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

SvennoJ on 27 March 2024

Further escalations in the North

One injured, property damaged from rocket barrage in northern Israel

Rocket shrapnel has injured a young man near the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, according to Israel’s national rescue service, cited by The Times of Israel. Rockets also damaged several buildings in the area, according to Israeli media.

The reports come as Hezbollah claims to have fired dozens of rockets towards Kiryat Shmona in response to Israel’s strike on an emergency centre in southern Lebanon that killed seven people.


Man killed in northern Israel from rocket attack

A man has been declared dead after being pulled from the rubble of an industrial building hit by a rocket in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, reports The Times of Israel, citing Israel’s national ambulance service.


Anger, worry in Lebanese border town after Israeli strike

I’m standing in front of the emergency health centre in al-Habbariyeh village that was struck earlier today by Israel. We are not very far from the border and there is an Israeli drone overhead. People here tell us that the men who were inside the building were paramedics, volunteers and university students, all in their early 20s.

There is a lot of anger in this village. This is the first time it has been hit during the war. There is total destruction. People here say this was not a military target, as the Israeli military claims, but a civilian target.

These people will tell you that Israel’s strategy from day one has been to depopulate villages close to the border. They are trying to create some sort of a buffer zone, to make it difficult for civilians to live here. Nearly 100,000 people have already left. In this particular village, people are still here, but there is growing concern that it will start coming under fire.



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SvennoJ on 27 March 2024

Dozens of rockets launched into northern Israel

The Israeli army is essentially saying they targeted what they’re calling “a significant operative inside of Lebanese territory”.

The Israelis are also saying around 30 rockets were launched into northern Israel, specifically into the city of Kiryat Shmona, an area that has seen repeated rocket fire from Lebanese territory since the Gaza war began.

It’s an area that has been largely evacuated by Israeli authorities, though some people still remain there by their own will. The Israelis have been saying for quite some time now that this is a situation on Israel’s northern border and they are trying to see how they’re going to deal with it if it’s not on the diplomatic front.



Israel bombs southern Lebanon, casualties reported

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says that an Israeli attack hit a cafe in the village of Naquora, near the country’s border with Israel. It said that ambulances were on their way to the scene to deal with casualties, the exact number and nature of which are unclear at this time.

Another US government employee quits over Israel’s war on Gaza

A US State Department staffer resigned because of continuing American government support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Annelle Sheline, 38, quit after a year as a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, the Washington Post reports. Sheline told the newspaper she repeatedly raised concerns, but concluded it was pointless “as long as the US continues to send a steady stream of weapons to Israel”.

In October, Josh Paul resigned from the State Department in protest against American support for Israel’s attack.


https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/opinions/gaza-israel-resigning-state-department-sheline/index.html

For the past year, I worked for the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East. I believe strongly in the mission and in the important work of that office. However, as a representative of a government that is directly enabling what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide in Gaza, such work has become almost impossible. Unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities, I have decided to resign from my position at the Department of State.


Authorities tell people to avoid aid centres amid Israeli attacks

Gaza’s health ministry issued an appeal for residents in central and northern Gaza not to go to the al-Rashid and Kuwait Roundabout areas to collect aid parcels because of the danger from Israeli attacks.

The appeal comes after two people waiting for aid at the Kuwait Roundabout were severely wounded after being shot by Israeli snipers, according to Wafa news agency. In a statement on Telegram, the ministry asked people not to gather around humanitarian relief convoys but to wait for aid to be distributed through “popular committees”.

It also said the health system in central and northern Gaza can no longer treat the dozens wounded every day in Israeli attacks.

Ireland to intervene in South Africa genocide case against Israel

The Republic of Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin has said that the war on Gaza now “represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale”.

“The taking of hostages. The purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians. The targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure. The indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The use of civilian objects for military purposes. The collective punishment of an entire population,” Martin said in a statement.

“The list goes on. It has to stop. The view of the international community is clear. Enough is enough.”

In January the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians, after South Africa accused Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.

Martin said Ireland would intervene in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, but did not say what form the intervention would take or outline any argument or proposal the country plans to put forward.



