marked an intensification of the worst violence between the heavily armed Hezbollah and Israel since their 2006 war, fuelling concerns about a potential escalation and a widening of Israel's war in Gaza to other parts of the region.
2024-02-27 12:51:40
US President Joe Biden said Israel has agreed to halt military activities in Gaza for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as Hamas studied a draft proposal for a truce which includes a pause in fighting and a prisoner-hostage exchange.
The draft proposal, which a senior source close to truce talks in Paris told Reuters would allow hospitals and bakeries in Gaza to be repaired and 500 aid trucks to enter the battered enclave every day, is the most serious attempt in weeks to end the conflict which erupted in October last year.
Ramadan is expected to begin on the evening of March 10th and end on the evening of April 9th.
"Ramadan is coming up, and there’s been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan, as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out," Biden said during an appearance on NBC's "Late Night with Seth Meyers".
He also warned that Israel risked losing international support due to the high death toll among Palestinians, adding that Israel had committed to make it possible for Palestinians to evacuate from Rafah in Gaza's south before intensifying its campaign there to destroy Hamas.
Biden, whose remarks were recorded on Monday and broadcast on Tuesday, said there was an agreement in principle for a ceasefire between the two sides while hostages were released. He said he hoped to have a ceasefire in the conflict by the following Monday.
"There are too many innocent people that are being killed. And Israel has slowed down the attacks in Rafah," Biden said, adding that a temporary ceasefire would jumpstart a process for Palestinians to have their own state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a two-state solution.
Under the draft proposal, the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages would be at a ratio of 10 to one, the senior source said.
The draft also states Hamas would free 40 Israeli hostages including women, children under 19, elderly over 50 and the sick, while Israeli would release around 400 Palestinian prisoners and will not re-arrest them, the source told Reuters.
Mediators have ramped up efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, in the hope of heading off an Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah where more than a million displaced people are sheltering at the southern edge of the enclave
On October 7, Israel launched a ground assault on Gaza. The Israeli forces mercilessly killed 30,000 Palestinians.
2024-02-27 12:28:49
DUBAI: Palestinian fighter group Hamas has received a draft proposal from Gaza truce talks in Paris which includes a 40-day pause in all military operations and the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages at a ratio of 10 to one, a senior source close to the talks told Reuters on Tuesday.
Under the proposed ceasefire, hospitals and bakeries in Gaza would be repaired and 500 aid trucks would enter into the enclave each day, the source said.
2024-02-27 10:48:24
A US Air Force airman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington in an apparent act of protest against the war in Gaza has died, the military and local police said on Monday.
Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell, 25, a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron, died from injuries sustained in the incident, the Air Force said in a statement.
"When a tragedy like this occurs, every member of the Air Force feels it," US Air Force Colonel Celina Noyes said in the statement. "We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Senior Airman Bushnell. Our thoughts and prayers are with them, and we ask that you respect their privacy during this difficult time."
Officer Lee Lepe, a spokesperson for the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, confirmed the death.
The Pentagon said the death was a "tragic event" and that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was following the situation.
Bushnell was initially hospitalised in critical condition after US Secret Service officers put out the flames on Sunday, D.C. Fire and EMS said earlier. Bushnell, wearing military fatigues, broadcast the incident live over the internet.
"I will no longer be complicit in genocide," the man said before dousing himself in a clear liquid and setting himself on fire, screaming "Free Palestine," according to a video seen by Reuters.
"We express our heartfelt condolences and full solidarity with the family and friends of the American pilot Aaron Bushnell, who immortalised his name as a defender of human values and the plight of the Palestinian people, who are oppressed by the American administration and its unjust policies," Hamas said in a post on Telegram Messenger.
The incident comes amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests in the United States following Israel’s aggression in Gaza since October 2023.
Israeli forces then launched a military campaign in Gaza, destroying much of the coastal enclave, with nearly 30,000 people confirmed killed, according to the officials.
Israel's embassies have drawn continued protest against the war. In December, a woman protesting the war set herself on fire outside the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta.
2024-02-27 09:55:30
US President Joe Biden said on Monday he hopes to have a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza by next Monday as the warring parties appeared to close in on a deal during negotiations in Qatar that also aim to broker the release of hostages.
The presence of both sides for so-called proximity talks - meeting mediators separately but in the same city - suggested negotiations were further along than at any time since a big push at the start of February, when Israel rejected a Hamas counter-offer for a four-and-a-half-month truce.
Biden said he hoped a ceasefire would start within days. "Well I hope by the beginning of the weekend, by the end of the weekend," he said, when asked when he expected a ceasefire to start.
"My national security adviser tells me that we're close. We're close. We're not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we'll have a ceasefire," Biden told reporters during a visit to New York.
A US official said US negotiators had been pushing hard to get a pause-for-hostages deal by Ramadan's beginning on March 10 and top US officials were working on the issue last week. The optimism appeared to grow out of meetings between the Israelis and Qataris, the official said.
In public, Israel and Hamas continued to take positions far apart on a possible truce, while blaming each other for delays.
After meeting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Ismail Haniyeh, the reclusive head of Hamas, said his group had embraced efforts to find an end to the war, and accused Israel of stalling while Gazans die under siege.
"We will not allow the enemy to use negotiations as a cover for this crime," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ready for a deal, and it was up to Hamas to drop demands he described as "from another planet."
"Obviously, we want this deal if we can have it. It depends on Hamas. It's really now their decision," he told US network Fox News. "They have to come down to reality."
Al Thani's office said Al Thani and the Hamas chief had discussed Qatar's efforts to broker an "immediate and permanent ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip."
A source told Reuters earlier that an Israeli working delegation had flown to Qatar to create an operational centre to support negotiations. Its mission would include vetting proposed Palestinian fighters that Hamas wants freed in a hostage release deal, the source said.
Israel continues to maintain in public that it will not end the war until Hamas is eradicated, while Hamas says it will not free hostages without an agreement to end the war.
"We're totally committed to wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth," Israel's economy and industry minister, Nir Barkat, told Reuters at a conference in the United Arab Emirates, where his presence signalled Israel's continued acceptance by Arab states that has angered Palestinian fighters.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Monday any ceasefire agreement would require "securing an end to the aggression, the withdrawal of the occupation, the returning of the displaced, the entry of aid, shelter equipment, and rebuilding."
Israel is under pressure from its main ally the United States to agree on a truce soon, to head off a threatened assault on Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where over half the enclave's 2.3 million people are sheltering, which Washington fears could become a bloodbath.
'WE'LL GO IN'
Netanyahu insisted an assault on Rafah was still planned, and Israel had a plan to evacuate civilians from harm's way. Asked if Israel would attack even if Washington asked it not to, Netanyahu said: "Well, we'll go in. We make our own decisions, obviously, but we'll go in based on the idea of having also the evacuation of the civilians."
The momentum behind talks appears to have grown since Friday, when Israeli officials discussed terms of a hostage release deal in Paris with delegations from the United States, Egypt and Qatar, though not Hamas.
2024-02-27 09:22:42
Jordan's King Abdullah warned on Monday of the dangers of a planned Israeli military operation in Rafah, Gaza, and reiterated his appeal for an immediate ceasefire to protect civilians and bring in aid, the royal palace said.
The king also said the only way to end the decades-old conflict was to find a "political horizon" for Palestinians that would create a Palestinian state on territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, including east Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week the Israeli security cabinet would approve military plans for Rafah — including evacuating more than a million displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there, and whose fate worries world powers. Israel did not give more details on evacuation plans, and Palestinians say the assault would lead to heavy civilian casualties.
Israel has butchered almost 30,000 Palestinians in the war. The Hamas raid of October 7 killed 1,200 people in Israel, which has also lost 241 soldiers in Gaza ground fighting that followed, according to official tallies.
The monarch also expressed worry about Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank which Washington and several European states have condemned.
Abdullah echoed worries about a new cycle of violence during the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan next month where Israel has said it will restrict the number of Palestinian worshippers at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque.
The Jordanian army also arranged on Monday the biggest air drop operation so far to deliver aid to Gaza where the mostly displaced population of 2.3 million is facing crisis levels of hunger, an army statement said.
The monarch himself participated in an airdrop of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month, in a move highlighting his kingdom's role in spearheading an international campaign to speed aid flows into the war-torn enclave.
Monday's operation deployed four C-130 planes including one belonging to the French air force, army spokesperson Brigadier General Mustafa Hiyari said.
Aid was dropped to 11 sites along the Gaza coast from its northern edge to the south for civilians to collect, Hiyari told Reuters.
Previous air drops that parachuted in medicines and humanitarian provisions were sent to hospitals the Jordanian army runs in Gaza.
The army planned in coming days to expand air drops in participation with other countries, Hiyari said adding that on Monday both Qatar and the UAE joined alongside Britain in providing the humanitarian aid deliveries.
"Intensifying the air drops is a result of the worsening humanitarian conditions of the civilian population of Gaza that threatens famine and hunger," Hiyari said.
2024-02-26 23:30:28
2024-02-26 20:51:29
In a bid to provide food to people in Gaza, who are experiencing hunger and famine amid Israeli aggression, the Jordanian air force carried out 4 relief airdrops across the besieged enclave.
The Jordanian planes dropped aid across the besieged coastal enclave, Al Mamlaka TV reported.
The airdrops contained food and medical supplies provided by different Arab countries.
2024-02-26 20:25:59
A US military service member who had set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington over the weekend, in an apparent act of protest against the war in Gaza, has died, local police said on Monday.
Officer Lee Lepe, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department, confirmed the US airman's death. NBC News, citing an unnamed U.S. official, said more details would be released after the military notified his family.
The US airman had been hospitalised in critical condition on Sunday after US Secret Service officers put out the flames, DC Fire and EMS had said earlier.
The New York Times had separately reported that the man, wearing military fatigues, broadcasted the incident live over the internet.
"I will no longer be complicit in genocide," the man said before dousing himself in a clear liquid and setting himself on fire, screaming "Free Palestine," according to the Times.
2024-02-26 17:16:22
Amid the ongoing military aggression and brutalities in Gaza, Israel was ignoring the orders of the International Court of Justice to enable aid delivery to the besieged enclave, said Human Rights Watch (HRW).
On January 26, the ICJ ruled Israel must urgently act to prevent genocide in Gaza, including by enabling “the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aid”.
One month later, Israel has “failed to comply” with this order, according to the HRW.
“Israel continues to obstruct the provision of basic services and the entry and distribution within Gaza of fuel and lifesaving aid, acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes,” the rights group added.
2024-02-26 15:54:09
At least 29,782 Palestinians have been killed and 70,043 injured during Israel's military assault on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Monday.
In the past 24 hours, 90 Palestinians were killed and 164 injured in Israeli strikes, the ministry added.
2024-02-26 15:43:09
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday he was resigning to allow for the formation of a broad consensus among Palestinians about political arrangements following Israel's war in Gaza.
The move comes amid growing US pressure on President Mahmoud Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority as international efforts have intensified to stop the fighting in Gaza and begin work on a political structure to govern the enclave after the war.
2024-02-26 15:38:23
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Monday deplored how the UN Security Council had failed to counter Israel's offensive in Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which he said had "perhaps fatally" undermined its authority.
"The Council's lack of unity on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and on Israel's military operations in Gaza following the horrific terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October, has severely — perhaps fatally — undermined its authority," he said at the opening of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"The Council needs serious reform to its composition and working methods."
2024-02-26 14:46:08
Israeli forces killed more than 30 Palestinian fighters in Gaza City's Zeitoun district, more than 10 in the central Gaza Strip and others in the southern city of Khan Younis, the military said on Monday in a summary of the last 24 hours' operations.
Gaza City was overrun by Israeli forces in the first stages of the war and has seen renewed incursions against Hamas fighters. Israeli TV said that Zeitoun, once under Israel's full control, could be a test-site for post-war management of Gaza.
2024-02-26 14:21:15
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday he was resigning to allow for the formation of a broad consensus among Palestinians about political arrangements following Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.
The move comes amid growing US pressure on President Mahmoud Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority as international efforts have intensified to stop the fighting in Gaza and begin work on a political structure to govern the enclave after the war.
2024-02-26 10:24:26
Anti-Muslim hate speech in India rose by 62% in the second half of 2023 compared to the first six months of the year, a Washington-based research group said on Monday, adding the Israel-Gaza war played a key role in the last three months.
India Hate Lab documented 668 hate speech incidents targeting Muslims in 2023, 255 of which occurred in the first half of the year while 413 took place in the last six months of 2023, the research group said in a report released Monday.
About 75%, or 498, of those incidents took place in states governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to the report. The states of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh accounted for the most hate speech.
2024-02-26 08:54:13
In a statement, UNRWA has decried the worsening food crisis in Gaza due to the ongoing Israeli offensive as a "man-made disaster".
The aid agency has said that one in every six child is severely malnourished in the beleaguered territory.
2024-02-26 08:41:26
2024-02-26 08:38:49
Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen clashed throughout the Gaza Strip over the weekend, as mediators picked up the pace of talks on a possible ceasefire to free hostages held by Hamas and bring a measure of Ramadan respite to the battered enclave.
Prospects for securing any truce looked uncertain, however, with Israel saying it was, in parallel, planning to expand its sweep to destroy Hamas, while the Palestinian group is standing firm on its demand for a permanent end to the nearly five-month-old war.
Residents said Israeli forces shelled several areas of the enclave as tanks rolled into Beit Lahiya and soldiers and gunmen waged running battles in the Zeitoun sector of Gaza City — both in the north, which had been conquered early in the offensive.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his war cabinet for a briefing late on Saturday by intelligence chiefs who returned from a meeting with Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators in Paris about a possible second Gaza ceasefire.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN's "State of the Union" that negotiators for the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel "came to an understanding" on the basic contours of a hostage deal during talks in Paris.
The deal is still under negotiation, said Sullivan, who added there will have to be indirect discussions by Qatar and Egypt with Hamas.
2024-02-25 23:32:38
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that an agreement with Hamas will delay a military operation in Rafah, adding that Tel Aviv will have to invade at a certain point later.
In an interview with CBS News, Netanyahu said: “If we have a deal, it will be delayed somewhat, but it will happen. If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway.”
2024-02-25 20:41:03
The United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel have come to an understanding of the "basic contours" of a hostage deal for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on CNN on Sunday.
The deal is still under negotiation, said Sullivan, who added there will have to be indirect discussions by Qatar and Egypt with Hamas.
2024-02-25 19:23:09
World Food Programme (WFP) Director for Emergencies Samer Abdeljaber has said that there is enough food stocked up across Gaza’s borders to feed the entire population, but it cannot safely reach the war-torn population due to the violence and extensive security checks by the Israeli oppressor forces.
Abdeljaber said: “We have enough food across the borders, even from Jordan and Egypt, to be able to support 2.2 million people.”
“But we need to make sure we have the right access to Gaza from different crossings so that we can actually reach the people – whether they are in the north or the south or in the central areas.”
“Safe routes is one of our requirements to continue assistance to the north and that can only be guaranteed if that is a speedy process,” the UN official added.
2024-02-25 16:14:30
At least 29,692 Palestinians have been killed and 69,879 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday.
2024-02-25 14:23:05
US and British forces carried out strikes against more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, officials said, the latest round of military action against the Iran-linked group that continues to attack shipping in the region.
The United States has carried out near daily strikes against the Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen and have said their attacks on shipping are in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel strikes Gaza.
The strikes have so far failed to halt the Houthis' attacks, which have upset global trade and raised shipping rates.
A joint statement from countries that either took part in the strikes or provided support, said the military action was against 18 Houthi targets across eight locations in Yemen including underground weapons and missile storage facilities, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the strikes were meant "to further disrupt and degrade the capabilities of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia."
"We will continue to make clear to the Houthis that they will bear the consequences if they do not stop their illegal attacks, which harm Middle Eastern economies, cause environmental damage and disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen and other countries," Austin said.
The strikes were supported by Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
2024-02-25 13:03:22
Palestinian Wafa news agency has reported several dozens citizens including many women, children, have been killed in the latest round of Israeli aggression in Khan Younis, northern Gaza, east of Gaza City and Sabra area of Gaza City.
2024-02-25 12:19:07
The Israeli war cabinet will on Saturday be briefed by negotiators who held mediated talks in Paris on a possible Gaza truce, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's national security adviser said.
Tzachi Hanegbi told Channel 12 TV that the fact the negotiators believed their Friday meeting with Qatari, Egyptian, and US mediators warranted convening the evening war cabinet session "shows that they did not come back empty-handed".
2024-02-25 10:34:16
"I will not exchange my dignity for falsehood. I am in favor of the creation of a free and sovereign Palestinian State. May this Palestinian State live in harmony with the State of Israel.
"What the Israeli government is doing is not war, it is genocide. Children and women are being murdered," says Brazilian President Lula da Silva.
2024-02-25 10:00:04
2024-02-25 08:50:52
Israeli leaders planned to convene on Saturday to hear of possible progress in mediated negotiations on a new Gaza truce to recover hostages held by Hamas, but Palestinians saw little change in polarised positions almost five months into the war.
Israeli delegates met on Friday in Paris with Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators who helped put together the lone ceasefire so far, in November, under which scores of Hamas' captives went free in return for a Palestinian prisoner release.
Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said the delegates, who flew back early on Saturday, would brief the war cabinet in an evening meeting after the Jewish Sabbath ends.
Scheduling the briefing "shows that they feel they did not come back empty-handed," he told Israel's Channel 12 TV. "From the tone of what I have been hearing in recent hours, it will be possible to make progress."
Hanegbi did not give further details, but appeared to nod when asked if progress could be made in time for the Muslim fast month of Ramadan, which begins on or around March 10. In past wars, Ramadan was seen as propitious for ceasefire efforts.
There was no immediate comment from Qatari, Egyptian or US officials.
The hostage crisis has riveted Israelis reeling from the surprise October 7 cross-border Hamas rampage in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israel's tally.
On Saturday, thousands of people held a Tel Aviv vigil for the hostages, a short distance from an anti-government protest where police reported five arrests for disorderly conduct.
Hamas has previously conditioned freeingthe 130 hostages it still holds on Israel freeing thousands of jailed Palestinian militants and calling off the Gaza offensive, which medical officials in the enclave say has killed around 30,000 people.
ENDGAME
Israel has publicly balked at such a large-scale prisoner release and says any halt to fighting would be temporary as it intends to dismantle Hamas by broadening the war to holdout areas of Gaza.
A Palestinian official briefed on the talks said that the Israelis, in Paris, had been "vague" about their Gaza endgame.
"While Israel is focusing on an attempt to turn any agreement into a prisoner-swap deal, Hamas insists that any agreement must base on a commitment by the Israeli occupation to end the war and pull its forces from the Gaza Strip," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
"This is the priority as far as Hamas is concerned.”
Another Palestinian official indicated that a hostage release as part of an exchange was not imminent, saying there had been "no discussion over the prisoners, neither in terms of categories or numbers".
A source briefed on the talks, and who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the Paris talks had produced a proposed truce "outline" that could eventually lead to a truce.
Hanegbi told Channel 12 that among Israel's guiding principles for any truce deal is a stipulation that all hostages are released, beginning with the freeing of women and children and is "under no condition be interpreted as an end to the war".
The Israeli military on Saturday published an infantry major's death in combat, bringing its total losses in Gaza fighting to 239. Israel says it has killed some 12,000 Hamas gunmen, effectively halving the faction's Gaza garrisons.
2024-02-25 00:09:31
Protests were held in different areas of Israel, including Tel Aviv, against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-led government.
The protesters were calling for a deal to return the captives in the besieged Gaza.
The protests were held in different cities, including in Caesarea, where protesters gathered outside Netanyahu’s private residence.
2024-02-24 22:17:53
Qatar has said that the credibility of international law depends on the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) verdict in the case related to Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory.
It is the ICJ’s duty to adopt all opinions that consider the Israeli occupation illegal, illegitimate and based on racial segregation, it added
Qatar’s representative before the ICJ said the situation in the occupied West Bank is not less concerning than in Gaza, which is being used as a cover to expand illegal settlements.
2024-02-24 20:19:11
US President Joe Biden will welcome Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to the White House on March 1, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Friday.
The two leaders will discuss their commitment to supporting Ukraine, preventing regional escalation in the Middle East, delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, developments in North Africa, and coordination on China, Jean-Pierre said.
2024-02-24 18:08:06
At least seven people were reportedly martyred and several others sustained injuries during an Israeli airstrike in Rafah.
In its latest airstrike, Israel targeted the area located beside a busy road leading to a market.
2024-02-24 15:52:20
The United Nations has warned of the looming risk of famine as its main aid body for Palestinians, the UNRWA, desperately needs resources. It said Gaza residents were “in extreme peril while the world watches on” Al Jazeera reported.
A video clip of AFP news agency showed distraught people queueing up for food in the Gaza Strip’s devastated north Friday and staging a protest decrying their living conditions.
“Look, we are fighting each other over rice,” said Jabalia resident Ahmad Atef Safi. “Where are we supposed to go?”
“We have no water, no flour and we are very tired because of hunger. Our backs and eyes hurt because of fire and smoke,” fellow Jabalia resident Oum Wajdi Salha said.
“We can’t stand on our feet because of hunger and lack of food.”
In a Friday night statement on X, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said: “Without adequate food and water supplies, as well as health and nutrition services, the elevated risk of famine in #Gaza is projected to increase.”
2024-02-24 14:32:57
2024-02-24 14:01:08
Insufficient food supplies, alarming malnutrition rates and spreading diseases are unfolding in the Gaza Strip, threatening the lives of numerous children in the area.
The United Nation's children's agency, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), said last December that there is a very high risk of famine in the Gaza Strip. Its report warned of acute food insecurity that will affect all children under the age of five in Gaza. It also said more than 300,000 people are at high risk of severe malnutrition and death.
More than half a million people or at least one in four families in the Gaza Strip are facing "catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, the highest level of warning," according to another UNICEF report.
Nagham Abu Libda, a mother of three children, was displaced from Jabalia in northern Gaza to Rafah in the south last December.
She is now struggling to provide adequate food for her children, especially her 18-month-old twins. Abu Libda was forced to stop feeding them milk and replaced it with leftover bread soaked in water.
"Since the war, there has been no milk, and if it's available, it's too expensive. I've had them off milk for five months now. Unfortunately, they are suffering from anemia and a lack of calcium and vitamin D due to the absence of foods such as eggs and milk," she said.
The UNICEF estimates that in the coming weeks, at least 10,000 children under the age of five will suffer from the most life-threatening form of malnutrition or severe wasting, and will require therapeutic foods.
The health systems in Gaza are collapsing. According to the World Health Organisation, more than two thirds of hospitals in Gaza have shut down, due to damage from the ongoing conflict or the lack of fuel, water, and medical supplies.
"There has been a decline in the health of mothers, and as a result, these nursing mothers are unable to complete the lactation period for their children, which has a negative effect on their health. The food the children eat also lacks the essential elements and nutritional supplements important for their growth as they are growing. There is the spread of epidemics among children, such as hepatitis and intestinal catarrh," said Moaz Al Majida, a pediatrician in Gaza.
According to the UN's Reliefweb agency, an immediate and permanent humanitarian ceasefire is the only solution to avoid famine in Gaza.
2024-02-24 10:49:17
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented his first official "day after" plan for the Gaza Strip once the war ends, saying Israel will keep security control over Palestinian areas and make reconstruction dependent on demilitarisation.
The plan, which brings together a range of well-established Israeli positions, underlines Netanyahu's resistance to the creation of a Palestinian state which he sees as a security threat, without explicitly ruling one out at some future stage.
It was swiftly dismissed by Palestinian officials as doomed to failure.
The document, distributed to security cabinet members as a discussion paper rather than a set programme, proposes Israel would maintain security control over all land west of Jordan, including the occupied West Bank and Gaza — territories where the Palestinians hope to establish an independent state.
The plan comes amid intensifying international calls to end the fighting that has destroyed large swathes of Gaza and to revive efforts to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
US President Joe Biden, Israel's main ally, has said that only a two-state solution has a chance of bringing long-term peace and has been engaged in intense diplomatic efforts to build support among regional and other states.
Hours after it was revealed, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel's expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank was inconsistent with international law, signalling a return to long-standing US policy on the issue, which had been reversed by the previous administration of Donald Trump.
In the long-term goals listed, Netanyahu rejects the "unilateral recognition" of a Palestinian state. He says a settlement with the Palestinians will only be achieved through direct negotiations between the two sides — without naming who the Palestinian party would be.
In Gaza, it proposes replacing Hamas administrative control with local representatives "who are not affiliated with terrorist countries or groups and are not financially supported by them", setting demilitarisation and deradicalisation as goals to be achieved in the medium term.
"The prime minister's document of principles reflects broad public consensus over the goals of the war and for replacing Hamas rule in Gaza with a civilian alternative," a statement by the Prime Minister's office said.
The plan does not elaborate on when that intermediary stage would begin or how long it would last. But it conditions the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip, much of which has been laid to waste by Israel's offensive, on its complete demilitarisation.
On Friday, as the plans became public, efforts to achieve a pause in the fighting to allow the return of some of the 134 hostages held by Hamas continued ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which begins in March.
Israeli ministers have said that unless a deal is reached, Israel will launch its long-awaited operation against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have sought shelter under increasing dire humanitarian conditions.
2024-02-24 08:34:12
Gaza truce talks were underway in Paris on Friday, in what appears to be the most serious push for weeks to halt the fighting in the battered Palestinian enclave and see Israeli and foreign hostages released.
A source briefed on the ceasefire talks, who could not be identified by name or nationality, said talks had begun with Israel's head of Mossad intelligence service meeting separately with each party -- Qatar, Egypt and United States.
"There are budding signs of optimism about being able to move forward toward the start of a serious negotiation," the source said. Egypt's Al Qahera TV News also reported that the talks had begun.
An official from Hamas said the fighter group had wrapped up ceasefire talks in Cairo and was now waiting to see what mediators bring back from the weekend talks with Israel.
Mediators have ramped up efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, in the hope of heading off an Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah where more than a million displaced people are sheltering at the southern edge of the enclave.
Israel says it will attack the city if no truce agreement is reached soon. Washington has called on its close ally not to do so, warning of vast civilian casualties if an assault on the city goes ahead.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met Egyptian mediators in Cairo to discuss a truce this past week on his first visit since December.
Two Egyptian security sources earlier confirmed that Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel would head on Friday to Paris for the talks with the Israelis, after wrapping up talks with Haniyeh on Thursday. Israel has not publicly commented on the Paris talks, which are expected to continue through the weekend.
The Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, said the fighter group did not offer any new proposal at the talks with the Egyptians, but was waiting to see what the mediators would bring back from their talks with the Israelis.
"We discussed our proposal with them (the Egyptians) and we are going to wait until they return from Paris," the Hamas official said.
2024-02-23 23:41:41
Germany has strongly denounced Israel’s new settlement plan in the occupied West Bank and termed it “contrary to international law”.
Addressing a press conference, Germany’s Foreign Ministry deputy spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer said: “You know our position on settlement construction. It is contrary to international law and this also applies when new construction projects are carried out.”
2024-02-23 21:26:44
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed they had shot down three Houthi drones over the Red Sea.
“On Feb. 23, between 3:30 and 5 a.m., CENTCOM forces shot down three Houthi one-way attack UAV near several commercial ships operating in the Red Sea. There was no damage to any ships,” the agency said in a social media post.
2024-02-23 20:55:18
Over 100 protest demonstrations were held across Karachi to express solidarity with Palestinians against Israel.
A large number of Karachiites participated in the demonstrations in response to the appeal of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). The participants carrying placards and banners, chanted slogans against the Zionist regime and their supporters across the globe and particularly in the Muslim block of the world.
JI district heads in Karachi and local leaders addressed the protests. Addressing the participants, the speakers shed light in detail on the role of Israel and its partners as well as the response shown by the people of conscience across the world.
2024-02-23 18:43:46
Amid the ongoing Israeli aggression and atrocities, famine is silently killing half a million people in the besieged northern Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
At least 350,000 chronic patients, 60,000 pregnant women, and about 700,000 children in Gaza are exposed to serious health complications as a result of malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of medical facilities, it added.
2024-02-23 17:47:15
Strongly condemning the Israeli atrocities in Gaza, Pakistan’s caretaker Minister for Law and Justice Ahmed Irfan Aslam has said that Tel Aviv’s occupation of Palestinian territories was not “irreversible”
Taking the floor at the International Court of Justice, he said the “annexation” now applies to the entire Palestinian territories and this “might have been the intention all along”.
He said that the two-state solution “must be the basis for peace”.
2024-02-23 15:39:32
At least 29,514 Palestinians have been killed and 69,616 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct.7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
2024-02-23 10:04:11
Foreign ministers at the G20 group of nations meeting in Brazil were nearly unanimous in their support for a two-state solution as the only path to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Brazilian minister hosting the event said on Thursday.
"There was virtual unanimity in the two-state solution as the only solution to the conflict," Brazil's foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, said at the close of the two-day meeting.
Vieira said all members of the group of the world's largest economies highlighted concerns about the war in Gaza and the risk of the conflict spreading in the Middle East.
There were calls for a ceasefire and access to Gaza for humanitarian aid, while "many" countries criticised Israel's military offensive in Rafah, he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition government largely reject the establishment of a Palestinian state. Still, Washington, Israel's main ally, maintains that the two-state solution is the only feasible way to bring lasting peace to the region, but has rebuffed calls by some countries, including Brazil, for an immediate ceasefire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he found "commonality" with G20 members on Gaza, despite the US vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on the conflict this week for the third time, reflecting growing international frustration with US support for Israel.
At a news conference after the G20 meeting, Blinken said ending the conflict was a common goal and the way to achieve that was through an agreement the US is helping to broker between Israel and Hamas on the release of hostages.
2024-02-23 08:55:44
US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby believes discussions on Israeli war in Gaza may lead to a ceasefire in the enclave and pave way for exchange of captives, Al Jazeera reported quoting news agencies as saying.
“Discussions are ongoing, they are active, and … we believe they’ve been constructive,” Kirby said in Washington.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden’s Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk met with the Israeli prime minister and defence minister after earlier travelling to Cairo as part of negotiation efforts.
“The initial indications we’re getting from Brett are these discussions are going well,” Kirby said.
There are also reports that negotiators from Egypt, the US and Qatar will meet in Paris for further talks on Friday, the DPA news agency reports.
Israel has agreed to send a delegation to Paris, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Associated Press (AP) cited an unnamed Western diplomat and an Egyptian official saying there have been “encouraging” signs from Israel and Hamas.
2024-02-22 23:26:20
Pakistan strongly condemns Israel’s military aggression against Rafah city in Gaza and the resulting destruction and massacre of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s offensive in Rafah violates the provisional measures indicated by the International Court of Justice to protect the people of Gaza from genocide. It will further aggravate the humanitarian disaster witnessed in Gaza over the last 4 months and jeopardize the ongoing efforts for a potential ceasefire.
We urge the international community, especially the UN Security Council, to take urgent measures to bring an immediate end to Israeli aggression and its incessant crimes against humanity.
2024-02-22 19:46:28
Israel is seeking Palestinians who are not affiliated with Hamas to manage civilian affairs in areas of the Gaza Strip designed as testing grounds for post-war administration of the enclave, a senior Israeli official said Thursday.
The Israeli official said the planned "humanitarian pockets" would be in districts of Gaza from which Hamas has been expelled.
"We're looking for the right people to step up to the plate," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
2024-02-22 18:40:08
China’s Foreign Ministry legal adviser Ma Xinmin has said that Beijing has been consistently supporting the just cause of the Palestinian people in restoring their legitimate rights.
The adviser said at the UN court: “Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed on multiple occasions that China calls for a comprehensive ceasefire and the early solution to the question of Palestine on the basis of a two-state solution through negotiation.”
2024-02-22 17:23:47
Condemning the ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza, Jordan’s representative at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Ayman Safadi, said that the aggression of the besieged enclave should be ended and those responsible for it must face justice.
“Israeli aggression on Gaza, which your esteemed court has indicated warrants examination of plausible genocide, rages on”.
“No country must be allowed to be above the law,” he added.
“The occupation is unlawful, it is inhumane, it must end, yet Israel has been systematically consolidating the occupation that is blatantly denying Palestinian’s right to self-determination.”
2024-02-22 16:51:15
Amid the ongoing Israeli aggression and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Tel Aviv’s Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir announced that more weapons were being distributed among Israelis.
The minister called to restrict the movement of Palestinians following a shooting attack on a highway near the Maale Adumim settlement in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
“We’re distributing more and more guns. I think that today, everyone understands that guns save lives,” he added.
2024-02-22 15:49:37
Two missiles were fired at a vessel off the southeast coast of the Yemeni city of Aden on Thursday, causing a fire onboard, Britain's maritime agencies said, as Houthis keep up attacks on shipping to show support for the Palestinians in the Gaza war.
British maritime security firm Ambrey identified the vessel as a Palau-flagged, UK-owned general cargo ship which was headed in the direction of the Red Sea from Thailand.
US-led coalition forces are responding to the incident, which took place 70 nautical miles from Aden, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said, without elaborating.
"It has been reported that a vessel was attacked by two missiles, resulting in a fire on board," the UKMTO said.
The Iran-backed Houthis, who control Yemen's most populous regions, have disrupted commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait in recent months, forcing firms to take a longer, more expensive route around Africa.
The attacks in the Red Sea have raised concerns that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza will create further instability across the already volatile, oil-rich Middle East.
2024-02-22 15:13:53
Israeli bombs on Rafah flattened a mosque and destroyed homes in what residents called one of their worst nights yet, while the Hamas chief was in Cairo for talks Gazans hope could bring a truce in time to head off a full-blown assault on the city.
Mourners wailed over at least seven corpses in body bags, laid out on cobbles outside a morgue in the city hard against the Egyptian border, where over half of the Palestinian enclave's 2.3 million people are now huddling, mostly in tents.
Gaza health authorities said 97 people were confirmed killed and 130 wounded in the last 24 hours of Israeli assaults, but most victims were still under rubble or in areas rescuers could not reach.
The al-Farouk mosque in the centre of Rafah was flattened into slabs of concrete, the facades of adjacent buildings blasted away. Authorities said four houses had been struck in the south of the city and three in the centre.
Residents said the bombing was the heaviest since an Israeli raid on the city ten days ago that freed two hostages and killed scores of civilians.
"We couldn’t sleep, the sounds of explosions and planes roaring overhead didn’t stop," said Jehad Abuemad, 34, living with his family in a tent. "We could hear children crying in nearby tents, people here are desperate and defenceless and Israel is showing its power on them."
Gaza authorities said at least 20 people were also killed by bombing of two houses in a central part of the Gaza Strip, the only other substantial area yet to be stormed by Israeli forces in their five-month assault.
2024-02-22 14:35:27
Three Palestinians opened fire at motorists near an Israeli checkpoint in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem on Thursday, killing one person and wounding five others, emergency services said.
Two women were seriously wounded, the head of Israel's ambulance service Eli Bean told public broadcaster Kan. Police said officers shot dead two gunmen and wounded a third. A spokesperson said the gunmen were Palestinian but gave no further details.
Tensions in the West Bank are already high due to Israel's war in Gaza.
On Friday, two people were killed by gunmen police suspect to be Palestinian at a bus stop in southern Israel.
The Israeli offensive against Hamas fighters in Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, laid much of the enclave to waste and displaced most of its 2.3 million population.
2024-02-22 13:45:03
DUBAI: A total of 29,708 Palestinians have been killed including29,313 in Gaza and the rest in the West Bank, in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7.
The total number of injured people has climbed to 73, 783, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
2024-02-22 12:45:03
Israel's military said it intercepted a target in the area of the Red Sea on Thursday after sirens warning of incoming rockets and missiles sounded in the southern city of Eilat.
"The target did not cross into Israeli territory and did not pose a threat to civilians. The sirens were sounded according to policy," the military said.
Eilat, on the Red Sea, has in the past been the target of long-distance launches by Yemeni Houthis, in solidarity with Palestinians since the outbreak in October of the Gaza war.
2024-02-22 11:57:23
Speaking to the media at Rio's G20 meeting, Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the application of a two-state solution in Palestine.
"We need to apply international law and international humanitarian law equally. If we see it violated by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, we have to stand up and act. And if we see the international humanitarian law violated in Gaza, we also have to speak up and stand up for these principles. And if we don't, we will contribute to the perception that there are double standards. I'm not saying that there are double standards, but there's a real perception, and I understand why."
"And then I also spoke about the work that Norway is doing together with a number of countries, including a group of Arab foreign ministers, on how we can develop a comprehensive peace plan for Palestine. That means, of course, a ceasefire. It means end the hostilities. Secondly, it means a radical ramp up of humanitarian aid immediately."
2024-02-22 10:41:41
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called on the international community to take a more active role towards an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution to the conflict during talks at the G20 meeting in Brazil, a Turkish diplomatic source said.
Turkey, which has harshly criticised Israel for its attacks on Gaza and backed measures to have it tried for genocide at the World Court, has repeatedly called for a ceasefire.
Unlike its Western allies and some Gulf nations, NATO member Turkey does not view Hamas, the Palestinian fighter group which runs Gaza and on October 7 carried out an attack inside Israel that prompted the Israeli campaign, as a terrorist organisation.
Fidan told a G20 foreign ministers meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday that the "savagery" in Gaza must be stopped, and discussed steps to achieve an urgent ceasefire and get more aid into the enclave during talks with counterparts from the United States, Germany, and Egypt, the source said.
"Steps that can be taken to achieve a full ceasefire as soon as possible were discussed," during talks between Fidan and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the source said, adding Fidan also discussed "concrete steps" to stop the fighting with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
"The fact that a decision on a ceasefire did not come out of the UN Security Council once again, has shown that reform is a must," Fidan told a session at the G20 meeting, according to one of his aides, referring to a third US veto on a ceasefire call at the 15-member body.
Ankara says the UN Security Council must be reformed to be more inclusive and representative of the world.
"The stance shown by Brazilian President Lula (Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva) is admirable," the aide cited Fidan as saying, in reference to comments by Lula in which he likened the war in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War Two and which caused a diplomatic spat.
2024-02-22 09:36:22
Israel intensified its bombardment of Rafah in Gaza's south and over a dozen members of one family were killed in an air strike, residents said, as the ruined Palestinian enclave's health ministry announced 29,313 deaths in the war so far.
In Jerusalem, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz cited "promising early signs of progress" on a new deal to release hostages held by Hamas fighters in Gaza amid talks conducted by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to secure a pause in the war.
The Israeli army (IDF) said it had stepped up operations in Khan Younis, a city just north of Rafah. It made no mention of attacks on Rafah itself in its daily summary of events in Gaza and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
About 1.5 million people are estimated to be crammed into Rafah, on the southernmost fringe of the enclave close to the border with Egypt, most of them having fled their homes further north to escape Israel's military onslaught.
The flow of aid entering Gaza from Egypt has almost dried up in the past two weeks, and a collapse in security has made it increasingly difficult to distribute the food that does get through, according to UN data and officials.
Israel has said it is preparing for a ground assault on Rafah, despite mounting international opposition, including from staunch ally the United States, over fears for civilian lives.
Rafah residents reached by text message reported several Israeli air strikes and large explosions in the city, as well as naval boats opening fire on beachfront areas.
Reuters video journalists filmed the aftermath of a strike on the home of the Al-Noor family in Rafah, which was reduced to rubble, showing over a dozen bodies wrapped in white or black shrouds and bereaved relatives at a Rafah hospital.
Abdulrahman Juma said his wife Noor, who was from the Al-Noor family, as well as his one-year-old daughter Kinza, had both been killed in the strike, along with Noor's parents, brother and other relatives.
Juma was holding Kinza's body, wrapped in a bloodstained white shroud. "This one, who is on my lap, took my soul away ... She is one-and-a-half years old," he said.
Israel accuses Hamas fighters of using civilian buildings as cover, something the latter denies.
Local residents also said Israeli tanks had advanced west from Khan Younis into Al-Mawasi, previously an area of relative safety where the army had told Palestinians to seek shelter.
The tanks reached the coastal road, effectively cutting off Khan Younis and Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip, though they retreated after a few hours, according to residents.
Gaza's health ministry said on Wednesday 69,333 people had been injured in Gaza since the start of the war on Oct. 7, in addition to 29,313 deaths, with 118 killed in the past 24 hours.
2024-02-22 08:42:18
Dozens of lawmakers stormed out of Britain's parliament on Wednesday with tempers flaring as the three biggest political parties sought to outmanoeuvre each other over a vote on a ceasefire in Gaza.
The uproar followed a decision by the speaker to ignore precedent and allow a vote which helped the opposition Labour Party avoid a large-scale rebellion among its own lawmakers over its position on the Israel-Hamas war.
Lawmakers from the governing Conservatives and the opposition Scottish National Party (SNP) left the debating chamber in protest and some tried to take the rare step of holding proceedings in private.
The speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, eventually apologised and said he had made his decision to allow lawmakers to vote on a range of views because he was concerned about their security after some had faced threats of violence over their stance on the war.
"It is regrettable and I apologise for the decision," he told parliament. "I did not want it to end like this."
Labour, tipped to win a national election expected later this year, has been engulfed by an internal battle over its policy towards the Middle East conflict since the October 7 attack by Hamas that led to Israel's invasion of Gaza.
The debate in parliament was initiated by the SNP, which put forward a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire. Labour and the Conservatives, which have both backed Israel while expressing concern over its actions in Gaza, then proposed amendments, with different conditions they said were necessary before there should be a pause in fighting.
In an usual move, Hoyle selected both those amendments to be voted on, breaking with the precedent whereby one opposition party cannot alter another's motion. Usually, only the government amendment would be selected.
Some lawmakers jeered the speaker when he announced his decision. One member of parliament accused Hoyle, a former Labour lawmaker, of causing a "constitutional crisis".
The government's Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt said Hoyle had undermined parliament and the government was pulling out of proceedings.
2024-02-21 22:11:38
US top diplomat Antony Blinken met President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday, as the Brazilian leader was in the middle of a diplomatic spat with Israel over comments in which Lula likened that country's war in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War Two.
In brief remarks in front of reporters as they met at Brasilia's presidential palace, Lula remarked that US presidential elections are coming up in November.
In a statement after the meeting, which lasted almost two hours, the Brazilian presidential office said that Lula and Blinken had discussed several topics ranging from the G20 summit to peace efforts in Gaza and Ukraine.
"President Lula reaffirmed his wish for peace and an end to the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip," the Brazilian government said. "Both agreed on the need for the creation of a Palestinian State."
US officials had previously said they expected Lula and Blinken to have a robust conversation on issues of global security, including the conflict in Gaza.
Israel said on Monday that Lula is not welcome in Israel until he takes back the comments.
2024-02-21 20:23:59
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) expressed disappointment after the US vetoed another United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
2024-02-21 20:13:40
A 15-year-old boy, Fadi Suleiman, has been shot by Israeli forces in the town of Azzun, east of Qalqiliya, according to the official WAFA news agency.
Suleiman succumbed to his wounds at a hospital after he was shot in the chest, medical sources told the news agency.
2024-02-21 19:11:43
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) expressed its deep regret over the failure of the Security Council to adopt the draft resolution to end the brutal Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip.
"The OIC also regrets deeply the United States’ use of veto against the draft resolution, describing it as a negative reflection of the Security Council’s role in the maintenance of international peace and security, protection of civilians and ensuring delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip," a statement said.
"The OIC renews its call on the international community, particularly the Security Council, to assume its responsibilities and take urgent measures to stop the genocide facing the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip."
2024-02-21 16:36:03
A total of 29,313 Palestinians have been killed and 69,333 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
2024-02-21 14:59:39
2024-02-21 13:15:31
A total of 29,313 Palestinians have been killed and 69,333 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
2024-02-21 11:49:53
2024-02-21 10:35:51
US President Joe Biden spent months wanting a "pause" in the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But with Israel preparing for a ground offensive in Rafah, his rhetoric is shifting to emphasize the need for a "temporary ceasefire".
It sounds like a slight rhetorical difference, but it is one that inches Biden closer to many around the world and to critics within his own Democratic Party who want a permanent ceasefire to a war in which nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed.
The US has vetoed three draft UNSC resolutions on the Israel-Hamas war. The most recent two vetoes blocked language demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. But Washington has now proposed its own draft resolution enshrining the word "ceasefire".
The draft calls for a temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war linked to the release of hostages held by Hamas and opposes a major ground offensive by its ally Israel in Rafah, according to the text seen by Reuters.
Until the draft proposal, Washington had avoided the word ceasefire in relation to any UN action on the Israel-Hamas war. The new US text echoes language that Biden used publicly this month about the situation.
"I'm pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage cease-fire because, as you know, I've been working tirelessly in this deal," Biden told reporters at the White House on February 8, as he called Israel's response in Gaza "over the top," his sharpest critique to date.
2024-02-21 08:11:34
Reacting to the United States' veto of a draft United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the Israel-Hamas war, blocking a demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, China has termed the US move as a "license to kill".
China's permanent representative to the UN Zhang Jun has said that objection to a ceasefire in Gaza is nothing different from giving a green light to continued slaughter."
2024-02-20 23:32:27
2024-02-20 23:09:45
Palestinian envoy to UN Riyad Mansour termed the US veto of the ceasefire resolution for the third time as “absolutely reckless and dangerous”.
He said the US move would help Israel to escape accountability in connection with its war crimes and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
“The message given today to Israel with this veto is that it can continue to get away with murder,” Mansour added.
2024-02-20 21:22:38
The United States again vetoed a draft United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the Israel-Hamas war, blocking a demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire as it instead pushes the 15-member body to call for a temporary ceasefire linked to the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Thirteen council members voted in favour of the Algerian-drafted text, while Britain abstained. It was the third such US veto since the start of the current fighting on October 7.
"A vote in favour of this draft resolution is support to the Palestinians' right to life. Conversely, voting against it implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon them," Algeria's UN Ambassador Amar Bendjama told the council before the vote.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield signalled on Saturday that the US would veto the draft resolution over concerns it could jeopardize talks between the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar that seek to broker a pause in the war and the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"Any action this council takes right now should help, not hinder these sensitive, and ongoing negotiations. And we believe that the resolution on the table right now would, in fact, negatively impact those negotiations," Thomas-Greenfield told the council ahead of the vote.
2024-02-20 19:03:17
As part of his efforts to end Israel’s atrocities and brutal aggression on Ganza, Hamas chief Ismail Haniya has arrived in Cairo to hold talks with Egyptian officials, according to TRT.
In a statement, the Palestinian group said Haniya and his delegation are scheduled to hold talks with the officials on the political and on-field situation in the besieged territory.
2024-02-20 18:59:27
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it was pausing deliveries of life-saving food aid to northern Gaza until conditions in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave allow for safe distributions.
"The decision to pause deliveries to the north of the Gaza Strip has not been taken lightly, as we know it means the situation there will deteriorate further and more people risk dying of hunger," the UN food agency said in a statement.
2024-02-20 18:13:59
Infectious diseases broke out in the besieged Gaza amid a shortage of food and potable drinking water, following the months-long brutal Israeli airstrikes and ground invasion of the enclave.
A doctor from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah said it is impossible to prevent its spread.
“Over the last week, we have been dealing with tens of hepatitis A virus, which is feco-orally transmitted through contaminated food or polluted water. Not only that, the figures of gastroenteritis, infected wounds, and hypoglycemia are incredibly rising among casualties,” Dr Khalid Abu-Habel told Al Jazeera.
“Normally, we isolate cases of hepatitis A virus to prevent infection. Amidst these circumstances and the overcrowded numbers in Gaza, it is utterly complicated to prevent infection,” he added.
2024-02-20 17:43:48
2024-02-20 17:00:27
Amid the ongoing bloodshed and Israeli atrocities in Gaza, a Qatari foreign ministry spokesman has said that talks on a ceasefire and prisoner swap between Hamas and Tel Aviv continue despite challenges.
The spokesperson expressed disappointment over the failure of international institutions to bring an end to the Israeli aggression in the besieged enclave, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-02-20 15:35:43
South Africa on Tuesday urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue a non-binding legal opinion that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, arguing it would help efforts to reach a settlement.
Representatives of South Africa opened the second day of hearings at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, in the Hague. The hearing follows a request by the UN General Assembly for an advisory, or non-binding, opinion on the occupation in 2022. More than 50 states will present arguments until February 26.
On Monday, Palestinian representatives asked the UN's highest court to declare Israel's occupation of their territory illegal, also saying the court's advisory opinion could contribute to a two-state solution and a lasting peace.
Israel is not attending the hearings but sent a written statement, saying an advisory opinion would be harmful to achieving a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
"A clear legal characterisation of the nature of Israel's regime over the Palestinian people can only assist in remedying the ongoing delay and achieving a just settlement," Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa's ambassador to the Netherlands told the judges.
The latest surge of violence in Gaza, promoted by the October 7 attacks in Israel by Hamas, has complicated already deeply-rooted grievances in the Middle East and damaged efforts towards finding a path to peace.
The ICJ's 15-judge panel has been asked to review Israel's "occupation, settlement and annexation ... including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures."
The judges are expected to take roughly six months to issue an opinion on the request, which also asks them to consider the legal status of the occupation and its consequences.
2024-02-20 15:31:47
A total of 29,195 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 69,170 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
It said 103 Palestinians had been killed and 142 injured in the previous 24 hours.
2024-02-20 15:24:17
The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday it has completed a second evacuation mission from Gaza's Nasser Hospital, transferring a total of 32 critical patients including children from the site amid ongoing hostilities.
Efforts to transfer the remaining patients are ongoing, the global health agency said.
"WHO fears for the safety and well-being of the patients and health workers remaining in the hospital and warns that further disruption to lifesaving care for the sick and injured would lead to more deaths," the WHO said on social media site X.
2024-02-20 14:56:11
South African ambassador to the Netherlands Vusimuzi Madonsela on Tuesday told the World Court that Israel's apartheid in Palestine was a way more extreme version of what was experienced in South Africa prior to 1994, Al Jazeera reported.
“We as South Africans sense, see, hear and feel to our core the inhumane discriminatory policies and practices of the Israeli regime as an even more extreme form of the apartheid that was institutionalised against Black people in my country,” the envoy told the World Court.
2024-02-20 14:35:41
Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen in Gaza's southern hub city of Khan Younis over the last 24 hours, the military said on Tuesday, adding that operations included an air strike on a Hamas arms cache that set off secondary explosions.
2024-02-20 13:03:24
Britain's Prince William will carry out a number of engagements to "recognise the human suffering" caused by the conflict in Gaza and the Middle East and to draw attention to the global rise in antisemitism, his office said on Tuesday.
William, 41, the heir to the throne, will meet those involved in providing humanitarian support in the region and hear first hand accounts of the situation on the ground, Kensington Palace said.
The Prince of Wales, who in 2018 became the first senior British royal to make an official visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories, will also attend a synagogue to hear from young people who are involved in tackling hatred and antisemitism.
With his father King Charles currently absent from official public duties as he undergoes cancer treatment, William has been expected to take on some more high-profile engagements. It comes as his wife Kate also recovers from abdominal surgery.
"The prince and princess were profoundly concerned by events that unfolded in late 2023 and continue to hold all the victims, their family and friends in their hearts and minds," William's office said in a statement.
"Their royal highnesses continue to share in the hope of a better future for all those affected."
2024-02-20 11:09:50
At least two airstrikes hit an area near the coastal Lebanese town of Ghaziyeh on Monday, witnesses said, after the Israeli military said it had struck weapons depots near the port city of Sidon.
The witnesses heard several loud booms and saw two thick black columns of smoke rising from around Ghaziyeh, which lies just south of Sidon and about 60 km (37 miles) north of the border with Israel.
Lebanese state media said the strikes were Israeli and that a car had been hit.
Lebanese security sources said the air strikes hit factories and warehouses in an industrial area south of Sidon but it was unclear what was targeted. One of the sources said at least 14 people had been hurt, most of them Syrian workers.
2024-02-20 11:05:31
Lawmakers from Israel's religious-nationalist coalition failed on Monday to gain enough votes in parliament to expel a far-left colleague over his support for an International Court of Justice (ICJ) case accusing the country of genocide in Gaza.
A total of 85 of the 120 members of the Knesset backed the motion to oust Ofer Cassif in a plenum session, five votes short of the 90-seat supermajority required.
The highly unusual vote to expel a sitting member of parliament reflects the fury in Israel at the case brought by South Africa, alleging that Israel's campaign to destroy Gaza and kill thousands of children, women, youth and other people amounted to genocide.
Cassif, whose communist Hadash party sits in the opposition as part of a joint list with the left-wing Arab Ta'al party, signed an open letter backing the allegations, although he refused to accept that he supported the Palestinian fighter group.
2024-02-20 10:24:28
China on Monday opposed and condemned acts against civilians and international law and called on Israel to stop military operation immediately in Rafah in southern Gaza.
"China is closely watching the developments in Rafah. We oppose and condemn acts against civilians and international law," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Mao Ning told reporters at a regular briefing while stating China's position concerning the recent developments in Rafah.
"We call on Israel to stop military operations as soon as possible, do everything possible to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and prevent a more devastating humanitarian disaster in Rafah,” she added. In response to a question about Israeli prime minister’s statement that his country won’t accept an international mandate for a permanent solution to the Palestinian issue, the spokesperson said that the Two-State solution was the universal consensus of the international community to settle the Palestinian question.
“Implementing the Two-State solution is the only way to end the cycle of conflict between Palestine and Israel,” she added.
2024-02-20 09:54:39
All European Union countries except Hungary warned Israel on Monday against launching an offensive in Rafah that they said would deepen the catastrophe of some 1.5 million refugees crammed into the city on the southern edge of Gaza.
"An attack on Rafah would be absolutely catastrophic ... it would be unconscionable," Ireland's Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said before a meeting of foreign ministers from the 27 EU member states in Brussels.
After the talks ended, all but one of them called in a joint statement for "an immediate humanitarian pause that would lead to a lasting ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and the provision of humanitarian assistance".
The statement was issued in the name of "Foreign Ministers of 26 Member-States of the European Union" and diplomats said Hungary — a close ally of the Israeli government — was the sole country that did not sign up.
"We ask the Israeli government not to take military action in Rafah that would worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation and prevent the urgently needed provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance," the ministers said.
2024-02-20 09:00:20
The United States has proposed a rival draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and opposing a major ground offensive by its ally Israel in Rafah, according to the text seen by Reuters.
The move comes after the US signalled it would veto on Tuesday an Algerian-drafted resolution — demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire — over concerns it could jeopardise talks between the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar that seek to broker a pause in the war and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Until now, Washington has been averse to the word ceasefire in any UN action on the Israel-Hamas war, but the US text echoes language that President Joe Biden said he used last week in conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It would see the Security Council "underscore its support for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released, and calls for lifting all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale."
The United States does "not plan to rush" to a vote and intends to allow time for negotiations, a senior US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday.
2024-02-19 23:13:56
Yemeni group, the Houthis, launched targeted attacks on two US vessels, Sea Champion and Navis Fortuna, using naval missiles in the Gulf of Aden, Al Jazeera reported.
The group claims the strikes as support for Palestinians and retaliation against perceived "American-British aggression" on Yemen. Further details on the incident will be provided as information becomes available.
2024-02-19 22:19:13
The Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Palestinian group Hamas, has asserted responsibility for engaging in combat with Israeli forces west of Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reported.
The group reported employing anti-personnel shells against a 15-member Israeli unit taking refuge in a house.
In a statement, the Qassam Brigades declared that their fighters confirmed the Israeli soldiers' casualties, with some falling between dead and injured.
The statement noted the audible screams of the soldiers as the area ignited in flames during the confrontation.
2024-02-19 20:48:55
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has revealed a significant decline in Suez Canal revenues, stating that they have "decreased by 40 to 50 percent" this year, Al Jazeera reported.
The reduction is primarily attributed to disruptions in the Red Sea, intensified by heightened tensions. The Yemeni Houthi group's attacks on commercial vessels, aiming to exert pressure to end the Gaza conflict, have played a major role.
In response, the US and the UK conducted raids on Yemen, escalating concerns among shipping companies.
President el-Sisi highlighted the impact on Egypt's income, emphasising the substantial decrease in Suez Canal earnings, which used to reach nearly $10 billion annually.
Despite these challenges, he stressed the commitment to fulfilling financial obligations to companies and partners, addressing the ongoing complexities at the country's borders.
2024-02-19 20:19:56
Namira Negm alleges that Israel utilises a "toolbox of population control and inhumane acts," restricting "every aspect of Palestinians’ life from birth to death."
Namira Negm is the first Director of the African Migration Observatory and was the first female Legal Counsel of the African Union.
2024-02-19 18:38:45
Israel has issued a stern warning, declaring its intent to fully invade Gaza's Rafah before Ramadan commences unless Hamas releases the remaining hostages, Al Jazeera reported.
Despite international pleas urging Israel to reconsider and prioritise the safety of Palestinians in Gaza's southern city, the Israeli authorities remain resolute.
The United States, along with other nations and the UN, is actively appealing for a cessation of Israel's planned assault on Rafah, as hopes for successful truce negotiations dwindle.
Israel contends that Rafah, situated on the border with Egypt, represents the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza.
2024-02-19 15:39:28
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and has enforced a policy of apartheid against Palestinians for years, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on Monday at the opening of a week of hearings on Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.
"Allowing this to continue is unacceptable," Al-Maliki said. "It is a moral and legal obligation to bring it to a prompt end."
2024-02-19 15:24:01
Ireland's foreign minister Micheal Martin said on Monday he hoped to get unanimity from the EU regarding sanctions against violent settlers in the West Bank, as the world is "shocked" at the level of "inhumanity" within Gaza.
"Ireland favours sanctions on violence settlers in the West Bank, we regret that unity and unanimity still hasn't occurred within the Foreign Affairs Council to date," he said ahead of the meeting of EU's foreign ministers, adding that Gaza ordinary people are living "hell on earth" at the moment.
2024-02-19 13:51:51
Israeli forces have arrested a number of Palestinians in various parts of the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported on Monday.
They rounded up two Palestinian men in West Bank’s Qalqilya city, the Wafa news agency reported.
Wafa said two other Palestinians were arrested in Nablus, while a man and his son were nabbed in the town of Beit Rima, northwest of Ramallah. Another arrest of a man was reported from the city of Bethlehem.
2024-02-19 11:42:13
A UK-registered cargo ship reported being under attack in the Bab al-Mandab Strait off Yemen on Sunday, said British maritime security firm Ambrey, while UK Maritime Trade Operations agency reported crew abandoning a ship off Yemen after an explosion.
Ambrey said on Sunday that a Belize-flagged, UK-registered and Lebanese-operated open hatch general cargo ship had reported being under attack in Bab al-Mandab Strait.
The ship was heading north during its journey from Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates to Varna, Bulgaria, when the attack occurred, Ambrey said.
2024-02-19 10:25:37
Norway has agreed to help facilitate the transfer of frozen tax funds earmarked for the Palestinian Authority (PA) that were collected by Israel, the Norwegian government said on Sunday, providing vital funding to the Western-backed entity.
Under interim peace accords reached in the 1990s, Israel's finance ministry collects tax on behalf of the Palestinians and makes monthly transfers to the PA, but a dispute broke out over payments in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas.
The temporary solution will allow payments to resume and prevent a financial collapse for the PA, enabling it to pay salaries and provide essential services such as schools and healthcare, Norway said.
"This is critical to promoting stability in the region and for the Palestinian Authority to have legitimacy among its people," Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said.
2024-02-19 09:51:10
Fighting, fuel shortages and Israeli raids put the Gaza Strip's second-largest hospital completely out of service on Sunday, local and UN health officials said, as Israeli forces battled Hamas fighters in the devastated Palestinian enclave.
The latest blow to Gaza's destroyed healthcare sector came as Israel prepared for an assault on the southernmost city Rafah, home now to more than a million mostly displaced Palestinians living in desperate conditions.
Israel's air and ground offensive has devastated much of Gaza and forced nearly all its inhabitants from their homes. Palestinian health authorities say 28,985 people, mostly civilians, have been killed.
Gaza's hospitals have been a focal point of the four-month-old war between Israel and the Palestinian fighter group Hamas.
The Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis went out of action early on Sunday, Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said.
2024-02-19 08:55:33
The United Nations' top court on Monday opens a week of hearings on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, with more than 50 states due to address the judges.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki will speak first in the legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
In 2022, the UN General Assembly asked the court for an advisory, or non-binding, opinion on the occupation.
While Israel has ignored such opinions in the past, it could pile on political pressure over its ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed about 29,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, since October 7.
Among countries scheduled to participate in the hearings are the United States — Israel's strongest supporter, China, Russia, South Africa and Egypt. Israel will not, although it has sent written observations.
The hearings are part of a Palestinian push to get international legal institutions to examine Israel's conduct, which has become more urgent since the October 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel, which killed 1,200 people, and Israel's military response.
They also come amid mounting concerns about an Israeli ground offensive against the Gaza city of Rafah, a last refuge for more than a million Palestinians after they fled to the south of the enclave to avoid Israeli assaults.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — areas of historic Palestine which the Palestinians want for a state — in the 1967 war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but, along with neighbouring Egypt, still controls its borders.
It is the second time the UN General Assembly has asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, for an advisory opinion related to the occupied Palestinian territory.
In July 2004, the court found that Israel's separation wall in the West Bank violated international law and should be dismantled, though it still stands to this day.
2024-02-18 23:34:11
The Palestinian armed group, Al-Aqsa Brigades, claims to have struck an assembly of Israeli soldiers and vehicles in the northern Gaza Strip's "eastern front" with a rocket, Al Jazeera reported.
Additionally, the group stated via its Telegram channel that it aimed mortar shells at an Israeli soldier group near Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
2024-02-18 23:19:21
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has ignited a diplomatic uproar by accusing Israel of committing "genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza, drawing parallels with Adolf Hitler's atrocities against the Jews, Al Jazeera reported.
Lula, attending an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, asserted, "What's happening in the Gaza Strip isn't a war, it's a genocide," emphasising the asymmetry between a well-equipped military and vulnerable civilians.
The Brazilian president's comparison to Hitler's campaign during World War II, where six million Jews were systematically killed, has triggered strong reactions.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced plans to reprimand Brazil's ambassador, emphasising Israel's right to self-defence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Lula's remarks as "disgraceful and grave," denouncing the comparison as a trivialisation of the Holocaust and an attack on Israel's right to defend itself.
Lula, 78, had previously criticised the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7 as a "terrorist" act. The controversy surrounding his recent statements adds a layer of tension to the already complex dynamics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
2024-02-18 22:22:52
Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has urged Israeli authorities to allow the displaced population in the southern Gaza Strip to return to their homes in the north, Al Jazeera reported.
Amid concerns of an Israeli program to push people out of Gaza, Shtayyeh, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, issued a warning to Prime Minister Netanyahu against attempting to force Palestinians across the border into Egypt.
He emphasised the joint efforts of Palestinians and Egyptians to prevent such displacement. Shtayyeh stated firmly, "Egypt is not going to allow anybody to cross the border."
This statement comes in response to recent reports of Egypt constructing a reception camp on its side of the border for potential Palestinian refugees.
2024-02-18 20:49:21
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has strongly criticised Israel's recent vote to formalise its opposition to the "unilateral recognition" of Palestinian statehood, Al Jazeera reported.
Responding to Israel's decision, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry emphasised that "the full membership of the State of Palestine in the United Nations and its recognition by states do not need a license from [Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu."
Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, justified the move during a weekly meeting, citing concerns over international discussions attempting to impose a Palestinian state on Israel unilaterally.
Tensions persist as both sides grapple with differing perspectives on the path to achieving a resolution through direct negotiations.
2024-02-18 20:08:17
Russia has invited all Palestinian groups, including Hamas, for talks on February 26, according to Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Ishtiyyah, Arab News reported.
The Palestinian Authority expresses a desire for unity with Hamas under specific conditions, emphasising the need for a united Palestine. The move highlights Russia's role as a mediator in the region and aims to address longstanding divisions among Palestinian factions.
As the talks approach, global attention focuses on the potential outcomes of this diplomatic initiative for fostering unity in the Middle East.
2024-02-18 18:36:44
Fighting, fuel shortages and Israeli raids put the Gaza Strip's second-largest hospital completely out of service on Sunday, local and UN health officials said, as Israel battled Hamas fighters in the devastated Palestinian enclave.
The latest blow to Gaza's destroyed healthcare sector came as Israel prepared for an assault of the southernmost city Rafah, home now to more than a million mostly displaced Palestinians - a move that the international community, including Israel's backer the United States, has warned would create enormous human suffering.
Israel's air and ground offensive has devastated much of Gaza and forced nearly all of its inhabitants from their homes. Palestinian health authorities say 28,985 people, mostly civilians, have been killed.
2024-02-18 17:51:56
Israel has officially declared its opposition to what it labels the "unilateral recognition" of Palestinian statehood, emphasising that any such agreement must be achieved through direct negotiations, Al Jazeera reported.
The "declaratory decision" brought forth by Netanyahu received unanimous approval in the cabinet. Netanyahu, addressing the weekly meeting, cited recent international discussions suggesting an attempt to unilaterally impose a Palestinian state on Israel.
The Israeli statement underscores the country's outright rejection of international dictates for a permanent accord with the Palestinians.
According to Netanyahu's office, any agreement should only arise through direct negotiations without preconditions.
Israel remains steadfast in opposing the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, arguing that such recognition, especially in the aftermath of the October 7th massacre, would reward terrorism significantly and impede future peace efforts.
2024-02-18 16:46:00
Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani emphasised Qatar's stance that ending the war in Gaza without preconditions would facilitate the return of prisoners to their homes.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he expressed concern about the abandonment of basic principles of truth, right, and wrong in the killing of Palestinians.
Al Thani called for the consistent application of principles to all cases, drawing parallels with Qatar's stance during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Asserting the need for uniform principles in addressing situations, he reiterated Qatar's unwavering position and its application to the ongoing events in Gaza.
2024-02-18 15:29:46
The Gaza Strip's second-largest hospital has been put "completely out of service", a spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
"There are only four medical staffers currently caring for patients" inside the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, the spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra told Reuters.
2024-02-18 15:09:59
The Israeli military claimed on Sunday that it killed dozens of Palestinian fighters and seized a large amount of weapons in fighting throughout the Gaza Strip over the past day.
Israel has been focusing its campaign in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where the military said troops engaged in battles backed by tanks and air support.
"Over the past day, dozens of terrorists were eliminated and large quantities of weapons were seized," the military said.
Israeli special forces were still operating in and around the Nasser hospital, it said.
2024-02-18 14:46:29
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday dismissed the idea of holding early elections, while thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv for an anti-government protest.
Netanyahu has seen his popularity plummet in opinion polls since Gaza invasion.
Anti-government protests that shook the country for much of 2023 have largely subsided during the war. Still, demonstrators again took to the streets of Tel Aviv Saturday night calling for new elections, which are not scheduled until 2026.
The crowd was much smaller than last years' mass protests, numbering a few thousand, according to local media.
"I'd like to say to the government that you've had your time, you ruined everything that you can ruin. Now is the time for the people to correct all the things, all the bad things that you've done," said one protestor, his head wrapped in an Israeli flag.
Netanyahu was asked at a press briefing about calls within his own ruling Likud party to hold early elections right when the Gaza war ends.
"The last thing we need right now are elections and dealing with elections, since it will immediately divide us," he said. "We need unity right now."
2024-02-18 13:00:34
The United Nations Security Council is likely to vote on Tuesday on an Algerian push for the 15-member body to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, said diplomats, a move the United States signaled it would veto.
Algeria put forward an initial draft resolution more than two weeks ago. But US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield quickly said the text could jeopardise "sensitive negotiations" aimed at brokering a pause in the war.
Algeria requested on Saturday that the council vote on Tuesday, diplomats said. To be adopted, UN Security Council resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, Britain, France, China or Russia.
"The United States does not support action on this draft resolution. Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted," Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement on Saturday.
Washington traditionally shields its ally Israel from UN action and has already twice vetoed council action since October 7. But it has also abstained twice, allowing the council to adopt resolutions that aimed to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza and called for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in fighting.
Talks between the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar are on to seek a pause in the war and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
"It is critical that other parties give this process the best odds of succeeding, rather than push measures that put it - and the opportunity for an enduring resolution of hostilities - in jeopardy," Thomas-Greenfield said.
2024-02-18 11:06:43
Egypt's foreign minister said on Saturday that while his country would deal with civilians humanely, the displacement of Palestinians remained unacceptable.
"It is not our intention to provide any safe areas or facilities, but necessarily if this was a case we will deal with the humanity that is necessary," Sameh Shoukry said at the Munich Security Conference.
Reuters reported on Friday that Egypt was preparing an area at the Gaza border which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli military offensive into Rafah prompts an exodus across the frontier. Sources described this as a contingency move.
Egypt has repeatedly denied making such preparations.
"This is very hypothetical. We have constantly been dealing with maintenance on our border so I think it is jumping to conclusions to what those activities constitute," Shoukry said of construction activity seen around the border.
Separately, the governor of North Sinai said on Saturday that the armed forces are establishing a logistics zone to receive aid for Gaza.
2024-02-18 10:35:30
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Saturday he met with the prime minister of Qatar, who has been trying to mediate a ceasefire in the Gaza war.
"I met with the Prime Minister of Qatar yesterday," Herzog said at the Munich Security Conference, according to a statement from his office. "It was a good discussion. And I think he's doing major efforts. He's taken major efforts and devoting an enormous focus on this issue."
The presidency in Israel is largely ceremonial without a direct impact on policymaking.
2024-02-18 08:45:27
Israeli forces carried out arrests in Gaza's largest functioning hospital, health officials and the military said on Saturday, as airstrikes hit across the enclave and rain battered Palestinians taking shelter in Rafah.
Israeli forces raided the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Thursday as they pressed their war on Gaza enclave.
"Occupation forces detained a large number of medical staff members inside Nasser Medical Complex, which they (Israel) turned into a military base," said Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday pledged to push on with the military campaign and said troops would move into the southern border city of Rafah.
The Israeli military said it was hunting for militants in Nasser and had so far arrested 100 suspects on the premises, killed gunmen near the hospital and found weapons inside it.
Hamas has denied allegations that its fighters use medical facilities for cover. The Israeli incursion into the hospital has raised alarm about patients, medical workers and displaced Palestinians sheltering there.
About 10,000 people were seeking shelter at the hospital earlier this week, but many left either in anticipation of the Israeli raid or because of Israeli orders to evacuate, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
Further south in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million population are sheltering, the winter cold added to already dire conditions when wind blew away some tents of the displaced and rain flooded others.
2024-02-17 23:34:47
Prince Faisal bin Farhan stated at the Munich Security Conference that normalisation of relations with Israel is not as important to Saudi Arabia as a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict.
“We are focused on a ceasefire and on an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and we are focused on humanitarian access for the people of Gaza,” he told reporters, according to Al Jazeera.
Saudi Arabia has made it clear time and time again that it would not establish diplomatic ties with Israel until the recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
2024-02-17 20:45:05
The case of a little girl named Hanin Jum'aa from northern Gaza who perished from malnutrition has been documented, as per the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
Saleh, Hanin's father, stated that Hanin, who lacked calcium, expressed her hunger the evening before she passed away, according to Al Jazeera.
Because there were no cars accessible, he utilised a donkey cart to transport her to a hospital in the early morning hours because he noticed that she appeared ill and was "on the verge of death." The doctor there informed him that she had died from malnutrition and dehydration.
2024-02-17 18:26:31
Even before Israel imposed a complete seige on the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas's October 7 onslaught, the region was among the poorest in the Middle East.
Food aid was insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.4 million inhabitants, despite the fact that much of the region was dependent on it, according to Al Jazeera.
However, following almost four months of conflict, the populace is now on the verge of starvation.
“There are about 300,000 people in the north and I have no idea how they’ve survived,” said Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA in the Palestinian territories.
2024-02-17 17:01:43
The Palestinian organisation will only accept a "complete cessation of the aggression, the withdrawal of the occupation army from Gaza, and the lifting of the unjust siege," according to Hamas chairman Ismail Haniyeh.
In any future swap agreement, Haniyeh added in a statement, Israel must likewise release Palestinian inmates serving lengthy sentences, according to Al Jazeera.
The leader of Hamas accused Israel of being to fault for the lack of progress in reaching a truce.
2024-02-17 12:26:02
New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday apologised for remarks she made at a Jewish philanthropy event in New York City that went viral on social media and which suggested Israel had justification to destroy Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack.
"If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I'm sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day," Hochul said in a portion of her speech on Thursday at an event for the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York.
"That is a natural reaction. You have a right to defend yourself and to make sure that it never happens again. And that is Israel's right."
In a statement on Friday night, she said she regretted "using an inappropriate analogy that I now realise could be hurtful to members of our community," and apologised for her "poor choice of words."
The humanitarian crisis has left Gaza's population of more than 2 million people on the brink of starvation. Nearly 29,000 have died in Israel's offensive.
The United Nations has called for a humanitarian ceasefire, which the US has opposed, saying it would let Hamas regroup.
2024-02-17 11:09:04
Gaza's largest functioning hospital was under siege on Friday during Israel's assault in the enclave, leaving patients and doctors helpless in the chaos as warplanes struck Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians in Gaza Strip, officials said.
Israeli forces remained in Nasser Hospital in the town of Khan Younis after raiding it early Thursday. The Gaza Health Ministry said five intensive care patients died on Friday because of power outages and lack of oxygen supply caused by the attack.
Israel claimed it moved into the hospital because Hamas fighters were hiding there. The Israeli military claimed its troops detained over 20 people in the hospital who allegedly participated in the October 7 attacks and dozens of others for questioning. Hamas said there were no fighter in the hospital, describing the claim as "lies aimed to cover up for destroying hospitals."
The Gaza Health Ministry said the hospital lost power and remained without electricity on Friday, jeopardising patient care. But the Israeli military said it repaired one generator and provided another, ensuring "all vital systems continued to operate."
Two pregnant women gave birth on Friday “under tough conditions — no water, no food and no way of warming them up” in cold weather, said ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra.
The ministry said Israeli forces inside Nasser Hospital forced women and children into the maternity department, which it turned into a military area. Women were not allowed to take any of their belongings.
According to the ministry, Israeli soldiers stopped an aid convoy outside the hospital, which was unable to deliver supplies. The military said it provided aid including baby food and water.
The incursion at the hospital raised alarm about patients, medical workers and displaced Palestinians sheltering there.
"There are still critically injured and sick patients that are inside the hospital," said Tarik Jasarevic, spokesperson for the World Health Organisation, which said its staff was trying to reach the hospital after the Israeli raid.
"There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to ensure the continuation of the provision of life-saving services."
About 10,000 people were seeking shelter at the hospital earlier this week, but many left either in anticipation of the Israeli raid or because of Israeli orders to evacuate, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
2024-02-17 09:33:44
2024-02-17 08:38:02
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday said that it does not see the need for additional emergency measures to protect Palestinians' rights following Israel's Rafah offensive.
The court said the "perilous situation" in the Gaza Strip and in Rafah particularly "demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures" per its order on Jan. 26, and "does not demand the indication of additional provisional measures."
The decision comes after South Africa asked the World Court to consider whether Israel's plan to extend its offensive in Gaza into the city of Rafah requires additional emergency measures to protect Palestinians' rights earlier this month.
2024-02-17 06:54:34
The recognition of a Palestinian state is no longer a taboo for France, President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday, suggesting Paris could make the decision if efforts for a two-state solution stalled because of Israeli opposition.
A unilateral French recognition would do little to change the situation on the ground without true negotiations, but would weigh symbolically and diplomatically.
French lawmakers voted in 2014 to urge their government to recognise Palestine, a symbolic move that had little impact on France's diplomatic stance.
"Our partners in the region, notably Jordan, are working on it, we are working on it with them. We are ready to contribute to it, in Europe and in the Security Council. The recognition of a Palestinian state is not a taboo for France," Macron said alongside Jordan's King Abdullah II in Paris.
"We owe it to the Palestinians, whose aspirations have been trampled on for too long. We owe it to the Israelis who lived through the greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century. We owe it to a region that longs to escape the promoters of chaos and the those who sow revenge," he said.
Macron's comments are likely aimed at adding pressure on Israel.
While most developing countries recognise Palestine as a state, most Western European countries do not, arguing that an independent Palestinian state should emerge from negotiations with Israel.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said earlier this month that part of British policy is to say there will be a time when Britain would look to recognise a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations.
Macron added that an Israeli offensive in Rafah could only lead to an unprecedented humanitarian disaster and would be a turning point in the conflict.
2024-02-17 01:04:34
Egypt categorically denied allegations of participating in any process involving the displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip into the Sinai Peninsula, the country's State Information Service (SIS) said on Friday.
Four sources told Reuters that Egypt, as a precautionary measure, is preparing an area at the Gaza border which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli offensive into Rafah prompts an exodus across the frontier.
The news was also reported by other outlets, including the Wall Street Journal.
"Egypt's decisive stance since the beginning of the aggression ... is to completely reject any forced or voluntary displacement of Palestinian brothers from the Gaza Strip to outside it, especially to Egyptian territory," Diaa Rashwan, the SIS head, said in a statement.
He said such a scenario would entail "a definite liquidation of the Palestinian cause and a direct threat to Egyptian sovereignty and national security."
The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, an activist organisation, published images on Monday it said showed construction trucks and cranes working in the area and images of concrete barriers along the border.
"Egypt has already had a buffer zone and barriers in this area for a long time before the current crisis erupted. These are measures taken by any country in the world to preserve the security of its borders and its sovereignty over its territories," Rahswan added.
Describing any sort of displacement as a "crime advocated by some Israeli parties", Rashwan said Egypt will take all necessary measures to stop it.
Earlier this week, Egypt hosted talks involving the US, Israel and Qatar on a possible Gaza truce. An Egyptian source said the country was optimistic that talks to clinch a ceasefire can avoid the prospect of displacement.
2024-02-16 23:42:25
President Biden has conveyed optimism regarding a potential pause in the Gaza conflict, expressing his hope for an agreement and emphasising his anticipation that Israel will refrain from launching a major incursion into Rafah, Al Jazeera reported.
While labelling an Israeli operation in the densely populated city as a "disaster," the Biden administration clarified that such an action would not yield consequences like a freeze in US weapons transfers.
“I’ve had extensive conversations with the prime minister of Israel over the last several days, one hour each. And I made the case, that I feel very strongly about, that there has to be a temporary ceasefire to get the hostages out,” Biden told reporters today.
Despite the delicate situation, he conveyed his expectation that a massive land invasion of Rafah by the Israelis is unlikely to occur in the interim.
2024-02-16 23:23:24
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) strongly condemns the dire situation at Nasser Hospital during an Israeli raid in Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reported.
Intense fighting in the area, home to one of the last operational major medical facilities, led to chaos and catastrophe, according to MSF Secretary-General Christopher Lockyear.
Following Thursday's raid, all MSF staff were compelled to evacuate, with one remaining unaccounted for. Lockyear expressed deep concern for their well-being, noting the organisation's prior loss of five staff members in the ongoing conflict.
The situation underscores the urgent need for humanitarian intervention amidst escalating hostilities.
2024-02-16 22:12:12
In a recently obtained recording by Al Jazeera, Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas's military wing, expressed serious concerns about the challenging circumstances faced by captives.
He emphasised the unprecedented losses inflicted by their mujaheddin on Israel's forces. The footage broadcasted reflects ongoing field operations, with some scenes withheld for security reasons.
Obeida highlighted the parallel execution of specific deadly operations alongside the resistance forces' efforts. Despite repeated warnings about the dangers faced by enemy prisoners, the enemy leadership ignored these alerts.
The resistance has witnessed significant losses among captives, prompting ongoing efforts to protect and support them.
According to Obeida, captives are enduring difficult conditions and fighting for their lives, accusing the enemy army of intentionally causing harm to its prisoners.
2024-02-16 20:12:59
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concern that the Gaza conflict underscores a "fragmented" world order, describing the global geopolitical landscape as "not working for anyone," Al Jazeera reported.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he criticises the deadlock in international relations, highlighting the shocking level of death and destruction in Gaza. Guterres notes the spillover effects on regional borders and global trade.
He emphasises the humanitarian aid operation in Gaza is barely functioning, with workers facing challenging conditions, including live-fire situations and obstacles, as well as a breakdown of public order. The situation serves as a stark indictment of the current state of global affairs.
2024-02-16 20:00:17
Hezbollah claims responsibility for striking an Israeli army site in Shebaa Farms, Golan Heights, causing casualties, Al Jazeera reported.
The action comes in response to Israeli attacks overnight and in the early morning, resulting in three casualties, according to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's televised speech.
2024-02-16 19:16:12
Mohamed Shousha, North Sinai Governor, refutes claims of Egypt preparing a refugee camp in Sinai amid Israel's potential ground invasion of Rafah, Al Jazeera reported.
Shousha clarifies that satellite-highlighted construction is evaluating compensation for houses destroyed, not for a refugee facility.
Despite this, the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights receives contractor accounts indicating the construction of a walled area on demolished Egyptian homes.
Sources suggest the site's preparation for a potential Gaza border breach, with added security measures implemented by Egypt.
Anonymous insiders affirm readiness with tents and humanitarian aid if needed. The situation raises concerns about the region's stability amidst geopolitical tensions.
2024-02-16 18:10:36
The Gaza press office has reported a distressing increase in the number of journalists killed since the commencement of Israel's war on Gaza, now reaching 130.
The recent victims include Zaid Abu Zayed, who lost his life in a house bombing in the Nuseirat camp, and Yasser Mamdouh, killed by an Israeli sniper at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.
Jodie Ginsberg from the Committee to Protect Journalists emphasises the profound impact of these losses on journalism, not only within the Palestinian territories but echoing consequences for the wider region and beyond. Each journalist's demise is perceived as a significant setback in comprehending the world.
2024-02-16 18:05:53
Ongoing tit-for-tat attacks persist in Yemen and the Red Sea as both the US and UK engage in aircraft launch raids in Al Jabana and Al Jah areas of Yemen's Hodeida governorate, Al Jazeera reported.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported an anti-ship ballistic missile launched into the Gulf of Aden from Houthi-controlled areas, causing minimal damage to the UK-owned MV Lycavitos.
CENTCOM responded with self-defence strikes against three anti-ship cruise missiles in Houthi-controlled Yemeni regions.
The Houthis' targeting of Israel-linked ships, expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, has triggered responses from the US, UK, and their Western allies, resulting in an escalating cycle of naval incidents in the region.
2024-02-16 16:52:55
Hamas and various Palestinian groups, including Fatah, have received invitations to engage in discussions in Moscow regarding Israel's actions in Gaza and broader Middle East concerns, Al Jazeera reported
According to Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, around a dozen Palestinian factions have been invited for "inter-Palestinian" talks starting on February 29.
Bogdanov, President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for the Middle East, emphasised the inclusivity of the invitation, reaching out to representatives from different countries, including Syria and Lebanon.
Russia, once pursuing positive relations with major regional players, has shifted towards increased criticism of Israel and its Western supporters concerning the ongoing Gaza conflict.
2024-02-16 15:51:44
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday it was trying to get access to the biggest functioning hospital in Gaza, the Nasser Hospital, after an Israeli raid.
"There are still critically injured and sick patients that are inside the hospital," WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.
"There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to ensure the continuation of the provision of life-saving services... We are trying to get access because people who are still in Nasser medical complex need assistance."
Israel's military had claimed that the hospital was raided based on information that Hamas fighters were keeping hostages in the facility. However, no hostage was found following the raid at the health facility.
2024-02-16 15:26:47
Egypt is preparing an area at the Gaza border which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli offensive into Rafah prompts an exodus across the frontier, four sources said, in what they described as a contingency move by Cairo.
Egypt, which denied making any such preparations, has repeatedly raised the alarm over the possibility that Israel's devastating Gaza offensive could displace Palestinians into Sinai — something Cairo says would be completely unacceptable — echoing warnings from Arab states such as Jordan.
The United States has repeatedly said it would oppose any displacement of Palestinians out of Gaza.
One of the sources said Egypt was optimistic talks to clinch a ceasefire can avoid any such scenario, but is establishing the area at the border as a temporary and precautionary measure.
Three security sources said Egypt had begun preparing a desert area with some basic facilities which could be used to shelter Palestinians, emphasising this was a contingency step.
The sources Reuters spoke to for this story declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Israel has said it will mount an offensive to take out Hamas's "last bastion" in Rafah, where well over one million Palestinians have sought sanctuary from its devastating Gaza offensive.
Israel has said its army is drawing up a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah to other parts of the Gaza Strip.
But UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday it was an "illusion" to think people in Gaza could evacuate to a safe place and warned of the possibility of Palestinians spilling into Egypt if Israel launches a military operation in Rafah.
He called this scenario "a sort of Egyptian nightmare".
Egypt has framed its opposition to the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza as part of wider Arab rejection of any repeat of the "Nakba", or "catastrophe", when some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes in the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.
2024-02-16 12:16:53
Actor and activist Susan Sarandon on Thursday took part in an "advocacy day", organised by CODEPINK against US funding to Israel and in support of Gaza and a ceasefire in the office of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Capitol Hill in Washington, US. On this occasion, Sarandon talked to the media about the Gaza crisis. She also visitedthe office of US Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
2024-02-16 10:43:07
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that a deal on the release of hostages held by Hamas remains possible but "very hard" issues remain to be resolved.
Talks involving intelligence chiefs from the US, Egypt and Israel and the Qatari prime minister on a deal that would see a pause in Israel's four-month-old war in Gaza ended without a breakthrough on Tuesday.
Asked whether an agreement could be reached on a break in hostilities before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins on March 10, Blinken said an earlier response from Hamas on a potential deal had included some "clear non-starters" but offered the possibility of working toward an agreement.
"We're now in the process with our counterparts from Qatar, from Egypt, from Israel, in working on that and working very intensely on that with the goal of trying to find an agreement and I believe that it is possible," Blinken said at a news conference during a visit to Albania.
"There are some very, very hard issues that have to be resolved. But we're committed to doing everything we can to move forward and to see if we can reach an agreement," Blinken said.
The Israelis rejected Hamas' proposals for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in return for the freeing of hostages, said two sources familiar with the discussions. The Israelis “did not like the ratio (of prisoners to hostages) they were proposing,” said one of the sources.
The timing for a pause in fighting was another source of disagreement, with Hamas wanting to implement a pause sooner and Israel wanting a later date, said the sources.
2024-02-16 09:52:33
2024-02-16 08:45:12
THE HAGUE: Israel has asked the International Court of Justice to dismiss a request by South Africa to issue additional emergency measures because of Israel's plan to extend its offensive in Gaza into the city of Rafah.
In documents released on Thursday by the ICJ, also known as the World Court, Israel argued that the emergency measures issued three weeks ago already cover "the situation of hostilities in Gaza as a whole" and the court should reject the South African request.
Israel has said it is planning to expand its ground assault into Rafah, where over a million Palestinians have sought refuge from the offensive that has laid waste to much of the Gaza Strip since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7.
Earlier this week South Africa asked the court to issue extra emergency measures to protect Palestinians' rights in Rafah.
The ICJ last month ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a case brought by South Africa.
Israel has denied all allegations of genocide in connection with its war in Gaza.
It was not clear when the judges will rule on South Africa's latest request or whether they will call additional hearings to consider it.
2024-02-16 02:17:40
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza, is grappling with dire and alarming conditions following an Israeli raid on Thursday, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
The situation at the Khan Yunis medical facility is described as catastrophic due to a lack of medical resources, leaving patients and medics in a precarious state.
The Israeli military conducted what they termed a "precise and limited operation" at the hospital, a major health facility in the region. However, the impact has been severe, with the health ministry reporting a chaotic scene and the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) highlighting the challenges faced by their staff.
MSF, in a statement on social media, revealed the grim reality: "Our medical staff have had to flee the hospital, leaving patients behind." This abandonment of patients, coupled with the shelling, resulted in numerous casualties.
The Israeli military initially claimed "credible intelligence" suggesting the presence of hostages in the hospital. However, later statements indicated a lack of evidence supporting their assertion. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari clarified that no evidence of hostages was found but acknowledged the discovery of weapons within the hospital complex.
Footage circulating on social media showed the aftermath of the shelling, with rescuers navigating through debris to evacuate patients. The health ministry shared a video showing a crowded corridor with patients on beds, highlighting the strain on the healthcare system.
Amid the chaos, over 460 individuals were relocated to an old hospital building, where they faced a severe shortage of essential resources. The health ministry reported that those displaced were "without food, without milk for children, and a severe shortage of water," painting a grim picture of the humanitarian crisis unfolding.
2024-02-15 23:43:46
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says a deal between Israel and Hamas that would include a pause in the fighting and the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners is still possible but “very hard” points of disagreement have yet to be resolved, Al Jazeera reported.
“We are very committed to do everything we can to move forward and see if we can reach an agreement,” he added.
Talks involving Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the US ended in Cairo this week without a breakthrough.
2024-02-15 23:36:19
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has refuted Israeli claims alleging the arrest of 20 "terrorists disguised as medical personnel" from al-Amal Hospital on February 9, branding them as "fabricated," Al Jazeera reported.
Following the Israeli army's raid on the Khan Younis hospital, the PRCS rejected the accusations, deeming them a part of a pattern of excuses used by occupation forces to justify actions such as sieges, bombings, hospital stormings, and the killing of PRCS medical staff in Gaza.
Additionally, the aid organisation disclosed that Israeli forces detained nine of its medical and administrative staff, along with nine elderly patients and their companions.
2024-02-15 23:00:19
Yemeni group, Houthis, claimed responsibility for targeting the UK bulk carrier LYCAVITOS with naval missiles in the Gulf of Aden, Al Jazeera reported.
They asserted their intent to enforce a blockade on Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas until a Gaza Strip ceasefire and siege lift are achieved.
A maritime security firm, Ambrey, had previously reported a bulk carrier sustaining damage under comparable circumstances, raising questions about potential connections between the incidents.
The situation prompts further investigation into the nature and coordination of these attacks.
2024-02-15 21:55:58
According to Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra, Israeli troops are compelling 95 medics, 191 patients, and 165 displaced individuals into a single building at Nasser Medical Complex, Al Jazeera reported.
Al-Qudra highlights the severe conditions, with no provisions of food or milk for children. The situation is described as catastrophic and alarming, with the medical capacity dwindling due to fuel shortages anticipated within 24 hours.
This poses a direct threat to patients' lives, including those on respirators and infants in incubators. The ongoing Israeli army raid intensifies the crisis at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Stay tuned for updates.
2024-02-15 20:52:52
Amidst an ongoing Israeli army raid on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, displaced Palestinians desperately escape the besieged hospital.
Al Jazeera Arabic's obtained footage reveals chaotic scenes as civilians face attacks from the Israeli military upon leaving the medical facility.
2024-02-15 20:34:00
A recent study by data firm YouGov reveals a shift in British sentiment, with 66% of respondents expressing support for ending the conflict in Gaza, a notable increase from 59% in November. Only 13% advocate for Israel's continued military actions in the Palestinian territory.
Additionally, 45% deem Israel's attack on Gaza unjustified, while 24% believe it is justified. The survey, encompassing 2,092 participants and conducted this week, underscores a significant contrast between public sentiment in the UK and the US and the unwavering support of both governments for Israel.
2024-02-15 20:20:58
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, led by Abdulmalik al-Houthi, assert their commitment to Red Sea shipping attacks, expressing solidarity with Palestinians in response to perceived Israeli "crimes," Al Jazeera reported.
Al-Houthi, in a televised speech, emphasises the significant impact of their operations on the enemy, labelling it a "great success" and a "real triumph."
Despite retaliatory strikes by the US and Britain on Houthi targets in Yemen following Red Sea attacks, the group remains resolute in supporting Palestinians, signalling a continued escalation in the region's geopolitical tensions.
2024-02-15 20:10:11
- According to Al Jazeera, the Israeli army conducts a "precise and limited" raid on Nasser Medical Complex, Gaza's largest medical facility, following previous attacks on al-Shifa, al-Rantisi, and al-Amal Hospitals.
- Israel alleges that Hamas fighters hide in the hospital and keep captives, without providing evidence for the claim.
- Hamas denies the accusations, denouncing them as "lies" and framing the assault as part of Israel's "war of extermination."
- Gaza’s Health Ministry reports severe consequences, with the maternity ward stormed, ambulances destroyed, and intensive care patients in grave danger.
- Medical charity MSF calls for an immediate halt to the "attack," reporting a missing staff member and the arrest of another during evacuation.
- Disturbing footage shows chaos inside and outside the hospital, with Israeli forces reportedly attacking people attempting to flee.
- Initial evacuation requests exclude doctors and patients, intensifying the unfolding crisis.
2024-02-15 19:53:07
The Israeli army has reportedly stormed the maternity building at the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health, Al Jazeera reported.
The ongoing raid also resulted in the destruction of two ambulances within the compound. This incursion raises concerns for the safety and medical care of expectant mothers.
The Nasser Medical Complex has been significantly affected by Israeli military activities, limiting its capacity to provide essential healthcare.
International attention is urgently needed to address the escalating crisis, protect civilian infrastructure, and ensure the safety of healthcare facilities in the region.
2024-02-15 15:56:14
Senior Hezbollah official and member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah said on Thursday that Israel would face reprisal after two sets of strikes on southern Lebanon the previous day killed 10 civilians, half of them children.
"The enemy (Israel) will pay the price for these crimes," Fadlallah told Reuters when asked about the powerful Iran-backed armed group's reaction to the deadliest day for civilians in Lebanon since hostilities began along its southern border.
Hezbollah has been trading fire for more than four months with the Israeli military in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, which carried out a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that was met with an Israeli land, air and sea assault on Gaza.
Hezbollah says its rockets are also deterring Israel from a broader offensive on Lebanon.
2024-02-15 15:39:10
Ireland announced 20 million euros ($21.46 million) in support for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) on Thursday and urged countries that have suspended funding to resume and expand support to the agency.
UNRWA, which provides healthcare, education and other services, has been pitched into crisis since Israel alleged that 12 of its 13,000 staff in Gaza were involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The mere allegations prompted a number of countries to suspend funding, including the United States, its largest donor. Dublin contributed 18 million euros directly to UNRWA in 2023, part of 36 million euros provided to the Palestinian people.
Ireland has long been a champion of Palestinian rights and its announcement follows a commitment by Spain last week to send UNRWA an additional 3.5 million euros in aid, and an announcement of an extra one million euros from Portugal.
2024-02-15 15:25:19
Israel is killing too many civilians with its military operation in the Gaza Strip, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday.
Israel is conducting a military operation against the Hamas fighters "which is causing too many civilian victims", Tajani told Italian TV channel Canale 5.
He said the Israeli response to the Oct. 7 attacks has "in some cases gone beyond proportionality".
2024-02-15 14:05:09
French President Emmanuel Macron will host Jordan's King Abdullah in Paris on Friday to talk about helping resolve the Gaza conflict, the Elysee palace said.
"Following up on their meeting in Jordan in December, the two heads of state will discuss the urgent need for a ceasefire in Gaza, which would finally ensure the protection of civilians and the massive entry of humanitarian aid," it said in a statement.
They will also discuss ways to achieve durable peace in the Middle East.
2024-02-15 12:57:15
People in the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah are seeking new ways to cope with the devastating effects of the chronic power shortage that has plagued the enclave throughout the months-long Israel-Hamas conflict.
Israeli attacks have destroyed more than 70 percent of the main power grid in Gaza since fighting flared up on October 7. Due to lack of fuel, the only power station in Gaza was forced to shut down, and locals must rack their brains to find alternatives.
Nasim Keshtkar, who has lived in Rafah since he was a child, says that he has never known such serious power shortages. In order to generate just a small amount of power, he has transformed an old sewing machine into a miniature pedal-powered generator which can charge small batteries as well as power the sewing machine.
"We've been staying at home for months because of the total blockade of Gaza and the outbreak of war. No jobs, thus no income, no public electricity, and the generators are running out of fuel. So, many people here have invented other methods. Some even turn electricity supply into a business. They have to do that because the family needs income. There are also people who use hand-held iron cranks to generate electricity or ride bicycles to drive generators," said Keshtkar.
Fifteen-year-old Houssam Attar fled with his family from northern Gaza and now lives in a tent in Rafah. Using concepts he learned in physics classes, he is now generating small amounts of electricity with some simple wind turbines made out of fan blades on a nearby roof.
"For the first 20 days living in this tent, we had no electricity and therefore no lights. During the period, I had been thinking about how to get electricity. So I went to the scrap yard and took home some fans. I assembled them, connected them to the wires, and put the batteries and lights on the ends. It can be seen as one of my own inventions," he said.
After the first two tries failed, Attar tinkered with his system until it finally worked.
"Fortunately, my experiment succeeded. At least now people don't need to live in the dark in the tent. I hope to expand the application of this invention so it could generate more electricity and hopefully light up the whole refugee camp," Attar said.
It's been almost impossible to watch TV or get a stable internet connection in Rafah since the conflict erupted, so radio has become the main way people here stay informed.
Mohamed Saha originally wanted to make some income to support his family when he first set up a charging station using a solar panel he owned. But with the humanitarian situation deteriorating so rapidly around him, he is now offering free charging for people here, especially those fleeing from other parts of Gaza.
"We set up a charging station mainly for the people who live in tents because they have no place to get power. Dozens of devices can be charged at the same time here, most of which are mobile phones, batteries and radios, so that people can at least hear news and know what is going on. There has been a power outage for more than 100 days since the war began. We have been longing for power but so far we have not seen it," said Saha.
2024-02-15 11:24:58
BEIRUT: Eleven people, including six children, were killed by Israeli strikes on villages across southern Lebanon on Wednesday, a hospital director and three Lebanese security sources said, as Israel said it responded to a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed one of its soldiers.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been exchanging fire along the Israel-Lebanon border for more than four months, after the Lebanese armed group launched rockets across the disputed frontier in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.
A woman and her two children were killed in an Israeli strike on the village of al-Sawana, two security sources said.
A strike on a building in Nabatieh killed four more children, three women and a man, according to the director of the town's hospital, Hassan Wazni, and three other security sources. Seven people were also wounded, Wazni told Reuters.
Four Hezbollah fighters were killed in separate strikes, according to the group and security sources.
Hezbollah did not announce any operations on Wednesday. The head of its executive council said Israel's attacks on Lebanon "cannot pass without a response".
2024-02-15 08:45:37
SYDNEY: Canada, Australia and New Zealand on Thursday called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, according to a joint statement released in response to reports about Israel's planned military operation in Rafah.
2024-02-14 23:09:39
Following an earlier report on the Israeli attack in Adashit, the National News Agency revealed that 10 individuals were injured and swiftly transported to nearby hospitals in Nabatieh, Al Jazeera reported.
The Lebanese Civil Defense had initially reported one fatality, identified as Hezbollah fighter Hassan Ali Najm, a confirmation reiterated by Hezbollah.
The strike caused extensive damage to commercial establishments, shops, homes, and cars, according to the NNA. Additionally, Hezbollah announced the death of another fighter, Ibrahim Ali al-Dabaq, known as "Ruhullah," from Kunine in southern Lebanon, attributing it to wounds sustained several days ago.
2024-02-14 22:21:45
The Israeli embassy to the Holy See expressed strong objection to remarks made by a deputy of Pope Francis, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, who lamented the "carnage" in Gaza.
The embassy denounced the statement as "deplorable," emphasizing that assessing the legitimacy of a war without considering all relevant circumstances leads to erroneous conclusions.
Cardinal Parolin had called for Israel's right to defence to be proportional, citing the high death toll of 30,000. Despite expressing outrage at the situation, he urged courage to move forward and maintain hope in the face of the ongoing crisis.
2024-02-14 22:16:58
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, amid ongoing discussions in Cairo, stated that Hamas has not introduced a fresh potential agreement, Al Jazeera reported.
This comes in response to reports today suggesting that Netanyahu has not sanctioned the dispatch of an Israeli delegation to Cairo on Thursday for further talks on a potential deal.
His office emphasised, “Israel did not receive any new proposal from Hamas to release our hostages,” asserting that Israel won't yield to what they deem as Hamas' unreasonable demands.
Netanyahu indicated that a shift in Hamas' stance is essential for progress in the negotiation process.
2024-02-14 21:45:52
In a meeting with his Cypriot counterpart in Nicosia, Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prioritising his "personal career and personal future" over the well-being of Israeli hostages and innocent lives in Palestine
According to Al Jazeera, Al-Maliki emphasised that Netanyahu's actions indicate a lack of concern for the destiny of people on both sides of the conflict.
He urged collective responsibility to prevent further escalation and the extension of the war to additional fronts in the West Bank or south Lebanon.
"This is something we should deplore and stand against," he added.
2024-02-14 18:48:53
Lebanese footage captures a sequence of Israeli air raids targeting numerous towns in the southern part of the country, specifically in the Nabatieh governorate, Al Jazeera reported.
The strikes hit southern villages such as Adchit, Sawwaneh, and Shihabiyeh, marking a deeper incursion compared to previous incidents. The geographical expansion of these attacks raises apprehensions of a potential new escalation in the region, intensifying concerns about the ongoing situation and its impact on the affected areas.
2024-02-14 18:40:27
Al Jazeera correspondents have confirmed a series of strikes across Gaza, with significant impact observed in the southern part of the Strip, where more than half of the population seeks shelter.
The center of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, experienced artillery shelling, while Israeli warplanes conducted multiple raids on the southern neighborhoods of Gaza City.
The intensification of strikes raises concerns about the safety and well-being of the population in these areas, as tensions escalate in the region.
2024-02-14 18:30:06
In central Gaza, Palestinian fishermen report regular assaults by the Israeli Navy as they attempt to provide sustenance to the besieged enclave, Al Jazeera reported.
Imad al-Aqra, a fisherman from Deir el-Balah, recounted the difficult situation, noting the recent intense shooting that damaged boats. The fishermen face life-threatening conditions, with limited access to the sea and the constant risk of gunfire.
Al-Aqra, having survived multiple bullet encounters, questioned the targeting of fishermen, emphasising the impact on their ability to earn a living. The dire circumstances leave families starving, receiving only a fraction of their previous catch.
2024-02-14 17:59:50
In Beit Ummar, occupied West Bank, at least five individuals sustained injuries in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces, as reported by local news agency Wafa, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli military actions, including live rounds, injured five men, while others suffered from rubber-coated metal bullets or tear gas inhalation.
The United Nations has urgently called on Israel to cease "unlawful killings" and address settler violence in the occupied West Bank, expressing concern over the escalating human rights crisis during heightened Israeli raids.
2024-02-14 17:08:49
CAIRO/ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan made his first visit to Egypt since 2012 on Wednesday to meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, taking a big step toward rebuilding ties between the regional powers.
Erdogan has said discussions would focus on Israel's Gaza offensive. The leaders, whose relations frayed over Egypt's 2013 military coup and its fallout for the Muslim Brotherhood, are set to hold a press conference later.
The visit caps diplomatic efforts in recent years to thaw the nations' frosty relations. They mutually appointed ambassadors last year, and this month Turkey said it would provide Egypt with armed drones.
Relations between Ankara and Cairo broke down in 2013 after Egypt's then-army chief Sisi led the ouster of the Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi, an ally of Turkey.
2024-02-14 15:50:11
Doctors Without Borders, which is a non-governmental organisation, posted a voice note onsocial media describing the situation on the ground in Rafah.
“Where is safe, where should we go? There is no answer to that and that leads to a feeling of despair,” Lisa Macheiner, MSF Project Coordinator in Gaza, said.
“It’s quite sad to see how empty people’s eyes are, despite all the resilience that people have here.”
The organisation has also urged the Israeli government to put an end to its assault.
2024-02-14 13:55:32
The negotiations to stop Israel's attack on Gaza and free captives have entered the second day in Cairo with a delegation of Hamas set to meetEgyptian and Qatari mediators, Al Jazeera reported.
Israelinegotiators held talks on Tuesday and the talks were attended byCIA Director William Burns and David Barnea, head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.
US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby described the negotiations as “constructive and moving in the right direction”.
Mediators are racing to secure a stop to the fighting before Israel proceeds with a full-scale ground incursion into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians are trapped.
2024-02-14 12:23:50
The Israeli military is carrying out arrests across the occupied West Bank with four people detained, the Wafa news agency reported.
Among the arrested were a man who had only days ago been released after spending 10 years in Israeli custody.
2024-02-14 11:40:06
People in Chile'sSantiago province are demanding their government to cut ties with Israel in a bid to endIsraeli aggression on Gaza, said local media.
Demonstrators inProvidencia wavedPalestinian flags and demanded that President Gabriel Boric withdraw his country’s ambassador from Israel as a result of Tel Aviv’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
2024-02-14 10:53:57
David Saranga, the director of the digital diplomacy bureau at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has "zero say" in itsground operations in Rafah.
“After Hamas terrorists break into our homes and slaughter our children, you have absolutely ZERO say in how we respond. After years of aiding and abetting Hamas terrorists, you have absolutely ZERO say in how we respond,” he wrote on X.
2024-02-14 10:01:31
Three Palestinians have been arrested by the Israeli military duringraids on the city of Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank, according toWafa news agency.
A man has also been arrested in the town of Ni’lin, west of Ramallah, according to local media.
On the other hand, the Israeli military has also raided Ramallah and stationed their vehicles in the vicinity of the Palestine Medical Complex, Wafa also reports.
2024-02-14 08:40:09
Biden administration will not hold Israel responsible if the country proceeds with its planned assault on Rafah, said a report byUS media outlet Politico.
The report, which cites three anonymous officials in the Biden administration, states that “no reprimand plans are in the works, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences”.
Despite the US saying that the assault on Rafah would be a "disaster", theBiden administrationhas pushed back against suggestions that an Israeli incursion there could jeopardise continued US arms transfers.
2024-02-14 08:26:12
Talks involving the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar on a Gaza truce ended without a breakthrough on Tuesday as calls grew for Israel to hold back on a planned assault on the southern end of the enclave, crammed with over a million displaced people.
The city of Rafah, whose pre-war population was about 300,000, teems with homeless people living in tent camps and makeshift shelters who fled there from Israeli bombardments in areas of Gaza farther north during more than four months of war.
Israel says it wants to flush out Hamas from hideouts in Rafah and free Israeli hostages being held there. Its military is making plans to evacuate Palestinian civilians. But no plan has been forthcoming and aid agencies say the displaced have nowhere else to go in the shattered territory.
With Palestinians in Rafah "staring death in the face," United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said an Israeli ground invasion there would make humanitarian relief nearly impossible.
"Military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter in Gaza. They could also leave an already fragile humanitarian operation at death's door," Griffiths said in a statement.
2024-02-13 23:28:18
The leader of Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Tuesday that the group had been able to prevent Israeli-linked ships from passing through the Gulf of Aden over the last week.
"The Americans and the British failed to secure the passage of any ship heading to Israel. They were unable to protect these ships. They can no longer protect even American-British ships, and this is a real and major victory for us," Abdul Malik al-Houthi said in a televised speech.
Houthi fighters, who control Yemen's most populous regions, have repeatedly fired on international commercial ships since mid-November. Their targets have been vessels with commercial ties to the United States, Britain or Israel, according to shipping and insurance sources.
"The Israeli, American and British agenda seeks to bring an end to the Palestinian issue," al-Houthi said. Houthi operations in the Red Sea, he said, were "legitimate (ones) to help support the people of Gaza and lift the siege being imposed on them."
The Houthis say they have targeted shipping in solidarity with Palestinians over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The attacks have prompted several companies to halt Red Sea journeys and opt for a longer and more expensive route around the African continent, and US and British warplanes have carried out retaliatory strikes across Yemen.
2024-02-13 21:10:43
US Senate passes $95billion bill to aid Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and sent the measure on to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where its chances of becoming law face long odds.
2024-02-13 19:21:55
Reacting to a new Israeli malicious plot, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has clarified that the body would not become part of any forced evacuation of Palestinians in Rafah.
“There is no plan at this time to facilitate the evacuation of civilians,” said the UN body.
OCHA further said that it has not received any requests from Israeli authorities for assistance in Rafah evacuation.
2024-02-13 16:39:05
The United States Senate has started voting on the passing of over $95 billion aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, Al Jazeera reported.
The US lawmakers need to reach a 60-vote threshold to send the legislation on to the House.
The legislation includes $14 billion for Israel, $61bn for Ukraine, and $4.83bn to support partners in Asia Pacific, including Taiwan.
2024-02-13 15:37:37
A total of 28,473 Palestinians have been killed and 68,146 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Some 133 Palestinians were killed and 162 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-02-13 14:30:39
Palestinian artist, Alaa Qaddouha, was among the five people who were killed by Israeli shelling on a house at dawn today in the Nuseirat camp.
Video footage showed the extent of the destruction as a result of the shelling of the building.
2024-02-13 13:09:33
The Israeli military has drawn its focus on the central area of Gaza, leaving the Palestinians with no option for safety, Al Jazeera reported.
Hundreds of people started to flee Rafah after Israel started its bombardment of the city and planned to begin the ground invasion. They are now being squeezed into small parts of the Gaza Strip, turned largely into refugee camps.
In southern Khan Younis, for the 17th day in a row, Nasser Hospital is under military siege. There are snipers in the vicinity shooting at everything that moves. The hospital announced it ran completely out of fuel and is now experiencing a total power blackout.
Sewage is flooding in certain areas of the hospital and there are no generators to drain it so this is causing another health risk.
2024-02-13 12:00:24
China has stressed the Israeli military to stop its operation in Rafah as soon as possible, warningof a “serious humanitarian disaster” as hundreds of thousands of people take shelter there.
“We call on Israel to stop military operations as soon as possible, do everything possible to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and prevent a more devastating humanitarian disaster in Rafah,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
It added China “opposes and condemns” actions that harm civilians and violate international law.
2024-02-13 11:14:55
A legal think tank, theLemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, has strongly condemned Israel's planned ground invasion of Rafah where over 1.3 million Gazans are sheltering.
The institute issued an SOS Alert statement, saying that attackson Rafah combined with the recent suspension of funding for UNRWA have“worsened the already horrific humanitarian situation”.
The statement added that the combined attacks were “imposing acute anxiety on the residents who are scared for their uncertain future”.
This is the fifth SOS Alert issued on the situation in Gaza since October by the institute, which is named after the Jewish Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin who coined the term genocide in the 1940s and helped make it an international crime, according to Al Jazeera.
2024-02-13 10:20:21
The Israeli military killed atleast five people after it struck ahouse in the Nuseirat camp with a bomb, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-02-13 09:38:17
Foreign Office strongly condemned on TuesdayIsrael’s military aggression against Rafah city in Gaza and the resulting destruction and massacre of the Palestinian people.
Israel hasbeen bombarding Rafahby air and sea but has now planned a ground invasionon the southernmost city in Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering.
"Israel's offensive on Rafah violates the provisional measures indicated by the International Court of Justice to protect the people of Gaza from genocide," said the statement.
It added that the planned incursion would “further aggravate the humanitarian disaster witnessed in Gaza” and “jeopardise the ongoing efforts for a potential ceasefire”.
Pakistan said that the UN Security Council should especially “take urgent measures to bring an immediate end to Israeli aggression”.
2024-02-13 09:23:23
Jordan’s King Abdullah II tells US President Joe Biden the world “cannot afford” Israel’s planned ground invasion on Rafah, where more than 1.4 million people are sheltering, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-02-13 09:22:57
Chris Van Hollen, an influential legislator from Biden’s Democratic Party, has criticised Israel for its brutal siege on Gaza.
“Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true: That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime,” Van Hollen said in a Senate speech.
“And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals.”
2024-02-12 22:29:07
Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas's political bureau based in Beirut, has labelled Israel's release of two captives as a mere "marketing ploy for a defeated army," Al Jazeera reported.
According to Hamdan, this move is an attempt to bolster the Israeli army's morale amid ongoing struggles, particularly in Khan Younis, where they face resistance and have failed to retrieve additional captives.
Hamdan questions the credibility of Israel's account, suggesting that the two released captives were not in Hamas's custody but held with a civilian family. This raises doubts about the accuracy of Israel's narrative and indicates an effort to exaggerate the incident.
Highlighting the resistance's achievements, Hamdan notes that, after four months, the Qassam Brigades still hold 134 captives, considering it a significant accomplishment.
The release of the two captives is perceived by Hamas as a strategic move by Israel to counterbalance its military setbacks and project a semblance of success in the conflict.
2024-02-12 22:29:00
Abu Obaida, spokesperson for Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, confirms that three captives have succumbed to injuries from Israeli attacks. The same air raids had previously killed two captives and left eight seriously injured. Abu Obaida postpones releasing names until the fate of the remaining wounded captives is determined.
2024-02-12 22:06:22
Yemeni channel al-Masirah TV's journalist, Ala’a al-Hums, lost her life in an Israeli shelling on her house in eastern Rafah, as confirmed by Houthi spokesman Mohamed Abdelsalam, Al Jazeera reported.
Expressing condolences, Abdelsalam condemned the continuous Israeli attacks on Gaza, reaffirming Yemen's solidarity with Palestinians.
United Nations experts, denouncing the perilous conditions for journalists in Gaza, declared the conflict as the "most dangerous" in recent history, emphasising the urgent need for protection and safety for media workers in the region.
2024-02-12 21:40:55
Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, asserts that its fighters launched an assault on ten Israeli soldiers in Abasan al-Kabira, located east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-02-12 21:34:21
Citing anonymous sources, NBC News hasdisclosed President Biden's growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, labelling him as an "a******" in private.
Reports suggest Biden's impatience stems from Netanyahu's rejection of the two-state solution and Gaza war approach. Despite this, Washington's support for Israel's Gaza operations and diplomatic backing remains unaltered.
Biden faces criticism for this stance but is actively seeking Congress approval for an additional $14 billion in aid for Israel, highlighting the complexity of US-Israel relations amid internal and international pressures.
2024-02-12 20:24:44
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations agency UNRWA, remains resolute, stating he has "no intention to resign" amidst allegations linking some staff members to the attack on Israel, Al Jazeera reported.
The UN agency, responsible for aiding Palestinians in Gaza, faces funding suspensions from several donor countries following the accusations.
UNRWA initiated an investigation into the matter and has taken action by dismissing staff members implicated in the attack.
2024-02-12 20:09:50
Eleven human rights organisations have issued a letter to 16 EU countries, urging them to publicly support and ensure Israel's compliance with the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) provisional measures against the potential genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the EU's response, the groups highlight the insufficient commitment of European states to uphold legal obligations outlined by the ICJ's provisional measures.
The ICJ, on January 26, acknowledged the possibility of Israel committing genocide, mandating measures to prevent such acts and facilitate immediate humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The letter emphasises the need for EU member states to align their responses with the gravity of the situation, emphasising a perceived double standard in Europe's application of the Genocide Convention.
2024-02-12 15:54:18
Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed 28,340 Palestinians and wounded 67,984 since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Monday.
2024-02-12 14:37:03
BRUSSELS: The UN agency for Palestinians UNRWA needs to be able to continue its work while allegations that a handful of its 13,000 staff in Gaza were involved in the October 7 attack on Israel are investigated, the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday.
"Nobody else can do what UNRWA is doing, allegations need to be verified ... let's wait for the investigations to take place," Borrell said ahead of a meeting of EU development ministers in Brussels.
"In the meantime, people have to continue to eat, have to continue going to the doctors."
2024-02-12 13:42:02
At least 67 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza's southern city of Rafah since Monday morning, the health ministry in Gaza said on Monday.
2024-02-12 13:14:40
DUBAI: The World Health Organisation (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday reiterated calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and expressed particular concern at Israeli attacks on Rafah where most of the enclave's inhabitants have fled.
Israeli airstrikes overnight killed 48 people in Rafah, local health authorities said.
Ghebreyesus said only 15 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza were "still partially or minimally functioning" and that aid workers were doing their best in impossible circumstances.
Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, he said the WHO, the UN's health agency, continued to call for safe access for humanitarian personnel and supplies, for Hamas to release hostages, and for a ceasefire.
Israel's four-month war in Gaza has killed more than 28,000 people, say health authorities in the enclave. The UN has said more than 85% of Gazans have been displaced and that Gaza faces famine, with one in five children under five acutely malnourished.
Last week, Israel said it planned to assault Rafah, the last relatively safe place in the enclave, to which more than one million displaced people had fled, camping on the street, in empty lots and on the beach.
"I am especially concerned by the recent attacks on Rafah where the majority of Gaza's population has fled the destruction," he said.
"So far, we have delivered 447 metric tons of medical supplies to Gaza, but it's a drop in the ocean of need, which continues to grow every day," he said.
2024-02-12 11:15:23
2024-02-12 10:24:58
2024-02-12 09:48:09
Israel launched a special forces operation that freed two Israeli hostages in Rafah amid air strikes early on Monday, which local health officials said killed 37 people and wounded dozens in the southern Gaza city.
A joint operation by the Israel Defence Force (IDF), Israel's domestic Shin Bet security service and the Special Police Unit in Rafah freed Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Hare, 70, the Israeli military said.
The two men, who were kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on Oct. 7, were in good condition and taken to the Tel Hashomer Medical Complex, the military said.
"It was a very complex operation," Israeli military spokesman Lt Col. Richard Hecht said. "We’ve been working a long time on this operation. We were waiting for the right conditions."
The hostages were being held on the second floor of a building that was breached with an explosive charge during the raid, which saw heavy exchanges of gunfire with surrounding buildings, Hecht said.
At the same time, an air strike was carried out to allow the forces to be extracted, he said.
The air strikes caused widespread panic in Rafah as many people were asleep when the strikes started, said residents contacted by Reuters using a chat app. Some feared Israel had begun its ground offensive into Rafah.
Israeli planes, tanks and ships took part in the strikes, with two mosques and several houses hit, according to residents.
The Israeli military said on Monday it had conducted a "series of strikes" on southern Gaza that have now "concluded," without providing further details.
2024-02-12 08:40:30
At least 37 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah, according to Gaza health officials.
Twenty Palestinians bodies are at the Kuwaiti hospital, 12 at the European hospital, and 5 at the Abu Youssef Al-Najar Hospital, the health officials told Reuters.
2024-02-11 23:28:45
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) chief said that they were facing growing administrative hurdles from Tel Aviv as a shipment amounting to a month’s supply of food was blocked at Ashdod port in Israel.
“We have an environment here which is for the time being quite hostile to the agency, but there have been some decisions now which are starting to impact the ability of the agency to properly operate,” Al Jazeera quoted UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini as saying.
2024-02-11 23:25:30
In a recent call between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House released a read-out emphasising Biden's stance on the Rafah military operation, Al Jazeera reported.
According to a statement by the White House, the POTUS reiterated that: “A military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for more than one million people sheltering there”.
Additionally, the read-out mentioned Biden stressing the importance of capitalising on progress in negotiations for the prompt release of all hostages.
This communication comes amid Netanyahu's acknowledgement that he had not spoken with Biden since the US president's comment about Israel going "over the top" with actions in Gaza.
2024-02-11 23:22:46
King Abdullah II has participated in the latest missions by the Jordanian air force to drop urgent medical supplies to field hospitals it runs in Gaza.
A video was posted by state-owned Al Mamlaka TV on X which showed the Jordan’s monarch taking part in the humanitarian aid airdrop in the besieged coastal enclave.
However, the broadcaster did not give a date for when the airdrop took place.
2024-02-11 23:18:27
The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, expressed concerns over increasing administrative challenges imposed by Israel, Al Jazeera reported.
Lazzarini revealed that a shipment equivalent to a month's worth of food for Gaza has been blocked at Israel's Ashdod port.
He noted a hostile environment towards the agency and cited a contractor, acting on Israeli authorities' instructions, informing UNRWA about discontinuing services.
This development adds to the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands facing acute deprivation and hunger, highlighting the impact of Israel's invasion of the blockaded enclave.
2024-02-11 22:40:25
According to two White House officials, US President Joe Biden is scheduled to have a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Al Jazeera reported.
This will mark their first discussion since Biden criticised Israel's military actions in Gaza as "over the top."
Biden, currently spending the weekend in Wilmington, Delaware, plans to engage with Netanyahu on Sunday morning.
Netanyahu mentioned on the "Fox News Sunday" program that he has not communicated with Biden since the statement and expressed uncertainty regarding the US leader's intentions.
2024-02-11 22:24:47
Cori Bush, representing Missouri, asserted that the US is supporting the "mass displacement and massacre of Palestinians" in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
She urged Washington to cease its "complicity" and advocated for an immediate and lasting ceasefire.
Speaking about Israel's plan to evacuate over a million people from Rafah before a ground invasion, Bush emphasized the dire situation, stating, "Almost half of Gaza’s population has taken refuge in Rafah; there’s nowhere else to go."
Her plea for humanity and condemnation of the alleged US involvement aligns with growing concerns over the conflict.
2024-02-11 22:05:31
Approximately 100 Palestinian bodies were recovered from Gaza City's Tal al-Hawa and al-Rimal neighbourhoods after Israeli forces withdrew, as reported by Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul.
The majority of the casualties suffered fatal injuries from sniper bullets, highlighting the toll of the conflict in these areas.
2024-02-11 21:06:42
President Mahmoud Abbas has issued decrees appointing new commanders for the Palestinian security forces, reports the official WAFA news agency.
General Abed Suleiman Abu Mahmid, known as Abdel Qader al-Tamari, is set to lead, while Lieutenant Colonel Iyad al-Aqra will assume the role of deputy commander in the coming days.
This decision is part of a broader reform initiative announced by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh last month.
Senior PA officials indicate that these changes respond to demands from the United States during discussions related to the Israeli conflict in Gaza, marking a pivotal step in the Palestinian Authority's restructuring efforts.
2024-02-11 21:04:54
President Mahmoud Abbas has issued decrees appointing the new commander and deputy commander of the Palestinian security forces, announces the official WAFA news agency.
General Abed Suleiman Abu Mahmid, also known as Abdel Qader al-Tamari, and his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Iyad al-Aqra, are set to assume their responsibilities in the coming days.
This strategic decision is part of a comprehensive reform introduced by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh last month.
The reshuffling of leadership within the Palestinian Authority aligns with demands made by the United States during discussions concerning the Israeli war on Gaza, as indicated by senior PA officials.
2024-02-11 20:30:07
Since October 7, at least 395 displaced individuals have lost their lives in UNRWA shelters, reveals the UN agency for Palestine refugees.
Amid 298 incidents affecting UNRWA premises, including 31 involving military use, the agency reports impacts on 150 installations.
The grim toll comprises not only fatalities but also 1,379 injuries among the displaced. UNRWA underscores the urgent need for safeguarding the sanctity of its shelters amid ongoing conflict.
2024-02-11 20:14:05
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, has stated that the economies of both the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank have been severely devastated by the Israel war.
Addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Georgieva emphasised that only a "durable peace" could bring about improvements in the economic outlook.
She noted that the conflict's persistence has led to a worsening economic situation in the Palestinian territories, with an 80% drop in economic activity in the Gaza Strip from October to December compared to the previous year.
Additionally, the occupied West Bank experienced a 22% decline. Georgieva attributed these economic challenges to factors such as the withdrawal of work permits, increased military checkpoints, disrupted transportation, tourism losses, and Israel withholding tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority.
2024-02-11 19:36:23
Approximately two dozen illegal Israeli settlers targeted Palestinian cars near the occupied West Bank village of Bizzariya, northwest of Nablus, as reported by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, Al Jazeera reported.
The settlers vandalised a vehicle by smashing its windshield and employed tear gas against the Palestinian driver, who required hospitalisation for treatment.
2024-02-11 18:36:31
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell emphasised the critical need to protect civilians in Rafah, stating that the densely populated area, home to 1.3 million people, is teeming with children and families who have nowhere to go, Al Jazeera reported.
Russell expressed concern for those living on the streets or in shelters, highlighting their vulnerability amid the escalating conflict. With Israeli forces advancing steadily southwards in Gaza, Rafah stands as the last key city awaiting entry.
Despite daily air attacks and international alarm over the potential for carnage, Israel remains determined to extend its ground operation in the region. The plea for safeguarding the lives of those in Rafah resonates amid the ongoing crisis.
2024-02-11 17:52:22
Hamas' armed wing, Qassam Brigades, reports that ongoing Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have resulted in the death of two Israeli captives and injuries to eight others, Al Jazeera reported.
The Brigades added that the conditions of the captives are becoming more dangerous in light of the inability to provide them with appropriate treatment, and is holding Israel fully responsible for the lives of the injured captives.
2024-02-11 17:16:03
A senior Hamas leader conveyed concerns that any Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, located on the Gaza border, would "blow up" ongoing hostage exchange negotiations, as reported by Hamas-run Aqsa Television channel on Sunday.
The statement comes in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's directive to develop a plan to evacuate Rafah and dismantle four alleged Hamas battalions in the area.
Netanyahu's commitment to pursuing "total victory" has escalated tensions, with civilians lacking safe havens amid displacement.
Israeli attacks have killed over 28,000 Palestinians, primarily civilians, according to medical authorities in Gaza.
2024-02-11 15:05:11
The Palestinian Wafa news agency says the Israeli forces arrested three young men at the northern entrance of the city of Jericho, Al Jazeera reported.
The arrests were made as they passed through a military checkpoint at the northern entrance to the city.
Earlier, arrests across the occupied West Bank were reported by the agency, including in the cities of Hebron, Yatta, al-Bireh and Bethlehem.
2024-02-11 14:27:35
A total of 28,176 Palestinians have been killed and 67,784 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Some 112 Palestinians were killed and 173 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-02-11 13:31:42
As Israeli forces raided multiple neighbourhoods in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, and arrested a Palestinian prisoner who had previously been freed, according to Al Jazeera.
The 30-year-old Hisham Fawaz Ali Salah was taken into custody by the occupation forces following a raid on his home in the southern village of al-Khader, according to sources who spoke with the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
In Bethlehem, troops also overran and searched residences in al-Asakra, al-Ubeidiya, and Tuqu.
2024-02-11 12:22:07
2024-02-11 11:20:35
2024-02-11 10:05:17
Benjamin Netanyahu says in an interview airing Sunday that the Israeli military will provide "safe passage for the civilian population" ahead of an expected assault on the overcrowded southern Gaza city of Rafah, rejecting fears of a "catastrophe."
Despite international alarm over the potential carnage in a city crammed with more than a million displaced Palestinians, the Israeli prime minister told ABC News that the offensive is key to crushing Hamas.
"Victory is within reach. We’re going to do it. We're going to get the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions and Rafah, which is the last bastion, but we’re going to do it," he said in extracts of the interview released Saturday evening.
"We're going to do it while providing safe passage for the civilian population so they can leave," he said. "We are working out a detailed plan to do so. We're not, we’re not cavalier about this."
He mentioned areas north of Rafah that have been cleared which could be used as safe zones for civilians.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers have warned of potentially “tens of thousands” of casualties in Rafah, while EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borell joined other international voices in saying an offensive there “would lead to an unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe.”
2024-02-11 10:00:33
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has said that Israeli forces "have not informed UNRWA officially" of an "alleged tunnel" under Gaza City headquarters the UN agency’s staff left in early October last year.
UNRWA has not used the compound since staff departed on October 12 "following the Israeli evacuation orders and as bombardment intensified in the area", he said.
Lazzarini added that UNRWA had only learned of the allegations and the presence of Israeli troops within the headquarters through media reports.
2024-02-11 09:15:37
US Senator Bernie Sanders lashed out at Congress for considering sending $14 billion in military aid to Israel as it prepares to launch an assault on Rafah, which has raised fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Sanders said it was "quite unbelievable" that the US was planning to provide more military aid to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government given the enormous death toll and destruction in Gaza.
2024-02-11 08:31:00
Israeli forces have discovered a tunnel network hundreds of metres (yards) long and running partly under UNRWA's Gaza headquarters, the military says, calling it new evidence of Hamas's exploitation of the main relief agency for Palestinians.
Army engineers assisted reporters for foreign news outlets through the passages at a time of crisis for UNRWA, amid an internal probe and freeze in funding due to Israel's allegations that some staff doubled as Hamas operatives.
Reporters were escorted through a tunnel beneath UNRWA Headquarters, 700 meters long and 18 meters deep.
The tunnel, bifurcated at times, revealed side rooms, an office space with steel safes, a tiled toilet, and a large chamber filled with computer servers and industrial battery stacks.
Palestinians have accused Israel of falsifying information to damage UNRWA, a humanitarian agency that employs 13,000 people in the Gaza Strip, providing essential services like schools and healthcare.
“Everything is conducted from here. All the energy for the tunnels, which you walked through them are powered from here," said the lieutenant-colonel, who gave only his first name, Ido.
"This is one of the central commands of the intelligence. This place is one of the Hamas intelligence units, where they commanded most of the combat."
2024-02-10 23:32:05
Israeli forces carried out fresh air raids in the past few hours across southern Gaza, including a police car in which several Palestinian officers were killed.
A civilian car was also targeted by the Israeli forces in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood, one of the most densely populated areas in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are taking refuge.
At least 28 Palestinians were killed in the air strikes in Rafah early Saturday after Israeli prime minister ordered the military to plan for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from the southern Gaza city ahead of a ground invasion.
The southern Gaza city of Khan Younis was also hit, where there is continuing bombardment of residential neighbourhoods … forcing people to leave and making living conditions there completely uninhabitable, Al-Jazeera reported.
The Israeli air force said in a statement it killed two Hamas operatives in an air raid on Rafah, claiming one of the victims had been responsible for the security of Hamas leaders, while the other served as a senior investigator for the Palestinian group, a military statement said.
The Times of Israel identified the first victim as Ahmed Al-Yaaqoubi, described as a senior Hamas police official and the main target of the attack.
A third person, an officer in the district’s police department, was also killed, the Israeli newspaper reported.
2024-02-10 23:21:53
Thousands of Israel citizens attended a protest in the port city of Haifa to demand new elections and replace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Al-Jazeera reported on Saturday.
An Israeli journalist posted a short video clip on X which showed “thousands” in the streets of the Israeli city, marching to demand that new elections be held and Prime Minister Netanyahu be replaced.
The protesters carried banners criticising Netanyahu with slogans saying “Elections now”.
Moreover, Israeli media is also reporting that the families of the captives held in Gaza will soon protest in Tel Aviv, and that police have begun blocking streets in preparation.
2024-02-10 22:34:45
2024-02-10 21:17:13
Relatives found the body on Saturday of a six-year-old Palestinian girl who had begged Gaza rescuers to send help after being trapped by Israeli military fire, along with the bodies of five of her family members and two ambulance workers who had gone to save her.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance it sent to rescue Hind Rajab after she had spent hours on the phone to dispatchers begging for help with the sound of shooting echoing around.
"The occupation deliberately targeted the Red Crescent crew despite prior coordination to allow the ambulance to arrive at the site to rescue Hind," the Red Crescent said in a statement.
Israel's military did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the Red Crescent statement.
Family members found Hind's body along with those of her uncle and aunt and their three children still in a car near a roundabout in the Tel al-Hawa suburb of Gaza City, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
The PCRS released a photo of the ambulance, seen almost completely burned out. Al Jazeera footage of the scene appeared to show the ambulance only steps away from the car they said the family was in, a damaged black Kia Picanto riddled with bullet holes.
The plight of Hind, revealed in harrowing audio clips of her terrified conversation with rescue workers 12 days ago, underlined the impossible conditions for civilians in the face of Israel's four-month assault on Gaza.
2024-02-10 18:40:53
At least 28,064 Palestinians have been killed and 67,611 others injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Saturday.
2024-02-10 14:44:14
Egypt has sent about 40 tanks and armoured personnel carriers to northeastern Sinai within the past two weeks as part of a series of measures to bolster security on its border with Gaza, two Egyptian security sources said.
The deployment took place ahead of the expansion of Israeli military operations around Gaza's southern city of Rafah, where much of its population has sought safety, sharpening Egyptian fears that Palestinians could be forced en masse out of the enclave.
2024-02-10 11:40:32
The United States has briefed Israel on a new US national security memorandum that reminds countries receiving US weapons to stick to international law, the White House said on Friday.
The memo is a statement of administration policy and was sent on Thursday from the White House to senior Cabinet officials responsible for national security to ensure its aims are carried out.
The memo does not impose new conditions on how US military equipment may be used, but it does require the Biden administration to send a report to Congress annually on whether countries are meeting the requirements.
Since Oct. 7, nearly 28,000 people have been killed in an "Israeli military campaign against Hamas".
2024-02-10 11:03:55
Palestinian civilians in Rafah in the Gaza Strip need to be protected, but there should not be any forced mass displacement, the United Nations said on Friday after Israel began drawing up an evacuation plan to allow it to defeat Hamas in the area.
"We're extremely worried about the fate of civilians in Rafah," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Friday.
"What is clear is that people need to be protected, but we also do not want to see any forced displacement — forced mass displacement — of people, which is by definition against their will," Dujarric said. "We would not support in any way forced displacement, which goes against international law."
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the country's military on Friday to draw up a dual plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah in southern Gaza and to defeat the last Hamas fighters there.
More than half Gaza's 2.3 million people are sheltering in Rafah, many of them penned up against the border fence with Egypt and living in makeshift tents.
"The unprecedented density of Rafah's population makes it nearly impossible to protect civilians in the event of ground attacks," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday. "The congestion in Rafah has reached a point where normal routes are blocked by tents set up by families seeking any flat, clean space available."
2024-02-10 09:39:12
The Biden administration plans to wait for an internal investigation of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees to conclude before resuming aid to the organization, US officials told Arab-American community leaders in Michigan.
US Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power and other senior US officials visited the 2024 election battleground state of Michigan on Thursday amid widespread criticism there of President Joe Biden's policy on Israel, his failure to call for a ceasefire on attacks on Gaza and continued military aid.
During the meeting, the officials said the US remained committed to providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, but would wait for the investigation into UNWRA to be complete, said Ali Dagher, a Lebanese-American attorney who took part in one of four discussions with US officials in Dearborn, a majority Arab-American city near Detroit.
Abbas Alawieh, a former senior congressional staffer who also participated in one of the discussions, told Reuters that Power spoke at length about UNWRA but indicated Biden was not planning to reverse his decision to halt aid to the agency.
Sixteen countries suspended their funding to UNRWA after Israel accused 12 of UNRWA's 13,000 employees in the Gaza Strip of taking part in the Hamas on Israel last autumn.
UNRWA officials say they expect the UN oversight office's preliminary investigation report to take several weeks.
Alawieh, in a separate meeting with reporters, said US officials conceded "mistakes and missteps" had been made in the situation overall, but focused on the administration's messaging and declined to make any commitment to push the president - even privately - to call for a ceasefire.
"They did tell us in that meeting that they ... expect that the president will be shifting his language," Alawieh said. "But we're not looking for language shifts. ... We're looking for action from President Biden that saves lives."
2024-02-10 08:49:28
Trapped in and around Rafah, more than one million Palestinians braced for Israel to complete a plan to evacuate them and launch a ground assault against Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city.
Aid agencies warned that large numbers of civilians could die in the Israeli offensive and the UN Palestinian refugee agency said it did not know how long it could work "in such a high-risk operation."
"There is a sense of growing anxiety, growing panic in Rafah," said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UNRWA agency. "People have no idea where to go."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Friday announced that the military was ordered to develop a plan "for evacuating the population and destroying" four Hamas battalions that it said were deployed in Rafah.
Israel cannot achieve its goal of eliminating the fighters who rule Gaza while those units remain, it said.
The statement, issued two days after Netanyahu rejected a Hamas ceasefire proposal that included the release of hostages held by the Palestinian militants, gave no further details.
Washington, Israel's main supporter, said it would not back an assault that did not protect civilians, and had briefed Israel on a new US national security memorandum reminding countries receiving US arms to adhere to international law.
"There are no new standards in this memo. We are not imposing new standards for military aid," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. "They (the Israelis) reiterated their willingness to provide these types of assurances."
More than a million people driven southwards by more than four months of Israeli bombing of Gaza are packed into Rafah and surrounding areas on the coastal enclave's border with Egypt, which has reinforced the frontier, fearing an exodus.
Doctors and aid workers are struggling to supply even basic aid to Palestinians sheltering around Rafah. Many are trapped against a border fence with Egypt and living in makeshift tents.
Israeli forces have been moving southwards towards the city after first storming northern Gaza in response to the October 7 rampage into southern Israel by Hamas gunmen.
The United Nations said Palestinian civilians in Rafah require protection, but there should be no forced mass displacement, which is barred by international law.
"No war can be allowed in a gigantic refugee camp," said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warning of a "bloodbath" if Israeli troops move into Rafah.
The Palestinian Presidency said Netanyahu's plans aimed to displace the Palestinian people from their land.
"Taking this step threatens security and peace in the region and the world. It crosses all red lines," said the office of Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority that exerts partial self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
2024-02-09 23:44:23
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Fontelles expressed deep concern about the looming threat of an Israeli assault on Rafah.
He labelled reports alarming, emphasizing the potentially catastrophic consequences for the 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah, who lack a haven and face the risk of starvation.
Borrell highlighted the severe humanitarian situation, warning that an Israeli military offensive could exacerbate the crisis and inflict an unbearable toll on civilians.
2024-02-09 22:16:59
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister claims to have given the Israeli military instructions to devise a strategy for driving out the last few Hamas battalions in addition to evacuating people from Rafah.
At least 21 individuals were killed by Israeli snipers in Khan Younis outside Nasser Hospital, with medical personnel being among those targeted. 107 Palestinians have lost their lives and 142 have been injured in the last 24 hours.
2024-02-09 21:44:10
The Lebanese group had a busy day for its fighters after an attack on one of its regional commanders in southern Lebanon's Nabatieh yesterday.
In the last hour, the group has published five posts on its Telegram channel claiming strikes, as per Al Jazeera.
2024-02-08 18:28:12
2024-02-08 18:26:24
2024-02-08 18:23:55
2024-02-08 15:00:02
Jordan's King Abdullah began on Thursday a tour of major western capitals that will take him to the United States to meet President Joe Biden to lobby for an end to the war in Gaza, the royal palace said.
The monarch, who first visits France and Germany, would also hold talks in the United States with top Congressional leaders, politicians and administration officials. The statement did not give a date for the meeting with Biden.
2024-02-08 14:28:03
2024-02-08 14:18:02
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports a Palestinian man shot by Israeli troops near the entrance to the village of Deir Sharaf, west of Nablus, has died.
Wafa news agency also updated its earlier report, adding another young Palestinian man was injured after being shot in the hand, Al Jazeera reported.
A confrontation broke out after soldiers closed the checkpoint and prevented Palestinians from crossing. The Israeli army claimed one of the men opened fire on them when soldiers stopped his car.
2024-02-08 13:07:45
Repeated US strikes against Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq
are pushing the government to end the mission of the US-led coalition in the country, the prime minister's military spokesman Yahya Rasool said on Thursday.
2024-02-08 11:07:59
A commander from Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed armed group in Iraq that the Pentagon has blamed for attacking its troops, was killed in a US strike on Wednesday, the US military said.
"(US) forces conducted a unilateral strike in Iraq in response to the attacks on US service members, killing a Kataib Hezbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on US forces in the region," a statement from the military said. It did not name the commander.
It added that there were no indications of civilian casualties.
Two security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the commander was Abu Baqir al-Saadi, killed in a drone strike on a vehicle in eastern Baghdad.
One of the sources said three people were killed and that the vehicle targeted was used by Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a state security agency composed of dozens of armed groups, many of them close to Iran.
Kataib Hezbollah fighters and commanders are part of the PMF.
2024-02-08 09:00:00
Mediators from the US, Qatar, and Egypt scrambled to forge a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in their four-month-old war in the Gaza Strip after America's top diplomat on a Middle East mission said there was still hope for a deal.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he saw room for negotiation, and a Palestinian Hamas delegation led by senior official Khalil Al-Hayya was due to travel on Thursday to Cairo for ceasefire talks with Egypt and Qatar.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas' latest offer, calling it "delusional," and Hamas urged Palestinian armed factions to go on fighting.
"There are clearly nonstarters in what (Hamas has) put forward," Blinken said on Wednesday at a late-night press conference in a Tel Aviv hotel, without specifying what the nonstarters were.
"But we also see space in what came back to pursue negotiations, to see if we can get to an agreement. That's what we intend to do."
Before heading back to the U.S., Blinken was due to hold meetings in Israel on Thursday, including with family members of hostages still held in Gaza who have clamoured for Netanyahu to make winning their freedom his top priority.
2024-02-07 22:48:39
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that he is "especially alarmed" by reports that the Israeli military intends to focus next on Rafah in Gaza.
"Such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences," Guterres told the 193-member UN General Assembly, as he again called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages.
2024-02-07 19:07:56
Israel has said that officials were "looking intently" at a new Gaza truce proposal presented by Qatari negotiators, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
"We have received an update, we have received notification from the Qatari negotiators. We are looking at them. The Mossad is looking intently at what was presented to us," spokesperson Avi Hyman told reporters, repeating a statement from Tuesday evening.
2024-02-07 15:40:52
2024-02-07 14:45:19
Muhamed Nazzal, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, outlined the group’s counterproposal to a draft truce deal worked on by Qatar, Egypt, Israel, and the US.
"The proposal was received by Hamas following the Paris conference and Hamas’s response was more specific and provided deadlines. These timelines were specified by Hamas itself," Nazzal told Al Jazeera.
"Among these details, none can be compromised. The Israeli killing machine must be brought to a halt. We wish to see Israeli occupation forces’ withdrawal from the Gaza Strip entirely. Our response is realistic and our demands are reasonable."
He said Hamas fears the Israelis are "not seriously committed to this deal", and that is why it put the permanent ceasefire in the second stage of the agreement – just to see if they are.
2024-02-07 13:16:07
Hamas has proposed a ceasefire plan that would quiet the guns in Gaza for four-and-a-half months leading to an end to the war, in response to a proposal sent last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators and backed by the United States and Israel.
According to a draft document seen by Reuters, the Hamas counterproposal envisions three phases lasting 45 days each.
The proposal would see Hamas release Israeli women, males under 19, the elderly, and the sick in exchange for Palestinian women and children's release from Israeli jails.
The remaining male hostages will be released in the second phase, and by the third phase, Hamas expects an agreement on an end to the war.
Israeli forces would withdraw completely, and bodies and remains would be exchanged.
The Gaza-governing group has proposed the release of 1500 prisoners, with a third chosen from the list of Palestinians sentenced to life by Israel.
The group also aims to increase the flow of aid to Gaza's desperate civilians, who are facing hunger and shortages of basic supplies.
2024-02-07 13:05:43
2024-02-07 13:00:07
Dozens of Israelis entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, conducting religious ceremonies and “provocative tours of its courtyards”, according to eyewitnesses.
Israeli forces prevented Muslim worshippers from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque for Friday prayers.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, home to the Dome of the Rock and the 8th-century Qibli Mosque is forbidden for Jews due to its sacred nature, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-02-07 12:02:06
Amir Ohana, a former Israeli minister of justice and public security, is in the United States to rally support among American officials for Israel’s war on Gaza.
So far, he has met Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
2024-02-07 12:00:19
2024-02-07 11:31:29
The US House of Representatives rejected a Republican-led bill on Tuesday that would provide $17.6 billion to Israel.
Democrats said they wanted a vote instead on a broader measure to assist Ukraine, international humanitarian funding and new money for border security.
The vote was 250 to 180, falling short because it was introduced under an expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds majority for passage. The vote was largely along party lines, although 14 Republicans opposed the bill and 46 Democrats supported it.
Aid for Israel, a major recipient of US foreign aid, has been criticised as a political move by Republicans to distract from a $118 billion Senate bill that includes an overhaul of US immigration policy, border security funding, and emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Indo-Pacific region partners.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had said the Senate bill was "dead on arrival" in the chamber even before it was introduced. And Senate Republican leaders said on Tuesday they did not think the measure would receive enough votes to pass.
2024-02-07 10:00:08
Israeli forces have stormed the town of Tammun, northeast of the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.
They have raided homes in the town, while Palestinian resistance groups have responded by targeting Israeli forces with explosive devices.
Israeli forces have now withdrawn from the cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, where they were conducting raids and destroying infrastructure. One former prisoner was arrested during raids in Jenin.
2024-02-07 09:16:02
Yemen's Houthis said on Tuesday they had fired missiles at two vessels in the Red Sea, causing damage to the ships.
The group's military spokesman said it had fired naval missiles at the Star Nasia and Morning Tide, identifying the Marshall Islands and Barbados-flagged ships, respectively, as American and British.
The Greek-owned Star Nasia, managed by Star Bulk Carrier, was damaged by an explosion at 1115 GMT, a Greek shipping ministry official said, adding that its crew were not injured.
It is unclear whether the explosion was caused by a sea mine or a rocket, the official added.
Separately, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency and British maritime security firm Ambrey reported an explosion near a merchant vessel off Yemen's port of Aden on Tuesday.
Ambrey said the southbound Greek-owned bulk carrier had been targeted while heading through the Maritime Security Transit Corridor about 53 nautical miles southwest of Aden, en route from the US to India.
Maritime monitoring service TankerTrackers.com said the vessel was carrying US coal to India.
2024-02-07 08:38:28
Saudi Arabia has told the United States its position stands that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem, and Israeli "aggression" on the Gaza Strip stops, the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby said that the Biden administration has received positive feedback that Saudi Arabia and Israel are willing to continue to have normalisation discussions.
The kingdom stated to affirm its steadfast position to Washington on the Palestinian issue in the light of the comments attributed to Kirby, the ministry said.
The idea of Israel and Saudi Arabia formally cementing ties has been under discussion since the Saudis gave their quiet assent to Gulf neighbours United Arab Emirates and Bahrain establishing ties with Israel in 2020.
Saudi Arabia put US-backed plans to normalise ties with Israel on ice, sources familiar with Riyadh's thinking told Reuters in October 2023, as the war between Hamas and Israeli forces escalated.
2024-02-07 00:30:50
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari Tuesday said: “We have informed 31 families that their captured loved ones are no longer among the living and that we have pronounced them dead.”
Amid the ongoing aggression on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heavily criticised by the Israeli demonstrators and family members of the victims for not prioritising the safe return of the captives.
2024-02-06 20:15:16
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Egypt on Tuesday as part of his latest Middle East crisis tour, seeking a new ceasefire and "an enduring end" to the Israel-Hamas war.
Heavy strikes and fighting in Gaza killed at least 99 people overnight, mostly women and children, said the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory that has been under almost four months of bombardment.
Fears grew for more than a million Palestinians crowded into the far southern Rafah area as the battlefront drew ever closer due to Israel's ongoing offensive.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned on Monday that the military "will reach places where we have not yet fought [...] right up to the last Hamas bastion, which is Rafah", on the Egyptian border.
Blinken — on his fifth regional tour since the bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out — was due to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a day after he held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh.
The US top envoy was later expected in Qatar and then Israel, hoping to shore up support for a truce deal that was hashed out in Paris in January but has not yet been signed off on by either Hamas or Israel.
2024-02-06 18:47:19
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis fired missiles at two vessels in the Red Sea, they said on Tuesday, causing minor damage to a cargo ship that was sailing off the coast of Yemen's Hodeidah.
The Houthis have been targeting commercial vessels with drones and missiles in the Red Sea since mid-November, in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians against Israel in the Gaza war.
The group's military spokesman said it fired naval missiles at the Morning Tide and Star Nasia, identifying the Barbados- and Marshall Islands-flagged ships, respectively, as British and American.
The Greek-owned Star Nasia, managed by Star Bulk Carrier, was damaged by an explosion at 1115 GMT, a Greek shipping ministry official said, adding that its crew were not injured.
It is unclear whether the explosion was caused by a sea mine or a rocket, the official added.
British maritime security firm Ambrey said a Barbados-flagged, general cargo ship owned by a British company suffered damage from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) while sailing south east through the Red Sea.
No injuries were reported. The ship performed evasive manoeuvres and continued its journey, Ambrey said.
The owner of the Morning Tide, British firm Furadino Shipping, told Reuters the ship was currently sailing without problems, but gave no further information.
LSEG ship-tracking data showed the Morning Tide was sailing down through the Red Sea having come through the Suez Canal on Friday. Its most recent signal shows it sailing out of the Red Sea through the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
2024-02-06 15:19:39
2024-02-06 14:15:36
At least 27,585 Palestinians have been killed and 66,978 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct. 7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday.
Some 127 Palestinians were killed and 143 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.
2024-02-06 12:46:03
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen and captured scores in operations throughout the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, the military said in a statement on Tuesday, describing southern Khan Younis as a focus of the fighting.
It said around 80 suspects were taken into custody in Khan Younis, including some accused of taking part in the October 7 killing and kidnapping in a southern part of Israel by Hamas fighters following that Israel launched a full-scale invasion into Gaza.
2024-02-06 12:01:34
The United Arab Emirates has allocated $5 million to support the United Nations in its humanitarian relief work in the Gaza Strip, state news agency WAM reported on Saturday.
The allocation of funds followed a visit to the UAE by chief UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag, WAM said.
2024-02-06 10:54:58
BEIRUT: Like many fellow residents of a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Shady Choucair despaired when he heard last week that countries had halted their funding to the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA).
"It's a disaster. We were able to survive off the help we got from UNRWA," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in his small grocery store in the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, where he has lived with his family for over a decade.
More than a dozen donor nations including the United States, Germany and Britain have paused their funding to the aid agency following Israeli government allegations that 12 of UNRWA's 13,000 Gaza employees were involved in deadly October 7 attacks by Hamas fighters in southern Israel.
UN officials have said UNRWA aid is a lifeline for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as fighting rages between Israel and Hamas fighters.
For the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in crisis-hit Lebanon and Syria, the cuts could also jeopardise the provision of basic services — from schooling to waste management.
UNRWA said last week it will most likely be forced to shut down its operations in the Middle East, including in Gaza, by the end of the month if funding does not resume.
Choucair, who receives UNRWA cash assistance to boost his tiny income from the grocery shop, said he feared he would be unable to pay the rent and buy his medicine for several medical conditions if the money stops.
"You want to do something about it, but you can't. It's out of our hands," said Choucair, who is also worried that the free schooling his nine grandchildren receive could be stopped.
2024-02-06 09:55:22
Russia accused President Joe Biden on Monday of carrying out strikes in Iraq and Syria to boost his image as the presidential election campaign "is heating up" — not in retaliation for a deadly attack on US soldiers.
The United States began the airstrikes on Friday against dozens of targets linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and allied groups after three US soldiers were killed in Jordan in an attack that Washington blames on Iranian-backed militias.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, at a meeting of the Security Council on the strikes which was requested by Moscow, said there was no justification for the US action.
"We see in these 'flex their muscles' attempts, first of all, a desire to influence the domestic political landscape in America, a desire to somehow correct the disastrous image of the current American administration on the international arena as the presidential election campaign is heating up," he said.
US voters will go to the polls in November to elect a president for the next four years. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Nebenzia's remarks about Biden.
Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood justified the US strikes in Syria and Iraq under Article 51 of the founding UN Charter, which covers the individual or collective right of states to self-defense against armed attack.
"Let me be clear: The United States does not desire more conflict in a region when we are actively working to contain and de-escalate the conflict in Gaza. And we are not seeking a direct conflict with Iran. But we will continue to defend our personnel against unacceptable attacks. Period," Wood said.
2024-02-06 08:47:30
The top US diplomat met Saudi Arabia's de-facto ruler on Monday during a Middle East visit Palestinians hope will clinch a truce before a threatened Israeli assault on Rafah, a border city where about half the Gaza Strip population is sheltering.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Riyadh at the start of his first trip to the region since Washington brokered an offer, with Israeli input, for the first extended ceasefire of the war.
Blinken's meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman lasted about two hours.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Blinken and the crown prince had discussed regional coordination to achieve "an enduring end" to the crisis. "The Secretary underscored the importance of addressing humanitarian needs in Gaza and preventing further spread of the conflict," Miller said in a statement.
Blinken did not answer reporters' questions as he returned to his hotel.
The ceasefire offer, delivered to Hamas last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators, awaits a reply from militants who say they want more guarantees it will bring an end to the four-month-old war.
"Impossible to say if we'll get a breakthrough, when we'll get a breakthrough," a senior US official told reporters during the flight to the Saudi capital. "The ball right now is in Hamas’ court."
2024-02-06 04:24:08
The last time six-year-old Hind Rajab was heard from, she was surrounded by dead relatives and trapped in the family’s car after it came under fire in war-ravaged Gaza City.
"She was scared, freaking out, and was wounded in her back, her hand and her foot," said her grandfather, Baha Hamada, one of the last people to speak to the girl on the phone.
"She kept asking me to come and get her," Hamada added, weeping uncontrollably as he recalled the heart-wrenching call.
The city has been largely cut off from the south of the besieged territory for weeks, with the United Nations repeatedly protesting insurmountable difficulties for aid to reach the hundreds of thousands of people estimated to remain in the Gaza Strip’s northern areas.
Hind was with Hamada’s brother Bashar, his sister-in-law and other children in the car as they attempted to flee from approaching Israeli forces in Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa area a week ago.
But, Hamada said, they ended up in the paths of Israeli tanks and were fired on.
He said he was initially able to reach Bashar’s daughter Layan, who told him that her parents and her three brothers were killed, and that she and Hind were alive.
"We tried to calm her down and told her we would call an ambulance," said the 58-year-old.
But when rescuers from the Palestinian Red Crescent spoke to 15-year-old Layan on the phone, they said they were cut off from the call by what sounded like gunfire.
Both Hamada and the organisation say Layan was killed in the shooting.
"While the ambulance was heading there, Hind’s mother was talking to her on the phone. The girl told her mother she could see the ambulance, her mother heard the sound of the car door opening, then lost connection," Hamada told AFP.
They haven’t heard from her or the Red Crescent ambulance crew that was deployed to save her since.
The Red Crescent said Monday on social media that the fate of the team, "Yousef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoon, who went to rescue 6-year-old Hind Rajab, remains unknown for seven days".
It called on "the international community to intervene immediately to pressure the (Israeli) occupying authorities to disclose the fate of Hind and the rescue team".
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did comment on the incident.
Hamada, himself displaced in the southern city of Rafah, said: "We want to know her fate, whatever it was. I can’t imagine her, between the bodies, without eating or drinking and in the extreme cold. Dogs and cats are eating the corpses."
