GAZA: A Gaza hospital source said at least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded Tuesday in a strike on a school turned shelter for displaced Palestinians, the fourth such attack in four days.
The strike hit the gate at the Al-Awda school in Abasan, near the southern city of Khan Yunis, said the source at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis where victims were taken.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has acknowledged carrying out three other strikes since Saturday on Gaza schools used as displacement shelters.
At least 20 people were killed in these attacks, according to officials in the Hamas-run territory.
Israel said all three strikes targeted militants hiding in the schools.
On Saturday, an Israeli strike hit the UN-run Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza, killing 16 people, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 2,000 people were sheltering there at the time.
The following day a strike on the church-run Holy Family school in Gaza City killed four, according to the civil defense agency.
The Latin Patriarchate, owners of the school, said hundreds of people had packed the grounds.
Another UNRWA-run school in Nuseirat was hit on Monday, with a local hospital saying several people were taken for treatment.
Israel said it targeted “several terrorists” using the school for cover.
Hamas has denied Israeli claims that it uses schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities for military aims.
According to UNRWA, more than 500 people have been killed in schools and other shelters it runs in Gaza since the war started on October 7 with the Hamas attack on Israel.
Dozens killed by Israeli strike on tents housing Palestinians, Palestinian Red Crescent says
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Dozens killed by Israeli strike on tents housing Palestinians, Palestinian Red Crescent says
- Strike hit gate at Al-Awda school in Abasan, near southern city of Khan Yunis
- No immediate comment from Israel, which has acknowledged carrying out three other strikes since Saturday
Gaza’s ancient Christian monastery gets ‘danger listing’ at UNESCO session in India
- Founded in 340, Saint Hilarion’s monastery is one of oldest in Middle East
- UNESCO inscription processed in wake of Israel’s destruction of Palestinian heritage sites
NEW DELHI: An ancient Christian monastery in Gaza was recognized as a World Heritage in Danger site during a UNESCO session in New Delhi on Friday.
Founded in about 340 by Saint Hilarion, the monastery is part of Tell Umm Amer, an archaeological site located in the Nuseirat refugee camp of Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah governorate.
Submitted for inscription by the Permanent Delegation of Palestine to UNESCO in 2012, its nomination was processed on an emergency basis during the World Heritage Committee’s ongoing annual session.
Ambassador Mounir Anastas, Palestine’s permanent delegate to the UN cultural agency, welcomed the inscription as giving hope to the people of Gaza in the wake of the ongoing Israeli attacks, which since October have killed at least 40,000 people and destroyed most of the Palestinian enclave’s infrastructure.
“It constitutes a message of hope to our people in Gaza who are fleeing bombing, who have no shelter, no water, no food. Nevertheless, they are committed to protect their heritage because this heritage is part of our people’s memory and history,” Anastas told Arab News on the sidelines of the UNESCO session.
The move was submitted by Belgium and sponsored by 18 other members of the World Heritage Committee, who resorted to the emergency procedure provided for in the World Heritage Convention and agreed to inscribe the Saint Hilarion monastery complex on both the World Heritage and World Heritage in Danger lists.
Under the terms of the convention, its 195 states parties — including Israel — are barred from directly or indirectly damaging the site and are committed to providing their cooperation for its protection.
“Once the site is enshrined on the World Heritage in Danger list, this means that all state parties to the convention are responsible for the protection and promotion of the site,” Mounir said.
“And this is also another strong message from the international community to our people in Gaza, saying that the international community did not forget you.”
Saint Hilarion was a native of the Gaza region and is considered the father of Palestinian monasticism. His monastery used to be an important station on the crossroads between Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia, and is associated with the phenomenon of monastic desert centers during the Byzantine period. It also bears testimony to Christianity in Gaza.
One of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, the complex consists of two churches, a burial site, a baptism hall, a public cemetery, an audience hall and dining rooms.
At least 207 archaeological sites and buildings of cultural and historical significance, out of a total of 320, have been reduced to rubble or severely damaged by Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip over the past 10 months.
These include the Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrios — the world’s third oldest church — the 12th century Great Omari Mosque and nearby Al-Qissariya medieval Old City market, Gaza’s ancient seaport dating to 800 B.C. and a Philistine cemetery dating to the Late Bronze period, 1550-1200 B.C.
The destruction of many of the archeological sites was detailed in South Africa’s case against Israel for the crime of genocide at the International Court. of Justice. The case argues that the mass killings and destruction of cultural heritage in Gaza demonstrate the Israeli leadership’s intent to destroy the Palestinian people and their cultural identity.
Russian warship docks in Algeria
- Moscow and Algiers have close historic relations dating back to the Soviet era
- The Russian navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov and a support vessel docked at the Port of Oran on Friday
MOSCOW: A Russian warship armed with advanced hypersonic missiles docked at a port in Algeria on Friday for a “business call,” the navy said.
