What al-Faluja can tell us about toxic risk in Gaza and Lebanon

Over the past few months, thousands of people returned to their homes in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, where they faced threats from unexploded ordinances and lack of access to water, food and safe shelter. Many were forced to handle war debris, which may pose long-term health risks.

Our new research from al-Faluja, Iraq, published today by the Costs of War project at Brown University, reveals just how dangerous this debris can be. Two decades after the US-led invasion and almost a decade after the occupation of the city by (ISIL) ISIS, the enduring health effects of war are still evident.

When ISIL (ISIS) occupied al-Faluja in 2014, one of our study participants, Reina (not her real name), and her young family managed to flee north to the relative safety of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. While they were away, ISIL (ISIS) fighters used their house to store weapons. Iraqi and US warplanes then bombarded the entire neighbourhood, damaging the family’s house.

After they returned to their home two years later, and during the first trimester of her pregnancy, Reina cleared the rubble almost single-handedly – all the time breathing in a toxic mixture of concrete dust, munition remnants and the burned fragments of her home’s interior. Her son was born in 2017 with a congenital anomaly.

Reina’s story, and thousands of others like hers, contain lessons that are important for returnees in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

Israel army orders forced evacuation in northern Gaza

The Israeli military has told residents of the Jabalia area in northern Gaza to evacuate their homes ahead of an attack.

“To all those present in the area of Jabalia, this is an early warning before a strike. Terrorist organisations are once again returning to and firing rockets from populated areas … For your safety, head south towards the known shelters immediately,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X, after issuing similar warnings for the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon.

One killed in southern Lebanon by Israeli attack, state media reports

One person was killed in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon late on Monday, after a wave of intensive air attacks in the region over the weekend, state media reported.

“A raid by an enemy Israeli drone on a vehicle in the area of Qaqaiyat al-Jisr left one dead,” the National News Agency said, citing information from the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Israel launched air strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing eight people, in response to rocket fire that hit its territory for the first time since a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect on November 27.

No party has claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, which a military source said was launched from an area north of the Litani River, between the villages of Kfar Tebnit and Arnoun, near the zone covered by the ceasefire agreement.

Main events on March 24th

• At least 65 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours.
• Two Palestinian journalists were killed in Israeli air strikes, including Hossam Shabat, a reporter with Al Jazeera.
• The Israeli military issued new forced evacuation orders in northern Gaza. UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, says at least 124,000 Palestinians have been internally displaced in Gaza in recent days.
• The Israeli army confirmed it attacked a Red Cross building in Rafah, saying that the building’s affiliation was unknown at the time of the shooting.
• The UN announced that it would reduce the number of international staff in Gaza after staff were killed in recent strikes.
• Senior Trump administration officials accidentally added a reporter to a text chain in which they shared plans to strike Yemen – an unprecedented security breach.
• A Palestinian co-director of No Other Land was attacked by settlers and arrested by the Israeli army in the Susya area of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank.
• A 17-year-old Palestinian child has died while in Israeli custody – the first Palestinian minor to die in an Israeli prison.

US deflects questions on Israeli killings of journalists in Gaza, blames Hamas



The US State Department spokesperson has deflected questions about the killings of two journalists in Israeli attacks on Gaza – Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat and Palestine Today’s Mohammad Mansour – instead, placing the blame on Hamas.

“I would say that every single thing that’s happening is a result of Hamas and its choices to drag that region down into a level of suffering that has been excruciating and has caused innumerable deaths,” Tammy Bruce told reporters during a news briefing.

Bruce further reiterated US support for Israel, stating that Washington stands by Israel’s “needs as it defends itself”.

Pressed on whether the killing of the journalists could be considered a war crime, Bruce declined to provide a direct answer.

“I’m not going to stand here and declare what’s a war crime and what isn’t,” she said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the killing of Shabat and Mansour and called for an independent investigation into whether they were deliberately targeted.

“The deliberate and targeted killing of a journalist, of a civilian, is a war crime,” Jodie Ginsberg, the CPJ’s chief executive, said.

