What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?

Analysis What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?
Mourners gather during a funeral procession for Ismail Haniyeh, political leader of Hamas, who was killed during a visit to Tehran, on July 31. (AFP/Getty Image)
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Updated 07 August 2024
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What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?

What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?
  • Experts discuss whether the Palestinian group can retain its influence and rebuild after the killing of its political bureau chief
  • The killing of Hamas leaders may represent a tactical victory for Israel, but seems to have limited strategic value, says analyst

LONDON: It has been 14 years since Israeli agents carried out one of Mossad’s most audacious, controversial and, perhaps, pointless assassinations.

On Jan. 19, 2010, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, the man responsible for procuring weapons for Hamas, was murdered in a hotel bedroom in Dubai.

It was a big operation, with many moving parts, involving almost 30 Mossad operatives who entered Dubai on false passports.

It ended with Al-Mabhouh being overpowered in his room at the Al-Bustan Rotana and given a fatal dose of suxamethonium chloride, a drug used in anesthetic cocktails.




People take part in a march called by Palestinian and Lebanese youth organizations in the southern Lebanese city of Saida, on August 5, 2024, to protest against the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. (AFP)

To avoid leaving a tell-tale needle mark, the drug was administered with a device that used ultrasound to deliver it through the skin. The drug causes paralysis and, still conscious but with his lungs unable to function, Al-Mabhouh asphyxiated to death.

The assassins put him to bed and left, using a Mossad-developed device for putting hotel-door security chains in place from the outside of the room, hoping that Al-Mabhouh’s death would be attributed to natural causes.

It might have been, but for the vigilance of Dubai’s police chief. He suspected foul play and, by having the comings and goings through Dubai airport before and after the hit analyzed, and days of hotel security-camera footage examined in detail, put together a damning portfolio of evidence.

At the time, the killing was big news. Images of two Mossad agents posing as tennis players, emerging from an elevator behind Al-Mabhouh, appeared on televisions and newspapers around the world.

Today, however, for few outside Hamas or Mossad will the name Al-Mabhouh have any resonance. Certainly, his killing failed to have any appreciable impact on the flow of arms to the group.




Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) meeting with Palestinian Hamas movement leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 30, 2024. (AFP)

This week, the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of the Hamas political bureau, is also big news — as was the killing on July 13 of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif.

But soon, says Ahron Bregman, a former officer in the Israeli army and a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, the disruption caused by their deaths to the activities and ambitions of Hamas will disappear, as the ripples caused by a small pebble thrown into a large lake quickly vanish.

“The killing of Ismail Haniyeh will not change much as far as Hamas is concerned,” said Bregman, author of “The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs” and the memoir “The Spy Who Fell to Earth,” an account of his part in the exposure of an Egyptian alleged double agent.

“Hamas is more than rifles, rockets and even leaders. Hamas is an idea.

“If Israel wants to defeat it, it must offer the Palestinians a better idea — say, a Palestinian state.

“If such an idea is not put forward, then Hamas will remain in place and rebuild itself for future battles with Israel.”

KEY HAMAS FIGURES

  • Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza leader, has just been named Ismail Haniyeh’s successor.
  • Khaled Meshaal, a founding member, has mostly operated from the relative safety of exile.
  • Khalil Al-Hayya, Doha-based deputy leader of Hamas, is said to have the backing of Iran.
  • Musa Abu Marzouk lived for 14 years in the US before becoming deputy chairman of Hamas’ political bureau.

Hamas is an Islamist militant group that spun off from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1980s. It took over the Gaza Strip after defeating its rival political party, Fatah, in elections in 2006.

The sheer number of killings of key Hamas figures carried out by Israel over the past quarter-century, and the negligible impact of these killings on the organization’s capabilities or objectives, speaks of a policy being carried out despite a lack of success — or, perhaps, in accordance with a less obvious, and probably domestically focused agenda.

Killing high-profile Hamas targets, and perpetuating the war in the process, makes it harder for Israelis inclined toward peace to criticize or plot to remove their wartime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Certainly, it is not difficult for Netanyahu’s critics to see the killing of Haniyeh as a deliberate tactic to derail peace talks.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani put it succinctly on X, writing: “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?”




