Families of Israeli child hostages make plea on World Children’s Day

Families of Israeli child hostages make plea on World Children’s Day
Portraits of Israeli children hostages are displayed during a rally outside the Unicef offices in Tel Aviv on November 20, 2023 to demand the release of Israelis held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 attack by Hamas militants, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian armed group. (AFP)
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Updated 20 November 2023
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Families of Israeli child hostages make plea on World Children’s Day

Families of Israeli child hostages make plea on World Children’s Day
  • Several hundred demonstrators joined the protest on World Children’s Day

TEL AVIV: The families of Israeli children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza pleaded Monday for international voices to demand their release at a protest outside the UN children’s fund in Tel Aviv.
Several hundred demonstrators joined the protest on World Children’s Day, more than six weeks after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 others hostage.
At least 35 of the hostages are children, with 18 of them aged 10 and under, according to an AFP count. That figure includes a baby which the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was born in captivity.
Demonstrators held Israeli flags, portraits of the children and stuffed toys, with a projector casting enormous pictures of their names, faces and ages onto the side of the building housing the offices of UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, as participants chanted: “UN do your job!“
“How can it be that in the face of this horror, my 12-year-old boy Erez and Sa’ar, 16, and many other children are hostages — brutally taken hostage — and the world is silent?” said Hadas Kalderon whose two children have been held in Gaza by Palestinian militants since October 7.
“Large institutions like UNICEF are silent. Have you forgotten your role?” she said.
“Where are the rights of my children?“
The rally took place shortly before the families were to meet with Israel’s war cabinet as rumors circulated that a possible hostage deal was in the offing.
Across Tel Aviv, like in many cities in Israel, the streets are plastered with banners, posters and stickers calling for the hostages’ safe return.
Air raid sirens warning of incoming Hamas rockets suddenly interrupted the demonstration, with some people running for shelter as others flung themselves onto the ground.
Yoni Asher, whose two daughters, four-year-old Raz and Aviv, 2, are among the hostages, called on UNICEF to make a public stand about Israeli children “like you refer specifically to babies on the other side.”
“We are all hurt for each and every baby, for each and every child. We don’t want any children to get harmed. If we can say it, can’t you?,” he said.
Since October 7, Israel has pounded Gaza relentlessly from the air, land and sea with officials in the Hamas-run territory saying at least 13,300 people have been killed, among them more than 5,600 children.


Hamas warns hostages doomed unless demands met

Hamas warns hostages doomed unless demands met
Updated 25 sec ago
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Hamas warns hostages doomed unless demands met

Hamas warns hostages doomed unless demands met
  • Hamas demands that all its members in Israeli prisons be freed in exchange for the hostages
  • Israel says there are still 137 hostages in Gaza, while activists say around 7,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Hamas warned Sunday that no hostages would leave Gaza alive unless its demands for prisoner releases are met.

In a televised statement, a Hamas spokesman said Israel will not receive “their prisoners alive without an exchange and negotiation and meeting the demands of the resistance.”
Senior Hamas official Bassem Neim said in late November the movement was “ready to release all soldiers in exchange for all our prisoners.”
Israel says there are still 137 hostages in Gaza, while activists say around 7,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails.

Hamas triggered the conflict with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7 in which it killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, and dragged around 240 hostages back to Gaza.
Israel has responded with a relentless military offensive that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 17,997 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
On Sunday, a source close to Hamas and Islamic Jihad told AFP both groups were engaged in “fierce clashes” with Israeli forces near Khan Yunis, where an AFP journalist also reported heavy strikes, as well as Jabalia and Gaza City’s Shejaiya district in the north.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Hamas to give up.
“It is the beginning of the end of Hamas. I say to the Hamas terrorists: It’s over. Don’t die for (Yahya) Sinwar. Surrender now,” he said, referring to the Hamas chief in Gaza.
The Israeli army said Sunday it struck more than 250 targets in 24 hours, including “a Hamas military communications site,” “underground tunnel shafts” in southern Gaza, and a Hamas military command center in Shejaiya.
It said 98 soldiers have died and around 600 wounded in the Gaza campaign.
Some 7,000 “terrorists” have been killed, according to National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi.
“Hamas should not exist, because they are not human beings, after what I saw they did,” Menahem, a 22-year-old soldier wounded on October 7, told AFP during a military-organized tour that did not allow him to give his surname.
After more than two months of war, the World Health Organization said Gaza’s health system was collapsing.

