Israel criticized over plight of Palestinian hunger striker

Protesters take part in a demonstration outside the ICRC headquarters in Gaza City in support of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. (AFP)
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Updated 29 August 2022
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Israel criticized over plight of Palestinian hunger striker

  • Wife of prisoner appeals to international organizations, Abbas to intervene

RAMALLAH: Pictures and a video message posted by Palestinian hunger striker Khalil Al-Awawdeh have shocked Palestinian public opinion and the EU, which criticized Israel’s continued detention of him without trial.

Al-Awawdeh’s message came three days before 4,600 Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons began an open hunger strike to protest their poor conditions in detention.

West Bank cities are showing support for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons this week, with Palestinians holding a sit-in in front of the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross there.

Dalal Al-Awawdeh, the wife of the prisoner, appealed to international organizations and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to intervene and urgently release her husband.

Al-Awawdeh, held for more than 170 days, said in his video message: “No to administrative detention, no to administrative detention.”

“We are a people whose cause is just, and it will remain just, and we will remain against administrative detention, even if the flesh and skin melt and the bones vanish, even if the lives are gone,” he said.

“Be confident that we are the rightful owners and that our cause is just, no matter how high the price paid.”

Dalal Al-Awawdeh spoke to Arab News from inside the Israeli Assaf Harofeh Hospital where her husband is in intensive care.

She said that Al-Awawdeh “screams with his thin body to expose this criminal occupation and to tell the world that this prisoner was arrested without charge or trial and only wants freedom.”

Al-Awawdeh was arrested on Dec. 27, 2021 on charges of incitement via Facebook.

The Israeli military court released him on Jan. 5, 2022 because the charges against him had not been proven. However, the Israeli military prosecutor intervened, demanding that Al-Awawdeh be transferred to administrative detention.

It is expected that the Israeli military authorities will release Al-Awawdeh on Oct. 2. However, there is no guarantee that his administrative detention will not be extended so he has decided to continue the hunger strike until his release is confirmed.

The recent Israeli military operation against the Gaza Strip was halted with Egyptian efforts in exchange for the urgent release of Al-Awawdeh.

But the Israeli authorities stalled in implementing the agreement and only temporarily suspended Al-Awawdeh’s detention to allow him to receive medical care.

Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti told Arab News that anyone who saw photographs of Al-Awawda would be stunned by his poor condition.

He said that the detainee’s health was in danger and warned of a risky situation in the Palestinian territories if Al-Awawda died in an Israeli prison.

“Israel wants to break the will of the prisoners by breaking the will of return. But I say that this is the battle of the Palestinian people and not the battle of Al-Awawdeh alone,” Barghouti said.

There are 4,600 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons, detained in 23 Israeli prisons and detention centers.

The figure includes 730 administrative detainees held without trial, based on a secret file submitted by the Shin Bet to the Public Prosecution and the Israeli military judge. It also includes 175 children, 32 women, 600 patients and elderly detainees, the oldest of whom is Fuad Al-Shobaki, aged 82.

There are 250 prisoners who have spent more than 20 years in Israeli detention.

There are 25 prisoners who were detained before the signing of the Oslo agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel. The most important of them are Karim and Maher Younis, who have spent 42 years in detention.

While 1,385,000 Palestinian students went to their classrooms on Monday, 175 children did not because they were held in Israeli prisons.


Several areas south of Sudan capital at risk of famine, says World Food Programme

Updated 10 June 2025
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Several areas south of Sudan capital at risk of famine, says World Food Programme

  • Several areas south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, are at risk of famine, the World Food Programme

GENEVA, June 10 : Several areas south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, are at risk of famine, the World Food Programme said on Tuesday, with need on the ground outstripping resources amidst a funding shortfall.
“The level of hunger and destitution and desperation that was found (is) severe and confirmed the risk of famine in those areas,” Laurent Bukera, WFP Country Director in Sudan, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Port Sudan. 


