Gaza rescuers say Israeli strike on school shelter kills 7

Gaza rescuers say Israeli strike on school shelter kills 7
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City's Zaytoun neighbourhood on September 21, 2024. Gaza's civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the Palestinian territory's largest city killed 19 people, while Israel's military said it targeted Hamas militants. (AFP)
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Updated 22 September 2024
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Gaza rescuers say Israeli strike on school shelter kills 7

Gaza rescuers say Israeli strike on school shelter kills 7
  • Israeli military said it was targeting Palestinian militants operating from the school grounds

GAZA STRIP: Civil defense rescuers in Gaza City said an Israeli strike Sunday on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 7 people, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted Hamas militants.
The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking shelter in school buildings.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal reported “seven martyrs and a number of wounded, including serious cases, as a result of Israeli shelling of Kafr Qasim School” in the Al-Shati refugee camp.
He said hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering there.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Palestinian militants operating from the school grounds, and that its forces had taken steps “to mitigate the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians” including by using “precise munitions” and surveillance.
It said the air force had “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip” who were “operating from a compound” at the school complex.
The military statement did not provide information on casualties.
Sunday’s attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for nearly a year.
On Saturday the civil defense agency said an Israeli strike on another school-turned-shelter, also in Gaza City, had killed 21 people. The military said it was targeting militants.
A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
At least 41,391 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.


Lebanon PM says hopes for ceasefire with Israel in ‘coming hours or days’

Lebanon PM says hopes for ceasefire with Israel in ‘coming hours or days’
Updated 7 sec ago
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Lebanon PM says hopes for ceasefire with Israel in ‘coming hours or days’

Lebanon PM says hopes for ceasefire with Israel in ‘coming hours or days’
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s prime minister said US envoy Amos Hochstein had signalled during a phone call Wednesday that a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war was possible before US elections are held on November 5.
“The call today with Hochstein suggested to me that perhaps we could reach a ceasefire in the coming days, before the fifth” of November, Najib Mikati said in a televised interview with Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed.
Hochstein was heading to Israel on Wednesday to discuss conditions for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem on Wednesday said the group would agree to a ceasefire with Israel under acceptable terms, but added that a viable deal has yet to be presented.
“We are doing our best... to have a ceasefire within the coming hours or days,” Mikati told Al-Jadeed, adding that he was “cautiously optimistic.”
Mikati said Hezbollah is no longer linking a ceasefire in Lebanon to a truce in Gaza, however criticizing the group over the “late” reversal.
Previously, Hezbollah had repeatedly declared that it would only stop its attacks on Israel if a ceasefire was reached in Gaza.
But Qassem on Wednesday said the group would accept a ceasefire under conditions deemed “appropriate and suitable,” without any mention of the Palestinian territory.
Mikati said a ceasefire would be linked to the implementation of a United Nations resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in southern Lebanon, while demanding the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory.
“The Lebanese army is ready to strengthen its presence in southern Lebanon” and ensure that the only weapons and military infrastructure in the area are those controlled by the state, Mikati said.

Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas plead for help

Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas plead for help
Updated 43 min 56 sec ago
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Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas plead for help

Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas plead for help
  • Fresh offensive has killed hundreds and helped choke aid supplies to their lowest level

CAIRO/GAZA: Israel pummeled the Gaza Strip with new bombardments that killed at least 20 people on Wednesday, Palestinian medics said, a day after one of the deadliest single strikes of the year-old war killed scores in the north of the enclave.

Eight of Wednesday’s victims were killed in a strike on the Salateen area of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. The area is near where medics said at least 93 people were killed or missing on Tuesday in an Israeli strike Washington called “horrifying.”

The Israeli assault that has laid waste to the Gaza Strip and killed tens of thousands of people shows no signs of slowing as Israel wages a new war in Lebanon.

Northern Gaza, where Israel said in January it had dismantled militant group Hamas’ command structure, is currently the focus of the military’s assault. It sent tanks into Beit Lahiya and the neighboring towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia earlier this month to flush out Hamas militants who it said had regrouped in the area.

The new operation has killed hundreds of Palestinians, medical workers say, and has helped choke aid and food supplies to their lowest level since the beginning of the war.

