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SvennoJ on 12 February 2024
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Lebanese security officer killed in Israeli shelling

Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) says Ali Mohammed Mahdi, a 27-year-old sergeant in its public relations division, was killed yesterday in Israeli bombing of his hometown of Houla in the south of the country.


Panic grows in Rafah after night of heavy Israeli airstrikes

Palestinians in Rafah are frantically trying to figure out whether to stay or evacuate after deadly Israeli strikes rained down on the southern city overnight, a displaced aid worker in the city told CNN on Monday.  “It was one of the most terrible nights,” Jamal al Rozzi said. “Not because of the number of martyrs of the number of injuries, but also because everybody was just asking themselves what to do.” 

Israel’s bombardment since October 7 has forcibly displaced 1.7 million people in Gaza, according to the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees, which says nearly 1.5 million civilians are crammed into the tiny territory of Rafah alone. “Rafah is fully crowded with people who have been evacuated from the north and the middle area,” said al Rozzi. “I have to face this question myself with my family ... It’s not easy to decide.”

The attacks on Monday, carried out during a raid to rescue two Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas, killed dozens of Palestinians and reignited fears that a looming Israeli ground offensive in Rafah would cause a devastating bloodbath, with those trapped there having no remaining escape route.

"This is the question that nobody answers for the other. If you ask your brother or your father or your son or your daughter ... they cannot tell you because they don't want to feel guilty if anything happens to you,” added al Rozzi.  "I look at the faces of the people in the street. Of course, after 120 days or more of war, they are really sad, angry and so on. But today they are ... totally confused." 

‘Gates of hell opened suddenly’ in Rafah last night

Al Jazeera contributor Ahmed Abdullah Mohsen has described the moments Israeli forces launched strikes on Rafah overnight. “The screaming and wailing nearly drowned out the warplanes that covered the sky, dropping barrages in a fiery belt that crushed the bodies of the displaced in their tents. About 20 minutes of explosions lit the night like something from an artificial Hollywood film,” he said.

Mohsen said “the displaced and the injured fled en masse to the Kuwaiti Hospital, the only one open in the Shaboura area”. “A doctor in the hospital helped a child who was taking his last breath to utter the final prayer.

“Ahmed Abu Al-Hinud saw his mother’s body lying on a hospital gurney. He held her body close and seemed to lose consciousness for an hour of uncontrollable terror and shock,” he said.

Mohsen said “amidst overwhelming anger and a sense of helplessness, the director of the Kuwaiti Hospital, Dr Suhaib Al-Hams, called out to the world to stop sending medicines to treat COVID, which some countries who want to give the impression they have helped Gaza have done”.

Israel’s war on Gaza to continue until ‘total victory over Hamas’: Netanyahu to Rutte

Meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the Israeli army “will not leave the terror battalions alone in Rafah”. Rutte, who is visiting Israel for the third time since October 7, is also scheduled to meet war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, and Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

Rutte warned on X that an Israeli invasion of Rafah would have “catastrophic humanitarian consequences”, and called for an immediate ceasefire that culminates in a “lasting end” to the conflict, including a “viable Palestinian state, next to a safe Israel”.

Rutte can rot in hell, how complicit can you be

Dutch government to appeal court order to halt export of F-35 jet parts to Israel

The Dutch government has said it will make its appeal at the country’s Supreme Court. As we reported earlier, a Dutch court had ordered that exports be halted within seven days over concerns the jet parts were being used in violation of international law during Israel’s war on Gaza. The government said the F-35s were crucial for Israel to protect itself from “threats in the region, for example from Iran, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon”.

Dutch court ruling is a ‘turning point’: Rights group

The head of Oxfam Novib, Michiel Servaes, has hailed the ruling by the Dutch court blocking the sale of F-35 fighter jet parts by the Netherlands to Israel as a “very significant” verdict. “I’m hopeful it will change the behaviour of my [Dutch] government. It must, because they need to obey this ruling,” Servaes, whose group was one of the petitioners in the appeal, told Al Jazeera.

The appeals court in The Hague ruled that the Netherlands must stop delivering parts for the fighter jets used in Gaza, as there was a “clear risk” the planes would be involved in breaking international humanitarian law.

“I also hope that it’s a turning point for governments in Europe or elsewhere who have supported Israel to look at themselves in the mirror and realise that they are, in fact, responsible or even complicit of the violations taking place,” Servaes added.

Hopefully the supreme court upholds the ruling