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Forums - Politics Discussion - Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

SvennoJ 4 days ago

Israeli warplanes hit Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon: Army

The Israeli army has said its fighter jets struck the Hezbollah group targets in southern Lebanon overnight. In a statement on X, the military said a Hezbollah military site in the Aitaroun village was hit along with the organisation’s operational infrastructures in Kfar Kila and Khiam.

The statement also confirmed that two Israeli soldiers were injured, one of them seriously, after an antitank missile was launched towards the Israeli city of Metula from Lebanon. The Israeli media reported the attack yesterday evening.


Israeli bombardment on the village of Khiam in south Lebanon near the border with Israel

Israel shells civil defence team in southern Lebanon: Report

Lebanon’s National News Agency has said the Israeli forces targeted a civil defence team in the village of Taybeh in southern Lebanon with an artillery shell.

The attack was carried out while the team was extinguishing a fire in the village, and a member was injured by shrapnel in the chest before being hospitalised, according to the report.

‘Intense phase of war with Hamas about to end,’ focus to shift to Lebanon border, Netanyahu says

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/23/middleeast/intense-phase-hamas-war-end-netanyahu-lebanon-intl-latam/index.html

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the “intense phase of the war with Hamas (in Gaza) is about to end,” and that the military’s focus could then shift to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where fighting with the Iran-backed group Hezbollah has intensified in recent weeks.

Netanyahu, however, vowed that Israel would continue operating in Gaza until the militant group Hamas was eliminated.

“It doesn’t mean that the war is going to end, but the war in its current stage is going to end in Rafah. This is true. We will continue mowing the grass later,” Netanyahu told Channel 14 Television in his first one-on-one interview with local Israeli media since October 7.



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SvennoJ 4 days ago

Israeli land sales event in Los Angeles draws protests

A real estate fair promoting land sales in Israel to American buyers has drawn protests from opponents and supporters of the event in Los Angeles, California.

My Home in Israel Real Estate, a group based in the occupied West Bank, described the real estate event on Saturday as the “mega event of the year”.

Previous events hosted by My Home in Israel Real Estate have drawn protests from opponents who say they promote land sales and expanded settlements on illegally occupied Palestinian land.


Protesters waved Palestinian flags as they blocked the entrance to the Land Sales event in Los Angeles on Saturday

Israeli defence chief arrives in US for first time since ICC arrest warrant request

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has arrived in Washington, DC just over a month after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) applied for a warrant for his arrest.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said his investigation had found that Gallant, along with Netanyahu, could be responsible for “war crimes and crimes against humanity”, including the use of starvation as a “method of war”.

The charges come after Gallant described Palestinians as “human animals” when he ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip on October 9.

In the past, the ICC’s pre-trial chamber has taken several months to decide whether to issue a warrant. If a warrant is issued for Gallant, he could risk arrest if he travels to any of the 124 states that are party to the court’s Rome Statute.

But while the State of Palestine is one of the countries that recognise the ICC’s jurisdiction as a party to the Rome Statute, the United States and Israel do not. Instead, US Republican representatives, and some Democrats, have called for the United States to bar entry to ICC officials and restrict their US-based property transactions, in protest against the court seeking warrants for Gallant and Netanyahu.


US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, centre left, walks with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, on May 1



US happily shaking hands with a wanted war criminal while promising more aid to continue genocide and wage more war against Lebanon

Gallant meets Republican senator, AIPAC leaders in US

The Israeli defence minister, who arrived in the US capital on Sunday, kicked off his visit by meeting leaders of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and top Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

Gallant, in a series of posts on X, said he held discussions with AIPAC on strengthening the US-Israel alliance and spoke with Graham “about the importance of ongoing US support as we work to bring the hostages home, continue dismantling Hamas capabilities and defend our northern border against Hezbollah”.

The Israeli minister is in Washington, DC to discuss the next phase of the Gaza war and escalating hostilities on the border with Lebanon. He is expected to meet his US counterpart Lloyd Austin as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Knesset panel approves to fast-track bill to raise exemption age for reservists: Report

Israel’s Knesset House Committee has approved a government request to fast-track a bill delaying retirement for the country’s military reservists, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.

The report says the proposal seeks to extend a temporary measure raising the exemption age for reserve military service from 40 to 41 for soldiers and from 45 to 46 for officers for several additional months. Specialists, such as doctors and air crewmen, will be required to continue serving until 50, instead of 49.

