GAZA: The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins Monday in Gaza with no truce in sight, as fighting rages between Israeli forces and Hamas militants and a dire humanitarian crisis grips the besieged Palestinian territory.
A Spanish charity ship with food aid prepared to sail from Cyprus to the coastal Gaza Strip, where the UN has repeatedly warned of famine.
Aid groups say only a fraction of the supplies required to meet basic humanitarian needs have been allowed into Gaza since October, when Israel placed it under near-total siege.
About 370 kilometers (230 miles) from Cyprus across the Mediterranean Sea, Mohammed Harara stood on the shores of Gaza, hoping for the aid to arrive.
“I’ve been waiting since this morning, because tomorrow is the start of the holy month of Ramadan and the situation is very tragic,” he said.
The non-governmental group Open Arms said its boat would tow a barge with 200 tons of food, which its partner the US charity World Central Kitchen would then unload on Gaza’s shores.
It was expected to depart “within the coming hours,” Cypriot government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis told Cyprus News Agency.
Jordanian, US, French, Belgian and Egyptian planes parachuted aid into northern Gaza on Sunday, but the United Nations’ aid coordinator for the area has said boosting supply by land is the best way to get assistance to the territory’s 2.4 million people.
Aid airdrops
Some of the airdropped food packages smashed open on impact, leaving residents picking through the dirt to salvage what they could, AFPTV images showed.
The war started by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel has killed 31,045 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where vast swathes have been reduced to a bombed-out wasteland.
Weeks of talks involving US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have aimed for a six-week truce and the release of many of the hostages taken on October 7 that militants are still holding. In return, Israel would free Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
The aim had been to halt the fighting by the start of Ramadan.
Both sides have blamed each other for failing to reach a truce deal, after Israel demanded a full list of surviving hostages and Hamas called for Israel to pull out all its troops from Gaza.
A source with knowledge of the truce talks told AFP that “there will be a diplomatic push especially in the next 10 days” with a view to securing a deal within the first half of Ramadan.
The holy month this year is “all pain,” said Ahmed Kamis, 40, in Rafah, where around 1.5 million people have tried to find refuge but are still at risk from Israeli bombing.
Israel has also threatened to launch a ground operation into the southern city.
In Washington, President Joe Biden, who faces growing criticism for his steadfast support of Israel as the civilian death toll in Gaza soars, issued a statement marking the start of Ramadan.
“This year, it comes at a moment of immense pain,” Biden said.
“As Muslims gather around the world over the coming days and weeks to break their fast, the suffering of the Palestinian people will be front of mind for many. It is front of mind for me,” Biden added.
In Saudi Arabia, King Salman called in his Ramadan message for the international community to “uphold its responsibilities to put an end to these heinous crimes and ensure the establishment of safe humanitarian and relief corridors.”
In a message of his own, UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed his “solidarity and support to all those suffering from the horrors in Gaza. In these trying times, the spirit of Ramadan is a beacon of hope, a reminder of our shared humanity.”
Growing Israel-US tensions
Biden on Saturday stressed his growing impatience with Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling broadcaster MSNBC that the Israeli leader “must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.”
At this stage, said Biden, Netanyahu’s approach to the war was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”
Netanyahu, under pressure from desperate families of hostages still held in Gaza as well as critics of his government, on Sunday rejected Biden’s comments and said most Israelis back “the action that we’re taking to destroy the remaining terrorist battalions of Hamas.”
He said Israel’s military had killed “at least 13,000 terrorist fighters,” but did not give details on how the figure was derived.
Hamas’s attack that started the war resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.
The militants also took around 250 hostages, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes that 99 hostages still in militants’ hands remain alive and 31 have died.
The UN has reported particular difficulty in accessing northern Gaza for deliveries of food and other aid.
What is available in the south is sold at exorbitant prices, residents say, making this Ramadan like no other.
