US lawmakers call for accountability in killing of American activist

Senator Patty Murray of Washington state condemned the killing of American citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.

“The government of Israel must deliver answers immediately and hold the perpetrators of this killing accountable,” Murray said in a statement.

Representative Pramila Jayapal called Ezgi Eygi’s death a terrible tragedy and said her office is actively working to gather more information on the events that led to her death.

“I am very troubled by the reports that she was killed by Israeli … soldiers. The Netanyahu government has done nothing to stop settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank, often encouraged by right-wing ministers of the Netanyahu government,” Jayapal wrote in a statement.

“The killing of an American citizen is a terrible proof point in this senseless war of rising tensions in the region.”

Not the first foreign activist killed by Israeli forces

Condemnation has come fast after the killing of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, of Seattle – a recent graduate of the University of Washington. She was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which protests illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

At least three activists from the ISM have now been killed since 2000. ISM members often place themselves between Israeli forces and Palestinians to try to stop the Israeli military from carrying out violence.

Two ISM activists – American Rachel Corrie and British photography student Tom Hurndall – were killed in Gaza in 2003.

Corrie was crushed to death in March 2003 as she tried to block an Israeli military bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, near the Egyptian border. Hurndall was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier about a month later.

_{The parents of Rachel Corrie at a rally in the occupied West Bank in 2008}

Colleague praises American killed by Israeli sniper – ‘the ultimate sacrifice’

Rob Sadler, a British human rights activist, who was at the scene when Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot and killed, says her sacrifice will not be in vain and efforts to halt Israeli aggression against Palestinians will continue.

“I want to start by immediately refuting the Israeli army statement that they were firing towards someone who was presenting harm to them. They fired at a crowd 200 metres away from them down the road. A sniper fired from a building – one or two shots – and they targeted and murdered Aysenur,” Sadler told Al Jazeera.

He said at least 17 Palestinians have been killed in the village of Beita over the past few years in Israeli attacks. “This goes hand-in-hand with their obscene disregard for human life and the genocide they’re carrying out in Gaza.”

Sadler said Ezgi Eygi, also known as Aysha, came to Palestine to document “the crimes” by the Israeli military.

“Aysha, in doing this work, has made the ultimate sacrifice. But we will continue to work in her name and make sure her sacrifice was not for nothing. We’ll continue to bring pressure to bear on Israel until Palestine is free.”

Aysenur “came to Palestine for the same reason as many of us: to observe and to expose Israeli war crimes and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians,” Sadler told Al Jazeera from Ramallah.

“Israel has murdered her for shining a light on their crimes against humanity, but we will continue to work in her name. We will make sure that her sacrifice was not for nothing,” he added.

_{Aysenur Ezgi Eygi had recently graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle, in the United States}

More on 13-year-old girl killed by Israeli gunfire in Qarout

Earlier we reported a 13-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and killed in her home in the occupied West Bank village of Qarout.  Local media have now identified her as Bana Amjad Bakr.

Witnesses said dozens of Israeli settlers raided the village under the protection of Israeli soldiers, which led to clashes and troops firing live rounds at residents’ homes.

Bakr died of bullet wounds she sustained in the chest. She was in her bedroom with her sisters when she was shot, her father said.

Video shows Israeli soldier taking selfie with Palestinian prisoner in occupied West Bank

Our colleague at Al Jazeera Arabic have obtained and verified video footage showing an Israeli soldier taking selfies with a Palestinian taken prisoner in Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

The short clip shows Israeli soldiers taking away two bound and blindfolded Palestinian men. The first man is seen being led away by four Israeli soldiers while a fifth Israeli soldier roughly puts his arm around a second prisoner – who wrists are bound behind his back – and takes at least two selfies with a mobile phone in quick succession as they march.

Human rights monitors have long drawn attention to Israeli soldiers documenting their war crimes in Gaza with mobile phone cameras and uploading images and video clips to social media.

Such material has included Israeli troops destroying Palestinian civilian infrastructure in Gaza, vandalising and stealing from Palestinian homes and schools, as well as abusing prisoners.

Several killed in attack on school in northern Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence says a number of Palestinians have been killed following an Israeli attack on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area.

The school was identified as Halimah al-Saadiyah and was housing displaced families in the area. A local journalist later reported eight people were killed and a number of others injured.

Israeli forces strike residential building in Gaza City

Gaza’s civil defence says its teams are dealing with a new Israeli attack on a residential building in the Nasser neighbourhood, west of Gaza City. No casualties have been reported yet.

At least 33 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Friday. At least 40,878 people have been killed and 94,454 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7.