Abbas tells Macron he supports demilitarization of Hamas

Updated 10 June 2025
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Abbas tells Macron he supports demilitarization of Hamas

PARIS: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said that Hamas “must hand over its weapons” and called for the deployment of international forces to protect “the Palestinian people,” France announced on Tuesday.
In a letter addressed on Monday to French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who this month will co-chair a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, Abbas outlined the main steps that he thinks must be taken to end the war in Gaza and achieve peace in the Middle East.
“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian Security Forces,” wrote Abbas.
He said he was “ready to invite Arab and international forces to be deployed as part of a stabilization/protection mission with a (UN) Security Council mandate.”
The conference at UN headquarters later this month will aim to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution — Israel currently controls large parts of the Palestinian territories.
“We are ready to conclude within a clear and binding timeline, and with international support, supervision and guarantees, a peace agreement that ends the Israeli occupation and resolves all outstanding and final status issues,” Abbas wrote.
“Hamas has to immediately release all hostages and captives,” Abbas added.
In a statement, the Elysee Palace welcomed “concrete and unprecedented commitments, demonstrating a real willingness to move toward the implementation of the two-state solution.”
Macron has said he is “determined” to recognize a Palestinian state, but also set out several conditions, including the “demilitarization” of Hamas.
In his letter, Abbas reaffirmed his commitment to reform the Palestinian Authority and confirmed his intention to hold presidential and general elections “within a year” under international auspices.
“The Palestinian State should be the sole provider of security on its territory, but has no intention to be a militarised State.”
France has long championed a two-state solution, including after the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel.
But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy shift and risk antagonizing Israel, which insists that such moves by foreign states are premature.


Lebanon says two dead in Israel strike

Updated 10 June 2025
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Lebanon says two dead in Israel strike

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike killed a Lebanese father and son Tuesday in a southern village, the Lebanese health ministry and state media said, the latest deaths despite a November ceasefire.
A second son was also wounded in the strike in Shebaa, the state-run National News Agency reported. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
“An Israeli enemy drone carried out a strike in the village of Shebaa, killing two people and wounding one,” a health ministry statement said.
Israel had warned on Friday that it would keep up its strikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon despite the condemnation expressed by the Lebanese government after a massive strike on south Beirut the previous night on the eve of the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said the strikes levelled nine residential blocks. The Israeli military said they targeted underground drone factories.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strikes as a “a flagrant violation” of the November 27 ceasefire agreement, which was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that culminated in two months of full-blown war.


Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say

Updated 10 June 2025
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Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say

  • In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza

VIENNA: UN experts said in a report on Tuesday that Israel committed the crime against humanity of “extermination” by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a “concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life.”

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on June 17.

“We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement.

“Israel’s targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination,” she added.

The commission examined attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites to assess if international law was breached.

Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February, alleging it was biased.

When the commission’s last report in March found Israel carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s health care facilities during the conflict in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the findings were biased and antisemitic.

In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza.

“Israeli forces committed war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities ... In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,” it said.

The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel in a surprise attack in October 2023, and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

Harm done to the Palestinian education system was not confined to Gaza, the report found, citing increased Israeli military operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as harassment of students and settler attacks there.

“Israeli authorities have also targeted Israeli and Palestinian educational personnel and students inside Israel who expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza, resulting in their harassment, dismissal or suspension and in some cases humiliating arrests and detention,” it said.

“Israeli authorities have particularly targeted female educators and students, intending to deter women and girls from activism in public places,” the commission added.


Israel says activist Greta Thunberg leaving on flight to France

Updated 10 June 2025
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Israel says activist Greta Thunberg leaving on flight to France

  • Israel says Greta Thunberg is being deported after Gaza-bound ship she was on was seized

PARIS: Israel on Tuesday said Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was leaving the country on a flight to France, after she was detained along with other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat and taken to a Tel Aviv airport for deportation.
“Greta Thunberg is departing Israel on a flight to France,” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with two photos of the activist on board a plane.

Five French activists aboard the boat for Gaza were set to face an Israeli judge, the French foreign minister said on Tuesday.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X. “One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”