Apart from Hamada’s brother and sister-in-law, five children aged four to 15 were crammed into the car. His three-year-old grandson and the boy’s parents remain stuck in Gaza City.
"Hind is my first grandchild, she’s a piece of my heart," said Hamada.
In a series of photos he showed AFP, the child poses for the camera, smiling in brightly-coloured party clothes.
Unable to hold back his tears, Hamada recalled the final moments speaking to his granddaughter.
"She was telling me that she was scared and hungry, asking us to go and rescue her. She was telling me the tanks were coming closer."
2024-02-06 01:26:35
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres announced Monday the creation of an independent panel to assess UNRWA, its embattled agency tasked with helping Palestinian refugees.
The new independent panel will be led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, who will work with three European research organizations, the UN said in a statement.
The goal of the probe is to "assess whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made."
The panel is due to submit an interim report to Guterres, the UN secretary-general, in late March, and then a final one in late April, with, if necessary, recommendations for "improvement and strengthening" of the agency’s mechanisms.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz congratulated the UN for forming this panel.
"We will submit all evidence highlighting UNRWA’s ties to terrorism and its harmful effects on regional stability," Katz wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"It is imperative that this committee brings the truth to light," he added.
However, this new panel is not charged with probing the specific allegations Israel has made against the UNRWA employees it says were involved in the Hamas attack.
Rather, this is being done in an internal probe that the United Nations itself launched last month after the accusations were first made against them.
"We hope that donors have taken clear notice of the swift action taken by the secretary general... to address head on issues that may exist," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The European groups helping in this independent assessment of UNRWA are the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
2024-02-05 23:57:21
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call that a two-state solution with the Palestinians is the only path to lasting peace in the region.
"From the view of the government, only a negotiated two-state solution would open up the prospect of a sustainable solution to the Middle East conflict. This must apply to both Gaza and the West Bank," Scholz said, according to a statement issued by his spokesman.
2024-02-05 23:30:22
Amid the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza, more than 12,100 children have been martyred by the occupied forces in the besieged enclave since October 7, 2023, according to Defence for Children International-Palestine.
“Since October 7, an average of 250 children are killed every day as a result of the continuous bombardment by the Israeli army. This is unprecedented – it has not occurred in any place in the world subject to war,” Al Jazeera reported quoting General Director Khaled Quzmar.
2024-02-05 22:51:03
The head of the main UN Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, is visiting three Gulf states this week to drum up support after donors suspended funding following Israeli allegations that some of the agency's staff were involved in the October 7 attack.
Some 15 of its most important donors, including the United States, have suspended funding after Israel alleged 12 of the agency's 13,000 staff were involved in Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel.
UNRWA warned last week that it might be forced to shut down its operations by the end of February if funding does not resume.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on X he met with the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Monday to discuss UNRWA's work in "preserving the stability in the region" and delivering aid to two million people in Gaza.
Spokesperson Juliette Touma told Reuters that Lazzarini would visit Qatar and Kuwait later this week.
2024-02-05 21:24:16
2024-02-05 20:51:05
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, his first stop in a Middle East tour as Washington tries to advance negotiations on a normalisation deal between the kingdom and Israel, and make progress on talks for postwar Gaza governance.
In Riyadh, Blinken met with the kingdom's de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and his Saudi counterpart, foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, a US official said.
The veteran diplomat's latest trip comes at a time senior US officials describe as one of the most dangerous the region has seen in decades.
During his visit, Blinken will nevertheless try to reinforce the message that the Biden administration neither seeks war with Iran nor wants the conflict to spread further.
A key priority is for the secretary to "deliver a message directly to countries in the region that the United States does not want to see the conflict escalated and will not escalate the conflict," according to a senior US official briefing reporters en route to Riyadh. "It's important to show up and say it one-on-one."
2024-02-05 19:49:01
2024-02-05 17:18:02
Palestinians huddling under bombardment in Gaza said on Monday they hoped a visit to the region by the US secretary of state would finally deliver a truce, in time to head off a threatened new Israeli assault on the last refuge at the enclave's edge.
Antony Blinken is headed to the Middle East for his first trip since Washington brokered an offer with Israeli input for the first extended ceasefire of the war.
The offer, delivered to Hamas last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators, still awaits a reply from the Palestinian group, which says it wants more guarantees that it will bring an end to the four-month-old war in the Gaza Strip.
The US diplomatic push comes at a time when Washington is also trying to prevent further escalation elsewhere in the region after two days of US air strikes against other armed groups across the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Israel has pressed on with its offensive in some of the war's most intense combat and threatened a new ground assault on Rafah, a small city where more than half of Gaza's people are now penned against the enclave's southern border abutting Egypt, mainly sleeping rough in makeshift tents.
The ceasefire proposal, described by sources close to the talks, would see a truce for at least 40 days, while Hamas would free remaining hostages from among the 253 they captured in the October 7 raid into Israel that precipitated the war.
It would let in aid to alleviate Gaza's humanitarian crisis and let Gaza's 2.3 million people return to homes abandoned during a war that has laid waste to much of the enclave. The only previous truce so far lasted one week.
2024-02-05 15:27:14
WASHINGTON/ADEN/BAGHDAD: The United States intends to launch further strikes at Iran-backed groups in the Middle East, the White House national security adviser said on Sunday, after hitting Tehran-aligned factions in Iraq, Syria and Yemen over the last two days.
The United States and Britain unleashed attacks against 36 Houthi targets in Yemen, a day after the US military hit Tehran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for a deadly attack on US troops in Jordan.
"We intend to take additional strikes, and additional action, to continue to send a clear message that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked, when our people are killed," White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC’s "Meet the Press" program on Sunday.
The strikes are the latest blows in a conflict that has spread into the Middle East since October 7.
The Biden administration's diplomatic efforts to stem the fallout from the war also continued with top diplomat Antony Blinken departing for the region on Sunday afternoon.
2024-02-05 14:41:46
2024-02-05 14:09:31
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen in operations throughout the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, the military said in a statement on Monday, citing the southern hub city of Khan Younis as one of the locations.
2024-02-05 11:22:53
WASHINGTON: The US Senate on Sunday unveiled a $118 billion bipartisan border security bill that would also provide aid to Ukraine and Israel, but it promptly slammed into opposition from the House of Representatives.
"I urge Congress to come together and swiftly pass this bipartisan agreement," President Joe Biden said, also praising the migration measures in the bill, which took months to negotiate.
However, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson declared it "dead on arrival" if it reaches his chamber.
"This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the president has created," he said in a statement on X, formerly called Twitter.
The Democratic and Republican Senate backers of the wide-ranging US border security and foreign military aid bill pledged to push ahead, despite opposition by Donald Trump as well.
2024-02-05 10:35:23
RAFAH: A Palestinian doctor says Israeli forces in Gaza detained him when they overran a hospital and subjected him to abuse during 45 days of captivity including sleep deprivation and constant shackling and blindfolding before releasing him last week.
Doctor Said Abdulrahman Maarouf was working at al-Ahli al-Arab hospital in Gaza City when it was surrounded by Israeli forces in December.
He described having his hands cuffed, his legs shackled and his eyes masked for the nearly seven-week duration of his imprisonment.
He said he was told to sleep in places that were covered with pebbles without a mattress, pillow or cover and with loud music blaring.
The Israeli military said it treats detainees in accordance with international law and its protocols are to treat them with dignity. "Incidents in which the guidelines were not followed will be looked into," it said in a statement.
It has previously denied targeting or abusing civilians and accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military operations.
"The torture was very severe in Israeli prison. I am a doctor. My weight was 87 kilograms. I lost, in 45 days, more than 25 kilograms. I lost my balance. I lost focus. I lost all feeling," he said.
"However you describe the suffering and the insults in prison you can never know the reality unless you lived through it," he added.
Maarouf said he has no idea where he was detained as he was blindfolded throughout his detention, and he was not sure if he was held inside or outside Gaza. He was dropped at the Kerem Shalom crossing and was picked up by the Red Cross.
Maarouf's arrest was the last moment he had news of his family, and he still does not know if they survived the onslaught as Israeli forces advanced into Gaza City under an intense artillery barrage.
2024-02-05 08:43:22
BRUSSELS: The European Union's top diplomat said on Sunday cutting funds to UNRWA would put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, because of allegations on some of the UN Palestinian refugee agency's staff for involvement in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
A string of countries, including the United States, Britain and Italy, have paused funding to the aid agency, which has opened an investigation into several of its thousands of employees and severed ties with the people.
UNRWA on Thursday said its entire operations in the Middle East, not only in Gaza, will likely be forced to shut down by the end of February if its funding remains suspended.
"Defunding UNRWA would be both disproportionate and dangerous," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote in a blog post.
"The wrongdoing of individuals should never lead to the collective punishment of an entire population," he said.
Borrell said neither the European Commission, nor the EU's two biggest economies, Germany or France, had decided to end their contributions. Funds paused by other donors amount to more than $440 million, nearly half of the agency's expected income this year, he said.
In 2022, the EU was the third biggest donor to UNRWA, after the United States and Germany.
"The lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, not only in Gaza, are at stake," Borrell said.
UNRWA was established in 1949 following the war surrounding the founding of Israel, when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes.
It employs 30,000 Palestinians to serve the civic and humanitarian needs of 5.9 million descendants of those refugees — in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank and in vast camps in neighbouring Arab countries.
"I am confident that the UN will take all the necessary measures following the Israeli allegations, and that UNRWA will continue to be a vital lifeline for millions of Palestinian people," Borrell added.
2024-02-04 23:56:47
Israel’s army said Sunday its forces had raided a Hamas training facility in Gaza where fighters prepared for the October 7 attack on Israel.
The facility in the Palestinian territory’s main southern city of Khan Yunis contained models of Israeli military bases, armoured vehicles, as well as entry points to kibbutzim, the army said in a statement.
Soldiers also raided the office of Mohammad Sinwar, a senior commander in Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
During the raid on the Al-Qadisiya compound in Khan Yunis, the forces encountered several fighters who fired at them, the army said.
2024-02-04 21:04:22
Canada will impose sanctions on Israeli settlers who incite violence in the West Bank and introduce new sanctions on Hamas leaders, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Sunday, after the United States took similar action last week.
On Thursday, the United States sanctioned four Israeli men accused of being involved in violence in the occupied territory.
In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp on Sunday, Joly said some settlers "will be sanctioned" and "we will also bring new sanctions on Hamas leaders".
"We're working actively on it," Joly said, speaking from Ukraine. "I'm making sure that while I'm in Ukraine, the work is being done in Ottawa and I look forward to doing an announcement soon."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday said he was considering imposing sanctions on "extremist" settlers in the West Bank.
Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Palestinians want as the core of an independent state. It has built Jewish settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and biblical ties to the land.
In the 18 months before Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, the West Bank had already seen its highest levels of unrest in decades. Confrontations there have risen sharply since Israeli forces launched their retaliatory offensive on Gaza.
2024-02-04 22:24:19
2024-02-04 21:07:58
2024-02-04 20:53:08
Humanitarian issues in Gaza will be a top priority for US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his current trip to the region, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.
Blinken was en route to the Middle East in a trip that will include stops in Israel, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the West Bank this week.
A top priority for Blinken on this trip will be to get humanitarian help for Gaza Palestinians who are in dire straits after months of military response from Israel to the deadly October 7 attacks.
"The needs of the Palestinian people are something that are going to be front and center," Sullivan told the CBS program "Face the Nation."
The United States believes it is vital to secure a deal to release the remaining hostages Hamas took during its attack, including American hostages, and an accompanying humanitarian pause, Sullivan said.
"This is in the national security interest of the United States. We are going to press for it relentlessly," Sullivan said. "So this is a paramount priority for us."
The ball is in the court of Hamas when it comes to such a deal, Sullivan said, noting that the Israelis have put forth a proposal.
2024-02-04 19:35:55
A Palestinian doctor says Israeli forces in Gaza detained him when they overran a hospital and subjected him to abuse during 45 days of captivity including sleep deprivation and constant shackling and blindfolding before releasing him last week.
Doctor Said Abdulrahman Maarouf was working at al-Ahli al-Arab hospital in Gaza City when it was surrounded by Israeli forces in December.
He described having his hands cuffed, his legs shackled and his eyes masked for the nearly seven-week duration of his imprisonment.
He said he was told to sleep in places that were covered with pebbles without a mattress, pillow or cover and with loud music blaring.
Israel's military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment after more than a day but said it would have a statement later. It has previously denied targeting or abusing civilians and accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military operations, which Hamas denies.
"The torture was very severe in Israeli prison. I am a doctor. My weight was 87 kilograms. I lost, in 45 days, more than 25 kilograms. I lost my balance. I lost focus. I lost all feeling," he said.
"However you describe the suffering and the insults in prison you can never know the reality unless you lived through it," he added.
Maarouf said he has no idea where he was detained as he was blindfolded throughout his detention, and he was not sure if he was held inside or outside Gaza. He was dropped at the Kerem Shalom crossing and was picked up by the Red Cross.
Maarouf's arrest was the last moment he had news of his family, and he still does not know if they survived the onslaught as Israeli forces advanced into Gaza City under an intense artillery barrage.
2024-02-04 17:58:37
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Sunday said that UK’s airstrikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen aimed at further degrading the group’s capabilities.
Taking to his X handle, Sunak said: “Recent attacks on UK and international vessels are unacceptable. It’s our duty to protect innocent lives and preserve freedom.”
Last night, US and UK forces jointly struck the Houthis, the third time since the group started its attacks on ships off Yemen in solidarity with people in Gaza.
2024-02-04 16:48:21
Palestinian gunmen kept up attacks against Israeli forces on Sunday in the Gaza Strip's two main cities, weeks after they were overrun by troops and tanks, in a sign Hamas still maintains some control ahead of any potential truce.
Nearly four months into the war triggered by the October 7 attacks, there was persistent fighting in Gaza City in the north of the densely populated enclave, and in Khan Younis in the south.
Israel said last week its main focus was now Rafah, on the southern border with Egypt, which has piled pressure on the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have fled their homes elsewhere and are sheltering there.
The advance on Rafah is also a worry for Cairo, which has said it would not admit any influx of Palestinian refugees in what it describes as a bid to prevent any permanent dispossession.
An Israeli official told Reuters, however, that the military would coordinate with Egypt, and seek ways of evacuating most of the displaced people northward, ahead of any Rafah ground sweep.
Palestinians reported Israeli tank shelling and air strikes there, including one that killed two girls in a house.
As mourners bade farewell to the dead children, a relative, Mohammed Kaloub, said the air strike hit a room full of women and children in Rafah's al-Salam neighbourhood.
"There is no safe place in Gaza, from the wire fence to the wire fence [borders from north to south], there is no safe place," he told Reuters.
After conducting partial pullouts from Gaza City in the past few weeks that enabled some residents to return and pick through the rubble, Israeli forces have been mounting incursions. Before dawn on Sunday, air strikes destroyed several multi-storey buildings, including an Egyptian-funded housing project, residents said.
The Israeli military said it killed seven Hamas fighters in northern Gaza and seized weaponry. Israel's Army Radio said troops in the area were trying to penetrate two Hamas bunkers, a mission it said could take two weeks amid resistance by the Islamist faction.
"Gaza City is being wiped out," one resident who asked not to be named told Reuters, adding, "The [Israeli] pull-out was a ruse."
In Khan Younis, overnight Israeli shelling killed three Palestinians, medics said. Residents reported street fighting raging in western and southern areas of the city, where Israel said a soldier was killed in a Palestinian attack on Saturday.
Troops in Khan Younis seized a Hamas commander's compound and killed several gunmen as well as a grenade- and knife-wielding Palestinian, the military said.
Israel last week announced the "dismantlement" of Hamas in Khan Younis. An Israeli official later clarified to Reuters that, of four Hamas battalions originally there, one remained.
Thousands of Palestinians are feared lost amid Gaza ruins. Munir Al-Bursh, director of the Gaza health ministry, said dozens of decomposing bodies were recovered from northern areas evacuated by Israeli forces.
Israel says it has killed some 10,000 fighters in its campaign against Hamas.
2024-02-04 15:59:20
A total of 27,365 Palestinians have been killed and 66,630 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Some 127 Palestinians were killed and 178 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-02-04 15:07:56
Pakistan has dispatched fifth tranche of humanitarian assistance for Gaza, consisting of winterised tents, tarpaulins and blankets via PAF C-130.
“The flight will land in Al-Arish, Egypt, where the Pakistani ambassador will receive the aid for onward delivery,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on its official X handle on Sunday.
2024-02-04 15:03:42
Israeli forces in Gaza have systematically destroyed buildings in an attempt to create a buffer zone inside the Palestinian territory, experts and rights groups told AFP, raising fears over the civilian cost.
The plan, not publicly confirmed by Israel, appears to entail taking a significant chunk of territory out of the beleaguered Gaza Strip, something experts as well as Israel's foreign allies have warned against.
Since Hamas militants stormed across the border on October 7, Israeli forces have targeted structures in Gaza within a kilometre (0.6 miles) of the border, said Adi Ben Nun, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who has carried out an analysis of satellite imagery.
More than 30% of all buildings in that area have been damaged or destroyed during the war, he said.
Last month, the Israeli army´s deadliest day since the ground invasion began in late October offered a glimpse of the tactics being used to clear the border area.
Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said at the time that 21 reservists were killed "during a defensive operation in the area separating the Israeli communities from Gaza" to allow for residents' "safe return".
The troops had laid out explosives to blow up buildings when they were fired upon by militants, the army said.
Displacement of Gazans including from the border area could breach the laws of war, experts said.
"We are seeing mounting evidence that Israel appears to be rendering large parts of Gaza unlivable," said Nadia Hardman, a refugee rights expert at Human Rights Watch.
"One very clear example of that may be the buffer zone — this may amount to a war crime."
When contacted by AFP, the military declined to comment on the buffer zone.
2024-02-04 14:02:42
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Saturday that since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7 it had struck more than 50 targets in Syria linked to the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
The remarks, in a briefing by chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari that mainly discussed efforts to beat back Hezbollah attacks launched in solidarity with Hamas, were a departure from Israel's usual reticence about Syria operations.
"Everywhere Hezbollah is, we shall be. We will take action everywhere required in the Middle East," Hagari said.
Israeli forces have attacked 34,000 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including 120 border surveillance outposts, 40 caches of missiles and other weaponry and more than 40 command centres, Hagari said. He put the number of enemy dead at more than 200.
2024-02-04 11:47:36
GAZA STRIP: Scores were reported killed in overnight strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, after Hamas said it needed more time to consider a proposal that would halt its war with Israel in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Gaza health ministry said early Sunday that at least 92 people had been killed overnight, including in what the group's media office said was an Israeli bombardment of a kindergarten in Rafah where displaced people were sheltering.
Concerns over a potential Israeli ground incursion into the southern border city have mounted in recent days, with hundreds of thousands of displaced seeking refuge from the fighting there in makeshift shelters and encampments.
Many made the journey from even harder-hit areas after being told the city was a safe zone, but strikes have continued there as well, with mourners gathering outside a local hospital Saturday to pray for the dead after another bombardment.
"The children were just sleeping and suddenly the bombardment happened. The bedroom fell on my children. God took one of my children and three escaped death," Ahmad Bassam al-Jamal told AFP, his voice breaking. "My child now is a martyr in heaven."
The city that had been home to 200,000 people now hosts more than half of Gaza's population, the United Nations said.
A representative of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA has called Rafah "a pressure cooker of despair", expressing concern for what might happen next.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned on Thursday that the military — which began its ground invasion in the territory's north and has gradually advanced south — "will also reach Rafah".
Civilians who fled to the city have been pushed up against the border with Egypt, trying to avoid areas exposed to bombardment and fighting in nearby Khan Yunis.
"We are exhausted," said displaced Gazan Mahmud Abu al-Shaar, urging "a ceasefire so that we can return to our homes".
2024-02-04 09:41:35
WASHINGTON: The United States and Britain launched strikes against 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, in the second day of major US operations against Iran-linked groups following a deadly attack on American troops last weekend.
The strikes hit buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems, launchers and other capabilities the Houthis have used to attack Red Sea shipping, the Pentagon said, adding it targeted 13 locations across the country.
2024-02-04 08:35:53
People in Rafah are facingdrastic humanitarian conditions with an extreme shortage of food and drinkable water, Al Jazeera reported Sunday.
Rafah is considered the "safe zone" where two-thirds of Gaza'spopulation has been taking refuge.
Some people are living in makeshift shelters while others are living in the open. They are strugglingto have medical treatment with hospitals being overwhelmed.
There is ongoing medical pressure on these facilities due to the wide-scale attacks that have been carried out in the south, injuries arriving from Khan Younis to Rafah and the increasing number of evacuees in this very densely populated area," said the publication.
Palestinians are also suffering from acute food insecurity in light of the very limited amount of humanitarian supplies being delivered into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah Crossing due to Israeli restrictions.
2024-02-03 22:57:08
2024-02-03 22:07:59
Syria's culture ministry on Saturday condemned overnight US strikes that local media said damaged a historic site in Deir Ezzor province in the country's east.
The United States launched the air strikes against Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for a recent drone attack on an American base in Jordan that killed three US soldiers.
Syria's culture ministry condemned "in the strongest terms the barbaric US bombardment of the Al-Rahba fortress" in eastern Syria's Mayadeen area.
In a statement on social media, it said the citadel, located along the Euphrates River, dates to the ninth century, without elaborating on the damage the site sustained.
The "blatant" attack violated "all international norms and charters that call for the protection and respect for cultural property," the ministry added.
Pro-government daily Al-Watan reported antiquities chief Nazir Awad as saying the bombardment late Friday caused cracks and fissures in the fortress walls.
The full extent of the damage had not yet been assessed, Al-Watan cited Awad as saying.
Damascus said earlier Saturday that the overnight strikes killed "a number of civilians and soldiers, wounded others and caused significant damage to public and private property".
With tensions in the Middle East already running high over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran on Saturday accused Washington of undermining the stability of the region.
2024-02-03 20:51:28
2024-02-03 19:31:27
Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Saturday condemned overnight US strikes in Iraq and Syria, saying Washington had poured "oil on the fire" in the Middle East.
The US "bears responsibility for the consequences of this brutal aggression against both Iraq and Syria, which pour oil on the fire," the group said in a statement.
"We confirm that the region will not witness stability or peace except by stopping the Zionist [Israeli] aggression and the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our people in the Gaza Strip."
The US launched air strikes against Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq and Syria and promised more to come, in retaliation for a drone attack that killed three US soldiers in Jordan on Sunday.
The US military said it attacked a total of 85 targets at seven different sites in Syria and Iraq.
The strikes killed at least 23 fighters in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said. In Iraq, they killed 16 people, including civilians, the Baghdad government said.
US and allied troops have been attacked more than 165 times in Iraq, Syria and Jordan since mid-October in a campaign waged by Iran-backed armed groups angered by US support for Israel in the war in Gaza.
2024-02-03 18:22:57
2024-02-03 16:29:53
At least 27,238 Palestinians have been killed and 66,452 others injured in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, the enclave's Hamas-run health ministry said on Saturday.
Israeli forces have killed at least 107 Palestinians and injured 165 over the past 24 hours, it added in a statement.
2024-02-03 15:32:34
Iran's foreign ministry on Saturday condemned overnight US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as "violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of the two countries.
Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani, in a statement, said the attacks represented "another adventurous and strategic mistake by the United States that will result only in increased tension in instability in the region".
The US military launched airstrikes against more than 85 targets linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and the militias it backs, in retaliation for last weekend's drone attack in Jordan that killed three US troops.
2024-02-03 11:01:51
WASHINGTON: The United States on Friday imposed sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic missile and drone procurement programs as well as officials it said were involved in hacking US infrastructure, as Washington looks to increase pressure on Tehran.
The US Treasury Department said in a statement it had imposed sanctions on four Iran- and Hong Kong-based companies involved in providing materials and technology to Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs as well as a Hong Kong-based firm for selling Iranian commodities to Chinese entities.
The Treasury also said it placed sanctions on six officials of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp's Cyber Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC) for malicious cyber activities against critical infrastructure in the United States and elsewhere.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China's embassy to the United States criticized the sanctions as "unlawful unilateral" steps.
The sanctions, announced in separate statements, represent Washington's latest efforts to punish Tehran, whose proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the Gaza Strip have attacked U.S. and Israeli targets.
The United States blamed a weekend attack on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and wounded more than 40 on Iran-backed militants and the Biden administration has promised a response that will include retaliatory strikes.
The weekend attack was the first to kill U.S. troops in the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October after a cross-border rampage by Iran-backed Hamas militants that killed about 1,200 people.
2024-02-03 10:00:33
Yemen's Houthi movement said on Friday it fired ballistic missiles at targets in the Israeli city of Eilat and threatened to keep up military operations until Israel ended its offensive in Gaza.
The Israeli military earlier said its "Arrow" aerial defence system had intercepted a surface-to-surface missile in the Red Sea area on Friday.
Houthis have launched a series of attacks on shipping and other targets in the Red Sea area in what they describe as acts of solidarity with the Palestinians — stoking fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread to destabilise the wider Middle East.
"The Yemeni armed forces will not hesitate to carry out further military operations against the Zionist enemy on land and at sea until the cessation of aggression and lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip," the Houthis' military spokesperson said.
2024-02-03 08:51:15
Israeli forces shelled the outskirts of Rafah on Friday, the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip where hundreds of thousands displaced people, penned against the border fence, feared a new assault with nowhere left to flee.
The United States also began retaliatory strikes in Iraq and Syria, the US military said, after a drone attack in Jordan this week killed three US troops, developments likely to increase concern about spiralling tensions in the Middle East.
The US strikes targeted Iran-backed militants that Washington has blamed for the drone attack, the first deadly strike against US forces since the Israel-Gaza war erupted in October.
More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are now homeless and crammed into Rafah on the Egyptian border. Tens of thousands have arrived in recent days, carrying belongings in their arms and pulling children on carts, since Israeli forces last week launched one of the biggest assaults of the war to capture adjacent Khan Younis, the main southern city.
If the Israeli tanks keep coming, "we will be left with two choices: stay and die or climb the walls into Egypt," said Emad, 55, a businessman and father of six, reached on a mobile phone chat app.
"Most of Gaza's population are in Rafah. If the tanks storm in, it will be a massacre like never before during this war."
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that troops would now "eliminate terror elements" in Rafah, one of the few areas not yet taken in an almost four-month-old assault.
As the only part of Gaza with access to the limited food and medical aid trickling across the border, Rafah and nearby parts of Khan Younis have become a warren of makeshift tents, clogged by winter mud. Wind and cold add to the misery, blowing tents down or flooding them and the ground in-between.
"What should we do? We live in multiple miseries, a war, starvation, and now the rain," said Um Badri, a mother of five from Gaza City, now in a tent in Khan Younis.
"We used to wait for winter, to enjoy watching the rain from the balcony of our house. Now, our house is gone, and the rainwater has flooded the tent we have ended up in."
With phone service mostly absent across Gaza, residents climbed a sandy berm at the border fence and crouched beside the razor wire hoping for an Egyptian mobile signal. Mariam Odeh was trying to get a message to family still in Khan Younis, "to tell them we are still alive and not martyrs like the others".
2024-02-03 01:18:45
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head to the Middle East next week on a new crisis trip to press a proposal for the release of Israeli hostages in return for a pause in the Gaza offensive, the State Department said Friday.
On his fifth crisis trip to the Middle East, Blinken will visit Qatar and Egypt -- the mediators of the proposal -- as well as Israel and the West Bank and Saudi Arabia, the State Department said.
Blinken "will continue diplomatic efforts to reach an agreement that secures the release of all remaining hostages and includes a humanitarian pause that will allow for sustained, increased delivery of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Qatari, Egyptian, Israeli and US officials met Sunday in Paris to discuss the hostage release proposal.
Qatar earlier voiced hopes of "good news" after presenting the proposal to Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and maintains an office in Doha.
Blinken, speaking Monday after meeting in Washington with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said there was "real hope" for success of the "good, strong proposal."
2024-02-02 23:51:07
The US ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said on Friday that a draft Security Council resolution put forward by Algeria could jeopardize "sensitive negotiations" aimed at brokering a pause in fighting in Gaza.
Algeria shared the draft with the 15-member council on Wednesday. It would demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
"This draft resolution could put sensitive negotiations in jeopardy - derailing the exhaustive, ongoing diplomatic efforts to secure the release of hostages and secure an extended pause that Palestinian civilians and aid workers so desperately need,” Thomas-Greenfield told reporters.
2024-02-02 23:30:25
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday said his country was looking to impose sanctions on extremist’ Israeli settlers in connection with violence in the occupied West Bank.
“We are looking into how to make sure that those responsible for extremist violence or extreme settler violence in the [occupied] West Bank are held to account for it,” Al Jazeera reported quoting the Canadian prime minister.
He made the remarks while talking to journalists in Waterloo, Ontario.
2024-02-02 22:44:18
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic missile and drone procurement programs as well as officials it said were involved in hacking US infrastructure, as Washington looks to increase pressure on Tehran.
The sanctions, announced in separate statements, represent Washington's latest efforts to punish Tehran, whose proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the Gaza Strip have attacked US and Israeli targets.
The US Treasury Department said in a statement on Friday it had imposed sanctions on four Iran- and Hong Kong-based companies involved in providing materials and technology to Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs as well as a Hong Kong-based firm for selling Iranian commodities to Chinese entities.
The Treasury also said it placed sanctions on six officials of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp's Cyber Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC) for malicious cyber activities against critical infrastructure in the United States and elsewhere.
Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York and China's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
2024-02-02 21:34:46
The Israeli military said its "Arrow" aerial defence system successfully intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired at Israeli territory on Friday in the area of the Red Sea.
The military statement did not provide details on the origin of the launch.
The Iran-aligned Houthi militants, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, have launched wave after wave of exploding drones and missiles at commercial vessels in the Red Sea since November 19, in what they say is a response to Israel's military operations in Gaza.
2024-02-02 20:20:15
Satellite imagery analysed by the United Nations Satellite Centre shows that 30% of the Gaza Strip's buildings have been destroyed or damaged in the Israel offensive in the densely populated Palestinian enclave.
Israel's assault, launched in response to the October 7 attacks, has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Palestinian territory.
Air strikes, shelling and demolitions have razed entire city districts, including much civilian infrastructure.
"In total, a staggering 69,147 structures, equivalent to approximately 30% of the Gaza Strip's total structures, are affected," the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) said.
It said 22,131 structures in the enclave have been identified as destroyed, with an additional 14,066 deemed severely damaged and 32,950 having sustained moderate damage.
UNOSAT used satellite imagery from January 6 to 7, which it compared with six other sets of images, including some dating from before the Israeli offensive.
The centre said that the regions of Gaza City and Khan Younis had experienced the most significant increase in damage since the previous analysis.
The two areas have seen 10,280 and 11,894 newly damaged structures respectively, compared with UNOSAT's previous analysis based on images from November 26.
UNOSAT's analysis also showed that an estimated 93,800 housing units have been damaged in the Gaza Strip.
About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas raid on Israel that triggered the offensive.
2024-02-02 20:46:02
Satellite imagery analysed by the United Nations Satellite Centre shows that 30% of the Gaza Strip's buildings have been destroyed or damaged in the Israel offensive in the densely populated Palestinian enclave.
Air strikes, shelling, and demolitions have razed entire city districts, including much civilian infrastructure.
"In total, a staggering 69,147 structures, equivalent to approximately 30% of the Gaza Strip's total structures, are affected," the United Nations Satellite Centre, UNOSAT, said.
It said 22,131 structures in the enclave have been identified as destroyed, with an additional 14,066 deemed severely damaged and 32,950 having sustained moderate damage.
UNOSAT used satellite imagery from Jan. 6-7, which it compared with six other sets of images, including some dating from before the Israeli offensive.
UNOSAT said that the regions of Gaza City and Khan Younis had experienced the most significant increase in damage since the previous analysis.
2024-02-02 19:13:42
2024-02-02 18:12:34
Belgium on Friday summoned the Israeli ambassador after a Belgian development agency building in Gaza City was bombed, Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said.
"Attacks on civilian infrastructure breach the principles of international humanitarian law. All parties must adhere to it", she posted on the social media platform X.
The Belgian Ministry for Development Cooperation said it was not aware of any civilian casualties and that the building, which was shared with Handicap International, should have been empty at the time of the bombing.
A ministry spokesperson added that the Israeli ambassador had promised an investigation.
It was not clear when the building was bombed. The spokesperson said Belgium had found out about it on Thursday evening and suspected it had happened on Wednesday.
Belgium is one of the countries that has called for a lasting humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and criticised Israel for its handling of the conflict.
2024-02-02 16:20:26
The United Nations humanitarian office on Friday voiced concern about the hostilities in Khan Younis that have forced more people to flee to Rafah in the far south of Gaza, describing the border town as a "pressure cooker of despair".
The comments come as Israel prepares to advance its war on Gaza farther south, close to the Egyptian border, where most Gazans have sought refuge from the Israeli offensive.
"I want to emphasize our deep concern about the escalation of hostilities in Khan Younis, which has resulted in an increase in the number of internally displaced people seeking refuge in Rafah in recent days," said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are sheltering in the area, mainly cold and hungry in makeshift tents and public buildings.
"Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next," Laerke said.
Gaza residents have said Israeli forces pounded areas around hospitals in Khan Younis, and stepped up attacks close to Rafah.
"Khan Younis has also come increasingly under attack, and it's been shocking to hear about the heavy fighting in the vicinity of the hospitals, jeopardising the safety of medical staff, the wounded and sick, as well as thousands of internally displaced people seeking refuge there," Laerke said.
"Agencies are indeed struggling to respond under these circumstances," he added.
2024-02-02 15:23:22
UNICEF said on Friday it estimated that 17,000 children in Gaza were unaccompanied or have been separated from their families during the conflict, and that nearly all children in the enclave were thought to require mental health support.
"They present symptoms like extremely high levels of persistent anxiety, loss of appetite. They can't sleep, they have emotional outbursts or they panic every time they hear a bombing," said Jonathan Crickx, UNICEF'S chief of communication for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
"Before this war, UNICEF was considering already that 500,000 children were already in need of mental health and psychosocial support in Gaza. Today, we estimate that almost all children are in need of that support, and that's more than 1 million children."
2024-02-02 14:49:58
DUBAI: The Iran-backed Iraqi armed group Nujaba said on Friday it will continue launching attacks on US forces until they withdraw from Iraq and the Gaza war ends.
2024-02-02 12:59:21
The situation for pregnant women in the Gaza Strip is increasingly dire, with doctors in the embattled region saying they face a significantly higher risk of miscarriage because of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported a 300-percent increase in the rate of miscarriage among pregnant women in Gaza since the start of the conflict. The ministry has warned that the lives of about 60,000 pregnant women are at risk, due to the absence of health care in the enclave and the difficulty of reaching hospitals.
The health system in Gaza has collapsed and dozens of hospitals and health care centers have shut down over the past three months as a result of Israeli bombing, endangering the lives of hundreds of wounded people, patients, pregnant women, and premature babies.
Sherine Abu Daher suffered a miscarriage as she was fleeing from the north of the Gaza Strip, seeking safety in the south.
"We moved on foot from the north to the checkpoint set up to pass through to the south. The journey was very long and tiring because I was pregnant and had a previous surgery on my foot. But I could not stop because of fear, and I did not pay attention to my bleeding. When I reached the checkpoint, I felt terrified. There were a lot of people tied up and naked, they were arrested," she said.
Dr Jamal Al-Hams, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, attributes the increase in miscarriage rates to Israeli munitions, including phosphorus bombs, smoke bombs, and toxins emitted from rockets, used in attacks on the Strip.
"We are certain that the weapons used against residents are ammunition that we were not previously accustomed to. They have caused disastrous health impacts, and among them is the increase in miscarriages. We receive women with miscarriages around the clock and constantly see pregnant women bleeding," said the doctor, also medical director of the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah.
Due to limited resources and a severe shortage of medicine, many caesarean sections and deliveries are performed in Gaza without basic medical supplies or anesthesia and without any postnatal care. Women are forced to leave the hospital within hours after giving birth due to the scarcity of available beds, and in light of the daily arrival of hundreds of wounded to hospitals.
In addition to increased miscarriages, there has been an increase in postnatal infant mortality due to high infection rates and the lack of basic supplies such as vaccinations, milk and diapers.
2024-02-02 11:23:30
WASHINGTON: Some members of the Palestinian American community who received an invite to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday declined the invitation over their frustration with Washington's policy toward the conflict and crisis in Gaza.
"A meeting of this nature at this moment in time is insulting and performative," a group of Palestinian American community members said in a statement, adding they represented a majority of those invited.
Members from the Arab, Palestinian and Muslim communities in the United States, as well as anti-war activists across the country, have protested American policy in the conflict in Gaza, where about 27,000 people, more than 1% of Gaza's 2.3 million population, have died in Israel's assault, according to the Gazan health ministry.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the October 7 attack. Israel's military action and strikes have flattened much of the densely populated enclave and displaced nearly all its population, with many also feared buried in rubble.
"They (Blinken and President Joe Biden) show us every day whose lives they value and whose lives they consider disposable. We will not be attending this discussion which can only amount to a box-ticking exercise," the Palestinian American group said on Thursday, adding it saw Washington as complicit in Israeli actions.
The humanitarian crisis has left Gaza on the brink of starvation. The United Nations has called for a humanitarian ceasefire, which the US has opposed, saying it would let Hamas regroup.
2024-02-02 10:21:40
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia would be willing to accept a political commitment from Israel to create a Palestinian state, rather than anything more binding, in a bid to get a defence pact with Washington approved before the US presidential election, three sources said.
Months of US-led diplomacy to get Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel and recognise the country for the first time were shelved by Riyadh in October in the face of mounting Arab anger over the war in Gaza.
But Saudi Arabia is increasingly keen to shore up its security and ward off threats from rival Iran so the kingdom can forge ahead with its ambitious plan to transform its economy and attract huge foreign investment, two regional sources said.
To create some wiggle room in talks about recognising Israel and to get the US pact back on track, Saudi officials have told their US counterparts that Riyadh would not insist Israel take concrete steps to create a Palestinian state and would instead accept a political commitment to a two-state solution, two senior regional sources told Reuters.
2024-02-02 09:36:26
SYDNEY: Australian police said on Friday a forensic analysis did not find evidence pro-Palestinian protesters chanted "gas the Jews" outside the Sydney Opera House last year, but the investigation found some used anti-Semitic slogans.
Around 1,000 pro-Palestinian supporters marched through downtown Sydney in October to the city's iconic Opera House, which the government had illuminated in the colours of the Israeli flag following an attack by Hamas.
Unverified footage on social media platforms showed a small group lighting flares and chanting some words with the subtitle "gas the Jews". Police had engaged an independent expert in biometric science to examine the audio-visual files.
"The phrase chanted during that protest ... was 'Where's the Jews?', not another phrase as otherwise widely reported," New South Wales state police Deputy Commissioner Malcolm Lanyon said during a media briefing.
2024-02-02 08:56:03
JERUSALEM/DOHA: Israel prepared to advance its war on Gaza farther south, close to the Egyptian border, after claiming to have dismantled Hamas in Khan Younis, as diplomatic efforts in pursuit of a ceasefire accelerated.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that success in the fight against the Palestinian militants in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where Israel launched a major ground attack last week, meant its forces could advance to Rafah on the enclave's southern border.
More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are sheltering in this area, mainly cold and hungry in makeshift tents and public buildings.
"We are achieving our missions in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate terror elements that threaten us," Gallant said in a statement.
At the same time, Qatari and Egyptian mediators hoped for a positive response from Hamas to the first concrete proposal for an extended halt to fighting, agreed with Israel and the US at talks in Paris last week.
A Palestinian official close to the negotiations told Reuters the text envisages a first phase of 40 days, during which fighting would cease while Hamas freed remaining civilians among the more than 100 hostages it still holds. Further phases would see the handover of Israeli soldiers and bodies of dead hostages.
2024-02-02 08:32:41
Israeli forces once again stormed thecompound of al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis for the third time on Thursday, confirmed thePalestinian Red Crescent Society.
The medical facility, which has been under siege for days, is running out of supplies.
2024-02-02 01:13:40
Hamas has provided an "initial positive confirmation" regarding a proposal to halt the fighting in Gaza and facilitate the release of hostages, according to a spokesperson from Qatar's foreign ministry on Thursday.
Representatives from the United States, Egypt, and Qatar engaged in discussions with Israeli intelligence officials in Paris last Sunday, putting forth a suggestion for a six-week ceasefire in the continued conflict in the occupied territory and a reciprocal exchange of hostages and prisoners for Hamas to assess.
"That proposal has been approved by the Israeli side and now we have an initial positive confirmation from the Hamas’ side," Majed al-Ansari told an audience at a Washington-based graduate school.
A Hamas source said, however, that there was still no consensus on the proposal.
"There is no agreement on the framework of the agreement yet... and the Qatari statement is rushed and not true," the source told AFP in Gaza.
The Qatari foreign ministry spokesman said there was "still a very tough road in front of us".
"We are optimistic because both sides now agreed to the premise that would lead to a next pause," said Ansari.
"We’re hopeful that in the next couple of weeks, we’ll be able to share good news about that," he added.
The Qatar-based leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was expected in Cairo on Thursday or Friday for talks on a proposed truce.
A Hamas source told AFP the three-stage plan would start with an initial six-week halt to the fighting that would see more aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip.
Only "women, children and sick men over 60" held by Gaza militants would be freed during that stage in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, the source said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks.
There would also be "negotiations around the withdrawal of Israeli forces", with possible additional phases involving more hostage-prisoner exchanges, said the source, adding the territory’s rebuilding was also among issues addressed by the deal.
2024-02-02 00:03:57
Israeli forces claimed to have dismantled the Hamas brigade in Gaza's southern Khan Younis as part of an almost four-month-old war in which 10,000 Palestinian fighters have been martyred and the same number wounded.
"We are achieving our missions in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate terror elements that threaten us," , Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement, referring to a city on Gaza's border with Egypt that has been packed with displaced civilians.
2024-02-01 23:18:34
Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a new AFP tally based on the latest official figures available Thursday.
The tally showed the number of those killed in Israel on October 7, including members of the security forces and civilians, has risen to 1,163 compared with a death toll of 1,139 in mid-December.
To calculate the new figure, AFP cross-referenced data published separately by Israel's social security agency, the army, the police, the Shin Bet security agency and the prime minister's office.
The new count includes those taken hostage on October 7, whose deaths have since been confirmed.
The latest death toll from the attack is now 767 civilians, 20 hostages and 376 members of the security forces, giving a total of 1,163. One person remains missing.
2024-02-01 22:35:35
2024-02-01 21:29:14
2024-02-01 20:19:43
Some staff at a Procter & Gamble factory in northwestern Turkey have been taken hostage by an armed man apparently protesting against Israel's attacks on Gaza, Demiroren News Agency reported on Thursday.
An unidentified man carrying a gun entered the factory in Gebze industrial zone in Kocaeli province around 3pm (1200 GMT), Demiroren said, adding that police rushed to the scene and were trying to persuade him to stand down.
The Kocaeli governor is on his way to the scene, according to private NTV. Turkish authorities have not issued any statement on the incident.
2024-02-01 18:28:07
UN rights experts voiced alarm Thursday at soaring numbers of journalists killed in the Gaza war, decrying an apparent “deliberate” Israeli strategy to silence critical reporting.
"Rarely have journalists paid such a heavy price for just doing their job as those in Gaza now," the five experts said in a statement.
United Nations reports indicate that at least 122 journalists and other media workers have been killed and many others injured in the Gaza Strip since war erupted there following Hamas’s attacks inside Israel on October 7.
"We are alarmed at the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured and detained in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in Gaza, in recent months," the experts said.
The independent experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said they had received “disturbing reports that, despite being clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked ‘press’ or travelling in well-marked press vehicles, journalists have come under attack.”
This, they warned, “would seem to indicate that the killings, injury, and detention are a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting”.
“Targeted attacks and killings of journalists are war crimes.”
The experts, including the special rapporteurs on freedom of expression, on rights in the Palestinian territories and on extrajudicial executions, also voiced grave concerns that Israel has refused to let media from outside Gaza to enter and report unless they are embedded with Israeli forces.
“The attacks on media in Gaza and restrictions on other journalists from accessing Gaza, combined with severe disruptions of the internet, are major impediments to the right of information of the people of Gaza as well as the outside world,” they said.
They also urged international courts to pay particular attention to this “dangerous pattern of attacks and impunity for crimes against journalists.”
2024-02-01 16:10:50
DUBAI: At least 27,019 Palestinians have been killed and 66,139 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday.
In the past 24 hours, 118 Palestinians were killed and 190 injured, the ministry added.
2024-02-01 14:56:16
2024-02-01 13:46:14
WASHINGTON: The United States is actively pursuing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel and exploring options with partners in the region, the State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Matthew Miller declined to give details on the department's internal work on the issue, but told a news briefing the effort has been an objective of President Joe Biden's administration.
"We are actively pursuing the establishment as an independent Palestinian state, with real security guarantees for Israel, because we do believe that is the best way to bring about lasting peace and security for Israel, for Palestinians and for the region," Miller said.
2024-02-01 12:34:36
JERUSALEM: Israel's military claimed on Thursday that its troops killed dozens of fighters over the past day in battles that raged across the Gaza Strip.
In the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where Israel has been focusing its offensive in recent weeks against Hamas, the military said its troops engaged in close-quarter combat and directed air strikes.
It also reported fighting in central and north Gaza.
2024-02-01 11:04:29
2024-02-01 09:49:43
WASHINGTON: A judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit that claimed Florida's proposed ban on a pro-Palestinian university group violated students' free speech rights, ruling that the case was not valid because the ban had not been enforced.
Florida's university system, joined by Governor Ron DeSantis, late last year asked colleges to shut down chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group at the center of US campus activism since war broke out in Gaza.
But none of the schools acted on the proposal.
The governor's labeling of group members as "terrorists" who support "jihad" understandably made them anxious, Chief Judge Mark Walker of US District Court for northern Florida wrote on Wednesday.
But the group's closure "remains merely speculative," he said.
After the judge denied its request for preliminary injunction on Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents SJP, said the group would sue again if Florida officials tried to act on closure of its chapters.
"Florida officials are now on notice that if they attempt to enforce the deactivation order, we will be back in court to uphold our client's First Amendment rights," said ACLU attorney Brian Hauss.
Rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism in the US since war erupted in Gaza in October. US colleges have simmered with tension amid the conflict.
2024-02-01 08:41:00
Dozens of US cities including Chicago and San Francisco have passed resolutions on the Israel-Gaza war with most calling for a ceasefire, a Reuters analysis of city data shows, placing more pressure on President Joe Biden ahead of November's general election to help end the fighting.
At least 48 cities have passed symbolic resolutions calling for a halt to Israel's Gaza bombardment, with six others passing resolutions advocating more broadly for peace. At least 20 have passed resolutions condemning Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, which sparked the current bloodshed.
Most of the ceasefire resolutions have passed in Democratic states like California, though at least 14 have passed in swing states like Michigan that could be decisive in Biden's re-election bid against Republican former President Donald Trump.
Biden's administration has rebuffed calls for a ceasefire, something supported by a majority of Americans, arguing that an Israeli halt would embolden Hamas. Critics of the city resolutions say they have no tangible effect on national policy and distract from domestic issues.
Gabriela Santiago-Romero, a Detroit council member who voted to pass a ceasefire resolution in Michigan's biggest city in November, said it reflected frustration, particularly by younger officials and people of color, with Biden and other national Democratic party leaders.
"We want leadership that is willing to listen to us," Santiago-Romero said.
Democrats should "listen to young people, invest in diversity, invest in people that are values-aligned who actually listen to their constituents," she added.
Asked for comment, the White House, which has said it is pressing Israel to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, referred to previous statements that a ceasefire would only benefit Hamas.
On Wednesday, Chicago became the largest city to call for a ceasefire in a tight vote where Mayor Brandon Johnson broke a 23-23 tie to get the resolution passed.
Reuters compiled data from 70 cities that have passed Israel-Gaza resolutions or proclamations since October 7, when Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. They range from major cities like San Francisco to smaller cities such as Carrboro, North Carolina, and Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
Many of the ceasefire calls are modeled after Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush's "Ceasefire Now" resolution, which also urges the release of hostages and an increase of aid into Gaza, where health officials say Israeli bombardment has killed more than 26,600 Palestinians.
At least nine of the ceasefire calls were in Michigan, where Arab Americans account for 5% of the vote and Biden's 2020 margin of victory over Trump was less than 3%. An October poll showed Biden's support among Arab Americans had plunged to 17% from 59% in 2020.
"This (war) is something that's going to be on voters' minds," said Douglas Wilson, a Democratic strategist in the swing state of North Carolina.
"It's gonna be an issue here and in all the swing states because of the Muslim populations in these states, the Jewish populations in these states and the Black and brown populations in these states," Wilson said.
2024-02-01 03:21:30
A missile fired from Yemen hit a merchant vessel off the war-torn country’s coast, maritime security firm Ambrey said early Thursday, after Huthi rebels claimed an attack an American ship.
"A merchant vessel was reportedly targeted with a ‘missile’ while underway... southwest of Aden, Yemen," Ambrey said, adding that "the vessel reported an explosion" on board.
"Ambrey was aware that a missile was fired from... Taiz," a governorate in Yemen, the firm said.
The statement came after Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels said they fired missiles at an American ship heading to Israeli ports.
The missiles "directly hit the vessel," which the rebels identified as "Kol," Huthi spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement on social media.
Saree said the ship was hit in the Gulf of Aden.
2024-02-01 02:58:40
Just arrived back from war-torn Gaza, the head of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) for the Palestinian territories told AFP of the dire situation, labelling it a "massacre" and lamenting the charity’s limited ability to help.
Leo Cans, who returned from Gaza last week, said that since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, hospitals and ambulances have been targeted by the Israeli army, which claims that Hamas fighters are using these facilities as shields.
Three MSF employees were killed in the Gaza Strip by air strikes, as well as the daughter of an employee after an NGO building was hit by a shell. The international organisation has around 300 employees in the Gaza Strip.
QUESTION: What did you see on your last visit to Gaza?
ANSWER: I saw a majority of women and children among the hospital patients. It’s the first time we’ve seen this, even though we’ve worked with my colleagues in other war situations, in Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan.
For us, it’s clear proof that the bombings are indiscriminate. There’s a lot of pain in hospitals, people are screaming, they’re saying they’re in pain, and there’s very little way of dealing with it.
Q: What are your demands?
A: The first demand is for an immediate ceasefire, because right now it’s a massacre. There are around 150 women and children being killed every day, according to a conservative estimate. This is a figure that should horrify and alarm the entire international community. Many of the dead are "invisible" because they are not necessarily counted in the bombardments, but they die because they lack essential care.
Then there are the enormous difficulties linked to security. Today, we can’t evacuate patients from one hospital to another because of the security situation.
There is also a problem of access, with the Israeli army almost systematically blocking the deployment of humanitarian aid to the north of the Gaza Strip.
I’d say that today we’re doing maybe one percent of what we could be doing if we didn’t have these limitations in terms of security, access and supplies.
Q: The United Nations has reported that Gaza’s health system has collapsed. What does this look like on the ground?
A: Since the start of the war, there have been systematic attacks on health facilities, which is unprecedented for MSF. In war, these places are always sensitive areas and there are always incidents, but this is systematic.
Health facilities now only deal with life-threatening emergencies, and sometimes even fail to respond to them.
Five days ago, we saw an injured patient at Nasser Hospital (in southern Gaza’s main city of Khan Yunis) who arrived for orthopaedic surgery, and as there was no surgeon present, he died.
There is no longer any treatment for cancer patients in Gaza, so these people are dying at an accelerated rate.
2024-02-01 02:53:22
American forces destroyed a missile belonging to Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels on Wednesday that posed an "imminent threat" to US aircraft, the military said.
The United States has carried out strikes on the Huthis both unilaterally and jointly with Britain, but previous air raids were focused on reducing the rebels’ ability to target international shipping rather than addressing a danger to aircraft.
US forces "struck and destroyed a Huthi surface-to-air missile that was prepared to launch" after determining that it "presented an imminent threat to US aircraft," US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
CENTCOM did not identify the type of aircraft that were threatened or the exact location of the strike, only saying that it took place in "Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen."
Huthi-run Al-Masirah television had earlier said US and UK aircraft had targeted the northern city of Saada, but did not identify the specific target or provide information on damage or casualties.
2024-01-31 23:50:23
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday described the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) as "the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza" and appealed to all countries to "guarantee the continuity of UNRWA's lifesaving work."
The US is the biggest donor to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and has temporarily paused its funding — along with several other countries — after Israel accused some agency staff of taking part in the October 7 attacks.
"I was personally horrified by these accusations," Guterres told the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. "Yesterday, I met with donors to listen to their concerns and to outline the steps we are taking to address them."
The accusations became public on Friday when UNRWA announced it had fired some staff after Israel provided the agency with information. Guterres said on Sunday that of 12 people implicated nine were fired, one is dead, and the identity of the remaining two was being clarified.
At a meeting of the UN Security Council on Gaza on Wednesday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths stressed the importance of UNRWA.
"To put it very simply and bluntly: our humanitarian response for the occupied Palestinian territory is dependent, completely dependent, on UNRWA being adequately funded and operational," Griffiths told the 15-member council.
"UNRWA's lifesaving services [...] to over three-quarters of Gaza's residents should not be jeopardised by the alleged actions of a few individuals. It is a matter of extraordinary disproportion," he said.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council that Washington's decision to temporarily pause funding was made independently from other donors.
"Let me be clear, it was not a punitive measure. But it is a wake-up call. We need to see fundamental changes at UNRWA to prevent this from happening again," she said.
2024-01-31 23:16:28
The United States has raised with Israel the issue of the establishment of a buffer zone in Gaza, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters, adding that Washington opposes any reduction in the size of Gaza territory.
Asked about the raid on a hospital in Jenin and the destruction of a university in Gaza, Miller said he had no update on an assessment of the raid but that the United States had raised the issue of demolition of sites and Israel reported they were conducted only when they were sites from which terrorist activities were launched, plotted or planned.
2024-01-31 22:25:09
It could take until the closing years of the century for Gaza's economy to regain its pre-conflict size if hostilities in the Palestinian enclave were to cease immediately, the U.N. trade body said in a report published on Wednesday.
Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 26,000 people, according to local authorities, and decimated infrastructure and the livelihoods of its 2.3 million inhabitants.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said the conflict had precipitated a 24% contraction in Gaza's GDP (gross domestic product) and a 26.1% drop in GDP per capita for all of 2023.
UNCTAD said that if the military operation were to end and reconstruction to start immediately - and if the growth trend seen in 2007-2022 persisted, at an annual average rate of 0.4% — Gaza could restore its pre-conflict GDP levels in 2092.
At best, under a scenario that GDP could grow at 10% annually, it would still take Gaza's GDP per capita until 2035 to reach the level of 2006, before Israel in 2007 made permanent a land, sea and air blockade citing security concerns.
"It will take until 2092 for Gaza to go back to its 2022 level, which wasn't at all a good place for people in Gaza," said Rami Allazeh, an economist who works on the Occupied Palestinian Territories at UNCTAD.
"I think the main takeaway from the report is that the level of destruction that we're witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented. It's going to take a lot of efforts from the international community for the rebuilding and recovery in Gaza."
UNCTAD said that in order to recover following a previous Israeli military intervention in Gaza in 2014, the enclave needs stood at around $3.9 billion. Those needs would be significantly higher following the current conflict, it said.
"Given the level of destruction and the intensity of the damages we're witnessing currently in Gaza, and that the military operation is still ongoing, the number required for recovery in Gaza will be multiple times the $3.9 billion required after the 2014 war," Allazeh said.
Gaza's economy had been in shambles even prior to the conflict due to the Israeli economic blockade, with the enclave's economy contracting 4.5% in the first three quarters of 2023, according to UNCTAD estimates.
Two-thirds of the population lived in poverty and 45% of the workforce were unemployed before the conflict. As of December, unemployment had surged to a staggering 79.3%, UNCTAD said.
"I don't think the international community or the people in Gaza can afford decades of humanitarian catastrophe," Allazeh said.
"Gaza needs to be part of the development agenda rather than being treated as a humanitarian case."
2024-01-31 21:39:27
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return shortly to the Middle East, a US official said Wednesday, as negotiations gather steam on a proposal to halt Israel´s offensive and free Hamas-held hostages.
Blinken will return to the region "in the coming days," a US official said on condition of anonymity, without specifying the destinations or dates.
It will be Blinken's fifth trip to the region since October 7.
The top official, on each trip, has customarily visited both Israel and a number of Arab countries.
The latest trip comes as Israel and Hamas consider a proposal that would freeze the fighting in return for the release of hostages.
Blinken on Monday said there was "real hope" for what he called a "good, strong proposal" mediated through Qatar.
Also Wednesday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was to meet in Washington with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
2024-01-31 20:24:34
All nations have an obligation to stop funding and facilitating Israel's military actions in Gaza after the World Court made clear those actions could be genocidal, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said on Wednesday.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) last week ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide and take steps to improve the humanitarian situation of Palestinians in Gaza, in a case brought by South Africa.
It stopped short of demanding a ceasefire and has not yet ruled on the core of South Africa's case, whether genocide has occurred in Gaza.
South Africa, for decades, has been an advocate for the Palestinian cause, comparing the plight of Palestinians to that of Black South Africans under apartheid. Israel has denied allegations of genocide and rejects the comparison to the apartheid era.
"The finding [by the ICJ] we think makes it clear that it is plausible that genocide is taking place against the Palestinian people in Gaza," Pandor told reporters.
"This necessarily imposes an obligation on all states to cease funding and facilitating Israel's military actions."
2024-01-31 18:39:47
An Israeli parliamentary committee backed a motion on Tuesday to expel a leftwing lawmaker from the Knesset over his support for South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that accuses Israel of genocide in its war in Gaza.
A vote to impeach Ofer Cassif, from the communist Hadash party which sits in a joint list with the left-wing Arab Ta'al party, will now be held in a full sitting of the Knesset, where it will require 90 members of the 120-seat assembly to pass. A date for the vote has not been fixed.
In its ruling last week, the ICJ ordered Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.
South Africa's case drew a furious reaction across the political spectrum in Israel and Cassif faced accusations of treason over his support for it.
Even if the Knesset approves the expulsion of Cassif, the Supreme Court could still overturn the vote but the case underscored the deep bitterness over the accusations of genocide, which Israeli President Isaac Herzog described as "atrocious and preposterous".
2024-01-31 17:27:25
At least 26,900 Palestinians have been killed and 65,949 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Wednesday.
It said 150 Palestinians had been killed and 313 injured in Israeli strikes in the previous 24 hours.
2024-01-31 14:53:20
The Israeli forces shot dead a security employee working at al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the medicalcharity said that the staff member was standing near the back door of the hospital when he was shot.
Smoke bombs in the vicinity of the hospital were also reported.
2024-01-31 13:05:41
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group said on Wednesday it would keep up attacks on US and British warships in the Red Sea in what it called acts of self-defence, stoking fears of long-term disruptions to world trade.
In a statement, the group's military spokesperson said all American and British warships participating in "aggression" against its country were targets.
2024-01-31 10:00:00
The UNSecurity Council will discuss the ruling by the International Court of Justice (IJC) today at 11am New York time (16:00 GMT).
The development came after Israel confirmed that it was channelling seawater into Gaza tunnels,one of the examples cited in South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ.
“Recent reports of Israeli plans to flood tunnels in Gaza with seawater is of extreme concern,” South Africa cited as part of its evidence alleging Israel is causing the “mass expulsion” of Palestinians from Gaza.
South Africa said the plan could cause “long-lasting contamination of Gaza’s aquifer and soil” and “further degradation and collapse of Gaza’s water and sewage infrastructure”.
2024-01-31 11:00:00
Israeli military stormed theal-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis earlier today, injuring 10 people in gunfire andtank shells, Al Jazeera reported.
Some of the Palestinians lost their lives inside the hospital due to severe bleeding as there was no way to take them to Nasser Hospital or other functioning facilities.
Al-Amal Hospital has beencompletely pushed out of service. It lacksmedical supplies as well asfuel and none of the power generators are operating.
2024-01-31 12:25:34
2024-01-31 12:24:21
2024-01-31 05:44:09
Cutting off funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will have "catastrophic consequences" for Gaza, the heads of multiple UN bodies said in a joint statement Wednesday.
"Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region," said the statement from heads of organisations that form the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee.
2024-01-31 05:38:56
Nothing can "replace or substitute" the UN Palestinian refugee agency whose staff were implicated in the Hamas attacks on Israel, the UN’s coordinator for Gaza aid said Tuesday.
"There is no way that any organisation can replace or substitute (the) tremendous capacity, the fabric of UNRWA -- (their) ability and their knowledge of the population in Gaza," said aid coordinator Sigrid Kaag, referring to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
UNRWA said that cuts in funding will affect ordinary Palestinians.
The UN agency has long been under scrutiny by Israel, which accuses it of systematically going against the country’s interests.
Washington, which said it was the largest donor to the agency having given $131 million to UNRWA since October, said it "very much supported" its work.
"There is no other humanitarian player in Gaza who can provide food and water and medicine at the scale that UNRWA does," said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
"We want to see that work continued, which is why it is so important that the United Nations take this matter seriously, that they investigate, that there is accountability for anyone who is found to have engaged in wrongdoing."
2024-01-31 01:55:12
Hamas said it had received and was studying a new proposal for a ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza, presented by mediators after talks with Israel, in what appeared to be the most serious peace initiative for months.
A senior Hamas official said the proposal involved a three-stage truce, during which the group would first release remaining civilians among hostages it captured on Oct. 7, then soldiers, and finally the bodies of hostages that were killed.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not indicate how long the stages would last or what was envisioned to follow the final stage.
But it was the first time since the collapse of the only brief truce of the war so far, in late November, that details were released of a new proposal being considered by both sides.
The ceasefire proposal followed talks in Paris involving intelligence chiefs from Israel, the United States and Egypt, with the prime minister of Qatar. In a mark of the seriousness of the negotiations, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said he was going to Cairo to discuss it, his first public trip there for more than a month.
Hamas says it will release its remaining captives only as part of a wider deal to end the war permanently. Hamas leader Haniyeh said he was studying the ceasefire proposal. The priority for Hamas was to end the Israeli offensive and secure a full troop withdrawal, he said.
2024-01-30 23:46:19
The UN Security Council Tuesday expressed concern on the "dire and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation" in the Gaza Strip and urged all parties to work with the senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag.
The statement by the 15-member council came after Kaag briefed the body behind closed doors for the first time since she was appointed about a month ago.
2024-01-30 22:13:33
Israel has destroyed some Hamas tunnels in Gaza by flooding them, the military said on Tuesday.
"During the war, the IDF has implemented new capabilities to neutralize underground terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip by channelling large volumes of water into the tunnels," the military said in a statement.
2024-01-30 21:11:15
Palestinian group Islamic Jihad will not engage in any understandings regarding Israeli hostages without ensuring a comprehensive ceasefire and the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, the group's secretary general Ziad al-Nakhala said in a statement on Tuesday.
2024-01-30 20:00:00
Warning: Video contains material that may be traumatising to some audiences
2024-01-30 19:01:18
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday said that he would not withdraw forces from the Gaza Strip or free thousands of Palestinian security prisoners, pushing back against media reports on some conditions of a possible truce deal with Hamas.
In remarks aired by Israeli TV, Netanyahu added: "We will not end this war short of achieving all of its objectives. That means eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel."
2024-01-30 17:45:55
Israel on Tuesday handed over to Palestinian authorities the bodies of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza war in recent weeks, health officials in the Palestinian enclave said.
The bodies, which had been held in Israel, were handed over through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing and will be buried in mass graves in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, the officials said.
The health ministry in Gaza did not immediately say how many bodies had been handed over, but residents put the number at around 100.
Israel, which began a military offensive in Gaza after Palestinian resistance fighters from the coastal enclave went on the rampage in southern Israel on October 7 last year, did not immediately comment on the handover.
The bodies arrived at an open space in Rafah where workers and medics waited next to a long line of newly dug graves. The bodies, wrapped in blue plastic bags, were transferred to the location in a cooler truck.
Palestinian health officials said the bodies were of Palestinians who had been killed by Israeli forces during their offensive and whose corpses had been dug up and taken to Israel before Tuesday's transfer. Israel did not immediately comment on this assertion.
2024-01-30 16:59:12
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameroon has said that the United Kingdom (UK) is ready to recognise the Palestinian state.
It is the UK's duty to determine the framework and outlines of a Palestinian state, Cameroon said while calling for "irreversible progress" towards the two-state solution, BBC reported.
"We [UK] — with allies — will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the UN", the foreign secretary said while speaking during a Westminster reception.
"We have a responsibility there because we should be starting to set out what a Palestinian state would look like, what it would comprise, how it would work," he stressed.
2024-01-30 15:43:02
DUBAI: A total of 26,751 Palestinians have been killed and 65,636 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Some 114 Palestinians were killed and 249 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-30 14:15:35
2024-01-30 13:52:02
Hamas on Tuesday said the Israeli military’s “crimes will not go unanswered” after it stormed Ibn Sina Hospital in West Bank’s Jenin city and shot three Palestinians dead, Al Jazeera reported.
The fighter group said the murders were a “continuation of the occupation’s ongoing crimes against our people from Gaza to Jenin”. It said one of the men was in bed in injured condition when he was gunned down.
Hamas said one of the victims was its member and the other two were Palestinian fighters. It said Palestinian fighters “will not be intimidated by assassinations or weakened by the crimes of the cowardly enemy”.
2024-01-30 12:22:59
WASHINGTON: Over a dozen students alleged on Monday that Harvard University failed to protect them from harassment and threats "based solely" on their pro-Palestinian identity, the group representing them said.
The Muslim Legal Fund of America said its legal division filed a civil rights complaint on Monday with the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights on behalf of those students. The complaint urged a probe into Harvard.
Rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism in the U.S. since the eruption of war in the Middle East.
Among anti-Palestinian incidents that raised alarm were a November shooting in Vermont of three students of Palestinian descent and the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American child in Illinois in October.
The Harvard students alleged "harassment, intimidation, threats and more based solely on them being Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and supporters of Palestinian rights," the group said. It added the students also underwent racist attacks, doxxing, stalking, and assault, including for wearing keffiyehs, or Palestinian scarves.
A Harvard spokesperson said the university had no comment on the complaint on Monday, but added that Harvard had resources in place to support students including a task force announced on Friday to combat Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.
Harvard and other U.S. colleges have simmered with tension over responses to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent offensive in Gaza.
2024-01-30 11:21:20
RAMALLAH: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that troops "neutralised Hamas fighters" who were "hiding in a hospital" in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and were planning an imminent attack.
The military identified one of the men as Mohammed Jalamneh, 27, from Jenin, who it said had contacts with Hamas headquarters abroad and was planning "a raid attack inspired by the October 7 massacre."
It said the two others were militants from the area.
"Jalamneh planned to carry out a terror attack in the immediate future and used the hospital as a hiding place and therefore was neutralised," the military said.
There was no immediate Palestinian confirmation of the men's identities.
The military declined to say whether the three had been killed, but Voice of Palestine radio reported three Palestinians had been killed at the hospital.
The West Bank, among areas where Palestinians seek statehood, has seen a surge of violence since the Oct. 7 attack triggered the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas.
2024-01-30 10:20:51
2024-01-30 09:40:08
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron will travel to Oman on Tuesday (today) where he is expected to call for stability over ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and de-escalating of tensions in the Middle East, the foreign office said on Tuesday.
Cameron, on his fourth visit to the Middle East, will travel to Oman to meet his counterpart Badr Albusaidi to discuss how to diminish tensions across the region.
The Houthi attacks on international shipping lines in the Red Sea will be a major focus of his discussions, the foreign office said in a statement.
Cameron will reiterate Britain's commitment to getting aid into Yemen, and outline the actions Britain is taking to deter the Houthis from targeting ships in the Red Sea.
In an earlier diplomatic tour, Cameron met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and politicians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is based, and visited Qatar to discuss the situation in Gaza.
In his meetings in Israel, Cameron said he stressed the need for a pause in fighting to secure the release of hostages seized by Hamas militants during a cross-border attack on Oct. 7.
2024-01-30 08:46:57
The United States vowed to take "all necessary actions" to defend American forces after a drone attack killed three US troops in Jordan, while Qatar said it hoped US retaliation would not damage regional security or undercut progress toward a new Gaza hostage-release deal.
Sunday's attack by Iran-backed militants was the first deadly strike against US troops since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October and marks a major escalation in tensions that have engulfed the Middle East.
White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said on Monday the United States did not want a wider war with Iran or in the region, "but we got to do what we have to do."
Iran has denied any role. Biden has previously ordered retaliatory attacks on Iran-backed groups but has so far stopped short of hitting Iran directly.
"Have no doubt — we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing," Biden said on Sunday, while Austin said at the Pentagon on Monday.
"The president and I will not tolerate attacks on US forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the US and our troops."
In Gaza, Israel launched an assault on the besieged enclave's biggest city. Residents of Gaza City said air strikes killed and wounded many people, while tanks shelled eastern areas and naval vessels fired at western beachfront areas.
2024-01-30 06:54:22
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced hope Monday for a deal to halt the Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza in exchange for liberating hostages, after talks in Paris involving mediator Qatar.
"Very important, productive work has been done. And there is some real hope going forward," Blinken told reporters after meeting earlier in the day in Washington with Qatar’s prime minister.
"Hamas will have to make its own decisions. I can just tell you that there is good, strong alignment among the countries involved that this is a good, strong proposal," Blinken said.
The meeting Sunday in Paris brought together CIA chief William Burns with top officials from Israel, Egypt and Qatar, a US ally which is home to a Hamas office.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who attended the talks, said "good progress" had been made and the parties were "hoping to relay this proposal to Hamas and to get them to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process."
A senior official of Hamas has said the group wants a "complete and comprehensive ceasefire" rather than a temporary truce.
2024-01-30 04:36:12
Palestinian militant group Hamas called for a "complete and comprehensive ceasefire" in Gaza after Qatar proposed a framework for a temporary force, a senior official of the group said Monday.
"We are talking first of all about a complete and comprehensive ceasefire, and not a temporary truce," Taher al-Nunu told AFP, adding that once the fighting stopped "the rest of the details can be discussed" including a hostage release.
Earlier on Monday Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that meetings in Paris with CIA chief Bill Burns and top Israeli and Egyptian security officials had resulted in a framework for a phased truce.
He confirmed that the framework would see women and children hostages released first, with aid also entering the besieged Gaza Strip.
The parties were "hoping to relay this proposal to Hamas and to get them to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process", Sheikh Mohammed said.
It was unclear on Monday whether Hamas had received the proposal from Qatar.
Previously, Qatar mediated a one-week break in fighting in late November that led to the release of scores of Israeli and foreign hostages, as well as aid entering the besieged Palestinian territory.
2024-01-30 01:22:31
The United States has denounced remarks made by far-right Israeli ministers who called for the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli ministers made these remarks while addressing a rally.
"Irresponsible, reckless, incendiary I go so far as to say," White House spokesman John Kirby said of the comments, adding however that it involved only "a couple" of ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.
2024-01-29 23:55:27
France condemned the holding of a conference on Sunday in Jerusalem promoting the installation of Israeli settlements in Gaza, the French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
"We expect from the Israeli authorities a clear denunciation of these positions," the spokesperson said.
Israel's hard-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir urged Jewish settlers to return to Gaza at a packed gathering on Sunday, drawing condemnation from Palestinians who said his words amounted to a call for their forced deportation.
2024-01-29 22:28:12
Pakistan Monday expressed its concernsover the decision by some countries to suspend the funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
"The timing of this suspension is deeply troubling as it takes place amidst the ongoing war, displacement, and suffering of the people of Gaza who depend on critical aid from UNRWA for their daily survival," the Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement.
"Pakistan urges all countries that have suspended their funding for UNRWA to reconsider their decision in order to avoid suspension of the Agency’s humanitarian work. The lives of the people in Gaza hang in the balance and depend on this crucial," the statement added.
2024-01-29 21:27:48
In response to Israel’s “massacres against civilians”, Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said it targeted Tel Aviv.
Earlier warnings of incoming rockets have sounded in Tel Aviv and other major cities across central Israel for the first time in weeks, sending residents running for shelter, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-01-29 20:12:11
Israel's far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir urged Jewish settlers to return to Gaza at a packed gathering on Sunday, drawing condemnation from Palestinians who said his words amounted to a call for their forced deportation.
The statement from the firebrand Ben-Gvir clashed with the official government position iterated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel does not intend to return a permanent presence to Gaza once the war with Hamas is over.
The Palestinian Authority quickly said such calls incited the forced displacement of Palestinians and threatened the security and stability of the region. The comments were also condemned on Monday by both Hamas and Israeli opposition figures.
Ben-Gvir, who leads one of the small nationalist parties in Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, told a conference that a return of Jewish settlers and the military was the only way to ensure there was no repeat of the October 7 attack.
"We yelled and we warned," Ben-Gvir told the event organised by settler groups that were attended by hundreds of people and as many as a dozen government ministers, according to Israel's Channel 12 television. "If we don't want another October 7, we need to return home and control the land."
He said there was a need to "encourage emigration" by Gazans.
Israel, which withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, has launched fierce air strikes and a land incursion into Gaza in response to Hamas's attack.
Sunday's meeting underlined the high tension around the issue of Jewish settlements, which has been at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians for decades.
Attendees chanted their support for rebuilding Jewish settlements in Gaza and the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, another hard-right member of Netanyahu's coalition, said many of the children who were evacuated from settlements in Gaza had returned as soldiers to fight in the war with Hamas. He said he opposed the government's decision to evacuate Jewish settlements from Gaza in the past.
Meanwhile, the United States, Israel's closest ally, has said that Gaza must continue to be run by Palestinians after the war and that there must be serious moves towards establishing a Palestinian state.
Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of a future independent state, were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war with most countries considering the Jewish settlements built there to be illegal.
Benny Gantz, a centrist member of the war cabinet, said on Monday the attendance by government and coalition members hurt Israel's standing abroad and would compromise efforts to bring about a hostage release.
2024-01-29 18:22:15
German Foreign Ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer Monday condemned a conference of Israeli ministers and far-right groups to promote the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and establishment of more Jewish settlements in besieged Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
“Such considerations for the expulsion of the Palestinian population from Gaza and rebuilding Israeli settlements there are totally unacceptable. They contribute to a worsening of the situation in the current conflict, and clearly violate international law,” the spokesperson said.
“We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the participation of parts of the Israeli government at this resettlement conference, and clearly reject the statements made there.”
2024-01-29 16:35:21
2024-01-29 14:06:46
2024-01-29 12:47:37
Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen throughout the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, including four who were spotted preparing to ambush troops near Al-Amal hospital in southern Khan Younis, the military claimed on Monday.
2024-01-29 10:36:53
WASHINGTON: Complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian discrimination and hate in the US rose by about 180% in the three months after October 7 following Hamas' attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza population, an advocacy group said on Monday.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bias in the US and elsewhere since the eruption of war in the Middle East. Among incidents in the US that raised alarm were a November shooting in Vermont where three students of Palestinian descent were shot and the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American child in Illinois in October.
BY THE NUMBERS
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said on Monday it has received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023, amid what it called "an ongoing wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate."
The figure is a 178% rise from complaints in the same period from a year earlier.
2024-01-29 09:41:24
A US Muslim group criticised former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday after she suggested, without offering evidence, that some protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza could be linked to Russia and urged the FBI to investigate.
Her comments were dismissed as "unsubstantiated smears" by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who said such remarks amounted to dehumanisation of the Palestinian people.
Pelosi made the remarks in a CNN interview after she was asked whether opposition to President Joe Biden's policy in the war in Gaza could hurt the Democrat in November's presidential election.
"For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr Putin's message, Mr. Putin's message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) would like to see," Pelosi told CNN.
"I think some of these protesters are spontaneous, and organic, and sincere. Some I think are connected to Russia," she said. "Some financing should be investigated and I want to ask the FBI to investigate that."
2024-01-29 08:47:27
DOHA/GAZA: Medical facilities are at risk of collapse in Khan Younis, the southern Gaza city now at the focus of Israel's offensive, the Gaza Health Ministry warned on Sunday, as fighting raged across the Palestinian enclave.
Residents said Israeli planes and tanks also pounded areas in Gaza City to the north, where Israel has been pulling out troops. The fighting could be heard in the nearby towns of Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, near to Gaza City.
Israel's military said it was engaged in "intensive battles" in Khan Younis, where it said troops "eliminated terrorists and located large quantities of weapons".
The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fighters clashed with Israeli troops in several areas across the enclave overnight. Hamas' armed wing said its fighters destroyed two Israeli tanks in Khan Younis.
The latest fighting came as UN officials and aid groups urged countries to reconsider their decision to pause funding for the UN refugee agency for Palestinians, a vital source of aid in Gaza. At least nine countries have paused funding following allegations by Israel that a dozen of UNRWA's staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
2024-01-28 23:55:36
The London-based non-government organisation, Save the Children, elaborated on the mental health impacts on the children amid Israel’s war on Gaza.
Alexandra Saieh, the head of humanitarian policy and advocacy at Save the Children, told Al-Jazeera that Israel’s war on Gaza is killing children at “rates unparalleled in recent crises”.
She added that many children were left critically injured and facing lifelong disabilities following Israel’s bombardment of the besieged enclave
The war was leaving children in Gaza “starved and robbed of any sense of safety and security”, she said.
After examining the mental health impacts for many years, the NGO found that Palestinian children in Gaza face heightened levels of emotional distress every year.
The NGO conducted a study in 2022 and found that three out of five children in Gaza had feelings and thoughts of self-harm. The majority experienced depression, nightmares and had no hope for the future, so the past four months will make that infinitely worse.
2024-01-28 23:04:17
Former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday that she thinks some protests in the United States demanding a ceasefire in Gaza could be linked to Russia, and that the FBI should conduct a probe into their funding.
Her comments were dismissed as "unsubstantiated smears" by some rights advocates, who said such remarks amounted to dehumanization of the Palestinian people.
Pelosi, who made the remarks in a CNN interview, provided no evidence for her claims. She was asked whether opposition to President Joe Biden's policy in the war in Gaza could hurt the Democrats in November's presidential election.
"For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr Putin's message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) would like to see," Pelosi told CNN.
"I think some of these protesters are spontaneous, organic, and sincere. Some I think are connected to Russia," she said. "Some financing should be investigated and I want to ask the FBI to investigate that."
Pelosi's comments marked the first time a prominent U.S. lawmaker has accused Russia's leader of backing US protesters calling for a ceasefire.
The Russian embassy in Washington was not immediately available to comment.
Protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza have recently occurred across the US, including near airports and bridges in New York City and Los Angeles, vigils outside the White House and marches in Washington. Demonstrators have also interrupted Biden's speeches and events.
The protests have been organized by a range of human rights, Jewish and anti-war activist groups.
2024-01-28 22:01:52
At least three US service members were killed and 25 others sustained injuries in a drone attack in northeast Jordan, near the Syrian border, American reporters said Sunday citing the Pentagon.
2024-01-28 20:34:20
The White House said on Sunday there was no change in its Israel policy after NBC News reported the United States was discussing using weapon sales to Israel as leverage to convince the Israeli government to scale back its military assault in Gaza.
"Israel has a right and obligation to defend themselves against the threat of Hamas, while abiding by international humanitarian law and protecting civilian lives, and we remain committed to support Israel in its fight against Hamas. We have done so since Oct. 7, and will continue to. There has not been a change in our policy," a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said.
2024-01-28 19:44:07
The head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as well as top Egyptian, Qatari and Israeli officials were communicating in Paris on Sunday to seek a ceasefire in Gaza, officials close to the participants said.
French authorities were also in touch with these four countries with the aim of negotiating a halt to hostilities between Israel and Hamas, the sources said.
2024-01-28 19:00:01
2024-01-28 17:54:58
UN officials and aid groups have called for countries to reconsider their decision to pause funding for the UN refugee agency for Palestinians on Sunday, warning that its life-saving aid for some two million people in Gaza was in jeopardy.
At least nine countries, including top donors the United States and Germany, have paused funding for the UN Refugee Agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) following allegations by Israel that some of its staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks.
"While I understand their concerns — I was myself horrified by these accusations - I strongly appeal to the governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA's operations," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, also urged countries to "reconsider their decisions before UNRWA is forced to suspend its humanitarian response."
2024-01-28 15:46:12
2024-01-28 15:08:22
2024-01-28 14:16:49
DUBAI: At least 26,422 Palestinians have been killed and 65,087 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
In the past 24 hours 165 Palestinians were killed and 290 injured, the ministry added.
2024-01-28 13:06:11
WASHINGTON: Two senior officials of the United States government administration have said the US negotiators could potentially seal a deal between Israel and Hamas that would pause Israel’s military assault in Gaza for two months in exchange for the freedom of over 100 hostages detained by the fighters in the October 7 attack, an international media organisation reported.
The possible deal would be implemented in two phases. First, a ceasefire would be adopted to release women, the elderly and wounded hostages. Then, during the 30 days’ pause, the Israeli authorities and Hamas fighters would work out details for the second phase, wherein detained Israeli soldiers and civilians would be freed. The deal also includes allowing more humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
2024-01-28 11:04:15
NEW YORK: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres vowed on Sunday to hold to account "any UN employee involved in acts of terror" after allegations that some refugee agency staffers were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
But Guterres implored governments to continue supporting the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) after multiple countries paused funding.
"Any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution," the UN chief said in a statement. "The Secretariat is ready to cooperate with a competent authority able to prosecute the individuals in line with the Secretariat’s normal procedures for such cooperation."
At the same time, he said, "The tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalised. The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met."
In his first direct comments on the issue, the UN chief gave details about the UNRWA staffers implicated in the "abhorrent alleged acts." Of the 12 implicated, he said, nine had been terminated, one was confirmed dead and the identities of the other two were being clarified.
2024-01-28 09:54:21
2024-01-28 09:04:05
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped up public pressure on Qatar to bring about the release of Gaza hostages on Saturday, saying the Gulf emirate should apply the leverage it has as a host and funder of the Hamas fighters holding them.
The unusually blunt remarks came on the eve of what Reuters sources have described as a meeting among the Qatari prime minister and intelligence chiefs from Israel, the United States and Egypt to discuss a potential new deal to free hostages.
Those talks were expected to take place in an undisclosed location in Europe on Sunday, the sources said. Officials from the four countries have not formally confirmed the meeting, however.
"Qatar hosts the leaders of Hamas. It also funds Hamas. It has leverage over Hamas," Netanyahu said in a televised news conference. "So they should be so good as to apply their pressure. They positioned themselves as mediators - so please go right ahead, let them be so good as to bring back our hostages."
Qatar and Egypt have open channels to Israel and Hamas, and brokered a November truce in which Hamas freed some of the 253 people it seized in an October 7 cross-border rampage that triggered the Gaza war. In return, Israel approved increased aid for the devastated enclave and released scores of Palestinian prisoners.
Efforts to get a follow-up deal to return at least some of the 132 remaining hostages appear to be flagging, and protests in Israel demanding that the government do more are spreading.
There was no immediate Qatari response to Netanyahu's comments. On Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry in Doha said it was "appalled" by remarks by Netanyahu, leaked to Israeli TV, in which he described himself as refraining from thanking Qatar for its mediation and deemed the gas-rich emirate "problematic".
Asked in his Saturday briefing about that exchange, Netanyahu said: "I don't take back a single word."
Israel has long had fraught relations with Qatar, which does not formally recognise it and is close to its arch-enemy Iran.
After the last Gaza war, in 2014, Israel agreed to Qatar pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Palestinian reconstruction in what both countries described as a means of staving off further conflict.
2024-01-27 22:16:41
2024-01-27 21:11:06
The health ministry in the Palestinian coastal strip ofGaza issued on Saturday the latest casualty figures from the enclave which has been a battlefield for over three months. Some 174 Palestinians were martyred and 310 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement added.
Since October 7, 2023, over 26,000 Palestinians have been martyred by the Israeli forces in Gaza alone.
Gaza
West Bank
2024-01-27 20:07:25
Italy and Finland on Saturday became the latest countries to pause funding for the United Nations' refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), following allegations its staff were involved in the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas.
Set up to help refugees of the 1948 war at Israel's founding, UNRWA provides education, health and aid services to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. It helps about two thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million population and has played a pivotal aid role during the current war.
The United States, Australia and Canada had already paused funding to the aid agency after Israel said 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the cross-border attack. The agency has opened an investigation into several employees severed ties with them.
The Palestinian foreign ministry criticised what it described as an Israeli campaign against UNRWA, and the Hamas resistance group condemned the termination of employee contracts "based on information derived from the Zionist enemy."
"The Italian government has suspended financing of the UNRWA after the atrocious attack on Israel on October 7," Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on social media platform X.
Finland also said it suspended funding.
Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Palestinians' umbrella political body the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said cutting support brought major political and relief risks.
"We call on countries that announced the cessation of their support for UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision," he said on X.
2024-01-27 19:06:44
Britain said it has joined the US in "temporarily pausing" future funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinians in Gaza, while it reviews "concerning allegations" that UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
"The UK is appalled by allegations that UNRWA staff were involved in the October's attack," the UK Foreign Office said in a statement on Saturday.
2024-01-27 17:34:52
The decision by some countries to cease support for the UN Relief Agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) entails great political and relief risks, Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said on Saturday on X.
"We call on countries that announced the cessation of their support for UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision," he said.
2024-01-27 16:02:39
At least 26,257 Palestinians have been killed and 64,797 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.
Some 174 Palestinians were killed and 310 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement added.
2024-01-27 14:24:04
Palestinians expressed their disappointment over the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling which ordered Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
“The international court was supposed to at least demand an immediate ceasefire, but unfortunately it didn’t,” said Ahmad al-Zinaty.
“We’re really disappointed because it’s like saying this aggression can continue. It’s a pity.”
Seham al-Emawi, a displaced person from Beit Hanoun, also said the court’s decision was not what people expected.
“Most of the displaced people are civilians, including children. We hoped that the decision would reflect that we’re human beings. Human beings being exposed to ethnic cleansing – and we should be treated as such,” she said.
“We thought the court would at least demand a ceasefire.”
2024-01-27 13:03:26
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said an immediate ceasefire is "the only way" to implement Friday’s ICJ interim ruling.
It condemned the “continuation of the ongoing genocidal war against our people” in a statement, which it said shows “Israeli determination to complete the destruction of the Gaza Strip”.
It also highlighted the fact that not a single high-ranking Israeli official promised to abide by the ruling, and top officials, including Benjamin Netanyahu, promised to continue the war, effectively undermining the ruling.
2024-01-27 13:00:09
Israeli aircraft, tanks and infantry troops have martyred at least 11 Palestinian resistance fighters over the past 24 hours in battles in Gaza's Khan Younis, the military said on Saturday.
The forces targeted the Palestinian resistance fighters who were "trying to plant explosives near troops and others firing rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at soldiers," a statement from the Israeli military said.
2024-01-27 12:22:37
2024-01-27 11:50:23
2024-01-27 10:39:06
The United States and the United Kingdom have attacked theport of Ras Issa in Yemen’s Hodeidah province by launching airstrikes, said theHouthi-run Al Masira television.
The strikes come after Houthis increased attacks onvessels in the Red Sea.
2024-01-27 10:00:00
Doctors Without Borders said that vital medical services at Gaza's largest functioning Nasser Hospital "have collapsed".
"The [Nasser] hospital’s surgical capacity is now almost non-existent, and the handful of medical staff remaining in the hospital must contend with very low supplies that are insufficient to handle mass casualty events — large influxes of wounded people," MSF said in a statement.
The statement added that a patient died on Wednesdaybecause there was no orthopaedic surgeon available.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief, said that the intense fighting in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital has prevented access to the medical facility.
"[H]undreds of patients and health workers have fled," he said in a statement on Friday. "Currently 350 patients and 5000 displaced people remain at the hospital."
2024-01-27 09:15:17
The UN Security Council will meet next week over the decision by the global body's top court calling for Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, the council's presidency announced Friday.
The Wednesday meeting was called for by Algeria, whose ministry of foreign affairs said it would give "binding effect to the pronouncement of the International Court of Justice on the provisional measures imposed on the Israeli occupation."
The ICJ on Friday said Israel must prevent genocidal acts in its war with Hamas and allow aid into Gaza, but stopped short of calling for an end to the fighting.
The decision "gives the clear message that in order to do all the things that they are asking for, you need a ceasefire for it to happen," Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said.
"So fasten your seat belts," he said, hinting that the Arab Group, represented on the council by Algeria, would push for one.
The ICJ, based in The Hague, while refraining from ordering an immediate halt to the almost four-month-old war, said Israel must do everything to "prevent the commission of all acts within the scope" of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
2024-01-27 01:49:06
A British oil tanker was hit by missiles fired by Yemeni naval forces, claimed Huthis on Friday.
Yemen’s Huthis claimed they hit the vessel in the Gulf of Aden, setting it on fire, the latest attack on international shipping by the Iran-backed rebels.
The British oil tanker, the Marlin Luanda, was hit by missiles fired by Yemeni naval forces, said the group’s military spokesman Yahya Saree.
"The strike was direct, and resulted (in) the burning of the vessel," he added.
Risk monitor Ambrey said a missile strike southeast of the Yemeni port of Aden set a merchant ship on fire.
"At the time of writing, the crew were reported safe," it added.
In the incident involving the US Navy vessel, the Huthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Yemen towards the destroyer USS Carney in the Gulf of Aden, said US Central Command.
"The missile was successfully shot down by USS Carney. There were no injuries or damage reported," CENTCOM said.
2024-01-27 01:40:24
Saudi Arabia has called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for violations of international law after the verdict by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Issuing a statement on Friday, the Saudi kingdom's foreign ministry welcomed the ruling by the UN's top court in a case of the Gaza genocide brought by South Africa.
The ministry also called for "more measures" to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, asking the world community to protect the Palestinian people.
2024-01-26 23:57:13
The World Health Organisation on Friday denied Israel's charges it had colluded with Hamas by ignoring Israeli evidence of the group's "military use" of hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said that such accusations could endanger the UN health agency's staff on the ground.
He was responding to claims made Thursday by Israeli ambassador Meirav Eilon Shahar at a meeting of the WHO's board.
"WHO refutes Israel's accusation at the executive board meeting yesterday that WHO is in 'collusion' with Hamas and is 'turning a blind eye' to the suffering of hostages being held in Gaza," Tedros said on X.
"Such false claims are harmful and can endanger our staff who are risking their lives to serve the vulnerable."
He insisted that "WHO is impartial and is working for the health and well-being of all people".
Israel charges that Hamas is embedding itself in hospitals in the Gaza Strip and has been using civilians as human shields in the Palestinian territory.
In "every single hospital that the IDF searched in Gaza, it found evidence of Hamas' military use," Eilon Shahar said Thursday.
"These are undeniable facts that WHO chooses to ignore time and time again. This is not incompetence, it is collusion."
2024-01-26 23:32:52
US President Joe Biden spoke Friday with Qatar's emir to discuss efforts to free the hostages still being held in Gaza by Hamas, the White House said.
The exchange came as the head of the CIA is to meet in Europe with his counterparts from Israel and Egypt and the prime minister of Qatar with the goal of negotiating a truce and the release of the remaining hostages in the Israeli-Hamas war, US media reported.
2024-01-26 22:37:35
Palestinians said the World Court let them down by failing to order a halt to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, but they also described the proceedings as a victory which had inspired hope of accountability.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to prevent any acts of genocide against the Palestinians and do more to help suffering civilians. However, it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by South Africa, which brought the case.
Friday's proceedings were broadcast live across the Arab world and in Israel, which rejects South Africa's claims that it has committed genocide.
At a shelter for people displaced by Israeli bombardment in southern Gaza, people gathered around a radio to follow the news.
"We, the displaced, the bereaved families and those who lost their homes, had an ambition the court would call for an immediate ceasefire," said Mustafa Ibrahim, a human rights activist.
"Despite that, what happened was a victory," added Ibrahim, a resident of Gaza City who now lives in a shelter with his family of seven in Rafah in the south of the enclave.
South Africa asked the ICJ to grant emergency measures to halt the fighting. More than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.
2024-01-26 21:23:29
Pakistan Fridaywelcomed the provisional measures ordered today by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) wherein it concluded that prima facie, it has the jurisdiction to entertain the case against Israel and that South Africa's claims of genocide are "plausible".
"The implementation of these provisional measures requires an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to bring about an end to the suffering faced by the people of Gaza," the Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement.
Reaffirming Islamabad'sunwavering support to the Palestinian people in their just and legitimate struggle for the realisation of their inalienable right to self-determination, the FO calledfor a "full and effective implementation of the ICJ’s decision so that basic human rights, dignity and identity of Palestinian people as a distinct group are upheld and protected, as stipulated by the UN Charter, relevant UN resolutions, and international law."
2024-01-26 20:01:40
2024-01-26 18:56:47
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was committed to international law after the World Court ordered it to take action to prevent acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, but he reiterated that it had a right to defend itself.
Responding to a case brought by South Africa, Netanhayu said the charge of genocide was "outrageous".
"Like every country, Israel has a basic right to defend itself," he said in a statement released in Hebrew.
"The World Court in the Hague justly rejected the outrageous demand to deprive us of this right," he said, seemingly referring to the fact that the court stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.
"But the mere claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians is not only false, it's outrageous, and the willingness of the court to even discuss this is a disgrace that will not be erased for generations."
2024-01-26 18:08:27
President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ruling council of South Africa's ruling party erupted in cheers, singing and dancing Friday after the top UN court ordered Israel to prevent possible genocide in Gaza.
The African National Congress National Executive Committee suspended a meeting to watch a broadcast from the court in the The Hague, and live footage from the event showed senior party and government figures celebrating.
2024-01-26 17:58:15
2024-01-26 17:55:22
The UN's top court has ordered Israel to take measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide in its war in Gaza.
"The state of Israel shall.... take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the Genocide convention," the court said.
In a sweeping ruling, a large majority of the 17-judge panel of the ICJ voted for urgent measures which covered most of what South African asked for with the notable exception of ordering a halt to Israeli military action in Gaza.
The court ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the genocide convention and also ensure that its troops do not commit any genocidal acts in Gaza.
2024-01-26 17:42:40
2024-01-26 17:37:37
2024-01-26 17:34:27
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) while announcing interim order on South Africa's case on Gaza emergency measures,stated that it recognises the right of Palestinians to be protected from "acts of genocide".
2024-01-26 17:08:49
2024-01-26 16:28:12
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told British counterpart David Cameron during a meeting in Istanbul on Friday that an immediate ceasefire was needed in Gaza, a Turkish diplomatic source said.
The source said the two ministers met for some 90 minutes, followed by inter-delegation talks, and discussed the war in Gaza, bilateral ties, and Turkey's ratification of Sweden's NATO membership bid.
Fidan told Cameron that a full and immediate ceasefire and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is needed in Gaza for lasting peace, the source added.
2024-01-26 15:36:27
JERUSALEM: El Al Israel Airlines said on Friday it was suspending its route to Johannesburg at the end of March, citing a steep drop in demand after South Africa accused Israel of genocide at the World Court.
Israel's flag carrier flies up to twice weekly nonstop to Johannesburg.
"Israelis don't want to fly to South Africa," said an El Al spokesperson. "They are cancelling flights and planes are pretty empty... We understand it's the situation because it was different before.
"The fact that the Israelis don't want to go to South Africa but do want to go to other places helps us decide that we're pausing that route," she said. The company also cited the current security situation.
2024-01-26 15:36:27
JERUSALEM: El Al Israel Airlines said on Friday it was suspending its route to Johannesburg at the end of March, citing a steep drop in demand after South Africa accused Israel of genocide at the World Court.
Israel's flag carrier flies up to twice weekly nonstop to Johannesburg.
"Israelis don't want to fly to South Africa," said an El Al spokesperson. "They are cancelling flights and planes are pretty empty... We understand it's the situation because it was different before.
"The fact that the Israelis don't want to go to South Africa but do want to go to other places helps us decide that we're pausing that route," she said. The company also cited the current security situation.
2024-01-26 14:40:36
2024-01-26 13:52:04
DUBAI: At least 26,083 Palestinians have been killed and 64,487 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Some 183 Palestinians were killed and 377 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-26 12:05:10
Shockingly, Israeli forces have stationed its snipers around Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis as the bombing across the city continued the entire night, Al Jazeera reported.
The hundreds of displaced Palestinians have taken shelter in the hospital’s buildings, the largest public facility that is under military siege. When someone from them tries to step out of the buildings, he is shot by the snipers. The medical facility is out of service.
2024-01-26 11:01:06
DUBAI: Chinese officials have asked their Iranian counterparts to help rein in attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis, or risk harming business relations with Beijing, four Iranian sources and a diplomat familiar with the matter said.
The discussions about the attacks and trade between China and Iran took place at several recent meetings in Beijing and Tehran, the Iranian sources said, declining to provide details about when they took place or who attended.
"Basically, China says: 'If our interests are harmed in any way, it will impact our business with Tehran. So tell the Houthis to show restraint'," said one Iranian official briefed on the talks, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The attacks, which the Houthis say are in support of Palestinians in Gaza, have raised the cost of shipping and insurance by disrupting a key trade route between Asia and Europe used widely by ships from China.
The Chinese officials, however, did not make any specific comments or threats about how Beijing's trading relationship with Iran could be affected if its interests were damaged by Houthi attacks, the four Iranian sources said.
While China has been Iran's biggest trading partner for the past decade, their trade relationship is lopsided.
Chinese oil refiners, for example, bought over 90% of Iran's crude exports last year, according to tanker tracking data from trade analytics firm Kpler, as US sanctions kept many other customers away and Chinese firms profited from heavy discounts.
2024-01-26 10:10:59
THE HAGUE/DOHA/JERUSALEM: UN judges in The Hague will rule on Friday whether to order Israel to suspend its military campaign in Gaza as officials push ahead with efforts to negotiate a new deal for a ceasefire and release of more Israeli hostages.
On the ground in the seaside enclave, Gaza officials said on Thursday that Israeli strikes killed 20 Palestinians queuing for food aid in Gaza City, six people in a house in central Gaza's Al-Nusseirat refugee camp and at least 50 people in the prior 24 hours in Gaza's main southern city Khan Younis, where Israel is currently focusing the brunt of its might.
Reuters could not independently verify the details while Israel said it was either looking into the reports or did not immediately comment on the incidents.
The judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also called the World Court, are due to rule on Friday on South Africa's request for emergency measures against Israel in a case accusing it of state-led genocide in the Gaza Strip.
In more than three months of war, Israel's campaign has leveled much of the enclave, displaced some 1.9 million Palestinians and killed at least 25,900 people, according to Gaza officials. Israel launched its offensive in October after militants from Hamas, which rules Gaza, stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
The court will issue its ruling at 1 pm (1200 GMT) in a hearing expected to last about an hour. While the judges will not rule on the merits of the genocide allegations, which may take years to decide, South Africa asked the court to issue an interim order compelling Israel to suspend its military operations.
Israel has called South Africa's allegations false and "grossly distorted," and said it makes the utmost efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.
The court's rulings are final and without appeal, but it has no way of enforcing them. Israel on Thursday expressed confidence that the ICJ would "throw out these spurious and specious charges." Hamas said it would abide by an ICJ ceasefire order if Israel reciprocates.
2024-01-26 09:07:00
WASHINGTON: The United States has created a channel with Israel to discuss concerns over incidents in Gaza in which civilians have been killed or injured by the Israeli military and civilian facilities have been targeted, two US officials with knowledge told Reuters.
The channel was set up after a meeting earlier this month between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israel's war cabinet during which Blinken expressed concern about the "constant" reports of Israeli strikes that either hit humanitarian sites or resulted in large numbers of civilian deaths.
In the meeting, Blinken told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and minister Benny Gantz that Washington needed to know "what the answers are" when it comes to reports of strikes, and sought a "reliable channel" through which the United States can raise such issues with the Israelis regularly, one of the US officials said.
The existence of this initiative has not been previously reported and the US officials requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive details around it.
The channel comes as a response to the mounting pressure on the Biden administration over the steep toll on Palestinian civilians of Israel's campaign against Hamas that has killed more than 25,000 people, according to Palestinian health ministry, and displaced millions.
It also underscores Washington's frustration with Israel's failure to alleviate the plight of a civilian population deprived since mid-October of most of the aid that previously flowed into Gaza, and of adequate medical care for the more than 62,000 people who have been wounded.
2024-01-26 01:20:39
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas said Thursday that it would comply ceasefire in Gaza if the UN's top court ordered so, provided that Israel did the same.
The International Court of Justice will rule on Friday in a case of alleged genocide in Gaza brought by South Africa against Israel.
"In case The Hague-based ICJ issues a ruling to cease-fire, the Hamas movement will abide by it as long as the enemy does the same," Hamas said in a statement.
South Africa has alleged that Israel stands in breach of the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, signed in 1948 as the world’s response to the Holocaust.
Pretoria wants the ICJ to issue so-called "provisional measures", emergency orders to protect Palestinians in Gaza from potential breaches of the convention.
Orders from the ICJ, which rules in disputes between countries, are legally binding and cannot be appealed.
If the ceasefire verdict is ordered, Hamas will also release Israeli captives it holds in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, the group said.
It also called for an end to the ongoing Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, which the group rules, and for allowing humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials into the territory.
2024-01-25 23:39:24
A total of 25,900 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 64,110 wounded in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
2024-01-25 23:34:28
US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns plans to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in coming days for talks on a potential Gaza hostage deal, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
The Washington Post, which first reported Burns’ trip, said Israel has proposed a two-month pause in fighting to allow for the phased release of the hostages still being held following Hamas' October 7 attack, citing officials familiar with the matter.
Burns “has been... involved in helping us with the hostage deal that was in place and trying to help us pursue another one,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters travelling with US President Joe Biden aboard Air Force One, referring specific questions to the agency.
The CIA, which has a policy of not disclosing the director’s travel, declined to comment.
Burns’ dispatch by Biden to speak with officials, including, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, comes as Israel's retaliatory military campaign against Hamas continues into its fourth month.
2024-01-25 23:24:40
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official based in Lebanon, Thursday said that Washington was “feeding” the Israeli military machine and had become complicit in crimes against Gaza.
Addressing a press conference, Hamdan said that Israeli efforts to create a “buffer zone” on its border with Gaza constitute a crime and act of “blatant aggression” against the Palestinians, Al Jazeera reported.
Dubbing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “delusional”, the Hamas leader claimed that Gaza would become the “cemetery” of his plans.
2024-01-25 23:23:51
The head of the World Health Organization called for a ceasefire and a "true solution" to the Israel-Palestinian conflict in an emotional plea to the global health body's governing body on Thursday where he described conditions in Gaza as "hellish".
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who lived through the war as a child and whose own children hid in a bunker during bombardments in Ethiopia's 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea, became emotional describing conditions in the bombed-out Gaza enclave where nearly 26,000 people have been killed.
"I'm a true believer because of my own experience that war doesn't bring solution, except more war, more hatred, more agony, more destruction. So let's choose peace and resolve this issue politically," Tedros told the WHO Executive Board in Geneva during a discussion about the Gaza health emergency.
"I think all of you have said the two-state solution and so on, and hope this war will end and move into a true solution," he said, before breaking down, describing the current situation as "beyond words".
In the same address, Tedros warned that more people in Gaza would die of starvation and disease.
"If you add all that, I think it's not easy to understand how hellish the situation is," he said.
2024-01-25 22:27:32
A second French warship has arrived in the Red Sea region as part of efforts to ensure freedom of navigation, the French army said on Thursday.
Many commercial shippers have diverted vessels to other routes following attacks in the Red Sea by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel wages war in Gaza.
The Languedoc warship has already been patrolling in the Bab al-Mandab straits since December 8 alongside a US-led international mission to protect ships from attacks.
In a weekly briefing to reporters, the army said the Alsace warship had crossed the Suez Canal and would continue its mission in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
French officials have said their ships remain under national command and their priority is to escort French-linked vessels.
"In close cooperation with the allies the French warships contribute to the respect of international law and freedom of navigation," the army said.
France did not take part in US-led strikes against Houthi rebels because it wants to avoid a regional escalation, President Emmanuel Macron has said.
2024-01-25 21:16:37
In battered, hard-to-reach north Gaza, rare aid deliveries get mobbed by desperate, hungry Palestinians and aid workers report seeing people thin and visibly starving with sunken eyes.
Hunger stalks the entire Gaza Strip, the tiny enclave where 2.3 million people have been living under Israel's bombardment since October 7, the day the bloodiest war in Palestine's history erupted.
While areas near the Egyptian border get limited supplies of imported food, people in the north and centre of the strip, where fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters has been fiercest, face catastrophe aid workers say.
"The food situation in the north is absolutely horrific. There's almost no food available and everybody we talk to begs for food," said Sean Casey, a World Health Organization (WHO) coordinator in Gaza.
No comprehensive data on hunger is available for Gaza, with aid agencies struggling to move and communicate amid the fighting. They plan to assess malnutrition by measuring around children's arms for signs of wasting flesh.
Medics in Gaza hospitals describe babies born sick to malnourished mothers, infants losing weight, mothers unable to produce breast milk and injured patients too weak from hunger to fight off infection.
In a Rafah hospital ward, paediatric doctor Jabr al-Shaer pointed to a baby whose weight had plummeted to 5.5 kg (12 pounds) from 7.5 kg a month and a half ago.
"This is bad. It impacts his immunity. He constantly has inflammation in the chest and gastroenteritis," he said.
His mother, Shoruq Shaaban, who is breastfeeding her baby, has little to eat herself. Like most other people in southern Gaza she now lives on a little bread and canned food.
2024-01-25 19:54:17
DUBAI: The targeting of ships linked to Israel will continue until aid reaches the Palestinian people in Gaza, Yemen's Houthis leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said on Thursday in a televised speech.
"Our country will continue its operations until food and medicine reach the people of Gaza," he said.
The group's leader added that the results of the latest U.S. and British escalation would be counterproductive and would not affect "our will and determination".
2024-01-25 18:48:37
Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani Thursday said that priority must be given to end Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip and prevent it from escalating into a full-blown Middle East conflict.
His comments came as concern grows over Israeli-Hezbollah fighting in southern Lebanon and US-UK air strikes on Yemen’s Houthis, Al Jazeera reported.
“Priority must be given to ending the war in Gaza and prevent its expansion, which contributes to enhancing security and stability at the regional and international levels,” the PM said during a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron in Doha.
2024-01-25 18:02:34
After killing at least 20 “hungry mouths” who queued for humanitarian relief in war-ravaged northern Gaza City, Israel on Thursday said that it was looking into the “allegations” that its forces opened fire on crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid in the besieged enclave.
As per the details, the attack occurred at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City, killing at least 20 and wounding 150 others, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli troops and tanks pushed into Gaza City shortly after the ground invasion began in October and have battled Palestinian fighters there for more than two months.
2024-01-25 17:32:44
An attack has been carried out on “hungry mouths” who queued for humanitarian relief in war-ravaged northern Gaza City, Al Jazeera reported citing the spokesman for Gaza’s Health Ministry.
“The Israeli occupation committed a new massacre against thousands of hungry mouths who were waiting for aid,” Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement on Telegram.
The attack occurred at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City, killing at least 20 and wounding 150 others, he said.
The number of dead is likely to rise because dozens suffered serious injuries. The victims are being treated at al-Shifa Hospital, which is out of medical supplies and only has a few doctors working, al-Qudra said.
2024-01-25 16:30:17
At least 50 Palestinians were killed in Khan Younis in the past 24 hours, Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza, told Reuters on Thursday.
2024-01-25 15:49:10
GAZA/DOHA/JERUSALEM: Israeli forces relentlessly bombarded areas around two hospitals in Gaza's main southern city Khan Younis on Thursday, pinning down large numbers of displaced people, residents said, in an offensive to take Hamas' main stronghold in the enclave's south.
Gaza health officials said at least 50 Palestinians had been killed in Khan Younis in the past 24 hours, including two children in an Israeli air strike that hit a residential home.
The city is now encircled by Israeli armoured forces and under almost non-stop aerial and ground fire, residents say.
Palestinian medics said Israeli tanks had cut off and were shelling targets around the city's two main still-functioning hospitals, Nasser and Al-Amal, trapping medical teams, patients and displaced people sheltering inside or nearby.
Most of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million population is now squeezed into Khan Younis and towns just north and south of it, after being driven out of its northern half earlier in Israel's blitz of the territory, now in its fourth month.
Israeli forces' siege of Khan Younis' main hospitals, which Israel says Hamas militants use as bases for attacks - something the fighter group and hospital staff deny - have made it near impossible for rescue crews to reach the wounded and dead.
The fusillade from advancing Israeli forces forced many displaced people to set out again in search of ever dwindling places of safe shelter, medics and residents said.
2024-01-25 14:48:12
DUBAI: At least 50 Palestinians were killed in Khan Younis in the past 24 hours, Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza, told Reuters on Thursday.
The Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza said that nine Palestinians were killed and 75 were injured on Wednesday in an Israeli attack on a Khan Younis training center designated as shelter.
Two tank rounds hit the building that was sheltering around 800 people in the southern Gaza Strip, the official from UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinians, added in a social media post on X.
2024-01-25 14:04:10
BEIJING: China has never provided any weapons or equipment for the conflict in Gaza, a Chinese defence ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.
"China has always adopted a prudent and responsible attitude in arms exports," said ministry spokesperson Wu Qian during a monthly press briefing in Beijing.
Wu was asked to comment on reports that Israel Defence Forces had found that Hamas fighters used large amounts of Chinese-made weaponry in the Gaza Strip.
2024-01-25 13:16:56
COPENHAGEN: Maersk said explosions nearby forced two ships operated by its US subsidiary and carrying US military supplies to turn around when they were transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait off Yemen, accompanied by the US Navy.
"While en route, both ships reported seeing explosions close by and the US Navy accompaniment also intercepted multiple projectiles," Maersk said in a statement, adding it was suspending Red Sea transits by vessels of the US subsidiary.
A spokesperson for Yemen's Houthi military forces said they fired ballistic missiles at several US warships that were protecting two US commercial vessels.
2024-01-25 12:23:44
2024-01-25 11:24:20
LONDON: British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that more aid trucks must be able to enter Gaza and an immediate humanitarian pause is needed to help those trapped in a "desperate situation".
Cameron, who is on a visit to the Middle East and met separately with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, announced Britain and Qatar are working together to get more aid into Gaza, with a first joint consignment containing tents being flown into Egypt on Thursday before travelling by road to Gaza.
Israel, which denies holding up aid, launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants attacked its border on October 7.
Israel's response has left more than 25,000 dead and caused a severe humanitarian crisis, with most of Gaza's 2.3 million people left homeless and acutely short of food, water, medicine and fuel.
"The scale of suffering in Gaza is unimaginable. More must be done, faster, to help people trapped in this desperate situation," Cameron said. "We have trebled our assistance for Gaza ... But our efforts will only make a difference if aid gets to those who need it most."
"As I said to PM Netanyahu ... far more trucks need to be able to enter Gaza and more crossings need to open. We need an immediate humanitarian pause to get aid in and hostages out, followed by a sustainable ceasefire."
2024-01-25 10:12:06
2024-01-25 09:26:54
WASHINGTON: An overwhelming majority of President Joe Biden's fellow Democrats in the Senate on Wednesday backed a statement reiterating US support of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Forty-nine of the 51 members of the Senate Democratic caucus backed an amendment supporting a negotiated solution to the conflict that results in Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side, ensuring Israel's survival as a secure, democratic, Jewish state and fulfilling the Palestinians' "legitimate aspirations" for a state of their own.
Senator Brian Schatz introduced the measure as an amendment to an upcoming bill that would provide national security aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
"What will determine the future of Israel and Palestine is whether or not there's hope. And the two-state solution has to be that hope," Schatz told a news conference.
With war raging in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a press conference this month that he objected to any Palestinian statehood that did not guarantee Israel's security.
The statement provoked international concern, including from Israel's biggest backer the United States. Washington maintains that the two-state solution is the only feasible way to bring lasting peace to the region.
2024-01-25 08:41:23
The United States was concerned by an Israeli attack on a UN training center sheltering displaced people in Gaza's Khan Younis on Wednesday, Deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said, repeating Washington's calls for protection of civilians, humanitarian workers and aid facilities.
"We deplore today's attack on the UN's Khan Younis training centre," Patel told a news briefing, calling it "incredibly concerning".
The Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza said that nine Palestinians were killed and 75 were injured when two tank rounds hit the building that was sheltering around 800 people in the southern Gaza Strip.
"Civilians must be protected, and the protected nature of UN facilities must be respected, and humanitarian workers must be protected so that they can continue providing civilians with the life-saving humanitarian assistance that they need," Patel said.
2024-01-25 03:12:27
Qatar said on Wednesday it was "appalled" by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's alleged remarks on its mediation role in the Gaza war after he called the Gulf state "problematic" in a leaked recording.
"We are appalled by the alleged remarks attributed to the Israeli Prime Minister in various media reports about Qatar's mediation role," said Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed Al Ansari.
"If the reported remarks are found to be true, the Israeli PM would only be obstructing and undermining the mediation process, for reasons that appear to serve his political career instead of prioritising saving innocent lives, including Israeli hostages," he wrote.
In a leaked recording from a meeting with hostage families that aired on Israel's Channel 12 news on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Qatar "problematic."
"You haven't seen me thank Qatar, have you noticed? I haven't thanked Qatar. Why? Because Qatar, to me, is no different in essence from the UN, from the Red Cross and in a way it's even more problematic. However, I'm willing to use any mediator now who can help me bring them (the hostages) home."
An Israeli government spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on Qatar's statement or whether the leaked recording was authentic.
Qatar, where several Hamas political leaders are based, has served as the main mediator between the movement that governs Gaza and Israeli officials in the conflict.
In November, Qatar helped secure a seven-day pause in fighting, during which 110 Israeli and foreign hostages were released from Gaza in return for 240 Palestinians released from Israeli captivity.
In the recording, Netanyahu went on to say that Qatar has leverage over Hamas because it funds the movement. He told the hostage families that he recently "got very angry with the Americans" for renewing a deal to extend U.S. military presence at a base in Qatar.
The Qatari spokesman said in his statement: "Instead of concerning himself with Qatar's strategic relations with the United States, we hope Netanyahu decides to operate in good faith and concentrate on the release of the hostages."
2024-01-25 03:05:17
Italy has Wednesday said that 100 Palestinian children wounded in conflict-torn Gaza would receive medical treatment in Italian hospitals.
The defence ministry announced "the start of the operation for the transport of 100 Palestinian children and their families from the Gaza Strip to Italian hospital facilities."
The first 30 children are set to be transferred in the next few days "with an air force airlift between Italy and Egypt", the ministry said in a communique.
Another 30 children will arrive at the end of the month on board an Italian military ship, the "Nave Vulcano", which will soon leave Egypt´s port of El Arish, it added.
The children will be hospitalised in several Italian cities, including Rome, Bologna, Florence and Genoa.
Separately, the ministry said it is in talks with countries in the region to set up an army field hospital.
Earlier Wednesday, seven wounded Palestinian children arrived in France for medical treatment, the second such evacuation to the European country after two other Palestinian children arrived late December.
The United Nations on Tuesday warned of a "looming threat of famine" in the territory.
2024-01-24 23:57:11
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he and Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi agreed at a meeting on Wednesday on the need to avoid steps that could further threaten Middle East stability three months into the Gaza war.
Turkey, which supports a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has harshly criticised Israel for its attacks on Gaza, called for an immediate ceasefire, and backed legal steps for Israel to be tried for genocide.
Speaking at a news conference after meeting Raisi in Ankara, Erdogan said the two leaders had discussed ending Israel's "inhumane" attacks on Gaza and the need to take steps for a fair and lasting peace in the region.
"We agreed on the importance of refraining from steps that will further threaten the security and stability of our region," he said, adding the two neighbours had also agreed to continue cooperation against cross-border threats.
2024-01-24 23:46:56
International humanitarian and rights organisations on Wednesday called on countries to halt weapons transfers to Israel in a bid to end the Gaza conflict, or risk being complicit in possible war crimes.
In a joint statement, the 16 groups urged UN member states to stop sending weapons, parts and ammunition to "stop the crisis in Gaza and avert further humanitarian catastrophe and loss of civilian life."
"Israel's bombardment and siege are depriving the civilian population of the basics to survive and rendering Gaza uninhabitable.
"The civilian population in Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented severity and scale," the statement added.
2024-01-24 22:27:40
Judges at the International Court of Justice will rule on Friday whether or not they will grant emergency measures against Israel following accusations by South Africa that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide.
The United Nations' top court issued a statement on Wednesday saying the 17-judge panel will hand down its ruling in court on Jan. 26 at 1200 GMT.
2024-01-24 21:47:17
2024-01-24 20:31:52
The Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza said that nine Palestinians were killed and 75 were injured on Wednesday in an Israeli attack on a Khan Younis training center designated as shelter.
Two tank rounds hit the building that was sheltering around 800 people in the southern Gaza Strip, the official from UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinians, added in a social media post on X.
2024-01-24 20:30:43
At least 25,700 Palestinians have been killed and 63,740 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Some 210 were killed and 386 were injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-24 19:08:49
A UNRWA training centre sheltering tens of thousands of displaced people was hit on Wednesday with buildings ablaze and mass casualties, Thomas White, the Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza said on X, formerly Twitter.
"Safe access to/from the centre has been denied for two days, people are trapped," he added.
2024-01-24 18:07:48
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi accused Israel on Wednesday of holding up aid deliveries from the Rafah border crossing Gaza by pursuing procedures that halt movements.
"This is a form of pressure on the Gaza Strip and its people over the conflict and the release of hostages. They are using this as a pressure tool on the people of the Strip," Sisi told a gathering of military officers and state officials.
"We used to send Gaza 600 trucks a day. But for the past two to three days, we have not delivered more than 200 to 200 trucks (of aid) per day. How are these people [in Gaza] living?" he said.
"Egypt's Rafah crossing is open 24 hours every day of the month. But the procedures taking place on the Israeli side for us to send in the aid without it being blocked by anyone, they are the reason [for holdups]."
2024-01-24 16:38:13
At least 25,700 Palestinians have been killed and 63,740 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Some 210 were killed and 386 were injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-24 15:12:25
2024-01-24 13:56:41
United States President Joe Biden claimed a pro-Palestine protestor was a "MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republican" after he was interrupted at least 10 times at his rally in Manassas, Virginia on Tuesday.
The 81-year-old president was annoyed as activists flipped the script on his first joint campaign rally of 2024 with Vice President Kamala Harris, The New York Post reported.
“Genocide Joe: How many kids have you killed today?” a man carrying a Palestinian flag bellowed at Biden at the rally, which was supposed to focus on federal abortion rights.
Moments later, a female protestor shouted, “Israel kills two mothers every hour!”
Read more here.
2024-01-24 12:58:03
2024-01-24 11:52:16
2024-01-24 11:11:44
The United States has asked China to urge Tehran to rein in the Iranian-aligned Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea but has seen little sign of help from Beijing, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing US officials.
The US has repeatedly raised the matter with top Chinese officials in the past three months, the report said.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer, discussed the issue in meetings this month in Washington with Liu Jianchao, head of the International Liaison Department of China's Communist Party, the newspaper said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also raised the issue with his Chinese counterpart, the report said, adding US officials believe there was little evidence that China had put any pressure on Iran to restrain the Houthis beyond a mild statement Beijing issued last week.
The Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping and stoked fears of global inflation. They have also deepened concern that fallout from the Israel-Hamas war could destabilize the Middle East.
2024-01-24 10:10:59
2024-01-24 09:10:28
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of casualty figures as of January 21 at 11:30 am in Gaza (09:30 GMT), 25,474 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including 9,695 children.
Additionally, 66,681 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2024-01-24 08:45:01
Israel and Hamas have moved closer to an agreement on a 30-day ceasefire in Gaza when Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners would be released, sources told Reuters, as Israel pressed ahead with its assault on southern Gaza's main city of Khan Younis.
But the two sides remain at odds over how to permanently end the Gaza war, and Hamas has refused to move forward until this is resolved, the sources said.
Meanwhile, in its biggest operation in a month, the Israeli military pressed ahead with encircling Khan Younis where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
2024-01-24 08:37:25
A White House spokesman said on Tuesday that the United States Middle East envoy Brett McGurk was in the region — for the second time in a week — to discuss the release of hostages and Washington's support for a longer "humanitarian pause".
Two Egyptian security sources said that there was work underway to convince Hamas to accept a one-month truce followed by a permanent ceasefire. Hamas is requesting guarantees for the second phase of the deal to agree to the initial truce, but details of these guarantees are not provided.
Asked about the negotiations, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Monday that the organisation was open to discussing ideas but that no deal was yet in place.
"We are open to all initiatives and proposals, but any agreement must be based on ending the aggression and the occupation's complete pullout from Gaza Strip," said Abu Zuhri.
One offer by Israel is to end the war if Hamas removes six senior leaders from Gaza, said a seventh source, a senior Hamas official. However, Hamas "absolutely" rejected the proposal, he said.
The source said the list included the masterminds of Hamas' October 7 attacks on Israel, Yahya Sinwar and Mohamed al-Deif, who are Israel's top targets to kill or capture in the war and are thought to be hiding deep within Hamas' extensive network of tunnels beneath Gaza.
Reuters was not immediately able to confirm this proposal with Israeli sources. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office declined a request for comment about the proposal or the broader negotiations. According to recordings leaked to Israel's N12 news network, Netanyahu said such a "surrender and exile" scenario was being discussed in early January.
2024-01-24 08:24:20
The United States and Britain have carried out two rounds of joint strikes aimed at reducing the Houthis' ability to target shipping, while Washington has also launched a series of unilateral air raids on the Iran-backed rebels' missiles.
The Houthis began striking Red Sea shipping in November, saying they were hitting Israeli-linked vessels in a show of force to support Palestinians in Gaza, which has been ravaged by the Hamas-Israel war.
The Yemeni rebels have since declared US and British interests to be legitimate targets as well.
In addition to military action, Washington is seeking to put diplomatic and financial pressure on the Houthis, redesignating them as a terrorist organisation last week after previously having dropped that label soon after President Joe Biden took office.
2024-01-24 08:00:46
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is all set to arrive in Turkey today for twice-delayed talks aimed at ironing out past differences, to halt the spread of the Israel-Hamas war.
Raisi’s visit to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan comes with the war in Gaza starting to enflame tensions and escalate fighting across the Middle East.
The United States and Britain have stepped up joint air strikes against Iranian-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen in response to their attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes.
Israel has repeatedly targeted Tehran-linked figures in Syria and appears to be on the brink of launching a full-scale war against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
The rapid pace of the Middle East escalation forced Raisi to delay his visit to Ankara twice.
His planned talks in Ankara in early January were called off when twin blasts claimed by Islamic State group jihadists killed 89 people at the shrine of assassinated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general Qasem Soleimani.
A trip he had planned for November was cancelled because of conflicting schedules of diplomats involved in consultations over the Gaza war.
2024-01-24 01:28:50
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the United States was opposed to any permanent change to Gaza's territory, but kept the door open to possible support for any "transitional arrangements" to resolve the conflict with Israel.
"If there needs to be transitional arrangements to enable that to happen, that's one thing. But when it comes to the permanent status of Gaza going forward, we've been clear, we remain clear about not encroaching on its territory," Blinken told reporters in Abuja, Nigeria.
2024-01-24 01:17:18
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that the Gaza conflict could linger on, adding that it is unacceptable for Israel to reject the idea of a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
"Last week’s clear and repeated rejection of the two-state solution at the highest levels of the Israeli government is unacceptable," Guterres said in a speech to the Security Council.
"This refusal, and the denial of the right to statehood to the Palestinian people, would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and security," Guterres told the meeting.
Such an outcome "would exacerbate polarization and embolden extremists everywhere," he added.
Guterres called for the universal recognition of "right of the Palestinian people to build their own fully independent state."
2024-01-23 23:55:08
Six displaced Palestinians were killed when one of the UN-run shelters was hit in Khan Younis, the focus of Israel's ground offensive, in the southern Gaza Strip, a day ago, the head of the UN aid agency for Palestinians said.
"Terrified staff, patients, and displaced people are now trapped inside the few remaining hospitals in Khan Younis as heavy fighting continues," Philippe Lazzarine, UNRWA's general commissioner said in a post on X on Tuesday.
The Israeli military said it was unaware of any strikes in that area at the time in question.
Lazzarine said at least six of the displaced were killed and more others were wounded in the incident.
"I call on all parties to take every precaution to minimize harm and protect civilians, medical facilities and personnel and UN premises in accordance with international law," he added.
2024-01-23 22:59:54
US President Joe Biden’s Middle East advisor is holding talks in the region on a new, possibly longer deal for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for a pause in fighting in Gaza, the White House said Tuesday.
Brett McGurk was in Egypt and would visit other countries to discuss “the potential for another hostage deal, which would require a humanitarian pause of some length,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
2024-01-23 21:28:24
The symbolic "Doomsday Clock" was reset to 90 seconds to midnight on Tuesday, reflecting existential threats to humanity posed by potential nuclear escalation from the Ukraine conflict and the multiplying impacts of the climate crisis following Earth's hottest recorded year.
Set by top scientists and security experts, the timing of the clock remains the same as last year and the closest it has ever been to midnight in its more than 75-year-history.
"Trends continue to point ominously towards global catastrophe," said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. "The war in Ukraine poses an ever present risk of nuclear escalation, and the October 7 attack in Israel and war in Gaza provides further illustration of the horrors of modern war, even without nuclear escalation.
Rather than abandoning nuclear weapons, countries that possess them are upgrading their arsenals and threatening to create a new arms race, while massive floods, fires and other disasters marked the hottest year on record by far, with little meaningful action on climate change.
"Biological research aimed at preventing future pandemics has proven useful, but also presents the risks of causing one," she said, while recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) raise questions about how to control a technology "that could improve or threaten civilisation in countless ways."
The clock was originally set at seven minutes to midnight.
The furthest from midnight it has ever been is 17 minutes, following the end of the Cold War in 1991.
The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, which produced the first nuclear weapons. The idea of the clock symbolising global vulnerability to catastrophe followed in 1947.
2024-01-23 20:22:15
The World Food Programme said on Tuesday that very little food aid had made it beyond southern Gaza since the start of the conflict with Israel, and pockets of the Palestinian enclave remained at risk of famine.
Israel's offensive launched on October 7, has displaced most of Gaza's 2.3 million population and caused acute shortages of food, water and medical supplies.
Over 25,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian authorities, with thousands more feared buried under rubble.
"It's difficult to get into the places where we need to get to in Gaza, especially in northern Gaza," said WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa.
"I think the risk of having pockets of famine in Gaza is very much still there."
Northern Gaza was cut off altogether from external aid for weeks earlier in the conflict, while some aid entered the south from Egypt.
Etefa said there was a "systematic limitation on getting into the north of Gaza, not just for the WFP".
"This is why we're seeing people becoming more desperate and being impatient to wait for food distributions - because it's very sporadic," she said.
"They don't get it frequently, and they have no trust or confidence that these convoys will come again."
2024-01-23 19:24:07
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday said that Israel cannot be allowed to unilaterally block the creation of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza.
"One thing is clear, Israel cannot have the veto right to the self-determination of the Palestinian people," Borrell told a Brussels press conference with his Egyptian counterpart.
"The United Nations recognises and has recognised many times the self-determination right of the Palestinian people. Nobody can veto it."
The comments come after Borrell on Monday chaired talks between the EU's 27 foreign ministers and the top diplomats from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and key Arab states.
Borrell has floated a roadmap involving an international conference on a two-state solution and has said peace needs to be "imposed" on Israel.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said there is "an international consensus on the necessity of resolving the conflict based on the two-state solution".
"It is time to implement it and the international community has the means, has the resources [and] the mechanisms to do so," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn condemnation from the United Nations and defied key backer the United States by rejecting calls for a Palestinian state.
2024-01-23 18:41:09
Israel has proposed to Hamas, via Qatari and Egyptian mediators, a pause in fighting of up to two months as part of a deal to free all the hostages being held in Gaza, the US news site Axios reported Monday.
The report, citing unnamed Israeli officials, said the deal would take place in multiple stages, the first of which would see the release of women, men over 60 and those in critical medical condition.
Subsequent phases would involve the release of women soldiers, younger civilian men, male soldiers and the bodies of dead hostages.
The officials said the deal would also see the release of an undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel, but not all of them.
The proposal does not include promises to end the war, but it would involve Israeli troops reducing their presence in major cities in Gaza and gradually allowing residents to return to the territory's devastated north.
The officials said the deal was expected to take around two months to implement.
Qatar, which with the US and Egypt has led negotiations for the release of hostages and pauses to the fighting in Gaza, pushed back against the reports on Tuesday.
Declining to comment on specifics of negotiations, which he said continued with "full force", Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said the leaks to the media were "either missing elements or completely false".
"The only way out of [the conflict] is for negotiations to take place and for there to be a sustainable ceasefire between both sides," he told a Doha news conference.
2024-01-23 17:49:15
Mediation efforts on ending the war in the Gaza Strip are ongoing, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday in a press briefing.
Separately, he added that escalation in the Red Sea represented a "big danger", speaking a day after US and British forces carried out fresh strikes against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi fighters who have disrupted global shipping in protest over Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
2024-01-23 15:24:20
GENEVA: The World Food Programme said on Tuesday that very little food assistance has made it beyond southern Gaza since the start of the conflict and that the risk of having pockets of famine in the Palestinian enclave remained.
"It's difficult to get into the places where we need to get to in Gaza, especially in northern Gaza," said Abeer Etefa, WFP spokesperson for the Middle East.
"Very little assistance has made it beyond the southern part of the Gaza Strip... I think the risk of having pockets of famine in Gaza is very much still there."
2024-01-23 13:59:18
JERUSALEM: Israel's military said on Tuesday that it killed dozens of Hamas fighters during fierce fighting in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, while its troops have encircled the city Khan Younis, a remaining stronghold of Hamas.
"Over the past day, IDF troops carried out an extensive operation during which they encircled Khan Younis and deepened the operation in the area. The area is a significant stronghold of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade," the military said.
"Ground troops engaged in close-quarters combat, directed (air force) strikes, and used intelligence to coordinate fire, resulting in the elimination of dozens of terrorists," it said.
2024-01-23 12:30:57
GAZA/JERUSALEM: Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza, the military said on Tuesday, the biggest death toll in a single day since the war began in October, amid what Palestinians said was the most intense bombardment of southern Gaza in the conflict.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that 21 soldiers were killed in an explosion. He said the Hamas fighters had fired rocket-propelled grenades at a tank, and at the same time an explosion occurred in two buildings where Israeli forces had planted explosives to destroy them. The buildings collapsed onto the troops.
"We are still studying and investigating the details of the event and the reasons for the explosion," he said. Earlier, the military had said three soldiers were killed in a separate attack in southern Gaza.
The assault came as Israeli forces pushed deep into western Khan Younis in Gaza, with an air, sea and land bombardment that included storming a hospital and arresting medical staff, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qidra told Reuters.
There was no word from Israel on the situation at the hospital, and the military spokesperson's office had no comment.
2024-01-23 11:35:29
Palestinian photojournalist from Gaza and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) Content Producer Motaz Hilal Azaiza on Tuesday said after 107 days he was evacuating from the besieged enclave under constant bombardment by occupational Israeli forces.
On X, formerly Twitter, he posted his video of removing his bullet-proof vest with “PRESS” written on its chest. He wrote, “I had to evacuate for a lot of reasons you all know some of it but not all of it. Thank you all. Pray for Gaza.”
In another tweet, Motaz Azaiza, who has 18.2 million followers on Instagram and one million others on Twitter, said he spent sometime in the operation room with MedGlobal doctors wbo came to do some surgeries and brought some medicine and doctors to help Gazans amid shortage of medical staff and medical supplies in Gaza.
2024-01-23 10:48:04
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his counterparts from Iran, Turkey and Lebanon ahead of the United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday due to discuss the Middle East, the Russian foreign ministry said.
The bilateral meetings focused on the Gaza Strip, Syria and "the tense situation" in the Red Sea, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday. The meetings took place in New York on Monday.
The ministry said Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian agreed on the need for a swift ceasefire in Gaza and conditions for providing humanitarian assistance to civilians.
"General concern was expressed about the tense situation in the Red Sea, which has sharply degraded," it said.
2024-01-23 09:40:11
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke on Monday about the importance of protecting navigational rights and freedoms in the Red Sea, the State Department said.
US and British forces have launched strikes across Yemen against Houthi forces in recent weeks in response to months of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping that the Iran-backed fighters cast as a response to the war in Gaza.
2024-01-23 08:36:57
WASHINGTON: US and British forces carried out a fresh round of strikes on Monday in Yemen, targeting a Houthi underground storage site as well as missile and surveillance capabilities used by the Iran-aligned group against Red Sea shipping, the Pentagon said.
The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, have said their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel strikes Gaza.
The Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping and stoked fears of global inflation. They have also deepened concern that fallout from the Israel-Hamas war could destabilise the Middle East.
In the latest response, US and British forces carried out strikes at eight different locations in Yemen, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, according to a joint statement signed by the six countries.
A senior US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said roughly 25 to 30 munitions were fired, including from warplanes launched from a US aircraft carrier.
2024-01-23 03:04:29
Israel announced Monday that its 200 soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since it launched ground operations in the Hamas-ruled territory in late October.
"The number of fallen soldiers in Gaza since October 27 is 200," an army spokesperson told AFP.
2024-01-23 01:50:30
Israel has given Hamas a proposal through Qatari and Egyptian mediators that includes up to two months of a pause in the fighting as part of a multi-phase deal, Axios reported on Monday.
The deal would include the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza, the report added citing two Israeli officials.
2024-01-23 01:49:53
France hopes that the medicines delivered to the Gaza Strip will end up with the hostages who need them.
The aid shipment with medicines reached the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory a week ago on Wednesday under a deal brokered by Qatar and France. According to the agreement between Israel and Hamas, 45 hostages will receive medication.
"We trust all parties to ensure that these medicines arrive safely... at the destination of every hostage," French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Monday during his visit to Israel.
The French minister told the media, after he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the medicines must land with every hostage as 'part of our duty.'
Last week, France announced that the drugs would be shipped to the Red Cross hospital in Rafah and divided into batches before being transferred to hostages.
2024-01-22 23:51:25
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to push back on Monday against media speculation that a new Gaza truce was in the works, telling relatives of hostages held by Hamas that the Palestinian group has not made any solid offer.
"There is no real proposal by Hamas. It’s not true. I am saying this as clearly as I can because there are so many incorrect statements which are certainly agonising for you," Netanyahu's office quoted him as telling the group.
2024-01-22 22:43:29
The Israeli military said that three of its soldiers were killed on Monday in southern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been battling the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
2024-01-22 21:25:15
2024-01-22 20:22:03
As many as 40 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli raid targeted a house adjacent to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Monday.
At least 40 bodies were shifted to the medical complex, Al Jazeera reported.
“Dozens of martyrs and wounded are still in the targeted places and roads. The Israeli occupation prevents the movement of ambulances to retrieve the martyrs and wounded west of Khan Yunis,” a spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry said.
2024-01-22 20:19:22
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's opposition to a future sovereign Palestinian state is "disappointing", British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's office said on Monday, reiterating British support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden have disagreed over the future creation of an independent Palestinian state, with Netanyahu saying at the weekend he would not compromise on "full Israeli security control of all territory west of the Jordan River".
Asked about Netanyahu's comments, Sunak's spokesman told reporters: "It's disappointing to hear this from the Israeli prime minister."
"The UK's position remains [that] a two-state solution, with a viable and sovereign Palestinian state living alongside a safe and secure Israel, is the best route to lasting peace," the spokesman said.
2024-01-22 19:04:01
A group of relatives of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, stormed a parliamentary committee session in Jerusalem on Monday, demanding that the lawmakers do more to try to free their loved ones.
The action by about 20 people signalled growing domestic dissent in the fourth month of the Gaza war against Hamas.
Some 130 Israelis remain in captivity after others were released after Hamas and Israel agreed upon a truce in November 2023.
US, Qatari and Egyptian efforts to mediate another release seem far from reconciling Israel's drive to destroy Hamas and the latter's demand that Israel withdraw and free all of the thousands of Palestinians from its prisons.
2024-01-22 18:07:31
In what can be called war crimes, the Israeli forces’ strikes targeted five shelters set up in war-torn Gaza, where around 30,000 displaced Palestinians were taking refuge.
The oppressor forces bombed Al-Aqsa University Shelter, University College Accommodation, Khalidiya School Shelter, Al-Mawasi School Shelter, and Khan Younis Industry Shelter, Al Jazeera reported, quoting the Gaza media office.
“[Israelis] claimed they were safe centres and called on citizens to take refuge in them. Then committed a massacre that left many martyrs. This comes within the framework of a genocidal war launched by the occupation against civilians, children and women, in the Gaza Strip,” a statement on Telegram said.
2024-01-22 16:58:45
EU foreign ministers on Monday pressed Israel for an eventual two-state solution with the Palestinians after the war in Gaza, at meetings with the top diplomats from the two sides and key Arab states in Brussels.
But while the bloodshed appears to have driven a long-term solution further out of sight, EU officials insist the time is now to talk about finally resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The 27 EU ministers met first with Israel´s foreign minister Israel Katz before they were due to sit down separately with the Palestinian Authority´s top diplomat, Riyad al-Maliki.
The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were also holding talks with the European ministers.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told Israel that "peace and stability cannot be built only by military means".
"Which are the other solutions they have in mind? To make all the Palestinians leave? To kill off them?" Borrell said.
Borrell circulated what he called a "comprehensive approach" towards finding peace involving the international community holding a conference that would come up with a plan to be put to both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
2024-01-22 15:53:10
GAZA/DOHA: Israeli tanks storming southern Gaza's main city reached the gates of two hospitals on Monday, cutting residents off from trauma care as the bloodiest fighting of the new year tore through areas sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced.
Residents said bombardment from air, land and sea was the most intense in southern Gaza since the war began in October, as Israeli tanks surged across Khan Younis from the east into the western areas close to the Mediterranean coast.
Video images filmed from afar showed scattered civilians wandering a ghost city, crowded with tents with abandoned laundry flapping on lines, as gunfire rattled and columns of smoke rose into the sky.
2024-01-22 15:12:22
DOHA: A total of 25,295 Palestinians have been killed and 63,000 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The toll includes 190 people killed and 340 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-22 13:13:07
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip, currently besieged by Israel in its war against Hamas, "could not be worse", European Union chief diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday.
"From now on I will not talk about the peace process, but I want a two-state-solution process," Borell told journalists ahead of a EU foreign ministers' meeting.
2024-01-22 11:44:09
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected conditions presented by Hamas to end the war and release hostages that would include Israel's complete withdrawal and leaving Hamas in power in Gaza.
As Israeli planes resumed bombing Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters the Israeli leader's refusal to end the military offensive in Gaza "means there is no chance for the return of the (Israeli) captives."
"In exchange for the release of our hostages, Hamas demands the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of all the murderers and rapists," Netanyahu said in a statement. "And leaving Hamas intact."
"I reject outright the terms of surrender of the monsters of Hamas," Netanyahu said.
Under a deal brokered in late November by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, more than 100 of the estimated 240 hostages taken captive to Gaza during an attack by Hamas militants on October 7 were freed in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
2024-01-22 11:07:37
BRUSSELS: The Israeli and Palestinian foreign ministers are to meet their European Union counterparts on Monday as the EU considers potential steps toward a comprehensive peace between the two sides even as the war in Gaza rages on.
Israel's Israel Katz and Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki will take part separately in a regular meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels largely devoted to the Middle East but also taking stock of the war in Ukraine.
Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and the secretary-general of the League of Arab States will also attend as the gathering focuses on the consequences of the October 7 attacks on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas from Gaza and Israel's military response.
2024-01-22 10:14:36
Two US Navy SEALs who went missing in the Gulf of Aden earlier this month during a raid on a boat carrying Iranian weapons have not been located following an exhaustive search and their status has been changed to deceased, military officials said on Sunday.
The SEALs were reported missing after boarding the vessel in a January 11 operation near the coast of Somali, the US Central Command said on X.
“We mourn the loss of our two Naval Special Warfare warriors, and we will forever honor their sacrifice and example. Our prayers are with the SEALs’ families, friends, the US Navy, and the entire Special Operations community during this time,” CENTCOM Commander General Michael Erik Kurilla said in a statement.
A joint operation carried out by the United States, Spain and Japan searched more than 21,000 square miles of ocean for the missing SEALs, CENTCOM said in the statement.
That mission had now become a recovery operation, CENTCOM said.
The US has carried out a string of strikes against Houthi targets in response to Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea that have disrupted global trade and raised fears of supply bottlenecks.
2024-01-22 08:48:59
Israeli attacks and street battles raged across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as Palestinian health officials said the death toll from Israeli strikes since war broke out in October had passed 25,000.
Gaza's health ministry said 178 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours, one of the deadliest days of the war so far. Israel's military said a soldier was killed in fighting.
Israeli forces and Hamas fighters clashed in several places, from Jabalia in the north to Khan Younis in the south, the focus of recent Israeli operations.
Israeli planes resumed heavy bombing on Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip and explosions echoed throughout the city.
Explosions lit the skies in parts of the Khan Younis refugee camp, and Palestinian health officials said one Palestinian was killed and seven wounded in one air strike as night fell.
2024-01-21 23:53:21
About 1,000 people from Gaza have been treated in a French field hospital aboard a ship off the coast of Egypt, its captain said, providing care for some as health infrastructure in the war-devastated enclave collapses.
The Dixmude, a French helicopter carrier, has been docked in the Egyptian port of al-Arish, 50 km (30 miles) west of the Gaza Strip, since November. The vessel is equipped with wards, operating theatres and 70 medical staff.
Nearly 120 injured people have been hospitalised on board, while hundreds more have been seen for outpatient consultations, including follow-ups on injuries and psychiatric issues, said Captain Alexandre Blonce, calling it an "unprecedented mission".
Gazans have struggled to get medical care at home as tens of thousands have been wounded, with most of Gaza's 36 hospitals no longer functioning, and those remaining operating at far over capacity, the World Health Organization says.
Italy sent a similar floating hospital to the Egyptian coast in December.
2024-01-21 23:09:36
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected conditions presented by Hamas to end the war and release hostages that would include Israel's complete withdrawal and leaving Hamas in power in Gaza.
"In exchange for the release of our hostages, Hamas demands the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of all [prisoners]," Netanyahu said in a statement.
"I reject outright the terms of surrender of the Hamas," he added.
A deal brokered in late November by the United States, Qatar and Egypt saw the release of more than 100 of the estimated 240 hostages who were taken captive in Gaza during an attack by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Since that deal ended Netanyahu has faced mounting pressure to secure the release of the 136 hostages who remain in captivity.
2024-01-21 22:22:54
Hezbollah has said that the attack that struck a home in Avivim was in response to an earlier Israeli raid on the Lebanese town of Kafra, Al-Jazeera reported.
Lebanon’s National News Agency had reported that the Israeli attack killed one person and injured another, but other Lebanese outlets said the raid claimed at least two people.
Shortly after the Israeli attack, the Lebanese group announced that one of its fighters was killed, identifying him as Fadl Ali Salman Shaar.
2024-01-21 21:35:21
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said there can be no normalisation of ties with Israel without resolving the Palestinian issue, he told CNN in an interview that aired on Sunday.
Asked if there could be no normal ties without a path to a credible and irreversible Palestinian state, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told CNN's Fareed Zakaria: "That's the only way we're going to get the benefit. So, yes, because we need stability and only stability will come through the resolving the Palestinian issue."
The foreign minister's remarks were part of an interview originally taped on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum held last week in Davos, Switzerland, and aired Sunday on CNN.
De-escalation of the conflict in Gaza and halting civilian deaths is a key focus of Saudi Arabia, the minister said.
"What we are seeing is the Israelis are crushing Gaza, the civilian population of Gaza," he said. "This is completely unnecessary, completely unacceptable and has to stop."
2024-01-21 20:42:40
The Hamas militant group said Sunday its October 7 attack on Israel was a "necessary step" against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
In its 16-page report, the Palestinian resistance groupsaid the attacks were "a necessary step and a normal response to confront all Israeli conspiracies against the Palestinian people".
Urging an "immediate halt of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the crimes and ethnic cleansing committed against the entire Gaza population," the group hasrejected any international and Israeli efforts to decide the territory's post-war future.
"We stress that the Palestinian people have the capacity to decide their future and to arrange their internal affairs," the statement said, adding that "no party in the world" had the right to decide on their behalf.
2024-01-21 19:24:43
Amid the ongoing aggression on Gaza, another Israeli soldier was killed during a shootout with freedom fighters in the southern Gaza Strip.
Three other soldiers were injured in the besieged enclave, a military statement said. Figures released by the army showed 531 soldiers have been killed since the outbreak of the Gaza war.
At least 25,105 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 62,681 injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.
2024-01-21 19:09:05
Two Hezbollah fighters were killed on Sunday when an Israeli drone hit their vehicle in southern Lebanon, security sources said.
Their ranks were not revealed but a source close to the Iranian-backed group said they were not senior figures.
It was the latest strike in an area where Israel has targeted dozens of Hezbollah fighters. Israel's military said it does not comment on foreign reports.
Earlier, residents and security officials said a drone had killed two people and injured at least four others near the village of Kafra — eight kilometres from the border.
Hezbollah has been trading fire across Lebanon's southern border with Israeli forces in support of the Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
2024-01-21 18:09:35
Hamas’s Qatar-based chief Ismail Haniyeh has held a meeting with the Turkish foreign minister, diplomatic sources said Sunday, in the first official contact between the two for more than three months.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with Haniyeh on Saturday in Turkey, the sources said.
Hamas seized about 250 hostages when they launched unprecedented attacks in Israel on October 7 and the release of the remaining captives, along with the establishment of "a ceasefire as quickly as possible", were the main topic of discussions, according to one of the sources.
The source said that during the meeting, the two sides also discussed "increasing humanitarian aid... and a two-state solution for a permanent peace".
Fidan and Haniyeh last had official contact in a phone call on October 16.
2024-01-21 16:04:24
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday denounced Israel for the "heartbreaking" deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and called it unacceptable to resist statehood for the Palestinian people.
"Israel's military operations have spread mass destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as secretary-general," Guterres said at the opening of a summit of the G77+China in the Ugandan capital Kampala.
"This is heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable. The Middle East is a tinder box, we must do all we can to prevent conflict from igniting across the region."
2024-01-21 15:57:20
2024-01-21 15:09:59
DUBAI: A total of 25,105 Palestinians have been killed and 62,681 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Some 178 Palestinians were killed and 293 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-21 13:13:18
JERUSALEM: Israel's military said on Sunday that its soldiers had killed 15 Palestinian gunmen during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip.
In the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, where Israel has been increasing pressure on Hamas in recent weeks, the military said that snipers, backed by air support, had eliminated a number of fighters.
2024-01-21 12:11:52
DOHA/GAZA: Israel pounded targets across the Gaza Strip on Saturday while its planes dropped leaflets on the southern area of Rafah urging Palestinians seeking refuge there to help locate hostages held by Hamas, residents said.
Palestinian fighters battled tanks trying to push back into the eastern suburbs of the Jabalia area in northern Gaza, where Israel had started pulling out troops and shifting to smaller-scale operations, residents and militants said.
The Israeli military said aircraft struck militant squads trying to plant explosives near troops and fire missiles at tanks in northern Gaza and said it was striking targets throughout Gaza.
In the southern area of Khan Younis, where Israel says it has expanded its operations against Hamas, witnesses said tanks shelled areas around Nasser Hospital overnight, describing the bombardment as the most intense in many days.
2024-01-21 11:28:42
WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD: Missile attacks in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen on Saturday threw into sharp focus the increasing risk of the war in Gaza triggering a wider regional conflict pitting Iran and its allies against Israel and the United States.
Iran said five of its Revolutionary Guards were killed in a missile strike on a house in Damascus which it blamed on Israel, and security sources in Lebanon said an Israeli strike there killed a member of Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Later on Saturday, missiles and rockets launched by Iran-backed militants in Iraq, where such groups have targeted US forces, hit al-Asad air base, the US Central Command said. A number of US personnel were being evaluated for traumatic brain injuries and one Iraqi service member was wounded, it said.
The United States also said it had targeted a missile the Iran-backed Houthi group in Yemen was aiming into the Red Sea, which it called a threat to shipping.
2024-01-21 10:48:06
2024-01-21 09:37:25
WASHINGTON: Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said the kingdom was "very worried" that tensions in the Red Sea amid attacks by Yemen's Houthis and US strikes on Houthi targets could spiral out of control and escalate the conflict in the region.
"I mean, of course, we are very worried. I mean, you know, we are in a very difficult and dangerous time in the region, and that's why we are calling for de-escalation," Prince Faisal bin Farhan told CNN 'Fareed Zakaria GPS' in an interview that will be aired on Sunday.
Attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthi militia on ships in and around the Red Sea for the past several weeks have slowed trade between Asia and Europe and alarmed major powers in an escalation of the war in Gaza.
2024-01-21 05:59:17
WASHINGTON: Iran-backed militants launched ballistic missiles at a base hosting US forces in western Iraq, causing one Iraqi and possible American casualties, the US Central Command said Saturday.
The US Central Command said Saturday that Iran-backed militants launched ballistic missiles at a US forces' base in western Iraq.
The attack caused one Iraqi and possible American casualties, according to the CENTCOM.
"Multiple ballistic missiles and rockets were launched by Iranian-backed militants in western Iraq targeting al-Assad Airbase," CENTCOM said in a social media post, which placed the time of the attack at 6:30pm Baghdad time (1530GMT) Saturday evening.
Most of the projectiles were intercepted by the base’s air defense systems but "others impacted on the base," the statement said.
"A number of US personnel are undergoing evaluation for traumatic brain injuries. At least one Iraqi service member was wounded," it added.
According to the Pentagon, dozens of US personnel have been lightly wounded in previous attacks since late October.
There are roughly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria.
2024-01-20 23:56:21
US Central Command (Centcom) forces on Saturday struck a Houthi anti-ship missile that was aimed into the Gulf of Aden and prepared to launch, the US military said, with the latest round of strikes coming hours after the United States struck three other Houthi anti-ship missiles.
"U.S. forces determined the missile presented a threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region, and subsequently struck and destroyed the missile in self-defense," the Centcom said in a statement on X.
The incident, the latest amid growing tensions in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that have disrupted global trade and raised fears of supply bottlenecks, took place around 0400 Yemen time (0100 GMT), the statement added.
2024-01-20 23:45:54
The right of the Palestinian people to build their own state “must be recognised by all”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Uganda on Saturday
“The refusal to accept a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable,” the UN leader insisted in the Ugandan capital Kampala.
Such a stance “would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and security; exacerbate polarization; and embolden extremists everywhere,” Guterres warned.
“The right of the Palestinian people to build their own state must be recognized by all.”
The United States, Israel´s main ally and key supporter in its war against Hamas, has also recently reiterated its support for the creation of a Palestinian state.
In recent days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reaffirmed his opposition to the creation of a viable Palestinian state, drawing criticism from his American ally.
2024-01-20 23:03:47
2024-01-20 21:55:14
At least a dozen missiles were fired on Saturday at a military base used by US-led coalition forces in western Iraq, a US defence source and Iraqi police told AFP.
"Al-Asad airbase was targeted by 15 rockets" fired from Anbar province, which is home to the military base, an Iraqi police official from the region told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
He said 13 of the projectiles were shot down by anti-air defences but that "two fell on the airbase".
A US defence official, who also requested anonymity, confirmed that "missiles impacted Al-Asad airbase", adding that a joint damage assessment was under way with coalition and Iraqi forces.
The American official said that initial reports indicated one member of the Iraqi security forces had been seriously injured.
2024-01-20 20:41:53
Palestinian resistance group Hamas has said that it does not want to keep Israeli hostages and that it is seeking a new prisoner exchange deal with Tel Aviv, reported Al Jazeera.
In a statement, Hamas's political bureau member Musa Abu Marzouk said: "Israel will be forced to make a deal because it failed during more than a hundred days of war to recover any prisoners by force."
Israel will either take its hostages back via a deal or take them as bodies, he added.
Marzouk also praised Yemen's Houthi rebels — who have been targeting vessels connected to Israel in the Red Sea — in support of the Palestinian people.
“What the Houthis are doing is real and effective solidarity with our people, and we express our appreciation," he concluded.
2024-01-20 20:33:50
Tehran vowed to carry out revenge attacks against Israel on Saturday after a missile strike flattened a building used as a base of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in Damascus, killing five Guards and an unspecified number of Syrian troops.
A security source in a network of groups close to Syria's government and its ally Iran told Reuters the multi-storey building was used by Iranian advisers supporting President Bashar al-Assad's government. It was completely flattened by "precision-targeted Israeli missiles", the source said.
The Guards said an unspecified number of members of the Syrian military were killed, along with the five Iranians, whom it identified without giving their ranks. The security source said one of the slain Iranians ran the elite force's information unit.
There was no comment from Israel, which has long pursued a bombing campaign against Iran's military and security presence in Syria but typically does not discuss such attacks publicly.
It has killed Iranian Guards in several such strikes in a stepped-up campaign in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.
The strike was a "desperate attempt to spread instability in region", said Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani in remarks reported by state media. "Iran [...] reserves its right to respond to the organised terrorism of the fake Zionist regime at the appropriate time and place."
Syrian state media reported an Israeli "aerial attack" on a building in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus and said Syrian air defences had shot down a number of missiles.
Essam Al-Amin, head of the Al-Mowasat Hospital in Damascus, told Reuters that his hospital had received one dead body and three wounded people, including a woman, following Saturday's attack.
2024-01-20 19:08:19
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday he told US President Joe Biden that he rejected Palestinian sovereignty in the Gaza Strip, in a call the day before.
The two leaders spoke by phone on Friday for the first time in nearly a month, with Biden saying following the call that he believed it was still possible Netanyahu could agree to some form of Palestinian state.
