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Forums - Politics Discussion - Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

SvennoJ 10 hours ago

Outrage after Israeli warship passes through Egypt’s Suez Canal

A video showing an Israeli warship passing through the Suez Canal has sparked outrage online among people who have accused Egypt of giving Israel’s military permission to transit through.

But the Egyptian government says that international conventions allow free passage for all vessels.


How do Palestinians in Gaza view the US election?

With one day remaining until the US presidential election, Palestinians in Gaza say they are unsure what the victory of either candidate actually means for Israel’s war on the territory.

“The American elections will not affect the war in any way, and will not have an impact. It may affect the American voter but not Palestinians in Gaza,” said Saleh Shonnar, a displaced Palestinian in Deir el-Balah. “The Americans are a partner in the war on Gaza, and in the extermination of children, women and the elderly,” he added.

Mustafa Abu Hamada, another displaced Palestinian, said he was worried about a victory for Trump.

“We hope to God that it [the result of US elections] will be in favour of the Palestinians, because the Palestinians are tired and suffering. Biden spent four years and did not provide anything for the Palestinian people. He was promising a two-state solution, and in the end there is nothing,” Hamada said.

“He was supporting Israeli society, and the only thing he talks about is the captives. What about the people who are dying? We ask the Americans, if Trump succeeds, to have mercy on the Palestinian people.”


‘One criminal passing torch to next’: Palestinians views on US election

Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda and Al Jazeera’s AJ+ team received an Emmy in September for their documentary titled “It’s Bisan From Gaza – and I’m Still Alive,” awarded in the Outstanding Hard News Feature Story category.

In a recent report, Owda sought the opinions of Palestinians regarding the upcoming US election.

Check out the video below to find out their perspectives – and stay updated with our live coverage of the US election here.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DB1gDArIRED



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SvennoJ 10 hours ago

What evidence has Israel presented of a Hamas presence at Gaza’s hospitals?

Israel has besieged and raided multiple hospitals in the Gaza Strip over the past year, claiming the attacks are necessary because Hamas uses them as command and control bases.

After more than a year of war, what evidence has Israel presented to support these claims?

Turns out, not much at all.

That’s according to the Associated Press news agency.

The AP said it examined Israeli raids on three hospitals in northern Gaza – the al-Awda, Indonesian and Kamal Adwan hospitals – in late 2023, and found that Israel has presented “little or even no evidence” of a significant Hamas presence at any of them.

  • At the Indonesian Hospital, Israel’s military claimed a Hamas command-and-control centre lay underneath it, but following its raid, made no mention of an underground facility or tunnels. Israel’s attacks killed 12 at the facility, while dozens of incoming patients also died because of its siege, AP reported.
  • At Kamal Adwan, Israel produced no evidence to back its claims that Hamas used the facility, the AP reported. “It said soldiers uncovered weapons but showed footage only of a single pistol.” Meanwhile, at least 10 patients died as a result of Israel’s siege, while witnesses told AP that troops set dogs on staff and patients and bulldozers crushed tents housing displaced people.
  • At al-Awda, the AP said Israel’s military did not even make claims of a Hamas presence when it besieged and raided the facility late last year. At least three doctors and a patient were killed when a shell blasted its operating room in November while two pregnant women walking to the facility to give birth were shot and bled to death in December, AP reported.


A woman sits on a bed in a room of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip on August 25


WFP warns of looming famine in Gaza

The World Food Programme is warning that “the lack of food and other vital humanitarian supplies entering the Gaza Strip could soon escalate into famine unless immediate action is taken”.

The UN agency said it reached only 42 percent of the 1.1 million people targeted for food assistance in October due to a lack of supplies and access.

“North Gaza remains under siege since early October, with humanitarian agencies unable to reach people in need. Urgent international effort is required to allow the delivery of critical assistance and grant humanitarian agencies access to the area,” it added.


How many humanitarian trucks entered Gaza in October?

Figures from the UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) show that only 971 humanitarian trucks were allowed to enter the Gaza Strip through the main Karem Abu Salem crossing in the south from October 1 to 27.

This represents a daily average of only 36 humanitarian trucks, and is well below the pre-war average of 500 trucks per day.

Virtually no aid has reached residents of northern Gaza, who remain trapped by an Israeli siege that is now nearing a month.


UNRWA’s Lazzarini says aid entering Gaza at ‘lowest in a long time’

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini says Israeli authorities allowed an average of only 30 trucks of aid a day to enter Gaza last month, bringing assistance to its “lowest in a long time”.

