Hezbollah confirms fighter killed in southern Lebanon

Hezbollah confirms that another of its operatives, identified as Ali Jamal al-Din Jawad, has been killed.

Earlier today, the group announced that a paramedic with the Lebanese civil defence teams and another fighter were killed as a result of Israeli military air strikes in Meiss el-Jabal in southern Lebanon.

Rockets launched at base housing US troops in Iraq

Multiple reports indicate explosions in the vicinity of the Ain al-Asad base in western Iraq, where US troops are stationed.

Reuters news agency cited unnamed security sources as saying at least two rockets were fired at the base, which has been a repeat target of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq umbrella group of Iran-aligned forces.

‘Targeting infrastructure constitutes war crime’

The EU says it is “gravely concerned” over the continued destruction of key civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including a water treatment plant in Rafah.

“We are deeply concerned about the collapse of the sanitation, solid waste management, and health systems, causing the spread of diseases, including polio, skin and respiratory infections, in particular among children,” an EU statement said, renewing a call for an immediate ceasefire.

“We recall that targeting critical life-saving infrastructure constitutes a war crime and urge all parties to take all feasible precautions to avoid harm to civilians, humanitarian workers, and critical civilian infrastructure.”

We join international calls for clarity on the destruction of key civilian infrastructure, including a water treatment plant in Rafah.
The collapse of the sanitation & health systems are causing spread of polio and infections, in particular among children.https://t.co/d3Qw0a1pCj

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) August 5, 2024

More than 11,000 Palestinians expected to be displaced again in Gaza: UN

The latest Israeli military evacuation order for southern Gaza is displacing a large number of Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times already.

“Our partners tracking population movements in Gaza estimate that more than 11,000 people had been living in these areas affected by this evacuation order,” Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for the UN chief, told reporters in New York.

The order, issued on Sunday, affected areas south of Khan Younis, where the Israeli military has renewed a ground invasion that had lasted for months in its initial phase.

He also confirmed that the Israeli military has hit three schools sheltering displaced people in the past 48 hours, killing dozens of Palestinians and wounding more.

In just the past 48 hours, 3 schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza City were reportedly hit, resulting in dozens of casualties.

Partners on the ground are assessing the needs of people who fled & have been providing assistance.https://t.co/MBLgY1XyhF pic.twitter.com/F1Bwq8dDO7

— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) August 5, 2024

US doesn't want to escalate?

US says it will respond at ‘its choosing’ after attack on US forces in Iraq

The US is very concerned, particularly now, with this strike on the al-Assad base in Iraq.

President Biden has been briefed by his national security team on that attack. According to the White House’s press office, the president discussed steps the US is taking to defend its forces and respond in a manner of its choosing and place.

This comes just as the Pentagon also released information that, over the last 24 hours, US troops detected and destroyed what appeared to be a several-pronged Houthis strike towards US and coalition forces and merchant vessels.

That included the US destroying five drones over the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, as well as a drone ship, and an antiship ballistic missile in the Red Sea. All of this, the US is attributing to the Houthis.

While the US is very concerned about de-escalating the situation in the region, it appears the opposite is happening. Even so, there are still diplomatic efforts ongoing.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is speaking with his G7 counterparts on Sunday and trying to put some last-minute diplomatic pressure to minimise any sort of retaliation that may come from Iran and its proxies.


You've been asked to leave Iraq...

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iraq-seeks-quick-exit-us-forces-no-deadline-set-pm-says-2024-01-10/

New revelation exposes Israel’s UNRWA lies by Wall Street Journal, Matthew Miller

In a huge development, its has emerged that the Wall Street Journal had lied in January when it sensationally alleged that 10% UNRWA staff in Gaza had links with Hamas. A news website has got hold of an email by the WSJ’s chief editor who says that her publication has not been able to substantiate those lies with evidence.

US official gives astonishing reply to Iran’s right to defend against Israel

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Monday once again showed just how shameless the Biden administrating can be in siding with Israel. Both on the starvation faced by Palestinians in Gaza and Iran’s right to defend against Israel, Miller came up with astonishing replies.

Mehdi Hasan Debate Exposes Zionist Lies About Israel’s Apartheid State

US Troops FLOOD Middle East As Iran War Looms

Latest Israeli attacks on Gaza target port area, kill motorcyclist

An Israeli drone strike on a motorcycle travelling on Salah al-Din Street in central Gaza’s as-Zawayda area has killed one person and left another injured, while Israeli naval boats have shelled the port area west of Gaza City, the Wafa news agency reports.

Israeli artillery pounded Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood late on Monday. Earlier in the day, four people were killed in an Israeli strike on a group of civilians on a street in the Tal al-Hawa area and two young men were killed when a group of people were targeted by an air strike on a street in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Israeli forces have also ordered residents of central Khan Younis city and several neighbourhoods to evacuate immediately ahead of an expected ground operation, though Wafa reports that Israel’s military continued its attacks even as residents were ordered to leave their homes in the designated areas.