“Gaza’s health system is on its knees and collapsing,” said World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, with only 14 of 36 hospitals functioning at any capacity.
WHO’s executive board on Sunday adopted a resolution calling for immediate, unimpeded aid deliveries.
The UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced — roughly half of them children — many forced south and running out of safe places to go.
AFP visited the bombed-out ruins of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital and found at least 30,000 people taking refuge amid the rubble after Israeli forces raided the medical facility last month.
“Our life has become a living hell, there’s no electricity, no water, no flour, no bread, no medicine for the children who are all sick,” said Mohammed Daloul, 38, who fled there with his wife and three children.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Security Council’s “authority and credibility were severely undermined,” after the United States blocked a cease-fire resolution on Friday.
“I can promise, I will not give up,” Guterres told Qatar’s Doha Forum.
Qatar, where Hamas’s top leadership is based, said it was still working on a new truce like the week-long cease-fire it helped mediate last month that saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners and humanitarian aid.
But Israel’s relentless bombardment was “narrowing the window” for success, said Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday again rejected a cease-fire.
“With Hamas still alive, still intact and... with the stated intent of repeating October 7 again and again and again, that would simply perpetuate the problem,” he told ABC News.
But Blinken also told CNN that Israeli forces should ensure “military operations are designed around civilian protection.”
In Rafah in southern Gaza, one displaced woman said she had been stuck there for 18 days despite having an Egyptian passport.
“Whenever I want to go somewhere, we hear bombing and shelling and feel scared and go back,” said Noura Al-Sayed Hassan.
“I’ve been searching for bread for my daughter for over a week now.”

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) voiced alarm over what he feared would be a mass expulsion of Palestinians into Egypt.
In an opinion piece Saturday in the Los Angeles Times, Philippe Lazzarini said “the developments we are witnessing point to attempts to move Palestinians into Egypt.”
An Israeli spokesman responded: “There is not, never was, and never will be an Israeli plan to move the residents of Gaza to Egypt.”
The fighting in Gaza has sparked pro-Palestinian protests in many countries, including large gatherings in Morocco, Denmark and Turkiye on Sunday.
But there were also demonstrations against anti-Semitism, including in Brussels where European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen helped light a huge Hanukkah menorah candelabrum.
There are fears of regional escalation with frequent cross-border exchanges between Israel and Lebanese militants, and attacks by pro-Iran groups against US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported late Sunday that Israeli strikes hit targets near the capital Damascus, although the country’s air defense systems was able to deter some “and losses were limited to materials.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Israeli bombings “targeted Lebanese Hezbollah sites” including areas near the Damascus International Airport, noting that the bombing “was in three rounds.”
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels threatened to attack any vessels heading to Israel unless more aid was allowed into Gaza.
France said Sunday one of its frigates in the Red Sea had shot down two drones launched from Yemen.
 


UN General Assembly likely to vote Tuesday on Gaza cease-fire demand — diplomats

UN General Assembly likely to vote Tuesday on Gaza cease-fire demand — diplomats
Updated 37 min 18 sec ago
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UN General Assembly likely to vote Tuesday on Gaza cease-fire demand — diplomats

UN General Assembly likely to vote Tuesday on Gaza cease-fire demand — diplomats
  • The move comes after the US vetoed on Friday a UN Security Council demand for immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza

NEW YORK: The 193-member United Nations General Assembly is likely to vote Tuesday on a draft resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip, diplomats said on Sunday.
The move comes after the US vetoed on Friday a UN Security Council demand for immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.
The General Assembly in October adopted a resolution — 121 votes in favor, 14 against and 44 abstentions — calling for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.”

 

 


Israel’s Netanyahu calls on Hamas militants to ‘surrender now’

Israel’s Netanyahu calls on Hamas militants to ‘surrender now’
Updated 11 December 2023
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Israel’s Netanyahu calls on Hamas militants to ‘surrender now’

Israel’s Netanyahu calls on Hamas militants to ‘surrender now’
  • The militants late on Sunday boasted of success in their fight with Israeli forces in Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for Hamas militants to lay down their arms, saying the Palestinian Islamist group’s end was near, as the war in the Gaza Strip raged more than two months after it began.
“The war is still ongoing but it is the beginning of the end of Hamas. I say to the Hamas terrorists: It’s over. Don’t die for (Yahya) Sinwar. Surrender now,” Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to the chief of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“In the past few days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces,” Netanyahu said.
The military has, however, not released proof of militants surrendering, and Hamas has rejected such claims.
Almost one month ago, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had “lost control” of Gaza.
The militants late on Sunday boasted of success in their fight with Israeli forces in Gaza.
Izzat Al-Rishq, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, said history would “remember Gaza as the clearest of victories” for the Palestinian militants.
“The end of the occupation has begun in Gaza,” Rishq said.
Hamas triggered the conflict with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7 in which it killed around 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, and dragged around 240 hostages back to Gaza.
Israel has responded with a relentless military offensive that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 17,997 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.