This is equivalent to only 6 percent of commercial and humanitarian supplies entering Gaza before the war broke out on October 7, 2023, he said on X.

Lazzarini warned this was insufficient to respond to the needs of more than two million people, “many of whom are starving, sick and in desperate conditions”.

Israel today notified the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which is the largest provider of aid in the occupied Palestinian territory, that it was cancelling a cooperation agreement from 1967 that provided a legal basis for its operations.

In a legally binding order, the International Court of Justice in March ordered Israel to open more land crossings to allow aid into Gaza. The measures were requested by South Africa as part of its continuing case that accuses Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza.



SvennoJ 10 hours ago

Israel cancels agreement with UNRWA

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has informed the UN that it has ended the 1967 agreement that recognises the UN’s relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), according to The Times of Israel.

The move came after the Israeli Knesset passed several laws banning the agency from operating on Israeli-controlled territory.


Palestinian children stand near the damaged UNRWA headquarters in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Saturday after Israeli forces demolished most of the building

Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon has posted on X the Foreign Ministry’s letter that notifies the global body of its decision to cut ties with UNRWA.

In the post, he claimed that the UN “did nothing to rectify the situation” despite the “overwhelming evidence” Israel submitted about Hamas’s alleged “infiltration” of UNRWA.

The UN said in August that it had fired nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved in Hamas’s attacks on southern Israel on October 7 of last year.

The agency, set up by the UN General Assembly, employs more than 30,000 people and provides education, healthcare and other aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Israel’s UNRWA ban has drawn widespread international condemnation, including from the UN Security Council, which urged Israel “to abide by its international obligations, respect the privileges and immunities of UNRWA and live up to its responsibility to allow and facilitate full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian assistance in all its forms into and throughout the entire Gaza Strip”.

Did nothing? Overwhelming evidence?

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148821
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152841
https://www.unrwa.org/unrwa-claims-versus-facts-february-2024

Credibility of United Nations on the line

Israel has moved from the stage of threats and statements to the stage of action by ending the cooperation agreement with UNRWA.

The ball is in the camp of the UN. Its credibility is on the line now. If they don’t take action to counter the Israeli action, then their credibility may be in question for people observing this arm-twisting between Israel and the UN.

Israel has been looking at the UN with a lot of disregard and suspicion. Israel thinks the UN has ignored its warnings that UNRWA employees participated in the attacks on October 7 and that Israel has presented enough evidence to prove its claims, but the UN hasn’t taken any decision on that.

The UN conducted some investigation but it didn’t seem to have come to a final conclusion about this.

This is just the beginning of a long struggle of arm-twisting between the two sides.


Israel’s UNRWA ban an ‘attack on the very existence of the Palestinians’

Israel’s decision to ban UNRWA is part of the government’s plan to end the Palestinian cause, Tamer Qarmout, assistant professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, has told Al Jazeera.

“It is a devastating attack on the very existence of the Palestinian people,” he said.

UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 after the 1948 Nakba to protect and assist Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes. It provides education, healthcare, social services and emergency relief to people living in refugee camps in the Palestinian territory, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

“UNRWA is providing services similar to a state in the absence of a Palestinian state,” Qarmout said. “You shut down UNRWA’s operations so that Palestinians will have no services whatsoever and survival becomes so difficult. It’s as if you’re telling them: leave this place, you have no future here.”

Qarmout added he believed the US to be the only actor that can stop this decision from being implemented on the ground.


‘The question is: Who is going to replace UNRWA?’

Juliette Touma, global communications officer for UNRWA, says two million people depend on UNRWA for food assistance and healthcare.

“Who is going to replace UNRWA? When this brutal war finally comes to an end, who will provide education to 400,000 children who go to UNRWA schools, who? What is the plan? We don’t have any answer to that,” she told Al Jazeera from Amman.

Touma said that Israel’s ban on the agency will take place in 90 days, calling it a “race against time for member states around the world to work with Israel to not implement this ban.”

She added that even other UN agencies who have education within their mandate cannot manage teaching on this level or of this scale. “We are the only UN agency in the world that runs 700 schools … In the absence of a political solution for Palestinian refugees, there is no alternative to UNRWA.”

“It’s easy to talk. The question is what are you going to do about the ban and how are you going to fill the void? You meaning the State of Israel.”


