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Kamala Harris says Israel has ‘right to defend itself’ after Beirut strike



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Satellite photos shows destruction of Tal as-Sultan reservoir

On Monday, the Israeli army admitted that its soldiers were responsible for the bombing of a reservoir in Tal as-Sultan, which provided drinking water for Palestinians in Rafah.

The UN Human Rights Office commented on the incident, saying that under international humanitarian law, it is “strictly prohibited” to attack infrastructure essential to the survival of the civilian population, including water supplies.

Rafah Mayor Ahmed al-Sufi called the attack “a crime against humanity”, saying the Israeli troops destroyed not only the tank but also a water well in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood, west of Rafah. The destruction exacerbated the water crisis in the southern city, he added.

The photos below show the well before and after the Israeli attack.


A combination picture shows a satellite image, top, of the Canada Well water facility in Tal as-Sultan, Rafah, before the site was damaged on July 18, 2024, and a satellite image of the same area, bottom, after the destruction, July 30, 2024



Israel seals off neighbourhoods in Old City of Hebron

Israeli forces have set up checkpoints in the Jaber, as-Salaymeh and Wadi al-Hassin neighbourhoods near the Ibrahimi Mosque, the Wafa news agency reports, citing local activist Aref Jabar.

The military declared the areas closed military zones and banned the movement of Palestinians, according to the report.

The Ibrahimi Mosque has been a flash point in the past. In 1994, an Israeli settler opened fire on a group of Palestinians praying there, killing 29 people. The mosque was subsequently divided, with a synagogue created at the location.


Israeli forces raid Attar and Sinjil in occupied West Bank

Footage shared online and verified by Al Jazeera shows Israeli forces storming the towns of Atara and Sinjil in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

Local sources said an Israeli military bulldozer stormed Atara, accompanied by military vehicles, on Tuesday evening.

Palestinians retrieve 42 bodies as Israeli forces withdraw from eastern Khan Younis

The bodies of 42 Palestinians have been retrieved after the Israeli army withdrew from a nine-day ground offensive in the eastern parts of Khan Younis, the Anadolu news agency reports.

Earlier we reported that Gaza officials said 255 people had been killed, about 300 people wounded and 31 people were missing and that Israeli forces had obstructed efforts to reach dozens of wounded during the attack

“We condemn in the strongest terms the Israeli occupation’s horrific massacre against civilians and displaced persons in the east of the Khan Younis governorate,” the office said, calling on the international community to push Israel to stop “the crime of genocide” in Gaza.



Israeli military says it killed Shukr

In a statement, the Israeli military stated that it had killed Fuad Shukr in “a targeted intelligence-based elimination”.

It also claimed that Shukr was the head of Hezbollah’s strategic unit and Hezbollah leader Nasrallah’s “right-hand man” who was his “advisor for planning and directing wartime operations”.

The Israeli military added that he was the commander responsible for Saturday’s attack on Majdal Shams which killed a dozen people.

Hezbollah says that Shukr survived the attack and the group has denied responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams.


A wounded man is rushed to Bahman Hospital after the Israeli military struck Beirut’s southern suburb, on July 30


Lebanon says three killed in Beirut strike

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says three people, including two children, have been killed and 74 wounded in the Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The “non-final toll of the Israeli aggression on the southern suburbs of Beirut… is three martyrs, including a woman, a girl and a boy”. The ministry added that “the search for missing persons under the rubble continues”.


A man inspects a destroyed building hit by an Israeli air strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday


UN’s Lebanon envoy ‘deeply concerned’ by Israeli strike on Beirut

The UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon has voiced concerns after the Israeli strike on Beirut which she said resulted in multiple civilian casualties.

UN Special Coordinator Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert “underscores once again that there is no such thing as a military solution to the ongoing conflict”, the envoy’s office said in a statement.


‘There is no place out of reach for our forces’: Gallant

The Israeli defence minister has praised the military following the attack on southern Beirut.

“Tonight, we have shown that the blood of our people has a price and that there is no place out of reach for our forces to this end,” Gallant said.


