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SvennoJ on 14 February 2024
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Israeli forces kill Gaza political analyst, frequent Al Jazeeera guest

Israeli forces killed Ayman Rafati, his wife and children after shelling his home north of Gaza City, says Ramy Abdu, head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. Abdu has accused Israel of silencing voices from Gaza, while others have called it part of an ongoing scholasticide, a term that has become popular to refer to Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s education system.

The Israeli army has previously killed poets, professors and academics, and approximately 100 journalists.

‘We will continue’: Al Jazeera’s injured correspondent Ismail Abu Omar

Lying in a hospital bed with bruises on his face, Abu Omar, who was severely injured in an Israeli drone attack on Tuesday, had a defiant message: Israeli violence will not deter journalism in the Gaza Strip. Abu Omar had his leg amputated after the attack, which also wounded the network’s cameraman Ahmad Matar.

“Despite all the crimes Israel is committing against journalists – displacing, killing and injuring them – journalists’ mission in the Gaza Strip continues to convey our message to the entire world because our Palestinian people are being slaughtered by the Israeli war machine,” Abu Omar said. “We will continue the coverage. And we will continue to document Israel’s crimes and to show our people’s suffering and worries in the Gaza Strip.”

He added that what saddens him is that the dangerous work Gaza journalists do of gathering footage and testimonies about Israeli atrocities throughout the past 125 days has not moved the world to stop the war.




Top US official confirms Israel not allowing flour into Gaza

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the Israeli government has not allowed the aid into Gaza despite promises to the US government. Sullivan also addressed the expected Rafah offensive, the possible truce deal and Lebanon escalation. Here’s what he had to say:

  • “That flour has not moved the way that we had expected it would move, and we expect that Israel will follow through on its commitment to get that flower into Gaza.”
  • The US is asking Israel to formulate a “credible” plan for its Rafah assault that would consider: protecting civilians in the crowded city, ensuring the flow of aid and the proximity of the fighting to the Egyptian border.
  • “Innocent civilians in Gaza suffered extraordinary pain and loss these last four months.”
  • The US backs an extended pause in the fighting through a captives deal, but wants to see Hamas “ultimately defeated”.
  • Washington will continue to work to ensure that Israelis are safe from the “threat” of Hezbollah at the country’s northern border.

Israel used Gaza war to prevent almost all of West Bank olive harvest in 2023

Israeli rights group B’Tselem says every year, Israel extensively restricts Palestinians’ ability to carry out the harvest. In 2023, as the war in the Gaza Strip raged, however, these restrictions “reached new heights”. “The systemic obstruction of the olive harvest, augmented by organised settler violence against harvesters and their property is … part of Israel’s longstanding violent policy, which aims to cement the apartheid regime in the West Bank and allow continued expansion of settlements,” the group says.

“The 2023 harvest was especially important this year as the Palestinian economy is already struggling due to the war in Gaza – particularly because of the prohibition on labourers entering Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s suspension of public sector salaries.”

 

War in Gaza has ‘complicated’ peace efforts in Yemen

The UN’s special envoy to Yemen has said that regional tensions, Houthi raids in the Red Sea, and a campaign of US attacks along with a decision to redesignate the Houthis as a “terrorist organisation” are complicating efforts to find a political solution to the yearslong conflict in Yemen.

“They [the parties] were close last year to reaching some kind of potential agreement. What the Security Council has been hearing here on Wednesday is that now that has been, not completely derailed because of the current situation [in the region], but certainly being made a lot more complicated,” Al Jazeera correspondent Gabriel Elizondo reported from UN headquarters in New York.

Houthi-affiliated media has reported several attacks on Yemen today alone, though they have been occurring at regular intervals since January.

UN envoy warns of ‘dangerous’ escalation cycle in Yemen

The United Nations special envoy for Yemen has warned against what he called a “dangerous escalatory cycle” in the country, where the US has carried out attacks against the Houthis amid persistent raids on ships in the Red Sea. The Yemen-based group has said it is targeting Israel-linked vessels to exert pressure for an end to the war in Gaza.

“Three things need to happen in the immediate term to create an off-ramp to this dangerous escalatory cycle,” Hans Grundberg said in comments before the UN Security Council, calling for regional deescalation, for all parties to refrain from “military opportunism” and for progress towards a mediated agreement to end the country’s longstanding conflict.




Israel identifies soldier killed in Hezbollah strike

The Israeli military says it has notified the family of a soldier killed in a Hezbollah strike on a base in northern Israel earlier in the day, identifying her as a 20-year-old sergeant named Amar Sarah Benjo. Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said several other soldiers were injured in the strike, one seriously.

“All the soldiers were evacuated to receive medical treatment at a hospital and their families were informed,” Hagari said in a statement.

Civilians injured, Hezbollah fighter dead: More on Israeli strikes on Lebanon

The Lebanese Civil Defense said one person was killed in an Israeli attack on the village of Adashit. The National News Agency adds that 10 others were injured and that they “were rushed to nearby hospitals in Nabatieh”. The NNA named the dead person as Hezbollah fighter Hassan Ali Najm, and Hezbollah has confirmed his death in a statement, as we reported earlier. The NNA added that this strike “caused major damages to commercial establishments, shops, homes and cars”.

In Gaza, Biden administration complicit: Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention

The nonprofit for the global prevention of genocide has said that the administration “must take immediate steps to prevent further destruction, loss of life, and displacement in Gaza and the West Bank”.

“None of the Biden Administration’s tactics to deny genocide and avoid accountability will withstand the test of time. President Biden and key administration officials are on a path to be remembered as the principal enablers of one of the worst genocides in the 21st century,” the group said in a statement.