People in Jabalia killed with ‘unspeakable cruelty and sadism’

Israeli forces are committing “another massacre” in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory says.

Francesca Albanese said Palestinian civilians in Jabalia “are killed – both in groups and one by one – amid unspeakable cruelty and sadism” by Israeli troops “who have accepted to be ‘willing executioners’ of a genocidal plan”.

The Israeli attacks are being conducted with Western support and weapons, Albanese noted. “It blows my mind to think that WE KNOW what Israel is doing and altogether we cannot stop it. Looking at where we were 100 years ago, not much progress has been achieved,” she said in a post on X.

The Israeli army has been carrying out a large-scale military incursion for nine days in northern Gaza, where the Jabalia camp is located.

‘Israel is wiping out Jabalia’

Residents in northern Gaza say Israel’s army has isolated the areas of Beit Hanoon, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya from Gaza City, and completed severed access. Many Jabalia residents are posting about the dire situation on social media with one pledging, “We will not leave, we die and we don’t leave.”

Nasser, a resident of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, said: “As the world is focused on Lebanon and possible Israeli strike against Iran, Israel is wiping out Jabalia.

“The occupation is blowing up roads and destroying residential districts. People also don’t find anything to eat. They are trapped inside their homes, fearing bombs could fall onto their heads.”

_{Palestinians flee northern Gaza last week following an Israeli evacuation order}

‘A greater Israel minus the Palestinians, this is the mindset’

The UN’s World Food Programme says no food has entered the northern Gaza Strip this month as Israeli attacks continue. It says “the risk of famine is real” for about 400,000 Palestinians trapped there.

Hassan Barari, a professor of international affairs at Qatar University, says Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza’s north is designed to force Palestinian inhabitants permanently out of the area.

“The Israelis have underestimated the Palestinians’ will to stay put. The Israelis from the get-go have wanted them to leave,” Barari told Al Jazeera. “This is part of their ideology. The majority of the government belongs to the extreme right and they saw on October 7 [2023] a golden opportunity to translate some ideas into action.”

He said one of those was “the transfer” of Palestinians from Gaza as a prelude to their expulsion from the occupied West Bank. “They believe in a greater Israel minus the Palestinians. This is part of the mindset of the Israelis.”

_{Palestinian children flee Gaza City in the northern Strip on Saturday}

42,227 Palestinians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza

At least 42,227 Palestinians have been killed and 98,464 wounded in Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, the Health Ministry says. Israeli attacks killed at least 52 people and injured 128 others over the past 24 hours, the ministry added.

The death toll from Israel’s yearlong war on Gaza is likely far higher with thousands of bodies buried in the rubble of the vast destruction throughout the Palestinian enclave.

Israel ‘trying to transform’ northern Gaza: Media office

Ismail al-Thawarta, head of the Gaza Government Media Office, accused Israeli forces of stopping rescuers from assisting victims of attacks in Gaza’s besieged north.

“The Israeli army is preventing civil defence teams from recovering bodies and is intentionally trying to destroy the health system,” said al-Thawarta at a news conference.

“The Israeli occupation is committing genocide and killing people by attacking refugee camps and committing barbaric crimes as they continue to target places where women and children are gathered. The Israeli army is continuing to attack northern Gaza and is trying to transform it to a space of only genocide.”

Palestinians ‘ready to die in their homes’ rather than doing a ‘death march’

Bushra Khalidi, from the British charity Oxfam, says the hunger situation in besieged northern Gaza has deteriorated so drastically that people have resorted to eating animal feed, donkeys and horses just to survive.

The comments come as Israel’s military blocked food from entering northern Gaza for the past 10 days, something she called “unacceptable” as it cuts the area off completely.

“People are not surviving, people are very likely dying of starvation as they have been since the beginning of the war. The problem is we’re talking about levels of destruction that didn’t exist several months ago,” Khalidi told Al Jazeera.

“I don’t know how people will survive. It’s likely they’ll die of starvation, die from the massacres we’re seeing in the north, or die trying to evacuate to the south.”

She said most Palestinians are “ready to die in their homes” rather than doing the “death march” to southern Gaza, where Israeli attacks are also ongoing.