"In his conversation with President Biden, PM Netanyahu reiterated his policy that after Hamas is destroyed Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty," Netanyahu's office said in a statement issued on Saturday.
2024-01-20 16:57:13
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) — a forum of 120 developing states that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc — has agreed on “support for Palestine” amid the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza, Indonesia’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pahala Mansury said Saturday.
Members of the NAM had discussed and agreed on several points related to Israel’s ongoing aggression on the besieged enclave, Mansury said while talking to Al Jazeeraduring the 19th Summit of the NAM in Kampala.
“We have decided through the NAM ministry meeting as well as the summit (our) support for the state of Palestine and also for the Palestinian people,” he added.
2024-01-20 15:27:35
An Israeli strike on Damascus killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' spy chief for Syria and three other Guards members Saturday, Iran said, in an attack that tore into a multi-storey residential building.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said 10 people were killed in the Israeli strike on the Mazzeh neighbourhood of the capital Damascus.
"The Revolutionary Guards' Syria intel chief, his deputy and two other Guards members were martyred in the attack on Syria by Israel," Iran's Mehr news agency said, quoting an informed source.
In a statement, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed it lost four of its members in the strike that it accused Israel, its regional arch-foe, of carrying out.
2024-01-20 14:33:32
2024-01-20 13:36:01
DAMASCUS: Syrian state media said a likely Israeli attack had targeted a building in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus on Saturday, without giving further details.
Other local media in Syria reported explosions heard across the capital.
2024-01-20 12:20:45
2024-01-20 11:49:32
2024-01-20 11:00:36
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has reported that at least 142 more Palestinians have been killed and 278 others wounded by Israeli attacks on Gaza in the 24 hours, Al Jazeera reported.
Potable water is also growing scarcer in the territory as the World Health Organisation has described the living conditions as “inhumane”, which is spreading disease including hepatitis A.
UNOCHA also confirmed that the Israeli forces destroyed Israa University in Gaza City, after they used the campus for more than two months as a base and “an ad hoc detention facility for interrogating Palestinian detainees before their transfer to an unknown location”.
2024-01-20 10:30:06
WASHINGTON: Dozens of President Joe Biden's fellow Democrats signed a letter on Friday urging his administration to reaffirm that the US strongly opposes "the forced and permanent displacement" of Palestinians from Gaza.
The letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, led by US Representatives Ayanna Pressley and Jamie Raskin, was signed by 60 Democratic House of Representatives members, reflecting concern, especially on the left, over the steep toll on Palestinian civilians of Israel's campaign against Hamas.
"We urge you to continue to reiterate the United States' firm commitment to this position and ask that you provide clarification regarding certain provisions of the administration's supplemental humanitarian and security funding request," the letter said.
A State Department spokesperson said the department does not typically comment on congressional correspondence. But on the broader issue of displacement, the spokesperson said in an email, "We have been clear. There must be no enduring forced displacement of Palestinians, whether inside of Gaza or outside."
2024-01-20 09:21:55
KAMPALA: Leaders of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries on Friday denounced Israel's military campaign in Gaza and demanded an immediate ceasefire there, during the annual summit of the 120-member bloc.
Dozens of heads of state and other senior officials from the NAM, formed officially in 1961 by countries opposed to joining either of the two major Cold War-era military and political blocs, are attending a summit in Uganda.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after the Hamas' October 7 attack. The military campaign has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
"Since October 7 we have witnessed one of the cruellest genocidal acts ever to be recorded by history," Cuba's vice president, Salvador Valdes Mesa, said in a speech to delegates.
2024-01-20 08:45:20
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Friday said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu about possible solutions for creation of an independent Palestinian state, suggesting one path could involve a non-militarised government.
Biden's call with Netanyahu was the first in nearly a month, the White House said, noting the discussions focused on Israel's ongoing strikes in Gaza.
White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that Biden had been trying to schedule the call "for quite a bit of time" and denied it came in response to Netanyahu's comment on Thursday saying he objected to Palestinian statehood that did not guarantee Israel's security.
Asked if a two-state solution was impossible while Netanyahu was still in office, Biden said, "No, it's not."
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with US mayors, Biden said Netanyahu was not opposed to all two-state solutions, and there were a number of types possible, noting that some United Nations members do not have military forces.
Biden was asked if he would reconsider conditions on Israel aid given Netanyahu's comments rejecting a two-state solution.
2024-01-20 03:37:28
After US President Joe Biden and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Friday, the White House announced that Israel would allow shipments of flour for Palestinians through its port of Ashdod, north of Gaza.
The announcement comes days after the United Nations called on Israel to allow access to the port for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid for Gaza.
"The president welcomed the decision from the Government of Israel to permit the shipment of flour for the Palestinian people directly through Ashdod port," the White House said in a readout of their call.
US teams would "separately work on options for more direct maritime delivery of assistance into Gaza," it added.
Three UN agencies -- the World Food Programme (WFP), UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) -- pushed for the opening of Ashdod in a joint statement on Monday.
The use of Ashdod, located some 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the Gaza border, is "critically needed by aid agencies," they said, while calling for a "fundamental step change in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza."
Opening the Ashdod port would reduce the time it takes to transport food to Gazans from the north, WFP´s regional director for the Middle East, Corinne Fleischer, told AFP earlier this month.
In December, Israel approved the temporary delivery of aid into Gaza via its southern Kerem Shalom border crossing, opening a new route for supplies after weeks of pressure.
2024-01-20 01:00:44
The United States still opposes a general ceasefire in Gaza, believing it will help Hamas militants, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday.
"We do support humanitarian pauses, as I said, to try to get hostages out and more aid in, but we don't support a ceasefire at this time," Kirby told a White House news briefing. "I think it's important to remember that there was ceasefire in place on the sixth of October."
2024-01-19 23:58:37
Medical aid workers are only able to help with a tiny fraction of Gaza's humanitarian needs as conditions there deteriorate following nearly 15 weeks of war, staff from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday.
Shortages of medical personnel and supplies, denials of access by Israel, damage and risks from military activity all made it hugely challenging to treat injuries, provide routine care, prevent the spread of disease, and tackle increasing malnutrition, they said.
"Our impact is very, very low because there are almost 2 million of people in need of health care," said Enrico Vallaperta, an intensive care nurse who returned from an MSF mission in Gaza on Thursday.
"If you compare with the needs that there are, what we are doing is really a drop in the ocean," he told a press conference in Cairo.
2024-01-19 23:45:20
US President Joe Biden discussed developments in Israel and Gaza with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call on Friday, the White House said, as the Israeli military continued a major advance in the southern Gaza Strip.
No further details were immediately disclosed, but the White House said it would issue a fuller statement later Friday.
Biden's call with Netanyahu came as Red Crescent officials reported "intense gunfire from the Israeli drones targeting citizens at Al-Amal Hospital" in Khan Yunis, the main city in the southern part of Gaza.
2024-01-19 22:45:01
William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, Friday said: “Summary executions even of fighters, even of combatants is a war crime.”
He made the remarks in connection with the reports quoting a family in Gaza as saying they witnessed the summary execution of 15 men by Israeli soldiers last month.
The professor said the footage, along with testimonies, would constitute evidence in the International Criminal Court.
“I should add that it’s not really important to demonstrate that they’re civilians.
Schabas further said that beyond testimonies and footage of bodies, prosecutors would need to submit the identity of perpetrators in order to get this to court in the first place, Al Jazeera reported.
“That’s one of the great challenges in a situation like this, [which] is actually finding out who were the people who fired the weapons or gave the orders,” he added.
2024-01-19 21:57:16
Amid the ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza, the United Kingdom has said that it is looking at new options for shipping aid from Cyprus to the besieged enclave.
The UK’s defence minister Grant Schapps said that they were exploring options, including offloading aid in Israel where it could pass through the Kerem Abu Salem (called Kerem Shalom by Israel) crossing with the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported.
The minister said, the aid “could go to Israel directly and even through Kerem Shalom that the Israelis have opened”.
2024-01-19 20:00:44
The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday the state of Israel has financed the creation of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas in a bid to weaken the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied accusations by his opponents in Israel and some global media that his government spent years actively boosting Hamas in Gaza.
"Yes, Hamas was financed by the government of Israel in an attempt to weaken the PA led by Fatah," Borrell said in a speech at the University of Valladolid, without elaborating further on such alleged financing.
2024-01-19 18:34:32
Swiss prosecutors on Friday confirmed that Israeli President Isaac Herzog had been the subject of criminal complaints during his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, as Israel finds itself accused of committing war crimes in Gaza.
"The criminal complaints will be examined according to the usual procedure," the Office of the Swiss Attorney General said, adding that it would contact the Swiss foreign ministry to examine the question of immunity of the individual concerned.
The Office of the Swiss Attorney General would not disclose details on who had lodged the complaints.
Spokespeople for Israel's government and foreign ministry did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
2024-01-19 16:10:26
A total of 24,762 Palestinians have been killed and 62,108 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Some 142 Palestinians were killed and 278 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-19 14:39:35
2024-01-19 13:54:10
Palestine on Friday announced support for the Chile and Mexico’s request to the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking investigation into crimes against civilians during the war in Gaza, Al-Jazeera reported.
“The court must fulfil its mandate towards Palestinian victims and ensure justice for crimes committed by Israeli officials, without fear or favour,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said.
The ICC is an independent judicial body that has jurisdiction over individuals charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
2024-01-19 12:00:03
GAZA/DOHA/JERUSALEM: Israeli forces advanced into the southern Gaza Strip's main city on Thursday, pounding areas near the enclave's biggest functioning hospital, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau vowed "many more months" of fighting until total victory is achieved.
The heaviest battle of the year was under way in Khan Younis, sheltering hundreds of thousands of people who fled the north earlier in the war, now in its fourth month.
Residents described heavy fighting and intense bombardment in the north and east of the city and, for the first time, in the west, where they said tanks had advanced to carry out a raid before withdrawing.
Khan Younis residents said on Thursday the fighting had come within a whisker of Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital still working in the enclave. It has been receiving hundreds of wounded patients a day, crammed into wards and treated on the floors since the fighting shifted to the south last month.
2024-01-19 10:27:12
MEXICO CITY: Mexico and Chile expressed "growing worry" on Thursday over "an escalation of violence" after several months of war between Israel and Hamas in a referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over possible crimes.
Hamas launched an attack in Israel in October, killing 1,200.
The Israeli retaliatory offense on the Gaza Strip has led to increasing international alarm and scrutiny over the deaths of civilians, especially children. Gaza health authorities said on Thursday the war's death toll had risen to 24,620, with many more feared buried under the rubble.
In a statement, Mexico's foreign ministry argued that the ICC was the proper forum to establish potential criminal responsibility, "whether committed by agents of the occupying power or the occupied power."
2024-01-19 09:36:50
2024-01-19 08:52:07
Invoking the name of God, Benjamin Netanyahu declared during a speech that the attack on Palestinian territories "will not stop" until Israeli forces have achieved their objectives.
Netanyahu said that Israeli soldiers "will continue to fight with full force until we achieve all of our goals" in response to rumours that they are switching to a less-intensive style of fighting in Gaza, Al-Jazeera reported.
“I say this again so that no one will be in doubt: We are striving for total victory, not just ‘to strike Hamas’ or ‘to hurt Hamas’, not ‘another round with Hamas’, but total victory over Hamas,” he said in a heated speech, extracts of which were released later in a statement.
2024-01-19 00:03:22
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday rejected again to support any future creation of a Palestinian state after the US renewed commitment towards a two-state solution.
The Israeli premier made the fresh remarks after recent statements by US officials who claim that the administration of US President Joe Biden envisions a post-war normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia that would include a “path” towards Palestinian statehood.
But Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, have repeatedly shot down the possibility of a future Palestinian state.
“In any future arrangement … Israel needs security control all territory west of the Jordan,” Netanyahu said in a news conference,” quoted Al-Jazeera.
“So it contradicts the idea of self-rule [for Palestinians]. So what? I tell this truth to our American friends,” Netanyahu added.
The Israeli prime minister has previously said that he was “proud” to have prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state.
2024-01-18 23:49:03
The United States will not stop working toward a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, White House national security adviser John Kirby said on Thursday.
"There will a post-conflict Gaza, no reoccupation of Gaza," Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One.
2024-01-18 22:59:04
2024-01-18 21:43:30
Saudi Arabia is unable to pursue talks about a landmark deal to recognise Israel until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, the kingdom's ambassador to the United States said Thursday.
"I think the most important thing to realise is the kingdom has not put normalisation at the heart of its policy. It's put peace and prosperity at the heart of its policy," Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"The kingdom has been quite clear. While there is violence on the ground and the killing persists, we cannot talk about the next day."
2024-01-18 21:21:30
Israeli fighter jets Thursday bombed infrastructures of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group in Al Adisa area of southern Lebanon, confirmed its military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
Earlier, the Israeli army also attacked the Kfar Kila and Marj Eyon areas of the country, the spokesperson added
The spokesperson claimed there were two launches from Lebanese territory towards the Arab al-Aramshe area of Israel that fell in open areas, Al Jazeera reported.
2024-01-18 20:31:18
A total of 24,620 Palestinians have been killed and 61,830 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Some 172 Palestinians were killed and 326 have been injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-18 20:30:56
Turkish soccer club Basaksehir fined Israeli player Eden Kartsev for a social media post in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza, and decided to send the player on loan to a club in Israel, a spokesperson said.
Kartsev had shared on Instagram the slogan calling to "Bring them home now," referring to Israeli citizens held hostage by Hamas since October.
The club said his post had "violated the sensitive values of our country."
2024-01-18 19:06:24
2024-01-18 17:37:47
Terming the week-long telecommunications blackout in Gaza a “matter of life and death”, digital civil rights group Access Now Thursday demanded to end it immediately.
In a statement, the rights group said the ongoing internet blackout in the besieged enclave has hampered critical aid coordination and made it “increasingly difficult, if not outright impossible” to document and share events on the ground, Al Jazeera reported.
The group’s policy and advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa said, “It is unconscionable to toy with connectivity amidst unprecedented violence and unfathomable human suffering.”
“Internet shutdowns must not be used as weapons of war. Access Now continues to call for an immediate physical and digital ceasefire and for the full restoration of telecommunications services in the Gaza Strip.”
2024-01-18 15:32:07
AMMAN: Israel should allow displaced Palestinians in Gaza to return to their homes, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in a press conference with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan on Thursday.
The Israeli offensive launched after Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7 has displaced most of Gaza's population of 2.3 million.
2024-01-18 13:51:15
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces have killed around 60 Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip in the previous 24 hours, the military said on Thursday.
The Israeli military said around 40 of the fighters were killed in the area of southern Khan Younis and several others in the northern Gaza Strip, including at a compound used by the Palestinian fighters.
2024-01-18 11:51:49
2024-01-18 10:48:13
2024-01-18 09:46:53
GAZA/ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER/DOHA: Israel pressed its assault on Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Wednesday, sending tanks westwards while Jordan decried shelling that badly damaged its field hospital in the city.
The Jordanian army said it held Israel responsible for a "flagrant breach of international law" in damage to the facility. Israel's military denied striking or damaging the hospital, saying it opened fire after encountering a "terrorist cell" next to the hospital.
In a statement, Israel's military said it coordinated the presence of troops in the area in advance with authorities and added medics were instructed to go to safer area. It said it could not identify the source of gunfire that injured a medical worker and the hospital remained "fully functioning."
People in and around another hospital, Nasser, fled as tanks approached the district overnight following an Israeli army statement that it had come under fire from the area.
2024-01-18 08:39:32
The US military said on Wednesday that its forces conducted strikes on 14 Houthi missiles that were loaded to be fired from Yemen.
US Central Command said in a statement posted on the social media platform X that the Houthi missiles presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region.
"These missiles on launch rails presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region and could have been fired at any time, prompting US forces to exercise their inherent right and obligation to defend themselves," Central Command said.
"These strikes, along with other actions we have taken, will degrade the Houthi’s capabilities to continue their reckless attacks on international and commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden," the statement said.
Attacks by the Iran-allied Houthi militia on ships in the region since November have slowed trade between Asia and Europe and alarmed major powers.
2024-01-18 04:04:30
A World Health Organization official on Wednesday described dire conditions in the Gaza Strip's remaining hospitals, where patients are "waiting to die" due to extreme shortages of staff and supplies.
Emergency medical team coordinator Sean Casey said that during some five weeks he spent in the war-torn Palestinian territory, he saw hospital patients "every day with severe burns, with open fractures waiting hours or days" for treatment.
"They would often ask me for food or water -- that demonstrates the level of desperation that we see," Casey told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.
He said he was only able to visit six of Gaza´s 16 functioning hospitals, out of 36 that existed before the war broke out.
"What I've seen personally is a rapid deterioration of the health system alongside a rapidly increasing level of humanitarian aid and diminishing level of humanitarian access particularly to areas in the north of the Strip."
He described seeing patients in the north who were "basically waiting to die in a hospital that has no fuel, no power, no water."
"We tried every single day for seven days to deliver fuel and supplies to the north to Gaza City," Casey said. "Every day, those requests for coordinated movements were denied."
The hospitals are facing a deluge of patients while operating with minimal staff, many of whom -- like the vast majority of Gaza´s population -- have been displaced from their homes, Casey said.
"Hospital directors were telling me how their surgeons, plastic surgeon, for example, could not do surgery, because he was out collecting sticks to burn his firewood to cook for his family."
2024-01-18 04:01:23
A top Hamas official announced new conditions Wednesday for delivering medicines to hostages held by the group in Gaza, insisting trucks carrying the drugs must not be inspected by Israel.
Two Qatari planes carrying medicines arrived on Wednesday in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, near the Rafah border crossing, Qatar's foreign ministry said.
Under a deal thrashed out by mediators Qatar and France on Tuesday, medicines along with humanitarian aid are to be supplied to civilians in Gaza in exchange for delivering drugs needed by hostages held there.
Forty-five hostages are expected to receive medication according to the agreement.
On Wednesday, Musa Abu Marzuk, a senior member of Hamas's political bureau, revealed new conditions for the delivery of medicines to hostages.
"For every box of medicine that goes in for them, 1,000 boxes will go in for residents of Gaza," he said on X, formerly Twitter.
Marzuk said the medicines would be supplied through a country that Hamas trusts and not France, and would go to different hospitals.
"The pharmaceutical trucks will enter without Israeli inspection."
2024-01-17 23:53:50
AFP journalists around the world staged rallies Wednesday to show solidarity with nine colleagues in Gaza, with agency chiefs calling on Israel to ensure their safety and let them leave the war-torn territory.
Journalists and other AFP staff in Paris and bureau across AFP´s global network gathered with portraits of Gaza colleagues who have been unable to leave since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.
The demonstration was organised by AFP´s management, with unions and the Journalists´ Association (SDJ).
"The AFP newsroom wanted to express its whole-hearted support for our Gaza colleagues who are working in dire conditions and under constant fear of bombardment," said Phil Chetwynd, AFP´s Global News Director, in a statement.
"We are humbled by their professionalism and commitment to do their jobs to the very best of their abilities," added Chetwynd.
"Not only are they trying to report on the story around them, they are also having to seek food and shelter for their families as the humanitarian situation becomes more desperate every day."
AFP employees in Gaza include journalists Mahmud Hams, Yahya Hassouna, Bilal al-Sabbagh, Mohammed Abed, Saïd Khatib, Adel Zaanounn, Mai Yaghi, technician Ahmed Eissa and office manager Mohanad Shahwan. The team also includes freelance videographer Youssef Hassouna and administrator Zuhair Abuatila.
2024-01-17 22:05:41
The United States on Wednesday returned the Yemen-based Houthi rebels to a list of terrorist groups, while business chiefs warned that disruption to shipping in the Red Sea caused by their attacks could affect supply chains for months.
Attacks by Houthi militia on ships in the region since November have slowed trade between Asia and Europe and alarmed major powers — an escalation of Israel's more than three-month-old war with Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.
The Houthis say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians and have threatened to expand attacks to include US ships in response to American and British strikes on their sites in Yemen.
US officials said the "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" (SDGT) listing was aimed at cutting off funding and weapons the Houthis have used to attack or hijack ships.
A Houthi spokesman told Reuters that attacks on ships heading to Israel would continue and the designation would not affect its position.
2024-01-17 21:00:15
Iran's foreign minister said on Wednesday that attacks against Israel and its interests by the "Axis of Resistance" will stop if the Gaza war ends, warning that the conflict could heighten tensions across the Middle East.
The Islamic Republic backs Palestinian group Hamas in its war with Israel, which has devastated Gaza in an aerial and ground offensive, and Tehran accuses the US of backing what it calls Israeli crimes in Gaza.
"An end to the genocide in Gaza will lead to an end of military actions and crises in the region," Amirabdollahian said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"The security of the Red Sea is tied to the developments in Gaza, and everyone will suffer if Israel's crimes in Gaza do not stop," the minister concluded.
2024-01-17 20:02:39
At least $15 billion would be needed to rebuild housing in the Gaza Strip, Palestine Investment Fund chairman Mohammed Mustafa said on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum, after much of the besieged enclave was flattened by Israel's war against Hamas.
The Palestinian leadership would, in the short-term, continue to focus on humanitarian aid including food and water but eventually, the focus would shift to reconstruction, Mustafa said.
The war has driven most of Gaza's 2.3 million people from their homes, some of them several times, and caused a humanitarian crisis, with food, fuel and medical supplies running low.
"If the war in Gaza continues, more people are likely to die of hunger or famine than war," Mustafa said.
The first steps should be to bring food, medicine, water and electricity back to the besieged enclave, he added.
Israel's campaign in Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas assault has turned much of the Palestinian territory into a wasteland, killed more than 24,000 people and wounded nearly 61,000, health officials in the beleaguered territory say.
2024-01-17 18:08:48
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned that a "full-fledged confrontation" between Israel and Lebanon would be a "total disaster" amid fears of a wider war.
Addressing the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos, Guterres reiterated his call for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza.
Since then, the Lebanese-Israeli border has witnessed a near-daily exchange of fire between the Israeli army and Lebanon-based Hezbollah — a Hamas ally.
"The spillover that is already taking place, the risk of a full-fledged confrontation in Lebanon, it would be a total disaster. We need to avoid it at all costs," Guterres said.
Yemeni Houthi rebels have also struck what they consider Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza since the war there started on October 7.
The UN chief suggested that a ceasefire would help to avoid further chaos.
"What we are seeing in the Red Sea, all this demonstrates that it's not enough. It's very important to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It´s very important to have a humanitarian ceasefire," he said.
Guterres repeated his call for an independent Palestinian state to be established.
"I believe that the present situation has demonstrated that the two-state solution is an absolutely central way to solve this problem," he said.
2024-01-17 18:05:56
2024-01-17 17:08:03
In the aftermath of a night marked by deadly Israeli bombardments in Gaza, a Qatari and French-mediated agreement is set to facilitate the delivery of medicine to both Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians in the region, Al Arabiya reported.
The initiative aims to address the urgent humanitarian crisis, particularly the dire need for medical supplies.
The deal stipulates the delivery of medicine and humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in exchange for essential medication required by Israeli captives in the territory.
The agreement involves the transportation of aid from Doha to the Egyptian city of el-Arish and then to the Gaza Strip. This move is expected to alleviate the immediate medical needs of both Palestinian and Israeli populations affected by the ongoing conflict.
Overnight strikes claimed an additional 81 lives, intensifying the challenges faced by the displaced population, now constituting 85% of Gaza's 2.4 million people.
2024-01-17 15:56:57
The Jordanian army said on Wednesday its military field hospital in the city of Khan Younis in Gaza was badly damaged as a result of Israeli shelling in the vicinity.
In a statement, the army said it held Israel responsible for a "flagrant breach of international law."
2024-01-17 14:20:00
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the Palestinians need astate of their own so they can represent their interests.
He made these comments while speaking atthe World Economic Summit in Davos while terming thescenes in Gaza“gut-wrenching”.
Blinken, however, said that any Palestinian state must “work with Israel to be effective”.
2024-01-17 13:35:45
Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed six Palestinian fighters, including the southern district Hamas officer in charge of interrogating suspected spies, the military said on Wednesday.
In a statement summarising operations in recent hours, it said the killing of counter-espionage officer Bilal Nofal "significantly impacts the terrorist organisation's capacity to develop and enhance its capabilities".
2024-01-17 13:31:36
2024-01-17 01:18:04
Qatar and France mediated a deal to allow medicine deliveries to hostages in Gaza, as well as aid deliveries in the occupied territory, Doha announced Tuesday.
In a statement to the official Qatar News Agency, the foreign ministry announced the deal "between Israel and (Hamas), where medicine along with other humanitarian aid is to be delivered to civilians in Gaza... in exchange for delivering medication needed for Israeli captives in Gaza".
2024-01-17 00:54:32
The White House said Tuesday that the United States expects Qatari-mediated talks to result in a deal between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for hostages being released.
"I don't want to say too much publicly here as we have these talks, but we're hopeful that it can bear fruit, and bear fruit soon," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing.
2024-01-16 23:53:50
The US targeted four anti-ship missiles in Yemen on Tuesday that threatened civilian and military vessels, the US military said, as attacks by the Houthi rebels continue despite multiple strikes against them.
This is the third instance in less than a week that the US has carried out strikes against the Huthis, who have repeatedly taken aim at merchant vessels in the vital Red Sea shipping lane — attacks the group says are in support of Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is battling Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
"US forces struck and destroyed four Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles prepared to launch from Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen," the US Central Command said in a statement on social media.
A US official told AFP that the missiles, which were located at two different sites, posed an "imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships."
2024-01-16 23:43:47
2024-01-16 23:39:35
Jordan's Prime Minister Bisher Al Khasawaneh said on Tuesday that peace with Israel remained a strategic choice but any push to drive Palestinians to the kingdom would pose an "existentialist" threat.
Jordan, which shares a border with the West Bank, fears that the Gaza conflict could spread with wider violence by armed settlers encouraged by the army triggering a large-scale Palestinian exodus to the other side of the Jordan River.
"In the event that there are actions and conditions that generate and create mass displacement of populations, that is a clear violation of the peace treaty," Khasawneh said, referring to the country's 1994 deal with Israel during a session in Davos.
"It poses an existentialist threat [...] that we will have to react to and we hope we will never arrive at that point or juncture because we are firmly committed to a comprehensive peace [process]."
"Today under the existing conditions it's quite inconceivable for any Jordanian minister to just sit on a podium and have that type of interaction and transaction with an Israel counterpart.
"The horrific scenes that are on the screens day in day out and hour in hour out of the carnage wreaked on Gaza by the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, majority children and women is something that renders that unimplementable under the existing circumstances," the prime minister said.
The only solution to avoid deeper conflict and regional instability was to put in place a political process with a time frame that leads to a two-state solution where a Palestinian state would emerge alongside Israel, he added.
2024-01-16 22:35:58
Amid the ongoing brutal aggression on Gaza, Israeli forces Tuesday targeted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warehouse in Deir al-Balah city in the besieged enclave, Al Jazeera reported.
The warehouse, which was a critical part of the UN body’s efforts to provide essential supplies in Gaza, suffered significant damage during the artillery shelling, intense gunfire, and the impacts of surrounding air attacks.
2024-01-16 21:46:59
2024-01-16 20:27:00
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Tuesday the kingdom could recognise Israel if a comprehensive agreement were reached that included statehood for the Palestinians, ambitious talk as the war between Israel and Hamas shows no sign of easing.
"We agree that regional peace includes peace for Israel, but that could only happen through peace for the Palestinians through a Palestinian state," Prince Faisal bin Farhan told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Asked if Saudi Arabia would then recognise Israel as part of a wider political agreement, he said: "Certainly."
Prince Faisal said securing regional peace through the creation of a Palestinian state was "something we have been indeed working on with the US administration, and it is more relevant in the context of Gaza".
2024-01-16 19:40:10
The European Union on Tuesday added Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar to its “terrorist” sanctions blacklist over the October 7 attacks on Israel.
The move means that Sinwar is subject to an asset freeze in the 27-nation bloc and bans EU citizens conducting transactions with him.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz welcomed the move in a statement.
The decision is a result of "our diplomatic efforts to strangle the resources of the Hamas, to delegitimise them and prohibit all support to them," Katz said.
2024-01-16 18:35:59
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Tuesday that Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea are connected to the war in Gaza and there is a need for an immediate ceasefire there.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said during the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos that the kingdom's priority is finding a path to de-escalation through a ceasefire in Gaza.
2024-01-16 15:46:19
DAVOS, Switzerland: Several European states, "concerned" Arab countries and the United States are working on a concept for a unified Palestinian government that could attract reconstruction funds, Norway's foreign minister said in an interview in Davos.
"A number of countries are working with us... trying to build a broad unity government," Espen Barth Eide said, without naming the specific countries.
Norway was of the view that a unified Palestinian territory should be run by the Palestinian Authority, but "prefacing everything, it has to be what the Palestinians want", he added.
Norway served as a facilitator in the 1992-1993 talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that led to the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The Palestinian Authority, set up under that agreement, exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank and held talks with Israel on a Palestinian state before they collapsed in 2014. Hamas has ruled in Gaza since 2007.
2024-01-16 14:37:46
At least 24,285 Palestinians have been killed and 61,154 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct 7, the health ministry in the enclave said in a statement on Tuesday.
158 Palestinians were killed and 320 were wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-16 14:01:31
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani on Tuesday said his country targeted sites in Iraq and Syria with ballistic missiles in its sovereignty’s defence and to counter terrorism.
He said Tehran “respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries”, Al-Jazeera reported.
The spokesperson said at the same time Iran was using its “legitimate and legal right to deter national security threats”.
2024-01-16 11:57:38
2024-01-16 10:32:53
2024-01-16 09:36:44
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said Israeli authorities were still not allowing access to northern Gaza for deliveries of medicines and fuel to run water and waste pumps, Al-Jazeera reported.
“Lack of fuel for water, sanitation and hygiene increases risks of health and environmental hazards,” OCHA said in its daily update, while “lack of medicine debilitated the functionality of the six partially functioning hospitals”.
The UN humanitarian agency said only one of 19 planned missions delivering fuel and supplies for water facilities had been allowed north of Wadi Gaza since January 1.
2024-01-16 08:51:56
Hamas has showed the dead bodies of two Israeli hostages on Monday, who it said were killed in Israeli bombing. Earlier the Palestinian group had warned Israel the hostages might be killed if it did not stop its bombardment of Gaza.
A new video released by the Palestinian fighters 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, university student Noa Argamani, 26, who said the two were killed by Israeli strikes.
Israel's military spokesperson said there was serious concern regarding the fate of the hostages purported to be dead in the video, while specifying that one of them, whom he identified as Svirsky, was not killed by Israeli fire.
2024-01-16 02:51:28
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that Israel will end the intensive phase of its war with Hamas in southern Gaza soon, as the army announced a division had departed.
After dismantling Hamas's military structure in the north, the Israeli army has intensified military operations and bombardments in Khan Yunis and Rafah in recent weeks.
"We made it clear that the intensive manoeuvring stage would last for approximately three months," Gallant told a news conference.
As far as the northern Gaza Strip is concerned, the stage has already been reached.
"In southern Gaza we will reach this achievement and it will end soon, and in both places, the moment will come when we will move to the next phase," he said, without specifying a time frame.
The army said on its website an entire division of soldiers had completed their withdrawal from Gaza on Monday, after having "eliminated hundreds of terrorists" and destroyed kilometres of tunnels in central and northern areas of the Palestinian territory.
Israel had four divisions operating in Gaza before Monday’s announced withdrawal, though it was unclear how many soldiers were involved in the pullout.
2024-01-15 23:49:19
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Monday for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, as the fighting between Israel and Hamas passed the 100-day milestone.
“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. To ensure sufficient aid gets to where it is needed. To facilitate the release of the hostages. To tamp down the flames of wider war because the longer the conflict in Gaza continues, the greater the risk of escalation and miscalculation,” Guterres said at a press briefing in New York.
The war, sparked by a Hamas surprise attack on Israel, has created a humanitarian catastrophe for the 2.4 million people in the besieged strip, the United Nations and aid groups warn, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.
The Hamas fighters also seized about 250 hostages, 132 of whom Israel says remain in Gaza, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a relentless military campaign that has killed at least 24,100 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas government´s health ministry.
The UN says more than three months of fighting have displaced roughly 85 percent of the territory´s population, crowded into shelters and struggling to get food, water, fuel and medical care.
Guterres condemned a humanitarian situation in Gaza that he said was "beyond words."
The “vast majority” of the UN’s Palestinian staff have fled their homes and 152 staff members have been killed since October 7, Guterres said – “the largest single loss of life in the history of our organisation.”
With aid deliveries struggling to get through to a “traumatized people,” Gaza now faces “the long shadow of starvation.”
“Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said.
The UN leader also warned about what he said was escalating spillover of the conflict, including across the Lebanon-Israeli border. “This risks triggering a broader escalation... and profoundly affecting regional stability,” he said.
2024-01-15 22:56:04
With the war in Gaza showing no signs of stopping, the Israeli cabinet approved a whopping $15 billion for "extra spending" to cater to its growing war expenses, Al Jazeera reported citing Israel's Ministry of Finance.
“This is the war budget, which also takes care of the needs of our reservists, their families, the self-employed and government ministries and the needs of the public," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said before the vote.
2024-01-15 22:24:22
In a makeshift tent of cloth and plastic, Ismail Nabhan huddled by a fire with his children and grandchildren as his family, displaced by the war in Gaza, struggled to stay warm.
"Two days ago there were strong winds, we tried all night to fasten the nylon. We´re living in a desert and the sea is in front of us -- the cold has multiplied," said the 60-year-old, who has fled his home in central Gaza.
Thousands of tents have been erected by some of the 1.9 million people the United Nations estimates have been internally displaced in the Gaza Strip since the war erupted on October 7.
2024-01-15 22:06:43
2024-01-15 21:04:43
A US-owned ship sailing in the Gulf of Aden was targeted by a missile launched from Yemen, according to US officials.
The vessel identified as the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a bulk carrier flagged by the Marshall Islands, came under attack on Monday.
Owned by Eagle Bulk, a shipping company based in Stamford, Connecticut, the ship reportedly sustained no injuries or significant damage.
The US Central Command revealed that the incident occurred at approximately 4 pm (Sanaa time) when Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from their controlled areas in Yemen.
Despite the attack, the M/V Gibraltar Eagle continued its journey without interruption.
Read more here.
2024-01-15 19:23:07
The United States cannot call for restraint while supporting Israel's war in Gaza, Iran's foreign minister said on Monday, while calling for a diplomatic solution to the war in the enclave.
Hossein Amirabdollahian, in a televised joint press conference with his Indian counterpart in Tehran, called on US officials "not to tie the security and national interests of the US to the fate of Israel's prime minister who is falling".
The Islamic Republic backs Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in its war with Israel and Tehran accuses the United States of backing what it calls Israeli crimes in Gaza.
Amirabdollahian said that Houthis will continue their attacks in the Red Sea "as long as the genocide in the Gaza war continues".
"Senior officials in Yemen's Sanaa [Houthi leaders] told us that as long as the genocide in the Gaza war continues, they will take action to prevent the movement of Israeli ships or ships heading to Tel Aviv," he said.
However, the minister added that the Houthis have assured Tehran that "they will not create any disruption in maritime security".
2024-01-15 17:38:22
The chief negotiator for Yemen's Houthis said on Monday that the group's position has not changed since US-led air strikes on Yemen and warned attacks on ships headed to Israel will continue.
"Attacks to prevent Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of the occupied Palestine will continue," Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters.
He added that the group's demands are still for an end of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, and allowing humanitarian aid to the north and south of the strip.
2024-01-15 16:19:16
Russia's foreign and defence ministers Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu held telephone calls with their Iranian counterparts on Monday, Russian state news agency RIA reported.
Russia and Iran have drawn close in recent months, and Iran has provided Russia with weaponry to be used in Ukraine. The two sides have also criticised Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.
2024-01-15 15:01:38
ISTANBUL: A Turkish court on Monday released pending trial an Israeli footballer who was detained after displaying a message referring to the Israel-Hamas war during a first-division match.
Sagiv Jehezkel, 28, displayed a bandage on his wrist reading "100 days. 07/10" next to a Star of David when he celebrated scoring a goal for Antalyaspor against Trabzonspor on Sunday.
Turkish prosecutors launched a criminal investigation over Jehezkel's alleged "incitement to hate", and his club tore up the player's contract for "exhibiting behaviour that goes against our country's sensitivities".
NTV television reported that a private plane had been sent from Israel on Monday to pick up Jehezkel and his family so that they could return home.
Jehezkel's detention was furiously condemned on Monday by top Israeli officials, sending relations between the two regional powers to a new low.
In testimony to the police, Jehezkel said he "did not intend to provoke anyone".
"I am not a pro-war person," the private DHA news agency reported him as saying.
2024-01-15 13:48:22
Israeli bombardment on homes in Khan Younis left at least 33 people dead and dozens more wounded. Most of the injured were shifted to Nasser Hospital, Al-Jazeera reported.
On the other hand, 22 people were killed and a huge number of others injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
2024-01-15 12:24:58
2024-01-15 11:22:24
2024-01-15 09:36:50
2024-01-15 08:47:00
CAIRO: Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida said on Sunday that the fate of many Israeli hostages has become unknown.
In his first televised appearance for several weeks, marking the 100th day since the outbreak of the war, Abu Ubaida said many of the hostages "may have been killed", blaming their fate on Israel.
He added "any talks before stopping the Israeli aggression are worthless."
The October 7 cross border attack into Israel came in response to 100 years of "massacres against our people carried by the occupier and its gangs," he added.
2024-01-14 23:50:18
The White House's National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has said that the US has been communicating with Israel for a shift towards "lower intensity" operations in Gaza.
“We believe it’s the right time for that transition. And we’re talking about doing that now,” Al Jazeera reported citing Kirby.
The official further said that Tel Aviv has taken steps towards decreased air strikes and that its forces are operating in "limited capacity" in the Palestinian territory.
2024-01-14 23:07:01
Cairo: China´s Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Sunday for the establishment of a Palestinian state and a ceasefire in Gaza, where 100 days of the Israel-Hamas war have killed thousands.
In a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo, the top Chinese diplomat said "it is necessary to insist on the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign state of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital."
A joint statement from the two ministers urged an immediate end "to all acts of violence, killing and targeting of civilians and civilian establishments".
Israel launched an intense military campaign in response to Hamas´s deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel.
In Gaza, at least 23,968 people have been killed, the majority of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the besieged Hamas-ruled territory.
Shoukry and Wang called for "an international summit for peace to find a just, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause by ending the (Israeli) occupation and establishing an independent, contiguous Palestinian state."
The Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, seat of the Palestinian Authority, are separated by Israeli territory. Both were seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has previously called for an "international peace conference" to resolve the fighting.
China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Wang is currently on an African tour that will see him also visit Togo, Tunisia and Ivory Coast.
2024-01-14 21:20:56
2024-01-14 20:11:55
Israeli tanks and aircraft hit targets in southern and central Gaza on Sunday and there were fierce gun battles in some areas as the conflict reached 100 days since the October 7 outset of deadly war by Israel.
Communications and internet services were down for the third day running, complicating the work of emergency and ambulance crews trying to help people in areas hit by fighting.
Fighting was concentrated in the southern city of Khan Younis, where Hamas said its fighters hit an Israeli tank, as well as in Al-Bureij and Al Maghazi in central Gaza, where the military said several Palestinian resistance fighters were martyred.
The military also said its forces destroyed several rocket pits used by Hamas to fire missiles at Israel.
"We are not seekers of wars. We are seekers of freedom," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said through video link in Istanbul, adding the group's unprecedented October 7 attack was, in part, a response to the years-long Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
2024-01-14 18:34:47
Amid Israel’s unabating ground and air strikes on Gaza, a special flight carrying 4th consignment of relief goods from Pakistan for their brethren in the besieged Palestinian territory reached Jorden, it emerged on Sunday.
Read more here.
2024-01-14 17:48:10
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip said Sunday at least 23,968 people have been killed in the territory in 100 days of Israeli aggression on the besieged enclave.
The ministry said it had recorded another 60,582 wounded since fighting erupted on October 7.
2024-01-14 16:26:40
2024-01-14 16:01:56
JERUSALEM: On Israeli city streets and on television, in shops and in cafes, one symbol of solidarity with hostages held in Gaza has become ubiquitous in the 100 days since Hamas abducted them: military-style dog tags worn on neckchains.
The small metal rectangles, similar to those soldiers carry for identification, are typically inscribed with two slogans in Hebrew, "our hearts are held hostage in Gaza" and "together we will win", and one in English, "bring them home now".
"Everyone wants to show their support one way or another," said Shayna Roth, 36, a digital marketing specialist and mother of three from Modi'in, near Tel Aviv.
2024-01-14 13:00:09
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces have killed at least nine Palestinian fighters during operations in the Gaza Strip, the military claimed on Sunday.
The fighting, it said, took place in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, as well as areas farther north where Israel says it has dismantled much of Hamas' military capabilities.
2024-01-14 10:52:29
JERUSALEM: Israel accused Hamas on Saturday of planning to attack its embassy in Sweden as part of an expansion by the militant group into Europe, where authorities announced the arrests of several suspects last month.
In a statement following up on the arrests announced by Danish, German and Swedish authorities, Israel's Mossad intelligence agency named an alleged Hamas network member in Sweden, without specifying whether he was also in custody.
There was no immediate response from Hamas, which in the past has said its policy was to limit attacks to Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, all territories where it seeks a Palestinian state.
2024-01-14 10:40:09
US Senator Bernie Sanders has expressed a sharp criticism on Israel’s war on Gaza after facing earlier backlash from progressives for refusing to voice support for a ceasefire, Al-Jazeera reported.
"I hope that he [Biden] understands that you can be pro-Israel without supporting Netanyahu and the horrific war he is waging against the Palestinian people," Sanders said in an interview with the UK newspaper The Guardian.
Earlier this week, Sanders also called for greater scrutiny on US arms sales to Israel, saying the US is "deeply complicit in what is going on, and we have to ensure the US aid is being used in line with international human rights and our own laws".
2024-01-14 08:15:35
WASHINGTON: Family members of Palestinians killed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza shared grief-ridden stories with thousands of protesters who gathered in downtown Washington on Saturday demanding an immediate ceasefire.
In one of the largest pro-Palestinian demonstrations to date in the US capital, the protesters repeated their call for US President Joe Biden to stop sending arms to Israel and chanted "free Palestine" and "ceasefire now."
Some people chanted: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free".
Adam Abosherieah, one of the speakers, said over 100 family members, including his 83-year-old father, mother, and brother, have been killed in Israeli air strikes.
"Dozens of my family members' bodies are still under the rubble," Abosherieah, a pharmacist from New Jersey, said. "President Biden can easily put a stop to this genocide ... He can easily pick up the phone and call Israel to stop this madness."
2024-01-13 22:46:04
2024-01-13 21:49:54
2024-01-13 20:18:53
With Israel’s ongoing aggression nearing its 100-day mark, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across the world to protest against the war, demanding an end to Tel Aviv’s offensive.
A large number of people gathered outside the United States embassy in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, to send a message to Washington, a staunch ally of Tel Aviv, Al Jazeera reported.
People are holding up placards that read: “‘Stop the genocide’, ‘Bombing children is not self-defence’.”
2024-01-13 20:17:06
The Houthi movement has threatened a "strong and effective response" after the United States carried out another strike in Yemen overnight, further ratcheting up tensions as Washington vows to protect shipping from attacks by the Yemen-based group.
The strikes have added to concerns about the escalation of the conflict that has spread through the region since the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and Israel went to war.
The latest strike, which the US said hit a radar site, came a day after dozens of US and British strikes on Houthi facilities in Yemen.
"This new strike will have a firm, strong and effective response," Houthi spokesperson Nasruldeen Amer told Al Jazeera, adding there had been no injuries nor "material damages".
Mohammed Abdulsalam, another Houthi spokesperson, told Reuters the strikes, including the one overnight that hit a military base in Sanaa, had no significant impact on the group's ability to prevent Israel-affiliated vessels from passing through the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.
2024-01-13 19:12:03
Surrounded by family and friends, clapping and cheering, Gaza woman Afnan Jibril beams a brilliant smile on her wedding day, determined to celebrate even as war rages.
"We are a people that love life, despite death, murders and destruction," said her father, Mohamed Jibril.
Relatives were gathered on Friday for the wartime wedding in a tiny room at an abandoned school building in the besieged Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, near the frontier with Egypt.
"The usual preparations for marriage are not possible, and traditional ceremonies are not feasible," said the bride’s father. "However, clothes are available, although they are scarce and expensive."
Afnan, 17, donning a crown of flowers and pristine white dress with stark red embroidery, and her partner Mustafa Shamlakh, 26, want to make the most of their rare chance to celebrate.
2024-01-13 18:01:09
The United States Saturday carried out a fresh strike on a Houthi rebel target in Yemen, the US military said after the Yemen-based group warned of further attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
The strike on a Houthi radar site came a day after US and British forces hit scores of targets across the country, heightening fears that Israel's war with Palestinian militant group Hamas could engulf the wider region.
The Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Gaza, have carried out a growing number of missile and drone attacks in the key Red Sea international trade route. They say they are targeting Israeli-linked shipping
Around 12% of global trade normally passes through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea entrance between southwest Yemen and Djibouti.
But since mid-November the rebel attacks have affected trade flows when supply strains are already putting upward pressure on inflation globally.
The Houthi attacks have followed Hamas´s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which sparked the war still raging in the besieged Gaza Strip.
US Central Command said Saturday's strike was "a follow-on action on a specific military target" related to the previous day's strikes.
The Huthis' official media earlier said Al-Dailami airbase in Yemen's rebel-held capital of Sanaa had been struck in the latest bombardment.
2024-01-13 15:07:20
CAIRO: A total of 23,843 Palestinians have been killed and 60,317 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The figures included 135 Palestinians killed and 312 wounded in the previous 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-13 14:07:40
2024-01-13 11:10:00
GAZA STRIP: Israel pounded Gaza on Saturday as the Palestinian territory suffered under a dire humanitarian situation and grappled with a telecommunications blackout on the 99th day of the war.
Fears of the conflict widening have grown after US and British forces struck pro-Hamas Houthi rebels in Yemen following attacks on Red Sea shipping, with a fresh US air strike confirmed Saturday.
Witnesses reported Israeli bombardment of Gaza in the early morning, and an AFP journalist said Friday that strikes and shelling had hit areas between Gaza´s southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, crowded with people who have fled from the north.
2024-01-13 10:13:16
2024-01-13 09:20:23
WASHINGTON/ADEN: The United States carried out an additional strike against Yemen's Houthi forces on Friday, two officials told Reuters, after President Joe Biden's administration vowed to protect shipping in the Red Sea.
The latest strike, which one of the US officials said targeted a radar site, came a day after dozens of US and British strikes on the Iran-backed group's facilities.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, did not provide more details. Radar infrastructure has been a key target in the US military effort to halt Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
The Houthi movement's television channel Al-Masirah reported that the United States and Britain were targeting the Yemeni capital Sanaa with raids.
Intensifying concerns about a widening regional conflict, US and British warplanes, ships and submarines on Thursday launched missiles against targets across Yemen controlled by the group, which has cast its maritime campaign as support for Palestinians under siege by Israel in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
2024-01-13 08:28:33
EMMAUS, Pennsylvania: US President Joe Biden said he was concerned about the impact of war in the Middle East on oil prices, which rose on Friday after the US and Britain launched dozens of air strikes across Yemen on Houthi targets.
Oil rose 1% on Friday as an increasing number of oil tankers diverted course from the Red Sea following the strikes.
London and Washington say their strikes in Yemen were in retaliation for months of attacks by the Houthi movement on Red Sea shipping that the Iran-backed fighters cast as a response to Israel's ongoing war in Gaza. The move raised fear of the widening of the Gaza war.
2024-01-12 23:55:38
Israel's latest attacks on Gaza have killed at least 151 people, including 11 in a single house, Palestinian health officials said on Friday, while the UN humanitarian office accused Israel of blocking its efforts to send aid to the north.
Gaza health officials said the 11 people had been killed by a single air strike around dawn in a house in Deir Al-Balah belonging to the Fayad family, a prominent name in the city.
Israel said it could not comment without more specifics. It said earlier that its forces had killed dozens of militants in nearby Maghazi and in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Palestinian medics said another Palestinian had been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli strike that targeted a group of people on a main road between the central and the southern areas of Gaza.
2024-01-12 22:18:26
Israel has made an arrangement with Qatar that will allow the delivery of medications to hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, a statement from the Israeli prime minister's office said on Friday.
The statement said medications would be given to the hostages "in the next few days".
2024-01-12 21:07:48
2024-01-12 20:05:03
2024-01-12 19:28:37
Israel said Friday it was not seeking to destroy the Palestinian people, as it hit back at what it called a "profoundly distorted" and "malevolent" genocide case against it at the UN's top court.
Tal Becker, a top lawyer representing Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in emergency case, said South Africa had "regrettably put before the court a profoundly distorted factual and legal picture."
Using videos and pictures, Becker painted a graphic image of the horrors of the October 7 attacks for the robed judges in the Peace Palace in The Hague, where the ICJ sits.
He stressed that Israel's response was in self-defence and not aimed at the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip.
"Israel is in a war of defence against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people," said Becker.
"In these circumstances, there can hardly be a charge more false and more malevolent than the allegation against Israel of genocide."
2024-01-12 18:14:15
2024-01-12 17:55:14
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday slammed the US and British strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen as a disproportionate use of force and accused the two countries of trying to turn the Red Sea into a "sea of blood".
Turkey, a NATO member, has strongly criticised Israel for its war in Gaza aimed at wiping out the Palestinian group Hamas, and has repeatedly slammed Western countries for supporting Israel's campaign.
Asked by reporters about the overnight air and sea strikes by US and British forces across Yemen in retaliation against Iran-backed Houthi forces for attacks on Red Sea shipping, the Turkish president said these were not proportionate.
"All that has been done is a disproportionate use of force," Erdogan said after Friday prayers in Istanbul.
"At the moment, they are trying to turn the Red Sea into a sea of blood and Yemen, with the Houthis and by using all of its force, says it is and will give the necessary response in the region to the United States, Britain," he added.
2024-01-12 17:01:03
The United Nations humanitarian office Friday said that Israeli authorities were systematically denying it access to northern Gaza to deliver aid and this had significantly hindered the humanitarian operation there.
"The operations in the north have become increasingly more complicated," said Andrea De Domenico, head of office for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
"We have systematic refusal from the Israeli side of our effort to get there, to access the north."
Israeli authorities and COGAT — an Israeli Defence Ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories — did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
2024-01-12 16:44:49
Turkey is providing documents for a case brought by South Africa against Israel at the UN's top court on a charge of committing genocide against Palestinian civilians, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters in Istanbul, Erdogan said that Turkey will continue to provide documents, mostly visuals, on Israel's attacks on Gaza.
"I believe that Israel will be convicted there. We believe in the justice of the International Court of Justice," Erdogan said.
2024-01-12 15:36:17
THE HAGUE: Israel on Friday rejected as "a grossly distorted story" accusations brought by South Africa at the UN's top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign aimed at wiping out the Palestinian population.
South Africa, which filed the lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December, asked judges on Thursday to impose emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately halt the offensive.
It said Israel's aerial and ground offensive - which has laid waste to much of the narrow coastal enclave and killed more than 23,000 people according to Gaza health authorities - aimed to bring about "the destruction of the population" of Gaza.
Israel on Friday rejected the accusations of genocide as baseless. It said South Africa was acting as a mouthpiece for Hamas.
2024-01-12 13:49:58
MOSCOW: Russia on Friday scolded the United States and Britain for military strikes on Yemen which Moscow said escalated tensions across the Middle East and showed a complete disregard for international law.
Russia also called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday to discuss the issue.
"The US air strikes on Yemen are another example of the Anglo-Saxons' perversion of UN Security Council resolutions," Maria Zakharova, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman, said.
Zakharova said the strikes showed a "complete disregard for international law" and were "escalating the situation in the region".
2024-01-12 12:21:10
THE HAGUE: Israel will respond on Friday (today) to accusations brought by South Africa at the UN’s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign aimed at wiping out the Palestinian population.
South Africa, which filed the lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December, asked judges on Thursday to impose emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately halt the offensive.
It said Israel's aerial and ground offensive - which has laid waste to much of the narrow coastal enclave and killed more than 23,000 people according to Gaza health authorities - aimed to bring about "the destruction of the population" of Gaza.
2024-01-12 11:35:47
2024-01-12 10:27:56
Britain-based charitable organization, Oxfam on Thursday said the daily death toll of Palestinians in Israel’s war on Gaza surpasses that of any other major conflict in the 21st century, while survivors remain at high risk due to hunger, diseases and cold, as well as ongoing Israeli bombardments, Al-Jazeera reported.
It has been more than three months to the besieged coastal enclave into the war.
“Israel’s military is killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day, which massively exceeds the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years,” Oxfam said in a statement.
2024-01-12 09:36:24
2024-01-12 08:43:56
The United States and Britain launched strikes from the air and sea against Houthi military targets in Yemen in response to the movement's attacks on ships in the Red Sea, a dramatic regional widening of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
As witnesses in Yemen confirmed explosions throughout the country to Reuters, President Joe Biden cautioned in a statement late on Thursday he would not hesitate to take further action if needed.
"These targeted strikes are a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation," Biden said.
Britain's ministry of defence said in a statement that "early indications are that the Houthis' ability to threaten merchant shipping has taken a blow."
The Iran-backed Houthis say their attacks on shipping routes in the Red Sea are a show of support for the Palestinians and Hamas, the group that rules Gaza.
2024-01-12 01:01:00
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby Thursday said that Gaza is currently facing serious food security challenges as Palestinians are striving to get humanitarian aid.
Kirby told reporters that not enough aid trucks are getting into the occupied territory of Gaza. "There's a lot of hunger and starvation in Gaza," he said.
2024-01-11 23:56:03
Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday condemned South Africa's genocide case against Israel in Gaza as "hypocrisy and lies", as some Gazans returned to scenes of total devastation in the north of the enclave where Israeli forces have begun withdrawing.
Three months of Israeli bombardment have laid much of the coastal enclave to waste, killing more than 23,000 people and driving nearly the entire population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes. An Israeli blockade has sharply restricted supplies of food, fuel and medicine, creating what the United Nations describes as a humanitarian catastrophe.
Israel says its only means to defend itself is by eradicating Hamas, the resistance group that fights for Palestine's freedom. Israel blames Hamas for all subsequent harm to Palestinian civilians for operating among them, which the fighters deny.
In a strongly worded response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "the hypocrisy of South Africa screams to the heavens."
"We are fighting terrorists, we are fighting lies... Today we saw an upside-down world. Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting against genocide," he said.
Israel's foreign ministry accused South Africa of "functioning as the legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organisation" in a case built on "false and baseless claims".
2024-01-11 22:50:29
Injured Palestinians pour into al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip as exhausted medics try to help casualties from Israel's ground assault and bombardment.
Doctor Khaled Abu Awaimer said the hospital was running out of medical supplies and that many of the remaining medics had themselves been displaced already and feared coming under attack again and having to flee once more.
"We have cases we can't do anything about. We have nothing to offer so we feel completely helpless. This is very sad and bad to be honest," he said in a video obtained by Reuters.
Israel's stated objective in Gaza is to eradicate Hamas, the resistance group fighting for Palestine's freedom from Israeli occupation.
Tel Aviv's assault on Gaza has killed more than 23,400 people according to health authorities in the tiny, crowded, Palestinian enclave and driven most people from their homes.
The fate of the strip's hospitals and plight of its medics operating under bombardment, with flickering electricity and water supply and inadequate medical stocks, has prompted UN fears of a collapse in the health system.
As Abu Awaimer spoke, dozens of people milled around a busy hospital area, some pulling stretchers as medics prepared bandages. He said the hospital surroundings had recently been hit and ambulances destroyed.
2024-01-11 21:29:03
2024-01-11 20:30:43
Palestinian Ambassador Assistant Minister for Multilateral Affairs Ammar Hijazi hailed South Africa for bringing the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of of subjecting Palestinians to genocidal acts.
Hijazi addressed a press conference after a court case presented by South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel's war in Gaza.
“The discussions today in the court case which South Africa has presented, showed the court and the world the crimes that are being committed against the Palestinian people which leads to committing genocide but also showed in the more general historical context of the Palestinian issue and the crimes committed against the Palestinian people starting from the Nakba, the occupation, looting of its lands and apartheid and all violations that Israel has committed throughout 75 years,” reported Reuters.
“This is a historical moment for the Palestinian people and for humanity as well as for the world order based on law. We thank all the countries that have supported this case, and we call on them to follow suit the courageous step that South Africa has taken and supporting the case through entering the discussions of the case later,” he added.
“Finally, we confirm that no one can claim ignorance of the crimes that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people. The Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian state continue to seek the Palestinian right and continue to achieve all Palestinian rights and hold accountable all the crimes committed against the Palestinian people,” said the diplomat.
At top UN court, South Africa on Thursday accused Israel of subjecting Palestinians to genocidal acts at the opening of hearings at the top UN court on a case brought against the devastating Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
In the case brought to the World Court, South Africa demands an emergency suspension of Israel's military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.
South Africa had filed an application instituting proceedings against Israel before the ICJ on December 29.
2024-01-11 19:14:06
US special envoy Amos Hochstein said on Thursday he was hopeful diplomacy could calm tensions on the disputed border between Lebanon and Israel, where the Israeli military and armed group Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for three months.
Hochstein met Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, foreign minister, army commander and speaker of parliament in an hours-long visit to the Lebanese capital on Thursday.
"I firmly believe that the people of Lebanon do not want to see an escalation of the current crisis to further conflict," he told reporters in Beirut.
Israeli shelling has killed at least 25 Lebanese civilians and 140 fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. At least nine Israeli troops have been killed in northern Israel.
Hochstein went to Israel last week for talks on the issue.
"I'm hopeful that we can continue to work on this effort to arrive together, all of us on both sides of the border, with a solution that will allow for all people in Lebanon and Israel to live with guaranteed security and return to a better future," he said.
Hochstein said the US "would like to see a diplomatic solution," and "it is our job to get one."
2024-01-11 16:53:15
The chief negotiator for Yemen's Houthis said on Thursday the group's attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea do not threaten its peace talks with Saudi Arabia, blaming Israel's war in Gaza for dragging the Middle East into more regional conflict.
The Houthi movement, an Iran-aligned group that controls much of Yemen after nearly a decade of war against a Western-backed and Saudi-led coalition, has emerged as a strong supporter of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in its war against Israel.
The group has been attacking commercial ships it says are linked to Israel or bound for Israeli ports, and has engaged directly with the U.S. navy in the Red Sea, firing ballistic missiles and deploying armed drones against US and British warships.
The Houthis' top negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam said the attacks in the Red Sea, however, had no impact on the peace process underway with Saudi Arabia, with the mediation of Oman and the United Nations.
"It has nothing to do with what is happening in the Gaza Strip, unless the Americans want to move other countries in the region to defend Israel which is another matter," he told Reuters.
2024-01-11 15:35:02
At top UN court, South Africa on Thursday accused Israel of subjecting Palestinians to genocidal acts at the opening of hearings at the top UN court on a case brought against the devastating Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
In the case brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, South Africa demands an emergency suspension of Israel's military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.
"South Africa contends that Israel has transgressed Article Two of the (Genocide) convention, committing acts that fall within the definition of genocide. The actions show a systematic pattern of conduct from which genocide can be inferred," Adila Hassim, advocate of South Africa's high court, told the ICJ.
South Africa points to Israel's sustained bombing campaign which has killed over 23,000 people in the small, densely populated Gaza Strip, according to Gaza health authorities.
2024-01-11 14:51:10
JERUSALEM: Israel's army claimed on Wednesday that two Al Jazeera journalists it killed in an air strike in Gaza were "terror operatives".
Hamza Wael Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria, who also worked as a video stringer for AFP and other news organisations, were killed on Sunday while they were on an assignment for the Qatar-based channel in the city of Rafah.
The army said in a statement on Wednesday its "intelligence has confirmed that both the deceased were members of Gaza-based terrorist organisations actively involved in attacks against IDF (army) forces".
"Prior to the strike, the two operated drones, posing an imminent threat to IDF troops," the army said.
There was no immediate reaction available from the television channel and families of the two men.
When asked on Wednesday by AFP about what kind of drones were used by the two men and the nature of the threat the drones posed to Israeli troops, the army said it was "checking".
2024-01-11 12:47:06
According to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, just over 1,000 of the 5,000 beds required to address Gaza's trauma and emergency requirements were available as of Thursday.
Dujarric said more than 75 percent of the 77 basic health facilities are completely non-operational, as reported by Al-Jazeera.
“The ongoing hostilities in Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis – coupled with evacuation orders in nearby areas – are putting three hospitals at the risk of closures: Al-Aqsa, Nasser, and the Gaza European hospital,” he said.
2024-01-11 12:30:30
The UN Security Council on Wednesday demanded Yemen's Houthis immediately end attacks on ships in the Red Sea and cautioned against escalating tensions while implicitly endorsing a US-led task force that has been defending vessels.
The demand came in a Security Council resolution that also called on the Houthis to release the Galaxy Leader, a Japanese-operated vehicle carrier linked to an Israeli businessman that the group commandeered on Nov 19, and its 25-person crew.
Eleven members voted for the measure demanding the Houthis “immediately cease all attacks, which impede global commerce and navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace.”
Four members, including veto-wielding Russia and China, abstained. None voted against.
The key provision of the resolution, sponsored by the US and Japan, noted the right of UN member states, in accordance with international law, "to defend their vessels from attack, including those that undermine navigational rights and freedoms."
2024-01-11 11:15:38
War monitors have said that Hamas still has a “strong and cohesive command-and-control network in the Gaza Strip” as the militant group released video as a proof that its fighters are clashing with Israeli forces in north Gaza, Al-Jazeera reported.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) said that Hamas, and other armed Palestinian groups, continue to attack Israeli forces “despite the announcing on January 6 that it [Israeli military] had ‘dismantled’ the 12 Hamas battalions in the northern Gaza Strip”.
The ISW and the CTP said in their latest assessment that Hamas’ “military forces are neither defeated nor destroyed at this time”.
2024-01-11 09:58:23
Palestinian state news agency, Wafa, has reported that at least seven people were killed and 25 injured in an Israeli attack on a house in Khan Younis city in southern Gaza.
Local sources told Wafa that women and children were among the casualties, Al-Jazeera reported.
2024-01-11 09:59:03
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of January 10 at 1:30 pm in Gaza (11:30 GMT), 23,910 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including 9,684 children.
Additionally, 63,359 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2024-01-11 08:56:25
AQABA, Jordan: Jordan's King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas called Wednesday for pressure to be maintained for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and to protect Palestinian civilians, AFP reported.
The three leaders had gathered for a summit in the city of Aqaba, on Jordan´s Red Sea coast, to discuss the three-month-old war.
A royal palace statement issued after the meeting said they had "reiterated the need to maintain pressure to push for ending the Israeli aggression on Gaza, and protecting unarmed civilians".
They also "highlighted the need to ensure the sustainable delivery of sufficient relief and humanitarian aid to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza", the statement said.
The trio "warned against attempts to re-occupy parts of Gaza or establish 'safe zones' in the strip, stressing the need to enable Gazans to return to their homes", the statement added.
They also "reaffirmed their rejection of any Israeli plans to displace Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, urging international denouncement and rejection of these plans."
In recent weeks, Israeli cabinet ministers, including Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have called for the deliberate removal of Gazans from the territory and the resumption of Israeli settlement.
2024-01-11 01:19:05
Scores of Palestinians gathered at the Nelson Mandela statue in the occupied West Bank to express gratitude to South Africa for taking the Gaza genocide case to the international court against Israel.
The demonstrators proudly waved Palestine's flags, while attentively listening to speeches, and prominently displaying placards displaying messages like "Stop the genocide" and "Thank you, South Africa."
The United Nations' highest court is set to commence hearings today (January 11), with South Africa aiming for a ruling that would urge the oppressive country to cease its bombardment.
"It’s very important to show appreciation to the people who understand our pain," Ramallah mayor Issa Kassis told AFP after addressing the crowd.
"We feel that South Africa listens to our heart."
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has long supported the Palestinian cause, often linking it to its own struggle against the apartheid government, which had cooperative relations with Israel.
Mandela famously said South Africa’s freedom would be "incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians".
Mvuyo Mhangwane, South Africa’s representative to the Palestinians, said his countrymen had not forgotten Mandela’s words.
"The message is to remind them (Palestinians) that we are friends of Palestine forever, for better or for worse, and to say that Palestine is not alone," he said.
2024-01-10 23:53:08
2024-01-10 22:41:31
Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron on Wednesday made a final plea to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to maintain fiscal discipline ahead of a cabinet vote on a revised 2024 budget to incorporate enormous funding increases for the war on Hamas.
Ministers are slated on Thursday afternoon to start debate on a 2024 wartime budget that would add tens of billions of extra spending, and a vote could come in the middle of the night on Friday.
Yaron, who just started a second five-year term as central bank chief, has for weeks been urging the government not too spend excessively and offset any spending increases needed for the war with reductions elsewhere, along with tax hikes — items that government leaders have dismissed.
"There is no free lunch," Yaron wrote in a letter to Netanyahu that was seen by Reuters, stressing that markets are watching fiscal policymakers.
Yaron said the letter encompassed what he told Netanyahu at a meeting between the two on January 3.
He estimated the Gaza war would cost 210 billion shekels ($56 billion) for defence and compensation, excluding loss of income, for residents near the Gaza and Lebanese borders who have been displaced by months of cross-border rocket fire.
2024-01-10 21:43:34
Jordan's King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi stressed at the end of an Arab summit in Aqaba that pressure should be increased to end Israel's "aggression" against Gaza and protect civilians there.
In a palace statement, both leaders — who attended a three-way meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas — said they rejected any Israeli plans to separate the fate of Hamas-ruled Gaza from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, adding the two entities were the basis of a future Palestinian state.
The three leaders rejected what they said were any efforts or proposals aimed at "liquidating the Palestinian cause".
Meanwhile, Sisi underscored thatproviding more aid to Palestinians in Gaza requires a "decisive stance" from the international community to push for a ceasefire, according to an Egyptian presidency statement.
2024-01-10 20:56:52
US top diplomat Antony Blinken told Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday that Washington supports "tangible steps" towards the creation of a Palestinian state.
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.
Abbas described the Gaza Strip as "an integral part of the Palestinian state" according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
"It is not possible to accept or deal with the plans of the occupation authorities to separate it, or cut off any part of it," the Palestinian leader told Blinken.
Discussions have been underway for weeks over post-war governance of Gaza, though Israel has warned the fighting is likely to continue for months.
The Palestinian president also raised "efforts made to stop the Israeli aggression against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," Wafa reported.
2024-01-10 20:04:39
The World Health Organisation (WHO) cancelled another planned medical aid mission to Gaza on Wednesday over security concerns, the sixth such cancellation in two weeks.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was the sixth mission to northern Gaza cancelled by the UN agency because requests to visit had not been approved or assurances over the security provided since its last visit, on 26 December.
"Intense bombardment, restrictions on movement, fuel shortage and interrupted communications make it impossible for WHO and our partners to reach those in need," he told a virtual press conference from Geneva. "We call on Israel to approve requests by WHO and other partners to deliver humanitarian aid."
2024-01-10 20:04:26
Gaza government media office Wednesday said that Israeli forces struck a house adjacent to Gaza’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir El Balah killing more than 40 Palestinians and wounding several others, Al Jazeera reported.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the ongoing massacres and crimes of the occupation [forces],” the statement said while calling for the world to stop Israel’s genocidal war against civilians in the beleaguered territory.
2024-01-10 18:31:32
When 7-year-old Laila al-Sultan wakes up at night she shouts for her father, killed in the same Israeli air strike that injured her leg in a Gaza war thought to have deprived thousands of Palestinian children of one or both parents.
She and her brother Khaled, 4, roll around on the floor of the shanty they now live in amid a tent city of homeless people, facing up to a life with no father as their mother struggles to cope in the rubble of a ruined enclave.
"The house collapsed on us and Daddy went to heaven and he is very happy," said Khaled, bouncing up and down on Laila's lap as they sat.
Three months of war have been devastating for the children of Gaza. Health authorities in the besieged territory have estimated that about 40% of those confirmed killed, a figure they now put at 23,357, were aged under 18.
Most of those who survive have lost their homes. They live in shelters in schools, in tents or shanties, or crammed into still-standing houses, whole families living in single rooms. With very little food in Gaza, children are always hungry.
"We are still unable to count the numbers, but we have initial estimates of thousands of orphans. The figures are high and the challenges are big," said Ahmed Majdalani, the Palestinian Social Development Minister in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In another tent in Rafah, Ahmed al-Saker, 13, cried as he stoked a fire under a cooking pot and recalled his father, killed in a strike on their house. "He used to sing to me at bed time and hug me and hold me before I slept," he said, wiping away tears.
"My mother cannot bear all these worries and burdens and she can't carry my injured brother on her own," he said.
Fears for the future especially mark Gazan children who lost a parent. Already forced to grow up by war, they now have to bear an extra burden of work in their hard new life in the rubble.
2024-01-10 17:27:06
Yemen's Houthi rebels Wednesday confirmed targeting a US ship "providing support to the Zionist [Israel] entity", further adding to the growing tension in the Read Sea.
"The naval forces, the missile force, and the drone force of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a joint military operation with a large number of ballistic and naval missiles and drones," the statement by the Houthi spokesperson said.
2024-01-10 16:21:30
Yemen's Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping must be stopped without triggering a new war, the Italian defence minister said on Wednesday, as the Iranian-backed militia steps up attacks on commercial vessels.
US and British forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by the Houthis on Tuesday towards international Red Sea shipping lanes, the US military's Central Command said, adding it was the 26th such Houthi attack since November 19.
"It is a huge problem, it is a consequence of other (war) outbreaks. I would not like to open a third front of war at this time," Crosetto told Reuters, in a reference to current conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
The Houthis have vowed to continue the attacks until Israel halts the conflict in Gaza, and have said that it would strike US warships if the militia group itself was attacked in Yemen.
2024-01-10 15:17:45
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri says Blinken’s visit to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah and Israel showed there was no fundamental change in the US position.
“The aim of the visit was to support the security of the occupation,” he told Reuters. “There are no differences between Israel and the Americans.”
In a statement, Hamas also said Blinken’s position “reflects the extent of US involvement in these crimes and the widespread violations of all international laws committed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip”.
“Blinken’s attempts to justify the genocide committed by the Israeli occupation army against Palestinian civilians – by saying that the Palestinian resistance is concentrated among civilians – are miserable attempts to wash the hands of the criminal occupation of the blood of children, women and the elderly of Gaza,” it added.
2024-01-10 13:50:41
The Israeli military claims that it has hit 150 targets around Gaza within the past 24 hours as it continues to bomb areas in and around Maghazi and Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reported.
The army also claimed to have uncovered 15 tunnels and discovered weapons during its operations.
Deadly overnight Israeli attacks in central and southern Gaza have continued. At least 15 people, mostly women and children, belonging to the same family in Rafah, and six people sheltering in refugee camps in central Gaza, were killed in those attacks.
2024-01-10 12:43:02
Former UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn will join a South African delegation for this week’s hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where it accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the war in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
Corbyn was one of several "senior political figures from progressive political parties and movements across the globe" who will join the South African delegation at The Hague in the Netherlands for two days of preliminary hearings that begin on Thursday.
Corbyn was the only foreign political figure in its delegation named by the South African government. He is a longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause and a fierce critic of Israel.
2024-01-10 11:23:27
The Palestinian Ministry of Labor has announced a $2.4 million package to support Gaza workers who have been expelled from Israel since October 7 but are unable to return home to the besieged enclave, Al Jazeera reported.
The funds that have been created as part of a cooperation agreement with The Palestinian Employment Fund and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development will provide emergency aid, including basic needs such as food, over the next three months, Wafa news agency reported.
Before October 7, an estimated 18,500 workers from Gaza had permits to work in Israel.
Following the attack, Palestinian workers were forcefully ejected from the country, with the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel was "severing all contact with Gaza".
2024-01-10 10:14:59
Pakistan, Maldives and Namibia have joined the list of countries supporting the genocide case filed againstIsrael by South Africa at the International Court of Justice.
During theUN General Assembly session, the three countries expressed their support for the case.
Namibia’s Ambassador Neville Gertze told the UN that his country “welcomes and supports” South Africa’s case. “Namibia both identifies and aligns with the arguments put forward by South Africa,” Gertze said.
Other than these,Bolivia, Jordan, Malaysia and Turkey have also expressed support for the case.
In this regard, the ICJ willhold hearings to consider provisional measures on Thursday and Friday this week.
2024-01-10 09:02:34
At least 31 Palestinian journalists are currently in Israeli prisons since October 7 while only one has been released so far, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel has only releasedDiaa al-Kahlout, the Gaza correspondent for news outlet Al Araby Al Jadeedon Tuesday.
The remaining imprisoned journalists are mostly being held without any charge, says RSF. They all work forPalestinian media outlets or are freelancers.
“This unprecedented wave of arrests and detentions, while the war continues in the Gaza Strip, has clearly been carried out with the deliberate aim of silencing the Palestinian media,” RSF added.
2024-01-10 00:55:01
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that Israel has agreed to a plan that involves a United Nations mission assessing the situation in northern Gaza, badly battered by continued Israeli offensive.
The goal is to help the Palestinians who had to leave their homes to return safely, according to the top diplomat of the US.
"As Israel’s campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF (Israel army) scales down its forces there, we agreed today on a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission," Blinken said during a visit to Israel.
"It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to the north."
2024-01-10 00:00:49
The cost of Gaza's devastating war on civilians, especially children, was "far too high", US top diplomat Antony Blinken said Tuesday during a visit to Israel.
The "daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high", Blinken told reporters.
2024-01-09 23:54:42
Jordan's King Abdullah is set to host a summit jointly with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported citing Jordanian state media.
The tripartite meeting will will focus on “serious developments” in Gaza.
2024-01-09 23:25:33
The World Health Organisation warned on Tuesday its ability to provide aid and support struggling hospitals in war-ravaged Gaza was "shrinking", despite international demands for more aid to be allowed in.
WHO staff described desperate scenes of seriously injured patients, including young children, begging for food in hospitals — which have seen most of their health workers flee for their own safety.
"We're seeing this humanitarian catastrophe unfold before our eyes," Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, told reporters in Geneva via videolink from the Gaza Strip.
"We're seeing the health system collapse at a very rapid pace," he warned.
2024-01-09 22:40:18
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Monday that at least 22,835 people have been killed in the besieged enclave since the beginning of the October 7 war, meaning that one in every 100 Gazans has been killed, as per CNN.
"That staggering death toll means that 1% of the enclave’s total pre-war population of 2.27 million people has now has been wiped out," the US broadcaster reported.
2024-01-09 22:11:00
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday urged Israel's leaders to avoid civilian harm in the war in Gaza and maintain a path towards the creation of Palestinian state, at meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet.
Blinken, who toured Israel's Arab neighbours for talks on plans for the future governance of Gaza and integration in the Middle East, said earlier he would be discussing the "way forward" in the war during the meetings.
Blinken met one-on-one with Netanyahu at Tel Aviv's Kirya military base and then with the war cabinet formed in the wake of the Oct 7 attacks.
Repeating the Biden administration's support for Israel's right to prevent a repeat of the attacks, Blinken "stressed the importance of avoiding further civilian harm and protecting civilian infrastructure in Gaza," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
As well as trying to tamp down regional tensions, the US top diplomat has been discussing plans for the future governance of Gaza, which could involve Israel's Muslim-majority neighbours.
2024-01-09 21:34:48
Britain's foreign minister David Cameron said on Tuesday he was worried that Israel might have breached international law in Gaza, and that the advice he had received so far was that Israel was compliant but there were questions to answer.
When asked if Israel could be vulnerable to a challenge at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague over whether their actions were proportionate, Cameron said the stance was "close to that."
Britain has backed Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas attacks but also called on its military to show restraint and act within international law in its offensive in Gaza that has laid waste to much of the Palestinian enclave.
Cameron did not directly answer lawmakers about whether he had received legal advice that Israel might have broken international law but said some incidents had raised questions over whether there had been breaches.
"Am I worried that Israel has taken action that might be in breach of international law, because this particular premises has been bombed, or whatever? Yes, of course," Cameron said as he took questions from parliament's foreign affairs committee.
Cameron said that there was always a "question mark" over whether a given incident broke international law, which lawyers would examine and then advise him over.
"The advice has been so far, that they [Israel] have the commitment, the capability and the compliance (with international law), but on lots of occasions that is under question."
2024-01-09 20:21:12
The Israeli military said Tuesday that another 27 Israeli soldiers have been wounded during battles in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.
Figures released by the army showed that 519 soldiers had been killed and 2,465 others injured since the outbreak of the war on Gaza, quoted Al-Jazeera.
Earlier on Tuesday, the army had announced the killing on nine soldiers in Gaza.
2024-01-09 19:17:01
2024-01-09 17:32:10
Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen have stepped up attacks on vessels in the Red Sea to show their support for Palestinian resistance group Hamas in Israel's waron Gaza.
The attacks impact a route vital to East-West trade, especially of oil, as ships access the Suez Canal via the Red Sea.
In response, some shipping companies have instructed vessels to instead sail around southern Africa, a slower and therefore more expensive route.
2024-01-09 16:28:25
2024-01-09 14:50:56
GAZA/TEL AVIV/CAIRO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his latest mission to rein in the Gaza war, told Israeli leaders on Tuesday there was still a chance of winning acceptance from their Arab neighbours, if they create a path to a viable Palestinian state.
On his fourth trip to the region since October in a so far largely fruitless quest to tamp down the violence, Blinken said he would share what he had heard in two days of talks with Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
2024-01-09 14:41:03
TEL AVIV: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will discuss the "way forward" in Israel's war in Gaza as he meets with leaders including Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday after touring Israel's Arab neighbours.
Speaking alongside Israeli President Isaac Herzog ahead of their meeting on Tuesday morning, Blinken said he would share what he had heard from regional countries during a day of meetings with Israel's government.
2024-01-09 13:53:07
At least 57 people killed in Israeli attacks were brought to al-Aqsa Hospital in the last 24 hours, Al-Jazeera reported citing Gaza health ministry. Other 62 injured Palestinians were also brought to the health facility.
Al-Aqsa Hospital is the largest hospital in central Gaza, where Israeli strikes are most intense.
2024-01-09 12:37:30
THE HAGUE: The International Court of Justice will hold hearings this week on a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza war and seeking an emergency suspension of its military campaign, Reuters reported.
WHAT IS THE ICJ?
The ICJ, also called the World Court, is the highest United Nations legal body, established in 1945 to deal with disputes between states. It should not be confused with the treaty-based International Criminal Court, also in The Hague, which handles war crimes cases against individuals.
The ICJ's 15-judge panel - which will be expanded by an additional judge from each side in the Israel case - deals with border disputes and increasingly cases brought by states accusing others of breaking U.N. treaty obligations.
Both South Africa and Israel are signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention which gives the ICJ the jurisdiction to rule on disputes over the treaty.
All states that signed the Genocide Convention are obliged not only not to commit genocide, but also to prevent and punish it. The treaty defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".
WHAT IS SOUTH AFRICA'S CASE?
In its 84-page filing South Africa says that by killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious mental and bodily harm and by creating conditions on life "calculated to bring about their physical destruction", Israel is committing genocide against them.
"The acts are all attributable to Israel, which has failed to prevent genocide and is committing genocide in manifest violation of the Genocide Convention," the filing says, adding that Israel also failed to curb incitement to genocide by its own officials in violation of the convention.
WHAT IS ISRAEL'S RESPONSE?
Israel has called the claim baseless and a government spokesman accused South Africa of "absurd blood libel" or baseless allegations of Jewish perfidy intended to stir up lethal hatred of Jews.
Israel said it will be in court to present its case next week.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT THE HEARINGS?
The hearings will take place on Jan 11 and 12.
The request for emergency measures is a first step in a case that will take several years to complete. Provisional measures are meant as a kind of restraining order to prevent a dispute from getting worse while the court looks at the full case.
Judges at the ICJ often grant such measures, which generally consist of asking a state to refrain from any action that could aggravate the legal dispute.
For provisional measures the court only has to decide if at first glance, or prima facie, it would have jurisdiction and the acts complained of could fall within the scope of the genocide treaty. Any measures it decides would not necessarily be those requested by the complainant.
South Africa has asked the court to order Israel to suspend its military actions in Gaza, to stop any genocidal acts or take reasonable measures to prevent genocide and issue regular reports to the ICJ about such measures.
The ICJ's rulings are final and without appeal, but it has no way of enforcing them. A ruling against Israel could hurt its international reputation and set legal precedent.
HOW LONG WILL IT BE UNTIL A FINAL RULING ?
If the court finds it has prima facie jurisdiction, the case will move forward at the ornate Peace Palace in The Hague - even if the judges decide against emergency measures.
Israel would then get another chance to argue the court has no legal grounds to look at South Africa's claim and to file a so-called preliminary objection - which can only touch on issues of jurisdiction. If the court rejects that objection, the judges could finally look at the case in further public hearings.
It is not unusual for several years to pass between the initial claim and the actual hearing of the case on its merits.
2024-01-09 12:32:23
BEIRUT: Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in a strike in south Lebanon on Monday, sources familiar with the group's operations said, inflicting a heavy blow after three months of hostilities at the Lebanese-Israeli frontier.
Wissam Tawil was a commander of Hezbollah's elite Radwan forces and the most senior Hezbollah officer killed so far in the conflict, a senior source in Lebanon said, adding he played a leading role in directing its operations in the south.
More than 130 Hezbollah fighters including Radwan members have been killed in hostilities since the group's Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, igniting a conflict that has rippled around the region.
2024-01-09 11:37:51
Israeli bulldozers have been seen demolishing infrastructure in the Tulkarem camp of the occupied West Bank. Another bulldozer was hit by an explosive device, Al-Jazeera reported.
Israeli army and settlers have killed at least 340 Palestinians since October 7 across the occupied West Bank, with 60 of the victims in Tulkarem only.
2024-01-09 11:00:15
2024-01-09 10:34:18
An appalling video has surfaced in which Israeli forces can be seen trampling a dead body by running a military vehicle over it after gunning down three Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank, Al-Jazeera reported.
Israel continues pounding southern and central Gaza with bombs, including within the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Hospital.
The Health Ministry in Gaza warned of a looming catastrophe for displaced Palestinians and a “triangle of death”: hunger, dehydration and disease.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has landed in Israel with the promise to push for allowing aid delivery in Gaza.
At least 23,084 people have been killed – including 9,600 children – and nearly 59,000 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. About 1,139 people were killed in Hamas’s initial attack on Israel, according to Al-Jazeera.
2024-01-09 10:11:58
2024-01-09 09:37:53
The Israeli military on Tuesday published the deaths in action of four soldiers in Gaza, bringing its total war losses there to 182, Reuters reported.
The four reported killed included a 19-year-old sergeant in Israel’s 94th Battalion who was killed in southern Gaza, and two 26-year-old majors in the 8219th Combat Engineering Battalion who were also killed in fighting in the south, according to Al Jazeera.
A 27-year-old major in the 36th Division’s engineering team was killed in central Gaza.
Israel did not report any additional deaths among its forces on Sunday and Monday due to its war on Gaza, which has so far seen 174 Israeli soldiers killed and 1,042 wounded since the ground invasion began, the UN reports.
The latest four deaths reported do not appear to be part of that total.
2024-01-09 08:45:49
Pressure grew on Israel on Monday from its staunch ally the United States and from Middle East powers to ease its assault on Gaza as its forces said they engaged in "tough battles" against Hamas fighters in central and southern parts of the enclave.
Following talks with Arab leaders, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed late Monday in Tel Aviv on the latest leg of a regional tour aimed at preventing the war — now entering its fourth month — from turning into a wider conflagration.
Blinken held talks in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Monday to try to chart a way forward in the bloodiest chapter ever of the decades-long Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Speaking to reporters before flying to Israel following talks with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Saudi oasis town of Al Ula, Blinken said he found support among Arab leaders for normalising relations with Israel.
"There's a clear interest in the region in pursuing that but it will require that the conflict end in Gaza and it will also clearly require that there be a practical pathway to a Palestinian state," said Blinken, who stopped in Jordan and Qatar on Sunday.
The Saudi crown prince, the kingdom's de facto ruler, stressed the importance of stopping the hostilities in Gaza and forming a path for peace, Saudi news agency SPA reported.
SPA said the crown prince — who prior to the war's outbreak had been leading a rapprochement between his country and Israel — underscored the need to restore stability and to ensure the Palestinian people gain their legitimate rights.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden, confronted by protesters shouting "ceasefire now" while he visited a church in Charleston, South Carolina, said he had been working "quietly" with the Israeli government to encourage it to reduce its attacks and "significantly get out of Gaza".
Though long a fervent supporter of Israel, Biden has previously described Israel's bombing campaign as "indiscriminate".
2024-01-09 01:40:23
An alleged Israeli strike on a car carrying two Al Jazeera reporters on Monday prompted the United Nations to express concerns over the rising number of journalists being killed in the ongoing Gaza conflict.
According to Al Jazeera, two of its Palestinian journalists were killed in Rafah by an Israeli "targeted killing".
"Very concerned by the high death toll of media workers in Gaza," the UN rights office said on X, formerly Twitter.
"The killings of all journalists, including Hamza Wael Dahdouh and Mustafa Abu Thuria in a reported IDF strike on their car must be thoroughly, independently investigated to ensure strict compliance with international law, and violations prosecuted," it said.
Dahdouh and Thuria, who also worked as a freelance video journalist for AFP and other news organisations, were killed while they were "on their way to carry out their duty" for Al Jazeera in the Gaza Strip, the network said.
A third freelance journalist, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.
Witnesses told AFP that two rockets were fired at the car -- one hit the front of the vehicle and the other hit Dahdouh, who was sitting next to the driver.
Asked about the accusations of a targeted attack on journalists, Florencia Soto Nino, a deputy spokeswoman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York, said: "This is something that at the moment we cannot verify."
"But what we know is that many of them (journalists) have died and we have repeatedly called for their profession to be respected so that they are able to do it freely and in safety."
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 79 journalists and media professionals, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed since the war began.
2024-01-09 00:13:36
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has called for a "path for peace" in his meeting with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday, Al Jazeera reported quoting the Saudi Press Agency.
As per the readout by the Saudi agency, the crown prince called for the creation of conditions leading to the restoration of stability in the region allowing the Palestinians to secure their legitimate rights.
2024-01-08 23:48:25
2024-01-08 23:05:03
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Monday met Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman before heading to Israel as part of efforts to stop the Gaza war from spiralling into a regional conflict.
Blinken was expected to discuss Red Sea attacks by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, Saudi Arabia's southern neighbour, during his talks with the crown prince.
Their private meeting in Al Ula, a historic oasis in western Saudi, is the latest leg of a rapid tour of the region as concerns over the Israel-Hamas war continue to mount.
The talks were also set to touch on a potential normalisation of ties with Israel after initial discussions were put on hold by the Israel-Hamas war, a senior official said.
2024-01-08 23:02:05
2024-01-08 21:37:20
An Israeli strike killed a commander of Hezbollah's elite Radwan force in south Lebanon on Monday, security sources familiar with the group's operations in Lebanon told Reuters, in one of the most high-profile attacks on its senior officers in three months of hostilities with Israel.
More than 130 Hezbollah fighters including members of the Radwan force have been killed in hostilities across the Israeli-Lebanese border since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Wissam Al Tawil, the deputy head of a Radwan unit, and another Hezbollah fighter were killed when the car they were in was struck in the village of Majdal Selm, some 6 kilometres from the border, three security sources in Lebanon said.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Tawil was one of the most senior Hezbollah commanders killed in the hostilities so far, according to another source in Lebanon familiar with the matter.
2024-01-08 21:20:15
Jordan's King Abdullah said on Monday that Israel has created a whole generation of orphans with its "brutal" war in Gaza, where he said over 30,000 people, mostly women and children, had been killed or were missing as a result of the conflict.
In remarks at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, Abdullah said a lesson to be drawn was that Israel's "indiscriminate aggression" in Gaza would never guarantee its security. His remarks were carried on state media following a statement by the royal palace.
"More children have died in Gaza than in all other conflicts around the world this past year. Of those who have survived, many have lost one or both parents, an entire generation of orphans," he said.
"How can indiscriminate aggression and shelling bring peace? How can they guarantee security, when they are built on hatred?," Abdullah said of Israel's war against Hamas.
2024-01-08 20:21:04
The UN on Monday voiced alarm at the many journalists killed in the war raging in Gaza, a day after two Al Jazeera reporters were killed in an alleged Israeli strike on their car.
"Very concerned by the high death toll of media workers in Gaza," the UN rights office said on X, formerly Twitter, demanding that all such cases be "thoroughly, independently investigated to ensure strict compliance with international law, and violations prosecuted".
2024-01-08 17:14:03
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was holding more talks with Arab leaders on Monday as part of a diplomatic push to stop the war in Gaza from spreading further.
Blinken met Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in the United Arab Emirates and was due later on Monday to hold talks in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the oasis town of Al Ula before heading on to Israel.
Blinken stressed to Sheikh Mohammed Washington's commitment to "securing lasting regional peace that ensures Israel's security and advances the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The two also discussed the importance of ending the conflict in Sudan, Miller said.
Blinken visited Jordan and Qatar on Sunday and sought to reassure Arab officials that the United States opposes the displacement of Palestinians outside Gaza, and instead wants Israel’s Muslim-majority neighbours to play a role in the Strip’s future governance.
Blinken is making his fourth trip to the region since Hamas gunmen from Gaza attacked southern Israel on October 7, prompting Israel to launch its military offensive against the Palestinian group in the coastal enclave.
He is asking states to try to reduce tensions that have already sparked violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and led to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes.
2024-01-08 16:22:52
G7 countries should try to limit Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza and pressure Israel to end its military operations, Italy's foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday, saying he discussed the issue with British and French counterparts.
"G7 countries are working with the Israeli government to find a rapid way out of the military phase," the Italian Foreign Ministry quoted Tajani as saying in a statement, as Italy begins its one-year presidency of the Group of Seven.
2024-01-08 15:32:04
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had been compelled to cancel a mission to bring medical supplies to northern Gaza on Sunday after failing to receive security guarantees.
It was the fourth time WHO had had to call off a planned mission to bring urgently needed medical supplies to Al-Awda Hospital and the central drug store in northern Gaza since December 26, it said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "shocked by the scale of health needs and devastation in northern Gaza".
"Further delays will lead to more death and suffering for far too many people," he wrote on X.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said he did not have information on WHO's assertion, referring questions to the Israel Defence Forces.
In separate comments, the International Rescue Committee aid group said its emergency medical team and the Medical Aid for Palestinians charity had been forced to withdraw and cease their activities at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza's Middle Area due to increasing Israeli military activity in the area.
2024-01-08 15:00:54
Israel has the duty to protect Palestinians in the West Bank, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in Ramallah on Monday.
Her comments came after the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces had killed six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Israeli officials said an Israeli police officer was killed in the violence.
2024-01-08 14:20:13
2024-01-08 13:03:13
The Israeli Air Force says it carried out a series of overnight air attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including a military compound in the village of Marwahin.
It also hit a rocket launcher and other infrastructure in the village of Aita al-Shaab.
There are fears of a potential escalation in violence between Israel and Hezbollah and the opening of a new front to the conflict, as the Israeli military and the Iran-backed group exchange fire over the border.
Senior Israeli official Benny Gantz, who is part of the war cabinet, posted on X yesterday that Israel is interested in a "diplomatic solution" with Hezbollah.
2024-01-08 11:48:12
Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinian fighters in the southern Gaza Strip and, in operations in central areas of the Hamas-governed territory, bombed an arms cache and unearthed a tunnel shaft, the military said on Monday.
The fighters were attacked in Khan Younis, where Israeli forces carried out strikes on 30 "significant terror targets," added the statement summarising overnight military operations.
Earlier, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement 73 Palestinians were killed and 99 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza in the past 24 hours on Monday, Reuters reported.
2024-01-08 11:13:03
Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due in Israel on Monday for difficult talks on the war in Gaza as fears grow that the conflict could engulf the wider region.
Speaking in Qatar on Sunday, Blinken said that Palestinians displaced by the now four-month-old war must be allowed to "return home" while warning that the violence could "easily metastasise" into a regional conflict.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, violence has escalated in the occupied West Bank and on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, while Yemen's Houthi rebels have launched more than 100 drone and missile strikes toward targets in the Red Sea and Israel.
On his fourth tour of the region since the war began, the US secretary of state was scheduled to visit the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Monday before arriving in Israel, where he will hold talks with Israeli leaders on Tuesday.
The United States is Israel's main ally and provides it with billions of dollars in military aid, but it has grown increasingly concerned over the mounting civilian death toll in the conflict.
Washington has said that Blinken will press Israel on its compliance with international humanitarian law and ask for "immediate measures" to boost aid to Gaza.
2024-01-08 09:38:47
British actor and activist Khalid Abdalla wore a white armband and a dove pin at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards on Sunday as he called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
2024-01-08 10:34:35
Here are some of the main developments overnight as reported by Al Jazeera:
2024-01-08 08:47:42
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the Israel-Gaza war could "easily metastasise" into a full-blown regional conflict, The National reported.
He issued the warning ahead of a visit to the Middle East in an attempt to calm tensions.
During a news conference in Qatar on Sunday evening, Blinken said: "This is a moment of profound tension in the region. This is a conflict that could easily metastasise, causing even more insecurity and even more suffering."
Qatar, which maintains ties with Hamas, has played a central mediation role in the conflict, helping broker the release of more than 100 Israeli hostages.
His comments came shortly before he departed for the United Arab Emirates, where he will continue talks on the war in Gaza.
Blinken will also meet with leaders in Saudi Arabia and is due to visit Israel and the occupied West Bank.
2024-01-07 23:45:02
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said when he visits Israel this week he will tell Israeli officials that it is imperative they do more to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza.
Speaking at a news conference in Doha, Blinken said Palestinian civilians must be allowed to return home and must not be pressed to leave Gaza.
2024-01-07 22:26:19
2024-01-07 21:30:30
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Sunday assured Jordan's King Abdullah that Washington opposes the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank, as he hoped to kickstart talks on Gaza's future.
The King had raised Jordan's concerns over displacement in the meeting, according to a palace statement, as Israel pushes on with its military campaign that has turned much of Gaza to rubble and left its 2.3 million residents on the verge of starvation, according to aid workers.
In his meeting with King Abdullah in Amman, Blinken "stressed US opposition to the forcible displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza and the critical need to protect Palestinian civilians in the West Bank from extremist settler violence," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The statement comes as most of Gaza's residents have been displaced by the conflict, and violence has also flared in the West Bank, including in a deadly clash in the city of Jenin on Sunday.
2024-01-07 20:41:59
With the war in Gaza raging on, it's the Palestinian children who have faced the brunt of the brutal conflict leaving more than 1,000 children with one or both legs amputated since the conflict began on October 7, Al Jazeera reported quoting Unicef.
Most of these amputations were done without anaesthetic as the beleaguered territory faces an acute shortage of essential medical supplies due to the ongoing Israeli siege.
2024-01-07 19:50:00
An Israeli air strike on a car near Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday killed two Palestinian journalists who were out reporting, according to health officials in Gaza and the journalists' union there.
We earlier reported the death ofHamza Al-Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera's chief correspondent in Gaza, Wael Al-Dahdouh. Another journo,Mustafa Thuraya was also killed in the same attack.
Both the slain journalists were freelancers. Hamza had done freelance work for the Qatar-based TV station.
A third freelancer, Hazem Rajab, was wounded.
The Israel Defence Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike.
2024-01-07 19:24:14
Israeli has hinted at the possibility of de-escalation in northern Gaza after its military said that it “dismantled” the Palestinian resistance group Hamas there, reported Al Jazeera.
In a statement, Israeli army spokesperson Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari claimed that the military killed around 8,000 Hamas fighters in northern Gaza.
Acknowledging the likelihood of scattered firing and occasional rocket fire, the spokesperson categorically stressed that Israel’s offensive had nullified Hamas’s ability to operate in an organised manner in northern Gaza.
2024-01-07 18:28:16
Seven Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied on Sunday. Violence in the West Bank since the start of Israel’s war with Gaza-based Hamas has surged to levels unseen in nearly two decades.
"An Israeli occupation bombardment on a group of citizens killed seven people in Jenin," Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority-run Ministry of Health said in a statement.
It is to be noted that Israeli forces carry out regular raids in the occupied territory, especially in the militant stronghold of Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp.
2024-01-07 17:17:50
In a bid to avert unnecessary deaths associated with communicable diseases amid the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) Sunday reiterated its call for a ceasefire and humanitarian corridor for the provision of critical child survival interventions in the besieged enclave.
Unicef says it needs the fighting to stop to protect children after the delivery of 600,000 doses of vaccines.
“UNICEF continues to call for a ceasefire and humanitarian corridor for the provision of critical child survival interventions to avert unnecessary deaths associated with communicable diseases,” the organisation said in a post.
“Today the situation is unimaginably stressful for children in Gaza. We do not want to see children who survive the bombing to die because they are not vaccinating,” said the organisation’s Maulid Warfa.
2024-01-07 15:42:58
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of January 7 at 11am in Gaza (09:00 GMT), 23,054 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 9,683 children.
Additionally, at least 61,966 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2024-01-07 15:20:01
Hamza Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, has been killed in an Israeli air strike west of Khan Younis, the southern Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported.
He died when a missile directly hit the vehicle he was travelling in.
Hamza, 27, a photojournalist, and colleague Mustafa Thuraya were in the car at the time it was targeted. Thuraya also died.
Wael, 52, lost his wife, daughter, grandson and 15-year-old son in an Israeli attack on his family home in October.
Dozens of journalists have been killed in Israeli strikes since the war began on October 7.
2024-01-07 15:04:35
Jordan's King Abdullah on Sunday warned United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken of the "catastrophic repercussions" of the continuation of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, a palace statement said.
The monarch also told Blinken that Washington had a major role to play to put pressure on Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the statement said.
2024-01-07 14:34:18
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Jordan’s king and foreign minister and visited a World Food Program (WFP) warehouse in Amman, Al Jazeera reported.
Jordan and other Arab states have been demanding an immediate ceasefire since mid-October as civilian casualties began to skyrocket. Israel has refused and the US has instead called for temporary "humanitarian pauses" to allow aid to get in and people to get to safety.
According to UN estimates, on average, 120 trucks per day entered Gaza through Rafah and Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) last week. This is significantly less than the 500 trucks of products that were entering daily before the war and far less than what humanitarian agencies say is currently needed.
The existence of nearly the entire 2.3 million people depends on the trucks that pass the border. According to the UN, one in four Palestinians in Gaza are starving, and the remaining people suffer crisis levels of hunger.
2024-01-07 13:48:50
2024-01-07 12:45:39
The Israeli police say an officer was killed during a raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
“She [the officer] was in an operational vehicle that was hit by an explosive device,” they said after the Palestinian Health Ministry earlier reported six Palestinians died in Israeli “bombardment” during the raid.
“Other” Israeli personnel were wounded when their vehicle was hit by the explosive device in Jenin, a statement said.
A helicopter helped rescue them with covering fire, it said, adding an aircraft fired at a “terrorist squad that hurled explosives and endangered our forces, a number of terrorists were killed”.
2024-01-07 11:56:04
The United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken's tour continues on Sunday with Qatar as a main stop after it has been mediating in the Israel-Hamas war along with Egypt and played a key role in securing the release of captives from Gaza.
Blinken's visit — which started with meetings with the leaders of Turkey and Greece — will take him to Jordan, Qatar, as well as Israel and the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
Citing an unnamed Qatari official and Israeli source, US news outlet Axios reported Qatar's prime minister told family members of six US and Israeli hostages the assassination of Hamas' Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut last week made efforts to secure a new prisoner swap deal more difficult.
2024-01-07 11:52:28
At least four Israeli soldiers were injured in a blast during their Jenin raid, according to Al Jazeera.
A joint Israeli army and police statement said the casualties resulted from an improvised explosive device (IED) blast as an Israeli vehicle participated in the incursion in the Jenin refugee camp.
Images on social media showed the overturned vehicle after the explosion.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces and settlers over the past three months and thousands have been arrested.
2024-01-07 10:41:39
New Yorkers staged a protest in Little Yemen, The Bronx, organised by Within Our Lifetime (WOL), calling for a free Palestine, despite the harsh weather conditions, highlighting the ongoing pro-Palestinian movement in the city.
2024-01-07 09:25:23
Hani Al-Masdar, who coached Palestine’s Olympic football team, has been killed in an Israeli air strike, the Palestinian Football Association has said.
Al-Masdar, 42, was a midfielder for the Al-Maghazi and Gaza Sports clubs before retiring in 2018 and becoming the coach of Palestine’s national team, Al Jazeera reported.
His death is another new loss for Palestinian football, the association said, adding that 88 male and female sports players, including 67 footballers, have been killed since October 7, as well as 24 administrators and technical staff.
2024-01-07 09:21:23
An Israeli air strike killed six Palestinians in Jenin on the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said early on Sunday.
The strike targeted a gathering of citizens in Jenin, the health ministry added in a brief statement.
2024-01-07 08:31:40
Israel said it had "dismantled" Hamas' military leadership in northern Gaza as its war against the Palestinian group entered its fourth month Sunday, with fears mounting that the conflict could spread into neighbouring Lebanon.
Witnesses said Israel carried out air strikes early Sunday in Gaza's main southern city of Khan Younis, with the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reporting numerous dead and wounded.
Israel's army said late Saturday it had "completed the dismantling of the Hamas military framework in the northern Gaza Strip" and its forces would now focus on central and southern areas of the territory.
The prospect of a wider regional war loomed with army spokesman Daniel Hagari warning that Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group was "dragging Lebanon into an unnecessary war".
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was under growing pressure on Saturday with demonstrators gathering in Tel Aviv's Habima Square to call for early elections and the resignation of his government.
"Bibi Netanyahu and all the rest of his idiots are ruining Israel and they are destroying everything we hoped and dreamed of," Shachaf Netzer, 54, told AFP.
2024-01-07 00:40:03
Israel said on Saturday that its forces have finished destroying the "military framework" of Hamas in northern Gaza and have killed around 8,000 fighters there, according to a military spokesperson.
The military has also seized tens of thousands of weapons in that area and millions of documents, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in an online briefing.
"We are now focused on dismantling Hamas in the centre of and south of the (Gaza) strip."
2024-01-06 23:51:16
2024-01-06 22:28:57
Lebanon's Hezbollah group said on Saturday it had fired rockets at Israel, and its arch-foe said it had struck a "terrorist cell" in retaliation.
Fighting also raged on inside Gaza, especially in and near the southern city of Khan Younis, where the Israeli military said it had killed three members of the Palestinian Hamas group that rules the densely populated coastal strip.
Air raid sirens sounded across northern Israel early on Saturday when the Israeli military said it had identified some 40 "launches" from Lebanon toward the area of Meron.
There were no reports of casualties or damage.
2024-01-06 21:22:42
As humanitarian conditions continue to worsen in Gaza, children are among the most vulnerable.
“They’re dying in every way possible. The death toll had been over 8,000 when you were last able to get an accurate death toll. It’s been several weeks now, so the figure is likely closer to 10,000,” Tanya Haj-Hassan, a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, told Al Jazeera.
“About three months into the Ukraine war, the UN had stated that the lives of children had been devastated on a level not seen since World War II. At the time, on average, two children were being killed per day. The average number of children being killed per day in Gaza is well over 100.”
2024-01-06 20:21:23
At least 122 Palestinians have been martyred and 256 others injured over the past 24 hours in Gaza, its health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The latest deaths brings the total death toll in Gaza since October 7 to 22,722 Palestinians, with 58,166 others injured.
2024-01-06 19:36:17
European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josep Borrell sounded the alarm on Saturday about Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict in a spillover from Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza.
Borrell, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said it was imperative to avoid a regional escalation in the Middle East, and warned Israel that "nobody will win from a regional conflict".
Speaking at a news conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati following talks with top government officials to discuss events in and around Gaza, including the impact of the war and the situation at the Israeli-Lebanese border.
"We are seeing a worrying intensification of exchange of fire across the Blue Line," Borrell said.
The current demarcation line between the two countries is known as the Blue Line, a frontier mapped by the United Nations that marks the line to which Israeli forces withdrew when they left south Lebanon in 2000.
2024-01-06 18:25:16
2024-01-06 18:20:41
2024-01-06 16:25:22
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was meeting the leaders of Turkey and Greece on Saturday at the start of a week-long trip aimed at calming tensions that have spiked across the Middle East since Israel's war with Hamas began in October.
The Biden administration's most senior diplomat held talks with Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Istanbul and is scheduled later to meet President Tayyip Erdogan, a strong critic of Israel's military actions in Gaza.
The talks are also expected to cover Turkey's process to ratify Sweden's membership of NATO, according to a senior State Department official traveling with Blinken.
US officials have been frustrated by the lengthy process but are now confident that Ankara will soon approve Sweden's accession to the alliance after the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs commission backed the bid last month, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US lawmakers have held up the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey until it signs off on the addition of Sweden to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Sweden, which, along with Finland, applied to join NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, would become the alliance's 32nd member. Finland joined last year.
Blinken will later travel to the island of Crete to meet Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Fellow NATO member Greece is awaiting the approval by the US Congress of a sale of F-35 fighter jets.
"We'll be discussing this issue. I think there will be positive developments," Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis told Greek Skai television.
Blinken's tour in the coming days will include Arab states, Israel and the occupied West Bank, where he will deliver a message that Washington does not want a regional escalation of the Gaza conflict.
2024-01-06 15:08:47
Attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes could have an impact on the British economy through rising prices, finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday.
Asked whether the attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi militants in Yemen could mean rising prices in Britain, Hunt told the BBC: "It may have an impact and we'll watch it very, very carefully."
2024-01-06 14:08:25
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said it hit a key Israeli observation post early on Saturday with 62 rockets as a "preliminary response" to the killing of Hamas' deputy chief earlier this week.
Senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed on Tuesday, January 2 in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiyeh.
Analysts said the strike could be seen as a message to Hamas ally Hezbollah that even its prime stronghold of Dahiyeh could be vulnerable to Israeli attack.
Hezbollah had said his killing would not go without punishment. Its head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that being "silent" on the strike would allow all of Lebanon to be vulnerable to more attacks.
The statement on Saturday said the group had hit a main post on an elevated hilltop that Israel relied on for "aerial observation" and "air control".
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
2024-01-06 13:02:15
Medics with the Palestinian Red Crescent are rushing an injured Palestinian in Tulkarem to receive medical treatment following violent overnight Israeli military raids throughout the occupied West Bank.
2024-01-06 12:04:52
Rwanda, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have firmly rejected any negotiations with Israel over displacing Palestinians from Gaza and accepting them within their borders.
The three African nations separately denied a report by Israeli outlet Zman Yisrael that the Central African nations may take in Palestinians whom Israel wants to drive out of the Gaza Strip.
“No such discussion has taken place either now or in the past, and the disinformation should be ignored,” said the Rwandan foreign ministry in a short statement.
2024-01-06 11:29:29
The Israeli bombing of a house in the al-Manara neighbourhood of Khan Younis overnight in southern Gaza has increased to 18.
According to Al Jazeera Arabic, several others were injured in the attack on the family residence. Meanwhile, the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported earlier that 10 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the attack in al-Manara.
Al Jazeera Arabic also reports that three people were killed in an overnight strike on a home in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
2024-01-06 11:21:32
The United Nations agency promoting equality for women (UN Women) says it is looking at code of conduct violations dealing with impartiality by a mid-level manager, who allegedly supported pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli posts on social media, including those decrying a "genocide" in Gaza.
The Geneva-based advocacy group UN Watch, which has a history of criticising anti-Israeli actions at the UN, had said last month that Sarah Douglas, the deputy chief of the UN Women’s Peace and Security Office, had "publicly endorsed" 153 posts on social media since October 7.
It had also created an online petition for her to be fired, and at least two US senators have supported her expulsion.
UN Women has said it "takes these concerns very seriously" and is investigating.
2024-01-06 10:47:02
2024-01-06 09:26:53
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of January 5 at 5pm in Gaza (15:00 GMT), 22,925 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 9,683 children.
Additionally, at least 61,710 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2024-01-06 09:13:28
The sounds of automatic weapons fire and explosions have been captured in video clips verified by Al Jazeera in occupied West Bank's Nablus where Palestinians are confronting Israeli forces who are carrying out more night raids across Palestinian towns and cities.
According to reports, clashes in Nablus' old city are fierce and Israeli snipers have been deployed to rooftops in the area.
Earlier video footage captured Israeli reinforcements in jeeps and trucks speeding into the city.
2024-01-06 08:33:24
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Europe's senior diplomat Josep Borrell began a new diplomatic push on Friday to stop spillover from the Gaza war into Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Red Sea shipping lanes.
Gazans said Israeli planes and tanks had intensified attacks overnight on densely populated Al-Maghazi, Al-Bureij and Al-Nusseirat in the centre of the coastal strip.
Some 162 people were killed in the past 24 hours, Palestinian officials said earlier.
In addition to these, Palestinian officials later said that in the south, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have moved in response to Israeli warnings, Israeli strikes on Khan Younis killed at least 22 people.
The Israeli military said it had struck more than 100 targets in Gaza in the past 24 hours, killing gunmen who tried to attack a tank in Al-Bureij and others in Khan Younis, where Hamas' military wing said it had killed some troops.
The war in Gaza has stoked violence in the West Bank, which is governed by its rival Fatah and is another territory where Palestinian hopes for statehood have been dashed since the last US-mediated talks on a solution to the decades-long conflict in 2014.
The Palestinian health ministry said a 17-year-old was killed and four other Palestinians wounded by Israeli army gunfire in the West Bank town of Beit Rima. Israel's military said troops shot at Palestinians who threw petrol bombs.
Some 300 Palestinians have died there since the war erupted, the United Nations says.
Blinken is due to visit the West Bank during a week-long tour starting on Friday in Turkey, which has offered to mediate. He will also visit Israel, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
"It is in no one's interest, not Israel's, not the region's, not the world's, for this conflict to spread beyond Gaza," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, was due in Lebanon.
2024-01-06 08:16:39
2024-01-06 01:25:25
Gaza has become uninhabitable after the relentless offensive by Israeli forces in the occupied territory, said UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.
"Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence -- while the world watches on," Griffiths said in a statement.
"The humanitarian community has been left with the impossible mission of supporting more than two million people."
"We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity," Griffiths said.
"This war should never have started. But it´s long past time for it to end."
2024-01-06 00:09:17
2024-01-05 22:29:50
The French and Jordanian air forces have dropped seven tonnes of urgent humanitarian and medical aid for a field hospital set up in Gaza's second city, Khan Younis, a French presidency official said on Friday.
Jordan has previously carried out drops in Gaza. It was the first time Paris had directly taken part in such an operation, although it has so far supplied about 1,000 tonnes of aid into the enclave over land.
The airdrops come three months since Hamas attacked southern Israel, sparking an Israeli offensive that Palestinian health officials say has killed 22,600 people, devastated the enclave and displaced thousands.
A French presidency official said the operation, which took place on Thursday night, involved a French aircraft and a Jordanian plane.
"The humanitarian situation remains critical in Gaza," President Emmanuel Macron said on X.
"In a difficult context," France and Jordan delivered by air aid to the population and those who are bringing them help."
The official declined to say what exactly was dropped or whether Israel had given the green light to the operation.
Israel had approved a previous Jordanian air-dropped aid mission in November.
Jordan has recalled its ambassador to Israel and told the Israeli ambassador to stay away in protest at the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, saying the attacks had killed innocents and caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
Israel's humanitarian liaison office COGAT said on Friday the humanitarian situation was stabilising and denied blocking water purifiers, medical supplies and tent poles as stated by sources in Gaza and in an Egyptian Red Crescent document.
2024-01-05 21:11:13
2024-01-05 20:50:05
The head of Hezbollah said on Friday Lebanon would be "exposed" to more Israeli operations if his powerful Lebanese armed group did not respond to the killing of the deputy chief of Hamas on the outskirts of Beirut.
Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a drone strike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, in what some analysts said could also be seen as a message to Hezbollah that its strongholds were vulnerable to attack.
Delivering a televised address for the second time in less than a week after nearly two months without doing so, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the group "cannot be silent about a violation of this level."
"This means that all of Lebanon will become exposed, all cities, villages, and figures will become exposed," he said.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah had carried out some 670 operations on the Lebanese-Israeli border since then, destroying a "large number" of Israeli military vehicles and tanks.
He also said that if the Israeli military managed to achieve its military goals in Gaza, it would then turn to Lebanon.
2024-01-05 20:21:21
Hezbollah head on Friday said that the next target of Israel will besouth Lebanon if it manages to succeed in Gaza, as the fears of spread of the conflict rise.
2024-01-05 19:22:21
Water purifiers, medical supplies and tent poles are among items Israel has blocked from entering Gaza on aid trucks, according to an Egyptian Red Crescent document seen by Reuters and sources in Gaza, but Israel denied blocking any such items.
Under a policy that long pre-dates the October 7 start of war in Gaza, Israel inspects trucks bound for the Palestinian enclave to stop any items it considers to have potential "dual use" — civilian or military.
But the issue of which items do or don't get through has become more urgent and contested as the war has unfolded. The conflict has displaced most of Gaza's population and caused acute shortages of food, water, medicines and other basic necessities.
The Egyptian Red Crescent document, which dates back to mid-December, says 1,200 water purifiers, 100 oxygen cylinders, one oxygen generator, 1,000 solar-powered items, 24 power generators and 418 medical supplies had been blocked since the war started.
COGAT, an Israeli Defence Ministry agency that coordinates aid deliveries with the United Nations and humanitarian groups, said this was not true.
"We are not refusing anything that is underneath four headlines: food, water, medical supplies and shelters. All of those are entering every day," said Colonel Elad Goren of COGAT during a news briefing on Friday.
2024-01-05 18:20:40
The Palestinian government has indicated it is not open to a post-war plan for Gaza outlined by Israel’s defence minister that would turn governance of Gaza over to unnamed “Palestinian bodies” while granting Israel security control, Al Jazeera reported.
Citing a statement aired by Palestinian news agency Wafa, the publication said that the presidency is committed to seeing an end to Israel’s occupation and to a future Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, under the framework of the Arab Peace Initiative.
It “unequivocally [rejects] any plans that go beyond these parameters”, the government said.
2024-01-05 16:53:25
2024-01-05 16:26:09
Mourners wept over the coffins of victims of two deadly blasts in Iran as the president and the commander-in-chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corp both vowed on Friday to take revenge for the attacks claimed by Islamic State.
Crowds chanted "revenge, revenge" during the funerals in the city of Kerman, the scene of Wednesday's explosions, the bloodiest such attacks in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Nearly 100 people were killed in Wednesday's assaults at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a US drone.
The explosions came as regional tensions soared and Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza neared the three-month mark.
2024-01-05 12:28:51
Despite being designated as a safe place, Israeli forces continue to attack the Rafah. Rafah City, situated in south of Gaza Strip, is facing the similar number of strikes as the northern part of the Strip, Al-Jazeera reported.
The entire family was killed when a house in northeast of Rafah city was attacked last night.
The killings have not even ceased for a single day. If someone survives the bombings, he will probably perish from the appalling humanitarian conditions people are living in.
2024-01-05 10:43:39
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he felt members of the Muslim and Arab communities in the tech industry were uncomfortable speaking about their recent experiences, in an apparent reference to the impact of the ongoing war in Gaza.
"Muslim and arab (especially Palestinian) colleagues in the tech community I've spoken with feel uncomfortable speaking about their recent experiences, often out of fear of retaliation and damaged career prospects," Altman wrote on social media network X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Microsoft-backed ChatGPT maker's high-profile boss urged the tech industry to treat members of those communities with empathy.
A user on X asked Altman in a reply how he felt about the experiences of the Jewish community.
Altman responded: "I am Jewish. I believe that antisemitism is a significant and growing problem in the world, and I see a lot of people in our industry sticking up for me, which I deeply appreciate. I see much less of that for Muslims."
2024-01-05 09:55:04
As many as 125 Palestinians were killed and 318 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza during the last 24 hours, the United Nations reported citing the Palestinian territory’s Health Ministry.
The latest UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) situation report also notes that humanitarian groups have been unable to deliver life-saving assistance, including food and medicine, north of Wadi Gaza for four days due to heavy fighting.
2024-01-05 09:21:18
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday presented his plan for the post-war administration of the Gaza Strip, saying neither Hamas nor Israel would govern the Palestinian territory after hostilities there conclude.
Gallant unveiled an outline of his plan for the "day after" the war to the press before submitting it to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet.
Under the plan, Israel's war in the territory will continue until it has secured the return of the hostages taken on October 7, dismantled Hamas's "military and governing capabilities", and removed any remaining military threats.
After that, the outline says, a new phase will begin during which "Hamas will not control Gaza and will not pose a security threat to the citizens of Israel", with local Palestinian bodies assuming the territory´s governance.
Israel would reserve its right to operate inside the territory, the plan states, but there would be "no Israeli civilian presence in the Gaza Strip after the goals of the war have been achieved".
2024-01-04 22:27:23
A total of 22,438 Palestinians have been killed and 57,614 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement on Thursday.
Some 125 Palestinians were killed and 318 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-04 21:28:17
The slain deputy chief of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, was buried in the Palestinian camp of Shatila in Beirut on Thursday, amid throngs of mourners launching volleys of gunfire.
Arouri was martyred in a drone strike on Tuesday on the southern suburb of Beirut, a stronghold of allied Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, as he was meeting with a group of Palestinian and Lebanese men from factions allied to Hamas.
The attack was widely attributed to Hamas' sworn foe Israel. Israel, which has laid waste to the Gaza Strip in a war aimed at wiping out Hamas, has neither confirmed nor denied that it assassinated Arouri.
All seven people attending the meeting in Beirut were killed. The bodies of several, including Arouri, were blown into several parts by the strike, complicating preparations for the burial.
Two of the Palestinians — a member of Hamas's armed wing the Qassam Brigades and another Palestinian — who were martyred alongside Arouri were also buried in Shatila Martyrs Cemetery that is the graveyard for Palestinians, including civilians, political officials and combatants.
"Palestine and Lebanon bid farewell today, along with the people of the nation, to strong men who fought battles in all fields and directions," said Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in a statement from outside Lebanon.
Their coffins were draped in Palestinian flags and carried by men wearing green caps with "Hamas" written on the front. Heavy bursts of gunfire rang out for hours.
2024-01-04 20:23:02
Five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Al-Nusseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, health officials told Reuters on Thursday.
2024-01-04 19:28:14
2024-01-04 17:24:06
Israeli forces searched houses in the Nour al-Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm on Thursday, detaining hundreds of people suspected of militant activities, the military said.
Tulkarm, location of one of the main crossing points between the West Bank and Israel, has seen repeated raids by security forces since the start of war on October 7
According to residents, Israeli forces detained at least 120 people and demolished three houses, including one belonging to a member of the Tulkarm Brigades, an armed militant group linked to the Palestinian faction Fatah.
"IDF forces continue to operate, alongside other Israeli security forces, in a broad divisional operation to suppress terrorism in the Nour al-Shams refugee camp in Menashe," the military said in a statement.
The Tulkarm Brigades said fighters were exchanging fire with the Israeli forces.
The military said the operation had been under way for more than 30 hours and said hundreds of individuals had been detained for questioning. Troops destroyed militant infrastructure and identified numerous weapons, it said.
The West Bank had already experienced the highest levels of unrest in decades during the 18 months preceding the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen but confrontations have risen sharply as Israeli forces have launched an invasion of Gaza.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers over the past weeks and security forces have carried out thousands of arrests, with repeated confrontations between troops and Palestinian protesters.
2024-01-04 15:23:48
Miki Zohar, Israel’s culture and sports minister, has said it is “not realistic” for Palestinians to leave Gaza, even if some Israelis would like to see it happen, Al Jazeera reported citing reports from theIsraeli news site Ynet.
"It's not realistic, and it’s clear that the international community will not accept it," Zohar told Israeli news site Ynet, adding that this subject should not be discussed publicly.
"With things like this, even if you have a belief or a goal like this, it can be discussed and debated behind closed doors."
Zohar’s remarks follow calls from Israel’s national security minister to "encourage the emigration" of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza to make way for Israeli settlers.
2024-01-04 14:29:17
The aid organisation, Palestinian Red Crescent Society says at least seven people have been injured in a strike that hit the fifth floor of its headquarters in Khan Younis.
Another strike on a neighbouring home caused further damage to the facility and the nearby Al Amal Hospital, it says.
2024-01-04 13:05:53
The coalition of Israeli lawmakers is trying to hamstring the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), claiming it is a tool of Hamas, according to a report in the Israel Hayom newspaper.
Speaking to Israel Hayom, Knesset member Sharren Haskel, who heads the parliament’s lobby to reform UNRWA, said she met with other parliament members "to try to stop funds which are being transferred from various countries to this organisation, and remove UNRWA's mask".
UNRWA is the largest aid agency operating in the besieged Gaza Strip, where an estimated 1.9 million displaced Palestinians are in desperate need of food, shelter and medicine.
In a December 30 post on X, UNRWA’s Gaza director, Thomas White, warned people in Gaza "are hungry and just desperate for food", with 40 per cent of the population at risk of famine.
2024-01-04 12:11:58
The White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, in an exchange with an Al Jazeera correspondent, said the US "does not want the conflict [in the Middle East] to widen".
When asked whether the US support for Israel killing Hamas leadership on foreign soil and Washington's deployment of strike groups to the Eastern Mediterranean to challenge Yemen's Houthi rebels are causing an escalation, Kirby said: "I stand by my answer. No."
2024-01-04 12:02:35
2024-01-04 11:04:11
Fourteen people belonging to the same family were killed, and several others were injured, in an Israeli bombing of a house belonging to the Salah family overnight, Al Jazeera reported.
People displaced from other parts of Gaza were taking shelter in the house in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
2024-01-04 10:19:13
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken will depart on Thursday for the Middle East, including a stop in Israel, as the US continues diplomatic consultations on the Israel-Gaza conflict, a senior US official said on Wednesday.
The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said U.S. diplomatic envoy Amos Hochstein will also travel to Israel to work to soothe tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
Blinken leaves Thursday night "for stops in a number of capitals, including Israel," the official said. The official provided no further details.
US President Joe Biden spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days as he works to improve access to Gaza for humanitarian aid and gain the release of hostages held by Hamas.
2024-01-04 10:06:56
A senior official in the United States Education Department stepped down on Wednesday, citing President Joe Biden's handling of the conflict in Gaza, the latest sign of dissent in the administration as deaths continue to grow in the war.
Also on Wednesday, 17 Biden re-election campaign staffers warned in an anonymous letter that Biden could lose voters over the issue.
Tariq Habash, special assistant in the Education Department's Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, said: "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."
Habash, a Palestinian-American and an expert on student debt was appointed early in Biden's presidency as part of a build-out of the Education Department's student loan expertise.
2024-01-04 10:03:03
2024-01-04 09:41:54
An imam who was shot Wednesday outside a mosque in New Jersey has died, the US state's attorney general said, adding that the killing did not initially appear to be driven by "bias" or domestic terrorism.
Hassan Sharif was shot multiple times near a mosque in Newark, just west of New York, before being taken to hospital where he later died, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said.
"We do not yet know the motivation for this crime (but) the evidence collected thus far does not indicate that this was an act motivated by bias or an act of domestic terrorism," said Platkin.
He added that "in light of global events, and with a rise in bias that many communities are experiencing across our state — particularly the Muslim community — there are many in New Jersey right now who are feeling a heightened sense of fear."
The state is home to 300,000 Muslim Americans, he said.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, there has been an increase in Islamophobic and anti-Semitic attacks across the United States.
The Essex County prosecutor, Ted Stephens, confirmed Sharif was shot more than once, and that "it does not appear the imam was the victim of a bias crime or that this is related to terrorism."
"We are dedicated to bringing justice for the imam's family," said Stephens, who called it a "dastardly crime."
The United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) earlier confirmed that Sharif had worked as a security screener at Newark Airport since 2016.
"We are deeply saddened to learn of his passing and send our condolences to his family, friends and colleagues," said Lisa Farbstein, a TSA spokeswoman.
Images published by the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) showed police vehicles deployed outside the Masjid Muhammad-Newark, a two-story yellow and green complex.
In a statement, CAIR described Sharif as "a beacon of leadership and excellence."
"As always, and irrespective of this specific incident, we advise all mosques to keep their doors open but remain cautious especially given the recent spike in anti-Muslim bigotry," the organisation said.
2024-01-04 09:17:50
The US on Wednesday described South Africa's decision to bring a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as unproductive, saying it has not observed acts that constitute "genocide", Anadolu reported.
"We don't think it's productive," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
"Genocide is, of course, a heinous atrocity, one of the most heinous atrocities that any individual can commit," Miller said, adding that those are allegations that "should not made lightly".
However, Miller said the US is "not seeing any acts that constitute genocide."
Asked if the US sees any acts of war crimes, Miller said: "We continue to collect information and gather it as we always do, but I don't have an assessment to offer."
White House, for its part, said it found the submission "meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever."
2024-01-04 08:39:59
Fears that Israel's war in Gaza could spiral across the Middle East mounted Wednesday after twin explosions ripped through an Iranian crowd, claiming at least 103 lives following a strike in Lebanon that killed Hamas's deputy leader.
More than 200 other people were wounded when the blasts about 15 minutes apart struck mourners commemorating slain Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani on the fourth anniversary of his killing in a United States drone strike, Iran's state media reported.
No group claimed responsibility for the blasts which, according to AFP archives, were the country's deadliest attack since a 1978 arson that killed at least 377 people.
Irani TV labelled the blasts a "terrorist attack". They came with regional tensions already soaring a day after the Beirut strike which killed Hamas number two Saleh al-Arouri.
A US official on Wednesday told AFP that "an Israeli strike" took the life of Arouri, the most high-profile figure killed during the nearly three months that Israel has been at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Following Tuesday's unclaimed Beirut attack, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military was "highly prepared for any scenario". He did not comment directly on the killing of Arouri, who Hamas said will be buried on Thursday in Beirut's Shatila Palestinian refugee camp.
After the Arouri killing, Germany warned its citizens to leave Lebanon quickly and said, "further deterioration of the situation and expansion of the conflict cannot be ruled out".
2024-01-04 02:09:01
The United States hit out at South Africa for lodging the Gaza genocide case against Israel before the United Nations' top court. The US also dismissed charges against its ally over the conflict in the occupied territory.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague will next week hold hearings on a filing by South Africa that alleges "genocidal acts against the people in Gaza" and seeks to order Israel to end the military operation.
South Africa's request to end Israel's military operation in Gaza will be heard next week at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
"This submission is meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said separately that from a US assessment, "We have not at this point seen acts that constitute genocide."
"Genocide is, of course, a heinous atrocity," Miller told reporters. "Those are allegations that should not make be made lightly."
South Africa has often criticized Israel and alleged parallels to its history of apartheid.
In The Hague application, South Africa says that Israel has been acting "with the requisite specific intent... to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group."
2024-01-04 02:08:35
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah issued a strongly worded warning to Israel not to attack Lebanon.
The Lebanese group chief's warning comes a day after the second-in-command of Hamas was assassinated in the group's stronghold in southern Beirut suburbs in a strike blamed on Israel.
"If the enemy thinks of waging a war on Lebanon, we will fight without restraint, without rules, without limits and without restrictions," Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
"We are not afraid of war," he added.
Nasrallah described the attack as a "major and dangerous crime" which "will not go unanswered and unpunished" -- repeating a threat made by Hezbollah on Tuesday.
2024-01-03 23:42:31
2024-01-03 22:45:32
Israeli hostage Sahar Baruch was killed last month during a rescue attempt by special forces in Gaza, the Israeli military said on Wednesday, without giving details.
Hamas said on December 8 that a hostage, named Sa'ar Baruch, had been killed during an attempted rescue operation.
"At this point, it is not possible to determine the circumstances of Sahar's death, and it is not known whether he was murdered by Hamas or killed by our forces' fire," the military said in a statement.
Baruch was among the 240 hostages seized by Hamas gunmen when they stormed into southern Israel on October 7.
2024-01-03 21:47:46
The international community must impose a solution to the Israel-Hamas conflict as the warring sides are unable to come to terms, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday.
"I believe that we have learned in these 30 years that the solution has to be imposed from outside because the two parties will never be able to reach an agreement," he told an event in Lisbon, warning also that "if this tragedy doesn't end soon, the entire Middle East might end up in flames".
"What happened yesterday with the death of one of the leaders of Hamas is yet another factor that could push the conflict to escalate," Borrell said, adding he had plans to visit the Middle East, including Lebanon, to "explore ways out" of the conflict.
Borrell also said he would present to the EU member states a proposal to create a mission to contribute to security in the Red Sea. The proposal is set to be presented on Thursday and would require unanimity among member states for it to go ahead, he said.
2024-01-03 21:20:09
The killing of a Hamas chief in Lebanon removes a big name from Israel’s most-wanted list but could drive the Palestinian group's exiled leaders deeper into hiding, hampering efforts to negotiate further Gaza ceasefires and hostage releases.
Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was struck down by a drone in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the stronghold of Hamas' Iranian-backed Lebanese ally Hezbollah, in an attack widely attributed to Hamas' sworn foe Israel.
Israel has not confirmed or denied a role, but the attack came a month after Israeli broadcaster Kan aired a recording of the head of Israel's domestic security agency Shin Bet vowing to hunt down Hamas in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar even if took years.
On Wednesday, Israel's Mossad spy chief David Barnea said he was committed to "settling the score" with Hamas, adding: "Let every Arab mother know that if her son took part, directly or indirectly, in the October 7 massacre, his blood is forfeit."
Arouri's killing, said Ashraf Abouelhoul, managing editor of Egypt's Al-Ahram daily and an expert in Palestinian affairs, "may push Hamas to harden its stance so it doesn’t look as if it is bowing under pressures or threats of more assassination."
The stakes are high both for the two million Palestinians trying to survive Israeli bombardment in Gaza and for Israeli hostages held there by Hamas, ruler of the coastal territory and like Hezbolah an ally of Iran.
Hamas negotiators including Arouri had been in Qatar-mediated talks with Israel over a possible further ceasefire in the war and prospects for further releases of Israeli hostages.
As recently as the past week the two sides were having discussions with Qatari mediators on a truce and hostages, a source familiar with the talks said, indicating a period when the Arouri strike may have been in final stages of preparation.
Security concerns may now complicate matters, analysts said.
Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director for research at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said that in recent years Palestinian groups operating in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is a powerful player, had become used to a measure of security. Hamas needed to be far more cautious now, he added.
2024-01-03 20:21:43
2024-01-03 19:56:15
Israel’s spy chief Wednesday vowed to make Hamas pay for its attacks on Israel after it killed the group’s deputy chief Saleh Al Arouri in Lebanon via a drone strike.
The Mossad spy agency "is committed to settling the score with the murderers who descended upon the Gaza envelope on October 7" and with Hamas’s leadership, David Barnea said.
"It will take time, just like after the Munich [incident], but we will lay our hands on them wherever they will be."
Barnea spoke at the funeral of former Mossad chief Zvi Zamir, who oversaw Israel’s retaliation against Palestinian militant groups in the aftermath of the 1972 attack on Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich.
His remarks came a day after Arouri, the deputy political chief of Hamas was killed in a drone strike in a southern Beirut suburb.
Senior Lebanese officials have accused Israel of carrying out the strike.
Meanwhile, Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the attack.
2024-01-03 18:57:02
2024-01-03 18:13:14
BEIRUT: UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon warned Wednesday that increased hostilities could prove "devastating", a day after a presumed Israeli strike martyred Hamas's deputy leader in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut.
"We are deeply concerned at any potential for escalation that could have devastating consequences for people on both sides," said UNIFIL deputy spokeswoman Kandice Ardiel.
"We continue to implore all parties cease their fire, and any interlocutors with influence to urge restraint."
The strike on Tuesday martyred Saleh al-Aruri, deputy head of Hamas, in Beirut's southern suburbs, two Lebanese security officials told AFP, blaming Israel.
Hamas, at war with Israel in Gaza for almost three months, confirmed Aruri's death, which Lebanese state media said came in an Israeli drone strike that also killed six others.
Hamas said Aruri would be buried on Thursday in Beirut's Shatila Palestinian refugee camp.
The attack marked an escalation in the nearly three-month-old war.
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily border fire with Israel since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.
More than 160 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah members but also more than 20 civilians including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, at least five civilians and nine soldiers have been killed, according to figures from the military.
Aruri, one of Hamas's principal military strategists, was the first senior official of the movement killed during the war.
The strike was also the first on the Lebanese capital since hostilities began.
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group, a Hamas ally, warned that the killing "will not go unanswered or unpunished".
The group's leader Hassan Nasrallah was set to give a much-awaited televised speech on Wednesday.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari did not directly comment on Aruri's killing but said the military was "highly prepared for any scenario" in its aftermath.
Several exiled Hamas leaders have found refuge in Lebanon, under the protection of their ally Hezbollah.
2024-01-03 16:31:10
A total of 22,313 Palestinians have been martyred and 57,296 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Some 128 Palestinians were killed and 261 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added
2024-01-03 15:41:21
Although Israel's military and spy services have not claimed responsibility for the killing of Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas official, in Lebanon, a well-known politician has complimented Israel for the operation.
"I congratulate the IDF [military], Shin Bet, the Mossad and the security forces for killing senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut," Danny Danon wrote on X. "Anyone who was involved in the 7/10 massacre should know that we will reach out to them and close the account with them."
2024-01-03 14:27:46
2024-01-03 13:32:14
Several settlers, protected by Israeli police, forced their way into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and performed Talmudic rituals nearby, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
According to Al Jazeera, far-right Israeli settlers often storm the compound which is located in the heart of occupied East Jerusalem, advocating for it to be replaced with a third Jewish temple or split up.
In 2023, over 48,000 Israeli settlers forced their way into the site, according to the religious authority overseeing it.
2024-01-03 13:21:57
Israeli officials are said to be holding discussions with Congo and other nations to where they plan to send displaced Palestinians from Gaza, Al Jazeera reported citing reports from Israel’s Zman Yisrael media.
"Congo will be willing to take in migrants and we’re in talks with others," the Hebrew news site quoted a senior source in Israel’s security cabinet as saying.
The site also quoted Israel’s Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel advocating for the displacement of Gaza residents.
“At the end of the war… There will be no work, and 60% of Gaza’s agricultural land will become security buffer zones,” said Gamliel, according to Zman Yisrael.
Rights advocates have criticised wartime calls to evacuate Palestinians from Gaza, arguing they aim to ethnically cleanse the besieged region. The US, a staunch supporter of Israel, has also expressed opposition to these plans.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Tuesday called the rhetoric "inflammatory and irresponsible".
2024-01-03 12:00:16
2024-01-03 11:31:34
2024-01-03 11:12:08
Lawyers representing South Africa in International Court of Justice (ICJ) proceedings against Israel are preparing for a hearing scheduled for January 11 and 12, Clayson Monyela, a spokesperson for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation, said in a post on X.
South Africa’s lawyers reportedly include John Dugard, a South African professor of international law, who was the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2001 until 2008.
The announcement comes after Malaysia endorsed South Africa's application to the ICJ.
“As a fellow party to the Genocide Convention, Malaysia calls on Israel to fulfil its obligations under international law and immediately end its atrocities against Palestinians,” Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in the statement.
2024-01-03 11:00:43
2024-01-03 10:37:39
Abdul Rahman al-Bahsh, a 23-year-old from Nablus in the occupied West Bank, died this week while serving a 35-month sentence in Megiddo Prison, according to Al Jazeera.
The Palestinian news agency Wafareported that the "mysterious circumstances" around al-Bahsh’s death prompted the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society to call for an immediate investigation.
An Israeli court has now opened an investigation, following a request from the commission’s lawyer, according toWafa.
In a joint statement, the commission and the society said the investigation was part of a broader inquiry into why seven Palestinian prisoners have now died in Israeli prisons since October 7, Wafa reported.
2024-01-03 10:15:52
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of January 2 at 2pm in Gaza (12:00 GMT), 22,509 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 9,183 children.
Additionally, at least 61,497 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2024-01-03 10:04:30
Al Jazeera reported that the Gaza Ministry of Health has published the names of 26 people who have been approved for medical evacuation from Gaza through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt today.
The patients listed have severe injuries, including an 18-month-old baby with burns to the face and hands.
Only about 1 per cent of the total people reported injured amid Israel’s war on Gaza have been evacuated, according to the UN.
2024-01-03 09:35:21
Iranian-backed Houthi fighters fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Southern Red Sea, though no damage was reported, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Tuesday.
Multiple commercial ships in the area reported the impact of the missiles on the surrounding water, CENTCOM added.
2024-01-03 09:30:24
The UN Security Council (UNSC) will hold a meeting today to discuss Houthi attacks in the Red Sea at 3pm New York time (20:00 GMT).
Several UNSC members — including France, which holds the rotating presidency — requested the emergency session.
"We need to do whatever it takes to secure maritime safety," France’s UN envoy Nicholas De Riviere told Al Jazeera ahead of the meeting.
"Nobody wants to see also escalation in the Red Sea," Riviere added. "The Red Sea is absolutely vital for transportation of goods, people, energy, humanitarian goods."
2024-01-03 09:21:29
In a recent report on the humanitarian situation in Palestine, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted that over a million people were now residing in the southern Gaza region's Rafah Governorate.
OCHA said that heavy Israeli bombardments from "land, air and sea" continued across Gaza and that hostilities in Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah had added to Rafah becoming "extremely overcrowded".
According to the update, an estimated 14,000 people who were sheltering at the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis when it was attacked on Tuesday, killing five people, are now "extremely fearful".
Many have already since fled the hospital while others are planning to leave the "place they had previously turned to for refuge and protection", OCHA said.
The UN humanitarian update also renewed warnings about the spread of disease in Gaza and the "catastrophic" food security situation with the risk of famine.
2024-01-03 08:30:42
The US State Department has issued a statement rejecting the "inflammatory and irresponsible statements from Israeli Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir."
Matthew Miller said that "there should be no mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza" in the statement issued on Tuesday.
"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," Miller said.
"That is the future we seek, in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, the surrounding region, and the world," Miller added.
Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, over the weekend, said Israelis would "make the desert bloom" if only 100,000 Palestinians lived in Gaza. The current population of Gaza is 2.3 million.
2024-01-03 01:42:35
The United States on Tuesday condemned controversial comments made by Israeli ministers that Palestinians should be encouraged to leave Gaza and Jewish settlers to return to the besieged territory.
"The United States rejects recent statements from Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza. This rhetoric is inflammatory and irresponsible," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement that reiterated the "clear, consistent, and unequivocal" US position that "Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land."
2024-01-03 01:33:28
Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Tuesday lashed out at the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri in Beirut.
The air strike was attributed to Israel.
Shtayyeh condemned the killing terming it a "crime perpetrated by known criminals" and warned about the "risks and consequences that could follow", according to a statement issued by his office.
Two security officials in Lebanon said Aruri was killed in an Israeli drone strike that killed a total of six people in a southern Beirut stronghold of Hamas ally Hezbollah.
2024-01-02 23:50:34
Palestinian resistance group Hamas Tuesday vowed that the killing of the group's deputy in Lebanon will not "undermine the continued brave resistance" in Gaza where the group is battling Israeli forces.
"It proves once more the utter failure of the enemy to achieve any of its aggressive goals in the Gaza Strip," senior Hamas official Izzat Al Rishq said in a statement.
2024-01-02 21:53:56
Senior Hamas official Saleh Al Arouri was killed on Tuesday night in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, three security sources told Reuters.
In response to questions from Reuters, the Israeli military said it does not respond to reports in the foreign media. Arouri was a senior official in Hamas's politburo but was known to be deeply involved in its military affairs.
Meanwhile, Hamas has confirmed the death of Arouri who was the group's deputy politburo leader.
2024-01-02 21:42:51
2024-01-02 21:25:40
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said on Tuesday that Israeli hostages will only be freed from Gaza under conditions set by the Palestinian resistance group.
"The enemy's prisoners will only be released on terms set by the resistance," Haniyeh said in a televised address.
2024-01-02 20:44:18
Denmark's Maersk said on Tuesday it would continue to pause all cargo shipments through the Red Sea following a weekend attack on one of its ships.
2024-01-02 20:15:17
Turkish authorities have detained 34 people suspected of being linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence service and of targeting Palestinians living in Turkey, a senior Turkish official said on Tuesday, adding Mossad also recruited members in the country.
Last month, Turkish officials warned Israel of "serious consequences" if it tried to hunt down members of the group Hamas living outside Palestinian territories, including in Turkey. President Tayyip Erdogan warned that would be a mistake.
The official said police raided locations in eight provinces as part of an investigation carried out by the MIT intelligence agency and the Istanbul prosecutor's counter-terrorism bureau.
"The Israeli Intelligence Service is recruiting personnel to be used in acts against Palestinians residing in our country and their families," the official said, adding it used job postings on social media to establish contact and later used encrypted messaging platforms to maintain communications with contacts.
"It uses intermediaries/live couriers for payments to be made to its contacts. It tries to lose trace of the money by using cryptocurrency and a (money) transfer system," the person said, adding Turkey's operations against people linked to Mossad would continue.
2024-01-02 19:13:00
Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague to contest South Africa's genocide accusations over the war with Hamas in Gaza, an Israeli government spokesman said on Tuesday.
South Africa 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.
"The State of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice at The Hague to dispel South Africa's absurd blood libel," spokesman Eylon Levy told an online briefing.
"We assure South Africa's leaders, history will judge you, and it will judge you without mercy," Levy said.
The ICJ, sometimes known as the World Court, is the United Nations' venue for resolving disputes between states. Israel's foreign ministry has said the suit was "baseless."
2024-01-02 18:55:20
2024-01-02 18:25:07
2024-01-02 18:11:58
2024-01-02 16:57:43
Denmark's Maersk will decide on Tuesday whether to resume sending vessels through the Suez Canal via the Red Sea or redirect them around Africa following a weekend attack on one of its ships, a company spokesperson said.
The container shipping giant on Sunday paused all Red Sea sailings for 48 hours following attempts by Yemen-based Houthi militants to board the Maersk Hangzhou. US military helicopters repelled the assault and killed 10 of the attackers.
Maersk had more than 30 container vessels set to sail through Suez via the Red Sea, an advisory on Monday showed, while 17 other voyages were put on hold.
A decision will be taken on Tuesday regarding how to proceed, the company spokesperson said.
The Hangzhou, which was hit by an unknown object during the attack, was able to continue on its way with LSEG shipping data showing the vessel now close to the Suez Canal.
The Houthis, who control parts of Yemen after years of war, started attacking international shipping in November in support of Palestinian group Hamas in its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Major shipping groups, including Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, last month stopped using Red Sea routes, instead taking the longer journey around southern Africa via the Cape of Good Hope.
After the deployment of a US-led military operation to protect ships, however, Maersk on Dec 24 announced it would resume using the Red Sea.
2024-01-02 15:51:41
Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, says that its fighters fought an armed battle with Israeli soldiers in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, which resulted in injuries among the ranks of the soldiers.
According to Al Jazeera, the armed wing also announced that they targeted the Israeli military with mortar shells in the al-Mahatta area in Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip.
2024-01-02 15:00:51
Turkish authorities have detained 33 people suspected of carrying out espionage for Israel's Mossad intelligence service, the state-run Anadolu news agency said on Tuesday, adding 13 others were being sought by police.
Anadolu said police had carried out simultaneous raids in 57 locations across eight provinces as part of an investigation that the counter-terrorism bureau of the Istanbul prosecutor's office had launched.
Without citing sources, it said the suspects were believed to be aiming to identify, monitor, assault and kidnap foreign nationals living in Turkey as part of "international espionage" operations.
2024-01-02 14:23:28
The Palestinian foreign ministry has condemned the "kidnapping" of an infant Palestinian girl by an Israeli soldier in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
"The kidnapping of the infant girl from the Gaza Strip is evidence that the occupation army is committing the most heinous crimes against civilians without oversight or accountability," it said. "The Ministry calls on the occupation authorities to immediately hand over the infant to the Palestinian National Authority."
The infant was found in a house by a soldier who carried her to Israel, according to a previous statement made to Israel's Army Radio by a friend of Israeli captain Harel Itach, who was killed in Gaza.
The baby's parents were probably killed during Israeli attacks because they were not present.
2024-01-02 14:23:31
2024-01-02 13:51:16
Israel carried out a strike against Syrian military targets overnight between Monday and Tuesday in response to earlier rocket launches, the Israeli military said.
The military hit what it described as the "military infrastructure of the Syrian army".
Late on Monday, it said five rockets were launched from Syrian territory. Warplanes also struck at Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the military said.
2024-01-02 13:38:09
The Israeli military claims it killed Hamas members who were planting mines along Gaza’s coastline and in nearby buildings, Al Jazeera reported.
The Israeli military said it also killed three Hamas members in an air strike after seeing them enter a building south of Gaza City. It reported secondary explosions, suggesting the building was being used to store weapons.
2024-01-02 13:04:39
2024-01-02 12:40:00
2024-01-02 12:26:53
Israeli soldiers killed five Palestinian fighters in exchanges of fire in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the military said.
There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.
A statement from the military said that soldiers killed four armed fighters who had fired at them from within a house in the Palestinian village of Azzun and one Israeli soldier was wounded in the fire exchange.
In Qalqilya, soldiers shot and killed a gunman who opened fire at them while they were on a raid to seize weapons, the military said.
Israeli security forces have stepped up raids across the West Bank since the October 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli offensive now raging in the Gaza Strip.
2024-01-02 11:33:47
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of January 1 at 7pm in Gaza (17:00 GMT), 22,297 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 9,183 children.
Additionally, at least 61,497 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2024-01-02 11:28:48
A group of 42 survivors of the attack on the Supernova music festival in southern Israel on October 7 have filed a civil lawsuit against the Israeli army, Ministry of Defence, police, and Shin Bet intelligence agency, demanding 200 million shekels ($56 million) in damages.
In their lawsuit, filed on Monday, the plaintiffs said that Israeli army officials could have "saved lives" with a "single phone call" warning people to leave "immediately in view of the expected danger", according to Al Jazeera citing reports on the lawsuit from Israeli media.
A call by Israeli authorities could have also "prevented the physical and mental injuries of hundreds of partygoers, including the plaintiffs", the lawsuit states.
About 3,500 people attended the Supernova music festival where at least 260 people were killed and many taken captive after Hamas fighters arrived in trucks and on motorcycles from the nearby Gaza Strip.
2024-01-02 10:09:45
Names of 19 people approved for medical evacuation from Gaza through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt today have been published by the Gaza Ministry of Health, Al Jazeera reported.
The group of 19 patients – including a two-week-old baby – have severe injuries and illnesses, including cancer.
In late December, the UN said that the number of wounded Palestinians and other medical cases evacuated from the besieged Palestinian territory since 7 October represented just 1 per cent of the total number of people reported injured amid Israel's war on Gaza.
2024-01-02 09:40:00
Authorities in Gaza have issued a list of Egyptian and Omani nationals who can travel through the Rafah crossing with Egypt today, Al Jazeera reported.
The 127 people listed must be present at the crossing at 7am local time [05:00 GMT] to facilitate their travel, Gaza’s border authority said.
2024-01-02 09:25:52
Sirens sounded and intense clashes were reported between Palestinians and Israeli forces overnight in Jenin after the Israeli military conducted a series of raids in the city, including in the Jenin refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported.
Footage has also emerged of a wounded Palestinian man, reportedly shot by Israeli forces, being assaulted in the city of Qalqilya, where raids are also ongoing.
There have also been reports of raids in the town of Kafr Qaddum near Qalqilya, towns of Yatta and Al-Dhaheriya, south of Hebron, the city of Jericho and the nearby Ain Sultan camp and the village of Al-Mughayir, east of Ramallah.
2024-01-02 09:17:13
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has reported the first demolitions in 2024 of Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied West Bank.
In a post on social media, UNOCHA said the demolitions were reported on Monday in Al Maniya, Bethlehem.
“2023 ended with 1,119 structures demolished and 2,210 people displaced, as a result, in the #WestBank,” UNOCHA said.
According to UNOCHA, the destruction and threat to destroy Palestinian homes and sources of livelihood by Israeli authorities "contributes to the generation of a coercive environment pressuring people to leave their areas of residence".
2024-01-02 09:11:41
Israel is withdrawing some forces from Gaza to shift to more targeted operations against Hamas, and is partially returning reservists to civilian life to help the economy as the country enters the new year set for a prolonged war, an Israeli official said.
The official said the war will continue in the Palestinian enclave until the resistance group is toppled, adding that some of the troops withdrawn will prepare for a possible second front in Lebanon.
Since launching the Gaza offensive after the cross-border Hamas rampage of October 7, Israeli officials have said they planned to wage it in three main stages. The first was intense shelling to clear access routes for ground forces and encourage civilians to evacuate. The second was the invasion that began on October 27.
"This will take six months at least, and involve intense mopping-up missions against the terrorists. No one is talking about doves of peace being flown from Shajaia," the official told Reuters, referring to a Gaza district ravaged by fighting.
"From the first moments of this war, we said it would take long," Halevi told troops on Tuesday. "Will we ultimately be able to say there are no more foes around the State of Israel? I think that is overly ambitious. But we will deliver a different security situation - safe and, as much as possible, stable too."
Israel has listed 174 soldiers - many of them reservists - as killed in Gaza fighting and nine on the Lebanese border.
2024-01-02 08:32:02
Israel "will not boycott" proceedings launched by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israel's National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi has said, Al Jazeera quoted the Israeli news site Ynet as reporting.
Israel is "a long-standing signatory to the Genocide Convention," Hanegbi told Ynet. "We will participate and refute the absurd accusation that amounts to blood libel," he added.
"The Jewish people have experienced genocide more profoundly than any other nation," Hanegbi told Ynet, "with six million of our people brutally slaughtered".
Hanegbi described the events of October 7 as a "similar cruelty", adding that "this time we have the capability to defend ourselves against those seeking our destruction," Ynet reported.
South Africa, on Friday, filed a case at the ICJ accusing Israel of crimes of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
2024-01-01 23:58:03
Pakistan on Monday dispatched the third consignment of 20 tonnes of relief goods including medicines, surgical items, dry ration, and hygiene kits for the people of Gaza, with Israel carrying on its atrocities against Palestinians.
After arrival at Al Arish Airport in Egypt, the consignment will be handed over to the Red Crescent for onward distribution.
Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani sent off the cargo with a special Pakistan Airforce aircraft at Nur Khan Airbase, Islamabad, an official statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Read complete story here.
2024-01-01 23:44:49
Lebanon's Hezbollah group said on its Telegram account on Monday that three of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon.
The statement gave no detail about how the three were killed but said they "were martyred on the road to (liberate) Jerusalem".
Security sources said they were killed in an Israeli raid on two houses in the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila near the border where Hezbollah maintains security control.
Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel across Lebanon's southern frontier since the eruption of the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza in early October.
2024-01-01 23:39:39
Some of the Israeli communities north of the Gaza Strip that were evacuated in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas will be able to go back in the near future as military operations progress, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday.
Gallant said some of the evacuated communities in areas within a range of four to seven kilometres north of the enclave would be able to return home soon, according to published remarks from a briefing.
2024-01-01 22:52:39
Israel's decision to withdraw some troops from Gaza appears to be the start of a gradual shift to lower-intensity operations in the north of the Palestinian enclave, although there was still fighting going on there, a US official said on Monday.
Israel pulled tanks out of some Gaza City districts on Monday, residents said, as it announced plans to shift tactics and cut back on troop numbers. Still, fighting raged elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave along with intense bombardment.
"This appears to be the start of the gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north that we have been encouraging, which reflects the success the IDF has had in dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities there. I’d caution though there is still fighting in the north and this does not reflect any changes in the south," the official told Reuters.
2024-01-01 22:13:11
2024-01-01 21:37:18
An Israeli minister on Monday called for the return of settlers to Gaza and said Palestinians should be encouraged to leave, a day after similar remarks by another far-right politician.
"We must promote a solution to encourage the emigration of Gaza's residents," Israel's firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said as war with the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers rages on.
Israel unilaterally withdrew the last of its troops and settlers in 2005, ending a presence inside Gaza that began in 1967 but maintaining near complete control over the territory's borders.
The government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not officially suggested it has any plans to evict Gazans or to send Jewish settlers back to the territory since the current war broke out on October 7.
But Ben Gvir argued that the departure of Palestinians and re-establishment of Israeli settlements "is a correct, just, moral and humane solution".
"This is an opportunity to develop a project to encourage Gaza's residents to emigrate to countries around the world," he told a meeting of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit, or "Jewish Power", party.
2024-01-01 19:47:40
Israel warned the Gaza war will continue throughout 2024 as unrelenting strikes killed dozens in the Palestinian territory and Hamas fired a rocket barrage at the stroke of midnight.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that some of the 300,000 army reservists would get a break from the war, in order to prepare for the "prolonged fighting" ahead.
The army "must plan ahead, understanding that we will be required for additional tasks and warfare throughout this year," Hagari said as the conflict sparked by the October 7 Hamas attacks raged on.
Heavy artillery fire again pounded Hamas-run Gaza, killing at least 24 people, health ministry officials there said, with attacks reported across the length of the territory.
In the besieged Gaza Strip, where the UN says 85 percent of the population has been displaced, 20-year-old Hamdan Abu Arab said he hoped "2024 will be better".
"We used to go out and enjoy our time on the last day of the year," he recalled. "But this New Year's Eve, there are only missiles and the remains of people."
2024-01-01 18:01:57
A total of 21,978 Palestinians have been killed and 56,697 have been wounded in Israeli strikes in Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Monday.
The figures include 156 Palestinians killed and 246 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2024-01-01 16:35:16
The armed wing of Hamas, known as the Qassam Brigades, has stated that its members ambushed Israeli forces in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, killing an unspecified number of occupation forces and wounding others.