No Other Land filmmaker recounts latest brutal assault by Israeli settlers and soldiers

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/middleeast/ballal-oscar-palestinian-beaten-israeli-settlers-intl-latam/index.html



Hamdan Ballal, the co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was one of three Palestinians attacked by settlers and then detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank village of Susiya on Monday, according to lawyer Leah Tsemmel.

Police told her they are being held at a military base for medical treatment and she told The Associated Press she has not been able to speak with them.

Basel Adra, another co-director of the film, witnessed the detention and said about two dozen settlers – some masked, some carrying guns – attacked the village. Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones.

“We came back from the Oscars and every day since, there is an attack on us,” Adra told the AP. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”

No Other Land, which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.

Adra said that settlers entered the village on Monday evening shortly after residents broke the daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A settler – who according to Adra frequently attacks the village – walked over to Ballal’s home with the military, and soldiers shot in the air.

Ballal’s wife heard her husband being beaten outside and heard him scream, “I’m dying”, according to Adra.

Adra then saw the soldiers lead Ballal, handcuffed and blindfolded, from his home into a military vehicle. Speaking to the AP by phone, he said Ballal’s blood was still splattered on the ground outside his own front door.

A group of 10-20 masked settlers with stones and sticks also assaulted activists with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, smashing their car windows and slashing tyres to make them flee the area, one of the activists at the scene, Josh Kimelman, told the AP.

Houthis claim attacks on Israeli airport, US warships

The Yemeni rebel group says it has fired two ballistic missiles at Israel’s main airport and attacked a US aircraft carrier. The armed group said it targeted the Ben Gurion airport with two ballistic missiles, including “a Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missile”.

The announcement comes several hours after the Israeli military said it shot down a missile launched from Yemen before it crossed into Israeli territory.

The Houthis also said they fired “several missiles and drones” at the USS Harry Truman carrier and a number of US warships for the second time in the past 24 hours. There was no immediate comment from Israel or the US.

Two wounded in US attacks on Yemen: Report

The official Saba news agency is reporting that US air attacks have wounded at least two people on the outskirts of northern Saada city.

The agency, citing a security source, said the US launched at least eight raids on the area on Monday and that there have been daily attacks on the province of Saada since the campaign began last week.

The US launched its offensive on Yemen, killing at least 53 people, after the Houthi rebels, who control most of the impoverished country, threatened to resume attacks on Red Sea shipping. The threat came in response to Israel’s punishing blockade of the Gaza Strip.

US forces destroy cancer hospital in north Yemen

The Saba news agency is reporting that US forces have bombed Al-Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital for the second time in a week, “leading to its destruction”.

The Anti-Cancer Fund (ACF), a government body, condemned the attack as a “grave and brutal” act and said it constitutes a war crime.

“These attacks are not just airstrikes, but systematic executions, intended to eliminate hope and wipe out life amid a suffocating blockade,” it said in a statement, calling on the UN and the World Health Organization to take “urgent action to stop the systematic targeting of medical facilities”.

The ACF has previously said the cancer hospital was newly built, at a cost of 805,165,000 Saudi riyals ($3.3m), and was “in the final stages of preparation to be a treatment reference for hundreds of cancer patients in Saada and neighbouring provinces”.

US confirms attacks on Yemen

The US’s Central Command (CENTCOM) has published a video on X of fighter jets taking off from a runway with the words, “Give ’em Hell Harry!!!”

This may be a reference to the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which is currently stationed in the waters off Yemen.

The post in the early hours of this morning came after Yemeni media reported renewed US attacks on the northern province of Saada. The Saba news agency said at least two people were wounded and a cancer hospital was destroyed in the latest raids.

Yemen’s Houthis, meanwhile, said they had launched attacks on the US aircraft carrier, as well as Israel’s Ben Gurion airport.

Israel again bombs Syria airbases

The Israeli military says it launched attacks on the Syrian airbases of Tadmur and T-4. In a post on X, the military said it struck the “remaining military capabilities” in the airfields located near the city of Palmyra in Homs.

The attacks come days after the Israeli military bombed the same bases.

