Tag: Gaza

  • No let-up in genocide in Gaza despite UN ceasefire resolution

    No let-up in genocide in Gaza despite UN ceasefire resolution

    Palestinian Territories – Israeli attacked Gaza on Tuesday, with no sign of a let-up in the war despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire”.

    The resolution was adopted on Monday after Israel’s closest ally the United States abstained amid growing concern for the worsening humanitarian situation after nearly six months of war.

    The text demands an “immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan, leading to a “lasting” truce.

    It also demands that Hamas and other militants free hostages they took during the unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel, though it does not directly link the release to a truce.

    In Gaza, there was intense fighting overnight, with Israeli operations in and around at least three major hospitals in the besieged territory.

    The Israeli military said its jets had struck more than 60 targets in Gaza in the past day, including tunnels, infrastructure and military structures “in which armed terrorists were identified”.

    The health ministry in the territory said 70 people were killed early Tuesday, 13 of them in Israeli air strikes around the southern city of Rafah.

    The Israeli military said air raid sirens sounded in areas near the Gaza border.

    The Security Council resolution was the first since the Gaza war erupted to demand an immediate halt in the fighting.

    After the vote, UN chief Antonio Guterres led calls for the resolution to be implemented. “Failure would be unforgivable,” he said on social media platform X.

    Israel reacted furiously to the US abstention, while Washington insisted that it did not mark a shift in policy, although it has taken a tougher line with Israel in recent weeks.

    The United States had previously vetoed successive draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire, but it has become increasingly concerned by the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned of famine in the north by May if urgent action isn’t taken.

    The Gaza health ministry said seven people had drowned in the Mediterranean trying to reach aid airdropped into the territory.

    Washington has also baulked at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin’s determination to launch an assault on Rafah, the last major population centre still untouched by Israeli ground troops where most of Gaza’s population has sought refuge from the fighting.

    ‘Absolute interest’

    In protest at the United States’ abstention in the UN vote, which it said “hurts” both its war effort and attempts to release hostages, Israel cancelled a planned visit to Washington by a high-ranking delegation.

    Israel’s intensified attacks in Gaza killed at least 32,333 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry.

    Hamas welcomed the Security Council resolution and reaffirmed its readiness to negotiate the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

    In a statement, the militant group blamed Israel for the failure to make progress in the latest round of talks hosted by mediator Qatar.

    Hamas said Netanyahu and his cabinet were “entirely responsible for the failure of negotiation efforts and for preventing an agreement from being reached up until now”.

    Netanyahu’s office hit back on X, charging that Hamas was “not interested in continuing negotiations” as it had been emboldened by the Security Council vote.

    Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was in Tehran on Tuesday for talks with Iranian officials, state media reported.

    It is Haniyeh’s second visit to key backer Iran since the start of the war.

    In the occupied West Bank, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

    She welcomed the Security Council resolution and said it was “in the absolute interest of the people of Israel that we come to a ceasefire now so that the hostages can be released.”

    Hospital battles

    On the ground in Gaza, the fighting raged on unabated.

    Dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, where thousands of displaced people have sought refuge, witnesses said.

    The health ministry said  shots were being fired around the sprawling complex, but no raid had yet taken place.

    At Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, Israeli troops have been involved in heavy fighting for the past nine days. Israel claims to have killed 170 Palestinian militants and arrested hundreds of others.

    And on Monday, the Israeli military reported killing about 20 fighters around Al-Amal Hospital, also in Khan Yunis, over the previous day in close-quarters combat and air strikes.

    Israel has labelled its operations “precise operational activities” and said it has taken care to avoid harm to civilians, but aid agencies have voiced concern for non-combatants caught up in the fighting.

    Palestinians living near Al-Shifa have reported corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.

    Palestinians in Rafah welcomed the UN vote and called on Washington to use its influence with Israel to ensure the resolution is implemented.

    Bilal Awad, 63, said Washington must “stand against an attack on Rafah, and support the return of the displaced to their cities”.

    Ihab al-Assar, 60, expressed hope that “Israel will comply” with the Security Council text.

