Israeli reservists sign letter opposing war on Gaza: Report

Yesterday, we reported that senior commanders in Israel’s air force had, according to Israeli media, been calling and meeting with reserve officers and soldiers to threaten them with dismissal if they do not withdraw their signatures from a letter calling for an end to the fighting in Gaza.

Today, Haaretz has released some details of the letter, saying it was signed by nearly 1,000 reservists.

The newspaper says the signatories stated that the war on Gaza now serves political, not security interests, and warned it risks more deaths, including captives, soldiers, and civilians, while wearing down the Israeli military’s reserves.

The letter also stated, “As has been proven in the past, only a deal can bring back the hostages safely, while military pressure mainly leads to the killing of the hostages and the endangerment of our soldiers.”

The signatories urged all Israeli citizens to demand an end to the war, warning, “Every day that passes puts their lives at risk.”

Haaretz said only 25 retracted their signatures after pressure from Air Force commander Tomer Bar, while eight more signed in protest.

Israel’s military chief says reservists who signed letter calling for end to war will be dismissed: Report

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz now reports that the Israeli military chief of staff and Air Force commander have stated that reservists who signed the letter will be ousted from service.

‘Extremist fringe group’: Netanyahu slams reservists calling for war to end

The letter, signed by about 1,000 Israeli current and retired reservists calling for an end to the war in Gaza, is causing an uproar in Israel. As we reported earlier, the Israeli military chief of staff said the service of those who signed the letter would be terminated.

Now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a harsh statement calling the signatories “an extremist fringe group that is trying again to break Israeli society from within”.

“This noisy fringe group is mobilised for one goal – to overthrow the government. It does not represent the fighters or the public. The [Israeli army] is fighting – and we are all behind it,” he said in a statement published by his office on X.

According to Israeli media, the letter does not call for a general refusal to serve but urges Israeli officials to prioritise the release of captives rather than pursuing the war in the Strip that, they say, “serves mainly political and personal interests, not security interests”.

Israeli military forces families to evacuate homes in Tulkarem

Israeli forces have stormed eastern neighbourhoods in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem and forced families to evacuate their homes, according to our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues.

Israeli military raids have also been reported in locations across the occupied West Bank over recent hours, including:

Israeli army blows up Palestinian prisoner’s home in West Bank

That was the house of Mohammed Shahrour in the eastern neighbourhood of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, according to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera.

The Palestinian Information Center published a video showing smoke billowing into the sky coming from what it said was the house of Shahrour.

This is at least the third punitive home demolition in two days by the Israeli army. On Wednesday, Israeli troops inspected for demolition the house of Barakat Mansour, a slain Palestinian fighter, west of Ramallah, and packed explosives into the home of prisoner Zaid al-Junaidi in Hebron.

Demolishing the homes of Palestinians “suspected of carrying out attacks” on Israelis is a long-held practice of Israel. Thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes to demolitions in what human rights groups say is a policy by Israel of “collective punishment” that may amount to war crimes.

Israeli forces demolish Palestinian homes near Hebron, leaving 15 people displaced

Israeli forces have assaulted Palestinians in a village near Hebron while demolishing three homes housing 15 people, according to the Ma’an news agency.

The demolitions started without previous notice or court order, and the Palestinians were not allowed to move out their belongings, according to the report.

Ar-Rihiya is a Palestinian town 6km (3.7 miles) southwest of Hebron in the southern West Bank.

In a separate episode also near Hebron, Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli forces attacked shepherds in the Rujoum Ali area in Masafer Yatta. The settlers severely beat a Palestinian who was transferred to hospital for treatment.

Settlers continuously attack shepherds in Masafer Yatta and prevent them from grazing their sheep while they release their sheep on Palestinian lands under the protection of Israeli forces.

Hamas urges UK court to remove terrorist group designation

Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk on Wednesday submitted a formal legal application on behalf of the Palestinian group to UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, calling for her to remove its designation as a terror group.

Marzouk, the head of international relations and the legal office for Hamas’s political bureau, wrote in the filing that Hamas is a “Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project”.