Quadcopters in northern Gaza ‘chasing and shooting’ civilians

The trapped civilian population in northern Gaza is being herded under heavy bombardment that has already destroyed the majority of buildings.

This is the third time air raids and ground incursions have occurred in the area since the start of the war. But this time the fear among residents is increasing because there’s no way out. Palestinians were ordered to evacuate but the Israeli military failed to provide a safe corridor.

Quadcopters and attack drones fill the skies of the northern part of the Strip, including Jabalia refugee camp, chasing and shooting at people indiscriminately over the past few days.

Journalists covering the crimes of the Israeli military were also targeted by these quadcopters.

Israeli military ramps up restrictions on movement in West Bank

Israeli forces have intensified restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank across multiple governorates.

More roadblocks and checkpoints are now scrutinising people’s movements across cities, towns and villages, particularly around the cities of Ramallah and el-Bireh, according to local sources cited by the Wafa news agency.

The Palestinian news agency also reported that, in Hebron, Israeli soldiers are establishing new military checkpoints at key access points while checkpoints in the northern Jordan Valley are causing major traffic jams. All Israeli military checkpoints leading to occupied East Jerusalem are reported to remain closed.

 
At least 30 Palestinians arrested in occupied West Bank over two days

The detainees included former prisoners, according to a statement by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. The Palestinians were taken during raids in the Israeli-occupied Jenin, Bethlehem, Nablus, Qalqilya and Ramallah governorates, a statement said.

More than 11,200 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, 2023.

UN accuses Israel of violating international law by breaching a southern Lebanon position

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon said Sunday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) breached one of its positions in southern Lebanon, in violation of international law.

“At around 4:30 a.m., while peacekeepers were in shelters, two IDF Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position. They requested multiple times that the base turn out its lights,” the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said in a statement on Sunday.

‘Shocking violations’: UN peacekeepers demand Israel to explain attacks

The Israeli army must obey its “obligation to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property” at the Lebanon border, the force said after the latest attack.

The peacekeepers said in addition to the assault this morning, Israeli forces denied passage of a “critical UNIFIL logistical movement” yesterday. “Breaching and entering a UN position is a further flagrant violation of international law and Security Council resolution 1701,” UNIFIL said in a statement.

“We have requested an explanation from the [Israeli military] from these shocking violations.”

What’s next after Israeli troops again target UN base?

International concerns continue to rise after the Israeli military’s latest assault on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

UNIFIL’s task with more than 10,000 soldiers has been to monitor compliance with a ceasefire following the 2006 Lebanon war. It has so far refused Israeli army orders to leave.

“The time has come for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier. He accused UN chief Antonio Guterres of refusing to do so.

The United States and European countries have demanded that Israeli forces stop firing at the peacekeepers. On Friday, US President Joe Biden said he was “absolutely, positively” telling Israel to stop.

Israel’s Gallant: Hezbollah won’t be allowed to return to south Lebanon

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says Hezbollah will not be allowed to return to southern Lebanon’s border villages as the army continues its ground assault on the area.

“We will not allow the terrorists back to these places. This is vital to ensure the safety of [Israel’s] northern residents,” Gallant said in a video statement from the Israel-Lebanon border.

The Israeli army’s two-week incursion has so far been costly, with troops being killed and wounded and no apparent strategic gains. At least 25 soldiers were injured during fighting with Hezbollah along the border on Sunday.

_{Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant visits an airbase}

Destruction on southern Lebanese city "painful to watch," rescue worker tells CNN

The scale of destruction, explosions and fires resulting from Israeli airstrikes on Nabatiyeh commercial center on Saturday is “shocking and painful to watch,” civil defense official Hussein Faqih told CNN on Sunday.

“It’s the first time to see such destructive strike in Nabatiyeh over the past year,” Faqih, the director of the Lebanese Civil defense in Nabatiyeh, told CNN over the phone. “It took hours to just control the fires in 20 locations,” he said. Rescue workers were still removing the rubble through Sunday afternoon, he added.

One person was killed and 12 others injured and around 15 buildings and 30 shops were either destroyed or damaged including the nearby Old Mosque, he said.