    The fighting came as an independent UN-appointed expert, Francesca Albanese, said there were “reasonable grounds to believe” Israel’s actions in Gaza had met the threshold for “acts of genocide”.

    Israel rejected Albanese’s report, due to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, as an “obscene inversion of reality”.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Israel tanks surround Gaza’s Nasser Hospital: witnesses

    Israel tanks surround Gaza’s Nasser Hospital: witnesses

    Palestinian Territories – Dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded the Nasser Hospital in Gaza Tuesday, where thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the fighting, witnesses said.

    Witnesses told AFP that shots were being fired at the sprawling complex in the southern city of Khan Yunis, but no raid was as yet taking place.

    Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli troops were shooting and firing “shells and (conducting) violent raids in its surroundings in preparation for its storming”.

    “Thousands of displaced people are still inside the hospital,” the ministry said. “They do not have sufficient quantities of drinking water, food and infant formula, and their lives are in danger.”

    The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

    For the past nine days, Israeli troops have been involved in heavy fighting in and around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s biggest. They claim to have killed 170 Palestinian militants there and arrested hundreds of others.

  • Israel furious at US abstention on Security Council ceasefire vote

    Israel furious at US abstention on Security Council ceasefire vote

    Israel reacted angrily on Monday to the first UN Security Council vote to demand an “immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza war, after its closest ally the United States abstained, while fighting raged in the Palestinian territory.

    Immediately after the resolution passed, Israel cancelled the visit of a delegation to Washington, which the United States had requested to discuss concerns over a mooted Israeli invasion of Rafah, in crowded southern Gaza.

    Israel said the US abstention “hurts” both its war effort and efforts to release hostages.

    It was “a clear retreat from the consistent position of the US,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

    While diplomatic attention turned to New York, fighting continued across the Gaza Strip, with Israeli forces battling Hamas militants around at least two major hospitals.

    Washington insisted that its Security Council abstention did not mark a shift in policy, although it has taken an increasingly tougher line with Israel in recent weeks.

    The United States had repeatedly vetoed Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire, but on Friday it put forward its own unsuccessful text mentioning one, before abstaining on Monday’s resolution drafted by non-permanent Council members.

    Applause

    It meant that the resolution, which demands an “immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan that leads to a “lasting” truce, went through with all other 14 Security Council members voting yes.

    The resolution drew applause in the usually staid council and also demands that Hamas and other militants free hostages they seized, though it does not directly link a release to the ceasefire.

    The Gaza war broke out with Hamas’s unprecedented attack of October 7 which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

    Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes around 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 presumed dead.

    Netanyahu’s failure to bring home the hostages has led to regular protests in Israel.

    Vowing to destroy Hamas and free the captives, Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment of the coastal territory and a ground invasion that began in Gaza’s north before moving southward.

    The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Monday put the total Palestinian death toll at 32,333, most of them women and children.

    Hamas welcomed the Security Council resolution and said it was reaffirming its readiness to negotiate the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

    Member states are obliged to comply with resolutions passed by the Security Council, whose vote came while Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant visited Washington.

    After the UN decision, Gallant said the war will go on.

    “We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza,” he said.

    Tensions between the two allies have grown alongside US concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the UN says famine is imminent.

    Netanyahu’s determination to launch a ground operation in Rafah, the city on Gaza’s southern border where most of the territory’s population is sheltering, has become a key point of contention.

    Prior to the UN vote, US Vice President Kamala Harris told ABC TV that a Rafah invasion would be “a huge mistake”. Asked hether she would rule out “consequences” for Israel, Harris said: “I am ruling out nothing”.

    Before heading to Washington, Gallant said his focus would include “our ability to obtain platforms and munitions”.

    Hospital battles

    Troops and tanks have encircled Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s biggest, for a week and more recently moved on Al-Amal Hospital in the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

    Israel has labelled its operations “precise operational activities” and said it has taken care to avoid harm to civilians, but aid agencies have voiced alarm about civilians caught up in the fighting.

    The Israeli military said it was battling militants around the two hospitals and reported around 20 militants killed around Al-Amal over the past day in close-quarters combat and air strikes.

    Palestinians living near Al-Shifa have reported hellish conditions, including corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.