The current increase in the exemption age, which was initially passed as a temporary measure by the Knesset late last year, is set to expire at the end of the month and the committee’s approval of the government’s request clears the way for the bill’s first reading in the plenum to take place today – with the remaining two readings taking place this week, the newspaper said.

Knesset legal adviser Sagit Afik criticised the government for requesting to fast-track the legislation “at the last minute, leaving two days of work for the Knesset and the committee”.

“This is an insult to the Knesset and its status and ability to work, especially after the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee did not agree to grant a one-year extension in the past,” she said.

Israel preparing for low intensity phase of Gaza war: Gallant tells US special envoy

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has told US special envoy Amos Hochstein that moving to “phase 3” in the Gaza Strip will affect all fronts, according to a readout from Gallant’s office cited by Israeli media following the meeting in Washington, DC.

Phase 3 refers to the low-intensity conflict that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said would start in about two weeks, contradicting the War Cabinet decision, according to its former members.

Israel’s Defence Ministry said Gallant also assured Hochstein of his commitment to changing the security situation in the border area with Lebanon, allowing the return of the residents to their homes in northern Israel.

Translation: Gallant to the American mediator Hochstein: The transition to Phase 3 of the war in Gaza will have an impact on all sectors and Israel is preparing for every possibility – military and political



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Israel shells civil defence team in southern Lebanon: Report

Lebanon’s National News Agency has said the Israeli forces targeted a civil defence team in the village of Taybeh in southern Lebanon with an artillery shell.

The attack was carried out while the team was extinguishing a fire in the village, and a member was injured by shrapnel in the chest before being hospitalised, according to the report.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since Israel launched war on Gaza in the wake of deadly Hamas attack.

Risk of all-out Middle East war grows daily, German minister warns

Germany is extremely concerned about rising violence on Israel’s border with Lebanon and the increasing risk of a full-blown regional conflict.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also warned, as a “friend” of Israel, that it could “lose itself” in the war on Gaza and that burgeoning international anger at the plight of civilians there undermines Israel’s security.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu signalled on Sunday that Israel could move more troops to the north, where fighting against Hezbollah has escalated on the border with Lebanon.

“We are extremely concerned about the increase in violence at the northern border. I will pay a visit to Beirut tomorrow again exactly for this reason,” Baerbock said. “Together with our partners, we are working hard on finding solutions that can prevent more suffering. The risk of an unintended escalation and of all-out war is growing by the day.”

You could stop supplying Israel with more weapons if you're actually concerned

Israel killed 54 Palestinian children in occupied West Bank this year alone: Rights group

Israeli forces and illegal settlers have killed 54 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2024, including two United States citizens, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP).

The Palestinian human rights organisation focused on child rights said 135 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7 last year when Israel’s war on Gaza erupted.

In 2023, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 121 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, including 103 Palestinian children killed with live ammunition, 13 Palestinian children killed in drone strikes, four Palestinian children killed by missiles fired from a US-sourced Apache attack helicopter, and one child killed in an Israeli warplane air strike, it said.

“Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or of serious injury is present,” DCIP said. “However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings,” it added.



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Aftermath of Israeli attack on Daraj clinic in Gaza City




Images show extent of devastation at Gaza’s UNRWA-run Jabalia Health Centre

The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees has posted on X before and after images showing the extent of the centre’s destruction.

“Before the war, UNRWA met 70 to 80 percent of primary healthcare needs in Gaza,” the agency said. Now “only a fraction of UNRWA’s health centres remain operational,” it said.

Israeli forces ‘do not respect’ ambulances or first aid workers: Gaza paramedic

Yousef al-Hindi, a paramedic and head of the ambulance unit in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah city, tells Al Jazeera that first aid workers are targeted by Israeli forces “directly and indirectly”.

“We are facing a lot of challenges,” he said. “Our work is becoming very risky to our lives because we are the first people who arrive on the scene. We are sometimes targeted directly or indirectly. The occupation forces do not respect the ethics of our work, the ambulances, or the first aid workers.”

Al-Hindi added the situation is “very dire” inside hospitals as well. “We are lacking all medical supplies, even the medical personnel to give patients some proper care,” he said.

Medics aim to screen thousands of Gaza children for malnutrition

Aid group International Medical Corps (IMC) and partners are planning to reach more than 200,000 children under five-years-old as hunger spreads, one of its doctors says.

A group of UN-led aid agencies estimates about 7 percent of Gazan children may be acutely malnourished, compared with 0.8 percent before Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7.

“With the displacement, communities are settling in new locations that do not have access to clean water, or there is not adequate access to food. We fear there are more cases being missed,” said Dr Munawwar Said.

