Tag: gaza genocide

  • Gaza genocide in its 12th month with truce hopes slim

    Gaza genocide in its 12th month with truce hopes slim

    The genocide in Gaza entered its 12-month on Saturday with little sign of respite for the Palestinian territory or hope for Israeli hostages still held captive.

    The chances of a truce appear slim, with both sides sticking doggedly to their positions, AFP reports.

    Hamas’ October 7 gave Israel an excuse to spark the genocide. While the organization is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that troops must remain on a key strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border.

    The United States, Qatar and Egypt have all been mediating to bring about a ceasefire in the region where Israel in Gaza has killed at least 40,939 people.

    According to the United Nations human rights office, most of the dead are women and children.

    However, the attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, including some hostages killed in captivity, according to official Israeli figures.

    Of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the attack, 97 remain in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

    Scores were released during a one-week truce in November.

    Israel’s announcement last Sunday that the bodies of six hostages, including a US-Israeli citizen, had been recovered shortly after being killed, sparked grief and anger in Israel.

    Marking the anniversary, UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) chief Philippe Lazzarini posted on X on Saturday: “Eleven months. Enough. No one can take this any longer. Humanity must prevail. Ceasefire now.”

    International pressure to end the war was further underlined by Friday’s shooting dead in the West Bank of a Turkish-American activist demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the occupied territory.

    The family of 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi has demanded an independent investigation into her death, saying on Saturday her life “was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military”.

    The UN rights office said Israeli forces killed Eygi with a “shot in the head”.

    Ankara said she was killed by “Israeli occupation soldiers”, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the Israeli action as “barbaric”.

    Washington called her death “tragic”, and has pressed its close ally Israel to investigate.

    West Bank raids

    Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where about 490,000 people live, are illegal under international law.

    Since the October 7 attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 662 Palestinians in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

    Eygi’s death came on the day Israeli forces withdrew from a deadly 10-day raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, where AFP journalists reported residents returning home to widespread destruction.

    The Jenin pullout came with Israel at loggerheads with the United States over talks to forge a truce in the Gaza war.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday “90 percent is agreed” and urged Israel and Hamas to finalise a deal.

    But Netanyahu denied this, telling Fox News: “It’s not close.”

    Hamas is demanding Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, saying it agreed months ago to a proposal outlined by US President Joe Biden.

    AFP reporters said several air strikes and shelling rocked the territory overnight and early Saturday.

    Gaza’s civil defence agency and the Palestinian Red Crescent said an Israeli air strike killed four people near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

    The civil defence and a witness said an air strike that targeted a flat in Bureij camp killed another four.

    And in Jabalia, an Israeli air strike killed four more Palestinians, civil defence officials said.

    They added that a woman and a child were also killed in an air strike north of Gaza City.

    Medics reported at least 33 Palestinians wounded in an air strike on a residential area in Beit Lahia and said they were being treated at Al-Awda, Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals.

  • Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including rivals Fatah, to work together for “national unity”, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza. “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,”

    Abu Marzuk said after meeting Wang and the other envoys. The announcement comes more than nine months into the genocide.

    Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza.

    The relentless fighting has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis. China has sought to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been rendered even more complex due to the intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.

    Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it destroys Hamas, and world powers, including key Israeli backer the United States, have scrambled to imagine scenarios for the governance of Gaza once the war ends. As Tuesday’s meeting wrapped up in Beijing, Wang said the groups had committed to “reconciliation”.

    “The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza,” Wang said following the signing of the “Beijing Declaration” by the factions in the Chinese capital.

    “Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang said. China, he added, was keen to “play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East”. Beijing, Wang said, called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.

    Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.

    Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Several reconciliation bids have failed, but calls have grown since October 7, with violence also soaring in the West Bank, where Fatah is based.

    China hosted Fatah and Hamas in April, but a meeting scheduled for June was postponed. China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • ‘No Safe Place’: Gazans race to collect wounded after Israeli strike

    ‘No Safe Place’: Gazans race to collect wounded after Israeli strike

    Israel had declared Al-Mawasi a “safe zone” as it pushed into Rafah near the Egyptian border. Still, on the weekend, Palestinians raced to collect dozens of casualties from the military’s latest strike.

    Sirens wailed, and women screamed as children were pulled bloody and unmoving from the wreckage.

    “What have they done? they’re children, children,” one woman cried. “Seven-year-old and 12-year-old children.”

    Al-Mawasi, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people sought refuge, was left a chaos-strewn wasteland by one of the deadliest Israeli strikes since the start of the war.

    The Gaza health ministry said at least 90 people were killed, half of them women and children. It said another 300 people were wounded in the “massacre”.

    Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an attack in the Khan Yunis area targeted Hamas military strategist Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama, a brigade commander, but there was “no certainty that the two were eliminated”.

    Located near the city of Khan Yunis, Al-Mawasi was designated a humanitarian area after Israel in May ordered civilians to evacuate other parts of the Gaza Strip.

    “We have been warning for months that there is no safe place for anyone in Gaza amid Israel’s military bombardment,” said UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, which operates health sites in the area.

    It said hundreds of thousands of displaced people were sheltering in the “safe zone”, which had been targeted before.

    Black smoke billowed behind a wide, ash-strewn street in Al-Mawasi, where bodies lay in pools of blood, some covered by sheets.

    Men struggling to carry the wounded wove through those beyond help to reach ambulances waiting with open doors. Others were piled onto donkey-pulled carts.

    “There are people who have lost limbs everywhere. It’s a scene the mind cannot even imagine,” Mahmoud Chahine said near a market struck in the attack.

    Despite the Nasser Hospital reportedly saying it was at full capacity, ambulances kept arriving, carting in the wounded on orange stretchers, including a man with a towel tied around his leg as a makeshift tourniquet.

    A woman outside the hospital could be heard pleading, ” Please, enough, for God’s sake.”

    The Israeli military said the attack against Deif “struck an open area” that “was not a tent complex but an operational compound”.

    “According to our information, only Hamas terrorists were present, and there were no civilians,” it said.

    According to Netanyahu’s office, he had discussed the strike with security and military officials as part of his goal “to eliminate senior Hamas officials”.

    Hamas called the claim that Deif had been targeted “false allegations” intended “to cover up the magnitude of the horrific massacre” in Al-Mawasi.

    Gaza’s civil defence agency said heavy fire was preventing its teams from reaching the “many bodies” scattered in the streets.

    Mahmoud Abu Akar, an eyewitness, described repeated missiles raining down on them.

    “Every time people tried to get close to rescue others, they would strike,” he said.

    “There was no warning at all, it happened all of a sudden.”

    Since telling people to relocate to Al-Mawasi in May, the Israeli military has been accused of repeatedly striking the area in deadly attacks.

    In June when the International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed by shelling that damaged its office.

    Returning from Nasser Hospital Saturday, Louise Wateridge, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said children had suffered life-changing injuries and people were angry there was no reprieve from the fighting.

    “There is no safety here, no matter where people go,” she said.

    Israel’s military strikes has killed at least 38,443 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry.

  • German citizenship now requires applicants to declare Israel’s right to exist

    German citizenship now requires applicants to declare Israel’s right to exist

    A new German citizenship law has been enacted, requiring those seeking citizenship to acknowledge that Israel has a “Right to Exist.”

    German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Wednesday, “Anyone who shares our values and makes an effort can now get a German passport more quickly and no longer has to give up part of their identity by giving up their old nationality. But we have also made it just as clear: anyone who does not share our values cannot get a German passport.”

    She confirmed that new questions on the topics of anti-Semitism, the right to the existence of an Israeli state and Jewish life in Germany have been added to the citizenship test.

    German Chancellor Olaf Schulz made dual citizenship a key point of his election campaign and promised to reduce the time it takes for new citizens to obtain a German passport to five years in his election campaign of 2021.

    The first generation of immigrants was not allowed to have dual citizenship. However, rising anti-Semitism, increasingly divisive debates about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the popularity of anti-immigrant, far-right politics led to a revision of the citizenship law.

    In December last year, the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt made it mandatory for those who want to become German citizens to recognise Israel’s right to exist.

  • George Clooney called White House to blast Biden for calling wife’s work on Israel ‘outrageous’

    George Clooney called White House to blast Biden for calling wife’s work on Israel ‘outrageous’

    Hollywood superstar George Clooney reportedly rang up one of President Joe Biden’s top aides to complain about the president’s criticism of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrants against Israeli leaders — a case his wife, Amal Clooney, worked on, Washington Post has reported after talking to three people familiar with the conversation.

    Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, to blast Biden’s condemnation of arrest warrants sought by ICC prosecutors for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and especially his use of the word “outrageous” to criticise the court’s decision.

    His wife, Amal Clooney, is an International Human Rights Lawyer and runs the Clooney Foundation for Justice. She said in a statement that the prosecutor’s office had enlisted her to help with the investigation, asking her to review evidence of suspected war crimes and provide legal analysis. The Clooney Foundation for Justice published the statement, which said the team’s legal findings were “unanimous.” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20 that he was seeking to charge Netanyahu, Gallant, Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar, and two other top Hamas leaders with war crimes.

    “I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law,” Amal Clooney wrote in the statement. “So I support the historic step that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine,” she added.