Israel's airstrike on a residential block in the Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip has left at least three people dead and numerous others injured, according to Al Jazeera's team on the ground.
Furthermore, in response to Israel's death last week of a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria, Iran's Foreign Ministry has asked that the UN Security Council take action.
2024-01-01 15:31:52
The Israeli army has claimed to have killed Adil Mismah, a Hamas commander in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, whom it said took part in the October 7 attack, Al Jazeera reported.
It also said it struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Shejaiya and “located large amounts of weapons”. It said a Palestinian cell that attacked Israeli troops with mortar shells was destroyed, and a Hamas fighter launching rockets in Khan Yunis was killed.
It said its attacks continued overnight, with naval troops providing support fire for ground troops, who are pushing further south.
2024-01-01 14:09:34
According to a Monday article in Haaretz, Israeli authorities fear that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) may accuse their country of committing genocide in Gaza.
The Israeli daily reports that the military leadership has been warned by a senior legal expert handling the matter that there is a "real danger" that the court may issue an injunction compelling Israel to cease its military activity in Gaza.
The state attorney's office and the military are currently getting ready to handle the South African complaint that was submitted on Friday. The foreign ministry will hold a hearing on Monday.
2024-01-01 13:35:32
British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said that the United Kingdom was willing to take "direct action" against Yemen's Houthis, Al Jazeera reported.
“We are willing to take direct action, and we won’t hesitate to take further action to deter threats to freedom of navigation in the Red Sea," wrote Shappsin The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
“The Houthis should be under no misunderstanding: we are committed to holding malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks,” he said.
On Sunday,British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that he sought Iran's help in stopping theHouthi attacks in the Red Sea.
2024-01-01 12:32:42
A march in support of Gaza is getting underway in Istanbul and the 29 civil society groups that are organising the event hope it will attract thousands of people.
Ibrahim Besinci, president of the Turkish Youth Foundation (TUGVA) which is one of the organisers, earlier told an Istanbul news conference that the event was about being "Palestine's voice" in a "struggle for humanity and justice".
"We are aware we're standing at a historic turning point and in such a time, we will raise our voice and spread our message," Besinci said.
2024-01-01 11:30:09
2024-01-01 11:28:42
While the rest of the world rang in the new year with fireworks and celebrations, Palestinians in Gaza were fleeing for their lives and trying to find somewhere to hide.
The Gaza Strip's core region, designated a safe zone for Palestinians to evacuate to, has been repeatedly pounded throughout the night with five fatalities reported.
Almost 85% of the people are being relocated, the majority of whom are living in tents in Rafah.
Individuals in Rafah are standing in line for hours to get food and necessities; the number of facilities is much lower than the number of individuals in need of assistance.
The amount of food is a trickle – a small amount of rice, a small amount of bread. There are reports of people here having just one meal a day. But sometimes they go for one or two days without any food.
2024-01-01 10:35:38
2024-01-01 10:22:21
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has said the Biden administration must repudiate remarks made by Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on the removal of Palestinians from Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
Earlier, Smotrich told Israeli Army Radio "let's make the desert bloom" as he discussed two million Palestinians "emigrating" from Gaza.
"If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different," Smotrich said.
The US-based advocacy organisation CAIR described Smotrich's remarks as the "latest open call for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza."
"It has always been the Israeli government's plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza. Smotrich just made it official," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement.
"The Biden's administration failure to explicitly condemn such genocidal rhetoric has emboldened Israeli leaders to escalate their genocidal words into genocidal actions," Awad added.
2024-01-01 10:11:00
2024-01-01 09:26:39
2024-01-01 09:05:48
Five newly elected members of the UN Security Council have commenced two-year terms on the body comprising five permanent and 10 rotating members, according to Al Jazeera.
The new members are:
The outgoing members of the council include the United Arab Emirates, which put forward a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza in December that the United States vetoed.
In a post on X, Palestine’s mission to the UN congratulated the UAE for "representing the Arab world" and "advancing the cause of Palestine" during its term
2024-01-01 08:57:17
As they turn from a year that could barely have brought more bitter hardship after 12 weeks of a pulverising Israeli assault, people in Gaza have little hope that 2024 will bring much relief.
In Rafah on Gaza's border with Egypt, which has become the biggest focal point for Palestinians fleeing other parts of the enclave, people on Sunday were more preoccupied with trying to find shelter, food and water than by the new year.
"In 2024 I wish to go back to the wreckage of my home, pitch a tent and live there," said Abu Abdullah al-Agha, a middle-aged Palestinian man whose house in Khan Younis was destroyed and who lost a young niece and nephew in an Israeli air strike.
"I wish for our children to live in peace and security, to go back to school, back to university, for workers to go back to work and find a source of income," he added.
Any hope of a political settlement to the conflict and Palestinians' 75-year quest for self-determination appear further away than ever.
People crowd around makeshift tents in Rafah that have sprung up on streets and pavements, in empty lots and fields. UN-run schools designated as shelters early in the conflict were rapidly filled with people whose homes were destroyed.
In their tents made with crude plastic sheeting, where people have only the minimum of belongings such as blankets and cooking utensils, people look back with fond sadness on their abandoned homes and lives.
"I hope in 2024 that everything is fixed and for life to go back to normal," said Muna al-Sawaf, 12, from Gaza City, playing with a kitten in the rubble. "I want life to go back to normal, get dressed, run errands again, our homes to be rebuilt."
2024-01-01 08:41:12
Israel's Channel 12 news has reported that former British prime minister Tony Blair is allegedly being considered to lead an Israeli operation aimed at persuading other nations to accept Palestinian refugees from Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Without providing a source, Channel 12 claimed that Blair recently met with Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the potential of the former British leader overseeing the relocation of Palestinian refugees from Gaza.
In a post to X, journalist Barak Ravid claimed that reports had been refuted by Blair's staff.
The Israeli government has not made official comments regarding post-war refugee efforts.
2024-01-01 08:29:40
Earlier today, Al Jazeera reported that Israel released a group of prisoners from Ofer Prison tonight after they experienced food poisoning.
The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said in an official statement on December 31, 2023, that a large number of prisoners in Ofer Prison experienced food poisoning after being given spoiled meals.
The commission’s lawyers reportedly had difficulty visiting the prison on December 28, 2023, and there are reports that prisoners suffered severe stomach pains, diarrhoea and vomiting immediately after eating the food.
2023-12-31 23:45:05
2023-12-31 22:41:27
2023-12-31 20:26:37
2023-12-31 18:48:15
Relentless and indiscriminate Israeli bombing that Gaza has been subjected to since October 23, has left over 70% of the territory’s homes in utter destruction, Al Jazeera reported citing Gaza’s government media office.
The development concurs with theWall Street Journal's report that — via analysing satellite imagery — concluded that that Israeli airstrikes have destroyed 300,000 out of the total 439,000 Gaza homes after Israeli Air Force dropped 29,000 bombs on the beseieged strip.,
Civilian infrastrucutre has been rendered “irreparable” as Israeli bombing campaign has targeted residential areas, Byzantine churches and hospitals, the report said.
2023-12-31 17:26:23
2023-12-31 15:43:14
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday said Israel displayed unparalleled "morality" in the Gaza war and rejected South Africa’s charge that it was committing "genocidal" acts in the Palestinian territory.
"We will continue our defensive war, the justice and morality of which is without peer," Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv.
2023-12-31 15:35:16
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 31, 12:00pm local time in Gaza (10:00 GMT), 22,141 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,883 children.
Additionally, at least 60,251 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-31 15:20:49
2023-12-31 14:31:59
US Navy helicopters sank three of four small boats used by Iranian-backed Houthi fighters' to attack a merchant vessel in the southern Red Sea on Sunday, US central command (CENTCOM) said on social media platform X.
Helicopters from the USS Eisenhower and USS Gravely, responding to distress calls from the Maersk Hangzhou , returned fire on the Houthi boats in self-defence and sank three of the vessels with no survivors. The fourth boat fled the area.
2023-12-31 13:46:11
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen was cited by the Israeli daily Maariv, saying that the Israeli government is responsible for the October 7 attack and an inquiry committee must be established to pursue those responsible for their negligence.
Cohen continued, saying that reestablishing security "comes first" and that discussing settlement in the Gaza Strip is "premature."
“There will be no Hamas, and we will return the kidnapped ones. We will take security control of Gaza,” he was quoted as saying.
2023-12-31 13:23:49
Around the Gaza Strip, dozens of Israeli soldiers may have contracted the parasitic Leishmania infection, according to medical sources cited by Israel's Maariv daily.
According to the article, scores of soldiers are undergoing laboratory testing at dermatological clinics in Israeli hospitals, Al Jazeera reported.
The bite of a small sand fly can expose humans to the parasite Leishmania. Every bite causes an excruciating, inflamed skin sore that takes weeks to cure. According to Maariv, if left untreated, the lesions frequently result in permanent skin scars.
2023-12-31 12:36:37
2023-12-31 12:12:07
In the last 24 hours, Israeli jets have attacked the Lebanese towns of Bint Jbeil, Marwahin and Kfarkela, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli drones targeted a car in the village of Yaroun and artillery was shelled in the vicinities of many other Lebanese border towns.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for four attacks on Israel and said that one fighter was killed in an air strike on Bint Jbeil. An earlier statement by Hezbollah said four group members were killed in the Israeli attack.
Additionally, an Israeli air raid on Aleppo in Syria killed three people
2023-12-31 12:06:24
2023-12-31 11:37:43
At least 10 people have been injured due to Israeli artillery shelling that targeted a school housing displaced people in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel's bombardment of southern Gaza has intensified in recent weeks with the army, navy and air force targeting multiple locations in Khan Younis and Rafah.
2023-12-31 11:15:51
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says, "The number of people killed by air strikes, believed to be carried out by Israeli forces, has risen to 23."
The UK-based organisation added that those people killed in the air raids on al-Bokamal, Syria were from Iran-backed armed groups and included five Syrians and six Iraqis, Al Jazeera reported.
The reports come after Israeli air raids earlier targeted Aleppo, Syria.
2023-12-31 10:23:39
In a statement sent to journalists, Yemen's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that allegations of "a threat to submarine cables passing through Bab-Rl Mandab [strait] are incorrect."
“Yemen’s decision to prevent the passage of Israeli enemy ships does not concern ships belonging to international companies licensed by Maritime Affairs – Sana’a to execute marine cable works,” the ministry said, adding that ships “executing submarine cable works” should “obtain the necessary permits and approvals”.
The ministry stated that it was responding to claims made by "affiliated" media outlets and social media profiles with Israel.
The ministry continued, "The Yemeni government's approach is to focus on building and development telecom and internet services."
2023-12-31 09:14:36
The US mission to the UN in New York has included US support for humanitarian aid for Gaza in an end-of-year statement as “showcasing US leadership at the United Nations in 2023”.
The mission said it “managed challenges posed by the conflict in Gaza” by “both responding to Hamas' atrocious terrorist attacks against Israel and promoting humanitarian assistance and civilian safety in Gaza”.
The statement also highlighted that US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and the US mission advocated for amendments to UNSC and UNGA resolutions including the “inclusion of Israel’s right to defend itself”.
“The US remained the leading supporter of the efforts of UNRWA and other humanitarian organisations on the ground in Gaza,” the statement added.
Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for the US Department of State, said earlier this week that the US has provided more than $110 million in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7.
2023-12-31 09:05:35
The Palestine Public Broadcasting Corporation has strongly condemned Israel's reported hacking of the Voice of Palestine Radio station, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel broadcast "threatening messages directed at the people of Gaza" on the station’s 100.1 FM frequency, the broadcasting authority said in a statement.
The authority described the piracy as "a new crime against Palestinian media", which it said would "only increase our insistence on exposing the occupation’s crimes to the whole world until it is held accountable".
It also said that it would pursue charges against the Israeli army for the reported hacking.
2023-12-31 08:54:13
The United States shot down two missiles headed toward a container ship in the southern Red Sea and launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said.
A Singapore-flagged, Denmark-owned/operated container ship reported that it was struck by a missile and the USS Gravely and USS Laboon responded to the ship, CENTCOM said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
While responding, the US Navy destroyer Gravely shot down two anti-ship ballistic missiles fired from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, CENTCOM added.
The vessel is reportedly seaworthy and there were no reported injuries, CENTCOM said.
The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control much of Yemen, have disrupted world trade for weeks with attacks on ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea in what they say is a response to Israel's war in Gaza.
This is the 23rd attack by the Houthis on international shipping since November 19, CENTCOM said.
2023-12-31 08:52:05
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimates at least 100,000 people have moved into Rafah, the city located in the far south of the Gaza Strip, over the last few days.
This took place as Israeli shelling and air raids intensified in and around Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, and elsewhere in the south.
2023-12-30 23:56:02
2023-12-30 23:46:53
2023-12-30 22:51:16
The Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers on Saturday condemned the US approval of a $147.5 million sale of high-explosive artillery munitions and related equipment to Israel.
The United States announced the sale of the 155mm artillery munitions on Friday under an emergency provision that waives the normal requirement for a congressional review.
Hamas said the sale was "clear evidence of the American administration's full sponsorship of this criminal war".
President Joe Biden's administration "conspicuously aligns itself with and actively supports all atrocities perpetrated" by Israel, the group said in a statement.
Those wartime atrocities, it added, have led to the "ruthless killing of children and civilians, forced displacement of residents, and the systematic destruction of civilian life" in Gaza.
2023-12-30 22:07:29
The armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said on Saturday that an Israeli soldier being held captive by the group in Gaza had been killed in an Israeli air strike that had also wounded some of his captors.
In an audio speech broadcast by Al Araby television, a spokesperson for the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades group said the air strike took place following a failed attempt by Israeli commandos to free the soldier.
The spokesperson gave no details of when the soldier had been taken captive, or where he was being held in Gaza. He said the group is still holding the body of the slain soldier.
The Israeli military spokesperson's office declined to comment.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is the second biggest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) after Fatah.
2023-12-30 20:49:29
Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian health ministry said, after the army reported he allegedly carried out a car ramming.
The Israeli military said soldiers "neutralised" the driver who rammed the car into a military post near Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron.
An AFP journalist saw Israeli forces surrounding a vehicle with soldiers and military vehicles deployed in the area.
The Palestinian health ministry said Mohammed Masalmeh was shot dead by Israeli troops at the camp entrance.
Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported one person was moderately wounded.
2023-12-30 20:02:31
A total of 21,672 Palestinians have been killed and 56,165 have been wounded in Israeli strikes in Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Saturday.
The figures include 165 Palestinians killed and 250 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
2023-12-30 18:01:19
Death toll has risen as Israeli forces ramped up attacks across Gaza Strip, killing at least 100 Palestinians in a day.
At least 100 people were killed and 158 injured in central Gaza in the past 24 hours, Al-Jazeera quoted a health official.
Al-Jazeera also published photos after the occupation forces bombarded the az-Zawayda area of central Gaza, showing damaged buildings and locals evacuating the wounded persons from the site.
According to Wafa news agency, five Palestinians were killed including four civilians in an intense bombardment in the vicinity of the European Hospital, located southeast of the Khan Yunis today.
Another Palestinian was killed and two others sustained injuries due to heavy artillery shelling on a residence in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, it added.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society confirmed the detention of at least 14 people by the Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in overnight raids.
In a preliminary toll, over 21,500 Palestinians, the majority being women and children, were killed, 56,000 wounded and thousands still missing in the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip since October 7.
2023-12-30 16:42:09
2023-12-30 15:30:22
2023-12-30 14:49:00
Israeli forces have arrested 15 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since dawn, according to Al Jazeera citing reports fromWafa news agency.
According to the claim, two persons were detained by Israeli forces south of Hebron, beaten, and had their cars seized. In addition, they attacked a young man south of Nablus and arrested one east of Nablus.
Following a raid on the Jalazoun refugee camp north of Ramallah, Israeli troops captured ten Palestinians, including two young men from Beit Iba, west of Nablus.
2023-12-30 14:48:47
2023-12-30 14:48:30
An investigation by the New York Times has discovered that the Israeli army was "undermanned" and "out of position" during the October 7 attack by Hamas.
The Times added that the army was "so poorly organised that soldiers communicated in impromptu WhatsApp groups and relied on social media posts for targeting information. Commandos rushed into battle armed only for brief combat. Helicopter pilots were ordered to look to news reports and Telegram channels to choose targets".
From interviews with current and former military personnel, the investigation also found that Israeli forces had no response plan or training for a significant attack by Hamas, Al Jazeera reported.
"The soldiers that day made it up as they went along," the Times found.
The Israeli army did not respond to questions from the Times regarding its findings, other than to say that it was focused on defeating Hamas and that questions "of this kind will be looked into at a later stage".
2023-12-30 13:29:46
An Al Jazeera correspondent reports that Israeli forces have bombed the centre of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Israeli forces have been trying to take control of Jabalia, but they are facing strong resistance from Palestinian fighters.
2023-12-30 12:59:35
2023-12-30 12:42:23
Hamas' head of International Relations Basem Nail has released a statement condemning the international community for failing to stop the "genocidal war" in Gaza that has killed more than 21,000 people, Al Jazeera reported.
"While these crimes have been committed with Israeli hands, they were sponsored and backed up by the US administration. We, therefore, hold the Biden administration, especially in the president (Joe Biden) himself, and his foreign and defence secretaries accountable for their direct role in sponsoring and orchestrating this ongoing genocide against our people," he said in a televised statement.
"We also hold the international community accountable for their failure to stop the genocide," Naim added.
2023-12-30 12:43:47
Israeli forces are firing heavy fire and artillery shells east of the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported citing reports of a correspondent in the region.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that Israel aims to build an underground wall in Rafah, Egypt, under the pretext of preventing the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip.
2023-12-30 12:08:14
2023-12-30 11:28:56
A New Jersey man arrested in Kenya has been charged after being accused of trying to aid militant group al Shabaab, the US Justice Department said, alleging he was motivated by Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel to wage violence.
Karrem Nasr, a US citizen who moved from New Jersey to Egypt around July, was taken into custody in Nairobi on December 14 and brought to the United States on Thursday, the Justice Department said in a statement on Friday.
The 23-year-old has been charged with "attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization," which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to prosecutors in the US.
“After the October 7th events, I felt that something has changed,” Nasr told a paid FBI informant, according to a criminal complaint made public on Friday, Al Jazeera reported.
“To the better, I mean. I felt that pride and dignity came back to the Muslims.”
Nasr faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
2023-12-30 11:03:39
2023-12-30 10:52:43
Israeli forces have arrested 14 Palestinians from the Jalazoun refugee camp, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, in a raid campaign that began in the early morning hours, an Al Jazeera correspondent reported.
A video shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, shows moments after they were arrested.
The video was captioned: "Occupation forces withdraw from Jalazoun camp after a campaign of arrests and confiscation of a vehicle during an incursion that lasted for hours."
2023-12-30 10:35:24
The head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, allegedly had a network of tunnels and a hideout demolished by Israel's troops, Al Jazeera reported.
Sinwar's flat outside Gaza City was identified and destroyed by the Israeli military's 14th Reserve Brigade Combat Team "in recent weeks," according to military officials on Friday.
The Israeli military stated in a statement that the tunnel was constructed "so that it would be possible to stay inside it and conduct combat from it for long periods of time."
The Israeli military's assertion could not be independently verified by Al Jazeera.
Israeli officials have called Sinwar a "dead man walking" and charged him with being one of the masterminds behind the October 7 strikes by Hamas.
2023-12-30 10:25:13
The United Kindom’s ambassador to the United Nations (UN) in a dire warning urged action to end the humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave, as she said that "many more" people will perish in Gaza from disease, malnutrition, and violence.
During a Friday UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Gaza, Barbara Woodward said that she had learned that four out of 10 people killed in Gaza were children, recounting a conversation with Save the Children’s director for the occupied Palestinian territory
“That is close to 8,500 children dead,” Woodward said. “For those injured and surviving, nearly two-thirds of homes and schools are damaged or destroyed. Many more will die from attacks, from disease, from famine if we do not act to stop this humanitarian catastrophe.”
The UK earlier this month voted in favour of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza, which passed after the United States lobbied to weaken language regarding calls for a ceasefire, Al Jazeera reported.
London has supported Israel’s right to self-defence but has expressed growing unease at the civilian death toll in Gaza in recent weeks.
2023-12-30 09:34:48
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has reiterated his concerns that the war in Gaza will spill over into a regional conflict, according to Al Jazeera.
"There is a continued risk of wider regional conflagration, the longer the conflict in Gaza continues, given the risk of escalation and miscalculation by multiple actors," Guterres said in a statement.
Burgeoning violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces and Israeli settlers is "extremely alarming", the UN chief said, as is fighting between Hezbollah and Israel across the south Lebanon border, attacks from Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis attacking shipping in the Red Sea.
"The Secretary-General again appeals to all members of the international community to do everything in their power to use their influence on the relevant parties to prevent an escalation of the situation in the region," Stephane Dujarric, Gutteres's spokesman said in the statement.
2023-12-30 09:26:48
Mia Schem, a French-Israeli dual citizen who was released by Hamas last month after 54 days in captivity, has described going through “hell” in Gaza.
In an interview aired on Israel’s Channel 12 on Friday, Schem claimed she had witnessed Hamas fighters shooting wounded people who appeared to be still alive and that she had been operated on in a Gaza hospital without anaesthetic or painkillers.
Schem said she didn’t see the face of the man who carried out surgery on her arm for a gunshot wound but “he looked at me and he said, ‘You’re not going home alive,'” the Times of Israel reported.
She also said she felt “pure hatred” during her captivity and claimed that there was “not one” innocent civilian in Gaza, the Times said.
Schem was one of the 105 captives released during a Qatar-brokered temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last month.
2023-12-30 09:15:11
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 29, 2pm local time in Gaza (12:00 GMT), 21,823 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,879 children.
Additionally, at least 59,715 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-30 09:12:03
Gaza’s Government Media Office on Friday reported that a journalist at Al-Quds TV was killed in an Israeli air strike on his home in Nuseirat in central Gaza.
He was identified as Jabr Abu Hadros, Al Jazeera reported.
The office said that 106 journalists have been killed since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza.
2023-12-30 08:32:33
The United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has approved the sale to Israel of 155mm artillery shells and related equipment without congressional review, the Pentagon said on Friday.
According to the Pentagon, Blinken determined that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to Israel, thereby waiving congressional review requirements.
The sale comes as Israel intensifies its offensive in the Gaza Strip. The US has pressed Israel to minimise civilian casualties in Gaza and has called for it to scale down the war in the coming weeks.
The Pentagon said Israel has requested that fuses, — devices used to detonate explosives — primers and charges be included in a previous request for 155mm shells. The estimated total value of the sale is $147.5 million.
This is the second time this month that the Biden administration has skipped a congressional review of a weapons sale to Israel. On December 9, the administration used the emergency authority to allow the sale of about 14,000 tank shells to Israel.
2023-12-30 08:30:04
Fierce Israeli tank fire and aerial bombing struck Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip on Friday night, residents said, after nearly 200 people were reported killed in 24 hours in Israel's campaign against Hamas fighters.
The sound of the shooting indicated fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters in Khan Younis, some residents said. Planes also carried out a series of air strikes on the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, according to medics and Palestinian journalists.
Israeli forces have been pounding Khan Younis in preparation for an anticipated further advance into the main southern city, swathes of which they captured in early December.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said troops were reaching Hamas command centres and arms depots. The Israeli military also said it had destroyed a tunnel complex in the basement of one of the houses of the Hamas leader for Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza City.
2023-12-30 02:03:42
Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on Friday in the occupied West Bank.
A man who slammed his vehicle into people near a military post south of Hebron was "neutralised" by soldiers, the army said.
The Magen David Adom paramedic service said that it treated one person in moderate condition and three others who were lightly wounded.
The Palestinian health ministry named the alleged assailant shot by Israeli forces Amro Abu Hussein.
Later Friday, the army said soldiers "neutralised" another "terrorist" who tried to throw a bomb at a military post near the village of Abu Dis.
The West Bank has been under military occupation since the 1967 Six-Day war.
More than 520 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank this year by Israeli security forces and settlers, according to a health ministry toll, at least 314 of them since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
2023-12-30 02:03:23
South Africa filed a case on Friday against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for what it termed genocidal actions in Gaza. However, Israel rejected it "with disgust".
According to a statement, the ICJ application related to alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Genocide Convention, and said that "Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza".
In The Hague application, South Africa also says that Israel has been acting "with the requisite specific intent...to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group."
Israel rejected the charge, with Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat writing on X, formerly Twitter: "Israel rejects with disgust the blood libel spread by South Africa and its application" to the ICJ.
The Israeli offensive in Gaza is nearing its twelfth week, which has left vast areas of northern Gaza in ruins. Israeli air strikes and ground combat are focusing on the central and southern districts.
2023-12-29 23:59:40
2023-12-29 22:59:43
Addressing the UN Security Council, Palestinian envoy Majed Bamya said that the wide scale destruction of Gaza by Israeli operations has made it clear their sole goal is forced displacement.
“They want to make sure that Palestinians in Gaza have no homes to return to,” he said. They want to make sure they have no life to return.”
“They want to make sure that life in Gaza is no longer possible, with one aim, what they call ‘voluntary migration’ … the codename for forced displacement. These are the options for Palestinians: Destruction or displacement, death or displacement,” he said.
2023-12-29 22:48:58
2023-12-29 21:29:30
The rescuers in orange vests shouted as they reached a baby girl still alive in the rubble of an Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip's Rafah city after yet another night of bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.
Baby Mariam Abu Akel's skin was grey with dust and she made little noises as the rescuers reached deep into the rubble to free her legs and lift her clear.
People crowded around in the ruins of the Abu Edwan family's house, where Mariam's family had been sheltering after they fled their own home in a more dangerous area near Gaza's border with Israel.
Mariam's mother and sister were both killed in the strike along with members of the Abu Edwan family and people from other families temporarily living with them. Her father and brother Hamed, still a toddler, survived the blast.
When Mariam was lifted free, a rescuer ran with her in his arms to take her to hospital. Doctors there swabbed her cuts.
2023-12-29 20:13:56
With the Palestinian death toll surpassing the 21,000 mark, the director general of Gaza's government media has said that more than 7,000 are still trapped under the rubble due to the ongoing Israeli bombing campaign that has ravaged the besieged strip since October 7.
Furthermore, the official fears that over 29,000 people are "dead or missing" due to the Israeli offensive, reported Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, 800,000 Gazans have been left without any access to hospitals, he added.
2023-12-29 19:23:26
2023-12-29 18:09:14
The Israeli forces sprayed "skunk water" on Palestinians leaving for Friday prayer as the tensions escalate in the Wadi al-Joz area of occupied Jerusalem, Al Jazeera reported citing Wafa news agency.
The worshippers were left gasping for breath due to the strong stench of the spray.
Meanwhile, worshippers were denied entry into the Al-Aqsa Mosque and were forced to pray in Wadi al-Joz, as the Israeli forces cracked down on them using rubber-coated metal bullets.
Only 12,000 worshippers managed to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque to perform their prayer, which is a far lower number compared to 70,000 Muslims praying on a normal Friday.
2023-12-29 17:02:59
The health ministry in Gaza said Friday at least 21,507 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since war with Israel broke out nearly 12 weeks ago.
The figure includes 187 fatalities over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said. It added that 55,915 people have been wounded in Gaza during the fighting.
Since the fighting erupted on October 7, more than 80% of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been driven from their homes, according to the United Nations.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 308 people seeking shelter in their facilities have been killed during the war.
A total of 1,095 have been wounded while taking refuge at UN sites, UNRWA said on social media platform X.
2023-12-29 15:29:06
At least14 Palestinians, including a child, have been detained by the Israeli forces in aseries of raids across the occupied West Bank, reported Wafa news agency.
The forces detained Palestinians inTulkarm's village of Qaffin,Jericho's Ein as-Sultan refugee camp,Ramallah'sDeir Abu Meshaal andAl-Amaari refugee camp, Hebron'stown of Surif and Tubas'Al-Far’a refugee camp.
2023-12-29 13:37:01
Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) shared its paramedic Mohammed Saleh's, testimony about the beating and humiliation endured by him and hiscolleagues when they were arrested by the Israeli forces last week.
“We were all humiliated, we were all beaten in sensitive areas and on our heads and backs,” Saleh said.
“The Israeli forces assaulted our colleague Mohammad Abu Rukbeh. He is wounded due to the aggression and has sustained burns in his legs; he will likely need a skin transplant as one of the occupation’s soldiers threw rocks at his legs.”
2023-12-29 12:52:22
The Israeli forces will expand the ground operation in southern Gaza'sKhan Younis area against Hamas, said the military.
The army added that in one incident in Khan Younis, they identified a Hamas member some 100 metres from them after which they directed a drone strike against him, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-12-29 12:15:21
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled the meeting of the war cabinet todiscuss a deal with Hamas —negotiated by the Americans, the Qataris and the Egyptians — to exchange hostages and prisoners.
The second thing that was supposed to be discussed was what Gaza would look like the day after the war.
However,Bezalel Smotrich, from Netanyahu’s coalition party, decided to not go ahead with the meeting as he isagainst the Palestinian Authority having any rule in Gaza post the war.
Netanyahu then cancelled the war cabinet meeting and instead would leave it to the wider security cabinet meeting, which is going to take place on Tuesday.
The decision was made over fear that Netanyahu's coalition and government would befractured, risking hisposition as PM.
2023-12-29 11:45:09
Israeli forces attacked an aid convoy after it was returning from northern Gaza along a route designated by the Israeli army, said Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza.
“Our international convoy leader and his team were not injured but one vehicle sustained damage – aid workers should never be a target,” White said on X.
2023-12-29 10:46:21
Israel carried out an aerial strike targeting a main Syrian air defence base in southern Syria on Thursday in the latest bombing campaign since October 7, Syrian army and intelligence sources said.
Citing a Syrian military source, state media had earlier said missile strikes coming from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights had targeted several sites it did not identify.
"Our air defences confronted the (Israeli) aggressors' missiles and downed some of them with only material losses," a Syrian military source said.
Later, a Syrian army source was quoted on state media as saying Israel staged another round of strikes after midnight near the capital but gave no details.
2023-12-29 10:20:07
Israel's latest airstrike has reportedly killed and injured several people in Gaza'sNuseirat refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported citing reporters on the ground.
At least20 people were killed in the strike while many others missing and trapped under rubble, reportedPalestinian news agency, Wafa, citing medical sources.
2023-12-29 09:45:42
Gaza's health ministry said that 20 seriously ill patients will be allowed to travel to Egypt foremergency treatment throughRafah Crossingon Friday morning.
Among the 20 patients listed is a one-month infant girl who is suffering from a head injury, Al Jazeera reported.
There have been repeated pleas made by medical officials in Gaza, requesting thatpatients with serious medical conditions be allowed to leave Gaza for life-saving treatment.
2023-12-29 08:19:10
At least 20 Palestinians including women and children were killed in the latest deadly attack by Israel onGaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, Al Jazeera reported citing the Health Ministry in Gaza.
The ministry said that at least55 others were also wounded from the attack. Many od those injured have been taken to theKuwaiti hospital for treatment.
2023-12-29 01:07:45
A Hamas delegation will present its "observations" in Cairo on Friday on the Egyptian ceasefire plan to end the Gaza conflict, a Hamas official said.
Last week, the chiefs of Hamas and Islamic Jihad visited Cairo.
Sources close to Hamas say Cairo’s three-stage plan provides for renewable ceasefires, a staggered release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and ultimately a ceasefire to end the conflict aggravated by continuous bombardment by Israel.
It also provides for a Palestinian government of technocrats after talks involving "all Palestinian factions", which would be responsible for governing and rebuilding in battered Gaza.
The Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP on Thursday about the planned visit by the Qatar-based Hamas political office.
"A high-level delegation from the Hamas political office will visit Cairo tomorrow to meet Egyptian officials and give the response of the Palestinian factions, including several observations, to their plan," the official said.
The official said these observations focus on "the modalities of the planned exchanges and the number of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, as well as obtaining guarantees for a complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza".
Diaa Rashwan, who heads Egypt’s State Information Services, confirmed on Thursday that Cairo had put forward "a framework intended to bring together the views of all parties concerned, with the aim of ending the shedding of Palestinian blood, stopping the aggression against the Gaza Strip, and restoring regional peace and security".
"This proposal comprises three successive and interconnected stages leading to a ceasefire," Rashwan’s statement said.
Rashwan said Egypt had not yet received a response to its initiative which would be made public "in detail" when Cairo had received feedback from all concerned.
2023-12-28 23:52:15
2023-12-28 23:49:21
An Israeli air strike killed 20 Palestinians and wounded 55 others in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said on Thursday
2023-12-28 21:31:28
A hospital in Khan Younis, the largest hospital in south of Gaza and the second largest in the whole of the enclave, is operating without 80% of its staff, Al Jazeera reported citing one of the doctors working there.
Doctor Mohammed Qandil has described scenes of desperation in Nasser hospital, which is grappling with severe shortages of supplies – including anaesthetics and pain medicines.
The facility is also undergoing a severe shortage of health workers unable to provide their services due to the fighting.
“We lost around 80% of the medical staff, doctors and nurses who cannot reach the hospitals. One thing is that the hospital is unsafe: The al-Shifa Hospital scenario and other hospital scenarios were scary and they feel unsafe,” he said, referring to the Israeli siege of al-Shifa in Gaza City.
“The other reason is the displacement wave, the displacement orders. Our physicians are in a very terrible situation, they have to secure their family. The big dream now for many physicians is to have a tent to put his kids inside rather than to leave them under the sky,” he said.
“If this hospital is closed, and service is off that means that the health system in the south will be, I mean, zero almost,” Qandil said.
2023-12-28 20:17:03
Egypt confirmed on Thursday that it had put forward a framework proposal to end the bloodshed in Gaza including a three-stage plan for a ceasefire, the head of its state media body said.
Egypt is yet to get responses on the proposal from the parties involved, and will give details about the plan once those responses are received, said Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt's State Information Service.
2023-12-28 19:16:14
Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar announced Thursday that all celebrations related to the New Year are banned across the country as the South Asian nation stands in solidarity with Palestinians who have been facing the worst Israeli brutality since October 7.
In a televised address, Kakar said: “Pakistani nation is in a sad state [...] so keeping in mind the situation, the Government of Pakistan has decided to ban all celebrations related to New Year’s.”
“I appeal to all Pakistanis: show solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians and observe simplicity with the dawn of the new year,” Kakar said, noting that the situation war was catastrophic.
2023-12-28 18:29:46
A total of 21,320 Palestinians have been martyred and 55,603 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said on Thursday.
Al-Qidra added that 210 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours.
2023-12-28 17:44:41
A United Nations report published on Thursday deplored what it called a "rapid deterioration" of human rights in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and urged Israeli authorities to end violence against the Palestinian population there.
The report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said 300 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since October 7, the day when Israel's deadly war on Palestine broke out.
Most of the West Bank killings occurred during operations by Israeli security forces or confrontations with them.
At least 105 deaths could be attributed to Israeli operations involving air strikes or other military tactics in refugee camps or other densely-populated areas. At least eight people were killed by Jewish settlers, it said.
Tal Heinrich, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, dismissed the report as "quite ridiculous".
"It completely belittles the major security threats to Israelis emerging from Judea and Samaria," she said, referring to the West Bank by its Hebrew biblical names.
"Yes, we arrested hundreds of terror suspects in that area and we will continue to do whatever it takes to maintain our security."
Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force against Palestinians in the West Bank was "extremely troubling".
"I call on Israel to take immediate, clear and effective steps to put an end to settler violence against the Palestinian population, to investigate all incidents of violence by settlers and Israeli security forces, to ensure effective protection of Palestinian communities," he said.
2023-12-28 15:34:39
Two more journalists have been killed in Israeli bombings, raising the total death toll of journalists in the enclave to 105, the Government Media Office has said, according to Al Jazeera.
More than 30 people were killed in the Israeli army attack on a residential square in Beit Lahiya, including photojournalist Ahmed Khair al-Din and journalist Mohammad Khair al-Din, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
2023-12-28 14:55:01
Israel, via the United States, has proposed a new prisoner exchange deal to mediator Qatar, Al Jazeera reported citing reports from Israel’s Channel 13.
According to Channel 13, the deal would first see Israel withdraw its troops from densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip and allow far more aid to enter the enclave.
In the second phase, Hamas would release female Israeli captives, including female soldiers and the bodies of dead Israelis, as Israel retreats further into areas to be hashed out via Qatari and US mediation.
The media outlet said Hamas has “so far rejected this proposal” as it does not call for a full ceasefire while hostages are exchanged.
2023-12-28 14:37:16
2023-12-28 14:29:13
The high death toll resulting from the Israeli strike on the Maghazi camp was because the military used the wrong type of munition, earlier this week, The Times of Israel quoted an Israeli military official as saying.
“The type of munition did not match the nature of the attack, causing extensive collateral damage which could have been avoided,” said the official.
At least 90 people were killed late Sunday when Israel struck the small refugee camp in Deir el-Balah, in one of the war’s deadliest attacks.
2023-12-28 14:28:29
2023-12-28 13:32:13
An Al Jazeera correspondent has reported that at least one Palestinian has been killed and several others are injured in an Israeli bombing in the al-Wafiya neighbourhood in Khan Younis.
Meanwhile, huge explosions were heard in the northern suburbs of Gaza City amid continued Israeli artillery shelling, a correspondent said.
2023-12-28 13:01:16
2023-12-28 12:22:22
While reporting more about the overnight Israeli military raids targeting money exchange shops in the West Bank, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces “seized about $2.5 million” in total.
According to Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, Israeli forces seized the hefty amount from three exchange shops in Ramallah and two elsewhere in the West Bank.
In one case, Israeli forces blew up the safe of an exchange shop to confiscate the funds, Khan reports.
Israeli forces have designated five Palestinian money exchange shops as “terrorist organisations”, Israel’s Army Radio reports, alleging the shops have been used to transfer funds to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The Army Radio said Israeli forces had raided nine exchange office branches, arrested 20 Palestinians, and seized funds worth some $2.7 million.
2023-12-28 12:21:10
Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has announced that it has targeted an Israeli bulldozer with an “Al-Yassin 105” missile in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported.
Confrontations in Bureij between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces have been ongoing since yesterday.
2023-12-28 12:10:12
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 28, 8am local time in Gaza (06:00 GMT), 21,423 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,276 children.
Additionally, at least 58,693 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-28 10:42:23
The raid in Ramallah overnight was "unlike any other we have seen",Al Jazeera's correspondent Imran Khan said.
During the Israeli raid in Ramallah, Israeli forces allegedly targeted several homes and money exchange and jewellery shops, forcing owners to open the shops, before seizing valuables.
Khan revealed that 10 raids have taken place in the cities of Ramallah, al-Bireh, Hebron, Halhul, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem and Jericho.
He reported: "The raid in Jenin is still ongoing. The focus of the raids is money exchange shops … shops the Israelis say have been used by the resistance movement to finance their activities."
According to Khan, the last time money exchange spots were targeted was in 2016.
"The raid here in Ramallah was unparalleled. I counted at least 20 vehicles entering the city around 1am (23:00 GMT Wednesday). Then there were fierce clashes that broke out in Al-Manara Square, which is in the centre of the city.
"There was a controlled explosion around 3am (01:00 GMT). Israeli forces went into a money exchange shop and arrested the owner of the shop."
2023-12-28 10:39:16
A video, posted on Instagram by photojournalist Attia Darwish, captures two survivors of an Israeli attack as they sit on a hospital floor after being rescued from the rubble of a destroyed building.
Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit, Sanad, verified the video trending online, showing a granddaughter being comforted by her injured grandfather.
Several areas of southern Gaza, including Khan Younis and Rafah, were hit by Israeli strikes overnight, resulting in an undetermined number of casualties.
2023-12-28 10:27:26
The Israeli military confirmed that three more soldiers were killedin fighting in south and central Gaza on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported.
A 22-year-old major in Israel’s 77th Battalion, a 24-year-old captain in the 52nd Battalion’s armoured brigade, and a 32-year-old deputy commander in the 198th Battalion were among those killed.
The three seriously wounded received injuries in the same battles as the three deceased soldiers, Israel’s military said.
The UN reports that 22 Israeli soldiers were killed over Tuesday and Wednesday in Gaza, bringing the total number of Israeli forces killed in the Palestinian territory to 162 since the ground invasion began two months ago.
It was not known if the three latest deaths were included in the total death toll reported by the UN.
2023-12-28 09:35:57
One of the Palestinians who was shot by Israeli forces during a raid in Ramallah has died of his injuries,according to reports from Al Jazeera correspondents in the occupied West Bank.
The number of injuries from the Ramallah raid has risen to 15, Al Jazeera reported citing sources. At least nine others were also injured during a separate raid in Halhul city.
2023-12-28 09:31:01
2023-12-28 09:04:59
The Australian government has confirmed that two of its citizens were killed in an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera reported.
According to reports, Hezbollah has said that one of the Australians had links to the armed group, which has clashed with Israeli forces amid Israel’s war on Gaza.
When asked if the two Australians had been killed by Israeli forces, Australia’s Acting Foreign Minister Mark Dreyfus said: “As we understand it, that is correct”.
Commenting on the claims by Hezbollah, Dreyfus said: “Hezbollah has claimed this Australian as one of its fighters. Our inquiries are continuing.”
A Lebanese security official and local sources said that a Lebanese-Australian man, his wife, and his brother, were killed in the Israeli attack late on Tuesday, which targeted a residential home in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.
Dreyfus urged Australians in Lebanon to leave the country while commercial flights were still available.
2023-12-28 08:35:58
Speaking to Dubai-based news outlet Al Arabiya late on Tuesday, Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila said only eight hospitals are partially operating in the southern Gaza Strip.
Last week, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) decried the “decimation” of Gaza’s health system as a “tragedy”.
2023-12-28 04:44:44
French President Emmanuel Macron has asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday for a "lasting ceasefire" in Gaza as the Palestinian territory is suffering from aggravated humanitarian crisis as a result of continuous bombardment from Israel.
"France will work in the coming days in cooperation with Jordan to carry out humanitarian operations in Gaza," the French presidency added in a statement.
Macron, an ally of Netanyahu since the start of the war triggered by the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, told the Israeli premier of his "deepest concern" about civilian deaths and the humanitarian emergency in Gaza.
He also insisted on the importance of measures to end violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank and prevent new planned settlements.
2023-12-27 23:39:25
The population of Gaza is in "grave peril", the head of the World Health Organisation warned Wednesday, citing acute hunger and desperation throughout the war-torn Palestinian territory.
The WHO said it delivered supplies to two hospitals on Tuesday, one in the north and one in the south, with 21 out of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip no longer functioning at all.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called on the international community to take "urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril facing the population of Gaza and jeopardising the ability of humanitarian workers to help people with terrible injuries, acute hunger, and at severe risk of disease".
In a statement, the WHO said its staff reported Tuesday that the need for food "continues to be acute" across the Gaza Strip, while "hungry people again stopped our convoys today in the hope of finding food".
"WHO's ability to supply medicines, medical supplies, and fuel to hospitals is being increasingly constrained by the hunger and desperation of people en route to, and within, hospitals we reach," the statement added.
2023-12-27 23:08:31
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said its teams visited al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and al-Amal, the headquarters of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, in the south, Al Jazeera reported.
“The agency said about 50,000 people are reportedly still sheltering at al-Shifa and 14,000 are believed to be hunkering down at al-Amal,” the Qatar-based media outlet reported.
At al-Amal, WHO staff on Tuesday “saw the aftermath of recent strikes that disabled the hospital’s radio tower and impacted the central ambulance dispatch system for the entire Khan Younis area, affecting more than 1.5 million people”, it said.
The agency said it is “impossible to walk inside the hospital without stepping over patients and others seeking refuge”. Only a few functioning toilets are available in the facility, it added.
2023-12-27 22:02:22
Israel has returned the bodies of 80 Palestinians killed in the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.
Israel said it was returning the bodies after confirming that they were not Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7.
The ministry said the bodies were buried and the authorities recorded details to help with later identification. Gaza authorities were trying to figure out when and where the men were killed and who they were.
An Israeli military spokesperson said that during the war, bodies have been transported to Israel "for an identification procedure as part of our effort to locate the hostages and the missing persons".
"The difficulties in identifying those murdered make it necessary to transfer those bodies to Israel for forensic identification," and that it was in line with "routine analysis that complies with internationally accepted forensic standards" in order to rule out their identification as Israeli hostages, the spokesperson said.
The health ministry said the bodies were handed over by Israel through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. According to the Islamic Waqf, or religious affairs ministry, the bodies had been collected from the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
2023-12-27 20:54:34
2023-12-27 19:43:43
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no different from Adolf Hitler and likened Israel's attacks on Gaza to the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis.
NATO member Turkey, which supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has criticised Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza, called it a "terror state" and said its leaders must be tried in international courts.
Sharpening his rhetoric, Erdogan said Turkey would welcome academics and scientists facing persecution for their views on the conflict in Gaza, adding Western countries supporting Israel were complicit in what he called war crimes.
"They used to speak ill of Hitler. What difference do you have from Hitler? They are going to make us miss Hitler. Is what this Netanyahu is doing any less than what Hitler did? It is not," Erdogan said.
"He is richer than Hitler, he gets the support from the West. All sorts of support comes from the United States. And what did they do with all this support? They killed more than 20,000 Gazans," he said.
2023-12-27 18:55:09
Jordan's King Abdullah and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al- Sisi said after a summit in Cairo on Wednesday that they rejected any Israeli move to expel Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, state media reported.
In a statement, both leaders also said the international community should pressure Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire and allow enough aid into war-torn Gaza to ease the "tragic plight" of over 2 million people under siege there.
2023-12-27 18:18:54
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to the Middle East late next week to discuss the war in Gaza, Axios reported on Wednesday, citing five US, Israeli and Arab officials.
Axios reported that Blinken is planning to visit Israel, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
2023-12-27 17:42:34
2023-12-27 17:09:52
Gaza's health ministry Wednesday said that at least 21,110 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the war with Israel erupted on October 7.
The ministry said the toll included 195 people killed in the past 24 hours, and added that another 55,243 people have been wounded since the start of the war.
2023-12-27 16:21:07
2023-12-27 14:31:01
2023-12-27 14:08:41
2023-12-27 13:22:02
Israel has agreed “in principle” to allow Cyprus, with the support of Britain, to open up a humanitarian sea corridor into Gaza, Al Jazeera reported citing reports from Israel’s Hayom newspaper.
More supplies and equipment would enter the beleaguered Palestinian enclave through the corridor.
Up until now, it has only been able to do so through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and, more recently, the Israeli border crossing at Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom).
Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen relayed the initial approval for the corridor to his counterparts in Cyprus and the UK on Tuesday, saying it could likely begin operating “upon completion of the required preparations”, according to Hayom.
2023-12-27 13:19:04
2023-12-27 13:07:52
The Israeli army has hit 200 targets in Gaza from air, land and sea within the past 24 hours, the military posted on its website.
Earlier, Al Jazeera reported Israeli attacks on several cities in southern Gaza, including Khan Younis and Rafah
2023-12-27 12:36:00
Lebanese media reported that an Israeli strike has killed three people and injured one in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, 4km (2.5 miles) from the Israeli border.
The Israel-Lebanon frontier has seen frequent deadly exchanges of fire amid the Gaza war.
More than 150 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also more than a dozen civilians, three of them journalists. Meanwhile, on the Israeli side, at least four civilians and nine soldiers have been killed.
2023-12-27 11:40:32
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 27, 7am local time in Gaza (05:00 GMT), 21,226 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,276 children.
Additionally, at least 58,368 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-27 11:13:40
2023-12-27 11:01:51
The latest casualties reported by Israeli forces include a 23-year-old deputy company commander in the Givati Brigade and two sergeants, aged 20 and 21, in the same brigade, Al Jazeera reported.
All were killed in fighting in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military said. There were no reports of injuries in the casualty update.
According to a UN report on the situation in Gaza, 24 Israeli soldiers were reported killed in the Palestinian territory between December 22 and 26.
A total of 164 Israeli soldiers have now been killed and 874 injured since the start of Israel’s invasion of Gaza two months ago, the UN said.
It was not known if the latest three deaths were part of the death toll reported by the UN.
2023-12-27 10:47:42
Power cuts have become a fact of life in war-torn Gaza. But thanks to embedded SIM cards, Palestinians can still access the internet and maintain a channel of communication with loved ones abroad.
"Without them, we´d be cut off from the world," said Hani al-Shaer, a local journalist who depends on eSIM cards to do his live streams.
"And no one would know what was happening in Gaza," he added, just as the besieged territory on Tuesday experienced the latest in a series of telecoms breakdowns since the war began.
Human Rights Watch has warned that phone and internet disruptions in Gaza could "provide cover for atrocities and breed impunity while further undermining humanitarian efforts and putting lives at risk".
The eSIM is a software version of the chips traditionally inserted into phones to connect to cellular networks and the internet.
Embedded directly into a device, they can be activated using a QR code, which Gaza residents receive from family members living abroad.
The Gaza residents are then able to connect in roaming mode to a foreign network — often an Israeli one or sometimes Egyptian.
The eSIM has been a godsend, said Samar Labad.
2023-12-27 09:20:20
The United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons said Israel is “working to expel” the civilian population of Gaza, CNN reported.
“Israel is seeking to permanently alter the composition of Gaza’s population with ever-expanding evacuation orders and widespread and systematic attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructures” in southern Gaza, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs), Paula Gaviria Betancu, said Friday, according to a news release from the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR).
“Israel has reneged on promises of safety made to those who complied with its order to evacuate northern Gaza two months ago. Now, they have been forcibly displaced again, alongside the population of southern Gaza,” said Betancur.
Since October 7, 85% of Gaza's population, have been internally displaced, with evacuation orders limiting their reach to less than one-third of the Strip's territory.
Most IDPs live in overcrowded conditions with rising communicable diseases and struggle to access necessities, which are expected to worsen with winter.
“The only logical conclusion is that Israel’s military operation in Gaza aims to deport the majority of the civilian population en masse,” the UN official said in the release.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy responded to the UN report on his official X platform, stating that Israel had designated the Al-Muwasi area as a humanitarian zone before the ground offensive and urged Gazan civilians to evacuate there for safety.
He criticised the UN's failure to condemn Hamas' rocket attacks within the humanitarian zone on Israeli communities.
2023-12-27 09:17:37
An Israeli operation in the Palestinian Nur Shams refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank killed six people and wounded several others early Wednesday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
"Six martyrs killed by the occupation (Israel) and some who were seriously wounded were transported to the Thabet Thabet government hospital in Tulkarem," the ministry said in a short statement.
According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, six people were killed by Israeli air strikes on the Nur Shams refugee camp near the town of Tulkarem, where Israeli soldiers were also deployed.
The army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the operation.
More than 300 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since the Gaza war erupted, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry.
2023-12-27 09:08:07
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer discussed planning for the day after the Israel-Hamas war, including governance and security in Gaza, a White House official said on Tuesday.
Sullivan and Dermer also discussed efforts to bring home the remaining hostages and a transition to a different phase of the war to maximize focus on high-value Hamas targets when they met on Tuesday, the official said.
2023-12-27 08:42:50
The United Nations on Tuesday named a coordinator to oversee humanitarian relief shipments into Gaza as part of a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution adopted on Friday to boost humanitarian aid.
Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands' outgoing finance minister, will be the senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza starting on January 8, the UN said in a statement.
"In this role she will facilitate, coordinate, monitor and verify humanitarian relief consignments for Gaza," the U.N. said. She will also establish a "mechanism" to accelerate aid into Gaza through countries not involved with the conflict.
A veteran UN diplomat, Kaag previously headed an international team of weapons experts charged with overseeing the elimination of Syria's chemical stockpile.
In July she announced she would leave government because of the increasingly "toxic" environment for politicians in the Netherlands.
"We look forward to coordinating closely with Ms. Kaag and the UN Office for Project Services on efforts to accelerate and streamline the delivery of live-saving humanitarian relief to Palestinian civilians in Gaza," U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a written statement.
2023-12-27 08:17:54
United States President Joe Biden and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani discussed on Tuesday the need to release hostages held in Gaza and efforts to boost humanitarian aid, the White House said.
Qatar and Egypt were mediators between Israel and Hamas in the late November truce. Current diplomatic efforts on a new truce have yielded little public progress so far.
"The two leaders discussed the urgent effort to secure the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, including American citizens," the White House readout said, adding they also talked about increasing access to aid.
The Qatari News Agency said the emir received a phone call from Biden to discuss the latest developments and current joint mediation efforts for calming the situation in the besieged enclave to reach a permanent ceasefire.
2023-12-26 23:33:49
Senior Lebanon-based Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Tuesday that the American hands are stained with blood of Gaza's children, as the United States fails to abide by its statements about safety of civilians by continuing arms supply to Israel.
As per Al Jazeera, Hamdan while addressing a press conference in Beirut said:
"What's happening confirms Netanyahu is moving without a goal or a vision from failure to failure".
He warned all countries against dealing with Netanyahu's plans regarding so-called voluntary immigration.
"Our people are not waiting for a temporary truce but rather for a comprehensive cessation of aggression," he added.
Hamdan praised the position of the Houthis in Yemen in their support for Gaza.
"The Israeli war trio – Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, and Benny Gantz – is in a state of confusion because it has not achieved any of its declared goals," he said.
2023-12-26 23:19:06
Israel launched fresh airstrikes on Tuesday against central Gaza, where the United Nations voiced alarm over an escalation of attacks that have killed more than 100 Palestinians over two days in one part of the enclave.
The war intensified around Christmas, particularly in a central area just south of the seasonal waterway that bisects the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army told civilians to leave the area, though many said there was no safe place left to go.
"We are gravely concerned about the continued bombardment of Middle Gaza by Israeli forces, which has claimed more than 100 Palestinian lives since Christmas Eve," said UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango.
"Israeli forces must take all measures available to protect civilians. Warnings and evacuation orders do not absolve them of the full range of their international humanitarian law obligations."
2023-12-26 22:02:17
Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza will likely go on for many months, the country's military chief said on Tuesday.
"The war will go on for many months and we will employ different methods to maintain our achievements for a long time," Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi told reporters in a televised statement on the Gaza border.
"We will reach Hamas' leadership too, whether it takes a week or if it takes months," he said.
"We said from its first moments that this would be a long war because it was right to set far-reaching goals and we will reach far, that's why the duration will be long."
The duration, Halevi said, will allow the military to adapt its methods.
"Ultimately, will we be able to say that there is no enemy surrounding the state of Israel? I think that's too ambitious, but we will create a new security situation," he added.
2023-12-26 20:48:55
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer will meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday to discuss the conflict in Gaza and the return of hostages held by Islamist group Hamas, the White House said.
2023-12-26 19:51:17
A blast occurred near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday evening and all staff were unharmed following the explosion, government authorities said.
"We can confirm that around 5:20 there was a blast at close proximity to the embassy," Israeli Embassy spokesperson Guy Nir told Reuters.
Israel's foreign ministry said all staff were unharmed following the blast and Israeli authorities were cooperating with their Indian counterparts to investigate the cause of the explosion.
2023-12-26 19:29:48
Internet and telephone services were cut again across the war-torn Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel said.
"We regret to announce a complete breakdown of fixed telecommunications and internet services in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing offensive," the company said, announcing the fourth such breakdown since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.
2023-12-26 17:47:53
Israeli forces killed two more Palestinians on Tuesday in a raid on a refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The two — aged 17 and 31 — were shot dead in the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, the ministry said.
The army said it carried out a "counter-terrorism" operation in the town of Fawwar.
It said during the operation "assailants hurled rocks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at Israeli security forces".
2023-12-26 17:33:57
The casualties resulting from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have risen to at least 20,915 killed and 54,918 injured since October 7th, Al Jazeera reported citing a statement by Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra.
Moreover, the statement said 241 people had been killed in the past 24 hours and 382 injured.
2023-12-26 14:49:03
The former Israeli Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, has said that Israel has lost the war against Hamas and that victory can only be achieved when Netanyahu steps down, Al Jazeera reported.
His comments were recorded from a conversation he had with anti-government protestors in Haifa and aired on Israeli Channel 14. Many members of the audience applauded his statement.
2023-12-26 14:45:52
The Israeli army has announced a brief suspension of military activities for what it describes as humanitarian purposes in two neighbourhoods in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
The pause will reportedly take four hours and start at 10am local time (08:00 GMT).
2023-12-26 14:05:07
2023-12-26 13:52:37
2023-12-26 13:44:59
2023-12-26 13:41:42
2023-12-26 13:31:17
he Baghdad government condemned a US attack on Iraqi military positions on Tuesday that killed one Iraqi serviceman and wounded 18 other people.
The government said in a statement that the attack harmed relations between the two countries.
2023-12-26 12:14:53
Washington has rejected Tel Aviv's request to obtain Apache helicopters as it continues its ongoing war on Gaza, Israeli news outlet Yedioth Ahronoth (Ynet) reports.
“The US is currently refusing the request. However, security sources said that the last word on the sensitive issue has not yet been said, and Israeli pressure to bring more Apache helicopters to the IDF continues,” the outlet said.
According to Ynet, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant brought the issue up with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin, during his visit to Tel Aviv last week.
Austin’s visit came amid growing concern from foreign governments and international organisations over civilian deaths in Gaza and a deepening humanitarian crisis.
2023-12-26 12:00:42
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 26, 8am local time in Gaza (06:00 GMT), 20,977 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,276 children.
Additionally, at least 57,975 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army:
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-26 11:13:56
India's navy will deploy guided-missile destroyer ships in the Arabian Sea after an Israel-affiliated merchant vessel was struck off the Indian coast over the weekend, to "maintain a deterrent presence," it said late on Monday.
The Indian navy was investigating the nature of the attack on the vessel, MV Chem Pluto, which docked in Mumbai on Monday, and initial reports pointed to a drone attack, the statement said.
"Further forensic and technical analysis will be required to establish the vector of attack, including type and amount of explosive used," the statement added.
A spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry on Monday called a US claim that Iran had attacked the ship near India "baseless".
The Pentagon said on Saturday that a drone launched from Iran struck the MV Chem Pluto in the Indian Ocean. The strike came as a US-led task force was trying to counter similar challenges in the Red Sea.
"Considering the recent spate of attacks in the Arabian Sea, Indian Navy has deployed Guided Missile Destroyers, INS Mormugao, INS Kochi and INS Kolkata ...in various areas to maintain a deterrent presence," the navy statement said.
The navy said a joint investigation into the attack was being carried out by various agencies after its explosive ordnance team completed its analysis.
The vessel's crew included 21 Indians and one Vietnamese citizen.
2023-12-26 10:03:59
The Israeli military said the soldiers, aged 24 and 25, were reservists and both were killed in fighting in southern Gaza on Monday.
The military also said that two soldiers from Israel’s 82nd Battalion and an officer from the 75th Battalion were also injured in fighting in southern Gaza, while another was injured in the north of the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported.
The wounded were evacuated to receive medical treatment in a hospital in Israel, the military said.
Around 160 Israeli soldiers have now been killed since the ground invasion of Gaza began two months ago.
2023-12-26 09:59:29
US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said one of the three US soldiers injured in an attack by Iranian-backed fighters in northern Iraq had suffered critical injuries, Al Jazeera reported.
The US launched what it described as retaliatory attacks early on Tuesday morning against targets in Iraq linked to Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, which had claimed credit for the drone attack on US forces in Erbil.
2023-12-26 09:58:32
A 32-year-old former prisoner, Islambouli Riyad Badir, has been re-arrested in Tulkarem, Israel, during Israeli forces' assault on the West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Israeli forces arrested Rashad Karaja, head of the village council in Safa, west of Ramallah, and Ihsan Shtayyeh, another freed prisoner, in Ramallah's al-Masayef neighbourhood following a raid on his home.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces blew up the ground floor of the home of a Palestinian man, in the Nour Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarem, Al Jazeera reported.
Separate raids were also reported in the town of Beitunia, west of Ramallah, as well as in the city of Qalqilya.
2023-12-26 09:48:28
A member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the political group, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been arrested in Ramallah, according to Al Jazeera citing reports from the occupied West Bank.
Khalida Jarrar has been detained multiple times, the last being in September 2021, according to reports.
2023-12-26 09:49:06
Midtown New York has seen people walking the streets dressed in a sea of red, green, white, and black, the colours of the Palestinian flag.
Earlier, demonstrators assembled in front of Rockefeller Plaza's Christmas tree, carrying a monument that depicted a Palestinian lady holding a baby surrounded by rubble.
“If Jesus were to be born today in the birthplace of Christianity, he would be born in the rubble or under Israeli shelling,” the New York-based organisation Within Our Lifetime said in a post describing the protest.
2023-12-26 09:12:00
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus shared a video report on conditions inside Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, where staff are struggling to treat the dying and injured.
He said the Palestinian enclave’s health system is under “unbearable strain”.
2023-12-26 08:35:20
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the Gaza war was far from over and dismissed what he cast as false media speculation that his government might call a halt to fighting against the Palestinian enclave's Hamas Islamists.
"We are not stopping. We are continuing to fight, and we will be intensifying the fighting in the coming days, and the fighting will take long and it is not close to concluding," he told lawmakers from his Likud party, according to a statement.
Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry said Monday that at least 250 people were killed and 500 others were injured over the past 24 hours in the areas of Bureij, Nuseirat, and Al-Maghazi in central Gaza, CNN reported.
2023-12-26 08:41:08
A video taken by Al Jazeera and posted on X shows a ball of fire, followed by loud explosions, after an Israeli strike near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
According to Al Jazeera, several areas of Khan Younis have been targeted by a series of Israeli strikes in the past few hours, resulting in casualties.
Some of those who were seriously injured, including children, were also taken to Nasser Hospital amid the continuous bombardment.
2023-12-26 03:28:18
A team from the World Health Organization visited a Gaza hospital receiving casualties from attacks on a refugee camp
"WHO's team heard harrowing accounts shared by health workers and victims of the suffering caused by the explosions," the UN health agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter.
"One child had lost their whole family in the strike on the camp. A nurse at the hospital suffered the same loss," he said.
The ground at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, was covered in rows of white bags containing the bodies of the victims.
The Al-Aqsa hospital staff had reported receiving around 100 casualties from the blasts, Tedros said.
"The hospital is taking in far more patients than its bed capacity and staff can handle," he said.
"Many will not survive the wait," he warned, insisting "This latest strike on a Gazan community shows just why we need a #CeasefireNOW".
There are only nine of Gaza's original 36 hospitals that are even partially functional, according to the World Health Organization.
"We as an international community should not accept that thousands upon thousands of people, children are being blown up, being killed while they´re crossing the street, while they´re sleeping in their beds," Casey said.
"This is an unacceptable situation," he said, demanding a ceasefire. "This has to stop."
2023-12-25 23:29:35
2023-12-25 22:41:28
2023-12-25 22:11:09
A senior general with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed Monday by an Israeli strike in Syria, the military force said, vowing to avenge "this crime".
Iranian state media also reported the death of Razi Moussavi, describing him as "one of the most experienced advisors" of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Read complete story here.
2023-12-25 21:11:51
Families of hostages taken by Hamas heckled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday as he addressed parliament, vowing to bring the captives home but saying "more time" was needed.
"Now! Now!" the families chanted when Netanyahu said Israeli forces needed "more time" to increase military pressure on Gaza's Hamas rulers. Israel says 129 hostages are still held in the Palestinian territory.
2023-12-25 20:38:42
A Hamas spokesperson said the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has failed as Israel keeps bombing Gaza despite numerous resolutions being passed by the forum of more than 50 Muslim countries.
During an interview on Geo News’ programme “Capital Talk”, Hamas spokesperson Khaled Qaddoumi asked what good have the statements of OIC leaders done for the people of Gaza.
“Can’t Muslim states pressurise Israel to open the Rafah crossing?” he asked, stressing that the humanitarian crisis was spiraling every day.
2023-12-25 20:32:37
Hamas said Monday that Israel has become a “moral burden” on its backers, including the United States and the Western powers.
“Yesterday, Joe Biden demanded Netanyahu to change his cabinet [members],” Hamas spokesperson Khaled Qaddoumi said during an interview on Geo News’ programme “Capital Talk”.
He added that the Palestinian group was winning on major fronts as people across the globe were condemning Israel's deadly attacks on Gazans.
"We have won on multiple fronts. Israel is now a moral burden on its backers," he added.
2023-12-25 20:15:26
A Hamas spokesperson said Monday that the Palestinian group rejects a two-state solution to end the war with Israel.
Talking on Geo News’ programme “Capital Talk”, Hamas spokesperson Khaled Qaddoumi said if the group accepts the two-state solution, it would mean acknowledging Israel’s existence.
“If a thief comes into our house, should we give it space in it? Who is Britain to decide Palestine’s fate?” he wondered, stressing that even Pakistan’s founder Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was also against the two-state solution.
2023-12-25 19:45:21
20,674 people have been killed and 54,536 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.
2023-12-25 19:44:07
Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza will likely cost it at least another 50 billion shekels ($14 billion) in 2024 and result in a near-tripling of its budget deficit, the Finance Ministry said on Monday, projecting that fighting will last through February.
Briefing lawmakers, the ministry's deputy budget commissioner Itai Temkin said the war was expected to stretch at least two months into 2024, adding 30 billion shekels for security and another 20 billion for civilian and other expenses.
That, he told the Knesset Finance Committee, would drive up total defence spending by more than 48 billion shekels beyond what had initially been allocated.
Total budgetary spending in 2024 would rise to 562.1 billion shekels from a planned 513.7 billion and lead to a budget deficit of 5.9% of gross domestic product, up from a target of 2.25%.
With the deficit expected to widen by 75 billion shekels to 114 billion shekels next year, Temkin said the gap would require cutting other expenses or raising revenue.
He also it was not currently possible to plan for the possibility that the war against Gaza's Palestinian Hamas would stretch into March or beyond.
"It is possible that later in the year we will have to come and update it and we will have to come with updates as the war drags on," he said.
2023-12-25 18:40:10
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the Gaza war was far from over and dismissed what he cast as false media speculation that his government might call a halt to fighting against the Palestinian enclave's Hamas.
"We are not stopping. We are continuing to fight, and we will be intensifying the fighting in the coming days, and the fighting will take long and it is not close to concluding," he told lawmakers from his Likud party, according to a statement.
2023-12-25 18:11:58
Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad have rejected an Egyptian proposal that they relinquish power in the Gaza Strip in return for a permanent ceasefire, two Egyptian security sources told Reuters on Monday.
Both groups, which have been holding separate talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo, rejected offering any concessions beyond the possible release of more hostages seized on October 7.
Egypt proposed a "vision", also backed by Qatari mediators, that would involve a ceasefire in exchange for the release of more hostages, and lead to a broader agreement involving a permanent ceasefire along with an overhaul of leadership in Gaza, which is currently led by Hamas.
Egypt proposed elections while offering assurances to Hamas that its members would not be chased or prosecuted, but the Islamist group rejected any concessions other than hostage releases, the sources said. More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza.
A Hamas official who visited Cairo recently declined to comment directly on specific offers of more temporary humanitarian truces and indicated the group's rejection by repeating its official stance.
"Hamas seeks to end the Israeli aggression against our people, the massacres and genocide, and we discussed with our Egyptian brothers the ways to do that," the official told Reuters.
"We also said that the aid for our people must keep going and must increase and it must reach all the population in the north and the south," the official said.
"After the aggression is stopped and the aid increased we are ready to discuss prisoner swaps," he added.
Islamic Jihad, which also holds hostages in custody in Gaza, has echoed that stance.
An Islamic Jihad delegation led by its leader Ziad al-Nakhala is currently in Cairo to exchange ideas with Egyptian officials over prisoner swap offers and other issues, but an official said the group had set an end to Israel's military offensive as a pre-condition for further negotiations.
2023-12-25 17:13:33
2023-12-25 16:50:51
The World Health Organization (WHO) Monday said it led missions to barely functioning hospitals in northern Gaza at the weekend, describing growing desperation and starving people stripping an aid truck of supplies.
The UN health agency and its partners delivered aid, including fuel, to the devastated Al-Shifa hospital, once Gaza's biggest and most advanced medical facility, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said late Sunday on X, formerly Twitter.
What the participants in the December 23 mission witnessed was "rising desperation due to acute hunger," the top UN official said.
"Partners demand immediate scale-up of food and water to ensure population health and stability."
At Al Shifa, the WHO chief warned that "relentless hostilities and massive numbers of wounded people have brought its capacities to its knees".
He voiced hope that Saturday's delivery of 19,200 litres of generator fuel would help revive vital services at the hospital, which can currently only provide "the most basic of first aid".
2023-12-25 16:29:49
Pope Francis said in his Christmas message on Monday that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the "little Jesuses of today" and that Israeli strikes there were reaping an "appalling harvest" of innocent civilians.
In his Christmas Day "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and world) address, Francis also called the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas "abominable" and again appealed for the release of around 100 hostages still being held in Gaza.
Speaking from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to thousands of people in the square below, he took another swipe at the armaments industry, saying it ultimately controlled the "puppet-strings of war".
The 87-year-old Francis, celebrating the 11th Christmas of his pontificate, called for an end to conflicts, political, social or military, in places including Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and he defended the rights of migrants around the world.
"How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world! In their mothers' wombs, in odysseys undertaken in desperation and in search of hope, in the lives of all those little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war. They are the little Jesuses of today," he said.
He gave particular attention to the Holy Land, including Gaza, where, according to Palestinian health officials, Israeli air strikes killed at least 78 people in one of the besieged enclave's deadliest nights of Israel's 11-week-old battle with Hamas.
"May it (peace) come in Israel and Palestine, where war is devastating the lives of those peoples. I embrace them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza and the entire Holy Land," Francis said.
2023-12-25 14:44:22
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has termed the United States and “some of its allies” as primary impediments to attempts to stop the killing of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
He said while speaking at the Tehran International Conference on Palestine which was organised to rally support for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Tehran Times reported.
Hamas on October 7 killed about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel responded with a withering offensive that has killed more than 20,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry.
Read more here.
2023-12-25 13:30:34
Based on the latest developments in Gaza, according to Al Jazeera, some 100 people have been killed in the last 12 hours, with the vast majority of them women and children.
Additionally, the Israeli forces have bombed Aita al-Shaab and its surroundings in southern Lebanon.
At least 20 people were arrested after Israeli forces stormed the village of Burqa, northwest of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, Israel’s war cabinet is discussing Egypt’s proposed formula for a truce.
2023-12-25 12:09:48
2023-12-25 11:35:31
Australian batter Usman Khawaja gets some much-needed support from his skipper Pat Cummins in the wake of the ongoing controversy around his views on Israel's war unfolding in Gaza.
Cummins has termed Khawaja's views "not offensive" and a bid to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis.
The Australian captain's support for his teammate comes a day after the International Cricket Council (ICC) denied Khawaja permission to use a peace symbol on his bat and shoes during the Boxing Day match against Pakistan.
The cricketer was seen sporting a sticker on his bat and shoes showing a black dove holding an olive branch and the words 01:UDHR — a reference to Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — during a practice session ahead of the second Test match.
The 36-year-old, a Muslim, was stopped from wearing shoes emblazoned with the hand-written slogans "Freedom is a human right" and "All lives are equal" during the first Test in Perth.
Read more here.
2023-12-25 11:25:12
The Israeli military estimates that seizing Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, may take many months.
In a report published on Sunday, the Wall Street Journal cited a senior Israeli military officer as saying it could take months to assert control in the same way that Israeli forces have done in northern Gaza as Hamas is using guerrilla tactics to inflict mounting Israeli casualties.
At least 16 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the enclave over the weekend, according to the report, which coincides with an increase in Israeli military losses in Gaza.
2023-12-25 10:16:41
The Israeli army identified the two soldiers as reservist Staff Sgt Maj Nitai Meisels, a 30-year-old soldier from the 14th Armoured Brigade, and Sgt Rani Tamir, 20, from the 50th Battalion of the Nahal Brigade, Al Jazeera reported.
Both Meisels and Tamir were killed in battle in northern Gaza, the military said.
Another soldier was also seriously injured in the incident, added the statement posted on X.
2023-12-25 09:50:23
2023-12-25 09:41:34
Clergy cancelled celebrations in Bethlehem, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank city where tradition has it that Jesus was born in a stable 2,000 years ago.
Palestinian Christians earlier held a Christmas vigil in Bethlehem with candle-lit hymns and prayers for peace in Gaza instead of the usual celebrations.
No large tree was the usual centrepiece of Bethlehem's Christmas celebrations. Nativity figurines in churches were placed amid rubble and barbed wire in solidarity with the people of Gaza.
2023-12-25 09:30:17
Israeli strikes that began hours before midnight persisted into Christmas Day on Monday. Residents and Palestinian media said Israel stepped up air and ground shelling against al-Bureij in central Gaza.
At least 70 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting Maghazi in central Gaza, health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said, adding that many were women and children.
The Israeli army said it was reviewing the report of a Maghazi incident and was committed to minimising harm to civilians. Hamas denies the Israeli charge that it operates in densely populated areas or uses civilians as human shields.
The Palestinian Red Crescent published footage of the wounded being transported to hospitals. It said Israeli warplanes were bombing main roads between central Gaza, hindering the passage of ambulances and emergency vehicles.
Medics said a separate Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed eight Palestinians.
2023-12-25 09:19:21
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 24, 2am local time in Gaza (12:00 GMT), 20,727 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,276 children.
Additionally, at least 57,975 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,139 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-24 23:43:46
2023-12-24 23:15:17
Palestinians held by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip had suffered torture, two freed detainees and a medic said Sunday, a charged denied by the military.
The two men were among hundreds detained by Israeli forces over alleged links with armed group Hamas during Israel's ongoing ground offensive in the besieged territory.
About 20 men released from Israeli custody "have bruises and marks of blows on their bodies", Marwan al-Hams, hospital director in the southern city of Rafah, told AFP.
Hams said the freed Palestinians were admitted to Al-Najjar hospital upon their release.
The Israeli army rejected the claims, saying detainees are "treated in accordance with international law".
"While detained, the suspects are given sufficient food and water and treated according to protocol," the army told AFP in a statement.
Nayef Ali, 22, said he was detained in Gaza City's eastern Zaitun suburb and later taken to an Israeli detention facility, and showed cuts on his wrists and other parts of his body.
"They (Israeli troops) tied our hands behind our backs for two days," he said.
"We were not allowed to eat or drink, neither were we allowed to use the toilet," he added.
"There were only beatings and beatings."
Ali said the detainees were put in an area along the border with Israel where it was "freezing cold".
"They threw cold water on us before transferring us to a prison, where it was again torture and beatings."
Khamis al-Bardini, 55, also alleged torture by Israeli soldiers, saying they poured "cold water on our heads through the night" along with "beatings during the day".
2023-12-24 21:15:13
2023-12-24 20:31:45
A delegation from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, a group allied with Hamas which is known to be holding some of the Israeli captives in Gaza, has arrived in Cairo for talks with Egyptian security officials, a member of the group with knowledge of the talks told Reuters on Sunday.
The talks will centre on "ways to end the Israeli aggression on our people," said the official from the Iran-backed group, which has so far rejected any new prisoner-swap deals with Israel before the latter ends its military offensive in the Palestinian enclave, home to 2.3 million people.
2023-12-24 19:46:36
Some 8,000 Palestinian fighters have been martyred in the ongoing battle in Gaza, an Israeli military spokesperson gave an account for the casualties their army has caused to the war opponents.
He said that the figure was drawn from accounts of targeted strikes and battlefield tallies as well as the interrogations of captives.
2023-12-24 18:20:47
As the war rages on, Christians around the world celebrate Christmas Eve, and festivities are usually held in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem where they believe Jesus was born.
But this year the city is almost deserted, with few worshippers around and no Christmas tree erected, after church leaders decided to forego "any unnecessarily festive" celebrations, in solidarity with war-afflicted Palestinians.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas voiced hope Christmas would mark "a cessation of the Israeli war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, as well as across the occupied Palestinian territories".
2023-12-24 17:11:09
2023-12-24 16:31:36
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the war in Gaza was exacting a "very heavy price" as the toll of Israeli soldiers killed in fighting with Hamas mounted.
"This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza... The war is exacting a very heavy price... but we have no choice but to keep fighting," he said in a statement, after the army announced 14 soldiers had been killed in the Palestinian territory since Friday.
"We are continuing with full force until the end, until victory, until we achieve all of our goals: the destruction of Hamas, the return of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to the State of Israel," Netanyahu said.
2023-12-24 15:30:25
Following weeks of fierce warfare, the Israeli army declared that its forces were almost in operational control of northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
According to military spokesman Jonathan Conricus, “we focus our efforts against Hamas in southern Gaza”, at this time.
New strikes hit Khan Younis and Jabalia, according to Hamas.
According to the Israeli army, it has hit over 200 locations in Gaza in the last day and has killed nine more soldiers, for a total of 152 soldiers killed in the territory since the military assault started.
2023-12-24 15:02:45
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed reports that the United States had convinced Israel not to expand its military activity during a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
"I have seen false publications claiming that the US prevented and is preventing us from operational operations in the region," Netanyahu said, without elaborating on the reports. "This is not true. Israel is a sovereign state. Our decisions in the war are based on our operational considerations, and I will not elaborate on that."
The Wall Street Journal on Saturday reported that Netanyahu was persuaded by US President Joe Biden not to attack the militant Hezbollah group in Lebanon out of concerns it would launch an attack on Israel, similar to the October 7 rampage by Hamas in Gaza on Israel's southern communities.
Netanyahu insisted on Sunday that Israel's actions are "not dictated by external pressures."
"The decision on how to use our forces is an independent decision of the IDF and no one else," Netanyahu said.
2023-12-24 14:51:36
Jordanian media reported that a Jordanian citizen, identified as Mohammad Barakat, was shot dead in the German city of Hamburg over his pro-Palestine posts on social media.
Jordanian Khaberni News website said that Barakat’s family communicated with the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding further details on the crime. They also demanded to know the identity of the perpetrator.
The 21-year-old was a student studying information technology in Hamburg, Germany. His family received a phone call informing them that he was killed earlier this week.
Al Arabiya cited relatives of Barakat as stating that security forces in Germany did not provide enough information on the crime. The family only knew that two bullets killed Mohammad in his head.
The family added that Mohammad has been active in voicing his support for the Palestinian people. He posted a lot about the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it is following the issue.
2023-12-24 13:05:42
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 24, 09:00am local time in Gaza (07:00 GMT), 20,561 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,276 children.
Additionally, at least 57,975 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,139 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-24 12:56:26
2023-12-24 12:51:26
2023-12-24 11:48:54
The Israeli army in Gaza has experienced a challenging weekend, with five soldiers killed on Friday and eight killed on Saturday, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent, Alan Fisher.
He revealed that the Israeli army has claimed that Palestinian fighters have been shooting at Israeli troops as they targeted tunnels. The eight soldiers killed on Saturday were killed by guided missiles, rocket fire, and fierce exchanges in the Gaza Strip.
The Israelis have suggested that in northern Gaza, they had military control.
According to Fisher, the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza, characterised by ongoing soldier losses and rocket fire towards Israel, suggests a lack of control, potentially prolonging the current phase of the war.
According to defense minister Yoav Gallant, this could continue into February before transitioning to a new phase. The ground facts suggest that this phase may continue for longer.
2023-12-24 12:03:16
US President Joe Biden said that he did not ask for a ceasefire in a call with Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu, Al Jazeera reported.
“I had a long talk with Netanyahu today and it was a private conversation,” Biden told reporters on Saturday. “I did not ask for a ceasefire,” he said in response to a shouted question.
2023-12-24 11:21:06
Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid says “there is no trust between the security and political systems”, referring to the Israeli government’s treatment of the army, Israeli daily Maariv quoted him as saying.
“The army knows that there is a government above it that would be happy to blame it. This is a situation that in the long run is impossible at the national level.”
2023-12-24 11:09:30
The Israeli military said on Sunday eight soldiers had been killed in the Gaza Strip, bringing to 154 its published combat losses since ground incursions began on October 20.
2023-12-24 11:04:01
2023-12-24 10:52:51
2023-12-24 10:40:27
Homemade explosives have been used against the Israeli military in Tulkarem, while armed fighting between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers is reported in Nablus, according to Al Jazeera.
Israeli forces have also stormed Beit Awa south of Hebron and arrested Palestinians.
Israeli forces have been conducting overnight raids across the occupied West Bank, starting early this morning when a convoy led by bulldozers entered Tulkarem.
Raids have also been reported in Bethlehem, the town of Beita just south of Nablus, and the towns of Sa’ir and Karma near Hebron.
2023-12-24 10:35:54
The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) says that anti-ship ballistic missiles were fired from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen into international shipping lanes in the southern Red Sea.
The US warship shot down “four unmanned aerial drones” that were “inbound to the USS LABOON,” CENTCOM wrote on X. No injuries were reported in the incident.
It reported further attacks on two vessels – one Norwegian-flagged and one Indian-flagged – in the Red Sea, bringing the total number of Houthi attacks on commercial ships to 15 since October 7.
The Iran-backed Houthis have been waging a campaign of missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza.
2023-12-24 10:21:33
Authorities in Gaza have announced the killing of Ahmad Jamal Al Madhoun, the deputy director of the Al Rai Agency, in an Israeli air attack, Al Jazeera reported.
His death brings the total number of journalists killed in Gaza since October 7 to 101, according to the Gaza government’s media office, while more than 50 media offices have been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli attacks.
Al Jazeera Arabic’s cameraman Samer Abudaqa is also among the dead.
Tim Dawson, the deputy general secretary at the International Federation of Journalists, told Al Jazeera of the “extraordinarily high number” of journalists killed in Gaza.
He said that we haven’t “seen a death toll of journalists to this concentration in any conflict that I can think of”.
2023-12-24 09:42:03
Israel battled Hamas fighters on Saturday in pursuit of its elusive goal of full control of northern Gaza after the UN Security Council (UNSC) appealed for more aid for the Palestinian enclave but stopped short of demanding a ceasefire.
Israel's chief military spokesperson said that its forces had achieved almost complete operational control of northern Gaza and were preparing to expand the ground offensive to other areas in the Strip, with a focus on the south.
US President Joe Biden discussed the situation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, the White House said. Israel's main ally has kept up its support while expressing concern over the growing casualty toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Biden declined to detail his conversation with Netanyahu, telling reporters it was a "private conversation."
But, he added: "I did not ask for a ceasefire."
Biden and Netanyahu talked in detail about Israel’s military operations in Gaza including “its objectives and phasing,” the need to protect civilian lives and securing the release of hostages being held captive, the White House said.
US officials have said they want and expect Israel soon to shift its military operations in Gaza to a lower-intensity phase during which there will be more targeted operations focused on the Hamas leadership and its infrastructure.
Now, the president is at Camp David where he is going to be paying attention to events over the Christmas holiday weekend because the war is still very much under way.
2023-12-23 23:58:20
Jerusalem’s church leaders on Saturday defended a meeting with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog that sparked criticism from Palestinians, saying they used it to demand an end to bloodshed in Gaza.
A statement from the president’s office announced the meeting on Thursday, quoting Herzog as saying that he expected the "Christian world to express clear condemnation" of the October 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel.
In a joint statement defending the meeting, the church leaders said the meeting was "not a mere exchange of holiday season pleasantries".
It was aimed, they said, at "demanding, on behalf of Christians worldwide, an immediate cessation of the bloodshed in Gaza".
2023-12-23 23:25:51
2023-12-23 23:08:43
Iran’s deputy foreign minister on Saturday dismissed US accusations that Tehran was involved in attacks by Yemeni rebels on commercial ships, saying the group was acting on its own.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Huthi rebels have launched more than 100 drone and missile attacks, targeting 10 merchant vessels in the Red Sea, according to the Pentagon, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
"The resistance (Huthis) has its own tools ... and acts in accordance with its own decisions and capabilities," Iran’s deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri told Mehr news agency.
"The fact that certain powers, such as the Americans and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement ... should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region," he added.
2023-12-23 22:35:35
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday slammed the "inefficacy" of international bodies to halt the ongoing Israeli aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip.
Raisi’s remarks came a day after the United Nations Security Council approved a much-delayed resolution demanding aid be allowed into the besieged territory "at scale".
The resolution also urged the creation of "conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities", without calling for an immediate end to the fighting, triggered by Hamas attacks on southern Israel.
Iran has called the vote "positive but insufficient".
2023-12-23 21:32:00
2023-12-23 20:58:45
The Palestinian health ministry issued a statement on Saturday saying at least 201 Palestinians have been killed and 368 others injured in Gaza over the past 24 hours.
Since October 7, the total death toll of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in the impoverished strip has reached 20,258 people, with 53,688 more injured, the statement added.
2023-12-23 20:23:41
Palestinian group Hamas issued a statement on Saturday saying it has lost contact with the group responsible for five Israeli hostages being held captive in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli bombardment.
The group believes the hostages were killed during an Israeli raid, Abu Ubaida, the spokesman of Hamas' armed wing Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades was quoted as saying.
2023-12-23 19:30:52
Israel battled Hamas fighters on Saturday in pursuit of its elusive interim goal of full control of northern Gaza after the UN Security Council appealed for more aid for the Palestinian enclave but stopped short of demanding a ceasefire.
Thick smoke hung over the northern town of Jabalia — which is also home to Gaza's largest refugee camp — and residents reported persistent aerial bombardment and shelling from Israeli tanks, which they said had moved further into the town.
Hamas' armed wing Al Qassam Brigades said it had destroyed five Israeli tanks in the area, killing and injuring their crews, after reusing two undetonated missiles launched earlier by Israel.
2023-12-23 19:06:09
2023-12-23 19:04:56
2023-12-23 17:42:59
The presidents of Egypt and Iran discussed recent developments in Gaza and the prospect of restoring diplomatic ties between their two countries in what Iranian state television said on Saturday was their first phone call.
The television said Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had called his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The two men met in November for the first time on the sidelines of the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit in Riyadh.
"Raisi said Iran was ready to provide all its capacities to stop the genocide by the Zionist regime and send aid to the Palestinians," Iranian state TV reported, adding that it was the first time the two presidents had spoken by phone.
2023-12-23 16:59:22
An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said the Mediterranean Sea could be closed if the United States and its allies continued to commit "crimes" in Gaza, Iranian media reported on Saturday, without explaining how that would happen.
"They shall soon await the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, (the Strait of) Gibraltar and other waterways," Tasnim quoted Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, coordinating commander of the Guards, as saying.
Iran has no direct access to the Mediterranean itself and it was not clear how the Guards could attempt to close it off, although Naqdi talked of "the birth of new powers of resistance and the closure of other waterways".
"Yesterday, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz became a nightmare for them, and today they are trapped [...] in the Red Sea," Naqdi was quoted as saying.
2023-12-23 16:05:13
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has called for the formation of an international delegation to visit Israeli prisons, Al Jazeera reported.
Approximately 8,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, subjected to systematic torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearance, and premeditated killing.
2023-12-23 14:59:01
An Israel-affiliated merchant vessel off India's west coast was struck by an unmanned aerial vehicle, causing a fire, British maritime security firm Ambrey said on Saturday.
The fire on the Liberian-flagged chemical products tanker was extinguished without crew casualties in the incident 200 km (120 miles) southwest of Veraval, India, it said.
"Some structural damage was also reported and some water was taken onboard. The vessel was Israel-affiliated. She had last called Saudi Arabia and was destined for India at the time," the firm said on its website.
It said the Indian navy was responding. The navy did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
2023-12-23 14:56:15
An Al Jazeera correspondent has reported that dozens of people have been killed in an Israeli bombing targeting Jabalia in northern Gaza.
The correspondent added that people are unable to reach the injured to treat them.
2023-12-23 14:46:05
Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says Israeli forces continue to detain their colleagues from the Jabalia ambulance centre in northern Gaza.
2023-12-23 14:00:33
Ayman Safadi is set to visit Doha today to “intensify efforts” to help end the Gaza war, the Jordanian foreign ministry said in a statement posted on X.
Safadi’s visit will include meetings with Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the statement said.
2023-12-23 13:51:24
US President Joe Biden said on Friday he was "heartbroken" by the news that an American named Gadi Haggai is believed to have been killed by Hamas on October 7 when it attacked Israel.
Haggai, a 73-year-old Israeli-American man, was previously thought to have been taken hostage in the attack, along with his wife. A group representing hostages' families had said earlier on Friday that Haggai died in captivity.
"Jill (Biden) and I are heartbroken by the news that American Gadi Haggai is now believed to have been killed by Hamas on October 7. We continue to pray for the well-being and safe return of his wife, Judy," the US president said in a statement released by the White House.
Judith Weinstein, the wife of Haggai, is still being held hostage in Gaza, according to Israeli media outlet Haaretz.
The Biden statement gave no further details about what happened to Haggai.
According to an official Israeli tally, 129 people remain held in Gaza after the rest were repatriated in a November truce or recovered during a military offensive. Of those still in Gaza, 22 are dead, the Israeli government says.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that between five and 10 of the hostages hold US citizenship.
2023-12-23 13:40:42
Director of UNRWA affairs Thomas White says more than 150,000 people are impacted due to Israel’s latest evacuation orders for people in central Gaza to move to Deir al-Balah, “to expand ongoing military operation”.
He wrote on X the area is “already overwhelmed with displaced including UNRWA shelters”.
2023-12-23 13:37:36
A delegation from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is set to arrive today in Cairo, according to Al Jazeera citing Israeli Broadcasting Authority reports.
Earlier this week, one of the group’s officials said that the visit was planned to discuss ways to stop the war in Gaza and a new deal to release the remaining captives inside the Strip.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh arrived in the Egyptian capital on Wednesday to hold talks with Egyptian officials.
Hamas officials have repeatedly said that there won’t be any agreement without a permanent ceasefire, a condition that Israel has ruled out. However, media reports have indicated that talks for another short-term truce may be underway.
2023-12-23 12:37:12
2023-12-23 12:26:03
2023-12-23 12:23:04
Israeli forces are trying to advance into the city of Jabalia from the west and east, and have disrupted all lines of communication in the region, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent.
The correspondent also said there was heavy Israeli bombing on the al-Jarn area in Jabalia.
2023-12-23 12:18:59
"All day yesterday and overnight, there were more relentless air attacks in the Gaza Strip – mainly refugee camps – that concentrated on the central part," Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said.
Mahmoud revealed that more residential blocks were targeted directly and destroyed, resulting in more displaced Palestinians.
Additionally, many ended up going to areas designated safe by the Israeli military in Deir al-Baleh (in central Gaza) but the area came under heavy bombardment and artillery shelling in the early hours of this morning.
He said: "It completely shatters any sense of safety and security."
"Once again, people are saying this narrative about designated safe areas (in Gaza) is contradictory, vague and confusing for them."
2023-12-23 11:31:46
2023-12-23 11:21:29
Journalist Hani al-Shaer has shared a video on Instagram showing the impact of destruction on Thursday caused by Israeli warplanes targeting a house belonging to the Dheir family in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.
2023-12-23 10:07:31
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is urging the FBI and US State Department to investigate the detention of 13-year-old Malik Jaffal in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
Jaffal was released from Israel’s Ofer military prison on Wednesday after Israeli forces arrested him on December 13 and tried to get him to falsely confess to throwing stones at the army, his family told NBC News. He also was shot in the arm by Israeli forces last month.
In a statement on Friday, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said the Israeli government “has shown its utter disregard for the basic human and civil rights of both Palestinians and [an] American”.
“We call on the State Department and the FBI to investigate this incident and take the appropriate action that we failed to take when the Israeli government murdered American citizen and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in broad daylight.”
Palestinian women and children released from Israeli prisons as part of a Gaza truce deal last month have said they were subjected to a range of abuses, including a lack of food, beatings and intimidation.
2023-12-23 09:57:06
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the way Israel is conducting its operation is “creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian assistance” in Gaza, where the United Nations says the aid available is just 10 per cent of what is needed.
Israel says 5,405 aid trucks — bearing food, water and medical supplies — have entered Gaza since the war started.
2023-12-23 09:54:42
The New York Times on Friday reported according to an analysis of visual evidence that during the first six weeks of the war in Gaza, Israel routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians.
The video investigation focuses on the use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area of southern Gaza where Israel had ordered civilians to move for safety.
While several Western militaries use bombs of that size, munitions experts say they are almost never dropped by US forces in densely populated areas anymore, the report said.
The Times used an artificial intelligence tool to scan satellite imagery of south Gaza for bomb craters, 40 feet across or larger. The tool identified 208 craters, but due to limited satellite imagery and variations in bomb effects, many cases were not captured.
Munition experts estimate that only 2,000-pound bombs form such craters in Gaza's sandy soil.
However, the findings reveal that 2,000-pound bombs posed a pervasive threat to civilians seeking safety across south Gaza.
In response to questions about the bomb’s use in south Gaza, an Israeli military spokesman said in a statement to The Times that Israel’s priority was destroying Hamas and “questions of this kind will be looked into at a later stage.” The spokesman also said that the IDF “takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.”
But US officials have said that Israel should do more to reduce civilian casualties while fighting Hamas.
The Pentagon increased shipments to Israel of smaller bombs that it considers better suited to urban environments like Gaza. Still, since October, the United States has also sent more than 5,000 MK-84 munitions — a type of 2,000-pound bomb.
2023-12-23 09:09:31
At least 10,000 Gazan children under the age of five are expected to experience the "most life-threatening form of malnutrition" in the coming weeks, according to a warning from UNICEF, the UN agency for children, as iturged the need for emergency food supplements.
In addition, UNICEF raised worries about the health of over 135,000 children under two and over 155,000 pregnant and nursing Palestinian women who remain within the besieged Gaza Strip, where the food and health infrastructures are in the process of "complete collapse."
“We need an immediate and long-lasting humanitarian ceasefire so that humanitarian actors can support the strengthening and restoring of essential services across the Gaza Strip,” UNICEF said in a statement.
“We need the restoration of critical infrastructure, including hospitals, so young children, pregnant women and injured patients can safely access life-saving treatment and care,” it said.
2023-12-23 00:04:11
The Red Cross said Friday that it had appointed Pierre Krahenbuhl, a controversial former head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, as its director-general.
The Swiss national, with more than 30 years of experience in the humanitarian sector, will take over in April, when current chief Robert Mardini completes his four-year term.
"The Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has appointed Pierre Krahenbuhl as the organisation’s next director-general," it said in a statement.
Krahenbuhl, 57, has spent 25 years in prominent roles at the ICRC and is currently serving as secretary-general to the ICRC assembly.
2023-12-22 23:43:06
Israel will continue to inspect humanitarian assistance to the war-torn Gaza Strip, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Friday, after a UN Security Council vote demanding aid deliveries at scale.
"Israel will continue to inspect, for security reasons, all humanitarian assistance to Gaza," Cohen said in a statement.
2023-12-22 22:41:43
The UN Security Council approved a toned-down bid to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza and sought steps to create conditions to end fighting on Friday, hours after Israel signalled it was widening its ground offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
The United States, which is Israel's main ally and had threatened to veto the Security Council motion during days of wrangling, chose instead to abstain after language was changed on ending hostilities and monitoring aid, a move that let the vote go through.
The adopted Security Council resolution "calls for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities." The initial draft had called for "an urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities" to allow aid access.
The resolution also no longer diluted Israel's control over all aid deliveries to Gaza. Israel monitors the limited aid deliveries via the Rafah crossing from Egypt and the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.
Before the UN vote, Israel said 5,405 aid trucks — carrying food, water and medical supplies — have entered Gaza since the start of the war. Aid groups say only a fraction of what is needed is coming in. A report by a UN-backed body said on Thursday the risk of famine is growing every day.
2023-12-22 21:43:25
The United Nations Security Council was poised on Friday to vote on a much-delayed and watered-down resolution to boost aid to Gaza after Washington signaled it was ready to back the measure.
After days of delays, the latest version seen by AFP calls for the "unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale" and the creation of "conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities." It does not call for an immediate end to fighting.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters Thursday evening that "if the resolution is put forward as is, then we can support it."
She denied that the draft resolution had been watered down, saying it was "very strong" and "fully supported by the Arab group."
Diplomatic wrangling at United Nations headquarters in Manhattan — causing the vote to be postponed several times this week — has come against the backdrop of deteriorating conditions in Gaza and a mounting death toll.
"Some of this language is slightly absurd," said International Crisis Group analyst Richard Gowan.
"Other Council members have to decide if they will swallow a weak text for the sake of a deal, or if this is just too thin to bother with."
2023-12-22 20:39:57
The European Commission on Friday said it had adopted a 118 million euros ($130 million) aid package to support the Palestinian Authority.
The commission said the aid would help pay salaries and pensions of civil servants in the West Bank, social allowances for vulnerable families and the payment for medical referrals to East Jerusalem hospitals.
The EU is also ready to continue helping the Palestinian Authority in the longer term, commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
"We are reflecting on a wider mid-term package for next year to contribute to the economic and political stability of Gaza and the West Bank, once conditions allow on the ground, as part of wider international efforts to reinstate a two-state solution," von der Leyen said in a statement.
2023-12-22 19:34:36
2023-12-22 18:31:55
2023-12-22 18:03:32
A US dual national who was among some 240 people seized during the October 7 cross-border rampage by Hamas in southern Israel has died in captivity in the Gaza Strip, a group representing hostages' families said on Friday.
Gadi Haggai, 73, also held Israeli citizenship, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said. Drawing on various information sources, an Israeli government-appointed committee has been declaring some hostages dead in absentia.
2023-12-22 17:01:13
Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday to discuss ways to de-escalate the conflict in Gaza as well as humanitarian relief efforts, the Kremlin said.
It said the two men agreed that Abbas would visit Russia at a date to be agreed.
2023-12-22 16:22:57
2023-12-22 15:39:44
Forty per cent of the people in Israel want US President Joe Biden to be re-elected in 2024, compared with about 26 per cent who prefer rival Donald Trump, the Times of Israel reported, citing a new survey.
The poll showed a big swing among Israelis compared with 2020 when more than 60 per cent of them preferred Trump as US president and 17 per cent backed Biden.
The steep decline in support for Trump may be linked to his criticism, among others, of the Israeli military and political leadership for its alleged failures in preventing the October 7 Hamas attack, Al Jazeera reported.
This is the first time in at least two decades that the Israeli public appears to favour a Democratic presidential candidate over a Republican, the Times reported.
2023-12-22 14:31:37
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 22, 09:00am local time in Gaza (07:00 GMT), 20,360 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,076 children.
Additionally, at least 57,975 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,139 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-22 13:52:07
2023-12-22 13:42:09
The Israeli army has given instructions to residents in several areas in the north and centre of the Gaza Strip to “immediately move to shelters in Deir al-Balah”, Al Jazeera reported.
It also said that “a tactical and temporary suspension of military activities for humanitarian purposes” will come into effect for four hours starting from 10 am [8:00 GMT].
It won’t be possible to pass through the Salah al-Din Street, but via the Al-Rashid (Al-Bahr) Street, it added.
While the Israeli military has repeatedly issued similar instructions, extensive reports from the ground show that places or routes that the army indicated as safe have been targeted.
2023-12-22 13:00:15
The Palestinian news agency has reported that Israeli army air raids killed eight civilians in residential homes in Rafah.
Israeli air raids have killed another six civilians in Khan Younis, according to local sources.
Meanwhile, rescue and ambulance crews retrieved nine bodies in Jabalia town, including a mother and her five daughters following the Israeli bombing, Al Jazeera reported.
Within the past 24 hours, about 30 people have been killed in Jabalia town and Jabalia refugee camp, with dozens more wounded, Wafa reported.
2023-12-22 12:42:01
The northern part of Rafah was subjected to heavy, relentless bombardment where more residential homes were targeted and destroyed.
At least six people in these two residential homes were killed and the number is expected to go higher as it is feared that people are still under the rubble.
Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported: "Both eastern and central Khan Younis are becoming the site of major bombardment of artillery shelling. There was constant bombardment last night of all the refugee camps in central Gaza Strip – Bureij, Maghazi as well as Nuseirat.
"The northern part of Gaza – Jabalia town and Jabalia refugee camp, along with the northern district of Gaza City – were targeted and destroyed."
He also revealed that the Ministry of Health Director-General Munir al-Bursh was sheltering in his sister’s house, which was targeted.
He was critically injured, and family members were also injured, but his daughter was killed in the attack on the residential home.
2023-12-22 12:14:51
2023-12-22 11:53:01
2023-12-22 11:02:54
Friday prayer will start in just a few hours and, as every weekend since the start of the war, thousands of Palestinians will be prevented from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Al Jazeera reported.
“Every week there is tear gas, and the reason why is that they are preventing the majority of worshippers from attending the holy prayer – they [Israeli forces] say to reduce clashes as it’s under a state of emergency,” Al Jazeera’s Sara Khairat said, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem.
Since October 7, there has been a dramatic drop in the number of worshipers allowed inside the holy compound: from up to 70,000 to as low as 4,000, Khairat said.
“This is part of the restriction on the movement of Palestinians, not just for Friday prayers, but for the entire old city,” she added.
2023-12-22 10:51:47
The Ministry of Health in Gaza says 390 Palestinians have been killed and another 734 people have been injured in the past 48 hours while communications were suspended, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-12-22 10:31:50
Gaza’s civil defence workers and civilian volunteers worked through the night to recover bodies and look for survivors, after another Israeli strike on the southern city of Rafah.
According to a post on the Palestinian civil defence’s Facebook page, which was verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit, Sanad, Israeli forces struck the residential buildings belonging to the Dhair family, northwest of Rafah, and the Kurdish family in Rafah’s Yabna refugee camp.
The post on Facebook reads: "Civil defence teams retrieve several bodies and rescue several injured after the Israeli occupation forces targeted the house of Dhair family northwest of Rafah. Several people were also rescued from the rubble of the Kurd family residence in Yabna refugee camp."
2023-12-22 10:05:48
The credibility and power of Hamas have increased significantly in the two months since the October 7 terror assault and the start of Israel's military assault in the Middle East and abroad, according to a rush of fresh assessments from US intelligence agencies.
According to CNN, the assessments suggest that Hamas has emerged as the sole armed group fighting against Israel's relentless air campaign in Gaza, claiming to be a defender of the Palestinian cause and an effective fighter against Israel, as thousands of civilians have been killed.
Officials have varying assessments of the group's effectiveness.
Hamas has also been credited with negotiating the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel in exchange for some of the hostages it holds from the October 7 attack on southern Israel, according to sources.
Additionally, Hamas videos, portraying the group as moral fighters following Islamic teachings,coupled with a flood of devastating images of civilian suffering inside Gaza, have gone viral on Arab social media.
Before October 7, a senior administration official said, “Hamas [was] not a wildly popular organisation. Today it’s more popular.”
However, the US intelligence agencies have raised concerns that teh conflict may do more to boost Hamas’ influence outside of Gaza than within it, where years of poor governance have bred mistrust.
2023-12-22 09:53:01
Israel’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire has Canada and its allies “increasingly concerned” that Tel Aviv is damaging chances for a long-term peace, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said.
In the long run, it may even erode support for Israel, Trudeau said in a year-end interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), released on Thursday.
"The voices from Israel's strongest friends, like Canada, like Australia, especially like the United States are becoming increasingly concerned that the short-term actions being taken by Israel are actually putting at risk the long-term safety and even support for a Jewish state into the future," he said.
Trudeau’s words were similar to those made by US President Joe Biden, who warned last week that Israel is “starting to lose that (allies) support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
The casualties since Hamas hit Israel with a surprise attack on Oct. 7 are appalling.
The Palestinian Health Ministry, run by Hamas, said nearly 20,000 Palestinians have died and 1.9 million displaced through Israeli land and air assaults.
Canada joined other nations earlier in December and voted for a UN non-binding resolution calling for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire. "
Canada’s call for the cease-fire is a policy change since it normally votes in support of Israel.
"We've changed how we've articulated our position. But the position itself hasn't changed," Trudeau said. "We've always said that Israel has a right to defend itself per international law. We have always called for the protection of civilians."
During the interview, Trudeau also repeated Canada’s backing for a two-state solution.
2023-12-22 09:30:56
Iraq's Kataeb Hezbollah, which goes by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, in a statement on Telegram claimed responsibility for an attack on Israel's Eilat. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Fourteen Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in three separate attacks on Thursday in northern, central and southern Gaza Strip, medics said. Medics and Gazan media said the director of the police station in Khan Younis was killed along with members of his family in a strike on their house.
An Israeli air strike targeted the house of Dr Munir Al-Bursh, the director of Gaza Health Ministry, medics said. Bursh was wounded and one of his daughters was killed, the medics said.
The Israeli military has expressed regret for civilian deaths but blamed Hamas for operating in densely populated areas or using civilians as human shields, an allegation the group denies.
For journalists, the first 10 weeks of the war have been the deadliest recorded, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CP) said in a report on Thursday. Most of the journalists and media workers killed — 61 out of 68 — were Palestinian, it said.
2023-12-22 09:30:13
UN Security Council (UNSC) diplomats delayed until Friday a vote on a resolution to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza and another round of talks took place in Egypt to try to get warring Israel and Hamas to agree on a new truce so hostages can be released.
The UN vote was delayed despite the United States saying it can now support an amended proposal that would demand that Israel and Hamas allow the use of "all available routes" for humanitarian deliveries.
Even as diplomatic efforts continued, fighting in the Gaza Strip intensified with Israeli bombardments in the north and south of the 41 km (25 mile)-long Palestinian territory and Hamas firing rockets on Israel's commercial capital Tel Aviv, officials said on Thursday.
2023-12-22 08:22:51
A latest UN report revealed that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are at "imminent risk of famine" as Israel continues its attack relentlessly.
Gazans are becoming thepopulation with the “highest share of people facing levels of acute food insecurity ever classified” by IPC, which is aninternational classification system used by aid agencies and governments.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Israeli forcesreportedly forced Palestinian families out of their homes in the al-Nazla area in Jabalia and set households on fire on Wednesday.
2023-12-21 23:37:29
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday the war in Gaza will not stop until Israel achieves all of its goals, reported BBC.
"The choice I propose to Hamas is very simple: surrender or die," he says.
"They do not have – and will not have – any other choice. And after we eliminate Hamas, I will use all my power to ensure that Gaza never again threatens Israel – neither Hamastan nor Fatahstan."
2023-12-21 23:29:48
Hamas's military wing on Thursday said Israel's objective to eliminate the militant group in Gaza was "doomed to fail", more than two months into war triggered by attacks on Israel.
Abu Obeida, spokesman for Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also said in an audio recording that any further release of hostages held in Gaza depended on a "cessation of aggression".
Neither Israel's continued offensive nor "direct military operations" would bring the hostages home, he said.
"It is not possible to release enemy prisoners alive except by entering into negotiations."
2023-12-21 23:28:59
The entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger and the risk of famine is increasing each day, a UN-backed body said in a report published on Thursday.
The proportion of households in Gaza affected by high levels of acute food insecurity is the largest ever recorded globally, according to a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
"There is a risk of famine and it is increasing each day that the current situation of intense hostilities and restricted humanitarian access persists or worsens," the IPC for Gaza said.
Distribution of aid within Gaza has been hampered by military operations, inspections of aid demanded by Israel, communications blackouts, and shortages of fuel.
2023-12-21 22:39:06
The entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger and the risk of famine is increasing each day, a UN-backed body said in a report published on Thursday.
The proportion of households in Gaza affected by high levels of acute food insecurity is the largest ever recorded globally, according to a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
"There is a risk of famine and it is increasing each day that the current situation of intense hostilities and restricted humanitarian access persists or worsens," the IPC for Gaza said.
Distribution of aid within Gaza has been hampered by military operations, inspections of aid demanded by Israel, communications blackouts and shortages of fuel.
2023-12-21 22:16:45
2023-12-21 21:57:13
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) foreign minister has met a senior Palestinian Authority (PA) official in Abu Dhabi where they discussed international efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the Emirati state news agency reported on Thursday.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan met Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Secretary General Hussein Sheikh to also discuss the humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave.
In the meeting, Sheikh Abdullah stressed the importance of prioritising negotiations towards a framework for a two-state peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians, WAM reported.
2023-12-21 21:23:22
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived Thursday in Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II on aid to war-battered Gaza, where Israel continued its brutal aggression since early October.
Macron is then due to visit French troops stationed in the Middle Eastern country for a traditional Christmas meeting with forces deployed overseas.
This is the second meeting between the two leaders since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Macron had toured the Middle East in late October in a show of solidarity with Israel.
Paris has since shifted its tone, calling for a ceasefire in the fighting that has so far killed at least 20,000 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children.
Macron and Abdullah II are set to discuss "joint work on humanitarian and medical aid for the civilian population of Gaza", according to the French presidency.
During his visit, Macron is expected to reiterate "the urgency of establishing a new and immediate truce leading to a permanent ceasefire", the presidency said.
2023-12-21 20:28:34
There are no longer any functional hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization said Thursday, describing "unbearable" scenes of largely abandoned patients begging for food and water.
The UN health agency said it had led missions to two badly damaged hospitals, Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli, in the north of the Palestinian territory on Wednesday.
"Our staff are running out of words to describe the beyond catastrophic situation facing remaining patients and health workers," said Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory.
His comment came amid increasingly frantic diplomatic efforts to secure a pause in the war that Hamas says has already claimed 20,000 lives in Gaza, 70 percent of them women and children.
2023-12-21 19:59:54
The United States said on Thursday that there are "serious and widespread concerns" that the current draft of a UN Security Council resolution that aims to boost humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip "could actually slow down" deliveries.
"The goal of this resolution is to facilitate and help expand humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza, and we cannot lose sight of that purpose," said Nate Evans, spokesperson for the US mission to the United Nations ahead of a likely vote on Thursday.
"We must ensure any resolution helps and doesn’t hurt the situation on the ground," he said.
2023-12-21 18:45:59
2023-12-21 18:41:34
Fighting in the Gaza Strip escalated on Thursday with some of the most intense Israeli bombardment of the war and Hamas demonstrated its ability to rocket Tel Aviv, even as the enemies held their most serious talks for weeks on a new truce.
Israeli bombing was at its most intense over the northern part of the Gaza Strip where orange flashes of explosions and black smoke could be seen as morning broke from across the fence in Israel. Planes roared overhead and the booms of air strikes thundered every few seconds, punctuated by rattling gunfire.
In Israel's commercial capital Tel Aviv, sirens wailed and rockets exploded overhead, intercepted by Israeli defences.
Israel's Magen David Alom ambulance service said there were several impact points but no initial word on casualties.
The armed wing of Hamas said it had fired the salvo in response to Israeli killing of civilians. But with the group's leader in Cairo for truce talks, the attack seemed clearly timed to send a diplomatic message that 10 weeks of war that has laid waste to much of Gaza had failed to destroy the group's strike capability.
2023-12-21 18:06:54
Iraq said on Thursday it had sent a fuel tanker to Egypt to help alleviate shortages in the Gaza Strip that have hampered relief efforts amid an Israeli siege which has caused a humanitarian crisis.
"An Iraqi tanker carrying a cargo of 10 million litres of fuel has left Basra port for the Suez Canal as an aid to the Palestinians in Gaza and the government of Iraq is planning to send further aid cargoes in future," said Zedan Khalaf, an adviser to the prime minister for humanitarian affairs.
2023-12-21 17:12:01
Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned on Thursday the failure of the UN Security Council to pass a resolution on Gaza will mean applying "dangerous double standards."
Safadi said the draft resolution that is expected to be voted on later on Thursday focused on speeding up aid shipments that the kingdom says Israel has been obstructing to prevent sufficient life-saving assistance from entering.
2023-12-21 16:35:31
Israeli military has ordered immediate evacuation of an area covering some 20% of central and southern Khan Younis city on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported.
The evacuation orders were sent to the UNRWA, particularly to the majority of evacuees inside the organisation's evacuation sites that have been designated as shelters for displaced Palestinians.
It is a vast area, given that the massive number of people in the northern part and Gaza City have been displaced to the central part of Gaza and Khan Younis.
Before Israel’s offensive, the area was home to more than 111,000 people and now includes 32 shelters housing more than 141,000 people displaced from northern Gaza by the war.
2023-12-21 14:59:31
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 21, 08:00am local time in Gaza (06:00 GMT), 20,301 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 8,072 children.
Additionally, at least 55,951 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,139 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-21 14:59:19
The World Health Organization said on Thursday that northern Gaza has been left without a functional hospital due to a lack of fuel, staff and supplies.
"There are actually no functional hospitals left in the north," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in Gaza, told reporters via video link from Jerusalem.
"Al-Ahli (Hospital) was the last one but it is now minimally functional."
2023-12-21 13:52:37
2023-12-21 12:26:40
A report by the Wall Street Journal citing Egyptian officials says Hamas has rejected an Israeli offer to stop fighting for one week in exchange for dozens of captives, saying the group will not discuss any releases until a ceasefire first takes hold.
Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, told intelligence officials in Cairo during a visit on Wednesday that he was in the Egyptian capital to obtain a cease-fire and more humanitarian aid for Gaza, according to the officials.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said that the group’s “priority” was for the war to stop.
“Our vision is very clear: We want to stop the aggression,” he said. “What is going on in the ground is a big catastrophe,” added Hamad, referencing the “mass destruction and mass killing” caused by the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
The member of Hamas’s political bureau said “some people” are looking for brief pauses in fighting of a few days or weeks but added that the group would not agree to that.
“Israel will take the card of the hostages and after that they will start a new round of mass killing and massacres against our people,” he said. “We will not play this game.”
2023-12-21 12:12:58
2023-12-21 10:36:16
Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, the UAE’s ambassador to the UN, has voiced hope for a resolution calling for the suspension of hostilities in Gaza to pass at the Security Council, Al Jazeera reported.
“I am optimistic, and if this fails then we will continue to keep trying because we have to keep trying,” Nusseibeh told reporters.
“There is too much suffering on the ground for the council to continue to fail on this … we have a resolution and we need to build on that,” she added.
2023-12-21 10:32:11
Three more Israeli soldiers were reported killed in fighting in northern Gaza including a 19-year-old sergeant in Battalion 931 and two lieutenants aged 20 and 21, both serving in the “Geffen” Battalion, Al Jazeera reported.
At least 134 Israeli soldiers have been killed so far in the ground invasion of Gaza and some 740 wounded, the UN reported on Wednesday, citing the Israeli military.
It was not known if the latest three deaths were included in the total number of Israeli casualties reported by the UN.
2023-12-21 09:53:26
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles says he will send “up to six additional” Australian troops as part of the US-led Prosperity Guardian operation in the Red Sea, Al Jazeera reported.
“The Australian Government continues to work with the United States and other partners in support of the international rules-based order in the Middle East and surrounding region,” the Australian defence minister added in a post on X.
Australia was not initially announced as one of the 10 countries joining the force, which will conduct joint patrols in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden following Houthi attacks on shipping routes.
The first 10 countries were: Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain, the United Kingdom and the US.
2023-12-21 09:40:48
Earlier today, the Israeli military ordered the immediate evacuation of an area covering some 20 per cent of central and southern Khan Younis City, which was home to more than 111,000 peoplebefore Israel’s invasion and now includes 32 shelters housing more than 141,000 people displaced from northern Gaza by the war.
According to Al Jazeera, Israel’s notification of the forced relocation was announced online on Wednesday, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), with Palestinians instructed to move to the already overcrowded neighbourhoods in Rafah, further south.
“The scope of displacement resulting from the order to evacuate is unclear,” the UNOCHA said in its latest Gaza situation report.
UNOCHA also notes that the UN Human Rights Office received reports that Israeli forces had killed at least 11 Palestinian men and injured an unconfirmed number of women and children in a residential building in Gaza City in “what may amount to a war crime”.
“Three related families were sheltering inside this building during the incidents. Initial witness reports circulating through media allege that the men were separated from women and children and were then shot and killed,” according to the UNOCHA.
2023-12-21 08:47:47
The US said "very serious" negotiations were taking place on a new Gaza ceasefire and the release of more Israeli hostages, but prospects for a deal remained uncertain as Hamas insisted it would not discuss anything less than a complete end to Israel's offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visited Egypt on Wednesday for the first time in more than a month for discussions with Egyptian officials seeking to mediate another truce.
A source briefed on the negotiations said envoys were intensively discussing which of the hostages still held by the Palestinian resistance group in Gaza could be freed in a new truce and which Palestinian prisoners Israel might release in return.
Islamic Jihad, a smaller Palestinian resistance group that is also holding hostages in Gaza, said its leader would visit Egypt in the coming days as well to discuss a possible end to the conflict.
"These are very serious discussions and negotiations, and we hope that they lead somewhere," White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday.
But Taher Al-Nono, Haniyeh's media adviser, told Reuters that Hamas was not willing to discuss releasing more Israeli hostages until Israel ends its military campaign in Gaza and the volume of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians increases.
"The issue of prisoners can be negotiated after these two matters are achieved. We cannot talk about negotiations while Israel continues its aggression. Discussing any proposal related to prisoners must occur after the cessation of aggression," Nono said in an interview in Cairo.
Hamas rejects any further temporary pause in Israel's military campaign and says it will discuss only a permanent ceasefire. "We have talked with our brothers in Egypt, outlining our stance on this aggression and the urgent need to stop it as a top priority," Nono said.
Israel has insisted all remaining women and infirm men among the hostages be released, the source briefed on the negotiations said, declining to be identified. Palestinians convicted of serious offences could be on the list of prisoners to be freed by Israel.
2023-12-20 23:41:58
A United Nations Security Council vote on a bid to boost aid to the Gaza Strip and ask the UN to monitor humanitarian aid deliveries in the Palestinian enclave has again been delayed at the request of the US, diplomats said on Wednesday.
"Negotiations are ongoing and need more time. A rushed vote does not seem like it will end well," a UN diplomat familiar with negotiations told Reuters, referring to a possible US veto of the draft resolution.
It was not immediately clear when a council vote might be rescheduled.
The text — drafted by the United Arab Emirates — essentially aims to dilute Israel's control over all humanitarian aid deliveries to 2.3 million people in Gaza. Washington traditionally shields its ally Israel from UN action.
"We continue to engage extensively and constructively with a number of countries to try to resolve some of the outstanding issues in this Security Council resolution," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Wednesday.
Blinken said the US had been working "intensely" on the issue and that he had been "on the phones about this for the last the last couple of days."
2023-12-20 22:42:38
The Palestine government's media office in the Gaza Strip Wednesday said that at least 20,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the war with Israel began.
The statement highlighted that the deceased included around 8,000 children and 6,200 women.
2023-12-20 20:39:01
Gaza's health ministry said at least 12 people were killed and dozens were wounded on Wednesday in a series of air strikes in Rafah near the border with Egypt.
AFP correspondents witnessed more than 10 airstrikes that hit several houses near the frontier.
"Twelve martyrs and dozens of wounded, including women and children, were recovered from under the rubble when a house and a mosque were targeted hundreds of metres from Kuwaiti hospital," the ministry said in a statement.
AFP video footage showed a thick plume of smoke and a blaze of fire rising amid massive explosions that rocked the border area.
2023-12-20 20:35:04
2023-12-20 19:57:48
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said Wednesday it had delivered food into war-torn Gaza through the Israeli Kerem Shalom border crossing in the first direct aid convoy from Jordan.
The arrival of the 46-truck convoy, carrying more than 750 tonnes of goods, came after "weeks of coordination with all parties", the Rome-based organisation said.
"This crucial first step could pave the way for a more sustainable aid corridor through Jordan and allow for the delivery of more aid at scale," it said.
The WFP said it had been mobilising resources from around the region.
"Delivering food from Jordan, to Gaza through Kerem Shalom crossing, will increase the volume and speed of food reaching the Gaza Strip, as millions face the risk of starvation," it said.
2023-12-20 19:28:17
Amid an already crumbling health infrastructure in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Wednesday said that more than 360,000infectious disease cases have been reported in the agency's shelters in the besieged territory.
The rampant spread of diseases such asacute respiratory infections, meningitis, jaundice, impetigo and chickenpox, is driven by a lack of food, poor hygiene and worsening living conditions for the Palestinians, Al Jazeera reported citing UNRWA.
2023-12-20 17:52:41
A north Gaza hospital that Israeli troops raided is no longer functioning and patients including babies have been evacuated, putting the enclave's collapsing health services in further peril, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Monday.
Gazan authorities said Israeli forces last week used a bulldozer to smash through the perimeter of the Kamal Adwan hospital, forcing out displaced people. Israel said the hospital was used by Hamas fighters.
Reuters could not independently verify the accounts. The WHO had said it was urgently seeking information about the hospital.
"What we understand is it's not functional anymore," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for Gaza, told Reuters.
He said two newborn babies were taken home "to their families and with a description how to take care of them", while other patients including infants were evacuated to Al Ahli and Al Shifa hospitals. "Many health workers were reportedly detained", he said.
"We cannot afford to lose any hospitals," he added.
2023-12-20 16:49:25
At least 66% of jobs have been lost in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted in October, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Wednesday, warning that employment losses could continue to increase in the enclave.
The losses amount to a total of 192,000 jobs in the small Palestinian territory, the ILO said in its second assessment of the impact of Israeli ground and air strikes on Gaza.
In a first assessment released in early November, ILO estimated that 182,000 jobs had been lost in Gaza, a figure representing more than 60% of employment.
"Today hardly anybody in Gaza is able to earn income from work," said Peter Rademaker, ILO deputy regional director for the Arab states.
"It's clearly a still growing curve," he said of employment loss. "It might even get worse."
2023-12-20 16:48:16
Israeli troops killed a Palestinian motorist in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, while the army said it had "neutralised a terrorist".
Basel Wajeeh al-Muhtasib, 28, "died as a result of being shot by occupation (Israeli army) bullets" as he drove through Bayt Inun junction, north of the city of Hebron, Wafa reported.
Israeli security forces cordoned off the area preventing Muhtasib from being taken to hospital, the report said.
The army said troops had opened fire on the vehicle after the driver attempted to carry out a "car ramming attack". It did not give further details.
2023-12-20 15:26:00
Israel conducted strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure and military sites in Lebanon, said the spokesperson of the Israeli forces on X, formerly Twitter.
Meanwhile,Hezbollah announced that Israeli forces killed six of its peoplein the last 24 hours.
2023-12-20 14:19:07
UN children’s agency said that water and sanitation services are on the verge of collapse in Gaza as disease outbreaks loom, Al Jazeera reported.
UNICEF also said that the displaced children in the southern Gaza Strip can only access 1.5 to 2 litres of water each day, which is very below the recommended requirements just for survival.
“Access to sufficient amounts of clean water is a matter of life and death, and children in Gaza have barely a drop to drink,” said Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Children and their families are having to use water from unsafe sources that are highly salinated or polluted. Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days,” she added.
2023-12-20 12:25:35
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) women's wing organised a demonstration in Peshawar in solidarity with the Palestinians amid the ongoing attacks by Israel.
The protesters said that the silence of the United Nations on the Israeli attacks is unacceptable. They demanded that the UN shouldstop the massacre of innocent children and women.
"Muslim leaders should raise their voicesagainst the violation of human rights," they said.
2023-12-20 11:32:42
Hamas' political leaders are holding discussions with theirPalestinian rivals about Gaza and West Bank's future after the conflict with Israel, reportedWall Street Journal (WSJ).
“We don’t fight just because we want to fight. We are not partisans of a zero-sum game,” Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’s Doha-based political bureau, told WSJ.
“We want the war to end,” he added. “We want to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.”
2023-12-20 10:56:47
2023-12-20 10:07:53
The UN'schildren agency has warned of more deaths in children due to the unavailability of safe water insouthern Gaza.
UNICEF'sExecutive Director Catherine Russell said that the displacedchildren in southern Gaza have less water than their basic survival needs.
“Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days,” Russell said.
“Children and their families are having to use water from unsafe sources that are highly salinated or polluted.”
2023-12-20 09:23:13
The Malaysian prime minister has imposed an immediate ban onIsraeli shipping vessels in response to Israel's assault on Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
In a statement issued by the office ofPrime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Israel is“massacre and brutality” against Palestinians.
Malaysia has also said that it will no longer accept Israel-flagged ships to dock in the country.
In addition, Malaysia will also impose “a ban on any ship en route to Israel from loading cargo at Malaysian ports.”
2023-12-20 08:44:04
At least 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza on Tuesday, leaving hundreds of others injured, Palestinian health ministry spokesman Ashral al-Qidra said.
2023-12-19 23:35:11
2023-12-19 22:56:37
Amid an already crumbling health infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces have arrested the head of orthopedics at Al Shifa Hospital Dr Adnan al Bursh, Al Jazeera reported.
Reacting to al Bursh's arrest, Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta condemned the Israeli action terming it as "criminalisation of the health system".
The development comes as the hospital's— Gaza's largest — director Muhammad Abu Salmiya remains in Israeli custody after being arrested last month.
2023-12-19 22:50:49
Egypt and the United States have agreed to work by all means to prevent displacement of Palestinians from their lands, the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry added that Egypt had urged the US to support the UN resolution on humanitarian aid for Gaza.
2023-12-19 21:48:17
The Israeli army is looking into the deaths of several Gazans who have died while being detained by the Israeli forces, Al Jazeera reported citing Haaretz.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, Israel has detained hundreds of Palestinians who have been kept at the Sde Teiman base near Beersheva in southern Israel.
The report does not mention the exact number of deaths but highlights that the detainees are kept blindfolded and handcuffed for most of the day with the Israeli forces keeping the lights on throughout the night.
2023-12-19 20:17:47
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday deplored the conflict in Gaza as a "moral failure" of the international community and urged Israel and Hamas to reach a new deal to halt the fighting.
"I have been speaking of moral failure because every day this continues is a day more where the international community hasn't proven capable of ending such high levels of suffering and this will have an impact on generations not only in Gaza," ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric told journalists in Geneva following trips to the Gaza Strip and Israel.
"There's nothing without an agreement by the two sides, so we urge them to keep negotiating..." she said, referring to the release of Israeli hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas gunmen during their deadly rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
"The releases in themselves are highly complex, highly sensitive missions."
2023-12-19 19:23:22
Israeli President Isaac Herzog signalled readiness on the part of the country on Tuesday to enter another foreign-mediated Gaza truce in order to recover hostages held by Hamas and enable more aid to reach the besieged Palestinian enclave.
"Israel is ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid in order to enable the release of hostages," Herzog, whose public role is largely ceremonial, told a gathering of ambassadors, according to his office.
"And the responsibility lies fully with (Hamas leader Yahya) Sinwar and (other) Hamas leadership," he said.
2023-12-19 19:11:01
2023-12-19 18:45:05
UN officials voiced anger and disbelief on Tuesday about the situation in Gaza hospitals, where injured people do not have basic supplies and children recovering from amputations are being killed in the ongoing conflict.
"I'm furious that children who are recovering from amputations in hospitals are then killed in those hospitals," said James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's agency.
He added that the Nasser Hospital, the largest operational hospital left in the enclave where he spent time earlier this month, had been shelled twice in the past 48 hours. He said one of the victims was a 13-year-old amputee named Dina who survived a strike on her home that killed her family.
"So where do children and families go? They're not safe in hospitals, they're not safe in shelters, and they're certainly not safe in so-called safe zones," he said.
Margaret Harris, World Health Organisation spokesperson, described the situation in Gaza hospitals as "unconscionable".
"The very basics, they do not have them. One of my colleagues described people lying on the floor in severe pain, in agony, but they weren't asking for pain relief. They were asking for water," she said. "It's beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue."
2023-12-19 17:59:52
Some 19,667 people have been killed and 52,586 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday.
2023-12-19 17:00:41
With the phone and internet cuts, radio is the only way to find out what’s going on in the besieged Gaza.
The besieged territory’s 2.4 million people are now enduring long blackouts after Israel cut off electricity and fuel supplies. Its relentless assault has killed more than 19,450 Gazans, mostly women and children.
It is now impossible to plug in computers or television sets, recharge phones or access the internet without generators or solar panels, a luxury few Gazans can afford.
Before the war, a radio cost around 25 shekels ($7) but now, they go for around 60 shekels ($16), said a shopkeeper.
2023-12-19 14:44:36
Hamas' armed wing posted a video message on Monday via its Telegram account showing three elderly Israeli hostages pleading for their release.
This is the first video released since the previous ceasefire came to a very abrupt halt after Israel accused Hamas of not abiding by the deal made between them, in terms of who should be released, according to Al Jazeera.
However, an Israeli television channel, quoting a source, reported that Israeli negotiators now face the challenge of convincing the head of Hamas in Gaza to agree to a deal that does not include a ceasefire.
Israel believes that the decision of Hamas to publish videos of Israeli captives is aimed at pushing for negotiations, Channel 12 also quoted the source as saying.
In recent days, the head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad held talks with the CIA director and the foreign minister of Qatar to discuss the possible resumption of talks for the release of captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
2023-12-19 14:36:07
Adel Zoroub was killed following an Israeli air raid on his family’s home in Rafah, the Gaza government’s media office has said on its Telegram channel.
Earlier, we reported at least 29 people were killed in an Israeli attack on Rafah.
Dozens of journalists have been killed since the war began on October 7, overwhelmingly Palestinians.
2023-12-19 09:11:00
In a bid to curb the escalating missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea, the United States has announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, which is a formation of a 10-nation alliance aimed at safeguarding ships travelling this vital maritime route.
Joining forces with Britain, France, Bahrain, Italy, and others, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin highlighted the need for unified action against the non-state actors posing a threat to the freedom of navigation principle.
The Houthis have intensified their attacks on various vessels in the Red Sea, endangering a critical passageway that caters to nearly 12% of global trade.
This surge in hostile activities has propelled concerns and necessitated a collaborative security approach.
Read more here.
2023-12-19 13:59:11
Earlier, Al Jazeera reported that at least 20 people were killed in overnight Israeli attacks on residential buildings in Rafah city.
"The new death toll is now 29, including a baby," according to Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud.
Additionally, at least 10 Palestinians were killed and 40 others wounded in an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the health ministry in the enclave said.
2023-12-19 13:46:38
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 18, 7:00pm local time in Gaza (17:00 GMT), 19,754 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 7,801 children.
Additionally, at least 55,651 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,139 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Israeli officials revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-19 13:17:12
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis will not change their stance on the Gaza conflict due to the establishment of a multinational naval alliance to safeguard shipping in the Red Sea, top Houthi negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters on Tuesday.
The naval alliance led by the United States was "essentially unnecessary", he said, adding that all the waters adjacent to Yemen were safe except for Israeli ships, or ships heading to Israel, because of the "unjust aggressive war on Palestine".
The announcement came after the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency reported an incident 80 nautical miles (148km) off the coast of Djibouti, at the mouth of the Red Sea.
The UKMTO’s advisory note said that the authorities are investigating the incident and advised vessels to travel “with caution”.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the creation of a multinational operation to safeguard commerce in the Red Sea following a series of missile and drone attacks on shipping by the Houthis.
Shipping vessels in the area continue to face threats from Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
2023-12-19 11:47:33
2023-12-19 10:00:00
While winter rain has brought flooding and the risk of disease to the makeshift camps where many Palestinians are now living in Gaza, it also brought some temporary relief, Al Jazeera reported.
A video posted on X by Al Jazeera Arabic showed a young boy using rainwater to wash dirty clothing. Gaza residents have also been seen collecting rainwater to drink.
Much of the enclave’s water supply system has been damaged in the Israeli bombing.
2023-12-19 11:33:25
Israeli forces have blown up the home of a Palestinian prisoner overnight in Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported citing live reports fromWafa news agency.
The home of Osama Bani Fadl was located in a three-storey building in the town of Aqraba, the Palestinian news outlet said.
Earlier we reported that Israeli forces also carried out raids in Hebron, Jenin and Tulkarem.
2023-12-19 09:54:52
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has said he urged Israel to protect civilians in Gaza and make the war there more "surgical" following a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv, while also reiterating US support for the offensive against Hamas.
He said Washington would provide more arms, vehicles and munitions to Israel.
US officials have been steadfast in their support of Israel since the 7 October attacks by Hamas but President Joe Biden has been under growing pressure, including from within his own Democratic Party, to rein in their military campaign.
Speaking on Monday, Austin said the US would not "dictate timelines or terms" of the war to its ally.
"Our support to Israel's right to defend itself is ironclad... and that's not going to change," he said. "It's critical... that Hamas not be able to threaten Israel from Gaza or even threaten Gaza anymore."
Austin then said he had discussed the objectives of the military campaign and "how to reduce harm to civilians in the battlespace" with Gallant
"We also have some great thoughts about how to transition from high intensity operations to a lower intensity and more surgical operations," he said.
Gallant, meanwhile, said Israeli forces would "continue to operate in Gaza with different levels of intensity".
While Austin has been advising Israel to temper and target its operations since its military campaign began, he has become more outspoken as civilian deaths have increased. He earlier warned that Israel risked replacing a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.
2023-12-19 03:06:05
UN Security Council has postponed the fresh vote on a resolution seeking a ceasefire in Gaza to Tuesday, diplomatic sources say.
The United Arab Emirates, which introduced the latest text, requested that the vote on Monday be postponed so that complex negotiations could proceed. The vote is now expected to be rescheduled for Tuesday.
The draft called for an "urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities" in Gaza to allow "safe and unhindered humanitarian access" in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The delay suggests that UN diplomats have not yet found common ground to reach a consensus on the vote.
Given the international support in the General Assembly for the Gaza ceasefire last Tuesday, the Arab countries prepared the Security Council resolution though its fate remains uncertain.
AFP reports that the draft affirms support for a two-state solution in the region and "stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority."
While the draft does not mention Hamas, it demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and condemns "violence and hostilities against civilians, as well as acts of terrorism."
2023-12-18 23:46:02
A spokesperson for Yemen's Houthi rebels Monday reiterated that the group poses no threat to ships belonging to countries other than Israel, adding that only Israeli ships will be targeted due to their "brutal aggression" and siege in Gaza, reported Al Jazeera.
2023-12-18 23:23:29
Some 19,453 people have been killed and 52,286 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.
2023-12-18 22:51:44
Hamas official Osama Hamdan Monday reiterated the group's position that any negotiations on a hostage exchange were off the table until Israel stops its war on Gaza.
"We are open to initiatives from Qatar and Egypt about a hostage exchange that would stop the war in Gaza", Hamdan told a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon.
2023-12-18 22:11:21
France will impose measures on Israeli settlers who have attacked Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, its foreign minister said on Monday, a day after meeting Palestinian farmers in Ramallah, who had been targeted in recent weeks.
UN figures show that daily settler attacks have more than doubled since Hamas' surprise attack on Israel on October 7 and the ensuing assault on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the violence this year, including in attacks by settlers.
"We will not accept these acts. France will not wait any longer. We've asked Israeli authorities to put an end to this and it will take national measures against certain radical Israeli settlers," Catherine Colonna told a news conference in Beirut after a two-day visit to Israel, Ramallah and Lebanon.
The European Union is studying the prospect of sanctions against violent Jewish settlers.
"This land is Palestinian and will be part of a Palestinian state," she said.
2023-12-18 21:39:01
Israel will gradually transition to the next phase of operations in the Gaza war in which the local population may be able to return to the north of the coastal strip, the country's defence minister said on Monday.
"I can tell you that soon we will be able to distinguish between different areas in Gaza," Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a joint news conference with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in Tel Aviv.
Gallant said this would allow Israel to start working on bringing back local population "maybe sooner in the North" of Gaza than in the South.
2023-12-18 21:34:29
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he discussed transitions in warfare from major combat operations to lower-intensity warfare during his visit to Israel on Monday but stressed he would not dictate timelines.
"In any campaign, there will be phases," Austin told a news conference, saying that required detailed, thoughtful planning.
2023-12-18 21:00:31
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made it clear Monday that the United States will continue to provide arms to the US.
2023-12-18 20:54:37
French President Emmanuel Macron will discuss topics including Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Tuesday, said a statement from Macron's Elysee office.
Macron and Cameron will also discuss how to tackle illegal immigration, added the Elysee on Monday.
2023-12-18 20:48:24
2023-12-18 20:37:46
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Monday that the Israel-Hamas war is a threat to national security.
"This ongoing war on our eastern borders, which calls for the mobilisation of all our efforts to prevent its continuation, represents a threat to Egyptian national security in particular and to the Palestinian cause in general," Sisi said in a televised speech after winning a third term as president.
2023-12-18 19:47:13
The footage, verified by Al Jazeera shows the moment an Israeli airstrike hits the funeral of a Hezbollah fighter in Southern Lebanon on Monday.
2023-12-18 19:40:16
Hamas Sunday responded to Israeli Defence Minister Yav Gallant's visit to one of the tunnels discovered by Israeli forces in Gaza saying, "You're too late. [Our] mission has been accomplished", reportedGeo News.
The statement comes after the Gallant visited a Gaza tunnel near Israel's Erez border crossing on Sunday.
The group also released video clips showing its fighters attacking Israeli posts and even arresting Israeli troops.
2023-12-18 17:43:48
Mounting attacks by the Iran-aligned Yemeni Houthi militant group on ships in the Red Sea are disrupting maritime trade as leading global freight firms reroute around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Suez Canal.
Multiple "projectiles" were fired from Houthi-controlled territory on Monday at a vessel in the southern Red Sea, US officials said.
The Houthi movement has launched a series of missile and drone attacks on ships in the area, which it says are a response to Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.
Several major freight companies — including MSC and Maersk — have begun to sail around Africa, adding costs and delays that are expected to be compounded over the coming weeks, according to industry analysts. About 15% of world shipping traffic transits via the Suez Canal, the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
Combined, the companies that have diverted vessels "control around half of the global container shipping market," ABN Amro analyst Albert Jan Swart told Reuters. "Avoiding the Red Sea will lead to higher cost due to longer travel time," Swart said.
Oil major BP has also temporarily paused all transits through the Red Sea following the attacks over the weekend.
2023-12-18 17:37:52
The Gaza health ministry said Monday that at least 110 people have been killed and dozens more injured following Israeli attacks on Jabalya in northern Gaza over the past 24 hours, reported CNN.
2023-12-18 17:34:16
CIA director Bill Burns is set to meet Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and the head of Israel's Mossad spy agency in Warsaw on Monday to discuss a potential new deal to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, Axios reported, citing two US and Israeli officials.
2023-12-18 16:25:48
Israeli forces Monday martyred four Palestinians in a West Bank's Al-Fara refugee camp, taking the toll in the occupied territory to over 300 during the Gaza war, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Mohammad Samir Milhem, 17, his brother Hikmat, 24, and Yazan Khatib, 20, were shot in the head by Israeli troops in the Al-Fara camp near Tubas, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, Rashed Habib al-Aydi, 17, was shot in the chest.
Health officials say 301 Palestinians have now been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the war in Gaza erupted with the attack by Hamas on October 7.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
2023-12-18 14:54:23
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has reached Israel to discuss the ongoing military operation in Gaza with the Israeli government, Al Jazeera reported.
The visit comes amid mounting pressure on the US about how Israel is conducting the war as the intensity of its bombing campaign in Gaza, which has already killed over 19,000 people, shows no sign of abating.
Austin is expected to question the Israeli officials on when they will transition to a less intense phase of the conflict.
The US official previously warned that Israel risked a strategic defeat in the strip if it failed to protect Palestinian civilians.
2023-12-18 12:23:39
2023-12-18 12:12:38
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will vote on a new resolution today calling for an "urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities" in Gaza, as Washington exhibits growing impatience with key ally Israel.
The vote comes days after the United States blocked a previous Security Council resolution that would have called for a "humanitarian ceasefire" in the battered Palestinian territory, where Israel continues its deadly strikes in retaliation for Hamas's unprecedented attack on October 7.
But in the General Assembly, the UN's 193 members voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire, with 153 in favour — exceeding the 140 or so countries that have routinely backed resolutions condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
The upcoming UNSC resolution was introduced by Arab countries that had come away from last Tuesday's General Assembly vote bolstered by such broad international support, though the latest text's fate remains uncertain.
The new draft, drawn up by the United Arab Emirates and seen by AFP, calls for an "urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip."
It also affirms support for a two-state solution in the region and "stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority."
In a move criticized by Israel and the United States, the draft does not explicitly name Hamas, though it does call for the "immediate and unconditional release of all hostages" and condemns "all indiscriminate attacks against civilians."
2023-12-18 11:37:22
“For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza's population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.
He added: “World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime, which has devastating effects on Gaza’s population.”
2023-12-18 10:15:09
The Israeli army is detaining Ahmed Muhanna, the director of Gaza’s Al Awda Hospital, in an unknown location, Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra has said.
Other medical staff at the hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp were detained, stripped and interrogated for four hours in “inhumane conditions” before being released, al-Qudra added in a statement posted on Sunday night, according to Al Jazeera.
Al-Qudra asked for international organisations to intervene urgently to protect the hospital, which he said had also been bombed, as well as its staff.
2023-12-18 10:14:27
Haneen Ali al-Qutshan was the 95th Palestinian journalist or media worker killed since the October 7 conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out, according to Palestinian media.
However, al-Qutshan’s name has not yet been included in a separate list prepared by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which previously recorded at least 57 Palestinians, four Israelis, and three Lebanese journalists and media workers killed during the same period, Al Jazeera reported.
A photo posted on X by Palestinian media indicated that she worked for an FM radio station in Gaza. Other Palestinian media identified her by the last name al-Qashtan.
Earlier, we reported that she was among the 25 people killed in the latest Israeli air attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp. An undetermined number of her family members were also killed.
2023-12-18 09:15:55
A Gaza-based journalist, identified as Haneen Ali al-Qutshan, is among those killed by an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.
Al-Qutshan was killed alongside other members of her family, Al Jazeera reported citing the Wafa news agency.
It said more exclusive videos captured by the Al Jazeera team at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza show the continuing effort by civil defence workers and residents to dig through the rubble to find more survivors from the latest Israeli strike.
The death toll from the air attack has already risen from 15 to 25, according to Al Jazeera.
2023-12-18 00:00:36
After the Israeli forces mistakenly shot down three of their own hostages, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi Sunday said that the military "doesn’t shoot a person who raises his hands", Times of Israel reported.
2023-12-17 23:42:23
Two Egyptian security sources said on Sunday that Israel and Hamas are both open to a renewed ceasefire and hostage release, although disagreements remain on how it would be implemented.
Egypt and Qatar, which had previously negotiated a week-long ceasefire and hostage release, insisted on expediting aid and the opening of the Kerem Abu Salem crossing before any negotiations could begin, the sources said.
While the crossing was open, they said that aid was being delayed by inspections and had still not entered Egypt.
2023-12-17 23:04:59
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has called for "unconditional continued aid entry" into Gaza as humanitarian situation spirals into the besieged enclave, where 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced due to Israeli war.
At least 4,637 trucks have entered the coastal strip through the Rafah crossing since October 21 till December 16 and 60% of them were for the PRCS.
However, the humanitarian organisation says that the aid received has not met even 10% of the needs.
2023-12-17 22:25:59
Four major shipping firms have stopped their vessels from operating in the Red Sea in the light of increasing attacks by the Yemen's Houthis, BBC reported.
The suspension comes after the Iran-backed group's warning of launching attacks on the ships passing through the Red Sea to show support for Gaza amid bloody war by Israel.
Egypt's Suez canal authority said on Sunday it was closely monitoring the impact of tensions in the Red Sea after recent attacks in the southern part of the basin, according to Reuters.
International naval forces are present in the Red Sea and attempting to stop the attacks.
2023-12-17 21:47:13
Deploring the reported killing by the Israeli military of two Christian women who had taken refuge in a church complex, Pope Francis Sunday suggested Israel was using "terrorism" tactics in Gaza.
At his weekly blessing, the Pope referred to a statement about an incident on Saturday by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Catholic authority in the Holy Land.
The Patriarchate said an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) "sniper" killed the two women, whom the pope named as Nahida Khalil Anton and her daughter Samar, as they walked to a convent of nuns in the compound of the Holy Family Parish.
"I continue to receive very grave and painful news from Gaza," the Pope said adding, "Unarmed civilians are the objects of bombings and shootings. And this happened even inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick or disabled, nuns."
He underscored that they were killed by "snipers" and also referred to the Patriarchate's statement that a convent of nuns of the order founded by Mother Teresa was damaged by Israeli tank fire.
"Some would say 'it is war, it is terrorism.' Yes, it is war. It is terrorism," he said.
Meanwhile, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the incident was still under review and had no immediate comment on the Pope's words.
It was the second time in less than a month that the pope used the word "terrorism" while speaking of events in Gaza.
2023-12-17 21:36:20
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down as the country's premier after losing the trust of the people of Israel, of the world and of the security establishment, reported Al Jazeera.
Lapid's remarks come amid growing criticism of PM Netanyahu who has been under the spotlight for his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
2023-12-17 21:08:53
Terming Gaza as the "deadliest place for journalists and their families in the world", the United Nations (UN) has deplored the unprecedented targeting of media workers in the beleaguered territory by the Israeli forces.
Commending the media workers for keeping the world well-informed on the dire humanitarian situation that Palestinians are subjected to in Gaza, the UN Office for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories lamented that "one by one, these eyes on the ground are going dark," reported Al Jazeera.
The statement further confirmed that more than 50 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7.
2023-12-17 19:43:15
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday claimed that he had received a letter from dozens of families of Israeli soldiers killed in the war urging the government to continue its fight in the Gaza Strip.
"You [the prime minister] have a mandate to fight. You do not have a mandate to stop in the middle," reported Al Jazeera quoting the concerned letter addressed to the Israeli premier.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has reiterated to "fight to the end" in response to the letter.
2023-12-17 18:23:14
For the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, aid trucks entered Gaza via its Karem Abu Salem crossing with Israel on Sunday.
The development comes after Israel agreed to oblige to the US demand of allowing more aid into Gaza, Al Jazeera reported citing the Israeli prime minister's office.
2023-12-17 18:14:49
Israel has stepped up its bombardment of Gaza overnight and into Sunday, martyring at least 40 people, Palestinians said, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the only way to secure the release of hostages was intense military pressure on Hamas.
The Israeli attacks took place amid fierce fighting the length of the coastal enclave, according to residents and resistance fighters, with communications down for a fourth day, making it hard to reach the wounded.
"The communication blackout in #Gaza is the longest since the start of the Israeli escalation," the Palestinian Red Crescent said on X, adding that its teams were also hampered by shelling.
2023-12-17 16:33:15
The Israeli army's death toll in Gaza is already almost twice as high as during a ground offensive in 2014, a reflection of how far it has pushed into the enclave and of Hamas' effective use of guerrilla tactics and an expanded arsenal.
Israeli military experts, an Israeli commander and a Hamas source described how the Palestinian group has used a big weapons stockpile, its knowledge of the terrain and a vast tunnel network to turn Gaza's streets into a deadly maze.
At their disposal, they have arms ranging from drones rigged with grenades to anti-tank weapons with powerful twin charges.
Israel's military said on Sunday that 121 soldiers had been killed since the ground campaign began on Oct. 27, when tanks and infantry began to push into Gaza's cities and refugee camps.
That compares with 66 in the 2014 conflict, when Israel launched a more limited three-week ground incursion but the goal then was not to eliminate Hamas.
"There is no comparing the scope of this war to 2014 when our forces mostly operated no deeper than a kilometre inside Gaza," said Yaacov Amidror, a retired Israeli major-general and former national security adviser who is now at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
He said the army "has yet to find a good solution for the tunnels," a network hugely expanded in the past decade.
2023-12-17 16:31:47
2023-12-17 14:36:39
The French foreign ministry said one of its workers had died as a result of injuries sustained from an Israeli attack in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
The man was seeking refuge in the house of one of his colleagues from the French consulate alongside two other colleagues and a number of their family members, the ministry statement issued late on Saturday said.
"The house was hit by an Israeli air strike on Wednesday evening, which seriously hurt our agent and killed about 10 others," it said, adding he had later died of his injuries.
The statement said France condemned the bombing of a residential building.
2023-12-17 13:07:19
Israel and Palestine’s director for Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir said that the killings of the three shirtless captives bearing a self-made white flag by Israeli forces in Gaza underscores "Israel forces' longstanding practice of shooting first, asking later".
The incident also shows Israel's "track record of unlawfully firing at unarmed people who pose no threat without impunity – even those waving white flags", Shakir said in a post on X.
The killing triggered further pressure on Israel’s war cabinet to resume talks for the release of the remaining captives. Media reports said a meeting between Qatari and Israeli officials took place in Norway to explore a new deal.
2023-12-17 12:56:58
Israeli forces used bulldozers to destroy a great deal of theKamal Adwan hospital facility, Al Jazeera reported citing witnesses and the Health Ministry.
The bulldozers were also used to dig out bodies of people buried during the past nine days when the hospital was surrounded by the Israeli military.
The bulldozers also crushed people sheltering in the tents inside the courtyard of the hospital. Some 20 people were found dead and buried under the rubble.
2023-12-17 12:53:44
Two more Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, Israel's military announced on Sunday.
Israeli officials said the two were killed on Saturday.
The military said that 121 soldiers have died since Israel launched its ground offensive in Gaza on October 27.
2023-12-17 11:35:31
2023-12-17 11:13:39
An aircraft used to target the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, occupied West Bank has killed several Palestinian fighters, who shot and launched explosives at Israeli forces, the Israeli army said.
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported at least three people were martyred.
Almost 300 Palestinians have been martyred by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7.
2023-12-17 11:09:01
The killing of its cameraman Samer Abudaqa in Gaza will be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by Al Jazeera Media Network, the Qatar-based network said.
In a statement on Saturday, Al Jazeera said it has instructed its legal team to “urgently” refer the case of “the assassination” of cameraman Samer Abudaqa to the court in The Hague.
Abudaqa was killed in a drone attack on Friday while reporting on an earlier bombing of a school used as a shelter for displaced people in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
2023-12-17 10:15:42
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have issued a joint call for a “sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza.
In an op-ed published in the Sunday Times on Sunday, Cameron and Baerbock said that “too many civilians have been killed” in Gaza and the war “cannot drag on and on”.
“Israel has the right to defend itself but, in doing so, it must abide by international humanitarian law,” Cameron and Baerbock said.
“Israel will not win this war if its operations destroy the prospect of peaceful co-existence with Palestinians. They have a right to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas. But too many civilians have been killed.”
However, the top diplomats stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“Our goal cannot simply be an end to fighting today. It must be peace lasting for days, years, generations,” they said. “We therefore support a ceasefire, but only if it is sustainable.”
Cameron and Baerbock’s comments mark a significant shift in tone by the UK and German governments, which have strongly backed Israel’s right to respond to Hamas’s October 7 attacks on the country.
2023-12-17 09:27:09
2023-12-17 09:23:12
The Director of the Medical Aid for Palestinians advocacy group,Rohan Talbot has responded to recent updates on the Al Shifa and Kamal Adwan hospitals in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
“Israel is systematically dismantling Gaza’s health system, with only a third of hospitals still functioning,” said Talbot who works for the UK-based charity, which provides health services in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Talbot made the comments on X in response to a WHO update on the situation at Al Shifa Hospital, previously the largest hospital in Gaza.
Earlier, Talbot described Israeli claims that Hamas hid weapons in incubators at Kamal Adwan Hospital as “simply not credible”.
2023-12-16 23:32:16
Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Saturday commended the resilience of Palestinian people and success on the battlefield to the Al Qassam Brigades' fighters, which is "pushing many countries in the world to change their stances", Al Jazeera reported.
He said that a lot of politicians have refrained from adopting the Israeli narrative that is "filled with the blood of our civilians".
"The Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian statements calling for a ceasefire, the vote at the UN General Assembly to stop the war in Gaza shows the enemy is being exposed in the international community.
“The Unites States' stance that is 'shifting' — we are still doubtful and do not trust the US. Its position is emanating from a crisis that could cost President Biden the upcoming election. If they wanted, they could stop providing weapons to Israel and not use their veto at the UN Security Council," said Hamdan.
"They are still complicit in this occupation, ethnic cleansing, and killing of women and children. We call on all European countries that reject this aggression against us to pressure the United States to stop the ‘green light’ to Israel for the genocide of our people."
2023-12-16 22:29:36
The families of Israeli hostages Saturday have called on the Israeli government to stop fighting and make a deal to secure the hostages' release after the army admitted "mistakenly" killing three captives in the Palestinian territory.
The news since then has sparked protests in Israel, and the relatives of the remaining hostages are terrified their loved ones could be next.
"We only receive dead bodies. We want you to stop the fight and start negotiations," Noam Perry, daughter of hostage Haim Perry, said at an event in Tel Aviv organised by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
"We feel like we're in a Russian roulette game [finding out] who will be next in line to be told the death of their loved one," said Ruby Chen, father of 19-year-old soldier Itai, who is among the captives.
"They explained to us first that the ground operation would bring back the abductees," he said.
"It doesn't work. Because since then, abductees have been seen returning, but not so much alive. It's time to change this assumption," he added.
2023-12-16 22:11:35
TheUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini Saturday censured the smear campaign terming it a "media war" against Palestinians and those who are providing aid to them, Al Jazeera reported.
Lazzarini has urged the people to help the organisation in countering the misinformation that is beingdisseminated as part of the media campaign against Palestinians and the agency.
2023-12-16 20:36:00
"In the early morning hours of December 16 (Sanna time) the U.S. Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS CARNEY (DDG 64), operating in the Red Sea, successfully engaged 14 unmanned aerial systems launched as a drone wave from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen," the US Central Command said in a statement.
"The UAS were assessed to be one-way attack drones and were shot down with no damage to ships in the area or reported injuries. Regional Red Sea partners were alerted to the threat," it added.
2023-12-16 19:17:38
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Israeli intelligence agency Mossad chief David Barnea will be meeting in Norway's capital Oslo on Saturday (today) for renewed discussions over the release of the remaining 129 hostages in Hamas' captivity, reported Al Jazeera citing The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the Israeli spy chief is also expected to hold discussions with Egyptian officials.
The development comes amid growing pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach an agreement with Hamas to secure the release of Israeli hostages.
2023-12-16 17:49:06
Three Israeli hostages killed "mistakenly" in Gaza by Israeli forces had been holding up a white flag, according to an initial inquiry into the incident, a military official said on Saturday.
The incident happened in an area of intense combat where Hamas "operates in civilian attire and use deception tactics", the official said.