A woman walks near a billboard displaying portraits of Hamas leader Mohammed Deif (R) and Ismail Haniyeh with the slogan “assassinated” reading in Hebrew, in Tel Aviv, on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Israel’s list of assassinations and attempted assassinations of Hamas leaders is a long one, and the killings have not always been as subtly carried out as the necessarily low-key Mossad hit on Al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

One of the first high-profile targets to be killed was Salah Shehadeh, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, who was targeted in Gaza on July 23, 2002, by an Israeli F-16 that dropped a massive bomb on his home.

Such was the cost in collateral damage — 14 others died, including Shehadeh’s wife and nine children — that 27 Israeli Air Force pilots had a fit of conscience, denouncing such attacks as “illegal and immoral” and “a direct result of the ongoing occupation which is corrupting all of Israeli society.”

The soul-searching did not last long, however. The toll of senior Hamas leaders has continued more or less unabated ever since.

Those who have been killed include Ahmed Yassin, who founded Hamas in 1987. He died 20 years ago, on March 22, 2004, in a hail of missiles fired from Israeli helicopters as he returned home from morning prayers in Gaza.

He was succeeded by Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, who died in similar fashion just 26 days later.




Iranians take part in a funeral procession for late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, on August 1, 2024. (AFP)

Ahmed Al-Jabari, second-in-command of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, was targeted unsuccessfully five times before succumbing in Gaza City in November 2012 to a missile fired from a drone.

This year, unsurprisingly, has been a particularly busy one in terms of Hamas assassinations carried out by Israel. Hamas deputy and Haniyeh’s right-hand man Salah Al-Arouri was killed on Jan. 7 in an airstrike in Lebanon that also claimed the lives of several other senior Hamas commanders.

On March 11, Marwan Issa, deputy commander of Al-Qassam Brigades and Hamas No. 3, died in an airstrike in Gaza.

But none of these deaths — individually or taken together — has managed to turn Hamas from its path or hamper its ability to continue doggedly pursuing its aims militarily.

Haniyeh’s death is likely to have no greater immediate impact on Hamas’ capabilities than the assassinations that have gone before, said John Jenkins, former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Iraq and a Middle East expert with the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University.

But it might signal a change of strategy that bodes ill for any hopes of an immediate end to conflict.




Smoke billows from burning tires behind an Israeli army vehicle in Hebron on July 31, 2024, following a demonstration by Palestinians denouncing the killing of Haniyeh. (AFP)

“In the past, decapitation hasn’t worked — not with Hamas, nor with Hezbollah, nor Iran,” he said. “Or, at least, it has disrupted rather than interrupted.”

Israel, he added, “undoubtedly knows that. But it’s also thought for two decades that ‘mowing the grass’ is the best way to manage the conflict.”

That policy of simply keeping a lid on the problem “is now over — it collapsed on Oct. 7, 2023.

“So, the game now is destruction — of Hamas’ offensive capabilities and its ability to function as a significant political actor within the occupied Palestinian territories.

“That doesn’t mean killing the idea; that’s not possible. It means killing the capability. That’s why a ceasefire is a long way off.

“Spectacular assassinations are now part of a wider strategy of dismantling tunnels, command and control functions, logistics, and so on. That’s the only context in which they make sense.”

It is, however, a very dangerous game, with the killings of Haniyeh and Deif in Tehran and Beirut condemned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week as “a dangerous escalation.”




Yemenis wave flags and lift placards of Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh during a rally in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Instead of Israel rampaging around the region on a killing spree — let alone assassinating Hamas’ Qatar-based negotiators, such as Haniyeh — “all efforts should instead be leading to a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages, a massive increase of humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and a return to calm in Lebanon and across the Blue Line,” said Guterres.

“This endless cycle,” he added, “needs to stop.”

In an interview with a British newspaper over the weekend, Amjad Iraqi, an associate fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program, warned that Israel’s increasingly audacious killings were indeed edging the region dangerously close to a regional war.

