Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 295

The Israeli military has told Palestinians to temporarily evacuate southern neighbourhoods of Gaza’s Khan Younis region so it could “forcefully operate” there, telling them to relocate to a humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, Reuters quote a military statement as saying.

The military said its calls to evacuate were communicated to the population via several mediums in order to mitigate danger to civilians. UN and humanitarian officials accuse Israel of using disproportionate force in the conflict, which it denies.

The fighting, more than nine months since the start of Israel’s invasion of Gaza following the Oct 7 attack, underlined the difficulty the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have in eliminating Hamas fighters amid continued resistance.

Israeli officials estimate that some 14,000 fighters from groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been killed or taken prisoner, out of a force they estimated to number more than 25,000 at the start of the offensive.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the United States was “working intensely every single day” to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and find a path to more enduring peace and security, Reuters reports.

His remarks follow those of Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, who said the need for sustainable peace was urgent.

“We cannot continue closing our eyes to see the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza,” she said.

Witnesses and rescuers have said heavy battles continued around eastern Khan Younis in the last 24 hours, AFP reports. The Nasser Hospital said 26 bodies were brought to the medical site.

Israel’s military claimed a day ago that its forces had “eliminated approximately 100 terrorists” in the city this week.

Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said the bodies of five captives recovered earlier this week had been pulled from underground tunnels and walls in “a hidden place”. Troops “were near those fallen bodies in the past, we did not know how to reach them” until this week, Halevi said in a statement.

The Israeli military on Monday ordered the evacuation of parts of the southern city, announcing its forces would “forcefully operate” there, including in an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone.

US President Joe Biden has spoken with Jordan’s King Abdullah, discussing the push to reach a ceasefire in the devastating Gaza conflict, AFP reports the two countries as saying.

“The president updated King Abdullah on his ongoing efforts to secure a hostage release and ceasefire deal, and preparations for a surge in humanitarian assistance during a ceasefire period,” the White House said in a statement.

Jordan’s royal court confirmed the call, saying that King Abdullah “stressed the need to end the war on Gaza immediately and ensure the flow of sufficient aid through all crossings, while guaranteeing its delivery to civilians across the Strip without delay or hindrance”.

The United States is pushing to bring the conflict to a close, and the news outlet Axios reported that CIA Director Bill Burns was expected to hold talks on the issue in Rome on Sunday with Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials.

US presidential candidate Donald Trump has falsely accused Vice President Kamala Harris of skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress because she is an anti-Semite, Al Jazeera reports.

“She doesn’t like Jewish people. She doesn’t like Israel. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s always going to be. She’s not going to change,” Trump said in a speech at a religious convention in southern Florida.

Harris, whose husband is Jewish, did not attend Netanyahu’s speech as she had a pre-arranged campaign event in Milwaukee, according to reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has held talks with former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying he will send a delegation to Rome on Sunday to negotiate a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, Anadolu Agency reports.

Netanyahu’s office shared photos and videos on X of Trump welcoming him and his wife Sara at his Florida resort.

In the images, Netanyahu stands beside Trump, holding a cap with the phrase “Total Victory” in English, reflecting Netanyahu’s stated goal of achieving total victory over Hamas, despite official Israeli circles doubting the feasibility of this in the short term.

Netanyahu is betting on Trump’s return to the White House to gain greater support for Israel, including promises of increased military, political, and diplomatic aid.

The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said that Netanyahu plans to send an Israeli delegation to Rome on Sunday to negotiate a prisoner exchange deal with Palestinian factions in Gaza.

“Only time will tell if we are close to finalising the deal,” Netanyahu said, claiming that progress had been made due to military pressure on Hamas.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has hit back at criticism from US and Israeli officials after she endorsed a picture drawing a parallel between Adolf Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Al Jazeera reports.

“The Memory of the #Holocaust remains intact and sacred thank[s] to people of conscience worldwide. Institutional rants and outburst of selective moral outrage will not stop the course of #Justice, which is finally in motion,” she wrote on X.

Earlier, US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Albanese was “not fit” for a UN position, while the Israeli Foreign Ministry said she was “beyond redemption”.

CIA Director William Burns is expected to meet with senior Israel, Qatari and Egyptian officials in Rome on Sunday to bring the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal to a close, Axios has reported.

According to AFP, the report cited unidentified US and Israeli officials.

Palestine Olympic Committee President Jibril Rajoub has made said hundreds of athletes have been killed, injured, are missing or have been arrested across Palestine and sports facilities destroyed, Al Jazeera reports.