Child malnutrition surges in Gaza as more civilians killed, displaced: UN

In the five-day period up to Monday, 143 Palestinians were reported killed and 341 injured by Israeli attacks on Gaza from air, land and sea forces, according to the UN’s latest situation report.

Detected cases of child malnutrition in Gaza have jumped almost 50 percent in July compared with June, with more than 650 Palestinian children now suffering from “acute malnutrition” in the enclave, which is a three-fold increase in cases since May.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also reports that an estimated 10,000 people remain missing or under the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza.

And about 11,000 people have been affected by the Israeli military’s latest order for residents of areas in southern Khan Younis and northern Rafah to evacuate. The order affects 24 residential blocs covering 18sq km (7sq miles), the UN reports.

_{An injured child sits next to a woman at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City following Israeli bombardment on the Hassan Salama and Nassr schools housing displaced Palestinians on Sunday}

Displaced Palestinians live in fear of another wave of forcible displacement: NGO

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has sent an update about the humanitarian situation in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where aid teams and a significant number of displaced people are concentrated.

“People are living in a constant state of unpredictability, not knowing what is going to come next, be it more displacements, more relocations, or a regional escalation,” Hassan Morajea, regional access advisor for the Norwegian Refugee Council, says from Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.

NRC estimates that recent relocation orders have reduced the size of Israel’s unilaterally designated “humanitarian zones” in Gaza from 20 percent to 14.5 percent, displacing more than 200,000 people from Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah between July 22 and 28.

“The streets are uninhabitable, crowded with people using anything that will offer some semblance of a roof over their heads, even if that is in a damaged building scarred with holes, and destruction around them. It’s shocking to see people living in ruins, but that’s what’s happening here in Gaza, because there is no other option. There aren’t open fields to even set up a tent. There aren’t even tents for them to set up,” Morajea said.

At least five people were killed and 16 wounded on Sunday in an Israeli drone attack on tents at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, with a separate attack on a house nearby in the same area killing three.

Israel say Hamas officials killed in Gaza; Palestinians hit Israelis in north, south: Monitors

Israel’s military claims to have killed two Hamas officials in recent strikes on the Gaza Strip while Palestinian fighters have targeted Israeli troops and armour with anti-personnel mines and rocket-propelled grenades in the north and south of the enclave, monitors report.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP), Israel claimed it killed the commander of Hamas’s Sheikh Radwan Battalion and the group’s minister of economy in attacks on Sunday.

On Monday, Palestinian fighters targeted an Israeli armoured personnel carrier with a mine in Gaza City Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood and fired mortars at Israeli troops deployed on the Netzarim Corridor, located south of Gaza City, the US-based think tanks report.

Hamas fighters carried out three attacks in eastern Khan Younis on Monday, including detonating an antipersonnel mine that targeted Israeli soldiers stationed inside a building in the city. In nearby Rafah, three improvised explosive devices were detonated targeting Israeli soldiers, the ISW-CTP reports, and at least 15 rockets were fired from southern Gaza towards Israel.

Trail of destruction in Bureij after deadly overnight attacks

Israeli air strikes continue to pound central Gaza, as well as hitting the eastern part of Khan Younis in what seem to be concentrated attacks.

The Israeli military is describing their attacks as “targeted killings” but judging from the kind of targets they are hitting and the people showing up injured at the hospital, they seem quite the contrary.

In the Bureij refugee camp, for example, four brothers from one family were killed in overnight attacks. It was not until this morning that paramedics and rescue teams were able to get to their bombed house and remove their bodies from under the rubble.

Eyewitnesses described the bombing as quite intense, causing massive explosions that not only destroyed the targeted home but also the majority of properties, residential homes and infrastructure in the area.

Malnutrition getting ‘worse and worse’

Malnutrition in Gaza has become widespread, and the aid provided is just a “drop in the ocean” compared to people’s actual needs, according to Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, deputy medical coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, a charity also known by its French initials MSF.

The situation has grown so dire that even members of Abu Mughaisib’s own team have reported suffering from malnutrition.

“It’s getting worse and worse,” he told Al Jazeera from Gaza’s southern district of Rafah. “It’s not only the north, it’s the entire Gaza Strip” that is affected.

Key takeaways from B’Tselem’s report on Israel’s ‘torture camps’

The Israeli human rights group collected testimonies from 55 Palestinians, including 21 from the Gaza Strip, who had been held in Israeli prisons since October 7.

The detainees spoke to B’Tselem following their release – here are some details:

Reports of torture in Israel’s Sde Teiman ‘only represent the tip of iceberg’

A group of 10 UN human rights experts have decried the world’s “silence” on reports of Israeli forces torturing Palestinian detainees, warning that the allegations of maltreatment and sexual violence at Israel’s Sde Teiman prison “only represent the tip of the iceberg”.