“People are not understanding the gravity of what this is,” he told the Independent.

“There is a kind of egotistical, unstable dance that all these actors are making with missiles and with people’s lives, while trying to explain it as calibrated responses.”

Only a ceasefire could cool things down, but as things stand, “we are at a very, very dangerous point.”




Muslims pray during the final prayers for Ismail Haniyeh at his funeral in the Qatari capital Doha on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

The reality of imminent escalation, said Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute, “means that the ‘day after’ and the path to statehood seems even farther away now, with all sides focusing on the military outcome of the here and now, at the expense of immense civilian suffering and a viable political solution.”

For its part, Hamas, “to project resilience and the resolve of its leadership despite the assassination of Haniyeh, is trying to pivot quickly to appoint a new political bureau chief.”

A consultative process is under way “and, until a decision is made, such as the appointment of Khaled Mashal, for example, ceasefire negotiations cannot realistically recommence.”

As it has done many times before, in other words, Hamas will quickly grow a new limb to replace one that has been amputated.

But “a more urgent obstacle to restarting talks is that Hamas cannot be authorized to re-enter a diplomatic phase until Iran declares that the regime and its proxies have sufficiently retaliated against Israel for the series of high-profile assassinations, with much speculation around when that might happen.”




Mourners offer their condolences to senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal (L) during the funeral of Ismail Haniyeh, in the Qatari capital Doha on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

The killing of Haniyeh has, she believes, “cornered Hamas into a dilemma that will determine how the organization evolves over time.

“On the one hand, the loss of a recognizable political leader will trigger radicalization among some Hamas supporters and embolden hardliners among the military faction such as Yahya Sinwar, his brother and their inner circle.

“On the other, with Hamas fighters suffering losses inside Gaza and its military infrastructure downgraded, Hamas will be looking for a lull in the fighting to recoup and plan ahead.

“But for Hamas, this is a long game, and it is far from over — key figures inside and outside Gaza will continue to struggle to consolidate Hamas and its victory narrative and position it for a role in post-war Gaza.”




An Indonesian protester holds up a placard with the image of Ismail Haniyeh during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Surabaya on August 6, 2024. (AFP)

Ahron Bregman agrees that the killing of Haniyeh “might lead to a regional war in which Iran and Hezbollah could become involved. If the latter happens, it will play straight into the hands of Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, whose dream has always been that his Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggers a regional war.”

The assassination will also “put on ice any hostage deal, as both leaders, Netanyahu and Sinwar, are not interested in such a deal at the moment.

“For Netanyahu, a deal could spell the end of his coalition government. As for Sinwar, he will wait to see if the assassination at the heart of Tehran, which humiliated Iran, could lead to a regional war.”




Yahia Sinwar addresses supporters during a rally in Gaza City, on April 14, 2023. (AFP)

It is true, Bregman added, that “in recent months, Israel has managed to assassinate many of the Hamas leaders. Sinwar is quite on his own now, and I’m sure he’s got very few of the old guard to consult with.

“But Hamas is bigger and larger than any leader or leaders. When this war is over, there will still be Hamas — battered, leaner, but still standing and able to send rockets into Israel.

“The assassinations are tactical victories for Israel, but there is nothing strategic in it, not even in the possible killing of Sinwar himself.”




Members of the Palestinian Joint Action Committee sit during a symbolic funeral for Ismail Haniyeh, in Beirut, on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Ultimately, the cost of Israel’s campaign of assassinations could be borne by Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The details of the operation to kill Al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010 emerged in the book “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” published by Israeli historian and investigative journalist Ronen Bergman in 2018.

Bergman concluded that, because Israel’s intelligence community had always “provided Israel’s leaders sooner or later with operational responses to every focused problem they were asked to solve,” that very success had “fostered the illusion among most of the nation’s leaders that covert operations could be a strategic and not just a tactical tool — that they could be used in place of real diplomacy to end the geographic, ethnic, religious, and national disputes in which Israel is mired.”