Faqih said that if it weren’t for the mass displacement of residents fleeing the bombardment the past weeks, this strike “would have resulted in a massacre. If it happened during the day, it would have been a massacre,” he added.

About 100 US troops will deploy to Israel to operate anti-missile system

Approximately 100 US troops are deploying to Israel to operate the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, according to a US defense official.

It is rare for US troops to deploy inside Israel but this is a typical number of troops used to operate the anti-missile defense system.

Some context: The US provides billions in military support to Israel every year. According to a 2023 report into international arms transfers by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a think tank that tracks arms sales worldwide, 69% of Israel’s arm imports come from the US.

The US-imported weapons “have played a major role in Israel’s military actions against Hamas and Hezbollah,” the think tank reported, noting that at the end of 2023, thousands of guided bombs and missiles were rapidly delivered from the US to Israel. F-35 and F-15 fighter jets were also delivered to Israel from the US in January 2024.

The US also provides financial assistance to Israel, delivering over $130 billion in bilateral funding since 1948, according to the US State Department. In 2019, the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding that ensured the US would annually provide Israel with $33.3 billion from the Foreign Military Financing program, and another $500 million for missile defense.

Israeli army says tank entered UNIFIL base after evacuating injured soldiers

The Israeli army has issued an explanation surrounding an incident at a UNIFIL base in southern Lebanon earlier this morning that drew widespread condemnation.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had earlier said Israeli tanks “forcibly entered” its peacekeeping base. The Israeli army now says a “massive” anti-tank missile was fired against Israeli soldiers.

“In the shooting, two soldiers were seriously injured and needed to be evacuated. For the sake of evacuating the wounded, two tanks drove backward, in a place where they could not advance otherwise in light of the threat of shooting, a few meters towards the UNIFIL position,” the army said in a statement.

Once the shooting was over and the wounded were evacuated, the tanks left their positions, it said. Throughout the incident, the army said it “maintained continuous contact with UNIFIL”, adding that its actions posed no threats to the UN force.

Bunch of BS, this is what UNIFIL stated

“At around 4:30 a.m., while peacekeepers were in shelters, two IDF Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position. They requested multiple times that the base turn out its lights,” the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said in a statement on Sunday.

A bit more than 'backed up a few meters into a gate'. Why were they there, so close to a UNIFIL base, in the first place. Using UNIFIL as human shields.

Of course Israel is blaming UNIFIL for harboring terrorists

‘Incomprehensible’ that UNIFIL is kept in line of fire: Israel ambassador

It is “incomprehensible” that the UN would not move peacekeepers out of areas in southern Lebanon where Israeli forces are battling Hezbollah fighters, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon has said.

He also claimed that Hezbollah fighters were “using UNIFIL outposts as hiding places and as places of ambushes”.

“The UN’s insistence on keeping the UNIFIL soldiers in the line of fire is incomprehensible,” Danon said.

He added in a statement that the details of an incident involving UNIFIL were being investigated. At least five UN peacekeepers have been injured in Israeli attacks since last week.

Five children killed in Israeli attack on northern Gaza

At least five children were killed in an Israeli air attack in northern Gaza, the Palestinian Wafa news agency has reported. An Israeli drone struck the group of children playing near a cafe in Shati refugee camp, the report said, adding that several people were also wounded in the attack.

Gaza’s Civil Defence said at least three people were killed in the al-Faluja area in a separate attack. In the last 10 days, Israeli forces have renewed their attacks on northern Gaza.

According to UNRWA, about 400,000 people are trapped in the north as residents trying to flee southward have been shot at. Those who have decided to remain due to the lack of safe areas in the south have also been repeatedly hit.

Patients being moved from Kamal Adwan Hospital amid Israeli siege

Israel bombs and kills Palestinian children playing football in north Gaza

An Israeli drone attack just targeted children playing football in the al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City. At least six Palestinians were killed including five children and a woman. Many wounded were taken to al-Ahli Hospital.

Endless air strikes, explosions, quadcopters – people in northern Gaza say they’re trying to call local and international organisations to rescue the injured from the bombed-out buildings. But it has been extremely difficult for Palestinian Civil Defence workers to reach those trapped.

