Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in a Gaza City district after Israeli assault

Update People mourn by relatives bodies, found under rubble or on the street, ahead of their burial in western Gaza City's Al-Sinaa neighbouhood on July 12, 2024, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the besieged Palestinian territory. (AFP)
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People mourn by relatives bodies, found under rubble or on the street, ahead of their burial in western Gaza City's Al-Sinaa neighbouhood on July 12, 2024, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the besieged Palestinian territory. (AFP)
Update Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in a Gaza City district after Israeli assault
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A man mourns by relatives bodies, found under rubble or on the street, ahead of their burial in western Gaza City's Al-Sinaa neighbouhood on July 12, 2024, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the besieged Palestinian territory. (AFP)
Update Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in a Gaza City district after Israeli assault
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People evacuate bodies found under rubble or on the street in western Gaza City's Al-Sinaa neighbouhood on July 12, 2024, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the besieged Palestinian territory. (AFP)
Update Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in a Gaza City district after Israeli assault
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People bury bodies found under rubble or on the street in western Gaza City's Al-Sinaa neighbouhood on July 12, 2024, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the besieged Palestinian territory. (AFP)
Update Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in a Gaza City district after Israeli assault
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Israel’s operation there had left ‘more than 300 residential units and more than 100 business destroyed’ in the eastern district of Shujaiya, above. (AFP)
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Updated 13 July 2024
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Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in a Gaza City district after Israeli assault

Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in a Gaza City district after Israeli assault
  • Gaza’s civil defense agency said the 60 bodies were found under the rubble in Shujaiya neighborhood
  • Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Civil defense workers on Friday dug bodies out of collapsed buildings and pulled them off rubble-covered streets, as they collected dozens of Palestinians killed this week by an Israeli assault in a district of Gaza City.
The discovery of the bodies came after Israeli troops reportedly pulled out of parts of the Tal Al-Hawa and Sanaa neighborhoods following days of bombardment and fighting there. The Israeli military launched an incursion into the districts earlier this week to fight what it said were Hamas militants who had regrouped.
The grisly scenes of the dead underscored the horrifying cycle nine months into the Gaza war.
After invading nearly every urban area across the tiny territory since October, Israeli forces are now repeatedly re-invading parts as Hamas shifts and maintains capabilities. Palestinians are forced to flee over and over to escape the changing offensives – or to remain in place and face death. Ceasefire negotiations push ahead, nearing but never reaching a deal.
Videos circulating on social media showed civil defense workers wrapping bodies, including several women, in blankets on the rubble-strewn streets of Tal Al-Hawa and Sinaah. A hand poked out of the smashed concrete where workers dug into a collapsed building. Other video showed burned-out buildings.
About 60 bodies have been found so far, including entire families who appeared to have been killed by artillery fire and airstrikes as they tried to flee, said Mahmoud Bassal, the director of civil defense in Gaza. Some bodies had been partially devoured by dogs, others burned inside homes and others remained unreachable in rubble, he said.
The director of nearby Al-Ahli Hospital, Fadel Naem, said at least 40 bodies found in the districts had been brought to the facility, though he didn’t have a precise number.
The Israeli military said it could not comment on the discovery of the bodies.
Israel’s assault on the district began after it issued an evacuation order for the area on Monday. In a statement Friday, the military said its troops targeted the abandoned headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, where it said Hamas had set up operations.
UNRWA left the compound in October, early in the war. The military said Friday that troops had battled Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in the compound and discovered material for building drones and stashes of weapons. It issued photos of some of the discovered material, though the claims could not be independently confirmed.
On Friday, troops had withdrawn from most of the area, but snipers and drones continued to open fire, said Salem Elrayyes, a resident who fled months ago to the south but spoke to family members still in the neighborhood.
He said that during the days of the offensive, troops set fire to many homes — including that of one of his uncles — and carried out wide-scale arrests, taking people for interrogation inside the UNRWA compound. At least 11 of his relatives were detained, he said.
Two were released after being severely beaten, while the rest are still missing. His family was searching for other relatives still unaccounted for — “some may be detained, and some may have lost communication. Others may be killed,” Elrayyes said.
A day earlier, civil defense workers said they found dozens of bodies in Shijaiyah, another Gaza City district from which Israeli troops withdrew in recent days after a two-week offensive.
Most of the population of Gaza City and the surrounding areas in the north fled earlier in the war. But the UN estimates that some 300,000 people remain in the north. With each new assault, people often flee to other parts of the north, since so far Israel has not allowed those who flee south to return to the north.
An airstrike early Friday hit an aid warehouse in Muwasi, part of an Israeli-declared “humanitarian safe zone” covering parts of south and central Gaza, a UK-based aid group Al-Khair Foundation said. Imam Qasim Rashid Ahmad, the group’s director in London, said one of its staffers, an engineer, was killed in the strike along with three staffers from other humanitarian groups using the warehouse. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.
Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. More than 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, and most are now crowded into squalid tent camps, facing widespread hunger.
Meanwhile in Cairo, US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators continued to push to narrow gaps between Israel and Hamas over a proposed deal for a three-phase ceasefire and hostage release plan in Gaza.
The US-backed proposal calls for an initial ceasefire with a limited hostage release and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas in Gaza. At the same time, the two sides will negotiate the terms of the second phase. Phase two is supposed to bring a full hostage release in return for a permanent ceasefire and complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
But obstacles remain.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel won’t agree to any deal that would prevent it from resuming its military campaign until Hamas is eliminated. On Thursday, he indicated that Israel intends to keep a hold of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which would contradict a full withdrawal from Gaza.
Hamas dropped its demand that Israel commit ahead of time to reach a permanent ceasefire. But a Hamas political official told The Associated Press that the group still wants written guarantees from the mediators that negotiations will continue until a permanent ceasefire is reached.
Otherwise, “Netanyahu can stop the negotiations and thus resume the aggression” at any time, said Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas’ political office in Lebanon.
Abdul-Hadi also said that Hamas does not expect to resume its role as the sole ruling party in Gaza after the war but wants to see a Palestinian government of technocrats.
“We do not want to rule Gaza alone again in the next phase,” he said. Israeli officials have suggested they will demand Hamas’ removal in the talks for the second phase.
Netanyahu is under growing pressure both domestically and internationally. Relatives of hostages are marching to Jerusalem to demand a deal and the release of their loved ones as Israeli politicians, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, call for a broad government investigation into the conduct of Israel’s leaders.
A risk of regional escalation remains. Israel’s military said Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in northern Israel, where the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel continue to trade border fire.

