Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 195

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has said that Israel “must be compelled to stop any further military adventurism against our interests”, Al Jazeera reports.

“In case of any use of force by the Israeli regime and violating our sovereignty, the Islamic Republic of Iran will not hesitate a bit to assert its inherent rights to give a decisive and proper response to it to make the regime regret its actions,” Amir-Abdollahian said at the UNSC.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said that Israel will probably retaliate for Iran’s April 13 missile and drone attack, adding that he hoped any response would be targeted and not trigger an escalation, Al Jazeera reports.

“Our appeal is always for prudence and de-escalation,” Tajani told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers.

“We hope that Israel’s response, which will probably come, will be a targeted response and not something that provokes escalation,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Vassily Nebenzia has said that he favoured granting Palestine full membership to the United Nations, Al Jazeera reports.

“Recognising Palestine will help in the long term to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Nebenzia said.

He also slammed a comment by Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan who said Palestinians fail to meet the criteria to become a full UN member, which he outlined as a permanent population, defined territory, government, and capacity to enter relations with other states.

Nebenzia said Israel did not meet those requirements in 1949, yet it was admitted to the UN.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have said they have attacked almost 100 vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in months of strikes that have disrupted global shipping, AFP reports.

In a speech broadcast by the rebels’ Al-Masira channel, Houthi leader Abdel Malek al-Huthi announced new attacks against eight ships, adding that “the total number of enemy-linked vessels targeted … has reached 98”.

The attacks on vessels deemed linked to Israel or its allies have had “a massive effect and have been a success”, the rebel leader said.

But Huthi said “no one can stop us from carrying out operations in support of Palestinians in Gaza”.

The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) is bringing a motion at the FIFA Congress in May demanding “decisive action” against Israel and its football association (IFA), AFP reports.

The motion, which would require the first debate at a major sports body conference on the bombardment in the Gaza Strip, will be one of the main items on the agenda in Bangkok at the annual meeting, along with the choice of host of the 2027 Women’s World Cup and a plan to combat racism.

The proposal is based on a letter the PFA sent to FIFA in March.

It calls for “appropriate sanctions, with immediate effect, against Israeli teams, including national representative teams and club teams, due to the international law violations committed by the Israeli occupation in Palestine, particularly in Gaza”.

The PFA accuses its Israeli counterpart the IFA of violating FIFA’s statutes by recognising clubs based in occupied territory and for failing to take “decisive action against discrimination and racism, in the areas under its jurisdiction”.

“Only in Israeli football can a club openly block Arabs from joining its ranks, and harsh violence is treated solely as a disciplinary infraction,” the PFA statement said singling out Beitar Jerusalem which, it said, has never signed an Arab player.

The proposal was supported by the Algerian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Syrian and Yemeni football federations — but not by Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has painted a dark picture of the situation in the Middle East, warning that spiralling tensions over the fighting in Gaza and Iran’s attack on Israel could devolve into a “full-scale regional conflict”, AFP reports.

Guterres also said Israel’s military offensive on Hamas in the Gaza Strip had created a “humanitarian hellscape” for civilians trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“The Middle East is on a precipice. Recent days have seen a perilous escalation — in words and deeds,” Guterres told the Security Council. “One miscalculation, one miscommunication, one mistake, could lead to the unthinkable — a full-scale regional conflict that would be devastating for all involved,” he said, calling on all parties to exercise “maximum restraint”.

“It is high time to end the bloody cycle of retaliation,” he said. “It is high time to stop.” “The international community must work together to prevent any actions that could push the entire Middle East over the edge, with a devastating impact on civilians. Let me be clear: the risks are spiralling on many fronts.”

Senior US and Israeli officials will hold a virtual meeting about Israel’s plans for the southern Gaza city of Rafah as Washington seeks alternatives to an Israeli offensive, Reuters reports, quoting a US official.

Plans for in-person talks on Rafah were delayed in the aftermath of Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel, the source said.

His writing anticipated a Hamas attack on an Israeli kibbutzim and an Iranian strike from the skies, but former Mossad spy turned thriller author Mishka Ben-David is now concerned about what lies ahead.

