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SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

Israeli military bombs apartment in Khan Younis, killing 4

The Israeli military has bombed an apartment building in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, killing at least four people, including children, according to our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues.


Artillery shelling rocks central Gaza after bloody night of attacks

We woke up today to the sound of heavy artillery shelling. The shelling took place in the eastern areas of Deir el-Balah and Bureij refugee camp. We understand that Israel’s military has told residents of both Bureij and Nuseirat not to stay in the areas, which will be designated as active war zones.

There have also been loud explosions in the western side of Khan Younis, which is adjacent to Rafah, where a military operation is still ongoing.

In total, overnight strikes in Gaza killed eight Palestinians and wounded over 30 others. One of those strikes killed a pregnant woman alongside her husband and two of her kids. These are tragic scenes for families, who are heartbroken.


Israel’s ‘slow progress’ in Rafah due to Palestinian resistance: Monitors

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fired mortar shells at Israeli forces operating along the Netzarim Corridor and Israeli soldiers continued to battle in Rafah city where their ground operation “has been delayed” by the tenacity of Palestinian resistance, war monitors report.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP), Israel’s ground offensive in the southern city has been “delayed for several weeks due to slow progress in degrading the Rafah Brigade”.

On Friday, Palestinian fighters launched at least 20 rockets towards southern Israel from an area between Rafah and Khan Younis where Israeli troops are currently operating, the US-based think tanks said.

To the west of Rafah, in the al-Brahama neighbourhood, fighters with the National Resistance Brigades used anti-personnel landmines to target Israeli soldiers, according to latest ISW-CTP joint Gaza report.

Five killed near Khan Younis

Israeli forces have targeted a home in the Miraj area, south of Khan Younis, killing at least five people, report our colleagues on the ground. The attack comes amid renewed artillery shelling in central Gaza’s Bureij as well, according to our colleagues, where an overnight raid killed a mother and her child.

Rescuers rush to scene of attacked home near Khan Younis

Emergency services in Khan Younis are looking for survivors after an Israeli military strike hit a residential home. At least five Palestinians, including a woman, have reportedly been killed in the attack, which was carried out without warning.

We also continue to hear loud explosions in central Gaza, which has been the latest focal point of Israel’s army.

Three women, child killed in Khan Younis attack: Report

Among the five people killed are a child and three women, reports the Palestinian Wafa news agency, quoting local sources. They are all members of the Abu Hasna family, it said.



Civil defence reports deadly Israeli strike on Bureij

The rescue organisation in the Gaza Strip says its crews recovered the bodies of two people who were killed when the Israeli army bombed a house in Block 1 of the Bureij refugee camp.

The civil defence added that three people were wounded in the attack on central Gaza.


Two killed in Israeli shelling of Gaza City

Al Jazeera’s correspondent, citing Gaza’s civil defence, reports that two people were killed and one was injured by an Israeli attack on the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the northern Strip.

Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have surged in the past hours, with one on Bureij killing at least three Palestinians and another on Khan Younis killing at least five people.



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SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

Palestinians in Gaza risk dying from ‘completely preventable’ hepatitis A

Hepatitis A is spreading in Gaza in numbers unheard of in developed nations, leading to complete liver failure in some patients, said Jeremy Hickey, a physician with the medical nonprofit Fajr Scientific.

“This is a completely preventable illness and something that we rarely see in developed nations,” said Hickey, who recently volunteered for a medical mission in Gaza.

Even when hepatitis A does emerge in developed nations, said Hickey, it is easily treatable and causes little long-term damage to those who recover. However, due to the lack of resources in Gaza, he said the disease there often progresses to its worst stage – fulminant hepatitis. That means acute liver failure, leading to “seizures, comas and eventually death”.

Usually, once patients reach this stage, they will eventually “succumb to the disease because there is no method or means to support them”, he said.



‘I was tortured 13 times a day’

A Palestinian man who was imprisoned for 52 days in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman detention camp, which has been plagued by allegations of abuse, spoke to Al Jazeera about his time in the facility.