A soldier saw the hostages emerging tens of meters from Israeli forces in the area of Shejaiya, the official said.
"They're all without shirts and they have a stick with a white cloth on it. The soldier feels threatened and opens fire. He declares that they're terrorists, they (forces) open fire, two are killed immediately," said the military official.
The third hostage was wounded and retreated into a nearby building where he called for help in Hebrew, the official said.
"Immediately the battalion commander issues a ceasefire order, but again there's another burst of fire towards the third figure and he also dies," said the official. "This was against our rules of engagement," he added.
The military on Friday identified the three hostages as Yotam Haim and Alon Shamriz, abducted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Samer Talalka, abducted from nearby Kibbutz Nir Am.
2023-12-16 16:39:00
At least18,787 Palestinians have been martyred and50,897 have been by Israeli atrocities in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported the latest casualty figures.
Meanwhile, 288 Palestinians have been martyred in the occupied West Bank and 3,365 have been injured.
2023-12-16 15:30:45
The Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement has confirmed diplomatic efforts were ongoing to reach a new truce in Gaza.
“Qatar affirmed its ongoing diplomatic efforts to renew the humanitarian pause, and expressed hope for building upon the progress made to accomplish a comprehensive and sustainable agreement that would end the war, stop the bloodshed of our Palestinian brethren, and lead to serious negotiations and the launch of a political process that yields a comprehensive, permanent, and just peace in accordance with international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative,” the statement read.
A seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas — mediated by Qatar — collapsed on December 1.
2023-12-16 15:14:24
Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa, who was killed by an Israeli drone strike, has been laid to rest in a funeral in southern Gaza attended by dozens of mourners, including other journalists, Al Jazeera reported.
The burial took place at Khan Younis on Saturday. As Abudaqa's body was lowered to the earth, his friends, relatives, and coworkers said a heartfelt goodbye.
Abudaqa, a cameraman for Al Jazeera Arabic in Gaza, was hit in an Israeli drone attack while reporting at Farhana school in Khan Younis.
His colleague, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Wael Dahdouh, who lost his wife, son, daughter and grandson in a previous Israeli bombing, was wounded.
Journalists in Gaza are carrying a “human and noble message” for the world amid the ongoing war and will continue to work despite Israeli attacks, Dahdouh said in his eulogy.
“We will continue to do our duty with professionalism and transparency,” he said, as mourners around him wept.
2023-12-16 15:04:15
Palestinian health ministry officials in Gaza reported that the Israeli forces targeted anyone who moved into Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al Awda Hospital.
The southern part of Kamal Adwan Hospital has been destroyed and 12 newborns are still in incubators inside the hospital, the health ministry said.
The ministry also revealed that medical staff at Al Awda Hospital have refused the Israeli order to evacuate.
Meanwhile, ambulances carrying the wounded out of Kamal Adwan Hospital have been targeted by Israeli forces.
Additionally, Israeli attacks targeted the Al Sahaba centre on Friday. It is the only maternity care centre operational in Gaza.
2023-12-16 14:48:49
Two schools in Gaza City, north of the strip, were raided following information about Hamas fighters hiding inside the facilities, the Israeli army said, Al Jazeera reported.
Since the war started, the military has repeatedly legitimised attacks on civilian infrastructure, including UN-run schools and hospitals, to target Palestinian fighters.
However, reports from the ground show that scores of civilians were killed in most of these strikes.
Earlier today, several Palestinians were killed and injured in an Israeli attack targeting the vicinity of the UNRWA al-Mazraa School in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip.
2023-12-16 10:53:11
The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces in Jenin last year was shocking, but not unprecedented.
The Palestinian reporter, a famous face across the Arab world, was the 12th Al Jazeera journalist to be killed while reporting since the network’s launch in 1996, Al Jazeera reported.
The first was another Palestinian, Tarek Ayoub, who was killed in 2003 as a result of injuries he sustained in a US bombing of Al Jazeera’s building in Baghdad, during the Iraq War.
Other Al Jazeera journalists were killed in Libya, Syria and Yemen. The network has established a monument at its headquarters in Doha; a steel tree sculpture with leaves carrying the names of the reporters.
2023-12-16 12:56:18
An agent of Israel's Mossad intelligence service was executed on Saturday in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Balochistan province, the official IRNA news agency reported.
"This person communicated with foreign services, specifically Mossad, collecting classified information, and with participation with associates, provided documents to foreign services, including the Mossad," it said.
It did not name the person.
It said the accused had handed classified information to a "Mossad officer" with the aim of "propaganda for groups and organizations opposed to the Islamic Republic". It did not say where the alleged handover had taken place.
It was not clear when the person was arrested, but IRNA said an appeal had been rejected.
2023-12-15 23:50:00
Al Jazeera’s Samer Abudaqa was martyred in an Israeli attack in Khan Younis on Friday, Al Jazeera reported, adding that medical teams were prevented by Israeli forces from immediately reaching him.
Abudaqa joined Al Jazeera in June 2004, working as a cameraman and editor.
He was injured while on duty alongside fellow Al Jazeera journalist Wael Dahdouh in an Israeli attack at Farhana School in the centre of the city of Khan Younis.
Dahdouh was able to reach a hospital, but Abudaqa was unable to be transferred due to widespread destruction in southern Gaza.
According to Al Jazeera, efforts to coordinate with the Red Cross to secure a safe passage for rescuers to reach him amid continuing Israeli shelling took more than five-and-a-half hours as Abudaqa was bleeding and unable to move.
Abudaqa, born in 1978, was the father of three boys and a girl. He was a resident of the town of Abasan al-Kabira near Khan Younis.
2023-12-16 02:08:23
At least 18,800 Palestinians have so far lost their lives in a sustained Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, according to a statement released by the Hamas authority in Gaza on Friday.
The figure included 6,200 women and 8,000 children, the statement said, adding that 51,000 people had been injured so far since the fighting started on October 7.
2023-12-15 23:48:53
Israeli military Friday acknowledged that their troops mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza in a "friendly fire" incident.
Two of the killed hostages have been identified as Yotam Haim and Samer Talalka — whereas the name of the third hostage hasn't been made public at the request of the deceased's family.
2023-12-15 22:57:00
The UN refugee chief on Friday said that a new refugee crisis from Gaza must be prevented, referring to the possibility that hundreds of thousands of people already uprooted by the Israel-Hamas conflict could flee into Egypt.
"Many more (people) have been displaced into an already impoverished corner of an already tiny sliver of land. That violence must stop," Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said in closing remarks at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva.
"I want to be clear: what is already a massive displacement crisis within Gaza must not turn into yet another refugee crisis," he said.
2023-12-15 22:04:54
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday welcomed the announcement by Israel that it would allow the temporary delivery of aid into the besieged Gaza Strip via its Kerem Shalom border crossing.
The WHO called for the aid to be distributed throughout the embattled Palestinian territory.
"That’s, of course, very good news," said Richard Peeperkorn, World Health Organisation representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, of the Israeli announcement.
But he added: "How can we make sure that these trucks can go everywhere in Gaza, and not just in the southern Gaza, but also to the northern Gaza?"
There were still three functioning hospitals in the north of the territory, he added, speaking by videoconference from Jerusalem.
"We’re talking about getting supplies to the people all over Gaza," he said.
2023-12-15 21:17:47
2023-12-15 20:30:17
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas has said that Gaza is an "integral part" of the Palestinian state during talks with a top US official at his West Bank headquarters.
According to a statement issued by his office, the meeting came as Israel pressed its offensive in Gaza despite mounting international calls for restraint, with key backer the US saying the war must not lead to a long-term Israeli occupation of the territory.
Abbas told visiting US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that "Gaza is an integral part of the State of Palestine", his office said in a statement, adding that "the president underscored that separation or any attempt to isolate any part of it is unacceptable".
Abbas "emphasized the urgent need to halt the ongoing Israeli aggression, particularly the genocide being carried out these days upon the Palestinian people in Gaza", the statement added.
He said it was crucial to "spare civilians from the woes and devastation caused by the Israeli war machine".
2023-12-15 18:59:19
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday told US national security advisor Jake Sullivan that Israel's attack on Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, must stop, the official WAFA news agency reported on Friday.
Abbas told Sullivan during their meeting in Ramallah that the United States must "intervene to force Israel to stop its aggression against our people in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem," WAFA said.
2023-12-15 18:10:19
Two of Al Jazeera Arabic's journalists — Wael al-Dahdouh and Samer Abu Daqqa — have been wounded while covering the Israeli attack that targeted the school in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
2023-12-15 17:18:40
Pope Francis on Friday denounced the deaths of thousands of children in a "whirlwind of violence" in the Gaza Strip, Ukraine, and Yemen.
Francis has issued multiple appeals for peace and on Wednesday called for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" between Israel and Hamas.
"Do you know how many children have died in Gaza in this last war? More than 3,000. It is incredible, but it is the reality," Francis said.
"And in Ukraine there are more than 500, and in Yemen, in years of war, thousands," he added. "Their memory leads us to be ourselves lights for the world, to touch the hearts of many people, especially those who can stop the whirlwind of violence."
2023-12-15 16:11:45
A Dutch court on Friday dismissed demands by human rights groups to block the Dutch government from exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, which they said were enabling war crimes committed in the besieged Gaza strip.
Judges at the District Court in The Hague said they must leave the Dutch government a large degree of freedom when it comes to weighing political and policy issues in deciding on arms exports.
The rights groups, which included the Dutch affiliate of Oxfam, said Israel was using the planes in attacks in Gaza that were killing civilians in large-scale bombings that may constitute war crimes.
Preventing that was more important than the Netherlands fulfilling its commercial or political obligations to allied countries, they argued.
The Netherlands houses one of several regional warehouses of U.S.-owned F-35 parts which are then distributed to countries that request them, including Israel.
The judges did agree it was likely that F-35's contributed to the Gaza bombing campaign and possible violations of the laws of war.
2023-12-15 15:05:49
2023-12-15 14:52:57
The war in Gaza will transition to a new phase focused on precise targeting of the Hamas leadership and on intelligence-driven operations, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in Israel on Friday.
Sullivan said it would take months to achieve Israel's objectives in the war, but that fighting would proceed in phases, with a shift from the current campaign of intense bombing and ground operations.
The White House adviser, who is due to visit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later on Friday, gave no details on the timing of a shift in the war's intensity.
"The conditions and the timing for that was obviously a subject of conversation that I had with Prime Minister Netanyahu," the war cabinet, Israel's military leaders and the defence minister, Sullivan said in a news conference.
Sullivan declined to answer when asked whether the United States could hold back military aid if the war does not enter a lower intensity phase with fewer civilian casualties, saying the best way to reach an agreement was in discussion behind closed doors.
2023-12-15 13:35:39
2023-12-15 12:12:26
Family members of captives in Gaza have met UN Chief Antonio Guterres in a tense encounter, criticising him for his comments on the October 7 attack and his failure to visit Israel since the start of the war, Al Jazeera reported.
The UN senior official came under fire by Israel for saying that the assault into southern Israel did “not happen in a vacuum”, referring to Israel’s decades-long occupation.
In response, Guterres stressed once again that there was no justification for the Hamas attack and that he made overtures for a visit to Israel, but that he did not receive a response from the Israeli government.
2023-12-15 12:08:48
2023-12-15 11:19:31
2023-12-15 11:08:54
Dozens of injured people are arriving at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after the Israeli military bombed a UNRWA school in the southern city, Al Jazeera reported.
Several strikes have also targeted the centre and north of Khan Younis city and are ongoing in the city.
At least 10 people have been killed since dawn, including four children, according to Al Jazeera correspondents.
2023-12-15 09:52:56
Israeli special forces have recovered the body of 28-year-old hostage Elia Toledano who was held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas since its October 7 rampage in southern Israel, the military said in a statement on Friday.
The military said that an "identification procedure" had been carried out by medical officials, military rabbis and forensic experts.
Toledano was taken by Hamas from an outdoor music festival that had turned into a massacre, Israeli media reported.
More than 130 hostages remain in Gaza. Some have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities
2023-12-15 09:46:52
A Jewish group demanding a ceasefire in Israel's war in Gaza held protests on Thursday in eight US cities on the eighth night of Hanukkah, blocking rush-hour traffic on busy streets and bridges in Washington and Philadelphia.
In Washington, the group Jewish Voice for Peace said about 90 protesters blocked the overpass to New York Avenue in the northwestern part of the US capital. Police said the demonstration closed the intersection of New York Avenue and North Capitol Street and urged people to use alternate routes.
"On the 8th night of Hanukkah, 8 cities, 8 bridges," Jewish Voice for Peace said on X, formerly called Twitter. "We are here, gathering across the country in massive, growing numbers, to say no more."
Demonstrations also occurred in Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland, Oregon.
In Philadelphia, about 200 protesters briefly blocked the I-76 highway, and more than 30 arrests were made, a Reuters witness said. Protesters held signs and banners that read: "Let Gaza Live" and "Not in our name."
The United Nations on Tuesday demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip where Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas.
On Wednesday, anti-war activists blocked traffic on a busy Los Angeles highway during the morning rush hour while some staff from the Biden administration also held a vigil demanding a ceasefire.
2023-12-15 08:53:40
Israel's attacks have persisted throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged enclave, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 14, 10:00am local time (06:00 GMT), 18,894 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 7,794 children.
Additionally, at least 53,959 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,147 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Officials on November 10 revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-15 08:40:12
US President Joe Biden and top national security adviser Jake Sullivan have discussed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scaling back Israel's high-intensity operations in Gaza, a senior US official said on Thursday.
The focus on a "shift" in strategy is the latest in a weeks-long pressure campaign from Washington to do more to protect Gaza's population of 2.3 million.
Sullivan told Israel's Channel 12 television that he had "constructive" talks with Netanyahu about Israel shifting to a more precise and targeted phase of the operations, but declined to give details or a timeline for the change.
The New York Times reported Thursday that the US was pushing for a shift to occur by the end of the year.
Asked about that time frame, Biden replied: "I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives, not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful."
White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at a regular media briefing that Sullivan discussed a possible transition to lower-intensity operations in "the near future," but declined to provide a specific timetable.
"Last thing we want to do is telegraph to Hamas what they're likely to face in coming weeks and months," he said.
The change could include "a shift in emphasis from high-tempo clearance operations, high-intensity clearance operations" to a lower-intensity focus on high-value targets, with more intelligence-driven raids and more "narrow, surgical military objectives," a US official told reporters later Thursday.
Such a shift would mark a major inflexion point to a longer-term effort, the official said, adding that discussions were underway with Israel, the Palestinian Authority and other countries in the region about how to govern Gaza in the future.
Biden on Thursday urged Israel to "be more careful" in its attacks on Gaza and focus on saving civilian lives, a day after he warned Israel was starting to lose support over its "indiscriminate" bombing of the Palestinian enclave.
Sullivan this week told a Wall Street Journal event that he would discuss ways to scale back the conflict during his visit to Israel as well as Israel's timetable for the war.
2023-12-14 23:34:09
Israel pounded the length of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing families in their homes even as Washington sent an envoy to encourage its ally to guard better against civilian casualties in its war against Hamas militants.
The more than two-month-old war is now raging across the entire Palestinian enclave, causing a humanitarian catastrophe, with little end in sight.
In Rafah, jammed with people in makeshift tents on Gaza's southern edge, people wept at a morgue near bodies wrapped in bloodied shrouds.
Residents picked forlornly through the rubble of the adjacent homes of the Abu Dhbaa and Ashour families where Gaza health authorities said 26 people had been killed.
Up to 45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions that Israel has dropped on Gaza since October 7 have been unguided "dumb bombs" according to a US intelligence assessment reported by CNN.
Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been forced from their homes, many several times.
Israel has extended its ground campaign from the north to the south this month.
There has also been an intensification of clashes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Palestinian health ministry and international charities said at least 12 Palestinians, including a youth shot at a hospital, had been killed in a raid in the city of Jenin since Tuesday.
2023-12-14 22:52:46
Israel will pursue its war against Hamas "until absolute victory", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday, according to a statement from Netanyahu's office.
Netanyahu said he spoke with Sullivan about regional threats, including Iranian proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthis in Yemen, securing the return of hostages being held by Hamas, and the continuation of humanitarian aid for Gaza's civilian population.
"I told our American friends - our heroic fighters have not fallen in vain. From the deep pain of their falling, we are more determined than ever to continue to fight until Hamas is eliminated - until absolute victory," the statement said.
2023-12-14 22:06:14
Israeli troops have killed 12 Palestinians in three days of raids in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, including one youth shot dead at a hospital, Palestinian officials and international health charities said on Thursday.
The operation inside Jenin was met with anger by the Palestinian government, which described a "dangerous escalation" and criticised the desecration of a mosque by some Israeli troops. Israel's army said it would discipline the soldiers.
Images circulating on social media and verified by Reuters showed soldiers inside a mosque in Jenin using a microphone to read a Jewish prayer in the style of an Islamic call to prayer.
2023-12-14 21:08:29
2023-12-14 20:03:11
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday said the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war in the Palestinian territory had risen to at least 18,787.
The ministry said 50,897 people have also been wounded in the conflict.
2023-12-14 19:38:57
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told visiting White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday that it will take several months to defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Gallant said that for over a decade, Hamas has been building its "infrastructure under the ground and above the ground" and that to destroy the Islamist group "it will require a long period of time - it will last more than several months, but we will win and we will destroy them."
The two also discussed the need to return Israelis to their homes near the border with Lebanon after tens of thousands of people were displaced due to fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah, according to a statement from Gallant's office.
2023-12-14 18:07:37
2023-12-14 17:55:47
The Gaza death toll from Israeli attacks has reached 18,608, the health ministry in the under-attack enclave said.
In a statement, the health ministry said that since the October 7 attacks of Israel, at least 50,594 people have been injured.
2023-12-14 15:01:31
Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad Group, said its fighters “engaged in fierce clashes” with the Israeli forces in the areas al-Zaytoun and Shujayea in the east of Gaza, and Sheikh Radwan in the west of the enclave, Al Jazeera reported.
The group said on its Telegram channel that it bombed a military post and surrounding targets in the Sufa settlement in southern Israel with “missile barrages”.
Al-Quds Brigades fighters also targeted an Israeli tank and Caterpillar D9 bulldozer with tandem and RPG shells in Jabalia and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, according to the group's statement.
2023-12-14 13:13:42
Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza have been unguided, otherwise known as “dumb bombs,” according to a new US intelligence assessment reported by CNN.
The US news outlet said the assessment was compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and described to CNN by three sources who have seen it.
About 40 to 45 per cent of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used have been unguided and the rest have been precision-guided munitions, the CNN report added.
“Dumb bombs” do not contain a guidance system and they usually follow a ballistic trajectory or are dropped from aircraft.
US President Joe Biden, earlier this week, warned that Israel risks losing international support over its “indiscriminate bombing” of civilians.
2023-12-14 12:13:13
The UN’s special rapporteurReem Alsalem, while speaking to Al Jazeera on violence against women and girls, said that the number of women and children killed in Israeli bombing in Gaza “has surpassed anything we have seen in recent conflicts”.
People working on the ground in Gaza have “run out of words to describe the unspeakable level of suffering and horrors,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Within this hell, being a Palestinian woman or a child has really meant being stripped of any humanity, dignity, safety or any special considerations that would usually be given to women or children in times of peace or conflict,” she added.
In Gaza, more than 16,000 people have reportedly been killed in just two months, including an average of 115 children per day, making this the deadliest conflict for children in current times.
Almost 70% of those killed in Gaza since October 7th are women and children.
2023-12-14 11:15:34
2023-12-14 11:03:29
An annual report compiled by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) group revealed that 17 journalists on duty have been killed in the war between Israel and Hamas.
The RSF said that 13 of those journalists killed since the October 7 attacks were in the Gaza Strip.
“Sixty-three journalists lost their lives in total (including 56 in Gaza) if we include journalists killed in circumstances unproven to be related to their duties,” the group said.
2023-12-14 10:52:33
Winter rainfall in Gaza has increased concerns about the spread of disease among the thousands of displaced people, who are already been struggling to find proper shelter and food to survive, Al Jazeera reported.
Palestinians were seen fleeing from the Jabalia refugee camp in the middle of intense rainfall as they tried to escape non-stop Israeli attacks that targeted their shelter in northern Gaza.
In an exclusive video posted on social media by Al Jazeera Arabic, scores of people, including the elderly, women and children, are seen carrying their belongings while walking without any protection from heavy rains that have hit the Palestinian enclave over the last two days.
According to the report, the Palestinians were fleeing from Israel’s shelling of the Abu Hussein School, which had served as a shelter for internally displaced people in Gaza.
2023-12-14 08:46:52
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says that an attack by Palestinian fighters that killed several Israel soldiers on Tuesday in Gaza involved a “complex, multi-part ambush” that first targeted an Israeli patrol and then a “quick reaction force” (QRF) sent to help the stricken unit, according to Al Jazeera.
The attack in the Shujaiya area of Gaza City in the north of the Palestinian territory began with the ambushing of an Israeli patrol that entered a three-building complex. When the reaction force was sent to rescue the patrol, the Palestinian fighters switched the focus of their attack, the Washington, DC-based think tank said.
“Hamas fighters continued to attack the QRF by setting off IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and throwing grenades at Israeli forces. Israel recovered the bodies of the Israeli fireteam, but five additional Israeli soldiers died during the rescue operation including a battalion commander, three company commanders, and the ‘head of the Golani Brigade’s forward command team’,” the ISW reports.
The ISW also points out that Israeli military sources had claimed that Hamas’ Shujaiya Battalion had been “dismantled” already and had lost its “command and control” capabilities.
“The complex, multi-part nature of this ambush requires significant coordination between multiple Hamas tactical units. This suggests that at least some elements of Hamas‘ Shujaiya Battalion remain able to conduct military operations to defend Shujaiya,” it said.
2023-12-14 08:35:25
US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J. Austin III has spoken on the phone with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, to underscore his “enduring support” for Israel’s efforts against Hamas, according to a statement by the Pentagon.
In the call, Austin said that Hamas “can never repeat the October 7 attacks” on Israel, said the statement, which Austin also posted on X.
Austin also reiterated the need to protect civilians during military operations and to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the statement added, without mentioning the international demand for a ceasefire.
He also condemned the actions of Lebanon’s Hezbollah “that threaten communities in Israel and called for calm” along the UN demarcation line between the two countries.
2023-12-14 01:28:43
A Los Angeles freeway was shut down during rush hour on Wednesday by dozens of protesters who called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
As the group linked arms and sat down, they blocked traffic, causing backups for miles on the already overcrowded road network.
IfNotNow, whose mission is "to end US support for Israel's apartheid system," placed a giant menorah on the road and sang, calling for a "ceasefire now."
It is unacceptable for Jews to stay silent as people in Gaza starve and are "slaughtered in our name," the group wrote on social media.
"We cannot allow business as usual to continue, as Palestinians are murdered with impunity. So we have closed the freeway."
Scuffles broke out between protesters and frustrated drivers during the sit-in, according to video footage.
The California Highway Patrol officers showed up on the scene almost an hour after the protest began. Using zip-ties, the officers arrested the protestors and escorted them to waiting patrol cars.
International support for Israel's offensive is waning, with the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly backing a ceasefire resolution and US President Joe Biden warning against the "indiscriminate bombing" that is killing civilians.
2023-12-14 01:26:19
Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas chief, said Wednesday that any post-conflict plan for Gaza without the Palestinian resistance group is just a "delusion".
"Any arrangement in Gaza or the Palestinian cause without Hamas or the resistance factions is a delusion," said Haniyeh in a televised speech.
Haniyeh's comments came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would not allow "the entry into Gaza of those who... support terrorism and finance terrorism".
Haniyeh, however, said that he would be open to talks about ending the Israeli offensive and "putting the Palestinian house in order in the West Bank and Gaza Strip".
The Hamas leader also said that the resistance group was ready to engage in a dialogue to reach a political path that ensures that Palestinians have the right to live in an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
2023-12-13 23:24:12
2023-12-13 22:36:06
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday vowed to continue with the war on Gaza "till victory".
The Israeli premier, while on a visit to a military base in southern Israel, said that his country will not cede to "international pressures", Al Jazeera reported.
"We will continue until the end. There is no question at all. I say this in light of great pain, but also in light of international pressure. Nothing will stop us. We are going until the end, until victory, nothing less than that," AFP reported quoting the Israeli prime minister.
Netanyahu's remarks come as the country, earlier in the day, reiterated its commitment to continue its Gaza war "with or without international support" as pressure mounts amid increasing ceasefire calls.
2023-12-13 22:16:23
2023-12-13 21:48:23
At least 18,608 people have been martyred and 50,594 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, Gaza's health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
2023-12-13 21:42:59
The United States and Britain on Wednesday imposed an additional round of sanctions on people in Turkey and elsewhere who are linked to the Palestinian Hamas resistance group, the US Treasury Department said.
The sanctions target eight officials who advance Hamas’ agenda and interests abroad and help manage its finances, the Treasury said in a statement.
In the coordinated actions on Wednesday, Britain's foreign office said it sanctioned seven additional people linked to Hamas, including Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas’ co-founder, and Ali Baraka, Hamas’ head of external relations who was also sanctioned by the United States.
The UK sanctions also target a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group and figures in the financial network that backs Hamas, including individuals in Lebanon and Algeria.
"Hamas can have no future in Gaza. Today’s sanctions on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad will continue to cut off their access to funding and isolate them further," British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said.
2023-12-13 20:57:42
The situation in Khan Younis area of under-attack Gaza is getting tougher and harder by the minute, Al Jazeera reported, as the street battles erupt between Hamas and Israeli forces.
With the Israeli military trying to advance deeper into the city, Palestinian resistance fighters block their entry while using the network of tunnels.
Meanwhile, Israel continue the bombing and attacks on residential areas as they expand their offensive, targeting civilian areas.
2023-12-13 19:46:13
2023-12-13 18:25:48
Strong wind and heavy rain in Gaza overnight on Wednesday brought even worse misery to displaced families, tearing and flooding flimsy tents, drenching clothes and blankets and making everyone cold.
At a tent camp in Rafah, located on sandy terrain strewn with rubbish, people were trying to recover from a horrible night, carrying buckets of sand to cover puddles inside or just outside their tents, and hanging up soggy clothes.
Some families have proper tents, but others are making do with tarpaulins or thin, see-through plastic made to protect goods, not provide shelter for people. Many tents have no ground-sheets, so people spent the night huddling on wet sand.
"It is torn and water poured on us. We were drenched," said Ramadan Mohadad, a middle-aged man who was trying to fix his family's shelter fashioned from strips of plywood and a thin plastic sheet.
Rips were visible in other families' plastic shelters, and some showed puddles inside. One family had placed a cement block at the entrance to act as a sort of dam, as well as smaller bricks inside that looked like stepping stones.
2023-12-13 18:07:01
A number of people including women, children and babies taking refuge in the Shadia Abu Ghazala School in the al-Faluja area of Gaza were "killed point-blank" by the Israeli forces, witnesses said.
The school in the west of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, serving as a shelter to Palestinians displaced by the war came under attack this morning, Al Jazeera reported.
“The Israeli soldiers came in and opened fire on them,” a woman at the scene said.
“They took all men, then entered classrooms and opened fire on a woman and all the children with her.”
The woman said there were newborn children among them. “The Israeli soldiers executed those innocent families at point blank,” she added.
2023-12-13 17:56:54
Israel's foreign minister said on Wednesday that agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza at this stage would be a mistake, and that Israel will continue its war on Hamas whether or not it has international support.
"Israel will continue the war against Hamas with or without international support," said Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. "A ceasefire at the current stage is a gift to the terrorist organisation Hamas, and will allow it to return and threaten the residents of Israel."
Cohen also called on the international community to act "effectively and aggressively" in order to protect global shipping lanes.
2023-12-13 16:00:35
More civilian deaths are expected while the number of displaced people is also likely to increase, said theUnited Nations refugee chief, Al Jazeera reported.
“The events that have occurred in Israel and Gaza since October 7 are outside the mandate of UNHCR,” Filippo Grandi said at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva.
“Tragically, however, we foresee more civilian deaths and suffering and also further displacement that threatens the region.”
2023-12-13 15:35:40
A spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza has said that there are nomedical services are available in the area, Al Jazeera reported.
He added that theal-Ahli Arab Hospital is at at full capacity and unable to providemedical services to the wounded, adding that severalmedical personnel at the Kamal Adwan Hospital were attacked by the Israeli forces.
The spokesperson added that the flow ofmedical aid into Gaza is controlled by Gaza andthe number of patients seeking treatment abroad.
2023-12-13 15:16:11
2023-12-13 12:14:39
Human Rights Watch has said that Yemen's Houthis are targeting ships that are carrying civilian crews in the Red Sea and have no connection to Israel, Al Jazeera reported.
“The Houthis are claiming that they’re carrying out attacks on behalf of Palestinians, when the reality is that they’re attacking, arbitrarily detaining, and endangering civilians on ship crews who have zero connection to any known military target,” Michael Page, Middle East and North Africa deputy director at HRW said in a statement.
“The Houthis should immediately release the hostages and end their attacks on civilians caught in the crosshairs of their declared war on Israel.”
It also said that theNorwegian-flagged Strinda, which was attacked by a missile on Tuesday, was carrying palm oil to Italy rather than oil to Israel.
2023-12-13 10:48:00
Israel has started flooding some ofGaza's tunnels with seawater “on a limited basis” in a bid to break down Hamas' allegedunderground network, CNN reported citing a US official.
According to the official, Israel is not sure whether this will work to not, assuring the US that they are testing in tunnels where hostages are not being held.
Israel's Prime Minister's Office said that it believes the Palestinian resistance group is still135 hostages including some of US citizens.
2023-12-13 09:56:31
Israel on Wednesday sent four newwarships to the Red Sea amid a warning issued by Yemen's senior Houthi official.
"Four new Sa'ar 6-class corvettes sailed for the first time to the Red Sea, joining the Israeli Navy's operational activities," said the Israeli army on X, formerly Twitter.
2023-12-13 09:04:51
Hamas welcomed the United Nations' demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and urged the international community to continue pressuring Israel to abide by the resolution, a senior official of the Palestinian Islamist group, Izzat El-Reshiq, said in a statement early on Wednesday.
More than three-fourths of the 193-member UN General Assembly backed the move, which was vetoed by the United States in the Security Council last week.
2023-12-13 02:49:53
The United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, putting pressure on Israel.
The body, which includes all 193 UN member nations, voted 153 in favour of the resolution, exceeding the 140 or so countries that have routinely backed resolutions condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Ten countries, including the United States and Israel, voted against the resolution, while 23 abstained.
The vote in the General Assembly came after the Security Council -- responsible for global peace and security -- has repeatedly failed to make such a call.
The Council took more than a month after the start of the Israeli offensive on Gaza to speak out -- and it did so with a weak voice, calling in mid-November after four rejected texts for humanitarian "pauses" in the conflict.
"These tragic attempts are a despicable sign of double standards," Egypt's ambassador to the UN Osama Mahmoud Abdelkhalek Mahmoud said of Washington's efforts to provide Israel diplomatic cover ahead of the vote in the General Assembly.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned of a looming "complete breakdown of public order" in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Many countries and human rights organisations condemned last Friday's Security Council failure, and Guterres on Sunday described the Council's authority and credibility as "undermined."
"We agree the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire," said Washington's ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield ahead of Tuesday's vote.
"It's the diplomacy that the United States is engaging in on the ground that made that week-long humanitarian pause possible," she said, referring to the only lull in the fighting so far, which took place last month.
Thomas-Greenfield urged countries to back an amendment to Tuesday´s resolution that would have condemned Hamas, but that was voted down.
She also called on Israel "to avoid mass displacement of civilians in the south of Gaza," but said Israel was pursuing "legitimate military objectives."
2023-12-13 00:03:53
US President Joe Biden said Tuesday the Israeli administration was opposed to a two-state solution with the Palestinians and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "change" his government.
Biden's comments to Democratic donors revealed a rare rift with Netanyahu after weeks in which the US leader has strongly backed Israel's assault on Gaza in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks.
"Bibi's got a tough decision to make," Biden said, referring to Netanyahu and his hardline right-wing government.
"This is the most conservative government in Israel's history," he said, adding that the Israeli government "doesn't want a two-state solution."
2023-12-12 23:57:17
2023-12-12 23:56:08
The UN General Assembly appeared set to demand on Tuesday an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the two-month long conflict between Israel and Hamas after the United States vetoed such a move in the Security Council.
No country has a veto power in the 193-member General Assembly, which is due to vote on a draft resolution that mirrors the language of one that was blocked by the United States in the 15-member Security Council last week.
General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight, reflecting a global view on the war.
The assembly vote takes place a day after 12 Security Council envoys visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, the only place where limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza. The United States did not send a representative on the trip.
"With each step, the US looks more isolated from the mainstream of UN opinion," said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group.
The draft General Assembly resolution to be voted on Tuesday also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and that the warring parties comply with international law, specifically with regard to the protection of civilians.
2023-12-12 23:31:58
The United Nations Tuesday said that its satellite analysis agency UNOSAT had determined that 18% of Gaza's infrastructure has been destroyed since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.
The estimate is based on an image taken on November 26, the agency said that there has been a 49% increase in the total number of structures affected as compared to an earlier assessment made on November 7.
2023-12-12 23:20:55
Canada, Australia and New Zealand support urgent international efforts towards a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza, the prime ministers of the three countries said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
"We are alarmed at the diminishing safe space for civilians in Gaza. The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians," they said in the statement.
A ceasefire cannot be one-sided and Hamas must release all hostages and stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields, they added.
2023-12-12 22:36:10
US President Joe Biden Tuesday said that Israel is starting to lose support from the international community with its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza which has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.
"They're starting to lose that support," Biden told a campaign fundraising event in Washington.
The US president also said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to change his hardline government.
2023-12-12 22:12:49
The Israeli army on Tuesday claimed that it had recovered during an operation in Gaza the bodies of two hostages.
Following the bodies’ positive identification, authorities "informed the families of Eden Zakaria and Ziv Dado, who were taken hostage by the Hamas on October 7th, that their bodies had been recovered and returned to Israel," the army claimed in a statement.
2023-12-12 22:04:26
A World Health Organization official says less than a third of Gaza's hospitals remain functional, and those only partially so, Reuters news agency reports.
"In just 66 days the health system has gone from 36 functional hospitals to 11 partially functional hospitals - one in the north and 10 in the south.
"We cannot afford to lose any health care facilities or hospitals.
"We hope, we plea that this will not happen," WHO's Richard Peeperkorn told a UN press briefing.
2023-12-12 21:50:23
The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza is having a severe impact on the Palestinian economy, according to the World Bank, which now estimates sharp economic contraction this year and next.
Beyond the large scale immediate human cost, the Israel-Hamas conflict has also "severely impacted the Palestinian economy," the World Bank announced in a statement published Tuesday.
Despite Gaza's small economic contribution, the World Bank now expects the overall Palestinian economy to contract by 3.7% this year, down sharply from its pre-war forecast of a 3.2% increase.
Next year, the situation is expected to be even worse.
Whereas the World Bank previously anticipated growth of 3.0% in 2024, it now expects an overall contraction of 6.0% — on the assumption that the severity of the conflict decreases next year.
If the war drags on, the economic impact could be even worse.
2023-12-12 21:04:46
Hamas’s military wing claimed that it shot five Israeli soldiers in Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reported.
Al Qassam Brigades said that its fighters clashed with a group of Israeli soldiers in the town of al-Qarara, east of Khan Younis, and that some of those shot had been killed, without specifying the number.
2023-12-12 20:32:42
The World Bank Tuesday announced $20 million in new financing to provide emergency relief for people in Gaza, including $10 million for food vouchers and parcels.
The aid, which will reach an estimated 377,000 people, is part of a larger $35 million Gaza relief package, the lender said in a statement.
An initial $15 million in emergency relief was already delivered, the statement added.
2023-12-12 19:09:41
The Palestinian health ministry Tuesday announced that the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war in the besieged Gaza Strip had risen to at least 18,412.
The ministry also said that more than 50,000 Palestinians have been wounded in the conflict so far.
2023-12-12 18:26:04
Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh Tuesday called for more Gaza-Israel crossings to be opened along with food and medical supplies transported via ships into the beleaguered territory.
Al Jazeera reported that the Palestinian premier also complained of Israel being at war with all Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the Palestinian diaspora.
Calling for Israeli settlers to be declared as terrorists, Shtayyeh deplored Israel's “kill them before they kill you” approach terming it as a justification for Palestinians' massacre.
2023-12-12 17:27:16
Amid the ongoing brutal aggression, the Israeli forces on Monday bombed more targets in the devastated Gaza Strip as the UN General Assembly was due to vote on a new demand for a ceasefire.
More than two months into the war, the visiting chief of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, likened Gaza to "hell on earth".
"Israeli occupation forces are storming Kamal Adwan hospital after besieging and bombing it for days," ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said, accusing troops of rounding up men in the hospital courtyard, including medical staff.
2023-12-12 17:12:14
International humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also known as Doctors Without Borders Tuesday lamented the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza terming it similar to World War I.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, MSF's Palestine mission head Leo Cans expressed outrage over the targetting of health facilities by the Israeli forces.
Highlighting that the Israeli military is targeting medical infrastructure just like they targeted Al Shifa hospital and stressed that the organisation's staff are working in conditions similar to that witnessed in World War I.
Terming the situation as inhumane and unacceptable, Cans said: "We are operating on the floor. Children are arriving with very bad injuries."
2023-12-12 14:47:18
2023-12-12 14:36:44
At least 105 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip during the ground offensive so far and 20 of them were killed by friendly fire and in shooting accidents, Al Jazeera reported citing new data released by the Israeli army and reported by local media.
According to the Times of Israel, 13 among them were killed by friendly fire, including air strikes, tank fire and gunfire.
Some were also killed by accidental misfires or by shrapnel from explosives intentionally set off by Israeli forces. Israeli media added that some soldiers were killed after being mistakenly identified as Hamas fighters.
2023-12-12 14:24:52
A report in the Israel newspaper Haaretz says the army is misleading the public on Telegram channels including a channel called “72 Virgins – Uncensored”, which posts graphic pictures of the alleged bodies of Hamas members.
The channel, which was created two days after the October 7 attack, says it posts “exclusive content from the Gaza Strip” and encourages its 5,300 followers to share pictures and videos showing the destruction of the enclave, Al Jazeera reported citing the report.
In one post made on October 14, a video was shared of an Israeli vehicle repeatedly running over a body, titled “Exclusive video of a good night, don’t forget to share and repost”.
The army has denied it operates the channel but an official, who spoke to Haaretz on the condition of anonymity, said the army was responsible for operating it.
2023-12-12 14:07:20
The WHO chief has expressed concern over the detention of health workers in the Gaza Strip and the prolonged checks of health convoys there.
“We are deeply concerned about prolonged checks and detention of health workers that put lives of already fragile patients at risk,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X.
A WHO-led mission to Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza on Saturday was stopped twice at a checkpoint on the way to and back from north Gaza. Some staff of the Palestine Red Crescent Society were also detained.
Due to the hold-up, one patient died given the grave nature of the wounds and the delay in accessing treatment, he said.
2023-12-12 11:52:09
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Gaza Strip will be under Israeli military control after the war, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation reported, Al Jazeera reported.
“The Strip will be under Israeli military control. After the war, a civilian administration will operate in Gaza and the Strip will be rehabilitated under the leadership of the Gulf states. We will not give in to international pressure,” Netanyahu told the broadcaster.
President Biden has expressed his desire for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to reunify the West Bank and Gaza Strip, avoiding Israeli occupation or territorial reduction.
However, Netanyahu's government acknowledges the possibility of a war against PA forces in the West Bank and is preparing contingency plans to respond to such an event.
2023-12-12 11:16:40
Israel's attacks have increased throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged territory, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 11, 8:00am local time (05:00 GMT), 18,272 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 7,792 children.
Additionally, at least 52,594 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,147 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Officials on November 10 revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-12 11:11:12
Three Palestinians were martyred on Tuesday during an Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said.
An Israeli drone attack martyred three Palestinians and injured others, medical sources said, adding that the Israeli raid included the city of Jenin and its refugee camp.
2023-12-12 10:55:50
Palestine’s mission to the United Nations (UN) has delivered a letter to the President of the UN Security Council “appealing to all peace-loving nations” to support a draft ceasefire resolution in the UN General Assembly.
“The Security Council’s failure to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, due to the veto cast by the United States, has permitted the Israeli war machine to carry on with its slaughter of Palestinians,” Ambassador Riyad Mansour wrote in the letter.
“The General Assembly, the world’s parliament, has an opportunity and a responsibility to correct course,” Mansour added.
2023-12-12 10:22:08
At least a dozen people have been arrested in Silwad, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, as Israeli forces raided several homes, according to Al Jazeera.
The number of detainees is expected to grow, with the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, describing the arrests as “massive”. Among those arrested was a 12-year-old boy.
Earlier, Al Jazeera reported that a major raid was underway in Jenin, with Israeli forces reported massing outside Al Razi Hospital.
There have also been reports of Israeli military vehicles obstructing the work of ambulance crews during a raid in the town of Aqaba, north of the city of Tubas.
Al Jazeera Arabic shared a video on X showing Israeli forces blocking an ambulance while storming the town of Aqaba, north of Tubas in the occupied West Bank.
2023-12-12 10:02:00
2023-12-12 08:42:55
US President Joe Biden on Monday reiterated his support for the Israeli military offensive in Gaza that has claimed more than 18,000 lives, saying “the safety of the Jewish people and the security of Israel and its right to exist” is important.
He also alluded to the complex relationship he has with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting the prime minister is in a "tough spot".
Biden, speaking at a White House reception for the Jewish Hanukkah festival, recalled his decades-long relationship with Netanyahu.
He noted he made an inscription on an old photograph of the two men, using a nickname for the Israeli leader.
"I wrote on the top of it, 'Bibi I love you but I don't agree with a damn thing you had to say.'"
"It's about the same today," Biden said, to scattered applause from the largely Jewish audience, adding that Israel is in a "tough spot" and that "I've had my differences with some Israeli leadership."
He did not elaborate on what differences between the two men remained, though in recent weeks they have included issues spanning the current war against Hamas and treatment of Palestinians.
Biden has weathered intense criticism for his support for Israel's response to Hamas' Oct. 7 cross-border attack, when the militants killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. About 100 hostages have since been freed.
Israel's retaliatory assault has killed 18,205 people and wounded nearly 50,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, drawing sharp rebukes within the United States.
Biden told Jewish people celebrating the holidays at the White House that, differences with Israeli leadership aside, his "commitment" to the "independent Jewish state is unshakeable."
He added: "Folks, were there no Israel, there wouldn't be a Jew in the world that was safe."
He said assistance to Israel would continue until Hamas was routed out but warned that public opinion could shift in grave ways for Israel's security.
"We have to be careful," Biden said. "They have to be careful. The whole world's public opinion can shift overnight. We can't let that happen."
Biden said the United States would continue to work to free hostages still held in Gaza, speed humanitarian aid to Palestinians and "emphasize to our Israeli friends we need to protect civilian life."
2023-12-11 23:58:12
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday he would propose sanctions against Jewish settlers responsible for violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Borrell was speaking after EU foreign ministers debated possible next steps in their response to the Middle East crisis.
While much international attention has focused on the cross-border assault and Israel's subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza, European officials have also expressed increasing concern about rising violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Borrell said he would propose a special sanctions programme to target Hamas — backed by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Italy — but EU also had to act against violent Israeli settlers.
"The time has come to move from words to actions... and to start adopting the measures we can take with regard to the acts of violence against the Palestinian population in the West Bank," Borrell told reporters after the meeting in Brussels.
2023-12-11 23:14:21
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday that Israel had no intention of staying permanently in the Gaza Strip and that it was open to discussing alternatives about who would control the territory, as long as it was not a group hostile to Israel.
Gallant also said that Israel was open to possibly reaching an agreement with the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, on condition and agreement included a safe zone along border and proper guarantees.
2023-12-11 23:01:05
Juliette Touma, director of communications for the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, said UNRWA was currently sheltering nine times as many people in Gaza as it planned, Al Jazeera reported.
“Now 1.3 million people are in overcrowded UNRWA shelters that are themselves unprotected,” she said, adding disease and hunger are spreading in its facilities.
“People don’t have enough food. They are getting hungry. Many of them are getting very understandably frustrated,” she continued.
“People literally started taking food from those trucks and eating it then and there,” she said. “That shows if the war continues, Gaza is going to sink further into the abyss.”
2023-12-11 22:32:23
2023-12-11 21:34:53
Zara pulled an advertising campaign featuring mannequins with missing limbs and statues wrapped in white from the front page of its website and app on Monday after it prompted calls by some pro-Palestine activists for a boycott of the fashion retailer.
Inditex, which owns Zara, said the change was part of its normal procedure of refreshing content. It did not comment on the boycott calls, but said the "Atelier" collection was conceived in July and the photos were taken in September. The war between Israel and Hamas began after October 7.
Zara's Instagram account saw tens of thousands of comments posted about the photos, many with Palestinian flags, while "#BoycottZara" was trending on messaging platform X.
In one of the photos, a model is pictured carrying a mannequin wrapped in white, in another a bust lies on the floor and another features a mannequin with no arms. Critics said they resembled photos of corpses in white shrouds in Gaza.
2023-12-11 21:32:54
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip said Monday the death toll of the Israel-Hamas war has risen to 18,205 in the Palestinian territory.
Some 49,645 people have been wounded since the conflict erupted on October 7, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement.
2023-12-11 19:57:36
UN Security Council envoys spoke of unimaginable suffering and urged an end to the war in the Gaza Strip on Monday as they headed across Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to the Rafah crossing, the besieged Palestinian enclave's only entry point for aid.
China's representative to the United Nations Zhang Jun, when asked by reporters if he had a message to nations which opposed a ceasefire in Gaza, said: "Enough is enough."
A majority of United Nations member states support an immediate and lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as dire conditions worsen for its 2.3 million residents.
After flying to the town of Al Arish they were briefed by the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA on conditions in Gaza before heading towards Rafah 48 kilometres away.
"The reality is even worse than what words can speak," Ecuador's UN representative Jose De La Gasca told reporters after the UNRWA briefing.
"We need to see. [...] we will witness what is happening and what can we do in order to address the situation," he said.
Meanwhile, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini described an "implosion of civil order" where Gazans who had not eaten for days looted aid distribution centres and stopped trucks on roads as they tried to secure supplies for their families.
"There is not enough assistance," Lazzarini said adding, "Hunger is prevailing in Gaza...most of the people are just sleeping on the concrete."
2023-12-11 19:49:15
2023-12-11 19:21:39
France, Germany, and Italy called for the European Union to set up a special sanctions scheme to target Hamas as EU foreign ministers met on Monday to consider possible next steps in response to the Middle East crisis.
Among the possible measures up for discussion at the meeting are a crackdown on Hamas’ finances and travel bans for Israeli settlers responsible for violence in the West Bank.
In a letter to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the foreign ministers of the bloc's three biggest countries said it was important the EU take "all necessary measures against the terrorist group Hamas and its supporters".
"This implies a stronger European commitment both to combating Hamas' infrastructure and financial support, and to isolating and delegitimising Hamas internationally, which in no way represents the Palestinians or their legitimate aspirations," said the letter, seen by Reuters.
2023-12-11 18:15:03
2023-12-11 18:05:36
Fighting between Israel and Hamas intensified across Gaza on Monday, fuelling fears flagged by the United Nations at the weekend of a breakdown in public order and a mass exodus of Palestinians into Egypt.
The narrow coastal strip has been under a full Israeli blockade since the start of the conflict more than two months ago and the border with Egypt is the only other way out.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes and residents say it is impossible to find refuge in the densely populated enclave, with around 18,000 people already killed and conflict intensifying.
Since the breakdown of a week-long ceasefire, Israel launched a ground offensive in the south last week and has since pushed from the east into the heart of the major city of Khan Younis, with warplanes attacking an area to the west.
"Hunger is the base for all evils that destroy the social fabric of communities," writer Aziz Almasri said on Facebook. "It is the second face of the war we see today in Gaza."
2023-12-11 16:13:29
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said dozens of Hamas members have surrendered and he described the situation as “the beginning of the end” for the group, BBC reported.
2023-12-11 15:49:19
2023-12-11 14:04:39
The Israeli army has airdropped seven tonnes of equipment to hundreds of troops operating in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported citing the army.
A video published by the army spokesperson Daniel Hagari on X shows a C-130J transport aircraft dropping the equipment.
Hagari said this was the first time that the army has airdropped equipment since the 2006 Lebanon War.
2023-12-11 14:54:25
2023-12-11 13:53:46
2023-12-11 13:48:02
2023-12-11 13:41:30
Dr Huiyao Wang, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), and former counsellor to the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, has responded to the US vetoing the UN's ceasefire resolution on Friday.
While attending the Doha Forum, where the war in Gaza reigns on the agenda, Wang said that it is out of sync with the world we live in today and contemporary geopolitics that a UN resolution can be “revoked by one country only”, Al Jazeera reported.
Wang added that the world should want “to start a system which will work for all” and to see common sense prevailing.
2023-12-11 13:08:28
2023-12-11 11:42:50
A dozen United Nations Security Council (UNSC) envoys were due to visit the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Monday, just days after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned thousands of people in the besieged Palestinian enclave were "simply starving."
The United Arab Emirates arranged the trip to Rafah — where limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza — as the 15-member council negotiates a UAE-drafted resolution that demands the warring parties "allow the use of all land, sea and air routes to and throughout" Gaza for aid.
It would also establish a UN-run aid monitoring mechanism in the Gaza Strip. It was not immediately clear when the draft resolution could be put to a vote.
UAE UN Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh said the aim of the visit was "to learn first-hand what is needed in terms of a humanitarian operations scale-up that meet the needs of the Palestinian people in Gaza." She noted it was not an official Security Council visit.
Washington is not sending a representative on the trip, which follows a US veto last week of a proposed UNSC demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
"The United States is keenly aware of the very difficult situation at Rafah and is working around the clock to try to improve the situation on the ground," said Nate Evans, spokesperson for the US Mission to the UN.
He said US diplomacy "continues to produce results" and that Washington has been "clear that more assistance is needed and continue to support humanitarian pauses during which hostages can be released and aid can be surged."
France and Gabon are also not sending representatives on the trip to Rafah. The French UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
2023-12-11 11:22:28
2023-12-11 10:42:25
The United Nations (UN) has appealed for $46 billion in funding for 2024 to help millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the globe, including in the occupied Palestinian territories, Sudan and Ukraine.
In its Global Humanitarian Overview for 2024, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that nearly 300 million people will require humanitarian assistance next year due to conflicts, climate emergencies and economic factors.
“I think the Middle East as a whole and Gaza and West Bank is probably going to be the area of greatest need,” Reuters quoted UN aid chief Martin Griffiths.
The humanitarian system is facing a major funding crisis, with just over one-third of the $57 billion required to provide aid funded last year, OCHA said in its annual assessment of global humanitarian needs.
2023-12-11 10:26:33
2023-12-11 10:17:30
The Israeli military announced it killed Emad Krikae, the commander of Hamas’s Shejaiya Battalion, in a post on X on Monday.
It did not specify the circumstances around his alleged death, Al Jazeera reported.
The post claimed Krikae was previously “responsible for anti-tank missile training in the Gaza City Brigade” before assuming his role after the death of the battalion’s previous commander.
2023-12-11 10:14:29
White House National Security adviser Jake Sullivan is set to push for more humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza during a visit scheduled for the end of this week, the Times of Israel reported citing US and Israeli officials.
Sullivan will also bring up US concerns about the increasing number of civilian casualties as Israel advances farther into southern Gaza and keeps up its unrelenting assault on the besieged enclave.
Several senior White House officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris'National Security Advisor Phil Gordon and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have visited Israel in recent weeks.
2023-12-11 08:55:39
Egypt and Mauritania have invoked the UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 377 “Uniting for Peace” in a letter to the President of the General Assembly, according to Al Jazeera.
As a response to the letter, the president convened a special session of the assembly to be held on Tuesday.
Egypt and Mauritania, in their letter, said the special session was needed after “a Permanent Member of the Security Council” vetoed a Security Council Gaza ceasefire resolution — a reference to the US.
Resolution 377, which was adopted by the UNGA in 1950, allows the 193-member UN body to act where the UN Security Council has failed to “exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”.
Their letter also referred to the UN secretary-general invoking Article 99 of the UN Charter on December 6, before the Security Council’s vote.
Article 99 allows the secretary general to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.
2023-12-11 08:55:29
The 193-member United Nations General Assembly is likely to vote Tuesday on a draft resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, diplomats said on Sunday.
The move comes after the US vetoed on Friday a UN Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The General Assembly in October adopted a resolution — 121 votes in favour, 14 against and 44 abstentions — calling for "an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities."
2023-12-10 23:14:13
The World Health Organisation's executive board on Sunday adopted a resolution calling for immediate, unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza following the WHO chief's remarks citing concerns over unimaginable conditions being faced by the medics in the beleaguered territory.
The 34 countries on the board adopted the resolution by consensus, even though some, notably the United States, had reservations about the dearth of references to the Hamas attacks of October 7.
In addition to calling for immediate humanitarian relief, the resolution also demands the provision of exit permits for patients.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the board had managed to achieve "the first consensus resolution on the conflict [...] since it began two months ago."
The resolution — brought forward by Afghanistan, Morocco, Qatar and Yemen — seeks the supply and replenishment of medicine and medical equipment to the civilian population and ensure access to medical treatment.
2023-12-10 22:45:49
Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi has accused Israel of trying to “empty Gaza of Palestinians” in a campaign that amounts to “genocide”.
“What we are seeing in Gaza is not simply the killing of innocent people and the destruction of their livelihoods, but a systematic effort to empty Gaza of its people,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said at the Doha Forum.
“This is a war that cannot be won. Israel has already suffered a strategic defeat.”
“Israel has created this amount of hatred that will haunt this region. [It] will define generations to come and, therefore, it’s hurting its own people as much as it’s hurting everybody else in the region.”
2023-12-10 22:39:13
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Washington is in almost constant contact with the Israelis “to ensure they understand what their obligations are”.
Blinken's comments in conversation with ABC followed an earlier statement to CNN where he called it “imperative” for Israeli military operations to protect Palestinian civilians.
2023-12-10 22:36:43
As the mass exodus of Palestinians continues, the living conditions are at the lowest for those fleeing northern Gaza to stay safe, Al Jazeera reported
Many Palestinians have been killed while evacuating as the areas in the south which were earlier designated as "safe areas" by the Israelis, are now under attack.
Those in Khan Younis have been ordered to flee to al-Mawasi on the coastline — an area considered to be very dangerous and has no infrastructure, or access to water, food and electricity. There’s also no access to toilets.
2023-12-10 21:30:37
Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesman says about 18,000 Palestinians have been killed and 49,500 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 7.
Ashraf al-Qudra told Al Jazeera in a telephone interview that the death toll included 297 people killed and more than 550 wounded in the past 24 hours.
Israel’s relentless bombardment continues along with ground operations that have forced hundreds of thousands of people from the northern and central areas to the increasingly overcrowded south.
2023-12-10 20:50:11
A spokesperson for the Hamas's armed wing Al Qassam Brigades has said that Israeli captives will not be released by without negotiations, Al Jazeera reported.
“We tell Israelis that Netanyahu, Gallant and others in the war cabinet cannot bring back their captives without negotiations. The latest killing of a captive that they tried to take back by force proves that," Abu Obaida said in a pre-recorded message.
The spokesman for the group’s armed wing was referring to an Israeli man held captive, whom Israeli special forces in the Gaza Strip tried to rescue. Al Qassam, Abu Obaida said, repelled their attempt, inflicting several military casualties, and that the captive also died in the incident.
Abu Obaida also said that in ten days fighters from Beit Hanoun to Khan Younis “managed to destroy more than 180 military vehicles APCs, tanks and bulldozers partially and totally. Our fighters carried out operations that included attacking foot soldiers from zero distance, and carried out tens of sniper attacks and used anti-personnel weaponry.”
“These led to a large number of deaths and injuries among the enemy ranks,” he said.
2023-12-10 19:21:41
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday and voiced displeasure with "anti-Israel positions" taken by Moscow's envoys at the United Nations, an Israeli statement said.
Russia backed a UN Security Council resolution for a Gaza truce, which was vetoed by the United States on Friday.
Speaking to Putin, Netanyahu also voiced "robust disapproval" of Russia's "dangerous" cooperation with Iran, the Israeli statement said.
The Kremlin said Russia was ready to give all possible assistance to alleviate the suffering of civilians and de-escalate the conflict.
"Vladimir Putin reaffirmed the principle position of rejecting and condemning terrorism in all its forms," the Kremlin said in a statement.
"At the same time, it is extremely important that countering terrorist threats does not lead to such grave consequences for the civilian population."
Russia's foreign minister on Sunday said an international monitoring mission should go to Gaza to monitor the humanitarian situation.
2023-12-10 19:11:39
2023-12-10 18:39:09
UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA chief has expressed concerns regarding Israel trying to force Palestinians out of Gaza into Egypt, Al Jazeera reported.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini issued the warning in an op-ed for the LA Times on Saturday, as 1.9 million Palestinians remain trapped on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip amid dire humanitarian conditions.
“The developments we are witnessing point to attempts to move Palestinians into Egypt, regardless of whether they stay there or are resettled elsewhere,” wrote Lazzarini, adding that the Israeli military’s destruction of northern Gaza was “the first stage of such a scenario”.
Its advancing campaign in the southern city of Khan Younis, which has pushed Palestinians from there to the far southern tip of the enclave, is the next phase, he said.
“If this path continues, leading to what many are already calling a second Nakba, Gaza will not be a land for Palestinians anymore,” Lazzarini said.
2023-12-10 18:08:47
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that he appreciated the United State's veto at the UN Security Council's, blocking a demand for a ceasefire in Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.
"Other countries must also understand that it's impossible to support the elimination of Hamas on one side, and on the other to call for the end of the war, which will prevent the elimination of Hamas," Netanyahu said.
"Therefore Israel will continue our just war to eliminate Hamas and achieve the war's other objectives that we set."
He also thanked the US president for providing Israel with “important ammunition” for the continuation of the war in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
Netanyahu did not specify which arms deliveries he was referring to.
Israel’s military is bolstered by more than $3.8bn of military aid a year from the US. This is thanks to a record $38bn deal over 10 years signed under former US President Barack Obama in 2016.
Of the $3.8bn provided this year, half a billion has been for Israel’s missile defences.
2023-12-10 18:06:57
As the the World Health Organization (WHO) convenes an emergency session on the catastrophic situation in Gaza, the body's chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that "the impact of the conflict on health is catastrophic", BBC reported.
"Gaza's health system is on its knees and collapsing," he said while shedding light on the worsening situations in the hospitals of Gaza as Israel continues bombing the facilities.
Speaking at an event in Geneva, the WHO head says that Israeli actions to force Palestinians into a smaller and smaller area is creating the "ideal conditions for disease to spread."
He says there is just one shower for every 750 people and one toilet for every 150. And "only 14 hospitals out of the original 36 (in the Gaza Strip) are even partially functional”: two in the north and 12 in the south.
The conditions for health workers - which were already very difficult in 2018 - are "impossible and they’re directly in the firing line”, Ghebreyesus says.
And he says the WHO has recorded 449 attacks on healthcare in Gaza and the West Bank since the start of this conflict on 7 October - and 60 in Israel.
2023-12-10 17:59:46
In what can be called war crimes, the oppressor Israeli troops threatened women with rape and kill their children in besieged Gaza strip.
Earlier this week, images of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear in Gaza surfaced on social media.
The Israeli forces were carrying out heinous crimes against innocent civilians as over 17,700 Palestinians — including around 8,000 children — have been martyred so far.
Sharing her ordeal, a Palestinian woman said: "He struck me in the stomach and the head. Then he said, 'If you refuse to talk, the soldiers will rape you.'
This is how Israeli soldiers treated this woman and other female captives in Gaza, Quds News Network reported.
2023-12-10 17:15:05
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) conducted "widespread" strikes in Lebanon in response to repeated Hezbollah attacks on the border, which hurt Israeli troops, Times of Israel reported.
2023-12-10 17:00:05
When asked if the Palestinian Authority (PA) would be willing to take over the Gaza Strip after the ongoing war ends, PM Shtayyeh said the PA had “never left Gaza”, Al Jazeera reported.
“We are not the Red Cross. These are our people, this is our land,” he told the Qatar-based publication at the Doha Forum.
“For the last 17 years, and even before that for 30 years, the PA has been providing every single assistance to Gaza. We are the ones who took care of the water, electricity, sewage, education and health.”
It has been previously suggested by the US that in a scenario where Israel succeeds in eliminating Hamas, the PA should take over the besieged enclave.
“We want a situation in which Palestinians are united. Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian political mosaic,” he noted. “I think it is time that Hamas call the Palestinian president and tell him we’re all united behind you, and you are the legitimate authority of the Palestinian people and we are ready to engage.”
2023-12-10 14:45:47
The impact of the Israel-Hamas conflict on Gaza's healthcare sector has been "catastrophic", the World Health Organization chief said on Sunday at an emergency board meeting, saying conditions were ideal for the spread of deadly diseases.
"It's stating the obvious to say that the impact of the conflict on health is catastrophic," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the 34-member board. "In summary health needs have increased dramatically and the capacity of the health system has been reduced to one third of what it was," he said.
2023-12-10 14:41:50
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed on Sunday international calls to end the Gaza war, describing them as inconsistent with supporting the war's aim of eliminating Hamas.
Briefing his cabinet, Netanyahu said he had told the leaders of France, Germany and other countries: "You cannot on the one hand support the elimination of Hamas and on other pressure us to end the war, which would prevent the elimination of Hamas".
2023-12-10 14:38:51
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Sunday the United States should also be held responsible for Israeli attacks on Gaza and the loss of Palestinian lives.
Shtayyeh was speaking at the Doha Forum conference in Qatar.
2023-12-10 14:34:02
Palestine'sWafa news agency reports that during multiple midnight raids, Israeli forces have detained at least 28 Palestinians, including a woman.
Thirteen people were taken into custody in the northern town of Tubas after multiple homes were raided, according to the news source and, in addition, several individuals were held in Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, and Ramallah.
Since October 7, Israeli incursions in the occupied West Bank have led to the detention of over 3,000 Palestinians while at least 273 persons have died in the area, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-12-10 14:12:48
2023-12-10 12:50:51
2023-12-10 12:45:03
Speaking at the Doha Forum, Qatar’s PM Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the situation in Gaza was making people around the world ask “some legitimate questions about the nature of the international systems and the efficiency of the legal instruments and its principles”.
“These questions become more important and more pressing as we continue to see the horrifying scenes that we might sometimes have to look away from,” he said.
He added that it was important to stand up to those “who want to reformulate the conflict in the form of a religious war”.
“This conflict was and still is an issue of the occupation and its demands. Over the decades, the option of peace was on the table, but it was the victim of procrastination and formation.”
2023-12-10 11:49:41
Israel's relentless bombardment of Rafah City with airstrikes has created dire circumstances for those who have relocated there.
According to Al Jazeera's correspondent in Rafah: "At 2am (00:00 GMT), about 30 air strikes destroyed the two main roads connecting Rafah City to Khan Younis and the rest of the Gaza Strip. This is making movement very difficult for people trying to arrive here from Khan Younis."
He also revealed that there is growing concern that Israel’s military operation is expanding to Rafah City.
"People fear this will feed into their permanent displacement, as there will be nowhere to go to except the border with Egypt," he said.
2023-12-10 11:34:13
The Israeli army said in a statement early on Sunday that five of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza War.
Four soldiers were killed in the battle in Southern Gaza, while the fifth succumbed to his wounds after fighting on October 7, according to the Israeli army statement posted on X.
2023-12-10 11:31:27
Israeli officials have told the Israeli Broadcasting Authority that the war in the Gaza Strip could last up to two more months, Al Jazeera reported.
The report, quoting unnamed officials, said there will not be a ceasefire at the end of this period but spot activities by Israeli forces that will remain in the Strip.
Throughout this period there will be attempts to promote additional deals for the release of the remaining captives, they added.
2023-12-10 11:30:19
2023-12-10 10:51:25
2023-12-10 10:42:35
Over the weekend, the US State Department approved the selling of about 14,000 tank shells to Israel for immediate delivery, using emergency powers to skip congressional review.
According to Al Jazeera, here are some examples of what Israeli tanks have been doing.
Two Israeli tank shells killed Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah and wounded six other reporters, according to a Reuters investigation this week.
Additionally, Israeli tanks are surrounding Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia in northern Gaza where the World Health Organisation (WHO) says two health workers have reportedly been shot and killed.
Israeli tanks surrounded northern Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital last month, with Israeli fire killing at least 12 Palestinians inside the hospital complex, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Israeli tank shell fragments injured at least seven people including Egyptian border guards on the Egyptian border last month, according to the militaries of both countries.
2023-12-10 10:28:38
2023-12-10 09:23:34
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has discussed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in a meeting with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority.
In a summary released after the meeting that took place in Ottawa, Canada, Trudeau said that he “reiterated Canada’s support for the right of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, dignity, and security, without fear”.
2023-12-10 09:11:37
Israel has expanded its ground assault into the southern half of the Gaza Strip, pushing into Khan Younis, especially in the vicinity of hospitals, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 9, 11:40am local time (08:40 GMT), 17,760 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 7,792 children.
Additionally, at least 49,845 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,147 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Officials on November 10 revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-10 09:01:31
Israel ordered residents out of the centre of Gaza's main southern city Khan Younis and pounded the length of the enclave overnight.
Israel has expanded its ground assault into the southern half of the Gaza Strip, pushing into Khan Younis, where residents reported fierce battles. Both sides reported a surge in fighting in the north.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been forced from their homes, often several times. As fighting rages across the territory, residents and UN agencies say there is effectively nowhere safe to go, though Israel disputes this.
Israeli forces say they are limiting civilian casualties by providing maps showing safe areas, and blame Hamas for harming civilians by hiding among them, which the fighters deny.
Palestinians say the campaign has turned into a scorched-earth war of vengeance against the entire population of an enclave as densely populated as London.
Israel's Arabic-language spokesperson on Saturday posted a map on X highlighting six blocks of Khan Younis to evacuate "urgently".
Some residents reported hearing tank shelling and fierce gun battles between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters, and a series of air strikes as Israeli forces attempted to advance further west.
"We try to put the children to sleep and we stay up fearing the place would be bombed and we'll have to run carrying the children out," said Zainab Khalil, 57, displaced with 30 relatives and friends near Jalal Street where evacuations were ordered. "During the day begins another tragedy, and that is: how to feed the children?"
In central Gaza, Israeli tank shelling resumed on Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps, residents said, while Palestinian health officials reported an Israeli air strike in Bureij killed seven Palestinians.
In Khan Younis, the dead and wounded arrived through the night at the overwhelmed Nasser Hospital.
2023-12-09 23:49:47
The US State Department Saturday approved the emergency sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition.
In its statement, the department said it had notified the US Congress on Friday of a sale of 13,981 high-explosive 120mm tank cartridges and related equipment worth $106.5 million, reported AFP.
According to Reuters, the Biden administration has used the Arms Export Control Act emergency declaration to supply the said ammunition to Israel without a congressional review.
The shells are part of a bigger sale that was first reported by Reuters on Friday that the Biden administration is asking the US Congress to approve. The larger package is worth more than $500 million and includes 45,000 shells for Israel's Merkava tanks, regularly deployed in its offensive in Gaza, which has killed thousands of civilians.
2023-12-09 23:49:17
2023-12-09 23:44:09
Israel's national security adviser said on Saturday that more than 7,000 Palestinian resistance fighters have been martyred during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"This is a minimal estimate," National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said in an interview on Israel's Channel 12 television. "It could be more because we don't know everything beneath places that collapsed and tunnels etc. But that is the conservative estimate."
2023-12-09 23:38:28
With more than 17,000 Palestinians martyred, Israel has hinted at a prolonged offensive in Gaza which has caused death and destruction in the besieged strip.
Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel's National Security Council head, has said that the war in Gaza "would last for months and possibly longer", Al Jazeera reported quoting N12 news.
Revealing that no specific timeline has been issued from the United States for Israel regarding its offensive in Gaza, Hanegbi warned of military action from Israeli forces if Hezbollah refuses to withdraw its men from Lebanon's southern border with Israel.
Israeli official's remarks come as the United Nations (UN) and several other humanitarian organisations have been calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza amid the worsening humanitarian situation in the beleaguered territory.
2023-12-09 23:03:41
2023-12-09 22:46:15
2023-12-09 22:32:16
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the United States' veto of a UN Security Council resolution demanding a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza made it complicit in what he described as war crimes against Palestinians.
Abbas also said he held the US responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and the elderly in the Gaza Strip, a statement released by the presidency said.
2023-12-09 22:01:36
The death toll in Gaza has risen to at least 17,700 in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, the health ministry said on Saturday.
Meanwhile, over 48,000 people have been wounded in Israeli attacks.
“The crimes and genocide against the people of Gaza are beyond any description… Ending Palestinian existence with American and European support is inhuman,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
2023-12-09 20:54:14
The United States' veto of a proposed United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza was a "complete disappointment," Turkey's ministry of foreign affairs has said.
"Our friends once again expressed that America is now alone on this issue, especially in the voting held at the United Nations today," Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in an interview with state broadcaster TRT on Friday.
The feeling of "complete disappointment" was emphasised during the meeting, the ministry said in a post on social messaging platform X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday.
2023-12-09 19:48:54
2023-12-09 19:24:19
Israel pounded the Gaza Strip from north to south on Saturday in an expanded phase of its two-month-old war against Hamas, after the United States wielded its UN Security Council veto to shield its ally from a global demand for a ceasefire.
Residents of Khan Younis said on Saturday that Israeli forces were ordering people out of another district just west of positions the Israelis stormed earlier this week, suggesting a further assault could be imminent.
In Khan Younis, the dead and wounded arrived through the night at the overwhelmed Nasser hospital. A medic ran out of an ambulance with the limp body of a small girl in a pink tracksuit. Inside, wounded children wailed and writhed on the tile floor as nurses raced to comfort them. Outside, bodies were lined up in white shrouds.
A house in the city was engulfed in a roaring blaze after being struck overnight.
Nasser Hospital and another southern hospital, al Aqsa in Deir al-Ballah, reported 133 dead and 259 wounded between them in the past 24 hours, raising an official toll already at nearly 17,500, with many thousands more missing and presumed dead.
Footage obtained by Reuters inside another hospital in Deir al-Balah, the Jaffa hospital, showed extensive damage from a strike on a mosque next door. The obliterated ruins of the mosque could be seen through the blown-out windows.
2023-12-09 18:35:14
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called for the United Nations Security Council to be reformed, decrying the fact that the United States could veto a ceasefire proposal for Gaza despite huge support from other countries.
"The United Nations Security Council demand for ceasefire is rejected only by U.S. veto. Is this justice?," Erdogan said at a human rights conference in Istanbul.
"The UN Security Council needs to be reformed," he added.
2023-12-09 17:23:53
Israeli forces unleashed an aerial and ground blitz against Hamas in Gaza after a cross-border rampage by the enclave's ruling group on October 7.
At least 17,487 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures, while 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas incursion into Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Aid agencies warn that a humanitarian disaster in Gaza is worsening by the hour with most of its 2.3 million people homeless and trapped in a tiny, embattled coastal enclave, with little food, water, medical care, fuel or secure shelter.
With basic infrastructure devastated, phone and internet services frequently disrupted, and a number of health statisticians having been killed or gone missing, there is increasing concern that Gaza health authorities will be unable to continue keeping an accurate count of the casualty toll.
2023-12-09 17:15:54
A new process for inspecting aid for Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing is being tested, but efforts to get permission for trucks to enter through the crossing and ramp up relief are still ongoing, a senior UN official told Reuters on Saturday.
Under the new system, trucks would come to the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Israel, Gaza, and Egypt for the first time from Jordan, before entering Gaza from Rafah, about 3km (1.86 miles) away.
But the trucks would need to be allowed to enter Gaza directly through Kerem Shalom to alleviate an increasingly desperate situation in the coastal enclave, said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Programme.
Israel has so far rebuffed pleas from the United Nations and others to open Kerem Shalom, but they both signalled on Thursday that Kerem Shalom could soon help process the delivery of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
2023-12-09 15:18:48
The Arab-Islamic Summit Ministerial Committee has called on the United States to pressure Israel for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
The committee stressed the need for a ceasefire during a meeting withUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken inWashington, DC, saidQatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani also attended.
“During the session … members of the ministerial committee stressed their call for the United States to play a broader role in pressuring the Israeli occupation for an immediate ceasefire,” the ministry said in a statement on X.
Members also expressed “their disappointment at the failure of the UN Security Council, for the second time, to vote on a resolution for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip for humanitarian reasons, after the United States used its veto power,” the statement said.
2023-12-09 14:25:47
2023-12-09 13:22:51
Israel pressed its offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid to call for a ceasefire in the two-month war.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the US veto as the Hamas-run health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,487 people, mostly women and children.
An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the ministry said Saturday.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas over its unprecedented attack on October 7 when militants broke through Gaza´s militarised border to kill around 1,200 people and seize hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israeli figures.
Vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.
2023-12-09 12:07:09
Israel’s top diplomat Eli Cohen has accused UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of lacking impartiality after invoking Article 99 for a humanitarian ceasefire.
“Guterres’ appeal to stand on the side of Hamas and request a ceasefire disgraces his position and constitutes a mark of Cain on the UN,” Cohen said, referring to a passage in the Bible that some interpret as a way to describe a badge of shame.
“The invocation of Article 99, after it was not used for the war in Ukraine or for the civil war in Syria, is another example of Guterres’ biased and one-sided stance,” Cohen said, adding that a ceasefire now would “prevent the collapse” of Hamas.
By invoking Article 99 on Thursday, Guterres aimed to formally warn the UN Security Council of the global threat from Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed more than 17,400 Palestinians in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-12-09 11:17:05
2023-12-09 10:59:38
Video shared on social media by Palestinians shows Israeli forces storming the village of Marah Rabah in Bethlehem, occupied West Bank.
2023-12-09 10:48:12
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters in Spain’s Basque Country on Friday formed a human mosaic representing the Palestinian flag alongside a reproduction on a giant banner of Pablo Picasso’s iconic anti-war painting, Guernica, Reuters news agency reports.
The protest took place in Guernica’s former market square which was aerial bombed in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War by Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe.
Addressing the crowd, Fatima Elhousari said the world could not accept a “new Guernica” in Gaza.
“The world and history cannot accept what is happening in Palestine. The world and history cannot accept a new Guernica,” she said.
2023-12-09 10:36:55
2023-12-09 09:12:24
More than a dozen member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarian workers in Gaza.
The text of the draft resolution is due to be examined on Sunday during a special session of the WHO's Executive Board convened to discuss "the health situation in the occupied Palestinian territory".
It was proposed by Algeria, Bolivia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Palestinian representatives have WHO observer status and were also signatories to the proposal.
The member states expressed their "grave concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, especially the military operations in the Gaza Strip".
They called for Israel to "respect and protect" medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.
Separately, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters on Friday that Gaza's health system was on its knees and could not afford to lose another ambulance or a single hospital bed.
"The situation is getting more and more horrible by the day... beyond belief, literally," he said.
The United Nations' humanitarian agency OCHA said late on Thursday that only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity.
2023-12-09 09:01:58
2023-12-09 08:36:45
The Biden administration has asked Congress to approve the sale of 45,000 shells for Israel's Merkava tanks for use in its offensive against Hamas in Gaza, according to four sources familiar with the matter, including a US official and a former US official.
The request is being made even as concerns grow about the use of US weapons in a war that has killed thousands of civilians in the Palestinian enclave since Israel responded to an attack on October 7 by Hamas.
The potential sale, worth more than $500 million, is not part of President Joe Biden's $110.5 billion supplemental request that includes funding for Ukraine and Israel.
It is under informal review by the Senate Foreign Relations and House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committees, which allows members the privilege to stall the sale or have informal discussions with the administration about concerns.
The US State Department is pushing the congressional committees to quickly approve the transaction, said a US official and Josh Paul, a former State Department official, amid objections from rights advocates over the use of US-made weapons in the conflict.
"This went to committees earlier this week and they are supposed to have 20 days to review Israel cases. State (Department) is pushing them to clear now," said Paul, who in October resigned from the State Department in protest over what he called the administration's "blind support" for Israel.
The administration is also weighing using Arms Export Control Act emergency authorities to allow a portion of the ammunition, 13,000 of the 45,000 shells, to bypass the committee and review period, two US officials said, although a final decision was yet to be made.
The move would allow Israel to prepare for contingencies given the high tensions in the region, one of the US officials said.
A State Department spokesperson said as a matter of policy, "We do not confirm or comment on proposed defence transfers or sales until they have been formally notified to Congress."
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat on the chamber's foreign relations committee, said congressional view was a critical step for large weapons sales.
"The administration should not consider short-circuiting the already short time frame for congressional review of this or any other arms transfer," he said.
Online images of the war show that Israel regularly deploys Merkava tanks in its Gaza offensive and on its southern border with Lebanon, where skirmishes have erupted since October 7.
2023-12-09 01:18:52
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has demanded an urgent humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as part of its humanitarian mission to save the lives of Palestinians.
Issuing a statement Friday, UNRWA boss Philippe Lazzarini called upon its member states to push for "actions to implement an immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza.
"Calling for an end to the decimation of the lives of Palestinians in Gaza is not a denial of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October in Israel," he continued.
"It is the opposite. It is a recognition of the equal rights of all people."
In addition to the thousands killed in the fighting, vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to a wasteland.
The UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced and is facing dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine, along with the growing threat of disease.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday that nearly 17,500 people, mostly women and children, had been killed by the war so far.
2023-12-08 23:53:01
As the war in Gaza rages on, the territory's government media office Friday deplored Israel's ongoing "war on hospitals" lamenting the strip's beleaguered territory's crumbling health infrastructure due to the Israeli offensive.
At least 17,487 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza — of which 7,870 are children, whereas 6,121 are women, Al Jazeera reported quoting Gaza's media office.
Meanwhile, 7,780 Gazans are missing — mostly buried under the rubble — as Israeli forces continue the onslaught against Israeli hospitals.
“War on hospitals and the Strip’s medical facilities is ongoing and does not stop,” the statement from the Gaza government said.
2023-12-08 23:42:14
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday an international peace conference is a necessity to end the war in Gaza and to work out a lasting political solution that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In an interview with Reuters at his office in Ramallah, Abbas, 87, said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers.
He reiterated his longstanding position in favour of negotiation rather than armed resistance to end the longstanding occupation.
"I am with peaceful resistance. I am for negotiations based on an international peace conference and under international auspices that would lead to a solution that will be protected by world powers to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem," he said.
"Gaza today is not the Gaza that you know. Gaza was destroyed, its hospitals, its schools, its infrastructure, its buildings, its roads and mosques were destroyed. There is nothing left. When we return we need resources, Gaza needs reconstruction."
"The United States which fully supports Israel bears the responsibility of what is happening in the enclave," Abbas said.
"It is the only power that is capable of ordering Israel to stop the war and fulfill its obligations, but unfortunately it doesn't. America is an accomplice of Israel."
2023-12-08 23:32:27
2023-12-08 22:06:50
The United States does not support calls for a lull, said America's deputy envoy to the United Nations, ahead of its Security Council vote on a demand for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Robert Wood has told the UNSC that Hamas “continues to pose a threat to Israel and remain in charge of Gaza” and a pause in fighting would only plant seeds of next war.
2023-12-08 22:38:45
2023-12-08 22:31:13
There needs to be an immediate end to the fighting in Gaza but governments worldwide do not seem to see it as a priority, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Friday in Washington, adding that there must also be a credible roadmap to establish a Palestinian state.
"Our message is consistent and clear that we believe that it is absolutely necessary to end the fighting immediately," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told a press conference before a meeting of Arab foreign ministers and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
"One of the disturbing facts of this conflict is that ending the conflict and the fighting doesn't seem to be the main priority," for the world, he said.
"We also need to see a significant ramping up of humanitarian aid," he said, adding that it is "unacceptable" that aid "is being restricted and has been restricted" because of "bureaucratic obstacles."
2023-12-08 22:36:26
In a shocking incident, the 650-year-old Great Omari Mosque was destroyed as the oppressor Israeli forces continued to bombard the besieged Gaza Strip, it emerged on Friday.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, Quds News Network shared pictures of the rubbles of the historic masque.
“The destruction inflicted upon the Great Omari Mosque, the oldest mosque of Gaza built over 650 years ago, as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombardments,” it added.
According to “Heritage for Peace”, over 100 archaeological sites were demolished completely or partially during the Israeli aggression on the besieged strip.
Besides other archaeological sites, 2,000 years old church — Saint Porphyrius —, the world’s third oldest Roman graveyard and a museum were also hit by Israeli forces.
2023-12-08 22:03:59
“The brutality perpetuated by Hamas can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
“The people of Gaza are looking into the abyss. The international community must do everything possible to end their ordeal. I urge the council to spare no effort to push for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for the protection of civilians and for the urgent delivery of life-saving aid.
“The eyes of the world and the eyes of history are watching. It is time to act," UN chiefAntonio Guterres said.
2023-12-08 21:09:43
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday said there was no effective protection of civilians in Gaza and that nowhere in Gaza was safe, hours before the UN Security Council was set to vote on a demand for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
2023-12-08 20:07:19
El Amal Hospital in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza witnessed "tragic conditions" after the Israeli forces bombed a house next to the facility.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has now shared videos showing the “tragic conditions” inside the hospital after the attack.
The medical group says “dozens of injuries and casualties” have been brought to the hospital.
2023-12-08 19:32:28
A UN Security Council vote on a draft resolution that demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip has been postponed until 5:30pm (2230 GMT) Friday, diplomats said.
The 15-member body had been due to vote on the resolution, drafted by the United Arab Emirates, on Friday morning.
2023-12-08 19:30:08
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani discussed their coordination on efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and the importance of preventing the conflict in Gaza from spreading, the State Department said on Friday.
"The secretary expressed appreciation for Qatar’s critical efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and the recent humanitarian pause in Gaza," the department said in a statement.
2023-12-08 18:05:45
Amid a deteriorating health infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the beleaguered territory "cannot afford to lose another ambulance or a single hospital bed".
"The situation is getting more and more horrible by the day [...] beyond belief, literally," WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva.
"The health system is on its knees. Gaza cannot afford to lose any more health facilities, another single ambulance, any more hospitals... or even a single hospital bed more," he added.
2023-12-08 18:01:56
As Israel-Hamas war continue, the Muslim worshippers heading to Al-Aqsa Mosque are prevented from entering and praying there on Fridays, Al Jazeera reported.
The Israeli forces don't even let the young worshippers get close enough to the Bait-al-Maqdis — which is considered Islam's third holiest site — pushing them away with tear gas and water spray.
Only some older worshippers are allowed to get past.
Usually, around 60,000 to 70,000 worshippers attend Friday prayer at Al Aqsa Mosque. Last week, it was around 5,000.
2023-12-08 16:45:28
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday criticised Israel's conduct in its southern Gaza offensive, saying there was a "gap" between its intent to protect civilians and what has been happening on the ground.
Speaking at a news conference in Washington following a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, Blinken laid out concrete steps to ensure civilians are out of harm's way and the areas they go to are supplied with food, medicine and water.
"As we stand here almost a week into this campaign into the south ... it remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection. And there does remain a gap between, exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians and the actual results that we're seeing on the ground," Blinken said.
Despite US officials' calls for more surgical offensive in southern Gaza to avoid the heavy civilian casualties, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive in the south since the temporary truce broke down.
2023-12-08 16:34:27
A group of armed Israeli settlers, along with Israeli soldiers, launched an attack in the village of Khallet al-Babaa, injuring three Palestinians south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported citing Wafa news agency.
Local activist Rateb al-Jubour told the Palestinian news agency that dozens of armed settlers broke into the village and detained several residents. The soldiers destroyed the village’s water network and arrested its chief.
Civilians in the occupied West Bank have witnessed an uptick in settlers’ violence since October 7, including the killing of at least nine Palestinians, UN figures show.
Earlier, six Palestinians were martyred in raids by Israeli forces across the West Bank, health ministry said.
2023-12-08 16:32:19
Dozens have been killed and injured in an Israeli air strike targeting a house near the al-Amal Hospital and the Palestinian Red Crescent’s headquarters in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, the rescue service has said.
“The bombardment led to the shattering of glass and the breaking of doors and windows, in addition to extreme panic among 14,000 displaced people who are taking shelter inside PRCS facilities,” the Red Crescent also said on X.
2023-12-08 15:20:45
2023-12-08 14:35:52
At least 350 people have been killed in direct air strikes on their homes across Gaza in the last 24 hours as more air strikes are taking place with the Israeli military redeploying its tanks and armoured vehicles in parts of Shujaiya, Al Jazeera reported.
The eastern and southern sides of Gaza City are also under heavy air strikes.
The Israeli military just put out a statement saying it has targeted 450 targets in the Gaza Strip, which according to Al Jazeera, are residential homes.
What we have seen in the past week, overnight and in the early hours of this morning, more and more residential homes are being targeted across the Gaza Strip, in addition to public facilities like schools, hospitals, clinics, shops and markets being destroyed completely.
2023-12-08 12:58:28
2023-12-08 12:51:15
Israeli forces killed five Palestinians during a raid near Tubas, a town in the occupied West Bank, on Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The Israeli military spokesperson's office said it was checking the report. The West Bank has seen a surge in violence in parallel to Israel's war in Gaza, another territory where Palestinians seek statehood.
2023-12-08 12:44:31
Israeli forces martyred five Palestinians during a raid near Tubas, a town in the occupied West Bank, on Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The Israeli military spokesperson's office said it was checking the report. The West Bank has seen a surge in violence in parallel to Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, another territory where Palestinians seek statehood.
2023-12-08 12:20:42
The Palestinian Authority is working with US officials on a plan to run Gaza after the war is over, Bloomberg News reported, citing Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.
The preferred outcome of the conflict would be for the Hamas which controls Gaza to become a junior partner under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), helping to build a new independent state that includes the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Ramallah-based Shtayyeh said in an interview to Bloomberg News on Thursday.
"If they (Hamas) are ready to come to an agreement and accept the political platform of the PLO, then there will be room for talk. Palestinians should not be divided," Shtayyeh said, adding that Israel's aim to fully defeat Hamas is unrealistic and it can't be eradicated.
2023-12-08 12:19:46
The Israeli military, responding on Friday to a Reuters investigation that determined its forces killed a Reuters journalist in southern Lebanon on October 13, said the incident took place in an active combat zone and was under review.
Without directly addressing the death of Issam Abdallah, a military statement said that at the time Lebanese Hezbollah fighters had attacked across the border and Israeli forces opened fire to prevent a suspected armed infiltration.
2023-12-08 11:27:38
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has ordered the country’s prison service commissioner to reopen an underground prison wing to hold jailed members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades.
The Times of Israel, citing Hebrew media, reported that the wing was part of the Nitzan prison in central Israel and is reported to have been unused for years.
Ben-Gvir also wrote to Israel’s police commissioner describing the conditions in the underground wing as “not among the best”, but that the conditions “comply with the provisions of the law and the relevant regulations, and it has housed prisoners in the past”.
He wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: "After years of not being used - I instructed the Shevast Commissioner to reopen the underground wing for the Nuvaja detainees. The Nazis do not deserve a drop of sunshine while our abductees sit in the tunnels of hell."
2023-12-08 11:16:27
The Green Zone housing the US embassy in Baghdad was targeted with several rockets at dawn on Friday, according to two security sources.
Videos posted online and verified by Al Jazeera’s verification unit, Sanad, show rockets landing in an area near the US Embassy in Baghdad.
In one video posted on social media, sirens are heard amid a series of mild and loud explosions near the embassy building. A loudspeaker is also heard declaring in English: “Duck and cover. Get away from the windows. Take cover and await further instructions.”
A separate video posted on Facebook also showed an area of Baghdad’s diplomatic zone as explosions were heard in the background.
The rocket fire comes as supporters of Palestinians in the region have promised retaliation against Israel and its close ally, the US, for the deadly war in Gaza.
2023-12-08 11:12:14
2023-12-08 11:04:30
2023-12-08 10:54:24
The Palestinian Authority is working with US officials on a plan to run Gaza after the war is over, Bloomberg News reported, citing Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.
The preferred outcome of the conflict would be for Hamas which controls Gaza to become a junior partner under the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), helping to build a new independent state that includes the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Ramallah-based Shtayyeh said in an interview to Bloomberg News on Thursday.
"If they (Hamas) are ready to come to an agreement and accept the political platform of the PLO, then there will be room for talk. Palestinians should not be divided," Shtayyeh said, adding that Israel's aim to fully defeat Hamas is unrealistic.
2023-12-08 10:33:06
At least 110 health centres have ceased operations alongside the 21 hospitals since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, Al Jazeera reported citing the latest data from Gaza’s media department.
According to the report, 287 medical personnel have been killed in Israeli attacks during the same period and at least 58 ambulances have been destroyed severely hampering the transport of injured people to where treatment is still available in Gaza.
2023-12-08 10:32:25
2023-12-08 09:53:53
Officials arrested a man in the New York capital of Albany on Thursday after he fired a gun outside a synagogue, the state's governor said.
No one was injured in the incident, which occurred just hours before the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
The 28-year-old suspect, a resident, was seen "walking around outside the synagogue acting very suspicious, according to witnesses," Governor Kathy Hochul said.
He then "fired off a round from a shotgun while making threatening statements."
"The safety of Jewish New Yorkers is nonnegotiable," Hochul said. "Every act, whether it's verbal or physical, any act of anti-Semitism is unacceptable."
New York rejects "hate, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia," she said, adding that police would be on alert during Hanukkah.
Hochul and Eric Adams, mayor of New York City located some 90 miles (150 kilometres) to the south of Albany, participated in several demonstrations in support of Israel and Jewish Americans at the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
2023-12-08 08:50:12
Israel's attacks have increased throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged territory, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 7, 4pm local time (13:00 GMT), 17,443 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 7,175 children.
Additionally, at least 49,365 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,147 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Officials on November 10 revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-07 23:48:33
2023-12-07 23:40:29
Palestinians must determine future of Gaza, but it is too early to discuss details of arrangements for the future of the strip, Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said in Washington on Thursday ahead of a Friday meeting between Arab states' top diplomats and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Washington has been pushing for Israel's Arab neighbours to engage in talks on how Gaza will be administered if Israel succeeds in its aim of eliminating Hamas, which has run the enclave since 2005.
Shoukry, reiterating Arab leaders' calls for an immediate ceasefire, said governance of Gaza is up to the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organization are the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people and "should be accorded the ability to govern both the West Bank and Gaza," Shoukry said during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
It was premature to discuss details of Gaza's future governance since the outcome of Israel's military campaign was uncertain, he said.
"I think we have to wait and see what is the consequences of this military operation and the conditions that exist in Gaza and then proceed to address the political relationships," Shoukry added.
Shoukry said the appropriate response from the international community would be to first call for a cessation of hostilities and then seek a political resolution of the conflict, an indirect criticism of Washington's rejection of calls for a ceasefire.
"I would like to have seen a ceasefire yesterday, actually 60 days ago," Shoukry said.
2023-12-07 23:10:31
2023-12-07 22:18:55
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Thursday he saw promising signs that the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into the Gaza Strip might be opened soon to allow aid in.
"We're still negotiating, and with some promising signs at the moment, access through Kerem Shalom... that that may be able to open soon," Griffiths told a press conference in Geneva.
The Kerem Shalom checkpoint between Israel and the Gaza Strip was responsible for 60 percent of goods getting into the besieged territory before the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Currently only the Rafah border crossing with Egypt is open.
"We have been arguing for the opening of Kerem Shalom — and not just as an opening to allow trucks to go through Rafah and then up into Gaza, but to go straight through Kerem Shalom up into the northern parts of Gaza, or where the need is greatest," Griffiths said.
"If we get that — the first miracle we've seen for some weeks, but it will be a huge boost to the logistical process... it will change the nature of humanitarian access."
Mass civilian casualties in the war have sparked global concern, heightened by dire shortages caused by an Israeli siege that has seen only limited supplies of food, water, fuel and medicines enter Gaza.
Griffiths added that there were also discussions going on over the possibility of driving aid to the Gaza Strip from Jordan, which borders Israel and the occupied West Bank.
"I have a representative, as we speak, in Jordan, already lining up the potential deliveries of aid by land from Jordan which could come straight through from Jordan over the Allenby Bridge, straight to Kerem Shalom," he said.
2023-12-07 22:16:29
The son of Israeli cabinet minister and former military chief Gadi Eizenkot was killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, Benny Gantz, leader of the National Unity Party, confirmed on Thursday.
Party members Eizenkot and Gantz, also a former army chief, joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government shortly after the Hamas-Israel conflict began on October 7.
The Israeli military did not provide precise details about the death of Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, other than to say he was killed in combat in the northern Gaza Strip.
"Together with all of Israel, I send my support to Gadi and to his entire family, and a big hug. We are all committed to keep fighting for the sacred cause for which Gal died," Gantz said in a statement.
In a condolence message, Netanyahu said he was heartbroken.
Israel has vowed to annihilate the Palestinian group Hamas.
More than 17,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Health Ministry there, and around 1.9 million people, 85% of the population, have been displaced.
2023-12-07 20:45:13
Israeli PM Bejamin Netanyahu threatened Lebanon's Hezbollah in a video message posted on microblogging site X.
“If Hezbollah makes a mistake, it will turn Beirut and South Lebanon into Gaza and Khan Yunis,” the post read.
The threat came after the Israeli army said that anti-tank fire from Lebanon hit an Israeli civilian.
The army said it “attacked the sources of the fire using helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery fire”.
A short while ago, Hezbollah claimed a strike on the area of al-Jardah in Israel. It is unclear if this is the strike Israel blames for the civilian casualty, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-12-07 17:27:13
2023-12-07 19:32:45
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health Tlaleng Mofokeng said that the “practice of medicine is under attack” in Gaza.
“As a practising medical doctor, I cannot fathom what my Gazan colleagues are enduring. They are working while their colleagues and loved ones are under attack. Many have been killed while treating their patients,” Mofokeng said in a statement.
The UN expert also reiterated her calls for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestinian territory.
“We bear witness to a shameful war on healthcare workers. This war is raging because of a lack of political leadership. End the war on Gaza, and end it now”.
2023-12-07 17:16:26
Egypt is striving to accelerate the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip, a senior official said on Thursday, after the amount of relief getting through to the Palestinian enclave dipped with the end of the Israel-Hamas truce on December 1.
Diaa Rashwan, head of the State Information Service, said Egypt would never allow the emptying of the Gaza Strip of its residents as Israel's military campaign pushes them southwards towards the border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Rashwan added that Egypt believed Israel's operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank aimed to force Palestinians towards Jordan.
2023-12-07 15:19:11
Amnesty International said on Thursday that Israeli strikes that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others in south Lebanon on October 13 were likely a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime.
Human Rights Watch, in a separate statement, said the two Israeli strikes were "an apparently deliberate attack on civilians and thus a war crime".
A Reuters investigation published on Thursday found an Israeli tank crew killed Abdallah and wounded the six other reporters by firing two shells in quick succession from Israel while the journalists were filming cross-border shelling from a distance.
2023-12-07 15:08:22
2023-12-07 15:05:29
2023-12-07 15:09:36
2023-12-07 14:40:40
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has published a report highlighting food insecurity in the Gaza Strip, pointing out that households in northern Gaza are “experiencing alarming levels of hunger”.
At least 97% of households in northern Gaza have “inadequate food consumption”, with nine out of 10 people going one full day and night without food.
In the southern governorates, a third of the households have reported high levels of severe or very severe hunger, with 53% experiencing moderate hunger.
Since October 7, 1,249 trucks carrying food assistance have reached Gaza. Before the war, about 500 trucks would enter the Gaza Strip daily. WFP says that to provide food assistance to the affected population in Gaza, 100 trucks with food would be required to cross inside every day.
2023-12-07 14:36:47
2023-12-07 14:32:33
2023-12-07 13:42:05
2023-12-07 13:27:33
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged Israeli and Egyptian authorities on Thursday to allow journalists to move freely across the Gaza Strip's southern border crossing into Egypt.
The Rafah crossing was shut after Israel declared war on Hamas in Gaza following the deadliest attack in its history on October 7. While it has intermittently opened in recent weeks, only people whose names were on approved lists have been allowed out.
In a statement, RSF called for the Rafah crossing to be opened "so that journalists can finally come and go on both sides of the border".
Palestinian journalists who, like other civilians in Gaza, have had to flee their homes in the north of the Gaza Strip "are now being told by Israel to assemble at the border with Egypt, with no possibility of crossing", RSF said.
"Conversely, international reporters are prevented from entering."
The Rafah crossing is controlled by Hamas and Egypt, though RSF says Israel monitors all activities at the southern border.
Gaza's only other official border crossing, which links the besieged territory to Israel, has also been shut.
"In two months of war, not a single reporter has been authorised to enter the Gaza Strip via Rafah, which clearly undermines the media's ability to cover the conflict," RSF said.
Israel also "bombed this border gate four times at the start of the war", it added.
According to RSF, 58 journalists have been killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes, 14 of them in the line of duty.
2023-12-07 13:17:32
US energy envoy Amos Hochstein said on Thursday he did not think hope should be lost with regards to the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel and it remains a goal for his country despite the ongoing war in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia put US-backed plans to normalise ties with Israel on ice, sources familiar with Riyadh's thinking told Reuters nearly two months ago, as the war between Hamas and Israeli forces escalated.
Until October 7, both Israeli and Saudi leaders had been saying they were moving steadily towards a deal that could have reshaped the Middle East.
"I think that not every road is a straight road and sometimes it goes in different directions first. But the goal is still the same," Hochstein said speaking on the sidelines of an industry event in the United Arab Emirates.
"And we remain as committed to that goal of regional integration, and it's not just about Saudi Arabia and Israel, it has to be much broader than that."
"I don't think we are changing directions, I don't think this conflict should do that. In fact this conflict should be a doubling down on reminding us that if we don't go towards regional integration, peace and security — this is the alternative," he added.
The United States and its ally Israel oppose a ceasefire in Gaza because they believe it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead supports pauses to protect civilians and allow for the release of hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack.
2023-12-07 12:25:41
Jordanian air forces carry their fourth airdrop mission to deliver humanitarian aid to a hospital in Khan Younis, south of the strip, Al Jazeera reported.
The Royal Air Force unloaded boxes with medical and therapeutic supplies to the Jordanian Private Field Hospital via parachutes to allow the medical facility to continue providing its services, Jordan News Agency reported.
Medical supplies are in dire shortages in the besieged enclave as aid convoys entering the strip through the Rafah crossing have been greatly limited.
2023-12-07 12:15:09
2023-12-07 12:10:50
2023-12-07 12:00:19
Last week, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told officials in Israel’s war cabinet that the Biden administration believed the war should end in weeks, not months, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
In response, Israeli authorities stated that they were eager for things to return to normal, particularly for the sake of economic stability, but they made no assurances, Al Jazeera reported.
The WSJ cited US officials with knowledge of the discussions.
2023-12-07 10:38:09
Premature Palestinian newborns who were evacuated from Gaza are receiving proper medical attention and are being treated at the New Administrative Capital (NAC) Hospital in east Cairo, Egypt, Al Jazeera reported.
At least 28 newborns who had been treated at Al Shifa Hospital before its invasion by Israeli forces were evacuated to Egypt on November 19.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, newborn babies are dying of preventable causes due to a lack of medical support and “appalling” living conditions, the charity Oxfam has said.
2023-12-07 10:23:51
Israel's attacks have increased throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged territory, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, as of December 6, 6am local time (07:00 GMT), 16,510 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 7,112 children.
Additionally, at least 46,981 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,147 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Officials on November 10 revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-07 08:57:18
The head of the UN has warned that he expects "public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions" in Gaza, currently under relentless Israeli bombardment.
The humanitarian conditions amid the Israel-Hamas war are "fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole," Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to the president of the Security Council.
Guterres also warned that the war in the Gaza Strip threatened to "aggravate existing threats to international peace and security".
2023-12-07 03:02:45
2023-12-07 01:19:21
The Palestinians living at the southern tip of Gaza are making do with plastic sheets rigged up as tents, branches gathered from everywhere to make fires.
Thousands of Palestinians are fleeing Khan Yunis -- Gaza’s main southern city, now surrounded by the Israeli army -- towards Rafah, less than 10 kilometres (six miles) away on the territory’s closed border with Egypt.
Many among them had already been displaced once in recent weeks, heading south to escape heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas in the north.
"We arrived here with no shelter and got rained on last night. There isn’t anything to eat -- no bread, no flour," Ghassan Bakr told AFP.
The grocery stores in Rafah, like elsewhere in Gaza, are empty. At the market, the farmers who can still cultivate their land sell tomatoes, onions, cabbages and other vegetables.
On a sidewalk, children throw themselves at a large pot of semolina prepared by a charity, scraping at the bottom with bowls and plastic containers.
2023-12-07 00:00:54
Senior political leader of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh Wednesday sought Pakistan’s intervention in halting ongoing Israeli atrocities, saying that it is a “brave” nation.
In his address to the national dialogue on ‘The Sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Responsibility of the Muslim Ummah’ held in Islamabad, he said: “If Israel faced resistance from Pakistan, the perpetration of cruelty could cease.”
Read complete story here.
2023-12-06 23:36:19
Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations on Wednesday called for further humanitarian pauses in the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
"More urgent action is needed to address the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and minimize civilian casualties. We support and encourage further humanitarian pauses to enable this," G7 leaders said in a joint statement after a virtual meeting.
2023-12-06 23:10:54
Senior political leader of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh Wednesday sought Pakistan’s intervention in halting ongoing Israeli atrocities, saying that it is a “brave” nation.
In his address to the national dialogue on ‘The Sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Responsibility of the Muslim Ummah’ held in Islamabad, he said: “If Israel faced resistance from Pakistan, the perpetration of cruelty could cease.”
Expressing hope in Pakistan’s support, he referred to the country as “brave” and a land of mujahideen (people who fight for Islam).
Read complete story here.
2023-12-06 23:10:19
2023-12-06 22:27:18
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Wednesday invoked Article 99 — arguably the most strong diplomatic tool in the UN Charter — to call for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The said article allows the secretary general to "bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security."
According to Al Jazeera, this is the first time that the UN chief, since his appointment as the intergovernmental body's head, has invoked the said provision of the UN Charter after the majority of the council members voiced their support for a ceasefire in the beleaguered territory.
2023-12-06 22:03:52
The European Union (EU) should echo the US stance in imposing sanctions on a number of Israeli settlers over attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, a senior lawmaker in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats party said on Wednesday.
"It would be good if the EU were to join the US sanctions against violent settlers," Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesperson for the Social Democratic (SPD) parliamentary group, told Reuters.
According to aspokesperson for the German foreign ministry, sanctions targeting Israeli settlers involved in attacks against Palestinians should be debated further at the EU level.
A day earlier, the US began imposing visa bans on people involved in violence in the Israeli-occupied territory after several appeals for Israel to do more to prevent violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians that has surged since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza erupted two months ago.
2023-12-06 21:51:56
“As long as I am the Prime Minister of Israel, this will not happen,” the Israeli leader says in a post on X.
The post included a screenshot of a report saying Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is ready to accept control of the Gaza Strip.
“Those who educate their children for terrorism, finance terrorism and support terrorist families will not be able to rule Gaza after eliminating Hamas,” Netanyahu stated.
2023-12-06 21:32:20
Yemen's Houthis said the group launched several ballistic missiles at military posts in the Israeli city of Eilat, the group's military spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday.
2023-12-06 20:07:46
Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hamas in southern Gaza on Wednesday after reaching the heart of the city of Khan Younis, forcing Palestinian civilians to seek refuge elsewhere as the number of safe areas decreased.
Israeli warplanes also bombarded targets across the densely populated coastal territory in one of the heaviest phases of fighting in the two months since Israel began its military campaign to eliminate the Palestinian group.
Palestinian medics said hospitals were overflowing with dead and wounded, many of them women and children, and supplies were running out. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people driven out of the north were seeking shelter in the dwindling number of places in the south designated as safe areas by Israel.
After largely gaining control of northern Gaza, Israeli troops and tanks pushed further south and encircled Khan Younis following the collapse of the seven-day truce last week.
2023-12-06 18:08:38
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk warned on Wednesday there was a heightened risk of "atrocity crimes" in Gaza, urging parties involved to refrain from committing such violations.
"My humanitarian colleagues have described the situation as apocalyptic. In these circumstances, there is a heightened risk of atrocity crimes," Turk told reporters in Geneva.
"Measures need to be taken urgently, both by the parties concerned and by all states, particularly those with influence, to prevent any such crimes," he said.
"Some 1.9 million out of the 2.2 million Palestinians have been displaced and are being pushed into ever diminishing and extremely overcrowded places in southern Gaza in unsanitary and unhealthy conditions," Turk said.
"Humanitarian aid is again virtually cut off as fears of widespread disease and hunger spread."
2023-12-06 17:03:33
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has urged the United Nations to stop Israeli aggression as the attacks in Gaza Strip intensify, Al Jazeera reported.
Spokesperson for the PA presidency Nabil Abu Rudeineh has called for urgent international intervention to stop the Israeli occupation’s “comprehensive aggression” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
Rudeineh said Israel is practising “organised terrorism” against the Palestinians in all its locations.
He also held the United States responsible for this escalation and asked it to pressure the Israeli government to stop its war against the Palestinians.
He called on the UN Security Council to “intervene urgently to stop the shedding of Palestinian blood in light of the unprecedented international silence”.
2023-12-06 15:55:51
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk warned on Wednesday there was a heightened risk of atrocity crimes in Gaza, urging parties involved to refrain from committing such violations.
"My humanitarian colleagues have described the situation as apocalyptic. In these circumstances, there is a heightened risk of atrocity crimes," Turk told reporters in Geneva.
"Measures need to be taken urgently, both by the parties concerned and by all states, particularly those with influence, to prevent any such crimes."
2023-12-06 15:44:58
Turkey rejects plans to establish a buffer zone in Gaza after the fighting in the enclave is over, President Tayyip Erdogan was cited as saying on Wednesday, adding that such a plan was "disrespectful" to Palestinians.
Reuters reported last week that Israel had conveyed plans for the buffer zone to several Arab states and Turkey.
Speaking to reporters on a flight returning from Qatar, Erdogan said Gaza's future after the war would be decided by the Palestinian people and that Israel must return the territories it occupies, according to broadcaster Haberturk and others.
He also said Western support for Israel, namely from the United States, had caused the current situation in the region, and warned Israel against hunting down Hamas members in Turkey, saying Israel would pay a very heavy price for this.
2023-12-06 15:16:09
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said that Gaza's situation is “getting worse each minute”, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), people who were fleeing the Israeli strikes had no place to take shelter as all of them were "overflowing".
“Another wave of displacement is underway in Gaza”, UNRWA said in a post on X, calling the entire Gaza Strip “one of the most dangerous places in the world.
“There is nowhere to go as shelters, including [those of] UNRWA, are overflowing.”
2023-12-06 13:56:50
Israel needs to do more to allow fuel and other aid into Gaza, the United States said on Tuesday as Israel's offensive against Hamas in southern areas of the Palestinian enclave intensified.
"The level of assistance that's getting in is not sufficient," US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing. "It needs to go up, and we've made that clear to the government of Israel."
On Monday, 100 humanitarian aid trucks and about 69,000 litres of fuel were delivered to Gaza from Egypt, the United Nations said, about the same as Sunday.
2023-12-06 13:16:38
Qatar and Saudi Arabia have expressed their deep concern over the "humanitarian catastrophe" in the Gaza Strip, calling to put an end to this crisis, Al Jazeera reported.
In a joint statement by the Qatari-Saudi Coordination Council,Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stressed the need“to stop military operations in the Palestinian territories, and the need to protect civilians in accordance with international law”.
“The two sides also stressed the importance of international pressure on Israel to stop the forced displacement of Palestinians,” it added.
They also asked theinternational community to intensify efforts to settle the invasion of Gaza in line with theprinciple of the two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative.
2023-12-06 12:19:27
Israeli army'scommander-in-chief has said that their "top priority" isretrieving captives amid criticism by ex-captives and families of hostages for not handling the crisis properly, Al Jazeera reported.
Military chief Herzi Halevi said that the Israeli commanders are willing to “do everything to return the hostages” while attacking Hamas.
On Tuesday, families of hostages met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that he is not doing more for the hostages and asking him to resign.
2023-12-06 11:34:37
2023-12-06 10:57:54
Al-Aqsa Hospital — which is located in Gaza's Deir al-Balah — is running out of supplies, warnedDoctors Without Borders on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported.
“There are 700 patients admitted in the hospital now, with new patients arriving all the time. We are running out of essential supplies to treat them,” said Marie-Aure Perreaut Revial, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza.
2023-12-06 09:52:34
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli army will continue to control Gaza's security after the war with Hamas ends, reported Anadolu.
Rejecting thepossibility of giving that responsibility to an international force, Netanyahu said that Gaza "must be demilitarised" after the conflict comes to an end.
"And in order for Gaza to be demilitarised, there is only one force that can see to this demilitarization – and that force is the IDF," he said, adding that"no international force can be responsible for this."
"We have seen what has happened in other places where they brought in international forces for the goal of demilitarisation. I am not prepared to close my eyes and accept any other arrangement.”
2023-12-06 08:27:56
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Hamas had repeatedly raped women and mutilated their bodies during its Oct 7 assault on southern Israel, citing survivors and witnesses of the attacks.
Speaking at a political fundraiser in Boston, Biden said accounts of "unimaginable cruelty" had been shared over the past few weeks.
"Reports of women raped — repeatedly raped — and their bodies being mutilated while still alive, of women's corpses being desecrated, Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible and then murdering them. It is appalling," Biden said.
The president called on international organisations, civil society and individuals to condemn sexual violence "without exception."
2023-12-06 06:56:54
Israel assaulted southern Gaza's main city in what it said was the fiercest combat since it began its ground invasion to eliminate Hamas five weeks ago. The death toll surged to at least 16,248 people including 7,112 children and 4,885 women, according to Hamas media office. Thousands more are missing and feared buried under rubble.
Israel reported its forces, backed by warplanes, on Tuesday reached the heart of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and also surrounded the city. Hamas' armed wing, the al Qassam Brigades, said that its fighters engaged in clashes with Israelis.
"We are in the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation," the commander of the Israeli military's Southern Command, General Yaron Finkelman, said in a statement.
They were also the most pitched battles since a truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed last week. Israeli forces also fought in Jabalia, a large urban refugee camp in northern Gaza next to Gaza City, and in Shuja'iyya, east of the city, Finkelman said.
Hamas' armed wing said that it killed or wounded eight Israeli troops and destroyed 24 military vehicles on Tuesday. An Israeli military website listed two troop deaths for Tuesday and 83 since the ground operation began.
2023-12-06 01:03:17
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry reported that at least 25 Palestinian refugees were killed in Tuesday's Israeli strike on a school.
Witnesses said dozens of injured people, as well as bodies recovered from under the rubble of Ma'an school in Khan Yunis had been taken to the city's Nasser hospital.
Khan Yunis, Gaza's second-largest city, has been targeted for several days by intense bombing by the Israeli army, which has now also sent ground troops to the area in its war on Hamas.
Mohammed Salou, whose sister was killed in Tuesday's strike, told AFP: "My cousin called me and told me to come because my sister's body was lying in a schoolyard, and we couldn't retrieve it."
He eventually managed to take the body to a hospital, he said.
Salou said he believed "it was not the school itself which was targeted, but rather the area around it".
Many Palestinians have found refuge in schools or hospitals since the start of the Israeli offensive in October, believing they were relatively safe from attacks.
Numerous schools and hospitals or their direct surroundings have been struck in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
"We took refuge in the school and they continued to target us," said Etraa al-Jerjawi, a woman who had left her home for fear of violence and lost a relative in the strike on Ma'an school.
2023-12-05 23:40:13
There will be no negotiations or exchange of detainees until Israel's aggression against the Gaza strip stops, Hamas official Osama Hamdan said in a press conference on Tuesday.
"We hold (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu fully responsible for the lives of the Israeli hostages and for obstructing the completion of the exchange deal", he added.
Al Jazeera reported that the resistance group leader said that no matter how long the “war is going [to] last, we are well prepared”.
“This is not a sign of victory but rather a sign of defeat and the fall of his government,” Hamdan said.
The real objective of Netanyahu and his military is to “eliminate the Palestinian people and kill the cause. This is an impossibility”.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan, speaking in Beirut, Lebanon, says Israel’s invasion of Gaza is just a “thirst for blood” that will go unquenched.
2023-12-05 23:00:29
The Israel-Hamas war has martyred at least 16,248 people in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian government media office said Tuesday, revising up an earlier toll provided by the health ministry.
In nearly two months of fighting sparked by Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel, more than 7,000 children and nearly 5,000 women have been killed in Gaza, the media office said in a statement.
2023-12-05 22:18:04
Jordan's King Abdullah said on Tuesday the world should condemn any attempt by Israel to create conditions that would forcibly displace Palestinians within the war-devastated Gaza Strip or outside its borders.
In remarks carried by state media after a meeting with the Cypriot president in Amman, the monarch again called for an immediate ceasefire and warned that Israel's relentless bombing campaign was leading to a "dangerous deterioration" in the situation.
Talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides focused on the need to increase efforts to deliver humanitarian aid and relief to the embattled civilians living in Gaza.
Abdullah has lobbied Western leaders to pile pressure on Israel to allow an uninterrupted flow of aid and open crossings it controls to bring in sufficient level of aid needed.
2023-12-05 21:18:54
Israeli forces are surrounding the city of Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip as the war moves into a new phase following the 7-day pause to allow a return of some hostages, Israel's top military commander said on Tuesday.
"Sixty days after the war began, our forces are now encircling the Khan Yunis area in the southern Gaza Strip," said Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, chief of the General Staff.
"We have secured many Hamas strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip, and now we are operating against its strongholds in the south," he said.
2023-12-05 21:08:58
An official of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Tuesday that on average, one child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza, TRT World reported.
Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, told a UN press briefing in Geneva that the situation was "humanity's darkest hour."
"We are talking, almost about 16,000 people killed, more than 60% (are) women and children, and more than 42,000 people injured."
"On average a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza. I think in that sense we are close [to] humanity's darkest hour."
"We need a sustained ceasefire," he urged.
2023-12-05 21:05:33
Hamas' armed wing Al Qassam brigades on Tuesday claimed the responsibility of firing a salvo of rockets towards Tel Aviv, CNN reported.
"A CNN producer has heard at least eight rocket interceptions of the Iron Dome defense system," the publication stated.
2023-12-05 20:23:21
Israeli forces have been engaged in the heaviest day of fighting since the start of their invasion of Gaza, a senior commander said on Tuesday.
"We are in the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation," the commander of the Israeli Defence Forces Southern Command General Yaron Finkelman said on Tuesday
2023-12-05 19:34:22
Jordan's King Abdullah Tuesday said that the world should condemn any attempt by Israel to create the conditions that would forcibly displace Palestinians within the war-devastated Gaza Strip or outside its borders.
In remarks carried by state media after a meeting with the Cypriot president in Amman, the monarch reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire and warned that Israel's relentless bombing campaign was leading to a "dangerous deterioration" in the situation.
2023-12-05 19:28:15
The Israeli military Tuesday acknowledged the deaths of 80 soldiers since the start of its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, AFP reported.
After weeks of heavy bombing, Israel launched a ground offensive in the territory on October 27 which has since then led to a dire humanitarian situation in the beleaguered territory.
2023-12-05 18:18:26
United Nations’ top officials have warned that the situation in Gaza is “apocalyptic” and there is “no place safe to go” for civilians, as Israel rages war with Hamas, CNN reported.
“Every time we think things cannot get any more apocalyptic in Gaza, they do,” said Martin Griffiths, the top UN emergency relief official, in a statement Monday. “People are being ordered to move again, with little to survive on, forced to make one impossible choice after another,” he said.
“Such blatant disregard for basic humanity must stop,” he added.
2023-12-05 18:13:08
US-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) were used by the Israeli military in two deadly, unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip, Amnesty International has found based on a new investigation into those strikes.
The organisation found that these air strikes were either direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects or indiscriminate attacks and is calling for them to be investigated as war crimes.
The organisation found distinctive fragments of the munition in the rubble of destroyed homes in central Gaza following two strikes that killed a total of 43 civilians – 19 children, 14 women, and 10 men. In both cases, survivors told Amnesty International there had been no warning of an imminent strike.
On 10 October, an air strike on the al-Najjar family home in Deir al-Balah killed 24 people. On 22 October, an air strike on the Abu Mu’eileq family home in the same city killed 19 people. Both homes were south of Wadi Gaza, within the area where, on 13 October, the Israeli military had ordered residents of northern Gaza to relocate to.
“The fact that US-made munitions are being used by Israeli military in unlawful attacks with deadly consequences for civilians should be an urgent wake-up call to the Biden administration. The US-made weapons facilitated the mass killings of extended families,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
2023-12-05 17:28:57
The Swedish branch of the climate movement Fridays for Future (FFF), best known for activist Greta Thunberg, Tuesday reiterated its support for Palestinians in Gaza following criticism of its stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
At the end of October, several politicians in Germany urged the German branch of the movement to cut ties with its international branch over its and Thunberg's outspoken pro-Palestinian remarks.
"Contrary to what many have claimed, Fridays for Future has not 'been radicalised' or 'become political'," FFF Sweden wrote in op-eds published in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet and British newspaper The Guardian.
"We have always been political, because we have always been a movement for justice."
"Advocating for climate justice fundamentally comes from a place of caring about people and their human rights," it wrote.
"That means speaking up when people suffer, are forced to flee their homes or are killed - regardless of the cause."
"Standing in solidarity with Palestinians and all affected civilians has never been in question for us," it added.
2023-12-05 17:04:53
Qatar's prime minister said on Tuesday that mediation talks on Gaza were still ongoing with an objective to end the war.
"Qatar continues to make efforts to restore the truce, release hostages, and exchange prisoners," Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said at a press conference after a summit for the Gulf Cooperation Council.
2023-12-05 17:01:20
Qatar's emir on Tuesday called on the UN Security Council to force Israel to return to the negotiating table over the war in Gaza, saying the inaction by the international community in halting the conflict was "shameful".
"It is shameful for the international community to allow this heinous crime to continue for nearly two months, during which the systematic and deliberate killing of innocent civilians continues, including women and children," Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said in a speech to Gulf leaders gathered in the Qatari capital Doha for a regional summit.
Sheikh Tamim said Qatar was working with both sides to repair the deal.
"We are constantly working to renew (the truce) and to alleviate the burden of our people in the Gaza Strip, but truces are not an alternative for a comprehensive ceasefire," he said.
2023-12-05 15:55:33
US aid chief Samantha Power arrived in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, where she is expected to announce more than $21 million in additional assistance for the Palestinian people, a US Agency for International Development (USAID) spokesperson told Reuters.
USAID Administrator Power arrived in Al Arish with a delivery of 36,000 pounds of food assistance and medical supplies airlifted by the Department of Defense from Jordan and intended for Gaza, USAID spokesperson Jessica Jennings said.
The additional assistance that Power will announce on Tuesday will support the provision of hygiene and shelter supplies, food and other assistance for residents of Gaza and the West Bank affected by the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The funds will also support psychosocial care and critical health services along with the establishment of an NGO-operated field hospital in Gaza that will provide in-patient care.
Only a fraction of Gaza's hospitals remain operational due to Israeli bombing and a lack of fuel, and those still functioning are increasingly overwhelmed by a new wave of wounded arriving.
While in Al Arish, Power will meet with officials and Egyptian and international humanitarian organizations working to speed up assistance in Gaza.
She will raise Washington's commitment to the protection of civilians and the need for humanitarian supplies to exceed the levels reached during the humanitarian pause.
2023-12-05 15:49:50
2023-12-05 15:26:38
Qatar calls on the UN Security Council to force Israel to return to the negotiating table over the war in Gaza, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said on Tuesday during a Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha.
"It is shameful for the international community to allow this heinous crime to continue for nearly two months, during which the systematic and deliberate killing of innocent civilians continues, including women and children," he said.
2023-12-05 15:15:20
A World Health Organisation (WHO) official in Gaza said on Tuesday the situation there is deteriorating by the hour as Israeli bombing has intensified in the south of the enclave around the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.
"The situation is getting worse by the hour," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative on the occupied Palestinian territory, told reporters via video link from Gaza.
"There's intensified bombing going on all around, including here in the southern areas, Khan Younis and even in Rafah."
2023-12-05 15:08:08
2023-12-05 14:55:26
Israel expects difficult fighting in the new phase of its war in Gaza but is open to "constructive feedback" on reducing harm to civilians as long as the advice is consistent with its aim of destroying Hamas, a government spokesperson said on Tuesday.
"We're moving ahead with the second stage now. A second stage that is going to be difficult militarily," spokesperson Eylon Levy told reporters in a briefing.
2023-12-05 14:46:49
2023-12-05 14:40:09
Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has accused labourers from Gaza of spying for Hamas and gathering information for its October 7 attack, Al Jazeera reported.
A report by The Guardian, picked up by the Israeli news outlet YNet, found that Hamas had detailed maps of Israeli army bases, which an Israeli intelligence source told the British newspaper was done with “inside knowledge”.
Ben-Gvir backed the report in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying: “Labourers from Gaza who worked in Israel, participated in the Hamas massacre plan, gathered information and spied for a terrorist organisation, and the members of the Conspiracy Cabinet decided to release the labourers back to Gaza and bring in more labourers from Israel.”
Last month, Israel expelled thousands of Palestinian workers and returned them to Gaza.
2023-12-05 13:34:53
2023-12-05 13:21:46
2023-12-05 12:40:55
2023-12-05 11:17:39
Israel's attacks have increased throughout the Gaza Strip, especially in the vicinity of hospitals and in the southern part of the besieged territory, where ground operations are stepping up, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 5, 6:00am local time (04:00 GMT), 16,159 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 6,661 children.
Additionally, at least 45,365 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, 1,147 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 8,730 have been injured, according to Al Jazeera citing the Israeli army.
Officials on November 10 revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-05 10:59:20
2023-12-05 09:58:04
2023-12-05 09:34:53
Israel has assembled a large system of pumps that may be used to flood tunnels used by Hamas under the Gaza strip in a bid to drive out fighters, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing US officials.
Around the middle of November, Israel's army completed the set-up of at least five pumps about a mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp that could move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour, flooding the tunnels within weeks, the report said.
It was not clear whether Israel would consider using the pumps before all hostages were released, according to the story. Hamas has previously said it has hidden captives in "safe places and tunnels."
Reuters could not verify the details of Monday's report.
When asked about the story, a US official said it made sense for Israel to render the tunnels inoperable and that the country was exploring a range of ways to do that.
Israel's defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Wall Street Journal said an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official declined to comment on the flooding plan but was quoted as saying: "The IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas’s terror capabilities in various ways, using different military and technological tools."
Israel first informed the United States of the option last month, the Wall Street Journal said, reporting that officials did not know how close Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was to carrying out the plan.
Israel has not made a final decision to go ahead or rule it out, the officials were cited as saying.
2023-12-05 09:16:56
The Israeli army on Tuesday denied telling the World Health Organisation (WHO) to empty an aid warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours before ground operations in the area render it unusable.
"The truth is that we didn't ask you to evacuate the warehouses and we also made it clear (and in writing) to the relevant #UN representatives," the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, COGAT said on X, formerly Twitter.
"From a #UN official we would expect, at least, to be more accurate," it added.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X on Monday: "Today, WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces that we should remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations will put it beyond use".
"We appeal to Israel to withdraw the order, and take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and humanitarian facilities," he wrote.
The number of operational hospitals in Gaza has dropped from 36 to 18 in less than 60 days, according to the WHO, with three providing only basic first aid and others offering partial services, as Israel's army on Monday sent dozens of tanks into southern Gaza as part of expanded action against Hamas.
Twelve hospitals still remain operational in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, according to the WHO.
At a press conference earlier on Monday, the WHO regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed al-Mandhari, said the intensification of military ground operations in southern Gaza risked depriving thousands of people of health care.
"We saw what happened in the north of Gaza. This cannot serve as a model for the south," he said.
2023-12-05 09:10:25
Israeli forces, according to Al Jazeera, have carried out raids and arrests in the following areas:
The post on X translates to: "Israeli occupation bulldozers destroy streets in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank"
2023-12-05 08:41:44
A UN official warned on Monday that "an even more hellish scenario" looms in Gaza in which humanitarian aid simply grinds to a halt.
"The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist," said Lynn Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories.
Since the end of a seven-day truce, Israeli forces have pushed into southern Gaza, "forcing tens of thousands... into increasingly compressed spaces, desperate to find food, water, shelter and safety," Hastings said.
"Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go."
"If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond," Hastings said in a statement.
Hastings, a Canadian, rejected the idea of "safe zones" urged upon Israel by the US government where people are still unable to move about freely.
"These zones cannot be safe nor humanitarian when unilaterally declared," she said.
"What we see today," Hastings added, "are shelters with no capacity, a health system on its knees, a lack of clean drinking water, no proper sanitation and poor nutrition for people already mentally and physically exhausted: a textbook formula for epidemics and a public health disaster."
Further complicating aid deliveries, two major roads in Gaza have been declared off-limits to UN teams and trucks, Hastings said.
Hastings has her base in Jerusalem but Israel last week informed the UN that it would not renew her visa, accusing her of not being "impartial."
2023-12-05 08:39:47
2023-12-05 00:00:28
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to Israel on Monday to "avoid further action that would exacerbate the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and to spare civilians from more suffering," a UN spokesperson said.
"The Secretary-General reiterates the need for unimpeded and sustained humanitarian aid flow to meet the needs of the people throughout the Strip. For people ordered to evacuate, there is nowhere safe to go and very little to survive on," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
2023-12-04 23:33:41
The United States said Monday it was asking Israel to let more fuel into the battered Gaza Strip after the end of a pause in its ally's war with Hamas.
"We've made clear we want to see it back up not just to the level of fuel that went in during the pause, but actually higher," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
2023-12-04 22:52:20
Dozens of Israeli tanks were seen rolling into the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Monday, Times of Israel reported.
A sharp rise in the Gaza death toll was witnessed as the Israeli military pushed ahead, expanding its ground offensive into the area to dismantle Hamas.
2023-12-04 22:30:00
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said that the IDF troops will not leave the northern Gaza Strip’s city of Jabaliya and Shejaiya neighbourhood until completely destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, Times of Israel has reported.
“Golani troops have returned to Shejaiya to ‘close a circle.’ This time they will not leave it until all the terror infrastructure located there is eliminated,” Gallant said.
Threatening the freedom fighters in the southern Gaza, the Israeli minister said that the ongoing military action in the north of the Gaza Strip, "will soon lead to shattering [Hamas in] the entire area of Gaza City and the north of the Gaza Strip".
"The fate of the terrorists in the Hamas battalions there will be the same as those in the north and worse,” Gallant warned.
“We will continue until victory and until all goals are achieved: the elimination of Hamas and the return of the hostages to Israel," he added.
2023-12-04 21:34:01
The UN Agency for Palestinian refugees or Unrwa, in a statement, said almost 1.9 million people, or over 80% of the population, have been displaced across Gaza since October 7, TRT World reported.
As of December 2,111 UNRWA staffers have been killed since the beginning of Israeli war on the Palestinian enclave, it added.
2023-12-04 20:50:52
2023-12-04 20:31:19
At least 50 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit two schools sheltering the displaced in Gaza's neighbourhood of Daraj, Reuters reported, citing Wafa news agency.
2023-12-04 19:24:07
2023-12-04 19:03:51
The Gaza health ministry has updated the death toll from Israeli strikes, saying that the massive number of casualties has incapacitated the hospitals in the besieged enclaves.
The ministry spokespersonAshraf al-Qudra said that at least 15,899 Palestinians have been martyred in Israeli attacks since October 7. 70% of the the martyrs are women and children.
He said that the number of injured has risen to 42,000 since the start of the war, Al Jazeera reported.
Qudra further stated that the Israeli forces are still detaining 35 medical personnel, including the director-general of Al Shifa Hospital Mohammed Abu Salmiya, under very harsh conditions.
" We call on the United Nations and the World Health Organization to pressure for the release of our teams in occupation prisons. We demand that a safe passage be provided for the entry of medical supplies and fuel and the exit of the wounded," Qudra said.
He also called for the protection of hospitals, health and humanitarian teams.
2023-12-04 17:35:46
Israel ordered people out of swathes of the main southern city in the Gaza Strip on Monday as it pressed its ground campaign deep into the south, sending desperate residents fleeing even as bombs fell on areas still described as safe.
Israel's military posted a map on X on Monday morning with around a quarter of the city of Khan Younis marked off in yellow as territory that must be evacuated at once. Three arrows pointed south and west, telling people to head further towards the Mediterranean sea and the Egyptian border.
Many of those taking flight were already displaced from other areas, many sleeping rough under makeshift shelters with their few remaining belongings in plastic bags.
Abu Mohammed told Reuters it was now the third time he had been forced to flee since abandoning his home in Gaza City in the north.
"Last night Israeli tanks shelled from the east, and the north, and the west too from (naval ships in) the direction of the sea, rings of fire around us, and the house kept shaking and covered in red light from the explosions, causing panic and horror for the adults and the children alike," he said. "Why did they eject us from our homes in Gaza (City) if they planned to kill us here?"
2023-12-04 17:11:37
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday that she had arrived in war-torn Gaza, warning that the suffering in the Palestinian territory was "intolerable".
"I repeat our urgent call for civilians to be protected in line with the laws of war and for aid to enter unimpeded," Mirjana Spoljaric said on X, formerly Twitter, adding that "the hostages must be released and ICRC allowed to safely visit them".
2023-12-04 17:10:05
The commander of Israel's armoured corps said on Monday that he and other ground forces were close to achieving their war mission in the northern Gaza Strip and were operating elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave against Hamas.
"The goals in the northern section have almost been met," Brigadier-General Hisham Ibrahim told Israel's Army Radio. "We are beginning to expand the ground maneouvre to other parts of the Strip, with one goal: to topple the Hamas terrorist group."
2023-12-04 14:47:25
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be tried as a war criminal over Israel's ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip.
In a speech to a meeting of an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) committee in Istanbul, Erdogan said that Gaza is Palestinian land and will always belong to the Palestinians.
2023-12-04 13:46:10
2023-12-04 13:22:39
A delegation of senior officials from the Biden administration will reach Israel later today for meetings with Israeli counterparts to discuss plans for post-war Gaza, the White House says.
According to Israeli media, the delegation, led by Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security adviser Phil Gordon, is scheduled to meet Israeli National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
The US delegation will "reiterate the same message that VP Harris delivered to the COP28 summit in Dubai," Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher says.
Harris said the US would not accept the forced relocation of Palestinians or any redrawing of the territorial borders of the strip.
“That message will be carried out by Philip Gordon [Harris’s national security adviser], who will be meeting with an Israeli delegation in the next few hours,” Fisher said. “This is the White House sending this message to Israel.”
2023-12-04 13:17:54
LAHORE: In the wake of Israel’s blatant disregard for the protection of Gaza’s medical facilities, doctors are being forced to make unimaginable choices between their lives or those of their patients.
“If the bombs do not get them (the people of Gaza), infectious diseases and starvation will,” says Christos Christou, President of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) while making an impassioned appeal, in an open letter, to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to stop Israel from indiscriminate attacks against civilians and healthcare of Gaza and to allow humanitarian aid to enter.
“Israel is clearly trading in international law, rules of war and fundamental principle of humanity for its “military doctrine of disproportionality”, as the strikes are also hitting overcrowded, squalid refugee camps, where people are barely surviving on the sparse humanitarian aid available,” Doctors without Borders gives a first-hand account of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza in the open letter, as MSF aims to mobilise and hold governments accountable for not pushing Israel for a ceasefire.
The MSF International President, on behalf of Médecins Sans Frontières, implores the UNSC to do everything within its power to ensure an immediate and sustained ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and demand Israeli government stop the deadly attacks on Palestinian civilians and allow the crucial humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
Read more here
2023-12-04 12:46:23
2023-12-04 12:41:14
Melanie Ward, the chief executive of humanitarian organisation Medical Aid for Palestinians, says Israel's so-called Evacuation Zone Map for Gaza residents is creating fear and confusion.
"What is being done is unconscionable,” Ward said in a post on X on Sunday.
The map, which splits Gaza into over 600 zones, was developed, according to an announcement made by Israel's military on Friday, to help the people there “to orient themselves and understand the instructions, and to evacuate from specific places for their safety if required”.
2023-12-04 12:19:30
2023-12-04 11:45:32
2023-12-04 11:17:47
Israel has continued its bombardment of Gaza, hitting areas across the besieged enclave after the end of a week-long truce.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 4, 6:00am local time (04:00 GMT), 15,777 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 6,600 children.
Additionally, at least 44,681 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, at least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 5,600 have been injured. Officials on November 10 revised the death toll from 1,405 to "around 1,200".
2023-12-04 10:25:57
A volunteer for the Palestine Red Crescent (PRCS) has been killed in a dawn bombing in northern Gaza’s Faluja area, the PRCS has said.
The PRCS, in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, said: "Volunteer Osama Tayeh was martyred and employee Muhammad Abu Rukba was injured during the bombing of the Al-Faluga area at dawn today at 5:30 while they were at the home of the martyr Osama Tayeh outside of work."
2023-12-04 10:02:17
2023-12-04 09:45:36
2023-12-04 09:41:13
The Israeli military said the three soldiers were killed in the besieged enclave during fighting on Sunday, according to Al Jazeera.
Sgt Maj Neriya Shaer, a 36-year-old reservist from Yavne, belonging to Battalion 6655 in the 55th Brigade, was killed in central Gaza.
Sgt First Class Ben Zussman, a 22-year-old reservist from Jerusalem, belonging to the 601st Battalion of the 401st Brigade of the Combat Engineering Corps, was killed in northern Gaza.
Sgt Binyamin Yehoshua Needham, 19, from Zichron Ya’akov, also from the 601st Battalion of the 401st Brigade of the Combat Engineering Corps, was also killed in northern Gaza.
2023-12-04 09:03:08
2023-12-04 08:42:40
Intensestrikes and artillery shelling targeting areas in Gaza'sKhan Younis have been reported as the Israeli army announced to expand its ground operation in the southern part of theKhan Younis.
No casualties have been reported so far following the early morning strike, Al Jazeera reported.
Raids and fire were also reported inShujaiya and al-Tuffah which is further north near Gaza city.
According toAl Jazeera, Israeli forces have warned thatKhan Younis would be the centre of its operation in the coming days.
2023-12-03 23:34:05
After weeks of relentless bombardment in northern Gaza and repeated warnings to Palestinians to evacuate and move south, Israel has now intensified its offensive in the southern part of the beleaguered strip as well, BBCreported quotingIsraeli army radio.
According to Reuters, Israel'sChief of General Staff Herzi Halevi has said that his forces will match its earlier offensive against Hamas in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave.
"We fought strongly and thoroughly in the northern Gaza Strip, and we are also doing it now in the southern Gaza," he said in a statement.
2023-12-03 23:15:41
Hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip have descended into chaos since the resumption of the war. After eight weeks, doctors are exhausted and fuel reserves nearly gone because of Israel’s blockade, according to Al Jazeera.
According to the United Nations, not a single hospital in the territory’s north can operate on patients. The most seriously wounded are transferred daily to the south in convoys organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
But even there, the UN says, the 12 remaining hospitals are only “partially functional”.
2023-12-03 22:22:04
Yemen's Houthi rebels Sunday said they had attacked two "Israeli" ships off the Yemeni coast due to the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement posted on social media, the Houthis said they carried out an "operation against two Israeli ships in the Bab al Mandab Strait," a strategic waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, targeting the first with a "missile and the second ship with a drone", reported AFP.
Meanwhile, a US defence official has acknowledged that Washington was "aware of reports"
Earlier, a maritime security group also said that a UK-owned ship had reportedly been hit by rocket fire.
According to Reuters,the spokesperson said the two ships, Unity Explorer and Number Nine, were targeted after they rejected warnings from the group's navy.
2023-12-03 20:38:45
Palestinian health ministry Sunday said that15,523 people had died in the beleaguered territory since the start of the war with Israel.
According to the ministry spokesperson Ashraf al Qudra, 70% of those martyred are women and children.
"During the past hours, only 316 dead and 664 wounded were removed from the rubble and taken to hospitals, but many others are still under the rubble," Qudra said.
2023-12-03 18:30:12
Israeli forces Sunday targeted multiple residential buildings in Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp.
Numerous houses were attacked simultaneously, resulting in multiple fatalities and more feared buried under the rubble, Al Jazeera reported.
Rescuers are struggling to reach the wounded as they are also being targeted by the Israeli forces, which hinders their efforts and delays their ability to reach any survivors.
2023-12-03 17:04:32
Pope Francis said on Sunday he was "saddened" by the ending of the Israel-Hamas truce and urged those involved to reach a new ceasefire deal as soon as possible.
"There is so much suffering in Gaza," he said while highlighting the absence of essential supplies in the occupied Palestinian territory.
2023-12-03 16:29:27
Amid efforts to secure hostage release via indirect talks with Hamas and army operations in the Gaza Strip, Israel has been declaring some of the missing as dead in captivity — a measure designed to grant anxious relatives a measure of closure.
A three-person medical committee has been scrutinising videos from the October 7 Hamas attack for signs of lethal injuries among those abducted, and cross-referencing with the testimony of hostages freed during a week-long Gaza truce that ended on Friday.
That can suffice to determine that a hostage has died, even if no doctor has formally pronounced this over his or her body, said Hagar Mizrahi, a Health Ministry official who heads the panel created in response to a crisis now in its third month.
"Designation of death is never an easy matter, and certainly not in the situation embroiling us," she told Israel's Kan radio.
Her committee, she said, addresses "the desire of the families of loved ones abducted to Gaza to know as much as possible".
Since the truce expired, Israeli authorities have declared six civilians and an army colonel dead in captivity.
Mizrahi said she and her fellow panellists — a forensic pathologist and a physical trauma clinician — have been watching videos recorded by Hamas themselves, cellphone videos and CCTV footage of the hostage-taking "again and again, frame by frame".
That has allowed them to map out life-threatening wounds and spot any cessation of breathing or other essential reflexes.
2023-12-03 14:33:02
2023-12-03 14:36:05
The Director General of the Government Media Office in Gaza has told Al Jazeera that more than 700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the last 24 hours.
He added that over 1.5 million people have also been displaced in the Gaza Strip.
2023-12-03 14:29:12
The Palestinian Prisoners Society has revealed that Israel has detained at least 60 Palestinians in overnight raids in the occupied West Bank.
The arrests on Saturday night were mostly made in the towns of Hebron, Bethlehem, Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, including at least four women, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
The latest arrests add to over 3,000 Palestinians arrested in the West Bank since October 7, according to the UN Human Rights Office. Many prisoners are held without trial or charges, under a system of “administrative detention”, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel continued its arrest campaign during the week-long truce from November 24 to 30. During this time, Israel detained nearly as many new Palestinian prisoners as it released under the terms of the truce.
2023-12-03 14:23:56
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has warned that Israel’s government aims to “solidify the separation” between the occupied West Bank and Gaza, undermining a future Palestinian state, as it carries out deadly raids and gives cover to settler violence, Al Jazeera reported.
In a post on X, the ministry condemned the killing of 38-year-old Ahmed Assi, who was reportedly shot by Israeli settlers on Saturday evening, as “a deliberate attempt to escalate the situation in the West Bank”.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli forces protected the settlers who attacked Assi in the northern West Bank province of Salfi and then prevented medics from reaching him.
2023-12-03 13:50:19
2023-12-03 13:06:55
As the Israeli army's raids in the occupied West Bank are continuing, Al Jazeera reports that the Israeli army stormed the house of Al-Aqsa Mosque preacher Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri in the Al-Sawana neighbourhood, occupied East Jerusalem.
Sheikh Sabri is the head of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem and the former religious leader of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories.
He is the founder and president of the Association of Scholars and Preachers in Palestine, the president of the Supreme Fatwa Council in Palestine, and the president of the Supreme Islamic Authority in Jerusalem.
2023-12-03 12:58:24
The Israeli army has issued a warning to residents of certain neighbourhoods in southern Khan Younis to evacuate to other areas, using a new evacuation system that Israel claims is designed to prevent attacks on civilians.
According to Al Jazeera,since Friday, Israeli forces started dropping leaflets showing a map of Gaza divided into thousands of numbered “blocks”.
Each paper has a QR code which links to the map. Residents are asked to scan the code and identify their zone to be able to follow the Israeli army’s instructions should they target their house’s zone.
Palestinians in Gaza face challenges in accessing the internet due to Israeli bombardment and communication cuts, making it difficult for them to access the map.
Additionally, questions arise about their future as tens of thousands of people are sheltering in southern areas after fleeing from the north upon the instructions of the Israeli forces.
2023-12-03 12:04:29
2023-12-03 10:44:34
Israel has renewed its bombardment of Gaza, hitting areas across the besieged enclave after the end of a week-long truce.
According to the latest casualty figures as of December 3, 6:00am local time (04:00 GMT), 15,461 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 6,211 children.
Additionally, at least 43,402 Palestinians have been injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, at least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 while 5,600 have been injured. Officials on November 10 revised the death toll from 1,405 to"around 1,200".
2023-12-03 10:10:30
2023-12-03 09:56:18
2023-12-03 09:46:05
2023-12-03 09:36:06
2023-12-03 09:32:15
The UN, citing data from the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company (GEDCO), has confirmed the besieged territory has had no electricity since October 11.
According to the data, Israeli electricity supply to Gaza ceased on October 8 and that the Gaza power plant stopped supplying power on October 11, Al Jazeera reported.
Even before its electricity was cut off, Gaza only averaged 13.3 hours of electricity per day from January to September 2023, the data shows.
“For the past decade, the Gaza Strip has suffered from a chronic electricity deficit, which undermined already fragile living conditions,” the UN update said.
2023-12-03 08:33:42
Israel faced growing US calls to avoid further harm to Palestinian civilians in its fight against Hamas in Gaza, as the warring sides on Sunday showed no sign of moving toward reviving their collapsed truce.
Speaking in Dubai, Harris said Israel had a right to defend itself, but international and humanitarian law must be respected and "too many innocent Palestinians have been killed."
"Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering, and the images and videos coming from Gaza, are devastating," Harris told reporters.
Austin weighed in with perhaps his strongest comments to date on Israel's need to protect civilians in Gaza, calling it a "moral responsibility and strategic imperative."
"If you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat," Austin told a defence forum in Simi Valley, California.
Austin, who pledged that the US would stand by Israel as its "closest friend in the world," also said he pressed Israeli officials to dramatically expand Gaza's access to humanitarian aid.
The senior US officials' remarks on Saturday reinforced pressure from Washington for Israel to use more caution as it shifts the focus of its military offensive further south in the besieged Gaza Strip.
2023-12-02 23:54:03
Hamas said on Saturday that more than 200 people have been martyred in the Gaza Strip since the collapse of the cease-fire with Israel.
2023-12-02 22:47:20
Deputy Hamas chief Saleh Al-Arouri told the pan-Arab Al Jazeera TVon Saturday that no more prisoners would be exchanged with Israel until there was a ceasefire in Gaza.
Arouri said the hostages still being held captive by Hamas were Israeli soldiers and civilian men who had previously served in the Israeli army.
He said they would not be freed unless there was a ceasefire and all Palestinian detainees were also released.
"Let the war take its course. This decision is final. We will not compromise on it," Arouri said.
2023-12-02 22:43:15
The Israeli military said that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar approved battle plans for Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza, after holding an assessment today at the Southern Command in Beersheba, Times of Israel reported.
“We are focused on continuing dismantling Hamas, and on creating conditions for the return of additional hostages,” Halevi says in remarks provided by the IDF.
2023-12-02 21:01:06
An Israeli air strike targeting the town of Al Faluja — northeast of Gaza City — martyred prominent Palestinian scientist Sufyan Tayeh and his family, the Palestinian Higher Education ministry announced on Saturday.
Tayeh, who was president of the Islamic University of Gaza, was a leading researcher in physics and applied mathematics.
2023-12-02 20:45:40
2023-12-02 19:21:52
United States Vice President Kamala Harris told Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi on Saturday that "under no circumstance, the US will permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank", according to a White House statement on the meeting on the sidelines of the COP28 Conference in Dubai.
Harris discussed with Sisi efforts for reconstruction, security, and governance in Gaza, stating that they "can only succeed if they are pursued in the context of a clear political horizon for the Palestinian people towards a state of their own led by a revitalised Palestinian Authority," the statement added.
2023-12-02 19:08:19
French President Emmanuel Macron Saturday appealed for intensified efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, a day after deadly fighting resumed between Israel and Hamas after the truce expiry.
Speaking ata news conference on the sidelines of the UN's COP28 climate talks in Dubai, Macron highlighted the need to allow more urgently needed aid into Gaza and said: "This situation requires stepped-up efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire."
2023-12-02 18:20:38
Israel has ordered its Mossad negotiating team in Doha to return to Israel due to what it called an “impasse,” Al Jazeera reported.
“Following the impasse in the negotiations and at the direction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, David Barnea, head of the Mossad, ordered his team in Doha to return to Israel,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
It said that Hamas “did not fulfill its part of the agreement, which included the release of all children and women according to a list that was forwarded to Hamas and approved by it”.
“The head of Mossad thanks the head of the CIA, the Egyptian Minister of Intelligence and the Prime Minister of Qatar for their partnership in the tremendous mediation efforts that led to the release of 84 children and women from the Gaza Strip in addition to 24 foreign citizens,” it added.
2023-12-02 17:45:25
Gaza health ministry shared the latest update on the death toll from Israeli attacks, saying that the casualties swelled to 15,207 after the fighting resumed in the besieged enclave.
It further stated that 40,000 people have been wounded in the attacks.
The ministry expressed risk of deaths of those wounded in large numbers every day due to a lack of treatment options in Gaza hospitals.
2023-12-02 17:44:21
2023-12-02 17:37:03
A team from Israel's Mossad intelligence service was in Doha Saturday for discussions with Qatari mediators on restarting the Gaza truce, a source briefed on the visit told Reuters.
Qatar-mediated Mossad talks focused on the potential release of new categories of Israeli hostages and new truce parameters, the source added.
2023-12-02 16:45:50
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday pushed back against mounting US pressure to cut Ankara's historic ties with Hamas in the wake of the militants' unprecedented attacks on Israel.
The US Treasury's top terrorism financing official conveyed Washington's "profound" alarm about Ankara's past relations with Hamas during a visit to Turkey this week.
Under Secretary Brian, Nelson said Washington has not detected any money passing through Turkey to Hamas since the Gaza war broke out eight weeks ago.
But he argued that Ankara had helped Hamas access funding in the past and should now use local laws to clamp down on potential future transfers of funds.
Erdogan said on Saturday that Washington was well aware that Turkey does not view Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
"First of all, Hamas is a reality of Palestine, it is a political party there and it entered the elections as a political party and won," he said in remarks released by his office.
"We form our foreign policy in Ankara and design it only according to Turkey's interests and the expectations of our people," Erdogan said.
"I am sure that our interlocutors appreciate Turkey's consistent and balanced foreign policy steps in such humanitarian crises and conflicts."
2023-12-02 16:36:09
Amid intense bombing, an Israeli military spokesperson Saturday ordered Gaza residents to evacuate certain neighbourhoods and also mentioned where they should flee to.
In a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, the spokesperson used multiple maps annotated in Arabic, the official told people living in several neighbourhoods including Jabalia and Shujaiya to move to different areas.
Maps of southern Gaza demanded that Palestinians in several neighbourhoods, including Bani Suhaila near Khan Younis, should move to shelters in Rafah on the border with Egypt — one of several parts of the southern strip Israel has bombed since the ceasefire expired on Friday.
2023-12-02 16:32:54
Spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza Dr Ashraf Al Qudra Saturday said that most of the victims of the Israeli bombing are women and children, and they observed deformities on the bodies of some of them
“The occupation wants to destroy the health system in the northern Gaza Strip and terrorise those inside it. We need to provide aid and get the wounded out to make room for other wounded due to the ongoing brutal Israeli attacks.”
2023-12-02 15:44:12
Amid intense bombing, an Israeli military spokesperson Saturday ordered Gaza residents to evacuate certain neighbourhoods and also mentioned where they should flee to.
In a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, the spokesperson used multiple maps annotated in Arabic, the official told people living in several neighbourhoods including Jabalia and Shujaiya to move to different areas.
Maps of southern Gaza demanded that Palestinians in several neighbourhoods, including Bani Suhaila near Khan Younis, should move to shelters in Rafah on the border with Egypt - one of several parts of the southern strip Israel has bombed since the ceasefire expired on Friday.
2023-12-02 14:52:24
Israeli air strikes killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters when they hit sites belonging to the Iran-backed group near Damascus early on Saturday, a war monitor told AFP.
The strikes near Damascus came less than 24 hours after the end of a Gaza truce between Hezbollah ally Hamas and Israel.
"Two Syrian fighters working for Hezbollah were killed and seven other fighters working for the group were wounded in Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah sites near Sayyida Zeinab," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour since Syria´s civil war began in 2011, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, as well as Syrian army positions.
But it has intensified attacks since its war with Hamas began in October. Hamas last year said it had restored relations with Syria´s government.
The chief of the British-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, had earlier told AFP that Israel struck "Hezbollah targets" in the Sayyida Zeinab area south of Damascus.
Syria´s defence ministry had also said Israel hit near the Syrian capital, with an AFP journalist in Damascus reporting the loud sound of bombings.
"At approximately 1:35 am (2235 GMT) today, the Israeli enemy carried out an air assault from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points near the city of Damascus," the defence ministry said in a statement, reporting no casualties.
Syria state television had reported an "Israeli aggression near the capital".
The Israeli army did not comment when contacted by AFP.
2023-12-02 14:35:57
The United Arab Emirates said on Thursday it planned to treat 1,000 Palestinian children from Gaza, without saying how they would leave the Israeli-besieged enclave for the Gulf state.
Gaza's border with Egypt — the only exit point apart from the closed border crossings with Israel — has largely been shut since October 7, although several hundred foreign nationals and a small number of injured Palestinians, to be treated in Egyptian hospitals, have crossed into Egypt since Wednesday.
Qatar brokered that deal to allow some people to leave Gaza, and a diplomatic source has said some 7,500 foreign passport holders would leave Gaza over about two weeks.
UAE state news agency WAM reported President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had directed hospitals to treat 1,000 Palestinian children "accompanied by their families" from Gaza.
It was not immediately clear whether those children and their families would be able to leave Gaza under the deal brokered by Qatar, which involved Israel and the United States.
The Emirati foreign ministry did not immediately respond to emailed questions on the UAE's plans to provide treatment and host the Palestinians. Israel's embassy in Abu Dhabi declined to comment.
WAM reported the Palestinian children would "return home" after they had received medical care.
2023-12-02 14:27:49
2023-12-02 13:45:34
Acclaimed artist Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye, who has been a Goodwill Ambassador since 2021, is providing four million meals to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to help people in Gaza, the UN's body has said.
The 33-year-old star has directed $2.5 million from his XO Humanitarian Fund towards WFP humanitarian efforts in Gaza, according to WFP's statement Friday.
The donation equates to four million emergency meals, which will fund 820 metric tons of food parcels that can feed more than 173,000 Palestinians for two weeks, it said.
The WFP didn't indicate when the aid could reach Gaza, CNN reported.
Corrine Fleisher, a regional director for the WFP, thanked Tesfaye for his contribution saying, "We hope others will follow Abel’s example and support our efforts.”
According to WFP, more than one million Palestinians in Gaza are "on the verge of starvation" and since the conflict began on October 7, a "humanitarian catastrophe beyond reckoning" has been unleashed.
Tesfaye has raised $5 million through his XO Humanitarian Fund, established in 2022 in partnership with WFP USA. The first $2.5 million was used for emergency food assistance for Ethiopian women and children, while the remaining funds will be used for the Gaza response.
2023-12-02 13:30:32
2023-12-02 13:23:09
Aid trucks that have been stuck in Egypt as a result of the truce expiration might be delivered to Gaza today
According to Al Jazeera citing reports from the ground, a small number of humanitarian aid trucks carrying food, medication, and fuel to UN locations are anticipated to enter Gaza today.
This comes after Israel decided to bar trucks from accessing Gaza on Friday as it resumed its bombardment of the besieged region.
2023-12-02 13:18:04
In an article published in The Independent, filmmaker and activist Jemima Goldsmith discusses the rise in Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the wake of the worsening situation in the Middle East and asserts that "you can oppose both rising anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred."
Drawing on her personal experience as the former spouse of the former PTI chairman, she emphasised that being Jewish rendered her vulnerable to several attacks in Pakistan.
"There is also an underrecognized problem with anti-Semitism within Muslim communities," the author noted.
"Equally, hatred towards Muslims is growing and affects many people I love, including my children," she continued.
2023-12-02 12:17:04
2023-12-02 12:01:50
The death toll of Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Gaza, has climbed to 190 since the truce between Israel and Hamas expired as Israeli tanks have not stopped shelling the Gaza Strip and are attacking the coastline with gunboats, Al Jazeera reported.
The death toll since the truce expired previously stood at 178. Meanwhile, dozens have been wounded as a result of relentless bombardment.
Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary said: "It was very tough last night with people in Gaza describing it as one of the toughest. There has been non-stop bombardment in the last 24 hours.
"Houses have been targeted. At least three mosques were hit. Areas across the Gaza Strip — the north, south, and centre have all been targeted. In the last couple of hours, the bombing has been focused on Khan Younis (in the south) and in the middle areas (of the Gaza Strip). People are terrified."