Israel-Hamas war rages in besieged Gaza as Ramadan begins
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Israel-Hamas war rages in besieged Gaza as Ramadan begins
- A Spanish charity ship with food aid prepared to sail from Cyprus to the coastal Gaza Strip
- Some of the airdropped food packages smashed open on impact, leaving residents picking through the dirt
Separated for decades, Assad’s fall spurs hope for families split by Golan Heights buffer zone
- Golan Heights is a rocky plateau that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981
- US is the only country to recognize Israel’s control; the rest of the world considers the Golan Heights occupied Syrian territory
In the distance, a tiny white speck waved frantically from the hillside.
“We can see you!” Soha Safadi exclaimed excitedly on her cellphone. She paused briefly to wipe away tears that had begun to flow. “Can you see us too?”
The tiny speck on the hill was Soha’s sister, Sawsan. Separated by war and occupation, they hadn’t seen each other in person for 22 years.
The six Safadi sisters belong to the Druze community, one of the Middle East’s most insular religious minorities. Its population is spread across Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Golan Heights, a rocky plateau that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981. The US is the only country to recognize Israel’s control; the rest of the world considers the Golan Heights occupied Syrian territory.
Israel’s seizure of the Golan Heights split families apart.
Five of the six Safadi sisters and their parents live in Majdal Shams, a Druze town next to the buffer zone created between the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syria. But the sixth, 49-year-old Sawsan, married a man from Jaramana, a town on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, 27 years ago and has lived in Syria ever since. They have land in the buffer zone, where they grow olives and apples and also maintain a small house.
With very few visits allowed to relatives over the years, a nearby hill was dubbed “Shouting Hill,” where families would gather on either side of the fence and use loudspeakers to speak to each other.
The practice declined as the Internet made video calls widely accessible, while the Syrian war that began in 2011 made it difficult for those on the Syrian side to reach the buffer zone.
But since the Dec. 8 fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, families like the Safadis, are starting to revive the practice. They cling to hope, however faint, that regime change will herald a loosening of restrictions between the Israeli-controlled area and Syria that have kept them from their loved ones for so long.
“It was something a bit different. You see her in person. It feels like you could be there in two minutes by car,” Soha Safadi, 51, said Wednesday after seeing the speck that was her sister on the hill. “This is much better, much better.”
Since Assad’s fall, the sisters have been coming to the fence every day to see Sawsan. They make arrangements by phone for a specific time, and then make a video call while also trying to catch a glimpse of each other across the hill.
“She was very tiny, but I could see her,” Soha Safadi said. “There were a lot of mixed feelings — sadness, joy and hope. And God willing, God willing, soon, soon, we will see her” in person.
After Assad fell, the Israeli military pushed through the buffer zone and into Syria proper. It has captured Mount Hermon, Syria’s tallest mountain, known as Jabal Al-Sheikh in Arabic, on the slopes of which lies Majdal Shams. The buffer zone is now a hive of military and construction activity, and Sawsan can’t come close to the fence.
While it is far too early to say whether years of hostile relations between the two countries will improve, the changes in Syria have sparked hope for divided families that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to meet again.
“This thing gave us a hope … that we can see each other. That all the people in the same situation can meet their families,” said another sister, 53-year-old Amira Safadi.
Yet seeing Sawsan across the hill, just a short walk away, is also incredibly painful for the sisters.
They wept as they waved, and cried even more when their sister put their nephew, 24-year-old Karam, on the phone. They have only met him once, during a family reunion in Jordan. He was 2 years old.
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts in the heart,” Amira Safadi said. “It’s so close and far at the same time. It is like she is here and we cannot reach her, we cannot hug her.”
Human Rights Watch says Israel’s deprivation of water in Gaza is act of genocide
- ‘What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive’
- Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins
THE HAGUE: Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.
“This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to an ‘act of genocide’ under the Genocide Convention of 1948,” Human Rights Watch said in its report.
Israel has repeatedly rejected any accusation of genocide, saying it has respected international law and has a right to defend itself after the cross-border Hamas-led attack from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023 that precipitated the war.
Although the report described the deprivation of water as an act of genocide, it noted that proving the crime of genocide against Israeli officials would also require establishing their intent. It cited statements by some senior Israeli officials which it said suggested they “wish to destroy Palestinians” which means the deprivation of water “may amount to the crime of genocide.”