Officials in Beit Lahiya issued a statement urging world powers and aid agencies to halt Israel’s attacks and bring in basic medical supplies, fuel and food, saying the latest military actions had left the area “without food, without water, without hospitals, without doctors.”

Dr. Eid Sabbah of Beit Lahiya’s Kamal Adwan hospital said that bodies and injured people remained trapped under rubble.

He said the destruction of hospitals and lack of medical supplies meant doctors and nurses mostly had no chance of saving people who came in with injuries from airstrikes and gunfire.

“Whoever is injured, just lies there on the ground and whoever is killed can’t be transported, except by mule-drawn cart,” he said.

Israel’s decision this week to ban the UN relief agency UNRWA from operating on its territory could have a disastrous impact on humanitarian efforts in Gaza, UN officials said.

Israel presses on with assaults on Gaza despite the killing this month of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks whose death was a key aim of the war. Several Israeli soldiers have been killed this month in northern Gaza, the military said on Tuesday.

As families fled the Beit Lahiya area last week, parents wheeled children in prams and wooden carts and dragged suitcases through the mud. Israel earlier in October told residents of northern Gaza to leave their homes or face missile strikes.

Dalia Al-Kharawat, a mother-of-five from Jabalia, begged locals in Gaza City to let her stay and now sleeps in the open-air car park of a destroyed building with her children.

“When we need to sleep, we go here in the rubble, the sand, the broken glass. There is no place at the school shelters,” she said.

Israel has bombed schools where homeless families are staying on a number of occasions, according to Palestinian hospital workers in Gaza.


Lebanon security source says one dead in strike on Hezbollah van

The wreckage of a vehicle lies on the Araya-Kahhale road on October 30, 2024, at the site of an Israeli strike. (AFP)
The wreckage of a vehicle lies on the Araya-Kahhale road on October 30, 2024, at the site of an Israeli strike. (AFP)
Updated 30 October 2024
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Lebanon security source says one dead in strike on Hezbollah van

The wreckage of a vehicle lies on the Araya-Kahhale road on October 30, 2024, at the site of an Israeli strike. (AFP)
  • “A van belonging to Hezbollah was targeted in an Israeli strike on the Kahhale road and its driver killed,” the official said

BEIRUT: A Lebanese security official told AFP that an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah van carrying munitions near Beirut killed the driver on Wednesday.
“A van belonging to Hezbollah was targeted in an Israeli strike on the Kahhale road and its driver killed,” the official said, adding that the vehicle was carrying munitions.
The official requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
An AFP correspondent saw a vehicle on fire and said the Kahhale road, which links Beirut to Damascus, had been blocked in both directions.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) earlier reported an “enemy drone strike” on a vehicle.
An Israeli strike on a four-wheel-drive vehicle in nearby Qmatiyeh, a village in the Aley district, killed another two people, said the security official, who did not identify the casualties.
Last week, the NNA said an Israeli strike targeting a car on the same highway killed two people.
In August 2023, two people were killed in clashes between Hezbollah members and residents of the Christian town of Kahhale, after a truck carrying munitions for the group overturned on the highway.
The war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, though the real number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data.


Lebanon’s only burn unit treats toddlers after Israeli strikes

Two-year-old Ivana Skayki who suffered burns from an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, rests in bed at Geitaoui Hospital
Two-year-old Ivana Skayki who suffered burns from an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, rests in bed at Geitaoui Hospital
Updated 30 October 2024
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Lebanon’s only burn unit treats toddlers after Israeli strikes

Two-year-old Ivana Skayki who suffered burns from an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, rests in bed at Geitaoui Hospital
  • The unit is the only one across Lebanon equipped to deal with burns and its hallways echo with the screams of children

