Parents of Israeli captive speak at Republican National Convention

Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of US-Israeli captive Omer Neutra held in Gaza, addressed the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, in a speech in which they said the October 7 assault was an attack on Americans, not just Israel.

“During the brutal October 7 attack on Israel, over 1,200 people were slaughtered – of them 45 were American citizens. Where is the outrage?” Ronen said. “This was not merely an attack on Israel. This was and remains an attack on Americans.”

Ronen also told the crowd, which greeted the couple with chants of “bring them home”, that presidential hopeful Donald Trump had “personally” told them that he “stands with the American hostages”.

Trump-ally Erik Prince says Pentagon blocked his plan to flood Gaza tunnels: Report

Erik Prince, the founder of private military contractor firm Blackwater, says the Pentagon blocked his plan to help Israel flood Gaza with seawater.

“I provided the Israelis a fully-funded, donated ability to flood Gaza with water, with seawater, to flood the 300 miles of tunnels,” Prince said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation policy forum, as reported by the Middle East Eye news outlet.

Prince provided the information as an example of his claim the US had given “very bad advice” that prevented the Israelis from “finishing” the war in Gaza.

Environmental analysts have warned that flooding the tunnels could damage the aquifer that holds Gaza’s groundwater, and ruin the conditions of life for 2.3 million people in the territory.

Prince is a staunch Trump ally who founded Blackwater, now renamed Academi.

Ben-Gvir told ministers delaying captive deal could help Trump: Report

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has told Israeli cabinet members that reaching a deal now would be a slap in Trump’s face that would benefit Biden politically, according to comments reported in Israeli media outlets Channel 13 and The Times of Israel.

Far-right Israeli minister warns Netanyahu against ceasefire deal

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warns Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against agreeing to a ceasefire deal with Hamas in a video released from the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Ben-Gvir, known for his provocative comments, posted the video after storming Islam’s third holiest site in East Jerusalem.

The far-right leader said Netanyahu must not make a “surrender” accord with Hamas to bring back captives held in Gaza since October 7. “I have come to the most important place for Jewish people to pray for the hostages, that they come home, but not through an accord of surrender, without giving in,” Ben-Gvir said in the video quickly condemned by Palestinian politicians and Jordan.

Under the status quo arrangements, non-Muslims are allowed to visit the site in East Jerusalem, but are not allowed to pray. However, Israel settlers and far-right leaders have been increasingly defying the ban, something Palestinians consider provocation, fearing that Israel intends to take over the site.

Netanyahu opposes hospital for Gaza children in Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the establishment of a hospital for children from Gaza on Israeli territory, his office says.

The comments come a day after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a field hospital would be set up as “a short-term solution” after the closure of the Rafah border crossing prevented the ability of sick children to receive healthcare abroad.

The move aimed “to address the humanitarian needs until a permanent mechanism is established to evacuate and treat ill children”, said Gallant. But Netanyahu said the project hadn’t received his approval and, therefore, it “will not be established”.

Israel seized and closed what was the only crossing available for the sick to leave the besieged enclave in May, further exacerbating an already desperate humanitarian crisis.

Israel extends law restricting foreign media

Israel’s parliament has extended a temporary law that allows the country to shut down foreign media outlets it considers a threat to Israel’s security.

In a marathon session, the Knesset gave final approval to extend the emergency law until November 30.

Israeli officials used the new law on May 5 to close Qatar-based Al Jazeera within Israel, confiscating its equipment, banning its broadcasts and blocking its websites.

Under the law, Israel’s Communications Ministry also briefly seized AP broadcasting equipment from southern Israel after accusing it of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera. The government returned the equipment to AP several hours later.

A bill that would make the emergency legislation permanent is currently making its way through parliament. The draft said a permanent bill is needed because Israel “has faced serious security threats since its establishment and is expected to continue to face them in the future, possibly even more severely”.

Critics have called the measure undemocratic and a threat to press freedom.