2023-12-02 11:22:27
2023-12-02 11:17:03
Israeli consul general to the US’s southeast accused a protester of demonstrating hate for Israel after they set themselves on fire outside Israel’s consulate in Atlanta, Georgia.
According to Al Jazeera, a senior police officer called the self-immolation at the Israeli consulate, where a Palestinian flag was recovered, “an extreme act of political protest” and stated that there was “no threat” involved in the incident while the protester was in critical condition.
Israeli consul general to the Southeast, Anat Sultan-Dadon, expressed her shock at the occurrence by saying she was "saddened to learn of the self-immolation."
“It is tragic to see the hate and incitement toward Israel expressed in such a horrific way,” she told ABC News. “Our prayers are with the security officer who was injured while trying to prevent this tragic act,” she added.
2023-12-02 09:20:21
2023-12-02 09:01:36
2023-12-02 08:18:33
Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza's border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after war ends, Egyptian and regional sources said.
According to three regional sources, Israel related its plans to its neighbours Egypt and Jordan, along with the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020.
They also said that Saudi Arabia, which does not have ties with Israel and which halted a US-mediated normalisation process after the Gaza war flared on Oct. 7, had been informed. The sources did not say how the information reached Riyadh, which officially does not have direct communication channels with Israel. Non-Arab Turkey was also told, the sources said.
The initiative does not indicate an imminent end to Israel's offensive - which resumed on Friday after a seven-day truce - but it shows Israel is reaching out beyond established Arab mediators, such as Egypt or Qatar, as it seeks to shape a post-war Gaza.
No Arab states have shown any willingness to police or administer Gaza in future and most have roundly condemned Israel's offensive that has killed more than 15,000 people and levelled swathes of Gaza's urban areas. Hamas killed 1,200 people in its Oct. 7 raid and took more than 200 hostages.
"Israel wants this buffer zone between Gaza and Israel from the north to the south to prevent any Hamas or other militants from infiltrating or attacking Israel," said a senior regional security official, one of the three regional sources who asked not to be identified by nationality.
The Egyptian, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Jordanian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
A UAE official did not respond directly when asked if Abu Dhabi had been told about the buffer zone, but said: "The UAE will support any future post-war arrangements agreed upon by all the concerned parties" to achieve stability and a Palestinian state.
Asked about plans for a buffer zone, Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Reuters: "The plan is more detailed than that. It's based on a three-tier process for the day after Hamas."
Outlining the Israeli government's position, he said the three tiers involved destroying Hamas, demilitarising Gaza and de-radicalising the enclave.
"A buffer zone may be part of the demilitarisation process," he said. He declined to offer details when asked whether those plans had been raised with international partners, including Arab states.
Arab states have dismissed as impossible Israel's goal of wiping out Hamas, saying it was more than simply a militant force that could be defeated.
2023-12-01 23:42:12
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Friday that 178 Palestinians were killed and 589 were injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since a week-long truce expired in the early hours of Friday and the war resumed.
2023-12-01 23:27:48
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said on Friday that Qatar is committed to continuing efforts, alongside its partners, to return to truce in the Gaza Strip.
"Continuous bombardment of Gaza complicates mediation efforts and exacerbates humanitarian catastrophe," the foreign minister said.
2023-12-01 23:19:42
Egypt is exerting utmost efforts with its partners to reinstate the truce in Gaza as soon as possible, Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt's State Information Service (SIS), said on Friday in a statement.
2023-12-01 23:17:38
2023-12-01 23:16:42
2023-12-01 23:13:42
2023-12-01 21:57:23
Israeli shelling killed two people in south Lebanon on Friday, a Lebanese official said, as the collapse of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas prompted a resumption of hostilities at the frontier.
The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, said it had carried out several attacks on Israeli military positions at the border in support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where a week long pause in the fighting ended early on Friday.
The Israeli army said its artillery struck sources of fire from Lebanon and air defences had intercepted two launches. The army also said it struck a "terrorist cell". Sirens warning of possible incoming rockets sounded in several towns in northern Israel, sending residents running for shelter.
Israeli shelling killed a woman and her 35-year-old son in the Lebanese border town of Houla, Shakeeb Koteich, the head of the town's municipal council, told Reuters, saying both were civilians.
"A shell landed near the house, and then a second one hit the house," Koteich said by telephone.
2023-12-01 21:47:32
The United States continues to work with Israel, Egypt and Qatar on extending a humanitarian pause in Gaza and President Biden will remain deeply engaged in efforts to expand the pause and free hostages, a White House spokesperson said after a truce expired in the early hours of Friday and the war resumed.
Hamas has failed to produce list of hostages to enable further extension of pause in Gaza, the spokesperson said.
2023-12-01 21:43:13
The armed wing of Palestinian group Islamic Jihad said on its Telegram channel that it has resumed bombing Israel during which the Kissufim kibbutz was targetted with 107 missiles.
2023-12-01 20:33:45
Hamas armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades have claimed the attack on Israel’s biggest city, Tel Aviv, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-12-01 20:10:34
Lebanon's Hezbollah said it had fired on Israeli army positions at the Lebanese-Israeli border on Friday in an attack to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, as hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas resumed.
In a brief statement, Hezbollah said its fighters had carried out Friday's attack using "appropriate weapons" against a gathering of Israeli troops. The attack was "in support of our steadfast Palestinian people ... and its valiant and honorable resistance", Hezbollah said.
The Israeli army earlier said it intercepted an "aerial target" that crossed from Lebanon into Israel, after sirens warning of possible incoming rockets went off in several towns in northern Israel and sent residents running for shelter.
Hezbollah's al-Manar TV channel later reported Israeli shelling of several areas in south Lebanon.
2023-12-01 20:07:46
The Israeli military said Friday that it had hit "over 200 terror targets" after the end of a truce pausing fighting between it and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"Over the last few hours, ground, air and naval forces struck terror targets in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, including in Khan Yunis and Rafah," it said in a statement.
2023-12-01 19:05:42
Aid was stranded near Egypt's border with Gaza as Israel resumed its military campaign on Friday, with truck drivers saying they expected further delays to a complex delivery process that had speeded up during a week-long truce.
"The bombardment has been going on since seven in the morning. There are planes and artillery and we haven't moved," said driver Saleh Ebada, who had already been waiting to enter the crossing for inspection for eight days when fighting restarted.
Egyptian security sources and a Red Crescent official said aid and fuel trucks had stopped entering from Egypt. UN officials described the resumption of fighting as "catastrophic" and said the continuation of aid delivery was in doubt.
Rafah has been the only entry point for aid going into Gaza since Israel began besieging and bombarding the coastal territory in retaliation for a lethal October 7 incursion and the capture of hostages by Palestinian group Hamas.
International flights have been landing at Al Arish airport in Sinai to deliver cargoes of aid. Convoys of trucks have also been bringing aid from Cairo.
2023-12-01 18:46:51
The number of people killed in Israeli attacks since the expiration of the truce has now reached 109, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Hundreds of people have also been wounded.
2023-12-01 18:45:08
Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Friday it was vigilant and ready as a resumption of fighting between its Palestinian ally Hamas and Israel fuelled concern that clashes across the Lebanese-Israeli border could also restart.
Rocket sirens went off in several towns in northern Israel near the Lebanese border, sending residents in the area running for shelter. The Israeli military did not immediately give details of what set them off.
"In Lebanon, we are concerned in facing this challenge, being vigilant, and always ready to confront any possibility and any danger that may arise in our country," Hassan Fadlallah, a senior Hezbollah politician, said in broadcast remarks.
"No one thinks that Lebanon has been spared from this Zionist targeting or that what is happening in Gaza cannot affect the situation in Lebanon," he said.
"I am worried about the resumption of confrontations here in Lebanon. Hezbollah has linked what happens at the border with what happens in Gaza," said Nabil Boumonsef, deputy editor-in-chief of Lebanon's Annahar newspaper.
"All the while the war in Gaza continues Lebanon will remain threatened by the danger of a major escalation."
2023-12-01 18:30:37
The entry of aid and fuel trucks for the Gaza Strip at Egypt's Rafah crossing halted on Friday, Egyptian security and aid sources said, as Israel resumed its military campaign following a week-long truce, Reuters reported.
The quantity of aid delivered through the Rafah crossing had increased during the truce, though aid officials said it was still far less than what was needed.
“The medical aid that entered Gaza during the truce is only enough for one day,” al-Qudra said in a statement. “The health sector in Gaza is out of service in every sense of the word,” Al Jazeera quoted spokesperson for Ministry of Health in Gaza Ashraf al-Qudra.
Rafah has been the only entry point for humanitarian relief destined for Gaza, with deliveries beginning on October 21, two weeks after the start of the war.
2023-12-01 18:21:26
The number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza has now jumped to at least 100, the strip’s health ministry said.
2023-12-01 18:12:30
2023-12-01 18:07:13
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 70 Palestinians in Gaza after the short truce ended, according to Al Jazeera.
2023-12-01 18:02:34
Rocket sirens went off in several towns in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on Friday, sending residents in the area running for shelter.
The Israeli military did not immediately share details regarding what set off the sirens, which sounded hours after a Gaza truce ended.
2023-12-01 17:24:40
The Gaza health ministry said more than 60 people had been killed on Friday after a truce between Israel and Hamas expired and fighting resumed.
The ministry has also tallied "dozens of wounded in air strikes on civilians", it said in a statement.
2023-12-01 17:21:33
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani discussed their deep regret over the collapse of the humanitarian pause in Gaza when they met at COP28 in Dubai, Sunak's office said in a statement on Friday.
2023-12-01 16:34:09
France on Friday said it regrets the end of a truce between Israel and Hamas and called for its restoration.
"Rupture of the truce is very bad news, regrettable because it brings no solution and complicates the resolution of all questions that arise," Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said while calling the truce resumption "essential" on the sidelines of the UN's COP28 climate talks in Dubai.
The truce, brokered by Qatar with support from the United States and Egypt, began November 24 for an initial four days before two extensions until fighting resumed early Friday.
The truce led to the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. It also saw more aid enter Gaza, where about 80% of the population is displaced and short of food, water and other essentials.
"We ask that the truce be resumed. It's necessary [...] It's essential at the same to continue to free hostages who have now been for 55 days in extremely difficult conditions, to enable more humanitarian aid to arrive, and to be able to distribute it inside the Gaza Strip where the civilian population is suffering," she added.
2023-12-01 16:19:07
Iranian delegates walked out of UN climate talks in the United Arab Emirates on Friday in protest over the presence of Israeli representatives, state media reported.
The Iranian side considered Israel's presence at COP28, "As contrary to the goals and guidelines of the conference and, in protest, it left the conference venue", said Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian, who headed the Iranian delegation, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.
2023-12-01 15:52:59
The Palestinian official radio reported that 54 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since a seven-day truce expired on Friday at 5:00 GMT.
2023-12-01 15:14:47
2023-12-01 14:06:19
2023-12-01 13:50:16
2023-12-01 13:49:31
2023-12-01 13:33:03
Thirty-two Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza since the truce expired on Friday morning, Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for Gaza's health ministry said on Friday, according to the ministry's Telegram account.
2023-12-01 12:59:30
Qatari-Egyptian negotiations with both Israel and Hamas are continuing, a source with knowledge of the talks said on Friday.
Qatari and Egyptian mediators have been in contact with both sides since fighting resumed in Gaza on Friday, the source said.
2023-12-01 12:39:34
Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch during a press briefing on Friday said that the nation is "deeply disappointed by the resumption of bombings on innocent Palestinians in Gaza," as the truce between Israel and Hamas expired after being extended twice.
"The international community should play a role in stopping the ongoing bombing of Palestinians," she said. "Pakistan also demands an international investigation into Israel's attacks on medical facilities."
2023-12-01 12:20:46
2023-12-01 11:40:56
A group of at least 500 pro-Palestine protesters disrupted the lighting of the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree on Wednesday night, according to ABC News.
The protesters gathered outside the News Corp building for an hour at 47th Street and Sixth Avenue. They unfurled a flag and attempted to push towards a tree, but were stopped by police and barricades.
Read more here.
2023-12-01 11:37:49
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Hamas did not agree to release further hostages, infringing on terms of a truce and that Israel remained committed to achieving its objectives as fighting resumed.
Hamas did not release all women hostages as agreed and also launched rockets at Israel, Netanyahu's office said.
"With the resumption of fighting we emphasise: The Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war - to free our hostages, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will never pose a threat to the residents of Israel," it said.
2023-12-01 11:19:37
Hamas and Israel are engaged in ground-based fighting in separate areas across the Gaza Strip.
Israeli occupation forces launched an air strike in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood and continued artillery shelling and targeting in central Gaza, as they expanded their military operations.
According to Al Jazeera,Israeli drones are heard in the south of the Gaza Strip, where heavy artillery and aerial bombardment by occupation forces are ongoing.
A surge in Israeli strikes could increase in the coming hours, leaving Palestinians with only one option: to live under Israeli bombardment that destroys all means of life within the Gaza Strip.
2023-12-01 11:09:57
2023-12-01 11:06:12
2023-12-01 10:14:55
Israel said on Friday that it has resumed a military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and accused the Palestinian group of violating the terms of the truce and firing toward Israeli territory.
2023-12-01 09:36:22
2023-12-01 09:30:20
Sounds of gunfire and several explosions were heard in northern Gaza early on Friday, the Shehab News Agency, which is considered close to Hamas, reported on Telegram.
The news agency did not provide details. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the report.
2023-12-01 09:29:24
2023-12-01 09:11:59
Israel's military said it intercepted a rocket launched from Gaza early on Friday that set off air raid sirens in Israeli communities, around an hour before a seven-day truce between Hamas and Israel was due to expire.
Israel's Kan public broadcaster described the sirens as the first to sound since the truce, which has been extended twice, began on Nov. 24. Neither side has announced an extension to the truce.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas or claim of responsibility for the launch. Israel's military said its Iron Dome missile defence system had intercepted the projectile.
The truce was set to expire at 7am.
2023-12-01 09:08:47
2023-12-01 08:56:09
Israel obtained Hamas’s battle plans for its raid on southern Israel more than a year before the attack took place on October 7, the New York Times reports.
The Times reports that Israel's military and intelligence officials had dismissed the threat despite a 40-page paper that outlined in detail the kind of shock attack carried out by the Palestinian group and was code-named the "Jericho Wall" by Israeli officials.
According to the Times, Israeli officials thought the plot was "too difficult for Hamas to carry out."
Additionally, last week, Israel's Haaretz news agency revealed that Israeli "military Intelligence had detailed information" of a potential Hamas attack.
2023-12-01 08:14:47
Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend a temporary truce for an eighth day, in a deal that will involve the release of more Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Egyptian officials.
There was no immediate comment from Israel or from Hamas.
2023-12-01 03:47:48
Israeli hostages released in the Gaza Strip have returned to Israel, the Israeli prime minister's office confirmed late on Thursday.
The release of the six -- four adults, a 17-old girl and an 18-year-old man -- who mediator Qatar said included Uruguayan, Mexican and Russian dual nationals, came after two women, including a French-Israeli dual national, were released earlier in the day.
That brought the total freed on Thursday to eight, while the truce agreement stipulates that a minimum of 10 Israeli hostages should be released alive each day.
The discrepancy came as mediators pursued discussions to extend the truce, which was due to expire at 0500 GMT on Friday.
A source close to Hamas told AFP that it considered two Russian-Israeli women released on Wednesday in addition to the required 10 as part of the seventh group freed, so that "as a result, the number of (hostages) in the seventh group is 10".
Mediator Qatar appeared to back the calculation, who said Friday that dual nationals from Uruguay, Mexico and Russia were among eight Israeli hostages released by Hamas on the seventh day of the Gaza truce.
"The eight Israeli citizens being released today as part of the agreement include two minors and six women," Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said.
He said 30 Palestinians would be released from Israeli prisons, in exchange for a total of 10 hostages in Gaza, a tally which included "two Russian citizens who were released yesterday".
2023-11-30 23:47:59
2023-11-30 23:36:28
Jordan's King Abdullah on Thursday urged UN aid officials and international NGOs to pile pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the beleaguered Gaza enclave where the humanitarian situation is worsening, officials and aid workers said.
They said the monarch told an emergency meeting in Amman of UN officials, heads of Western non-governmental organisations, and representatives of Arab donors it was unacceptable that Israel continued to hold back sufficient aid flows into the densely populated enclave, home to 2.3 million people.
"The monarch urged the international aid community to do their bit and save Gazans who have endured a brutal war that has turned their land into an unliveable place," said one delegate who requested anonymity since deliberations were taking place confidentially as requested by the royal palace organisers.
2023-11-30 23:03:18
Iron Dome has been activated in the Gaza border communities and the reason for the activation is being examined, Haaretz is reporting.
2023-11-30 22:55:48
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club has released a list containing the names of 30 Palestinian prisoners who are expected to be released later today, Al Jazeera reported.
The list includes the names of eight women, and 22 children – all boys.
The prisoners who are set to be released are part of the seventh round of the exchange deal and extended truce between Israel and Hamas.
2023-11-30 21:51:14
2023-11-30 21:36:12
2023-11-30 20:41:24
Israel summoned the Spanish ambassador for a reprimand and recalled its own envoy from Madrid for consultations on Thursday after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he doubted Israel was respecting humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he instructed his foreign minister, Eli Cohen, to call in Spain's ambassador for a reprimand "after the shameful statement by the Spanish prime minister on the same day that Hamas terrorists are murdering Israelis in our capital Jerusalem".
In a social media post, Cohen said the Israeli ambassador to Spain was being recalled for consultations.
"Israel conducts itself and will continue to conduct itself in accordance with international law," Cohen said
2023-11-30 20:28:41
The Israeli army announced that the two captives released by Hamas have been handed over to them by the Red Cross, Al Jazeera reported
A Palestinian official familiar with truce talks told Reuters that the two hostages were women.
Meanwhile, Haaretz is reporting that Mia Schem and Amit Soussana are back in Israeli territory
2023-11-30 20:20:15
As Hamas has released two Israeli hostages, eight more are yet to be released today as part of the one-day truce extension.
2023-11-30 20:12:18
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi will not attend the UN's COP28 climate summit in Dubai because of the presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Iran's state media reported on Thursday.
2023-11-30 20:02:16
The spokesperson of Gaza’s Ministry of Health said hundreds of people needed to receive treatment in hospitals outside the bombarded territory.
Israel controls the path of medical aid entering Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra said in an interview with Al Jazeera.
He said that the volume of medical aid hospitals received did not reach the desired level.
"We need to evacuate hundreds of wounded people out of the Gaza Strip to save their lives," he added, demanding the protection of the healthcare system in the besieged enclave so that it can function.
2023-11-30 19:58:07
Haaretz is reporting that the Israeli Defence Forces said that two hostages have been transferred to the Red Cross and they are on their way to Israel.
2023-11-30 19:40:39
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a meeting with top US diplomat, reacted to the attack in Jerusalem, Al Jazeera reported.
“I just finished a meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, shortly after Hamas murderers murdered Israelis here in Jerusalem, and I told him: This is the same Hamas,” Netanyahu said.
“This is the same Hamas that carried out the terrible massacre on October 7, the same Hamas that tries to murder us everywhere,” he added.
2023-11-30 19:26:16
Three people have been killed and several wounded after two gunmen opened fire at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israeli police said. The attackers were also killed, Al Jazeera reported.
Hamas has claimed the attack.
Police said 16 people were injured in Thursday morning’s shooting. Emergency services evacuated eight of the more seriously wounded victims to nearby hospitals, the Israeli ambulance service said.
2023-11-30 19:18:40
2023-11-30 17:47:19
Egyptian and Qatari negotiators are pushing for a new two-day extension to the truce in Gaza along with more prisoner releases and an increase in the delivery of humanitarian aid, a statement from Egypt's state media body said on Thursday.
The efforts follow the last-minute extension of the truce for a seventh day on Thursday.
Thursday's extension includes the release of 10 Israelis captured by Hamas and 30 Palestinian prisoners, as well as the provision of the same levels of humanitarian relief as during the previous six days, the head of Egypt's state information service, Diaa Rashwan, said in a statement.
"Egypt will continue to exert its utmost efforts to ensure the continued flow of humanitarian aid to the north and south of the Gaza Strip," the statement said.
2023-11-30 17:07:39
Hamas claimed as its members two gunmen who carried out a deadly attack at a bus stop in West Jerusalem, Al Jazeera.
Hamas said in a statement “the operation came as a natural response to unprecedented crimes conducted by the occupation,” citing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
2023-11-30 16:00:39
2023-11-30 15:36:03
2023-11-30 15:23:19
2023-11-30 15:17:27
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi was one of 30 Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel on Wednesday, as part of the truce deal with Hamas, BBC reported.
Israel's prison service said a mixture of men and women had been freed "from a number of [its] facilities".
Tamimi, 22, was arrested earlier this month over an Instagram post, which her family say she did not write. The social media post is no longer visible online, nor is the account it came from that carried her name and photo.
Images showed Tamimi, who had been held in Damon Prison, near the Israeli city of Haifa, returned to the West Bank late on Wednesday.
Israeli media reported that she had threatened to "slaughter" Jewish settlers, but her mother said the account did not belong to her daughter.
"There are dozens of [online] pages in Ahed's name with her photo, with which she has no connection," she told AFP news agency at the time of her arrest.
2023-11-30 14:44:22
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip was "producing results" and should continue.
"We have seen over the last week the very positive development of hostages coming home, being reunited with their families," he said at a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv. "It's also enabled an increase in humanitarian assistance to go to innocent civilians in Gaza who need it desperately. So this process is producing results. It's important, and we hope that it can continue."
2023-11-30 14:39:35
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday that, given the number of casualties among civilians in Gaza, he doubts Israel is respecting the international humanitarian law as he reiterated that military action in the strip is not acceptable.
Last week, similar comments by Sanchez and his Belgian counterpart Alexander de Croo in the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing angered Israel, whose Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the remarks repeated "false claims" and "gave terrorism a boost". Cohen then said he summoned the ambassadors of both countries.
"The footage we are seeing and the growing numbers of children dying, I have serious doubt (Israel) is complying with international humanitarian law," he said in an interview with Spanish state-owned broadcaster TVE.
"What we are seeing in Gaza is not acceptable," he added.
Despite the diplomatic spat, Sanchez, who is pushing for a peace conference, said the relationship between Israel and Spain was "correct" and "friendly countries also have to say things to each other."
2023-11-30 13:56:39
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says that the Jerusalem shooting showed the importance of distributing weapons among civilians and promised to continue to do so.
After Hamas' October 7 attacks on southern Israel, Ben-Gvir distributed thousands of assault rifles to Israelis, with priority to settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to Israelis living alongside Palestinians in “mixed cities” inside Israel, Al Jazeera reported.
“Weapons save lives,” Ben-Gvir said on X. “Despite the criticism from all kinds of parties, I will continue this policy of handing out weapons everywhere, both to emergency rooms and to civilians,” the far-right ultranationalist minister said.
“We have a strong police force, we have a strong army, but there is no policeman everywhere, so where there are civilian weapons, it can save lives,” he said.
2023-11-30 13:13:58
Two people were killed and eight wounded, including five left in a serious condition, in a shooting in Jerusalem on Thursday, first responders said.
Police said two suspects "implicated in the shootings were neutralised on the spot" after the attack near a bus stop on the western side of Jerusalem, where there are no checkpoints guarding entrance to the city.
"Two terrorists arrived in a car, one of them armed with an M-16 and the other with a pistol," and opened fire, Jerusalem police chief Doron Torgeman told reporters at the scene.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said one of the victims was a 24-year-old woman.
The attack came shortly after a truce pausing fighting in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Israel was extended for a seventh day, moments before it was due to expire.
Two weeks ago an Israeli soldier died after being shot in an attack on a checkpoint on the eastern side of Jerusalem at the entrance to a tunnel linking the occupied West Bank with the city.
Another five Israeli security personnel were also wounded, with Israeli police shooting dead all three assailants.
That attack was claimed by the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
2023-11-30 12:37:15
Israel has released over 200 Palestinian prisoners, but for every single person that’s been released, the math doesn’t work in the Palestinians’ favour.
The net gain is not that much because Israeli forces have been continuing these detentions in raids across the occupied West Bank while also releasing Palestinian prisoners at the same time as part of a temporary truce with Hamas.
According to Al Jazeera's correspondent Zein Basravi: "For every Palestinian that is released, there is a Palestinian freshly detained by Israeli forces.
"While this carries on, Palestinians say that no matter what happens, no matter who’s released, no matter how long the ceasefire goes, as long as the occupation continues — the Israeli forces will continue to repress and carry out whatever activity they want in the occupied territories at will."
2023-11-30 11:50:38
The Israeli government said it received a new list of women and children hostages in the Gaza Strip to be released by Hamas on Thursday in exchange for a one-day extension of the truce.
"A short time ago, Israel was given a list of women and children in accordance with the terms of the agreement, and therefore the truce will continue," said the statement from the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, without specifying the number of hostages to be released.
The truce, initially agreed last Friday, has brought a temporary halt to fighting for an exchange of hostages and prisoners.
The total number of freed hostages stands at 102 people, including 70 Israelis, from around 240 taken to the Gaza Strip after Hamas' unprecedented October 7 attacks. Meanwhile, Israel has released 210 Palestinian prisoners.
2023-11-30 10:03:50
Israel and Hamas agreed on Thursday to extend the truce in their war by at least one more day, minutes before the six-day truce was due to expire.
Israel's military said in a statement the truce will continue as mediators sought to release more hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The truce, extended from its initial four days, has brought the first respite in the bombardment of Gaza with much of the coastal territory of 2.3 million having been reduced to wasteland in response to a deadly rampage by Hamas into southern Israel on October 7.
"In light of the mediators' efforts to continue the process of releasing the hostages and subject to the terms of the framework, the operational pause will continue," said the Israeli statement, released minutes before the temporary truce was due to expire.
Hamas, which freed 16 hostages in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners on Wednesday, said in a statement that the truce would continue for a seventh day.
2023-11-30 09:03:46
Hamas said Israel declined to receive seven women and child hostages and the bodies of three others who the Palestinian resistance group said were killed during Israel's bombardment of the enclave in exchange for a temporary truce extension on Thursday.
"This is despite confirming through mediators that this group is all the (Hamas) movement has in terms of detainees in the agreed-upon category," Hamas said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
A truce between Israel and Hamas was due to expire at 7am (0500 GMT).
2023-11-30 08:40:20
2023-11-30 08:26:12
Hamas' armed wing told its fighters in the Gaza Strip to be ready to resume battles with Israel if a temporary truce set to expire on Thursday at 7am (0500 GMT) is not renewed.
"The Al-Qassam Brigades asks its active forces to maintain high combat readiness in the last hours of the truce," the Palestinian resistance group said in a statement.
Fighters should "remain on such footing unless an official statement is issued confirming the extension of the truce," the statement added.
2023-11-29 23:42:57
Times of Israel is reporting that after the release of two Israeli hostage women with Russian nationality, another 10 Israeli hostages are due to be handed over to the Red Cross tonight.
2023-11-29 23:36:01
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said that his country is eager to seeing the UNSC take steps towards applying a “sustainable ceasefire”, and implementing measures to guarantee the flow of “sufficient humanitarian aid, and to secure the delivery thereof without any impediments”.
Al Jazeera reported that Sheikh Mohammed said it also should be applied “without double standards and without preferential treatment”.
“The double standards applied by the international community regarding the carnages and the crimes perpetrated by the Israeli occupation against civilians and civilian infrastructure … is a stain on the conscience of humanity,” he told members of the Security Council.
Speaking on the extended truce, which Qatar has helped mediate, the minister said the agreement has allowed more “badly needed” humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
He also suggested establishing a mechanism to monitor the delivery of humanitarian aid though “all the crossings” into the enclave, and called on Israel to abide by its obligations under international law.
2023-11-29 23:25:57
The military said its forces would meet the released captives at the transfer point at the Kerem Shalom crossing, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli media outlets have reported that the two captives are Israelis who also hold Russian citizenship.
2023-11-29 19:50:31
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to return to fighting in Gaza after the end of the pause, Al Jazeera reported.
“From the beginning of the war, I set three goals – the elimination of Hamas, the return of all our abductees, and to ensure that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel. These three goals remain in place,” he said in a video statement.
“In the last week, we achieved a very great achievement – the return of many dozens of our abductees. A week ago it would have sounded imaginary, but we achieved it. But in the last few days I hear a question – after this phase of returning our abductees is exhausted, will Israel return to fighting? So my answer is an unequivocal yes,” Netanyahu added.
“There is no way we are not going back to fighting until the end. This is my policy, the entire cabinet stands behind it, the entire government stands behind it, the soldiers stand behind it, the people stand behind it — this is exactly what we will do.”
2023-11-29 22:43:11
Israel’s defence minister said in a post on X that Israeli forces “in the air, on land and at sea are ready to resume fighting”.
He also said that Israel is making every effort to use the current truce to secure the return of all captives held in Gaza.
2023-11-29 20:38:32
Speaking at the UN Security Council, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki says the Gaza truce “must become a ceasefire, a permanent ceasefire”, Al Jazeera reported.
“The massacres cannot be allowed to resume. This is not a war, this is a carnage that nothing and no one can justify. It must be brought to an end,” he said.
2023-11-29 22:35:09
2023-11-29 22:33:51
The United States is hopeful that the truce in Gaza can be extended, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on Wednesday.
"We're hopeful the truce can be extended," Thomas-Greenfield said.
"This is all in the hands of Hamas. The Israelis have said if they continue to release 10 hostages a day, they will extend by a day. So it truly is in their hands. But I do think there's a potential for that and we're actively working to extend the deal," she added.
2023-11-29 22:24:32
The Noura Al Kaabi Centre for dialysis patients in northern Gaza has resumed operations, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The facility, which is now the only one of its kind in Gaza’s north, reopened its doors at noon local time (10:00 GMT) to “alleviate the suffering of patients with kidney failure”, the ministry said in a statement.
2023-11-29 22:11:36
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud has called on the UN Security Council to “live up to its responsibilities” and enforce a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
He said the aid that is currently trickling into the enclave is “by far less than is needed”.
“The danger is that if this … truce expires, we will return to the killing at the scale that we have seen, which is unbearable,” he told reporters at UN headquarters.
“We are here to make a clear statement – that a truce is not enough. What is needed is a ceasefire,” he said.
2023-11-29 22:00:54
The Israeli army announced that its chief of staff approved plans for the “continuation of fighting” in a brief post on its X account.
It did not provide additional details on what the plans entail exactly, or when the fighting would resume.
This is the last day of the current pause in Israel’s war on Gaza, but negotiations to extend the truce continue.
2023-11-29 21:55:38
Five premature babies have been found dead at a hospital in Gaza City during a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Hamas-run health ministry said Wednesday.
Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP that Israeli soldiers had blocked access to the intensive care unit at Al-Nasr paediatric facility, and doctors were finally "able to get into the ward on Tuesday night".
There, Qudra said, "the occupation (Israeli) forces left five premature babies" who were found "partly decomposed".
"The soldiers forbade the families from going near" the newborns before Tuesday, he said.
The Israeli army said it was unable to immediately comment on the matter when contacted by AFP.
2023-11-29 21:49:08
The United Nations has strongly opposed the advancement of settlements in West Bank, the American envoy to the United Nations said on Wednesday.
2023-11-29 21:39:15
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday called for Gaza's vulnerable health infrastructure to be safeguarded as the war-torn enclave faces an increased risk of epidemics and challenges in detecting infectious diseases.
A fragile truce agreement between Israel and Hamas last week has allowed WHO and aid organisations to increase their deliveries of essential supplies but these have been far from enough to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.3 million people.
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said only 15 of Gaza's 36 hospitals were still functioning and were completely overwhelmed.
"Of the 25 hospitals north of the Wadi Gaza (river) before the conflict began, only three are functioning at the most basic level, but they lack fuel, water and food," Tedros said.
"The remaining health system capacity must be protected, supported and expanded."
2023-11-29 20:51:44
Hamas' armed wing al Qassam Brigades said on Wednesday it released two Russian hostages at the request of the Russian leadership, according to a message posted on its Telegram channel.
2023-11-29 20:03:56
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said the Gaza Strip was in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe, telling the world: "We must not look away."
"Intense negotiations are taking place to prolong the truce – which we strongly welcome - but we believe we need a true humanitarian ceasefire," he told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, chaired by China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
2023-11-29 19:57:37
The group’s armed wing, Qassam Brigades, made the announcement in a Telegram post.
The group identified them as the youngest captive, 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, his four-year-old brother and their mother.
The Israeli army said it was checking the statement.
2023-11-29 19:43:46
Two Palestinian children were martyred by an Israeli raid in Jenin on Wednesday amid the negotiations for a longer pause in fighting, Al Jazeera reported.
Palestinian Health Ministry has identified the two children martyred by Israeli forces. It said the two victims were eight-year-old Adam Samer al-Ghoul, and Basil Suleiman Abu al-Wafa, 15.
The Israeli military led a large-scale raid at a refugee camp inside the city of Jenin, shocking the dwellers to the core.
As per Al Jazeera, the people described it as the largest raid since October 7.
"Bear in mind Jenin is raided by the Israeli military virtually every night, but that kind of show of force and confidence by the Israeli army is something the people here say they have never seen before," an updated by the publication stated.
At least two Palestinian fighters also reportedly martyred in the raid.
According to a statement put out by the Israeli military, one of them was a "top leader" here in the armed resistance groups that operate from inside Jenin.
2023-11-29 17:52:44
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he would work to prolong a pause in the fighting in Gaza on an upcoming visit to Israel.
"Looking at the next couple of days, we'll be focused on doing what we can to extend the pause so that we continue to get more hostages out and more humanitarian assistance in," Blinken said after a NATO meeting in Brussels.
"We'd like to see the pause extended because of what it has enabled," he added.
2023-11-29 15:41:59
Thomas White, director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, said that some parts of the Gaza City are now unliveable.
"It was quite eerie going through a city that is normally bustling with people, to a city where the roads were covered in debris, twisted metal, masonry," he told BBC.
"You could drive through whole suburbs where every building is damaged and there's really nobody on the streets."
White said that some areas have "signs of life and a few people sitting in shop fronts and sitting in their doorways", calling the city "eerily quiet".
Some of the parts in Gaza look like they haven't been touched, however, there is no power and limited water.
"All of the normal services and activities... are essentially not there," he said.
2023-11-29 15:12:32
Israel is not ready to extend the Gaza truce beyond Sunday (a total pause of 10 days) as intense talks continue in Doha for further extension of the ceasefire, according to a Haaretz report.
2023-11-29 14:25:19
Pope Francis on Wednesday called for the continuation of the ongoing truce in the Gaza Strip, for the release of all hostages and for humanitarian aid access into the territory.
"We call for peace," he said during his Wednesday weekly audience, saying he was concerned by the lack of water, and bread and by the suffering of ordinary people in Gaza.
2023-11-29 13:49:11
A source close to Hamas said Wednesday the resistance group was willing to extend by an additional four days a Gaza truce that has seen Israeli hostages exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
"Hamas has informed the mediators that it is willing to extend the truce for four days and that the movement would be able to release Israeli prisoners that it, other resistance movements and other parties hold during this period, according to the terms of the existing truce," the source told AFP.
2023-11-29 12:54:34
TheInternational Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that itfacilitated the release of 11 Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank who have now been transferred to Ramallah, BBC reported.
Meanwhile, Israeliprison officials say that they have released 30 people on Tuesday.
2023-11-29 12:09:50
The leaders of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israel's Mossad met Qatar's prime minister in Doha on Tuesday to build on the two-day extension of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, a source briefed on the visit said.
The meeting was "to build on the progress of the extended humanitarian pause agreement and to initiate further discussions about the next phase of a potential deal," the source told Reuters.
The outcome of the talks, which were also attended by Egyptian officials, was unclear, the source added.
CIA Director William Burns was in Doha "for meetings on the Israel-Hamas conflict including discussions on hostages," a US official said on condition of anonymity. The official did not elaborate.
Burns, David Barnea, head of Israel's Mossad intelligence service and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met one day after Qatar announced the two-day extension of an original four-day truce deal in Gaza that had been due to expire overnight.
Qatar, where several political leaders of Hamas are based, has been leading negotiations between the Palestinian group and Israel.
Officials in Tuesday's meeting discussed possible parameters of a new phase of the truce deal including Hamas releasing hostages who are men or military personnel, not just women and children, the source said. They also considered what might be needed to reach a ceasefire lasting more than a handful of days.
Qatar spoke to Hamas before the meeting to get a sense of what the group might agree to. The Israelis and Hamas are now internally discussing the ideas explored at the meeting, the source added.
2023-11-29 11:16:48
The Israeli forces warned Palestinians to not head towardsnorthern Gaza despite the extension of the truce with Hamas.
“Do not try moving to northern Gaza, which is considered a war zone. You can only move to the south of Wadi Gaza via the Salah al-Din Road,” it said. “It is forbidden to approach within a kilometre of the border. Entry into the sea is prohibited.”
2023-11-29 10:04:26
The United Nations on Wednesday said that the humanitarian aid in Gaza was "insufficient to meet the extensive needs".
On the other hand, theWorld Health Organization has also warned of more deaths due to diseases and a broken healthcare system in Gaza.
“There have been significant increases in some communicable diseases and conditions such as diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, skin infections and hygiene-related conditions like lice. There are also initial reports of disease outbreaks, including Hepatitis,” the UN said.
2023-11-29 08:56:18
As the extended Gaza truce enters its final day, regional powers and the US are holding consultations to extend the pause in the Israel-Hamas war, according to CNN.
“During discussions in Doha, Qatar, Tuesday, officials representing Israel, the US, Qatar and Egypt were in consensus about working toward extending the current pause in the Israel-Hamas war to get more hostages out of Gaza,” the US media outlet reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with the discussions.
The expectation is that if everything goes well on the sixth day of the truce Wednesday —and Hamas releases at least 10 Israeli hostages as planned — Hamas could produce an additional list of hostages for the following day, extending the pause for another 24 hours, the source said.
“Negotiators believe there are enough women and children in Hamas captivity to extend the truce by two additional days before the discussion turns to men and soldier hostages.”
2023-11-29 08:55:48
2023-11-29 01:43:06
The hostages being released from Gaza on Tuesday consist of 12 people, including 10 Israelis, a minor and nine women, Majed Al Ansari, the Qatar foreign ministry spokesman posted on messaging platform X.
"In implementation of the commitment to the fifth day of the humanitarian pause, 30 Palestinian civilians will be released today," Ansari said. Most of the prisoners are currently in the hands of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
"Palestinians released from Israeli prisons include 15 minors and 15 women," Ansari added.
In addition to two Thai foreign nationals, Ansari specified that the Israeli female hostages being released consist of dual nationals: two Argentinians, an Austrian, and a Filipina.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said that ten Israelis and two Thais were released, with the army saying they were handed over to the Red Cross and were "inside Israeli territory".
Israel’s prison services later said 30 Palestinian detainees were released under the truce deal.
An AFP journalist saw masked and armed fighters, some from Hamas and others from Islamic Jihad, hand over hostages to Red Cross officials in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
2023-11-28 23:54:13
2023-11-28 23:41:44
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that 12 hostages who were held in Gaza - 10 Israelis and two foreign nationals - were on their way to Israeli territory, based on information it had received from the Red Cross.
2023-11-28 23:27:11
A French ship has docked off in Egypt's northern Sinai and will serve as a floating medical facility to treat the wounded Palestinians.
The vessel has a capacity of 40 beds and is equipped with a helicopter landing pad for expedited transfer of patients from Gaza's Rafah border crossing to the ship, The Times of Israel reported quoting a French diplomat.
According to Reuters, some 22 civilian doctors, including 16 surgeons and six paediatricians are on board theDixmude which is equipped with two operation theatres.
2023-11-28 23:18:40
Osama Hamdan, the spokesperson for the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, has invited Elon Musk to visit Gaza and witness Israel's "crimes and scale of massacre" against the Palestinians in the beleaguered territory.
The spokesperson also said that the group wouldn't have taken Israeli hostages — during their October 7 attack — if Israel hadn't imprisoned Palestinians in its jails, Al Jazeera reported.
He also said that Israel wouldn't have released Palestinian women and children if not for Israeli captives.
2023-11-28 22:31:50
The Wall Street Journal quoted Egyptian sources as saying that Hamas has begun transferring the fifth group of hostages to the International Red Cross, under the agreed extension to the truce deal.
However, there is no official word on any transfer taking place.
2023-11-28 21:18:56
2023-11-28 21:08:22
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths will travel to the Jordanian capital Amman on Wednesday for talks on the possibility of opening the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Israel.
"We have said from start we need more than one crossing," Griffiths told a briefing of member states at the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday.
"The opportunity to use Kerem Shalom should be explored, and that will be topic in Amman. It would hugely add scope (to the response)."
2023-11-28 20:49:32
Far-right security minister of Israel Itamar Ben-Gvir has called on his prime minister to retaliate to the alleged breach of truce, by allowing the soldiers to return to fighting in Gaza and “crush Hamas”.
“Hamas has now tried to murder IDF soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip. I call on the Prime Minister not to “contain” the explosion of explosive devices used against our soldiers and to order the IDF to return and crush Hamas with force,” he wrote on X.
“We must not wait until our fighters are killed. We must once again act in accordance with the goal of the war: the total destruction of Hamas”.
2023-11-28 20:24:42
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday told United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres that Israel must be held accountable in international courts for the war crimes it committed in Gaza, the Turkish presidency said.
In a phone call ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Gaza planned for Wednesday, Erdogan told Guterres that "Israel continues to shamelessly trample on international law, laws of war, and international humanitarian law by looking in the eyes of the international community", his office said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, part of a so-called contact group of Muslim countries that has been holding talks with Western leaders over Gaza, will attend the meeting in New York on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
2023-11-28 20:14:06
UN agency OCHA updated the number of casualties by Israeli hostilities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, saying that death toll between October 7 and November 27, includes 59 children.
It added that 222 of the people killed were shot by Israeli forces, eight by Israeli settlers and one either by forces or settlers.
The seven-week toll represents more than half of all Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank this year.
So far, 2023 has been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since OCHA began recording casualties in 2005.
2023-11-28 19:52:12
Hamas’s armed wing has also released a statement, saying its fighters “dealt with” an Israeli violation earlier today in the northern Gaza Strip, without elaborating, Al Jazeera reported.
The Qassam Brigades said it is committed to the humanitarian truce brokered by Qatar and Egypt “as long as the enemy has committed to it, and we call on the mediators to pressure the occupation to adhere to all the terms of the truce on the ground and in the air”.
2023-11-28 19:47:31
2023-11-28 18:12:58
The heads of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israel's Mossad met Qatar's prime minister in Doha on Tuesday to build on the two-day extension of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, a source briefed on the visit said.
The meeting was "to build on the progress of the extended humanitarian pause agreement and to initiate further discussions about the next phase of a potential deal," the source told Reuters.
The outcome of the talks, which were also attended by Egyptian officials, was unclear, the source added.
David Barnea, head of Israel's Mossad intelligence service, CIA Director William Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met one day after Qatar announced the two-day extension of an original four-day truce deal in Gaza.
2023-11-28 17:00:54
A Moroccan lawmaker has asked the government to review the country's normalisation deal with Israel in light of the Israeli war on Gaza, TRT World reported.
"The normalisation agreement between Morocco, Israel and the United States must be reviewed," lawmaker Fatima Tamni, from the opposition Alliance of the Left Federation, told a parliament session on Monday.
2023-11-28 16:24:32
2023-11-28 15:23:45
The United States is sending three military aircraft to Egypt to bring vital humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza during the truce, senior US officials have said.
The first plane bringing medical items, food aid and winter gear will land in North Sinai on Tuesday, and the other two will arrive “in coming days”, the officials said in a briefing call on Monday, according to Al Jazeera.
Additionally, several tonnes of aid have managed to reach northern Gaza, which has borne the brunt of Israel’s military assault.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the supplies include ready-to-eat meals, drinking water, tents and blankets, as well as medicines.
OCHA also said that fuel for electricity production and supplies for the operations of desalination and sewage treatment plants, as well as water pumping stations, had also been delivered.
Drinking water is being supplied to people in the south via two pipes from Israel, OCHA said.
2023-11-28 14:35:05
French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said that French helicopter carrier Dixmude has docked in Egypt and could start treating wounded children from Gaza later this week.
Dixmude is the first Western military ship to dock in Egypt since the conflict started. It moored on Monday at El Arish, some 50km (31 miles) west of Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
“We have this ship, which has been transformed into a hospital and which arrived yesterday. It has 40 beds,” Lecornu told Europe 1 radio.
The warship, equipped with two operating theatres, can treat those with light injuries before moving to local hospitals. France has provided 50 beds for seriously wounded and sick children in Gaza, including cancer patients.
Meanwhile, about 22 civilian doctors, including 16 surgeons and six paediatricians, are on board the ship.
2023-11-28 13:20:23
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel, the West Bank and the United Arab Emirates later this week, a senior State Department official said on Monday, to press for more humanitarian aid into Gaza and help secure the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
"The Secretary will stress the need to sustain the increased flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, secure the release of all hostages, and improve protections for civilians in Gaza," a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said.
Blinken will also discuss with partners in the region Washington’s principles for the future of Gaza and the need for an independent Palestinian state, the official said. He will also attend the UN COP28 climate summit in Dubai, the official added.
2023-11-28 12:53:24
Following SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s high-profile visit to Israel on Monday, amid the temporary truce in the ongoing war between Hamas and Israeli forces, netizens have started demanding that he should also visit Gaza.
The hashtag #ElonGoToGaza has been trending on social media, specifically Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter.
Meanwhile, Musk was accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while visiting a Kibbutz in Israel, which was attacked by Hamas.
Following the trend on social media, a user on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote: “If you care about HUMANITY, visit Gaza!” The user tagged X’s boss in his post.
Another posted: “Without visiting Gaza you will be doing injustice to your quest of finding the truth.”
Recently, Musk has come under fire for alleged anti-semitic comments and failing to act on the hate speech against the Jewish community on X. Musk also met Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Times Now reported.
A user wrote that Musk should go to Gaza as “So many kids were murdered. Palestinian kid’s lives matter too.”
The trend has been widely gaining traction with more and more users especially Palestine supporters posting in favour of the Tesla founder’s visit to Gaza.
2023-11-28 11:53:25
In a letter to Hamas fighters, an Israeli mother, Danielle Aloni conveyed her sincere gratitude for their treatment of her five-year-old daughter Emilia during the 49-day captivity in besieged Gaza.
As part of a temporary truce agreement between the Palestinian resistance group and Israel, the two were freed from captivity by Hamas and reunited with their relatives on November 24, according to TRT World.
Before departing Gaza to rejoin her family in Israel, Aloni penned a letter to Hamas in which she expressed her gratitude to the group for their remarkable kindness towards her daughter.
She wrote: "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your extraordinary humanity shown towards my daughter, Emilia."
Read more here.
2023-11-28 10:33:42
Mohammed Nazzal, a Palestinian teenager from Jenin, was interviewed by Al Jazeera Arabic after being released from an Israeli prison last night.
He said that he broke his hand and finger after being beaten by Israeli guards a week ago. Nazzal claimed he received no medical treatment at the time and only had the sling applied by the Red Cross after his release.
“They gave me nothing,” he said, referring to the Israelis. “I broke my hand, I can’t move my finger.”
“The situation of the prisoners is bad,” Nazzal added, saying that the prison he was held at in the Negev desert was particularly notorious for the ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. “Old men are on the floor, they step on them… I’m young, I can take it, but what about them?”
His tearful mother, standing next to him, said she had no idea what had been happening to her son.
“There were no calls, no visits, nothing,” she said.
2023-11-28 09:13:54
The Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi is one of 50 Palestinian women Israel has added to a list of prisoners it describes as “eligible to be released”, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel's Department of Justice has released a list of 50 prisoners eligible for release, adding to an earlier list of 300, of which 150 have been released. The list was published in anticipation of further Israeli hostage releases.
It is acknowledged that Israel has not promised to release every individual on either list and that the names were made public to allow for possible legal objections.
Tamimi, a prominent 22-year-old Palestinian activist who was first arrested when she was 16 years old, was last arrested during Israeli raids on the occupied West Bank on November 6.
2023-11-28 07:03:37
Israel said Monday that 11 more hostages released in the Gaza Strip had arrived safely, hours after the announcement that a truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza will be extended by two days, opening the way for further releases.
Hamas announced the agreement to prolong the truce by 48 hours shortly before it was due to end Tuesday, though there was no immediate confirmation from Israel.
The move was nevertheless hailed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as "a glimpse of hope and humanity in the middle of the darkness of war".
Late Monday, Israel´s military announced that 11 hostages were "now in Israeli territory".
"Our forces will accompany them until they are reunited with their families," it said in a statement, adding that the military "salutes and embraces the released hostages upon their return home".
Shortly after the arrival of the hostages was confirmed, Israel´s prison authority said 33 Palestinian inmates had been released.
The freed Israelis are dual nationals of France, Germany and Argentina, according to Qatar, which helped mediate the deal.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed the release of the hostages, including "two German teenagers" after "52 days of suffering and despair".
2023-11-27 23:52:35
“The decision for war and escalation is in Israel's hands because Lebanon does not want or seek war,” the Lebanese ministry of foreign affairs said in a post on X.
It called for “Israeli officials to stop the threats to destroy Lebanon and the daily and repeated military violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty”.
Since October 8, Lebanese group Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with the Israeli army across Lebanon’s southern border.
2023-11-27 22:49:49
Hamas said it has received the list of names of prisoners to be released from Israeli prisons on Monday, according to a statement from the militant Palestinian group on its Telegram channel.
The list includes three female prisoners whom it named, and another 30 minors the movement said it would identify later on.
2023-11-27 22:47:54
The White House on Monday welcomed the extension of the humanitarian pause in Gaza, adding that it hopes Americans will be among the 20 hostages to be released next as eight to nine US citizens are believed to still be among those being held.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby, speaking to reporters at a news briefing, said conditioning aid to Israel is a worthwhile thought but that US President Joe Biden believes his approach is working.
2023-11-27 22:12:13
The Qatari foreign ministry says the planes were headed to the Egyptian city of El-Arish, from where the assistance would be transferred to Gaza.
The planes are carrying 156 tonnes of aid, including food, medical items and shelter supplies.
This brings the total number of planes to 26, with a total of 879 tonnes of assistance, the ministry said.
2023-11-27 21:29:27
Iraq sees a risk of regional conflict if the current truce in Gaza is not turned into a permanent ceasefire, the Iraqi prime minister's foreign affairs adviser said.
"The entire region is on the verge of a devastating conflict that may include everyone, and the extent of its expansion or how to control and stop it is not known," said Farhad Alaadin, foreign affairs adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
2023-11-27 21:27:38
Qatar's foreign ministry said on Monday the truce in Gaza has been extended for two more days.
"An agreement has been reached to extend the humanitarian truce for an additional two days in the Gaza Strip," a foreign ministry spokesperson said in post on social media platform X.
2023-11-27 21:18:27
Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Monday said that it has agreed with Qatar and Egypt to a two-day extension in truce.
2023-11-27 21:14:37
United Nations Secretry-General Antonio Guterres pushed on Monday for a full humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas instead of a temporary truce, as the "humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is getting worse by the day."
"The dialogue that led to the agreement must continue, resulting in a full humanitarian ceasefire, for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and the wider region," Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
"The United Nations will continue to support these efforts in every possible way," he said.
Guterres again called for the hostages held by Hamas to be released immediately and unconditionally, Dujarric said.
The United Nations has scaled up the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza over the past four days during the truce and sent aid to some northern areas of the coastal enclave that had been largely cut off for weeks, Dujarric said.
"But this aid barely registers against the huge needs of 1.7 million displaced people. The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is getting worse by the day," he said.
2023-11-27 21:05:12
The Israeli prime minister's office has notified the families of the Israeli hostages set to be released by Hamas on Monday as per the truce deal.
The prime minister’s office said it would provide more information as needed.
2023-11-27 20:57:33
Israel hosted X and Starlink owner Elon Musk, announcing a preliminary agreement for utilising SpaceX's Starlink communications in the Gaza Strip.
The visit coincided with a temporary halt in the conflict with Hamas. While Musk's office has yet to comment on the trip, Israeli President Isaac Herzog has scheduled a meeting with him to discuss various matters, including combating online antisemitism.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also set to engage with Musk, focusing on the security aspects of artificial intelligence.
This visit follows their meeting in California in September, where Netanyahu urged Musk to balance free expression and combat hate speech.
2023-11-27 20:03:23
Some 2.2 million residents of Gaza who have been subjected to devastating Israeli bombing since October 7, are now facing harsh weather conditions which have further exacerbated the dire humanitarian situation in the territory.
Since last night, the weather in Gaza has rather been harsh with windy, rainy conditions and dust in the air.
Tens of thousands of Gazans, who have been displaced by the conflict which erupted on October 7, are living in tents and makeshift structures which are not sturdy enough to withstand the harsh weather conditions, BBC reported.
A large number of those displaced include children and have no choice but to sleep through cold nights as they neither have mattresses nor quilts to keep them warm due to the closure of shops and dire economic conditions.
Furthermore, their circumstances are unlikely to get any better as the aid coming into the beleaguered territory doesn't include winter clothing.
Some Gazans have gone back to their damaged homes to look for old clothes to protect their children from the cold, while some are rummaging through the rubble to find old blankets or anything that can shield them from the harsh weather.
2023-11-27 19:56:47
United Nations Secretry-General Antonio Guterres pushed on Monday for a full humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas instead of a temporary truce, as the "humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is getting worse by the day."
"The dialogue that led to the agreement must continue, resulting in a full humanitarian ceasefire, for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and the wider region," Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
"The United Nations will continue to support these efforts in every possible way," he said.
Guterres again called for the hostages held by Hamas to be released immediately and unconditionally, Dujarric said.
The United Nations has scaled up the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza over the past four days during the truce and sent aid to some northern areas of the coastal enclave that had been largely cut off for weeks, Dujarric said.
"But this aid barely registers against the huge needs of 1.7 million displaced people. The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is getting worse by the day," he said.
2023-11-27 19:16:38
Egyptian, Qatari and US negotiators closed in on an extension of a four-day truce in Gaza that expires on Monday, Egyptian security sources said, amid rising international pressure to roll over a deal which has paused seven weeks of fighting.
Palestinian group Hamas is seeking a four-day extension while Israel wants day-by-day extensions, with negotiations continuing over which Palestinian prisoners would be freed, the sources said.
An Israeli official earlier reiterated Israel's position that it would agree to an extra day of truce for each additional 10 hostages freed and to release three times the number of Palestinians each time. The number of additional days is capped at five, the official added.
A Palestinian official, familiar with the truce talks, said both Hamas and Israel had shown a positive attitude to requests to extend the pause in fighting, but added that "a final decision hasn't yet been reached".
2023-11-27 19:09:50
The UN agency OCHA says that since October 7, at least 215 Palestinians, including 55 children, have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported
In addition, eight people, including one child, have been killed by Israeli settlers.
2023-11-27 18:51:50
2023-11-27 18:35:10
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has expressed concerns about heads of two hospitals arrested by Israeli forces, saying thatthe military has refused to provide any information about their whereabouts or their fate despite repeated calls by the WHO.
2023-11-27 17:45:21
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Elon Musk on their visit to Kfar Azza Kibbutz, one of the areas that was targeted by Hamas on October 7, Times of Israel reported.
During the tour, Netanyahu presented Musk with testimonies from the attack, while the head of the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council, Yossi Keren gave them a briefing as well.
2023-11-27 17:38:24
A spokesperson for the Israeli government has said that Tel Aviv has informed Hamas about its readiness to extend the truce if the resistance group releases more captives in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
Eilon Levy said that Israel is open for truce extension in return for the release of 50 more captives held in Gaza, saying that 184 Israelis are still detained in the Gaza Strip.
2023-11-27 17:19:07
NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called on Monday for an extension of the four-day truce between Israel and Hamas, now in its final day, to allow for the release of more hostages.
Speaking to reporters, he also said Iran should rein in its "proxies". Hamas is part of a regional alliance comprising Iran, Syria and the Shi'ite Islamist group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which all broadly oppose U.S. policy in the Middle East and Israel.
2023-11-27 17:13:29
Iran on Monday called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to stop Israel's "crimes" in the territory as the truce between Israel and Hamas entered its final day.
With the four-day truce approaching its scheduled end, Hamas has said it is willing to extend the pause and free more hostages.
"As the Islamic Republic of Iran, we want and expect... that the crimes of the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people will be stopped completely," said Nasser Kanani, Iran´s foreign ministry spokesman.
Kanani told reporters during his weekly press conference that Iran is "following" the extension of the truce "with the regional party active in this field, the state of Qatar".
"One of the main goals of the ongoing negotiations and efforts is to ensure that the existing temporary ceasefire takes a stable form and that the cruel aggression of the Zionist regime (Israel) against Gaza is not repeated," he added.
But "it seems that the Zionist regime after not being able to achieve its objectives" after the offensive on Gaza, "wants to obtain a tangible victory", he added, suggesting Israel would continue its offensive in Gaza.
Iran, which has labelled Israel's military campaign in Gaza as a genocide, has denied any direct involvement in Hamas's attack on Israel.
2023-11-27 17:01:13
Qatar, Egypt, the United States, the European Union and Spain are working to extend the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority's foreign minister said on Monday.
After calling for a lasting ceasefire to avoid an increase in civilian deaths, Riyad Al-Maliki said the current truce could be extended for "one, two, three days" but added that no one knew for how long.
Al-Maliki was addressing a news conference alongside Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares during the Forum for the Union of the Mediterranean in Barcelona.
Monday marked the final day of an agreed four-day pause in the fighting.
2023-11-27 15:38:12
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has begun his wartime visit to Israel as he landed in Tel Aviv on Monday to discuss "rising antisemitism" on social media with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
During his visit to Tel Aviv, the tech billionaire will also meet the relatives of the hostages held by Hamas following their October 7 attack.
“In their meeting, the president will emphasise the need to act to combat rising antisemitism online," said President Herzog's office on Sunday after announcing the meeting with Musk.
His meeting comes after the tech guru was accused by civil rights groups of amplifying anti-Jewish hatred on the microblogging website X, formerly known as Twitter.
Read more here.
2023-11-27 14:53:51
A four-day truce is an important first step in the Israel-Hamas conflict, but much more is needed to find a way out of the crisis, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said on Monday.
Borrell said he regretted that Israel had not attended a Forum for the Union of the Mediterranean on Monday in Barcelona. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al Maliki and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will address the meeting as representatives of a group of ministers from the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Borrell said he hoped a four-day truce agreed last week would last "a few more days".
Borrell called for Israel not to "recolonise" Gaza, saying both Palestinians and Israelis had an "equal and legitimate right to the same land".
A Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza was the "best guarantee" for "Israel's security and peace", he added.
2023-11-27 14:28:38
Dr Mohammed Zaqout, general manager of hospitals in Gaza, has revealed that hospitals in northern Gaza have not received any fuel during the four-day truce, Al Jazeera reported.
He also revealed that the field hospitals now in Gaza need five to seven days to start operating.
The Israeli army has destroyed 21 private hospitals and 13 public hospitals across the enclave
Meanwhile, Ahli Arab Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al Awdah Hospital are the last working hospitals in northern and central Gaza.
2023-11-27 13:52:03
Police have arrested a suspect in the shooting of three Palestinian college students in Burlington, Vermont, in a case that has garnered national attention amid concerns about rising levels of hate crimes since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.
Jason J Eaton, 48, was arrested Sunday afternoon near the scene of the attack, the Burlington Police Department said in a news release, CNN reported.
According to authorities, Eaton lives in an apartment building in front of the shooting scene and a search of his home uncovered evidence that gave investigators “probable cause to believe that Eaton perpetrated the shooting.”
Officials said that they are investigating whether the shooting was a hate crime.
Police did not detail early Monday what charges the suspect is facing and it is not yet known if Eaton has an attorney.
Eaton is expected to be arraigned in court on Monday. Police are also planning to hold a news conference Monday to discuss the case.
The students, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Ahmad, all 20 years old, were walking along the street Saturday night when they were confronted by a man with a handgun, who opened fire and shot each of them “without speaking” before fleeing, according to the police department.
Two of the students were in stable condition over the weekend but the third received “much more serious injuries,” police said, noting two were shot in the torso and another in the lower extremities.
2023-11-27 13:26:24
Israel and Palestinian resistance group Hamas have raised concerns over the lists of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners set to be released on Monday, an official briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The official added that Qatari mediators are working with Israel and Hamas to resolve issues and avoid delays.
"There is a slight issue with today’s lists. The Qataris are working with both sides to resolve it and avoid delays," the official said.
In the previous three days of the truce, Israel submitted the names of Palestinian women and teenagers it would release from jail and Hamas would submit the names of Israeli civilian hostages it would release at least 12 hours ahead of the release.
2023-11-27 13:09:55
China Foreign Minister Wang Yi will go to New York on November 29 to host the United Nation's Security Council session on the Israel-Hamas issue, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday.
"China hopes that by hosting this meeting, we can do our part to help realise a ceasefire," spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a regular press briefing.
2023-11-27 13:05:16
2023-11-27 12:33:54
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office has confirmed that Israel has received another list of names of additional hostages to be released and that discussions regarding the list are ongoing.
Earlier, Israeli media reported that Hamas had not yet provided the names of 11 Israeli captives expected to be released on Monday, as part of the agreement that 50 Israelis would be released by Hamas during this four-day truce, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-11-27 11:24:55
2023-11-27 10:50:07
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday told US President Joe Biden that he would "welcome" the possibility of extending the truce with Hamas in return for the further release of 10 hostages per day from Gaza, according to CNN.
"We brought back another group of hostages this evening — women and children, and we are moved from the depths of our hearts, the entire nation when we see this reuniting of families. It simply stirs the soul," Netanyahu said in a statement posted by the Prime Minister's Office on X, formerly Twitter.
"There is also an outline that says that it is possible to release an additional ten hostages each day. That would be welcome," he added.
Netanyahu said he told Biden that if and when the truce expires, Israel "will go to realising our goals with full force: Eliminating Hamas, ensuring that Gaza will not go back to being what it was and — of course — releasing all of our hostages."
2023-11-27 09:45:13
There have now been three prisoner-captive exchanges since the four-day truce started on Friday.
In total 175 people have now been released including 39 Hamas captives released in three groups of 13, 117 Palestinian prisoners in three groups of 39, 17 Thais released, one Filipino and one Israeli-Russian released by Hamas.
Hamas has agreed to release 50 women and children in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children in Israeli jails in total under a truce deal. Israeli media reports that 11 hostages expected to be released today are yet to be named, according to Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggests that the truce could be extended if more captives are released at a rate of 10 per day.
Meanwhile, Palestinian officials say more than 3,200 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank alone since Oct 7.
2023-11-27 08:42:48
US President Joe Biden said he hoped the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas can go on as long as hostages are being released, after the Palestinian group freed 17 more people, including a 4-year-old Israeli-American girl.
Hamas said it wanted to extend the pause in fighting, which will enter its fourth day and final agreed day on Monday, if serious efforts were made to increase the number of Palestinian detainees released by Israel. Thirty-nine teenage Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel on Sunday, taking the total since the truce began to 117.
Hamas said it had handed over 13 Israelis, three Thais and one with Russian citizenship, and the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed it had successfully transferred them from Gaza on Sunday.
Biden said the 4-year-old hostage, Abigail Edan, had witnessed her parents being killed by Hamas fighters during their Oct 7 rampage into Israel and had been held since then.
"What she endured is unthinkable," Biden said at a news conference in the US.
2023-11-27 00:05:17
With the four-day Israel-Hamas truce set to expire on Monday (today), three Palestinian college students were shot in Vermont, United States on Sunday.
The wounded — two of whom are stable and one suffering serious injuries — are currently being treated CNN reported quoting local police.
The Palestinian students wereconfronted by a white man with a handgun [who] discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and fled on foot," the police said.
According to Husam Zomlot, Palestinian Ambassador to UK, the trio was targeted as they were on their way to a family dinner.
"Their crime? Wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh. They are critically injured," he wrote on his X account.
2023-11-26 23:47:21
A source close to Hamas said Sunday the Palestinian resistance group was willing to extend the current truce with Israel in Gaza for two to four days beyond its initial expiry on Monday (tomorrow).
"Hamas informed the mediators that the resistance movements were willing to extend the current truce by two to four days. The resistance believes it is possible to ensure the release of 20 to 40 Israeli prisoners," the source told AFP, referring to hostages seized in the October 7 attacks.
2023-11-26 23:23:41
Israel’s prison service said 39 Palestinian detainees were released on Sunday under the terms of a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The announcement came after 13 Israeli hostages were freed in the Palestinian territory under the deal, along with three Thais and a Russian-Israeli dual citizen.
2023-11-26 22:33:06
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) Sunday called for the suspension of military assistance to Israel in light of its "war crimes" against Palestinian civilians.
"Governments should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit widespread, serious abuses amounting to war crimes against Palestinian civilians with impunity," the watchdog said in its report.
In its report, the HRW also highlighted that it has documented repeated "apparently" unlawful Israeli attacks on medical facilities, personnel and transport during the current hostilities.
"The World Health Organization (WHO), as of November 24, had documented 187 attacks on health care in Gaza since October 7, which damaged 24 hospitals, according to data shared with Human Rights Watch."
"International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, grants special protection to hospitals and other medical facilities, the injured and sick, as well as medical staff and transport: they must be protected and respected in all circumstances," the report reads.
2023-11-26 21:51:44
As many as 39 Palestinians are to be released from Israeli captivity on Sunday, AFP reported quoting Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman.
"In [the] implementation of the commitments of the third day of the humanitarian truce agreement, 39 Palestinian civilians will be released in exchange for the release of 13 Israeli civilians from Gaza, in addition to a Russian national and 3 Thais who have already been handed over to the ICRC," Dr Majed Al Ansari said on his X account.
2023-11-26 21:34:16
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday made his first visit to Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began, telling soldiers there that Israel "will continue [its offensive]", AFP reported.
"We continue until the end," footage posted online by his office showed him saying.
"Nothing will stop us, and we are convinced that we have the power, the strength, the will and the determination to achieve all the war's goals, and we will," he added.
2023-11-26 21:07:39
Hamas on Sunday, handed over another 13 Israeli hostages to the Red Cross along with three Thai nationals, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have also confirmed that 14 Israeli captives — one accounting to a Russian citizen who holds dual nationality — have been received by the Red Cross.
"Based on information that was received from the Red Cross, 14 Israeli hostages and three foreign hostages have been transferred to the Red Cross," read the statement issued by the Israeli military on social media platform X.
2023-11-26 19:47:55
Hamas said on Sunday it had released a hostage who held Russian citizenship from Gaza, adding that it had taken the action in appreciation of Moscow's position.
2023-11-26 19:11:11
Egypt received lists of 13 Israelis and 39 Palestinians scheduled for release on Sunday, the third batch in the four-day truce deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar, Diaa Rashwan, the head of Egypt's State Information Service (SIS), said in a statement.
"The truce is proceeding without roadblocks," the statement said, adding that 120 aid tucks crossed from Egypt to Gaza on Sunday including two fuel trucks and two with gas for cooking.
2023-11-26 19:06:45
Hamas' military wing said Sunday that the commander of its northern brigade, Ahmed Al-Ghandour, and three other senior leaders had been killed during Israel's offensive against the resistance group.
In a statement, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said Ghandour was a member of its military council and named three other leaders who had died, including Ayman Siyyam, who Israeli media reports said was head of the Brigades' rocket-firing units.
"We pledge to Allah we will continue their path and that their blood will be a light for the mujahedeen and a fire for the occupiers," the statement said, without saying when they were killed.
Ghandour — whose nom de guerre was Abu Anas — was listed by the US in 2017 as a "specially designated global terrorist", putting him on an economic sanctions blacklist.
2023-11-26 18:59:22
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said there was "reason to believe" a US hostage would be released from captivity in Gaza on Sunday, NBC reported.
2023-11-26 16:01:26
Ghazi Hammad, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, while talking live on Al Jazeera said that the armed group is committed to the four-day truce agreement and is willing to release all captives in exchange for the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
He also said that the group is currently working on a possible extension of the truce together with international partners.
“Our priority is to stop the aggression against our people. We want to stop this genocide in Gaza,” he said.
Hammad condemned the role of the United States in the war, calling it Israel’s partner in “genocide”.
“They are always supporting Israel. From the beginning of this war the US is their partner in this crime … in this ethnic cleansing,” he told Al Jazeera.
Asked if there were any negotiations ongoing to release US citizens, Hammad said the armed group is interested in releasing all civilians regardless of their nationality.
2023-11-26 15:09:38
A Palestinian farmer was killed and another injured on Sunday after they were targeted by Israeli forces in the Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
The incident occurred on the third day of a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas.
Meanwhile, the armed wing of Hamas announced on Sunday the killing of four of its military commanders in the Gaza Strip, including the commander of the North Gaza brigade Ahmad Al Ghandour.
"Al Ghandour (Abu Anas) is the member of the military council and the commander of the North Brigade," Al Qassam Brigades said in a statement published on their Telegram channel.
2023-11-26 14:23:19
The Israeli Prison Service has now received a list of 39 Palestinian prisoners who are scheduled to be released today as part of the truce deal between Israel and Hamas, Al Jazeera reported citing Israeli media.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera previously reported that 13 people held captive in Gaza are also scheduled to be released today.
However, the timings for the release have not been issued yet.
2023-11-26 12:52:32
2023-11-26 11:54:48
2023-11-26 10:39:23
Six Palestinians, including one minor, were shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank late Saturday and early Sunday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Five of the deaths occurred in the city of Jenin and the sixth was in Yatma, a village near Nablus city. Six others were injured during the shooting in Jenin, the ministry said.
The Israeli military spokesperson's office said it was checking the reports.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces stormed Jenin "from several directions, firing bullets and surrounding government hospitals and the headquarters of the Red Crescent Society"
Since Oct 7, at least 229 Palestinians, including 52 children have been killed. More than 3,000 people have been detained by Israeli forces.
2023-11-26 09:20:05
2023-11-26 08:56:22
2023-11-26 02:15:24
Thirteen Israelis and four Thai nationals released from Hamas captivity arrived in Israel on Sunday in the second step of a crucial hostage deal that briefly risked falling apart due to a dispute over the delivery of aid supplies into Gaza.
The short-lived dispute that threatened the temporary truce to free captives was overcome with the mediation of Qatar and Egypt, but it underscored the fragility of the agreement, under which a total of 50 Israeli hostages are to be exchanged for 150 Palestinian prisoners over four days.
Television footage showed hostages on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing after leaving Gaza, as Hamas handed over the captives to the International Committee of the Red Cross late on Saturday. Of the 13 Israelis released, six were women and seven were children and teenagers.
"The released hostages are on their way to hospitals in Israel, where they will reunite with their families," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.
Among the Palestinian prisoners released from two Israeli prisons, six were women and 33 were minors, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Some of those released arrived at Al-Bireh Municipality Square in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where thousands of citizens were waiting for them, according to a Reuters witness.
Saturday's swap comes after the initial release of 13 other Israeli hostages including children and the elderly by Hamas on Friday in return for the release of 39 Palestinian women and youth from Israeli prisons.
Hamas on Friday also released 10 Thai farm workers and a Filipino.
2023-11-26 00:03:23
Tonight, 39 Palestinian civilians and 13 Israeli captives from Gaza will be released in addition to seven foreigners, says the official spokesperson for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The spokesman said “the obstacles were overcome through Qatari-Egyptian” mediation.
2023-11-25 23:57:32
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly holding consultations with the country's defence minister and heads of the security establishment on the delay of hostages release by Hamas, with Egypt and Qatar said to be trying to salvage the deal.
Israel aims to implement the release by midnight, Haaretz reported.
The update suggested that the Israeli officials have dismissed Hamas' claim that the number of aid convoys reaching the northern Gaza Strip is only half of what Israel committed to, stating that the responsibility for this lies with the UN.
Strategy in case today's batch of Israeli hostages is not released is also under consideration in consultations.
However, there is no official confirmation on these reports.
2023-11-25 23:41:46
Qatar is in ongoing talks with Israel and Hamas to resolve the delay in hostage releases “as soon as possible,” an official briefed on the situation told Reuters on Saturday.
2023-11-25 23:12:47
Hamas spokesman has said that a total of 340 aid trucks entered Gaza since Friday, and 65 of them reached northern Gaza.
The number is less than half of what Israel agreed on, he added.
2023-11-25 23:11:58
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas member, said Israel’s “empty threats will not change our position”, Al Jazeera reported.
“We reiterate our commitment to implement and ensure the success of the truce agreement that was reached through Qatari and Egyptian mediation,” Hamdan said in a news conference.
“The agreement on a humanitarian truce and the exchange of captives and prisoners would not have been achieved f it were not for the steadfastness of our people,” he said.
“The occupation will not succeed in liberating its prisoners by force.”
2023-11-25 21:35:01
2023-11-25 21:32:53
As the temporary Israel-Hamas truce entered its second day, Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.
A Palestinian man was wounded outside the Ofer prison near Ramallah, Al Jazeera reported quotingthe Palestine Red Crescent organisation.
Israeli troops also shot and wounded Palestinians inBeit Ummar andBurqa in the West Bank.
2023-11-25 21:08:33
A vehicle operated bythe United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) came under fire from the Israeli military near Aytaroun, southern Lebanon on Saturday.
No injuries have been reported by the peacekeeping force which said that only the vehicle was damaged by the Israeli gunfire.
Meanwhile, UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander LTG Lazaro has warned that "anyfurther escalation could have devastating consequences,"
"This attack on peacekeepers, dedicated to reducing tensions & restoring stability in south Lebanon, is deeply troubling. We condemn this act & underscore the parties' responsibility to safeguard peacekeepers, preventing unnecessary risks to those striving to establish stability,"read the statement by the UNIFIL on X.
2023-11-25 21:23:09
Hamas armed wing has said that they have decided to delay the second round of hostage release until Israel is committed to allowing aid trucks to enter Northern Gaza.
As per Al Jazeera, Qassam Brigades said in a statement issued on the Telegram app that the delay is due to Israel not abiding by the terms of the truce deal.
It said that Israel has to allow aid trucks to enter the northern Gaza Strip and to adhere to the “criteria” that was agreed upon – namely seniority – to release the Palestinian prisoners.
2023-11-25 20:54:58
A Qatari delegation visited Israel on Saturday to discuss a possible extension of a four-day truce between Hamas and Israel that started on Friday, an official briefed on the visit said.
The Qatari operations team also coordinated with Israeli officials to ensure the truce and hostage releases continue smoothly, the official said.
2023-11-25 20:50:14
At least, 221 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since October 7,the UN agency OCHA said on Friday.
The martyrs include 56 children, which accounts for almost 50% of Palestinian fatalities in the occupied West Bank for 2023.
2023-11-25 19:45:12
2023-11-25 19:27:23
Egypt said on Saturday it had received positive signals from all parties over a possible extension of the Gaza truce for one or two days.
Diaa Rashwan, the head of Egypt's State Information Service (SIS), said in a statement that the country was holding extensive talks with all parties to reach an agreement over extending the four-day truce, which "means the release of more detainees in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails."
2023-11-25 18:51:21
The adviser to the head of Hamas's political bureau, Taher al-Nunu has said that "there are many violations of the agreement on the part of Israel".
"We are open to proposals from mediators and are ready to examine proposals for new deals," Taher said in a conversation with Al Jazeera.
"If Israel does not commit to providing aid to northern Gaza, it threatens the entire agreement," he said, adding that "Israel also violated the agreement by having soldiers open fire in several locations, which led to the death of two people."
The director general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Munir al-Bursh also confirmed death of two people by Israeli soldiers' firing on medical teams, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-11-25 18:42:47
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has delivered the "largest" aid assistance to the “Gaza [City] and the North governates” since the beginning of the Hamas-Israel war on October 7.
"The largest convoy of 61 trucks of aid assistance to the #Gaza and the North governorates loaded with food and non-food items, water, primary health care medicines, and emergency medical supplies, from aid that entered through Rafah today as well as from PRCS warehouses in the south," the society said on X.
2023-11-25 18:12:28
2023-11-25 17:14:51
Palestinian Medical Relief Society’s Director Aed Yaghi told Al Jazeera that the four-day truce — of which around two days have already passed — was not enough to deal with the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
“The situation is too difficult. We are speaking about 1.6 million Palestinians in the south. The shelters are too crowded. It is not enough for even 10 percent of these people,” he told Al Jazeera from Khan Younis.
“There is no clean water or proper sanitation.”
2023-11-25 16:00:47
Iran facilitated Friday's release of 10 Thai hostages from Gaza, providing a list of names to Palestinian group Hamas after a request to do so by Thailand's Foreign Ministry and parliamentary speaker, Iran's embassy in Thailand said on social media on Saturday.
"This request was accepted by Hamas and 10 Thai hostages were released after the ceasefire," it said.
A Thai foreign ministry spokesperson told Reuters that: "we have provided lists since the beginning to everyone," including Qatar, Egypt, Israel and Iran.
"Different actors would have different influence on Hamas," the spokesperson added.
A group of Thai Muslim politicians had travelled to Tehran and met senior Hamas officials in October.
2023-11-25 15:18:08
It has been reported that 42 Palestinians held in Israeli jails will be released today including 18 women and 24 teenage boys.
Like yesterday, the group of Palestinian prisoners will be released via Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
Furthermore, 14 Hamas captives held in Gaza are also expected to be freed via a process facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
However, the exact timing of the releases is not yet clear.
2023-11-25 14:57:53
A US defence official said on Saturday that a suspected drone attack hit a container ship owned by an Israeli billionaire in the Indian Ocean, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera, the defence official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said that the Malta-flagged vessel, CMA CGM Symi, was suspected to have been targeted by a triangle-shaped, bomb-carrying Shahed-136 drone while in international waters.
The drone exploded causing damage to the ship but none of the ship's crew was injured.
“We continue to monitor the situation closely,” the official said. The official declined to explain why the US military believed Iran was behind the attack.
Al Mayadeen, a pan-Arab satellite channel that is politically allied with the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, reported that an Israeli ship had been targeted in the Indian Ocean. The channel cited anonymous sources for the report, which Iranian media later reported.
2023-11-25 13:54:16
Israeli authorities said that 14 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip following the Hamas attacks on Oct 7 would be released on Saturday, as well as 42 Palestinian prisoners, on the second day of a truce deal.
Prison authorities said 42 prisoners — both male and female — would be freed under the terms of the agreement, which mandates exchanges at a ratio of three to one, and an Israeli official source said 14 hostages would be handed over.
2023-11-25 13:36:51
In at least three cases, prior to the prisoners' release, Israeli police raided their families' homes in Jerusalem, witnesses said.
Police declined to comment.
"There is no real joy, even this little joy we feel as we wait," said Sawsan Bkeer, the mother of 24-year-old Palestinian Marah Bkeer, jailed for eight years on knife and assault charges in 2015.
Israeli police were seen raiding her Jerusalem home before her daughter's release.
"We are still afraid to feel happy," she added.
2023-11-25 12:49:49
A United Nations (UN) convoy has been able to reach two UNRWA facilities sheltering internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the north, where it delivered flour, Al Jazeera reported.
It was the first aid delivery to a shelter in the north in more than one month, OCHA (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) said in a report on Friday.
Three aid trucks also arrived on Friday in northern Gaza, the first aid deliveries to the north since Oct 7, according to a local source quoted by Anadolu agency.
“Three trucks loaded with humanitarian aid arrived in Gaza City and northern Gaza Friday noon,” said the source.
2023-11-25 11:32:57
Israel’s military on Saturday revealed that it is “moving forward” with questioning Al Shifa Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya.
The Israeli military's revelation after the World Health Organisation (WHO), earlier on Saturday, said that it had no information about the well-being of Abu Salmiya and three other medical workers in detention while calling for their “legal and human rights to be fully observed during their detention”, Al Jazeera reported.
“We are currently moving forward with … questioning him over the fact that he was the head of a hospital that was really sitting on top of an entire terror network,” Israeli military spokesperson Doron Spielman said on Saturday.
“How could he not know what’s happening? We have hostages that were on, you know, CCTV in his hospital.”
However, Hamas and hospital officials have repeatedly denied Israeli claims that the hospital has been used for military purposes.
Israel’s military arrested Abu Salmiya on Thursday confirming that they were holding him for questioning over evidence that the hospital served as a Hamas command and control centre under his management.
2023-11-25 10:43:53
Israeli authorities have outlined strict conditions for Palestinian detainees from occupied East Jerusalem that are due to be released as part of an exchange deal between Palestinian groups and Israel, the Middle East Eye reported.
The Palestinian Prisoner Club reports restrictions on detainees and their families, including a ban on candy distribution during family celebrations, and a prohibition on media communication, community gatherings, and celebration displays.
Any violation of these conditions would result in a 70,000 Israeli shekels ($18,700) fine, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Club.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has vowed to halt any celebration of prisoner releases in Jerusalem.
According to Israeli media, Gvir urged police commissioner Kobi Shabtai to use "an iron fist" against such attempts and to increase the police force's presence near the homes of those expected to be released.
2023-11-25 09:23:13
Motaz Azaiza, a young Palestinian photojournalist, has been named Man of the Year for 2023 by GQ magazine (Middle East) following his unfiltered coverage of Gaza's situation throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict.
GQ Middle East reads: "Over the course of recent weeks, the Palestinian photojournalist became a global figure, a vehicle of resilience, and the embodiment of hope for the people of Gaza and for the rest of us around the world.
"His work personifies the power of digital activism, and his humanity is an important reminder that bravery appears in many forms. Sometimes we choose it, other times it chooses us, and in the case of Azaiza, choice wasn’t even an option."
2023-11-25 09:19:18
2023-11-25 08:21:29
2023-11-25 08:18:11
GAZA/JERUSALEMIsrael has received a list of hostages to be freed from Gaza on Saturday by Hamas, officials said, following the release of 24 hostages the previous day, the first of a planned four-day truce.
Israeli security officials were reviewing the list, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, after his government's vow to work for the release of all hostages taken by Hamas in an attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
The pause in the fighting was the first such break, with both sides saying hostilities would resume as soon as the truce ends. US President Joe Biden expressed hope the pause could be extended, however.
The released hostages, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers, were transferred from Gaza and handed to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing, along with eight staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross in a four-car convoy, the organisation said.
They were then taken to Israel for medical checks and re-unions with relatives.
Qatar, which acted as mediator for the truce deal, said 13 Israelis had been released, some with dual nationality, as well as 10 Thais and a Philippine national - farm workers employed in southern Israel when they were seized.
Thirty-nine Palestinian women and children detainees were released from Israeli jails. The freed Israeli hostages included four children accompanied by four family members, and five elderly women.
2023-11-24 23:32:35
A total of 137 trucks carrying food, water, medicine and other essentials have been unloaded in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas truce began Friday, the United Nations said.
This was the biggest humanitarian convoy to enter Gaza since the war started on October 7, the UN office for humanitarian affairs said in a statement.
2023-11-24 23:23:07
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that his administration us “committed to returning all the hostages”.
“We just completed the return of the first of our hostages: children, their mothers and additional women. Each of them is an entire world,” the Israeli prime minister said in a brief statement issued since the release of 13 Israeli captives.
“[Returning the captives] is one of the aims of the war and we are committed to achieving all the aims of the war,” he said.
2023-11-24 23:03:00
Thirty-nine Palestinian women and minors have arrived at the Beitunia checkpoint following their release by the Israeli forces from Ofer Prison under the hostage deal, Al Jazeera reported.
The first group of released Palestinians who had been detained by Israel, include women and children.
As per Times of Israel, most of the Palestinians being released in the deal are administrative detainees who have not been charged.
2023-11-24 22:19:49
As per Times of Israel, the 13 Israeli hostages released by Hamas have been identified as:
Hannah Katzir, Margalit Mozes, Yafa Ader, Hannah Perry, Adina Moshe, Danielle Aloni, Emilia Aloni, Ruthi Mondar, Keren Mondar and Ohad Mondar.
The list of names was released by Israeli PM's official account on X.
2023-11-24 22:08:32
Israeli hostages freed from Gaza are now in Israel and have undergone medical checks, Israel's military said on Friday.
"The released hostages underwent an initial medical assessment inside Israeli territory. They will continue to be accompanied by IDF soldiers as they make their way to Israeli hospitals, where they will be reunited with their families," the military said.
2023-11-24 21:41:21
A total of 39 women and children detained in Israeli jails were released as part of a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman said in a post on X on Friday.
2023-11-24 21:20:40
The International Red Cross confirmed on Friday that its teams had started carrying out a multi-day operation to facilitate the release and transfer of hostages held in Gaza and of Palestinian detainees.
A spokesperson confirmed that 24 hostages were transferred out of Gaza and handed over to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing. He said they were accompanied by eight staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a four-car convoy.
"The deep pain that family members separated from their loved ones feel is indescribable. We are relieved that some will be reunited after long agony," said Fabrizio Carboni, the ICRC's regional director for the Near and Middle East.
No further details were given. The ICRC, a neutral, Swiss-based organisation, also says the operation also involves the delivery of additional, much-needed aid into Gaza.
2023-11-24 20:51:50
Thirteen Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip have been handed over to the Israeli forces, AFP reported citing sources affiliated with the security.
Meanwhile, Israeli television channels reported that the officials from Egypt and the Red Cross had received the hostages.
As per an update by BBC, Egyptian sources said that Egyptian officials have received the Israeli hostages from the Red Cross and Red Crescent at the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza.
However, there was no immediate confirmation from the Israeli government amid the reports of hostages transfer.
2023-11-24 20:37:55
As Hamas hands over Israeli hostages to the Red Cross, Palestinian families eagerly wait outside Ofer Prison in the West Bank, for their loved ones to be freed from Israeli imprisonment.
As many as 39 Palestinian women and teenagers are expected to be released under the Israel-Hamas truce which came into effect on Friday, reported Al Jazeera.
2023-11-24 19:35:01
The Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been transferred to Red Cross and are on their way to the border crossing with Egypt, Israeli TV stations reported.
An Israeli official said that the released hostages are in ambulances moving towards the Rafah crossing into Israel, Times of Israel reported.
The release of 13 hostages, mother and children, is the first of four expected stages.
Tel Aviv is set to release 150 Palestinian prisoners, all of them women and minors, in return for the 50 Israelis. It will free 39 today in return for the first 13 Israelis to return.
2023-11-24 19:21:38
Thailand Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has said that 12 Thai nationals — being held hostage in Gaza — have been released by Hamas.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the prime minister said embassy officials were "on the way to pick them up". However, he did not specify where the hostages were.
It follows the Egyptian State Information Service saying: "Intensive Egyptian efforts resulted in the release of 12 Thai nationals."
It is important to note that, according to BBC, the release of Thai hostages was not part Israel and Hamas deal.
2023-11-24 19:02:57
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday that a truce under way with Hamas in Gaza was a "short pause", after which Israel would resume operating with full military force.
He made the remarks to his Italian counterpart who was on a visit to Tel Aviv, according to his office. He spoke as Israel prepared to receive 13 hostages set to be freed from Gaza, in return for the release of 39 Palestinian prisoners.
"There will be a short pause and then we will continue operating with full military power. We will not stop until we achieve our goals: the destruction of Hamas and bringing home the hostages from Gaza to Israel — there are 240 hostages and it is something we cannot accept and cannot tolerate," Gallant said.
2023-11-24 19:01:32
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, said on Friday in a recording that the group is committed to the truce and hostage swap deal as long as Israel is committed as well.
2023-11-24 18:52:55
2023-11-24 18:26:10
2023-11-24 18:13:22
Dozens of Palestinians returned to Gaza from Egypt hours after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire came into effect on Friday, CNN reported.
As many as 67 Palestinians — who have been stuck in Egypt since the conflict began on October 7 — crossed back into Gaza.
The development comes as hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been displaced due to the conflict which has seen more than 14,000 Palestinians — including over 5,000 children — being martyred due to indiscriminate Israeli bombing.
2023-11-24 17:27:25
Calm returned to Lebanon's southern border Friday as a temporary truce took effect in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, according to Lebanese state media and the Israeli military.
Since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, Lebanon's southern border with Israel has witnessed deadly exchanges of fire, primarily involving the Israeli army and Lebanon´s Hezbollah movement, as well as Palestinian militant groups.
"A precarious calm reigned on the southern border, with the humanitarian truce in Gaza coming into effect at 7:00 in the morning (0500 GMT)," Lebanon's official National News Agency reported.
Six hours after the Gaza pause went into force, an Israeli military spokesman confirmed to AFP that there had been no subsequent incidents or firing so far across the Lebanon border.
2023-11-24 16:30:49
A temporary ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas forces took hold in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the first respite in 48 days of conflict that has devastated the Palestinian enclave, but both sides warned that the war was far from over.
No big bombings, artillery strikes or rocket attacks were reported although Hamas and Israel both accused each other of sporadic shootings and other violations.
The ceasefire, which began at 7am, involves the release of 13 Israeli women and children held hostage by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, likely to happen in a few hours.
Additional aid is to flow into Gaza, which has been gripped by a humanitarian crisis under weeks of Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands of Palestinians.
2023-11-24 16:02:18
Sirens sounded in Israel's southern Red Sea resort of Eilat on Friday, the military said, warning of a possible long-range aerial attack from Yemen.
Yemeni Houthis have previously launched drones and missiles at Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian group Israel has been battling in the Gaza Strip since Oct 7.
2023-11-24 14:46:34
Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani Friday said that Pakistan is ready to airlift the injured Palestinians and bring them for treatment, adding this has been conveyed to Jordan and Egypt as well.
The top Pakistani diplomat made the revelation while responding to a calling attention notice in the Senate. The notice had sought the foreign minister’s briefing on what efforts Pakistan was doing related to Gaza to end the atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The comments from the minister came as the Israel-Hamas truce came into effect today after more than a month of bombing in Gaza that killed over 14,000 people including children and women.
Read more here
2023-11-24 14:21:56
2023-11-24 13:48:43
Israel on Friday is set to release 39 Palestinian prisoners, among them 24 women and 15 teenage boys, in the occupied West Bank in exchange for 13 hostages due to be freed from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, a Palestinian official said, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Israel expects the release of 13 women and children from Hamas captivity at 4pm in Gaza as part of the Qatari-mediated four-day truce.
2023-11-24 12:54:40
2023-11-24 12:04:53
The Israeli army said that its forces would be positioned at the truce lines and will march along Gaza's Beach Street and Salah al-Din axis during the break, Al Jazeera reported.
It said it will not allow Palestinians to head to northern Gaza during the truce.
2023-11-24 11:40:11
Journalist Ayman al-Jadi shares footage showing Palestinian families beginning to return to their homes in the southern areas of the Gaza Strip after the start of the truce.
2023-11-24 11:39:28
Israel's Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has submitted a proposal to take action against the country’s leading newspaper, Haaretz, by ending the publication of government notices in Haaretz.
Shlomo Karhi is a member of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.
The minister said the newspaper was "sabotaging Israel in wartime" and was an "inflammatory mouthpiece for Israel’s enemies."
The proposal, which was submitted without being vetted by the ministry's legal adviser, would immediately halt any payments to Haaretz from any state entity within his purview.
2023-11-24 11:12:29
Three trucks have entered the Gaza Strip, two for fuel and one for gas, according to Al Jazeera. They are located in the parking for trucks inside Gaza and will soon be transferred to the stations.
It was previously reported that much-needed humanitarian aid was also expected to cross from Egypt into Gaza in the hours that followed the truce.
According to Hamas, 200 aid trucks and more trucks of fuel will enter Gaza daily.
A statement by the spokesperson of the Rafah crossing administration confirmed the entry of aid and fuel trucks into the Gaza Strip.
“We expect 230 trucks to enter today,” the spokesperson said.
2023-11-24 10:26:48
The Israeli military sounded sirens in two villages near the Gaza Strip on Friday, warning of possible Palestinian rocket attacks from the enclave just minutes after a truce came into force.
There was no immediate confirmation that rocket attacks had occurred or caused any damage, however.
2023-11-24 10:17:00
As Israel and Hamas have entered the much-anticipated truce in the Gaza Strip, the first group of Israeli captives, 13 women and children, are set to be released at 4pm local time, Al Jazeera reported.
The Red Cross will transport them to the Rafah border crossing, where they will be identified by the Israeli military before being taken to Tel Aviv for physical and psychological tests.
Meanwhile, 39 Palestinian prisoners will be released from Israel, taking them from Damon and Megiddo prisons. They will then be driven to Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank, and handed over to their families at a nearby crossing.
Much-needed humanitarian aid is also expected to cross from Egypt into Gaza in the hours that follow. According to Hamas, 200 aid trucks and more trucks of fuel will enter Gaza daily.
2023-11-24 10:03:32
Israel and Hamas entered a four-day ceasefire on Friday with the Palestinian group set to release the first group of hostages later in the day and increased aid to flow into the besieged Gaza Strip, the first pause in a nearly seven-week-old war.
The truce's scheduled start was 7am (0500 GMT). A number of Palestinians were expected to be released from Israeli jails later in the day as part of the ceasefire.
2023-11-24 09:46:41
Melissa Barrera, a Mexican actress, was recently fired from the production of "Scream VII" following her "controversial" social media posts about the war between Israel and Hamas, which the studio deemed antisemitic, CNN reported.
Barrera, on Wednesday, posted a statement on the Instagram stories portion of her account, after the news broke of her departure from the “Scream” franchisesparking outrage among fans.
“First and foremost I condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia. I condemn hate and prejudice of any kind against any group of people,” she wrote.
“As a Latina, a proud Mexicana, I feel the responsibility of having a platform that allows me the privilege of being heard, and therefore I have tried to use it to raise awareness about issues I care about and to lend my voice to those in need.
“Every person on this earth … deserves equal human rights, dignity and, of course, freedom. I believe a group of people are NOT their leadership, and that no governing body should be above criticism.
“I pray day and night for no more deaths, for no more violence, and for peaceful co-existence,” she concluded her statement. “I will continue to speak out for those that need it most and continue to advocate for peace and safety, for human rights and freedom. Silence is not an option for me.”
2023-11-24 08:50:02
Israel and Hamas are set to start a four-day truce on Friday morning with the Palestinian group releasing the first group of 13 Israeli women and child hostages later in the day, the first break in a war that has devastated the besieged Gaza enclave.
The truce is due to begin at 7am (0500 GMT) and involves a comprehensive ceasefire in north and south Gaza, followed by the release of some of the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas during their Oct. 7 attack inside Israel, mediators in Qatar said.
But fighting raged on in the hours leading up to the truce, with officials inside the enclave saying a hospital in Gaza City was among the targets bombed. Both sides also signalled the pause would be temporary before fighting resumed.
Additional aid would start flowing into Gaza and the first hostages including elderly women would be freed at 4pm (1400 GMT), with the total number rising to 50 over the four days, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in Doha.
Egypt said 130,000 litres of diesel and four trucks of gas will be delivered daily to Gaza when the truce starts, and that 200 trucks of aid would enter Gaza daily.
Palestinians were expected to be released from Israeli jails, the Qatari spokesperson told reporters. "We all hope that this truce will lead to a chance to start a wider work to achieve a permanent truce."
Hamas confirmed on its Telegram channel that all hostilities from its forces would cease.
But Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for Hamas' armed wing, later referred to "this temporary truce" in a video message that called for an "escalation of the confrontation with (Israel) on all resistance fronts", including the Israeli-occupied West Bank where violence has surged since the Gaza war erupted almost seven weeks ago.
Israel's military said its troops would stay behind a ceasefire line inside Gaza, without giving details of its position.
2023-11-23 23:25:18
Turkey plans to evacuate some wounded or sick Gazan children and young people on Friday as part of its third round of evacuation, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Thursday.
Speaking at Ankara's Esenboga airport, Koca said three sick Gazan children had been brought to Turkey on Thursday. He added that the children — a 2-year-old boy, as well as two girls aged 9 and 10 — would receive treatment in Turkey.
The third round of evacuations, consisting of a group of 50 people, has been delayed due to issues regarding permissions for their releases, the minister said, but added that those problems were now largely resolved and officials were working to complete the preparations.
"We expect the third evacuation to be tomorrow (Friday) and it will be an evacuation that will largely consist of children and young people," Koca told reporters.
"There are less cancer patients (in the group), but it will be an evacuation that mostly consists of wounded children and young people," he said, adding that none of the people in the list of 50 were in critical condition.
2023-11-23 22:06:37
The number of premature births has risen by almost a third in Israeli-besieged Gaza over the past month as mothers suffer growing stress and trauma, British charity Oxfam said on Thursday.
Juzoor, an Oxfam partner organisation that is supporting hundreds of pregnant women in Gaza, said the number of premature births had risen by 25-30% in the last month, attributing the rise to difficulties faced by mothers who have had to flee their homes due to bombardment and have suffered stress and trauma.
Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam's Middle East Regional Director, said some displaced mothers have had to give birth in crowded classrooms, without medical support or basic hygiene.
"I don't think there is anyone anywhere in the world that would disagree that is simply inhumane," she said.
2023-11-23 21:10:29
Tel Aviv confirms that a preliminary list of names has been received, said a statement released by the Israeli prime minister's office.
"The appointed officials check the details of the list and are in contact with all the families at these moments."
2023-11-23 20:28:37
A spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry Majed Al-Ansari told reporters in Doha that the truce would include a comprehensive ceasefire in both the north and south of the Gaza Strip. He said that Palestinians would also be released from Israeli jails as part of the deal.
The first group of hostages to be released would be 13 women and children, Ansari said
"If there were a group of hostages from the same family they will be released together in this first batch," he added, adding that a total of 50 hostages will be released over four days.
Ansari did not give details on how many Palestinian women and children would be released from Israeli jails on Friday or when this would take place. He said Doha expected they would be released by Israel as part of this reciprocal deal.
An operations room in Doha will monitor the truce and the release of hostages and has direct and real-time lines of communication with Israel, the Hamas political office in Doha and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), he added.
"The important thing is that we maintain a very clear line of communication with everybody through the operations room and make sure that the environment which the hostage transfer will happen will be a safe one," Ansari said.
"We all hope that this truce will lead to a chance to start a wider work to achieve a permanent truce," he said.
2023-11-23 19:49:51
Despite agreeing to a truce with Hamas, Israel continued to pound Gaza with more intensity in airstrikes on the besieged enclave ahead of the four-day armistice, Al Jazeera reported.
The two sides reached on Wednesday, a deal for a ceasefire to "allow humanitarian aid into Gaza" and release of hostages, which couldn't be achieved until Thursday as agreed.
The truce will finally begin on Friday morning,spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry said.
2023-11-23 19:24:37
A truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza will start on Friday at 7am, with the first batch of hostages to be released at 4pm, a spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Majed Al-Ansari told reporters in Doha the lists of all civilians that would be released from Gaza had been agreed.
2023-11-23 17:34:37
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares on Thursday said his country is in favour of a humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas "in the very short term".
"Our position with regards to Palestine and the Palestinian people is clear. We are in favour of a Palestinian State. In the very short term, what is truly urgent is for a humanitarian ceasefire to happen," Albares said in an interview with Spanish radio station RNE.
The existence of a Palestinian state "will be the best guarantee for peace in the Middle East", ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to Israel and the West Bank on Thursday.
He reiterated that Spain is ready to hold a peace conference on the conflict.
2023-11-23 16:06:01
2023-11-23 15:49:11
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud reaffirmed their commitment to preventing the further spread of the Israel-Palestinian conflict when they spoke on Wednesday, the State Department said.
Blinken also welcomed Saudi Arabia’s efforts to secure a durable peace agreement in Yemen, the State Department said.
2023-11-23 15:40:44
Ashraf al-Qudra, the Gaza health ministry's spokesman, said that the ministry has made the decision to no longer coordinate the evacuation of injured patients and medical personnel with the World Health Organisation.
He made these remarks following the detention of several physicians and the head of Al Shifa Hospital.
Al-Qudra added that Israeli soldiers used violence against medical staff and patients and that Israel and the UN should be held accountable for the detention of medical personnel.
2023-11-23 14:18:02
2023-11-23 13:39:04
The Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C), the Indonesian charity which funded the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, says the hospital has been completely evacuated and its volunteers moved to Rafah.
Previously, it was reported that the director-general of Gaza’s health ministry, who was inside the hospital, said that the Israeli army warned people in the facility to evacuate it in four hours.
“The Indonesia Hospital is now empty, and our volunteers have been moved to a school near the European Hospital in Rafah,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, the head of MER-C, told Al Jazeera.
“The doctors and the wounded were moved to the European Hospital. Our volunteers are sheltering at a school with thousands of others.”
2023-11-23 12:47:09
The Israeli army has arrested the director of Al Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported citing a doctor and media reports.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya was arrested along with several other “senior doctors”, Khalid Abu Samra, a department chief at the hospital, told the AFP news agency on Thursday.
The arrest was also reported by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority.
Al Shifa Hospital has been a major focus of Israel’s ground offensive in northern Gaza as Israel has alleged that Hamas fighters used a tunnel complex beneath the hospital to stage attacks.
Hamas and hospital officials have repeatedly denied the claims.
2023-11-23 12:23:29
Munir al-Bursh, the director-general of Gaza’s Health Ministry who is inside the Indonesian Hospital, has said that the Israeli army warned people in the facility to evacuate it in four hours.
Al-Bursh, while speaking to Al Jazeera, said the bombing continues around the hospital in northern Gaza from all sides.
He also said that there are 65 dead bodies inside theIndonesian Hospital that they cannot bury and about 200 patients left at the besieged medical facility after some 450 patients were evacuated yesterday.
Each ambulance is carrying up to seven people at a time, he added.
2023-11-23 10:25:00
The death toll of Palestinians since Oct 7 has climbed to 14,758 which includes6,000 children and4,000 women, Al Jazeera reported, citing the government media office in Gaza.
At least 35,000 are injured withover 75 per cent of them children and women.
Meanwhile, the latest death toll from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank is at least 226 including 51 children.More than 2,750 are injured.
On the Israeli side, the death toll stands at 1,200 with at least 5,600 injured.
2023-11-23 09:59:02
Students in Melbourne, Australia, have walked out of school to hold a protest in support of Palestine with a similar protest planned for Sydney on Friday, Al Jazeera reported.
A statement shared before the protest said that the students were calling for an immediate end to the war on Gaza, for Israel to leave Gaza and the West Bank and for an end to Australian military aid and support to Israel.
2023-11-23 08:26:58
The release of hostages under a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas will not happen before Friday, Israel's national security adviser said on Wednesday night.
Israel and Hamas agreed early on Wednesday to a ceasefire in Gaza for at least four days, to let in aid and free at least 50 hostages held by Hamas in the Palestinian enclave in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel.
The starting time of the truce and release of hostages had yet to be officially announced. An Egyptian security source said mediators sought a start time of 10am on Thursday.
Israel's public broadcaster Kan, citing an Israeli official, reported there was a 24-hour delay in the agreement because the deal was not signed by Hamas and mediator Qatar. The official said they were optimistic the agreement will be implemented when it is signed.
"Negotiations for the release of our captives are progressing and continue all the time," Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said in a statement released by the prime minister's office.
"The start of the release will proceed according to the original agreement between the parties, and not before Friday," Hanegbi said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no mention of a potential delay in implementation of the agreement during a press conference late on Wednesday. Hanegbi's statement was released about an hour after the press conference.
2023-11-22 23:41:14
Ismail al-Thawabta, director general of the government media office in Gaza, said Israel is still committing “crimes” against the Indonesian Hospital in the north, reported Al Jazeera.
Israeli forces are also still occupying Al Shifa Hospital, “turning it into military barracks, a mass grave and area of destruction and killing”, al-Thawabta told reporters.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated in an “unprecedented manner,” he said, as markets experienced a lack of basic necessities, while bakeries have “stopped operating completely”.
Al-Thawabta also called for the opening of the Rafah border crossing to allow for the entry of fuel, desperately needed by hospitals, as well as sewage and water networks.
2023-11-22 22:22:56
Defence for Children, a human rights group, has slammed Israel for its targeting, persecution and imprisonment of Palestinian children.
The watchdog has highlighted that Israeli forces detain, interrogate, persecute and imprison 500 to 700 Palestinian children — aged between 12 to 17 — each year.
"Imprisoning Palestinian children is business as usual for Israeli forces, who enjoy complete impunity for violating children’s rights. We welcome the release of Palestinian children & demand an end to the Israeli military detention system that has imprisoned children for decades," the rights group says.
2023-11-22 21:47:51
The head of the United Nations children's agency on Wednesday called the besieged Gaza Strip "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child," and said that the hard-won truce deal between Israel and Hamas was not enough to save their lives.
UNICEF's executive director Catherine Russell told the UN Security Council that over 5,300 children have reportedly been martyred in Gaza since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, accounting for 40% of the deaths.
"This is unprecedented," said Russell, who had just returned from a trip to southern Gaza. "I am haunted by what I saw and heard."
Russell welcomed a deal reached Wednesday by Israel and Hamas to free hostages and pause ferocious fighting and bombardment in Gaza.
2023-11-22 20:08:19
United Nations Secretary-GeneralAntonio Guterres Wednesday "welcomed" the hostage, ceasefire deal agreed upon between Israel and Hamas.
Taking to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Guterres said: "I welcome the agreement reached by Israel & Hamas. It‘s an important step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done."
The UN chief also said that the intergovernmental organisation will "mobilise all its capacities to support the implementation & maximize positive impact on the humanitarian situation in Gaza."
2023-11-22 19:29:10
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged leaders of the world's 20 big economies on Wednesday to do whatever is necessary to ensure the Israel-Hamas conflict does not expand into a wider conflict as insecurity and instability in West Asia are worrying.
He was speaking at the opening of a virtual summit of G20 nations, of which India holds the presidency before Brazil takes over next month.
Modi told G20 leaders that "new challenges have emerged" for the world in the past few months.
"The situation of insecurity and instability in the West Asian region is a matter of concern for all of us," Modi said. "It is necessary to ensure that the Israel-Hamas conflict does not become any form of a regional conflict.
"We believe that terrorism is unacceptable to all of us," he continued. "Deaths of civilians anywhere is condemnable. It is important that humanitarian aid should reach in time and is uninterrupted."
2023-11-22 19:25:11
More than 50 members of the same family have been killed in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza during Israel's military campaign there, the Palestinian foreign minister said on Wednesday.
"Only this morning, from the Qadoura family in Jabalia, 52 people have been wiped out completely, killed," Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on the sidelines of a briefing by Arab and Muslim foreign ministers in London.
"I have the list of the names, 52 of them, they were wiped out completely from grandfather to grandchildren."
2023-11-22 18:33:34
Hamas political bureau member Mousa Abu Marzouk said in an interview with Al Jazeera that "the whole world is seeking a ceasefire except the US".
"We seek a permanent ceasefire and are ready for a comprehensive prisoner swap," the Hamas official said, adding that the resistance group is ready to deal with all situations imposed by Israel.
He further stated that there are no guarantees that Israel will not target the Palestinians who will be released from the prisons.
2023-11-22 18:11:49
Hamas political bureau member Mousa Abu Marzouk said that the truce agreed between the resistance group and Israel is expected to start at 10am (01:00 pm PST)) on Thursday, Al Jazeera reported.
Marzouk said the pause in fighting would cover “all regions the of Gaza Strip”, adding that “there will be no warplanes or air traffic in Gaza from 10am to 4pm”.
2023-11-22 18:05:31
Celtic have been fined 15,200 pounds ($19,000) after their fans waved Palestinian flags during their Champions League match against Atletico Madrid last month in Glasgow, UEFA said on Wednesday.
The flags, which numbered in the hundreds, were deemed to be "provocative messages of an offensive nature", UEFA said in a statement.
Fans, who had been warned by the Scottish club not to display flags before the October 25 game, could be heard singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" while holding the Palestinian flags in a video shared widely on Instagram.
Supporters also unfurled two large banners at Celtic Park that read "Free Palestine" and "Victory to the Resistance".
2023-11-22 16:35:43
Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Ahmed al-Kahlout told Al Jazeera that the situation around the medical facility was “catastrophic”.
“Shelling and bombardment are increasing everywhere in the vicinity of the hospital,” he told the Qatar-based media outlet.
“A lot of buildings have been badly affected. We need to keep in mind this hospital is now only one operating hospital from Wadi Gaza till the northern Gaza,” he said.
The medical facility’s director said that his hospital received over 60 dead and around 1,000 people with injuries since last night.
“The medical teams are very tired. We don’t have a single drop of fuel. We work in the dark using handheld searchlights,” he added.
Moreover, al-Kahlout said non-surgery practising doctors were forced to perform c-sections on pregnant women and amputate limbs due to a lack of surgeons.
2023-11-22 16:00:04
Pope Francis met separately with Israeli relatives of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians with family in Gaza and said the conflict had gone beyond war to become "terrorism".
Speaking in unscripted remarks at his Wednesday general audience in St Peter's Square shortly after the early morning meetings in his residence, Francis said he heard directly how "both sides are suffering" in the conflict.
"This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism," he said.
He asked for prayers so that both sides would "not go ahead with passions, which in the end, kill everyone".
Both groups were holding separate news conferences later on Wednesday.
The meetings and the pope's comments came hours after Israel's government and Hamas agreed to silence the guns in Gaza for at least four days, allow in aid and release at least 50 hostages in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel.
2023-11-22 14:46:40
About 14 ambulances have arrived at Gaza's Al Shifa hospital to evacuate the patients, said the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), BBC reported.
Hundreds of people have been evacuated from the medical complex so far. However, there are 300critically ill remaining inside.
2023-11-22 14:42:11
2023-11-22 14:35:47
The Kremlin on Wednesday hailed a ceasefire agreement in Gaza as the "first good news for a long time" in the Israel-Palestinian conflict and said humanitarian pauses were the only way to build efforts for a sustainable settlement.
Israel's government and Hamas agreed earlier to a ceasefire in Gaza for at least four days, to allow in aid and release at least 50 hostages in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians captured in Israel.
2023-11-22 14:06:46
2023-11-22 13:03:53
Jordan said on Wednesday it hoped the Gaza truce would be a step that would end the war in Gaza and prevent the targeting of Palestinians and their displacement from their land.
In a statement on state media, the foreign ministry said it hoped the four-day pause in fighting agreed between the Israel's government and Hamas will allow much-needed humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
2023-11-22 12:03:02
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed on Wednesday the foreign-mediated humanitarian deal between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip and called for wider solutions to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Abbas' administration, based in the occupied West Bank, "appreciate(s) the Qatari-Egyptian (mediation) effort", wants an extended truce with Israel and "the implementation of a political solution based on international legitimacy," a social media post by senior Palestinian aide Hussein Al-Sheikh said.
2023-11-22 11:02:00
2023-11-22 11:00:26
Russia "welcomes" a humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that was announced on Wednesday, according to Moscow's foreign ministry.
"Moscow welcomes the agreement between Israel and Hamas on a four-day humanitarian pause," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a post on Telegram.
2023-11-22 09:43:12
2023-11-22 09:28:52
2023-11-22 08:55:03
South African lawmakers voted in favour of closing down the Israeli embassy in Pretoria and suspending all diplomatic relations until a ceasefire is agreed in its war with Hamas in Gaza.
The resolution is largely symbolic as it will be up to President Cyril Ramaphosa's government whether to implement it; a presidency spokesperson said Ramaphosa "notes and appreciates" parliament's guidance on South Africa's diplomatic relations with Israel, particularly on the status of the embassy.
"The president and cabinet are engaged over the matter, which remains the responsibility of the national executive," Vincent Magwenya said.
Ramaphosa and senior foreign ministry officials have been vocally critical of Israel's leadership during its devastating military campaign against Hamas in the densely populated Gaza Strip, calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate them for potential war crimes.
2023-11-22 08:41:51
The US State Department rejected Saudi Arabia's calls to stop providing Israel withammunition and arms, saying that it was not ready to take this step.
"In fact,we have a supplemental request pending before Congress that we hope Congress will act on expeditiously, which provides additional assistance to Israel as well as additional assistance to Ukraine," said the State Department.
2023-11-22 08:21:14
Israel's government and Hamas on Wednesday agreed to a four-day pause in fighting to allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
Officials from Qatar, which has been mediating negotiations, as well as the US, Israel and Hamas have for days been saying a deal was imminent.
Hamas is believed to be holding more than 200 hostages, taken when its fighters surged into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
A statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office said 50 women and children will be released over four days, during which there will be a pause in fighting.
For every additional 10 hostages released, the pause would be extended by another day, it said, without mentioning the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
"Israel's government is committed to return all the hostages home. Tonight, it approved the proposed deal as a first stage to achieving this goal," said the statement, released after hours of deliberation that were closed to the press.
Hamas said the 50 hostages would be released in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children who are held in Israeli jails. The truce deal will also allow hundreds of trucks of humanitarian, medical and fuel aid to enter Gaza, Hamas said.
Israel had committed not to attack or arrest anyone in all parts of Gaza during the truce period, it added.
The accord is the first truce of a war in which Israeli bombardments have flattened swathes of Hamas-ruled Gaza, killed 13,300 civilians in the tiny densely populated enclave and left about two-thirds of its 2.3 million people homeless, according to authorities in Gaza.
2023-11-21 23:53:55
With the death toll in Israeli aggression on Gaza surpassing the 14,000 mark — including around 6,000 children — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned his war cabinet amid growing signs of an imminent deal on the release of hostages.
"We are making progress. I don't think it's worth saying too much, not at even this moment, but I hope there will be good news soon," Netanyahu told reservists without providing further details.
Two far-right members of Netanyahu's government said they would vote against the deal when the full cabinet meets at 8pm (1800 GMT), though they were not expected to tip the vote.
2023-11-21 22:16:38
South African lawmakers voted on Tuesday in favour of closing down the Israeli embassy in Pretoria and suspending all diplomatic relations until a ceasefire is agreed in its war with Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza.
The resolution is largely symbolic as it will be up to President Cyril Ramaphosa's government whether to implement it; a presidency spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
But Ramaphosa and senior foreign ministry officials have been vocally critical of Israel's leadership during its devastating military campaign against Hamas in the densely populated Gaza Strip, calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate them for potential war crimes.
On Monday, the Israeli ambassador in Pretoria was recalled to Tel Aviv for consultations ahead of the vote, which on Tuesday was resoundingly adopted by a 248-91 margin.
2023-11-21 22:15:17
Gaza´s Hamas government said Tuesday the death toll in the Palestinian territory had reached 14,128 since war began on October 7 between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters.
The Hamas government said 5,840 children and 3,920 women were among the dead, with another 33,000 people wounded.
Its health ministry has previously said it can no longer give exact tolls as intense fighting has prevented bodies from being recovered.
2023-11-21 22:05:36
US President Joe Biden on Tuesday said a deal is "very close" to free some of the more than 200 hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.
"My team is in the region shuttling between capitals. We're now very close, very close, to bringing some of these hostages home very soon. But I don't want to get into the details because nothing is done until it's done," Biden told reporters ahead of a White House event about tackling fentanyl trafficking.
"When we have more to say we will," he added.
Biden's optimism echoed similar comments coming from the Middle East. The leader of Hamas on Tuesday said a truce agreement with Israel was close, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped for good news soon about hostages, the most optimistic signals so far of a deal to pause fighting and free captives.
2023-11-21 20:59:16
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Tuesday for a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said regional states and members of the BRICS group of countries could be involved in efforts to reach such a settlement.
In televised comments to a virtual BRICS summit, Putin once again blamed the Middle East crisis on the failure of US diplomacy in the region.
"We call for the joint efforts of the international community aimed at de-escalating the situation, a ceasefire and finding a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And the BRICS states and countries of the region could play a key role in this work," Putin said.
2023-11-21 20:56:35
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday urged all parties in the Gaza conflict to immediately cease fire, end all attacks against civilians, and release civilian detainees to avoid more loss of lives and suffering, according to Chinese state media.
It is also important to ensure the safe and smooth passage of humanitarian relief, expand humanitarian aid to people in Gaza, and stop the forced relocation and the cut-off of water, electricity, and oil that targets people in Gaza, Xi said at a virtual BRICS leaders summit.
2023-11-21 19:41:43
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for an "international peace conference" to resolve the conflict between Israel and Hamas, as he addressed a virtual summit of fellow BRICS leaders.
"There can be no sustainable peace and security in the Middle East without a just solution to the question of Palestine," Xi said, speaking through an interpreter.
"China calls for an early convening of an international peace conference that is more authoritative to build international consensus for peace," he said.
Such a conference would, Xi added, "work toward an early solution to the question of Palestine that is comprehensive, just and sustainable".
"Since the outbreak of the latest Palestinian-Israeli conflict, China has been working actively to promote peace talks and a ceasefire," he said.
Beijing, he said, "has provided humanitarian assistance to help ease the humanitarian plight in Gaza" and would continue to do so.
2023-11-21 19:24:27
Saudi Arabia demands the start of a serious and comprehensive peace process to establish a Palestinian state along the borders of 1967, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a virtual summit of the BRICS group on Tuesday.
"The Kingdom's position is constant and firm; there is no way to achieve security and stability in Palestine except through the implementation of international decisions related to the two-state solution," Prince Mohammed said.
Riyadh was invited to join the BRICS bloc earlier this year.
2023-11-21 19:20:31
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has called on all the countries to stop exporting weapons to Israel at a virtual summit of the BRICS group on Tuesday.
2023-11-21 18:48:39
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that "we are making progress" on the return of hostages Hamas seized during the October 7 attacks, after mediators said a truce deal was in sight.
"I hope there will be good news soon," Netanyahu told Israeli soldiers at a military base in the north of the country.
2023-11-21 18:16:02
Four civlians including two journalistswere killed in an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon, AFP reported quoting Lebanese state media.
"The deaths of three citizens — two journalists and another civilian — in enemy bombing" of the Tair Harfa area," the state-run National News Agency (NNA) said.
The deceased journalists have been identified asAl-Mayadeen television correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime MinisterNajib Mikati has condemned the Israeli attack terming it as an "attempt to silence the media".
2023-11-21 17:37:59
The European Union faces growing animosity across the Muslim world and beyond due to accusations of pro-Israel bias and double standards over the war in Gaza, the bloc's foreign policy chief has warned.
Josep Borrell said he feared such acrimony could undermine diplomatic support for Ukraine in the Global South and the EU's ability to insist on human rights clauses in international agreements.
He said the EU had to show "more empathy" for the loss of Palestinian civilian lives in Israel's war against Hamas, launched in response to the October 7 assault by the Palestinian group.
His comments came in interviews with Reuters during a five-day Middle East trip that took him to the rubble of Kibbutz Be'eri devastated by Hamas, the West Bank, a regional security conference in Bahrain, and royal audiences in Qatar and Jordan.
On the trip, which ended on Monday evening, Borrell heard Arab leaders and Palestinian civil society activists complain that the 27-nation EU was not applying the same standards to Israel's war in Gaza that it applies to Russia's war in Ukraine.
"All of them were really criticising the posture of the European Union as one-sided," Borrell said.
2023-11-21 16:41:26
A World Health Organisation spokesperson said on Tuesday that three hospitals in Israeli-besieged Gaza had requested help with evacuating patients and that planning had started.
WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said evacuations were a last resort. "It's robbing the entire population of the north of the means to seek health (care)," he told a Geneva press briefing.
The three hospitals were Al Shifa, from which a group of babies has already been rescued, Indonesian Hospital and Al Ahli Hospital, he said. "So far it's only in planning stages with no further details," he added.
2023-11-21 15:54:04
Fuel shortages and the worsening sanitation situation in the Gaza Strip are shaping up to be the perfect storm for tragedy through the spread of disease, the United Nations warned Tuesday.
"Without enough fuel, we will see the collapse of sanitation services. So we have then, on top of the mortars and the bombs, a perfect storm for the spread of disease. It's a perfect storm for tragedy," UNICEF spokesman James Elder told a press briefing in Geneva.
2023-11-21 13:42:09
Toby Fricker of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has said that the organisation would be in favour of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that would permit the rescue of hostages, BBC reported.
One Hamas official told Al Jazeera that although specifics of the claimed agreement are currently unclear, discussions have focused on a hostage and prisoner swap, assistance delivery into Gaza, and the length of the accord.
Speaking from Amman, Jordan, Fricker told BBC: "If there's an immediate humanitarian ceasefire which Unicef and many others have been calling for, then yes, then we need to bring in the supplies as quickly as we can and to get them to shelters, to get them to people wherever they are inside the Gaza Strip, wherever they are in need, which is pretty much everywhere.
Fricker said the aid would be vital in terms of saving lives and preventing "another catastrophe" in terms of the outbreak of diseases over winter.
2023-11-21 12:21:18
Tuesday morning in the Gaza Strip started out with bloody Israeli attacks with several air strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp where Israeli forces targeted two houses on Monday, killing about 20 Palestinians and wounding a number of others
The airstrikes carried on northward, with an additional attack on a UN school in Al Falouja and bombardment of three buildings in the Jabalia refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel is stepping up its bombing of the area around the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.
2023-11-21 11:10:52
Josep Borrell, the EU's head of foreign policy, has come under fire after refusing to refer to Israel's conduct in Gaza as "war crimes" in an interview with Al Jazeera, while immediately labelling Hamas as such.
2023-11-21 11:02:58
2023-11-21 10:43:04
A communications blackout is being reported in Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera, after Israeli forces allegedly struck telecom towers in the area.
Many parts of the besieged enclave are already cut off from the rest of the territory due to lack of fuel and electricity, with telephone lines and internet already cut off.
2023-11-21 09:15:01
Indonesia’s foreign ministry on Monday said that it has not been able to contact three Indonesian students volunteering at the Indonesian Hospital, Al Jazeera reported.
Farid Zanzabil Al Ayubi, Reza Aldilla Kurniawan and Fikri Rofiul Haq had been helping at the hospital, which was built with donations from the Southeast Asian nation and came under Israeli attack on Monday.
Nur Ikhwan Abadi, the site manager of the hospital with the Indonesian charity the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C), returned to Indonesia before the war broke out.
He toldAl Jazeera: “They are good boys. Farid has memorised several juz [parts] of the Quran, while Reza and Fikri have memorised all 30 juz.
“In addition to being humanitarian volunteers, they wanted to go to Gaza to study at the Gaza Islamic University and all three of them received scholarships to study there.
“Reza went to Gaza in 2013 and has graduated from college, while Farid and Fikri went to Gaza in 2019 and were still studying when this happened.
“We have been trying to contact them all day through journalists at the hospital but can’t get through to anyone.”
2023-11-21 08:52:14
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Tuesday his movement was nearing a truce agreement with Israel, according to a statement posted on Telegram.
"We are close to reaching a deal on a truce," Haniyeh said, according to the post.
Negotiators have been working to seal a deal to allow the release of around 240 mostly Israeli hostages seized on Oct 7, during the deadliest assault on Israel in its history.
Intense negotiations mediated by Qatar, where Hamas has a political office and where Haniyeh is based, have been underway.
Qatar's prime minister said Sunday that a deal to free some of the hostages in return for a temporary ceasefire hinged on "minor" practical issues.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden said he believed a deal to free the hostages was close. Biden then crossed his fingers to signal he hoped for good luck.
Two sources familiar with the talks told AFP a tentative deal includes a five-day truce, comprised of a ceasefire on the ground and limits to Israeli air operations over southern Gaza.
In return, between 50 and 100 prisoners held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be released including Israeli civilians and captives of other nationalities, but no military personnel.
Under the proposed deal, some 300 Palestinians would be released from Israeli jails, among them women and children.
The White House said the negotiations were in the "endgame" stage, but refused to give further details, saying it could jeopardise a successful outcome.
Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Monday that its president had travelled to Qatar to meet Hamas' Haniyeh "to advance humanitarian issues related to the armed conflict in Israel and Gaza".
In a statement, the ICRC said it was continuing "to appeal for the urgent protection of all victims in the conflict, and for the alleviation of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip".
It also said it had "persistently called for the immediate release of hostages".
2023-11-20 23:44:59
The head of the World Health Organisation said on Monday on social media platform X that 12 of the premature babies rescued from Gaza's Al Shifah hospital had been flown to Cairo.
Medics transferred 28 premature babies across Gaza's border with Egypt earlier on Monday after being rescued from a hospital in the northern part of the enclave, which has been the main focus of Israeli bombardments.
2023-11-20 22:58:49
At least 13,300 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza since Oct 7, according to a statement published by Gaza's Hamas-run government media office on Monday.
The death toll includes 5,600 children and 3,550 women, the statement said, adding that at least 6,500 people have been reported as missing, 4,400 of whom are women and children.
2023-11-20 22:20:36
Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in a virtual summit of the BRICS group of nations on Tuesday to discuss the Israeli aggression on Gaza, confirmed the Kremlin.
The meeting will be chaired by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
"On November 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate in an extraordinary BRICS summit (via videoconference) to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," the Kremlin said, without providing further details.
In addition to Russia, the BRICS group includes Brazil, India, China and South Africa.
South Africa said United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres would also take part in the virtual meeting, and that it was expected to end with a joint statement.
Russia has maintained historically close ties with both Israel and the Palestinians, and Putin has said Russia could play a mediating role.
2023-11-20 20:52:36
2023-11-20 20:57:48
Responding to a question by Al Jazeera, Antonio Guterres has decried the loss of thousands of civilian lives in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
The UN boss said it is “clear” that thousands of children have been killed in just a few weeks.
“This is what matters,” he said at the press briefing held at the UN.
“We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I am secretary general.”
Guterres’s first five-year term began in January 2017.
Some 13,000 people, including at least 5,500 children, have been martyred in Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to officials in the besieged territory.
2023-11-20 19:58:58
The death toll from an Israeli airstrike on an Indonesian hospital in Gaza has risen to 12, reported AFP.
The martyred includewounded patients and their attendants, Gaza's health ministry spokespersonAshraf al Qudra said adding that the emergency services have not been able to recover the dead bodies so far.
2023-11-20 18:35:02
Qatar's prime minister said the main sticking points blocking a deal for the release of dozens of hostages taken by Palestinian group Hamas in their October 7 attack on Israel were mainly practical and logistical issues.
Speaking at a joint press conference with European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Doha, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said talks were going through "ups and downs" but said he was confident the captives would be returned soon and a deal was close
2023-11-20 18:26:27
Caretaker Prime Minister said there was a “children’s holocaust in Gaza” as Israel continues to attack hospitals, schools, and shelters where Palestinians are seeking protection from the battle.
“We are witnessing the children holocaust in Gaza; this must be stopped immediately,” he added.
He maintained that the Israeli armed forces had become pigmies in the eyes of the people around the world who were killing defenceless people and children, instead of fighting with a professional army.
“It has become an issue of all mankind that goes beyond any religion,” he said, adding the world was condemning the Israeli atrocities over the defenceless people of Gaza and the West Bank.
“We are doing our utmost endeavours to cease violence in Gaza at the platform of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).”
2023-11-20 18:27:15
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday that three prematurely born babies from a bigger group evacuated into Egypt on Monday had been left behind in a hospital in southern Gaza to receive further treatment.
"The 28 babies have now safely arrived in Egypt. Three babies still remain at the Emarati Hospital and continue to receive treatment," a WHO spokesperson said in an emailed response to Reuters.
Asked about the babies' condition, he said: "All babies are fighting serious infections and continue needing health care."
2023-11-20 17:46:20
UK-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International has called for an investigation into two "indiscriminate" Israeli attacks on innocent civilians in Gaza as "war crimes", Al Jazeera reported.
Last month, as many as 46 Palestinians were killed in two Israeli airstrikes which targeted SaintPorphyrius church and a home inNuseirat refugee on October 19 and 20, respectively.
The watchdog has urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to take "immediate concrete action" to ensure a speedy investigation into Israeli war crimes.
“These deadly, unlawful attacks are part of a documented pattern of disregard for Palestinian civilians, and demonstrate the devastating impact of the Israeli military’s unprecedented onslaught has left nowhere safe in Gaza, regardless of where civilians live or seek shelter," Amnesty'sDirector of Global Research Erika Guevara-Rosas said.
2023-11-20 17:27:08
Amid a worsening humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip, a Jordanian field hospital is set to ease the suffering of the residents who are facing a severe shortage of medical and health supplies due to Israeli blockade and bombardment which has had a disastrous effect on the beleaguered territory's health infrastructure.
The field hospital will be established in Khan Younis and will attend to the wounded and sick who have no place to go as 21 out of the total 35 hospitals in Gaza are "out of service" due to the ongoing Israeli offensive, Al Jazeera reported quoting DG Gaza hospitals Mohammed Zaqout.
2023-11-20 15:44:52
The continuous rain in Gaza has worsened the humanitarian situation for civilians, especially for those who have been forced to flee. The rain is also expected to continue with a noticeable temperature drop in the coming weeks, Al Jazeera reported.
Additionally, as a result of the rain in the Gaza Strip, disrupted sewage system and water shortages have given rise to concerns about bacterial diseases and diarrhoea, especially among children.
About two-thirds of people in the south fled their houses and could not take essential items to protect themselves from the cold or the rain.
2023-11-20 13:41:26
2023-11-20 13:02:22
Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra has provided Al Jazeera with these updates on the latest developments:
2023-11-20 11:56:56
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Monday the world must "act urgently" to calm the Israel-Hamas war as he hosted diplomats from Arab and Muslim-majority nations in Beijing.
A delegation of foreign ministers of the Palestinian Authority, Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are in Beijing this week for talks aimed at a "de-escalation" of the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
"Let us work together to quickly cool down the situation in Gaza and restore peace in the Middle East as soon as possible," Wang told ministers at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in the Chinese capital.
"A humanitarian disaster is unfolding in Gaza," Wang told the delegates, including the secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
"The situation in Gaza affects all countries around the world, questioning the human sense of right and wrong and humanity's bottom line," he said.
"The international community must act urgently, taking effective measures to prevent this tragedy from spreading," Beijing's top diplomat added.
2023-11-20 09:29:51
The Israeli army on Sunday claimed to have discovered a 55-metre-long (180 ft), 10-metre-deep (32 ft) tunnel under Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, the largest medical facility in the country, which has been under Israeli siege for several days.
The army published a video on its official Telegram channel showing a soldier lowering himself into the tunnel. The footage was shot with two separate cameras on November 17, it said.
However,Mounir el-Boursh, the Gaza health ministry director, dismissed the Israeli statement as a “pure lie”.
“They have been at the hospital for eight days … and yet they haven’t found anything,” he told Al Jazeera.
Israel has made al-Shifa Hospital a focal point of its operations since the army entered it on Wednesday, claiming it harbours a Hamas command centre — a claim Hamas as well as staff working at the hospital have denied.
“It’s probably one out of dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of tunnels. We all know there are tunnels in Gaza,” Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said.
2023-11-20 11:09:10
2023-11-20 10:41:15
Arab and Muslim ministers called on Monday for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as their delegation visited Beijing on the first leg of a tour to push for an end to hostilities and to allow humanitarian aid into the devastated Palestinian enclave.
The delegation, which is set to meet officials representing each of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, is also piling pressure on the West to reject Israel's justification of its actions against Palestinians as self-defence.
The officials holding meetings with China's top diplomat Wang Yi on Monday are from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, Palestine and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, among others.
"We are here to send a clear signal: that is we must immediately stop the fighting and the killings, we must immediately deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza," said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.
The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh this month also urged the International Criminal Court to investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing" in the Palestinian territories.
Saudi Arabia has sought to press the United States and Israel for an end to hostilities in Gaza, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, gathered Arab and Muslim leaders to reinforce that message.
2023-11-20 10:28:41
At least eight people were killed while two doctors were injured amid repeated Israeli air strikes on the Indonesian Hospital, which is one of northern Gaza’s largest hospitals.
Staff at the hospital are appealing for urgent help from the UN and the Red Cross after Israeli forces surrounded the medical facility and bombarded the area.
The medical team revealed that the hospital was targeted overnight without prior warning, Al Jazeera reported.
Earlier, Al Jazeera's correspondent, Safwat Kahlout, while citing witnesses, reported that "it looks like the Israeli forces are going to repeat what happened at Al Shifa Hospital. It looks like there will be an attempt to storm the Indonesian Hospital."
The hospital's power has been shut after its generator was hit by a strike, forcing its medics to operate on patients while using the flashlight from mobile phones, even as the bombardment continued.
Additionally, Wafa reported that Israeli artillery fire damaged the second floor of the hospital.
Aside from the estimated 150 wounded patients being treated at the hospital and about 100 medical workers, thousands of Palestinians are also sheltering at the hospital after being displaced by Israeli bombardments.
2023-11-20 10:18:16
2023-11-20 09:05:57
A video clip posted by Al Jazeera Arabic on X, formerly known as Twitter, shows a huge fire erupting near Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital as a string of loud explosions are heard in the background.
According to the post, Israeli forces have surrounded the Indonesian Hospital and continue to bombard the vicinity of the hospital, which has already gone out of service but is still housing Palestinians who have fled their homes.
Al Jazeera's correspondent, Safwat Kahlout, while citing witnesses, reported that "it looks like the Israeli forces are going to repeat what happened at Al Shifa Hospital. It looks like there will be an attempt to storm the Indonesian Hospital."
2023-11-20 09:03:30
Israel has accused Hamas of killing captive Noa Marciano inside Gaza’s largest hospital, rejecting Hamas' claims that suggest she died in an Israeli air strike.
Israel military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Sunday that “solid intelligence information” showed the 19-year-old army conscript was taken by Hamas to Al Shifa Hospital and killed inside the facility, Al Jazeera reported.
“There, she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist,” Hagari said.
Hagari added that although a pathology report determined that Marciano was injured in an Israeli strike, she was not hurt “in a life-threatening way”.
However, Hamas last week said that Marciano had been killed in an Israeli air strike and released a video appearing to show her corpse with no visible marks apart from a head wound.
While Hamas has previously stated that it has taken some hostages to hospitals for medical attention, it did not immediately respond to Hagari's remarks.
An Israeli claim that the organisation had a Thai and Nepalese person captive in Al Shifa Hospital was earlier dismissed by Hamas as "misleading and false."
CCTV video released by the Israeli military appeared to show a group of men frog-marching a man into a hospital, surprising medical staff.
2023-11-20 08:36:23
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday met with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and condemned the violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the House of Representatives.
President Macron also spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling him that there were “too many civilian losses” in Israel’s war in Gaza.
Macron reminded Netanyahu of the “absolute necessity to distinguish terrorists from the population”, the French presidency said, according to Al Jazeera.
2023-11-20 08:26:45
2023-11-20 00:18:28
Hamas gunmen battled Israeli forces trying to push into Gaza's largest refugee camp on Sunday, but despite the fighting US and Israeli officials said a deal to free some of the hostages being held in the besieged enclave was edging closer.
About 240 hostages were taken during Hamas's deadly cross-border rampage into Israel on Oct 7.
Israeli tanks and troops stormed into Gaza late last month and have since wrested control of large areas of the north and northwest and east around Gaza City, the military says.
But Hamas and local witnesses say fighters are waging guerrilla-style war in pockets of the densely urbanised north, including parts of Gaza City and the sprawling Jabalia and Beach refugee camps.
Even as fighting raged on the ground, Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" that Israel was hopeful a significant number of hostages could be released by Hamas "in coming days".
Reuters reported on Nov 15 that Qatari mediators had been seeking a deal between Israel and Hamas to exchange 50 hostages in return for a three-day ceasefire that would help boost emergency aid shipments to Gaza civilians, citing an official briefed on the talks.
2023-11-19 23:56:56
With the country roughly a year away from the 2024 elections, US President Joe Biden, who has been facing growing criticism over his pro-Israel stance, has suffered another blow as his approval ratings have stooped down to 40% — the lowest level during his four-year term so far.
According to the latest national poll conducted by NBC, almost half of the US voters now disapprove of Biden's handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
2023-11-19 23:31:21
Amid an already crumbling health infrastructure, Israeli forces raided the surgical ward at Gaza's Al Shifa hospital on Sunday.
During their stay at the facility, the Israeli troops "interrogated" hospital staff and also arrested a patient, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-11-19 23:04:26
The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip on Sunday said 41 members of one family were martyred in an Israeli strike on their home in Gaza City.
The ministry released a list of names of 41 members of the Malka family it said were left dead by the strike at dawn in the city´s Zeytoun district.
Fierce fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters occurred in the neighbourhood in the morning, according to an AFP journalist.
2023-11-19 22:54:13
At least 13,000 Palestinians have been martyred and 30,000 injured in Gaza since the conflict between Israel and Hamas started on Oct 7, Gaza's government media office said on Sunday.
At least 5,500 of the dead are children and 3,500 are women, the statement added.
2023-11-19 20:18:25
In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that Yemen's Houthis "seized" an India-bound cargo ship in the Read Sea on Sunday.
The concerned ship is a British-owned vessel and was being operated by a Japanese firm, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has denied Israeli ownership of the vessel highlighting that no Israelis were on board the ship.
"There were no Israelis on the ship," the statement from the Israeli PM office said.
The development comes as last week, the Houthis warned that the group would make further attacks on Israel and they could target Israeli ships in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
2023-11-19 18:55:43
Three more Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday, AFP reported quoting Israeli military.
According to the Israeli army, the soldiers were reservists and were killed on Saturday in northern Gaza.
So far, 62 Israeli soldiers have died in the ongoing conflict against the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
2023-11-19 18:41:30
A top health official in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said Sunday all 31 premature babies at Al-Shifa hospital had been evacuated from the facility which the WHO has described as a "death zone".
Mohammed Zaqut, director general of hospitals in Gaza, told AFP"all 31 premature babies in Al Shifa hospital.. have been evacuated" along with three doctors and two nurses, and "preparations are underway" for them to enter Egypt.
2023-11-19 18:20:35
A recent report from Haaretz newspaper revealed that amid the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, an Israeli military helicopter hit festival participants while engaging Palestinian fighters.
The Israeli security assessment, based on an investigation by police with arrested Hamas gunmen, suggested that the attackers had no prior information about the festival held near Kibbutz Re'im, close to the Gaza border.
During the attack, Israeli forces encountered difficulty identifying Hamas fighters, prompting helicopter pilots to use artillery against festival participants.
The report indicates that Hamas instructed its fighters to blend in with the crowd, attempting to deceive the air force into believing they were Israelis.
Read more here
2023-11-19 15:57:15
DOHA: Qatar's prime minister said on Sunday the main sticking points blocking a deal for the release of dozens of hostages taken by Palestinian group Hamas in their Oct 7 attack on Israel were now "very minor" and mainly practical and logistical issues.
It followed a report in the Washington Post published on Saturday that said a deal for the release of 50 hostages had been agreed. The White House denied an agreement was reached.
Reuters said on Nov 15 that Qatari mediators had been seeking a deal between Israel and Hamas to exchange 50 hostages in return for a three-day ceasefire, citing an official briefed on the talks. At the time, the official said general outlines had been agreed but Israel had still been negotiating details.
"The challenges facing the agreement are just practical and logistical," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said at a joint press conference with European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Doha.
"The deal is going through ups and downs from time to time throughout the last few weeks. But I think that you know I'm now more confident that we are close enough to reach a deal that can bring the people safely back to their home."
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no deal had been reached yet.
"The efforts are still ongoing ... and we communicate with both parties, whether it's with the Israelis or with Hamas, and we see there is a good progress especially happened in the last few days," said Sheikh Mohammed.
2023-11-19 15:07:23
The circumstances in the north and south of the area are similar as Israel continues to bombard the Gaza Strip's southern regions, according to Al Jazeera.
In two different strikes that occurred at the Nuseirat refugee camp and another refugee camp, some 31 Palestinians were murdered. Among the victims are two journalists as well.
In Khan Younis, residential buildings have also been completely demolished. Two Palestinians lost their lives in the most recent incident at the European hospital, while multiple more were injured.
Most of the Palestinians who have been advised to evacuate from the north to the south have come to regard the south of Gaza as a safe haven.
2023-11-19 14:37:56
A spokesman for Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi military, Yahya Sarea, said on Sunday the group will target all ships owned or operated by Israeli companies or carrying the Israeli flag, according to the group's Telegram channel.
The spokesman called on all countries to withdraw their citizens working on the crews of any such ships.
2023-11-19 13:51:32
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to defend his decision to permit two fuel tankers per day to enter Gaza to other ministers during a protracted cabinet meeting, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority reports.
According to Netanyahu, if Israel had not taken this action, it would "lost international legitimacy" to carry out its military operations inside the Gaza Strip and may have been accused of committing "war crimes," sources told the Israeli media.
The clarification was made in response to outrage from members of his far-right coalition over the news that Israel had consented to keep the valuable material inside the enclave in spite of a dire humanitarian situation, the rapid spread of illnesses, and a UN warning that the civilian population was at risk of starvation, Al Jazeera reported.
Those opposing fuel inside the enclave claimed that it would have provided a lifeline for Hamas, instead of being used for humanitarian purposes.
2023-11-19 12:09:26
In Joe Biden's Wahington Post op-ed that was published on Saturday, the president did not only argue that his administration is attempting to implement its policy in an effort to end the conflict in Gaza, but also that the US continues to view Ukraine's battle against Russia as critically important, Al Jazeera reported.
The content of this op-ed is notable since Biden stated that in order for the war to end, Hamas must release its prisoners and hand over the leaders of the Oct 7 attack so that they can be held accountable for the attack.
While reiterating a two-state solution to the conflict, he also stated that there must be a separate, independent Palestinian state.
Additionally, Biden said he is alarmed by the ongoing settler violence in the occupied West Bank and that the Biden administration is prepared to impose visa bans on those people who are attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
2023-11-19 11:49:35
Fifteen Palestinians were killed early on Sunday in Israeli air bombardments of the central and southern Gaza strip, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Thirteen people were killed in an attack on a home in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, while a woman and her child were killed in southern Khan Younis city, Wafa said.
2023-11-19 11:13:33
Hamas fighters who killed hundreds at a music festival in Israel on Oct 7 likely didn't know about the event in advance and targeted it on the spot, according to Israeli media.
Palestinian fighters had initially planned to attack nearby kibbutz Re'im and other villages near the Gaza border but discovered the festival through drones and the air as they parachuted into Israel, Al Jazeera reported citing an Israeli police report into the attack, received by Israel's Channel 12.
Some 4,400 people had reportedly been at the event on Oct 7 when Hamas broke through Israel's high-security barrier and attacked military posts and villages in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Saturday that Hamas did not plan to target a festival, based on the police investigation, interrogations of captured members and maps of target locations found on the bodies of killed Hamas members which did not include the festival location.
Hamas fighters approached the festival from a nearby highway, not from the border, according to the report.
Additionally, the event had originally been scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday, with Saturday added to the programme only on Tuesday that week.
The police investigation also found that an Israeli military helicopter opened fire on the assailants but also hit some people attending the festival. No further details were provided, Haaretz reported.
"An investigation into the incident revealed an [Israeli military] combat helicopter that arrived at the scene from the Ramat David base fired at the terrorists and apparently also hit some of the revellers there," the news report cited an unnamed police official as saying.
2023-11-19 10:22:13
The White House quickly disputed reports that it was involved in a possible agreement between Israel and Hamas, which had been leaked to the Washington Post.
According to Al Jazeera, this is "not the first time" that a "similar "agreement" involving the release of prisoners and a respite in hostilities has been reported in the media.
"Although similar discussions have been taking place for several weeks now, it seems, for a moment, that we might be getting close," Al Jazeera reported.
One thing is for sure: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under more pressure than ever to reach an agreement.
The Post's article was published shortly after Biden wrote an opinion piece for the publication, which Netanyahu swiftly dismissed.
2023-11-19 10:09:23
2023-11-19 08:46:33
The United States said Saturday it was still working to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas after a reported tentative agreement to free women and children held hostage in Gaza in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting.
"We have not reached a deal yet, but we continue to work hard to get to a deal," White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said on X, formerly Twitter, in response to the Washington Post reporting a deal had been agreed.
The Post said a detailed, six-page agreement could mean hostage releases begin within days and could also lead to the first sustained pause in the conflict in Gaza.
Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said all parties would halt combat operations for at least five days while some hostages were released in batches, with overhead surveillance monitoring movement to police the pause.
But the White House National Security Council quickly responded with its message on X to deny any major breakthrough on Saturday evening.
2023-11-18 23:12:46
The casualties from the airstrikes in the two UN schools in the Jabalia refugee camp soared to 200, Al Jazeera reported.
The number is expected to rise as the bombing inflicted severe destruction, and many are still under the rubble.
People are using shovels and their bare hands to dig people out.
2023-11-18 23:08:51
US President Joe Biden´s main adviser on the Middle East said Saturday there would be a "significant pause" in the Israel-Hamas war if hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are freed.
"The surge in humanitarian relief, the surge in fuel, the pause... will come when hostages are released," Brett McGurk told a security conference in Bahrain.
Release of a large number of hostages would result in "a significant pause... and a massive surge of humanitarian relief," he said.
2023-11-18 22:31:12
Gaza´s Hamas government said Saturday the death toll from fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters in the Palestinian territory had reached 12,300 since hostilities started on October 7.
The Hamas government said more than 5,000 children were among the dead, alongside 3,300 women, with 30,000 more people wounded.
Its health ministry has previously said it can no longer give exact tolls as intense fighting has prevented bodies from being recovered.
2023-11-18 22:11:38
Catherine Russel, Executive DirectorUnited Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), has condemned Israel for its attack on the UN-run Al Fakhura school which martyred more than 80 Palestinians including children.
"We're seeing horrifying images of children and civilians killed in Gaza-yet again as they shelter in a school which must always be protected," she wrote on her X account.
"The carnage must end [...] The suffering must end.This nightmare for children must end NOW!" she added.
2023-11-18 21:57:36
As Israeli forces continue their offensive in the Gaza Strip, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ease the unfolding human tragedy in the besieged territory.
Scholz, during a telephonic conversation with the Israeli premier, stressed the "urgent need" to improve the humanitarian situation for Gaza's residents," AFP reported quoting the German chancellor's office.
"Humanitarian ceasefires could contribute to a significant improvement in care for the population," the statement from the German leader's office said.
2023-11-18 20:25:57
Gaza's media office officialIsmail al Thawabta has said that the Israeli forces, during their raid on Al Shifa hospital on Friday, disinterred the mass grave at the facility and "took away" more than 100 dead bodies, Al Jazeera reported.
Thawabta said that the Israeli military refused to allow the recently deceased victims to be buried inside the hospital, depriving them of a proper funeral.
2023-11-18 19:19:24
With the war in Gaza showing no signs of stopping with ongoing relentless Israeli bombing, Turkey's PresidentTayyip Erdogan has said that his country will "rebuild" the beleaguered strip if a ceasefire is achieved, Reuters reported quotingTurkish media.
Erdogan said that Turkey would rebuild "destroyed schools, hospitals, water and energy facilities" to compensate for the destruction caused by the Israeli forces.
2023-11-18 18:08:24
Gaza authorities have said that "more than 80 people" were martyred Saturday when Israeli forces struck a UN school and a refugee camp in northern Gaza, AFP reported.
TheAl Fakhura school — located in Gaza's largest Jabalia refugee camp — was targeted by the Israeli forces as it was being used as "a shelter" for people displaced by the ongoing Israeli offensive which has martyred more than 12,000 Palestinians — including 5,000 children.
2023-11-18 17:33:08
Israeli air raids struck a United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
The occupation forces of Tel Aviv continue to pound Gaza, especially in the concentration areas such as Al Shifa Hospital where hundreds of Palestinians have taken refuge amid war.
2023-11-18 16:35:08
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, speaking from Gaza's Al Shifa hospital, told Al Jazeera said that only him and few others, including staff and patients, were left at the hospital after Israel allegedly issued evacuation warning.
"The hospital is completely deserted. Some of the remaining patients and victims are lying in the corridor. The center of the hospital is surrounded by Israeli soldiers. They are in total control. Even we, the very few medical staff that remains, cannot move freely," he added.
He said many of those in critical conditions including newborns and kidney patients will die imminently if they are not evacuated.
"Food at the hospitals is also running out."
2023-11-18 16:12:23
Jordan's foreign minister voiced doubt on Saturday that Israel could reach its goal of obliterating Hamas with its heavy bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip long dominated by the group.
"Israel says it wants to wipe out Hamas. There's a lot of military people here, I just don't understand how this objective can be realised," Ayman Safadi said at the annual IISS Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain.
Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas since its deadly Oct. 7 cross-border rampage into nearby Israeli communities.
Israel has bombed much of Gaza City to rubble as it has subdued the north of the enclave and turned to stepping up attacks on Hamas in the south.
Regional power Saudi Arabia called at the conference for an immediate Israeli-Hamas ceasefire.
"We are seeing civilians dying every day. And we need to end that today, not tomorrow," said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
2023-11-18 15:22:36
Hezbollah and Israel traded rocket and missile fire in areas near the Lebanese-Israeli border on Saturday, officials on both sides said, in the latest flare-up of violence which the United States worries will cause conflict to spiral in the Middle East.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone near the border in the early hours of Saturday. Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile fired at an Israeli drone. Reuters could not verify either statement.
Lebanese officials said an Israeli air strike hit a building in an industrial area near the town of Nabatieh, one of the deepest Israeli strikes inside Lebanese territory since fighting began last month. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.
Lawmaker Hani Kobeissy distributed a video online of him visiting the site which he said was an aluminium supply store that had been bombed by Israel.
Hezbollah released a series of statements early on Saturday saying it had hit Israeli military sites and troops in areas along the border and caused casualties.
2023-11-18 14:58:42
Mohammed Zaqout, Gaza hospitals director, has rejected a statement issued by the Israeli Defence Forces regarding the evacuation of Al Shifa Hospital.
While speaking to AL Jazeera, Zaqout insisted that the Israeli military ordered the staff and patients at the hospital to evacuate this morning.
“I categorically deny these false allegations [that evacuation was requested] … despite the difficult situation, the medical staff were working and operating … we were forced to leave at gunpoint,” he said.
2023-11-18 14:33:13
The Israeli army denies that it ordered patients and medical staff to evacuate al-Shifa Hospital, Al Jazeera reported.
“It should be emphasised that at no point did the IDF ask to evacuate patients or medical teams,” reads a statement from the military.
Instead, the Israeli army claimed that it “responded to the request of the director of Shifa Hospital” to allow those sheltering in the medical facility and who wished to evacuate to leave through “a secure axis”.
The army “even suggested that whenever there is a request to coordinate a medical evacuation, we will work to facilitate it and transfer the patients to other hospitals”.
According to Al Jazeera, the statement was in "stark contrast to accounts provided to Al Jazeera by the hospital supervisor and two doctors" who had said that they "received a one-hour deadline for evacuation and were forced to leave."
Meanwhile, the emergency supervisor at Al Shifa Hospital, Mohammed Zaqout reiterated that Israeli forces had given staff and patients the order to evacuate this morning within one hour.
“I categorically deny these false allegations (that evacuation was requested) … despite the difficult situation, the medical staff was working and operating … we were forced to leave at gunpoint,” he said.
2023-11-18 14:35:00
2023-11-18 13:47:26
The emergency supervisor at Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital, Omar Zaqout says he and other people have been forced to leave the hospital by Israeli forces, and that scenes outside the facility were "appalling".
Earlier it was reported that Israeli forces had given everyone at al-Shifa Hospital — including doctors, patients and displaced people one hour to leave the medical compound.
"We were told to leave through al-Wahda road. Dozens of dead bodies are scattered on the road," he said, according to Al Jazeera. "Many homeless people who cannot walk are left out in the open."
According to Zaquot, the water supply at al-Shifa has been out for more than a week, leading to what he called an "absence of hygiene and cleanliness".
"The electrical power has been out more than three weeks. Infants and newborn babies are left without oxygen. It is nothing but a medieval cave," he said.
2023-11-18 13:10:25
US President Joe Biden's top adviser on the Middle East said on Saturday the release of hostages held by Hamas would lead to a surge in the delivery of humanitarian aid and a significant pause in fighting in Gaza.
"The hostages are released, you will see a significant, significant change," Brett McGurk said at the IISS Manama Dialogue security summit in Bahrain.
Bahrain's crown prince, speaking at the summit on Friday, called on Hamas to release Israeli women and children held hostage and for Israel in exchange to release from its prisons Palestinian women and children who he said were non-combatants.
2023-11-18 12:59:17
Only the Palestinian Authority can run Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war is over, European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday.
"Hamas cannot be in control of Gaza any longer," Borrell told the Manama Dialogue, an annual conference on foreign and security policy in Bahrain.
"So who will be in control of Gaza? I think only one could do that — the Palestinian Authority," he said.
Borrell also said: "Count on the European Union as a predictable and reliable partner that remains and will continue [to be] with the Palestinian people in order to get this solved."
2023-11-18 11:41:30
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza has been given just one hour to evacuate all patients and displaced people who are sheltering in the compound, Al Jazeera reported.
A doctor at Gaza's biggest hospital said that it was “impossible” as the facility, which has been bombarded and besieged by Israeli troops for days, houses thousands of people, many in critical condition.
2023-11-18 11:02:22
A first consignment of fuel has entered Gaza after US pressure on Israel, allowing communications to resume in the territory, where a hospital director on Saturday said 26 people had been killed in a strike in Khan Yunis.
A two-day blackout caused by fuel shortages ended after a first delivery arrived from Egypt late Friday, but UN officials continued to plead for a ceasefire, warning no part of Gaza is safe.
On Saturday, the director of the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis said it had received the bodies of 26 people, as well as 23 people with serious injuries, after an air strike on a residential building in the southern region's Hamad city.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
It has been pressing operations in Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa in the north of the territory, searching for the Hamas operations centre it says lies beneath.
2023-11-18 10:50:53
Telecom services have been partially restored in the Gaza Strip after the entry of a limited quantity of fuel through UNRWA, Gaza's main telecommunications companies Paltel and Jawwal said in a statement on Friday.
Israel imposed a strict blockade on all goods entering Gaza when it launched a military campaign in response to the Palestinian militant group's Oct 7 rampage, in which its fighters killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.
2023-11-18 10:24:58
The White House on Friday condemned Elon Musk's endorsement of what it called a "hideous" antisemitic conspiracy theory on X, while major U.S. companies including Walt Disney Co, Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal parent Comcast paused their advertisements on his social media site.
Musk on Wednesday agreed with a post on X that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user who referenced the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory was speaking "the actual truth."