The independent experts said they have received “substantiated reports of widespread abuse, torture, sexual assault and rape” of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons.

“Countless testimonies by men and women speak of detainees in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water and sleep, electrocutions including on their genitals, blackmail and cigarette burns,” they said in a statement. “In addition, victims spoke of loud music played until their ears bled, attacks by dogs, waterboarding, suspension from ceilings and severe sexual and gender-based violence.”

The experts called on the international community to ramp up pressure on Israel, stating that the “allegations of gang rape of a Palestinian detainee – now shockingly supported by voices in the Israeli political establishment and society – provide irrefutable evidence that the moral compass is lost”. They also urged the UN Human Rights Council, in particular, to urgently launch an inquiry into Israeli facilities holding Palestinians.

Israeli reservists fail polygraph probing sexual abuse allegations: Report

Two Israeli reservists suspected of sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner have failed a polygraph test about the allegations, reports Israel’s Channel 12.

The soldiers, among five still detained over sexual abuse allegations at Israel’s Sde Teiman facility, denied committing or covering up an act of sexual assault during the polygraph examination, but the examiner deemed their responses deceptive, said the report.

The allegations against the reservists have divided Israeli society, with a group of far-right activists storming the facility they were held at last week demanding their release.

Three teens among 4 killed during Israeli military raid in West Bank: Report

The death toll from the Israeli military raid on the town of Aqqaba in the occupied West Bank’s Tubas area has risen to four – including two 19-year-olds and a 14-year-old, the Wafa news agency reports.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health told Wafa that the two 19-year-olds from Aqqaba died early on Tuesday of their wounds after being shot by Israeli forces.

A 14-year-old Palestinian boy was also shot and killed during the raid and, on Monday evening, a 37-year-old man died from critical head wounds from the Israeli gunfire.

According to reports, the Israeli military stormed the town, surrounded a house and fired live bullets at young Palestinians who tried to resist the incursion into their community. The Palestine Red Crescent Society had reported that seven Palestinians were shot and seriously injured during the Israeli raid.

Israeli military raid on Jenin continues, arrests carried out across West Bank

Israeli forces continued their military raid on Jenin city and Jenin refugee camp in the early hours of this morning, destroying civilian infrastructure as reconnaissance aircraft overflew the occupied West Bank city.

The Wafa news agency reports that the raid, which began on Monday, involves Israeli military bulldozers causing “severe material damage” to public infrastructure and private property in the city and refugee camp. Power outages have been reported as a result of damage to electrical transformers, the news agency reports.

Raids and arrests have been reported elsewhere in the occupied territory, including:

جرافات الاحتلال تدمر البنية التحتية والطرقات في مخيم جنين #حرب_غزة #فيديو pic.twitter.com/dlrOP4v7oN

— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) August 6, 2024

Translation: [Israeli] bulldozers destroy infrastructure and roads in Jenin camp. 

Israeli drone attack kills 1 in Jenin

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that one person was killed in the eastern area of the city in the occupied West Bank, after being bombed from the air by an Israeli army drone.

Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters went on all night in the city as a raid by the army unfolded.

In latest Jenin raid, 18-year-old killed by Israeli drone attack

Now the death toll [from Israeli raids in the West Bank] has increased to five because an 18-year-old Palestinian has been killed here in Jenin. We heard two loud bangs as we were making our way to this city, which had been undergoing a raid since the afternoon of yesterday.

We have seen more and more Israeli military vehicles going towards the Jenin refugee camp, where armed confrontations have taken place between the Palestinian fighters there and the Israeli forces that kept coming in. And now we’ve heard the drone strikes, two of them, killing one Palestinian. Medical sources say they have nine injuries just here in Jenin, two of them are in critical condition.

Death toll from West Bank raids rises to 7

The death toll from continuing Israeli raids in the West Bank has risen to seven, Palestinian officials have confirmed. Al Jazeera correspondents have reported that three people, including an 18-year-old, were killed in Jenin this morning and four others in Tubas.

This brings the death toll in the occupied West Bank since October 7 to 612, including 145 children and 11 women.

Israeli police officer injured in checkpoint stabbing: Reports

Israeli media is reporting a stabbing attack at a checkpoint south of Jerusalem. Israel’s Kan broadcaster said that an Israeli police officer was lightly injured in the attack and that the perpetrator has been killed.

US destroys Houthi drones, missile in Yemen, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea

The US’s Central Command (CENTCOM) has issued a statement with details of the assaults, saying it destroyed five Houthi drones, one drone ship and a missile in three different locations – Yemen, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

CENTCOM said its forces, in the past 24 hours, destroyed three Houthi drones launched over the Gulf of Aden and one drone in rebel-controlled areas in Yemen. Additionally, US forces also destroyed one drone, one drone ship and one antiship ballistic missile in the Red Sea.