“We could not bring out any one of the athletes from Gaza. Inside the West Bank, the movement is not easy, but in spite of that, we could find a small team who were qualified or with a wildcard,” Rajoub added.

He also said it would be up to individual athletes if they want to face Israelis in the Paris Olympic Games, adding that his organisation faces rebuilding after the competition.

The Palestinian team for the games consists of six athletes competing in boxing, judo, taekwondo, shooting and swimming. They have slim hopes of a medal.

Palestinian sports officials have said that since the start of the war in Gaza in October, more than 300 athletes, referees and sports officials have been killed and all sports facilities in Gaza demolished.

French President Emmanuel Macron has demanded an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, according to a press release from Elysee Palace.

It was released as Macron hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the palace, just a few hours before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony.

Macron spoke with his Israeli counterpart as part of talks on the sidelines of the Olympics and was expected to reiterate his commitment to “ensuring the safety of Israeli athletes”.

“Faced with the unbearable human toll among the civilian population of Gaza and the unsustainable humanitarian situation, the president will call for the conclusion without further delay of an immediate and lasting ceasefire to allow the release of all the ‘hostages’ of Hamas, including that of our two compatriots, as well as the huge delivery of medical and humanitarian aid,” the press release said according toAl Jazeera.

The UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged countries around the world to stop armed conflict as part of “the Olympic truce”, saying during a meeting with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach that the event was a chance for peace, Al Jazeera reports.

“I want to express the total support of the United Nations to the IOC,” Guterres said. “We live in a divided world where conflicts are proliferating in a dramatic way.

“The horrendous suffering in Gaza, the seemingly endless war in Ukraine, terrible suffering from Sudan to the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], from the Sahel to Myanmar.

“In a moment like this it is important to say that the first recorded, in history, real peace initiative was the Olympic truce.”

Downing Street has confirmed the government will drop its challenge to arrest warrants sought by an international court’s prosecutor for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, AFP reports.

The UK had until today to submit its questions to the court in The Hague, but the recently elected Labour government has confirmed it will not follow through with Rishi Sunak’s plan.

“This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the government will not be pursuing in line with our long standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on,” a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

“I think you would note that the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side, so they are well seized of the arguments to make their independent determinations,” she added.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to reduce rations for families in Gaza to ensure broader coverage for newly displaced people, Reuters reports.

“Food stocks and humanitarian supplies in central and southern Gaza are very limited and barely any commercial supplies are going in,” WFP added in a post on social media platform X.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip while reiterating a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, Anadolu Agency reports.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is a total disaster,” Guterres said as he listed two reasons.

“First, a military campaign that has the highest level of killing and destruction that I remember in any other military campaign since I am Secretary General, anywhere in the world,” he said. “The second reason is because the level of humanitarian aid is totally out of proportion with the needs.”

His remarks came one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress, where he claimed that the conflict in Gaza has “one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare.”

Turning to Netanyahu’s claims about Gaza, Guterres said: “There was nothing said yesterday that is new. So, there is nothing that was said that deserves comments, and obviously, we absolutely must keep the two-state solution as the only possible long-term solution for peace in the region, independently of whatever is said by whoever, wherever.”

Iran’s government says the recent meeting of Hamas and Fatah in the Chinese capital is a valuable step in the direction of national reconciliation for Palestine, Al Jazeera reports.

Nasser Kanaani, the foreign ministry spokesperson, said on X that the Iranian government backs the Palestinian groups “in confronting the occupation of the apartheid regime of Israel and their collective movement in the direction of exercising the fundamental right to self-determination”.

The Palestinian groups agreed earlier in the week to form a unity government at the talks hosted by China, a deal meant to deliver a post-conflict Gaza administration.

The agreement was shortly rejected by Israel.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has dismissed remarks made by US Vice President and presidential hopeful Kamala Harris about the situation in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

“There will be no truce, Madam Candidate,” Ben-Gvir wrote on X.

He was responding to Harris, who said after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that she would “not be silent” about the “suffering” in Gaza.

Ben-Gvir’s message came after Israeli Economy Minister Bezalel Smotrich said this morning that Harris’s push for a ceasefire proves that the deal is about “surrendering to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar”.

Hamas leader Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara was killed in an Israeli prison, raising the number of detainees who have been killed since Oct 7 to 19, Palestinian organizations involved with prisoner affairs said, Anadolu Agency reports.

