GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: There was growing concern Friday over a key Gaza hospital a day after a raid by the Israeli army, with the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry saying several patients had died there due to a lack of oxygen.
The ministry said the power was cut off and the generators stopped after the raid at the Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, leading to the deaths of five patients.
In recent days, intense fighting has raged in the vicinity of the hospital — one of the Palestinian territory’s last remaining major medical facilities that are still operational.
The Israeli army said its forces at the hospital had taken into custody more than “20 terrorists” suspected of involvement in Hamas’s October 7 attack that sparked the war.
It had said the day before that troops entered the hospital acting on “credible intelligence” that hostages seized in the attack had been held at the facility and that bodies of some may still be inside, but it later said it had not yet found such evidence.
A witness who declined to be named for their safety told AFP the Israeli forces had shot “at anyone who moved inside the hospital.”
Gaza’s health ministry also raised fears for four other patients in the intensive care unit and three children, saying it held Israel “responsible for the lives of patients and staff considering that the complex is now under its full control.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders described a “chaotic situation” at the Nasser hospital, saying medics had been forced to flee and leave patients behind, with one employee unaccounted for and another detained by Israeli forces.
Roughly 130 hostages are still believed to be in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Dozens of the estimated 250 hostages seized during the attack were freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a week-long truce in November. Israel says 30 of those still in Gaza are presumed dead.
At least 28,775 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas militants of using hospitals for military purposes, something Hamas denies.
The UN Human Rights Office said Israel’s raid on the Nasser hospital appeared to be “part of a pattern of attacks by Israeli forces striking essential life-saving civilian infrastructure in Gaza, especially hospitals.”
At a press briefing Friday, World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the UN agency was trying to get access to the hospital to bring fuel and assess the situation on the ground.
Israel’s army on Friday reported the death of another soldier in Gaza, raising the number killed in the ground operation to 234.
It said it had carried out “targeted raids” overnight and killed “12 terrorists” in Khan Yunis.
The Gaza health ministry said Friday that another 112 people had been killed in strikes across the territory.
Nearly 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are trapped in Rafah — more than half of Gaza’s population — seeking shelter in a sprawling makeshift encampment near the Egyptian border with declining supplies.
“They are killing us slowly,” said displaced Palestinian Mohammad Yaghi.
“We are dying slowly due to the scarcity of resources and the lack of medications and treatments in the city of Rafah.”
“Everyone is sick, children and the elderly, and there is no medicine,” said Jihan Al-Quqa, who was displaced from Khan Yunis to Rafah.
At the Abu Yussef Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, AFP saw several corpses lined up in body bags while relatives grieved nearby.
US President Joe Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Thursday not to carry out an offensive on Rafah without a plan to keep civilians safe, the White House said.
France, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have also urged Israel not to launch a ground offensive in the city.
But Netanyahu has insisted he would push ahead with a “powerful” operation in Rafah to achieve “complete victory” over Hamas.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Egypt was building a walled camp to receive displaced Palestinians, citing Egyptian officials and security analysts.
In southern Israel, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Gaza, a gunman killed two people at a crowded bus stop on Friday.
Four others were wounded in the shooting near the town of Kiryat Malakhi, according to police.
An AFP photographer at the scene said the gunman had been killed and his body was still at the site of the attack. Police said he had been “neutralized” by a civilian at the scene.
Meanwhile, mediators from the United States, Qatar and Egypt gathered in Cairo this week to try and broker a deal to halt the fighting and see the release of the remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, held talks with CIA director Bill Burns and Egyptian and Qatari representatives in Cairo on Tuesday, before a Hamas delegation visited Wednesday.
But there has been limited signs of progress.
Netanyahu’s office said it had not received “any new proposal” from Hamas about releasing hostages, and Israeli media reported the country’s delegation would not return to negotiations until Hamas softened its stance.
Alarm over fate of major Gaza hospital after Israeli raid
https://arab.news/y83k3
Alarm over fate of major Gaza hospital after Israeli raid
- The power was cut off and the generators stopped after the raid at the Nasser hospital leading to the deaths of five patients
- The Israeli army said its forces at the hospital had taken into custody more than “20 terrorists”
Lebanese army unit clashes with Syrian gunmen at illegal border crossing
- Interior minister defends additional security measures at airport and land crossing points
BEIRUT: A Lebanese army unit clashed with a group of armed Syrian nationals at the border on Friday as the soldiers attempted to “close an illegal crossing” in the Maarboun-Baalbek area of eastern Lebanon.
