Currently Online 
Smotrich says Gaza’s population to be expelled abroad ‘within months’
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has asserted that Israel will be in a position to “declare victory” in Gaza “within months”, according to Arutz Sheva.
Speaking at a conference in the illegal Israeli settlement of Ofra, Smotrich said Gaza will soon “be completely destroyed”, with its population concentrated by an Israeli-imposed security corridor in the south of the enclave. From there, Palestinians “will leave in large numbers to third countries”, said Smotrich, in the comments carried by Arutz Sheva.
This statement from the minister follows PM Netanyahu’s announcement yesterday that Palestinians in Gaza would be moved.
Loitering munitions being used to ‘terrorise the Palestinians’
Al Jazeera has spoken with Peter Lee from the University of Portsmouth in England and Sultan Barakat of Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar about Israel’s use of loitering munitions in its war on Gaza.
Loitering munitions, also known as suicide drones, fly over locations until they locate a target and then fly into it.
“It’s very confusing actually because this kind of drone … can be used very precisely,” Lee said.
“It does seem they’re being used against civilian targets. Now the silence of the Israelis and Israeli army spokesman is quite telling here because in the past, they’ve said that there have been the presence of Hamas fighters or a command centre or some other justification for the attack on a particular place,” but that does not seem to be the case for recent attacks, he said.
In fact, there have been enough incidents recently to indicate that these drone attacks have not been accidents but rather authorised by someone on the Israeli side, Lee added.
The drones appear to be used as a scare tactic. They are able to fly over an area for hours to identify a target. “They’re designed to terrorise the Palestinians and to make sure that they do not feel normal in any way, even in their displacement,” Barakat said.
As Israel expands its bombing campaign across Yemen, Lebanon and Syria, these drones are “an alternative, relatively cheap way to terrorise the Palestinians and to keep them reminded of the fact that Israel is here and we haven’t finished our job”.
Regarding international law, using these drones “leaves Israel very open to the charge that they are deliberately targeting and trying to depopulate an area”; otherwise, it would make sense for them to show more restraint in their bombing campaigns of Gaza, Lee said.
‘She is all bones’: Mother of malnourished child makes plea for food aid
Humanitarian organisations have warned for weeks that the suffocating aid blockade of Gaza is putting its residents, especially children, at grave risk of malnutrition.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows one young girl in the enclave appearing gaunt and skeletal from seeming malnutrition.
“My daughter needs food, she needs vegetables, she needs the natural food that people eat all over the world,” says the girl’s mother in the video. “She needs vitamins and a decent life.”
“We are pleading with the whole world to help us and help the Palestinian people,” she added. “My daughter used to weigh around 30 kilos (66 pounds), but now she is all bones… no flesh, nothing.”
“There is a great danger to her life and I fear for her every day.”