 


After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group
Updated 21 sec ago
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After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group
  • Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office

WASHINGTON/DOHA: The US has told Qatar that the presence of Hamas in Doha is no longer acceptable in the weeks since the Palestinian militant group rejected the latest proposal to achieve a ceasefire and a hostage deal, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Qatar then made the demand to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago, the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. Washington has been in touch with Qatar over when to close the political office of Hamas, and it told Doha that now was the time following the group’s rejection of the recent proposal.
Three Hamas officials denied Qatar had told Hamas leaders they were no longer welcome in the country.
Qatar, alongside the US and Egypt, has played a major role in rounds of so-far fruitless talks to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages the militant group is holding in the enclave.
The latest round of Doha talks in mid-October failed to reach a ceasefire, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.
The spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for confirmation or comment.
Last year, a senior US official said Qatar had told Washington it was open to
reconsidering the presence of Hamas
in the country once the Gaza war was over.
This came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
told leaders
in Qatar and elsewhere in the region that there could be “no more business as usual” with Hamas after the group led the Oct. 7 attacks on Southern Israel.
Qatar, an influential Gulf state designated as major non-NATO ally by Washington, has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012 as part of an agreement with the US Doha has come under criticism from within the US and Israel over its ties to Hamas since Oct. 7.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said repeatedly over the last year that the Hamas office exists in Doha to allow negotiations with the group and that as long as the channel remained useful Qatar would allow the Hamas office to remain open.
Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office.

 

 


US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart
Updated 09 November 2024
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US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart
  • Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day
  • The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza“

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed Lebanon and Gaza on Friday in his first call with his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, the Pentagon said.
Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day, after his predecessor’s shock dismissal by the prime minister over a breakdown in trust during the war in Gaza — a conflict that began with a devastating Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Austin “held an introductory call today with the new Israeli minister of defense, Israel Katz, and congratulated him on his recent appointment,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
He told Katz that Washington is committed to a deal that allows Lebanese and Israeli citizens displaced by more than a year of cross-border violence to return to their homes, as well as to the return of hostages seized by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ryder said.
The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel in a letter earlier this month that it needed to allow more aid into the small war-wracked coastal territory.


Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Updated 09 November 2024
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Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)

RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed readiness to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza during a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, his office said.
Trump’s victory came with the Middle East in turmoil after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the unprecedented attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Congratulating Trump on his victory, Abbas expressed “readiness to work with President Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on international legitimacy,” his office said in a statement.
It said that Trump also assured Abbas that he will work to end the war.
“President Trump stressed that he will work to stop the war, and his readiness to work with president Abbas and the concerned parties in the region and the world to make peace in the region.”
While Trump struck a note of peace during his campaign, he also touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.


Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre
Updated 08 November 2024
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Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre
  • The strikes targeted three buildings in the city
  • Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes

BEIRUT: The Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed and 30 others wounded on Friday in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre.
The official National News Agency said the strikes targeted three buildings in the city and caused heavy damage to neighboring apartment blocks.
It said Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes.
Israel has been at war with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.


‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts
Updated 08 November 2024
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‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts
  • The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza

LONDON: There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel pursues a military offensive against Palestinian militants Hamas in the area.
“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.
The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.