At least 94 Palestinian women held in Israeli prisons: Groups

Most are in Damon Prison in northern Israel, according to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, including a woman and her daughter who are from Gaza.

The number, the organisations said, is likely an underestimate because Israeli authorities are holding many women in various detention camps and have not given any information about them.

“Women are being subject to torture, starvation, and medical crimes. Some are being placed in isolated cells and subject to strip searches,” the organisations said.“Twenty-three women are being held under administrative detention without charge or trial, while most of the rest are detained for alleged ‘incitement’, including students, lawyers, journalists, activists and mothers.”

“Twenty-three women are being held under administrative detention without charge or trial, while most of the rest are detained for alleged ‘incitement’, including students, lawyers, journalists, activists and mothers.”

 

‘Palestinians have right to resist oppression’: UN special rapporteur

Francesca Albanese says because Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful, “it constitutes an aggression against the right of self-determination”.

“The Palestinians – like it or not – have the right to resist the oppression,” she said.

The UN special rapporteur to the occupied Palestinian territory was speaking remotely at a news conference for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The caveat, she said, is that this resistance has to be done “within the realm and the limits of international law; therefore, civilians cannot be targeted, killed or taken hostage”.

What about Settlers? Don't the people in the West Bank have the right to defend themselves against Settler attacks?

More from Francesca Albanese

The UN rapporteur says the international community has failed to prevent Israel’s genocide in Gaza and now Israel is threatening to repeat its actions in the occupied West Bank.

“We have failed to honour one of the major obligations imposed on member states by the Genocide Convention, which is to prevent genocide and to punish [it],” she said.

“I see the risk of failing, once again, in the West Bank because the attacks Israel has unleashed [are] not just against Palestinians in Gaza. It is against the Palestinians as a whole. There is a need to … protect the Palestinians from what might be in some weeks or months from now another form of genocide unfolding.”

Hamas official calls for more ‘resistance’ in face of settler attacks

Mahmoud Mardawi says an uptick in attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank – the latest of which was an attack on the al-Ka’abneh Bedouins School in Jericho – calls for collective action and an increase in resistance by Palestinians.

Residents of illegal Israeli settlements are often armed and carry out attacks against Palestinians under the protection of Israeli soldiers. Mardawi called the violence a “desperate attempt to instill fear in the hearts of Palestinian residents there and to push them out of the land”.

In a statement, he urged Palestinians in the West Bank to unite and confront these “vicious attacks”, adding that resistance is the “only guarantee to get rid of the occupation”.

There has been an increase in the volume and frequency of settler attacks against Palestinians and their personal property since October 7. At least 704 people have since been killed and more than 5,700 others injured in Israeli raids and settler attacks across the West Bank since Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza began.

Settler attacks in the West Bank driven by ‘religious, nationalist fever’

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says that at the heart of settler attacks across the West Bank is a “religious, nationalist fever”. “Most of it is irrational,” Bishara said.

His comments come after Israeli settlers attacked a school in the Muarrajat area, northwest of Jericho, earlier today.

Settlers who carry out attacks against Palestinians and their property are increasing in number, Bishara said. “Especially the young ones … they’re very radical, very extreme,” Bishara said. “They think of it as a … crusade against the Palestinian people.”

He added that “religious fanatics” in the illegal settlements have been acting with impunity because they are in control of the Israeli government – “not the other way around”.

Palestinian woman injured in Israeli settler attack in Hebron

Israeli settlers have assaulted several Palestinian citizens in the Jourat al-Jamal area, southeast of Yatta in Hebron, Wafa reports.

A woman from the Abu Malsh family suffered wounds and bruises in the attack, which was carried out with protection from Israeli soldiers, according to the Palestinian news agency. She was taken to hospital, where her condition was described as moderate.

Separately, Israeli forces confiscated a number of vehicles in the al-Fakhari area in Hebron’s village of al-Karmel, and detained Mohammed al-Harini from Masafer Yatta while he was trying to confront settlers who attempted to seize his land.

Soldiers also detained Hatem Makhamreh and seized his agricultural tractor after assaulting him and his son, Ali, near the entrance to al-Karmel and al-Tuwani in Masafer Yatta, Wafa said.

Israel arrests three Palestinians in West Bank town

Israeli forces have raided Silwad – north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank – and arrested three young men and took their vehicles, the Wafa news agency reports.

Israeli forces arrest three Palestinians in raids across Ramallah

Israeli soldiers have arrested three young Palestinian men during a raid on the town of Silwad in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate of the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency is reporting.

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic also reported that Israeli forces were besieging several streets in the city of Ramallah in the vicinity of the Palestinian Authority’s presidential headquarters.