That conspiracy theory holds that Jewish people and leftists are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations with non-white immigrants that will lead to a "white genocide."
The White House accused Musk of an "abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate" that "runs against our core values as Americans."
"It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie ... one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said, referring to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.
2023-11-18 08:45:09
As Israeli force raided the al-Shifa Hospital for a third day on Friday, administrators at the hospital reported the deaths of 40 patients, including four premature babies, since November 11 due to a lack of electricity at the medical facility, according to the UN.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported that late-night air strikes on residential buildings in central Gaza's Nuseirat area killed at least 20 people and left around 140 trapped under rubble, Al Jazeera reported.
Emergency services in Gaza have largely ceased due to a lack of fuel for vehicles and communications.
Since Oct 7, 71 internally displaced people have been killed and over 570 injured in UN facilities in Gaza. UN facilities have been overcrowded causing the spread of diseases like acute respiratory illness and diarrhoea.
Around 830,000 people are sheltering in overcrowded UN-run shelters in Gaza, with one shower for every 700 people and one toilet for every 150 people.
Those who fled south are sleeping in the open against the walls of these facilities, as there is no room inside.
2023-11-17 23:45:51
As Gazans struggle to find refuge and shelter amid the ongoing Israeli offensive, the number of martyred Palestinians has reached 12,000, AFP reported.
Meanwhile, according to Gaza authorities, out of the total 12,000 martyred people, 5,000 are children and 3,300 are women.
2023-11-17 22:32:18
Israel's war cabinet has agreed to allow 140,000 litres (369,850 gallons) of fuel into Gaza every two days after a request from Washington, amid acute shortages that threatened aid deliveries and communications in the besieged strip, Israel and US officials said on Friday.
Israel imposed a strict blockade on all goods entering Hamas-controlled Gaza when it launched a military campaign in response to the Palestinian militant group's October 7 rampage, in which they killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.
Israel has since agreed to allow in aid trucks after stringent inspections, and a small amount of fuel was allowed in on Wednesday to keep United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aid delivery trucks moving.
An Israeli official who declined to be identified said two trucks a day would be allowed in to meet the UN's needs, but said the amount would give "minimal" support for water, sewage and sanitary systems in Gaza to prevent pandemics.
A US State Department official, offering more details, said Israel had committed to allowing in 120,000 litres (31,700 gallons) of fuel every 48 hours for UNRWA's trucks and other needs like desalinisation of water, sewage pumping, bakeries and hospitals in the south of Gaza.
An additional 20,000 litres (5,280 gallons) every two days would be allowed in to power generators of telecoms company Paltel, which had warned of an imminent blackout of its cellphone network due to lack of fuel.
2023-11-17 21:52:53
As Israeli forces continue attacks on medical facilities across the beleaguered Gaza Strip, the number of patients that have died in the past two days in the Al Shifa hospital has risen to 24 due to the ongoing Israeli siege, Al Arabiya reported quoting the Palestinian Health Ministry.
According to ministry spokesperson Ashraf al Qudra, the patients breathed their last as vital medical equipment stopped working due to a prevailing power outage caused by the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera, quoting Al Shifa Director Muhammad Abu Salmiya, has reported that as many as 7,000 people — including patients, hospital staff and civlians — are trapped inside the facility is currently facing a humanitarian crisis after the Israeli forces cut off the hospital's communication along with essential utilities including water and electricity.
2023-11-17 18:43:46
Israeli police attacked the crew of a Turkish news outlet TRT World in the occupied East Jerusalem.
TRT World posted video to its X account showing Israeli police hitting its camera, cracking the lens, while the team was covering Friday prayers in the neighborhood.
A Turkish official condemned the attack, and wished that the crew “get well soon”.
In a post on X, Fahrettin Altun, the country’s director of communications, said that “this ugly attack has added a new embarrassment to Israel’s record on press freedom.”
2023-11-17 17:32:19
Israeli forces have arrested 47 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank overnight, Al Jazeera reported citing the Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Detainees Affairs.
Most of the arrests were made in Nilin village by Ramallah.
“Detention campaigns were accompanied by torture, intense beatings, threats to detainees and their families, and house vandalism,” the commission said.
A total of 2,800 Palestinians have been arrested since the erruption of Israel-Hamas war on October 7.
2023-11-17 16:10:15
GENEVA: The World Health Organization said on Friday it was very concerned about the spread of disease of Gaza as weeks of Israeli bombardments have caused the population to crowd in shelters with scarce food and clean water.
"We are extremely concerned about the spread of the disease when the winter season arrives," said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
He said that more than 70,000 cases of acute respiratory infections and over 44,000 cases of diarrhoea had been recorded in the densely populated enclave, figures higher significantly higher than expected.
2023-11-17 15:21:52
2023-11-17 14:46:38
United Nations aid deliveries to Gaza were suspended again on Friday due to shortages of fuel and a communications shutdown, deepening the misery of thousands of hungry and homeless Palestinians.
The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) said civilians faced the "immediate possibility of starvation" due to the lack of food supplies.
Palestinian news agency WAFA said a number of Palestinians were martyred and others injured in an Israeli strike that hit a group of displaced people near the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt — the transit point for aid.
Al Jazeera TV cited sources as saying that nine people were martyred in the strike. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the reported strike and Reuters could not verify it.
WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said nearly the entire population was in desperate need of food assistance.
"Supplies of food and water are practically non-existent in Gaza and only a fraction of what is needed is arriving through the borders," she said in a statement.
"With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation," McCain said.
2023-11-17 13:47:22
Former Pakistan cricket team captain Babar Azam paid tribute to Palestinians suffering from Israeli atrocities in Gaza with a poetic post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
2023-11-17 13:48:26
Israeli troops carried out building-by-building searches at Gaza’s main hospital, as a new communications blackout in the territory on Friday compounded fears for Palestinian civilians trapped inside the facility.
Al-Shifa hospital has become a focal point for Israeli operations in northern Gaza since soldiers raided the complex on Wednesday, hunting for a command centre they say militant group Hamas operates there.
Hamas and hospital managers deny that charge, and there has been international concern about several thousand people -- including wounded patients and premature babies -- believed to be trapped inside.
Israel’s air bombardment and ground operation has killed 11,500 people, including thousands of children, according to Hamas-run local authorities in Gaza.
Thick dark smoke rose over the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, an AFPTV live camera showed.
Israeli authorities have defended their operation, and the military claimed Thursday it found rifles, ammunition, explosives and the entrance to a tunnel shaft at Al-Shifa.
2023-11-17 13:35:10
The body of Israeli soldier Noa Marciano, who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct 7, has reportedly been recovered, according to the Israeli army.
According to the military, the body was found by Israeli forces in a building close to the al-Shifa Hospital in the northern part of the strip.
A video in which Marciano identified herself and begged the Israeli army to stop bombing the region was published by Hamas on Monday, Al Jazeera reported.
A photo showed Marciano's lifeless body. A further close-up photo revealed a bleeding head trauma. The next day, the soldiers declared her dead.
According to Israeli media, the 19-year-old was serving at a military post in Nahal Oz, a kibbutz close to the Gaza fence, when Hamas’s assault into southern Israel took place.
Her parents met with those who were marching from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Thursday, demanding immediate action and answers to bring the estimated 240 captives back home.
They emphasised the need for answers and the return of their daughter's body for a funeral.
2023-11-17 12:24:09
Israeli forces on Friday raided Ibn Sina Hospital, one of the largest in the occupied West Bank, demanding the medical staff to put their hands up and evacuate. Those who were inside refused.
However, some staff, seen in a video, complied and were interrogated for an hour before being released. The incident highlights the ongoing conflict in the West Bank.
It is important to note that this happened in Jenin refugee camp where clashes have been intense almost daily and several deaths have been recorded in the camp, not just since Oct 7 but before that, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli forces have been destroying infrastructure, sewage, cables, roads, and private property belonging to Palestinians. The attacks have resulted in damage to cars and roads, as well as damage to infrastructure and sewage.
2023-11-17 11:19:42
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked by US television's CBS News on Thursday whether Israel's killing of thousands of Palestinians would fuel hatred in a new generation.
Netanyahu said Israel's attempts to minimise civilian casualties were "not successful", and he accused Hamas of preventing civilians from moving to safer locations.
"Any civilian death is a tragedy. And we shouldn't have any because we're doing everything we can to get the civilians out of harm's way, while Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm's way," Netanyahu said.
"So we send leaflets, (we) call them on their cell phones, and we say: 'leave'. And many have left," he added.
The Israeli military's chief of staff claimed Israel was close to destroying Hamas' military system in the northern Gaza Strip and there were signs the army was taking its campaign to other parts of the enclave of 2.3 million people.
Israel distributed pamphlets telling civilians to leave four towns in southern Gaza, areas Gazans had been previously told would be safe.
2023-11-17 10:20:03
Israel says it has carried out attacks on two underground Hamas sites in Gaza in recent days, causing "significant damage", BBC reported.
The strikes were aimed at senior Hamas figures who were in hiding, including the head of Hamas's rocket brigade and northern Gaza brigade, according to the Israeli military.
2023-11-17 09:42:02
As part of a rally demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, dozens of protestors shut down a section of the San Francisco Bay Bridge on Thursday. Following this, they were taken into custody, The Guardian reported.
A major commuting route into the city, the bridge sees over 260,000 vehicles every day, and all westbound traffic was shut due to the protest while San Francisco was hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting.
In response to the event, protestors against corporate profits, environmental injustices, and the Israel-Hamas conflict have staged multiple rallies throughout the city. At least 200 people attended the protest.
2023-11-17 09:32:08
Israeli soldiers found a tunnel shaft that they claim was used by Hamas fighters at Gaza's Al Shifa hospital, the army said, while the UN voiced concern no aid would be delivered to Palestinians on Friday via the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
The army released a video it said showed a tunnel entrance in an outdoor area of Al Shifa, Gaza's biggest hospital.
The video, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed a deep hole in the ground, littered with and surrounded by concrete and wood rubble and sand. It appeared the area had been excavated; a bulldozer appeared in the background.
The army said its troops also found a vehicle in the hospital containing a large number of weapons.
Hamas said in a statement late on Thursday that claims by the Pentagon and US State Department that the group uses Al Shifa for military purposes "is a repetition of a blatantly false narrative, demonstrated by the weak and ridiculous performances of the occupation army spokesman."
Meanwhile, the United States is confident in an assessment from its own intelligence agencies on Hamas activities in Al Shifa hospital and will neither share nor elaborate on it, White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday.
2023-11-17 09:10:37
The Palestinian news agency Wafareported that Israeli forces conducted their latest operation in the occupied West Bank, arresting two paramedics and ordering the evacuation of Jenin's Ibn Sina Hospital.
According to those who spoke with Wafa, Israeli forces searched ambulances, encircled the hospital from all sides, and made loudspeaker demands for its evacuation, Al Jazeera reported.
The paramedics were searched in the hospital courtyard after being told to exit the building with their hands high.
According to the news agency, Israeli police had earlier in the evening destroyed local streets and arrested at least seven persons in the city and the Jenin refugee camp.
Israeli gunfire and drone attacks are also said to have injured a number of civilians, who were subsequently transported to hospitals for medical attention.
2023-11-17 08:27:33
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported that Israeli soldiers and tanks invaded al-Shifa Hospital for the second day in a row, causing damage to the radiology department and removing many dead.
Heavy airstrikes, artillery shelling, and ground fighting occurred throughout the 24-hour reporting period. An Israeli airstrike on Wednesday in Gaza City's Sabra neighbourhood martyred 50 people.
"Intense" Israeli strikes also took place in southern Gaza where Palestinians in the north of the strip were ordered by Israeli forces to flee to escape fighting ahead of Israel’s ground invasion of the enclave, Al Jazeera reported.
Additionally, the report notes that at least 71 internally displaced people have been martyred, and 571 injured, while sheltering in UN facilities that were targeted across the Gaza Strip by Israel since October 7.
The deaths of 3,117 students and 183 teachers in Gaza have been documented since Oct 7. Furthermore, 4,613 students and 403 teachers were injured.
Israeli forces have killed 56 soldiers since the Gaza ground invasion began, with three more killed between Wednesday and Thursday. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces martyred three Palestinians after an attack on the Tunnels checkpoint in Bethlehem, killing one Israeli soldier and injuring three others.
2023-11-17 00:52:54
Israeli soldiers near Gaza's largest hospital have found the body of a hostage seized by Hamas militants in their attacks on southern Israel on October 7, the army said Thursday.
Israeli special forces earlier raided Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, an army official said, adding footage relating to hostages had been found on computers at the facility.
Hamas says the operation has severely damaged the hospital, a focal point of Israel's war on Hamas.
The body of Yehudit Weiss, an Israeli woman who was abducted from her Gaza border community on October 7, "was extracted by IDF (army) troops from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa hospital", an army statement said.
Hamas government officials say Israel's bombardment and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip since then have killed more than 11,500 people, also mostly civilians and including thousands of children.
Israel claims Hamas had uses Al-Shifa as a base, a charge the Islamist movement denies.
According to the army statement, "military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs" were found in the same location as Weiss's body.
2023-11-16 23:35:09
The Indonesian Hospital in Gaza has shut down and about 45 patients who urgently need surgery have been left in the reception area, hospital chief Atef al-Kahlout told Al Jazeera on Thursday.
"The Indonesian hospital has completely stopped serving and operating," Kahlout said. "Due to our clinical inability to accommodate patients from Gaza and the north, we announce that the hospital has completely stopped operating."
When asked if patients can be taken to other facilities, al-Kahlout said: “All hospitals in Gaza City and the north have stopped operating.”
2023-11-16 22:03:59
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza’s largest health facility, said “no one can reach or leave the besieged hospital”.
“People inside will die if no aid reaches them and many patients in need of urgent medical needs could die if they cannot reach the hospital on time,” he told Al Jazeera.
2023-11-16 21:31:48
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said he feared for civil order in the Gaza Strip after it was hit with a new communications blackout on Thursday.
"Gaza is again in a total communication blackout, and... it is because there is no fuel," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a press conference in Geneva.
The Palestinian telecom company Paltel confirmed the blackout, saying on X, formerly Twitter: "We regret to announce that all telecom services in Gaza Strip have gone out of service as all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, and fuel was not allowed in."
2023-11-16 21:30:00
The World Food Programme (WFP) on Thursday warned that the Gaza Strip faced "widespread hunger", with nearly the entire population in desperate need of food assistance.
"Supplies of food and water are practically non-existent in Gaza and only a fraction of what is needed is arriving through the borders," WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said in a statement.
"With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation."
2023-11-16 21:25:33
Pakistan has strongly condemned the bombardment by Israeli Occupation Forces in the surroundings of a Jordanian field hospital in occupied Gaza.
The attack resulted in injuries to seven Jordanian staff members.
"This inhumane attack is the latest in a series of attacks on hospitals and medical facilities in Gaza and constitutes a war crime and a flagrant violation of international law," the Foreign Office said in a statement.
2023-11-16 21:05:47
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari condemned the Israeli forces’ heinous attacks on Gaza hospitals.
2023-11-16 20:06:40
The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on Thursday he believed there was a deliberate attempt to "strangle" its humanitarian work in Gaza, warning that the agency may have to entirely suspend its operations due to a lack of fuel.
"I do believe there is a deliberate attempt to strangle our operation and paralyse the operation," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told journalists in Geneva, calling it "outrageous" to force humanitarian aid to beg for fuel.
He added that the agency, which supports more than 800,000 displaced people in Gaza, was at risk of suspending its operations entirely.
2023-11-16 19:16:49
A group of United Nations experts said on Thursday there was "evidence of increasing genocidal incitement" against the Palestinian people in what it said were "grave violations" committed by Israel.
"We are deeply disturbed by the failure of governments to heed our call and to achieve an immediate ceasefire," the group of experts, which included several UN special rapporteurs, said in a statement.
"We are also profoundly concerned about the support of certain governments for Israel's strategy of warfare against the besieged population of Gaza, and the failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide."
UN experts had previously warned that the Palestinian people were at "grave risk of genocide".
2023-11-16 17:34:09
France on Thursday said that it was not Israel to decide who gets to govern besieged enclave of Gaza after the end of the war.
"Not up to Israel to decide who governs Gaza in the future. Gaza must be a part of future Palestinian state."
It said that the 50% of the 100 tonnes of the aid it sent for the Palestinians has now entered the enclave. More deliveries to follow in the coming days.
2023-11-16 15:34:25
The United Nations human rights chief said on Thursday outbreaks of disease and hunger seemed "inevitable" in Gaza after weeks of Israeli assault on the densely populated Palestinian enclave.
Speaking at an informal briefing to states at the United Nations in Geneva after visiting the Middle East, Volker Turk said the depletion of fuel would be "catastrophic" across Gaza, leading to the collapse of sewage systems, healthcare and ending the scarce humanitarian aid being supplied.
"Massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger, seem inevitable," Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said.
The World Health Organization has warned of "worrying trends" in disease spread in Gaza, saying there had been an unusually large number of cases of diarrhoeal disease in the enclave, where bombardments and a ground operation have disrupted the health system, access to clean water and caused people to crowd into shelters.
Turk, who described the bombardment by Israel as "of an intensity rarely experienced in this century," also expressed concern about increasing violence and discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
"In my view, this creates a potentially explosive situation, and I want to be clear: we are well beyond the level of early warning," Turk said.
"I am ringing the loudest possible alarm bell about the occupied West Bank."
2023-11-16 15:15:27
The Israeli army said Thursday its troops had taken "operational control" of Gaza port, a key piece of infrastructure in the Palestinian territory where Israel is waging war with Hamas fighters.
"In the past few days, in a joint operation, soldiers... took operational control of the Gaza harbour, which was controlled by the Hamas terrorist organisation," the Israeli army said in a statement. "All buildings in the harbour area were cleared."
2023-11-16 14:25:01
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down "immediately", without waiting until the end of the country's war against Hamas.
"Netanyahu should leave immediately... We need change, Netanyahu cannot remain prime minister," Lapid said Wednesday in an interview with an Israeli news channel.
"We cannot allow ourselves to carry out a long campaign under a prime minister who has lost the people´s trust," he added.
Four days after Hamas' surprise Oct 7 attack on Israel, Netanyahu and another opposition leader, Benny Gantz, announced an agreement to form an "emergency government" for the duration of the war, AFP reported.
Lapid, who previously led Israel's coalition government before Netanyahu's return to power, has not previously called for the prime minister to resign since the fighting broke out, did not join the emergency government accusing Israeli leaders of an "unpardonable failure" for not preventing the attack, Israeli media reported.
2023-11-16 13:25:09
Thai-Muslim politicians said on Thursday they had received assurances from Hamas that all the Thai hostages being held would be among those released if mediators succeed in brokering a truce in Gaza.
Hamas took some 240 people hostage on Oct 7. Thailand's Foreign Ministry says 25 Thais were among those abducted and 39 were among those killed that day.
"Any ceasefire either 3 days or 5 days ... Hamas will release hostages, including all Thais being held, which they promised," Lepong Syed, the president of the Thai-Iran alumni association, told reporters in Bangkok's parliament building.
"This could be in less than ten days or in the next two to three days," he added.
Lepong is part of a team formed by Thai-Muslim politicians, headed by House Speaker, Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, that has been in contact with the Hamas since October.
2023-11-16 12:17:23
Israeli forces on Thursday destroyed the specialised surgeries building at Al-Shifa Hospital, which resulted in massive damage to the building's interior, including a warehouse for medicine and medical equipment, according to Al Jazeera.
The Israeli military destroyed the partitions, walls, and all medical equipment.
Furthermore, Israeli troops have been interrogating around 200 people, who have been blindfolded, in the hospital, including 30 who were stripped of their clothes and taken to the courtyard.
The fate of these individuals remains unknown. The failure to confirm Israeli allegations of Hamas' presence in the hospital has led to massive destruction, renewed attacks on the building, and redeploying troops at the hospital gates.
2023-11-16 11:19:54
Israeli president Isaac Herzog said Israel cannot leave a vacuum in Gaza and would have to maintain a strong force there for the near future to prevent Hamas from re-emerging in the strip, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Thursday.
"If we pull back, then who will take over? We can't leave a vacuum. We have to think about what will be the mechanism; there are many ideas that are thrown in the air," Herzog said in an interview with the FT.
"But no one will want to turn this place, Gaza, into a terror base again", he added.
2023-11-16 10:02:56
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he had made it clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a two-state solution was the only answer to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and that occupying Gaza would be "a big mistake."
Biden told reporters he was doing everything in his power to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, but that did not mean sending in the US military.
The US president had told reporters this week that his message to the hostages was "Hang in there, we're coming," raising questions about what he meant.
Asked to clarify the comment, Biden told a news conference: "What I meant was, I'm doing everything in my power to get you out. Coming to help you, get you out. I don't mean sending in military in there ... I was not talking about the military."
Biden said he was working on the issue constantly, and would not stop until the hostages — including a three-year-old American child — were freed.
2023-11-16 09:49:53
2023-11-16 09:39:58
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down "immediately", without waiting until the end of the country's war against Hamas.
"Netanyahu should leave immediately... We need change, Netanyahu cannot remain prime minister," Lapid said Wednesday in an interview with Israeli news channel N12.
"We cannot allow ourselves to carry out a long campaign under a prime minister who has lost the people's trust," he added.
Four days after Hamas' surprise Oct 7 attack on Israel, Netanyahu and another opposition leader, Benny Gantz, announced an agreement to form an "emergency government" for the duration of the war.
Lapid refused to join, accusing Israeli leaders of an "unpardonable failure" for not preventing the attack.
Still, Lapid, who led Israel's coalition government before Netanyahu was returned to power in elections last year, has not previously called for the prime minister to resign since the fighting broke out, according to Israeli media.
In his interview with N12, Lapid did not call for early elections, but rather a no-confidence vote in parliament that would allow for the formation of a new government led by another member of Netanyahu's Likud party.
"This is not the time to hold elections," he said. "We should opt for a national reconstruction with another prime minister from Likud."
In a statement posted to Telegram, Likud immediately rebuffed the call, saying such a proposal in a "time of war" was "shameful".
2023-11-16 09:42:00
2023-11-16 09:39:29
2023-11-16 09:39:18
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he had made it clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a two-state solution was the only answer to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and that occupying Gaza would be "a big mistake."
Biden told reporters he was doing everything in his power to free hostages held by the Hamas militant group in Gaza, but that did not mean sending in the US military.
The US president had told reporters this week that his message to the hostages was "Hang in there, we're coming," raising questions about what he meant.
Asked to clarify the comment, Biden told a news conference: "What I meant was, I'm doing everything in my power to get you out. Coming to help you, get you out. I don't mean sending in military in there ... I was not talking about the military."
Biden said he was working on the issue constantly, and would not stop until the hostages - including a three-year-old American child - were freed.
2023-11-16 09:01:17
Turkey's first lady, Emine Erdogan, hosted a summit called "One Heart for Palestine" in Istanbul, with otherfirst spouses to voice support for Gaza and stop Israeli attacks that have martyred over 11,000 Palestinians.
In her opening speech at the summit, Erdogan warned Israel that through its actions in Gaza, it will be remembered along with “the cruelty that wanted to destroy the Jews,” evoking the Holocaust, Anadolu reported.
Erdogan said: “As the above ground has been turned into a hell and the underground has been turned into a necropolis of children, it is never possible for any promised future to materialise there.”
“Who can ever feel really safe in an order that has been built upon such a destruction?” she asked.
Addressing both Israel and the five permanent members of the UN, she said: “What critical threshold of death are you waiting for to stop this ferocity?"
She described the atrocious events in Gaza for the last 40 days as “the era of shame.”
“We will never surrender to this darkness that discriminates one life from another, that devalues everyone who is not like it,” she underlined.
“For this reason, I invite the spouses of all heads of state to be the voice of those killed in Gaza and those whose voices are being suppressed and silenced while a mass slaughter continues,” she added.
Furthermore, she suggested: “A fund should now be established within international organizations such as the UN and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to rebuild the schools, parks and hospitals destroyed by Israel."
She added that mothers should kiss their children to sleep, not to their graves.
2023-11-16 08:31:22
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday called for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in the Israel-Palestine war in the Gaza Strip for a "sufficient number of days" to allow aid access.
The 15-member council overcame an impasse, which saw four unsuccessful attempts to take action last month, to adopt a resolution that also calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas.
The United States, Russia and Britain, who are council veto powers, abstained from Wednesday's vote on the resolution drafted by Malta. The remaining 12 members voted in favour.
The council stalemate has largely been centred on whether to call for a humanitarian pause or a ceasefire. A pause is generally considered less formal and shorter than a ceasefire, which has to be agreed upon by the warring parties. The US has backed pauses, while Russia has pushed for a ceasefire.
Russia failed in a last minute bid to amend the resolution to call for a truce leading to a cessation of hostilities. Russia abstained because there was no call for an immediate ceasefire, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council.
2023-11-15 23:21:40
The first truck carrying fuel into Gaza since the start of Israel's war with Hamas crossed from Egypt on Wednesday to deliver diesel to the United Nations, though it will do little to alleviate shortages that have hampered relief efforts.
The delivery was made possible by Israel giving its approval for 24,000 litres (6,340 gallons) of diesel fuel to be allowed into Gaza for UN aid distribution trucks, though not for use at hospitals, according to a humanitarian source.
"This is only 9% of what we need daily to sustain lifesaving activities," Tom White, director of U.N. relief agency UNRWA in Gaza, posted on social media platform X. He confirmed that just over 23,000 litres, or half a tanker, had been received.
"Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse," said UNRWA director Philippe Lazzarini. "It is appalling that fuel continues to be used as a weapon of war."
2023-11-15 22:57:31
The United Nations Security Council is due to vote later on Wednesday on a call for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a number of days to enable aid access, diplomats said.
Some diplomats said they expected the 15-member council to adopt the resolution, though some countries were likely to abstain. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, Russia, China, France, or Britain.
It will be the fifth council attempt to take action since the war began on October 7.
2023-11-15 22:55:15
British and Irish ministers called for accelerated flows of aid into the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip during separate visits to the Egyptian capital Cairo on Wednesday.
Limited deliveries of humanitarian relief have been crossing from Egypt into Gaza since October 21, though aid workers say the amount brought into the enclave is a fraction of what is needed.
"We need to speed that up. We need to try and make sure that we're able to have much better flow of vital provisions through there so that it could get to the people very much in need," said Andrew Mitchell, Britain's minister of state for development and Africa, adding that fuel is a current priority.
Israel had refused the delivery of fuel to Gaza, saying it could be used by the enclave's ruling Hamas group, but allowed an initial delivery for UN aid distribution trucks on Wednesday. No fuel has been allowed in for hospitals or water provision, which have been badly affected by fuel shortages.
"Without question we need a dramatic increase in aid at scale to meet the dire humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza, where a human catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes," Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told reporters.
The main challenge, Mitchell said, was the creation of "safe areas" without grouping vulnerable people together and putting them at risk.
2023-11-15 22:54:33
A US Navy warship shot down a drone in the Red Sea that emanated from Yemen, two US officials told Reuters on Wednesday, in what appeared to be only the second time the United States has brought down projectiles near its warships since the Israel-Hamas conflict began.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Thomas Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, took down the drone early morning local time.
The officials did not say whether the drone was armed or how close it came to the ship before being shot down. The action was first reported by Reuters.
2023-11-15 20:28:01
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday said the "killing of women, of children, of babies" in the besieged Gaza Strip must end, in his sharpest criticism of Israel since war against Hamas broke out over a month ago.
"I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint. The world is watching, on TV, on social media - we're hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who have lost their parents," he said.
"The world is witnessing this killing of women, of children, of babies. This has to stop," he told a news conference in the western province of British Columbia.
2023-11-15 19:35:53
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called for the protection ofmedical staff, patients and displaced civilians sheltered inside the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.
"As Israeli forces enter Al Shifa hospital, we call once again for the protection of medical staff, patients and displaced civilians sheltered inside the hospital. We are extremely worried for their lives," the aid group said on X.
2023-11-15 18:21:59
Hamas said in a statement on Wednesday it "holds the occupation (Israel) and President Biden fully responsible for (the) occupation army's raid of Al Shifa medical complex".
Hamas said a US intelligence statement on Tuesday that the US supported Israel's conclusion that the militants had operations at Al Shifa "was a green light" for the raid.
"The White House and the Pentagon's adoption of the false (Israeli) narrative, claiming that the resistance is using Al Shifa medical complex for military purposes, was a green light for the occupation to commit more massacres against civilians," Hamas said.
2023-11-15 18:09:13
Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of around 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters.
The deal, under discussion, which has been coordinated with the US, would also see Israel release some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza, the official said.
It would mark the biggest release of hostages held by Hamas since the Palestinian group burst over the Gaza border, attacked parts of Israel, and took hostages into the enclave.
Hamas has agreed to the general outlines of this deal, but Israel has not and it is still negotiating the details, the official said.
It is not known how many Palestinian women and children Israel would release from its jails as part of the agreement under discussion.
2023-11-15 18:01:15
The United Nations and the Red Cross voiced alarm Wednesday after Israeli forces raided Gaza's largest hospital, demanding that thousands of patients and civilians be protected.
Israeli forces entered Al-Shifa hospital, targeting what they say is a Hamas command centre in tunnels beneath patients and the civilians seeking refuge there from intense combat.
"I'm appalled by reports of military raids in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza," UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said on X, formerly Twitter.
"The protection of newborns, patients, medical staff and all civilians must override all other concerns.
"Hospitals are not battlegrounds."
Israel's mission to the UN in Geneva lashed out Griffiths, linking his comments to a meeting he held in the Swiss city on Wednesday with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
"Did you tweet this before or after you met with the Iranian foreign minister this morning? Did you call on him to stop funding and arming a terrorist organisation using hospitals to hide?" it said on X.
"Iran does not care about the people of Gaza. The UN needs to stop being used as pawns in Iran's desire for death and destruction."
2023-11-15 17:55:27
Israeli troops entered Gaza's biggest hospital on Wednesday and were searching its rooms and basement, witnesses said, culminating a days-long siege that caused global alarm over the fate of thousands of civilians trapped inside.
Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City has become the main target of the ground operation by Israeli forces, who say Hamas fighters have the "beating heart" of their operations in a headquarters in tunnels beneath it, which Hamas denies.
Israel said its troops uncovered unspecified weapons and "terror infrastructure" inside the hospital compound after killing fighters in a clash outside. Once inside, they said there had been no fighting and no friction with civilians, patients or staff.
The military released photos of a soldier standing beside cardboard boxes marked "medical supplies" and "baby food" in English, at a location Reuters verified was inside the grounds. Other photos showed Israeli troops in tactical formation walking past makeshift tents and mattresses.
2023-11-15 15:48:57
2023-11-15 15:32:36
2023-11-15 15:11:27
2023-11-15 14:39:20
2023-11-15 14:17:04
A doctor at the Al Shifa Hospital — Gaza’s largest healthcare facility — has said that the Israeli military has forced medical staff to stay away from windows for their safety.
Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati told Reuters that the situation inside the hospital is worsening after the raid.
“Bombardment. Shooting around the hospital and within the hospital. It’s really horrible you can feel that it’s very near to the hospital. And then we realised the tanks are moving around the hospital,” he said.
“They just parked in front of the hospital emergency department. All kinds of weapons were used around the hospital. They targeted the hospital directly. We try to avoid being near the windows.”
2023-11-15 14:01:21
A journalist told Al Jazeera that people inside the Al-Shifa compound were "scared, brutally interrogated, and they are humiliated" as Israeli forces continued their raid inside the medical complex.
“Since last night, it’s been a nightmare that cannot be imagined,” said Jihad Abu Shanab.
“Before storming the compound, they have targeted all the floors, the generators, the communications unit, and now we can have no contact with the outside world.”
The journalist also said that the IDF was interrogating the people "harshly".
“They have told everyone to go up a floor, then go to a lower floor for investigation and then they are forced to be interrogated and they have seen a lot of humiliation.”
“Eyewitnesses in the al-Shifa compound have said that there is no resistance at all whatsoever and the hospital only contains doctors and patients and displaced people,” he continued.
2023-11-15 13:13:05
A doctor at the Gaza Strip's Al-Shifa hospital told Reutersthat gunfire outside the compound forced staff to stay away from windows for their safety after an Israeli raid.
Israeli forces said they were raiding the complex because Hamas has a command centre underneath it and uses connected tunnels to hold hostages, an allegation that Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati denied.
2023-11-15 12:27:54
The Israeli military claimed its forces have provided incubators and baby food to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza even as it conducts a raid against Hamas there.
"Our precise and targeted operation against Hamas in the Shifa Hospital is still underway. We can confirm that incubators, baby food and medical supplies brought by IDF (Israel Defence Forces) tanks from Israel have successfully reached the Shifa hospital," the military said.
Hamas has denied Israel's allegations over Shifa hospital.
2023-11-15 10:52:46
Amid international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Biden administration is working quietly to ramp up weapons transfers to Israel, according to a Bloomberg report.
The report, citing an internal defence department list, stated that the Pentagon is “delivering on requests that include more laser-guided missiles for its Apache gunship fleet, as well as 155mm shells, night-vision devices, bunker-buster munitions and new army vehicles”.
It further said that the arms are already being shipped or the Defense Department is working to make them available from stockpiles in the US and Europe.
“As of late October, for example, all 36,000 rounds of 30mm cannon ammunition, 1,800 of the requested M141 bunker-buster munitions and at least 3,500 night-vision devices were delivered, the tally shows.”
A Pentagon spokesman declined to discuss specifics, the publication said.
However, the department said in a statement that it was “leveraging several avenues – from internal stocks to US industry channels – to ensure Israel has the means to defend itself”.
2023-11-15 10:13:11
Tens of thousands packed a rally in Washington on Tuesday to support Israel and to condemn anti-Semitism in a riposte to weeks of largely pro-Palestinian demonstrations across a deeply divided United States.
With senior members of Congress addressing the event on the National Mall, near the Capitol, the crowd rapidly swelled with people wearing the white and blue colours of Israel.
Many were waving placards calling on Hamas to free hostages taken on October 7.
The demonstration, dubbed the March for Israel, centred on combating anti-Semitism and calling for the release of the hostages, according to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, one of the organisers.
2023-11-15 09:44:44
Israeli forces have searched the basement of the Al-Shifa Hospital following their raid, said General Director of hospitalsDr Munir al-Bursh in the Gaza Strip in an interview with Al-Jazeera.
Dr al-Bursh said that the troops also enteredthe surgical and emergency buildings located within the hospital complex.
He added that some people inside the hospital were also targeted and fired upon when they were trying to leave.
“Not a single bullet was fired from inside the hospital during the occupation forces’ storming of the complex,” he added.
2023-11-15 08:26:33
The Israeli military said it was carrying out a raid on Wednesday against Hamas in Al Shifa Hospital, having urged them to surrender with thousands of Palestinian civilians still sheltering inside the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Gaza health ministry, told Al Jazeera television that Israeli forces had raided the western side of the medical complex.
"There are big explosions and dust entered the areas where we are. We believe an explosion occurred inside the hospital," Bursh said.
2023-11-14 23:14:04
Israeli ministers and lawmakers from the ruling Likud party are discussing a plan to oust current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, TRT world reported citing Israeli media.
Channel 13 News reported on Tuesday that the plan includes recruiting 61 lawmakers to pass a vote of no confidence on Netanyahu's government, and to form a new government without going to elections.
Channel 13 added that the Likud lawmakers fear that if Netanyahu stays at the party helm and then leads it to a loss in the next elections, most of those lawmakers will not be part of the Israeli political system.
It added that after the end of the military ground operation in Gaza, which so far shows no signs of concluding, the lawmakers will move ahead with their plans to have a parliamentary session to oust Netanyahu.
2023-11-14 23:13:42
Gaza´s main hospital has been forced to bury scores of dead patients in a mass grave, its director said Tuesday, while thousands of Palestinians were trapped inside by fierce combat.
"There are bodies littered in the hospital complex and there is no longer electricity at the morgues," said Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya, adding that 179 bodies had been interred so far.
"We were forced to bury them in a mass grave," he said, adding that seven babies and 29 intensive care patients were among those who had died after fuel for the hospital´s generator ran out.
A witness said the stench of decomposing bodies was everywhere in the Gaza City facility as bombardment and gunfire echoed constantly in the area.
2023-11-14 23:06:16
“In the name of humanity, the secretary-general calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” Al Jazeera quoted spokesman Stephane Dujarric as saying.
He added Guterres is deeply disturbed by the “dramatic loss of life” in several hospitals in Gaza.
2023-11-14 22:23:27
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he is engaged in daily discussions to secure a release of hostages being held by Hamas and he believes it is going to happen.
"Hang in there, we're coming," Biden said at the White House, when asked by reporters what his message to family members of hostages would be.
Biden said he speaks every day with the parties involved in negotiations over a possible hostage release, but did not want to share the details.
2023-11-14 21:31:31
With scores of Palestinians killed across the occupied West Bank in recent weeks, rights groups have accused Israel of giving soldiers free rein to shoot on site while war rages in Gaza.
In just over five weeks since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, at least 190 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority's health ministry.
The figure is almost as high as the ministry's toll of 208 dead for the first nine months of the year up to the start of the war.
The surge in violence comes as raids by Israeli forces on Palestinian communities have multiplied in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
2023-11-14 19:50:55
With the war in Gaza raging and adding to the woes of the Palestinians, Yemen's Houthi rebels have announced that they will target Israeli ships in the Bab al-Mandeb strait of the Red Sea, Al Arabiya reported.
Rebel group leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi said that the group will "monitor and search" for Israeli ships near Yemen's regional waters.
2023-11-14 19:49:00
As Israeli forces close in on Al Shifa hospital — Gaza's largest medical facility — the people trapped inside the besieged building have started digging a "mass grave" to bury patients that have died due to Israel's encirclement, siege, Reuters reported.
Israel has accused the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, of operating its headquarters beneath Al Shifa hospital — a claim vehemently denied by both Hamas and hospital staff.
2023-11-14 18:56:33
The lives of 36 babies at Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital were hanging in the balance on Tuesday, according to medical staff there who said there was no clear mechanism to move them.
Three of the original 39 premature babies have already died since Gaza's biggest hospital ran out of fuel at the weekend to power generators that had kept their incubators going.
The 36 babies, who weigh less than 1.5 kg (3.3 pounds) and with some as small as 700 to 800 grammes, were now lying side-by-side on ordinary beds, exposing them to infection and without any individual adjustments to humidity levels and temperatures, staff said.
2023-11-14 17:01:25
The Israeli army said Tuesday it had captured parliament and other government insitutions run by Hamas in Gaza City, as its forces deepened their offensive in the Palestinian territory.
Military units "took over the Hamas parliament, the government building, the Hamas police headquarters and an engineering faculty that served as an institute for the production and development of weapons," the army said in a statement.
2023-11-14 15:43:47
2023-11-14 15:10:59
A spokesman for the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday there was no objection to having babies evacuated from Al Shifa Hospital but there was no mechanism for an evacuation to take place.
"We have no objection to have the babies moved to any hospital, in Egypt, the West Bank or even to the occupation hospitals. What we care most is about the wellbeing and the lives of those babies," Ashraf Al-Qidra said, speaking by telephone from the hospital.
2023-11-14 14:54:34
2023-11-14 14:25:22
Swedish and Danish media reported that at least 113 citizens of Sweden and Denmark will be able to leave Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.
Swedish daily Aftonbladet reported that 100 Swedish nationals will be allowed to leave, while Danish broadcaster DR said 13 people are expected to be allowed to depart.
Two Danish nationals have also departed, while at least 60 Swedes have managed to escape thus far, some of them through the Rafah border crossing.
2023-11-14 13:27:34
Two Qatari planes are heading to the Egyptian city of El Arish carrying equipment for a field hospital and special aid to support people in Gaza, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
2023-11-14 10:40:11
2023-11-14 09:14:33
US President Joe Biden said hospitals in the Gaza Strip must be protected and he hoped for "less intrusive" action by Israel as Israeli tanks advanced to the gates of the besieged enclave's main hospital.
"My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals and we remain in contact with the Israelis," Biden told reporters at the White House on Monday.
"Also there is an effort to get this pause to deal with the release of prisoners and that's being negotiated, as well, with the Qataris ... being engaged," he added. "So I remain somewhat hopeful but hospitals must be protected."
Israel says Hamas uses hospitals for military purposes and Israel's military on Monday released video and photos of what it said were weapons the group stored in the basement of Rantissi Hospital, a paediatric hospital specialising in cancer treatment.
However,Hamas denies the Israeli claim.
2023-11-14 08:23:29
The director of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City announced on Monday that the number of deaths from a power outage at the facility had reached 20, including six premature babies.
“Six premature babies and nine injured people at the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) died today as a result of the power outage,” Mohamed Abu Slima told Anadolu.
He said seven patients in intensive care had lost their lives at the medical facility, the largest in Gaza, on Sunday.
“They all died as a result of Israel’s refusal to allow fuel for the hospital,” Abu Slima said. “There are still 33 premature babies at the hospital."
2023-11-13 23:12:16
With the IDF continuing its offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israeli weapons manufacturers Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems left their exhibition stalls "empty" on the opening day of the Dubai Airshow on Monday.
It was unclear why neither of the stalls — located near the pavilion of United Arab Emirates state armaments maker EDGE — were abandoned by the Israeli companies, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, IAI and Rafael did not respond to the emails requesting remarks on their participation in the event.
Although the exhibition stand of a locally registered company of Israel-based Elbit Systems was staffed, the officials there refused to answer the media's queries regarding their participation.
2023-11-13 22:04:09
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has sought security guarantees to be able to deliver life-saving assistance across Gaza amid Israeli bombardment of the besieged territory.
"We stand ready to fulfill our role as a neutral intermediary & support evacuations of medical facilities in Gaza, but this requires an agreement by the parties," the aid group said in a statement on X.
2023-11-13 21:59:20
The death toll in Gaza from Israeli relentless attacks has reached 11,240 including 4,630 children since October 7, according to the Gaza media office.
2023-11-13 21:21:53
"The vicinity of Al-Quds Hospital is still witnessing intense gunfire, with the presence of Israeli military vehicles. Our staff are trapped with patients and the wounded, without electricity, water, or food," said the Palestine Red Crescent in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
2023-11-13 20:08:53
At least three Palestinians have been killed and 20 others injured after an Israeli air strike hit Bani Suhaila, a town east of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, health officials on Monday said.
2023-11-13 18:31:10
The UN Palestinian refugee agency's fuel depot in Gaza has run dry and within a few days UNRWA will no longer be able to resupply hospitals, remove sewage, and provide drinking water, its chief said on Monday.
The agency chief, Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, told donors on Monday that it had been slowly emptying a fuel depot on the Israeli border containing strategic reserves.
A request to the Israeli military to replenish it had gone unanswered, he said.
"That reservoir is now empty," Lazzarini said.
"If we project out a couple of days, by the 14th of November this will severely impact ambulances and major hospital operations. Some of them (hospitals) have a bit of solar but it is marginal, so those hospitals cease functioning," he said.
2023-11-13 17:08:38
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has said that he wants aid to be parachuted into the Gaza Strip.
“I call on the United Nations and the European Union to parachute aid into the Gaza Strip, especially the north,” he said.
2023-11-13 15:11:16
Israeli forces reached the gates of Gaza City's main hospital on Monday, the primary target in their battle to seize control of the northern half of the Gaza Strip, where medics said patients including newborn babies were dying for lack of fuel.
There was also fresh concern that the war could spread beyond Gaza, with an upsurge of clashes on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, and the United States launching air strikes on Iran-linked militia targets in neighbouring Syria.
Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra, who was inside the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said an Israel tank was now stationed at the hospital gate.
"The tank is outside the gate of the outpatient clinic department, this is how the situation looks this morning," Qidra told Reuters by phone.
Israel has told civilians to leave and medics to send patients elsewhere. It says it has attempted to evacuate babies from the neo-natal ward and left 300 litres of fuel to power emergency generators at the hospital entrance, but the offers were blocked by Hamas.
Qidra, the Gaza health ministry spokesperson, denied rejecting the offers of fuel but said the 300 litres would power the hospital for just half an hour. Shifa needed 8,000-10,000 litres of fuel per day, which must be delivered by the Red Cross or an international aid agency.
2023-11-13 12:33:10
Israeli forces reached the gates of Gaza City's main hospital on Monday, the primary target in their battle to seize control of the northern half of the Gaza Strip, where medics said patients including newborn babies were dying for lack of fuel.
There was also fresh concern that the war could spread beyond Gaza, with an upsurge of clashes on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, and the United States launching air strikes on Iran-linked militia targets in neighbouring Syria.
2023-11-13 12:59:31
Newborns at the Al Shifa Hospital — the largest healthcare facility in Gaza — are being wrapped in foil and placed next to hot water in a desperate bid to keep them alive, Al-Araby TV reported Monday, citing a senior official.
Two of Gaza’s biggest hospitals have shut operations due to intense Israeli bombing in the vicinity, leaving hundreds of people dead and injured.
According to the report, staff at the Al-Shifa Hospital were fighting to keep the newborns alive after oxygen supplies ran out and they had to move the babies by hand from the neonatal unit’s incubators to a different part of the hospital.
“I was with them a while ago. They are now exposed, because we have taken them out of the incubators. We wrap them in foil and put hot water next to them so that we can warm them,” Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya said.
The doctor’s concerns were confirmed in images showing several newborn babies who were taken off incubators at the hospital clustered helplessly together and placed in one bed.
2023-11-13 12:38:02
Over 30 Brazilians who had been trapped inside Gaza for weeks have crossed the border into Egypt, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said, according to Al Jazeera.
“The group of 32 Brazilians and families are already in Egyptian territory, where they were received by a team from the Brazilian embassy in Cairo, which is responsible for the final step of the repatriation operation,” the ministry wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
2023-11-13 10:21:41
The Israeli military identified two soldiers as Itay Shoham and Yisachar Natan after they were killed on Sunday as a result of battles with Palestinian fighters in Gaza's beleaguered area.
There was reportedly word of injuries to a third soldier, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-11-13 08:45:27
The largest hospital in Gaza has ceased to function and fatalities among patients are rising, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday, as a blistering Israeli assault continues in the Hamas-controlled strip.
Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave, including the al-Shifa complex, are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, with three newborns dead at Shifa and more at risk from power outages amid intense fighting nearby, according to medical staff.
Israel says it is homing in on Hamas who launched deadly attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, and claims the group has command centers under and near the hospitals.
The WHO managed to speak to health professionals at Shifa, who described a "dire and perilous" situation with constant gunfire and bombing exacerbating the already critical circumstances, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
"Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly," he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that Shifa was "not functioning as a hospital anymore."
Tedros joined other top United Nations officials calling for an immediate ceasefire.
"The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair," he said.
2023-11-13 08:32:44
The United Nations (UN) has reported that the Ministry of Health in Gaza has not updated figures on deaths and injuries in Gaza for a second consecutive day after communications and services collapsed at Gaza’s besieged hospitals, Al Jazeera reported.
The UN relief agency (UNRWA) in the occupied Palestinian territories has said in its latest update that the death toll of 11,078 Palestinians martyred in Gaza was accurate as of November 10 at 2pm (12:00 GMT).
On average, Israeli attacks have killed 320 people every day in Gaza since October 7.
2023-11-12 21:49:35
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has slammed Israeli forces for resorting to "collective punishment" of the Palestinians in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Speaking to CNN, Guterres said that Israel cannot use Hamas' attacks "as a reason for collective punishment of the Palestinian people," Reuters reported.
He also confirmed that 101 UN personnel have been killed in the conflict so far.
The UN chief's remarks come as more than 11,000 Palestinians — of which over 5,000 are children — have been martyred due to Israeli aggression.
2023-11-12 21:55:53
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US media Sunday that a deal could be afoot to free hostages being held in the Gaza Strip, but declined to provide details.
Speaking on NBC News show ‘Meet the Press’, Netanyahu said: “There could be, but I think the less I say about it, the more I’ll increase the chances that it materialises."
He added, “We heard that there was an impending deal of this kind or of that kind and then we learned that it was all hokum. But the minute we started the ground operation, things began to change.”
He further said that it is a result of military pressure.
2023-11-12 20:57:07
As Israeli forces continued pounding the Gaza Strip with aerial strikes, six Israelis were wounded in an anti-tank missile attack from Lebanon near the Dovev community, the Times of Israel claimed.
The attack, allegedly carried out by Hezbollah, took place near the Israel-Lebanon border.
Meanwhile, the IDF has said that it has carried out retaliatory strikes against the Hezbollah cell behind the cross-border attack.
The attack comes as the volatile Israel-Lebanon border has seen a significant surge in cross-border attacks from both sides since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7.
2023-11-12 19:56:21
With more than 11,000 Palestinians martyred, Pope Francis has called for an end to hostilities in the Gaza Strip, Al Arabiya reported.
"Enough brothers enough!" the Pope said while calling for an increase in the aid provided to the Gazans.
The Pope also called for the protection of civilians — who have suffered heavily due to Israeli bombing — and immediate relief for the wounded.
2023-11-12 19:36:34
As Gazans struggle to find necessary medical facilities amid a crumbling health infrastructure, Egypt's Rafah border crossing with the territory reopened on Sunday providing much-needed relief to the injured who have been suffering due to the Israeli siege.
According to sources within the Egyptian security apparatus, several wounded Palestinians and around 500 foreigners and dual nationals have made their way to Egypt, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-11-12 17:28:57
As the war rages on in the Gaza Strip, the two primary medical facilities — Al Quds and Al Shifa hospitals — of the besieged strip are now in the crosshairs of the Israeli forces.
According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Al Quds hospital is "out of service and no longer operational" due to fuel shortage and power outage.
"The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the northern region has worsened dramatically with the escalation of Israeli military attacks [...] including targeting sieging and deprivation of aid to hospitals, leading to their closure," the PRCS said.
"Al Quds hospital has been cut off from the world in the last 6-7 days [there is] no way in, no way out," Tommaso Della Longa, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told Reuters.
Meanwhile, Al-Shifa hospital's cardiac ward has also been destroyed by the Israeli forces — worsening the humanitarian crisis in the beleaguered territory.
According to Yousef Abu al-Rish — Gaza's Deputy Health Minister, the two-storey building of the cardiac ward has been completely destroyed due to an Israeli airstrike, Al Jazeera reported quoting AFP.
2023-11-12 15:11:37
Thirteen Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Khan Younis, health officials in Gaza said on Sunday.
2023-11-12 14:37:16
The Israeli army has announced that civilians can evacuate northern Gaza from 9:00am (7:00 GMT) to 4pm (14:00 GMT), and a four-hour “temporary tactical cessation of military activities” will be implemented in Jabalia from 10am (8:00 GMT), Al Jazeera reported.
“We call on residents to take advantage of this temporary suspension of fires and move south,” the army said on its Arabic channel on X, formerly known as Twitter.
According to the Israeli army, there will also be a humanitarian corridor that will allow patients to exit al-Shifa Hospital and travel via al-Wahda Street to the Salah al-Din route.
Despite the Israeli army's announcement, accounts from within the hospital indicate that it is not safe to leave the medical facility.
In separate messages, Ahmad Mokhallalati, a surgeon inside al-Shifa, and Mustafa Sarsour, the only remaining journalist inside the hospital, said that they witnessed civilians trying to exit the building being shot at.
2023-11-12 11:31:28
An official of the Jordanian armed forces says a Royal Air Force plane on Saturday dropped urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza for the second time using parachutes, Jordan News Agencyreported.
The operation was carried out in coordination with the UAE and Qatar to enhance the hospital's capabilities, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the armed forces, the hospital has been operating under challenging circumstances for the past month as a result of constant Israeli airstrikes.
2023-11-12 09:55:33
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) office in Gaza was shelled last night, Achim Steiner, the head of the programme, has said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
2023-11-12 09:06:48
2023-11-12 08:48:09
Israel intensified its shelling and ground attacks around hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza, according to the UN, which also stated that multiple hospitals had been "directly hit."
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian Territories reported that power was apparently cut off at the Indonesian Hospital and Al-Shifa in northern Gaza due to a generator's fuel running out, Al Jazeera reported.
As a result of the fighting and bombardment, failed generators at Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City could not be fixed.
Tens of thousands of Gazans on Saturday left the area in search of safety in the south, while hundreds of thousands of those who stayed behind struggled to obtain basic necessities.
Additionally, individuals are consuming water from "unsafe sources," which "raises serious concerns about waterborne diseases and dehydration."
2023-11-12 02:45:13
Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries called on Saturday for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel's justification of its actions against Palestinians as self-defence.
The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh urged the International Criminal Court to investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing" in the Palestinian territories, according to a final communique.
Saudi Arabia has sought to press the United States and Israel for an end to hostilities in Gaza, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, gathered Arab and Muslim leaders to reinforce that message.
Dozens of leaders including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was welcomed back into the Arab League this year, attended.
Prince Mohammed affirmed the kingdom's "condemnation and categorical rejection of this barbaric war against our brothers in Palestine".
"We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe that proves the failure of the Security Council and the international community to put an end to the flagrant Israeli violations of international laws," he said in an address to the summit.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians were facing a "genocidal war" and urged the United States to end Israeli "aggression".
Raisi hailed the Palestinian resistance group Hamas for fighting against Israel and urged Islamic countries to impose oil and goods sanctions on Israel.
"There is no other way but to resist Israel. We kiss the hands of Hamas for its resistance against Israel," Raisi said in his address.
2023-11-11 23:45:04
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was disrespectful to hold the rally the same day as the commemorations, and ministers had called for the cancellation of the march — the biggest so far in a series to show support for the Palestinians and call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
2023-11-11 23:36:00
2023-11-11 23:30:06
Police said more than 300,000 had joined the pro-Palestinian rally, while organisers put the figure at 800,000.
Pro-Palestinian protesters could be heard chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", a rallying cry which is viewed by many Jews as antisemitic and a call for Israel's eradication.
Others carried banners reading "Free Palestine", "Stop the Massacre" and "Stop Bombing Gaza".
2023-11-11 23:26:36
More than 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through central London on Saturday, with police arresting nearly 100 far-right counter-protesters to stop them ambushing the main rally.
Skirmishes broke out between police and the far-right groups that had also descended on the capital as the Palestinian demonstration clashed with Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of World War One, when Britain commemorates its war dead.
Police said there were several hundred counter-protesters on the streets of central London, and skirmishes broke out near the Cenotaph war memorial early on Saturday.
Incidents continued throughout the day, with police in riot gear trying to contain protesters near the House of Commons, in train stations, and in side streets, with footage showing police officers with batons working to control the crowds.
Some protesters threw bottles and metal barriers at officers in what the force described as "unacceptable violence".
London's Met Police said later it had arrested 82 counter-protesters in a move designed to keep the peace. Another 10 arrests were made for other offences.
2023-11-11 22:56:27
Amid non-stop indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces are now taking the fighting close to medical facilities in the besieged strip — risking more civilian lives.
According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), "Israeli tanks are 20 meters away from Al-Quds Hospital."
The organisation said that the Israeli forces have indulged in "direct shooting" at the hospital resulting in a state of panic and fear among the 14,000 displaced people who have taken shelter at the facility.
2023-11-11 22:00:45
An Arab-Islamic summit hosted by Saudi Arabia on Saturday called for an end to the war in Gaza and rejected justifying Israel's actions against Palestinians as self-defence.
The summit condemned "Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, war crimes and barbaric and inhumane massacres by the occupation government," a final communique said.
The communique also called for an end to the siege on Gaza, allowing humanitarian aid into the enclave and halting arms exports to Israel.
2023-11-11 20:27:16
Israeli army shoots at people trying to flee hospital: Aid group
Doctors Without Borders said that Israeli forces are shooting at people trying to exit the al-Shifa Hospital.
“At the time of writing, our staff are witnessing people being shot at as they attempt to flee the Al-Shifa hospital,” it said on X.
2023-11-11 19:30:22
Three babies have died in the neonatal unit of Gaza's largest hospital, which is surrounded and "out of service" following persistent Israeli fire in the vicinity, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.
2023-11-11 19:27:38
Saudi Arabia and Muslim countries called on Saturday for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, declaring at a joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh that Israel bears responsibility for "crimes" against Palestinians.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, gathered Arab and Muslim leaders for the summit as the kingdom has sought to exert its influence to press the United States and Israel for an end to hostilities in Gaza.
Dozens of leaders including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was welcomed back into the Arab League earlier this year, attended the meeting.
Prince Mohammed said the kingdom affirms its "condemnation and categorical rejection of this barbaric war against our brothers in Palestine".
"We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe that proves the failure of the Security Council and the international community to put an end to the flagrant Israeli violations of international laws," he said in an address to the summit.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians are facing a "genocidal war" and called on the United States to end Israeli "aggression".
Raisi hailed the Palestinian group Hamas for its war against Israel and urged Islamic countries to impose oil and goods sanctions on Israel.
"There is no other way but to resist Israel, we kiss the hands of Hamas for its resistance against Israel," Raisi said in his address.
2023-11-11 17:19:31
Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that an international peace conference should be convened to find a permanent solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.
"What we need in Gaza is not pauses for a couple of hours, rather we need a permanent ceasefire," Erdogan said in his address to an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh.
2023-11-11 17:19:01
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on Saturday for an immediate sustainable ceasefire in Gaza "without restrictions or conditions".
"The policies of collective punishment of the people of Gaza...are unacceptable and cannot be justified by self-defence or any other claims. They must be stopped immediately," he added during a speech at an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh.
2023-11-11 16:43:20
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Saturday that Israel bears responsibility for what he called "crimes committed against Palestinian people", calling for an end to the siege of the Gaza Strip.
Speaking during an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh, the crown prince also called for the immediate end of military operations and the release of hostages.
2023-11-11 16:20:58
2023-11-11 15:13:02
The Palestinian Health Ministry says that 39 babies are at risk of dying due to a lack of oxygen and medicine in Al Shifa Hospital as a result of the electricity cutoff, Reuters reported.
Over the past few days, medical professionals in Gaza have sounded alarms over the dire situation of hospitals due to Israel's blockade.
They have continuously called for a ceasefire citing the severe threat to the lives of Palestinians taking shelter in multiple medical facilities that have been targeted by the Israeli forces.
2023-11-11 13:56:33
Leaders from all over the Muslim world are reaching Saudi Arabia's capital in order to participate in the emergency “Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit” organised by the League of the Arab States and theOrganisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
The guests of this meeting include Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, Malaysia's Prime MinisterAnwar Ibrahim, Palestine's PresidentMahmoud Abbas and many more.
2023-11-11 12:52:37
While speaking to Al Jazeera, the Director of Al Shifa Hospital Muhammad Abu Salmiya described the catastrophic situation at the medical facility which has been hit with Israeli strikes multiple times.
Abu Salmiya said: "All I can say is that we’ve started to lose lives. Patients are dying by the minute, victims and wounded are also dying — even babies in the incubators. We lost a baby in the incubator, we also lost a young man in the intensive care unit.
"The hospital compound is cordoned off and the buildings of the hospital are targeted. Any moving person within the compound is targeted. The Israeli occupation forces are outside, preventing any person to move."
He added: "One member of a medical crew who tried to reach the incubator to lend a helping hand to the babies born inside was shot and killed.
"In addition to that, some of the victims who were already injured suffered bone injuries as a result of sniper gunfire.
"The hospital is left without power, internet and even without water and medical supplies. We are totally cut off from the whole world, we are minutes away from imminent death. We are stranded, we sent many SOS to the whole world — there has been no response, no response."
2023-11-11 11:27:24
Dr Mads Gilbert is a Norwegian doctor who has worked for decades in Palestine with Doctors Without Borders and is a recognised and renowned voice for human rights in Norway.
He recently made a video statement on Israel’s genocide in Gaza calling on the US and Europe to intervene in the genocide.
2023-11-11 11:11:36
Israel has issued a reduced revision of the official government estimate of 1,400 deaths from an attack by Hamas on Oct 7 to about 1,200 deaths.
“Around 1,200 is the official number of victims of the October 7 massacre,” spokesperson Lior Haiat of Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday in a written statement, according to Reuters.
The figure had been updated on Thursday, he said.
According to Haiat, the number was revised since unidentified corpses previously included in the tally likely belong to Palestinian fighters, AFP reported.
“This is the updated number,” Haiat told AFP. “It is due to the fact that there were a lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists … not Israeli casualties.”
In a statement criticising a UNESCO resolution on Friday, Haiat posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Hamas had killed “about 1,200 people” in the attack.
2023-11-11 10:38:37
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) International has reported a dramatic intensification of attacks on al-Shifa Hospital in the last few hours, according to Al Jazeera.
The charity's staff said that the hospital is in “a catastrophic situation”.
“We urgently reiterate our calls to stop the attacks against hospitals and for the protection of medical facilities, medical staff, and patients,” the organisation said.
Additionally, MSF restated a previous alert saying that it was "extremely concerned" for the safety of both hospital workers and patients in Gaza City and that it was unable to get in touch with them.
“Patients are still in the hospital, some in critical condition and unable to move, there are caretakers still inside the facility,” it said earlier.
2023-11-11 08:37:03
2023-11-11 08:18:33
Israel must stop bombing Gaza and killing civilians, French President Emmanuel Macron told the BBC in an interview published late on Friday.
Macron said there was "no justification" for the bombing, urging a ceasefire would benefit Israel.
He said that France "clearly condemns" the "terrorist" actions of Hamas, but that while recognising Israel's right to protect itself, "we do urge them to stop this bombing" in Gaza.
When asked if he wanted other leaders - including in the United Sates and Britain - to join his calls for a ceasefire, Macron said: "I hope they will."
Israel has faced growing calls for restraint in its month-long war with Hamas but says the Gaza-based militants, who attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and took hostages, would exploit a truce to regroup.
In a statement responding to Macron's comments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that world leaders should be condemning Hamas, and not Israel.
"These crimes that Hamas (is) committing today in Gaza will be committed tomorrow in Paris, New York and anywhere in the world," Netanyahu said.
Macron's interview to the BBC aired a day after a humanitarian conference on Gaza was held in Paris.
Macron said the "clear conclusion" of all governments and agencies present at that summit was "that there is no other solution than first a humanitarian pause, going to a ceasefire, which will allow to protect... all civilians having nothing to do with terrorists".
"De facto - today, civilians are bombed - de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop," he said.
2023-11-10 23:36:43
Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on Friday landed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to attend the the emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the war situation in Gaza as Israel continues to pound the besieged enclave.
Riyadh Deputy Governor Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz received the Premier Kakar on his arrival at the King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital.
During his three-day official visit, PM Kakar will participate in the emergency meeting in Riyadh, to discuss the Israeli aggression on Gaza.
2023-11-10 23:15:05
As the death toll in Israeli aggression on Gaza has surpassed 11,000 mark, including more than 4,400 children, the United Nations on Friday reiterated its call for an end to the "carnage" in Gaza, saying that razing entire neighbourhoods to the ground is not an answer for Hamas’s — Palestinian freedom group — actions
In an opinion piece, United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote: "To the contrary, it is creating a new generation of aggrieved Palestinians who are likely to continue the cycle of violence. The carnage simply must stop.”
On a social media post, he said over 100 UNRWA colleagues were confirmed killed in one month of war, noting that included parents, teachers, nurses, doctors and support staff.
Unabated Israeli bombardment, land, air and sea attacks on the civilian population in the besieged enclave compelled the local residents to flee to the south of the territory in recent days, often on foot and with only the things they could carry.
2023-11-10 22:56:18
With the Palestinian death toll surpassing the grim 11,000 mark, Israeli forces — as part of their ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip — stooped to a new low as their snipers targeted the Al Quds hospital, Al Arabiya reported on Friday.
According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), the attack martyred one Palestinian and injured 28 others — the majority of whom were children.
"Two of them [wounded children are] in critical condition due to the occupation snipers targeting the hospital. Additionally, there are injuries from shrapnel of artillery shells west of the hospital," the statement from the PRCS read.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has refused to comment on the incident when approached by the AFP.
The situation has been further exacerbated as the staff at the Al Quds hospital are facing difficulty due to power outages.
"The hospital remains isolated for the fifth day, as all roads leading to it are closed due to bombardment in the surrounding areas," the PRCS said warning that the facility might have to shut down its operation in the next few hours due to fuel shortage.
2023-11-10 21:21:17
Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta, a surgeon in Gaza, has said that the strip's largest medical facility — Al-Shifa Hospital — which is providing services to thousands amid the ongoing war has "collapsed"
"Shifa hospital has collapsed. Wounded and staff leaving in droves. Missile attacks this morning on outpatient dept. which housed internally displaced," he said.
2023-11-10 21:07:26
Al-Shifa Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya said the number of people killed by the Israeli strike at al-Buraq school has increased to 50.
"About 50 martyrs were recovered from inside al-Buraq school … after missile and artillery strikes that targeted the school this morning," Salmiya was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
The victims, many of whom were internally displaced Palestinians who had been sheltering at the school, were transported to Al-Shifa Hospital.
The previous number of victims reported by Salmiya was 20.
2023-11-10 20:58:55
Israeli air strikes hit three Gaza hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people, and a ground battle was underway at another hospital, Palestinian officials said, as Israel's forces took on Hamas in the heart of the enclave.
Officials said missiles landed in the courtyard of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, in the early hours, damaged the Indonesian Hospital and reportedly set fire to the Nasser Rantissi pediatric cancer hospital.
The hospitals are in northern Gaza and are full of displaced people as well as patients and doctors.
Israeli tanks, which have been advancing through northern Gaza for almost two weeks, have taken up positions around the Nasser Rantissi, Children's and Eye hospitals as well as the Al-Quds hospital, medical staff said ealier, raising the alarm.
"Israel is now launching a war on Gaza City hospitals," Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, director of Shifa Hospital, which was struck by missiles early on Friday, told Reuters.
2023-11-10 20:54:07
More than 1,000 officials in the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have signed an open letter urging the Biden administration to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
The letter is latest sign of unease within the US government over President Joe Biden's unwavering support for Israel in its response to the October 7 attacks by Palestinian Hamas that killed 1,400 Israelis.
"As development, public health, and humanitarian assistance professionals, we are alarmed and disheartened at the numerous violations of international law; laws which aim to protect civilians, medical and media personnel, as well as schools, hospitals, and places of worship," the letter reads.
2023-11-10 19:39:19
The UN humanitarian office said on Friday that they cannot deliver aid trucks to the north of Gaza as the war in the besieged enclave rages.
"If there is a hell on earth, it is the north of Gaza," Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the weekly press briefing in Geneva.
2023-11-10 19:18:33
Gaza's health ministry said 21 hospitals had gone out of service and 47 health centres were out of service.
2023-11-10 19:13:25
The health ministry in Gaza said the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s attack since October 7 has risen to at least 11,078, Al Jazeera reported.
The death toll includes at least 4,506 children, the ministry said.
2023-11-10 18:50:03
President Dr Arif Alvi made a telephone call to the President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, and expressed his heartfelt sympathies and grief on behalf of the people and Government of Pakistan over the atrocities being committed by Israel against people of Palestine for over seven decades.
He deplored that what was happening in the Gaza was very painful and the entire Pakistani nation was deeply saddened by the brutalities and reign of terror unleashed the Israeli security forces.
The president strongly condemned the lethal bombing by Israel that even did not spare schools and hospitals and its barbaric actions resulted in killing of thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, healthcare workers, journalists and UN aid workers.
The President said that the current situation in Gaza was the reaction of decades of apartheid and unjust policies of Israel. He condemned Israel for ethnic cleansing against the Muslims and pushing them out of their territories.
2023-11-10 17:15:29
Saudi Arabia's crown prince called on Friday for an end to the war in Gaza.
"We condemn what the Gaza Strip is facing from military assault, targeting of civilians, the violations of international law by the Israeli occupation authorities," Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said during an African-Saudi summit held in the kingdom's capital, Riyadh.
"We stress on the need to stop this war and the forced displacement of Palestinians."
2023-11-10 17:00:12
The Palestinian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has said that Israel “kidnaps hospitals as hostages for extortion” in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
In a statement, the ministry said Israel was continuing its siege of hospitals to “blackmail” the international community for “political gains” and to force Palestinians to move to the south in a “new episode of genocide”.
The ministry also called on the international community to respect its position on protecting civilians and to apply pressure on the “occupying state” to commit to this.
2023-11-10 16:56:50
The leaders of Qatar and Egypt met in Cairo on Friday, both hoping to mediate a de-escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, the provision of humanitarian aid and the release of Israeli hostages.
The talks between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani discussed intensified efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and the delivery of sufficient quantities of aid for its 2.3 million besieged residents, a statement from Sisi's office said.
Qatar said "joint efforts to stop the aggression against Gaza, reduce escalation and bring in urgent humanitarian aid" were discussed.
The Qatari emir's visit comes a day after Qatar's prime minister met the chiefs of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israeli spy agency Mossad in Doha to discuss the parameters of a deal for a hostage release and a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas.
2023-11-10 14:51:31
The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that Israel must take immediate measures to protect Palestinians in the West Bank as they find themselves targeted by more violence since the conflict with Hamas erupted last month.
"I also appeal, as a matter of urgency, for Israeli authorities to take immediate measures, to take steps to ensure the protection of Palestinians in the West Bank, who are being on a daily basis subjected to violence from Israeli forces and settlers, ill-treatment, arrests, evictions, intimidation and humiliation," Volker Turk told reporters in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
2023-11-10 13:27:35
American diplomats posted in Arab nations have warned the Biden administration of “growing fury” in the region over the country’s strong support for Israel’s destructive and deadly military campaign in Gaza, CNN reported Friday.
Quoting from a diplomatic cable, the publication said that the support “is losing us Arab publics for a generation”.
“We are losing badly on the messaging battlespace,” according to a cable from the US Embassy in Oman received on Wednesday.
It cited the assessment based on conversations with “a wide range of trusted and sober-minded contacts.”
The cable warned that the robust US support for Israel’s actions is being seen “as material and moral culpability in what they consider to be possible war crimes.”
The cipher, according to the CNN report, was written by the second-highest US official in Muscat and sent to, among others, the White House’s National Security Council, the CIA and the FBI.
Similarly, in another cable sent from an Arab capital, the diplomats based in Cairo relayed back to Washington the commentary in a state-run Egyptian newspaper that “President Biden’s cruelty and disregard for Palestinians exceeded all previous US presidents.”
2023-11-10 12:22:06
Turkey has made necessary preparations to take injured Palestinians and patients with chronic illnesses from Gaza to its hospitals for treatment, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters after a visit to Uzbekistan, Erdogan also said Turkey will make efforts to increase pressure on Israel to ensure injured Palestinians could be evacuated from Gaza.
2023-11-10 11:27:30
Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar has warned the world of a "spillover effect" of the Gaza situation that can go beyond the region.
The premier made these remarks in an interview with Anadolu on the sidelines of the 16th Economic Cooperation Organization summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Thursday.
Kakar termed the situation "catastrophic" in the besieged territory where the deadly Israeli bombing has killed nearly 11,000 Palestinians since Oct 7.
"An unfolding human tragedy is being witnessed in the region. And it will have a spillover effect, not just in the region but probably beyond the region," Kakar said.
The prime minister called for an "immediate" cessation of hostilities in the enclave, and the establishment of a human corridor for an uninterrupted supply of food, medicines and other essential items.
Kaka said Pakistan is looking forward to attending a forthcoming special session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, adding that the body should deliberate upon the situation, and come up with a "collective response."
2023-11-10 09:52:56
Intense Israeli strikes have hit the vicinity of three of Gaza's hospitals includingPatient’s Friends Hospital andal-Awda Hospital in the Tal al-Zaatar area north of the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported,
There were no immediate reports of casualties but the bombardment resulted in damage to an ambulance, according to a video clip posted by Al Jazeera Arabic on social media.
Additionally, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, Israeli forces “violently bombed” the Tal al-Hawa area of Gaza near al-Quds Hospital.
The hospital announced on Thursday that it was shutting down “most operations” after running out of fuel due to the Israeli military’s complete blockade of Gaza.
2023-11-10 08:28:57
After US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement that Israel cannot occupy Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a U-turn over his earlier comments hinting at taking control of the besieged territory after Hamas war.
In an interview with Fox News, the Israeli prime minister said that his country is not seeking to conquer, occupy or govern the Gaza Strip after its war with Hamas ends, but added that a “credible force” would be needed to enter the enclave if necessary to prevent the emergence of “militant” threats.
"We don't seek to conquer Gaza, we don't seek to occupy Gaza, and we don't seek to govern Gaza,” he said, adding that a civilian government would be required, but that Israel would also need to ensure that an attack like that of 7 October, in which Hamas killed about 1,400 people, doesn’t happen again.
"So, we have to have a credible force that, if necessary, will enter Gaza and kill the killers. Because that's what will prevent the re-emergence of a Hamas-like entity,” he said.
2023-11-09 23:42:25
Israel's defence minister said on Thursday that the military was undertaking "localised, pinpoint measures" in Gaza to enable Palestinian refugees to flee the fighting with Hamas, in an apparent reference to four-hour pauses announced by Washington.
"These things do not detract from the war fighting," Yoav Gallant said when asked by a reporter about the US announcement, which he did not directly address.
The war would continue until Hamas is toppled and hostages held in Gaza are freed, he said.
2023-11-09 22:24:50
Taher Al-Nono, a political adviser to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, said on Thursday that unspecified negotiations were continuing and no deal had been reached with Israel so far.
He gave no more detail in a statement posted on the group's Telegram channel.
The White House had said earlier in the day that Israel would begin daily four-hour pauses in northern Gaza to enable Palestinians to flee Hamas-Israeli fighting in the coastal enclave.
2023-11-09 22:21:37
The Palestinian interior ministry has reported “a number of injuries” among thousands of displaced people who are sheltering in the grounds of the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.
The vicinity of the hospital was attacked by Israeli fighter jets, the ministry said, specifically the Tal al-Zaatar area.
2023-11-09 21:45:28
US President Joe Biden on Thursday told reporters he has asked for a three-day pause in Gaza, and a pause much longer than that to get hostages being held by Hamas out.
2023-11-09 21:44:25
The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad in Gaza is prepared to release two Israeli hostages, a woman and a boy, for humanitarian and medical reasons, a spokesperson for the al Quds Brigades said in a recorded message on Thursday.
He added that the initiative would take place once appropriate measures are met.
2023-11-09 20:57:34
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Israel has informed the United States that there will be no military operations in areas where pauses will take place.
Israel will begin four-hour pauses in northern Gaza starting on Thursday to allow people to flee hostilities, he had announced.
"We've been told by the Israelis that there will be no military operations in these areas over the duration of the pause, and that this process is starting today," Kirby said.
2023-11-09 20:52:44
Israel will begin four-hour pauses in northern Gaza starting on Thursday to allow people to flee hostilities, the White House said in what it called a step in the right direction.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the pauses emerged out of discussions between US and Israeli officials in recent days, including talks US President Joe Biden had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
2023-11-09 20:25:39
10,812 Palestinians, including 4,412 children, martyred since Oct 7
At least 10,812 Palestinians, including 4,412 children, have been martyred in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Thursday.
2023-11-09 18:35:06
Britain's interior minister escalated a dispute with London's police force on Thursday over the handling of a planned, large pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day, accusing officers of taking a softer stance towards left-wing causes.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has taken a tough line on the tens of thousands of protesters who have gathered in London since the Hamas group's October 7 attack on Israel, calling them "hate marches" and "mobs" that threaten the Jewish community.
Critics in opposing parties and her own have accused her of stoking division and undermining the police. They also question her commitment to free speech after she questioned why some public gatherings should not be banned when they are offensive.
"I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza," Braverman, who is on the right of her party and is the minister in charge of policing, wrote in The Times. "They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups -particularly Islamists — of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland.
2023-11-09 15:33:49
NATO allies support humanitarian pauses in the war between Israel and Hamas to allow aid to reach Gaza, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.
International law must be respected and civilians be protected in the conflict, he told reporters in Berlin as he addressed the media before a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
"The war in Gaza must not turn into a major regional conflict. Iran and Hezbollah must stay out of this fight," he added.
2023-11-09 18:33:26
Nine Palestinians were killed and at least 15 others were injured by Israeli forces in a raid on Jenin city and refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Thursday.
Israel's military said it was conducting counter-terrorism raids in Jenin, but gave no further details.
At least 174 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian Health Ministry figures.
2023-11-09 15:28:29
The conflict in Gaza is a wildfire that could spread across the region, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday, adding that allowing the situation to continue in Gaza would be a "travesty".
"The United Nations cannot be part of unilateral proposal to push Palestinians into so-called safe zones," he also said, at the start of a humanitarian conference on Gaza in Paris.
2023-11-09 13:20:54
2023-11-09 13:06:06
Palestinians should govern Gaza once Israel ends its war against Hamas, the United States said on Wednesday, pushing back against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's idea that Israel would be responsible for security indefinitely.
Hamas gunmen from Gaza burst through the border to Israel on Oct 7 and killed 1,400 people, Israel says. Now a month later, Washington has begun discussing with Israeli and Arab leaders a future for the Gaza Strip without Hamas rule.
While a plan has yet to emerge, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday outlined in the most comprehensive comments on the issue to date Washington's red lines and expectations for the besieged coastal territory.
"No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza," Blinken said at a press conference in Tokyo.
Blinken said there may be a need for "some transition period" at the end of the conflict, but that post-crisis governance in Gaza must include Palestinian voices.
"It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority."
Israeli officials have since tried to clarify they do not intend to occupy Gaza after the war, but they have yet to articulate how they might ensure security without maintaining a military presence. Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, says Gaza, where Hamas has ruled since 2007, is an integral part of what it envisions for a future Palestinian state.
2023-11-09 12:11:52
William Burns, the director of the CIA, has been travelling across the Middle East for the past few days, from Israel, then to Egypt, and now to Qatar, which has played a crucial role in mediating the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
According to Al Jazeera, the talks seem to be gathering steam, with analysts noting that the talks centre around the idea of a three-day pause in Israel's attacks on Gaza in exchange for Hamas releasing 10 to 15 hostages.
Burns, who is well-known to the leaders of the Middle East because he worked as a diplomat there for the majority of his lengthy career, is also reportedly travelling to Jordan and the UAE as well as possibly other countries, all in a bid to provide some respite to the people of Gaza and the release of some hostages as the war rages on.
2023-11-09 11:52:22
As talks about a potential ceasefire intensified, Israeli air strikes in Gaza increased.
Last night, Israeli air strikes targeted al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, destroying both the front and back of the hospital, properties, infrastructure, and roads. The attacks have led to increased intensity in the conflict, Al Jazeera reported.
"The hospital sustained a great deal of damage, severing major departments including the X-ray department," said Hani Mahmoud, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Khan Younis.
"This all came right after increased talks about a possible ceasefire for the release of some 10-15 captives, but the air strikes continued to pound not only the northern part of Gaza but the southern part too, including the city of Khan Younis."
2023-11-09 10:21:32
2023-11-09 09:09:15
The Israeli military on Thursday identified the latest military personnel killed in Gaza as 29-year-old Eliahou Elmakayes, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the military, Elmakayes, who served in the engineer corps, was killed during Wednesday’s fighting.
Meanwhile, three others were also seriously injured.
As of Wednesday, at least 31 Israeli soldiers have been killed during the Gaza ground offensive, and more than 260 injured. The official figures do not yet include the numbers announced on Thursday.
2023-11-09 09:08:47
At least three people were killed and dozens of others injured, after an Israeli air strike at dawn on Thursday hit the vicinity of Al-Nasr Hospital in western Gaza, according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.
Wafa also reported that Israel fired several missiles around the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, resulting in missile fragments falling into the hospital courtyard.
Additionally, Israel also fired flares into the sky of Gaza City, with a particular focus on the al-Shati Camp, Al Jazeera reported.
Shells and missiles were also launched in the direction of Rafah but there were no immediate reports of casualties in the attack.
2023-11-08 23:30:09
The Rafah border crossing into Gaza was closed on Wednesday due to an unspecified "security circumstance," US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said.
The United States expects the Egypt-controlled crossing will be reopened at "regular intervals" so that aid can enter the Gaza Strip and foreign nationals can continue to depart, Patel said during a regular press briefing.
2023-11-08 22:58:30
An alliance of 13 major aid groups including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Amnesty International and Oxfam has urged world leaders to push for a ceasefire in Gaza after one month of war between Israel and Hamas.
The organisations "call on French President Emmanuel Macron and heads of state... to do everything in their power to obtain an immediate ceasefire," they said in a statement, one day before a humanitarian conference on the Gaza Strip is due to be held in Paris.
Other priorities should include "concrete measures to free civilian hostages and protect all civilian populations, guaranteeing entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza and respecting international humanitarian law," the groups said.
As well as MSF, Amnesty and Oxfam, the signatories also include Action Against Hunger, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the International Federation for Human Rights.
"We are getting increasingly desperate appeals for protection and aid from our humanitarian workers inside the locked-down Gaza Strip," NRC chief Jan Egeland said in the statement.
"It is unacceptable that there is still no humanitarian ceasefire, no humanitarian corridor and no end to the suffocating siege" of the enclave, he added.
2023-11-08 21:28:13
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that the number of civilians killed in the Gaza Strip shows that there is something "clearly wrong" with Israel's military operations against Hamas Palestinian militants.
"There are violations by Hamas when they have human shields. But when one looks at the number of civilians that were killed with the military operations, there is something that is clearly wrong," Guterres told Reuters NEXT.
"Every year, the highest number of killings of children by any of the actors in all the conflicts that we witness is the maximum in the hundreds," Guterres said.
2023-11-08 19:33:29
Italy will send a hospital ship close to the coast of Gaza to help treat victims of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said on Wednesday.
The ship is leaving today from the western Italian port of Civitavecchia with 170 staff, including 30 people trained for medical emergencies, the minister said, adding that Italy was also working to send a field hospital to Gaza.
Crosetto suggested that two Italian naval vessels already sent to the region were likely to remain in place.
"We will evaluate whether to keep them in the area but I prefer to keep three ships there and not to have any regrets," Crosetto told reporters.
2023-11-08 17:24:20
G7 foreign ministers on Wednesday called for humanitarian pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to allow in aid and help the release of hostages, and sought a return to a broader peace process.
Ending a two-day meeting in Tokyo as Israeli forces continued to pound the Gaza Strip, the Group of Seven wealthy nations said in a joint statement that Israel had the right to defend itself. But they also underscored the need to protect civilians and to comply with international humanitarian law.
G7 members are committed to preparing long-term solutions for Gaza and a return to a broader peace process in the Israel-Palestinian conflict "in line with the internationally agreed parameters," the statement said.
The ministers shared the view that "a two-state solution... remains the only path to a just, lasting, and secure peace".
2023-11-08 15:10:34
US Secretary of State Antony Blinked has said that it is clear that Israel cannot “occupy” Gaza after the war.
The comments from the top US diplomat came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that they could manage Gaza’s security for an “indefinite period”.
“Now, the reality is that there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict, but it is imperative that the Palestinian people be central to governance in Gaza and the West Bank as well, and again, we don’t see a reoccupation,” Blinken told reporters.
“What I’ve heard from Israeli leaders is that they have no intent to reoccupy Gaza.”
2023-11-08 13:29:01
2023-11-08 12:30:48
US nurseEmily Callahan, who worked during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, said that they lost one of the nurses in the first weekend when the ambulance was targeted.
Callahan said that the time when they got the evacuation orders, she messaged her fellow nurses if they were moving out.
"The only answer I got was 'this is our community, this is our family, these are our friends. If they are gonna kill us, we're gonna die saving as many people as we can."
"I want to remind the people that stayed behind are heroes. They know they are gonna die and they are choosing to stay behind anyway," she added.
2023-11-08 11:27:50
The death toll has risen to at least nine after the Israeli army launched an air strike at theJabalia refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported citing medical sources.
The number of deaths climbed on Wednesday as Israel continued its bombardment across the Gaza Strip.
2023-11-08 11:00:42
About 40Filipinos have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, saidPhilippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Marcos, on X, wrote that theFilipinos are travelling to Cairo where they will take flights to their country.
“I hope the rest of our countrymen who also wanted to return home can also exit properly with their spouses and loved ones,” Marcos said in a separate video message.
2023-11-08 10:36:09
Rashida Tlaib, Congress’s lone Palestinian American lawmaker, has been censured by the US House of Representatives over her comments on Israel's invasion of Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
The chamber, which is controlled by the Republicans, voted in favour of censuring Tlaib. Four of them voted against while three Democrats and one Republican abstained.
The lawmaker has repeatedly condemned Israel's bombardment of Gaza which has martyred over 10,000 Palestinians which also includes more than 4,000 children.
2023-11-08 09:49:32
Israel resumed bombarding theNuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, leaving several people martyred and injured,Wafa news agency reported.
The forces attacked the Wahba family's residence, said the sources, adding that some people were still trapped under the rubble.
The injured and killed have been taken toAl-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
2023-11-08 09:44:17
More than 200 Germans and theirfamily members have left the war-hit Gaza, said the country'sForeign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter,Baerbock thanked Egypt for assisting the Germans in leaving thebombarded coastal enclave while calling for ahumanitarian ceasefire.
“Many thanks to our partners in Egypt for their support,” Baerbock wrote, adding that Germany will continue to work “until every German who wants to leave the country can do so”.
“It must become concrete now. The people in #Gaza need water, they need bread. You need medical care. And the most seriously injured must finally be treated.”
2023-11-08 09:40:10
Four people have beenmartyred after Israel launched an airstrike in Gaza's Jabalia, Al Jazeera reported.
The report says that a house in the Jabalia refugee camp, located in Northern Gaza, was targeted.
2023-11-08 09:34:35
G7 foreign ministers discussed how to revitalise peace efforts in the Middle East and the "day after" in the Gaza Strip once the conflict there recedes as they met for a two-day summit in Tokyo.
The subject was brought up during a working dinner late on Tuesday, host Japan said in a statement, with the Group of Seven (G7) due to continue talks on Wednesday on the Israel-Gaza crisis, Russia's war in Ukraine and issues related to China.
The statement gave no details of options being discussed if Hamas is ousted from Gaza as the result of an ongoing Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.
Israel has so far been vague about its long-term plans for Gaza. In some of the first direct comments on the subject, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that Israel would seek to have security responsibility for Gaza "for an indefinite period".
But Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told the Wall Street Journal that Israel wants the territory to be under an international coalition, including the US, European Union and Muslim-majority countries, or administered by local Gaza political leaders.
Diplomats in Washington, the United Nations, the Middle East and beyond have also started weighing the options.
Discussions include the deployment of a multinational force to post-conflict Gaza, an interim Palestinian-led administration that would exclude Hamas politicians, a stopgap security and governance role for neighbouring Arab states and temporary UN supervision of the territory, Reuters reported this month.
G7 foreign ministers are due to issue a communique mentioning the Israel-Gaza crisis later on Wednesday, marking only the second such joint statement from the group on the issue since Hamas gunmen sparked the conflict with an Oct 7 attack on southern Israel.
The statement will present the G7's "united stance" on the Middle East situation, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Wednesday.
It is expected to include a call for humanitarian pauses, temporary breaks in fighting to allow aid into the besieged enclave, Japanese media reported on Wednesday.
2023-11-08 09:18:21
A total of 59 Canadian citizens, permanent residents and family members were evacuated out of Gaza through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt on Tuesday, Canada's foreign ministry said, fewer than initially expected.
Earlier in the day Ottawa had said a first group of 20-25 Canadians was evacuated from the Israeli-besieged Palestinian territory and another 80 people were expected to leave later on Tuesday.
"As the situation is quite fluid and unpredictable, Canadians should be prepared for significant delays at the Rafah border," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Canada said Israel told it last week that more than 400 Canadian citizens, permanent residents and eligible family members would be able to leave the Gaza Strip in the coming days.
2023-11-08 02:23:10
US President Joe Biden has proposed a three-day cessation of hostilities as a potential means to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, said Axios, citing information from two US and Israeli officials.
Biden said this during a phone call on Monday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Axios.
Axios revealed that discussions are underway between the United States, Israel, and Qatar concerning a potential agreement, entailing Hamas to release a group of ten to 15 hostages. During the ceasefire, verification of the hostages' identities and the compilation of a comprehensive list of names would also occur.
Meanwhile, the White House, issuing a statement on Monday, said that Biden and Netanyahu discussed the "tactical pauses" to take place as a safe window for civilians to depart from areas affected by the ongoing fighting. Additionally, these pauses will aim to ensure the smooth delivery of humanitarian assistance to those in dire need while exploring the possibility of facilitating the release of hostages, according to the White House.
The White House has yet to issue an official comment regarding the Axios report.
2023-11-07 23:51:00
The United States said Tuesday it opposed a new long-term occupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed "overall security" of the territory following the war.
"Our viewpoint is that Palestinians must be at the forefront of these decisions and Gaza is Palestinian land and it will remain Palestinian land," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
"Generally speaking, we do not support the reoccupation of Gaza and neither does Israel," he said.
Patel said that the United States agreed "there is no returning to the October 6 status quo," referring to the day before a massive attack by Hamas.
"Israel and the region must be secure and Gaza should and can no longer be a base from which to launch terror attacks against the people of Israel or anyone else," Patel said.
2023-11-07 23:43:42
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel's military was encircling Gaza City and operating inside it as it pressed on with a month-long offensive against Hamas.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said there would be no ceasefire or fuel delivery to Gaza before Hamas released Israeli hostages and repeated a call on Palestinian civilians to move south for their own safety. "We will not stop," Netanyahu said.
2023-11-07 23:31:13
Following a 32-day unabated bombardment, airstrikes and killing of more than 10,000 Palestinians — including 4,237 children — Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday claimed that their forces are currently operating in the heart of Gaza City.
In a televised news conference, Gallant said neither Israel nor Hamas would govern the Palestinian enclave once the ongoing war is over.
2023-11-07 21:20:35
2023-11-07 21:07:38
The first group of Canadians has been evacuated out of the Gaza enclave through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt, International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen said on Tuesday.
"They are now safe and sound in Egypt and we're very, very happy," he told reporters
2023-11-07 20:33:24
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas' military wing Al Qassam Brigades released a dramatic video of clashes between its fighters and the Israeli occupation forces that took place in the Beit Lahia area of Southern Gaza on November 5 and 6.
2023-11-07 18:43:54
Turkey's parliament removed Coca Cola (KO.N) and Nestle (NESN.S) products from its restaurants on Tuesday over their alleged support for Israel amid the conflict in Gaza, according to a parliament statement and a source who named the two companies.
The two companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"It was decided that the products of companies that support Israel will not be sold in restaurants, cafeterias and tea houses in the parliament campus," said the statement, which said the decision had been taken by parliament speaker Numan Kurtulmus and did not identify the companies.
A parliamentary source said Coca-Cola beverages and Nestle instant coffee were the only brands removed from the menu.
The source said the decision was taken in response to public demand.
"The parliament speaker's office did not remain indifferent to the public outcry and decided to remove products of these companies from the menu of cafes and restaurants in parliament," the source said.
Both companies have been named in social media posts in recent days by Turkish activists calling for a boycott of Israeli goods and Western companies they view as endorsing Israel.
2023-11-07 17:34:07
At least 10,328 Palestinians, including 4,237 children, have been martyred in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Tuesday.
2023-11-07 16:31:12
Pakistan on Tuesday dispatched the second consignment of relief goods for under siege Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The relief goods which were sent off in a special flight was seen off by Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani and Human Rights Minister Khalil George.
Read more here
2023-11-07 15:34:34
Journalist Muhammad Abu Hasira and42 other family members, including his brothers and sons, were martyred after Israel bombarded their homes in Gaza City, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Wafa also reported that another journalist, Muhammad Hamouda, was wounded a few days ago alongside his wife, who lost her left eye, and 22-year-old son, Ahmed, whose leg had to be amputated, Al Jazeera reported.
The US-based watchdog group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported on Monday that, since the conflict began, at least 37 journalists and media professionals had been killed and eight had been injured.
2023-11-07 14:51:47
2023-11-07 13:52:17
As calls for a ceasefire grow, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reached Japan for a two-day conference of the G7 foreign ministers, where they will attempt to find a unified position on Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
After finishing a fast-paced tour in the Middle East, Blinken arrived in Tokyo without releasing a statement to the public.
The US has refused to call for a ceasefire, preferring to advocate for fighting pauses and stating that Israel is entitled to retaliate to Hamas's attack on Oct 7.
In Turkey on Monday, Blinken said Washington was working “very aggressively” to expand aid for trapped civilians.
2023-11-07 12:34:21
Palestinian doctors in Gaza reacted to a recent letter sent to Israeli officials signed by 100 Israeli doctors in which they encouraged their forces to bomb hospitals in Gaza.
In their response, the Palestinian doctors said: “We as doctors are ambassadors of peace. We save lives. Israeli doctors who signed a letter promoting the bombing of hospitals with patients inside have committed a betrayal to their noble profession and bear responsibility”.
2023-11-07 11:05:00
Palestinian Authority Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila has said that over 60% of Gaza’s hospitals and medical centres are now out of service.
The official added that 16 of 35 hospitals and 51 of 72 medical centres are no longer operational due to the fuel and medical supply shortages as well as the Israeli bombardment.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has also issued an urgent appeal to international health and relief organizations to provide aid and supplies to Gaza, warning about the repercussions of fuel shortages in the Al-Quds Hospital that is sheltering 14,000 displaced people.
2023-11-07 12:12:08
The Government Media Office, according to Al Jazeera, released a statement on the situation in Gaza on Tuesday. Here are some key takeaways:
2023-11-07 09:22:00
Indonesia's foreign ministry said on Tuesday that the purpose of the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza was to "fully" serve Palestinians in response to an accusation by the Israeli military that it has been used by Hamas to launch attacks.
Israeli military's has said that Hamas "systematically exploits hospitals as part of its war machine" as it exposed a network of tunnels, command centres and rocket launchers beneath and adjacent to hospitals in northern Gaza.
Hamas denies doing so and has accused Israel of spreading lies.
"Indonesia Hospital in Gaza is a facility built by Indonesians fully for humanitarian purposes and to serve the medical needs of Palestinians in Gaza," said the ministry in a statement, adding the hospital is run by Palestinian authorities, helped by a few Indonesian volunteers.
The hospital "is currently treating patients in the amount that far exceeds its capacity", the ministry added.
Sarbini Abdul Murad, the chairman of MER-C, a voluntary group which funded the Indonesia hospital, told Reuters on Tuesday the hospital had run out of fuel, and had "collapsed".
On Monday, Sarbini denied Israel's accusations, adding that it was a "precondition so that they can attack the Indonesian hospital in Gaza".
2023-11-07 12:31:37
Russia's foreign ministry said on Tuesday that a statement by an Israeli junior minister who appeared to voice openness to the idea of Israel carrying out a nuclear strike on Gaza had raised many questions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday suspended Heritage Minister Amihay Eliyahu, from a far-right party in the coalition government, from cabinet meetings "until further notice".
Asked in a radio interview about a hypothetical nuclear option, Eliyahu had replied: "That's one way.
His remark drew swift condemnation from around the Arab world, scandalised mainstream Israeli broadcasters and was deemed "objectionable" by a US official.
2023-11-07 12:00:15
A Palestinian child is martyred every 10 minutes on average over the past month in Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees revealed on Monday.
"On average, a child is killed and 2 are injured every 10 minutes during the war," the UNRWA said in a statement published on X, formerly Twitter.
"Protecting civilians in times of conflict is not an aspiration or an ideal; it is an obligation and a commitment to our shared humanity," it added.
The UNRWA is the primary UN agency operating in the Gaza Strip, where its schools currently host some 670,000 displaced Palestinians seeking refuge from unrelenting Israeli attacks. The aid agency has lost at least 70 of its staff workers since the attacks began.
Israel has launched air and ground raids on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.
Israeli bombardments in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 10,022 Palestinians, including 4,104 children and 2,641 women. The Israeli death toll is nearly 1,600, according to official figures, Anadolu reported.
Besides the large number of casualties and massive displacements due to the Israeli siege of the region, basic supplies are also running low for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.
2023-11-07 08:30:49
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would consider "tactical little pauses" in Gaza fighting to facilitate the entry of aid or the exit of hostages, but again rejected calls for a general ceasefire despite growing international pressure.
"As far as tactical little pauses — an hour here, an hour there — we've had them before. I suppose we'll check the circumstances in order to enable goods, humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages, to leave," Netanyahu told ABC News on Monday.
"But I don't think there's going to be a general ceasefire."
Speaking in a US television interview, Netanyahu, whose country has vowed to destroy Gaza's Hamas fighters, said he thought Israel would need security responsibility over the Palestinian enclave for an "indefinite period" after the war.
When asked during the interview who should govern Gaza when the conflict is over, Netanyahu said: "I think Israel will for an indefinite period... have the overall security responsibility because we've seen what happens when we don't have that security responsibility."
2023-11-06 23:48:26
Yemen's Houthis launched a new batch of drones against sensitive targets inside Israel on Monday, according to a statement from their armed forces broadcast by TV channel Al Masirah.
The statement said the targets of the drones were "varied and sensitive" and led to halting the movement in the targeted bases and airports for hours.
2023-11-06 23:19:13
2023-11-06 22:38:32
As the Israeli aggression on besieged Gaza is about to enter 32nd day, pregnant women and newborns were among the most vulnerable on the “ball of fire”.
Besides the shortage of food, water and healthcare facilities, the pregnant women feared the prospect of giving birth on the floor with no doctor or midwife to help in the shelters established by the United Nations or schools and hospitals.
According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as Israel intensified its aerial strikes and ground invasion on the besieged enclave, more than half of the population was compelled to flee their homes, seeking refuge in UN shelters, schools, hospitals or with relatives.
The UN estimates that over a million people, fleeing the bombs and fighting, have been displaced within Gaza.
Sharing her ordeal with France 24, Shorouq — who is seven months pregnant with her first child and living in a shelter in Khan Younis — asked: "How can I possibly give birth here?"
"There's no access to healthcare and hygiene. Giving birth in this shelter would be a catastrophe for me."
With the Israeli occupation forces blocking all the borders and barring international humanitarian aid for the people in Gaza, the healthcare system has collapsed. Even, pregnant women are unable to access basic maternal health services, according to the reports.
2023-11-06 22:29:32
2023-11-06 22:27:36
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday urged an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, as he warned that the bombarded Gaza Strip was becoming a "graveyard for children."
"The unfolding catastrophe makes the need for a humanitarian ceasefire more urgent with every passing hour," he told reporters at the UN headquarters.
2023-11-06 22:16:07
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will travel to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, the Etemadonline news website reported on Monday, the first visit by an Iranian head of state since Tehran and Riyadh ended years of hostility under a China-brokered deal in March.
"President Raisi will attend the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation' (OIC) summit in Riyadh, where the issue of Palestine will be discussed," the Iranian website reported.
2023-11-06 21:40:56
The Rafah crossing between the bombarded Gaza Strip and Egypt reopened Monday to allow the evacuation of foreigners, dual nationals and wounded Palestinians, the Hamas government and an Egyptian official said.
The terminal was opened for three days on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week to allow dozens of wounded Palestinians and hundreds of foreign passport holders to cross before closing Saturday and Sunday amid a dispute over the passage of ambulances.
Sources within the Hamas government said the crossing reopened after an agreement with Israel — secured with Egyptian mediation — to allow the evacuation of 30 wounded people.
2023-11-06 20:02:30
UN agency leaders saying "enough is enough" demanded a humanitarian ceasefire on Monday nearly a month into Gaza's war, as health authorities in the enclave said the death toll from Israeli strikes now exceeded 10,000.
"An entire population is besieged and under attack, denied access to the essentials for survival, bombed in their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship. This is unacceptable," the UN chiefs said in a joint statement.
"We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It's been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now."
2023-11-06 19:16:07
Al Jazeera TV and Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa radio said on Monday that Israeli forces had targeted a solar panel system at a building in the al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza City.
2023-11-06 19:10:11
Pakistan Monday expressed severe anger over an Israeli minister's statement that his nation was considering dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, the strip where the Israeli forces and Hamas have been engaged in over a month-long battle.
"We are appalled by statement of an Israeli minister threatening nuclear force against Palestinians," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said on Sunday that dropping a "nuclear bomb" on the Gaza Strip is "an option," according to Anadolu Agency.
Read more here
2023-11-06 19:06:00
At least 10,022 Palestinians, including 4,104 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza says.
2023-11-06 18:07:00
The US Navy has taken the unusual step of publicly announcing the deployment of a nuclear submarine to the Middle East, specifically the US Central Command area of responsibility.
While the post did not specify the sub, it is believed to be one of the four Ohio-class guided missile submarines (SSGNs) in the US Navy's arsenal. These SSGNs were originally ballistic missile submarines converted to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles.
This move is being seen by many as a clear message of deterrence to regional rivals, particularly Iran, amid escalating tensions in the Middle East. It's a rare public acknowledgement of the presence of such a vessel in the region.
The deployment of this nuclear submarine follows the US dispatching two aircraft carriers to the Middle East in response to the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip.
2023-11-06 17:24:00
South African government Monday announced to recall all its diplomats from Israel to "signal" concern over the situation in Gaza.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, a minister in the president's office, announced during a press briefing on Monday.
2023-11-06 16:37:14
EU increases aid to Gaza by 25 mn euros. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced a 25 million euro ($27 million) increase in humanitarian aid for Gaza, bringing the total EU humanitarian aid for the region to 100 million euros.
"By doing so the European Union will spend a total of 100 million euros in humanitarian aid for the civilians in Gaza," von der Leyen told EU diplomats in Brussels.
2023-11-06 15:50:34
The heads of several major United Nations (UN) bodies on Monday made a united call for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as Israeli strikes intensified nearly one month into the conflict.
The 18 signatories include Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and UN aid chief Martin Griffiths.
"An entire population is besieged and under attack, denied access to the essentials for survival, bombed in their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship. This is unacceptable," they said in a joint statement.
"We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It's been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now."
Griffiths on Friday called for humanitarian "pauses" in Israel's bombardment of the densely populated Palestinian enclave to help aid deliveries, which are far below pre-conflict levels.
Palestinian envoy to the UN Riyad Mansour responded that Griffiths should call for a full ceasefire.
"You should be saying clearly and loudly in line with IHL (International Humanitarian Law) that a ceasefire should take place," Mansour said. "Saving lives should take place. An immediate cessation of all of these hostilities should take place. This is what I expect from you."
Israel has rebuffed mounting international pressure for a ceasefire, saying hostages taken by Hamas fighters during their rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7 should be released.
2023-11-06 15:25:50
Journalists in Gaza have been going through a tough time like any other Gazan as they are witnessing the endless pain the Gazan families are suffering at the hands of the Israeli forces.
While they are the sole communication source between Gaza and the world, busy delivering the truth from the frontlines, they have sacrificed their leisure, peace and even their families.
Many journalists have been martyred or are waiting for their turn as Israel continues bombing facilities where innocent Palestinians and journalists take shelter.
When asked what they would do when the Israel-Gaza war is over, many journalists said that they will "forget about the world" and "never return".
2023-11-06 14:38:20
A Palestinian journalist, Mohammad Al-Jaja along with some of his family members, was martyred by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City's Al-Nassr neighbourhood on Monday.
Over 31 journalists have been martyred in Gaza while covering Israel's atrocities in the war-torn region.
2023-11-06 14:37:03
Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, which was bombed by Israel a few days ago, received 500 bodies after an Israeli strike hit a camp at the beach, according to Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta, a multi-award-winning British-Palestinian plastic surgeon volunteering on the frontlines.
Abu Sitta took to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday to make the revelation and later posted a tweet saying: "As of this afternoon, 6 of Shifa hospital's operating rooms will cease to work in order to conserve fuel."
His tweets highlight the severity of the current situation in Gaza.
2023-11-06 13:02:11
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had tough discussions in Turkey on Monday aimed at calming down one of Washington's most strategic, yet challenging allies, regarding the recent bloodshed in Gaza.
This was Blinken's first visit since Israel's retaliation against Hamas for the Oct 7 attack that has stirred up anger towards both Israel and the West, which is evident from the protests on the streets of Turkey and in the palace of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of protesters who marched on an air base housing US forces in Turkey's southeast hours before Blinken's arrival Sunday, AFP reported.
Erdogan himself was travelling across Turkey's remote northeast Monday in a seeming snub of Washington's top diplomat.
Blinken's closed-door talks with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Ankara would have been packed with problems even before Israel launched a relentless bombing and expanding ground campaign aimed at eradicating Hamas.
The war threatens to have broad repercussions on Washington's relations with Turkey — a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) member with a muscular foreign policy and stakes in conflicts across the Middle East.
2023-11-06 12:55:01
The Israeli army on Monday claimed that it attacked 450 Hamas positions in Gaza including fighters, military compounds, observation posts, antitank missile launch posts and tunnels.
Separately, the army claimed to have uncovered an opening to Hamas’s tunnels adjacent to the Sheikh Hamad Hospital in Gaza.
During a news briefing, military spokesperson Daniel Hagari also played a video which he said showed Hamas fighters shooting at Israeli soldiers from inside the hospital, Al Jazeera reported. However, Hagari’s claims have not been verified.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, showing Israeli forces as they "took control of a Hamas outpost in Gaza."
The tweet was captioned: "IDF ground forces took control of a Hamas outpost in Gaza tonight. In this outpost, the terrorist organization Hamas had observation posts, training facilities for terrorist operatives, as well as terrorist tunnels. In this operation, a number of terrorists were eliminated."
Israel has been targeting schools and hospitals on the basis of their claims that Hamas is using these facilities and civilian infrastructure as shields for its underground operations.
Hamas has repeatedly denied the claims, accusing the Israeli army of spreading lies and targeting civilians.
Since October 7, Israeli air strikes have repeatedly targeted hospitals, UN-run facilities, refugee camps, schools, mosques and churches, resulting in the killing of civilians, according to local health authorities.
2023-11-06 12:43:13
In addition to the relentless Israeli bombing all over the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank were busy carrying out raids in Hebron and armed clashes there with Palestinian fighters overnight.
There were clashes, according to Al Jazeera, in Bethlehem, Qalqilya and Jenin.
Additionally, raidsand armed clashes occurred in Tubas. An explosive device was reportedly used against the Israeli military by Palestinian groups there during that raid.
In west Ramallah, raids have been carried out in the village of Qatana, and in occupied East Jerusalem seeing an uptick in activity.
In the Shu’fat refugee camp, there has been one of the heaviest Israeli military incursions we’ve seen, with an estimated 300 [Israeli forces] going into the camp.
In the town of Anata,Ma’rouf al-Rifai, the adviser to the Palestinian Authority governor of Jerusalem was arrested as a result of raids.
Moreover, a prominent Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi was also arrested during overnight raids in the occupied West Bank for “inciting terrorism”.
2023-11-06 12:06:58
Ra’fat Alayan, one of the leaders of Palestine's liberation movement Fatah, was detained by Israeli forces on Sunday night from his home while he was in the middle of an interview on live TV.
Alayan was arrested during a live TV interview with Al-Ghad TV, in the Shuafat refugee camp in occupied Jerusalem.
"They are at my home's door to arrest me..." he said before abruptly ending his video call.
2023-11-06 12:11:55
The Israeli military on Monday identified a soldier who was killed in a gun battle with Palestinian fighters in Gaza.
The soldier, identified as Shahar Cohen Mivtach, served in the 9th battalion of the Armoured Corps, according to Israeli forces.
At least 30 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Israel started its ground invasion of Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-11-06 11:02:27
The Palestinian news agency Wafa has confirmed that at least 27 people were martyred following a series of strikes across Gaza early on Monday, according to Al Jazeera.
At least 15 people were martyred in the strike in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah in southern Gaza.
Meanwhile, at least 10 people were also martyred in Al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip, while two others were killed in a strike on a home in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Some areas of Gaza have not been reached by authorities or emergency services due to heavy bombardment early on Monday and it is likely that the death toll could be higher.
2023-11-06 10:53:28
The United Nations (UN) has said that 88 staff members of its agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) have now been killed in Gaza since Oct 7, making the conflict the deadliest ever for UN fatalities.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the UN confirmed the deaths and noted that they represent the “highest number of United Nations fatalities ever recorded in a single conflict”.
Together with a number of non-UN humanitarian organisations, the rare joint statement acknowledged that "scores of aid workers" had been killed, including UN employees.
2023-11-06 10:39:40
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has confirmed that seven water facilities in the Gaza Strip were “directly hit and sustained major damage” on Saturday and Sunday, Al Jazeera reported.
According to UNOCHA’s latest update, the seven facilities included two water wells in Rafah, three sewage pipelines in Gaza City, and two water reservoirs.
The Gaza municipality has warned of the imminent risk of sewage flooding.
A video emerged on Saturday showing water running down a street after a water tank in Tal Al Zaatar in northern Gaza was damaged.
2023-11-06 10:39:02
Jordan's air force air-dropped vital medical supplies to a field hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip, King Abdullah II said early Monday.
"Our fearless air force personnel air-dropped at midnight urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza," he said on X, formerly Twitter.
"This is our duty to aid our brothers and sisters injured in the war on Gaza," he said, adding: "We will always be there for our Palestinian brethren."
2023-11-06 10:23:25
Several people including five family members ofthe public relations chief at Al-Najjar Hospital have been reported martyred following an Israeli air attack on the southern area of the Gaza Strip overnight.
A video posted by Al Jazeera Arabic on X, showed him and his family members weeping next to the remains of their martyred family members who were wrapped in white shrouds.
2023-11-06 09:53:36
Israel's Iron Dome interceptor missiles reportedly malfunctioned last night and ended up making U-turns, hitting hospitals and houses in Tel Aviv.
According to BBC, the Iron Dome is designed to protect against incoming short-range weapons. It operates in all weather conditions and uses radar to track rockets.
The system is able to differentiate between those that are likely to hit built-up areas and those that are not.
2023-11-06 09:20:27
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will hold a closed-door meeting on the violence in Israel and Gaza on Monday, according to the news site Security Council Report (SCR), Al Jazeera reported.
The meeting was requested by the United Arab Emirates and China, SCR reported.
The 10 elected UNSC members may present a new resolution on Israel and Gaza to the council during the meeting, SCR continued.
Permanent members of the council have already vetoed four resolutions that have called for either a humanitarian pause or a ceasefire. It has been more than 10 days since the last two resolutions were rejected on October 25.
2023-11-06 08:52:32
Since Israeli forces started advancing in Gaza following the Hamas attacks on Oct 7, companies that supply satellite imagery to news organisations have restricted images of Gaza, despite having no trouble sharing similar images of Russian forces in Ukraine.
According to the US news website Semafor, starting on October 22, one of the providers, Planet Labs, stopped making high-resolution images available to subscribers which has been crucial in understanding the development of Israeli ground operations.
Subscribers of satellite images revealed that between Oct 30 and Nov 1, no low or medium-resolution imagery of northern Gaza was provided by Planet Labs, which was founded by former Nasa scientists,according toSemafor.
While Planet Labs has not said why there have been restrictions, the US news website revealed that the satellite images of Gaza have concerned US security officials, after a story published in the New York Times on Oct 19 included detailed images of Israeli tank positions.
Additionally, Maxar Technologies, a Planet Labs competitor, has also been releasing images on a significant time delay.
2023-11-05 23:59:34
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after his visit to the West Bank, visited Iraq and said that a humanitarian pause could increase the chances of hostages being returned.
Talking to the media in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad Blinke said that he had a very good and comprehensive discussion with the Iraqi leader adding that the US is working hard to prevent the conflict from spreading beyond Gaza.
He said their attention was focused on repatriating the hostages from Gaza, adding that a humanitarian pause could increase the chances of hostages being returned.
He added that attacks on US personnel are a matter of Iraqi sovereignty and that it was important to send a clear message to US officials about threats not to do so.
2023-11-05 23:39:06
The Israeli airforce on Sunday struck a vehicle in Southern Lebanon, martyring three children, aged 8 to 14, Lebanese media reported.
A Lebanese parliamentarian reacted to the attack saying Israel's attack targeting children is a dangerous development which would have massive consequences.
In response to the Israeli attack, Hezbollah launched a rocket attack in the northern region of Israel. Hezbollah said that the Israeli town of Kiryat Shimuna was targeted by rockets.
2023-11-05 23:31:35
A Palestinian telecommunications company reported Sunday that communications and internet services have been completely cut off in Gaza once again.
2023-11-05 23:21:28
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in his meeting with Antony Blinken on Sunday said that the Palestinian Authority could return to power in Gaza in the future only if a "comprehensive political solution" is found for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Abbas passed the statement in his meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who visited the occupied West Bank on Sunday, as part of a whirlwind Middle East tour as Israel pursues its deadliest campaign yet in besieged Gaza to destroy Hamas.
During the meeting, Abbas denounced "the genocide and destruction suffered by our Palestinian people in Gaza at the hands of Israel´s war machine, with no regard for the principles of international law," according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Blinken and Abbas discussed "the need to stop extremist violence against Palestinians" in the West Bank, the State Department said.
Washington has said it backs a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but Netanyahu´s hard-right government has been implacably opposed.
2023-11-05 22:41:37
20 Palestinians were martyred and multiple injured in an Israeli strike on al-Brij refugee camp in central Gaza, Arab media reported on Sunday.
In 24 hours, the Israeli army targeted 3 refugee camps in Gaza, with over 50 Palestinians dead in the Israeli attack on al-Maghazi camp.
The spouse of a Turkish photographer was also martyred in the Al-Maghazi camp attack. The photographer's four children, four brothers and their children were martyred in the bombing too.
Moreover, hospital sources reported that over 200 Palestinians —including a high number of children and women — were martyred by bombardment in Gaza in the last few hours.
2023-11-05 21:03:04
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), met with leaders of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas in Qatar.
Fazlur Rehman is in Qatar to seek support from Arab world leaders for providing aid to Gaza, which is facing a dire humanitarian crisis.
During the meeting, Fazlur Rehman expressed condolences and solidarity with the people of Palestine in the wake of Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for unity among Muslims in the face of Israeli aggression, which has resulted in the deaths of nearly 10,000 Palestinians.
Khaled Mashal, former Hamas chief, emphasised that the ongoing atrocities in Kashmir and Palestine challenge the claims of human rights advocates. Fazlur Rehman echoed the views of the Hamas leadership, highlighting the complicity of developed nations in the suffering of innocent children and women.
Mashal praised Fazlur Rehman's efforts for the Palestinian cause, acknowledging his role as Palestine's ambassador to Pakistan. Fazlur Rehman's visit to the war zone in Gaza makes him the first religio-political leader from a Muslim country to take this step.
2023-11-05 20:00:35
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday condemned Israeli heritage minister Amichay Eliyahu's comments regarding dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza.
In a post on X, the PML-N leader wrote: "I strongly condemn the Israeli minister’s reprehensible threat to drop atomic bomb on the occupied and innocent people of Gaza. This extremist mindset with access to nuclear power poses a grave danger to global peace. The IAEA must immediately monitor the Zionist state’s nuclear sites and the world must respond decisively to this extremism and nuclear madness. The Security Council and international community cannot stay silent on the massacre of innocent Palestinians and Israel’s plan for global catastrophe. We also call for a united diplomatic effort among Islamic countries to address this imminent danger."
Amichay Eliyahu, a member of Netanyahu's ruling coalition and an ultranationalist politician, faced suspension from government meetings "until further notice" after he made these remarks during an interview on Israel's Kol Barama radio.
2023-11-05 19:23:00
Pope Francis made an urgent plea for a halt to the conflict in Gaza on Sunday, calling for humanitarian aid and help for those injured to ease the "very grave" situation.
"I keep thinking about the grave situation in Palestine and Israel where many people have lost their lives. I pray for you to stop in the name of God, cease the fire," he said, speaking to crowds in St. Peter's Square after his weekly Angelus prayer.
"I hope that all will be done to avoid the conflict from widening, that the injured will be rescued, and aid will reach the population of Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is very grave," he continued.
"Let's think about the children, all the children involved in this war, like in Ukraine and other conflicts; their future is being killed," he added.
2023-11-05 19:00:00
Israeli Heritage minister Amichay Eliyahu found himself in hot waters after suggesting the use of a nuclear bomb on Gaza, adding that the governemt should treat own their hostages as collateral damage and bomb Gaza.
The heritage minister faced suspension from government meetings "until further notice" on Sunday, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office reacted to his comments.
Amichay Eliyahu, a member of Netanyahu's ruling coalition and an ultranationalist politician, made these remarks during an interview on Israel's Kol Barama radio. He expressed dissatisfaction with the scale of Israel's response to the October 7 attacks by Hamas, even if it meant risking the lives of hostages in Gaza.
When asked whether he supported the idea of using "some kind of atomic bomb" in Gaza to "kill everyone," Eliyahu responded, "That's one option."
Netanyahu's office issued a statement, characterising Eliyahu's comments as "disconnected from reality".
In a follow-up question regarding the estimated 240 hostages in Gaza, Eliyahu asserted that "in war, we pay a price."
2023-11-05 18:23:40
Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have resulted in the deaths of over 9,770 Palestinians, including approximately 4,800 children, according to the spokesperson for the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry, Ashraf Al-Qudra.
2023-11-05 18:21:57
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Gazans "must not be forcibly displaced", speaking on a surprise visit Sunday to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to meet Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.
"The Secretary reaffirmed the United States´ commitment to the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance and resumption of essential services in Gaza and made clear that Palestinians must not be forcibly displaced," said a summary of the meeting released by the US State Department.
Abbas condemned what he labelled a "genocide" in comments to Blinken, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
"I have no words to describe the genocide and destruction suffered by our Palestinian people in Gaza at the hands of Israel´s war machine, with no regard for the principles of international law," Abbas was quoted as saying.
2023-11-05 17:06:00
Chad has become the latest country to recall its ambassador from Israel, citing “the unprecedented tide of deadly violence” inside Gaza.
“In front of such tragedy, Chad condemns the loss of numerous innocent civilians and calls for a ceasefire for a durable solution to the Palestinian issue,” read a statement.
This decision follows actions taken by other countries, including Honduras, Chile, Colombia, and Bolivia, in response to the conflict in the region.
2023-11-05 16:28:56
Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip is estimated to cost as much as 200 billion shekels ($51 billion), according to preliminary figures from the Israeli Finance Ministry, as reported by Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper.
This estimate accounts for 10% of Israel's GDP and is based on the assumption that the war will last between eight to 12 months, remain limited to Gaza, and not involve full participation by Hezbollah, Iran, or Yemen.
The Finance Ministry regards this estimate as "optimistic," but it has not endorsed Calcalist's data.
2023-11-05 15:41:39
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank on Sunday and met with the Palestinian Authority president as he continued a tour of the region amid spiralling tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas.
Blinken and Mahmoud Abbas met in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital, on his second visit to the region since the Oct. 7 attacks.
The meeting was Blinken’s second with Abbas since the conflict began, but the first to take place in the West Bank.
Abbas told Blinken that there must be an "immediate ceasefire" and humanitarian aid allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, his spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told Reuters.
However, a protest rally was organised in Turkish city Adana against US state seceretary's visit.
Police fired smoke grenades and tear gas and detained multiple protestors as they tried to break the security fence and attempted to enter the US military base.
2023-11-05 15:40:37
Evacuations of injured Gazans and foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing to Egypt have been suspended since Saturday, two Egyptian security sources and one medical source told Reuters.
One of the security sources and the medical source said the evacuations were suspended after an Israeli strike on Friday on an ambulance in Gaza being used to transport injured people.
The Rafah crossing to Egypt's Sinai peninsula is the only exit point from Gaza not controlled by Israel. Aid trucks were still able to travel into the territory, two of the sources said.
2023-11-05 15:38:37
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said in Doha on Sunday that too many civilians have died in Israeli strikes on Gaza.
Colonna said during a joint press conference with Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, that schools, hospitals, humanitarian workers and journalists must be protected.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas and that it is using residents as human shields.
Colonna added that an international humanitarian conference, to be hosted by France on Nov. 9, will cover respecting international law, and basic needs such as health, water, energy and food, and will call for concrete action for civilians in Gaza.
2023-11-05 15:35:55
More than 100 Britons have been evacuated from Gaza and the government hopes more will be able to leave, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said on Sunday, as he urged the reopening of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
The Rafah crossing was opened for limited evacuations for three days earlier this week under a Qatari-brokered deal aimed at letting some foreign passport holders, their dependents and some wounded Gazans out of the enclave.
"Over 100 UK nationals were able to cross out of Gaza into Egypt through the Rafah crossing. It is very disappointing that the crossing was closed yesterday," Dowden told the BBC.
"We are engaging very closely and we're hopeful that the crossing will reopen again today enabling further UK nationals to leave."
Britain has urged humanitarian pauses in Israel's bombardment of Gaza but has not called for a full ceasefire, saying Israel has a right to protect itself after Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust last month.
At least a dozen Britons died in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, and Dowden said there were still 3 Britons unaccounted for, but he was unable to say whether they had been taken hostage.
2023-11-05 15:35:49
Twenty-one Palestinians from one family were killed in Israeli strikes targeting Gaza overnight, the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Sunday.
"The victims belong to the family of Abu Hasira when the Israeli shelling targeted their house, full of women and children," the ministry said in a post on its Facebook page.
Reuters could not independently verify the account.
2023-11-05 15:25:33
As the war in Gaza shows no sign of stopping, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has arrived in Qatar to meet the Hamas leadership, sources told Geo News on Sunday.
According to the sources, the JUI-F chief will meet Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and former chief of the resistance group Khaled Mashal.
During the trip, it is expected that Fazl will also reach out to the Arab world leadership to find a way to provide aid to Gaza where a severe humanitarian crisis has unfolded after Israel attacked Gaza following the October 7 attack by Hamas.
Read more here.
2023-11-05 15:09:08
In support of the Palestinian people, busloads of people are arriving and marching through Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
The demonstrators are calling on the leaders of the Islamic states to support the Palestinians in Gaza with more than words alone.
Large numbers of security forces are also present and a perimeter has been established around Islamabad's Red Zone, which is home to the US embassy, the parliament, and other important structures.
2023-11-05 14:59:06
As two ambulances headed to pick up casualties from overnight strikes in southern Lebanon, an Israeli drone struck close to them, injuring four paramedics, local officials said according to Al Jazeera.
According to the civil defence unit of a scouting group connected to the Amal Movement, a Hezbollah-aligned political party in Lebanon, the drone "directly targeted" their ambulances.
The injured paramedics were reportedly taken to a hospital in Tyre by the Lebanese army and the Red Cross, according to officials, because Israeli air strikes continued.
According to Al Jazeera, the paramedics were reportedly on their way to retrieve the bodies of two Hezbollah fighters.
2023-11-05 14:16:06
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suspended his heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu “from Cabinet meetings until further notice” after Eliyahu said dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza would be an option for Israel, The Guardian reported.
Additionally, Eliyahu said that he would favour the return of settlements in the besieged enclave while suggesting Palestinians in Gaza move to “Ireland or deserts”.
The statement was previously criticised by Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who stated, "It is a good thing that people like this are not in charge of Israel's security," and by Netanyahu, who called the statement "divorced from reality."
The suspension of Eliyahu, according to The Guardian, "has no practical effect" because he was not a part of the war cabinet that made decisions following the surprise attack inside Israel by Hamas on Oct 7.
2023-11-05 14:02:44
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has documented 102 attacks on health care in Gaza that have resulted in 504 fatalities and 459 injured people.
According to WHO, there have been a significant number of facilities and ambulances destroyed due to relentless attacks.
2023-11-05 12:37:02
Residents of northern Gaza will have a brief window of opportunity, according to the Israeli army, to relocate southward past Wadi Gaza.
The military announced on its Arabic X account that traffic will be permitted on Salah al-Din Street on Sunday from 10am to 2pm (08:00 GMT to 12:00 GMT), Al Jazeera reported.
According to UN estimates, there are roughly 300,000 internally displaced people in northern Gaza.
However, people in Gaza are not buying the Israeli narrative of offering a safe passage to travel south.
While a safe route for ambulances and civilians to travel south was declared a few days ago, horrifying photos and videos showed burned cars that were the target of Israeli airstrikes and bodies lying on the ground.
Furthermore, a large portion of Salah al-Din Street's infrastructure, or the path leading south, has been destroyed. Additionally, there is a 2 km (1.2 mile) stretch of this road that requires walking.
People are therefore reluctant to travel south due to the area's dangers unless they are assured of their safety.
2023-11-05 11:59:14
Around 300,000 pro-Palestine protesters in Washington, DC rallied in front of the White House on Saturday condemning US President Joe Biden for blocking a ceasefire to the ongoing war in Gaza.
The protest in Washington has been the "largest pro-Palestine and anti-war protest" so far, according to the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot who posted a video of the protest on X, formerly Twitter.
Mass protests in support of Palestinians have erupted across the world against the relentless atrocities they are suffering at the hands of Israel and its forces.
2023-11-05 11:41:50
Japan will provide $65 million in additional humanitarian aid to Palestinians out of concern over the conflict in Gaza, foreign minister Yoko Kamikawa said during a tour of Israel and Jordan on Friday.
Speaking to reporters in Jordan after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki, Kamikawa also said Japan was planning to provide material aid to war-torn Gaza.
"It is necessary for Israel and Palestine to be able to coexist peacefully in order to prevent the repeat of another tragic act of terrorism," Kamikawa said, adding that she had communicated Japan's continued support for a two-state solution to both Cohen and Maliki.
The visit comes days before Japan is set to host the foreign ministers of the industrialised Group of Seven nations in Tokyo as the crisis in Gaza deepens, with Israel resisting calls for a humanitarian pause and the leader of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group warning of the conflict spilling over to neighbouring areas.
2023-11-05 11:25:45
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the top US diplomat, is travelling to Turkey today after meeting with Middle Eastern leaders in Jordan and listening to their calls for a ceasefire.
Prior to Blinken's visit, Turkey saw protests, and as the death toll in Gaza continues to rise, the leader of that nation has been vocal in his criticism of Israel and its Western backers, BBC reported.
President Joe Biden hinted on Saturday that there had been some progress on the matter, and Blinken has reiterated his support for "humanitarian pauses" that allow civilians to receive assistance.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that until all Israeli hostages are freed, there cannot be a short-term ceasefire.
2023-11-05 11:04:33
Israeli shelling on Saturday destroyed the primary water source in the Jabalia refugee camp, which has been repeatedly struck over the last several days, Al Jazeera reported.
Gaza is facing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis with over 30 aid trucks entering the region every day, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which experts have said is not enough to meet the needs of the Palestinians.
However, Israel has continued bombing hospitals, refugee camps and UN facilities claiming that Hamas fighters have been hiding within these facilities, using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
2023-11-05 10:55:37
Former US President Barack Obama has criticised social media narratives about the Israeli-Hamas war and insisted that "nobody's hands are clean," advocating for a nuanced understanding of the conflict.
Obama said that the attacks on Israeli communities by Hamas on October 7 were "horrific" and that the treatment of Palestinians is "unbearable" in an interview with his former staff members on Saturday.
2023-11-05 09:29:35
Amal Jadou, the deputy foreign minister of Palestine, posted a video on X claiming that Israel had bombed Al-Azhar University in Gaza.
According to Al Jazeera, the university was bombed on Saturday morning.
2023-11-05 09:09:09
More than 30 Palestinians were martyred in an Israeli bombing of a refugee camp in central Gaza late on Saturday, according to the Gaza health ministry, in the midst of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
"More than 30 (dead) arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the massacre committed by the occupation in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip," health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement.
In a statement posted on Telegram, Hamas said that Israel had "directly" bombed citizens' homes, adding that most of the victims were women and children.
"An Israeli air strike targeted my neighbours' house in Al-Maghazi camp, my house next door partially collapsed," said Mohammed Alaloul, a 37-year-old journalist working for the Turkish Anadolu Agency.
Alaloul revealed that his 13-year-old son, Ahmed, and his 4-year-old son, Qais, were martyred in the attack, along with his brother. His wife, mother, and two other children were injured, AFP reported.
An Israeli military spokesperson said they were looking into whether the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had been operating in the area at the time of the bombing.
Israeli Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi visited troops inside Gaza on Saturday after they completed an encirclement of Gaza City, which lies to the north of Al-Maghazi.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israeli forces were fighting "hard" in Gaza. He said they were "operating from south and north (of Gaza City) and have entered populated areas".
2023-11-05 08:48:30
Police held back protesters outside the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, amid widespread anger at the failures that led to last month's deadly attack by Hamas gunmen on communities around the Gaza Strip.
Waving blue and white Israeli flags and chanting "Jail now!", a crowd in the hundreds pushed through police barriers around Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem.
The protest, which coincided with a poll showing more than three-quarters of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign, underlined the growing public fury at their political and security leaders.
2023-11-05 01:07:08
The armed wing of Palestinian militant faction Hamas said on Saturday that more than 60 hostages were missing because of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, also said on Hamas' telegram account that 23 bodies of Israeli hostages were trapped under the rubble.
"It seems that we will never be able to reach them due to the continued brutal aggression of the occupation against Gaza," he said.
2023-11-04 22:24:05
The United Nations Secretary General and aid agencies working in Gaza have condemned Israel's air strike on an ambulance on Friday, which the Israeli military said, without showing evidence, was carrying Hamas militants.
The Health Ministry, a hospital director and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the Hamas-controlled enclave have said the Israeli strike targeted a convoy of ambulances evacuating wounded people from the besieged northern Gaza area.
Mohammad Abu Selmeyah the director of al-Shifa Hospital, where an ambulance was hit, said 15 people had been killed in the strike and 60 injured. Those killed and injured were mainly people standing by the hospital gate, rather than inside the vehicles, he said.
2023-11-04 23:23:08
Arab leaders press Blinken for Gaza Arab leaders publicly pressed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday to secure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
In a rare open display of disagreement, the top US diplomat pushed back as he stood next to his Jordanian and Egyptian counterparts at a news conference, saying a ceasefire would only let Hamas regroup and launch more attacks on Israel.
Blinken met the Saudi, Qatari, Emirati, Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers in Amman four weeks after the October 7 attack.
"Right now we have to make sure that this war stops," Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told the news conference.
Blinken said all were agreed on the need for peace and that the current status quo in Gaza cold not hold, but he acknowledged there were differences between Washington, which has called only for pauses to led aid into Gaza, and its allies.
"A ceasefire now would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7," said Blinken, on his second trip to the region since Israel and Hamas went to war. "No nation, none of us would accept that."ceasefire
2023-11-04 22:21:32
Thousands took to the streets of Berlin on Saturday in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza amid ongoing bombardments by Israel after the deadly Hamas attack on its territory on October 7.
"We estimate the number of demonstrators at around 3,500, but more are arriving," a police spokeswoman told AFP.
The atmosphere was calm at the start of the rally, and many protesters came with their families and children.
"Save Gaza", "Stop genocide" and "Ceasefire" were emblazoned on marchers´ placards, according to AFP journalists.
2023-11-04 21:12:01
Approximately 1.5 times the explosive force of the bomb detonated in Hiroshima, Japan during World War II, has been dropped on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army since October 7, as per the officials in the besieged territory.
2023-11-04 19:45:21
Pakistan sternly called on Israel to "stop the genocide" of Palestinians in Gaza, with Islamabad's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Munir Akram telling a meeting that an immediate ceasefire was critical to meet immense needs in the besieged enclave.
“We cannot mince our words; we have to tell the Israelis: stop the genocide,” Akram said during a briefing on the "Humanitarian Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory."
Read more here
2023-11-04 18:16:18
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Gaza must be part of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state once the Israel-Hamas war is over, and Ankara will not support any plans "gradually erasing Palestinians" from history.
Speaking to reporters on a return flight from Kazakhstan on Friday, Erdogan repeated his criticism of Western countries for their support of Israel, saying Ankara's trust in the European Union was "deeply shaken".
"Once all of this that is happening is finished, we want to see Gaza as a peaceful region that is a part of an independent Palestinian state, in line with 1967 borders, with territorial integrity, and with East Jerusalem as its capital," Erdogan was on Saturday cited as saying by broadcaster Haberturk and others.
"We will support formulas that will bring peace and calm to the region. We will not be supportive of plans that will further darken the lives of Palestinians, that will gradually erase them from the scene of history."
He also said his intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in contact with Israeli and Palestinian authorities, as well as Hamas, but added that he would not regard Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - who Erdogan said was the sole perpetrator of the situation in Gaza - as a counterpart.
"Netanyahu cannot in any way be taken as a counterpart for us anymore. We have erased him, thrown him out," he said. "But otherwise, there can be no such thing as completely severing ties, especially not in international diplomacy," he was cited as saying by Haberturk.
2023-11-04 18:11:46
Turkey on Saturday it was recalling its ambassador to Israel, Sakir Ozkan Torunlar, for consultations, after Israel recalled its envoys to Turkey last month to reassess their ties following Erdogan's description of Hamas as freedom fighters.
In a statement, Turkey's foreign ministry said Torunlar was recalled: "in view of the unfolding humanitarian tragedy in Gaza caused by the continuing attacks by Israel against civilians, and Israel's refusal of calls for ceasefire and continuous and unhindered flow of humanitarian aid."
Israeli diplomats in Turkey had left the country before its foreign ministry recalled them, due to security concerns after pro-Palestinian protests erupted across the country.
Prior to the Israel-Hamas war, Turkey was working to repair relations with Israel after years of acrimony.
2023-11-04 16:54:22
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 12 people were killed Saturday when Israel struck a United Nations school where thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering.
The ministry reported in a statement "12 martyrs and upwards of 54 wounded so far as a result of targeting Al-Fakhura school, which is sheltering thousands of displaced people in Jabalia (refugee) camp in the northern Gaza Strip".
An earlier statement by the interior ministry said it was an "occupation (Israeli) strike" that hit the school.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, and AFP was unable to independently confirm the toll.
There was also no immediate comment from the UN aid agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
On Thursday, UNRWA said that four of its schools in the Gaza Strip housing people displaced by the war had been damaged by bombings.
2023-11-04 17:22:12
At least 9,488 Palestinians including 3,900 children have lost their lives in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Saturday.
“The victims include 3,900 children and 2,509 women, while 24,000 other people were injured,” the ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qudra, told a news conference in Gaza City.
“70% of the victims of aggression are children, women and elderly people,” the spokesman added.
He also said that “the ministry have received reports about 2,200 people missing under the rubble, including 1,250 children, since the start of the aggression on Gaza.”
“150 health personnel were killed and 27 ambulances were destroyed and put out of service as a result of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip,” Qudra added.
He also accused Israel of "deliberately targeting more than 105 health institutions, which left 16 hospitals and 32 primary care centers out of service due to Israeli targeting and fuel exhaustion."
"The occupation deliberately prevents the evacuation of the wounded from hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip and Gaza City to southern Gaza, all the way to the Rafah land crossing," Qudra also said.
2023-11-04 16:47:25
US Special Envoy David Satterfield said on Saturday that US officials had not been told that Hamas is blocking or diverting humanitarian aid flowing into the Gaza Strip amid shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
Speaking to reporters in the Jordanian capital Amman, he said that those distributing aid in Gaza had not reported aid being diverted since trucks resumed crossing the Egypt-controlled Rafah gate on October 21 after diplomatic wrangling to resume the flow.
Those in charge of the aid "do not report to us in this 10 day, 12 day period of assistance delivery, interdiction of or seizure of goods by Hamas," he said.
Between 800,000 to a million people have moved to the south of the Gaza Strip, while 350,000-400,000 remain in the north of the enclave, Satterfield said.
2023-11-04 15:07:59
Palestinian doctor Hassan Zain Al Din decided to travel on his bicycle to provide treatment and medicine to displaced patients in Gaza after he ran out of fuel for his car.
2023-11-04 14:28:37
Facilities run by the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) are crowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have taken shelter there.
However, despite Israel's claims of targeting Hamas, Israeli forces continue to target UNRWA facilities that are sheltering displaced and injured Palestinian civilians, doctors, UN staff and journalists.
According to the UNRWA, nearly 50 UN buildings and assets have been affected, with some being directly hit, since the beginning of the war on Oct 7.
These include UNRWA buildings used as shelters where the agency is hosting about 700,000 people, with 25 of these shelters in northern Gaza, hosting 112,000 people, Al Jazeera reported.
Earlier this week, four UNRWA shelters were damaged in a 24-hour period and at least 72 UNRWA staff have been killed since the war began, often with their families.
2023-11-04 13:42:43
Israeli forces on Saturday struck the Al-Fakhoora school located inside the Jabalia refugee camp. The school is run by the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
Although the exact number of casualties is not yet known, many have been brought to the hospital and there are fears the number could be in the dozens, Al Jazeera reported.
The school was hosting thousands of people who had fled previous airstrikes from different parts of the north of Gaza.
The refugee camp in Gaza has been hit three times in recent days.
Another massive bombardment occurred in a densely populated central neighbourhood, causing further destruction. Despite the ongoing search for survivors, people continue to search for survivors under the rubble.
2023-11-04 13:30:21
A poll that was published this week by a number of Israeli media outlets suggests that the Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would lose a significant number of seats if Israel held a parliamentary election now.
The popularity of Netanyahu's party has gone from 32% to 18%, according to the survey.
According to the poll, his governing ultranationalist far-right coalition would get 42 seats compared with 78 for the opposition overall, Al Jazeera reported.
To achieve a majority, a party or coalition must hold more than 60 seats in the 120-seat Israeli parliament or Knesset.
2023-11-04 13:28:58
An Israeli drone fired a missile at the Gaza house of Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh who is currently outside the enclave, Hamas's Al-Aqsa Radio reported on Saturday.
It was unclear whether any of his family members were at the house when it was struck.
Haniyeh, Hamas' political chief, has been outside the Gaza Strip since 2019, residing between Turkey and Qatar.
2023-11-04 13:00:57
Amid the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza, protests have erupted in countries across the world featuring crowds of thousands of people calling for a ceasefire.
Despite witnessing one of the biggest protests for ceasefire by its people, the US has promised military aid to Israel for the ongoing war that has taken the lives of more than 9,000 civilians including nearly 4,000 children
2023-11-04 12:46:28
Former Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, pressed that the ongoing situation in Gaza is "genocide" at the hands of Israel and silence is not the answer.
He wrote: "No one is safe in Gaza — neither the children nor patients, nor hospitals, or ambulances. Israel is committing genocide."
2023-11-04 12:35:48
A large crowd gathered at London's King's Cross railway station calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war that has resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives including children.
2023-11-04 12:22:13
The Israeli army has targeted the entrance of Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital in western Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera citing Al-Aqsa TV.
Several Palestinian local media outlets reported civilian casualties.
The Israeli army has recently targeted Palestinian hospitals in the Gaza Strip including Al Shifa Hospital, Al-Quds Hospital, and Indonesian Hospital.
2023-11-04 10:56:17
At least 20 Palestinians were martyred while taking shelter in a school in Gaza City after Israeli forces on Friday night bombed the facility housing thousands of other displaced Palestinians, according to Palestinian media.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported: “The Israeli occupation forces committed a new massacre by bombing the Osama Bin Zaid School affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which shelters thousands of displaced people in the Al-Saftawi area in the northern Gaza Strip, resulting in dozens killed and wounded.”
The attack followed a second Israeli strike on Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital.
2023-11-04 10:51:56
The water and food situation in the besieged enclave has been soberingly assessed by Thomas White, the top UN official for aiding Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
According to Al Jazeera, White informed diplomats during a video briefing that the typical Gazan is barely able to eat two pieces of Arabic bread a day and is running out of water.
Although roughly 89 bakeries in Gaza are supported by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East, according to White, “now people are beyond looking for bread. It’s looking for water”.
White also said that, based on his extensive travel throughout Gaza in recent weeks, the enclave had become a “scene of death and destruction”.
Israel began allowing limited aid into Gaza on October 21 after earlier imposing a near-total blockade on the enclave, but inspections of incoming convoys have caused lengthy delays.
Last week, thousands of residents stormed a warehouse in central Gaza where the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) was storing food.
Samer Abdeljaber, WFP Representative and country director in Palestine said the incident showed that people were “losing hope and becoming more desperate by the minute”.
2023-11-04 10:46:18
US officials are making intense efforts to gain the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, but there is no guarantee of success or a timeframe, a senior Biden administration official said on Friday.
The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said there was "indirect engagement" aimed at finding a way to get the hostages out but that the work was extremely difficult.
Many of the more than 200 hostages are still being held in Gaza, where the Israeli military has launched air strikes and a ground assault and imposed a siege.
The official said it would require a "very significant pause in the conflict" to get the hostages out.
"It is something that is under a very serious and active discussion... There is no agreement as of yet to actually get this done, but it's something we're working on extremely hard," he said.
"We're hopeful and doing everything we possibly can to get the hostages out, but there's absolutely no guarantee a) that it is going to happen or b) when it's going to happen," the official added.
"We are going to do all we possibly can to make sure that all the hostages of all nationalities come out of Gaza. So there's an active process going on here with multiple lines of effort, including indirect engagement to try to find a framework to get the hostages out of Gaza," the official said.
2023-11-04 09:42:52
The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday released a statement saying that he was "horrified" by the attack on an ambulance convoy by Israeli forces.
“I am horrified by the reported attack in Gaza on an ambulance convoy outside Al-Shifa Hospital,” Guterres said. “The images of bodies strewn on the street outside the hospital are harrowing.”
Guterres added that the conflict “must stop”.
2023-11-04 09:14:57
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has condemned the targeting of a convoy of ambulances in Gaza by Israeli forces on Friday, which it says killed 15 people and wounded more than 60 others.
The PRCS said in a statement early Saturday that one of its ambulances was struck "by a missile fired by the Israeli forces", about two metres from the entrance to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 15 civilians and wounded 60 other people, it said, mirroring figures released earlier by the Gaza health ministry.
2023-11-04 01:18:15
A video in Gaza being shared on social media on Friday showed the bodies of at least seven people lying apparently dead on a road running south of Gaza City, which is currently under siege by Israeli forces.
Reuters located the video as being made on the al-Rashid coast road between Gaza City and Wadi Gaza. Reuters could not immediately verify the date it was filmed but verified that it had not been circulating on social media before Friday. Reuters could not verify the identity of the person who recorded the video, nor the identity of the people shown.
Israel's military did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the video.
The video showed some debris and many personal possessions scattered around the people, who included at least one child. Blood stains marked the road.
It was taken by a man or boy cycling along the road and past the scene, speaking as he passed by and starting to cry. At one point another person cycling behind him was visible.
"God, a child. God, women. God, the girl. Please God protect our people. Please look," the cyclist is heard saying in Arabic.
2023-11-03 23:11:21
The Israeli military reported on Friday that one of its aircraft struck an ambulance believed to be used by a nearby Hamas unit in the conflict zone.
The strike resulted in casualties among Hamas fighters, and the Israeli military stated it had intelligence indicating that Hamas had been using ambulances to transport fighters and weaponry.
2023-11-03 23:07:15
Agence France-Presse's (AFP) bureau in the Gaza Strip suffered significant damage from an Israeli strike on the building, as confirmed by an AFP staff member who visited the site on Friday. Despite the damage, AFP continues to operate a live video feed from Gaza City without interruption.
The strike, which occurred a few minutes before midday on Thursday, was captured by an unmanned AFP camera that broadcasts live 24/7. According to an AFP employee, an explosive projectile entered the technician's office horizontally from east to west, causing substantial damage to the bureau. The strike destroyed the wall opposite the window and affected the adjacent room and other doors. Water tanks on the roof were also punctured.
An Israeli military spokesperson denied responsibility for the strike, stating that there was no Israeli military strike on the building in Gaza. However, images published by AFP reveal a significant hole in the building's wall, located in Gaza's Rimal neighbourhood near the port.
AFP's Chairman and Chief Executive, Fabrice Fries, strongly condemned the strike, emphasising that the bureau's location had been well-known and highlighted to prevent such attacks. Fortunately, none of AFP's eight staff members who are typically based in Gaza City were in the bureau at the time of the strike, as they had been evacuated to southern Gaza earlier due to an Israeli military order.
This incident recalls a similar one during a previous Hamas-Israel conflict in May 2021 when the Israeli military targeted a building housing the Associated Press (AP) and Al Jazeera. The ongoing war in Gaza began when Hamas militants crossed into southern Israel on October 7, leading to a cycle of violence resulting in casualties on both sides.
2023-11-03 20:27:00
Top US diplomat Antony Blinken met Israeli leaders to call for increased protection of Palestinian civilians in the effort to dismantle Hamas.
After discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blinken suggested the possibility of "humanitarian pauses" to secure hostage releases and facilitate aid distribution in Gaza.
He emphasised the importance of creating arrangements on the ground that enhance civilian security and enable more effective and sustained humanitarian assistance.
This diplomatic effort comes amidst the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas and seeks to address the humanitarian aspects of the crisis while ensuring the safety of innocent civilians.
2023-11-03 20:36:19
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that there will be no "temporary truce" in Gaza until Hamas releases the approximately 241 Israeli and foreign hostages it took during the October 7 attacks.
Both Israel and the United States have rejected a blanket ceasefire, fearing it would allow Hamas to rearm.
However, US President Joe Biden supports "temporary, localized" pauses. Despite ongoing conflict and airstrikes that have claimed many civilian lives, Israel has initiated the expulsion of numerous Palestinian workers back to Gaza.
2023-11-03 21:33:22
Israel launched an attack near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza while critically injured patients were being transferred to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, as reported by Gaza's Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra.
The attack occurred right outside the hospital, where tens of thousands of displaced individuals had sought refuge in addition to over 5,000 patients.
The injured individuals, who were lined up in ambulances, were targeted despite notifications made to international organisations like the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza City and the Gaza Strip has faced multiple attacks, further exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in the region.
This incident underscores the urgent need for a peaceful resolution and humanitarian assistance to address the suffering of the people in Gaza and ensure the safety and well-being of those seeking medical care and shelter.
2023-11-03 17:42:58
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group warned the United States on Friday that if Israel did not stop its assault on Gaza then the conflict could widen into a regional war.
"You, the Americans, can stop the aggression against Gaza because it is your aggression," Nasrallah said. "Whoever wants to prevent a regional war, and I am talking to the Americans, must quickly halt the aggression on Gaza."
In his first speech since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7, also threatened the US, Israel's main ally, hinting his Iran-backed paramilitary group was ready to confront US warships in the Mediterranean.
Lebanon's Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday broke weeks of silence since war broke out between Hamas and Israel, accusing the US of being entirely responsible for the war in Gaza and calling Israel merely "an executive tool".
In a televised speech, the Hezbollah chief said that the Al-Aqsa Storm battle has extended to more than one front. This decision to launch the operation was 100% Palestinian, its owners hid it from everyone, he added.
“There had to be a major event that would shake the usurping entity and its supporters in Washington and London and this is when the blessed operation of the October 7 took place.”
"We thank the Iraqi, Yemeni hands that joined this battle," said Nasrullah. The secrecy of this operation did not upset anyone in the resistance axis, he added. This battle is completely Palestinian, for Palestinian people, has no relation to any regional issue, Nasrullah reiterated.
Nasrullah added that the October 7 attack led to an earthquake in Israel, revealing Israel's weaknesses.
He added that “conditions in Palestine in recent years have been extremely harsh, especially with this extremist, foolish, stupid, and savage government.”
“This is a seamless battle at the human, ethical and religious levels. It’s the most evident, the most honest and the most noble.
Nasrullah said what happened confirms that Iran does not exercise any guardianship at all over the resistance factions and the real decision-makers are the leaders of the resistance.
Nothing even started and we see countries around the world sending their presidents, their ministers, their generals, their arsenals, and their billions to support this illegitimate entity, he added.
"One of the biggest mistakes Israel is making now is setting goals that it cannot achieve."
Nasrallah said Israel can get back the captives held in Gaza through negotiations. He adds that what is happening in Gaza shows Israel’s foolishness and inability because what they are doing is killing children and women.
The Hezbollah leader calls Israel “frail”, and says for a whole month it could not offer a single military achievement. He called the Palestinian group’s decision to launch the Al-Aqsa Storm right, wise and courageous, adding that it came at the right timing.
The Hezbollah leader calls what’s happening now in Gaza a decisive battle that it’s not like previous wars. He says this requires everyone to bear responsibility.
Nasrallah also outlines two goals: the first is to stop the war in Gaza and the second is for Hamas to be victorious in this war.
2023-11-03 17:40:47
Israeli forces on Friday killed seven Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as violence surges in the occupied territory in tandem with the Gaza war.
It said three men aged between 17 and 26 were killed in the northern city of Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups and the target of frequent military incursions.
According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, two of them died when a drone strike hit a house in the city's refugee camp.
The Israeli army on Friday said its forces were "operating against Hamas" across the West Bank, with operations in Jenin and the northern city of Nablus.
In the southern city of Hebron, two more Palestinians aged 33 and 36 were killed during a military raid on the Fawwar refugee camp, the ministry and Wafa said.
The army said troops had "responded with fire" when Palestinians hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at them as they seized "weapons manufacturing" equipment.
A sixth Palestinian, aged 29, died during an Israeli arrest operation in the Qalandiya refugee camp between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, the ministry said.
In the early afternoon, the ministry said a 33-year-old Palestinian man was "killed by (Israeli) occupation bullets" in Budrus, a village west of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.
2023-11-03 17:28:39
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated Friday that Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself as it continues to pummel the Gaza Strip with an air and ground assault.
"Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself... to make sure that this October 7 never happens again," Blinken told journalists as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.
Soon after Blinken's arrival, he held separate meetings with Herzog and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Before he arrives in Israel, Blinken said he would seek "concrete steps" from Israel to ensure harm to Palestinian civilians is reduced.
"We will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimise harm to men, women and children in Gaza," Blinken had told reporters before departing for Israel.
"This is something that the United States is committed to."
"When I see a Palestinian child — a boy, a girl — pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child in Israel or anywhere else," Blinken said.
"So this is something that we should respond to, and we will."
"I think we need a pause," Biden said on Thursday at a campaign event.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby later clarified what such a pause would entail.
"A humanitarian pause... is temporary, localised and focused, focused on a particular objective or objectives, humanitarian aid in, people out," Kirby told reporters.
2023-11-03 16:29:00
The situation in the West Bank has become "alarming and urgent", the United Nations said Friday, citing in particular an escalation of violence by Israeli settlers towards Palestinians.
From October 7 to Thursday, 132 Palestinians, including 41 children, had been killed in the West Bank while two Israeli soldiers also perished, the UN rights office said.
Much of the world´s attention has been focused on the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.
But "the situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is alarming and urgent, amid the increasing and multi-layered human rights violations of Palestinians occurring there", spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told reporters in Geneva.
She said Israeli forces were increasingly using military tactics and weapons in law enforcement operations, including an operation involving air strikes on the Jenin refugee camp.
"Settler violence, which was already at record levels, has also escalated dramatically, averaging seven attacks a day. In more than a third of these attacks, firearms were used," Throssell said.
She said in many cases settlers were accompanied by Israeli soldiers.
"Along with the near total impunity for settler violence, we are concerned that armed settlers have been acting with the acquiescence and collaboration of Israeli forces and authorities."
She said Israel, as the occupying power, had to ensure the safety and protection of the occupied population.
"Entire communities are being forced from their land by this violence," Throssell said, adding that nearly 1,000 Palestinians from at least 15 herding communities had been forced from their homes since October 7.
2023-11-03 15:36:37
Pakistan's Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Justice Maqbool Baqra on Friday announced the exemption of tuition and hostel fees for Palestinian students studying in "public sector educational institutions" in Sindh.
He also revealed: "48 Palestinian students are receiving education in Sindh."
2023-11-03 15:17:54
A Palestinian journalist and 10 of his closest family members were martyred in an Israeli strike that hit their home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza last night, increasing the total number of journalists who have died at the hands of Israeli forces.
Mohammad Abu Hattab, a journalist for Palestine TV, was martyred shortly after he was spotted doing live reporting.
His colleague, journalist Salman Al Bachir, broke down in tears while reporting Abu Hattab's killing and said: "This gear and helmet do not protect any journalist, they are just empty slogans. We are victims, live on air. We are victims awaiting our turn to be killed."
He then removed his Press vest and helmet noting that it is unable to protect those who wear it.
2023-11-03 14:47:57
The Indian all-rounder took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to call out world leaders over the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict, saying "It's high time for world leaders to unite and put an end to this senseless killing."
2023-11-03 14:17:47
The United Nations humanitarian office said on Friday the cost of meeting the needs of people in Gaza and the West Bank was estimated at $1.2 billion.
"The cost of meeting the needs of 2.7 million people - that is the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank - is estimated to be $1.2 billion," the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
On Oct. 12, OCHA had initially appealed for $294 million to support nearly 1.3 million people.
2023-11-03 12:26:18
Thousands of cross-border Gazan workers and labourers in Israel and the occupied West Bank were sent back to Gaza on Friday, witnesses said.
Some of the Gazan workers returned through the Kerem Shalom crossing east of the Rafah border crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt, the witnesses said, according toReuters.
Earlier this week, Al Jazeera reported that thousands of workers from Gaza, who were employed in Israel when the war started, had gone missing since then, amid a campaign of mass arrests.
Trade unions and human rights organisations assert that some of the workers were unlawfully held in military facilities in the occupied West Bank after their work permits in Israel were revoked.
2023-11-03 11:12:46
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv yesterday as Israeli forces encircled Gaza City, deepening their military incursions amid the Israel-Gaza war.
Blinken said that he would discuss "concrete steps to minimise harm to men, women and children in Gaza" during his trip to Israel and the Middle East, as he said in recent days they have seen Palestinian civilians continuing to "bear the brunt" of the conflict.
Speaking to reporters before departing Washington, Blinken said the United States is determined to prevent escalation on all fronts, including southern Lebanon, the West Bank or elsewhere in the region.
Blinken will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials and receive an update on Israel's military objectives and its plans to achieve those goals, according to the State Department. Blinken's trip will also include a stop in Jordan.
2023-11-03 10:45:06
Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who this week condemned Israeli military's air bombardment of Gaza and recalled his envoy to Israel, on Thursday said he told President Joe Biden that Israel's actions were violating international law.
Boric said he condemned the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Hamas group that killed over 1,500 people and called for the release of Israeli hostages but added Israel's retaliatory bombardment of Gaza had been disproportionate and was violating international law.