SvennoJ on 27 March 2024

Israel asks US to reschedule scrapped meeting on Rafah ground offensive

Israel has asked to reschedule a meeting with US officials to discuss its military plans in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, a US official told a number of media outlets, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly scrapped the planned talks.

Netanyahu called off a planned visit to Washington by a senior Israeli delegation after the US allowed passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the United Nations on Monday. US officials said the Biden administration was perplexed by the Israeli cancellation and considered it an overreaction to the UN Security Council resolution, insisting there had been no change in policy.

On Wednesday, a US official said Netanyahu’s office “has said they’d like to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah. We are now working with them to set a convenient date.”

I guess the UNSC immediate ceasefire resolution doesn't apply to US/Israel. Let's talk more about invading Rafah.


Ceasefire hopes fade after non-stop Israeli attacks: UNICEF

James Elder says the hopes of people in Gaza have been dashed over the past two nights as Israel continues its attacks despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.

“There was so much hope in Gaza after Monday’s call for a ceasefire. That hope, night after night, is being drowned out by bombs,” he said in a video posted on Instagram. Pointing his camera towards a wounded boy in a hospital bed, Elder said, “This is a seven-year-old Mohammed and this is the face and result of the ceasefire in Gaza.”

The UN resolution passed on Monday called for an immediate truce for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks, and demands the release of all captives seized in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5BnATggQBt/

Prominent US senator demands ‘time and space’ for Israel in Gaza

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham wants the Biden administration and US Congress to allow Israel to militarily defeat all remaining Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The invasion plan has drawn controversy because the area is overflowing with 1.5 million displaced civilians. Israel says there are thousands of Hamas fighters there.

Defeating Hamas in Rafah is “non-negotiable”, Graham told reporters in West Jerusalem. “I urge the Biden administration, the Congress to make sure that Israel has the time and space to achieve victory over Hamas militarily.”


Senator Lindsay Graham on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, the United States

There goes my last ounce of respect for the US, United states of terror.

‘A nightmare’: MSF warns against looming Israeli operation in Rafah

Leo Kanz, head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mission in Gaza, says “any attack on Rafah would be catastrophic, inhumane and would lead to mass human casualties”.

"If the attack occurs in Rafah, we just don’t know where to put the patients. There is no place for the patients to go,” he added in a video posted on X. “The situation in the Gaza Strip as a whole is a nightmare, to say the least.”

US raises issue of incarcerated Palestinian leader with Israel: Report

The US highlighted the mistreatment of Marwan Barghouti, one of the most prominent Palestinian political figures imprisoned by Israel, with the Israeli government, the Washington Post reports.

This comes after Barghouti’s family and prisoners’ rights groups alleged he’s been physically and psychologically abused since October 7.

Barghouti, 64, received five life sentences for his role in the second Intifada and is being incarcerated in Megiddo, a maximum-security prison.

According to Barghouti’s son, Arab, who was interviewed by the Post, Barghouti “was physically assaulted, placed in solitary confinement in darkness for 12 days, and the Israeli national anthem was pumped into his cell ‘at a very high volume from around 5am until midnight, for many days'”.


Palestinians, and some Israelis, see Marwan Barghouti as key to peace. They need him out of prison first

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/marwan-barghouti-peace-1.7154912

After more than 2 decades in jail, the man Israel brands a terrorist remains most popular Palestinian leader


Palestinians wave banners bearing the image of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti during a celebration marking the 57th anniversary of Fatah movement's foundation, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in December 2021. Calls are growing for Barghouti's release from those who believe he could have an important role to play in the peace process.

The graffitied image of Marwan Barghouti's face on the huge concrete slabs of Israel's separation barrier, or wall, at the main Israeli checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah has darkened with the smoke and tear gas of countless demonstrations against an occupation now in its 57th year.  

But his name hasn't faded.

After more than two decades in an Israeli jail, Barghouti remains the most popular Palestinian leader there is, consistently leading opinion polls ahead of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

For Palestinians, he is a political prisoner. For Israelis, he is a terrorist accused of leading a militant offshoot of the Fatah movement known as the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and convicted of ordering killings and suicide bombings during the second intifada, or uprising.  