At least 400,000 Palestinians are stranded in the north during the latest Israeli onslaught. They’re surrounded by Israeli forces and under constant fire daily.

The Israeli military issued orders for people to evacuate, but whoever tries to move is being targeted and shot. People who were able to leave their houses were blocked by sandbag barricades. It’s been nine days without food, water, electricity. Residents tell us there were many Palestinians shot and their bodies are on the streets with no one able to remove them.

At least 34 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks today

Our colleagues on the ground are reporting, quoting medical sources, that at least 34 people have been killed in Israeli air attacks across Gaza since dawn on Sunday.

This includes five children who were killed when an Israeli drone struck them as they were playing near a cafe in Shati refugee camp.

At least 20 injured in drone attack on northern Israel

Israeli media is reporting that at least 20 people have been injured, including five in serious condition, after a drone attack hit near the Israeli town of Binyamina in the northern Haifa district.

The Israeli Army Radio says, quoting a military source, that the Binyamina attack we just reported on was a Hezbollah drone attack.

A separate report said the Israeli Air Force is investigating why warning sirens were not activated ahead of the attack.

Drones are harder to detect and intercept

The Israeli air defence system is very sophisticated and multi-layered. Usually, the sirens go off when something is heading towards a location so civilians and residents of that area are told to seek shelter. That’s why there have been a very small number of injuries throughout the past year from those attacks.

But the drones are harder to detect, and because they fly at lower altitudes, they are much more difficult to intercept. Effectively intercepting them would put a lot of people in danger.

Just two days ago, two drones were spotted in the Tel Aviv area. Only one of them was downed by interception from the Israeli army. The second was not intercepted, and some of the shrapnel caused damage.

Number of injured in Binyamina attack rises to 39

Israeli Army Radio says three killed in drone attack

This is what the Israeli media is reporting on the Binyamina attack:

Hezbollah says it launched two drone attacks

The group said a suicide drone hit “accurately” a gathering of Israeli forces in the army’s Zar’it barrack in northern Israel.

In a separate statement, it said it targeted the Israeli Tsnobar logistics base in Israeli-occupied Golan Heights with a missile.

As we’ve been reporting, a drone attack has hit northern Israel, south of Haifa, where at least 40 people are now reported to have been injured.

Hezbollah confirms it carried out Binyamina attack

In a statement, the group said it launched a “swarm of drones” on a Golani Brigade camp in Binyamina, south of Haifa that we have been reporting on.

It said that the attack was carried out “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their valiant and honorable resistance, and in defence of Lebanon and its people”.

Casualty figure rises in Binyamina attack

Israeli media is now reporting that at least 67 people are now reported injured in the drone attack.

Binyamina is located between Tel Aviv and Haifa and has a population of around 16,000 people.
It is approximately 70km south of the border with Lebanon.

Israeli army says another drone intercepted

The Israeli army says it intercepted a drone fired from Lebanon off Israel’s northern coast. This interception comes shortly after the drone strike we have been reporting on that caused dozens of casualties.

Sirens sounding across northern Israel

We are getting reports that warning sirens are sounding in several towns in northern Israel. The Israeli Home Front Command said that sirens are sounding in Kiryat Shmona, Margaliot, Metula, Misgav Am and the Manara area.

This comes after sirens did not go off ahead of the Hezbollah drone attack on Binyamina.

‘Israeli tanks stationed at the walls of schools in northern Gaza’

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are under an Israeli siege in northern Gaza. There is little to no food or water because Israeli forces have been preventing their entry as well as that of lifesaving aid.

Palestinians who try to escape the area are being shot at by Israeli drones. Israel is yet again targeting schools where displaced Palestinians have been sheltering.

At least two people were killed and several wounded in a strike on the Faluja School in Jabalia. The wounded have been taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital, even though doctors there are trying to evacuate patients following demands from the Israeli army for people to leave or face being bombed.

More than 300 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s nine-day siege of the north.

“What’s happening is a process of attrition, a siege, and artillery shelling,” Hany Hamad, a medical worker, said. “There are tanks and the occupation forces are stationed at the walls of these schools. They are surrounding Shadi Abu Ghazala School, Faluja School and Hafsa bint Omar Government School. The army is now at the rear walls of these schools.