“I was tortured 13 times a day during those 32 days,” said the former prisoner, Ibrahim Atef Salem. “There was no mercy, no compassion at all.”

Torture methods included the use of an “electric chair” and frequent beatings, he said, adding that intelligence services interrogated him “constantly”.

Unsanitary prison conditions also led to the spread of scabies and lice, he said, with some prisoners suffering so badly that they could not even sit down.



SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

Thousands rally in Jakarta, Indonesia, to protest Haniyeh’s assassination



Iran rounds up dozens in hunt for Haniyeh’s assassins: Report

Iran has detained dozens of people, including military and intelligence officers, as part of its investigation into the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, according to a US media report.

Also in custody are staff at the Tehran guesthouse where Haniyeh was killed early on Wednesday, The New York Times reports, quoting two Iranians “familiar” with the investigation.

Security agents stormed the guesthouse, which is owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and placed all staff “under quarantine, arrested some, and confiscated all electronic devices, including personal phones”, sources told the newspaper.

Agents are also zeroing in on Iran’s airports in the hunt for perpetrators, who they believe are members of Israeli intelligence and are still in the country, the sources said.


Haniyeh was killed by a ‘short-range projectile’: IRGC

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) say that Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed by “a short-range projectile with a warhead of about 7kg [15.4lb] accompanied by a severe explosion from outside his room”.

In a statement, the IRGC said his assassination had been “planned and carried out by the Zionist regime” and supported by the “criminal government of the US”.

It says Tehran’s response will be “severe and at the appropriate time, place and manner”.

Sweden to shutter Beirut embassy

Sweden is closing its embassy in Lebanon and evacuating its staff, as concerns grow that the Gaza war could spiral into regional conflict.

Sweden’s FM Tobias Billstrom announced the move in comments to Swedish Radio, saying embassy staff had been told to leave Beirut for Cyprus and that the ministry was planning to temporarily relocate its diplomatic mission.

The decision had been taken “initially for the month of August but may be extended depending on the security situation”, said Billstrom.

The embassy closure comes after numerous Western nations, including Sweden, issued travel warnings urging their citizens to leave Lebanon.


Air France, Transavia suspend Beirut flights

Air France-KLM, the parent company of Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia, says flights to and from the Lebanese capital will remain suspended until at least Tuesday due to “security” concerns in the region.

The two French airlines first stopped servicing the route on Monday, a day after Israel promised to retaliate following rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 people in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Flights to Tel Aviv in Israel will continue as normal, a spokesperson said on Saturday.



SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

Fight to destroy Hamas ‘may never end’, says former Israeli security chief

The former head of Israel’s National Security Council, Yaakov Amidror, has said Israel’s battle to destroy Hamas may drag on indefinitely.

Speaking to Israel’s Maariv newspaper, Amidror said Israel’s military would need to remove the Palestinian organisation’s operational capacity, but acknowledged the process would “take a long time, and may never end”.

Israel could only turn to the question of Hamas’s potential replacement in Gaza “when we reach a situation where the movement does not pose a threat”, he added.

Expose Netanyahu if he sabotages captive deal: Head of Israel’s Labor Party to security chiefs

Yair Golan, head of Israel’s Labor Party, has called on Israeli security chiefs to publicly take on Prime Minister Netanyahu if he is sabotaging a captive exchange deal with Hamas.

In a post on X, Golan said if reports of Netanyahu “torpedoing” captive exchange negotiations are proven true, “it is the duty of the heads of the security services to come out of the shadows and talk directly to the people of Israel.”

“This is the time when you will enter the history books as those who faithfully represented the people of Israel or as those who allowed a prime minister who lacks any popular confidence to continue abandoning the kidnapped and lead Israel to destruction,” Golan said, addressing the security chiefs.

Yesterday, several Israeli media outlets, including Haaretz and Channel 12, reported that there are growing doubts among Israeli security chiefs whether Netanyahu actually wants to reach a captive exchange deal.