The more than 100-page filing – which draws on 20 scholars, including former ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice John Dugard – argues that proscribing Hamas represents a violation of the UK’s obligations under international law not to be complicit in genocide.

The filing also argues that the UK’s proscription stands in breach of the group’s rights to freedom of expression and assembly and is disproportionate.

The legal team representing Marzouk, Riverway Law, argued in its own court filing that while Hamas’s actions may fit the definition of “terrorism” under UK law, so do the Israeli military’s actions, as well as those of Ukraine’s army and the UK military.

“The client’s application situates the significance of bringing such an application in the UK due to the historic and continued role the British government has played in the dispossession of the Palestinian people,” the firm said in a post on X.

Nothing in these posts invites any individual to support, or express support for any proscribed organisation listed by the British Home Secretary under the Terrorism Act 2000. These posts are only to provide a summary of the legal application to summarise its significance.

— Riverway Law (@riverwaylaw) April 9, 2025

Greenpeace members arrested after dye protest outside US embassy

A dozen activists poured 300 litres (79 gallons) of biodegradable dye into the pond outside the embassy in southwest London, using containers bearing the words “Stop Arming Israel”, Greenpeace said.

Will McCallum, Greenpeace UK’s co-executive director, was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause criminal damage, the group said in a statement.

“Five people have so far been arrested nearby on suspicion of criminal damage and conspiracy to cause criminal damage,” the Metropolitan Police force said.

Greenpeace UK said six people had been arrested, including one of its heads, but the police did not provide the names of those detained.

“These arrests are further proof that the right to protest is under attack in the UK. This protest used biodegradable pond dye that is designed to disperse and wash away naturally,” said co-executive director Areeba Hamid.

Greenpeace is calling for the UK and US governments to impose an arms embargo on Israel, which renewed its assault on Gaza last month.


_{Greenpeace UK activists pour 300 litres of blood-red dye into the US Embassy pond in London}

Unpacking Israel’s war on international humanitarian law

The Israeli army has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians – men, women and children – since it launched what legal scholars describe as a “genocidal” war on Gaza.

Israel often justifies its killings by claiming the targets are people sympathetic or affiliated with Hamas or other armed factions. It also regularly destroys entire neighbourhoods killing dozens, often hundreds, at a time, ostensibly to target a single Hamas operative.

For years, Israel has tried to justify these practices by employing lawyers to create shadowy quasi-legal concepts in the hope of establishing new, dangerous precedents, according to legal scholars.

However, experts told Al Jazeera neither so-called “targeted killings” or disproportionate attacks against civilians have any grounding in international law.

Death toll from earlier US attacks on Yemen’s Hodeidah rises to 14

We have an update from Yemen’s Health Ministry on the toll of US-led coalition strikes earlier this week.

The death toll from the attacks on a residential neighbourhood in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah on Tuesday has risen to 14 people, most of them women and children, the ministry said. Fifteen others were also injured.

The revised death toll comes as civil defence teams and emergency responders have been working to dig through debris following the attack.

Dozens of people have been killed across Yemen after US President Trump’s administration launched an intense campaign of air strikes against the Houthis. The Yemeni group has been carrying out attacks on Red Sea shipping in solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war in Gaza.

Netanyahu attacks Canada’s PM Carney over ‘genocide’ remark

The Israeli prime minister has slammed his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney over remarks made during a Canadian election campaign rally earlier this week.

Carney was interrupted at the event in Calgary by a protester who shouted, “Mr Carney, there’s a genocide in Palestine!” according to Canadian media reports.

The Liberal Party leader answered: “I’m aware. That’s why we have an arms embargo.”

A day later, Carney walked back the comment, saying he hadn’t heard the word “genocide”.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, an advocacy group, described the episode as “unacceptable”. It urged Carney to affirm the findings of UN experts, genocide scholars and rights groups that have labelled Israel’s Gaza war a genocide.

PM Netanyahu:

Canada has always sided with civilization. So should Mr. Carney. But instead of supporting Israel, a democracy fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the only Jewish state.
Mr. Carney, backtrack your irresponsible statement!