BEIRUT: Wrapped in gauze from her head to her tiny toes, toddler Ivana Skayki lies nearly motionless in a hospital bed much too big for her. For weeks, she has been treated for severe burns sustained in Israeli strikes on her hometown in southern Lebanon.
Skayki, who turns two next month, sustained burns to nearly 40 percent of her body, including half of her face, her chest and both upper limbs, according to Ziad Sleiman, plastic surgeon at the specialist burn unit in Beirut’s Geitaoui Hospital.
The unit is the only one across Lebanon equipped to deal with burns. Its hallways echo with the screams of children as anxious parents await news from doctors.
Ivana’s father Mohammad told Reuters his daughter was burned in Israeli strikes as they prepared to flee their hometown of Al-Aliyah on Sept. 23, the day that Israel dramatically ramped up its strikes on Lebanon.
More than 550 people were killed that day alone, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
“There was a hit, the house shook — everything was breaking, the windows, the roof, everything, the blast was in my house,” Skayki recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘this could be it, this could be the end.’“
Israel says it makes all possible efforts to avoid civilian casualties and accuses Hezbollah of deliberately basing its fighters in residential areas and using civilians as human shields. Hezbollah has denied the accusation.
The family managed to flee to the southern port city of Tyre, where Ivana got initial treatment. They moved again to another hospital, but with no department there for burns, Ivana only got partial treatment before they could reach Beirut.
Sleiman said Ivana had received skin-graft operations and could be released within days. She still has deep red marks on her face, where some of her skin is peeling.
The hospital has admitted eight children with third-degree burns to half their bodies. It has had to be selective compared to other patients, Sleiman said, because it is short of space.
Geitaoui Hospital’s burn unit has a typical capacity of nine beds, but has managed to increase to 25 with help from the health ministry to cope with the influx of patients, said the hospital’s medical director Naji Abi Rached.
Most patients stay for up to six weeks because of their critical condition.
“Sometimes the outcome is not positive, due to the extent of the burns,” Abi Rached said.


Security Council warns against any attempt to dismantle UN’s aid agency for Palestinians

Palestinians wait their turn at the UNRWA Japanese Health Center in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on October 29, 2024.
Palestinians wait their turn at the UNRWA Japanese Health Center in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on October 29, 2024.
Updated 30 October 2024
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Security Council warns against any attempt to dismantle UN’s aid agency for Palestinians

Palestinians wait their turn at the UNRWA Japanese Health Center in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on October 29, 2024.
  • After Knesset votes to ban UNRWA operations, council members urge Israeli authorities to abide by international obligations
  • Any interruption to agency’s work will have severe humanitarian consequences for millions of Palestinian refugees, plus regional implications, council warns

NEW YORK CITY: The UN Security Council on Wednesday expressed “grave concern” over the Israeli parliament’s decision to approve a law banning the operations of the UN’s main aid agency for Palestinians.

Council members “strongly” warned against any attempts to dismantle or diminish the operations and mandate of the agency, and said any interruption to or suspension of its work would have severe humanitarian consequences for millions of Palestinian refugees who depend on the services it provides, and could also have implications for the entire region.

The Knesset on Monday approved legislation that prevents the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees from operating in Israel or areas under its control. The ban is set to take effect in 90 days and force the agency to close its offices and other facilities in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, and Gaza, effectively preventing it from fulfilling the mandate set out by the UN General Assembly in 1949.

Council members underscored the vital role of UNRWA in providing “life-saving” humanitarian assistance to refugees in occupied Palestinian territories, and those living other countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, not only through emergency aid but also the educational, health, relief and social services programs it offers.

The Security Council said the agency remains “the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza” and stressed that no other organization can replace it or its capacity to help civilians in urgent need of life-saving assistance.

It urged the Israeli government “to abide by its international obligations, respect the privileges and immunities of UNRWA, and live up to its responsibility to allow and facilitate full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian assistance in all its forms into and throughout the entire Gaza Strip, including the provision of sorely needed basic services to the civilian population.”

The agency has faced relentless attacks, on its reputation and its workers, by Israel since the war on Gaza began. About 200 of its employees have been killed in Israeli strikes. In January, Israeli authorities alleged that 12 UNRWA workers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, resulting in several investigations including an independent review led by former French minister Catherine Colonna.

Her report in April concluded that Israel had failed to provide any evidence to back up the allegations. Yet the agency was thrown into crisis when the claims emerged, as the US, its single biggest funder, and several other major donors put funding of the organization on hold. In all, 16 UN member states suspended or paused donations and others imposed conditions on contributions, which placed the very future of the agency in doubt. Several subsequently restored their funding.

The Security Council noted that the agency had taken steps to terminate the employment of nine workers, and underscored the important need for “timely measures to address any credible allegations and to ensure accountability for any violations of the agency’s policies related to the principle of neutrality.”