The Syrians were trying to forcibly reopen the crossing with a bulldozer, the army said. Soldiers fired warning shots into the air and Syrians responded by returning fire.
The “armed Syrians fired at the Lebanese soldiers, injuring one and sparking a clash between both sides,” the army command added. “Artillery shells were used” and other Lebanese army units in the area also responded with strict military measures, it added.
Subsequently, “reinforcements from the army’s mobile regiment arrived in the area, following the retreat of the armed Syrians, some of whom sustained injuries,” and the illegal crossing remained closed.
Maarboun is a town in Baalbek-Hermel governorate, and a natural crossing point between the two countries. However it is an illegal crossing mainly used by smugglers and human traffickers. The surrounding area is known to be pro-Hezbollah.
The incident at the illegal crossing coincided with the actions of Syrian authorities on Friday morning that prevented hundreds of Lebanese from crossing the border between Masnaa in Lebanon and Jdeidet Yabous in Syria.
The Syrians suddenly imposed new conditions on Lebanese visitors, including requirements that they have a hotel reservation and at least $2,000 in cash. People visiting Syria for surgery or other medical care must now have proof of an appointment and a Syrian sponsor who can confirm their identity. A valid residence permit for the stay in Syria is also required. Lebanese authorities imposed similar rules on Syrians entering Lebanon after the civil war in Syria began more than a decade ago.
Buses carrying Lebanese passengers who intended to visit Syria were forced turn back at the border as a result of the new Syrian rules.
Lebanon’s General Security Directorate decided to “prohibit any Lebanese from entering Syria through illegal crossings between both countries in Bekaa and the north, pending clarity during this stage,” a source from the agency said.
After the fall of President Bashar Assad and his regime in Syria in early December, the directorate held two meetings with officials from the new Syrian administration to discuss the regulation of movement between the two countries.
Though media delegations, politicians and civilians have crossed into Syria in recent days, Lebanese authorities have tightened security at land crossings, following similar actions at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut.
Normal operations at the airport resumed on Friday after an incident on Thursday night involving an aircraft belonging to Iranian airline Mahan Air. Airport security decided to conduct a thorough inspection of all passengers when the plane landed, including luggage belonging to diplomats on board. The diplomats protested and chose instead to leave their luggage at the airport. It was taken to a storage facility for inspection the following day using scanners.
Footage circulated on social media apparently showing young men on motorcycles heading to the airport to protest against the measures. It was believed the heightened security was motivated by concerns that passengers might be carrying money for delivery to Hezbollah. A second Iranian plane that landed on Friday faced similar security measures.
Lebanon’s interior minister, Bassam Mawlawi, described the move as a routine procedure and added: “What the airport security is doing aims to protect Lebanon and the Lebanese people. We are enforcing the law, protecting the airport and safeguarding all of Lebanon because it cannot withstand any new aggression.”
The decision covered the inspection of all luggage, he said, including that carried by diplomats.
The heightened measures drew criticism from the vice president of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, Sheikh Ali Al-Khatib. During his Friday sermon, he called on the interior minister “to demonstrate his heroism against the enemy, not against those who made sacrifices to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty.”
Also on Friday, US Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, head of the international committee monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, toured Khiam, where the Lebanese army was deployed after the withdrawal of the Israeli forces. He was accompanied by Brig. Gen. Tony Faris, commander of the Lebanese army’s 7th Brigade.
Their visit came as Israel continued to face criticism for violating Lebanese sovereignty, including reconnaissance flights over southern Lebanon, extending as far as the southern suburbs of Beirut. Israeli forces were also accused of demolishing houses and roads in Dhayra and Jebbayn, and there were renewed warnings to residents of southern Lebanon not to return to homes in border areas until further notice.
There was a heavy presence of UN Interim Force in Lebanon forces along the Bayada-Naqoura road. The Lebanese army has placed concrete barriers on the road to Naqoura, preventing people other than UNIFIL personnel from entering. The UN force’s headquarters is located there.
The Lebanese army said it was surveying military remnants in Naqoura following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the town on Thursday. When this task is complete, Lebanese forces will be redeployed to the area, it added.
Hamas wants Gaza ceasefire deal as soon as possible, senior official says
- Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US have been engaged in months of back-and-forth talks between Israel and Hamas
CAIRO: Hamas said a new round of indirect talks on a Gaza ceasefire resumed in Qatar’s Doha on Friday, stressing the group’s seriousness in seeking to reach a deal as soon as possible, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said.
The new talks will focus on agreeing on a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, he added.
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US have been engaged in months of back-and-forth talks between Israel and Hamas that have failed to end more than a year of devastating conflict in Gaza.
