RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: Torrential rains lashed a tent camp for displaced people in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where frightened Palestinian children can no longer distinguish between thunder and Israeli bombardment.
The storm fell overnight Monday to Tuesday in the southernmost Gaza Strip city, adding to the anguish of Palestinians who fled the war between Hamas and Israel, many without warm clothes, blankets or proper footwear.
Oum Abdullah Alwan said her children “screamed in fear” because “we can’t tell the difference between the sound of rain and the sound of shelling.”
“’It’s shelling, Mum, we have to run,’” one of the children told Alwan, who was displaced from Jabalia further north, and now lives with more than a dozen family members in a tent in the makeshift camp.
She asked her son: “Is that the sound of shelling?” He told her it was thunder.
The rain, accompanied by biting winds, soaked foam mattresses and the meagre belongings of the camp’s residents.
“We are 14 people living in a tent and we cannot find a single dry mattress to sleep on, or even a dry blanket. We have been soaked in rainwater all night,” said Alwan.
Like other parents, she said she huddled with her children, embracing them to quell their shivers and “feel a little warmth.”
“How much longer will we live in this torment? How much longer?,” she cried out.
The war, now in its sixth month, has devastated vast swathes of Gaza and pushed hundreds of thousands to flee their homes seeking safety.
Many have flooded into Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to launch a ground offensive as he hunts Hamas militants.
The war broke out after an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.
Israel retaliated with relentless air, ground and sea bombardment on the Gaza Strip that has killed at least 31,819 people, mostly women and children, the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory says.
Hundreds of thousands of people are now also on the brink of famine, the United Nations and international aid groups have warned.
An estimated 1.5 million Palestinians now live in Rafah, most of them displaced from other parts of the Gaza Strip and living in a sea of makeshift tents.
In the camp, a group of children walked past the tents wearing sandals or even barefoot.
“I’ve told you many times not to play here,” an old man shouted at them. “It’s (the water is) dirty. You’ll get sick.”
Residents complained that rainwater was seeping through the tents, drenching them and their belongings and making them ill.
Many tried to patch up their improvised homes with whatever they could find.
Mahmoud Saad gathered sand and pushed it against the edge of his family’s tent to stop the water, with help from his daughter Aya.
“Winter is usually a blessed season, but not for Gaza,” said Aya.
Further away, Akram Al-Arian, who is displaced from Khan Yunis, said when the rain fell he too was confused, thinking it was another Israeli bombardment.
“I held my children close to me like a hen protecting her chicks,” Arian said.
“I didn’t know what to do. I’m tired of living in a tent.”
Abir Al-Shaer, also originally from Khan Yunis, said her children had “developed a psychological obsession with rockets.”
“Every sound is a rocket sound to them, even when the tent flap flutters in the wind, they think it’s the sound of a rocket.”
Rafah displaced shiver as thunder and rain lash tent camp
https://arab.news/cy594
Rafah displaced shiver as thunder and rain lash tent camp
- Oum Abdullah Alwan said her children “screamed in fear” because “we can’t tell the difference between the sound of rain and the sound of shelling”
- The rain, accompanied by biting winds, soaked foam mattresses and the meagre belongings of the camp’s residents
UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician
- Emily Thornberry: Britain has ‘obligation under Rome Convention’ to arrest Israeli PM if he enters country
- Court: ‘Reasonable grounds to believe’ Netanyahu responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity in Gaza
LONDON: The UK will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, a senior British politician has said.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on Thursday for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, alongside his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, pertaining to the Gaza war.
Emily Thornberry — Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, and former shadow foreign secretary and shadow attorney general — told Sky News: “If Netanyahu comes to Britain, our obligation under the Rome Convention would be to arrest him under the warrant from the ICC.
“(It is) not really a question of should — we are required to, because we are members of the ICC.”
UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has refused to be drawn on whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on British soil, saying it “wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment.”
She told Sky: “We’ve always respected the importance of international law, but in the majority of the cases that they pursue, they don’t become part of the British legal process.
“What I can say is that obviously, the UK government’s position remains that we believe the focus should be on getting a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Netanyahu’s arrest warrant is the first to be issued against the premier of a major Western ally by an international court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
His office denounced the warrant as “anti-Semitic,” adding that Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions.” Israel is not an ICC member and rejects the court’s jurisdiction.
US President Joe Biden called the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous,” adding: “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he plans to invite Netanyahu to visit Budapest, adding that the arrest warrant will “not be observed” by his government.
The Italian and French governments, however, have indicated that Netanyahu will be arrested if he visits either country.