An Israeli prison guard escorts Marwan Barghouti in 2012

With the decimation of Gaza in an Israeli bombing campaign now in its sixth month, and uncertainty over "the day after," calls are growing for Barghouti's release from those who believe he could have an important role to play.

....

Israel and Hamas are trying to negotiate a second exchange. Even though Barghouti has long been a member of the rival Fatah faction that leads the Palestinian Authority, Hamas has put Barghouti's name on its list, as it did last fall.   

Aarab says it's a testament to his father's unifying appeal among Palestinians, and why Israel would be wise to release him.  

"If any Israeli leader really wants an end for this and peace for the region on the long term, they would see that my father is someone that would bring that, who still believes in the tiny chance left for the two-state solution."   

That would be a hard ask for Israelis who see Barghouti as a terrorist with blood on his hands. He was convicted by an Israeli court for his role in the second intifada violence and sentenced to five life terms in 2004. 

Barghouti refused to present a defence to a court whose authority he doesn't recognize but has denied the allegations.  

He's backed popular peaceful resistance and said he doesn't condone attacks on civilians, but has not renounced violence as a means of resisting the occupation.  


Palestinians walk past graffiti depicting Barghouti on Israel's controversial separation barrier in the occupied West Bank city of Abu Dis. Barghouti remains the most popular Palestinian leader there is, consistently leading opinion polls ahead of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.



SvennoJ on 27 March 2024

Watchdog demands answers from Israel on disappeared Palestinian journalist

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has demanded that the Israeli army shed light on the whereabouts of Gaza journalist Bayan Abusultan. RSF says Abusultan was last seen on March 19, “among those sequestered in the raid on al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.”

Abusultan has been offline since reporting witnessing her own brother being shot by Israeli forces.




Footage shows Israeli forces targeting Palestinians

Al Jazeera Arabic aired video showing Israeli soldiers shooting dead two Palestinians while they walked in an open area along the coast, apparently trying to return to northern Gaza.

One of the men repeatedly waves what looks to be a white towel. The footage also shows Israeli soldiers burying the two with a bulldozer after they were killed.

The footage is graphic and may not be advisable for some viewers.

Yeah that's sickening, especially how casually the IDF buries the two men with a bulldozer. How many bodies are buried around Gaza like that.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent reports that the men were attempting to return to northern Gaza, travelling along al-Rashid Street. Near the Nablusi roundabout southwest of Gaza City, the men, waving white flags, are met by a deployment of Israeli forces and killed, before their bodies are buried among rubbish and rubble by Israeli army bulldozers.

In a statement, Hamas condemns the killings, saying the events captured in the footage are “further evidence of the scale of fascism and criminality that governs Zionist behaviour, in the context of the brutal war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip”.

The statement called on the International Criminal Court to take “necessary measures” to hold Israel accountable for “the crimes they commit against children and defenceless civilians”.


Several killed, wounded in Israeli bombing of aid workers

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report several people were killed and injured in an Israeli attack that targeted the tribal committees responsible for securing aid south of Gaza City.

Earlier this month, Israeli air strikes targeted tribal aid distribution workers in Gaza City’s Kuwait roundabout, killing at least 23 people.

 

Death toll climbs in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon.

At least nine people were killed on Wednesday night in two separate Israeli strikes in the south of Lebanon, the country’s state-run National News Agency says. Among those killed were four paramedics who work for a local civil defence organisation affiliated with Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has also this evening announced the deaths of three of its fighters via its Telegram channel, without saying, as per usual, how or where the men died.

Earlier, we reported that the Israeli army bombed the southern Lebanese villages of Naqoura and Tayr Harfa, which the Israeli army said were in retaliation for a Hezbollah rocket barrage directed at the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona. The attack on Kiryat Shmona, Hezbollah said, was in retaliation for an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon that killed seven paramedics.

These deaths make today the deadliest for Lebanon since Hezbollah began exchanging fire with the Israeli army on October 8.


Palestinian girls held at Israeli checkpoint in occupied West Bank

Israeli forces apprehended the two children at a military checkpoint in central Hebron, Wafa news agency reports.