Over the weekend, families were already coming into an IMC clinic in the central city of Deir el-Balah, which reopened after the agency said it had to shut down two centres in the southern city of Rafah because of insecurity.

Jana Ayad, 5, weighed just nine kilogrammes (19.8 pounds) when she arrived, suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting, nutrition officer Raghda Ibrahim Qeshta said. “My daughter was dying in front of me,” her mother Nasma Ayad said as she sat next to the bed. “I didn’t know what to do.”



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Breakdown of civil order in Gaza further impedes aid delivery: UNRWA

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has warned that a breakdown of civil order in Gaza had allowed widespread looting and smuggling, making aid delivery even harder.

More than eight months of war have led to desperate humanitarian conditions in the besieged Palestinian territory and repeated UN warnings of man-made famine there.

“Gaza has been decimated,” Lazzarini told the agency’s advisory body. “Children are dying of malnutrition and dehydration, while food and clean water wait in trucks,” he said, according to a written version of his closed-door address in Geneva.

“The breakdown of civil order has resulted in rampant looting and smuggling that impede the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid,” Lazzarini said, adding that UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, was “staggering under the weight of relentless attacks”.

UN agencies repeatedly warn of severe shortages of vital supplies in Gaza, exacerbated by restrictions on access by land and the closure of the key Rafah crossing with Egypt since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side in early May.

‘No help is entering Gaza’: EU’s Borrell

European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says “despite all tactical pauses announced, the situation is that no help is entering Gaza”. “The help is stockpiling outside of the border. Some of these goods are perishing,” he said upon his arrival at the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg.

Borrell said that both Hamas and Israel are failing to adhere to US President Joe Biden’s ceasefire plan that the EU is supporting.

“The last declaration from Prime Minister Netanyahu confirms that unfortunately this plan is not going to be implemented. We desperately need a ceasefire that could allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Otherwise, the tragedy will be incommensurable,” he said.

At least 7 Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on people waiting for aid

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reports Palestinians gathered as commercial and aid trucks came through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing in southern Gaza. Israel forces attacked the group at the Bani Suheila traffic circle in Khan Younis city.

“We are expecting the numbers of killed and injured to increase as paramedics are unable to get to the area because of heavy artillery fire,” he said.

Aid truck security guards among dead in Khan Younis attack

An Israeli air strike near Bani Suheila traffic circle in the southern Gaza Strip has now killed at least eight people, including guards who accompany aid trucks, Palestinian medics say.

1,400 tonnes of aid delivered via US-built pier this past weekend

US Central Command (CENTCOM) says the 1,384 tonnes of humanitarian relief sent includes its “largest single-day delivery of aid to date” on Sunday.

“Department of Defense operations have continued uninterrupted since re-anchoring the temporary pier to the beach in Gaza on June 19,” CENTCOM said, adding that operations will pause today for maintenance purposes.


US-built pier not sufficient in delivering aid to Gaza: WHO official

Hanan Balkhy, head of the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean region, made the remarks as the US military began delivering aid through the $230m floating pier again, after it was removed a second time because of rough seas.

“The pier has supported a little bit but it’s not to the scale that is needed by any stretch of the imagination,” Balkhy said. “So we need to emphasise on the land routes to ensure the amount and the quantity and the efficiency.”

Since Israel launched its ground operation into Rafah, aid deliveries have declined 67 percent, with more than 50 WHO trucks stuck on the Egyptian side of the crossing. Meanwhile, just three of its trucks have been allowed into Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, it said.



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SvennoJ 3 days ago

What propaganda leads to, or I guess this is just more propaganda

UNRWA sued by Israeli victims of October 7 Hamas attack

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is being sued by dozens of Israelis who accuse it of aiding and abetting the October 7 Hamas attack.

In a complaint filed with the United States District Court in Manhattan, the plaintiffs said UNRWA spent more than a decade helping Hamas build what they called the “terror infrastructure” and personnel needed for the attack.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages for what they allege was UNRWA’s “aiding and abetting Hamas’s genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture”, which they said violated international law and the US federal Torture Victim Protection Act.

UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini and several current and former agency officials are also defendants. The plaintiffs include 101 people who survived the attack or had relatives who were killed.

 

UN chief denounces spread of misinformation about him

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says misinformation about him continues to be disseminated during the more than eight-month war on the Gaza Strip.

“I’ve heard the same source many times saying that I never ‘attacked’ Hamas, that I never condemned Hamas, that I am a supporter of Hamas,” Guterres told a news conference, without naming Israel.