US calls for de-escalation in region ‘ring hollow’: Analyst

Abdullah al-Arian, associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said few in the region are taking the US’s calls for de-escalation seriously, as Washington has been the “crucial partner in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and in its regional escalation” over the past 10 months.

“The US has never once condemned or at least even attempted to pull back from the brink of this all-out regional war. We’ve never really seen any action in that regard,” al-Arian told Al Jazeera.

“So all of these statements [on de-escalation] ring hollow for most of the people in this region who are observing, for instance, that the US has not had a word to say about the dual assassination this past week, and what that means in terms of a very dangerous escalation. And what it could mean in terms of the spillover into a much wider regional conflict,” he said.



US aircraft carrier arrives in the Strait of Hormuz: Report

Israeli Army Radio reports that the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt has arrived in the Strait of Hormuz, just 10km (6.2 miles) from the coast of Iran, amid fears of Iranian retaliation for the killings of Hamas’s political leader in Tehran and a Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has also ordered additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and areas under the United States European Command, as well as a new fighter squadron to the Middle East.

In April, the US, UK, France and Jordan helped shoot down missiles and drones fired by Iran at Israel in retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Friday that “the Department of Defense continues to take steps to mitigate the possibility of regional escalation by Iran or Iran’s partners and proxies”.



SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

Drone targets car in Lebanon’s Tyre: Reports

A drone strike has hit a car in southern Lebanon’s Tyre district, causing casualties, reports Lebanon’s National News Agency.

The attack took place between the southern towns of Wadi Jilou and Bazouriyeh, it said.

Footage of the attack’s aftermath, shared on X by Lebanon’s An-Nahar news site, shows an ambulance and a large crowd gathered near the wreckage as a fire burns on the side of the street.

Translation: Initial footage of the targeting of a car between the towns of Wadi Jilou and Bazouriyeh.

One killed in Tyre drone strike: Report

One person has now been confirmed killed in the drone attack on a vehicle in Lebanon’s southern Tyre district, reports local news outlet An-Nahar, describing it as an “Israeli raid”.



Israeli air raid hits Lebanon’s Tayr Harfa: Report

Lebanon’s National News Agency is reporting that Israeli warplanes and a drone have now struck the southern Lebanese town of Tayr Harfa. It did not immediately report any casualties from the attack, which follows an earlier deadly strike on a vehicle in a nearby village that killed at least one person.

Israeli military claims Lebanon drone attack, says killed key Hezbollah operative

Israel’s military has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it targeted and killed a central Hezbollah operative, named as Ali Abd Ali. In a post on X, Israel’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee shared a video of the claimed attack, which he described as a “significant blow” to Hezbollah’s southern front.

Hezbollah confirms death of fighter after Israeli strike

On its Telegram channel, Hezbollah has confirmed that Ali Nazih Abd Ali had been killed, as usual without naming the location or manner of his death.

Hezbollah attacks Israeli town

The Lebanese group says on its official Telegram channel that its fighters attacked the town of Avivim in northern Israel, in response to the Israeli army’s attacks on southern Lebanese villages, “especially Kfar Kila”.

Israel Hayom, a local outlet in Israel, says that an antitank missile fired from Lebanon hit a house in the town without causing casualties. In its statement, Hezbollah said that the building it targeted is used by Israeli soldiers.




Syria monitor says one killed in Israeli drone raid

A monitor of Syria’s war has said one person was killed in an Israeli attack on a vehicle, after reporting overnight raids on a truck convoy entering Lebanon from neighbouring Syria.

“An Israeli drone targeted a car on the Damascus-Beirut road near the Zabadani area … leading to the death of a person who was inside,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

There were no reports of an Israeli raid on Syrian state media, and the identity of the person killed was not immediately clear.

Since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks in the country, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including from Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The raids intensified after October 7 and the Israeli war on Gaza.

The Observatory also reported overnight Israeli attacks inside Syria near the border with Lebanon, without mentioning any casualties.