Activist Yasser Abu Markhiya told the Palestinian news agency that Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint, near the Jabal al-Rahma Mosque in Tal Rumeida, held his daughters Zainab and Jana, aged 8 and 10, respectively.

It was unclear from the report when or if the girls had been released.



SvennoJ on 28 March 2024

CAIR calls for UN probe of unarmed Palestinians killed by Israeli army

The UN must investigate the killing of unarmed Palestinian men on a beach in Gaza whose bodies were then bulldozed under the sand by Israeli soldiers, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said.

Video footage has emerged showing Israeli forces gunning down two men on Gaza’s coast who posed no threat, and then using a military bulldozer to bury their bodies. Calling for an international investigation of the “heinous war crime”, the council said Israel appears to “kill Palestinians on a whim” and then treats the bodies of its victims “like trash”.

“The genocidal Israeli [government] must be investigated by the UN,” CAIR said on social media. “This genocide must be stopped, not excused or supported with weapons [and] rhetoric.”




Visual ‘evidence’ of Israelis killing unarmed Palestinians confirms ‘atrocities’ in Gaza: Falk

Professor Richard Falk, a former UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, said the shooting of the two Palestinians on the coast in Gaza by Israeli forces was “vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities”.

The visual evidence of the killings also highlights the “unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis”, Falk told Al Jazeera. The “real-time” exposure of such atrocities “has been part of what has been so shocking throughout this entire Israel onslaught on Gaza”, Falk said, speaking from California.

“The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behaviour. It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment in Western, international moral behaviour,” he said.

Falk added that Israel is unconcerned with upholding international humanitarian law and is refusing to alter its behaviour in Gaza despite the recent ceasefire resolution of the UN Security Council.

“Israel pursues its own objectives which are inconsistent and contradict international humanitarian law and the genocide convention and numerous other sources of legal authority,” he said.


What does the US do?

US official accuses UN expert on Palestine of anti-Semitism

A spokesman for the US State Department has accused a UN expert of anti-Semitism and dismissed her findings that Israel is committing genocidal acts in Gaza

Matthew Miller made the comments when a journalist asked him to respond to a recent report by Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, that found Israel’s assault on Gaza reveals an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group.

“For a very longstanding period of time, we have opposed the mandate of this special rapporteur, which we believe is not productive,” Miller said.

“And when it comes to the individual who holds that position, I can’t help but note a history of anti-Semitic comments that she has made that has been reported. And comments she made in December that appeared to justify the attacks of October 7. I think that’s important to take into account,” he said.

"With respect to the report itself, we have made clear that we believe that allegations of genocide are unfounded. But at the same time, we are deeply concerned by the number of civilian casualties,” he added.



Turn yourself in at the ICC, pos.


US overlooks Israeli abuses in Gaza to justify arms transfers: Advocates

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/27/us-overlooks-israeli-abuses-in-gaza-to-justify-arms-transfers-advocates

The United States has not found Israel in violation of international humanitarian law despite months of war on Gaza and the killing of almost 32,500 Palestinians, civilian infrastructure destroyed and 80 percent of people displaced and on the brink of starvation.

Washington’s indifferent stance on the conduct of Israel’s war on Gaza – made public this week – has prompted condemnation from rights groups and observers.

“It invites global mockery and disdain to hear such a statement issued in front of the world by the Biden administration,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Democracy for the Arab World Now.

“It’s absurd,” Whitson said.


Smoke rises from an Israeli attack in the central Gaza Strip on March 22



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SvennoJ on 28 March 2024

Israeli forces launch air attacks across northern Gaza

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that Israeli forces have launched air attacks on northern Gaza, including Gaza City and the Shati and Jabalia refugee camps. The attacks targeted residential buildings in Gaza City’s Remal neighbourhood and an electrical appliances centre in Jabalia, causing a fire to break out there.

AJA also said Israeli forces have launched artillery attacks in the vicinity of the al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City.



Three Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that at least three people were killed and 20 other wounded in an Israeli raid on a home in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City. Al Jazeera Arabic also said there were casualties as a result of an Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.