UNRWA says Israel ban likely to cause ‘collapse’ of Gaza aid work

The UN agency for supporting Palestinian refugees has said that Israel’s ban on its operations would lead to the “collapse” of humanitarian work in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“If this law is implemented, it would be likely to cause the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip – an operation of which UNRWA is the backbone,” Jonathan Fowler, an UNRWA spokesman, told AFP.



SvennoJ 10 hours ago

Leaks show Netanyahu has been delaying any possibility of ceasefire

A court in Israel has removed a gag on some information from the leaks from Netanyahu’s office, and Israelis, the opposition, and the families of the captives are angry.

The leaks show that Netanyahu has been delaying any possibility of a ceasefire. These leaks include documents that are supposedly written by Sinwar himself, the former leader of Hamas, in which he instructed his fighters to not release the captives until Hamas gets what it wants.

In Israel, it has been revealed that those documents have been faked and they have been secretly leaked to a German newspaper without the knowledge of top officials in the Israeli government.

The military considers this a huge breach of state secrets because they say these documents originated from them and now, without their knowledge, they see them in the international press.

The military, opposition and families of hostages say Netanyahu should be held responsible for this breach of security. Netanyahu has always claimed that it’s Hamas that has been against the deal. But now Israelis are saying – no, it’s Netanyahu who has been against the deal and he has been orchestrating all of this to delay the ceasefire and keep the captives in Gaza.


Israel captives forum demands probe into secrets leak case

An Israeli group campaigning for the release of captives held in Gaza has called for an investigation into the alleged leak of confidential documents by an ex-aide to the prime minister, which may have undermined efforts to secure the captives’ release.

An Israeli court announced on Sunday that Eliezer Feldstein, a former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, had been arrested with three others for allegedly leaking documents to foreign media.

The case has prompted the opposition to question whether Netanyahu was involved in the leak – an allegation denied by his office.

“The (captives’) families demand an investigation against all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. “Such actions, especially during wartime, endanger the hostages, jeopardise their chances of return and abandon them to the risk of being killed by Hamas terrorists.

“The suspicions suggest that individuals associated with the prime minister acted to carry out one of the greatest frauds in the country’s history,” the forum added.


Netanyahu, a very bad decision-maker and a very good campaigner

Regarding the Israeli prime minister’s reaction to the leaks, Menachem Klein, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, has told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu’s strategy “is to distance himself from this affair”.

He has downplayed the leaks as “not a big deal”, explaining away that the assistant who leaked the information wasn’t under his wing or in his inner circle – rather, he was under the chief of staff.

“He’s a very bad decision-maker, a bad prime minister, but he’s a very good political campaigner and political survivor,” Klein said.

“He does many tricks to stay in power and his main means through which he shapes political opinion is the media. He was politically brought up in the US and he’s a Trump-style leader; the media is his main forum to shape public opinion.”


Families of Israeli captives demonstrate outside Knesset

A protest took place on a road leading to the Israeli parliament or Knesset in Jerusalem, coinciding with a session to vote on a proposal to withdraw confidence from the government, footage verified by Al Jazeera shows.

According to Israeli media, mothers of several captives held in Gaza took part in the protest to demand a prisoner exchange deal to bring their family members back.



SvennoJ 10 hours ago

Palestinian prisoners’ groups say Israel using scabies as tool of torture

The Prisoners’ Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club have warned of an impending “health disaster” in the Negev prison, in the occupied West Bank, amid the ongoing spread of scabies among prisoners.

The prisoner rights institutions warned that hundreds of detainees were exhibiting health symptoms from the parasitic infestation, as Israeli authorities were “deliberately depriving prisoners of treatment” and using it as a “tool to torture them physically and psychologically.”

They added that the Israeli authorities were seeking “to kill prisoners by any possible means”, including facilitating the spread of the skin disease by denying prisoners access to showers, clean clothes or washing machines.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, among other organisations, have documented detailed allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment perpetrated against Palestinians inside Israeli prisons, including sexual abuse of women and men.

We have documented cases of sexual violence in Israeli prisons, Palestinian activist says


Palestinian women's rights activist Joharah Baker is among five women who are at the UN in New York this week to speak about gendered violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. They claim Israeli forces are using sexual violence as a “weapon of genocide”. Baker tells FRANCE 24 that they have documented cases of sexual violence against women in Israeli prisons from Gaza and the West Bank.

 

Top EU diplomat: Crisis in Gaza, occupied territory worsening

The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, says the escalating crisis in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory “is deteriorating by the hour with unbearable suffering for civilians”.

“No one seems able or willing to stop this,” he posted on X.