Earlier on Monday, the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said Israel’s strikes on Syria, as well as Lebanon, risked “further escalation”. She said Israel’s attacks on Syria – which began after the fall of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in December – were “unnecessary because Syria is right now not attacking Israel and that feeds more radicalisation that is also against Israel”.

Unnecessary? How about the attacks are war crimes, violating international law and Syria's sovereignty. Unnecessary, the EU is pathetic.

Five people killed by Israeli attack near Syria’s Deraa

Israeli forces launched a deadly new attack on the Syrian town of Koya, near Deraa.

In a post on its official Facebook page, the governorate of Deraa said five people, including a woman, were killed in the assault, which caused “a state of fear and panic” in the town.

The report comes hours after Israel’s military said it struck two Syrian airbases near the city of Palmyra.

Clashes near Syria’s Deraa after deadly bombardment: Report

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, has released more details on the Israeli assault near Syria’s Deraa city.

The deadly aerial bombardment on the village of Koya took place after Israeli forces attempting to enter the town clashed with local youth, according to the observatory.

Clashes are continuing as Israeli aircraft fly over the northern part of the village, the war monitor added, noting residents have started to flee.

Settler violence increases dramatically in the occupied West Bank

One of the co-directors of the Palestinian Oscar-winning film No Other Land has been detained by Israeli forces. It happened after he was attacked by a mob of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

He was in an ambulance trying to receive treatment when the doors were opened and he was taken by the Israeli military.

A number of American activists were also attacked, and video on social media shows them fleeing the settler violence.

This is just another issue in the rising settler violence across the occupied West Bank, which has dramatically increased since Israel’s war on Gaza. The United Nations has been documenting these attacks, and back in January, they said there was already a record high for the month of January 2025.

And these settlers often operate under the protection of Israeli forces, even though they are damaging Palestinian property, injuring Palestinians, stoning cars. They are operating under the protection of the Israeli forces, rendering Palestinians defenceless to a wide variety of threats, Israeli army raids, expulsion from their land and also settler violence.

Israeli military says Palestinian filmmaker arrested for throwing stones

Here’s more on the detention of Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian filmmaker who directed the Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land.

The Israeli military has confirmed arresting three Palestinians in the Masafar Yatta area, without naming Ballal.

In a post on X, it said it sent soldiers to the village of Susya to defuse tensions after “terrorists” threw stones at Israeli settlers. But the “terrorists” began throwing stones at the soldiers and the police, resulting in the arrest of three Palestinians and an Israeli, it said.

It denied reports that a “Palestinian was arrested while inside an ambulance”.

Earlier, Israeli journalist and No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham, said that a group of “armed KKK-like masked settlers” had “lynched” Ballal and that he had injuries to his stomach and head. But Israeli “soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him”.

Abraham shared a video of the incident on X. Watch below.

The group of armed KKK-like masked settlers that lynched No Other Land director Hamdan Ballal (still missing), caught here on camera. pic.twitter.com/kFGFxSEanY

— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 24, 2025

No news on location, condition of arrested Palestinian filmmaker: Lawyer

The whereabouts of Oscar-winning filmmaker Hamdan Ballal remain unknown after he was attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and taken away by Israeli soldiers.

Ballal was one of the three Palestinians detained in the village of Susiya on Monday. According to their lawyer Lea Tsemel, police told her they’re being held at an unidentified military base for “medical treatment”.

But Tsemel said she hadn’t been able to reach them and had no further information on their whereabouts.

Basel Adra, the co-director of No Other Land, witnessed the detention and said about two dozen settlers – some masked, some carrying guns, some in Israeli uniform – attacked the village. Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued pelting stones.

“We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us,” Adra told the AP. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”

‘Israel quite literally can get away with murder’

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and activist, says Oscar-winning film director Hamdan Ballal will “face the wrath” of the Israeli military after he was disappeared by soldiers.

She said it’s unclear if the detention of such a prominent Palestinian voice will raise awareness of Israel’s “apartheid” in the West Bank and its brutality in Gaza.