    The Al-Shifa raid was in its eighth day and the military reported having detained a total of about 500 militants “affiliated with” Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group.

    ‘We are suffering’

    Israel has signalled an extended presence at Al-Shifa which troops also raided in November, to an international outcry.

    At Al-Amal Hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli troops ordered staff and patients to evacuate, but the departing convoy got stuck due to debris on the road.

    The charity reported that Israeli troops opened fire on staffers who tried to clear the debris, wounding two — one of whom made it back to the convoy.

    Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The military said its Al-Amal operation included “raids on several terrorist infrastructure sites”, where they found explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades and other military equipment.

    UN chief Antonio Guterres, on a visit to the Middle East, has pleaded for an end to the “non-stop nightmare” for the 2.4 million people trapped in Gaza’s worst-ever war and stalked by starvation.

    According to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 107 people were killed in a 24-hour period into Monday, and the Hamas government press office said more than 50 airstrikes rained down on the Gaza Strip.

    Israel’s armed forces gave a similar number and said its fighter jets and helicopters had struck about 50 targets.

    Food and water shortages have deepened the suffering, especially in northern Gaza where residents, mostly women and children, waited in line to fill up jerrycans and buckets in Jabalia.

    “We don’t even have food to give us the energy to go to collect the water — let alone the innocent children, women and the elderly,” said one man, Bassam Mohammed al-Haou.

  • Countries call for swift implementation of UN ceasefire vote

    Countries call for swift implementation of UN ceasefire vote

    The UN Security Council on Monday called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza five months into the grinding war, despite Israel’s ally the United States abstaining.

    Here are some reactions to the resolution to halt fighting over the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with an aim for a “lasting” truce, which drew rare applause at the Security Council:

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for swift implementation of a ceasefire after Israel voiced anger over the resolution.

    “Failure would be unforgivable,” Guterres wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    Hamas welcomed the resolution to halt fighting in Gaza while saying it was ready to negotiate the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

    “We also affirm our readiness to engage in an immediate prisoner exchange process that leads to the release of prisoners on both sides,” the militant group said.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the UN vote “hurts both the war effort and the effort to release the abductees”.

    “It gives Hamas hope that international pressure will allow them to accept a ceasefire without the release of our abductees,” the statement said. It also took aim at the US abstention, calling it a “clear retreat” from its earlier position.

    Hussein al-Sheikh, minister for civilian affairs of the Palestinian Authority which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, hailed the resolution in a post on X.

    “We call for a permanent cessation to this criminal war and Israel’s immediate withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,” he wrote.

    Following the vote, the United States said a ceasefire can “only” be implemented once Hamas begins releasing hostages it still holds.

    “A ceasefire can begin immediately with the release of the first hostage,” US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

    After the United States vetoed previous drafts, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists that the US decision to abstain from Monday’s vote does not represent a “shift in our policy”.

    The Arab League’s Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the decision “comes late”.

    “The lesson now is to implement the decision on the ground, stop military operations and Israeli aggression immediately and completely,” he added.

    Top European Union officials welcomed the resolution, calling for a ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages.

    “Implementation of this resolution is vital for the protection of all civilians,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X.

    The resolution “represents the first important and necessary step to stop the bloodshed,” the Egyptian ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement to the UN.

    The Brazilian government said it “hopes that the ceasefire will be implemented immediately, as stipulated by the resolution, and reiterated “the urgency of ensuring the effective entry of an expanded and regular flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, as well as the release of all hostages”.

    France’s UN representative called for a sustained truce between Israel and Hamas beyond the ongoing month of Ramadan.

    “This crisis is not over,” said Nicolas de Riviere. “After Ramadan, which ends in two weeks, it will have to establish a permanent ceasefire.”

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she was “relieved by the adoption of the resolution”. “Every day counts,” she added.

    Baghdad’s foreign minister applauded the resolution in a statement and stressed “the importance for the parties to respect their obligations under international law”.

    Jordan’s foreign ministry expressed hope that the UN and international community would “take action to safeguard the two-state solution and ensure the establishment of an autonomous and sovereign Palestinian state”.

    Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati hailed the “first stage in the process of ending Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip.”

    He also called for a political solution “to end the conflict and give the Palestinians their rights”.