“We hope that the world intervenes to lift the siege on Jabalia camp, find solutions for the wounded, and provide the necessary medical supplies to these injured people,” Hamad said.

At least 14 killed by Israeli strikes on refugee camps in central Gaza, hospital says

Israeli strikes on refugee camps in central Gaza have killed at least 14 people, including a family of eight, the Al-Aqsa hospital said Sunday.

At the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, eight members of a family were killed when the Israeli military struck a house they were sheltering in, according to the hospital. Another six people were killed when an Israeli tank shelled the Bureij refugee camp, it said.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment about the strikes.

One man, Alaa Abu Ghali, told a cameraman working for CNN in Gaza that his brother Waleed’s whole family was killed in the strike. “They struck them when they were asleep in safety in the house, the whole family — my brother, his children, and his wife — they have all been erased as a family … Waleed is gone along with his wife and children. We are all displaced from Rafah and have been in this house for five months. There was no prior warning.”

At the hospital yard, near the morgue, a young girl desperately clung to her brother who was killed in the Bureij camp, crying as she checked his lifeless body for a heartbeat.

“Leave me with him. I want my brother. Leave me in his arms. He is going to heaven. Wake up! Stop joking. He is breathing,” the child cried as she hugged her brother with her mother. “God loves you; that’s why he took you,” she said.

Two children wounded in Israeli army raid in occupied West Bank

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says two children suffered bullet injuries in an Israeli raid on Beit Furik, southeast of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli army has stepped up its raids, mass arrests and home demolitions in towns across the occupied Palestinian territory since the start of the war on Gaza.

More than 750 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers since last October.

Israel wants to remove UNIFIL’s presence from southern Lebanon

Ray Murphy, a professor of law at the University of Galway and a former UN peacekeeper with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said Israel’s ultimate goal is to kick the UN mission out of southern Lebanon to free the area of international observers.

“They do not want to have a UN force that is able to report and observe the activities of the Israeli forces on the ground,” Murphy said. “The Israelis seem to be intent on carrying out a similar campaign in southern Lebanon to that which they just conducted and are continuing to conduct in Gaza. And they must not be allowed to do this.”

Murphy’s comments come soon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that UNIFIL members leave combat areas in southern Lebanon, warning that their refusal to do so will make them “hostages of Hezbollah”.

Italy says Israeli attack on UN peacekeepers ‘unacceptable’

Israel’s attack on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon was “unacceptable”, Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni told Netanyahu in a phone call.

“Prime Minister Meloni reiterated that it is unacceptable for UNIFIL to have been attacked by the Israeli armed forces,” the Italian premier’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

Meloni emphasised that “the mission operates under the authority of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to contribute to regional stability”, and “stressed the absolute necessity of ensuring the safety of UNIFIL personnel at all times”.

On Sunday, UNIFIL said two Israeli tanks destroyed the gate of the UN peacekeeping site in Ramyah, southern Lebanon. The Israeli army released a statement later saying a tank entered a UNIFIL post during soldier evacuation.

Last week, at least five UN peacekeepers were injured due to Israeli attacks.

Lebanese demand justice for journalist killed in Israeli attack last year

Lebanese journalists and activists have demanded justice for a Reuters news agency journalist Issam Abdallah who was killed a year earlier by Israeli tank fire while covering cross-border fighting in south Lebanon.

Two strikes in quick succession on October 13, 2023, killed Abdallah, 37, and wounded six other journalists. Two investigations have pointed to an Israeli tank being behind the attack but Israel has denied that it targets “civilians, including journalists”.

Friends and acquaintances on Sunday shared photos Abdallah had taken and pictures of him. NGO Legal Agenda posted on social media: “A year after the killing of photographer Issam Abdullah, Israeli impunity continues.”

Lebanese rights group Maharat called on the international community to “implement treaties, resolutions and commitments to protect journalists”. In a post on X, journalist Salman Andary demanded “justice for Issam and for all the victims of this crime”. On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists decried the lack of accountability for Israel over the killing of Abdallah.