Gaza war having ‘catastrophic’ health impact: WHO chief

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). (AP)
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). (AP)
Updated 11 December 2023
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Gaza war having ‘catastrophic’ health impact: WHO chief

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). (AP)
  • There is no health without peace and no peace without health, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells special session

GENEVA: The war between Israel and Hamas is having a catastrophic impact on health in Gaza, the WHO chief warned on Sunday, with medics facing an “impossible” job in unimaginable conditions.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a special session of the World Health Organization’s executive board that the Palestinian territory’s health system was in free fall.
“The impact of the conflict on health is catastrophic,” Tedros told the Geneva meeting.
“As more and more people move to a smaller and smaller area, overcrowding, combined with the lack of adequate food, water, shelter and sanitation, are creating the ideal conditions for disease to spread,” he said.
The UN health agency’s chief said there were worrying signs of epidemic diseases — and the risk was expected to worsen with the situation deteriorating and winter conditions approaching.
“Gaza’s health system is on its knees and collapsing,” Tedros said, with only 14 out of 36 hospitals functioning with any capacity at all, and, only two of those in the north of the coastal territory.
Only 1,400 hospital beds out of an original 3,500 are still available, while the two major hospitals in southern Gaza are operating at three times their bed capacity, Tedros added.
Tedros said that since Oct. 7, the WHO had verified more than 449 attacks on healthcare in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and 60 on healthcare in Israel.
“The work of the health workers is impossible, and they are directly in the firing line,” he said, with medics who are “physically and mentally exhausted and are doing their best in unimaginable conditions.”
“There is no health without peace and no peace without health,” Tedros concluded.
The special session was called by 17 of the 34 countries on the executive board, which normally meets twice a year. Its main job is to advise the World Health Assembly, the WHO’s decision-making body, and then implement its decisions.
A draft resolution proposed by Afghanistan, Morocco, Qatar and Yemen calls for the immediate, sustained and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief into the Gaza Strip and the granting of exit permits for patients.
It seeks the supply and replenishment of medicine and medical equipment to the civilian population and for all persons deprived of their liberty to be given access to medical treatment.
It voices “grave concern” at the humanitarian situation, laments the “widespread destruction,” and urges protection for all civilians.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila, speaking via video link from Ramallah, called for the immediate cessation of the “brutal war in Gaza” and the immediate, unconditional flow of fuel, water, aid, and medical supplies into the territory.
“The daily horrors we all witness defy international law and shatter the essence of our shared humanity,” she said.
“Now is the time for decisive action. The world cannot stand neutral while innocent lives are lost, and the basic rights of the Palestinian people are compromised.”
Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador in Geneva, said that on Oct. 6, “there was a ceasefire with Hamas. On Oct. 7, we woke up to a new reality.”
She said Israel’s military operation “is directed toward Hamas. It has never been against the Palestinian people. And I recognize the suffering in Gaza.
“Let there be no mistake, however: Hamas is responsible for this suffering.
“The reality is, if we stop now, Hamas will carry out another Oct. 7.”

 


Syria intercepts Israeli rockets fired on Damascus surroundings

Syria’s air defenses intercept missiles in Masyaf, northwestern Syria. (File/AP)
Syria’s air defenses intercept missiles in Masyaf, northwestern Syria. (File/AP)
Updated 10 December 2023
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Syria intercepts Israeli rockets fired on Damascus surroundings

Syria’s air defenses intercept missiles in Masyaf, northwestern Syria. (File/AP)

DAMASCUS: Syria’s air defense intercepted Israeli rockets fired at the surroundings of the capital Damascus, Syrian state media said on Sunday.

Meanwhile, violence escalated at Lebanon’s border with Israel on Sunday as Hezbollah launched explosive drones and powerful missiles at Israeli positions and Israeli air strikes rocked several towns and villages in south Lebanon.
Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire since the war in Gaza erupted two months ago, in their worst hostilities since a 2006 conflict. The violence has largely been contained to the border area.
An Israeli air strike on the town of Aitaroun destroyed five homes and damaged many more, Ali Hijazi, a local official, said.