    Qatar said it hopes the resolution “represents a step towards a permanent cessation of fighting in the Strip”.

    The gas-rich emirate has been engaged in weeks of mediation between Israel and Hamas to secure a truce in Gaza and an exchange of hostages and prisoners.

    Foreign minister Naledi Pandor welcomed the resolution on public radio but stressed that “the ball is in the court of the Security Council”.

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on X applauded the resolution, and said that “the realisation of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security is the only realistic and viable solution for the region”.

    Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the next step was “to stop the violence, free the hostages, immediately send in vastly more humanitarian aid to Gaza and find a lasting solution”.

    The country’s far-right leader, Geert Wilders, who swept to victory in recent polls, on X voiced support for Israel “against the dark forces of hate and destruction called Hamas”.

    Turkey called the resolution and prospective return of humanitarian access to Gaza “a positive step”.

    “We hope that Israel will comply with the requirements of this resolution without delay,” Turkish foreign affairs spokesman Oncu Keceli wrote on X.

    Chile’s foreign office said it was “necessary to progress the two state solution, in which Palestine and Israel can live in peace inside internationally recognised borders.”

    “I invite the world’s nations if Israel breaks this ceasefire to break diplomatic relations with this country,” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro on X.

    Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard said the resolution is “long overdue” and called for “an immediate and comprehensive arms embargo”.

    Human Rights Watch’s UN lead Louis Charbonneau called for Israel to halt “unlawful attacks”, for Palestinian armed groups to “immediately release all civilians held hostage”, and for the US and others to suspend “arms transfers to Israel”.

    Oxfam’s UN representative Brenda Mofya said the resolution should provide “much-needed respite from the relentless and devastating Israeli violence”.

  • UN expert accuses Israel of several acts of genocide in Gaza

    UN expert accuses Israel of several acts of genocide in Gaza

    A UN rights expert on Monday said there were “reasonable grounds” to determine that Israel has committed several acts of “genocide” in its war in Gaza, also warning of “ethnic cleansing”.

    Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said there were clear indications that Israel had violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention.

    “The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” she said in a report, which was immediately rejected by Israel as an “obscene inversion of reality”.

    Albanese, an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said she had found “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of… acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met”.

    The report, entitled “Anatomy of a Genocide”, listed those acts as: “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group’s members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

    Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said the country “utterly rejects the report”, describing it as “simply an extension of a campaign seeking to undermine the very establishment of the Jewish State”.

    “Israel’s war is against Hamas, not against Palestinian civilians,” it said in a statement, slamming Albanese’s “outrageous accusations”.

    Israel has long been harshly critical of Albanese and her mandate, which the United States on Monday called “biased against Israel.”

    Washington is “aware” of Albanese’s report but has “no reason to believe Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza,” a US official told AFP.

    Last month Israel slapped a visa ban on her after she made comments denying that Hamas’s October 7 attack, which sparked the war in Gaza, was anti-Semitic.

    Israel’s relentless bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has since killed more than 32,300 people, mainly women and children, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

    South Africa has already filed a complaint against Israel before the International Court of Justice, alleging its assault on Gaza amounts to a violation of the genocide convention.

    The court has yet to rule on the underlying issue, but earlier this year ordered Israel to do everything it could to prevent genocidal acts during its campaign and also to allow in humanitarian aid.

    In Albanese’s report, which she is due to present to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday, she maintained that Israel’s “genocidal acts” followed “statements of genocidal intent”.

    Statements by some senior Israeli officials spelling out an intent to forcibly displace Palestinians and replace them with Israeli settlers, she said, indicated that “evacuation orders and safe zones have been used as genocidal tools to achieve ethnic cleansing”.

    The report also found that Israel was treating all Palestinians and their infrastructure “as ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorist-supporting’, thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage”.

    “In this way, no Palestinian in Gaza is safe by definition,” it said.

    “This has had devastating, intentional effects, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.”

    The report also stressed that Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians had not begun on October 7.

    “Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a longstanding settler colonial process of erasure,” it said.