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) April 10, 2025

Netanyahu backs dismissal of Israeli reservists calling for Gaza war’s end

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced about 1,000 Israeli Air Force reservists who called for an end to the war in Gaza, referring to them as “marginal and extremist”.

Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister “backs the decision” of the defence minister and the Israeli military chief of staff “to dismiss those who signed the letter”, which has ignited a political uproar in Israel.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/10/middleeast/israeli-military-fires-air-force-reservists-who-publicly-called-for-immediate-hostage-return-intl/index.html

Ahmad Manasra’s case reflects Palestinian prisoners’ suffering: Advocate

Khaled Kuzmar, the general director of Defense for Children International–Palestine, has welcomed the release of Ahmad Manasra, who was arrested in 2015 at age 13 and faced severe abuse in Israeli detention.

“He was subjected to isolation, to ill-treatment, to torture,” Kuzmar told Al Jazeera.

Manasra’s case reflects the suffering that Palestinian prisoners face from the moment they are arrested, through their interrogations and detention in Israeli prisons, he said.

“He suffered from schizophrenia while he was kept in isolation for years,” noted Kuzmar, adding the situation deteriorated even further since Israel’s Gaza war began.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/10/middleeast/ahmad-manasra-release-intl-latam/index.html

Main events on April 10th

Rescue workers hear sounds of trapped babies, children under rubble after Israeli attacks

There is no end to the Israeli military operations nor their air strikes and the nonstop bombardment campaign that has been widely seen as intensifying over the course of the past 24 hours.

It is understood that Israel is deliberately and squarely targeting heavily built-up residential areas that have been flattened and decimated with no prior warning for them or the Palestinian civilians to flee the area.

Many Palestinians have been caught under the rubble of their destroyed homes.

We have heard very horrific testimonies from civil defence crews saying that while they were rescuing Palestinians trapped under their destroyed homes, they were hearing the sounds of babies and the sound of children crying for help and shouting for any sort of rescue.

Pentagon bolsters presence in Middle East with two carriers

The USS Carl Vinson – which is armed with F-35C stealth warplanes – is now working alongside the USS Harry S Truman in the region, US Central Command says.

The post featured side-by-side video clips of fighter aircraft taking off from the two ships.

The Pentagon announced last week it’s increasing the number of US carriers in the Middle East to two after launching an air campaign against the Yemeni rebel group, the Houthis, in March.

The intense air strikes have targeted the Houthis over their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. The Yemeni group has been carrying out attacks in solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war on Gaza.

Dozens of people in Yemen have been killed. Civilians have been targeted, families wiped out, military sites destroyed and soldiers killed.

Israeli forces not just applying military but also medical pressure on Gaza

On the other side of the Gaza Strip, we can see that there has been pretty much a concentration on targeting makeshift tents and residential homes in the city of Khan Younis. Israel is systematically looking to isolate significant parts and tracts of land in Gaza in order to expand the so-called “buffer zone”.

But there is more, growing – not just military pressure, but also medical isolation.

Gaza’s healthcare system has been left struggling to survive and provide the minimal level of medical services for the surging numbers of casualties arriving to the hospitals, and for also ensuring the stability of the medical service due to the chronic shortages of all essential medical supplies as the Israeli blockade continues.

Palestinian baby injured in Israeli attack has arm amputated: Report

A Palestinian baby, reportedly injured in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, has had their arm amputated, according to the Palestinian Information Center.

Footage published on social media shows the very young girl – cut, bruised and unconscious – in hospital after having the procedure carried out.

غير عادي ابدا ..

طفلة بريئة بُترت ذراعها جراء قصف الاحتلال منزل عائلتها في حي الشجاعية شرقي مدينة غزة. pic.twitter.com/l3UzOiSKV8

— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) April 10, 2025

The health system in Gaza has been destroyed: MSF

Myriam Laaroussi, an emergency coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, spoke to Al Jazeera from al-Mawasi, an area west of Khan Younis that houses thousands of displaced Gaza families.

US military carries out renewed strikes on Yemen

US fighter jets have carried out a series of air strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over recent hours, including: