UN Palestinian refugee agency says attacks on Rafah ‘horrifying’

Update UN Palestinian refugee agency says attacks on Rafah ‘horrifying’
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A man reacts next to the body of a Palestinian child killed in an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced people in Rafah on May 26, 2024. (REUTERS)
Update UN Palestinian refugee agency says attacks on Rafah ‘horrifying’
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Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians in Rafah , southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video on May 26, 2024. (REUTERS/Reuters TV)
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Updated 27 May 2024
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UN Palestinian refugee agency says attacks on Rafah ‘horrifying’

UN Palestinian refugee agency says attacks on Rafah ‘horrifying’
  • The attacks came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah
  • Israel’s army confirmed the strike and said it hit a Hamas installation and killed two senior Hamas militants

DEIR AL-BALAH: Palestinian health workers said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 45 people Sunday and hit tents for displaced people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and “numerous” others were trapped in flaming debris. Gaza’s Health Ministry said women and children made up most of the dead and dozens of wounded.

The attacks came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population had sought shelter before Israel’s incursion earlier this month. Tens of thousands of people remain in the area while many others have fled.
Footage from the scene of the largest airstrike showed heavy destruction. Israel’s army confirmed the strike and said it hit a Hamas installation and killed two senior Hamas militants. It said it was investigating reports that civilians were harmed. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was in Rafah on Sunday and was briefed on the “deepening of operations” there, his office said.

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said on Monday that reports of attacks on families seeking shelter in Rafah in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip were "horrifying".

“Information coming out of Rafah about further attacks on families seeking shelter is horrifying," UNRWA wrote on X.

"There are reports of mass casualties including children and women among those killed. Gaza is hell on earth. Images from last night are yet another testament to that."

Palestinian health and civil emergency service officials said on Sunday Israeli air strikes killed at least 35 Palestinians and wounded dozens in an area in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah designated for the displaced.

The Israeli military said its air force struck a Hamas compound in Rafah, and that the incident was under review.




A Palestinian wounded in an Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, on May 26, 2024. (AP) 

A spokesperson with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the death toll was likely to rise as search and rescue efforts continued in Rafah’s Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood about two kilometers (1.2 miles) northwest of the city center.
The society asserted that the location had been designated by Israel as a “humanitarian area.” The neighborhood is not included in areas that Israel’s military ordered evacuated earlier this month.
The airstrike was reported hours after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza that set off air raid sirens as far away as Tel Aviv for the first time in months in a show of resilience more than seven months into Israel’s massive air, sea and ground offensive.
There were no reports of casualties in what appeared to be the first long-range rocket attack from Gaza since January. Hamas’ military wing claimed responsibility. Israel’s military said eight projectiles crossed into Israel after being launched from Rafah and “a number” were intercepted, and the launcher was destroyed.
Earlier Sunday, dozens of aid trucks entered Gaza from southern Israel under a new agreement to bypass the Rafah crossing with Egypt after Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of it earlier this month. Israel’s military said 126 aid trucks entered via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing.
But it was not immediately clear if humanitarian groups could access the aid — including medical supplies — because of fighting. The crossing has been largely inaccessible because of Israel’s offensive in Rafah. United Nations agencies say it is usually too dangerous to retrieve the aid. The World Health Organization last week said an expanded Israeli incursion in Rafah would have “disastrous” impact.”
“With the humanitarian operation near collapse, the secretary-general emphasizes that the Israeli authorities must facilitate the safe pickup and delivery of humanitarian supplies from Egypt entering Kerem Shalom,” the spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
Egypt refuses to reopen its side of the Rafah crossing until control of the Gaza side is handed back to Palestinians. It agreed to temporarily divert traffic through Kerem Shalom, Gaza’s main cargo terminal, after a call between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.Egypt on Monday condemned what it called the "deliberate bombardment by Israeli forces of displaced peoples' tents" in Rafah, in strikes which Gaza's civil defence agency said killed at least 45 people.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on Israel to "implement the measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concerning an immediate cessation of military operations" in Rafah.
The war between Israel and Hamas has killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its count. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense, residential areas.
Around 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, severe hunger is widespread and UN officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.
Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized some 250 hostages. Hamas still holds some 100 hostages and the remains of around 30 others after most of the rest were released during a ceasefire last year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must take over Rafah to eliminate Hamas’ remaining battalions and achieve “total victory” over the militants, who recently regrouped in other parts of Gaza.
The war has also heightened tensions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian authorities on Sunday said Israeli forces shot dead a 14-year-old boy near the southern West Bank town of Saeer. The Israeli army said the Palestinian male was shot dead after trying to stab Israeli forces at Beit Einun Junction.
Southern Gaza largely cut off from aid
Southern Gaza has been largely cut off from aid since Israel launched what it called a limited incursion into Rafah on May 6. Since then over 1 million Palestinians, many already displaced, have fled the city.
Northern Gaza receives aid through two land routes that Israel opened during global outrage after Israeli strikes killed seven aid workers in April.
A few dozen trucks enter Gaza daily through a US-built floating pier, far below the 150 trucks a day that officials hoped for. Aid groups say 600 trucks a day are needed.
Israeli man detained over mutiny threat
Israel’s military said it had detained a suspect over a widely circulated video in which a man dressed as a soldier threatens mutiny. The man says tens of thousands of soldiers were ready to disobey the defense minister over his suggestion that Palestinians should govern Gaza after the war, and pledged loyalty to Netanyahu alone.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the man has been removed from reserve duty. It was not clear when or where the video was made. The prime minister’s office released a brief statement condemning all forms of military insubordination.

With Agencies 


Hamas says Israeli block on diggers affecting extraction of hostages’ bodies

People walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, January 30, 2025. (REUTERS)
People walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, January 30, 2025. (REUTERS)
Updated 07 February 2025
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Hamas says Israeli block on diggers affecting extraction of hostages’ bodies

People walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, January 30, 2025. (REUTERS)
  • Of the 251 hostages Hamas seized in its unprecedented Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, 76 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead

GAZA CITY: Hamas on Friday said Israel’s blocking of heavy machinery entering Gaza to clear rubble caused by war was affecting efforts to extract the bodies of hostages.
“Preventing the entry of heavy equipment and machinery needed to remove 55 million tonnes of rubble ... will undoubtedly affect the resistance’s ability to extract from under the rubble the dead prisoners (hostages),” said Salama Marouf, spokesman for Hamas’s media office in Gaza.
Hamas has repeatedly accused Israel of slowing down aid deliveries expected under the terms of the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza, including key items such as fuel, tents, and heavy machinery for clearing rubble.

FASTFACT

Hamas has repeatedly accused Israel of slowing down aid deliveries expected under the terms of the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza.

The Israeli government and COGAT, the Israeli Defense Ministry body that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, have rejected the accusation.
Of the 251 hostages Hamas seized in its unprecedented Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, 76 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.
Hamas’ armed wing released the names of three captives it said would be freed on Saturday in a fifth hostage-prisoner swap as part of an ongoing agreement with Israel.
“Within the framework of the Al-Aqsa Flood deal for the prisoner exchange, the (Ezzedine) Al-Qassam Brigades have decided to release” the three hostages, Abu Obeida, spokesman for the armed wing, said on Telegram.

 


Khamenei warns against negotiating with US

Khamenei warns against negotiating with US
Updated 07 February 2025
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Khamenei warns against negotiating with US

Khamenei warns against negotiating with US
  • Trump, who returned to the White House on Jan. 20, reinstated on Tuesday his “maximum pressure” policy toward Iran over allegations the country is seeking to develop nuclear weapons

TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said on Friday that there should not be negotiations with the US, days after US President Donald Trump called for a new nuclear deal.
“You should not negotiate with such a government. It is unwise, it is not intelligent, it is not honorable to negotiate,” Khamenei said during a meeting with army commanders. The US had previously “ruined, violated, and tore up” a 2015 nuclear deal, he said, adding that “the same person who is in power now tore up the treaty.”
On Wednesday, Trump suggested striking a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran, adding in his social media post that Tehran “cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump, who returned to the White House on Jan. 20, reinstated on Tuesday his “maximum pressure” policy toward Iran over allegations the country is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and denies any intention to develop atomic weapons.
Following the policy’s reinstatement, Washington on Thursday announced financial sanctions on entities and individuals accused of shipping hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Iranian crude oil to China.
Tehran on Friday condemned the sanctions as “illegal,” saying they were “categorically unjustified and contrary to international rules.”
“We must understand this correctly: they should not pretend that if we sit down at the negotiating table with that government (the US administration), problems will be solved,” Khamenei said.
“No problem will be solved by negotiating with America,” he said, citing previous “experience.”
Khamenei also warned of reciprocal measures if the US threatened or acted against Iran.
“If they threaten us, we will threaten them. If they carry out this threat, we will carry out our threat. If they attack the security of our nation, we will attack their security without hesitation,” he said.
During President Trump’s first term, which ended in 2021, Washington withdrew from the landmark nuclear deal that had imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Tehran adhered to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action deal until a year after Washington pulled out but then began rolling back its commitments. Efforts to revive the agreement have since faltered.
Khamenei said Iran was “very generous” during the negotiations culminating in the deal, but it “did not achieve the intended results.”
Iranian political expert Afifeh Abedi said Khamenei’s remarks highlight “a serious concern” that negotiations “will result in the US breaching its commitments.”
“Iran understands that Trump’s willingness to negotiate is a disingenuous, reactionary move driven by other objectives rather than a genuine commitment to reaching an agreement,” she said.
Iran has repeatedly expressed a willingness to revive the nuclear deal, and President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for an end to the country’s isolation.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently said that the new US administration should work to regain Tehran’s trust if it wants a new round of nuclear talks.
Western sanctions, especially since the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, have taken a toll on millions of Iranians struggling to make ends meet amid high inflation and a plunging currency.
Khamenei acknowledged this on Friday, saying, “almost most segments of the population have some problems,” but adding they could be solved internally.
The current “respected government can reduce the people’s livelihood problems,” he said.
Without directly mentioning Gaza, Khamenei said on Friday the US administration was trying “to change the map of the world.”
“Of course, it is only on paper, it has no basis in reality,” he said.

 


Scholz vows support for ‘free and safe’ Syria

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. (AP)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. (AP)
Updated 07 February 2025
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Scholz vows support for ‘free and safe’ Syria

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. (AP)
  • German Chancellor stresses ‘importance of the fight against terrorism’

BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Syria’s President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Friday that Berlin was ready to support the transition to a “free and safe” future after the ouster of Bashar Assad.

Scholz expressed Berlin’s “willingness to support the reconstruction of Syria so that Syria can become a free and safe home for all” in an hour-long conversation with Al-Sharaa, the chancellor’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, said in a statement.
In his first call with the new Syrian leader, Scholz “congratulated the Syrian people on their success in ending the Assad regime’s reign of terror.”
Al-Sharaa was appointed as Syria’s president at the end of January after militants toppled Assad, ending more than five decades of the family’s iron-fisted rule.
Scholz told the new Syrian leader he needed to lead an “inclusive political process ... that allows all Syrians, regardless of their ethnic or religious group,to participate.”
The chancellor also stressed “the ongoing importance of the fight against terrorism for security in Syria,” according to the statement.
Scholz said that Germany would work with European and international partners in this regard.
Al-Sharaa has been invited to visit Germany, his office said on Friday following the phone call.
The invitation came two days after Al-Sharaa’s office announced he had been invited to visit France.
Scholz and Al-Sharaa agreed on Syria’s need for an inclusive political process that allows the participation of all Syrians and provides rights and protection, the German spokesperson said.
“The Federal Chancellor underlined the ongoing importance of the fight against terrorism for security in Syria, the region and worldwide,” the spokesperson added.
Al-Sharaa has made a push to rebuild Syria’s diplomatic ties since his Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, spearheaded the overthrow of Assad.
However, the country faces a difficult transition amid unresolved territorial and governance challenges. Armed forces in the south, including from the Druze minority, have responded cautiously to the new authority in Damascus.
Also on Friday, Human Rights Watch warned that US aid suspensions could worsen “life-threatening conditions” in camps holding relatives of suspected extremists in northeast Syria, urging Washington to maintain support.
Kurdish-run camps and prisons in the region still hold around 56,000 people with alleged or perceived links to Daesh, years after the extremists’ territorial defeat.
They include suspects locked up in prisons, as well as the wives and children of Daesh fighters held in the Al-Hol and Roj internment camps.
“The US government’s suspension of foreign aid to non-governmental organizations operating in these camps is exacerbating life-threatening conditions, risking further destabilization of a precarious security situation,” HRW said in a statement.
The rights group said the aid freeze could “limit the provision of essential services for camp residents,” citing international humanitarian workers.