Borrell condemned the rise in violence from “extremist settlers”, who he said “spread destruction” in areas such as el-Bireh in the occupied West Bank, and emphasised the urgent need for accountability.

“Israel has the duty to protect all civilians and to hold the perpetrators accountable,” he added.



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SvennoJ 10 hours ago

Many Palestinians killed, wounded amid ‘dangerous escalation’ in Gaza City

The Wafa news agency reports that “heavy” Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip has killed, wounded and trapped many Palestinians under the rubble in recent hours. It reported a “dangerous escalation” in Gaza City, including artillery attacks and gunfire in the south as well as an attack on a home in Tuffah in the east, which resulted “in a number of martyrs and wounded”.

Rescue workers are scrambling to find the missing who may be trapped under the rubble, it said. The agency also reported “successive explosions” in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and an attack on Rafah in the south that also killed and wounded several people.

The renewed assaults came as medics reported that Israeli forces attacked the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, hitting the nursery, the yard and the water tanks, and seriously wounding a child there.

Wafa also reported that an Israeli drone fired at the gates and walls of the Indonesian Hospital, also in Beit Lahiya, causing panic among patients and healthcare workers.

Workers at a private Israeli firm in Gaza boast of plans to flatten mosque

Israeli forces have reportedly employed civilian companies to flatten homes in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. A video uploaded by an employee shows him bulldozing through ruins and boasting of plans to destroy a local mosque.



One killed in Israeli attack on Gaza’s Nuseirat

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that Israel’s attacks on central Nuseirat killed at least one Palestinian and wounded two others.


Watch the moment a Palestinian girl is rescued from the rubble in Gaza City

A volunteer from the Palestinian Civil Defence has shared a video on Instagram documenting the moment his team rescued a girl named Mariam, who was buried under the rubble of a house in Gaza City.

The Civil Defence said the house belonged to the al-Batsh family that was bombed by Israeli forces in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood. Earlier, we reported that Israeli attacks on Tuffah killed at least two people.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DB7HmSTN890/


Four-day-old child only survivor in ICU after attack on Gaza hospital

A four-day-old child, Mohammed, is the only survivor at the intensive care unit (ICU) of Kamal Adwan’s Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, doctors told Al Jazeera from the facility, which has been under the Israeli military siege.

Israeli artillery last week targeted the hospital’s facilities, including the ICU, killing several children. Patients have been battling to stay alive amid electricity outages and a severe shortage of basic supplies, including IV solutions.

Mohammed’s family was reported to have been killed and the baby was struggling to survive after the oxygen station that aided his breathing was destroyed.



SvennoJ 10 hours ago

All hospitals in northern Gaza out of service, government says

Gaza’s Government Media Office has said all hospitals in the northern part of the Strip are out of service, amid relentless Israeli bombardment and a military siege that prevents access to humanitarian aid including medical supplies.

The office said in a statement on Telegram that 1,800 people were killed and 4,000 wounded in northern Gaza in the past month. It added that civil defence teams have been hit while on service and some of them have been arrested or prevented from working.

It said the area was “disaster-stricken” and appealed to the international community to uphold international humanitarian law and pressure Israeli authorities to allow the safe passage of aid.



Casualties in latest Israeli raids on Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp

There have been multiple air strikes across the Gaza Strip. In the central area, residential buildings have been targeted in the northern and western side of the Nuseirat refugee camp as well as on agricultural lands.

One of the latest attacks injured five people, including young children. Earlier, separate raids targeted two residential buildings, killing at least two Palestinians.


Gaza’s death toll rises

At least 43,374 people have been killed and 102,261 wounded in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the enclave’s Health Ministry says. Of those, 33 Palestinians were killed and 156 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry added.


Israeli strikes kill 10 people in Gaza: Report

Israeli air strikes have killed at least 10 Palestinians in Gaza with seven dead in an attack on two houses in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya and three fatalities in a strike on a house in the Nuseirat camp in the enclave’s centre, medics tell Reuters.

Several people were wounded in both attacks, they said, adding that Israeli forces had sent tanks into the northeast of Nuseirat camp earlier in the day.

Israel deployed tanks into Jabalia, Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya on October 5, saying it intended to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were “ethnic cleansing” aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp of their population to create buffer zones. Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas militants who launch attacks from there.

Gaza’s Government Media Office put the number of Palestinians killed since October 5 at 1,800. It said 4,000 were wounded.


