Main events on September 10th
- At least 72 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza today, the majority of whom were killed in Gaza City.
- Widespread global condemnation has erupted after Israel attacked Hamas’s senior leadership in the Qatari capital, Doha, with India, France, Russia and others denouncing the strike.
- Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said that the country is forming a “collective response” to Israeli “bullying”, after decrying the “cowardly” attack and saying there was no warning of the strike from the United States.
- Before that, PM Netanyahu said Qatar should kick the Hamas delegation out of its territory, seeming to threaten more strikes if it should fail to do so.
- Israeli warplanes carried out more bombings of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and other locations around the country, killing at least 35, according to the country’s Ministry of Health.
- Several UN bodies and groups, including Amnesty International, have expressed concern over Israel’s forced evacuation order demanding one million people leave Gaza City for a so-called humanitarian zone in the south, warning that the already overcrowded area lacks basic services.
Israel arrests head of Muslim cemetery organisation: Palestinian media
The Palestinian news service Wafa has reported that Israeli authorities detained director of the Islamic Cemeteries Committee in Jerusalem, Ahmad al-Dajani, and that he has been taken to an unknown destination.
Wafa reports that al-Dajani was detained by Israeli forces while walking on Salah al-Din Street in Jerusalem, an act the news service says is part of a wider crackdown on Muslim authorities and institutions that play an important role in upholding Islamic history and culture in the city.
Visual investigation concludes munitions likely to blame for attacks on Sumud Flotilla
The open-source intelligence group Bellingcat says that an initial investigation into a series of explosions on vessels in the Global Sumud Flotilla bound for Gaza points towards incendiary munitions, contradicting denials by officials and lending credence to the flotilla’s claims that they have been the victim of numerous drone attacks.
“The largest aid flotilla in history has been attacked twice in two days whilst in port in Tunisia. Open source analysis suggests an incendiary munition is to blame,” the group said.
Tunisian officials said an explosion on a vessel on September 8 in Tunis was the result of a lighter or a cigarette butt, but videos show a flaming object descending from above.
“The flaming object must have been deployed from an aerial platform,” the group said, adding that videos of the incident include background sounds “consistent with that of a drone”.
The report says that munitions allegedly used in both attacks, one in Tunis on September 8 and another 24 hours later, show features that are “common, but not exclusive, to some models of Israeli hand grenades”.