“I have condemned Hamas 102 times, 51 of them in formal speeches, the others in different social platforms,” he said. “The truth in the end, always wins.”


Qatar’s emir, Dutch prime minister discuss immediate need for permanent ceasefire in Gaza

Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is on an official visit to the Netherlands at the invitation of King Willem-Alexander.

At The Hague, the emir met with Prime Minister Mark Rutte, stressing Qatar’s firm position vis-a-vis the Palestinian issue and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

This includes “their right to establish an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital within the framework of a two-state solution”, a statement by Qatar’s Amiri Diwan said.

Qatar is also continuing its work on various diplomatic mediation paths aimed at stopping the ongoing fighting in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, the statement added.



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Netanyahu says he’s still committed to truce proposal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel remains committed to a proposed Gaza ceasefire and captives deal.

“We are committed to the Israeli proposal that President Biden welcomed. Our position has not changed. The second thing, which does not contradict the first, we will not end the war until we eliminate Hamas,” Netanyahu said in a speech to parliament.

On Sunday, Netanyahu in an interview with Channel 14 indicated he’s open to a “partial” deal that would facilitate the return of some captives still held in Gaza.

He reiterated, however, he wouldn’t agree to any deal that stipulated an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, despite previous claims by the US that an Israeli proposal would be a pathway to a “permanent” end to the bloody eight-month conflict.

Maybe he should look up the meaning of 'contradiction'

Netanyahu is ‘succeeding, he is buying time’

During an interview on Israel’s Channel 14 television, the prime minister made headlines by announcing the heaviest fighting in Gaza would come to an end soon, but Israeli forces would still fight on until they eradicate Hamas.

PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s interview also displayed a hint of election campaigning. “This is a right-wing government and if it falls it won’t take long before there will be a left-wing government that will do one thing immediately – establish a Palestinian terrorist state,” he said.

While it is too early to suggest Netanyahu may be gearing up for a snap election, his return to his familiar campaigning style shows his need to shore up his coalition, said political scientist Gideon Rahat, of the bipartisan Israel Democracy Institute.

“He was speaking to his base. He is sustaining his government … that’s the main goal. And he is succeeding, he is buying time.”

UN chief calls for immediate truce after Netanyahu’s ‘partial’ comment

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed the UN’s position that a ceasefire and captive release is “the basis to create the conditions for one day the two-state solution to be possible”.

Without mentioning Benjamin Netanyahu by name, Guterres said this is “a different position” from what the Israeli leader laid out in an interview Sunday night with Israeli Channel 14. Netanyahu’s position also cast doubt on the viability of a US-backed truce, which has three phases and includes a “permanent” ceasefire if the parties agree.

Guterres also reiterated to reporters that the toll of more than 37,600 Palestinians killed in Gaza is “unprecedented” in any conflict since he took the reins of the United Nations in 2017. He said this shows the protection of civilians – a crucial principle of international law – has not been “a key instrument” in Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.

“The international community must put all pressure for international law to be respected,” Guterres said.



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Biden denounces brawl outside LA synagogue

Opponents of the Israeli war on Gaza staged a protest that devolved into violence outside a Los Angeles synagogue.

Fighting between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and counter-protesters erupted on Sunday outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighbourhood and police were called in to break it up.

“I’m appalled by the scenes outside of Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles,” President Joe Biden said in post on X. “Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, anti-Semitic, and un-American.”

In a statement, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the violence was “abhorrent” and blocking access to a place of worship unacceptable.

The People’s City Council LA, a pro-justice group, said the synagogue was hosting an event promoting the sale of Palestinian land. “Every single elected official in Los Angeles commenting on this is being so disingenuous, it’s disgusting,” the group said.



Selling illegal land is OK, protesting against it is not

Biden ‘disturbed’ by incident involving Palestinian-American child

A Texas woman was charged with attempted murder on Sunday after she tried to drown a little girl in a swimming pool.

In a post on X, the US president said: “I am deeply disturbed by the reports of an attempted drowning of a 3-year old Palestinian-American at a neighbourhood pool. No child should ever be subjected to a violent attack, and my heart goes out to the family.”

The Council on American Islamic Relations’s Texas chapter called on police to open a hate-crime probe as reports increase of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents across the United States.

Police said in a statement the girl’s mother said the suspect – a 42-year-old white American woman – “made statements about her not being an American and other racial statements” and she tried to grab both of her children at an apartment complex’s pool in Euless, a suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth, last month.

“The mother began helping her son when Wolf grabbed her 3-year-old daughter and forced her underwater,” police said.