    Washington Post revealed that the actor was “upset” about the administration’s initial openness to imposing sanctions on the ICC because his wife might be subjected to the penalties. Clooney has long been known for backing Democrats and is due to appear at a Biden campaign fundraiser in Los Angeles.

    The concerns expressed by the actor spread throughout Biden’s campaign as some officials were worried that he would withdraw from participating in the high-profile fundraiser, which will also feature former president Barack Obama, late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, and actress Julia Roberts.
    However, both the White House and Clooney declined to comment on the matter.

    In 2020, George Clooney donated more than $500,000 to Biden’s campaign effort and co-hosted a virtual fundraiser for him that raised $7 million.

  • Maldives to ban Israeli tourists

    Maldives to ban Israeli tourists

    MALE: The Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives will ban Israelis from the luxury tourist hot spot, the office of the president said on Sunday, announcing a national rally in “solidarity with Palestine”.

    The Maldives, a tiny Islamic republic of more than 1,000 strategically located coral islets, is known for its secluded sandy white beaches, shallow turquoise lagoons, and Robinson Crusoe-style getaways.

    President Mohamed Muizzu has “resolved to impose a ban on Israeli passports,” a spokesman for his office said in a statement, without giving details of when the new law would take effect.

    Muizzu also announced a national fundraising campaign called “Maldivians in Solidarity with Palestine”.

    The Maldives had lifted a previous ban on Israeli tourists in the early 1990s and moved to restore relations in 2010. However, normalisation attempts were scuttled following the toppling of President Mohamed Nasheed in February 2012.

    Opposition parties and government allies in the Maldives have been putting pressure on Muizzu to ban Israelis, as a sign of protest against the Gaza attack.

    Official data showed the number of Israelis visiting the Maldives dropped to 528 in the first four months of this year, down 88 percent compared to the corresponding period last year.

    In response to the ban, an Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman urged citizens to avoid travel to the Maldives.

  • Malala in her cowgirl era for British Vogue; internet reminded of her silence on Palestine

    Malala in her cowgirl era for British Vogue; internet reminded of her silence on Palestine

    Malala is making a special appearance in a British sitcom called ‘We Are Lady Parts’ based on a punk band consisting of Muslim women.

    For a photoshoot with British Vogue, Malala donned a look similar to that of a cowgirl with a shimmery blue outfit and a large hat while sitting on horseback.

    Other cast members were seen standing in front of the horse.

    Netizens were reacting in all ways possible to her pictures but the dominant element is her muffled response and lack of condemnation of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    Social media users subjected her to criticism as one commented underneath the British Vogue post, “Wow, the priorities Malala has during an ongoing genocide.”

    While another commented, “Proving that modesty fashion can be stylish, trendy, and fun.”

    A user subjected her to severe criticism: “Can officially add actress to her CV, we’ve only been assuming for the past many years”. Someone else commented, “Baby girl is too busy to give a damn about genocide. #AllEyesOnRafah”

    Fashion journalist Amna Isani shared the picture and took a jibe at her by commenting, “Is this what officially losing the plot looks like?”.

    Malala has been receiving ire since October 7 because of her perceived restraint in condemning Israel for the genocide. Even though she has called for a ceasefire in the past, the internet is lambasting her for her silence on the Rafah Massacre carried out by Israeli forces early in the week.

    However, in the interview that she gave to Vogue, Malala did talk about Gaza and specifically the Rafah Massacre. “This is such a difficult time right now, especially with what is happening in Gaza, and especially what we saw in Rafah this week,” she told the magazine, calling the images “heartbreaking.”

    She went on to plead the case for a ceasefire in Gaza, stating: “I want people in Gaza not to be dehumanised. I want people to see those children as humans.”

  • Protestors set fire to Israeli Embassy in Mexico City

    Protestors set fire to Israeli Embassy in Mexico City

    Videos of enraged protestors setting fire to the Israeli embassy in Mexico City have emerged online.

    The protest was a reaction to the massacre carried out by Israel in Rafah where displaced people’s tents were burnt down, leaving at least 45 refugees dead and hundreds injured.

    In the capital of Mexico, Mexico City, about 200 people gathered outside the embassy in a demonstration called “Urgent Action for Rafah”. Protesters covered their faces and threw stones at the police blocking their path to the Israeli Embassy.

