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Israel hits Gaza from land, sea and air as Hamas halts talks

Israel hits Gaza from land, sea and air as Hamas halts talks
A Palestinian woman reacts next to a child after an Israeli air strike on a UN school sheltering displaced people in Nusairat in central Gaza Strip, on July 14, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 16 July 2024
AFP
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Israel hits Gaza from land, sea and air as Hamas halts talks

Israel hits Gaza from land, sea and air as Hamas halts talks
  • Relentless bombardments come as prospects have dwindled for a truce and hostage release deal 
  • Israel's military offensive has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, according to its health ministry
Updated 16 July 2024
AFP
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GAZA STRIP: Israel hammered the Gaza Strip from the air, sea, and land Monday as the war in the Palestinian territory showed no sign of abating, with Hamas saying it was pulling out of truce talks.
Shells rained down on the neighborhoods of Tal Al-Hawa, Sheikh Ajlin, and Al-Sabra in Gaza City, AFP correspondents reported, while eyewitnesses said the Israeli army had shelled the Al-Mughraqa area and the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said they had retrieved the bodies of five people, including three children, after Israeli air strikes in the Al-Maghazi camp, also in the central Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses reported Israeli gunship fire east of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, and shelling and Apache helicopter attacks in western areas of the southernmost city of Rafah.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it was continuing its activity throughout the coastal territory, and said it had conducted raids in Rafah and central Gaza that killed “a number of” militants, as well as air strikes throughout the strip over the past day.
It also said its naval forces had been firing at targets in Gaza.
The relentless bombardments came as prospects dwindled for a truce and hostage release deal being secured any time soon.
Hamas said on Sunday it was withdrawing from ceasefire talks.
The decision followed an Israeli strike targeting the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, which the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said killed 92 people.
Deif’s fate remains unknown, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying there was “no certainty” he was dead while a senior Hamas official told AFP that Deif was “well and directly overseeing” operations.
Speaking after the strike on Al-Mawasi, a second senior official from the militant group cited Israeli “massacres” and its attitude to negotiations as a reason for suspending negotiations.
But according to the official, Haniyeh told international mediators Hamas was “ready to resume negotiations” when Israel’s government “demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal.”
Last week, US President Joe Biden had suggested a deal might be close, saying at a NATO summit that both sides had agreed to a framework he had set out in late May.
Hamas on Monday lashed out at the US, accusing it of supporting “genocide” by supplying Israel with “internationally banned” weapons.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the... American disdain for the blood of the children and women of our Palestinian people... by providing all types of prohibited weapons to the ‘Israeli’ occupation,” a statement from the Hamas government media office said.
Talks between the warring parties have been mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with US support, but months of negotiations have failed to bring a breakthrough.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s surprise October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.
The war and accompanying siege have devastated the Palestinian territory, destroying much of its infrastructure, leaving the majority of its 2.4 million residents displaced and causing a dire shortage of food, medicines and other basic goods.
Among the devastated facilities have been multiple schools. On Sunday, Israeli forces struck a UN-run school in Nuseirat camp that was being used as a shelter for displaced people but which the military said “served as a hideout” for militants.
The civil defense agency in Gaza said 15 people were killed in the strike, the fifth attack in just over a week to hit a school used as shelter by displaced Palestinians.

Topics: Gaza Israel Hamas

Jordan’s tourism industry struggling as Gaza war deters visitors

Jordan’s tourism industry struggling as Gaza war deters visitors
Updated 13 sec ago
Reuters
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Jordan’s tourism industry struggling as Gaza war deters visitors