“The administrative detainee Sheikh Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, from the town of Aqaba in the Tubas province in the northern West Bank, was martyred,” the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.

The statement added that Ara “died after being transferred from the Israeli Ramon Prison to Soroka Hospital due to a serious deterioration in his health.”

Ara, a Hamas leader and former prisoner, had been arrested multiple times since 1990. The latest was from his home on Oct 30, 2023, it added, noting that before his arrest, Ara suffered from severe health issues and required intensive medical follow-up.

Oil prices were little changed but on track for a third consecutive weekly decline, pressured by muted demand in China and expectations of a Gaza ceasefire deal that could ease Middle East tensions and accompanying supply concerns, Reuters reports.

Brent LCOc1 crude futures for September dipped 1 cent to $82.36 a barrel by 0744 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude for September CLc1 fell 6 cents to $78.22.

The leaders of Australia, New Zealand and Canada called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement, Reuters reports.

“An immediate ceasefire is needed desperately,” the statement said.

“Civilians must be protected, and a sustained increase in the flow of assistance throughout Gaza is needed to address the humanitarian situation.”

US Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden.

The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, has been put on the Unesco list of World Heritage sites in danger due to Israeli bombardment in Gaza, the body said, AFP reports.

Unesco said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the “imminent threats” it faced.

“It’s the only recourse to protect the site from destruction in the current context,” Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the Unesco World Heritage Centre, told AFP, referring to the fighting sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

In December, the Unesco Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to grant “provisional enhanced protection” — the highest level of immunity established by the 1954 Hague Convention — to the site.

Unesco had then said it was “already concerned about the state of conservation of sites, before October 7, due to the lack of adequate policies to protect heritage and culture” in Gaza.

A Hamas leader in the West Bank died in Israeli custody, Palestinian authorities and the group has said, AFP reports.

Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died after being moved from a prison in southern Israel to a hospital, according to a joint statement by the Palestinian Authority’s prisoners affairs body and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club watchdog.

“We mourn the passing of the leader and prisoner Sheikh Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara and hold the occupation responsible for his assassination through deliberate medical neglect,” Hamas said in a statement.

Abu Ara was arrested in October while suffering severe health problems, the Palestinian body and the watchdog said. During his detainment he was subjected to torture and starvation, they added.

Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The leaders of Australia, New Zealand and Canada have again called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Reuters reports.

“An immediate ceasefire is needed desperately,” the statement issued jointly by the three countries’ prime ministers says.

“Civilians must be protected, and a sustained increase in the flow of assistance throughout Gaza is needed to address the humanitarian situation.”

“We call on Israel to respond substantively to the ICJ’s advisory opinion, and ensure accountability for ongoing acts of violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers,” the statement said.

It further called on Israel to “reverse the record expansion of settlements in the West Bank which are illegal under international law, and work towards a two-state solution”.

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A group of 45 American doctors and nurses who have been working in Gaza since October have written a letter to US President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris recounting “the massive human toll from Israel’s attack” on the territory, Al Jazeera reports.

The multi-faith, multiethnic group said their experience in the warzone made them “uniquely positioned” to comment as the US considered its continued support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

“It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 92,000, an astonishing 4.2% of Gaza’s population,” they write, adding that every signatory to the joint letter had treated Palestinian children who “must have been deliberately” targeted for attack.

“Every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest,” they wrote.

With a few exceptions, “everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both”, they added.

Chanting “yes, to peace, yes, to a deal”, hundreds of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis marched noisily through Tel Aviv on Thursday night, demanding an end to the offensive in Gaza and the cycle of violence, AFP reports.

Their agenda starts with a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, but ultimately, they want to reboot Palestinian-Israeli relations, and breathe new life into the moribund peace movement.

“It basically went silent after October 7,” and the start of the military campaign, Amira Mohammed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, said of the peace camp. “The radicals became louder than the peace movement. So right now, we’ve got to be radical about the peace that we want.”

Mohammed said that included an “acknowledgement of the power dynamic between occupier and occupied” as well as “accountability on both sides”. “We can’t stop violence with more violence,” said teacher Carmit Bar Levy, 49.

“Peace is the only way forward,” said Marcelo Oliki, 64, a survivor of the Hamas-attacks on Kibbutz Nirim.

“There are children, women and babies dying just across the border from me. There are people there who are grieving too, just like me, and that want peace, too, like me.”

Read more here.