As a result, Israel’s leaders “have elevated and sanctified the tactical method of combating terror and existential threats at the expense of the true vision, statesmanship, and genuine desire to reach a political solution that is necessary for peace to be attained.”

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Arab leaders join UN chief in call for global action

Arab leaders join UN chief in call for global action
Updated 12 September 2024
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Arab leaders join UN chief in call for global action

Arab leaders join UN chief in call for global action
  • Organization’s upcoming ‘Summit of the Future’ aims to revive support for multilateralism
  • Event will take place during 79th General Assembly in New York this month

LONDON: Arab leaders have joined the head of the UN in calling for global action on security, poverty, development and climate change.

Their appeals came ahead of the UN’s Summit of the Future, which will take place on Sept. 22 and 23, during the organization’s 79th General Assembly in New York.

Billed as an attempt to revive trust in multilateralism and bolster support for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the event will result in a “Pact for the Future,” negotiated and agreed upon by member states. It will also produce a “Global Digital Compact” and a “Declaration on Future Generations.”

The UN said: “The world is not on track to meet the goals we have already set for ourselves. Nor are we effectively rising to new challenges or opportunities.

“Multilateral governance, designed in simpler, slower times, is not adequate to today’s complex, interconnected, rapidly changing world. The summit is an opportunity to put ourselves on a better path.”

The pact agreed during the summit will cover key aspects of the UN’s remit, including sustainable development, international security, science and innovation, and youth issues.

The organization hosted a “Global Call” on Thursday to promote the summit and outline its aims for the summit, at which Antonio Guterres, the UN’s secretary-general, was backed by Arab leaders including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and newly reelected Algerian leader Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who delivered their messages of support in video statements.

Other leaders from Muslim-majority countries who took part in the appeal included Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Global Call was hosted by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Namibian President Nangolo Mbumba.

Guterres said: “Member states are now in the final stages of negotiating the three agreements to be adopted at the Summit of the Future: the Pact for the Future, the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations.

“My appeal is for you to push hard for the deepest reforms and most meaningful actions possible. We need maximum ambition during these final days of negotiation.”

He listed major global challenges he said are “moving much faster than our ability to solve them” and added: “Ferocious conflicts are inflicting terrible suffering. Deep geopolitical divides are creating dangerous tensions, multiplied by nuclear threats.

“Inequality and injustice corrode trust and fuel populism and extremism. Discrimination, misogyny and racism are taking on new forms.

“Poverty and hunger are at crisis levels as the Sustainable Development Goals are slipping out of reach. And we have no effective global response to new, and even existential, threats.”

Addressing recurring criticism of his organization’s relevance and influence in the modern world, the UN chief described the Security Council as being “stuck in a time warp.”

Highlighting the challenges facing the international financial system, he said: “Our institutions cannot keep up because they were designed for another era and another world.”

However, the UN is still in a unique position to address global issues by offering a platform for change through the summit, Guterres added.

He listed a series of requirements for the revival of multilateralism, including conflict prevention and mediation, financial reforms, increased lending capacity among development banks, and management of the risks posed by new technologies.

“As we reach the end of negotiations on the three texts, I appeal to all governments to make sure they are as ambitious as possible, to restore the hope and trust we need in order to address the dramatic challenges of our time,” he said.

“The Summit of the Future is an opportunity for far-reaching agreements on international collaboration for a safer, more sustainable and more equitable world. Let’s seize it.”

The appeal by Guterres was echoed by Tebboune, the Algerian president, who warned that the world is “going though a very sensitive, critical juncture.”

Egyptian leader El-Sisi highlighted the current tensions in the Middle East as he called for the summit to address three main priorities.

Member states must establish a system “based on the principles and rules of international law,” “reform the structure of the global financial system” and “enhance efforts toward the eradication of poverty and hunger,” he said.

Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister, drew attention to the “plight of the people in Gaza.”

He said: “Today, in times of unprecedented global challenges and escalating conflicts, we are at risk of permanently damaging the notion of ‘we.’ A collective ‘we’ requires a degree of equality and justice.