110 Palestinians killed over 4 days in Gaza; ‘contamination’ by explosives presents new danger: UN

In the four days between Monday and Thursday this week, 110 Palestinians were reported killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza and 230 people were injured, the United Nations reports.

Among the most deadly attacks this week was an Israeli strike on a residential building in central Gaza City on Tuesday that killed nine people, including at least five children and one woman, UN’s OCHA said in its latest situation report.

A children’s nursery was also hit in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, on the same day killing seven people.

Humanitarian workers on the ground in Gaza are also warning of “widespread contamination” of Gaza by explosive remnants of war.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian girl was critically injured in an explosion involving discarded explosive ordnance (EO) in Khan Younis in Gaza’s south, OCHA said.

“Children face a heightened risk of being exposed to EO, as they usually play outside, tend to search for scraps amongst rubbish and rubble, and lack an awareness on the dangers of EO,” OCHA said.

Four killed in Israeli strike on Bureij refugee camp, attack helicopters fire on Gaza City

The death toll from an Israeli attack overnight on an apartment building in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza has risen to four with another 10 people wounded, the Palestinian state news agency Wafa reports.

A child has also been killed and several people wounded in an Israeli attack at dawn in the Nassr neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north of the territory, Wafa said.

Local Palestinian media outlets also report firing by Israeli attack helicopters on residential homes in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood of the city.

UN experts warn of ‘extermination’ of Gaza’s population if Israel not stopped

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the human right situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, said such a scenario was not implausible if Israel continues its slaughter over the coming years.

Referencing the work of a professor of public health at Edinburgh University in Scotland, Albanese said, “The range of presumable direct and indirect deaths could be between 15 and 20 [percent] of the population already by the end of this year”.

“I am starting to think with horror that if it’s not stopped, Israel’s assault could end up exterminating almost the entire population in Gaza over the next couple of years,” Albanese wrote in a post on social media.

“Once the dust settles, I can’t imagine how the world will go on after having allowed that. Again,” she said.

Reading the health experts, I am starting to think with horror that if it's not stopped, Israel's assault could end up exterminating almost the entire population in Gaza over the next couple of years.

The range of presumable direct and indirect deaths could be between 15 and…

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) September 6, 2024

Another child dies of malnutrition in Gaza amid Israeli blockade

Local Palestinian sources and the news agency Wafa, which cited medical sources, report that a young girl from Khan Younis in southern Gaza has died. Wafa’s medical sources reported that the girl, identified as Yaqin al-Asṭal, succumbed to both malnutrition and dehydration amidst a severe shortage of supplies.

At least 37 children have died of malnutrition since Israel began its devastating war on Gaza, Wafa said.

An ongoing blockade of the enclave by Israel has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

Yesterday, UN Secretary-General Spokesman Stephane Dujarric noted that more than one million people in central and southern Gaza did not receive any food rations in August.

In June, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, reported that more than 50,000 children in Gaza required immediate medical treatment for acute malnutrition. “With continued restrictions to humanitarian access, people in Gaza continue to face desperate levels of hunger,” a UNRWA statement read.

Senator says US ‘cannot turn a blind eye’ as Israeli forces kill Americans in West Bank

US Senator Chris Van Hollen has decried Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank and called for “justice and accountability” for three US citizens killed there in the past 11 months.

In a statement, Van Hollen said the Netanyahu government, “including racist extremists like [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir”, had fuelled settler violence while announcing “new illegal settlements”.

The senator from Maryland said he had met with the families of two other Americans killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in recent months and that the “Biden Administration has not been doing enough to pursue justice and accountability on their behalf”.

“If the Netanyahu Government will not pursue justice for Americans, the US Department of Justice must,” the senator said.

Palestinian rights group slams mutilation of Palestinian child’s body dragged by Israeli bulldozer

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has vehemently condemned Israel’s military assault on the occupied West Bank, including the “brutal” mutilation and killing of Majed Fida Abu Zina, 17, from the Far’a refugee camp.

In a statement, PCHR described how Israeli forces left Abu Zina to bleed out for approximately 1.5 hours after shooting him in the leg, neck and chest during a raid on Far’a late on Wednesday night.

“At around 2:30am [23:30 GMT], [the Israeli army] brought in a bulldozer and began desecrating the boy’s body … before dragging and throwing him,” PCHR added.

It was not until around 6:45am (03:45 GMT) that Palestinians were able to retrieve Abu Zina’s “disfigured and unrecognisable” body after Israeli forces withdrew, the statement added.