“What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive,” Lama Fakih, Human Rights Watch Middle East director told a press conference.
Human Rights Watch is the second major rights group in a month to use the word genocide to describe the actions of Israel in Gaza, after Amnesty International issued a report that concluded Israel was committing genocide.
Both reports came just weeks after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. They deny the allegations.
The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines the crime of genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
The 184-page Human Rights Watch report said the Israeli government stopped water being piped into Gaza and cut off electricity and restricted fuel which meant Gaza’s own water and sanitation facilities could not be used.
As a result, Palestinians in Gaza had access to only a few liters of water a day in many areas, far below the 15-liter-threshold for survival, the group said. Israel launched its air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities across the border 14 months ago, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins.
Israel hits ports, energy sites in Yemen after missile intercepted
- Raids ‘targeted two central power plants’ in Yemen’s capital Sanaa
- The Houthi militants have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians
JERUSALEM: Israel said Thursday it struck ports and energy infrastructure it alleges are used by Houthi militants, after intercepting a missile fired by the group.
Israel’s military said it “conducted precise strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen — including ports and energy infrastructure in Sanaa, which the Houthis have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military actions.”
The announcement came shortly after Israel said it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen.
Al-Masira, a media channel belonging to the Houthis, said a series of “aggressive raids” were launched in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and the port city of Hodeidah.
It reported raids that “targeted two central power plants” in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, while in Hodeidah it said “the enemy launched four aggressive raids targeting the port... and two raids targeting” an oil facility.
The strikes were the second time this week that Israel’s military has intercepted a missile from Yemen.
On Monday, the Houthis claimed a missile launch they said was aimed at “a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area of Yaffa” — a reference to Israel’s Tel Aviv area.
Also Monday, an Israeli navy missile boat intercepted a drone in the Mediterranean after it was launched from Yemen, the military said.
The Houthi militants have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians and pledged Monday to continue operations “until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”
On December 9, a drone claimed by Houthis exploded on the top floor of a residential building in the central Israel city of Yavne, causing no casualties.
In July, a Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting retaliatory strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.
The Houthis have also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets by United States and sometimes British forces.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the group had become a “global threat,” pointing to Iran’s support for the militants.
“We will continue to act against anyone, anyone in the Middle East, that threatens the state of Israel,” he said.
Israeli army says intercepted missile fired from Yemen
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said sirens sounded across central Israel as it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen on Thursday.
The Israeli Air Force “intercepted one missile that was launched from Yemen before it crossed into Israeli territory,” said a statement from the army, adding that there could be “falling debris from the interception.”
Blinken says Syria’s HTS should learn from Taliban isolation
- Blinken called for a “non-sectarian” Syrian government that protects minorities and addresses security concerns, including keeping the fight against the Daesh group
NEW YORK: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Wednesday on Syria’s triumphant HTS rebels to follow through on promises of inclusion, saying it can learn a lesson from the isolation of Afghanistan’s Taliban.
The Islamist movement rooted in Al-Qaeda and supported by Turkiye has promised to protect minorities since its lightning offensive toppled strongman Bashar Assad this month following years of stalemate.
“The Taliban projected a more moderate face, or at least tried to, in taking over Afghanistan, and then its true colors came out. The result is it remains terribly isolated around the world,” Blinken said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
After some initial overtures to the West, the Taliban reimposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law that includes barring women and girls from secondary school and university.
“So if you’re the emerging group in Syria,” Blinken said, “if you don’t want that isolation, then there’s certain things that you have to do in moving the country forward.”
Blinken called for a “non-sectarian” Syrian government that protects minorities and addresses security concerns, including keeping the fight against the Daesh group and removing lingering chemical weapons stockpiles.
Blinken said that HTS can also learn lessons from Assad on the need to reach a political settlement with other groups.
“Assad’s utter refusal to engage in any kind of political process is one of the things that sealed his downfall,” Blinken said.HTS