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SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

Placards and pyrotechnics at pro-Palestinian protest in London


Moroccans protest after Hamas leader’s killing

Thousands of Moroccans are protesting in Rabat in support of Palestinians and in condemnation of diplomatic normalisation with Israel, holding portraits of killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Waving Palestinian flags, and brandishing pictures of Haniyeh and a cardboard coffin adorned with his image, thousands of people marched to the parliament building with black-and-white keffiyeh scarves – symbols of the Palestinian cause – draped across their shoulders.

“Greetings from Rabat to our Gazan friends and to the Al-Qassam [Brigades]”, the crowd chanted, referring to the armed wing of Hamas.

“The people want the end of normalisation”, they also chanted, a message also carried on their placards.

Some in the crowd burned an Israeli flag.

Since the beginning of the war on Gaza on October 7, several large demonstrations have taken place in Morocco calling for the end of normalisation, while open opposition to diplomatic ties had previously been limited.

Morocco established official ties in Israel in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords. The North African kingdom has officially called for “the immediate, complete and permanent halt to the Israeli war on Gaza”, but has not publicly discussed undoing normalisation.


Pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside US embassy in Jakarta

Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Yemenis demonstrate in Sanaa in support of Palestinians

Thousands of Yemenis, including supporters of the Houthi group, demonstrated in capital Sanaa again on the “day of rage” of Palestinians following Haniyeh’s assassination.

Many Yemenis had also joined marches on Friday while holding up posters of the assassinated Palestinian leader and Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr.

Umm al-Fahm, northern Israel

Israelis protest near homes of Netanyahu, Gallant

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents relatives of captives still held in Gaza, earlier cancelled its weekly rally in Tel Aviv but called for other demonstrations.

Protesters gathered outside the home of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv, and the residence of Shas party leader Aryeh Deri in Jerusalem.

Separately, in another weekly protest, hundreds of antigovernment protesters gathered outside Netanyahu’s residence in Caesarea.



SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

No breakthrough after Israeli delegation returns from Gaza talks

Israeli media is reporting that there is little optimism after the heads of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet returned from the latest Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange negotiations in Cairo.

The assassination of top Palestinian negotiator and leader Ismail Haniyeh has left Qatar “angry” while the US is trying to maintain dialogue with all sides, according to Israeli news outlet Yedioth Ahronoth.

Multiple Israeli media reports said members of the Israeli negotiating team have accused Netanyahu of undermining the negotiations by “making changes” and adopting a tough stance. The prime minister’s office pushed back against “leaks and false briefings by unknown parties in the media”.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is again being accused of trying to sabotage efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza that would also bring Israeli captives homes


Hamas says it has started process of choosing new leader

Hamas has issued a statement saying it has initiated a broad consultation process to select a new leader of its movement following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

Haniyeh headed the group’s political bureau. His deputy, Saleh al-Arouri, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut in January, would have been the automatic replacement.

Several top Hamas officials could replace Haniyeh once the group’s Shura council, the main consultative body, meets.



SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

Qassam, al-Quds Brigades claim series of attacks on Israeli military in Gaza

The military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad say their fighters have:

  • shelled a group of soldiers in the Netzarim Corridor, which Israel set up during the war to separate northern Gaza from the south;
  • destroyed an Israeli military vehicle during an incursion east of Khan Younis;
  • exchanged fire with Israeli soldiers east of Rafah;
  • targeted two military personnel carriers, military bulldozers and a Merkava tank east of Rafah, and;
  • shot a soldier with sniper fire east of Rafah.

Israeli strike on school kills 10 in Gaza City

At least 10 people have been killed in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.

Israeli forces strike Hamama School for the second time today

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that Israeli jets have once again targeted Hamama School, which houses displaced people in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City.

At least 10 people were reported killed in the earlier attack. The new raids completely destroyed the school and led to more deaths.

The school was targeted with three missiles while the victims from the earlier attack were being rescued.

Three bombs dropped in second Israeli attack on school

At least 31 Palestinians have killed across the Gaza Strip, 24 of them just within the past 12 hours.

