PARIS: Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a “live-streamed genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.
In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide.”
Israel has rejected accusations of “genocide” from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.
The conflict erupted after the Palestinian militant group Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.
“Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.
“States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools,” she added.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons’ tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.
The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.
The lack of fuel “threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers,” it said in a statement.
Amnesty’s report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza “displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water.”
Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had “documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.”
It said Israel’s actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza’s population, and “deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”
Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, “the world’s governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of “apartheid.”
“Israel’s system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians,” it said.
Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced “the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year” as well as “the world’s complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it.”
Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘live-streamed genocide’ against Gaza Palestinians
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Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘live-streamed genocide’ against Gaza Palestinians
- Rights group charges that Israel acted with ‘specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide’
- Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip has left at least 52,243 dead
Israel defense ministry says arms exports hit all time high in 2024
JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense ministry said Wednesday that its arms exports hit an all-time high of more than $14.7 billion in 2024, with a sharp rise in deals with Arab Gulf states, despite international criticism of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.
“Israel again reached an all-time peak in defense exports in 2024, marking the fourth consecutive record-breaking year in the scope of defense agreements,” the ministry, which oversees and approves the exports of Israel’s defense industries, said in a statement.
Suspected crypto kidnappings mastermind arrested in Morocco
- France thanks Morocco for arresting 24-year-old after kidnappings targeting French crypto entrepreneurs
PARIS: France’s justice minister on Wednesday said that Morocco had arrested a man suspected of ordering a series of kidnappings targeting cryptocurrency entrepreneurs in France.
“I sincerely thank Morocco for this arrest, which demonstrates excellent judicial cooperation between our two countries, particularly in the fight against organized crime,” Gerald Darmanin said on X.
Turkiye’s AJet to start flights to Syria’s Damascus
- AJet said flights from Sabiha Gokcen airport will begin from Jun. 16
- Flights to Damascus from Ankara will start from Jun. 17
ISTANBUL: Turkish Airlines subsidiary AJet said it will start flights to Damascus International from Istanbul and Ankara airports in mid-June.
AJet said in a statement that flights from Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport will begin from Jun. 16. Flights will initially take place four times per week before operating daily from July, it added.
Flights to Damascus from the Turkish capital Ankara will start from Jun. 17, three-times per week, the carrier also said.
Turkish Airlines resumed flights to Damascus in January after a 13-year suspension.
Turkiye, a close ally of the new government in Damascus, has pledged to support the country’s reconstruction. Ankara has already helped with the improvement and maintenance of Syria’s airports, the Turkish transport minister has said.
UAE president meets Egypt’s Sisi in Abu Dhabi
DUBAI: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed met his counterpart Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
El-Sisi, who is on a visit to the UAE, arrived at the presidential airport and was received by the UAE leader along with a number of senior officials.
Turkiye backing Syria’s military and has no immediate withdrawal plans, defense minister says
- Guler says Israel de-confliction talks continue
- Turkish troops stay for now in Syria, he tells Reuters
ANKARA: Turkiye is training and advising Syria’s armed forces and helping improve its defenses, and has no immediate plans for the withdrawal or relocation of its troops stationed there, Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters.
Turkiye has emerged as a key foreign ally of Syria’s new government since rebels — some of them backed for years by Ankara — ousted former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December to end his family’s five-decade rule.
It has promised to help rebuild neighboring Syria and facilitate the return of millions of Syrian civil war refugees, and played a key role last month getting US and European sanctions on Syria lifted.
The newfound Turkish influence in Damascus has raised Israeli concerns and risked a standoff or worse in Syria between the regional powers.
In written answers to questions from Reuters, Guler said Turkiye and Israel — which carried out its latest airstrikes on southern Syria late on Tuesday — are continuing de-confliction talks to avoid military accidents in the country.
Turkiye’s overall priority in Syria is preserving its territorial integrity and unity, and ridding it of terrorism, he said, adding Ankara was supporting Damascus in these efforts.
“We have started providing military training and consultancy services, while taking steps to increase Syria’s defense capacity,” Guler said, without elaborating on those steps.
Named to the post by President Tayyip Erdogan two years ago, Guler said it was too early to discuss possible withdrawal or relocation of the more than 20,000 Turkish troops in Syria.
Ankara controlled swathes of northern Syria and established dozens of bases there after several cross-border operations in recent years against Kurdish militants it deems terrorists.
This can “only be re-evaluated when Syria achieves peace and stability, when the threat of terrorism in the region is fully removed, when our border security is fully ensured, and when the honorable return of people who had to flee is done,” he said.
NATO member Turkiye has accused Israel of undermining Syrian peace and rebuilding with its military operations there in recent months and, since late 2023, has also fiercely criticized Israel’s assault on Gaza.
But the two regional powers have been quietly working to establish a de-confliction mechanism in Syria.
Guler described the talks as “technical level meetings to establish a de-confliction mechanism to prevent unwanted events” or direct conflict, as well as “a communication and coordination structure.”
“Our efforts to form this line and make it fully operational continue. Yet it should not be forgotten that the de-confliction mechanism is not a normalization,” he told Reuters.