Jordan’s tourism industry struggling as Gaza war deters visitors
  • Sites such as Petra, Wadi Rum and crusader castles have been drawing visitors for decades
  • Flight ticket bookings to Jordan are down 35 percent year-on-year between Sept. 16 and Oct. 4
Updated 13 sec ago
Reuters
PETRA, Jordan/LONDON: Enas Al-Hinti has cut staff pay in half and asked workers to take unpaid leave in an effort to keep her hotel in ancient Petra open as Western holidaymakers fearful of conflict shun destinations in the Middle East.
A crisis across the region’s tourism industry since the start of the Israel-Hamas war 13 months ago is being felt acutely in Jordan, whose border with Israel along the Red Sea and Dead Sea is studded with beach resorts.
Sites such as Petra, Wadi Rum and crusader castles have been drawing visitors for decades — more than one million a year before the war, mainly Americans and Europeans.
But Reuters reporters on a recent trip to the city carved from rose-colored rock — Jordan’s most-visited tourist attraction — found businesses boarded up by their owners.
“There are no revenues, it’s all losses,” Al-Hinti, who runs the Nomads hotel, said.
Data and interviews with seven hotel and business owners and tour operators underline the damage to the tourist industry, which last year made up 12.5 percent of the economy.
Flight ticket bookings to Jordan, which is not involved in the conflict, were down 35 percent year-on-year between Sept. 16 and Oct. 4, data from travel intelligence firm ForwardKeys shows.
The situation has worsened since Iran’s drone strike attack on Israel in April and following tit-for-tat military strikes between Israel and Iran, said Seif Saudi, the managing director of Amman-based in Jordan Direct Tours.
“Things were starting to look up for October, but the second attack erased all those gains.”
LONG-TERM DAMAGE
The tourist industry across the Middle East is struggling. Flight bookings to the region are down six percent year-on-year since the war erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ForwardKeys data shows.
Bookings to Israel and Lebanon fell even more sharply than those to Jordan between Sept. 16 and Oct. 4, while Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have seen smaller declines.
The recent regional escalation of the conflict, including intensified Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group, has dashed hopes for a recovery in the cooler autumn months, a key season for Middle East tourism.
International tour groups like Intrepid and Riviera Travel said they canceled tours to Jordan and Egypt after Iran showered Israel with ballistic missiles on Oct. 1.
Hotel occupancy rates in Petra have fallen on average to as low as 10 percent, estimates Abdullah Hasanat, president of the Petra Hotels Association.
“We are searching for a savior. All the investments in Petra are in intensive care. When tourism stopped, bookings stopped,” Hasanat, who owns a hotel himself, said. Most international carriers have halted flights to Beirut and Tel Aviv, but some, such as Ryanair, have also paused flights to Jordan, in part due to its proximity to Israeli and Lebanese airspace.
Hotel owners said Ryanair’s decision in particular meant far fewer Western tourists came to the country. Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said in October it was a “sensible” move given the closure of airspace at the time.
Before the war, Christian tourists making pilgrimages to Israel often also tagged on a trip to Jordan.
WHAT’S NEXT
Business owners say the damage will be long-term.
Future bookings have evaporated, forcing hotel managers like Al-Hinti to dip into their financial reserves to continue paying salaries. She is keeping her hotel open, but with fewer floors available.
“We are facing next year with a drop of not less than 90-95 percent (in bookings),” said Nabih Riyal, CEO of Plaza Tours, which runs holidays with European and American operators.
Jordan’s tourism sector has survived previous crises related to the prolonged conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Tourism Minister Lina Annab said.
“This calls for us to really focus on our most resilient markets, which are not as affected by the situation,” Annab said, adding that visitors are still coming from neighboring countries.
Some Western tourists are undeterred too.
“We knew that the trip would be canceled if it was really risky,” said Dorothy Lawson, a tourist from California, walking around Petra in late October. “They said we could come. So we came and we’re really glad we did.”
But businesses that rely on big crowds are struggling to survive.
“We used to have 4,000 visitors every day,” said Marcus Massoud, a salesman in one of Petra’s many souvenir shops.
“Now we have 300 to 400. It’s not like before.”

UN sanctions two generals from Sudan’s paramilitary force

UN sanctions two generals from Sudan’s paramilitary force
Updated 09 November 2024
AP
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UN sanctions two generals from Sudan’s paramilitary force

UN sanctions two generals from Sudan’s paramilitary force
  • Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital
  • The UN sanctions order all countries to freeze the asses and impose a travel ban on the generals
Updated 09 November 2024
AP

