Page 31 - Gaza Conflict

Israel quietly sends millions to unauthorized West Bank settler outposts

The Israeli government has budgeted millions of dollars to protect small, unauthorized Jewish farms in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, underwriting tiny outposts meant to grow into full-fledged settlements, according to an anti-settlement monitoring group. Documents uncovered by Peace Now illustrate how Israel's pro-settler government has quietly poured money into the unauthorized outposts, which are separate from its more than 100 officially recognized settlements. Some of those outposts have been linked to settler violence against Palestinians and are sanctioned by the US. Palestinians and the international community say all settlements are illegal or illegitimate and undermine hopes for a two-state solution. The Ministry of Settlements and National Mission, which is headed by a far-right settler leader, confirmed it budgeted 75 million Shekels (USD 20.5 million) last year for security equipment for young settlements the term it uses for unauthorized Jewish farms and outposts in

Israel orders evacuation of part of Gaza humanitarian zone as war's toll up

The Israeli military on Monday ordered the evacuation of part of an area in the Gaza Strip it has designated a humanitarian zone. The military said it is planning to begin an operation against Hamas militants who have embedded themselves in the area and used it to launch rockets toward Israel. The area includes the eastern part of the Muwasi humanitarian zone, which is located in the southern Gaza Strip. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israeli's punishing air and ground campaign. Earlier this month, Israel said it estimates at least 1.8 million Palestinians are now in the humanitarian zone it declared covering a stretch of about 14 kilometers (8.6 miles) along the Mediterranean. Much of that area is now blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, U.N. and humanitarian groups say. Families live in the midst of mountains of trash and streams contaminated by sewage. The announcemen

14k Hamas terrorists killed or apprehended, half of leaders eliminated: IDF

With the majority of Hamas's military council killed in airstrikes, the terror group has begun appointing new leaders and making succession plans to replace other figures viewed as at risk

India at UN calls for ceasefire in Gaza strip, urges release of hostages

India's Deputy Representative to the UN, R Ravindra, also underlined that India's developmental assistance to Palestine

As Gaza's doctors struggle to save lives, many lose their own in airstrikes

Dr Hassan Hamdan was one of the few trained plastic surgeons in Gaza, a specialist in wound reconstruction. His skills were vitally needed as Israel's military onslaught filled hospitals with patients torn by blasts and shrapnel, so the 65-year-old came out of retirement to help. Earlier this month, an Israeli airstrike killed him along with his wife, son, two daughters, a daughter-in-law, a son-in-law, six grandchildren and one other person, as his family sheltered in their home in an Israeli-declared safe zone. Israel's 9-month-old war with Hamas in Gaza has decimated the territory's medical system. It has not only wreaked physical destruction on hospitals and health facilities, it has devastated Gaza's medical personnel. More than 500 health care workers have been killed since October, according to the U.N. Among them were many specialists like Hamdan. Dr. Ahmed al-Maqadma, also a reconstructive surgeon and a former fellow at U.K. Royal College, was found shot to death alongside

Rights group finds Hamas militants committed war crimes during Oct attack

Hamas-led armed groups committed numerous war crimes during the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that precipitated the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, according to a global human rights group report released Wednesday. Human Rights Watch said the acts of the Palestinian fighters, who killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 during the attack, met the international legal definition for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The group's report found that five different Palestinian armed groups, led by Hamas' Qassam Brigades, engaged in war crimes and violated international law by killing, torturing, taking hostages, looting and committing crimes involving sexual and gender-based violence. The New York-based rights group said its researchers were unable to independently verify claims of sexual violence and rape but that they relied on a separate report by a special U.N. envoy who found reasonable grounds to believe Hamas fighters committed sexual violence during the ...

Hamas says it has not withdrawn from ceasefire talks after Israel attacks

Saturday's strike in the Khan Younis area of Gaza, in which at least 90 Palestinians were killed according to local health authorities, has put the ceasefire talks in doubt

Israeli strike targets Hamas' military commander, kills 90 in southern Gaza

Israel said it targeted Hamas' shadowy military commander in a massive strike Saturday in the crowded southern Gaza Strip that killed at least 90 people including children, according to local health officials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there still isn't absolute certainty that Mohammed Deif and a second Hamas commander, Rafa Salama, were killed. Hamas rejected the claim that Dief was in the area, saying these false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre. The strike took place in an area Israel's military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Deif and Hamas' top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are believed by Israel to be the chief architects of the October 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and triggered the Israel-Hamas war. Not seen in public for years, Deif has long topped Israel's most-wanted list and is believed to have escaped multiple Israeli assassination attempts. On October

Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in Gaza after Israeli assault

Civil defence workers on Friday dug bodies out of collapsed buildings and pulled them off rubble-covered streets, as they collected dozens of Palestinians killed this week by an Israeli assault in a district of Gaza City. The discovery of the bodies came after Israeli troops reportedly pulled out of parts of the Tal al-Hawa and Sanaa neighbourhoods following days of bombardment and fighting there. The Israeli military launched an incursion into the districts earlier this week to fight what it said were Hamas militants who had regrouped. The grisly scenes of the dead underscored the horrifying cycle nine months into the Gaza war. After invading nearly every urban area across the tiny territory since October, Israeli forces are now repeatedly re-invading parts as Hamas shifts and maintains capabilities. Palestinians are forced to flee over and over to escape the changing offensives or to remain in place and face death. Cease-fire negotiations push ahead, nearing but never reaching a