Al-Shifa fighting indicates Palestinians maintain ‘significant combat effectiveness’: Monitors

Palestinian fighters have carried out almost 70 attacks against Israeli forces in the vicinity of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City since March 18, when the Israeli military returned to the area, war monitors report.

“This high rate of attack indicates that Palestinian militias retain a significant degree of combat effectiveness in the area, despite continued Israeli clearing efforts around Gaza City,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) said in their latest Gaza battlefield assessment.

The US-based think tanks said at least six armed Palestinian groups are battling Israeli forces deployed around al-Shifa Hospital. Despite Israel completing a “clearing operation” in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood on March 3, Israeli forces returned to the area on Wednesday, a move which suggests Palestinian fighters continue to operate there as they do elsewhere in Gaza City, according to the latest ISW/CTP report.



Israeli forces kill Palestinian journalist in al-Shifa Hospital

Local media is reporting that Israeli forces have shot and killed Palestinian journalist Muhammad Abu Sakhil at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Abu Sakhil, a reporter with Palestinian outlet Sawt al-Quds Radio, joins the almost 100 Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli attacks since October 7.

Israeli forces stormed al-Shifa Hospital with tanks and heavy gunfire on March 18 and have been laying siege to it since. The military says it’s targeting “terrorists” sheltering inside the medical facility, claiming it has killed some 175 Palestinian fighters and arrested 500 more during the siege.

Scores of civilians have also been killed, however, with witnesses saying Israeli forces have carried out “execution-style” killings.


Israel accused of ‘executing’ 13 children near al-Shifa in one week

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has accused Israeli forces of directly shooting at and executing 13 children in and near al-Shifa Hospital in just one week.

The monitoring group, citing its teams on the ground, said some of the fatal shootings occurred as victims’ families were inside their homes amid Israel’s continuing raid on al-Shifa, and others while the victims were attempting to escape via routes designated as safe.

In one testimony, Islam Ali Salouha told Euro-Med that Israeli forces on Sunday shot at and killed his sons – nine-year-old Ali and six-year-old Saeed Muhammad Sheikha – on a corpse-strewn street near al-Shifa that the Israeli army had designated for travel. The Israeli forces targeted the two children in particular, he said.

Salouha said he, his sons and neighbours only left the building because Israeli forces had told them to evacuate or face having their building bombed.

Destruction near al-Shifa Hospital leaves neighbourhood ‘unrecognisable’

It’s getting very difficult to keep up with the ongoing atrocities in Gaza. The past 24 hours were very difficult here in Rafah, with more mass killings and destruction of residential homes and agricultural land.

Israeli forces have continued their attacks in and around al-Shifa Hospital. They are not only causing a great deal of damage to the medical complex but systematically destroying homes in the area.

We are looking at an entire residential neighbourhood near the hospital that has been destroyed, rendered beyond recognition. It appears to be a systematic attempt to clear out the area.

Destruction of Gaza City by Israeli attacks







Al-Asra City neighbourhood being shelled

We’re getting reports of heavy shelling by Israeli jets on the al-Asra City residential neighbourhood which is northwest of Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.

Gaza Civil Defence says 65 staff killed in al-Shifa Hospital area

Gaza’s Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal has told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army killed 65 of its members in the area of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters are ongoing around the medical facility. The al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), earlier claimed to have targeted Israeli soldiers with mortar shells amid fierce clashes around the compound.



SvennoJ on 28 March 2024

Unimaginable’ conditions: UN says few hospitals remain functional in Gaza

Two-thirds of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are “non-functional” while those that remain open are either “minimally” or “partially” functional, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reports that the healthcare system in northern Gaza “has been largely destroyed” and is on the “brink of collapse” in the south.

Details contained in the latest UNOCHA situation report are grim:

  • Fifteen malnourished children a day are being received at Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is struggling to maintain services amid a lack of water, food and sanitation.
  • Al-Shifa Hospital has been under siege for 10 days, and Israeli forces have confined staff and patients to a building used by human resources, which “is not set up for healthcare provision”.
  • Israeli forces have dumped dirt in the entrances of the al-Amal Hospital in southern Khan Younis after it ordered the hospital to be emptied of staff and patients. On Tuesday, the hospital and the nearby Palestine Red Crescent Society headquarters ceased to function.
  • Conditions at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis have been described as “unimaginable” and “beyond comprehension”.