A woman injured in an Israeli military strike on a building in Beirut’s southern suburb on July 30, 2024, is escorted as she leaves Bahman Hospital

US carries out ‘self-defence’ strikes in Iraq as regional tensions grow

The US military has carried out “self-defence” strikes in Iraq, the Reuters news agency reports, as regional tensions grow after Israel claimed it had assassinated a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon.

An anonymous US official told Reuters that the strike, the first by US forces in Iraq since February, was carried out because of a threat to coalition forces stationed there.

Blasts at a military base south of Baghdad hosting several Iran-aligned armed groups killed four people and injured three on Tuesday. It’s not immediately clear if this is the same incident as the US strikes.



Last edited by SvennoJ - on 30 July 2024

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Iran calls on UNSC to act on Israel’s ‘violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty’

Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, has urged the UN Security Council to take “immediate action” after Israel’s attack on Beirut, which he described as a “blatant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty” and international law.

Iravani said that Israel is “desperate” to “divert international attention from the root causes of the current situation”, which is Israel’s war on Gaza.

“The occupying regime cannot deny its responsibility for the ongoing atrocities and barbaric massacres against innocent people in Gaza,” he wrote.

Israel has said the attack on Beirut, which Lebanese officials said killed a woman and two children, targeted Hezbollah commander Muhsin Shukr.


Search for survivors after Israel strikes Beirut apartment building


Lebanese civil defence workers search through the debris after the top floors of an eight-storey building were destroyed


Lebanon’s Health Ministry said a woman, a boy and a girl were killed and 74 people were wounded in the attack


Half of the targeted buildings in the densely populated neighbourhood collapsed and a nearby hospital suffered minor damages from the Israeli air strike



Israel intensified attacks on Gaza civilians after ‘historic’ ICJ ruling: UN experts

As we reported earlier, a group of 39 independent UN human rights experts have released a statement saying “Israel must stop acting as if uniquely above the law” and “immediately comply” with a recent “historic” ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Here’s more from the expert’s statement:

“Since the Court ruling on 19 July, Israel has intensified attacks on the civilian population in Gaza and their natural resources,” the experts said. Three days after the ICJ ruling, Israeli ground forces began a nine-day ground invasion of eastern Khan Younis, killing 255 people, according to Gaza officials.

The Israeli army also admitted this week that it bombed a reservoir that provided drinking water for Palestinians in Rafah, one of dozens of water sources Palestinians officials say Israeli forces have destroyed this month.

The UN experts also called for an arms embargo on Israel and “targeted sanctions…on Israeli individuals and entities involved in illegal occupation and racial segregation and apartheid policies.”

Freed Palestinians reveal severe abuse and torture by Israeli soldiers, families live in anguish

The eyes of Palestinians freed from Israeli prisons betray suffering that the mind cannot comprehend.

“They put a prod in our mouth and private parts and electrocuted us,” Mohammad Abu Shaar, a Palestinian freed from an Israeli prison, told Al Jazeera.

Such harrowing stories are recounted at hospitals in Gaza each time Israel releases Palestinians who were taken from Gaza and held in Israeli prisons.

Documented cases of torture and sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees have now reached unprecedented levels and rights group says Israel continues to carry out the enforced disappearances of thousands of men, women and children in Gaza.

 

Far-right mobs attack Israeli journalists covering Sde Teiman protest

Israeli journalists have reported being attacked on Tuesday as they covered protests by far-right demonstrators at the Sde Teiman detention centre in southern Israel, the Haaretz newspaper reports.

Ilana Curiel, a journalist for Israeli news site Ynet, said she was left “in tears” after being physically and verbally assaulted. “[The protesters] shoved me, spit on me and called me a slut, an ‘Arabs’ whore, a traitor. They dropped my phone twice,” she said.

Channel 12 News reporter Ori Isaac was also struck, spit on, and verbally attacked, according to Israeli media watchdog The Seventh Eye.