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions Friday on two generals in Sudan’s paramilitary force for their key roles in the war against the country’s military that has seen ethnically motivated attacks and atrocities.
Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions, including Darfur. The UN says over 14,000 people have been killed and 33,000 injured, and recently warned that the country has been pushed to the brink of famine.
The council’s sanctions committee added Maj. Gen. Osman Mohamed Hamid Mohamed, head of the Rapid Support Forces’ operations department, and Maj. Gen. Abdel Rahman Juma Barkalla, the RSF commander in West Darfur, to the sanctions blacklist.
Britain’s UN Mission tweeted on X that the two generals were added for threatening the peace, security and stability of Sudan, “including acts of violence and human rights abuses.”
The UN sanctions order all countries to freeze the asses and impose a travel ban on the generals. The United States Treasury imposed sanctions on both generals earlier in the year, freezing any assets in the US and banning all financial transactions with them.
Two decades ago, Darfur became synonymous with genocide and war crimes, particularly by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias, against populations that identify as Central or East African. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes. That legacy appears to have returned, with the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, saying in January there were grounds to believe both sides may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide in Darfur. The RSF was born out of the Janjaweed.
Human Rights Watch said in a report in May that attacks by the paramilitary force and its allied militias, which killed thousands in Darfur in 2023, constituted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the area’s non-Arab population.
The rights group said the RSF and its militias targeted the ethnic Masalit and other non-Arab groups in El Geneina, the capital city of West Darfur state. Masalit who were captured were tortured, women and girls were raped and entire neighborhoods were looted and destroyed, Human Rights Watch said.
Its report is entitled “The Massalit Will Not Come Home: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan.”
The RSF controls the capitals of four of the five states in Darfur and has intensified its military campaign for control of the lone holdout, North Darfur capital El Fasher.

Topics: Sudan Unrest UN rapid support forces (RSF)

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Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region

Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP
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Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region

Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region
  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that the strikes had targeted military installations
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP

 

DAMASCUS: Syrian state media reported an Israeli strike Saturday on the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib that injured soldiers and caused damage.
“At around 00:45 after midnight, the Israeli army launched an air aggression from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting a number of sites in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib,” the official SANA news agency said.
The report added that the attack had “resulted in the injury of a number of soldiers and some material losses,” without providing further details.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the strikes had targeted military installations.
The war monitor also said members of the Iranian revolutionary guards and pro-Tehran factions were based in the area.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
 

 


 

Topics: Syria Aleppo Israeli aggression

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UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead

UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP
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UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead

UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead
  • The report detailed a raft of violations of international law since Oct. 7
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP

GENEVA: The UN on Friday condemned the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a fresh report, slammed by Israel, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) detailed a raft of violations of international law since Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack in Israel sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
Many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide,” it warned, demanding international efforts to prevent “atrocity crimes” and ensure accountability.
“Civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.
“Conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease.”
It pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”
Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva “categorically” rejected the report, decrying “the inherent obsession of OHCHR with the demonization of Israel.”
“Gaza is now a rubble-strewn landscape,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN rights office’s activities in the Palestinian territories, said via video-link from Amman.
“Within this dystopia of destruction and devastation, those alive are left injured, displaced and starving.”
Friday’s report also found that Hamas and other armed groups had committed widespread violations that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including seizing hostages, killings, torture and sexual violence.
Those violations, it said, were especially committed in connection with the October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly of civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The report also tackled the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians among the nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza so far, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
UN agencies have been relying on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza due to lack of access. This has sparked harsh criticism from Israel but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.
The rights office said it had now managed to verify around 10,000 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war.
“We have so far found close to 70 percent to be children and women,” Sunghay said, highlighting the stringent verification methodology that requires at least three separate sources.
He said the findings indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.”
He said 4,700 of the verified fatalities were children and 2,461 were women.
The rights office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing.
Children between the ages of five and nine made up the largest group of victims, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman, it said.
Israel says its operations in Gaza target militants and are in line with international law.
But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely Gaza’s demographic makeup rather than that of combatants.
This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life.”
UN rights chief Volker Turk called on all countries to work to halt the violations and to ensure accountability, including through universal jurisdiction.
“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies,” he said.
“The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”

Topics: War on Gaza

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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
Updated 09 November 2024
Reuters
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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
Updated 09 November 2024
Reuters

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.

 

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza Lebanon US

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