Israeli lawmakers vote overwhelmingly against Palestinian statehood, challenging US policy

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/18/middleeast/israel-us-biden-knesset-vote-palestinian-state-intl/index.html

The Biden administration received another rebuff from Israel Wednesday night – this time from the country’s parliament – over the United States’ long-standing support for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

“The Knesset of Israel firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan (river). The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel would pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region,” the declaration read.

Among those who backed it was Benny Gantz, an opponent of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Gantz’s vote serves as a blow to those in Washington who see him as someone more inclined to seek a negotiated peace with Palestinians if he ever became Israel’s leader.

Instead, the resolution was “a signal to the international community that pressure to impose a Palestinian state on Israel is futile,” leader of the right-wing opposition ‘New Hope’ party, Gideon Saar, said, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

Knesset resolution a declaration of death of Oslo agreement: Mustafa Barghouti

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, has commented on the Israeli Knesset’s passing of a resolution opposing the two-state solution. “This resolution represents a rejection of peace with Palestinians and an official declaration of the death of Oslo agreement,” the Palestinian politician posted on X.

The Oslo agreement, which was signed between the Palestinian and Israeli leaders in 1993, called for a viable and sovereign Palestinian state living side by side with an Israeli state.

Jordan condemns Israel’s vote opposing Palestinian statehood

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the Israeli Knesset’s approval of a resolution opposing the establishment of a Palestinian state, stressing that such a decision is a “dangerous” violation of international law.

“Israel’s continued efforts to deny the Palestinians’ inalienable right to their independent and sovereign state along the lines of June 4, 1967, with occupied Jerusalem as its capital, does not bring security and peace in the region,” read a statement citing the ministry’s spokesperson Sufyan al-Qudah.

Earlier today, the resolution was adopted with 68 votes in favour and only nine against.

Palestinian official slams Israeli vote to oppose statehood

Palestinian Authority official Hussein al-Sheikh says the Knesset’s rejection of an independent Palestine “confirms the racism of the occupying state and its disregard for international law and international legitimacy, and its insistence on the approach and policy of perpetuating the occupation forever”.

Countries of the world that are hesitant to accept the state of Palestine “must recognize it immediately” to protect the two-state solution, he posted on social media.

His comment came after the Israeli parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution that rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying it would “pose an existential danger” to Israel and “perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region”.

UN chief disappointed by Israeli parliament vote against Palestinian state

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is disappointed by an Israeli parliament vote against the creation of a Palestinian state, his spokesperson has said.

“You can’t vote away the two-state solution, so the secretary-general is very disappointed by the decision of the Knesset [Israeli parliament],” said Stephane Dujarric, calling such a blueprint the only viable path to sustainable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Another appalling mile stone

WHO records 1,003 attacks on healthcare in the occupied territory since October 7

The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented more than 1,000 attacks on healthcare facilities in the occupied Palestinian territory since October 7.

In a brief post on social media, the WHO made an appeal for the protection of health workers and health facilities in Gaza and other Palestinian territories occupied by Israeli forces.

The UN agency also called for an immediate ceasefire and the allowing of humanitarian access to Gaza, which has been largely denied by Israeli forces who have imposed a blockade on Gaza’s borders amid its war on the Palestinian territory.

Southern Gaza hospitals at ‘breaking point’: Red Cross

All health facilities in southern Gaza have been pushed to “breaking point” due to the arrival of people wounded by Israeli bombardments and doctors could soon be forced to make “difficult choices” on who gets treated, the Red Cross says.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its 60-bed field hospital in the city of Rafah took in 26 people requiring hospitalisation for shrapnel and other injuries after a strike on the al-Mawasi camp for displaced people on Saturday.


_{Tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip}

Only 10 out of 26 UN healthcare facilities operational in Gaza

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says only 10 out of its 26 health centres are currently operational in the Gaza Strip amid sustained Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities in the enclave.