In a statement released by CAIR, the mother said, “We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids,” adding with Israel’s war on Gaza she and her family are “facing that hate here”.

‘Palestinian people must be treated as human beings’

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – the largest Muslim civil rights organisation in the United States – says the “US-backed mass slaughter of Palestinian children must be addressed by the world community and the American people”.

“Those responsible must be held accountable by institutions upholding international law and justice. This genocide must end and the Palestinian people must be treated as human beings,” CAIR said.



SvennoJ 3 days ago

US unsure why Netanyahu repeating US arms delivery claims

The Biden administration says it doesn’t understand repeated accusations from Prime Minister Netanyahu that weapons deliveries from the US to Israel have significantly dropped.

President Biden has delayed only one shipment of heavy bombs over concerns of heavy civilian casualties in Rafah, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

“There are other weapons that we continue to provide Israel as we have done going back years and years, because we are committed to Israel’s security. There has been no change in that.”

Israel is making “intense requests” and “we continue to fulfil those requests”, he added.

Netanyahu on Sunday again repeated his claim that a “dramatic drop” in arms shipments from the US has hindered the war effort. When he first made the accusation last week, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the US is “perplexed” by the claims and called them incorrect.



Netanyahu looks like a ‘politician in distress’ in Israel

Political commentator Ori Goldberg says there’s been a “tangible change” over the past few days in how the Israeli public sees Netanyahu, suggesting that he no longer seems like “the omnipotent representative of all of Israel”.

“He now seems like a politician in distress, fighting for his own personal and potentially sectorial interests,” Goldberg said.

“The very fact he gave this interview is a sign of weakness. He has not spoken to Israeli media, as unbelievable as that sounds, since October 7. When Netanyahu is on a roll, he doesn’t speak; when he feels embattled and besieged, he makes it a point to speak.”

Goldberg noted that public pressure on Netanyahu continues to escalate.

“Public opinion in Israel is changing. The momentum for those who oppose Netanyahu and have been protesting against him grows. It doesn’t grow because they want, necessarily, to stop the war. It grows because it’s become very clear that he is personally sabotaging the ceasefire deal.”



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Israeli army quadcopter drones ‘mercilessly target anyone walking’

Rafah city centre in Gaza lies deserted after most residents fled weeks of fighting between the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups.

Haitham Abu Taha, 30, spoke of the “danger of quadcopter drones that mercilessly target anyone walking” in the streets. “We’re afraid to move because we fear being killed. There is no more water or food. We are totally trapped, ” said Abu Taha.

Israel has intensified its use of the small drones, or quadcopters, to drop bombs on groups of people or houses and to “shoot to kill” Palestinians with mounted machine guns, said the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor in a recent report.

“Many people were killed [by the quadcopters],” said Ismail Abu Shaar, 22. “The artillery, the shooting and the clashes [never stop].”

The Israeli military said on Monday that it’s “continuing intelligence-based targeted operations” in and around Rafah, adding it found “large amounts of weapons”.


A small weaponised Israeli drone known as a quadcopter

Israel ordered to provide information on prison for Gaza detainees

Israel’s top court ordered the government to provide information about the conditions inside a shadowy military facility where Palestinians from Gaza are detained.

Whistleblowers who worked at the facility and Palestinians who believe they were held there have reported that detainees are handcuffed and blindfolded at all times, fed only meagre snacks, held inside pens under harsh floodlights and not allowed outdoors.

The desert facility, called Sde Teiman, is the major detention centre where Israel has held thousands of Palestinians pulled from Gaza during large-scale raids. A coalition of rights groups is petitioning the high court to shut the facility down, alleging that it doesn’t meet Israel’s own standards for how detention facilities should operate during wartime.

Israel has barred the International Committee of the Red Cross from accessing all military detention facilities since the start of its war on Gaza.

 

‘I don’t have the words to describe the disgust’

Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric physician from Canada who worked in Gaza, says she’s not shocked by the Save the Children report that said 21,000 kids are unaccounted for since Israel’s war began.

She said one time, while she was at work, an extended family of 40 was killed in an Israeli bombing.

“In 24 hours when I was there, we’d have entire families wiped off the civil registry. You’re talking about multiple-storey buildings levelled flat. Many children die instantly – burned beyond recognition, dismembered, all the horrific things we’ve been seeing,” she told Al Jazeera.

“What has shocked me about this report, however, is children being found in mass graves, with many showing signs of torture and summary executions. As well as ‘potential instances of people buried alive’. I don’t have the words to describe the disgust.”