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Israeli families of captives growing more concerned
There are going to be several demonstrations throughout Israel. The first will take place tonight in Tel Aviv, in what has become known as Hostage Square. Families of Israeli captives will gather here for a rally to call on the government to do everything they can to bring about the release of their loved ones.
These families have grown frustrated with the government. One of their major concerns is that their loved ones are going to die in the relentless bombardment that is besieging Gaza.
Hamas releasing a statement yesterday saying that seven of the captives have died from Israeli bombardment, along with a video, has been met with a lot of frustration. And that frustration is being directed at the Israeli government – which they believe has simply not done enough to bring back the captives.
Israeli opposition leader: Government not doing enough to return captives
Yair Lapid has joined thousands of Israelis marching for the return of captives still held in Gaza.
“You ask us whether we are doing enough to return the hostages, and the answer is no,” Lapid, a former prime minister, told the marchers, according to the Times of Israel. “If we were doing enough, then they would already be returning home.”
The crowd plans to rally in Jerusalem this evening at the conclusion of their four-day march, which began Wednesday at Re’im, the site of Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Family and supporters of the hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza complete the final leg of a four-day march from the Israel-Gaza border to Jerusalem, to demand the immediate release of all hostages, near Jerusalem, Saturday
Thousands march in Kafr Kana to denounce Israeli attacks on Palestinians
Thousands are marching in Kafr Kana, an Arab town in northern Israel, to demand an end to Israel’s attacks against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
The demonstration took place after several attempts were thwarted by the Israeli police.
Protesters demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, the halting of plans by the Israeli army to invade the southern city of Rafah and an end to the attacks on Palestinian residents in the West Bank.
In Lydd, Palestinians fear tinderbox of Israel’s war, threat of expulsion
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza following Hamas’s deadly attack on October 7, tensions in mixed Palestinian and Israeli cities have approached boiling point. But few places are as tense as Lydd, a city run by far-right Mayor Yair Revivo and where relations between Palestinians and Israeli Jews have been fraught for years.
Palestinian activists say they fear for their lives, living in the shadow of the Israeli authorities and heavily armed Jewish Israeli citizens, many of whom belong to supremacist movements. They are warning that the city could “explode” into conflict and lead to the persecution and even expulsion of Palestinian residents.
“Palestinians know that Israelis are looking for any situation to kill us or arrest us, because right now it is war time,” human rights activist Ghassan Mounayer told Al Jazeera.
Palestinians in Israel rally with Palestinian flags in the mixed city of Lydd near Tel Aviv on May 13, 2022, a year after a member of the community was killed during inter-communal violence
Israel to seize additional territory to add to Maale Adumim settlement
Palestinians have lived for generations in al-Issawaya – a town located to the east of occupied East Jerusalem – which is now under threat from an expanding Israeli settlement that plans to push the local communities off their land.
Khalil Abu Al Reesh, mayor of al-Issawaya, said that land is very important to a Palestinian.
“If you take his land, you take his soul,” the mayor said. “They will kill Issawaya if they do it. They will kill Issawaya if they take the land here and then build a wall,” he said.
EU’s Borrell says responsibility for aid massacre lays on Israeli policies
The office of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has requested an “impartial international investigation on this tragic event” following the killing of more than 100 Palestinians waiting for aid deliveries near Gaza City.
“In any case, it is Israel’s responsibility to comply with the rules of international law and to protect the distribution of humanitarian aid to civilian populations,” his office said in a statement. “The responsibility for this incident lays on the restrictions imposed by the Israeli army and obstructions by violent extremists to the supply of humanitarian aid,” the statement added.
“This very serious incident reveals that the restrictions on the entry of humanitarian assistance contribute to create scarcity, hunger and disease, but also a level of desperation that brings about violence.”
Israel responsible for ‘indefensible conditions’ in Gaza
France’s Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne says Israel is to blame for the desperate conditions leading up to the aid convoy attack near Gaza City on Thursday.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza has been catastrophic for several weeks, if not several months. And this is creating indefensible and unjustifiable situations for which the Israelis are accountable,” Sejourne said in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde.
“Our efforts with the Israeli authorities to increase the number of crossing points and humanitarian trucks have gone unanswered. Starvation is adding to the horror. People are attacking the few convoys that do get through; the responsibility for blocking this aid clearly lies with Israeli.”
Palestinian Foreign Ministry blasts US for failing to deliver aid to Gaza
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry says the US is acting as a “weak, marginal state” that is unable to secure aid access to starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement posted on X, the ministry said “the behaviour of the United States does not conform to that of a great state able to pressure Israel into protecting Palestinian citizens and catering to their needs”.
“The ministry sees no excuse for the behaviour of the United States, who is behaving as a marginal, weak state in the face of its ally’s arrogance, tyranny and extremism, especially when it comes to delivering aid to Gaza.”
Head of Palestinian church committee appeals to global Christians
Ramzi Khoury, the head of the Palestinian Committee for Church Affairs, has issued a plea to international institutions and churches to raise their voices against Israel’s “massacres” in Gaza, Wafa reports. Khoury said the recent attack on aid-seekers in Gaza was “unprecedented in the history of war crimes” and should compel international institutions to mobilise to push for an “immediate ceasefire”.
The Palestinian territories are home to tens of thousands of Christians, including some 47,000 in the occupied West Bank and 1,000 in Gaza. However, Palestinian Christian leaders have said they are ignored by Western church leaders while Israeli military attacks put them in peril.
In an open letter by Palestinian Christians back in October, they wrote, “We are disturbed by the silence of many church leaders and theologians when it is Palestinian civilians who are killed.”
Palestinian official Dr. Ramzi Khoury, Head of the Presidential Higher Committee for Churches Affairs, right, stands with clerics
The unravelling of the New York Times’s ‘Hamas rape’ story
In December 2023, The New York Times published an explosive article – now widely discredited – that detailed Hamas’s agenda to weaponise rape and sexual violence on October 7.
Freighter Rubymar has sunk in Red Sea: Gov’t