Since the October 7 Hamas attack, one of 72-year-old Ben-David’s bestsellers has taken on an eerily prophetic tone.

Published in 2017, “The Shark” describes a deadly conflict that starts with a Hamas raid on a kibbutzim near the Gaza border and culminates in a devastating Israeli attack on Iran in retaliation.

The crisis is now “just a few steps” from the apocalyptic events envisioned in his book, Ben-David, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said calmly as he welcomed AFP to his home in the hills around Jerusalem.

Read more here.

Gaza’s health ministry has said at least 33,970 Palestinians have been killed and 76,770 wounded in Israel’s military offensive in the besieged enclave since October 7, AFP reports.

Hundreds of Gazans found rare respite at the beach this week from more than six months of traumatising Israeli bombardments in the Palestinian territory, AFP reports.

“The children were happy and this was our first goal — to get them out of the destruction, killing, and the atmosphere of war, even though they hear explosions every moment and planes in the air,” said Naji Abu Waseem, displaced from Gaza City in the territory’s north. “God willing, this war will end and we will return to Gaza City, even to the rubble.”

Many at the beach are living in makeshift shelters nearby. They are among the 1.7 million people the United Nations says have been uprooted by Gaza’s war and left struggling for food, water and other essentials.

“The tent was like an oven,” said Mahmud al-Khatib, 28, also displaced from Gaza’s north. “The sea was the only option,” where he took his wife and children.

“There’s no infrastructure, no life, everything is nonexistent,” Khatib said on Wednesday with the arrival of summer-like temperatures.

Groups of men lay in the sand looking at the waves as children played in the water. Women and girls in tunics and hijabs took photographs.

Google said it had terminated 28 employees after some staff participated in protests against the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government, Reuters reports.

The Alphabet unit said a small number of protesting employees entered and disrupted work at a few unspecified office locations.

“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior,” the company said in a statement.

Google said it had concluded individual investigations, resulting in the termination of 28 employees, and would continue to investigate and take action as needed.

Read the full story here.

Iran’s top diplomat said his country has told the United States that it is not seeking escalation after an unprecedented attack on Israel. Reuters reports.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who is in New York to attend a UN Security Council meeting, said his country has “tried to tell the United States clearly” that Iran is “not looking for the expansion of tension in the region,” he said in a video posted by his ministry.

Iran informed the United States that the decision by the Islamic Republic of Iran to “respond to the (Israel) regime is final,” and the matter concluded, he said.

“Before the operation, we clearly told the American side that we will not target American bases and interests in the region,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

A haunting image of a grieving Palestinian woman embracing her little niece, killed in an Israeli strike in war-torn Gaza, won the 2024 World Press Photo of the Year Award, AFP reports.

The picture taken by Reuters news agency’s Mohammed Salem shows Inas Abu Maamar cradling the body of five-year-old Saly, who was killed with her mother and sister when a missile hit their home in Khan Younis in October.

Salem was in Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital on October 17 when he saw Maamar, 36, sobbing and tightly holding the wrapped body of her relative in the hospital’s morgue.

“It was a powerful and a sad moment and I felt the picture sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip,” World Press Photo quoted Salem as saying.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian landed in New York City and will later address the UN Security Council as tit-for-tat attacks with Israel raise fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East, Al Jazeera reports.

He said the UNSC meeting will “focus on the Palestinian issue”, adding Israel’s assault on Gaza has reached a boiling point.

“The spillover of this situation is clearly visible in the region,” he told reporters. “It is an opportunity to explain Iran’s views in line with the necessity of establishing lasting peace and security in the region.”

A Palestinian doctor in Gaza’s southernmost town Rafah has revealed how newborns were being abandoned at the neonatal ICU by parents.

In an Instagram post, Dr Majed Jaber described how when medical staff try to reach out to the parents most of them do not respond and the ones that do, provide heartbreaking reasons.

Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said his country is lobbying major powers against an escalation that would have far-reaching consequences for regional stability and security, Al Jazeera reports.

“The risks are enormous. That could drag the whole region into war, which would be devastating … and will have very, very serious implications for the rest of the world – including the US,” Safadi said.

