Six dead as Israel, ignoring warnings and pleas, blasts Palestinians’ last refuge

Israel's military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defence official said on Wednesday, despite international warnings of humanitarian catastrophe. (AFP/File)
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Updated 26 April 2024
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Six dead as Israel, ignoring warnings and pleas, blasts Palestinians’ last refuge

  • Aid groups warn any invasion would add to already-catastrophic conditions for civilians
  • Government spokesman says Israel ‘moving ahead’ with its operation to go after Hamas in Rafah

GAZA STRIP/RIYADH: Six Palestinians died in airstrikes on Rafah in southern Gaza on Thursday as the Israeli military pounded the city in preparation for an expected ground offensive.

Global concern has mounted over the looming operation against Hamas militants in Rafah, where much of Gaza’s population has sought refuge from more than six months of war in the narrow coastal strip.

More than 1.5 million Palestinian civilians are crammed into the south of the enclave and the latest Israeli bombardment left terrified refugees with nowhere left to flee to.

Israel has threatened to launch an all-out assault on Rafah despite warnings by the US and other Western allies that there would be mass Palestinian civilian  casualties. But even before any ground operation the area has been regularly bombed, including overnight Wednesday-Thursday.

Aid groups warn any invasion would add to already-catastrophic conditions for civilians.

Escalating Israeli warnings about invading Rafah have persuaded some families to leave for the nearby Al-Mawasi coastal area.

But many said the past 200 days of war had taught them that nowhere was genuinely safe.

“We escape from one trap into another, searching for places Israel calls safe before they bomb us there. It is like the rat and trap game,” said Mohammad Nasser, 34, a father of three who left Rafah two weeks ago.

Nasser now lives in a shelter in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza to avoid being caught by surprise by an Israeli invasion and unable to escape.

“We are trying to adapt to the new reality, hoping it will become better, but I doubt it will,” he said.

At the city’s Al-Najjar Hospital on Thursday, two men knelt in front of a white body bag in grief, among other mourners gathered at the site.

Elsewhere in the city, Palestinians tried to salvage belongings from the rubble of bombarded buildings.

“We are afraid of what will happen in Rafah. The level of alert is very high,” said Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN. “Some are leaving, they are afraid for their families, but where can they go? They are not being allowed to go to the north and so are confined to a very small area.”

Medical staff in southern Gaza said five Israeli airstrikes on Rafah on Thursday hit at least three houses and killed at least six people, including a local journalist. Israeli forces also resumed bombarding northern and central areas of Gaza, and areas east of Khan Younis in the south.

In the north, Israel bombarded Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Zeitoun, and Hamas militants fought Israeli troops with rockets, mortar bombs and sniper fire.

In nearly seven months of war Israel has killed at least 34,305 Palestinians, mainly women and children, Gaza health authorities said.

It has laid waste to much of the enclave, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and leaving many with little food, water or medical care.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Israel was “moving ahead” with its operation to go after four Hamas battalions in Rafah.

“They will be attacked,” he said.

The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, with a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Thursday’s toll included at least 43 more deaths over the previous day.

During their attack militants seized hostages, 129 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, a figure that includes 34 presumed dead.

Hamas on Wednesday released a video of an Israeli-American man who was one of those captured.

Also on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden signed a law authorizing $13 billion in additional military aid to close ally Israel.

Much of that funding is to support the country’s air defenses, which received an unprecedented test this month with Iran’s first-ever direct strike against its foe.

Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles toward Israel, the Israeli military said, but most were shot down by that country and its allies.

The Iranian barrage followed what it said was a deadly Israeli strike against Tehran’s embassy consular annex in Syria.

The US legislation also included $1 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza, with Biden demanding it reaches reach Palestinians “without delay.”

The United Nations has warned of imminent famine and “access constraints” on the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Germany said it would resume cooperation with the main aid agency in Gaza, the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees, or UNRWA, after an independent review found Israel had not yet provided evidence for its allegations that its staff belonged to “terrorist” groups.

