GAZA CITY: The death of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy during protests along Gaza’s border with Israel has sparked condemnation and international calls for restraint.
High-ranking Palestinian official Saeb Erekat called on the International Criminal Court to open a “serious judicial inquiry into the crimes committed against the Palestinian people.”
Rescue services and relatives said Mohammed Ayoub was killed by Israeli gunfire on Friday.
The Israeli army claimed that it was opening an investigation into the death of the young Palestinian, who was killed during demonstrations that have brought thousands of Palestinians to the border for four consecutive Fridays.
A spokesperson for the EU has called for a “full investigation” into the circumstances of the death.
“As we once again mourn the loss of lives, the EU calls on the Israel Defense Forces to refrain from using lethal force against unarmed protesters,” a statement said.
“As stated repeatedly, the priority now must be to avoid any further escalation of violence and loss of life,” the spokesperson said.
On Friday night, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nikolay Mladenov wrote on Twitter: “It is outrageous to shoot at children... #Children must be protected from #violence, not exposed to it.”
The teenager’s father Ibrahim Ayoub said his son “was standing far from the soldiers and not armed.”
“Why are our children killed and Israeli children living a quiet life?“
Three other Palestinians were killed on Friday, bringing to 38 the death toll from Israeli gunfire since the start of “March of Return” protests on March 30.
US envoy for the Middle East Jason Greenblatt called for moderation.
“As we mourn the tragic loss of a young life, we must all commit ourselves to avoid further suffering by responses to this death,” he said.
Israeli forces have responded to demonstrations along its border by firing live ammunition, injuring hundreds in addition to the deaths.
But Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman reiterated that he held leaders of Hamas, which rules Gaza, responsible for the violence and the death of the Palestinian teenager.
“Those cowardly leaders who are hiding behind women and children and send them forward as a human shield, so that they can continue to dig tunnels and carry out terrorist actions against the state of Israel,” he wrote on Twitter.
“I will again tell the habitants of Gaza... Do not approach the fence.”
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it had arrested 15 Hamas operatives in a West Bank raid on Saturday night.
The military claimed those captured are suspected of collaborating with a well-known Hamas operative from Gaza to spread its activities to the West Bank.
Meanwhile, more than 100 members of the 700-seat Palestinian National Council (PNC) want to delay a rare session of the Palestinians’ top decision-making body, saying on Sunday they were concerned some factions would be shut out.
The PNC is due to convene in Ramallah on April 30 to discuss US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a policy change that has outraged the Palestinians.
In a letter obtained by Reuters to PNC speaker Saleem Al-Zanoun, 109 legislators, including independents and delegates from Hamas and the mainstream Fatah faction, urged the session’s postponement.
They said that going ahead with the meeting, with only narrow factional representation due to Israeli travel restrictions on delegates from Gaza and outside the Palestinian territories, would deepen internal divisions.
“In order to spare our Palestinian cause imminent dangers and out of our eagerness to achieve unity and end splits and division, we urge you to delay the PNC session,” said the letter.
There was no immediate word from Al-Zanoun whether he would agree to the request, which followed word from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on Thursday that it would boycott the session because it wanted more factions to attend.
In Ramallah, Mohammad Sbeih, the PNC’s secretary, declined to comment directly on the letter but told Reuters there will no delays.
Israeli restraint urged after killing of Gaza teenager
Israeli restraint urged after killing of Gaza teenager
- Nikolay Mladenov: “It is outrageous to shoot at children... #Children must be protected from #violence, not exposed to it.”
- Avigdor Lieberman reiterated that he held leaders of Hamas, which rules Gaza, responsible for the violence and the death of the Palestinian teenager.
Emirati observation satellite launches successfully from California
- MBZ-SAT was entirely developed by Emirati engineers at Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai
- Developers say it will enhance disaster-management by capturing high-res images of areas as small as 1 sq. meter
LONDON: The Emirati-developed observation satellite MBZ-SAT successfully launched on Tuesday evening from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in the US state of California.
Described by developers as the most advanced observation satellite in the Middle East, it was carried into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Emirates News Agency reported.
The satellite was entirely developed by Emirati engineers at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. Final testing by the team ahead of launch took place at SpaceX’s facilities in the US.
Developers said the satellite will enhance disaster-management efforts by continuously capturing high-resolution images that can reveal details in areas as small as 1 sq. meter.
120 civilians killed in artillery shelling in Sudan
PORT SUDAN: At least 120 civilians were killed in artillery shelling of western Omdurman on Tuesday as fighting between the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces escalated again.
Rescuers said medical supplies were in critically short supply as health workers struggled to treat “a large number of wounded people suffering from varying degrees of injuries” in the capital Khartoum’s twin city just across the Nile River.
Sudan has been at war since April 2023 between the forces of rival generals. Most of Omdurman is under army control, while the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces hold Khartoum North and some other areas of the capital.
Greater Khartoum residents on both sides of the Nile regularly report shelling across the river, with bombs and shrapnel often hitting homes and civilians. Both the army and the paramilitaries have been accused of targeting civilians, including health workers, and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks. Port Sudan, the seat of Sudan's army-aligned government, was without power after a drone attack by the paramilitaries hit a hydroelectric dam in the north.
The war has killed up to 150,000 people, uprooted more than 12 million and pushed many Sudanese to the brink of famine.
Israelis, Gazans anxiously awaiting truce deal
- The attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures
JERUSALEM: Israelis and Gazans on Tuesday anxiously awaited a long-sought truce deal, with relatives of hostages calling for their release, and displaced Palestinians praying for a chance to return home.
Multiple officials from mediating countries involved in the negotiations have said a deal on a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange is closer than ever, with Qatar saying negotiations were in their “final stages.”
In Israel, since the early morning, the families of hostages and their supporters gathered outside the parliament and the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demand that every effort be made to secure a deal after months of disappointment.
“Time is of the essence, and time does not favor the hostages,” said Gil Dickmann, cousin of former hostage Carmel Gat, whose body was recovered from a Gaza tunnel in September.
“Hostages who are alive will end up dead. Hostages who are dead might be lost,” Dickmann said at a rally in Jerusalem. “We have to act now.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Dickmann and several other relatives of hostages still being held in Gaza met with Netanyahu to press him to agree to a deal.
“If we stop the war, we will receive all the hostages immediately,” said Eli Shtivi, father of former hostage Ilan Shtivi.
“So, that is what needs to be done.”
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
On that day, militants also took 251 people hostage, of whom 94 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has since killed 46,645 people, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.
The extensive military offensive has left much of Gaza in ruins, displacing most of its residents during the course of more than 15 months of war.
The longing to end the war is deeply felt in Gaza as well.
“I’m anxiously awaiting the truce. I will cry for days on end,” said Umm Ibrahim Abu Sultan, a resident of Gaza City now living in Khan Yunis after being displaced along with her five children. “We lost everything.”
She expressed disbelief at the possibility of reuniting with her husband, who remained in Gaza City.
“I’m waiting for the announcement of the agreement. I just want to go back to my home, my area, and my family. It feels like we’re coming back from the dead,” she said.
Displaced Gazan Hassan Al-Madhoun said he had been waiting for 15 months for a deal.
“I can’t even imagine how I’ll feel when we return to Jabalia and to our destroyed home,” he said.
“It will take time to process the extent of the loss. The martyrs are still buried under the rubble.”
Back in Israel, however, not everyone was in favor of a ceasefire.
“They (Hamas) need to raise their hands and say, ‘That’s it. We’re giving you the hostages back because you won,’ and that’s not what’s happening,” said Barbara Haskel at a rally protesting the proposed deal.
Palestinian health ministry says Israeli air strike kills 6 in West Bank
- The Palestinian ministry said among those killed was 15-year-old Mahmud Ashraf Mustafa Gharbiya
- Israeli forces make frequent raids on Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967
JENIN, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian health ministry said Tuesday that an Israeli air strike on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank killed six people, including a teenager, with the Israeli military confirming it carried out an attack in the area.
“There are six martyrs and several injured as a result of the Israeli bombing of Jenin refugee camp,” the Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement.
The Israeli military did not offer details but said it had carried out “an attack in the Jenin area.”
The Palestinian ministry said among those killed was 15-year-old Mahmud Ashraf Mustafa Gharbiya.
Palestinian security forces of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) slammed the raid by the Israeli military.
“The pre-planned intervention ... thwarts all efforts being made to maintain security and order and restore life to normal,” said Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the Palestinian forces, in a statement.
“It reflects the occupation’s premeditated intentions to disrupt every national endeavour aimed at protecting our people.”
Israeli forces make frequent raids on Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Violence in the territory has soared since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7, 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 831 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the health ministry.
At least 28 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
In recent weeks Jenin has also seen intra-Palestinian violence, with PA forces clashing with militants.
The clashes broke out amid a major PA raid on the Jenin camp after the December 5 arrest of a Jenin Battalion commander on charges of possessing weapons and illicit funds.
Armed factions in Jenin and elsewhere see themselves as offering more effective resistance to the Israeli occupation than the PA, which coordinates security matters with Israel.
Israeli foreign minister sees a majority in government to support Gaza agreement
- Gideon Saar said a majority in the Israeli government will support a hostage deal
JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday he believed there would be a majority in the government to support a Gaza hostage deal if one is finally agreed, despite vocal opposition from hard-line nationalist parties in the coalition.
“I believe that if we achieve this hostage deal, we will have a majority in the government that will support the agreement,” he said in a press conference in Rome with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