“The plight of the people of Gaza is a mockery of this ‘we.’ This ‘we’ becomes marred amid rising debt burdens for the poor, increasing poverty, growing inequality, intolerance, terrorist violence, illegal foreign occupation and a skewed approach to climate adaptation.”

Erdogan, who recently called on the leaders of Muslim-majority countries to gather for a summit on Gaza, described the UN event as a “rare window of opportunity.”

He added: “It is only a matter of days until the Summit of the Future, which aims to fortify international solidarity in the face of threats to the future of humanity, and facilitate the establishment of a peaceful, secure and equitable system.

“In the midst of the conflicts, oppression, hunger and poverty that are ravaging our world, I perceive the summit as a rare window of opportunity.”


Arab League chief briefed on conditions faced by refugees in Gaza 

Arab League chief briefed on conditions faced by refugees in Gaza 
Updated 12 September 2024
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Arab League chief briefed on conditions faced by refugees in Gaza 

Arab League chief briefed on conditions faced by refugees in Gaza 
  • Head of UNRWA holds discussions with Ahmed Aboul Gheit on challenges agency faces
  • Philippe Lazzarini provided an in-depth account of the dire conditions faced by Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip

CAIRO: Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, during a meeting in Cairo identified significant challenges confronting the agency.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit received Lazzarini at the General Secretariat headquarters on Thursday.

During the meeting, Lazzarini mentioned the challenges confronting the agency on the financial and logistical fronts, exacerbated by the persistent targeting of its headquarters and personnel by the Israeli military, along with increasing efforts to disrupt the agency’s operations.

Lazzarini provided an in-depth account of the dire conditions faced by Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip amid the bloody Israeli aggression, as well as in the West Bank, where Israeli attacks have escalated.

Gamal Roshdy, spokesperson for the secretary-general, said that Aboul Gheit reiterated the Arab League’s support for UNRWA’s vital mission and its efforts to assist Palestinian refugees throughout its five areas of operation. 

He emphasized the need for donor countries to fulfill their financial commitments and contributions to the agency’s budget, particularly given the precarious situation currently faced by the Palestinian people.

In February 2024, the Arab League chief said the decision by some countries to suspend the funding they provide for UNRWA was wrong from both a humanitarian and security standpoint and a morally flawed position to take.

At that time, he warned that ending the agency’s role would endanger the entire region and said it would be a dangerous move that suits the long-held ambitions of the Israeli right wing to dismantle UNRWA and persuade the international community to step back from its responsibility to help address the issue of Palestinian refugees.


The Palestinian economy is in free fall and will require billions to rebuild, the UN says

The Palestinian economy is in free fall and will require billions to rebuild, the UN says
Updated 12 September 2024
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The Palestinian economy is in free fall and will require billions to rebuild, the UN says

The Palestinian economy is in free fall and will require billions to rebuild, the UN says
  • The report from UN Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, also warned of “rapid and alarming economic decline” in the West Bank, citing expanded Israeli settlements
  • The report made no mention of corruption in Palestinian institutions