Israel-Gaza war should end now, Israel must not occupy Gaza: Prez Biden

Biden in late May detailed a proposal of three phases aimed at achieving a ceasefire

Palestinians return to rubble in Gaza City after Israeli withdrawal

Palestinians returned to breathtaking scenes of destruction in the Gaza City district of Shijaiyah after Israeli troops withdrew, ending a two-week offensive there. Civil defense workers said Thursday that so far, they had found the bodies of 60 people in the rubble. Families who fled the assault ventured back into Shijaiyah to see the condition of their homes or salvage whatever they could. Nearly every building was flattened to rubble for block after block, leaving giant piles of concrete and twisted rebar. Here and there, grey gutted concrete frames still stood a few stories high. The ever-present buzzing sound of Israeli military drones hung in the hot summer air as people on bicycles or horse-drawn carts made their way over dirt paths where the streets had apparently been bulldozed away. Sharif Abu Shanab found his family's four-story building collapsed. I can't enter it. I can't take anything out of it, not even a can of tuna. We have nothing, no food or drink, he said. Since

Israeli airstrike kills 25 in Gaza as assault shuts down medical facilities

An apparent Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in southern Gaza killed at least 25 Palestinians on Tuesday, as heavy bombardment in the north forced the closure of medical facilities in Gaza City and sent thousands fleeing in search of increasingly-elusive refuge. Israel's new ground assault in Gaza's largest city is its latest effort to battle Hamas militants regrouping in areas the army previously said had been largely cleared. Large parts of Gaza City and urban areas around it have been flattened or left a shattered landscape after nine months of fighting. Much of the population fled earlier in the war, but several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in the north. "The fighting has been intense," said Hakeem Abdel-Bar, who fled Gaza City's Tuffah district to the home of relatives in another part of the city. He said Israeli warplanes and drones were "striking anything moving" and that tanks had moved into central districts. The strike at the entrance to the school kil

Iran encourages Gaza war protests in US to stoke outrage, distrust

The Iranian government is covertly encouraging American campus protests over Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza in a bid to stoke outrage ahead of the fall election, the nation's top intelligence official said on Tuesday. Using social media platforms popular in the US, groups linked to Tehran have posed as online activists, encouraged campus protests and have provided financial support to some protest groups, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in a statement. "Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts, seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions," Haines said. This effort noted by the top US intelligence official is the latest evidence that America's adversaries are harnessing the internet to warp domestic debates and widen political divides ahead of the election. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was important to warn Americans to help them "guard against efforts by foreign

Israeli protesters block highways, call for ceasefire to return hostages

Marking nine months since the war in Gaza started, Israeli protesters blocked highways across the country on Sunday, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down and pushing for a ceasefire to bring back scores of hostages held by Hamas. The demonstrations come as long-running efforts to broker a truce gained momentum last week when Hamas dropped a key demand for an Israeli commitment to end the war. The militant group still wants mediators to guarantee a permanent ceasefire, while Netanyahu is vowing to keep fighting until Israel destroys Hamas' military and governing capabilities. "Any deal will allow Israel to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved," Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday that was likely to deepen Hamas' concerns about the proposal. Sunday's "Day of Disruption" started at 6:29 am, the same time Hamas militants launched the first rockets toward Israel in the October 7 attack that triggered the war. Protesters blocked main roads

Hamas drops objections to US-backed cease-fire proposal as talks continue

An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea was in Qatar earlier Friday for the talks, and returned home late in the day

Hamas broadly agrees with cease-fire framework with Israel: US official

The official spoke after a half-hour phone meeting between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel orders mass evacuation, signals new assault on southern Gaza city

The Israeli army ordered a mass evacuation of Palestinians from much of Khan Younis on Monday, a sign that troops are likely to launch a new ground assault in the Gaza Strip's second largest city. The order suggested Khan Younis will be the target in the latest of Israel's repeated raids into parts of Gaza it had previously invaded during the past mearly nine months, pursuing Hamas militants as they regroup. Much of Khan Younis was already destroyed in a long assault earlier this year, but large numbers of Palestinians have since moved back in to escape another Israeli offensive in Gaza's southern-most city, Rafah. The order came as Israel released the director of Gaza's main hospital after holding him for seven months without charge or trial over allegations the facility had been used as a Hamas command centre. He said he and other detainees were held under harsh conditions and tortured. The decision to release Mohammed Abu Selmia raised questions over Israel's claims surrounding .

Israel releases head of Gaza's main hospital 7 months after hospital raid

Israel released the director of Gaza's main hospital on Monday, seven months after the military raided the facility over allegations it was being used as a Hamas command centre. The release of Mohammed Abu Selmia without charge or trial raised further questions about Israel's allegations regarding Shifa Hospital, which its forces have raided on two occasions since the start of its nearly nine-month war with Hamas. Abu Selmia said he and other prisoners had been tortured and held under harsh conditions, allegations that could not be independently confirmed but matched other accounts of Palestinian detainees who have been released back into Gaza. Our detainees have been subjected to all kinds of torture behind bars, he said. There was almost daily torture. Cells are broken into and prisoners are beaten. He said guards broke his finger and caused his head to bleed during beatings, in which they used batons and dogs. He said the medical staff at different facilities where he was held h

Israel presses Hamas in Gaza's Shejaya, destroys compounds in civilian area

Over the past day, the troops eliminated several terrorists, located weapons, and conducted targeted raids on booby-trapped combat compounds

5,000 new housing units planned for city of Sderot in Northern Gaza

The plan sees the complex surrounding the train station as a central and significant focal point in the region