Israeli forces continue onslaught of northern Gaza hospital: Health ministry

Gaza’s health ministry has issued a statement warning that it may be its “last distress call” as Israeli forces continue to besiege Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza.

“At this moment, occupation forces are continuing to violently bombard and destroy Kamal Adwan Hospital, targeting all parts,” the health ministry said of the besieged medical facility in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya.

“There are many injuries among medical staff and patients. Medical staff are unable to move between hospital departments and are unable to save their injured colleagues. It seems a decision has been made to execute all the workers who refused to evacuate the hospital,” it said in a statement.


Civil Defense says it was forced to stop operating across northern Gaza

Gaza’s Civil Defense says it has been forced to stop operating across the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip due to ongoing Israeli attacks, as thousands of citizens remain trapped without humanitarian and medical care.

It added that Israeli forces attacked Civil Defense crews operating in the north, seized their vehicles, forcibly displaced most of their members to the southern part of the Strip and abducted seven of them.

Top UN officials issued a joint statement last week warning that “the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”


Besieged Gaza hospital ‘turned more into a graveyard than a health facility’

Heavy artillery fired by the Israeli army hit the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the past hour, causing injuries to patients inside as well as some medical staff with some critically wounded. Children are among the wounded after Israeli forces targeted the paediatrics ward.

It’s the second time in the past few days that such attacks have happened. Earlier, a medical supply warehouse on the third floor of the facility was blown up.

The Israeli military has banned the World Health Organization and other medical missions from reaching the hospital. It is also preventing anyone from the outskirts of the hospital from reaching it for medical assistance.

There is not one single ambulance left that’s operating in northern Gaza. There’s an acute shortage of all basic medical supplies, and the hospital has basically turned more into a graveyard than a health facility.


Qassam Brigades targets Israeli forces in Gaza City

The armed wing of Hamas says its fighters have targeted Israeli soldiers east of the Shujayea neighbourhood with mortar rounds.

Meanwhile, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, al-Quds Brigades, said its forces “detonated a piercing explosive device in a Zionist vehicle that penetrated east of Jabalia camp” in the northern Gaza Strip.

Gaza civil defence: Medicine, water, and food severely blocked in northern Gaza

The spokesperson of the Gaza civil defence agency Mahmud Bassal has said more than 1,300 people have been killed so far in the Israeli military operation in northern Gaza, AFP news agency is reporting.

“There is a severe blockade on medicine, water, and food” in the north of the territory, he told AFP. “Medical teams, civil defence crews and hospitals in the northern region have been out of service for the 13th day in a row.”


Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip



SvennoJ 10 hours ago

Israeli military raids towns, villages in the occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have stormed Beit Ummar in the Hebron governorate and arrested two young men, the Wafa news agency reported. Citing local sources, Wafa said Israeli soldiers also ransacked several homes during the raid.

They also stormed several towns and villages in the Qalqilya governorate, including the village of Sanniriya where they fired stun grenades and caused panic, Wafa added.


Israeli soldiers accompany Israel settlers through the Old City of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, on Saturday


Israeli settlers burn vehicles in West Bank’s el-Bireh

Israeli settlers have burned several Palestinians’ vehicles in the city of el-Bireh in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency is reporting.

Palestinian firefighters rushed to respond after at least six vehicles were set on fire in the early hours of Monday morning, Wafa added.

Women in West Bank receive first aid training

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has shared a photo on X showing its “Stop the bleeding” training in Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem governorate in the occupied West Bank.

“Women learned how to care for wounds, apply tourniquets, and provide basic first aid to their family members and neighbours until they can reach medical care during incursions by Israeli forces,” MSF said.

Israeli forces often block Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from accessing healthcare facilities, especially during military incursions when there are injuries.



Israeli military enters West Bank’s el-Bireh

Footage posted on Palestinian local platforms and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency shows Israeli military vehicles have entered el-Bireh city in the occupied West Bank.

The raid comes hours after an attack by settlers, who set fire to citizens’ properties.

Settler attacks in the West Bank have been on the rise since October 7, 2023. Over the past year, at least 1,423 incidents of settler violence in the West Bank were recorded – an average of four a day, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. With 321 incidents, the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate saw the highest number of settler attacks, followed by 319 incidents in Nablus and 298 in Hebron.


Teen among 12 arrested by Israeli army overnight in West Bank

The Israeli military has arrested at least 12 Palestinians, including a teenager, from the occupied West Bank overnight, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has said in a statement.