2023-11-03 10:10:12
Faryal Makhdoom, wife of former boxing champion, Amir Khan, recently received a WhatsApp message by an Israeli organisation offering to reward her "lucratively" if she would support Israel instead of Palestine.
Makhdoom, who runs a successful makeup company, shared a screenshot of the message on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The screenshot revealed that the organisation also threatened her of "severe consequences" if she didn't follow the instructions or if she made the text public.
2023-11-03 09:35:12
Gulf Arab power, the United Arab Emirates warned on Friday that there was a real risk of a regional spillover from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, adding that it was working "relentlessly" to secure a humanitarian ceasefire.
"As we continue working to stop this war we cannot ignore the wider context and the necessity to turn down the regional temperature that is approaching a boiling point," Noura al-Kaabi, a minister of state for foreign affairs, told a policy conference in the capital, Abu Dhabi.
"The risk of regional spillover and further escalation is real, as well as the risk that extremist groups will take advantage of the situation to advance ideologies that will keep us locked in cycles of violence."
2023-11-03 09:27:57
Thailand is in touch with Iran and other governments that can make contact with Hamas for the safe release of nearly two dozen Thai nationals being held hostage by the organisation, its foreign minister said on Friday.
Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said Iran, which is close to Hamas, has promised to help with negotiations.
At least 23 Thai nationals were among more than 240 people taken hostage when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7.
2023-11-03 00:57:23
Israel's military said Thursday its forces have surrounded the Hamas stronghold of Gaza City after a day that saw the Palestinian territory pounded by deadly fire.
Meanwhile, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, warned Israel its invading soldiers would go home "in black bags".
Spokesman Abu Obeida said: "Gaza will be the curse of history for Israel."
The Hamas warning came after Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said troops had completely surrounded Gaza City after days of expanding ground operations.
"Israeli soldiers have completed the encirclement of the city of Gaza, the centre of the Hamas terror organisation," Hagari told journalists.
"The concept of a ceasefire is not currently on the table at all," he added.
2023-11-02 23:42:12
The White House is exploring the idea of pauses in the Israel-Hamas conflict to help civilians in Gaza and is working with Israel to minimise casualties, national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday.
"What we're trying to do is explore the idea of as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid out and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages," he told reporters at a briefing.
Moreover, the White House added that there is no plan or intention for the US to get involved in Israel's targeting process.
2023-11-02 23:32:54
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is set to deliver his first public comments since the recent conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Hezbollah has engaged Israeli forces along the border, resulting in the deadliest escalation since the 2006 war with Israel, in which 50 of its fighters have been killed.
Nasrallah's speech is highly anticipated as it may provide insights into how Hezbollah's role in the conflict could evolve.
Hezbollah claims to have launched 19 simultaneous strikes on Israeli army positions using guided missiles, artillery, and drones. Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery fire, but the clashes have mostly been confined to the border.
Lebanese citizens are on edge, fearing a catastrophic conflict, and many are anxiously awaiting Nasrallah's speech, believing it will signal the potential for escalation.
Nasrallah's influence extends beyond Lebanon, as he leads a regional military alliance, the "Axis of Resistance," established by Iran to counter the United States and Israel.
2023-11-02 22:37:26
The Israeli military said it targeted Lebanon's Hezbollah with a "broad assault" on Thursday, as the Iran-backed militant group said it had attacked 19 Israeli positions simultaneously.
Israeli "warplanes and helicopters attacked in recent hours targets of the Hezbollah terror organisation in response to fire from Lebanese territory earlier today, together with attacks with artillery and tank fire," an Israeli military statement said.
2023-11-02 22:08:51
A barrage of rockets wounded two people in the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanese border Thursday, Israel's Magen David Adom emergency medical service said.
One of the wounded was "a 25-year-old man in moderate condition who was injured by shrapnel," the medical service said.
An AFP photographer saw Israeli emergency crews checking the debris of burnt-out vehicles following the strikes in Kiryat Shmona.
The Lebanese section of Hamas's armed wing said it fired a dozen rockets at the town "in response to the occupation (Israeli) massacres against our people in Gaza".
The Israel-Lebanon border has since seen tit-for-tat exchanges, mainly between Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group.
On the Lebanese side, 66 people have been martyred — 48 of them Hezbollah fighters but also including seven civilians, one of them a Reuters journalist, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, nine people have died — eight soldiers and one civilian, the army says.
2023-11-02 21:39:37
A group of UN-mandated human rights experts, including the special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said Thursday that "time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza".
"We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide," the experts said in a joint statement.
"The time for action is now. Israel's allies also bear responsibility and must act now to prevent its disastrous course of action."
UN special rapporteurs are unpaid, independent figures mandated by the Human Rights Council. They do not speak for the United Nations but report their findings to it as part of the council´s fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms.
"The situation in Gaza has reached a catastrophic tipping point," the experts said, warning of the "dire need" for food, water, medicine, fuel and essential supplies and the risk of looming health hazards.
The statement was signed by Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.
The other signatories were the special rapporteurs on safe drinking water; food; physical and mental health; internally displaced persons; freedom of expression; and contemporary racism.
2023-11-02 21:12:03
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday at least 27 people were martyred in an Israeli strike near a UN school in the Jabalia refugee camp.
"The bodies of 27 martyrs were recovered and a large number of wounded," said ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra in a toll AFP was unable to verify independently.
AFP footage showed several casualties as crowds of people rushed to help them.
"Children under 10 were simply buying from the canteen and were cut into pieces," cried a woman in the schoolyard.
There was no immediate comment from the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), which runs the school.
Further south in the Bureij refugee camp, Gaza´s civil defence authority said at least 15 people were killed in Israeli strikes.
"The planes struck the whole neighbourhood, they pulled me out from under the rubble," said Bureij resident Hanan Abdulhadi, 50, with blood running down her face.
Carrying his wounded two-year-old son, resident Mohammed Karajeh, 27, said "the whole house fell on us" with more than 20 homes destroyed.
2023-11-02 20:50:42
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israeli forces had pushed further in than the outskirts of Gaza City in their assault on Hamas militants in the northern half of the Gaza Strip.
"We're at the height of the battle. We've had impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. It gave no further details.
The Gaza Strip's main population centre in the north has become the focus of attack for Israel, which has vowed to annihilate the Islamist group's command structure and has told civilians to flee to the south.
"We're at the height of the battle. We've had impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing," Netanyahu said in a statement. He gave no further details.
Israeli military chief Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi said in a televised statement: "Our forces are now in the heart of a ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip."
2023-11-02 20:37:23
Saudi Arabia said Thursday it was launching a fundraising campaign for war-torn Gaza, creating a rare opening for residents to show solidarity with Palestinians.
The move comes as the kingdom attempts to strike a balance between championing the Palestinian cause — its traditional role — and keeping attention on domestic economic and social reforms spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
While the Saudi government has issued repeated statements condemning attacks on civilians in Gaza, the response from the Saudi public has been fairly muted, in large part because there are few safe outlets for any kind of political speech.
The fundraising campaign unveiled Thursday fits "within the framework of the Kingdom's well-known historic role in standing with the brotherly Palestinian people," said Dr Abdullah al-Rabeeah, head of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
King Salman donated 30 million Saudi riyals (roughly $8 million) to the campaign, while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler, donated 20 million Saudi riyals (roughly $5.3 million), SPA said.
2023-11-02 20:06:41
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said that Turkey is prepared to accept cancer patients from the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which was forced to close in Gaza due to fuel shortages.
“The international community and relevant institutions have unfortunately not taken enough initiative to prevent the attacks on the hospital. Saving the lives of the patients is now a duty that cannot be escaped,” he said in a post on X.
In the Gaza Strip, the hospital was the only institution providing cancer treatments.
2023-11-02 19:27:30
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday discussed the Gaza situation with his Egyptian counterpart, emphasising the need for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian access to Gaza.
Both ministers condemned violent actions against civilians and attacks on residential areas and infrastructure. They also highlighted the importance of the release of hostages.
The Russian side emphasised the urgent evacuation of Russian citizens from the Palestinian enclave with the assistance of Egypt.
2023-11-02 18:00:44
Bahrain has recalled its ambassador to Israel and cut off economic relations with the Jewish state, the Gulf country’s parliament announced on Thursday.
Israel’s envoy has also departed Bahrain, the parliament said in a statement.
It added that its decision to recall its envoy and suspend economic relations is based on the kingdom’s “solid and historical stance that supports the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”
Bahrain established ties with Israel under the US-brokered Abraham Accords of 2020.
2023-11-02 17:04:50
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the need to reinforce regional stability with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, the State Department said on Thursday.
"The secretary affirmed the importance of addressing humanitarian needs in Gaza, preventing further spread of the conflict, and reinforcing regional stability and security, including in Yemen," in Wednesday's meeting, the department said in a statement.
"He also emphasised the importance of working toward sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a shared priority of both the United States and Saudi Arabia."
2023-11-02 16:41:50
The health ministry in Gaza reported Thursday that the death toll in Israeli attacks total death toll of 9,061 individuals and 32,000 injuries.
Among the deceased, there are 3,760 children and 2,326 women, according to the ministry's spokesperson.
2023-11-02 14:39:56
A second group of dual nationals left Gaza for Egypt on Thursday through Rafah, a border official said, a day after the crossing point reopened for foreign passport holders and wounded Palestinians.
Wael Abu Mohsen, spokesman for the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, said in a statement that "100 travellers of foreign nationalities" had crossed into Egypt on Thursday morning, escaping the bombarded Palestinian territory.
A total of 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 wounded patients were due to cross by the day´s end, Abu Mohsen said.
2023-11-02 14:32:28
Former Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, paid tribute to 33 journalists who have been martyred while covering the Israel-Gaza war, along with those who are currently carrying out their duties in Gaza.
He wrote: "These brave journalists who bring information to us from conflict zones embody the essence of service to journalism & humanity. They have our deep & abiding respect."
2023-11-02 13:14:36
Israel has dropped internationally banned white phosphorus bombs on Gaza yet again, this time on a school run by the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) where many have taken shelter after being displaced as a result of the Israel-Gaza war.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has already sounded the alarm over Israel's use of white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
Lama Fakih, the Middle East and North Africa Director at the HRW underscored the risk, saying, "Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering."
Read more here
2023-11-02 12:56:23
Recently released footage from Hamas' armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, reveals that they used a drone to drop a grenade on the Israeli forces east of Beit Hanoun.
2023-11-02 12:48:47
The British retailer Marks and Spencer (M&S) has come under fire for an Instagram Christmas advertisement that featured hats in the colour of the Palestinian flag burning in a fire.
Social media users referred to the advertisement as "subliminally referring to the ongoing genocide in Palestine" and said M&S "deliberately ran this," despite the retailer removing the post and apologising "for any unintentional hurt caused."
2023-11-02 11:36:16
An emotional Ons Jabeur, Tunisian tennis star, said she was donating part of her WTA Finals prize money to help Palestinians after her first win at the tournament in Cancun on Wednesday.
In the post-match interview, she fought back tears as she spoke about the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
“I am very happy with the win but I haven't been very happy lately. The situation in the world doesn't make me happy," the three-time grand slam finalist said.
2023-11-02 11:24:45
Israeli air strikes have targeted the Jabalia refugee camp for a third time in as many days, according to Al Jazeera.
At least three Palestinians have been martyred and many injured in the bombing of a house in the camp.
Almost 200 people were killed and at least 777 wounded in the first two bombings of the camp on Tuesday and Wednesday. Another 120 people are still missing, according to a report published by Gaza’s Government Media Office.
2023-11-02 08:42:19
The United Nations (UN) human rights office has stated that the Israeli air strike on Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp may be considered a war crime, as people express increasing horror at the growing number of civilians martyred during the month-long war.
2023-11-02 08:33:59
The Gaza government said at least 195 Palestinians were martyred in Israel's attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp, strikes that UN human rights officials said could be war crimes.
Israeli attacked Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Gaza government media office said.
Some 120 were still missing under the rubble, and at least 777 more were wounded, the office said in a statement.
Israel said it had targeted and killed Hamas leaders in the camp.
Pressing an offensive against Hamas fighters, Israel has bombed Gaza by land, sea and air in its campaign to wipe out Hamas after the group's cross-border rampage into southern Israel on October 7. Israel said Hamas killed over 1,500 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages.
The Gaza health ministry says at least 9,061 Palestinians in the narrow coastal enclave, including 3,760 children, have been martyred by Israeli strikes since October 7.
2023-11-02 02:06:51
The White House on Wednesday said the United States would not put US troops on the ground in Gaza in any future peacekeeping role, as it discusses with allies what post-conflict Gaza would look like.
"There's no plans or intentions to put US military troops on the ground in Gaza, now or in the future," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters as President Joe Biden flew to Minnesota.
Kirby also said the United States does not believe the Palestinian resistance group Hamas can be involved in the future governance of the Gaza Strip when Israel puts and end to shelling.
As the region girds for a potential refugee crisis among the people living in Gaza, Kirby said the United States does not support a permanent settlement of Gaza civilians outside of Gaza, which has been run by Hamas.
With the death toll of innocent Palestinians rising in Gaza as Israel continues to pound the occupied territory, Kirby said Washington does not believe now is the time for a general ceasefire, but that humanitarian pauses in hostilities are necessary.
The Gaza health ministry says at least 8,796 Palestinians in the narrow coastal enclave, including 3,648 children, have been killed by Israeli strikes since Oct. 7.
As the United States and its allies and partners discuss options for Gaza after Israel stops shelling, Kirby said having Hamas in charge would be problematic in the wake of its slaughter of 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel on October 7.
"We do believe that Hamas cannot be the future of governance in Gaza. They can't," said Kirby. "What comes after the conflict, we don't have all the answers yet but we are working with our partners in the region to explore what governance in Gaza can and should look like."
2023-11-01 23:28:53
The United States has criticised the violence perpetrated by Jewish West Bank settlers during the Israel-Hamas conflict, deeming it "incredibly destabilizing."
The US has urged Israel to take action to control such violence.
The State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, emphasised that settler violence in the West Bank not only undermines Israel's long-term security but also hurts the Palestinians residing in the region. The US has conveyed a clear message to Israel that such violence is unacceptable, and those responsible for it must be held accountable.
Over the past year, violence in the West Bank has escalated, with frequent military operations, attacks by Israeli settlers, and Palestinian assaults on Israeli forces and settlers.
The situation has led to a significant number of casualties among West Bank Palestinians, with more than 120 fatalities since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7. The conflict began when Hamas militants crossed the border, resulting in over 1,500 deaths, primarily civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
Since then, Gaza has reported more than 9,061 casualties from Israeli bombardment, with two-thirds of them being women and children.
2023-11-01 21:50:46
The United Nations on Wednesday decried strikes on Gaza´s largest refugee camp that killed scores of people in attacks that Israel said targeted a Hamas commander.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "is appalled over the escalating violence in Gaza," his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
This includes "the killing of Palestinians, including women and children in Israeli airstrikes in residential areas of the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp," Dujarric said.
A strike on the camp killed at least 47 people Tuesday -- including a Hamas commander involved in the October 7 attacks, according to Israel.
"This is just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza where the fighting has entered an even more terrifying phase, with increasingly dreadful humanitarian consequences," Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, said in a statement.
He said "the world seems unable, or unwilling, to act," adding "this cannot go on. We need a step change."
Dujarric said that the secretary-general reiterated that all parties "must abide by international humanitarian law including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution."
He also called on them to "bring an end to this shocking violence, pain and suffering."
2023-11-01 21:15:11
At least 320 foreign passport holders crossed on Wednesday to Egypt from Gaza in a first batch of evacuations from the besieged enclave, three Egyptian security sources and a Palestinian official said.
The Palestinian official on the Gaza side of the border said the foreign passport holders departed the strip on six buses. A first list of about 500 foreigners or dual nationals had been cleared to leave Gaza, with evacuations expected to continue in the days to come.
2023-11-01 21:09:12
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said a second Israeli bombing raid in two days had killed and wounded "dozens" Wednesday at the territory's biggest refugee camp.
It said there were "dozens of martyrs and injured in a bombing by the occupation planes" at the Jabalia camp, a day after Israel acknowledged carrying out one devastating strike as part of its offensive following the October 7 attacks.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths denounced the Jabalia strike after a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
"This is just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza where the fighting has entered an even more terrifying phase, with increasingly dreadful humanitarian consequences," Griffiths said in a statement.
He said "the world seems unable, or unwilling, to act," adding "this cannot go on. We need a step change."
Griffiths said: "We need the warring parties to agree to pauses in the fighting" so that desperately needed relief aid can get into the Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people.
2023-11-01 22:39:48
Sixteen Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting since Tuesday in and near the Gaza Strip, the military said, as troops engaged in fierce battles with militants from the Hamas group, bringing the total military death toll to 331.
The Israeli military keeps a rolling toll on its website, providing the names, ages, and locations of soldiers killed in the ongoing war.
Israeli troops have been fighting Hamas militants on the ground in Gaza since Friday, backed by heavy air strikes and artillery, which have killed a vast number of civilians in the Palestinian territory.
While 15 soldiers were killed inside Gaza in fighting with Hamas militants, one was killed outside the territory. The military did not offer details on how he was killed.
There have also been clashes with Hezbollah and others along Israel´s northern frontier with Lebanon, where another eight soldiers have been killed.
2023-11-01 18:12:14
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said Wednesday 8,796 people have been killed since the war with Israel erupted on October 7.
The death toll includes 3,648 children while 22,219 people have been wounded, a health ministry statement said.
Additionally, the Israeli attacks have left 132 medics dead and 25 ambulances destroyed, al-Qudra reported.
2023-11-01 17:30:15
The only cancer treatment hospital in the Gaza Strip has gone out of service after it ran out of fuel, health officials said on Wednesday.
The director of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital told a press conference aired by Al-Jazeera TV that the hospital, which mainly treats cancer patients, had used up its fuel and was now out of service.
"We tell the world don't leave cancer patients to a certain death due to the hospital being out of service," the director, Subhi Skaik, added.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila confirmed the director's remarks in a statement, adding that this brings the total number of hospitals not operating right now in the Strip to 16 out of 35.
"The lives of 70 cancer patients inside the hospital are seriously threatened," she said in a statement.
"The number of cancer patients in the Gaza Strip is about 2,000 living in catastrophic health conditions as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Strip and the displacement of a large number," al-Kaila added.
2023-11-01 16:21:14
Another attack targets the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, one day after an Israeli airstrike claimed numerous lives and provoked a strong outcry.
From Gaza, ambulances transporting injured Palestinians enter Egypt via the Rafah crossing, which reopened on October 7 for the first time.
Some dual passport holders or foreign nationals should also be permitted to depart.
2023-11-01 15:51:53
2023-11-01 15:39:59
Indonesia has started efforts to evacuate its nationals from Gaza, some of which could be "possibly today", its foreign minister said on Wednesday.
Movement of Indonesians out of the enclave cannot be done at once and must be gradual, with safety the priority, Retno Marsudi told a press conference.
2023-11-01 14:53:28
The first ambulances carrying wounded Palestinians from war-torn Gaza entered Egypt via the Rafah crossing on Wednesday, an Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
2023-11-01 14:14:29
Hamas on Wednesday said air strikes onthe Jabalia refugee camp by Israel killed seven civilian hostages including three foreign passport holders, Al Jazeera reported.
The attack killed at least 50 people and wounded 400.
2023-11-01 13:48:10
As many as 88 injuredPalestinians will be allowed to leave Gaza for Egypt through the Rafah crossing, BBC reported.
However, reports fromEgypt say only 81 wounded will be allowed to cross.
An Egyptian source told Reuters that up to500 foreign passport holders will pass the Rafah border today.
Meanwhile, AFP says that545 foreigners — including dual nationals — will be allowed to cross the border.
2023-11-01 13:36:16
ISLAMABAD: In a fervent plea to the Muslim Ummah, the Senate of Pakistan on Wednesday called for active involvement in resolving the ongoing Gaza-Israel conflict and for providing urgent assistance to the innocent Muslims suffering under Israeli aggression.
Senator Irfan Siddiqui, during a passionate debate on the motion, expressed deep concern over the collective silence of the Muslim world in the face of the Gaza crisis, highlighting the dire need for immediate action. He lamented the lack of proactive measures from influential organisations like the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in effectively addressing the issue and standing up to Israel.
“The silence of the Muslim world is deafening,” Senator Siddiqui emphasised, underscoring the urgency of the situation where thousands, including children, are falling victim to daily violence without any meaningful intervention.
2023-11-01 13:08:36
2023-11-01 12:55:47
Pakistan hasvehemently condemned Israel's barbaric attack on the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza that resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries including of women and children.
In a statement issued by the Foreign Office, the attack underlines the urgency of an unconditional ceasefire to protect civilians from further carnage.
"We urge the international community, especially the backers of Israel, to take urgent measures to bring an end to hostilities, to lift the siege of Gaza, to protect civilians, and to facilitate humanitarian corridors for provision of uninterrupted relief supplies to the beleaguered people of Gaza," added the statement.
2023-11-01 12:45:51
A first group of foreign passport holders is to be allowed to leave the war-battered Gaza Strip for Egypt Wednesday, an Egyptian official at the Rafah border crossing told AFP.
"A first group of foreign passport holders is going to pass through the Rafah terminal to Egypt on Wednesday," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
2023-11-01 12:44:35
2023-11-01 12:34:30
2023-11-01 12:31:10
Israel slammed Bolivia's decision to cut diplomatic ties over its war in Gaza after a deadly Hamas attack as a capitulation to "terror".
"The government of Bolivia's decision to cut diplomatic ties with Israel is a surrender to terrorism and to the Ayatollah's regime in Iran," foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said in a statement.
2023-11-01 12:26:47
Gaza's Ministry of Health on Wednesday issued an urgent appeal for fuel to treat the wounded people.
The ministry has called “anyone who has any quantity of fuel to supply it to the al-Shifa complex and the Indonesian Hospital”.
2023-11-01 12:08:18
The Israeli army said that its forces had carried out attacks on more than 11,000 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of its ongoing war.
The statement issued by the army said that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has struck over 11,000 targets belonging to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
2023-11-01 11:28:47
The southern border at Gaza'sRafah is expected to open as early as today, allowing severely injured Palestinians to get treatment on the Egyptian side, BBC reported Wednesday citing sources.
The UK Foreign Office informed theBritish nationals trapped in Gaza about the reports claiming that the Rafah border might be opened.
However, it is unclear who will be allowed to leave and how will it be managed.
2023-11-01 10:17:00
2023-11-01 10:01:12
2023-11-01 09:54:09
About 12 Palestinians were martyred on Wednesday after the latest air strikes by Israel onsouthern Gaza’s Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reported citing medical sources.
Earlier today, the Israeli army targeted tworesidential buildings in the same area which reportedly wounded more than twodozen Palestinians.
2023-11-01 09:43:50
One Palestinian was martyred in anIsraeli air strike on Wednesday in the occupied West Bank’s northern city of Jenin, Al Jazeera reported.
This would be the third death in thePalestinian territory in the last 24 hours.
2023-11-01 09:24:52
The Israeli military said that nine soldiers had died in Gaza fighting, without immediately providing details on where or when.
2023-11-01 09:20:34
Saudi Arabia condemned Israel's "inhumane targeting" of theJabalia refugee camp in Gaza in a statement shared by the country's foreign ministry on X.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia condemns in the strongest terms possible the inhumane targeting by the Israeli occupation forces of the Jabalia refugee camp in the besieged Gaza Strip,” the statement said.
The attack caused the death and injury of a large number of innocent civilians, it added.
2023-11-01 09:00:48
Palestine Telecommunication Company, or Paltel, said on Wednesday in a post on messaging platform X that communications and internet services have been completely cut off in the Gaza Strip due to international access being disconnected again.
Paltel is Gaza's largest telecommunications provider.
2023-11-01 08:54:26
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari denounced Israel's attack on Palestine, calling it a "grievous assault" on children.
The former foreign minister also called for aceasefire as well as Israel's accountability.
2023-11-01 01:30:01
Bolivia's government is breaking diplomatic ties with Israel, the Bolivian foreign ministry said on Tuesday, accusing Israel of committing crimes against humanity in its attacks on the Gaza Strip.
Bolivia in 2009 cut diplomatic ties with Israel in protest of its attacks on the Gaza Strip.
In 2020, the government of President Jeanine Anez reestablished ties.
2023-10-31 23:24:18
Egypt is making preparations to welcome wounded Palestinians from Gaza, which has faced intense bombardment.
Medical and security sources confirm that medical teams will be stationed at the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday to assess the arriving cases from Gaza.
They will decide which hospitals are best suited for their treatment. A security source at the Rafah crossing has verified this information, highlighting Egypt's commitment to aiding those in need of medical care from the Gaza Strip.
2023-10-31 23:14:41
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly denounced Israel, alleging that it is "committing crimes against humanity in Gaza" with the backing of the United States and Europe.
Erdogan's criticism of Israel has intensified as the conflict in Gaza continues. During a cabinet meeting, he asserted that it is imperative to halt Israel's actions and ensure accountability for war crimes in Gaza.
Erdogan called for an immediate ceasefire to prevent a potential massacre and urged the international community to work towards a sustainable path to lasting peace in the region.
2023-10-31 23:13:12
Israel launched an attack on the al-Shati Refugee Camp near Gaza City's coast, resulting in a reported ten casualties.
The strike primarily targeted a residence, according to local sources.
2023-10-31 23:03:06
Hamas said Tuesday it will free foreign hostages ‘in the next few days.’
The Palestinian liberation group told mediators it would release a number of foreign captives in the coming days, Abu Ubaida, the spokesman of the group's armed wing said in a video on its Telegram account on Tuesday.
More to follow...
2023-10-31 22:15:57
Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said in a televised briefing on Tuesday there was "no deal in sight" for the release of hostages held in Gaza as Israel continues its ground invasion of the enclave.
Hanegbi said attacks against Israel by the Houthi militant group in Yemen were "intolerable" but declined to elaborate when asked what an Israeli response might be.
He said Egyptian hospitals should serve as an alternative for treating Gaza casualties, with hospitals in the enclave under pressure and suffering power cuts, but said Israel understood Egypt's concern about an influx of Palestinian refugees.
Hanegbi said the Israeli military's focus was on fighting Hamas militants in northern Gaza, but that it would shift to the southern part of the strip at a later stage.
2023-10-31 22:03:59
Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades announces the bombing of Tel Aviv, Al Arabiya reported.
2023-10-31 21:33:55
Two Israeli soldiers were killed during combat operations in northern Gaza on Tuesday, the military said, as Israel expanded its campaign targeting Hamas inside the besieged Palestinian territory.
"Two Israeli soldiers killed during combat in north Gaza," the military said in a statement.
Warplanes kept up a relentless barrage of strikes on Gaza, where the Hamas-run health ministry said that 8,525 people had died so far, including over 3,500 children.
The ministry later said at least 50 people were killed in an Israeli bombardment of a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
Hamas also released footage of battles within Gaza, including what it said was a military vehicle on fire.
None of this footage could be independently verified, but AFP images showed plumes of smoke rising as Israeli helicopters rained down rockets on the northern Gaza Strip.
2023-10-31 21:06:27
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi group said it launched a "large number" of drones and ballistic missiles towards Israel on Tuesday after Israel's military said it downed an approaching "aerial target" off the Red Sea city of Eilat.
The operation was the third targeting Israel and there would be more, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised statement.
Saree said the attacks would continue until "Israeli aggression" stopped, referring to the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Read complete story here.
2023-10-31 20:38:21
A group of pro-Palestine protesters interrupted Antony Blinken's speech in Congress, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
2023-10-31 19:55:49
Iran has issued a warning that Tehran-backed groups may take action against Israel in response to its conflict with Hamas, potentially leading to a broader spillover of violence if a ceasefire is not reached.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran's top diplomat, conveyed this message during discussions in Doha, Qatar. He met with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and his Qatari counterpart to explore diplomatic solutions.
"It is natural that the resistance groups and movements do not remain silent against all these crimes," Amir-Abdollahian stated, as per Iran's foreign ministry. "They will not wait for anyone's advice, therefore we need to use the last political opportunities to stop the war," he emphasised after talks with Sheikh Tamim, warning that the situation could "get out of control."
Israel initiated its offensive following an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, resulting in over 1,400 casualties, primarily civilians, and more than 230 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. Since then, Gaza's Hamas-led health ministry reports that over 8,500 people have been killed, including more than 3,500 children.
In response to the escalating crisis, Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen have launched cross-border attacks, raising concerns about regional instability.
2023-10-31 19:41:35
Gaza’s civil defence director has said at least 100 people were killed in an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp, Al Jazeera reports.
“These buildings house hundreds of citizens. The occupation’s air force destroyed this district with six US-made bombs. It is the latest massacre caused by Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip,” Ahmad al-Kahlout told reporters outside a hospital in Khan Younis.
“The international community must act immediately to stop Israel before it is too late,” he added.
2023-10-31 18:32:12
Disturbing videos have emerged from the Palestinian West Bank showing Israeli occupation forces engaging in severe violations of international humanitarian law as they mistreat political detainees.
In one of the videos, which was filmed near Hebron, Israeli soldiers are seen stacking detainees and subjecting them to physical abuse, including beatings, while binding their wrists behind their backs after stripping them of their clothing.
2023-10-31 18:12:35
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired drones towards Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for its war against Hamas, a senior official from the group told AFP.
"These drones belong to the state of Yemen," Abdelaziz bin Habtour, prime minister of the Houthi government, said when asked about the launch towards Eilat in southern Israel.
The Houthis, who seized Yemen´s capital Sanaa in 2014 and control large swathes of the country, are "part of the axis of resistance" against Israel and are fighting with "words and drones", he added.
Israel´s military earlier reported a "hostile aircraft intrusion" that set off warning sirens in the area of Eilat, a resort town on the Red Sea.
"There is no threat in this region and no danger," Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told a separate televised briefing.
Israel blamed the Houthis for a similar drone attack on Friday in which its aircraft intercepted "hostile targets" headed for southern Israel.
Six people were lightly injured in neighbouring Egypt when debris hit a building in the Sinai resort of Taba, just across the border from Eilat, the Egyptian army said at the time.
On October 19, the US Navy said it shot down three land-attack cruise missiles and "several" drones that had been fired by the Houthis, possibly at Israel.
The Houthis will release a statement later on Tuesday with more details of their involvement in the "resistance" against Israel, Bin Habtour said.
Israel has been pounding the Gaza Strip since gunmen from the Palestinian freedom group Hamas stormed across the border on October 7 and, according to Israeli officials, killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
2023-10-31 16:50:42
Muslim Americans and some Democratic Party activists say they will work to mobilize millions of Muslim voters to withhold donations and votes towards President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection unless he takes immediate steps to secure a Gaza ceasefire.
The National Muslim Democratic Council, which includes Democratic Party leaders from hotly contested states likely to decide the election, such as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, called on Biden to use his influence with Israel to broker a ceasefire by 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT) on Tuesday.
In an open letter entitled "2023 Ceasefire Ultimatum," the Muslim leaders pledged to mobilize Muslim voters to "withhold endorsement, support, or votes for any candidate who endorses the Israeli offensive against the Palestinian people."
"Your administration's unconditional support, encompassing funding and armaments, has played a significant role in perpetuating the violence that is causing civilian casualties and has eroded trust in voters who previously put their faith in you," the council wrote.
2023-10-31 17:46:58
A child is being killed every five minutes in the besieged Gaza Strip due to Israeli attacks, as per a Palestinian envoy for the United Nations.
Gaza has become a children's cemetery with at least 940 children missing in the occupied territory since October 7, as per UNICEF.
There is a risk of death of infants due to lack of water in Gaza. Only 5% of normal water supply is available in Gaza, it added.
It further demanded that immediate ceasefire in Gaza and delivery of humanitarian aid should be allowed.
2023-10-31 16:43:51
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday that at least 8,525 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war with Israel on October 7.
“The victims include 3,542 children and 2,187 women, while 21,543 other people were injured,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told a press conference in Gaza City.
The ministry said at least 3,542 children and 2,187 women were among the dead, as Israel pressed on with its air and ground campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
2023-10-31 16:36:29
Israel has announced that its military forces have targeted Hamas fighters within the extensive tunnel network located beneath Gaza.
This action comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected calls for a ceasefire, with the tunnels being a primary focus as part of Israel's expanded ground operations in Gaza.
These tunnels are of strategic importance to Israel as it seeks to dismantle the rule of Hamas, following their surprise attack three weeks ago, which Israeli authorities claim resulted in the deaths of over 1,400 people.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reported that in the past day, their combined combat forces have struck around 300 targets, including positions for launching anti-tank missiles and rockets located below tunnel entrances.
Additionally, they targeted military facilities within the underground tunnel network belonging to Hamas. In response to these strikes, militants fired anti-tank missiles and machine guns. The IDF stated that their soldiers neutralised terrorists and coordinated airstrikes on targets and terror-related infrastructure in real time.
Furthermore, Israeli armed forces conducted overnight bombing raids in Gaza, employing air, sea, and ground attacks. These strikes were concentrated in the northwestern regions of the Palestinian territory, where Israeli troops were engaged in ground operations, as reported by witnesses on Tuesday.
2023-10-31 15:22:15
A World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Tuesday that a "public health catastrophe" was imminent in Gaza amid overcrowding, mass displacement and damage to water and sanitation infrastructure.
At the same press briefing, a spokesperson from the UN children's agency (UNICEF) warned of the risk of infant deaths due to dehydration with just 5% of normal water supplies available.
2023-10-31 15:03:30
Thousands of Palestinians have been martyred, injured and missing since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.
The massive casualties include a devastatingly large number of children.
Additionally, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, during a UN Security Council meeting on Monday said that, as a result of the ongoing war, children are "experiencing terrible trauma — the consequences of which could last a lifetime."
2023-10-31 14:53:02
In a recent post on social media, renowned British filmmaker Jemima Khan asserted that Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group, is a product of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Goldsmith on Tuesday took to X, formerly known as Twitter, claiming that Netanyahu "historically supported and empowered Hamas in order to sabotage any possibility of a two-state solution and peace."
2023-10-31 14:19:39
Israel has relentlessly bombed several districts in the Gaza Strip including Rafah, Khan Yunis, Gaza City and more.
2023-10-31 14:01:22
Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta, a renowned British-Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon, who is currently volunteering on the frontlines in Gaza, has shared an alarming update on the food crisis in the region.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday, Abu Sitta revealed: "People have started going hungry."
2023-10-31 13:52:39
Pro-Palestine protesters on Tuesday flocked to the Israeli embassy in the Philippine capital Manila to condemn the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
Videos, posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera, showed protesters in scuffles with police officers.
The protesters chanted pro-Palestine slogans as officers tried to prevent them from approaching the embassy building.
2023-10-31 13:48:58
The Palestinian Society Prisoner's Club and the Commission of Detainees' Affairs said that 60 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli forces throughout the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the report, the majority of the arrests happened in Bethlehem, Hebron, and Nablus, with a smaller number occurring in Salfit, Jenin, Tulkarem, Ramallah, and Jerusalem.
“Arrests are accompanied with torture and abusive attacks against detainees and their families, as well as the policy of collective punishment, destroying property,” they said, adding that 1,740 arrest cases have been recorded in the occupied West Bank since October 7.
2023-10-31 13:39:48
Kuwait's crown prince Sheikh Mishal al-Ahmad al-Sabah said on Tuesday that his country condemns Israeli "aggression" on Gaza and called for a ceasefire, Reuters reported.
Al-Sabah condemned Israel’s violations and aggression in Gaza, requesting the opening of the crossings to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
He was addressing the parliament on behalf of the Emir in the opening of the parliament's regular second session,
He also condemned the displacement of Gazans amid Israeli violations, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-10-31 12:49:51
Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Monday vowed to wear a yellow star until the UN Security Council (UNSC) calls for the "immediate release" of hostages and denounces "the atrocities of Hamas".
The lack of agreement has prevented the UNSC from adopting several resolutions addressing the situation in Israel and Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
Jews were required to wear the yellow Star of David under Nazi rule, as a way to identify them publicly. Those found without one were fined, jailed or sometimes even killed.
Today, pinning on the star is seen as a way of evoking the Holocaust.
2023-10-31 12:47:05
Israel's military has confirmed that a soldier rescued in a Gaza operation has provided the army with valuable intelligence for future operations, Al Jazeera reported.
Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesperson, released a video statement revealing that Private Uri Megidish, who was recently rescued by Israeli forces, is in good health both mentally and physically.
Israel’s operation in Gaza using heavily armoured vehicles is moving “slowly and meticulously”, he said.
“We are striking in all parts of the Gaza Strip” with a focus on the north of the enclave, Conricus added before accusing Hamas of using Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the region, as a place for “terrorists to hide”.
2023-10-31 12:31:11
Iran’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying that Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran's foreign minister, is travelling to Doha for talks with senior officials in Qatar, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the statement, the developments in the conflict and ending Israel’s “war crimes and genocide” of Palestinians will be at the top of the agenda.
2023-10-31 12:21:51
Israeli bombardments in the Gaza Strip have continued, causing heavy casualties, according to Al Jazeera's correspondent in the war-torn region.
At least nine people were martyred in Rafah after an Israeli strike hit a residential tower without warning. Emergency services officials predict the death toll will rise as more people remain trapped under rubble.
In al-Zawayda, an entire family comprising at least 18 people, including grandparents and grandchildren, was killed after an Israeli air strike hit the shelter they were in.
2023-10-31 12:10:56
Air raid sirens went off in the area of the Red Sea city of Eilat on Tuesday, and Israel's military said the alert concerned a possible hostile aircraft intrusion.
The military offered no further detail.
2023-10-31 12:05:26
The UN special envoy to Syria claims that the 12-year conflict between Israel and Hamas is spreading to the country due to rising unrest, violence, and lack of progress towards a political settlement.
In addition to the violence caused by the Syrian conflict, Geir Pedersen told the UN Security Council that the Syrian people now face "a terrifying prospect of a potential wider escalation" as a result of the conflict.
Pedersen stated: "Spillover into Syria is not just a risk; it has already begun."
He cited repeated airstrikes on Syria's airports in Aleppo and Damascus that were attributed to Israel, as well as US retaliation against what it claimed were repeated attacks on its forces "by groups that it claims are backed by Iran, including on Syrian territory."
2023-10-31 12:02:39
Under the direction of the nation's intelligence services, Israeli security forces claim to have attacked roughly 300 targets in Gaza during the course of the night, Al Jazeera reported.
According to a statement on X, the military destroyed Hamas's military compounds, tunnel shafts, and antitank and rocket launch positions.
As previously reported, as medical professionals and the UN voiced concerns about airstrikes near hospitals, Israeli forces continued their advance into the besieged Gaza Strip and engaged in combat with Palestinian fighters close to Gaza City.
2023-10-31 11:53:18
The former prime minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif requested the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to "pass a binding resolution calling for a halt to the Israeli war crimes."
Sharif on Tuesday, wrote on X — formerly known as Twitter— saying: "The massive demonstrations held for support of the oppressed Palestinians across the world capitals are indicative of the prevalent sentiments in the street.
"Let this be understood that the consequences of the bloodbath in Gaza will be disastrous."
2023-10-31 11:23:57
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says that 31 journalists have been killed in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Among those journalists, 26 were Palestinians, four were Israelis and one was Lebanese, according to the New York-based rights group.
Additionally, eight journalists were reported injured, another nine journalists were reported missing or detained, the group said.
They added that more members of the press have died in the first weeks of this war than in any other conflict since 1992.
2023-10-31 11:21:10
Brazilian President Luiz Lula Inácio da Silva called out Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, saying: “This is not a war. This is a genocide.”
2023-10-31 11:11:27
Dror Eydar, the former Israeli ambassador to Italy from 2019 to 2022,In a recent interview with Stasera Italia, claimed that Israelis have no interest in "rational Palestinian talks" and that their only goal is to "destroy Gaza."
2023-10-31 09:43:14
Israeli forces have reportedly stormed the occupied West Bank town of Aroura, surrounding the family home of Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, and then blown it up, with no reported casualties yet,Al Jazeera reported citing unnamed sources.
Additionally, Israeli forces on Tuesday reportedly expanded their raids on the Aida, Al-Azza, and Dheisheh refugee camps, escalating the ongoing tension of attacks in the occupied West Bank, with some of these attacks turning deadly.
Since the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7, over 1,600 Palestinians have been imprisoned in the occupied West Bank, according to the latest data by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
It is also stated that Israeli soldiers have martyred about 120 Palestinians so far.
A wounded young Palestinian was shown in a video after he was shot by Israeli soldiers in the town of Qabatiya, located south of the Jenin refugee camp.
2023-10-31 09:33:03
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell recently delivered a briefing to the United Nations Security Council about the humanitarian situation in Gaza urging them to adopt a resolution that calls for a ceasefire.
Russell said: "I implore the Security Council to immediately adopt a resolution that reminds parties of their obligations under international law, calls for a ceasefire, demands that parties allow safe and unimpeded humanitarian access, demands the immediate and safe release of all abducted children, and urges parties to afford children the special protection to which they are entitled."
Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7 killing over 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking over 200 hostages, according to Israeli reports.
Russell quoted the Palestinian health ministry revealing that more than 8,300 Palestinians have been martyred in Gaza, including over 3,400 children, with over 6,300 children injured.
She added: "This means that more than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza every day – a number which should shake each of us to our core."
Russell emphasised: "All parties must stop violence, and prevent any grave violations committed against children."
2023-10-31 08:23:07
Relief experts have suggested that Israel has "weaponised" water to harm the Palestinians in Gaza after Israel employed a complete siege of Gaza following the Hamas attacks on October 7.
Andrew Ross, a Social And Cultural Analysis professor at New York University, said: "Israel has been weaponising the water supply. It's not only a humanitarian crisis. It's a crime against humanity."
2023-10-30 23:53:02
Hamas has presented several conditions before permitting foreign nationals and Gazans to exit Gaza, the US State Department said on Monday.
This development comes as the United States is actively engaged in facilitating the safe departure of American citizens in Gaza who desire to leave and securing the release of hostages detained by Hamas.
The State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, emphasised that "Hamas is making a number of demands before they'll allow people to leave Gaza... Just as we believe they ought to release all hostages they are holding, we believe they ought to... let leave all the American citizens and other foreign nationals who are being basically forced to remain in Gaza against their will because Hamas won't uphold its responsibility to operate its side of the Rafah crossing."
2023-10-30 23:15:32
Israeli warplanes have targeted the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza, causing significant damage, according to the hospital director, Dr Subhi Skaik.
The hospital, which serves cancer patients, had its third floor bombed, resulting in a fire that was eventually extinguished. Dr. Skaik reported extensive damage, including harm to electromechanical systems and the endangerment of medical staff and patients.
He also noted that the Israeli army had previously conducted multiple airstrikes in the vicinity of the hospital in recent days. The attack on this vital medical facility in Gaza is a cause for serious concern.
2023-10-30 23:06:18
A week after the Hamas attack, Israel's Ministry of Intelligence released a confidential ten-page document that proposed the relocation of the Palestinian population of Gaza to northern Sinai in Egypt.
The document outlines that the Palestinian civilians will be evacuated from northern Gaza in preparation for ground operations. The Israeli authorities will then conduct sequential land operations from north to south in Gaza.
Israel plans to ensure clear routes across Rafah, the document reveals. Israel will then establish tent cities in northern Sinai and build cities to resettle Palestinians in Egypt.
This document's authenticity was confirmed by an official from the Ministry of Intelligence.
2023-10-30 23:21:36
In a televised speech on Monday, Netanyahu echoed former US President George W Bush’s “axis of evil” speech in 2002, asking if “the civilised world [is] ready to fight the barbarians,” in an indirect reference to Hamas, and allies who want to “usher in a world of fear and darkness”.
The Israeli PM also criticised the recent video released by Hamas, which featured three hostages abducted by the group on October 7. He expressed solidarity with the captives and assured ongoing efforts to secure the release of all hostages and the missing individuals.
“It’s time for us to decide if we are willing to fight for a future of hope and promise or surrender to tyranny and terror,” Netanyahu said in a briefing to the media in Tel Aviv.
“They are part of an axis of evil that Iran has formed, an axis of terror,” he said, adding that they are “the enemies of civilisation”.
Any demands for a ceasefire or an end to hostilities with Hamas have been met with rejection by Netanyahu, Al Jazeera reported.
Netanyahu responded with a commitment to make every possible effort to bring the hostages back home, emphasising that they were taken by Hamas, which he accuses of committing war crimes.
“Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. This will not happen,” he said.
2023-10-30 22:34:24
Israel's military and its intelligence agency Shin Bet Monday claimed that during their recent ground operation in the Gaza Strip, they were able to rescue a female soldier, who was taken hostage by Hamas in the October 7 surprise attack that turned the illegal Jewish state upside down.
The military said the soldier, who it identified as Ori Megidish, had been kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. It said she had since undergone medical checks and was "doing well."
It did not elaborate on the circumstances of her release.
Energy Minister Israel Katz, a member of Israel's security cabinet, said on media platform X: "I want to send strength and congratulate the soldiers and commanders of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and Shin Bet for the bold operation."
He offered no further details.
Prior to the announcement on the freed soldier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said that efforts to free the over 200 hostages being held by Hamas were ongoing during the ground campaign in Gaza, which he said "creates opportunities to achieve their release and we will not miss them."
2023-10-30 21:05:30
The World Bank's latest report forecasts that global oil prices could up to $140 to $157 a barrel in case of a "large disruption" scenario in the Middle East, resembling the impact of the 1973 Arab oil embargo.
The report read that global oil prices will average around $90 a barrel in the fourth quarter of this year and decrease to an average of $81 in 2023 due to slowing economic growth, which reduces demand for oil.
However, the report also highlights a significant risk that an escalation of the ongoing Middle East conflict could cause a substantial spike in oil prices.
The report points out that since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, oil prices have increased by only about 6%, whereas prices for agricultural commodities, most metals, and other commodities have seen minimal changes.
The report discusses three risk scenarios based on historical conflicts in the region, with varying degrees of disruption. In the event of a "small disruption," equivalent to the reduction in oil output observed during the 2011 Libyan civil war (about 500,000 to 2 million barrels per day), oil prices could rise to a range of $93 to $102 a barrel in the fourth quarter.
2023-10-30 20:17:17
A Hamas delegation met with Lebanese intelligence chief Abbas Ibrahim on Monday, Lebanese media reported.
According to the reports, Hamas officials informed the intelligence chief about the situation in the Gaza Strip. In the meeting, Hamas ensured that they were fully prepared to defend against the Israeli ground attack.
In the last 24 hours, Palestinian resistance fighters have reportedly destroyed 3 tanks and 3 armoured vehicles of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, a Hamas leader said Monday.
In a separate statement, Gaza Civil Defense said that roads were completely destroyed in the areas affected by the Israeli bombardment, adding that the destruction is causing difficulty for ambulances to reach the affected areas.
It added that constant Israeli bombardment continued around al-Quds Hospital, equating the situation in Gaza to a genocide.
2023-10-30 18:44:00
Hamas on Monday released a video reportedly featuring three captive women, calling on the Israeli government to negotiate with Hamas for the release of the 239 captives.
The three women are among the 239 individuals that Israel claims were taken to Gaza during the October 7 attacks by the Palestinian group.
The woman in the video said: "Benjamin Netanyahu Hello, we have been in Hamas captivity for 23 days... Yesterday there was a press conference for the families of the prisoners, and we know that there was supposed to be a ceasefire, and you were supposed to release us, you should have released us, and I promised. To release us.
However, we are suffering from your political, security and military failure, because of the “failure” that you caused on the 7th of October, because no soldier was in the place and no one came to us, and no one here defended us, and we are innocent and naive citizens, citizens who pay taxes to a state.
Israel, we are now in captivity under “no conditions” conditions. You are killing us. Do you want to kill us all? You want the army to kill us. Isn’t it enough that you slaughtered everyone? Isn’t it enough for you that there were Israeli citizens killed? Release us now. Release their citizens and prisoners now (meaning the Palestinians). Release us. Release Everyone, we deserve to go back to our families, now now now (shout out loud)"
2023-10-30 18:22:24
On Monday, Israeli forces launched an assault on the primary northern city of Gaza from both its eastern and western flanks.
This action comes three days after the commencement of ground operations within the Palestinian territory, which has escalated international pressure to safeguard civilian lives.
Israel's military reported targeting over 600 objectives in the past few days as it expanded ground manoeuvres in the Gaza Strip. This escalation occurs as Palestinian civilians face urgent requirements for essential resources such as fuel, food, and clean water, with the conflict now entering its fourth week.
"Dozens" of tanks entered the Zaytun district in south of the Palestinian territory´s main city, cutting a key road from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip for more than an hour, witnesses told AFP journalists in southern Gaza by phone.
"They have cut the Salahedin road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it," said one resident who did not want to be identified.
Israeli jets bombed a section of the road leaving large craters, another resident said.
The military stated, "IDF troops engaged with and neutralised numerous terrorists who had taken refuge within buildings and tunnels, attempting to mount attacks against the troops."
Notably, four key Hamas figures were among those dealt with during these operations.
2023-10-30 18:08:49
Rocket alert sirens sounded in Jerusalem on Monday, accompanied by several audible explosions within the city, according to reports from AFP correspondents.
These events occurred in the midst of the ongoing conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza.
The sirens were activated at approximately 2:29 pm and were succeeded by at least five explosions.
This marked the 24th day of the conflict since the initiation of hostilities by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7.
2023-10-30 17:43:41
Israeli artillery and jets are currently carrying out a "holocaust" in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, which is located south of Gaza City, as perthe Palestinian civil defence in Gaza.
Fierce air and artillery strikes rang out in Gaza early on Monday as Israeli troops backed by tanks pressed into the Palestinian enclave with a ground assault that prompted more international calls for civilians to be protected.
Israel's military said it had struck more than 600 Hamas targets over the past few days as it expanded ground operations in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian civilians are in dire need of fuel, food and clean water as the war enters its fourth week.
2023-10-30 17:11:08
According to the Palestinian health ministry, five Palestinians were killed in the West Bank during Israeli raids on Monday.
The casualties occurred during an Israeli early morning raid in Jenin. The raid involved a significant Israeli military presence, including more than 100 military vehicles and two bulldozers.
The operation aimed to target Jenin and its refugee camp, which are known strongholds of Palestinian armed groups and have been the subject of frequent military incursions.
Additionally, the Israeli military stated that they uncovered explosive devices planted under roads during the Jenin raid. This operation took place amidst heightened violence due to Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
2023-10-30 17:01:54
At least 8,306 Palestinians have been killed, including 3,457 children, in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Monday.
The death toll in the West Bank rose to 329 Palestinians since January, including 121 deaths since October 7, the Palestinian health ministry in the Israel-occupied West Bank also said in a statement.
2023-10-30 16:40:01
After former president Barack Obama, former United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has also come out supporting Israel, calling against a ceasefire in Gaza, in her latest address.
“People who are calling for a ceasefire now do not understand Hamas, that is not possible,” Clinton remarked at a public talk.
“It would be such a gift to Hamas because they would spend whatever time there was a ceasefire in effect rebuilding armaments, creating stronger positions to be able to fend off an eventual assault by the Israelis,” she added.
Clinton also asserted “We are in a very different world. I don’t think it had to be the world we’re in, but that’s where we are, and we have to figure out our way forward through it.”
2023-10-30 15:37:53
Russia on Monday blamed "external interference" for an anti-Israel riot that closed an airport in the Muslim-majority region of Dagestan the previous day, AFP reported.
"Yesterday's events at Makhachkala airport are, to a large extent, the result of external interference," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
President Vladimir Putin was due to hold a meeting with his top advisers, including the defence minister and spy chiefs, later on Monday to discuss "the West's attempts to use the events in the Middle East to split Russian society," Peskov added.
Kremlin said ill-wishers used information and the awful images of Gaza to provoke and stir up people.
Anti-Israel protesters stormed the Makhachkala airport in Russia's Dagestan region, leading to the arrest of 60 people.
The protesters,many of them chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), were searching for Israelis and Jews, prompting security forces to close the airport till November 6.
2023-10-30 15:28:43
A knife-wielding Palestinian stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli police officer before being shot in occupied east Jerusalem on Monday, police said, as Israel deepened its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
According to a statement by Israeli police, a Palestinian man "stabbed a border police officer, and after grabbing his gun and trying to shoot it, fled the scene" at the Mandelbaum gas station in Jerusalem.
Police said that border police officers at the scene shot the unnamed Palestinian man.
Shaare Zedek hospital said it received a man in his 30s who had sustained "stab wounds to the torso", describing his condition as "serious but stable", AFP reported.
2023-10-30 15:55:25
The Israeli tanks approaching the outskirts of Gaza City have now retreated, according to the head of the Hamas government office in Gaza.
“There’s absolutely no ground advance inside the residential neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip. What happened on Salah al-Din Street was the incursion of a few occupation army tanks and a bulldozer,” Salama Maarouf said in a statement, Al Jazeera reported.
“These vehicles targeted two civilian cars on Salah al-Din Street and bulldozed the street before the resistance forced them to retreat.
"There is currently no presence of occupation army vehicles on Salah al-Din Road, and citizen movement has returned to normal on the road.”
A video on social media showed an Israeli tank and bulldozer obstructing the main north-south highway through central Gaza, which the Israeli military had earlier instructed Palestinians to use as an escape route from the escalating ground offensive.
The moment a car approached an earth barrier across the road was caught on camera. The car comes to a stop and reverses.
The Israeli tank fires as it turns away, and the vehicle is completely destroyed by explosion. Later, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that three Palestinians were martyred in the incident.
2023-10-30 14:44:50
The mother of Shani Louk, a German citizen believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas, says she has received information from the Israeli military that her daughter is dead, DW reported.
"Unfortunately, we received the news yesterday that my daughter is no longer alive," Ricarda Louk told German broadcaster RTL/ntv.
Her sister Adi also confirmed the death of Shani in a post on Instagram.
"It is with great sadness that we announce the death of my sister, Shani Nicole Z.L. [may her memory be a blessing], who was on October 7, 2023, at the party massacre in Re'im."
However, there has been no official confirmation from the German Foreign Ministry.
Following the October 7 attacks on southern Israel, images and videos circulated on the internet showed a young woman, believed to be Shani, face down in a pick-up truck being driven by Hamas fighters.
While it was unclear if she was still alive in the video, her family said they had learned she had suffered serious injuries and was being treated in a Gaza Strip hospital.
2023-10-30 13:49:14
Israel was "gradually moving ahead according to plan" in the Gaza Strip, chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said during a regular press briefing on Monday.
Hagari said the forces killed dozens of Gaza fighters overnight but refused to confirm the location of the ground forces after images on social media appeared to show Israeli tanks advancing on a main road in Gaza.
2023-10-30 13:37:50
Israeli tanks on Monday entered the edge of Gaza City and cut a key road from the north to the south of the war-torn Palestinian territory, witnesses said.
The witnesses said tanks were seen in the Zaytun district. "They have cut the Salahedin road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it," said one resident.
Israeli forces have stepped up a ground offensive in recent days as part of its military response to the October 7 Hamas attacks, vowing to topple Gaza's resistance.
2023-10-30 13:19:22
British foreign secretary James Cleverly saidMonday that his country is working on a humanitarian pause to get aid to the people of Gaza.
"We’re working extensively with the Egyptians, with the Israelis and others to try and have a humanitarian pause, a temporary pause so that we can get that humanitarian aid to the people that need it," Cleverly said at the UK ambassador’s residence in Abu Dhabi.
"It’s trickling through but we need a significant increase in the volume," he added.
2023-10-30 13:17:44
The Islamic Jihad group's armed wing, the al-Quds Brigades, announced Monday that two of its fighters were martyred in combat with Israeli forces close to the Lebanese border, according to Al Jazeera.
It added that the two fighters were martyred on Sunday night while conducting operations in the northern Israeli town of Hanita.
2023-10-30 13:02:37
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is expected to meet today to discuss the serious humanitarian situation in Gaza as well as Israel's extensive operation there, Al Jazeera reported.
The United Arab Emirates, which is purportedly drafting a new settlement to end the Israel-Hamas conflict, requested the meeting.
Four drafted resolutions have already been rejected by the UNSC: two that did not receive the required nine "yes" votes, one that the US vetoed, and one that was opposed by China and Russia.
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday adopted a Jordanian-drafted resolution by 120-14 votes with 45 abstentions, calling for humanitarian truces leading to a cessation of hostilities.
It is worth noting that while UNGA resolutions are not legally binding, Security Council resolutions are.
2023-10-30 12:42:54
Hezbollah claims to have used a surface-to-air missile to bring down an Israeli drone over southern Lebanon, according to Al Jazeera.
The drone was hit close to Khiam, roughly 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the border, and it was observed falling into Israeli territory, Hezbollah added.
The Reuters news agency was informed by two security sources that this was the first time Hezbollah had declared bringing down an Israeli drone.
2023-10-30 12:30:05
There have been reports of altercations in the occupied West Bank town of Silwad between Palestinians and Israeli forces.
Videos verified by Al Jazeera captured the confrontations in the town which is located in the northeast of Ramallah.
2023-10-30 12:20:11
US Vice President Kamala Harris in a recent interview with CBS Newsrevealed that Washington has "no intention" of sending troops to Israel or Gaza.
“We have absolutely no intention, nor do we have any plans, to send combat troops into Israel or Gaza, period,” Harris said, while also calling for the protection of civilians and reiterating the US’s stance that Israel has a right to defend itself, Al Jazeera reported.
“By most estimates, at least 1,400 Israelis are dead. Israel, without any question, has a right to defend itself,” she said.
“That being said, it is very important that there be no conflation between Hamas and the Palestinians. The Palestinians deserve equal measures of safety and security, self-determination and dignity, and we have been very clear that the rules of war must be adhered to and that there be humanitarian aid that flows.”
2023-10-30 12:15:06
The Israeli army said on Monday that it "continued" to increase the scope of its ground operations in the Gaza Strip, attacking over 600 Hamas targets.
It claimed that during battles with Israeli forces, "dozens" of Hamas fighters who were holed up inside structures perished, Al Jazeera reported.
Additionally, Israeli forces targeted the vicinity of the northern Strip's Al-Azhar University, where there was reportedly an impending launch of an anti-tank missile.
2023-10-30 12:10:14
Recent updates from Al Jazeera Arabic have revealed that many Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids on houses across Gaza City.
Five apartment buildings near the Jerusalem Hospital were destroyed and about 12,000 displaced people sheltering near the hospital.
At least 10 people were killed and dozens were wounded by Israeli air raids on al-Zawayda town and Meghazi. Additionally, heavy fighting is ongoing to the east of the Meghazi refugee camp.
Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip has also come under heavy attack. At least six people were killed and many were wounded as a house was hit east of Khan Younis.
2023-10-30 11:43:57
Last night, Israel carried out "one of the largest raids" since it started its war on Gaza, according to Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford, who said that Israeli forces are still present inside the Jenin refugee camp.
Pictures show military bulldozers near a hospital and destroying civilian properties, with previous raids focusing on specific buildings suspected to belong to Hamas fighters, members, or supporters.
Stratford said: "However, overnight in Jenin, we did not witness this focus. This situation appears different, and it has continued for more than six hours.
"According to health officials, there have been at least four deaths and many injuries. Dozens have been arrested by Israeli forces."
2023-10-30 10:37:28
An internal US State Department has released a memo revealing information on the tens of thousands of people in Gaza who are drinking tainted and salted water, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
According to Haaretz, the State Department discovered that over 30,000 infants under the age of six months and 52,000 pregnant women are apparently being forced to drink tainted or salted water in Gaza.
Israel has cut off electricity and fuel required for desalination and running water pumps, two essential services required for Gaza's population to have access to water.
Health professionals have warned that the threat of infectious diseases is being caused by water shortages.
2023-10-30 09:32:34
The International Criminal Court's (ICC) chief prosecutor warned Sunday that blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza could constitute a crime.
"Impeding relief supplies as provided by the Geneva Conventions may constitute a crime within the court jurisdiction," Karim Khan told reporters in Cairo.
He was speaking after a visit to Egypt's Rafah crossing, where he said trucks full of desperately needed goods remained stuck and unable to cross into Gaza.
"I saw trucks full of goods, full of humanitarian assistance stuck where nobody needs them, stuck in Egypt, stuck at Rafah," he said. "These supplies must get to the civilians of Gaza without delay."
2023-10-30 09:19:02
US President Joe Biden on Sunday pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call to protect civilians in Gaza and to "immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian aid" to the besieged coastal enclave, the White House said.
While the US ally has the right to defend itself, it must do so "in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law that prioritises the protection of civilians," Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call, the White House said.
He spoke after his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CNN that Israel "should be taking every possible means available to them to distinguish between Hamas — terrorists, who are legitimate military targets — and civilians, who are not."
Biden also spoke to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi committing to the significant acceleration of assistance flowing into Gaza beginning Sunday, the White House said separately.
Colonel Elad Goren of COGAT, the Israeli Defence Ministry agency that coordinates with the Palestinians, said Israel will allow a dramatic increase in aid to Gaza in the coming days and Palestinian civilians should head to a "humanitarian zone" in the south of the tiny territory.
The Gaza government's media office said 116 medics and 35 journalists have been killed since the conflict erupted, Reuters reported.
2023-10-30 13:07:09
The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday that it had received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital, where some 14,000 people have sought shelter.
Israel has accused Hamas of locating command centres and other military infrastructure in Gaza hospitals, something the group denies.
Israeli forces have continued air raids near al-Quds Hospital.
Palestinian officials said around 50,000 people had also taken shelter in Al-Shifa Hospital, adding that they were concerned about ongoing Israeli threats to the facility.
2023-10-30 08:43:52
Palestinians in northern Gaza reported fierce air and artillery strikes early on Monday as Israeli troops backed by tanks pressed into the enclave with a ground assault that drew increased international calls for the protection of civilians.
Israeli air strikes hit areas near Gaza City's Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals, and Hamas fighters clashed with Israeli forces in a border area east of the city of Khan Younis, in the enclave's south, Palestinian media reported.
There was no comment from Hamas or the Israeli forces on the fighting early on Monday. Reuters was not able to confirm the reports.
The bombardments came hours after Israel released images of battle tanks on the Palestinian enclave's western coast, signalling a potential effort to surround Gaza's main city two days after the Israeli government ordered expanded ground incursions across its eastern border.
2023-10-30 08:24:44
More than 30 aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, the largest convoy to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory since deliveries began trickling in again over a week ago, the UN said.
The United Nations humanitarian organisation OCHA said 33 trucks carrying water, food and medical supplies had gone into Gaza on Sunday, through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
"This is the largest delivery of humanitarian aid since 21 October, when limited deliveries resumed," OCHA said in an update on the situation in Gaza sent early Monday.
To date, it said, 117 trucks had entered Gaza through the crossing since limited deliveries resumed to the crowded Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people, which is facing a near-total siege and relentless Israeli bombardment.
Prior to the siege, some 500 trucks carrying aid and other goods entered Gaza every day.
2023-10-29 23:04:31
On Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan engaged in distinct telephone discussions concerning the Gaza conflict with his counterparts from France and Iran.
During these conversations, the Saudi Foreign Minister explored potential avenues for resolving the conflict and achieving a ceasefire with both his French and Iranian counterparts.
2023-10-29 23:01:00
Israel has a responsibility to protect the lives of innocent people in Gaza, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday amid a growing outcry over Palestinian civilian deaths.
With the death toll in the Gaza Strip in the thousands and climbing, US President Joe Biden's administration has been under increasing pressure to make clear that its steadfast support of Israel does not translate into a blanket endorsement of all that its ally is doing in the impoverished enclave in retaliation for the October 7 attack by Hamas.
In a round of television interviews, Sullivan said Washington was asking hard questions of Israel, including on issues surrounding humanitarian aid, distinguishing between terrorists and innocent civilians and how Israel is thinking through its military operation.
"What we believe is that every hour, every day of this military operation, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), the Israeli government should be taking every possible means available to them to distinguish between Hamas terrorists who are legitimate military targets and civilians who are not," Sullivan said on CNN.
The US has been clear on that issue and Biden will reiterate the position in a call later on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sullivan said.
Sullivan also said Netanyahu has a responsibility to "rein in" extremist Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. "It is totally unacceptable to have extremist settler violence against innocent people in the West Bank," he said.
2023-10-29 19:33:28
According to a statement issued by British Prime Minister's office Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron had a telephonic conversation on Sunday in which they expressed concern about the aid situation in Gaza.
The two leaders stressed the need for immediate humanitarian aid in Gaza and agreed to work together to provide basic necessities in Gaza.
The two leaders also expressed concern over the risk of the Gaza conflict spreading in the region, the statement added.
2023-10-29 19:01:20
Arab media reported Sunday that 13 Palestinians were martyred and dozens injured in an Israeli attack on Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque of Deir al-Bila in central Gaza.
Many houses adjacent to the mosque were also completely destroyed by the Israeli bombardment. Eyewitnesses reported that multiple children were also martyred in the Israeli barbaric bombardment.
2023-10-29 18:25:17
Israeli army Sunday warned Palestinians to evacuate the Al-Quds hospital and bombarded the areas near the hospital, Arab media reported.
The World Health Organization (WHO) expressed concern over the Israeli army's threat to evacuate the hospital. It is impossible to evacuate the hospital without endangering the lives of the patients, WHO said.
Furthermore, the Israeli army claimed that there is no shortage of food, water and medicine in Gaza, a claim that has been contested by their ally USA.
US officials said that according to reliable international partners in Gaza, shortages of food, water, and medicine persist in the area.
US national security spokesman Jack Sullivan Kabayan said Sunday that Israel must distinguish between Palestinian citizens amid the ongoing conflict.
He added that Hamas fighters and that Israel should take all possible measures to keep civilians and combatants separate in the Gaza conflict.
Sullivan added that the Israeli Prime Minister also called for an end to the violence of extremist Jewish settlers against the people of the West Bank.
On the other hand, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that 94 trucks of relief goods have arrived in Gaza from Rafah Crossing, with ten more trucks to arrive soon.
Aid trucks coming to Gaza do not include fuel.
2023-10-29 16:40:36
The Gaza media office reported Sunday that approximately 10,000 Palestinians have been killed or trapped under rubble since the onset of Israeli attacks on October 7.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health has raised the death toll from the ongoing Israeli aggression to 8008, with concerns of a significant increase as thousands are feared buried under debris.
2023-10-29 15:43:34
Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says families in Gaza "are not safe" after contacting officials on the ground as communication is being restored in the region.
He took to X (formerly Twitter) saying that hospitals in Gaza are "overwhelmed with patients" prompting the urgent need for more health supplies.
2023-10-29 15:27:50
Samar Abu Elouf, a Gaza-based photojournalist, shared a video on Instagram Sunday explaining how Palestinians who live near Gaza’s sea are using saltwater to accommodate their daily water needs after Israel completely sieged the Gaza Strip on October 9, banning food and water, Al Jazeera reported.
“This is a stage where people are filling up water from the sea,” she said in the video, thanking God for “the blessing of the sea” as long as it remains available to them.
“[But] For anyone who does not live [by] the sea, it will be very difficult for them to get there. Most people love the sea, but today I look at it in a different way,” she added, speaking about how those who sought the sea as a means of entertainment and comfort now seek its water for survival.
2023-10-29 15:26:05
The United Nations (UN) warned Sunday that "civil order" was starting to collapse in Gaza after thousands of people ransacked its food warehouses in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
The UN Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said wheat, flour and other supplies had been pillaged at several warehouses.
"This is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege," said UNRWA's Gaza chief Thomas White.
One of the warehouses in the central town of Deir al-Balah had been used to store supplies from humanitarian convoys that began crossing into Gaza from Egypt on October 21, it said.
"Thousands of people broke into several UNRWA warehouses and distribution centres in the middle and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, taking wheat flour and other basic survival items like hygiene supplies," UNRWA said.
2023-10-29 15:07:11
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday warned the situation in Gaza is declining rapidly as he repeated desperate appeals for a ceasefire to end the "nightmare" of bloodshed.
"The situation in Gaza is growing more desperate by the hour. I regret that instead of a critically needed humanitarian pause, supported by the international community, Israel has intensified its military operations," Guterres said on a visit to Nepal's capital Kathmandu.
2023-10-29 14:47:27
Pro-Palestine demonstrations around the world continue demanding Israel to cease its bombing of Gaza, which is now in its third week of escalation.
Gaza suffered a total communication blackout Friday night, cutting off its residents from the rest of the world as a result of Israel's bombardment, a move which was protested by global citizens on Saturday.
Pro-Palestine protesters in London, New York, and Turkey took to the streets in huge numbers to call out Israel's war crimes in Gaza.
These are a few more global cities where demonstrators are anticipated to congregate today:
See more here.
2023-10-29 14:40:27
Israel would allow a dramatic increase in aid to Gaza in the coming days, an official said on Sunday, calling on Palestinian civilians to head to what he described as a "humanitarian" zone in the south of the territory.
"In the coming week we were planning to increase dramatically the amount of assistance" headed for Gaza from Egypt, said Colonel Elad Goren of Cogat, the Israeli Defence Ministry agency that coordinates with the Palestinians.
"We have marked a humanitarian zone in the southern Gaza Strip in the Khan Younis area ... we still recommend that the civilian population that evacuated will go to this zone," he told media during an online briefing.
Goren did not say whether the humanitarian zone was new or an existing area.
Earlier, the Israeli military told civilians in Gaza to move to the south of the besieged Strip, where it said humanitarian efforts "will be expanding".
"Tomorrow, the humanitarian efforts to Gaza, led by Egypt and the United States, will be expanding," IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a statement recorded on Saturday.
2023-10-29 14:30:55
Scottish First Minister Hamza Yousaf on Sunday gave an update about his family, saying that "they are alive, thank God."
2023-10-29 14:26:52
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said that his intelligence chiefs never warned him Hamas was planning its wide-scale attack on October 7, causing a political uproar and a rift within his war cabinet.
Netanyahu, who has drawn public ire for not taking responsibility for the intelligence and operational failures surrounding Hamas' rampage through southern Israel, later erased the remarks posted on social media platform X at 1am Sunday(about 2300 GMT on Saturday).
While top officials — from the heads of the military and the Shin Bet domestic spy service to his finance minister — have all acknowledged their failures, Netanyahu has not.
He has only said that there would be time to ask tough questions, including of himself, after the war.
Israel's military spokesperson, asked about Netanyahu's comments during a daily briefing with reporters, declined to respond, saying: "We are now at war, focused on the war."
Netanyahu's post said: "At no time and no stage was a warning given to Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding war intentions of Hamas. On the contrary, all security officials, including the head of army intelligence and the head of the Shin Bet, estimated that Hamas was deterred and interested in an arrangement."
2023-10-29 14:19:04
The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it has received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip.
"Since this morning, there has been raids 50 meters away from the hospital," it added in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
2023-10-29 14:14:17
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters poured onto the streets of Brooklyn, New York's largest district on Saturday to voice their anger at Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
New York, home to around 2 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Muslims, has been a hub of demonstrations, rallies, and vigils in support of Palestinians and Israel.
The city has also witnessed left-wing American Jewish activists rallying against Israel's Gaza war.
Hundreds of people were arrested Friday when police broke up a large demonstration of mostly Jewish New Yorkers who had taken over the main hall of Manhattan's Grand Central station in protest at Israel's bombardment of Gaza, AFP reported.
"We're mobilising all across New York City, flooding Brooklyn," to call for the "liberation (of) each and every single Palestinian", said 21-year-old protester Abdullah Akl.
New York media and AFPTV estimated the crowd at thousands of demonstrators, who waved "Free Palestine" and "By any means necessary" placards.
2023-10-29 13:58:49
The Israeli army raised the number of troops fighting inside the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said Sunday, as the military stepped up its war on Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
"Overnight we increased the entry of IDF forces into the (Gaza) Strip, and they joined the forces already fighting there," Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing.
2023-10-29 13:54:15
Palestinians traumatized by Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip in a bid to destroy Hamas were struggling to make contact with family and friends on Sunday.
Telephone and internet communications were returning gradually to Gaza, several Palestinian media outlets said.
Israeli forces waged ground operations in Gaza in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the second phase of a three-week-old war aimed at crushing Hamas.
2023-10-29 13:43:31
Nearly 600,000 internally displaced people are sheltered in 150 facilities of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, while at least 40 UNRWA installations have been impacted, the UN agency posted on Wednesday on the social media platform X.
"Our shelters are four times over their capacities - many people are sleeping in the streets as current facilities are overwhelmed," the agency added.
2023-10-29 13:40:37
Violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has increased since October 7, when the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip started.
During an Israeli military crackdown, at least 105 Palestinians have been martyred and 1,550 others have been detained
Israeli closures and settler threats have caused a complete commercial standstill in Palestinian cities and villages, resulting in severe restrictions on movement.
Military checkpoints, earth mounds, cement blocks, and iron gates block entrances, preventing movement between them, Al Jazeera reported.
Karim Gibran, B’Tselem director of the field research department in the occupied Palestinian territories, said: "During the current offensive, the rate of violence practised by settlers against Palestinians has escalated, preventing them from accessing their lands, attacking them while picking olives, expelling them from their fields, and attacking Palestinians moving on roads."
2023-10-29 13:10:36
Thousands of Gaza residents broke into warehouses and distribution centres of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) grabbing flour and "basic survival items", the organisation said on Sunday.
"This is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza," UNRWA said in a statement.
Aid supplies to Gaza have been choked since Israel began bombarding the Palestinian enclave in response to a deadly attack by its ruling militant group Hamas.
2023-10-29 13:07:50
Three Palestinians have been detained by Israeli troops in the occupied Jerusalem district of Hizma and the Shuafat refugee camp.
The official Wafa news agency was informed by local sources that the occupation forces raided the homes of two Palestinians and then assaulted the Shuafat camp, north of the city.
Additionally, the occupation troops detained a young guy during operations in the eastern Jerusalem town of Hizma, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-10-29 12:45:33
Palestinian health ministry officials have revealed that at least 30 hospitals and health centres have shut down in Gaza as medical and fuel supplies have run out.
A number of hospitals were forced to implement partial shutdowns. The emergency room of Nasr Hospital is the only one that is open. All other departments were forced to close, Al Jazeera reported.
If supplies are not allowed into Gaza, more hospitals are predicted to close entirely in the upcoming hours and days.
2023-10-29 12:34:12
Israeli warplanes have carried out air raids near Gaza’s largest hospital that is filled with patients and tens of thousands of people seeking shelter, Al Jazeera reported citing the Associated Press.
Without supplying any proof, Israel claims the operation was carried out because Hamas maintains a command centre beneath the hospital.
According to locals, the majority of the roads leading to Gaza City's Shifa Hospital — located in the northern section of the besieged territory — were demolished in the most recent attacks.
“Reaching the hospital has become increasingly difficult,” Mahmoud al-Sawah, who is sheltering in the hospital, said. “It seems they want to cut off the area.”
2023-10-29 12:19:11
More than 100,000 people on Saturday rallied in Kozhikode, often called Calicut, in the southern Indian state of Kerala in support of Palestinians.
"Save Palestine, save humanity; end Israel's attack on Gaza; free Palestine," the rally's organisers, who are members of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) Kerala committee, declared on Saturday.
According to Al Jazeera, the IUML said the rally “aimed to draw international attention to the ongoing crisis in the region” and the “need for international intervention and dialogue to achieve absolute peace”.
2023-10-29 12:03:14
The killing of three more Palestinians overnight in Israeli raids has raised the number of deaths in the occupied West Bank since October 7 to 114, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Several Palestinians were killed in the cities of Nablus, Ramallah and Tubas.
In addition,four Palestinians were injured after an Israeli raid at the Balata refugee camp in the east of Nablus on Sunday.
Ahmad Jibril, head of the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s ambulance and emergency department in Nablus, was quoted as saying that the four were hit by Israeli soldiers’ bullets during a confrontation in the camp, Al Jazeera reported.
2023-10-29 11:55:14
Last night’s intense bombardment was mainly concentrated on the northern part of Gaza which is closest to the coastal line and was hit the hardest, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera, a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis with people in it, a short while ago, completely flattening it. No warning was given to the residents and 13 people were killed in this Israeli attack.
There were reports of an exchange of fire between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces near Khan Younis, this morning.
The reports suggest that the heavy tank shelling this morning served as cover for the Israeli forces as they attempted to advance into Palestinian territories.
2023-10-29 11:51:22
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi says Israel's moves have "crossed the red lines, which may force everyone to take action".
On Sunday, Raisi wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter): "Washington asks us to not do anything, but they keep giving widespread support to Israel. The US sent messages to the Axis of Resistance but received a clear response on the battlefield."
According to BBC, the "axis of resistance" refers to a network of Iran-backed forces across the Middle East, of which Hamas is a part.
The US authorities have issued warnings to Iran, urging them to refrain from getting involved in the Israel-Gaza conflict, in order to prevent a potential escalation of violence across the region.
In recent weeks, Israel has also been exchanging fire with the Hezbollah group, which is based in Lebanon and has ties to Iran.
2023-10-29 08:32:26
The health ministry in Gaza said early Sunday that more than 8,000 had been martyred in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war with Israel on October 7.
"The death toll linked to the Israeli aggression is past 8,000, half of whom are children," the ministry said. The last toll, issued early Saturday, was of 7,703 dead.
2023-10-29 08:26:57
Telephone and internet communications are returning gradually to the Gaza Strip, several Palestinian media outlets said early on Sunday.
Israel employed a near-complete telecommunication cut-off during the evening hours of Friday, disconnecting any form of communication in Gaza from the outside world.
2023-10-29 00:01:40
Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, has offered to release all hostages being held in Gaza in return for the release of all Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails, BBC reported, in his first comments since the war began on 7 October.
In a statement on the group's official website, Sinwar said: “We are ready for an immediate exchange deal that includes the release of all prisoners in the prisons of the Zionist enemy in exchange for the release of all prisoners with the resistance.”
2023-10-28 23:59:17
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the idea of a swap deal of hostages for Palestinian prisoners has been discussed within the war cabinet.
2023-10-28 23:48:44
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that fighting inside the Gaza Strip would be "long and difficult", as Israeli ground forces operate in the Palestinian territory for more than 24 hours.
"The war in the (Gaza) Strip will be long and difficult and we are prepared for it," Netanyahu told a news conference after meeting families of hostages held in Gaza since surprise Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7.
2023-10-28 23:45:30
Palestinians are using donkey-drawn carts for transportation in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip due to car fuel shortage amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.
2023-10-28 23:40:36
A Palestinian man was killed Saturday by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, with a settler leader identifying the shooter as an off-duty soldier.
Bilal Abu Salah, 40, was "shot in the chest by a settler" in the village of Sawiya near Nablus in the nothern West Bank, a ministry statement said.
Sawiya mayor Mahmud Hassan told AFP that Abu Salah had been killed while harvesting olives with his family in their groves, located near the fence surrounding the nearby Israeli settlement of Rechelim.
"They were attacked by four settlers, and one of them who was armed with an M16 rifle opened fire at them without warning," Hassan said, a claim denied by settler leader Yosi Dagan.
Dagan, head of the Samaria settler council, said Palestinians had attacked the Israeli group "with rocks and boulders, endangering their lives."
A soldier on leave fired his military-issued rifle in defence "and saved the family," Dagan said in a statement.
Hassan, the Palestinian village head, said "Abu Salah was hit in the chest and was martyred in front of his family and children."
2023-10-28 23:35:28
2023-10-28 23:29:20
Oman has declared that the continuation of the dangerous escalation in violence, the policy of collective punishment and the grave violations of international law and international humanitarian law carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in their brutal war against the Gaza Strip constitute war crimes.
In a statement, the country's foreign ministry said the actions of the Israeli occupation forces are crimes against humanity and are contrary to international law and international humanitarian laws and standards.
"The Sultanate warns against the consequences of the military ground operations that the Israeli occupation army intends to carry out, saying they threaten catastrophic effects on the region and the world, as well as on the chances of achieving peace and stability."
2023-10-28 23:25:03
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to 'completely eliminate' Hamas on Saturday night.
He said the IDF forces have been fighting within the Gaza Strip to get rid of "evil" and "bring back" hostages.
2023-10-28 23:21:46
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Saturday condemned the Israeli ground operations in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, the state news agency WAM reported, citing the country's foreign ministry.
UAE, which became the first Gulf country to normalise relations with Israel in 2020, also "expressed its deep concern over the Israeli military escalation and exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis that threatens more loss of civilian lives."
2023-10-28 23:17:41
Israeli ground forces were operating in the northern Gaza Strip Saturday, the army said, more than 24 hours after entering the Palestinian territory three weeks into war with Hamas.
"Since early Friday evening, combined combat forces of armour, combat engineers and infantry have been operating on the ground in the northern Gaza Strip," an army statement said.
"The instructions to the forces are clear: the action will continue until further notice."
2023-10-28 23:16:43
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday the ground operation launched by Israeli troops in Gaza was the second stage in a war against Hamas that would be long and difficult.
Speaking at a news conference, he said every effort would be made to rescue the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas.
2023-10-28 23:16:06
Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Kari said his office would sever all ties with Starlink due to statements by Elon Musk, who promised satellite communications to internationally recognised organizations in the Gaza Strip.
"Israel will use all means at its disposal to fight this," he added.
2023-10-28 22:41:53
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel would explore "every option" to secure the release of more than 220 hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza on October 7.
Facing increasing anger over the fate of the captives as Israel steps up its war on Gaza's Hamas rulers, Netanyahu agreed to meet representatives of hostage relatives who demanded to know how the government would handle the crisis.
Netanyahu made no commitment to any exchange deal but told the families authorities would "exhaust every option to bring them (the hostages) home".
2023-10-28 22:31:47
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday he was surprised by Israel's escalation of the bombardments in Gaza, and repeated a call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for the delivery of aid.
"I was encouraged in the last days by what seemed to be a growing consensus in the international community ... for the need of at least a humanitarian pause in the fighting," Guterres said in a statement.
"Regrettably, instead of the pause, I was surprised by an unprecedented escalation of the bombardments and their devastating impacts, undermining the referred humanitarian objectives," he said.
"Given the breakdown in communications, I am also extremely concerned about the UN staff who are in Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance," Guterres said on Saturday. "This situation must be reversed."
2023-10-28 22:30:41
The United Arab Emirates asked the United Nations Security Council on Saturday to meet "as soon as possible" following Israel's expanded ground operations in Gaza and the disconnection of telecommunications networks, diplomats said.
The 15-member council could meet as early as Sunday, diplomats said, and the UAE has asked for UN aid chief Martin Griffiths and Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency providing aid to Palestinians (UNRWA), to brief.
2023-10-28 21:59:37
The Israel Defense Forces have stepped up its bombardment of the enclave, CNN reported, as darkness fell over the Gaza Strip.
"Intense and near-continuous thunder of explosions can be heard from the direction of the Gaza Strip for the past hour and a half, after more sporadic and less intense fire during most of the afternoon," a CNN team in Ashkelon, Israel, reported.
2023-10-28 21:41:53
In a message posted on X, former prime minister Imran Khan said there is a genocide of Palestinians going on and it is utterly condemnable to see how the powerful are allowing it to happen with impunity.
Khan, currently behind bars, said: "Israel is being allowed to break all international laws as it commits war crimes & crimes against humanity in its massacre of the Palestinian people."
"The Muslim world must not just raise their voice against this but should move to ensure an end to the #GazaGenocide."
"Our people will not forgive us if we do not stand on the side of justice and humanity."
2023-10-28 21:41:28
Hamas's armed wing said Saturday it was ready to release the hostages it abducted during its shock attack on October 7 if Israel freed all Palestinians held in its prisons.
"The price to pay for the large number of enemy hostages in our hands is to empty the (Israeli) prisons of all Palestinian prisoners," Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said in a statement broadcast by the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television channel.
"If the enemy wants to close this file of detainees in one go, we are ready for it. If it wants to do it step-by-step, we are ready for that too."
Some 229 hostages are being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army.
2023-10-28 21:37:19
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, described Western nations as "the main culprit" behind the Israeli army's "massacre" of Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday.
During his two decades in power, the Turkish leader has been a prominent global advocate for Palestinian rights.
2023-10-28 21:25:40
Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant confirms military operations against Hamas have progressed, CNN reported.
"We moved to a new phase in the war,” he said in a statement delivered in Hebrew.
“Tonight, the ground in Gaza shook. We attacked above ground and below ground. We attacked terrorist operatives at all levels, in all places. The instructions to our forces are clear: the operation will continue until a new order is given,” he said.
2023-10-28 21:20:04
UNSG Antonio Guterres reiterated his appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, unconditional release of hostages, and delivery of relief at a level corresponding to the "dramatic needs of the people in Gaza, where a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes".
2023-10-28 20:53:13
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen has said that he has ordered his nation's diplomats to leave Turkey after Istanbul's "harsh statements".
2023-10-28 20:50:26
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addressed hundreds of thousands of supporters at one of the largest pro-Palestinian rallies since the Israel-Hamas war began, courting his political base a day ahead of the centenary of Turkey's secular republic.
"Israel has been openly committing war crimes for 22 days, but the Western leaders cannot even call on Israel for a ceasefire, let alone react to it," Erdogan told the crowd in Istanbul, who waved Palestinian flags.
"We will tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal. We are making preparations for this. We will declare Israel a war criminal," he said.
2023-10-28 20:34:46
Gaza's health ministry said that at least 110 medical staff in the besieged strip have been killed by Israeli shelling and air strikes since October 7, according to Al Jazeera.
It added that more than 100 medical staff have been injured, 50 ambulances have been attacked, half of them no longer functioning.
The ministry mentioned that 12 hospitals and 46 primary health care clinics have shut down due to damage from bombing or lack of fuel.
It also said that 24 hospitals (with a bed occupancy of 2,000) have been told to evacuate in northern Gaza
2023-10-28 20:27:50
The Israeli army warned residents of Gaza City Saturday that the area was now a "battlefield," as it stepped up its air campaign against Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
"To the residents of the Gaza Strip: The Gaza governorate (Gaza City) has become a battlefield. Shelters in northern Gaza and Gaza governorate are not safe," the army said in leaflets dropped by fighter jets, as it urged residents to "evacuate immediately" to the south.
2023-10-28 20:26:45
Hamas official Ghazi Hamad on Saturday called for immediate implementation of the United Nations General Assembly decision to allow humanitarian relief into Gaza, warning of a disaster as Israel widened its air and ground attacks overnight.
"We consider the decision a victory for our Palestinian people, and we demand that this aid piled up on the Egyptian side be quickly sent and distributed to all areas and hospitals in Gaza Strip," Hamad said in a news conference in Beirut.
The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly called for an immediate humanitarian truce between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas and demanded aid access to the besieged Gaza Strip and protection of civilians. The resolution, drafted by Arab states, is not binding but carries political weight.
2023-10-28 20:25:11
Mansour Shouman, a resident of Gaza, has told Al Jazeera there has been "a lot of chaos" over the last 24 hours amid a total communication blackout in the besieged enclave and an increase in Israeli attacks.
"However, the people of Gaza – despite all the challenges, despite everything they are going through – they are still holding steadfast," he told Al Jazeera.
Shouman also mentioned that the people in Gaza were “extremely angry” as more aid had not been allowed into the besieged strip.
“I’m in the south of Gaza. I’ve separated from my family and I haven’t seen them in a couple of weeks. They are malnutritioned. They don’t have food. They are drinking dirty water,” he said.
“This is just an example of 2.3 million people here in Gaza,” he said.
2023-10-28 20:15:41
2023-10-28 20:11:34
Egypt said on Saturday that "Israeli obstacles" are impeding the delivery of aid to the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
"It is unfortunate that the process of transporting aid to the Gaza Strip faces major logistical problems imposed by the Israeli side," an Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement.
2023-10-28 20:09:16
Health professionals, patients, and citizens have been without power and contact during a night of heavy artillery and military invasions in Gaza, with reports of fighting still ongoing.
WHO advises all parties to the conflict to take all necessary steps to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and it reiterates its appeals for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire.
This covers healthcare personnel, patients, ambulances, and residents who are taking refuge at these facilities. Safe passage must be allowed for the flow of food, fuel, water, and medical supplies into and out of Gaza, as well as proactive steps to guarantee they are not injured.
2023-10-28 20:08:54
A shell hit the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, the second such incident since war erupted between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
“A shell hit inside the base [in Naqoura],” said Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. He reported “no injuries but some damage”, adding UNIFIL is seeking to verify who fired the round.
A Lebanese military source told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity, “an Israeli shell penetrated the cement wall” around UNIFIL headquarters.
2023-10-28 20:00:54
European Union's top diplomat Josep Borell Fontelles has called for an immediate pause to the hostilities in the war.
“Gaza is in complete blackout and isolation while heavy shelling continues,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“A pause of hostilities is urgently needed to enable humanitarian access.”
EU leaders had on Thursday issued a declaration calling for a halt to the fighting to establish humanitarian corridors and get much-needed aid into Gaza.
2023-10-28 19:15:35
2023-10-28 19:05:30
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned on Saturday that there was the potential for thousands more civilians to die as Israel presses a ground operation in Gaza.
"Given the manner in which military operations have been conducted until now, in the context of the 56-year-old occupation, I am raising alarm about the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza and the potential for thousands more civilians to die," he said.
Read complete story here.
2023-10-28 18:28:42
Pakistan on Saturday called for giving serious consideration to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) proposal of deployment of a protection force to safeguard Palestinian civilians in the besieged enclave and in the West Bank.
The call was made by Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations Munir Akram while speaking at the 10th Emergency Special UNGA Session in NewYork today.
Akram said: "The world is witnessing a human tragedy of epic proportions unfold in front of our eyes. The Palestinians are being bombed indiscriminately and without mercy or compunction. Their essential lifelines — water, food, fuel — have been cut off. Over a million have been internally displaced."
Read complete story here.
2023-10-28 18:18:07
Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry released a statement on Saturday condemning any ground operations by Israeli forces that may threaten the lives of Palestinian civilians.
"The Kingdom condemns and denounces the ground operations carried out by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, and warns of the danger of continuing to carry out these blatant and unjustified violations of international law against our brotherly Palestinians," the statement said.
Early on Saturday, the Israeli military said it had entered northern Gaza overnight and expanded military operations in the Gaza Strip as it stepped up its assault on the Hamas group.
2023-10-28 18:03:39
Ashraf al-Qudra, the spokesperson of the health ministry in Gaza, has siad that the latest Israeli bombardment had turned Gaza into a “ball of fire”.
The spokesperson noted that at least 377 more Palestinians have lost their lives in designated safe areas, Al Jazeera reported.
Al-Qudra added that Israel’s actions had caused complete paralysis of the health system, medical teams, and ambulances in Gaza.
2023-10-28 17:51:46
Palestinian journalist Fares Akram said he lost around 18 extended family members during Israel's air raid that hit the house of his relatives in Gaza on Friday.
Akram, in a post on X, said it has been difficult to confirm the whereabouts of his relatives due to the ongoing communications blackout.
“With no internet and phone connection, it took 12 hours to confirm that 18 of my extended family members lost their lives and 18 others remain trapped under the rubble,” he said.
2023-10-28 17:22:53
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Israel's bombardment of Gaza runs counter to international law and risks creating a catastrophe that could last decades.
Lavrov made the comments, some of Moscow's most critical of Israel yet, in an interview with the Belarusian state news agency Belta, which released them on Saturday.
"While we condemn terrorism, we categorically disagree that you can respond to terrorism by violating the norms of international humanitarian law, including indiscriminately using force against targets where civilians are known to be present, including hostages that have been taken," said Lavrov.
2023-10-28 17:13:48
Hundreds of people were arrested when police broke up a large demonstration of mostly Jewish New Yorkers who had taken over the main hall of Grand Central station in protest of Israel's bombardment of Gaza, police and organizers said.
The New York Police Department said at least 200 people had been arrested, while protest organizers put the number at more than 300.
Photos from the scene showed long lines of young people standing in handcuffs and wearing black sweatshirts with the words "Not In Our Name" and "Cease Fire Now" printed in white.
The massive sit-in was called by the group Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City, which said thousands of its members had attended the protest, blocking the main concourse of the city´s central rail station.
2023-10-28 17:04:30
Israel on Saturday released footage of Israeli tanks moving and firing said to be the Gaza Strip.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the location or the date the videos were taken.
Israel said on Saturday morning its troops, sent in on Friday night, were still in the field, without elaborating.
2023-10-28 17:04:04
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called on Israel to "immediately stop this madness" and end its "attacks" on targets in Gaza after Israeli forces intensified strikes on the Palestinian territory.
"The Israeli bombardments on Gaza intensified last night and once again targeted women, children and innocent civilians and worsened the ongoing humanitarian crisis," Erdogan said on X, formerly Twitter.
"Israel must immediately stop this madness and end its attacks."
2023-10-28 16:59:53
2023-10-28 16:41:58
Starlink will support connectivity to internationally recognised aid organizations in Gaza, said Elon Musk, the company's founder said.
2023-10-28 16:39:56
Israel's military Saturday widened its air and ground attacks on the Palestinian enclave, suggesting that a long-promised ground offensive had begun.
Israel said on Saturday morning its troops, sent in on Friday night, were still in the field, without elaborating.
The country had earlier made only brief sorties into Gaza during three weeks of bombardment to root out Hamas.
"The forces are still in the field and continuing the war," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a news briefing on Saturday morning.
2023-10-28 16:30:38
The health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Saturday that at least 7,703 people have been killed in the war with Israel that erupted on October 7.
More than 3,500 children are among the dead. The overall figure is the highest number of war fatalities in Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the territory in 2005.
2023-10-28 16:27:45
2023-10-28 16:14:22
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday warned against any expansion of the conflict in Gaza, saying the region risked becoming a "ticking time bomb".
He also said his country's sovereignty should be respected after drones were intercepted after entering Egyptian air space on Friday.
Israel on Friday said it was the target of the drones which it blamed on Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi movement. Egypt's military said the drones, which fell on the Egyptian towns of Taba and Nuweiba near the Israeli border, injuring six, originated in the southern Red Sea. It did not say who launched the drones.
"Regardless of where it comes from, I have warned of the expansion of the conflict. The region will becoming a ticking time bomb that impacts us all," Sisi said, speaking at a conference.
2023-10-28 15:52:09
Israel's military said on Saturday it had stopped a surface-to-air missile fired from Lebanon at one of its drones and the Lebanese authorities issued precautionary guidance in case it has to evacuate Beirut airport, as border tensions climb.
The Israeli army and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon have exchanged fire on a daily basis since the start of the Gaza conflict three weeks ago, the biggest flare-up on the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since the two sides fought a war in 2006.
With tension ratcheting up again, the Lebanese authorities issued precautionary guidance for evacuating the airport and surrounding installations in case of emergency.
However, the guidance did not indicate that there was any imminent threat to the site.
The Israel-Gaza conflict has raised fears that fighting could expand more widely in the region, including the flashpoint Lebanese border.
2023-10-28 15:43:28
The Israeli military continued an active presence in southern Israel near the border with Gaza on Saturday (October 28), after widening its air and ground attacks on the Palestinian enclave.
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had entered northern Gaza overnight and expanded military operations with infantry and armoured corps there.
Israeli troops were still in the field on Saturday morning, Israel said, without elaborating.
2023-10-28 15:32:05
First Minister of Scotland Hamza Yousaf says that he still has not been able to contact his family in Gaza.
He posted the update on his official X account along with the hashtag used for supporting calls for an immediate ceasefire in the region.
2023-10-28 15:24:26
Reports and videos circulating on social media allege that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been using white phosphorus bombs in Gaza, particularly in densely populated areas, following Hamas's attack.
The use of white phosphorus in conflict zones has been a contentious issue, as it can have severe humanitarian implications.
White phosphorus is a chemical substance with a strong garlic-like odour, a waxy consistency, and a yellowish-to-clear appearance. It is known for its ability to ignite rapidly and brightly when exposed to air.
Read more here
2023-10-28 15:03:53
A senior Hamas official on Saturday released a statement that Israeli forces "suffered heavy losses" during their nighttime raids in Gaza.
Hamas senior official Ali Baraka stated: "The failure of the ground attack launched by the occupation forces on the Gaza Strip through three fronts, and there are heavy losses among the enemy’s ranks in terms of soldiers and equipment.
"The enemy fell into ambushes prepared by the Palestinian resistance on a number of fronts, and since the beginning of the battle, there have been defensive plans against any attempt.
He also revealed that Hamas usedRussian-made anti-tank missiles and locally-produced Syrian missiles to repel Israeli attacks.
"Kornet missiles and Yassin missiles were used to repel the attack, and we expect the enemy to try again. The Israeli occupation used helicopters to evacuate the wounded and dead from the battlefield."
2023-10-28 14:58:51
Hamas pledged to confront Israeli attacks with "full force" after Israel's military widened its air and ground attacks on the Palestinian enclave, suggesting on Saturday that a long-promised ground offensive had begun.
Israel said on Saturday morning its troops, sent in on Friday night, were still in the field, without elaborating.
"The forces are still in the field and continuing the war," Israel army's Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a news briefing on Saturday morning.
Gaza was under an almost complete blackout, with internet and phone services cut for more than 12 hours by Saturday morning. Telecoms firms and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it was the result of Israeli bombardments.
Hagari said Israel would allow trucks carrying food, water and medicine to enter Gaza on Saturday, indicating that bombing might pause, at least in the area of its border with Egypt where small amounts of aid have been arriving.
2023-10-28 13:59:40
The Lebanese authorities on Saturday issued precautionary guidance for evacuating Beirut International Airport and its surrounding facilities in case of emergency, as tensions rise on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The guidance for Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, which lies on the southern fringe of the capital, did not indicate any immediate escalation on the border.
There have been daily but relatively contained exchanges of fire there recently between Israel and the heavily armed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
The message comes after Israel's military widened its air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip overnight.
In 2006, the airport's runways were hit by Israeli airstrikes, forcing it to close, as part of reprisals following Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers.
2023-10-28 13:14:28
Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations (UN), blamed Israel for the catastrophic situation in Gaza during an address at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday.
He spoke outlining Pakistan's stance in response to a change made by Canada, before a vote on a draught resolution at the Tenth Emergency Special UNGA Session on Palestine.
Friday saw the failure of a Canadian-led attempt to officially denounce Hamas for the "deliberate cruelty" of its murderous strikes on Israel on October 7. Instead, the UN supported a request for a humanitarian cease-fire.
2023-10-28 13:07:39
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the foreign minister and prime minister of Qatar, spoke over the phone with James Cleverley, the foreign secretary of the UK, to discuss the latest developments in the Israel-Gaza war and strategies to defuse the situation.
According to a statement, Sheikh Mohammed reaffirmed during the call that "collective punishment is unacceptable under any pretext" and that Qatar condemns the targeting of people.
In addition, he emphasised the significance of coordinating efforts to alleviate the situation and the imperative nature of allowing relief convoys and humanitarian aid to continue entering Gaza, according to Al Jazeera
2023-10-28 12:44:03
In an interview, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly states, "Of course, we want to see Israel safe, peaceful, and secure," despite no indication from Hamas that it will accept or adhere to a ceasefire.
Cleverly restates the UK's support for Israel and emphasises the significance of abiding by international law, asserting that it's critical to keep in mind that Hamas' heinous strike on October 7th was what started this latest round of hostilities, BBC reported.
Refusing to acknowledge that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, he places the onus of responsibility on Hamas.
He claims that the UK has upped its commitment to providing humanitarian help to the Palestinians because "we want to alleviate that suffering."
Cleverly concludes by warning protesters in the UK to be mindful of misinformation and manipulation, and says that they should be wary of a “small minority” who have more "negative aims”.
2023-10-28 12:33:49
World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reports that as a result of Israel cutting off phone and internet connectivity in Gaza, the UN health agency's personnel and medical facilities are still inaccessible.
2023-10-28 12:19:31
A Palestinian war journalist, Yara Eid, who is currently working in London after being raised in the centre of the Gaza Strip in the al-Bureij refugee camp, says that children in the beleaguered enclave suffer as a result of Israeli army attacks.
“I genuinely think that Israel stole and stained my childhood. I was 14 years old when I saw people getting cut into pieces in front of my eyes. I was only eight years old when I experienced terror attacks while at school … I grew up with the sounds of bombs over the sounds of birds,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Right now we are in 2023 and this is the sixth aggression since 2008 and more than 90 per cent of the kids are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” she said, adding how her childhood experiences in Gaza had also resulted in her, her brother and friends developing PTSD.
2023-10-28 12:18:18
There is an ongoing artillery fire east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and continuous Israeli bombing in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Al Jazeera.
Over a 12-hour period, there has been a communications and internet blackout in Gaza, which has been accompanied by increased airstrikes, artillery, and naval shelling on several locations.
According to BBC, ambulances are driving in the direction of the explosions as they are unable to communicate with anyone.
2023-10-28 11:36:26
The US says its citizens should leave Lebanon “due to the unpredictable security situation” in the country.
“The State Department recommends that US citizens in Lebanon leave now, while commercial flights remain available, due to the unpredictable security situation,” it said on X.
“There is no guarantee the US government will evacuate private US citizens and their family members in a crisis situation.”
2023-10-28 11:22:30
The Israeli army said that it has destroyed 150 underground targets in the northern Gaza Strip, including "terrorists'" tunnels.
According to a statement on X, some Hamas members lost their lives during the nighttime airstrikes.
Although Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the report, the Israeli army claims that its fighter jets struck Asem Abu Rakaba, the head of the Hamas Aerial Array, who was in charge of Hamas's drones, UAVs, paragliders, aerial detection, and aerial defence.
Abu Rakaba also reportedly participated in the planning of the surprise attacks inside Israel earlier this month.
Additionally, there was no immediate comment by Hamas.
2023-10-28 11:00:32
Opposition and protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have intensified in Tel Aviv for the safe release of hostages amid the ongoing catastrophic bombardment in Gaza.
Israeli police have denied permission for a demonstration in front of Netanyahu's house, according to an Israeli newspaper.
Protests have increased since heavy bombardment was seen in the evening hours on Friday on the Israel-Gaza border, mounting concerns among Israeli residents about the safety of hostages held in Gaza.
Israeli air and ground forces have stepped up operations in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel's chief military spokesperson said on Friday.
2023-10-28 09:54:10
Palestinians use mosque megaphones to communicate to the world as Israel cuts off almost all telecommunication.
"Oh people of Islam, we seek refuge in your prayers!"
2023-10-28 09:35:28
The communication blackout in Gaza is still in effect this Saturday morning after the Gaza Strip was put under nearly a complete communication blackout by Israel.
The Palestine Telecommunications Company reports that due to intense Israeli shelling of feeder lines and towers, phone networks and the internet have been largely shut off, Al Jazeera reported.
A "communications blackout is a news blackout," according to a statement from the Committee to Protect Journalists, and it can have "serious consequences," such as the propagation of false information.
2023-10-28 08:30:46
Hamas said on Saturday its fighters in Gaza were ready to confront Israeli attacks with "full force" after Israel's military widened its air and ground attacks on the Palestinian enclave.
The Palestinian resistant group that rules Gaza said earlier its fighters were clashing with Israeli troops in areas near the border with Israel after Israel reported intensified attacks in Gaza.
"In addition to the attacks carried out in the last few days, ground forces are expanding their operations tonight," Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised news briefing on Friday evening, raising the question of whether a long-anticipated ground invasion of Gaza might be starting.
He said Israel's air force was conducting extensive strikes on tunnels dug by Hamas and on other infrastructure.
The armed wing of Hamas said late on Friday its fighters were clashing with Israeli troops in Gaza's northeastern town of Beit Hanoun and in the central area of Al-Bureij.
"The Al-Qassam brigades and all the Palestinian resistance forces are completely ready to confront (Israel's) aggression with full force and frustrate its incursions," Hamas said in a statement early on Saturday.
"Netanyahu and his defeated army will not be able to achieve any military victory," referring to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
2023-10-28 04:12:58
The armed wing of Hamas said late Friday its fighters were battling Israeli forces inside Gaza, after Israel said it would expand its ground operations against the Palestinian militant group in the territory.
"We are confronting an Israeli ground incursion in Beit Hanoun (in the northern Gaza Strip) and in east Bureij (in the centre) and violent engagements are taking place on the ground," the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.
Israeli military spokesman Major Nir Dinar told AFP: "Our troops are operating inside Gaza as they did yesterday."
Israeli ground forces made limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday nights.
2023-10-28 02:58:45
The United Nations General Assembly on Friday adopted a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” between Israeli forces and Hamas in Gaza.
It also demands “continuous, sufficient and unhindered” provision of lifesaving supplies and services for civilians trapped inside the enclave, as news reports suggest Israel has expanded ground operations and intensified bombing campaign.
2023-10-28 02:52:53
Israel's military has told international news organisations Reuters and Agence France Presse that it cannot guarantee the safety of their journalists operating in the Gaza Strip, under Israeli bombardment and siege for almost three weeks.
The Israel Defense Forces wrote to Reuters and AFP this week after they had sought assurances that their journalists in Gaza would not be targeted by Israeli strikes.
"The IDF is targeting all Hamas military activity throughout Gaza," the IDF letter said.
The IDF also noted that its high-intensity strikes on Hamas targets could cause damage to surrounding buildings and that Hamas rockets could also misfire and kill people inside Gaza.
"Under these circumstances, we cannot guarantee your employees' safety, and strongly urge you to take all necessary measures for their safety," the IDF letter concluded.
2023-10-28 02:50:30
Drones caused explosions that rocked two Egyptian towns on the Red Sea on Friday, the Egyptian army said, while Israel said Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement sent them to strike Israel.
The explosions injured six people and illustrated the risk of regional spillover from the Israel-Gaza conflict. There was no claim of responsibility.
Israel's foreign ministry said the Iran-backed Houthi launched drones and missiles "with the intention of harming Israel."
Egypt's military spokesman Colonel Gharib Abdel-Hafez said two drones were fired from the southern Red Sea aiming north. Yemen is at the south end of the sea and Israel at the north.
One drone crashed into a building adjacent to a hospital in the Egyptian town of Taba on the border with Israel, injuring six, in the early hours of Friday, Egypt's military said.
The second drone was downed outside Egyptian airspace on Friday morning, and the debris fell in a desert area of Nuweiba town, about 70 km (43 miles) from the Israeli border, Egypt said.
2023-10-28 01:31:00
The Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has issued a statement expressing deep concern over the situation in Gaza, where all internet and communication links have been disconnected as he has lost contact with his staff in the occupied territory.
Mr. Tedros said, "We have lost touch with our staff in Gaza, with health facilities, health workers, and the rest of our humanitarian partners on the ground."
The communication blackout has created significant challenges for coordinating essential healthcare services and ensuring the safety of health workers.
The situation in Gaza, with its disrupted communication and ongoing conflict, has grave implications for vulnerable patients in the region. Mr. Tedros emphasised, "This siege makes me gravely concerned for their safety and the immediate health risks of vulnerable patients." The inability to communicate and coordinate medical care puts the lives of many at risk.
In light of these concerns, the WHO is calling for immediate action. Mr. Tedros stressed, "We urge immediate protection of all civilians and full humanitarian access."
Ensuring the safety of civilians and facilitating unimpeded access for humanitarian organisations is crucial in addressing the immediate health needs of the people in Gaza.
2023-10-28 01:25:32
Tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have escalated as Hamas declared its readiness for an Israeli ground invasion in response to Israel's announcement of extending its military operation in Gaza. Meanwhile, the group also called upon the world community to intervene and act immediately to stop Israel from attacking the occupied territory.
For the past several days, Israel carried out air strikes that disrupted communication across the Gaza Strip. Israeli military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, announced to launch the ground operation tonight.
Ezzat al-Rishaq, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, took to Telegram social media to assert that Hamas is prepared for an Israeli ground invasion, warning that Israeli soldiers would face dire consequences if they entered Gaza. "The remains of his soldiers will be swallowed up by the land of Gaza," he asserted.
Hamas also said that internet connections and communications across Gaza have been cut off, alleging that Israel is perpetrating the massacre of innocent Palestinians with retaliatory strikes from air, land, and sea. Israel has also disrupted essential services such as ambulance operations, the group said.
2023-10-27 23:28:02
Heavy bombardment was seen in the evening hours on Friday on the border between Israel and Gaza.
Israeli air and ground forces are stepping up operations in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel's chief military spokesperson said on Friday.
2023-10-27 23:20:06
Hamas on Friday called on the world to "act immediately" to stop Israel's bombardment of Gaza, saying "We call on the Arab and Muslim countries and the international community to take responsibility and act immediately to stop the crimes and series of massacres against our people," in a statement.
The call comes after Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari's announcement of Israel increasing air and ground forces activities in the Gaza Strip.
These actions include extensive airstrikes targeting tunnels and infrastructure.
Furthermore, ground forces are expanding their operations, heightening the anticipation of a potential ground invasion in Gaza.
Internet and mobile phone services have been disrupted in the besieged enclave, adding to the escalating situation.
2023-10-27 22:43:09
Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, announced that Israeli air and ground forces are increasing their activities in the Gaza Strip.
These actions include extensive airstrikes targeting tunnels and infrastructure.
Furthermore, ground forces are expanding their operations, heightening the anticipation of a potential ground invasion in Gaza.
Internet and mobile phone services have been disrupted in the besieged enclave, adding to the escalating situation.
2023-10-27 23:07:36
The Hamas government Friday said Israel "cut communications and most of the internet" across the Gaza Strip.
The government's media office accused Israel of taking the measure "to perpetrate massacres with bloody retaliatory strikes from the air, land and sea," as heavy strikes hit northern Gaza.
Palestinian telecommunication company Jawwal in a Facebook post on Friday said: "Mobile phone service and internet in the Gaza Strip has been cut off due to heavy bombardment".
Internet connectivity in the Gaza Strip has collapsed, according to Netblocks Internet Observatory.
“Live network data show a collapse in connectivity in the Gaza Strip (...) amid reports of heavy bombardment,” the observatory said.
"The company is the last remaining major operator to supply service as connectivity declines amid ongoing fighting with Israel," NetBlocks wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
AFP journalists in Gaza confirmed they were only able to communicate in limited areas where they could connect to Israeli networks across the border.
2023-10-27 20:03:58
Hamas denies the Israeli army's accusation that it is using hospitals to shield themselves in Gaza, claiming Israel is finding excuses to launch new attacks against the Palestinian people.
A senior member of the Hamas political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, called the allegations unfounded and suggested that Israel was making these claims to prepare for a new military action against the Palestinian people.
The Israeli military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, had stated that Hamas was using hospitals, including Al-Shifa Hospital, as operational centres for directing attacks and storing fuel for their operations. Hamas refutes these allegations.
"Hamas wages war from hospitals" in Gaza, military spokesman Daniel Hagari told journalists, adding that the Islamist group was also using fuel stored in hospitals to help carry out its operations.
Hagari specifically identified Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, as one from which Hamas militants were operating.
"Terrorists move freely" in Shifa and other hospitals, he said.
2023-10-27 19:36:40
Local media sources reported that Hamas fired a number of rockets into Tel Aviv, Israel on Friday, with one of them hitting a structure, leaving three people injured.
Rocket alarms sounded across the metropolis and its suburbs. The attack resulted in mild to moderate injuries to three individuals, as confirmed by the nation's rescue services unit.
Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attacks.
“The al-Qassam Brigades has renewed bombing Tel Aviv in response to Zionist massacres against civilians,” it said, as quoted in The Times of Israel.
2023-10-27 19:01:46
Approximately 49% of Israelis, according to a recent survey by the Panel4All institute, are against an "immediate" ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
These respondents believe it would be better to "wait" before launching such an offensive. Only 29% of those surveyed expressed support for an immediate ground offensive.
The poll was conducted on October 25 and 26, with 522 participants, in a country with a population of around 10 million.
This data contrasts with a survey conducted by the same institute the previous week, where 65% of respondents supported a military invasion of the Gaza Strip without specifying the timing of the operation.
As of now, tensions remain high in the region, with tens of thousands of troops amassing around Gaza's borders following an October 7 attack by Hamas militants. Israel has carried out airstrikes in response, causing casualties among civilians, including children.
The Israeli army recently conducted a "targeted raid" in Gaza as part of preparations for a possible ground invasion. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also indicated that Israel is getting ready for such an offensive.
2023-10-27 18:47:02
Israeli forces have demolished the memorial dedicated to Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al Jazeera journalist, in the occupied West Bank.
Witnesses have described the deliberate destruction of Martyr Abu Akleh Street and the memorial at the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp.
This act follows the tragic event in May 2022 when Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper. The Israeli army deployed bulldozers to raze the street and the memorial.
Shireen Abu Akleh was a highly respected senior journalist at Al Jazeera, known for her extensive coverage of Palestine and Israel. She was covering an Israeli military operation in the Jenin refugee camp when she was shot in the head on May 11, 2022, despite wearing a blue vest clearly marked "PRESS" and a helmet.
2023-10-27 18:23:39
Israel's Al-Manara occupational settlement near the Lebanese-Israel border has been reportedly hit by Hezbollah rockets on Friday, Geo News reported.
Israel on Thursday had ordered the settlement's population to take refuge in shelters, as they expected an onslaught from Hezbollah.
However, Al-Manar TV reported that a guided missile was launched from Lebanese territory towards the settlement of Manara on Friday afternoon.
2023-10-27 14:21:18
On Friday, Israeli security personnel prevented young Palestinians from entering the Al-Aqsa mosque, forcing them to pray outside the Old City of Jerusalem before allowing thousands of older worshippers to enter under strict restrictions that remained in place.
The authority in charge, the Jerusalem Islamic Endowments Department, said 5,000 worshippers performed Friday prayers at the holy site. That compares to about 50,000 on average prior to Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
Large numbers of Israeli police kept guard around Al-Aqsa on a hill known to Jews as Har ha-Bayit or Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif or The Noble Sanctuary.
Muslims regard the site as the third holiest in Islam.
Israel captured the area in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it with the rest of East Jerusalem and adjoining parts of the West Bank in a move not recognised internationally.
2023-10-27 17:19:54
A Hamas official Friday linked the release of hostages held captive in Gaza to a ceasefire in Israel's punishing air war in the enclave, launched after a deadly rampage by Hamas fighters into southern Israel nearly three weeks ago.
Israel says it is preparing a ground invasion, but has been urged by the US and Arab countries to delay an operation that would multiply the number of civilian casualties in the densely populated coastal strip and might ignite a wider conflict.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant quoted a member of a Hamas delegation visiting Moscow as saying time was needed to locate all those who had been taken from Israel by various Palestinian factions in the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that sparked the crisis.
"They seized dozens of people, most of them civilians, and we need time to find them in the Gaza Strip and then release them," Abu Hamid said.
He said Hamas, which has freed four hostages so far, had made clear since the first days of the war that it intended to release "civilian prisoners".
But he said a "calm environment" was needed to complete this task, repeating an assertion - which Reuters could not verify - that the Israeli bombing had already killed 50 of the prisoners.
2023-10-27 16:41:59
The health ministry in Gaza, ruled by Hamas, reported on Friday that 7,326 individuals have lost their lives in the Palestinian territory since the outbreak of conflict with Israel on October 7.
This recent death toll includes 3,038 children, as stated by the ministry, and 18,967 people have been injured throughout Gaza.
2023-10-27 14:48:25
A medical team and 10 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Friday via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, carrying water, food and medicine, a Palestinian border official told Reuters.
"This Friday morning, a medical delegation consisting of 10 foreign doctors entered, in addition to 10 trucks entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land crossing, carrying water, food and medicine, bringing the total number of trucks since the beginning of the war to only 84 trucks," the official said.
Detailed negotiations were taking place with Israel in a bid to secure more humanitarian crossings into the Israeli-besieged Palestinian enclave, Lynn Hastings, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters in Geneva.
2023-10-27 14:32:34
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has joined voices around the world that are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza amid rising tensions in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Khan shared a video statement on his official X (formerly Twitter) account on Friday, calling for a ceasefire in the "terrible situation in Gaza."
Khan said: "I join the international community in calling for a ceasefire. It would stop the killing and would allow vital supplies to reach those who need it in Gaza.
"It would also allow the international community more time to prevent a protracted conflict in the region and further devastating loss of life."
On the contrary, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday supported a humanitarian pause in the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas to allow the safe delivery of aid to civilians, but he rejected calls for a full ceasefire, Reuters reported.
2023-10-27 14:11:29
Salama Marouf,the head of the Government Media Office in Gaza, recently revealed that Israel has dropped more than 12,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip since October 7.
“The explosive force of these explosives is equivalent to the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in Japan” in 1945, the office said in a statement.
“An average of 33 tons of explosives were dropped per square kilometre on the Palestinian enclave since Israel started its aggression," it added.
The Gaza Strip has a total area of 365 square kilometres, which is home to 2.3 million people, Anadolu reported.
2023-10-27 13:46:35
While speaking at a news briefing in occupied East Jerusalem, Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general for the UN Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said that "meaningful and uninterrupted" aid was needed for the Gaza Strip.
According to Al Jazeera, Lazzarani said: “We are almost three weeks into this war and people are turning their despair to UNRWA. This is normal; we are the face of the international community, the same international community which seems to have turned its back on Gazans.
"It pains me that humanitarian aid, a very basic right for people, is constantly questioned while at the same time, despair is live-streamed.
“Our aid operation is crumbling and for the first time ever, [my colleagues] report now that people are hungry.
"Civil order is collapsing and anger starts to channel towards my colleagues — how long can we last? I don’t know, but certainly no more than a few days.”
2023-10-27 13:14:51
Another eight trucks carrying food, medicine and water are expected to cross into the Gaza Strip on Friday, a senior United Nations official said.
"We have gotten in approximately 74 trucks. We're expecting another eight or so today," Lynn Hastings, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters in Geneva.
2023-10-27 12:46:43
Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian warned at the United Nations on Thursday that if Israel's retaliation against Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip doesn't end then the United States will "not be spared from this fire."
"I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome (an)expansion of the war in the region.
"But if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire," he told a meeting of the 193-member General Assembly on the Middle East.
Hamas has told Iran that it was ready to release civilian hostages, adding that the world should push for the release of 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, Amirabdollahian said.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran stands ready to play its part in this very important humanitarian endeavour, along with Qatar and Turkey. Naturally, the release of the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners is another necessity and responsibility of the global community," he said.
2023-10-27 12:36:31
Two Egyptian security sources told Reuters on Friday that a projectile fell in the Red Sea resort town of Nuweiba and that authorities were still gathering more information on the incident.
The projectile fell in a part of the town that was desert land, the sources said. A witness told Reuters that a loud explosion was heard and clouds of dust were seen at a distance.
2023-10-27 12:34:27
Hamas cannot release hostages seized during its attack on Israel until a ceasefire is agreed, the Russian newspaper Kommersant quoted a member of a Hamas delegation visiting Moscow as saying.
It quoted Abu Hamid as saying Hamas needed time to locate all of those who had been taken from Israel to Gaza by various Palestinian factions in the Hamas attack.
"They seized dozens of people, most of them civilians, and we need time to find them in the Gaza Strip and then release them," Hamid said.
Kommersant quoted him as saying a calm environment was needed to complete this task. Hamas said on Thursday around 50 of the hostages had been killed in Israeli air strikes.
Israel has urged Russia to expel the visiting Hamas delegation, calling their invitation to Moscow "deplorable".
Russia has ties to all the key players in the Middle East, including Israel, Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
It has repeatedly blamed the current crisis on a failure of US diplomacy and called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the resumption of talks aimed at finding a peace settlement.
2023-10-27 12:02:18
As many as 481 people have been killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours as a result of Israeli air raids, according to Gaza's health authority.
Sometimes, the figure was noticeably higher than in the previous days, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the authorities, 7,028 Palestinians have been martyred in total since the recent conflict began, with women and children accounting for 66% of the deaths.
2023-10-27 11:49:18
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees reports that approximately 629,000 refugees are currently housed in 150 UN sites in Gaza, exceeding their capacity by nearly three times.
"The current overcrowding conditions remain of concern and represent a health and protection risk," the agency said in a recent update.
Additionally, it said that three schools in Gaza sustained damage from nearby airstrikes and killed one person while another 15 were left injured.
One more UNRWA staff member was killed, bringing their staff's death toll to 39 since the conflict began, BBC reported.
The relief organisation also stated that more than 5,000 Gazans who had been residing in Israel had since been moved to the West Bank and now face demands for food security, shelter, and financial help.
2023-10-27 11:10:29
Palestinian ambassador Riyad H. Mansour on Thursday urged world leaders to "stop this madness" during an emotional address at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) about the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.
“I appeal to all of you to vote to stop the killing. Vote for humanitarian aid to reach those whose very survival depends on it. Vote to stop this madness,” Mansour said.
“How can representatives of states explain how horrible it is that 1,000 Israelis were killed and not feel the same outrage when 1,000 Palestinians are now killed every single day?” Mansour asked the assembly. “Why not feel a sense of urgency to end their killing?”
More than two weeks into an ongoing Israeli assault, humanitarian agencies and human rights organisations warned that conditions for the people living in Gaza are dire.
As a result, the 193-nation General Assembly called an emergency meeting.
A resolution proposing a cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, drafted by Arab states, is scheduled for voting today (Friday).
2023-10-27 11:09:47
Ever since the Palestinian freedom group Hamas shocked Israel with a series of massive attacks on the latter's soil, the debate over how the media covered the situation in ‘Gaza’ continues amid allegations, particularly from the Muslim and Arab world, that the West's coverage is "biased".
In the digital and social media age, the most disturbing aspect of the media coverage was the spread of tons of ‘disinformation and fake news, making things worse.
Unfortunately, there is no concept of "freedom of the press" and ‘freedom of expression’ within the Muslim and Arab world barring Al-Jazeera (Arabic and English), a Qatar-based news network, which today is competing with CNN, BBC, ABC, and other leading media outlets.
The dilemma of the Pakistani media, which is comparatively much more vibrant within the Muslim world, failed to develop itself in a manner to challenge or come even close to international standards. Yes, there is no doubt that the successive governments over the past few decades kept the media suppressed but the media houses by and large lacked the capacity to meet the challenges and were mostly dependent on global media for events of that magnitude. They even missed the opportunity of having their own ‘bureaus’ during the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Thus, 80% coverage of our media outlets revolved around domestic issues and only ‘politics.’ Even in the 24-7 circles of the electronic media, like the print, our journalism has yet to improve and go beyond — it is said.
Read more here
2023-10-27 10:39:18
Israeli ground forces backed by fighter jets and drones carried out a night-time targeted raid in central Gaza Strip, the army said Friday, as it prepares for a land invasion.
"During the last day, IDF (Israel Defense Forces) ground forces, accompanied by IDF fighter jets and UAVs, conducted an additional targeted raid in the central Gaza Strip," the army said in a statement.
"As part of the activity, IDF aircraft and artillery struck terror targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in the Shujaiya area and throughout the Gaza Strip."
2023-10-27 10:36:46
Palestinian Red Crescent on Friday revealed that Israeli troops opened fire on its medical personnel while they were providing care for an injured individual in the occupied West Bank.
The event occurred close to the northeastern city of Tubas, which is a part of the occupied West Bank, according to the emergency assistance agency.
The Palestinian region has been the target of nocturnal raids by Israeli forces.
2023-10-27 10:35:20
Another Israeli airstrike that also demolished a mosque resulted in a number of fatalities and injuries, according to Wafa.
According to the report, several attacks on Friday at first light destroyed a neighbouring White Mosque and residential buildings in the al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
Wafa reports that the areas of al-Zaytoun and al-Shujayea were among the other sites hit in the vicinity of Gaza City. The exact figure of deaths was not immediately ascertained.
2023-10-27 10:32:06
As Israeli forces carried out raids in the early hours of Friday, two people were killed while 10 others were injured.
According to Al Jazeera, one of the killed was reportedly a fighter. With these deaths, the death toll of civilians in the West Bank has risen to 108 at the hands of Israeli soldiers since October 7.
The injured included journalist Hamza Zyoud, who was covering the raid. The Israeli forces have since left the site of the raid in Jenin early on Friday, Al Jazeera reported.
A post on X with a video of the raid in Jenin read: "Escalation in the occupied West Bank. Clashes erupt between Palestinian fighters and Israeli occupation forces during the storming of the [Jenin] camp."
2023-10-27 10:20:37
Before daybreak on Friday, Israeli police conducted another sweep over the occupied West Bank and detained at least 19 Palestinians, one of them was a woman.
Israeli forces reportedly invaded the hamlet of Ni'lin, west of Ramallah, and detained four people in Ramallah and the al-Bireh Governorate, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
In Hebron, among those who were arrested was Dr Farouk Ashour, according to an Al Jazeera Arabic post on X, formerly Twitter, that read: "The moment the Israeli occupation forces arrested Dr Farouk Ashour at his home in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank."
Four others were arrested in the village of Kafr Ni’am also in Ramally, and another four in the occupied East Jerusalem. The rest of those who were arrested were from Nablus, Jericho and al-Aghwar Governorate.
2023-10-27 09:18:33
JERUSALEM: Almost half of Israelis want to hold off on any invasion of Gaza, according to a poll published on Friday, in what may indicate a dip in support for the planned next stage of the counter-offensive against Hamas militants holding some 200 hostages.
Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas in response to the Palestinian group's killing and kidnapping spree in its southern communities on Oct 7, and has been stepping up tank and infantry raids in concert with heavy shelling of the enclave.
Asked if the military should immediately escalate to a large-scale ground offensive, 29% of Israelis agreed while 49% said "it would be better to wait" and 22% were undecided, the poll published in the Maariv newspaper said.
The daily said the results contrasted with its Oct. 19 poll that found 65% support for a major ground offensive.
"From a breakdown of the answers, it emerges that there is no division in accordance with political camp or demographics, and that it is almost certain that the developments on the matter of the hostages, which is now topping the agenda, have had a great impact on this shift (in opinion)," Maariv wrote.
Hamas freed four hostages over the last week amid efforts by regional mediator countries to arrange a larger-scale release.
Hamas says around 50 hostages have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza. One ex-hostage said she had been held, along with at least two dozen others, in an underground Hamas tunnel and bunker complex that is a focus of Israel's offensive.
2023-10-27 08:28:25
WASHINGTON: The US military on Thursday carried out strikes against two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and groups it backs, the Pentagon said, in response to a spate of attacks against US forces in both Iraq and Syria.
As tensions soar over the Israel-Hamas conflict, US and coalition troops have been attacked at least 12 times in Iraq and four times in Syria by Iran-backed forces.
A total of 21 US forces have suffered minor injuries, the vast majority of them traumatic brain injuries.
"These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17," US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
The strikes were ordered by President Joe Biden.
"These Iranian-backed attacks against US forces are unacceptable and must stop," Austin said in the statement.
"If attacks by Iran's proxies against US forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people."
There is growing concern that the Israel-Hamas conflict could spread through the Middle East and turn US troops at isolated bases into targets.
2023-10-27 08:00:58
WASHINGTON: Newly elected US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said on Thursday that funding to support Ukraine and Israel should be handled separately, suggesting he will not back President Joe Biden's $106 billion aid package for both countries.
Johnson was speaking in an interview on Fox News.
US President Joe Biden wants Congress to provide $106 billion in supplemental funding, with the bulk of the money going to bolster Ukraine's defenses and the remainder split among Israel, Indo-Pacific and border enforcement.
2023-10-27 07:26:41
CAIRO/JERUSALEM: A missile launched as part of fighting between Hamas and Israel struck an Egyptian resort town about 220 km from the Gaza Strip early on Friday, Egypt's Al Qahera News reported, citing sources.
The missile hit a medical facility in Taba, injuring at least six people, Al Qahera TV reported. A witness in Taba confirmed hearing an explosion and seeing smoke rising, but Reuters was not immediately able to identify the blast's source.
Taba straddles Egypt's border with Israel's Red Sea port of Eilat. Israel's military said it was aware of a security incident outside its borders.
Hamas said on Wednesday it had targeted Eilat with a missile, which the Israeli military said hit an outlying area. That incident appeared to be the longest-range Palestinian attack of the Gaza war raging since Oct. 7
There was no immediate claim of responsibility after Friday morning's blast.
The Taba explosion highlights the risk facing Egypt and other countries in the region as fighting intensifies between Israel and Hamas.
Egypt has taken an active role in negotiating access to aid for Palestinians, trying to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and advocating for a ceasefire.
But its proximity to the front line has exposed it to risks. On Oct. 22, several Egyptian border guards were injured after being accidentally hit by fragments of a shell from an Israeli tank. Israel apologised for the incident.
Al Qahera reported the missile strike on Friday hit a Taba ambulance facility and a residential building for the administration of the Taba Hospital.
Taba, in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, is popular with tourists. It is about a three-hour drive from Egypt's Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The US military, which is on heightened alert for activity by Iran-backed groups as regional tensions soar, said last week a Navy warship in the northern Red Sea intercepted projectiles launched by Yemen's Houthi group potentially toward Israel.
2023-10-27 01:38:19
Leaders from the European Union met on Thursday and decided to ask for the creation of special corridors and breaks in fighting to send direly needed help to Gaza on an urgent basis.
During a meeting in Brussels, the leaders of the 27 countries in the European Union expressed their concerns about the worsening humanitarian situation in the occupied Gaza Strip which faces continued bombardment from Israel following the October 7 Hamas attack.
The leaders hadn't met in person since the October 7 incident when the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, attacked Israel.
They asked for aid to quickly and safely reach the people who need it, using special routes with effective breaks in fighting on humanitarian grounds.
In their statement, the leaders repeated their strong disapproval of the Hamas attack and said that Israel has the right to defend itself according to international laws. They also called on Hamas to release all hostages without any preconditions.
The European Union plans to work closely with partners in the area to protect civilians and provide things like food, water, medical care, fuel, and shelter. They also want to make sure that aid doesn't end up in the hands of terrorist groups.
"The European Union will work closely with partners in the region to protect civilians, provide assistance and facilitate access to food, water, medical care, fuel and shelter, ensuring that such assistance is not abused by terrorist organisations," their statement said.
2023-10-26 22:12:39
Motaz Azaiza, a Palestinian journalist who gained popularity for covering the humanitarian crisis in Gaza on ground has asked for international protection after concerns regarding his safety.
"If something happened to me I will never forgive anyone who is able to stop this madness war and he didn’t. So please stop texting and calling me for interviews, there is no more to say or to clarify for the people than what I witnessed and captured", Azaiza wrote in an Instagram post.
"Yesterday, I saw the corespondent of Al-Jazeera when he lost his whole family and believe me or not I was going to delete everything here, I don’t want to lose more for just showing the world", he added.
2023-10-26 21:04:00
Florida's university system, in collaboration with Governor Ron DeSantis, has issued an order directing colleges to disband a pro-Palestinian student organisation, making it the first US state to outlaw this group.
The decision specifically targeted Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters, citing their support for what is considered by the state as "harmful support for terrorist groups."
SJP chapters were active in at least two Florida universities, specifically at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida. This move to ban SJP comes in the context of heightened tensions between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students following the conflict initiated by Hamas' attack on October 7 and Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip.
Governor DeSantis has taken a firm stance against Palestinians, proposing measures such as denying Gazan civilians access to water and utilities until Hamas releases hostages taken during their attack.
2023-10-26 20:41:27
France has dispatched the assault vessel Tonnerre to the eastern Mediterranean with the aim of supporting Gaza's hospitals, in response to the challenges faced by Gaza's medical facilities in the wake of Israeli airstrikes, which have caused a significant number of casualties and led to shortages of fuel and medical supplies.
While specific details regarding the delivery of medical supplies to Gaza or the treatment of wounded Palestinians on board are not yet established, the primary objective is to reach the area and provide as much aid as possible.
The deployment of the Tonnerre coincides with EU leaders' intentions to call for the creation of humanitarian corridors into and out of Gaza, as well as pauses in the bombardments to facilitate access for aid.
The Tonnerre is a versatile vessel capable of carrying military helicopters, tanks, and amphibious vehicles. It can also function as a floating hospital equipped with dozens of beds, an x-ray unit, and two surgical units, making it well-suited for humanitarian missions.
2023-10-26 20:38:31
Hamas said Thursday that Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed almost 50 of the hostages its members seized in bloody cross-border attacks as the United Nations warned "nowhere is safe" in the territory.
The group's armed wing made the claim, which AFP could not immediately verify after Israel sent tanks, troops and armoured bulldozers into the enclave in a "targeted raid" overnight that the military said destroyed multiple sites before withdrawing.
"(Ezzedine) Al-Qassam Brigades estimates that the number of Zionist prisoners who were killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of Zionist strikes and massacres has reached almost 50," the group said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
On the 20th day of Israel's bloodiest Gaza war yet, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Lynne Hastings, said that despite the Israeli military issuing warnings to people in Gaza City to leave, "advance warnings make no difference".
Earlier, the Israeli army said 224 people were abducted by militants during the attack that left 1,400 people, mostly civilians, dead.
"We have informed the families of 224 hostages. This number is changing based on the intelligence we obtain," military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters.
"It will continue to change. The effort to return the hostages is a top priority."
According to Israeli government figures that could not be confirmed by AFP, at least half of the hostages have foreign passports.
On the other hand, the Israeli Army claims it killed the deputy head of Hamas intelligence in an overnight ground raid inside Gaza on Thursday, Al-Jazeera reported.
2023-10-26 19:45:26
The first cargo of relief supplies to aid the victims was sent out quickly by the renowned humanitarian organisation Alkhidmat Foundation in response to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The Alkhidmat Foundation's commitment to helping individuals affected in the region has begun with the delivery of 13 truckloads of needed supplies, including food items, medicines, delivery kits, infant kits, hygiene kits, mosquito nets, and other critical items.
The substantial efforts being made to meet the urgent needs of the people in Gaza were declared by Syed Waqas Jafri, Secretary General of Alkhidmat Foundation Pakistan. In a media statement, he emphasised the significance of prompt and efficient aid while highlighting the extensive relief package being given.
"In the face of the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the Alkhidmat Foundation is taking action to alleviate the suffering of the people in the region. Our first shipment of relief goods is on its way, comprising essential items to address the immediate needs of the affected population," stated Jafri.
2023-10-26 18:28:31
Scotland's First Minister, Humza Yousaf, restated his call on Wednesday for the UK government and the main opposition to endorse a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Yousaf's appeal comes in the wake of his recent meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the first such meeting since October 7 when the Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas, initiated a surprise attack on Israel.
Expressing his frustration during an interview with Radio Clyde in Glasgow, Yousaf emphasised the urgency of the situation, saying, "I find it infuriating. We are seeing thousands of people die, children die."
Yousaf revealed that his parents-in-law remained stranded in Gaza for 18 days now, unable to leave due to the border closures. His mother-in-law, Elizabeth El-Nakla, and her husband, Maged, had travelled to Gaza from Scotland to visit a sick relative.
Yousaf posed a crucial question, "How many more children have to die before a ceasefire is called for?"
2023-10-26 18:04:08
North Korea Thursday accused Israel of carrying out an attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip on October 17.
The North Korean foreign ministry claims that Israel committed a war crime, asserting that it did so "under the undisguised patronage of the United States."
In a statement published by the state-run news agency KCNA, a ministry spokesperson also pointed fingers at the United States, alleging that it provided support to Israel in its actions against Palestinians, including deploying aircraft carriers in the Middle East.
The spokesperson asserted that this made the US an accomplice that enabled and supported Israel's actions.
2023-10-26 16:40:51
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused Western nations of disregarding international law in Gaza because the "blood spilt is Muslims' blood."
He labelled Israeli attacks on Gaza as "barbaric" and criticised Western countries for offering unconditional support to Israel rather than advocating for restraint.
Erdogan's remarks underscore his concern about the situation in Gaza and his belief that the international response is inadequate, given the scale of the conflict and its impact on Muslim communities.
2023-10-26 16:35:21
The Hamas-run health ministry Thursday reported a grim milestone, stating that over 7,028 individuals in Gaza have lost their lives due to Israeli strikes following the militant group's October 7 attacks on Israel.
This toll includes 2,913 children and 1,709 women, making it the highest number of casualties in Gaza since Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the territory in 2005.
2023-10-26 15:01:16
Israel needs to agree to a full ceasefire in Gaza in order to enable urgently needed humanitarian aid to be brought in, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on Thursday in The Hague.
EU leaders are poised to call on Thursday for pauses in bombardments into and out of Gaza to enable access for aid, but al-Maliki said this proposal was unacceptable, as it would not ensure aid could come in and water and electricity supplies be reinstated.
2023-10-26 14:43:33
The Kremlin said on Thursday that efforts to agree on what it called a balanced UN resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict should continue, but said it was wrong for any such resolution to only condemn one side.
It was commenting a day after Russia and China vetoed a US push for the UN Security Council to call for pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian aid access, the protection of civilians and a halt to arming Hamas and other militants in the Gaza Strip.
A rival Russian-drafted text that called for a humanitarian ceasefire and withdrawal of Israel's order for civilians in Gaza to relocate south ahead of a ground assault failed to attract the minimum number of votes for support too.
"We need to continue our efforts, we need to strive to reach a balanced option. We are convinced that our option was much more balanced," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"We need to call for a ceasefire and we cannot condemn the actions of only one side. The resolution should be balanced and diplomatic efforts should be continued here," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that Israel's conflict with Hamas could spread well beyond the Middle East and said it was wrong that innocent women, children and elderly people in Gaza were being punished for other people's crimes.
2023-10-26 14:15:22
The United Nations issued a stark warning Thursday that "nowhere is safe" in Gaza amid stepped up Israeli air raids in preparation for a widely expected ground offensive.
With Israel retaliating after Hamas´s shock October 7 attacks with strikes on nearly every part of the Palestinian enclave, "people are left with nothing but impossible choices. Nowhere is safe in Gaza," Lynne Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement.
2023-10-26 13:19:41
Thousands of Celtic supporters carried Palestinian flags and disobeyed the club ahead of their Champions League match against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday, despite a ban by the club.
A Palestine flag tifo display was visible in the lower section of the standing section before kick-off, followed by two dozen large flags in the adjacent section before teams emerged, and thousands of smaller flags surrounded the ground upon teams' arrival.
UEFA will undoubtedly discipline Celtic for the demonstrations because the European regulatory body has already penalised the team for supporters flying Palestinian flags on previous occasions.
The Green Brigade fans' group urged supporters to "courageously fly the flag for Palestine" in response to the Middle East crisis, which has escalated and taken thousands of lives.
2023-10-26 13:03:25
European Union (EU) leaders will call for the establishment of "humanitarian corridors and pauses" to get urgently needed aid into Gaza, according to the final draft of a text to be approved at a summit in Brussels on Thursday.
"The European Council expresses its gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and calls for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses," the text says.
"The European Union will work closely with partners in the region to protect civilians, provide assistance and facilitate access to food, water, medical care, fuel and shelter, ensuring that such assistance is not abused by terrorist organisations."
2023-10-26 13:06:36
Israeli warplanes during the early hours of Thursday, destroyed Palestinian journalist Duaa Sharaf's home in Gaza, killing her and her child.
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, several missiles were fired into a house in the central Gaza Strip's Az-Zawayda neighbourhood, killing its residents.
Voice of Al-Aqsa Radio reported Sharaf's passing in a Telegram post. Sharaf was the station's broadcaster, Al Jazeera reported.
At least 22 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7.
2023-10-26 12:57:20
Israel’s Ministry of Defence has proposed an extension to the evacuation of communities residing along the Gaza fence and its northern border with Lebanon until the end of December, reported Al Jazeera citing an Israeli public broadcaster.
In addition, it was recommended that the government pay families who choose to evacuate independently or are unable to find a state-funded hotel room 6,000 shekels (about $1,470) per month per adult and 3,000 shekels per child.
However, it is worth noting that this operation comes with a hefty cost, estimated to be in the "several billion" shekels, which may face opposition among some ministers who believe it is too early to make such a long-term decision, Al Jazeera reported.
As of last week, Israeli authorities have ordered approximately 200,000 people to evacuate from 105 communities located near the borders of Gaza and Lebanon.
2023-10-26 12:22:49
Britain will convene a meeting of the government's COBRA emergency response committee on Thursday to consider its strategy and approach towards Gaza and the Israeli-Hamas conflict, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden told Times Radio.
Britain is pushing for a humanitarian pause to the conflict, for Britons in Gaza to be able to leave safely, and for the release of British hostages.
"We will discuss the hostages and we'll discuss the wider situation in the region and we will also discuss ... securing humanitarian aid," Dowden, who will chair the meeting, said in a separate interview with Sky News.
2023-10-26 11:54:33
Turkey's director of communications, Fahrettin Altun, on Wednesday, said that they "find it difficult to believe that this was random as Israel has been trying to stop the truth coming out from Gaza," following the Israeli attack that killed family members of Gaza-based journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh.
“These kinds of attacks amount to employing terror tactics against journalists to silence them,” Altun said on X.
“The whole world has seen not only the October 7 attack against Israeli cities but also Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Gaza that killed more than 6,000 civilians so far. Besieging millions of civilians with no humanitarian aid allowed is inhumane and barbaric.
“The events of the past two weeks have shown that the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is the source of the problem, and it can no longer be ignored.
"The international community must discourage Israel from its current approach and press for a final resolution of the conflict through the two-state solution.”
2023-10-26 10:44:20
Israeli ground forces operated within the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, attacking multiple Hamas targets before withdrawing, the military said in a statement on what Israel's Army Radio described as the biggest incursion of the current war.
Video of the overnight action issued by the military showed armoured vehicles proceeding through a sandy border zone. A bulldozer is seen levelling part of a raised bank, tanks fire shells, and explosions are seen near or amid a row of damaged buildings.
The military statement posted online said the incursion was carried out "in preparation for the next stages of combat", a possible reference to the large-scale invasion that Israeli leaders have threatened as part of the war to destroy Hamas.
"The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory," the military statement added.
Israel began localised ground incursions on Sunday as the war, triggered by an Oct 7 cross-border rampage by Hamas gunmen, entered its third week. Israel's Army Radio described Thursday's incursion as the biggest yet.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas in Gaza.
2023-10-26 09:07:50
At the United Nations, Russia and China vetoed a US-drafted Security Council resolution calling for pauses in hostilities to allow food, water and medicine to be delivered to Palestinian civilians. The United Arab Emirates also voted no, while 10 members voted in favour and two abstained.
Russia made a rival proposal that advocated a wider ceasefire, but failed to win the minimum number of votes. Israel has resisted both, arguing that Hamas would only take advantage and create new threats to Gaza civilians.
2023-10-26 09:01:51
The health facilities in the besieged Gaza territory have shut down all departments except emergency rooms due to a shortage of fuel and other medical equipment.
According to a BBC report, hospitals need to conserve the little fuel that they have to power life-saving equipment such as ventilators, neonatal incubators and kidney dialysis machines.
Gaza's hospitals are now "in a state of complete collapse", says Mohammed Abu Selmeya, the head of the territory's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa.
2023-10-26 08:50:36
US President Joe Biden and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday discussed "ongoing efforts to locate and secure the release" of Americans believed held hostage in Gaza, the White House said.
Biden also stressed to Netanyahu the "importance of focusing on what comes after this crisis to include a pathway for a permanent peace between Israelis and Palestinians," the White House said.
2023-10-26 01:33:51
US President Joe Biden has highlighted the urgent need for a "path to peace" in the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, President Biden reinforced the unwavering support of the United States for Israel's defence. However, he also underlined the critical importance of charting a course towards a peaceful future in the region once the current crisis is resolved.
President Biden underscored the necessity of independent states for both Israelis and Palestinians, reiterating the principle of their coexistence in safety, dignity, and peace. The vision encapsulates a two-state solution, which the President believes is the path forward to resolving the long-standing conflict.
Furthermore, he suggested that the act of violence by Hamas may have been an attempt to obstruct the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, underscoring the intricate dynamics at play in the region.
President Biden also expressed doubt regarding the accuracy of the Palestinian casualty figures. While acknowledging the tragic loss of innocent lives in the conflict, he indicated a lack of confidence in the numbers cited by the Palestinian authorities.
Biden also raised the alarm over reports of extremist Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. He condemned such actions, describing them as fuel on the fire of ongoing tensions.
2023-10-25 23:56:24
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement, that Israel is preparing a ground invasion of Gaza.
However, he declined to provide any details on the timing or other information about the operation.
2023-10-25 23:37:44
A huge explosion took place near the United Nations (UN) office and the temporary office of Geo News in Kfarkela, Lebanon.
Sources say that the injured are being moved to the hospital while the Lebanese army has been alerted.
According to local sources, the missile was fired by Israel.
2023-10-25 23:33:19
In a tragic incident, the wife, son, and daughter of Wael Al-Dahdouh, the head of Al Jazeera Arabic's Gaza bureau, were killed in an Israeli air raid.
Al-Dahdouh, visibly shocked, spoke out against the series of targeted attacks on civilians, including children and women.
He was at the hospital, having just reported on such an attack in Yarmouk when the Israeli airstrikes hit various areas, including Nuseirat.
Despite the danger, Al-Dahdouh remained in Gaza City for 19 consecutive days, determined to report on the people affected by the ongoing bombings.
Many casualties in Israeli air raids are civilians who have moved to southern Gaza as ordered by Israel.
2023-10-25 22:22:33
A "massive" Israeli ground incursion into the Gaza Strip would be "an error", French President Emmanuel Macron said in Cairo Wednesday, warning it would harm civilians without ensuring Israel´s long-term security.
"If it's a massive intervention that would put civilian lives at risk, I think it's an error... for Israel too because it is unlikely to protect Israel in the long term, and because it is incompatible with... international humanitarian law and the rules of law," Macron said after meeting Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who also urged Israel to avoid an invasion.
2023-10-25 21:50:31
Israel's military has intensified its bombing of southern Gaza after one of the deadliest days for Palestinians since the conflict began, amid international calls for a pause in fighting to let aid into the enclave and prevent many more deaths.
This animation depicts the devastating impact of continuous bombardment on the small 365-square-km territory.
2023-10-25 20:48:01
Israel has agreed to postpone its invasion of Gaza to allow the United States to expedite the deployment of missile defence systems to the region, as reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Wednesday.
This information is based on statements from both US and Israeli officials. The Pentagon is working urgently to send approximately eleven air defence systems to various locations, including those with US troops in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
This deployment aims to protect these troops from missile and rocket threats. US officials have successfully convinced Israel to delay their plans, with the deployment of these systems expected as early as later this week.
Israel is also considering the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians within Gaza and diplomatic efforts to secure the release of more hostages held by Hamas in their strategic planning.
2023-10-25 20:33:41
Israel Wednesday strongly criticised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his characterisation of the Palestinian militant group and Gaza rulers, Hamas, as "liberators" fighting for their own land.
"The Turkish president's attempt to defend the terrorist organisation and his inciting words will not change the horrors that the whole world has seen," the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement more than two weeks after deadly attacks on Israel´s south that spiralled into war.
2023-10-25 20:11:02
In his most assertive statement to date on the Gaza conflict, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan stated Wednesday that Hamas was not a terrorist organisation but rather a group working for the liberation and protection of Palestinian lands and people.
"Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, it is a liberation group, 'mujahideen' waging a battle to protect its lands and people," he told lawmakers from his ruling AK Party, using an Arabic word denoting those who fight for their faith.
Unlike many of its NATO allies and the European Union, Turkey does not consider Hamas a terrorist organisation and hosts members of the group on its territory.
Erdogan also slammed Western powers for supporting Israel's bombing of Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire, the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and for Muslim countries to work together to stop the violence.
"The perpetrators of the massacre and the destruction taking place in Gaza are those providing unlimited support for Israel," Erdogan said. "Israel's attacks on Gaza, for both itself and those supporting them, amount to murder and mental illness."
2023-10-25 19:57:04
The Israel-Hamas war is already battering the economies of nearby countries, the International Monetary Fund chief told an investor forum in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
"You look at the neighbouring countries — Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan —where the channels of impact are already visible," the IMF´s Kristalina Georgieva told the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh.
The economic implications of this conflict extend beyond the immediate war zone. Wall Street experts have warned that the ongoing hostilities could negatively impact the global economy, particularly if other countries become embroiled in the crisis. Georgieva expressed her concerns about the economic challenges faced by countries in the region.
2023-10-25 19:45:45
Rishi Sunak has called for temporary pauses in the Gaza conflict to enable the safe delivery of essential humanitarian aid, including food, water, and medicine.
While he stopped short of endorsing a full ceasefire, the British Prime Minister stressed the importance of creating a "safer environment" that allows aid organisations to assist the Palestinian population.
Sunak underscored the need for "specific pauses" in the conflict, rather than a complete ceasefire, to establish a safer environment.
Sunak decried the "shockingly brutal" attack on Israel and attributed responsibility for the conflict to Hamas, highlighting the group's frequent use of civilian areas for cover.
2023-10-25 18:42:56
In an effort to identify their loved ones in the event of a fatal accident, some Gaza families are now employing bracelets as Palestinians were burying the unidentified dead in mass graves with a number instead of a name.
Muslim leaders in the area have approved mass burials.
Prior to burial, medical professionals number the deceased and save their photos and blood samples.
The Israeli military had ordered residents to move south of the Gaza Strip, which is safer, and away from the north, which is among the world's most populated areas. However, airstrikes have hit the southern region as well.
2023-10-25 18:00:20
The number of kidney dialysis patients at central Gaza's only Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital has doubled more than ever and hundreds of patients are now receiving fewer treatment sessions from just 24 dialysis machines.
Dead bodies keep showing up inside the hospital, while injured people continue to lie on the floors and patients are housed within medical tents and on mattresses outside the structure.
Here, thousands of Palestinian refugees have taken up residence, cramming themselves into waiting areas and hallways.
As a result of Israeli military orders to evacuate, a large number of chronic disease patients who were receiving treatment at hospitals in the besieged enclave's north are now at Al Aqsa Martyrs.
2023-10-25 17:12:28
At least 6,546 Palestinians, including 2,704 children, were killed and 17,439 wounded in Israeli strikes since October 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Wednesday.
In the past 24 hours, 756 Palestinians including 344 children were killed in Israeli strikes, the ministry said.
The ministry said, "The massacres took place in the southern region of the Gaza Strip."
Talking about the health system, the ministry said the attacks targeted and damaged 57 institutions, and that 73 medical staff were killed and 25 ambulances were now out of service.
2023-10-25 17:11:59
Qatar's prime minister said on Wednesday there was some progress on hostage negotiations after Hamas abducted over 200 hostages during its October 7 attack in southern Israel.
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who is also the minister of foreign affairs, said at a press conference with his Turkish counterpart that he hoped there would be breakthroughs on hostage releases "soon".
Qatar has had an open dialogue with both Israel and Hamas, which has brought about the release of four hostages held by Hamas, including two Israeli women on Monday.
The Gulf state, in coordination with the US, is leading mediation talks with Hamas and Israeli officials over the hostages' release as Israel prepares a ground assault on the enclave.
Speaking in Doha, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said an Israeli ground operation into Gaza would turn the fighting there into a massacre.
Fidan said that those supporting Israel's actions under the pretence of solidarity were "accomplices to its crimes".
2023-10-25 17:10:29
The statement by the Qatari PM came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lashed out at Israel for violating international humanitarian law as a senior doctor in the besieged territory said that Israel of using new "deadly weapons" against the civilians in Gaza.
Opening an important UNSC session, Guterres said there was no excuse for the "appalling" violence by Hamas on October 7 but also warned against "collective punishment" of the Palestinians.
"I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza. Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law," Guterres said, without explicitly naming Israel.
2023-10-25 17:02:25
Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director general of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, says that he has never before seen the types of wounds and injuries occurring in the current war.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Abu Salmiya said what he described as the new types of injuries were likely a result of Israel using “new deadly weapons” against the people of Gaza.
2023-10-25 17:08:48
Doctors in Gaza say patients arriving at hospitals are showing signs of disease caused by overcrowding and poor sanitation after more than 1.4 million people fled their homes for temporary shelters under Israel's heaviest-ever bombardment.
All hospitals say they are running out of fuel to power their electricity generators, leaving them increasingly unable to treat the injured and ill. More than 40 medical centres have halted operations, a health ministry spokesman said.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, warned in a post on messaging platform X that it would halt operations in Gaza on Wednesday night because of the lack of fuel.
However, the Israeli military reaffirmed it would bar the entry of fuel to prevent Hamas from seizing it.
2023-10-25 17:06:32
At least 16 people were martyred and several others injured following the latest Israeli air strikes across Gaza early on Wednesday.
According to the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, the Israeli raids hit residential areas in Jabalia and Tal al-Hawa in the north, al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south, according to Al Jazeera.
Guterres, who personally travelled to the crossing between Egypt and Gaza in a push to let in assistance, welcomed the entry of three aid convoys so far through the Rafah crossing.
But Guterres said it was "a drop of aid in an ocean of need," as the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned it would be forced to stop working Wednesday due to lack of fuel.
"To ease epic suffering, make the delivery of aid easier and safer, and facilitate the release of hostages, I reiterate my appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire."
Israel, backed by the United States, has rejected calls to halt the offensive, saying it would only allow Hamas to regroup.
2023-10-25 17:05:57
Queen Rania of Jordan has accused Western leaders of a “glaring double standard” for failing to condemn the deaths of civilians under Israeli bombardment in Gaza, as Israel’s war on Hamas threatens to destabilise relations between US and Arab leaders.
Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview, Rania said, “The people all around the Middle East, including in Jordan, we are just shocked and disappointed by the world’s reaction to this catastrophe that is unfolding. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen a glaring double standard in the world.”
“When October 7 happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and its right to defend itself and condemned the attack that happened … but what we’re seeing in the last couple of weeks, we’re seeing silence in the world,” she told CNN.
The United States last week vetoed a draft resolution on the crisis, saying it did not sufficiently support Israel´s right to respond to Hamas.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked the Security Council to back a new US-led resolution that "incorporates substantive feedback."
The draft, seen by AFP, would defend the "inherent right of all states" to self-defence while calling for compliance with international law. It would back "humanitarian pauses" to let in aid but not a full ceasefire.
Veto-wielding Russia — accustomed to being on the receiving end at the Security Council over its invasion of Ukraine — quickly said it would oppose the US draft, which also came under criticism from US regional ally Egypt.
2023-10-25 16:51:46
Nearly 600,000 internally displaced people are sheltered in 150 facilities of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, while at least 40 UNRWA installations have been impacted, the UN agency posted on Wednesday on the social media platform X.
"Our shelters are four times over their capacities - many people are sleeping in the streets as current facilities are overwhelmed," the agency added.