“If anything has been shown over the past year and a half, it’s that Israel quite literally can get away with murder. It’s gotten away with genocide,” she told Al Jazeera. “And so I don’t really have a whole lot of faith that the Israelis are going to behave any differently.”

There’s been no contact with Hamdan and three others taken by Israeli soldiers after they were beaten by masked Israeli settlers while troops looked on.

MSF lambasts Israeli attack on Gaza’s Nasser Hospital

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, has condemned the Israeli attack on Nasser Hospital that killed a top Hamas leader and a 16-year-old boy.

The group said the attack late on Sunday “shows a total disregard for the protection of medical facilities, endangered patients and medical staff and the very provision of healthcare”.

It said several of its staff were present at the facility, which is the largest remaining functioning hospital in the Gaza Strip, at the time of the attack. One of them described panic among patients as the bombing took place.

“The distance between us and the explosion was so close that we could’ve been hit too,” said an MSF nurse who works in another ward in Nasser Hospital and was close by when the strike happened. “Our colleagues, medical staff, patients and their caretakers were all terrified.”

UN humanitarian agency condemns Israel’s attack on Gaza hospital

OCHA has shared a video showing the destruction at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after Israel’s deadly attack on Sunday.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the agency, said that “more lives and the very existence of Gaza are at stake”. “Our calls for this madness to stop have gone unheeded. This bloody stain on our collective consciousness can only be undone if the world acts now,” she added.

Horrific scenes from last night's attack on Nasser Hospital in #Gaza.

Scores more people have been killed and injured over the past week, and the numbers continue to rise.

"This bloody stain on our collective consciousness can only be undone if the world acts now." ⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/ySSTPizeFR

— UN Humanitarian (@UNOCHA) March 24, 2025

PRCS says its 9 staff members still missing; Israel blocks search effort

Nine members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society are missing for a third consecutive day after they failed to return from a rescue mission in southern Gaza’s Rafah city.

The first responders headed for the al-Hashaashin neighbourhood of Rafah on Sunday after reports of casualties, but were “besieged” by Israeli forces, according to PRCS.

Their fate “remains unknown”, it said. Israeli authorities have refused to cooperate with efforts to reach them through international organisations.

“The Palestine Red Crescent expresses its deep concern for the safety of its teams and holds the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for their fate,” it said on X.

🚨For the third consecutive day, the fate of nine Palestine Red Crescent ambulance crew members remains unknown after they were besieged and targeted by Israeli occupation forces in #Rafah.

⭕️Meanwhile, the occupation authorities continue to reject all coordination attempts by…

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) March 25, 2025

Gaza authorities demand immediate release of civil defence teams in Rafah

Gaza’s Government Media Office has accused Israel of “kidnapping 15 emergency and civil defence personnel in Rafah”, after they left to carry out rescue operations in the southern Gaza Strip.

“We demand their immediate release,” it said in a statement. “This heinous crime constitutes a flagrant violation of international law through the deliberate enforced disappearance of humanitarian personnel who are protected under the Geneva Conventions.”

Earlier, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said nine of its staff were missing for a third consecutive day after they failed to return from a rescue mission in Rafah.

Israeli fighter jets and helicopter gunships buzz central Gaza

The situation is escalating especially in Gaza City’s Shujayea and Zeitoun neighbourhoods. Israeli forces are attacking houses there. Evacuation orders were also issued in the middle of the night in Jabalia, where Palestinians were forced to leave under fire in the dark.

Here in Deir el-Balah, Israeli forces targeted the homes of two families. The sound of F-16s and Apache helicopters is extremely loud in the sky and traumatising for Palestinian children.

In central Gaza’s Bureij camp, an attack killed eight Palestinians from the same family. A fire that erupted from the attack burned for hours. Most of those killed in the central area are women and children.

All of this happens as Israeli forces continue to close crucial land crossings. There is still no food, no fuel, no medical supplies and no cooking gas being let into Gaza.

Israel army forcibly displaces tens of thousands in northern Gaza

The Israeli military has now expanded evacuation orders to tens of thousands of residents across the war-battered enclave.

