US calls on Israel to investigate death of Palestinian boy

A person throws a stone during a protest over the killing of Palestinians in an Israeli raid on Wednesday, in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. (Reuters)
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Updated 30 September 2022
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US calls on Israel to investigate death of Palestinian boy

  • Relatives said Rayan Suleiman had no previous health problems and accused the army of scaring the child to death
  • The incident added to the rising tensions in the West Bank, where Israeli troops have been conducting daily arrest raids

JERUSALEM: The US State Department is calling on Israel to open a “thorough” investigation into the mysterious death of a 7-year-old Palestinian boy who collapsed and died on Thursday, shortly after Israeli soldiers came to his home in the occupied West Bank.
Relatives said Rayan Suleiman had no previous health problems and accused the army of scaring the child to death. The army called the death a tragedy and said its soldiers were not to blame.
The incident added to the rising tensions in the West Bank, where Israeli troops have been conducting daily arrest raids that have frequently escalated into deadly violence in recent months.
Earlier in the day, young Palestinian village boys were seen throwing stones at cars driving on a highway near the Israeli settlement of Tekoa, which lies close to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem. Later, relatives said that soldiers banged on the door and wanted to arrest Rian’s older brothers for alleged stone throwing.
Mohammed Suleiman, a 22-year-old cousin, said Rayan was shrieking in fear at sight of the soldiers and his parents shouted, “come here,” to calm him down. He said after the soldiers left, the boy collapsed. He said Rayan had been healthy.
The boy’s father, Yasser Suleiman, said Rayan tried to run away when the soldiers said they wanted to arrest his brothers and was briefly chased by the soldiers. He said Rayan was vomiting blood in the car after collapsing and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
“He was martyred from the fear of them,” the father told Palestine TV.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a military spokesman, said a senior officer on the scene went to the house after spotting one of the stone throwers on a balcony and told the father to make the children stop throwing stones at motorists. He said the officer spoke in a “very calm manner” and left.
“There was no violence, no entry into the house,” Hecht said.
In Washington, the State Department’s deputy spokesman, Vedant Patel, said the United States was “heartbroken to learn of the death of an innocent Palestinian child.”
“We support a thorough and immediate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the child’s death,” Patel said.
Hecht said the investigation was continuing.
Palestinians and human rights groups say the army is incapable of investigating wrongdoing by its forces and that soldiers are rarely held accountable.
Palestinian social media were awash with photos of Rayan superimposed over the golden Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, with Palestinians declaring him a “martyr” and condemning Israel for his death. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa headlined its report “the death of a child while being chased,” in effect blaming Israel for the death.
The boy was scheduled to be buried on Friday, when Palestinian demonstrators often clash with Israeli soldiers.
The funeral comes at a time of rising violence in the West Bank.
On Wednesday, four Palestinians were killed and 44 wounded during an Israeli military raid in the northern West Bank town of Jenin. It was the deadliest episode since Israel launched its crackdown earlier this year.
Israel has been conducting nightly arrest raids, primarily in the northern West Bank, since a series of deadly Palestinian attacks in Israel last spring. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed, making this the deadliest year in the occupied territory since 2015.
Most of the dead have been wanted militants who opened fire, or youths who threw firebombs or stones at soldiers entering their neighborhoods. But several civilians who were not involved in any violence have also died.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians seek the territory, now home to about 500,000 Israeli settlers, as the heartland of a future independent state.


Palestinian militants release new clip of Israeli hostage Trupanov in Gaza

Updated 11 sec ago
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Palestinian militants release new clip of Israeli hostage Trupanov in Gaza

Trupanov appealed to Aryeh Deri, a member of Israel’s governing coalition, to help free him and the other hostages held in Gaza
In September, Deri described the act of bringing back the hostages as a “sacred duty“