Three killed in Israeli shelling on residential building in northern Gaza

Rescue workers say the three men were killed when the Israeli military shelled a group of Palestinians gathered in the vicinity of al-Nada residential towers in Beit Hanoon. Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence, said the bodies of the three victims were taken to the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya.

Sanitary conditions in Gaza worsening by the day: UNRWA

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned that disease-spreading insects and rodents are threatening people’s health and wellbeing in the besieged and bombarded territory.

“UNRWA teams are working to help displaced families in shelters stop them from invading people’s already crammed living spaces,” UNRWA said in a post on X.

Rubbish has been piling up across Gaza after Israel seized control of the territory’s two main landfills, east of the cities of Khan Younis and Gaza City.

War’s impact on Israel’s economy ‘catastrophic’

Shir Hever, an economic researcher and manager of the Alliance for Justice between Israelis and Palestinians, has highlighted Israel’s economic woes from the war.

“Israel has crossed every possible red line,” Hever told Al Jazeera. Not only is Israel “committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”, he said, but in order to do so, it has “sacrificed” its own future.

“The economic crisis is something which I seriously doubt they will ever be able to recover from,” Hever said.

He added that military spending in Israel is only a “drop in the bucket” compared to the broader economic crisis and brain drain. “Israel has become a highly capitalist economy, a very individualistic,” he said, adding that many skilled workers are simply leaving.

Palestinians mark 42nd anniversary of Sabra and Shatila massacre

Forty-two years ago today, the Israeli military facilitated the killing of as many as 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the Sabra neighbourhood and Shatila refugee camp in Beirut.

Israeli troops had laid siege to the camp and allowed allied right-wing Christian fighters to enter it and commit atrocities against defenceless people there. The slaughter went on for three days.

Most of the victims were Palestinian.

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement said the Sabra and Shatila anniversary is a “stark reminder of Israel’s ongoing violent massacres, displacement of Indigenous Palestinians, and its denial of our refugees’ right of return”.

“Today, as we approach a year since the start of the livestreamed US-Israeli genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, our people, fragmented by colonialism, stands united in resisting the genocide and Israel’s 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid,” the BDS National Committee said in a statement.

‼️THREAD: Remembering Sabra and Shatila: Decades on, Israel is still massacring Palestinian refugees. Get the facts ⬇️

— IMEU (@theIMEU) September 16, 2024

Fatah commemorates 42nd anniversary of Sabra and Shatila massacre

Fatah says the Palestinian people will continue their “legitimate, national struggle” against the Israeli occupation until their objective of “liberation” –  creating a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital – is met.

The faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority issued a statement marking the 42nd anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, when the Israeli army facilitated the killing of thousands of Palestinians in Beirut.

It said Palestinians are still battling “the most brutal and horrific bloody massacres” by Israel, decades later.

The memory of the Sabra and Shatila massacre is “instilled in the collective memory of our people”, Fatah said, adding that “Its perpetrators are still committing the same massacres against our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

Fatah called on the international community to hold Israel as well as its allies and supporters accountable for their “ongoing crimes”.

Israel should give diplomatic talks ‘time to succeed’: Pentagon chief

In a phone call with his embattled Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has reiterated Washington’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security”, the US Pentagon says.

Austin also suggested that Israel should not escalate the conflict with Hezbollah, according to the US statement describing the call, which took place on Sunday.

“Secretary Austin also reaffirmed the necessity of a ceasefire and hostage deal, and that Israel should give diplomatic negotiations time to succeed, noting the devastating consequences that escalation would have on the people of Israel, Lebanon, and the broader region,” the Pentagon said today.

The United States is still working with mediators Egypt and Qatar to present a revised proposal for a ceasefire in the Israeli war on Gaza, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has said.

Miller told reporters he does not have a timetable for the proposal, which has been expected for several weeks, but he said that Washington wanted to make sure that the plan can get Israel and Hamas to an ultimate agreement.

US does nothing but stall for time to ... finish the genocide?

Hamas official says US failing to pressure Israel in ceasefire talks

Ghazi Hamad says the US is merely repeating “the same failed experience” with its recent push for a new Gaza ceasefire proposal.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher, Hamad said Washington’s “bias” in favour of Israel and its inability to understand the Palestinian perspective, has continuously pushed it to be “on the wrong side of history”.

Hamad said the group believes the US is not pressuring Israel enough to reach a deal, which has always led to a “dead-end”.

He said Hamas has worked with “flexibility” in its indirect negotiations, but that Netanyahu’s government has been obstructing any progress in talks.

Netanyahu to US envoy: Israel will ‘do what is necessary’ for its security

The Israeli prime minister has told US envoy Amos Hochstein that there needs to be a “fundamental change” at the Lebanese border to allow evacuated residents of northern Israel to return to their homes, according to PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

The US and other Western allies of Israel have warned the Netanyahu government against a major escalation with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In an apparent response to these warnings, Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister told Hochstein that “while Israel appreciates and respects the support of the US, it will – ultimately – do what is necessary to safeguard its security”

Houthis pose ‘aggressive danger’ to the world: US legislator

US Congressman Morgan Griffith, a Virginia Republican, has denounced the Houthi missile launch against Israel.