Ten died in a western Gaza neighbourhood when the Israeli military dropped a bomb, partially destroying a school which had been turned into a shelter for thousands of displaced families.

At least three bombs were then dropped on the school as rescuers and volunteers inside the facility were trying to help people from under the rubble. Those three bombs destroyed the facility completely. We don’t know exactly how many people have been killed in that attack yet.

This is the tactic that the Israeli military has widely used in the past. The military drops a bomb that partially destroys facilities, namely evacuation centres, killing a number of people, and then within a few minutes, it drops other bombs.



SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

Chaotic scenes at al-Ahli Hospital after strikes on Hamama School

In footage obtained and verified by Al Jazeera, victims of the Israeli attack on Hamama School are seen arriving at al-Ahli Hospital. Among the seriously wounded were children, some of whom appeared to be unconscious, as medical staff desperately tried to treat them.

The scenes at the hospital were chaotic, with some of the wounded lying on the floors as grieving Palestinians lined the corridors. According to the testimony of one of the wounded, the strikes were carried out without warning. Below is footage from the Israeli strike on the school:

Horrific scenes as Israeli military hits school multiple times

At least 17 people have been killed and more than 60 critically wounded in the attacks on the school where Palestinians were taking shelter. There is extreme shortage of medical supplies and pain medication at the hospital.

Volunteers, paramedics and rescue teams were inside the school after the first attack and they were given only a few minutes to evacuate before three more bombs fell.

The testimonies we hear from witnesses and paramedics at the location describe horrific moments of picking up pieces of flesh and bodies of deceased children and people who were directly hit by these bombs.

With a shattered sense of safety, it’s hard to fathom where people could go next.


Israel’s attack on shelter school a huge massacre

Israeli jets targeted a school in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood where thousands of displaced Palestinians have taken refuge. It was directly targeted and as you can see people, including children, have been torn to pieces.

While we were documenting the massacre inside this school, the displaced people received calls from the Israeli military ordering them to evacuate the building immediately, because it was going to be targeted again.

The bodies of the victims are still in the schoolyard, in the classrooms and even in the surrounding areas. Until this moment, no one has been able to retrieve the bodies from inside the school.

Bodies are everywhere. The medics are retrieving them and there are body parts everywhere. It’s a huge massacre. The school has been completely destroyed.

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians, burn olive trees in occupied West Bank

Six Palestinians have been injured after Israeli settlers attacked residents of the al-Mughayyir village in the occupied West Bank.

The settlers set fire to Palestinian farmers’ tents, leading to confrontations that injured the residents.

Israeli settlers also set fire to dozens of olive trees in the town of Surif, north of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, under the protection of the Israeli army. Gunfire was heard at the scene.

Wafa news agency quoted Hazem Ghnimat, the head of the local municipality, as saying that settlers attacked residents’ homes and burned 40 olive trees. It reported no injuries.



SvennoJ on 03 August 2024

US urges its citizens to leave Lebanon

The US embassy in Lebanon has urged its citizens to leave the country on “any ticket available”.

“We encourage those who wish to depart Lebanon to book any ticket available to them, even if that flight does not depart immediately or does not follow their first-choice route,” the embassy said in a statement.

“We recommend that US citizens who choose not to depart Lebanon prepare contingency plans for emergency situations and be prepared to shelter in place for an extended period of time.”


UK goverment tells British nationals in Lebanon to ‘leave now’

The UK government has urged its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country immediately amid fears of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah and a broader regional conflict.

Foreign Minister David Lammy said in a statement, “Tensions are high, and the situation could deteriorate rapidly.”

“While we are working round the clock to strengthen our consular presence in Lebanon, my message to British nationals there is clear – leave now.”


Egypt expresses concern over escalating regional crisis

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has expressed his country’s “deep concern over the dangerously increasing pace of escalation” in the region.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Abdelatty, in a phone call with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib, assured Egypt’s support for Lebanon in confronting the threats surrounding it.