GENEVA: The Palestinian economy is “in free fall,” the United Nations reported Thursday, with production in Gaza plunging to one-sixth of its level before Israeli forces began a blistering military response to the Oct. 7 attacks in the territory.
The report from UN Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, also warned of “rapid and alarming economic decline” in the West Bank, citing expanded Israeli settlements, land confiscations, demolition of Palestinian buildings and violence by settlers.
The report made no mention of corruption in Palestinian institutions.
“The Palestinian economy is in free fall,” Pedro Manuel Moreno, the agency’s deputy secretary-general, told reporters in Geneva. “The report calls for the international community to halt this economic free fall, address the humanitarian crisis, and lay the groundwork for lasting peace and development.”
That would include a “comprehensive recovery plan” for Palestinian areas, more international aid, the lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, and the release of revenues and withheld funds for Palestinians retained by Israel, he said.
Gaza’s economy was weak even before the war, when unemployment was close to 50 percent, but the war has brought it to a near-standstill, with the UN estimating that roughly 90 percent of the territory’s population has been displaced, many living in squalid tent camps and dependent on international aid.
The war has also hurt the West Bank. After the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel immediately revoked work permits that allowed some 150,000 Palestinians to work inside Israel, depriving them of a key source of income.
A military crackdown that Israel says is aimed at militants has also rippled through the economy, with frequent army raids and military checkpoints making it difficult for people to work or move around.
With violence continuing, there’s little sign of any recovery plan being launched anytime soon.
Mutasim Elagraa, who coordinates UNCTAD’s assistance to Palestinians, said: “If we want to return Gaza to pre-October 2023, we need tens of billions of dollars, or even more, and decades.”
The ultimate goal is “to put Gaza on a path of sustainable development,” which will take more time and money, he said.
Economic output in Gaza plunged to just over $221 million in the half-year including the last quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2024 — the last quarter for which figures are available — or about 16 percent of the total figure for the same half-year period in 2022 and 2023, when the total was just over $1.34 billion, the agency said.
Meanwhile, more than 300,000 jobs in the West Bank — home to some 3 million Palestinians — have been lost, driving unemployment rates up to 32 percent, up from under 13 percent before the conflict, the agency reported.
By early this year, as much as 96 percent of Gaza’s farming assets, including livestock farms, orchards, machinery and storage facilities, had been “decimated,” UNCTAD said.
Over 80 percent of businesses were damaged or destroyed, and the damage has continued to worsen, it said.
Since the 1990s, Israel has collected import duties for Palestinians — leaving about two-thirds of all Palestinian tax revenue under the control of the Israeli government. Israel has repeatedly withheld or suspended the payments, accusing the Palestinian Authority of encouraging violence or taking hostile steps against Israel in the UN and other international bodies.
From 2019 through April this year, Israel had withheld or deducted a total of more than $1.4 billion, crimping the ability of Palestinian officials to provide public services and pay salaries, pensions and debts, it said. The European Union last month said it paid some $43 million to help the Palestinian Authority pay salaries and pensions in the West Bank.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded another 95,029, the territory’s Health Ministry said. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilians and militants.
Israel launched its campaign vowing to destroy the Palestinian group Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others.


UN chief Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school

UN chief Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school
Updated 12 September 2024
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UN chief Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school

UN chief Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school
  • The Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, already hit several times during the war, was struck again on Wednesday, killing 18 people
  • ‘Among those killed was manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people,’ UNRWA says

GAZA: An Israeli air strike hit a school in central Gaza on Wednesday, with the Hamas-run territory’s civil defense agency reporting that 18 people were killed, including UN staffers, and the military saying it had targeted militants.
The Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, already hit several times during the war, was struck again on Wednesday, killing 18 people, including two members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said Gaza’s civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
UNRWA gave the higher figure of six staffers killed at the Nuseirat school-turned-shelter, calling it the highest death toll among its team in a single incident.
“This school has been hit five times since the war began. It is home to around 12,000 displaced people, mainly women and children,” the UN agency separately posted on X. “No one is safe in Gaza.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres deplored the killings, which he also said included six UNRWA colleagues.
“What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable,” he wrote on social media platform X.
“These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency said at least 18 other people were wounded in the school bombing.
AFP could not independently verify the toll, which the agency said included several women and children.
Israel’s military said its air force had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control center” on the grounds of Al-Jawni, without elaborating on the outcome or the identities of those targeted.
“Most of the people took refuge in schools and the schools were bombed,” said Basil Amarneh from Gaza’s Al-Aqsa hospital, where children were arriving in the arms of medics.
“Where will people go?”
The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking safety in schools.
Israeli forces have struck several such schools in recent months, saying Palestinian militants were operating there and hiding among displaced civilians — charges denied by Hamas.
In July, at least 16 people were killed in an air strike on the Al-Jawni facility that Israel said had targeted “terrorists.”
Israel’s military offensive since the war began on October 7 has killed at least 41,084 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which also includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s military meanwhile reported the deaths of two soldiers late Tuesday when an army helicopter crashed in the area of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
The military announced on Wednesday that the helicopter had crashed while landing and that another eight soldiers were injured.
The aircraft had been on a “life-saving operation” to evacuate a wounded soldier when it crashed, Major General Tomer Bar said in a statement.
“An investigative committee has been appointed to investigate the details of the crash,” he said, and called it an “operational accident.”
The latest deaths bring the Israeli military’s losses in the Gaza campaign to 344 since its ground offensive began on October 27.


Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation

Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation
Updated 12 September 2024
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Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation

Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation
  • UN chief Antonio Guterres branded the strike “totally unacceptable“
  • EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was “outraged” by the deaths and that the strikes showed a “disregard of the basic principles” of international humanitarian law

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israel faced international condemnation Thursday after a strike killed 18 people at a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians in war-torn Gaza, where the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.
The attack flattened part of the UN-run Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat on Wednesday, leaving only a charred heap of rebar and concrete.
“For the fifth time, Israeli forces bombed the UNRWA-run Al-Jawni School, killing 18 citizens,” Gaza civil defense spokesperson Mahmud Bassal wrote on Telegram, referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA later said six of its staff had been killed in two Israeli strikes on the school and its surroundings, calling it the highest death toll among its team in a single incident.
“Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people,” it said on X. “Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target.”
The Israeli military said it had conducted a “precise strike” on Hamas militants within the school grounds. It did not elaborate on the outcome, but said “numerous steps” were taken to reduce the risk to civilians.
UN chief Antonio Guterres branded the strike “totally unacceptable.”
His condemnation was echoed by Israeli ally Germany, which said “humanitarian aid workers must never be victims of rockets.”
Jordan and the European Union also criticized the attack, while Israel’s main backer the United States called on it to protect humanitarian sites.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was “outraged” by the deaths and that the strikes showed a “disregard of the basic principles” of international humanitarian law.
US Secretary of State Blinken said: “We need to see humanitarian sites protected, and that’s something that we continue to raise with Israel.”
Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said UNRWA had not provided the names of its killed workers, “despite repeated requests.”
He said a military inquiry found that “a significant number of the names (of the dead) that have appeared in the media and on social networks are Hamas terrorist operatives.”
In response, UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma said the agency was “not aware of any such requests,” that it provided Israel each year with a list of its staff and that it “called repeatedly” on Israel and Palestinian militants “to never use civilian facilities for military or fighting purposes.”
She said the agency was “not in a position to determine” if the school had been used by Hamas for military purposes, but UNRWA had “repeatedly called for independent investigations” into “these very serious claims.”
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the school was “no longer a school” and had become “a legitimate target” as it was used by Hamas to launch attacks.
UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid into Gaza, has been in crisis since Israel accused a dozen of its 30,000 employees of being involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks that sparked the war.
The UN immediately fired the implicated staff members, and a probe found some “neutrality related issues” but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.
Survivors of the strike scrambled to recover bodies and belongings from the rubble, saying they had to step over “shredded limbs.”
“I can hardly stand up,” a man holding a plastic bag of human remains told AFP.
“We’ve been going through hell for 340 days now, what we’ve seen over these days, we haven’t even seen it in Hollywood movies, now we’re seeing it in Gaza.”
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said after the school strike that at least 220 members of the agency’s staff had been killed in the war.
“Endless & senseless killing, day after day,” he posted on X.
“Humanitarian staff, premises & operations have been blatantly & unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war.”
Across Gaza, many school buildings have been repurposed to shelter displaced families, with the vast majority of the territory’s 2.4 million people repeatedly uprooted by the war.
In Gaza City, civil defense spokesman Bassal said two strikes in the Zeitun neighborhood killed seven people — including two children.
Later, he said two people were killed in the Jabalia camp. Medical sources said five people were killed in strikes on the Khan Yunis area.
The bloodshed shows no signs of abating despite months of ceasefire negotiations mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
A Hamas delegation met Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha on Wednesday, the Palestinian Islamists said, though there was no indication of a breakthrough.
The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Among the dead included in that count were hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliation has killed at least 41,118 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.