Doctors speak of catastrophic conditions at Gaza hospitals

Tanya Haj-Hassan is a paediatric intensive care doctor from Jordan. She’s part of a team of seven medics volunteering at the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, for a period of two weeks.

“People are tired,” she told Al Jazeera. “Our team has been doing this for five days and we’re exhausted. I can’t imagine what the Gaza team who has been here for 162 days, doing this 24/7 without resources, is dealing with.”

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital has 800 patients but only 160 beds. Many are forced to lie on mattresses or blankets in the corridors. The few members of staff left are working around the clock, while often coping with their own grief.

Mustafa Abu Qassim, a nurse from Jordan, said the “medical teams are working hard. Most of them have lost their children, their wives, or their parents. But despite this, they are carrying on with their work. This shows the psychological pressure they are facing.”

WHO says only 10 hospitals partially operational in Gaza

Only 10 out of 36 hospitals remain operational in the Gaza Strip, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), after the al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis ceased functioning on Tuesday.

“The health system is barely surviving,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

Israeli forces this week surrounded al-Amal and Nasser hospitals while pressing on with their siege of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the strip. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said one of its staff members was killed when Israeli tanks suddenly pushed back into areas around the two hospitals in Khan Younis amid heavy bombardment and gunfire.

“Once more, WHO demands an immediate end to attacks on hospitals in Gaza, and calls for protection of health staff, patients, and civilians,” Tedros said.



Doctors in northern Gaza sound alarm on infant malnutrition

At Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, receiving malnourished infants into the intensive care unit has become a new normal. “The cases I deal with in the intensive care department are malnutrition cases, they come with evident signs of severe dehydration,” nurse Ahmed al-Ali told Al Jazeera.

“We got used to receiving such cases in large numbers every day. The situation will deteriorate and get worse. I see similar cases every day – it’s a daily struggle.”

At least 27 children have died of starvation, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF in Gaza, described seeing “paper thin” children in a hospital in northern Gaza and incubators full of underweight babies from malnourished mothers.



SvennoJ on 28 March 2024

Gaza, the twilight zone where Israeli morality meets Palestinian tragedy

Footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers shooting dead two Palestinian men who are walking along the coast towards northern Gaza. The two – who had white pieces of cloth raised – were then buried by an Israeli bulldozer.

In response to the footage, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara has described Gaza as a twilight zone, where Israel’s fantasy of morality and righteousness intersects with Palestinian tragedy and genocide.

 

Gaza shooting video shows ‘flagrant disregard for Palestinian life’

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director with Human Rights Watch, has called the video showing the killing of the unarmed Palestinians in Gaza “shocking”.

“We see this disregard for Palestinian life which is flagrant by the Israeli government,” he told Al Jazeera, also noting that Israel “continues to not only block Palestinians to return to their homes that they were expelled from in 1948 inside Israel proper, but even to return to their homes within Gaza that they’ve been forced to flee in recent months”.

Shakir said Human Rights Watch has documented “numerous times over the years the Israeli government gunning down people waving white flags”, including in a 2009 report on the killing of 11 Palestinian civilians.

“Of course, there was impunity for these acts. There were statements that they would be investigated but no one was held into account,” he added.



SvennoJ on 28 March 2024

UK legislators call for suspension of arms sales to Israel

More than 130 parliamentarians in the United Kingdom have urged the government to immediately suspend export licenses for arms transfers to Israel.

In a letter – coordinated by Labour MP Zarah Sultana – the group of cross-party legislators noted instances in 2009 and 2014 when the UK government halted or threatened to suspend weapons exports, and said, “Today, the scale of violence committed by the Israeli military is vastly more deadly, but the government has failed to act.”

The letter was signed by 107 MPs from the Labour, Scottish National, Green and Liberal Democratic parties, as well as 27 members of the House of Lords.