Israel’s former spy boss blasts Netanyahu over Philadelphi Corridor

The former head of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency, Nadav Argaman, has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of misleading the country over the importance of maintaining control over the border area between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

“There is no connection between the weaponry found in Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor,” Argaman told Israel’s Channel 12 news in a wide-ranging interview. “The majority of smuggling into Gaza was through the Rafah border crossing. We know this unequivocally,” Argaman said.

“When Netanyahu speaks of remaining on the Philadelphi Corridor, he knows very well that no smuggling takes place over the Philadelphi Corridor. So we are now relegated to living with this imaginary figment,” he said.

“The entire thing is intended only to preserve this dangerous Messianic government.”

Argaman, who headed the Shin Bet between 2016 and 2021, also said that Israel “must stop the war in the Gaza Strip now, and move to a ceasefire”.

“We must go for an all-for-all exchange, to bring everyone back,” he said, adding that he was worried for Israel’s future as the country had been “hijacked by an extremist, radical government.”

Israeli raid of southern Lebanese town injures 2 paramedics

An Israeli raid on the town of Qabrikha in southern Lebanon caused a fire, according to Lebanon’s Public Health Emergency Operations Center as cited by Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).

A civil defence team was called to extinguish it, NNA said.

The Israeli army targeted the surrounding area in the town with artillery shells, causing injuries to two paramedics, one of whom suffered severe fractures that required urgent surgery.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health condemned Israel’s targeting of paramedics, calling it a flagrant violation of international charters, norms and laws, NNA reported.

Three paramedics dead following Israeli attack on southern Lebanon

Three paramedics died as a result of an Israeli raid in the town of Froun in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA). Two other paramedics were also injured during the attack with one left in critical condition, NNA said.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said the team of paramedics was targeted by Israeli forces as it extinguished fires caused by recent Israeli strikes in the area.

The incident is the second of its kind in the last 12 hours. As we reported earlier, an Israeli raid on the town of Qabrikha also wounded two paramedics.

Hezbollah targets Israeli army base after deadly strike on southern Lebanon

Earlier we reported that an Israeli strike killed three Lebanese paramedics and wounded two others, one critically.

Hezbollah issued a statement saying it launched a “squadron of missiles” in response to the attack, targeting the headquarters of Israel’s 91st Division, which is responsible for its northern border, “hitting offices and soldiers with precision”.

The health ministry condemned the attack as a “blatant strike” on an official Lebanese state apparatus. The intensity of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has ratcheted up steadily, displacing tens of thousands of people on either side of the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Two drones explode in northern Israel after deadly attack

At least two drones have exploded in the Ayelet HaShahar area of northern Israel, according to a post on X by Israeli Army Radio. There were no casualties, the army said, adding that Hezbollah allegedly launched the drones.

Lebanon PM condemns deadly Israeli strikes on medical team

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced Israel’s deadly attack on paramedics saying “this new aggression against Lebanon is a blatant violation of international laws … and human values”.

Hezbollah ally the Amal movement said two of its members were among the dead. It said they were killed “while carrying out their humanitarian and national duty defending Lebanon and the south”.

A statement from Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said “due to [Israeli] aggression”, 27 emergency personnel and health workers have been killed and 94 others wounded since October.

Two hospitals and 21 health centres have been “targeted” while 32 fire or ambulances have been “put out of service or partially damaged”. It urged an end to the “repeated and deliberate targeting of health workers and civilians”.

Turkey’s Erdogan calls for Islamic alliance against ‘Israeli state terrorism’

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Islamic countries should form an alliance against what he called “the growing threat of expansionism” from Israel.

He made the comment after the killing by Israeli troops of a Turkish-American woman taking part in a protest on Friday against settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“The only step that will stop Israeli arrogance, Israeli banditry, and Israeli state terrorism is the alliance of Islamic countries,” Erdogan said at an event near Istanbul.

Recent steps that Turkey has taken to improve ties with Egypt and Syria are aimed at “forming a line of solidarity against the growing threat of expansionism”, which Erdogan said also threatened Lebanon and Syria.

Israeli protester: ‘This is the moment of truth’

Large crowds are starting to swell in Tel Aviv as thousands of demonstrators protest the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu and demand a deal to free the captives held in Gaza.

“Instead of securing a deal which will save the hostages and the country, Netanyahu is escalating the situation in the region and dragging Israel into a multi-frontal regional war, which will lead to more destruction,” said Efrat Machikawa, the niece of an Israeli captive held in Gaza.

“The public must come together over the next days and fight with all its might. We have no time to waste. This is the moment of truth.”