On Tuesday, the Israeli army told residents in all northern border towns to evacuate, saying Palestinian rockets were fired at Israel from the area. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has already been forcibly displaced multiple times during nearly 18 months of war.

The Israeli military resumed its campaign against Hamas in Gaza a week ago, shattering a two-month ceasefire. Since then, more than 730 people, mostly women and children, have been killed.

Palestinians face worsening shortages of food, drinking water and medicine after Israel blocked aid deliveries on March 2.

Illegal settlements ‘a central part of Israel’s state policy’

The expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and the expulsion of the Palestinian population has become “a central part of Israel’s state policy”, an analyst says.

“The idea is to render the idea of a Palestinian state completely impossible,” Mohamad Elmasry, a lecturer at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera.

More than 200 existing illegal settlements and outposts housing about 800,000 settlers are “all part of the plan”.

“There is no Palestinian in the West Bank that is truly safe,” Elmasry said. The detention of Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian filmmaker who directed the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, shows not even notoriety can provide safety.

“In fact, that sort of notoriety may draw the ire of some of the settlers who have become emboldened over the past 18 months,” Elmasry added.

West Bank a ‘tinderbox’ requiring diplomatic solution

The situation in the occupied West Bank is a “tinder box that will lead to nothing good until an agreement of some sort is devised”, says Dan Perry, an author and former Associated Press regional editor.

Perry said Israel faces “a significant danger” from fighters in the West Bank and in Jenin in particular, which made raids necessary to minimise the risk of attacks.

“On the other hand, it’s also true the situation in the West Bank is completely inadmissible. Half a million Israeli settlers have full rights and two and a half million Palestinians are largely without rights.”

A diplomatic solution is needed to “create either true coexistence or a plausible separation between two groups”, Perry added.

Qatar slams Israel plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza

The Qatari Foreign Ministry has condemned in the “strongest terms” the Israeli cabinet’s plan to establish a government agency to relocate the residents of Gaza, as well as its decision to recognise 13 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“Qatar stresses that any form of Palestinian displacement constitutes a blatant violation of international humanitarian law,” the ministry said in a statement. It called for “strong international solidarity to hold the occupation accountable for complying with the will for peace and to immediately end the brutal war on the Gaza Strip”.

Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, too, have condemned the Israeli plan.

A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that the new agency will be tasked with “preparing the voluntary departure of residents of the Gaza Strip to third countries in a safe and controlled manner”.

Palestinians have rejected any attempt to displace them from their homeland while rights groups say such moves amount to ethnic cleansing – a war crime.

More on Egypt’s proposal to restore Gaza truce

According to the AP, the proposal calls for Hamas to release five living captives, including an American Israeli, in return for Israel allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza and a weeks-long pause in the fighting. Israel would also release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

The Reuters news agency is now offering more details on the Egyptian plan.

Citing two security sources, Reuters said the Egyptian plan calls for Hamas to release five Israeli captives each week, with Israel implementing the second phase of the ceasefire after the first week.

Both the US and Hamas have agreed to the proposal, the security sources told Reuters, but Israel has not yet responded.

They added that the Egyptian proposal includes a timeline for a full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza, backed by US guarantees, in exchange for the release of remaining captives.

Hamas is still holding 59 captives, with 24 thought to be still alive.


Israeli minister: Shin Bet chief believes in establishing Palestinian state

Israel’s heritage minister says Ronen Bar, head of the intelligence agency who was sacked by Netanyahu, “believes in the distorted concept of establishing a Palestinian state and endangers Israel”.

In comments to the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Amichai Eliyahu said Bar would be prosecuted “if it is found that he indeed conspired against Netanyahu and the elected leadership”.

The minister called for an investigation to establish whether Bar “undermined democracy” and whether he “knew that something would happen on October 7 and did not inform Netanyahu”.

The Supreme Court has suspended the government’s decision to dismiss the Shin Bet chief. Bar’s dismissal has triggered mass antigovernment protests with many Netanyahu critics suggesting Bar’s ouster was motivated by a desire to halt an inquiry into the events leading up to the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.