A key obstacle to a deal has been Israel’s reluctance to agree to a lasting ceasefire.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had authorized Israeli negotiators to continue talks in Doha.
In December, Qatar expressed optimism that “momentum” was returning to the talks following Donald Trump’s election victory in the United States.
But a war of words then broke out with Hamas accusing Israel of setting “new conditions” while Israel accused Hamas of creating “new obstacles” to a deal.
In its Friday statement, Hamas said it reaffirmed its “seriousness, positivity and commitment to reaching an agreement as soon as possible that meets the aspirations and goals of our steadfast and resilient people.
Three Palestinians killed in standoff with security forces in West Bank
- Palestinian security forces and armed militant groups locked in weeks-long standoff in Jenin
RAMALLAH: A Palestinian man and his son were killed in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, local medical officials said on Friday, as a month-long standoff between Palestinian security forces and armed militant groups in the town continued.
Separately, a security forces officer died in what Palestinian Authority (PA) officials said was an accident, bringing to six the total number of the security forces to have died in the operation in Jenin which began on Dec. 5. There were no further details.
The PA denied that its forces killed the 44-year-old man and his son, who were shot as they stood on the roof of their house in the Jenin refugee camp, a crowded quarter that houses descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven out in the 1948 Middle East war. The man’s daughter was also wounded in the incident.
At least eight Palestinians have been killed in Jenin over the past month, one of them a member of the armed Jenin Brigades, which includes members of the armed wings of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah factions.
Palestinian security forces moved into Jenin last month in an operation officials say is aimed at suppressing armed groups of “outlaws” who have built up a power base in the city and its adjacent refugee camp.
The operation has deepened splits among Palestinians in the West Bank, where the PA enjoys little popular support but where many fear being dragged into a Gaza-style conflict with Israel if the militant groups strengthen their hold.
Jenin, in the northern West Bank, has been a center of Palestinian militant groups for decades and armed factions have resisted repeated attempts to dislodge them by the Israeli military over the years.
The PA set up three decades ago under the Oslo interim peace accords, exercises limited sovereignty in parts of the West Bank and has claimed a role in administering Gaza once fighting in the enclave is concluded.
The PA is dominated by the Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas and has long had a tense relationship with Hamas, with which it fought a brief civil war in Gaza in 2006 before Hamas drove it out of the enclave.
The horror of Saydnaya jail, symbol of Assad excesses
- Saydnaya prison north of the Syrian capital Damascus has become a symbol of the inhumane abuses of the Assad clan, especially since the country’s civil war erupted in 2011
BEIRUT: Saydnaya prison north of the Syrian capital Damascus has become a symbol of the inhumane abuses of the Assad clan, especially since the country’s civil war erupted in 2011.
The prison complex was the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomising the atrocities committed by ousted president Bashar Assad.
When Syrian rebels entered Damascus early last month after a lightning advance that toppled the Assad government, they announced they had seized Saydnaya and freed its inmates.
Some had been incarcerated there since the 1980s.
According to the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP), the rebels liberated more than 4,000 people.
Photographs of haggard and emaciated inmates, some helped by their comrades because they were too weak to leave their cells, circulated worldwide.
Suddenly the workings of the infamous jail were revealed for all to see.
The foreign ministers of France and Germany — on a visit to meet with Syria’s new rulers — toured the facility on Friday accompanied by members of Syria’s White Helmets emergency rescue group.
The prison was built in the 1980s during the rule of Hafez Assad, father of the deposed president, and was initially meant for political prisoners including members of Islamist groups and Kurdish militants.
But down the years, Saydnaya became a symbol of pitiless state control over the Syrian people.
In 2016, a United Nations commission found that “the Syrian Government has also committed the crimes against humanity of murder, rape or other forms of sexual violence, torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearance and other inhuman acts,” notably at Saydnaya.
The following year, Amnesty International in a report entitled “Human Slaughterhouse” documented thousands of executions there, calling it a policy of extermination.
Shortly afterwards, the United States revealed the existence inside Saydnaya of a crematorium in which the remains of thousands of murdered prisoners were burned.
War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in 2022 reported that around 30,000 people had been imprisoned in Saydnaya where many were tortured, and that just 6,000 were released.
The ADMSP believes that more than 30,000 prisoners were executed or died under torture, or from the lack of medical care or food between 2011 and 2018.
The group says the former authorities in Syria had set up salt chambers — rooms lined with salt for use as makeshift morgues to make up for the lack of cold storage.
In 2022, the ADMSP published a report describing for the first time these makeshift morgues of salt.