“Houthi rebels launched a missile at Central Israel this weekend, the latest sign they pose a more aggressive danger to the region and the world,” Griffith said in a social media post.

“Their missile and drone attacks against US Naval ships this year mark the most intense running sea battle faced by the US since WWII [World War II].”

The US has been bombing Houthi positions in Yemen since January in response to the group’s attacks against shipping lanes in the region. But the US campaign has so far failed to stop the Houthis’ military operations.

The Yemeni group says it is attacking Israel-linked ships to pressure an end to the Israeli assault on Gaza.

US' ironclad support for genocide poses an aggressive danger to the world.

The Houthis send one missile to Israel, how many bombs has the US send to Gaza...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-has-sent-israel-thousands-2000-pound-bombs-since-oct-7-2024-06-28/

Houthi official says US offered ‘concessions’ to end group’s attacks

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti says the United States and United Kingdom have offered “concessions” and “threats” to the Houthis, through mediators, in order to stop the Yemeni group’s attacks in support of Gaza.

Al-Bukhaiti told Al Jazeera Mubasher that one of the “temptations” offered by the US was proposing recognition of the Houthi-controlled Yemeni government in Sanaa.

“Our position has been clear,” al-Bukhaiti said, stressing that the Houthis will not negotiate over their support for Palestinians.

‘Propaganda’: US denies offering recognition of Houthi government

Israel-Arab deals ‘transforming the region for the better’: US legislator

Despite the rampant destruction in Gaza and the risk of an all-out conflict that could engulf the entire Middle East, US Congressman Don Davis has hailed the so-called Abraham Accords, which were sponsored by the former Trump administration to establish diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states.

“As we mark the fourth anniversary of the Abraham Accords, we reflect on how the historic agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain is transforming the region for the better,” Davis, a Democrat, wrote in a social media post.

“Let’s keep the momentum alive and work to expand the peace to other Gulf states.”

Critics say the agreements aimed to forge economic and diplomatic ties across the region at the expense of maintaining Israeli abuses and the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The Abraham accords led to Oct 7 and now close to all out war in the region. How delusional are US politicians.

US Senator says UN expert’s censure a ‘badge of honor’ for Israel

John Fetterman has dismissed UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s criticism of Israel over the mass atrocities in Gaza.

“These so-called ‘experts’ have consistently revealed their anti-Israel bias and a censure from one of them is a badge of honor,” Fetterman, a Democrat, wrote in a social media post.

“No apologies and zero conditions for any essential support for Israel.”

Albanese and other rights experts have accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians – a major crime defined by the UN as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Fetterman has been a staunch supporter of Israel, drawing criticism from his progressive Arab and Muslim constituents.

We continue to work around the clock to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas with the release of hostages.

But this is ultimately a question of political will. The time has come for both sides make some hard choices and some difficult compromises. pic.twitter.com/virPmn7iyi

— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) September 16, 2024

UN chief remains hopeful on ‘very difficult’ ceasefire talks

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the AFP news agency that mediated ceasefire talks to end the war in Gaza “are endless” and “very difficult” but he remains hopeful a deal could be reached.

It is unlikely the UN Secretary-General will get an opportunity to discuss the negotiations with the Israeli prime minister during the upcoming UN General Assembly, since a meeting “will very probably not take place”, he added.

“As far as I understand, it was already said publicly that it is not [Netanyahu’s] intention to ask for any meeting with me,” said Guterres, who usually meets with all visiting heads of state and government during the annual meeting.

The UN chief’s comments come as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is travelling to Egypt for three days of talks, which will likely include discussions over Israel’s contested claims to the Philadelphi Corridor on Egypt’s border with Gaza.

Israeli forces arrest three Palestinians in raids across Ramallah

Israeli soldiers have arrested three young Palestinian men during a raid on the town of Silwad in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate of the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency is reporting.

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic also reported that Israeli forces were besieging several streets in the city of Ramallah in the vicinity of the Palestinian Authority’s presidential headquarters.

Israeli forces arrest wife of jailed Palestinian political leader

Israeli forces have arrested the wife of Ahmed Saadat, the long-imprisoned leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, during a raid on their home in the city of el-Bireh, in the occupied West Bank, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report.

Ahmed Saadat has been imprisoned by Israel since one month after he was elected as a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in January 2006.

Israeli military bombs home in Gaza City, killing 1

The strike hit the al-Shoubaki family home on al-Sahaba Street in the centre of Gaza City, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza. Several more people have been injured in the attack, with their condition not currently known.