 


Syrian jailed over death of migrant girl

Syrian jailed over death of migrant girl
Updated 07 February 2025
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Syrian jailed over death of migrant girl

Syrian jailed over death of migrant girl
  • The child, accompanied by her mother, was one of three girls aged three to five who were airlifted to a hospital in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, after being found unconscious during a major rescue operation. She died the following day
  • Under Cypriot law, the maximum penalty provided for causing death through negligence is four years in prison

NICOSIA: A Cypriot court sentenced a Syrian man who captained a migrant boat from Lebanon to three years in prison over causing the death of a young girl from dehydration, authorities said on Friday.
A statement by the Cypriot prosecution service said the Famagusta Criminal Court sentenced the Syrian national, 47, after finding him guilty of negligence resulting in the death of a three-year-old Syrian girl, who died from dehydration.
The young girl was among 60 “distressed and dehydrated” Syrians rescued from a crowded wooden boat off the coast of the Mediterranean island on Jan. 24, 2024.
According to the prosecution service, which did not name either the victim or the perpetrator, the “convicted individual had taken on the role of captain of the wooden boat that transported the Syrian migrants.”
Under Cypriot law, the maximum penalty provided for causing death through negligence is four years in prison.
The child, accompanied by her mother, was one of three girls aged three to five who were airlifted to a hospital in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, after being found unconscious during a major rescue operation. She died the following day.
The court said the accused failed to ensure the vessel’s safe navigation and take necessary safety measures for the passengers against potential dangers at sea.
It added that he lacked the qualifications for such a journey, as he attempted to navigate an overloaded boat that did not meet the minimum technical and structural specifications.
“When the boat’s engine broke down, it drifted for six days in open waters, exposed to harsh weather conditions, lacking direction, food, and drinking water.
There were 15 children on the boat, including five unaccompanied minors.
The migrants took off from Lebanon — about 168 km from Cyprus — on Jan. 18, 2024.
Cyprus had for years said it had the highest number of asylum seekers per capita in the EU, but the government has recently reported a drastic drop in migrant arrivals.

 


Slain deputy chief of Hamas armed wing given Gaza burial

Slain deputy chief of Hamas armed wing given Gaza burial
Updated 07 February 2025
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Slain deputy chief of Hamas armed wing given Gaza burial

Slain deputy chief of Hamas armed wing given Gaza burial
  • Issa’s coffin, draped in the green Hamas and Palestinian flags and adorned with pictures of the slain deputy, was carried aloft by fighters during the procession
  • Friday prayers before the burial were held in a sports stadium in the camp

BUREIJ, Palestinian Territories: Hundreds of Hamas fighters and onlookers gathered in the Gaza Strip’s Bureij refugee camp on Friday for the funeral of Marwan Issa, the slain deputy leader of the movement’s armed wing.
Brandishing assault rifles, their eyes the only visible feature behind black masks, fighters from the group’s armed Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades packed the narrow streets of the central Gaza camp for the funerary procession.
The Israeli military had said it had killed Issa in a March 2024 air strike, but his death was only confirmed by Hamas on January 30 amid an ongoing ceasefire with Israel in Gaza.
The group also announced the death of Al-Qassam’s military chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel had said it had killed in a July airstrike, as well as a number of other fighters and commanders.
Issa’s coffin, draped in the green Hamas and Palestinian flags and adorned with pictures of the slain deputy, was carried aloft by fighters during the procession. Friday prayers before the burial were held in a sports stadium in the camp.
“Do not think that the resistance has ended with the assassination of the great leader Marwan Issa,” said a fighter from the militant group Islamic Jihad, whose members were also out in force at the funeral.
“We have many resistance fighters and heroes, and we are constantly preparing for you,” he added.
Israel had accused Issa of being one of the organizers of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, which started the Gaza war.
In a hostage handover on Saturday, as part of the terms of the ceasefire deal, scores of Hamas fighters carried pictures of the slain commanders in a show of strength in Gaza City’s port.