  • Singapore makes Israeli embassy delete ‘insensitive’ Palestinian post

    Singapore makes Israeli embassy delete ‘insensitive’ Palestinian post

    Singapore made the Israeli embassy in the city-state take down an “insensitive” social media post about the Palestinians over the weekend after warning it could inflame tensions, the interior minister said Monday.

    The Israeli genocide in Gaza and deepening humanitarian crisis in the besieged strip since October 7 have divided opinion across the world.

    The post reportedly said Israel was mentioned 43 times in the Koran but Palestine — the name Palestinians give to what they hope will become their independent, sovereign state — was not, according to local media.

    Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam said he asked Singapore’s foreign ministry to tell the Israeli embassy to remove the post made on Sunday after learning about it, which the mission immediately did.

    “That post on the Israeli embassy social media page is completely unacceptable. I was very upset when I was told about it,” Shanmugam told reporters, according to a transcript.

    “It is insensitive and inappropriate. It carries the risk of undermining our safety, security and harmony in Singapore.”

    Shanmugam said the post had been taken down.

    “Posts like these can… inflame tensions, and can put the Jewish community here at risk. The anger from the post can potentially spill over into the physical realm,” he added.

    The Israeli embassy was not immediately available for comment.

    Singapore has condemned the Hamas attacks on Israel but has also said that Israel’s military response “has now gone too far”.

    The health ministry in the Gaza Strip on Sunday put the total death toll in the territory at 32,226, most of them women and children.

  • Gaza cancer patients fear Israel move to force them back ‘to hell’

    Gaza cancer patients fear Israel move to force them back ‘to hell’

    JERUSALEM: In a small hotel near the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, where she received radiation therapy for breast cancer, Palestinian Rim Abu Obeida waits anxiously.

    She is among a group of Palestinian patients living in limbo while a top Israeli court weighs whether they can be sent back to war-torn Gaza now that their treatment is completed.

    Like dozens of Gazans before Israel began its intensive military operations after October 7, she was granted permission to leave the territory for care because hospitals in the Gaza Strip did not have the necessary equipment.

    “This week, we were suddenly told we had to return to Gaza. This is sending us to hell, to death!” Abu Obeida said.

    If she is forced to leave, she will not have much to return to — her house in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis has been destroyed in Israeli’s offensive.

    The roughly 20 patients from Gaza, most of them battling cancer, have been receiving treatment in Tel Aviv and East Jerusalem for the past six months.

    COGAT, the Israeli Defense Ministry body that governs civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, said this week that because the patients “don’t need any continued medical treatment, they are being returned to the Gaza Strip.”

    But at the last minute, the Israeli Supreme Court, responding to a petition by the NGO Physicians for Human Rights, suspended COGAT’s order.

    The court is expected to rule on the case, though the timeline is unclear. The government has until April 21 to file its arguments.

    In the next room, along with Abu Obeida, Manal Abu Shaaban was busy stashing food into her bags.

    “I have rice, sugar, everything they are deprived of there. I hope they won’t stop me from bringing them in,” she said.
    Abu Shaaban, a breast cancer patient like Abu Obeida, said she was not opposed to returning.

    Still, she knew the security situation meant she would be unable to reach her home in Gaza City, in the besieged territory’s north.

    “I want to go back. But to my home, in my house! Not in Rafah, in the south, where they want us to go, I don’t know anyone there,” she said.

    Large swaths of the north have been flattened by Israeli bombardment, and a UN-backed assessment said the area faces famine by May unless substantially more aid reaches it.

    Meanwhile, in Gaza’s south, up to 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are crammed into Rafah and live under the threat of a full-scale Israeli ground offensive.

    Asked about the fate of the patients who face being returned to Gaza, Augusta Victoria Hospital director Fadi Mizyed paused for a few seconds.

    “I don’t know. They will go back in a war zone, they will be at risk, they will be living in catastrophic conditions,” he said.

    “The situation in Gaza is beyond description, with no guaranteed healthcare services that can do what is needed for any cancer patients.”

    “We said we don’t think it’s the right thing to do but at the end of the day it’s not our call,” he added.

  • Hamas welcomes China, Russia veto of US-backed Gaza resolution

    Hamas has reportedly shown “appreciation” as Russia and China vetoed a US-led draft resolution on a Gaza ‘ceasefire’ at the UN Security Council on Friday.