    Demonstrators clash with the police in front of the Israeli embassy in Mexico City. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]
    A man with Palestine flags painted on his face attends the pro-Palestinian rally. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]
    Demonstrators shouted slogans during the pro-Palestinian “Urgent action for Rafah” rally. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]
    Protesters tried to break down barriers preventing them from reaching the Israeli mission. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]
    Police officers deployed tear gas and threw back the stones hurled at them by protesters. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]
    About 200 people joined the demonstration. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]
  • Gaza officials say 40 killed as Israeli strikes set tents of displaced Palestinians on fire

    Gaza officials say 40 killed as Israeli strikes set tents of displaced Palestinians on fire

    Gaza’s civil defence agency said Monday that many bodies were “charred” after the strikes triggered a fire that ripped through a displacement camp in northwest Rafah.

    “The massacre committed by the Israeli occupation army in the refugee tents northwest of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip has left 40 martyrs and 65 wounded,” said agency official Mohammad al-Mughayyir.

    “We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs … We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women and the elderly.”

    Footage released by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society showed chaotic night-time scenes of paramedics in ambulances racing to the fiery attack site and evacuating the wounded, including children.

    “We had just done with the evening prayers,” recalled one survivor, a Palestinian woman who declined to be named.

    “Our children were asleep … suddenly we heard a loud sound and there was fire all around us. The children were screaming … the sound was terrifying.”

    Mughayyir said the rescue efforts were hampered by war damage and the impacts of Israel’s siege on the territory amid the over seven-month-old conflict.

    “There is a fuel shortage … there are roads that have been destroyed, which hinders the movement of civil defence vehicles in these targeted areas,” he said. “There is also a shortage of water to extinguish fires.”

    The ICRC said that one of its field hospitals was receiving an “influx of casualties seeking care for injuries and burns” and that “our teams are doing their best to save lives”.

    AFP images after sunrise showed the charred remains of makeshift tents and vehicles as Palestinian families looked at the blackened destruction.

    Israeli occupation forces on the other hand said the air strikes late Sunday, hours after a rocket attack had targeted Tel Aviv, had killed two senior Hamas operatives. However, it will investigate the reports of civilians killed in a fire..

    It added that it was “aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited, several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review.”

    ‘Dangerous violation’

    The Israeli attack sparked strong protests from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and from Qatar which warned it could “hinder” budding steps to revive stalled truce and hostage release talks in the Israel-Hamas war raging since October 7.

    Egypt

    Egypt deplored the “targeting of defenceless civilians” and labelled it part of “a systematic policy aimed at widening the scope of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip to make it uninhabitable”.

    Jordan

    Jordan also expressed its condemnation, accusing Israel of committing “ongoing war crimes”.

    Kuwait

    Kuwait charged the attack exposed Israel’s “blatant war crimes and unprecedented genocide to the whole world”.

    Qatar

    And Qatar condemned the Israeli bombing as a “dangerous violation of international law”.

    Israel’s top ally the United States has strongly urged all sides to resume truce talks, with efforts underway in recent days toward new talks with US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

    After the latest violence, Qatar’s foreign ministry voiced “concern that the bombing will complicate ongoing mediation efforts and hinder reaching an agreement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire”.

    Hamas attack on Tel Aviv

    The strike came hours after Hamas had on Sunday, for the first time in months, launched a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv and other areas of central Israel, sending people running into bomb shelters.

    Although Israeli air defences took out most of the rockets and no casualties were reported, the attack was seen as an effort by Hamas to signal that it remains undefeated.

    Hamas’s armed wing said it had targeted Tel Aviv “with a large rocket barrage in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians”.

    Israel invaded Gaza in late October, but its ground forces are still battling Hamas in northern and central areas where Hamas has regrouped, as well as around Rafah.

    Hamas said, after the overnight strikes, that Palestinians must “rise up and march”.

  • American Air Force officer sets himself on fire outside Israel embassy to protest Gaza genocide

    American Air Force officer sets himself on fire outside Israel embassy to protest Gaza genocide

    An American Air Force officer who set himself on fire outside the Israel Embassy in Washington DC on Monday morning to protest the genocide in Gaza has died of his injuries.

    Aaron Bushnell, 25, on active duty since 2020, filmed his self-immolation, shouting ‘Free Palestine’ before falling to the ground while paramedics tried to control the fire. In a live stream, he said that the step he was about to take was not as extreme as what the Palestinians are going through, clearly calling Israel’s assault, a “genocide in Gaza”.

    While mainstream Western media ignored the reason for the self-immolation in its headlines, social media paid rich tribute to the cyber defence operations specialist. His final post was reproduced endlessly on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook:

    “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’,” the post read. “The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

    Many chose his last image, standing straight while the fire raged on his body, to make art and posters:

    https://twitter.com/Jingjing_Li/status/1762323196404199646?s=19

    Others reproduced his words with Rest in Power written beside them:

    Many people appeared at an impromptu vigil held for the officer outside the Israel embassy in Washington DC:

    The US government is yet to release a statement on Bushnell’s death.