It said the first such chamber dated back to 2013, one of the bloodiest years in the Syrian civil conflict.
Many inmates are officially considered to be missing, with their families never receiving death certificates unless they handed over exorbitant bribes.
After the fall of Damascus last month, thousands of relatives of the missing rushed to Saydnaya hoping they might find loved ones hidden away in underground cells.
But Saydnaya is now empty, and the White Helmets emergency workers have since announced the end of search operations there, with no more prisoners found.
Several foreigners also ended up in Syrian jails, including Jordanian Osama Bashir Hassan Al-Bataynah, who spent 38 years behind bars and was found “unconscious and suffering from memory loss,” the foreign ministry in Amman said last month.
According to the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Jordan, 236 Jordanian citizens were held in Syrian prisons, most of them in Saydnaya.
Other freed foreigners included Suheil Hamawi from Lebanon who returned home after being locked up in Syria for 33 years, including inside Saydnaya.
Israeli strikes kill at least 42 in Gaza as ceasefire talks set to resume in Qatar
- Israel said missiles were fired into the country from Yemen, which set off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and central Israel and sent people scrambling to shelters
- Hospital staff say at least 30 people, including children, were killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes overnight and Friday morning
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people in Gaza, including children, overnight and into Friday, hospital and emergency response workers said, as health workers and Israel’s military traded claims over reported evacuation orders for two hospitals in the territory’s largely isolated north.
The assertions over Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals occurred as stalled ceasefire talks to end nearly 15 months of war were set to resume in Qatar.
Staff at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said that more than a dozen women and children were killed in strikes in central Gaza, including in Nuseirat, Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir Al-Balah. Dozens of people were killed across the enclave the previous day.
“We woke up to the missile strike. We found the whole house disintegrated,” Abdul Rahman Al-Nabrisi said in the Maghazi refugee camp.
Later Friday, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said that an airstrike killed three people in a car in Zawaida in central Gaza. And the Civil Defense, first responders affiliated with the Hamas-run government, said that an airstrike killed seven people, including four children and a woman, in the Shijaiyah neighborhood outside Gaza City, and another strike killed two people at Al-Samer junction in Gaza City.
The Israeli army said in a statement that during the past day it had struck dozens of Hamas gathering points and command centers throughout Gaza. And it warned people to leave an area of central Gaza, saying that it would attack following launches toward Israel. The military said that a few projectiles entered from central and northern Gaza, with no injuries reported.
Freelance journalist Omar Al-Derawi was among those killed Friday. A press vest was placed on his shroud. The Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that more than 130 Palestinian reporters have been killed in the war.
Israelis also woke up to attacks. Israel said that missiles were fired from Yemen, setting off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and central Israel and sending people scrambling to shelters. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen often claim responsibility.
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While the UN Security Council met Friday to discuss the war’s effects on hospitals in Gaza, a hospital in the north, Al-Awda, said in a statement that Israel’s military had told staff and patients to immediately evacuate. It didn’t give details.
And a nurse at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza told The Associated Press they had received orders to evacuate. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, the nurse said that they were still there with 19 people, including eight patients, and staffers had asked for ambulances.
Israel’s military said that it wasn’t “operating to evacuate” Al-Awda or Indonesian hospitals.
“Messages were sent to reiterate to officials in the health authorities that there is no need to evacuate the hospital,” it said of Indonesian.
Neither side’s statements could be immediately verified. The Israeli military heavily restricts the movements of Palestinians in Gaza and has barred foreign journalists from entering the territory throughout the war, making it difficult to verify information.
The war’s effect on hospitals has been a contentious issue as the health system has been largely devastated. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of operating out of hospitals and said that the military tries to protect the facilities. The military has carried out raids on several hospitals, including Al-Awda and Indonesian, during the war.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk told the Security Council on Friday that a recent report by his office documented “at least 136 strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities in Gaza, which caused significant death and injury among doctors, nurses, medical staff and other civilians and damaged or destroyed many of the buildings targeted.” He said both sides must protect the facilities.
Indirect ceasefire negotiations were expected to resume Friday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said that he authorized a delegation from the Mossad intelligence agency, the Shin Bet internal security agency and the military to continue negotiations in Qatar.
The US-led talks have repeatedly stalled. Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed. But the militants, while greatly weakened, have repeatedly regrouped, often after Israeli forces withdraw from areas.
The war was sparked by Hamas-led militants’ attack into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in retaliation has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up more than half the dead. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.
Israel’s military says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas. The army says it has killed 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times. Winter has now arrived, and hundreds of thousands are sheltering in tents near the sea.