    The United States proposed a resolution endorsing “the urgent need for an immediate and enduring ceasefire” and, notably, condemning the October 7 attack carried out by Hamas for the first time.

    “We express our appreciation for the position of Russia, China and Algeria who rejected the biased American resolution of aggression against our people,” the Hamas said in a statement.

    They added that the draft consists of “misleading wording that is complicit” with Israel and “grants it cover and legitimacy to commit a genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

    On the other hand, prior to the vote, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, urged members against endorsing the resolution, deeming it as “excessively politicized” and implying it endorsed Israeli military operations in Rafah, Gaza, where more than half of its 2.3 million residents sought shelter in camps to escape the Israeli offensive in the northern regions.

    Nebenzia asserted that several non-permanent Security Council members had crafted an alternative resolution, which he portrayed as a fair proposal, calling on all members to support it.

  • Israeli military wants evacuation of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza

    Israeli military wants evacuation of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza

    Al Jazeera has reported that according to Hani Mahmoud, their colleague reporting from Gaza, the Israeli army has given a notice to forcefully displaced people to immediately leave Al-Shifa Medical Complex or the premises will be bombed.

    Mahmoud suggests that based on past bombing patterns, the entire hospital complex is at risk of destruction at the hands of the Israeli army.

    Al Jazeera also reports that as per local Palestinian media reports that a building used for specialised care within al-Shifa Hospital has been destroyed by the Israeli military.

    The military justified the raid on Monday by claiming according to intelligence, Hamas fighters were using the hospital complex for shelter. During the raid, approximately 90 Palestinians were killed, 300 suspects were interrogated, and over 160 were detained.

    Israel is continuing with its policies of destroying all infrastructure in Gaza, including health institutions, to force the strip to become completely uninhabitable.

  • Canada FM confirms halting arms shipments to Israel

    Canada FM confirms halting arms shipments to Israel

    OTTAWA: Canada will halt all arms shipments to Israel, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s office confirmed Wednesday, a decision that has drawn the ire of Israeli leaders facing growing international scrutiny over the war in the Gaza Strip.

    The besieged Palestinian territory is facing a mounting humanitarian crisis, and months of war have pushed hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the brink of famine.

    Canada, a key ally of the United States, which provides Israel with billions of dollars a year in military aid, had already reduced its shipments to Israel to only include non-lethal equipment, such as radios, following the October 7 Hamas attack.

    “Since January 8th, the government has not approved new arms export permits to Israel and this will continue until we can ensure full compliance with our export regime,” said a statement from Joly’s office.

    “There are no open permits for exports of lethal goods to Israel,” it added.

    Export permits approved prior to January 8, however, would “remain in effect,” Joly’s office said, explaining that canceling them risked “important implications for both Canada and its allies,” including NATO and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

    A senior Canadian official had on Tuesday told AFP that “the situation on the ground makes it so that we can’t” export any equipment that could have a potential military use.

    Israel slammed the decision, with foreign minister Israel Katz saying it “undermines Israel’s right to self-defense against Hamas terrorists.”

    “History will judge Canada’s current action harshly,” he said in a post on social media platform X.

    US Senator Bernie Sanders welcomed the move, saying in his own post on social media: “Given the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, including widespread and growing starvation, the US should not provide another nickel for (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s war machine.”

    The issue of arms deliveries to Israel has triggered legal proceedings in several countries around the world.

    In Canada, a coalition of lawyers and citizens of Palestinian origin filed a complaint against the government in early March to suspend arms exports to Israel, accusing Ottawa of violating both international and domestic law.

    Israel has historically been a top receiver of Canadian arms exports, with Can$21 million worth of military materiel exported to Israel in 2022, according to government data, following Can$26 million in shipments in 2021.

    That places Israel among the top 10 recipients of Canadian arms exports.

    Israel offensive in Gaza has killed at least 31,923 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

    While affirming Israel’s right to defend itself, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken an increasingly critical stance toward Israel as civilian deaths have mounted in Gaza.

    On Monday, the Canadian Parliament passed a nonbinding resolution calling for the international community to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.