The rights group said the arrests took place across the governorates of Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Qalqilya. It noted that the number of arrests in the West Bank had surpassed 11,600 since October 7, 2023.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Israeli military arrested Mohammed Awad, a media activist in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron. Muhammad Basem Muhammad Saeed Attia, 14, was also arrested in the same town.



SvennoJ 10 hours ago

Palestinian Foreign Ministry says failure to halt Gaza genocide behind rise in West Bank settler attacks

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry says the international failure to halt the ongoing genocide in Gaza is fuelling widespread settler crimes across the occupied West Bank. The statement, posted on X, comes after reports of settler attacks in the city of el-Bireh, where settlers burned several Palestinians’ vehicles.

“This assault is viewed as an extension of widespread settler crimes across the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and as a replication of the genocide and forced displacement campaign endured by the Palestinian people in Gaza, which has persisted unabated for 395 days,” it said.

While several foreign states have issued individual sanctions, the ministry said settlers “would not have committed such heinous crimes without the protection and immunity granted by the Israeli political leadership”.

It called on the international community to take more comprehensive measures to “hold all entities responsible for promoting or engaging in settler terrorism and systematic land annexation against the Palestinian people”.


Israeli settlers attack olive pickers in West Bank’s Hebron: Report

Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian olive pickers in Berin in the Hebron governorate of the occupied West Bank, Wafa reports. Locals told the news agency the settlers attacked farmers with sticks and stones and tried to steal one of their vehicles.

The Israeli army also prevented two families from reaching their land.

Olive cultivation is crucial in the Palestinian economy and is used for oil, soap and table olives among other things. About 80,000 to 100,000 Palestinian families rely on the olive harvest for their income, which takes place between October and November.


Israeli settlers attack Burqa village in West Bank, torch olive fields

Israeli settlers have attacked the Palestinian village of Burqa near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and burned olive fields, according to witnesses.

A group of settlers set fire to olive fields in the area and hurled rocks at Palestinian homes, triggering confrontations with local villagers, the witnesses said.

It came hours after some 20 Palestinian vehicles were burned in a settler attack early this morning in nearby el-Bireh.



SvennoJ 35 minutes ago

Israeli air strikes in Lebanon kill 16 and wound 90 in one day

Israel’s military has killed at least 16 people and injured 90 others in Lebanon today, according to the Health Ministry’s latest figures.

A ministry statement says the new fatalities raised the total number of people killed in Israeli attacks in the country since October 2023 to 3,002 with 13,492 others injured.


Hezbollah targets Israeli settlement in occupied Golan Heights

The Lebanese armed group says it has bombed Kidmat Tzvi in the occupied central Golan Heights with a rocket salvo. It also targeted the Ayelet Hashahar area in northern Israel with a barrage of projectiles.


Israeli fighter jets hit alleged Hezbollah ‘intel HQ’ in Syria

Earlier, Syrian state media reported that Israeli forces launched an air attack targeting “civilian areas” south of the capital, Damascus.

Israel’s air force has now put out a statement saying its jets conducted attacks targeting “terrorist targets of the intelligence headquarters of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah in the Syrian region”.

“The Intelligence Headquarters is the central intelligence body in Hezbollah that is responsible for building the organisation’s intelligence image, leads the direction of intelligence activities in the organisation, and is the centre of collection and detection capabilities,” it said in a post on X.

There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah on the attack.


Video shows huge blasts in southern Lebanon border village

Footage shows massive detonations in a southern Lebanese border village. The video, shared widely online, showed more than a dozen simultaneous blasts that ripped through Meiss el-Jabal and razed homes to dust.

Similar aerial scenes have been captured from several border villages including Mhaibib and Odaisseh since Israel sent ground troops into southern Lebanon in late September. “Seventy percent of Meiss el-Jabal is destroyed,” said Mayor Abdul-Monhem Choukair. “[The] Israeli enemy’s goal is systematic destruction.”

Choukair said four people, aged between 85 and 90, are trapped in Meiss el-Jabal’s rubble.

According to Lebanon’s official National News Agency, Israeli troops dynamited buildings in at least seven border villages last month.


Hezbollah targets Israeli forces in southern Lebanon

The Lebanese armed group says it fired rockets at a “movement of the Israeli enemy army forces” on the northeastern outskirts of the town of Maroun al-Ras. The group also said it bombed the Israeli city of Safed with a “salvo of rockets”.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire across the border of Israel and Lebanon since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The conflict took a violent turn last month after Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and intensified its air strikes.