Israeli soldier seriously injured in southern Gaza

A reserve fighter was “seriously injured” in a battle in the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said in a post in X. The fighter was taken to hospital, the post added.

At least 344 Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip since October, with many more injured.

Israeli bombing kills one in Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp

At least one Palestinian has been killed and others wounded in an Israeli bombing of a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent reports.

Two other homes were also attacked, AJA reported, citing Palestinian media, with Israeli forces preventing ambulance crews from reaching the area to rescue survivors.

Death toll in Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp rises to 4

The number of people killed in the Israeli bombing of a home in the Bureij refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, has risen to four, the civil defence has said.

Dozens of citizens are still trapped under the rubble, it added. Al Jazeera’s correspondents are reporting that a girl was recovered from the collapsed building.

‘Israeli forces preventing rescuers from reaching bombed sites’

For the past few hours, civil defence crews and paramedics have been finding it difficult to reach the bombed sites in the Bureij refugee camp. At least three residential homes were targeted by heavy artillery and air attacks on the eastern part of the Bureij camp.

We are learning from the civil defence members, paramedics and volunteers in the area that challenges remain at the site as quadcopters, surveillance attack drones and gunfire are preventing rescuers from getting to the bombed sites.

Israeli jets target rescuers in Bureij: Civil defence

According to the Palestinian Civil Defence, it received “dozens of distress calls” from the area. It said on its Telegram channel when its crews arrived at the scene, Israeli jets “targeted” them. One of their personnel was injured, forcing the crews to pull back from the area.

Israeli artillery strike sets fire to home in Gaza City: Civil defence

Workers belonging to the Palestinian Civil Defence group say they are extinguishing a fire that broke out following an Israeli artillery attack on a house belonging to the Abed family in Gaza City. The home is located on al-Muntar Street east of Shujayea neighbourhood, the group added. No injuries were so far reported.

Seven members of one family killed in Bureij strike

Seven people from the same family have been pronounced dead in the aftermath of the strike on the Bureij refugee camp.

The victims of this air raid are displaced Palestinians who made their way back to their homes in the past few weeks after the situation in Deir el-Balah and other areas became unliveable.

They made their way back to the Bureij camp and that’s when they were attacked by the Israeli military.

For more than five hours now, paramedics have been largely unable to reach the site of the air strike and rescue those still trapped under the rubble.

‘A new unbearable loss for Palestinians’

Rescue operations are under way in the location of the strike on the Bureij refugee camp. The Israeli military targeted residential buildings in the same neighbourhood, leaving behind widespread destruction.

We’ve been hearing from Civil Defence crews who say they are absolutely struggling in order to recover victims.

They have managed so far to recover eight Palestinians who were found killed, the majority being young children. This is incredibly devastating, a new unbearable loss for Palestinians.

As one of the Civil Defence members confirmed, the scale of destruction there is beyond recognition. They are saying that there are at least 80 Palestinians beneath the rubble and the remnants of these destroyed buildings.

It’s worth noting that these Civil Defence teams are only relying on very primitive means in order to recover those who are under the rubble.

Several people killed in Israeli attack on Gaza City neighbourhood, Civil Defence says

Israeli attacks, meanwhile, continue on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The territory’s Civil Defence said its workers managed to retrieve the bodies of four Palestinians from the scene of an attack on the Daraj neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City while five others remain trapped under the rubble.

The attack, it said in a statement, targeted a home that belonged to the Hassouna family. The home was sheltering displaced people from the Hijazi and al-Riashi families. Several others have been wounded in the attack, the Civil Defence added, without providing an exact figure.

Two killed in attack on Gaza City neighbourhood

Gaza’s Civil Defence agency says its teams pulled the bodies of two Palestinians from the rubble of a home in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood after an Israeli attack. At least eight others were wounded, it added.

Israeli tanks fire on Gaza aid convoy: WHO boss

The World Health Organization chief says Israeli tanks fired on an aid convoy cleared to travel back from war-ravaged northern Gaza.

“Last Saturday, on the way back from a mission to the northern Gaza [Strip] and after a WHO-led convoy got clearance and crossed the coast road checkpoint, the convoy encountered two Israeli tanks,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“Shots were fired from the tanks near the convoy. Luckily nobody was hurt. This is unacceptable.”

The incident came just a week after the United Nations said a convoy carrying workers for a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza had been held at gunpoint at an Israeli military checkpoint.

Last Saturday, on the way back from a mission to the northern #Gaza and after a @WHO-led convoy got clearance and crossed the coast road checkpoint, the convoy encountered two Israeli tanks. Shots were fired from the tanks near the convoy. Luckily nobody was hurt.

This is… pic.twitter.com/jDstTVatyv

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) September 17, 2024