Israel’s fuel blockade leaves Palestinians ‘drowning’ in human waste

A report released by a European activist group says the Gaza Strip is “drowning” in hundreds of thousands of tonnes of uncollected human waste.

Pax, a Dutch activist group, said in a new study that “months of continuous bombing and Israel’s fuel blockade have decimated” Gaza’s outdated waste-collection system.

“Local authorities report the Israeli [forces] are preventing access to Gaza’s three official landfills,” the group said. It added a “chemical soup” of matter and heavy metals could contaminate water supplies and farmland, and “eventually toxic substances penetrate the food chain and find their way back to humans”.

Pax warned as water can “migrate over long distances”, the danger could spread beyond the war zone. “While the danger for Gaza is imminent, the overall region could soon confront grave ecosystem and public health problems.”

_{Palestinians walk past a pool of sewage in northern Gaza}

‘Disease will spread’: Palestinians living among sewage in central Gaza

About 700,000 displaced Palestinians in central Gaza are living among hundreds of thousands of tonnes of uncollected human waste.

The Deir el-Balah city authority this week predicted “roads will be flooded by wastewater” and “diseases will spread” as it turned off sewage water pumping and treatment stations after running out of fuel.

Doctors say scabies, chicken pox, skin rashes and lice are spreading fast. UN agencies have repeatedly warned of the risk of cholera and other serious diseases becoming epidemics.

“The heat, the diseases, the flies, the mosquitoes and their hissing, it all hurts us,” said Abu Shar, who is living with her family in a tent in Deir el-Balah. “We don’t sleep at night because of the smell of sewage. My children do not sleep because they are always ill with something spread by the waste.”

Muhammad al-Kahlot of the Palestine Red Crescent Society added: “We are suffocating from the foul smell of waste, the smoke and the heat.”

♦️#Israel has deliberately inflicted on the #Gaza population conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.
“Sewage Leakage and Piles of Solid Waste threaten Gaza’s public health”

♦️Palestinian human rights organizations call on the international… pic.twitter.com/skLuEBLEw9

— Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - PCHR (@pchrgaza) July 18, 2024

Israel reduced by 94 percent water available in Gaza

Israel has reduced by 94 percent the amount of water available in Gaza “creating a deadly health catastrophe”, a new Oxfam report says.

“Israel’s cutting of external water supply, systematic destruction of water facilities and deliberate aid obstruction have reduced the amount of water available in Gaza by 94 percent to 4.74 litres [1.25 gallons] a day per person – just under a third of the recommended minimum in emergencies and less than a single toilet flush,” the report said.

Here are some other key findings:

🚨BREAKING: A new Oxfam report reveals how Israel's systematic weaponizing of water against Palestinians in #Gaza, has reduced the amount of water available in Gaza by 94% to 4.74 litres a day per person.

Read our release👉 https://t.co/BYn8GDKOil pic.twitter.com/bqd7AR35Xs

— Oxfam International Media Team (@newsfromoxfam) July 18, 2024

Polio virus found in Gaza sewage, ministry says

The Gaza Ministry of Health has announced that tests conducted on sewage samples in coordination with UNICEF revealed the presence of the virus that causes polio.

It said in a statement that the presence of the virus in wastewater, combined with the lack of drinkable water, puts thousands at risk of contracting the disease.

The ministry called on Israel to halt its attack, repair the sewage system and provide drinkable water to the overcrowded camps where displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

China urges ceasefire, calls on Israel to stop ‘collective punishment’ in Gaza

In a speech at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, China’s permanent representative to the world body called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the implementation of a two-state solution, while also urging Israel to “cease its collective punishment of the Gaza people”.

“Countries with important influence should earnestly make sincere and responsible efforts to promote parties concerned to demonstrate political will and implement relevant Security Council resolutions,” Fu Cong said.

Fu also urged Israel to open all land crossings into Gaza to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave, calling the humanitarian disaster “man-made”.