Minor correction, Correct title would be "We must stop being complicit in Israel's war crimes"

British-Palestinian man threatens legal action over UK decision to halt UNRWA funding

A British-Palestinian man whose parents live in Gaza has threatened legal action against the UK government over its decision to suspend funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), a campaign group has announced.

The unnamed man issued a pre-action letter to the UK’s Foreign Office on Tuesday saying he would challenge the decision in court if the government does not restore funding to UNRWA by April 2, according to a statement by the International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).

The complainant was motivated by a “desperate bid to protect his family”, who are UNRWA-registered refugees and are completely reliant on aid from the agency, the statement said.

The UK government suspended funding for UNRWA in January after Israel accused some 12 of the agency’s 13,000 staff in Gaza of involvement in Hamas’s October 7 attacks. UNRWA said Israel has yet to provide evidence to supports its allegations. Many countries including Canada, Australia, Finland and Sweden have since resumed their contributions to the UN agency.


German bank freezes account of anti-Zionist Jewish group

The Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, a German campaign group, says the Berliner Sparkasse bank has frozen its accounts without explanation and asked it to submit a list of its members with their full names and addresses.

“Why should this information be important to the Berliner Sparkasse? It sounds more like a question that might be asked by an intelligence service or the police, who have been politically persecuting us as a Jewish organisation for some time,” the group said in a statement.

The Jewish Voice – which describes Israel’s war on Gaza as genocide – said its previous account with the Bank for Social Economy was closed in 2019 because of its support for the BDS Movement.

“We are taking legal action against the arbitrary, politically motivated freezing of our account, which is unacceptable in a democracy,” the group added.

New scrutiny over Google, Amazon’s billion-dollar contract with Israel gov’t

Amid the war in Gaza, scrutiny is intensifying over Amazon and Google’s $1.2bn contract with the Israeli government to provide it with cloud computing services.

The contract, called Project Nimbus, provides Israel’s military with cutting-edge AI and machine learning features, which critics fear are being used to expand illegal surveillance on Palestinians in the occupied territory.



SvennoJ on 28 March 2024

Gaza media office says Israeli army killed 200 civilians at al-Shifa Hospital

As Israel continues its siege of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for a 10th day, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office has said that preliminary information shows that Israeli forces killed 200 displaced Palestinians inside the medical complex.

The statement comes hours after the Israeli military claimed to have killed some 200 fighters in and around the facility since the siege began.

The media office said Israeli army tanks shelled buildings inside the medical complex and set fire to parts of it, while bombing homes in the surrounding area.

“We condemn this new and ongoing crime in front of the eyes of the entire world,” it said, adding that the international community’s failure to take a firm stand resulted in the ongoing attacks on the hospital in violation of international law.

Israel responsible for more than 200 ‘direct hits’ on schools in Gaza: UN

The Israeli military has been responsible for “direct hits” on at least 212 schools in the Gaza Strip, according to an analysis backed by the UN.

A report by UNICEF, the organisation’s child support fund, along with two non-governmental organisations the Education Cluster and Save The Children, says satellite imagery shows at least 53 schools in Gaza were “totally destroyed” since October 7.

It adds that since mid-February, there has been nearly a 9-percent increase in Israeli military attacks on school premises in the enclave.

The “high trend of attacks on school facilities” has worsened the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, the report’s authors noted, amid “intense Israeli bombardment from air, land, and sea across much of the Gaza Strip”.

Chaotic scenes near al-Shifa Hospital

A local photographer in Gaza shared a video, verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit Sanad, showing billowing smoke and intense confrontations near Gaza’s largest hospital. Earlier we quoted the government media office in Gaza as saying preliminary information indicates Israeli forces have killed 200 displaced Palestinians inside the medical complex.

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Air raid targets MSF-supported facility in southern Gaza

The aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says an air raid hit a greenhouse near al-Shaboura clinic, a facility it supports in Rafah. “Several people reportedly were killed in the attack. No MSF staff or patients were hurt,” it said in a post on X.

Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on Rafah

Al Jazeera’s correspondent said that at least 5 people were killed and others wounded, including women and children, in an Israeli raid on a house in the north of Rafah.