The ICC said on Thursday it has “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
The court also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel says Al-Masri, believed to have been the mastermind behind the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, was killed in Gaza earlier this year.
The ICC said it issued the warrant for his arrest because of insufficient evidence to prove his death.
Monitor raises toll in Israel strikes on Syria’s Palmyra to 92
- Wednesday’s Israeli attack targeted three sites in Palmyra, with one hitting a meeting of pro-Iranian groups
- Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country
BEIRUT: A Syria war monitor said on Friday that Israeli strikes on the city of Palmyra this week killed 92 pro-Iran fighters, after a United Nations representative said they were likely the deadliest to date.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday’s attack targeted three sites in Palmyra, with one hitting a meeting of pro-Iranian groups that also involved commanders from Iraq’s Al-Nujaba group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The toll has risen to “92 dead: 61 Syrian pro-Iran fighters,” 11 of them working for Hezbollah, “and 27 foreign nationals mostly from Al-Nujaba, plus four from Hezbollah,” the Observatory said.
The Britain-based war monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had previously reported 82 dead, while the Syria defense ministry on Wednesday said 36 people were killed.
The UN deputy special envoy to Syria, Najat Rochdi, told the Security Council on Thursday that the raid was “likely the deadliest Israeli strike in Syria to date.”
The Observatory said the strikes also targeted “a weapons depot near the industrial area” in Palmyra, a modern city adjacent to globally renowned Greco-Roman ruins.
Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since almost a year of hostilities with Iran-backed Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September.
Iran Guards chief says Netanyahu ICC warrant ‘political death’ of Israel
- Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami calls the ICC warrant ‘a welcome move’
- Salami adds it is a ‘great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements’
TEHRAN: The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Friday described the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former defense minister as the “end and political death” of Israel, in a speech.
“This means the end and political death of the Zionist regime, a regime that today lives in absolute political isolation in the world and its officials can no longer travel to other countries,” Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami said in the speech aired on state TV.
In the first official reaction by Iran, Salami called the ICC warrant “a welcome move” and a “great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements,” both supported by the Islamic republic.
Israel and its allies criticized the ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant on Thursday for Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif.
The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant were issued in response to accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes during Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The move drew angry reactions from Netanyahu, who denounced it as antisemitic and from Israel’s closest allies, including the United States, but was welcomed by rights groups including Amnesty International.
The ICC’s move theoretically limits the movement of Netanyahu, as any of the court’s 124 national members would be obliged to arrest him on their territory.
The court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan urged the body’s members to act on the warrants, and for non-members to work together in “upholding international law.”
Israel armys say ‘eliminated’ five Hamas militants in north Gaza raid
- Israeli military: Slain militants had ‘led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim’
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Friday it had “eliminated” five Hamas militants, including two commanders, in an overnight raid in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia.
In a statement, the military and the Shin Bet security agency said they had “eliminated five Hamas terrorists, including a Nukhba (commando) company commander and an additional company commander who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre” that sparked the Gaza war last year, adding that the slain militants had “led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim,” a kibbutz in southern Israel.
Strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs after Israeli evacuation call
- Latest raids follow intense Israeli attacks on south Beirut as well as other areas in Lebanon’s south and east
BEIRUT: Strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, a bastion of Hezbollah militants, shortly after an Israeli evacuation warning early on Friday, according to Lebanese official media and AFPTV footage.
The state-run National News Agency said “enemy warplanes” had carried two raids on south Beirut, and that “thick smoke was seen rising from the vicinity of the Lebanese University” in the Hadath neighborhood.
Live AFPTV footage showed plumes of smoke over the area after the Israeli military called for the evacuation of three locations, warning on social media of imminent attacks.
The military later said in a statement its “fighter jets completed a new round of strikes” on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The latest raids follow intense Israeli attacks on south Beirut as well as other areas in Lebanon’s south and east, where Israel says it has been targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.
More than 11 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict escalated into all-out war in September, with Israel conducting an extensive bombing campaign, primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, and sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese health ministry said at least 52 people were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, including some 40 dead in Lebanon’s east.
On Friday, the Israeli army also issued evacuation warnings for parts of the coastal city of Tyre and the nearby Burj Al-Shemali Palestinian refugee camp.
The pace of the strikes across Lebanon has increased since US envoy Amos Hochstein ended his visit to Beirut on Wednesday, seeking to broker an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Thursday that at least 3,583 people had been killed in the violence since October 2023. Most of the deaths have been since September this year.