‘Genocidal institution’: Think tank slams Israeli army for ‘cruel murder’ of Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention strongly condemns the Israeli army for murdering a 24-year-old Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome and autism, calling it a “genocidal institution”.

According to a BBC report citing testimonies from family members, on July 3 Israeli soldiers allowed a combat dog to maul Muhammed Bhar in front of his family causing the young man to bleed from his arm and chest.

The institute based in the United States, said it was “horrified, heartbroken and nauseated by the cruel [Israeli army] murder of Muhammed Bhar”.

Nabila Bhar, the mother of the victim, said the family was ordered at gunpoint to leave the house, leaving her son behind with the soldiers. They returned a week later to find him dead, lying on the floor with a tourniquet on his arm and blood around him.

“The cruel and heartbreaking July 3 murder of Muhammed Bhar, 24, by [Israeli] soldiers in Gaza is a genocidal life force atrocity,” the US-based think tank said in a statement.

“The pattern of atrocity establishes the [Israeli army] as a genocidal institution,” it added.

The @LemkinInstitute is horrified, heartbroken and nauseated by the cruel IDF murder of Muhammed Bhar, a 24-year-old Palestinian man who had Down's Syndrome and autism.

The IDF's treatment of Mr. Bhar is not the exception. It is but one of countless similar genocidal atrocities… pic.twitter.com/yS99udMiR6

— Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (@LemkinInstitute) July 18, 2024

Amnesty says 27 released Palestinians were subject to torture in detention

All the documented cases, including a 14-year-old boy, were also subject to other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment by Israeli authorities while held in Israel, according to a report released by the UK-based rights group.

All former prisoners were detained for periods of up to four and a half months without access to their lawyers or any contact with their families, read the report.

Israeli soldiers operate under the Unlawful Combatants Law, which grants the army arbitrary powers to detain anyone they suspect of engagement in hostilities against Israel or posing a threat to state security. Under the law, Palestinians are detained indefinitely without charge or trial, it added.

Israel is using its abusive Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily detain Palestinians from Gaza indefinitely without charge or trial @amnesty gathered harrowing torture testimony from 27 former detainees who were held for up to 4.5 months under the law https://t.co/ABtZE3eXUn

— Amnesty MENA (@AmnestyMENA) July 18, 2024

“Our documentation illustrates how the Israeli authorities are using the Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily round up Palestinian civilians from Gaza and toss them into a virtual black hole for prolonged periods without producing any evidence that they pose a security threat and without minimum due process,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general.

The 14-year-old was held for 24 days in the Sde Teiman military detention centre with at least 100 adult detainees in one barrack. Israeli interrogators subjected him to torture, including kicking and punching him in the neck and head, he told the rights group.

He said he had been repeatedly burned with cigarette butts – signs that were visible on his body, according to Amnesty.

Four children missing following Israeli strike in Bureij

Four children remain missing and seven people have been injured following an Israeli attack in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, the Wafa news agency reports.

Earlier, we reported that at least two Palestinians had been killed following the attack on a house east of Salah al-Din Street in the Deir el-Balah area.

The injured, which include children and a woman, have been transferred to al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza.

Gaza Health Ministry says Israel killed 38,848 Palestinians since October 7

Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israel has killed 38,848 Palestinians since it launched its war on October 7. The ministry said in a statement that 89,459 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.

At least 54 people were killed in the past 24 hours, it said.

Israeli military steps up attacks on Gaza schools

Bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli bombardment exhumed for reburial

At al-Amal Hospital, run by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Palestinian health officials exhumed at least 12 bodies inside the medical facility to rebury them at another location.

Video shows medical workers digging up bodies from graves inside the facility, then wrapping them in white shrouds before placing them inside vehicles for transfer to a new burial site as relatives watched, some in tears.

Areej Hamouda, a mother of one of the dead, clutched some of the sandy earth from the grave of her son and kissed it before medics exhumed the body.