Moscow and Algiers have close historic relations dating back to the Soviet era and have maintained strong defense and military ties amid Russia’s military offensive on Ukraine.
The Russian navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov and a support vessel docked at the Port of Oran on Friday, Russia’s Northern Fleet said in a statement.
“The visit of the Russian sailors will last several days,” it said.
The crews will take part in various protocol events, replenish food and water supplies, visit local attractions and rest on shore, it added.
The Admiral Gorshkov, equipped with hypersonic Zircon missiles, is currently on a long-distance voyage which has seen it cross the Atlantic and back, docking in Cuba and Venezuela.
“The ship, armed with high-precision missile weapons, is capable of delivering precise and powerful strikes against the enemy at sea and land,” Russia’s defense ministry said.
The voyage is intended to “demonstrate the flag and ensure naval presence in operationally important areas of the distant ocean zone,” it added.
Israel slams UN expert over Hitler-Netanyahu comparison
- Francesca Albanese posted a picture of Hitler being celebrated by a crowd with Nazi salutes and cheers above a shot of Netanyahu
GENEVA: Israel on Friday slammed a UN rights expert for “anti-Semitism” after she endorsed a social media post comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, has faced harsh criticism from Israel previously, especially after she in March accused the country of committing genocide in the war in Gaza.
On Thursday, she responded to a post on X, formerly Twitter, displaying a picture of Hitler being celebrated by a crowd with Nazi salutes and cheers above a shot of Netanyahu appearing to be greeted by US congressmen this week.
“History is always watching,” Craig Mokhiber, a former UN human rights official who resigned late last October accusing the world body of failing to prevent the “genocide” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, wrote in the post.
“This is precisely what I was thinking today,” Albanese, an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2022 but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said in her response on Thursday.
Israel’s foreign ministry was quick to respond, slamming her on X as being “beyond redemption.”
“It is inconceivable that (Albanese) is still allowed to use the UN as a shield to spread anti-Semitism,” it said.
Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva also chimed in.
“When a current UN ‘expert’ endorses Holocaust distortion spread by the former (UN rights office) director in New York... the system is rotten to its core,” it said.
“It’s high time to #UNseatAlbanese!“
Israel’s new ambassador in Geneva, Daniel Meron, used the same hashtag, decrying that “Francesca Albanese abuses her (UN) title to spread hatred and inflammatory rhetoric.”
Israel’s top ally the United States also weighed in.
“UN Special Rapporteur’s comparison of Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler is reprehensible and antisemitic,” US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Michele Taylor said on X.
“There should be no place for such dehumanizing rhetoric. Special rapporteurs should be striving to improve human rights challenges, not inflame them.”
Albanese on Friday hit back at the criticism, insisting that “the memory of the Holocaust remains intact.”
“Institutional rants and outburst of selective moral outrage will not stop the course of justice, which is finally in motion.”
The Hamas attack that started the war on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
WHO sends over 1 mln polio vaccines to Gaza to protect children
- No cases of polio have been recorded yet, but WHO says action needed
GENEVA: The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.
“While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.
He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.
Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99 percent worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.
Israel’s military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.
Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.
UK must drop legal challenge against ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu: HRW
- ‘Absolutely critical’ that new govt ‘lives up to rhetoric,’ says organization’s UK director
- Court is seeking arrests of Israeli prime minister, defense minister
LONDON: The UK’s new government must drop the country’s legal challenge against the International Criminal Court’s seeking of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, Human Rights Watch has said.
Rishi Sunak, the former UK prime minister, had challenged the court’s issuing of warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant earlier this year.
Karim Khan, the ICC’s top prosecutor, said there was a credible case that the two leaders could bear responsibility for crimes against humanity, The Guardian reported on Friday.
The UK director of HRW, Yasmine Ahmed, said it is “absolutely critical” that the country’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer withdraws the legal challenge against the ICC.
The Guardian reported two weeks ago that the new government was expected to drop the case.
However, senior British diplomats later disputed the rumors, saying the decision “remained under review.”
The new UK government has until July 26 to decide whether to carry on with the legal challenge, under ICC guidelines.
Ahmed told The Guardian that the Labour government must pursue “progressive realism,” an ideology proposed by the new Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
She asked: “Will the UK government be principled and mature enough and adhere to its own statements of complying with and acting consistently with international law and supporting the rules-based order by withdrawing its application to intervene in the case of the ICC? It will be now for us to see where the rubber will hit the road.
“It is an incredibly complex world that they are addressing. We’re seeing a number of crises on a level I don’t know we’ve seen in decades.”
Ahmed praised Labour’s decision this week to resume British funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
That decision leaves the US as the only country yet to resume funding to UNRWA following the controversial boycott of the agency that began earlier this year.
“We cannot promote and be seen to be, or in fact be, promoting a rules-based order in international law if we’re not also replicating that domestically,” said Ahmed. “We need to give (the government) an opportunity to live up to their rhetoric.”