JERUSALEM: A Palestinian militant group allied with Hamas released a new clip Friday of Israeli hostage Sasha Trupanov, held in Gaza since the October 2023 attack, after publishing a first video earlier this week.
Trupanov, identified by his relatives in the previous video released on Wednesday, appealed to Aryeh Deri — leader of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas, a member of Israel’s governing coalition — to help free him and the other hostages held in Gaza.
The Shas party supports a deal for their release under the Jewish religious obligation to do everything possible to free captives.
In September, Deri described the act of bringing back the hostages as a “sacred duty.”
Trupanov, 29, is a dual Russian-Israeli citizen who was abducted with his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.
His mother and grandmother were also abducted and released along with Cohen during a week-long truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in November 2023.
His father, Vitaly, was killed in the October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history.
This is now the fourth video of Trupanov released by Islamic Jihad.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called for the release of Trupanov and another hostage, Maxim Herkin, in comments made before the release of the latest clip.
“We reiterate our call for the immediate and unconditional release of all civilians held by Palestinian groups, with priority given to our compatriots,” she said.
Herkin, a 35-year-old Russian-Israeli citizen, was abducted at the Nova music festival.
Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, some of them already dead.
Ninety-seven are still being held hostage, while 34 are confirmed dead but their bodies remain in Gaza.
The attack resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,764 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

Workers search through rubble in eastern Lebanon where Israeli strike killed 13

Updated 9 min 38 sec ago
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Workers search through rubble in eastern Lebanon where Israeli strike killed 13

  • All those killed in the strike on the town of Douris near Baalbek were employees and volunteers of the emergency services agency, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense
  • Some other remains were also recovered and will require DNA testing

BEIRUT: Rescue teams were searching Friday through rubble for missing people near the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon where an Israeli strike hit a civil defense center the night before, killing at least 13.
All those killed in the strike on the town of Douris near Baalbek were employees and volunteers of the emergency services agency, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense. Some other remains were also recovered and will require DNA testing, it said in a statement.
The General Directorate of Civil Defense expressed “deep regret over this direct attack on its members.” Staffers “will continue to respond to relief calls and continue with its humanitarian mission, no matter how great the challenges and sacrifices are,” it said.
Israel has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances and medical facilities to transport and store weapons. The Israeli military has not commented on the strike on the civil defense center in Baalbek.
Israel has been striking deeper inside Lebanon since September as it escalates the war against Hezbollah. After 13 months of war, more than 3,300 people have been killed and more than 14,400 wounded, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.
The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Lebanon’s Hezbollah group began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
Israel’s blistering 13-month war in Gaza has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The fighting has left some 76 people dead in Israel, including 31 soldiers.


Gaza aid access ‘at a low point’, UN official says

Updated 51 min 21 sec ago
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Gaza aid access ‘at a low point’, UN official says

  • UN official’s remarks run counter to a US assessment earlier this week that Israel is not currently impeding humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip

GENEVA: Aid access in Gaza is at a low point with deliveries to parts of the besieged north of the enclave all but impossible, a UN humanitarian official said on Friday.
The remarks run counter to a US assessment earlier this week that Israel is not currently impeding humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, avoiding restrictions on US military aid. Israel has said it has worked hard to assist the humanitarian needs in Gaza.
“From our perspective, on all indicators you can possibly think of in a humanitarian response, all of them are going in the wrong direction,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in response to a question at a Geneva press briefing about whether humanitarian access had improved.
“Access is at a low point. Chaos, suffering, despair, death, destruction, displacement are at a high point,” he added.
Laerke voiced concern about north Gaza where residents have been ordered to head south as Israeli forces’ more than month-long incursion continues. Israel says its operations there are designed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.
“We have seen and been particularly concerned about the situation in the north of Gaza, which is now effectively under siege and it is near impossible to deliver aid in there. So the operation is being stifled,” Laerke said.
“One of my colleagues described it as, for humanitarian work... you want to jump. You want to jump up and do something. But what he added was: but our legs are broken. So we are being asked to jump while our legs are broken.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in an Oct. 13 letter gave their Israeli counterparts a list of specific steps that Israel needed to do within 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza.
Failure to do so may have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel, they said in the letter. Other non-UN aid groups say Israel has failed to meet the demands — an allegation Israel has rejected.


Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal

Updated 15 November 2024
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Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal

  • Hamas official Basem Naim: Oct. 7 attack ‘an act of self defense’
  • ‘I have the right to live a free and dignified life,’ he tells Sky News

LONDON: A Hamas official has claimed that Israel has not put forward any “serious proposals” for a ceasefire since the assassination of its leader Ismail Haniyeh, despite the group being ready for one “immediately.”

Dr. Basem Naim told the Sky News show “The World With Yalda Hakim” that the last “well-defined, brokered deal” was put on the table between the two warring sides on July 2.

“It was discussed in all details and I think we were near to a ceasefire ... which can end this war, offer a permanent ceasefire and total withdrawal and prisoner exchange,” he said. “Unfortunately (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu preferred to go the other way.”

Naim urged the incoming Trump administration to do whatever necessary to help end the war.

He said Hamas does not regret its attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left 1,200 people dead and prompted Israel’s invasion of Gaza that has killed in excess of 43,000 people and left hundreds of thousands injured.

Naim said Israel is guilty of “big massacres” in the Palestinian enclave, and when asked if Hamas bore responsibility as a result of the Oct. 7 attack, he called it “an act of self defense,” adding: “It’s exactly as if you’re accusing the victims for the crimes of the aggressor.”

He continued: “I’m a member of Hamas, but at the same time I’m an innocent Palestinian civilian because I have the right to live a free and dignified life and I have the right to defend myself, to defend my family.”

When asked if he regrets the Oct. 7 attack, Naim replied: “Do you believe that a prisoner who is knocking (on) the door or who is trying to get out of the prison, he has to regret his will to be? This is part of our dignity ... to defend ourselves, to defend our children.”


US senator slams Biden administration for not punishing Israel over Gaza aid

Updated 15 November 2024
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US senator slams Biden administration for not punishing Israel over Gaza aid

  • Washington had threatened to suspend military support if aid not increased
  • Elizabeth Warren: Failure to hold Israel to account a ‘grave mistake’ that ‘undermines American credibility worldwide’

LONDON: Progressive US Sen. Elizabeth Warren has criticized the Biden administration’s failure to punish Israel after Washington delivered an ultimatum last month on improving aid deliveries to Gaza.

The Democratic senator endorsed a joint resolution of disapproval in Congress after the State Department said it would not take punitive action against Israel, The Guardian reported.

Official Israeli figures show that the amount of aid reaching Gaza has dropped to the lowest level in 11 months, despite the White House’s 30-day ultimatum threatening the loss of military support to Israel if aid was not increased.

The deadline expired on Tuesday as international humanitarian groups warned that Israel had fallen far short of Washington’s stated aid targets. Food security experts also warned that famine is likely imminent in parts of Gaza.

The State Department claimed that Israel was making limited progress on aid and was not blocking relief, meaning it had not violated US law.

Warren, senator for Massachusetts, said in a statement: “On Oct. 13, the Biden administration told Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu that his government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza or face the consequences under US law, which would include cutting off military assistance.

“Thirty days later, the Biden administration acknowledged that Israel’s actions had not significantly expanded food, water and basic necessities for desperate Palestinian civilians.

“Despite Netanyahu’s failure to meet the United States’ demands, the Biden administration has taken no action to restrict the flow of offensive weapons.”

The joint resolution of disapproval endorsed by Warren can enable Congress to overturn decisions by the president, if passed by the House and Senate.

Bernie Sanders, the independent senator for Vermont, said next week he will bring new joint resolutions of disapproval to block specific weapon sales to Israel.

“There is no longer any doubt that Netanyahu’s extremist government is in clear violation of US and international law as it wages a barbaric war against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he said.

On Thursday, 15 senators and 69 Congress members announced efforts to pressure the Biden administration to hold Israeli Cabinet members to account.

The plan targets Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the rise in Israeli settler violence, settlement-building and destabilization across the West Bank.

Warren described the Biden administration’s failure to hold Israel to account as a “grave mistake” that “undermines American credibility worldwide.”

She added: “If this administration will not act, Congress must step up to enforce US law and hold the Netanyahu government accountable through a joint resolution of disapproval.”