“They [Israel] shot him and he had a loaf of bread with him, which he had to beg for to get for his daughter. They shot him in the eye,” Hamouda said, weeping. “He was there all day long … They pulled him with a rope when they brought him to be buried here.”

Raed al-Nims, a spokesman for the PRCS, said the organisation had to bury people in the facility when the hospital was under Israeli military siege four months ago. “We couldn’t bury them in the general graveyards so we had to resort to burying them in this place,” he said.

Entire families obliterated in Gaza amid surging attacks

Entire families are being obliterated in the Gaza Strip. Intense bombing in the last 10 days has killed at least 500 people, but the Civil Defence is struggling to remove bodies from under the rubble, so this is a conservative estimate.

Gaza’s Health Ministry has said that least 54 people have been killed in the past 24 hours, the vast majority of the casualties are women and children.

The recent scaleup in attacks has been focused in the central area of the Gaza Strip. We have seen a shocking number of children arriving here at the hospital in Deir el-Balah critically injured or already dead.

Israel strikes UNRWA school in Gaza City

At least two people have been killed and eight wounded in an Israeli attack on a school run by the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.

At least five people killed in Israeli attack on central Gaza

Our correspondent reports that the Israeli army has shelled a house in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip and killed at least five people.

Many more were wounded in the attack.

Exclusive video obtained by Al Jazeera shows medical teams transporting those killed and wounded to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

PLO condemns Israel’s ‘massacres’ in Gaza, ‘escalations’ in West Bank

The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has condemned the “massacres” carried out by Israel’s “ongoing genocide” in Gaza and its military escalations in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The committee, the highest executive body of the PLO, held Israel and its ally, the United States, “responsible for the genocide” in Gaza and escalations in the occupied Palestinian territory.

In a meeting held in Ramallah, the committee “affirmed the continued struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people to achieve freedom and independence and obtain all their rights, including refugees’ right of return, the right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent and fully sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital”.

Lebanese group confirms killing of its commander, blames Israel

We have more details about a previously reported drone attack against a member of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya.

The Lebanese group confirmed the killing of one of its commanders, Mohammad Hamed Jabara, blaming the attack on Israel, according to a statement cited by Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Jabara was killed when his car was hit in the town of Ghazze in Lebanon’s western Bekaa district, it added.

Hezbollah says fighter killed in southern Lebanon after drone strike reported

The armed Lebanese group has confirmed one of its operatives, a fighter named Hassan Ali Muhanna from southern Lebanon and born in 1984, has been killed.

Hezbollah does not detail the location or manner of its fighters’ deaths, but the announcement comes hours after a drone strike on a vehicle took place in southern Lebanon.

It was the second Israeli drone strike on a car today with the first killing Mohammad Hamed Jabara, a commander of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, an armed group allied with Hamas and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah targets Israeli intelligence gathering equipment

Hezbollah launched two attacks on Israeli positions so far after multiple rounds of Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon.

The armed Lebanese group said it targeted “new spy equipment installed on a crane at the Hadab Yarin” as border fighting with Israel continues.

The group added it hit espionage equipment installed at a new military centre in the Metulla settlement using a guided missile, achieving a direct hit and destroying it.

Israeli soldier succumbs to wounds sustained in Hezbollah attack

The Israeli military confirmed that Efraim Ben Amram, who was seriously wounded in a Hezbollah drone attack on a military base last month, has died.

The 25-year-old soldier was identified as a reservist sergeant first class in the 188th Armoured Brigade’s 53rd Battalion.

He was wounded on June 30 along with a number of other Israeli troops when an explosive-laden drone targeted the army base in the western part of the occupied Golan Heights.

At least four killed in Israeli attack on southern Lebanon

At least four people have been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli raid on a house in the vicinity of the town of Safad al-Batikh in southern Lebanon, the civil defence has said.