CAIRO: The new school year in the Palestinian territories officially began on Monday, with all schools in Gaza shut after 11 months of war and no sign of a ceasefire.
As fighting continued, Israel announced new orders to residents of the north Gaza Strip to leave their homes, in response to rockets fired into Israel.
Umm Zaki’s son Moataz, 15, was supposed to begin 10th grade. Instead he woke up in their tent in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and was sent to fetch a container of water from more than a kilometer away.
“Usually, such a day would be a day of celebration, seeing the children in the new uniform, going to school, and dreaming of becoming doctors and engineers. Today all we hope is that the war ends before we lose any of them,” the mother of five told Reuters by text message.
The Palestinian Education Ministry said all Gaza schools were shut and 90 percent of them had been destroyed or damaged in Israel’s assault on the territory, launched after Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli towns in October last year.
The UN Palestinian aid agency UNRWA, which runs around half of Gaza’s schools, has turned as many of them as it can into emergency shelters housing thousands of displaced families.
“The longer the children stay out of school the more difficult it is for them to catch up on their lost learning and the more prone they are to becoming a lost generation, falling prey to exploitation including child marriage, child labor, and recruitment into armed groups,” UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma told Reuters.
In addition to the 625,000 Gazans already registered for school who would be missing classes, another 58,000 six-year-olds should have registered to start first grade this year, the education ministry said.
Last month, UNRWA launched a back-to-learning program in 45 of its shelters, with teachers setting up games, drama, arts, music and sports activities to help with children’s mental health.
“The specified area has been warned”
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times.
In the latest evacuation order, Israel told residents of an area in the northern Gaza Strip they must leave their homes, following the firing of rockets into southern Israel the previous day.
“To all those in the specified area. Terrorist organizations are once again firing rockets at the State of Israel and carrying out terrorist acts from this area. The specified area has been warned many times in the past. The specified area is considered a dangerous combat zone,” an Israeli military spokesperson said in Arabic on X.
The United Nations urged Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to attend medical facilities to get children under the age of 10 years old vaccinated against polio. Limited pauses in fighting have been held to allow the vaccination campaign, which aims to reach 640,000 children in Gaza after the territory’s first polio case in around 25 years.
UN officials said the campaign in the southern and central Gaza Strip had so far reached more than half of the children there needing the drops. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.
Later on Monday, Touma said 450,000 of the children targeted with the campaign were vaccinated.
“Tuesday is the hardest part when we roll out the campaign in the north. Hopefully, that will work so we complete the first stage of the campaign The second and final stage is planned for the end of the month when we have to do all of this all over again,” said Touma.
Health officials said on Monday two separate Israeli airstrikes had killed seven people in central Gaza, while another strike killed one man in Khan Younis further south.
The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said they fought against Israeli forces in several areas across the Gaza Strip with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire.
The Israeli military said forces continued to dismantle military infrastructure and killed dozens of militants in the past days, including senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders.
The war was triggered on Oct. 7 when the Hamas group that ran Gaza attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
The two warring sides each blame the other for the failure so far to reach a ceasefire that would end the fighting and see the release of hostages.
Fear of ‘lost generation’ as Gaza school year begins with all classes shut
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Fear of ‘lost generation’ as Gaza school year begins with all classes shut
- As fighting continued, Israel announced new orders to residents of the north Gaza Strip to leave their homes, in response to rockets fired into Israel
Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers
- Practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court
- The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention
JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities will stop holding Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank under administrative detention, or incarceration without trial, the defense ministry announced Friday.
The practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court, and is often used against Palestinians who Israel deems security threats.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was “inappropriate” for Israel to employ administrative detention against settlers who “face severe Palestinian terror threats and unjustified international sanctions.”
But, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now, it is one of only few effective tools that Israeli authorities to prevent settler attacks against Palestinians, which have surged in the West Bank over the past year.
Katz said in a statement issued by his office that prosecution or “other preventive measures” would be used to deal with criminal acts in the West Bank.
B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group, said authorities use administrative detention “extensively and routinely” to hold thousands of Palestinians for lengthy periods of time.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that eight settlers were held under the same practice in November.
Yonatan Mizrahi, director of settlement watch for Peace Now, said that although administrative detention was mostly used in the West Bank to detain Palestinians, it was one of the few effective tools for temporarily removing the threat of settler violence through detention.
“The cancelation of administrative detention orders for settlers alone is a cynical... move that whitewashes and normalizes escalating Jewish terrorism under the cover of war,” the group said in a statement, referring to a spike in settler attacks throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past 13 months.
Western governments, including Israel’s ally and military backer the United States, have recently imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers and settler organizations over ties to violence against Palestinians.
On Monday, US authorities announced sanctions against Amana, a movement that backs settlement development, and others who have “ties to violent actors in the West Bank.”
“Amana is a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement and maintains ties to various persons previously sanctioned by the US government and its partners for perpetrating violence in the West Bank,” the US Treasury said.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank — which Israel has occupied since 1967 — is home to three million Palestinians as well as about 490,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.
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.