Regional tensions remain high as the Gaza war has led to violence between Israel and Iran’s proxies and allies.

Israel has struck increasingly deeper into Lebanon, while the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has stepped up rocket fire and drone attacks on Israeli military bases across the border.

The violence has fueled fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.

On Thursday Lebanese state media and a Hezbollah source said one person was wounded in an Israeli drone attack on a fuel truck near Baalbek, the latest such incident away from the southern border.

In other regional fallout, US-led coalition forces shot down an anti-ship missile launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, American authorities said on Thursday.

The Israeli military on Thursday said its aircraft had struck more than 30 Hamas targets across Gaza over the previous day.

Witnesses reported clashes between militants and Israeli troops near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, as the world’s attention is increasingly focused further south, on Rafah.

Netanyahu in early April gave no details but said “there is a date” for the Rafah operation, over which the United States and others have expressed grave concern because of the concentration of civilians there.

Citing Egyptian officials briefed on Israeli plans, The Wall Street Journal has said Israel was planning to move civilians to nearby Khan Yunis over a period of two to three weeks, before gradually sending in troops.

The hostage in the video released on Hamas’s official Telegram account identified himself as Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23.

In the video, the authenticity of which AFP has not been able to independently verify, Goldberg-Polin was missing a hand, a wound he suffered during his capture.

In an apparent reference to Jewish Passover which began this week, Goldberg-Polin, likely speaking under duress, told Israeli government members that “while you sit and have holiday meals with your families, think of us, the hostages, who are still here in hell.”

Hostage supporters and anti-government demonstrators have intensified protests — including again on Wednesday night in Jerusalem — for the government to reach a deal that would free the captives, accusing Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

The European Union, the UN rights office and the White House have called for a probe into mass graves found at Gaza’s two biggest hospitals after Israeli raids.

“We want answers,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday. “We want to see this thoroughly and transparently investigated.”

Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals during the war, accusing Hamas of using them as command centers and to hold hostages. Hamas denies the accusations.

Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said nearly 340 bodies were uncovered at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis city.

Israeli army spokesman Major Nadav Shoshani said on X that “the grave in question was dug — by Gazans — a few months ago.”

The Israeli army acknowledged that “corpses buried by Palestinians” had been examined by soldiers searching for hostages, but did not directly address allegations that Israeli troops were behind the killings.

(With AFP)


Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners

Updated 13 April 2025
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Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners

  • Nawaf Salam lays wreath at Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut to commemorate 50th anniversary of Lebanese Civil War

LONDON: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is scheduled to visit the Syrian Arab Republic on Monday to discuss common interests with the new leadership in Damascus.

It will be Salam’s first visit to Syria since he formed a government in February, and he is scheduled to discuss the issue of Lebanese citizens who disappeared in Syrian prisons during the Bashar Assad regime that collapsed in December. It has been reported that 622 Lebanese nationals remain forcibly disappeared in Syrian prisons.

“I hope to return with good news about those missing in Syria, and I will update the Lebanese people on this issue tomorrow,” Salam said, according to the National News Agency.

Salam laid a wreath at the Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of April 13, the date when Lebanon’s Civil War began in 1975.

Salam wrote on X: “We pause not to reopen wounds, but to recall lessons that must never be forgotten. All victories were false, and all parties (from the war) emerged as losers.”

He added: “There can be no true state unless legitimate armed forces have the exclusive right to bear arms.”


Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

PRCS paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah is being held in an Israeli place of detention. (@PalestineRCS)
Updated 13 April 2025
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Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

  • PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties

CAIRO: A Palestinian Red Crescent staff member who went missing in late March when 15 humanitarian workers were killed by Israeli fire is being detained by Israeli authorities, the rescue service and the Red Cross said on Sunday.
Hisham Mhana, the spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza, confirmed to Reuters that it had received information that the Palestine Red Crescent Society paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah was being held in an Israeli place of detention.
“As per standard practice, we informed the families immediately. In this case, we also informed the Palestine Red Crescent Society as they have special standing as a partner of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement,” he said.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment.
Mhana said the ICRC has not been granted access to Nsasrah, who until Sunday had been declared missing, and also has not been able to visit any of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023.
In a post on X, The PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties.
It added that Nsasrah and his colleagues came under heavy gunfire, which led to the killing of eight of them in a “grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
The bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, the Civil Emergency Service and the UN were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza in March.
The UN and the Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them after they were dispatched to respond to reports of injuries from Israeli airstrikes.
The Israeli military referred Reuters to its statement from Monday, in which it said that a thorough inquiry into the incident was still underway and that it would provide further details only once the investigation is complete.
It said that a preliminary inquiry indicated that “the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists.”
The Israeli military has provided no evidence of how it determined that the six were Hamas militants, and the Islamist faction has rejected the accusation.
The only known survivor of the incident, PRCS paramedic Munther Abed, said soldiers had opened fire on clearly marked emergency response vehicles.


Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians

Updated 13 April 2025
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Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians

  • Demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat under pouring rain in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine

RABAT: Several thousand people demonstrated in Morocco’s capital on Sunday to show support for Palestinians in war-torn Gaza.
Under pouring rain, demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine, a coalition of several political organizations, including the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD).
“The Moroccans are with Gaza,” said the principal of a private school in Rabat who spoke to AFP.
The North African kingdom has officially called for “the immediate, complete and permanent halt to the Israeli war on Gaza,” but has not publicly discussed reversing the official establishment of ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords.
The latest protest followed another large rally held a week earlier, part of a spate of demonstrations across the country since the Israeli army resumed its offensive on March 18 against the Islamist group Hamas after a two-month truce in Gaza.


Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday

Updated 13 April 2025
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Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday

  • Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians to obtain security permits to access religious sites
  • Only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians

LONDON: Israeli authorities prevented Palestinian Christian worshippers from entering Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank to participate in Palm Sunday.

Israeli authorities imposed strict restrictions on Jerusalem over the weekend, limiting the access of Palestinian Christians to the city, the Wafa news agency reported.

Only a limited number of worshippers, primarily residents of Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel, were able to attend religious services at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Wafa added.

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week leading up to Easter. It commemorates the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and is observed by Eastern and Western Christian churches.

On Sunday, Patriarch Theophilos III of the Greek Orthodox Church and Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa led liturgies attended by the clergy and a small group of worshipers.

Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians — Muslim and Christian — to obtain permits to access religious sites, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Father Ibrahim Faltas, Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, noted that only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians. Permit issuance requires a security clearance and often asks that applicants download a mobile application managed by Israeli authorities.

“This is the second consecutive year that only a small number of pilgrims are able to participate in Holy Week and Easter celebrations in Jerusalem due to the ongoing conflict (in Gaza),” Faltas told Wafa.

“Churches would continue to pray for peace, justice, and freedom for all people in the Holy Land,” he added.

The Catholic Palm Sunday procession took place on Sunday afternoon, starting from Jerusalem's Church of Bethphage and ending at the Church of Saint Anne.

Christians gathered for services at the Holy Family Catholic Church and Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing Israeli attacks since late 2023. In the West Bank, Palm Sunday services were held in churches throughout Bethlehem, Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin.


Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA

Updated 13 April 2025
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Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA

CAIRO: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will travel to the United Arab Emirates for his second visit to a Gulf state as president on Sunday, Syria's official news agency reported.
He will be accompanied by foreign minister Assad al-Shibani, who visited the UAE earlier this year.
They are expected to discuss issues of mutual interest, the SANA state news agency reported.
Sharaa visited Saudi Arabia in February on his first foreign trip since assuming the presidency in January.
His visit to the UAE comes as the new Syrian leadership attempts to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

 

(With Reuters)