Demonstrators stormed Sde Teiman to protest the arrest of nine Israeli soldiers accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee at the military facility, which was set up following the launch of Israel’s war on Gaza in October. Scuffles also broke out between demonstrators and Israeli soldiers in a separate protest at a military court at the Beit Lid army base.


Right-wing protesters wave Israeli flags outside the Sde Teiman detention facility on July 29



Lebanon plans to file complaint to UN following the Israeli strike on Beirut

Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry has said that it plans to file a complaint to the United Nations following an Israeli strike in the south of Beirut which killed at least three civilians, including two children.

Israel claims it killed a Hezbollah commander in the strike, while the Iran-backed group says he survived.

46 arrested at protest against ‘genocide in Gaza’ at US Senate building

Police in the US capital arrested the group of interfaith, pro-Palestinian activists after they held a protest inside the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, where they called for an end to Israel’s “genocide in Gaza”.

The group sat in the building’s lobby and sang songs as they were arrested.


Members of the group of 46 Mennonites and allies who were arrested on Tuesday while ‘calling for a ceasefire and end to the genocide in Gaza’



SvennoJ said:

Kamala Harris says Israel has ‘right to defend itself’ after Beirut strike

That youtube video is nonsense, Democrats are not switching from Kamala.  The comments on there saying "I'm voting for Jill Stein" are not helping Palestine and will have their blood on their hands and be responsible for whats going to come next to Palestine if Trump is in charge. 



Israel just assassinated the one capable of negotiating for Hamas. Israel is not interested in a ceasefire at all.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Tehran

Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in the Iranian capital Tehran, the Palestinian group has said in a statement.

Hamas has said that Haniyeh was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran”.


Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Ismail Haniyeh was killed in his Tehran residence along with one of his bodyguards, according to local media reports.


“The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Sepah news website said.


On May 6, 2017, Hamas, the Palestinian political movement that rules the Gaza Strip, elected Ismail Abdulsalam Ahmed Haniyeh as the head of its political bureau, replacing Khaled Meshaal.

Born in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza to parents who fled from the city of Asqalan after the State of Israel was created in 1948, Haniyeh studied at the al-Azhar Institute in Gaza and later at Gaza’s Islamic University, from which he graduated with a degree in Arabic literature.

While at university in 1983, he joined the Islamic Student Bloc, a precursor to Hamas. He climbed the ranks within Hamas as a close aide and assistant to Hamas’s co-founder, the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Haniyeh was imprisoned multiple times by Israeli authorities and lived in and out of the Gaza Strip after facing deportation and assassination attempts. Earlier this year, an Israeli attack killed three of his sons in northern Gaza.

Fear, worry in Gaza after Haniyeh’s assassination

This is quite a sudden turn of events. It is quite significant for the people of Gaza, who see Haniyeh as not just the political head of Hamas but also the leader of negotiations they hope will result in a ceasefire that will put an end to this relentless war in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank also view Ismail Haniyeh as a moderate leader who is much more pragmatic compared with others who head the military side of the movement. He is very popular here. He grew up in a refugee camp and he represents the vast majority of the people who are the descendants of the refugee families who were displaced from the Palestinian territories in 1948.

This news is resonating very negatively here.

People here are saying this war is taking another turn for the worse and fear that any de-escalation in this war is now not going to happen. And they see many more difficult days ahead, especially when it comes to negotiations for a ceasefire deal.

 

Haniyeh’s assassination ‘will not go unpunished’, says Hamas official

The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh is a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”, Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV has quoted senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk as saying.


Senior Hamas spokesperson calls Haniyeh assassination ‘grave escalation’

Senior Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri has described the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as a “grave escalation that will not achieve its goals”, the Reuters news agency reports.

Zuhri has also reportedly said Hamas will wage “open war to liberate Jerusalem” and the group is “ready to pay various prices” to do so, according to local media reports.

A Hamas statement said Haniyeh was killed in a “treacherous Zionist raid” on his residence in the Iranian capital Tehran. The Israeli government is yet to issue an official statement on the attack.