“The situation is too dangerous. The chances of regional explosion are real, and that has got to stop. We’ve got to make sure there’s no further escalation.”

Overnight, the Israeli military carried out wide-ranging attacks across Gaza but one of the bloodiest was on southern Rafah where at least 11 Palestinians were killed, including five children, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports.

We have also recorded more air strikes in the al-Mughraqa and Deir el-Balah areas. These two towns have witnessed mass demolitions by the Israeli military with many neighbourhoods completely destroyed,“ the report said.

It added that the Israeli army, meanwhile, withdrew from the Nuseirat refugee camp, leaving behind a trail of destruction. “Civil defence crews are working to recover victims buried in the debris,” Al Jazeera reported.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country reserved the right to protect itself after Iran’s unprecedented attack, and that it alone would decide how to do so, AFP reports.

The Israeli military has vowed to respond, prompting a diplomatic flurry aimed at calming the Middle East.

Netanyahu told the visiting ministers that Israel “will reserve the right to protect itself,” his office said.

The pair offered “all kinds of suggestions and advice” during a meeting, Netanyahu said. “However, I would also like to clarify: we will make our decisions ourselves.”

China and Indonesia have condemned the “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said after a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi, in Jakarta, Reuters reports.

“Both ministers expressed resentment over the humanitarian disaster due to the Palestine-Israel conflict. We agree that the UN Security Council resolution on a ceasefire must be fully implemented and without any condition,” Wang said after the meeting.

Wang also called for all parties in the Gaza conflict to exercise restraint, and said the United States should support a United Nations resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Wang urged the United States to “listen to the international community” amid concerns over the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Danish shipping company Maersk says all of its operations to, from and in Israel are normal, Al Jazeera reports.

“At this time, all Maersk operations to, from and within Israel are functioning as normal without disruption,” the company said in an advisory to clients on its website.

Yemen’s Houthi movement has attacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November in what it says is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians and against Israel’s continuing military offensive on Gaza.

The G7 must respond to Iran’s attack on Israel, Germany’s foreign minister said, adding that measures were being discussed with her counterparts at a meeting in Italy, AFP reports.

“We are also discussing further measures here at the G7, because of course there must be a response to this unprecedented incident,” Annalena Baerbock said from the island of Capri. She added however that “there must be no further escalation in the region, that would be fatal for its people”.

A former spokesman for the UN’s agency for Palestinians says Israel’s criticism of the UNRWA is politically motivated and based on false accusations.

“This attack is based on a lie. It’s dishonest,” Chris Gunness told Al Jazeera. “If you get rid of UNRWA you suddenly get rid of the 5.9 million refugees registered with UNRWA.”

He said if the agency is disbanded, Palestinians would lose “inalienable rights” such as healthcare, education, and the right to self-determination. Gunness accused Israel of working to eradicate the organisation to the detriment of the Palestinian people.

“In Gaza, we’re seeing since March 22 UNRWA aid convoys blocked to the north. The implications of that are the 300,000 people there will slip further into starvation,” he said.

An Israeli army offensive in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza has resulted in 520 killed, injured and missing people within a week, the Palestinian government media office said, TRT World reports.

Following the army’s withdrawal from the camp after an eight-day attack, the office said “the Israeli occupation army committed a crime against humanity and against international law in the areas of Maghazi, Zahra and the New Camp north of Nuseirat.”

“The toll reached 520 martyrs, injured and missing and more than 13,000 housing units demolished within one week,” it added.

The local media said “this comes within the framework of the genocide being waged by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians, which the US administration supports and participates in.”

The office pointed out that the Israeli army “destroyed 14 towers, residential buildings and dozens of homes belonging to citizens, displacing them from their towers, residential buildings, and homes under the threat of aircraft bombing and tank shells.”

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s hardline finance minister, says retaliation for Iran’s strikes must “rock Tehran so everyone there will realise they shouldn’t mess with us”, Al Jazeera reports.

The response to Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel last week has to be “fierce, severe and inflict a disproportionate toll”, Smotrich told Israel’s Army Radio (GLZ).

He added the retaliation is necessary to “shape [Israel’s] position in the Middle East”.

“This is the language spoken in the Middle East,” Smotrich said in the interview.