Seriously injured woman was being treated at the scene while eight other people were injured in the attack
Updated 06 October 2024
AFP
JERUSALEM: At least one person was killed and 10 others injured Sunday during a shooting in southern Israel’s Beer Sheva, police and emergency responders said, a day before the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack.
“Paramedics have pronounced a 25-year-old female deceased, and are evacuating 10 casualties,” emergency service provider Magen David Adom said in a statement.
Police said the incident was being treated as a “suspected terrorist attack.”
“A short time ago a report was received at the police headquarters about a suspected shooting incident at the central station in Beer Sheva,” said a police spokesman in a statement.
“A number of injured on the scene. The terrorist was neutralized at the scene and many police forces of the southern district are at the scene,” the statement added.
The incident comes just days after a Hamas-claimed shooting attack last week in which seven people were killed in Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
The Tel Aviv attack — one of the deadliest in the country since the October 7 Hamas attack — came as Iran fired about 200 missiles at Israel, sending hundreds of thousands of people into public shelters.
Israel and Hamas have been at war in Gaza since the October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 41,870 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has said the figures are reliable.
Libya’s PM says eliminating militias is ‘ongoing project’ as ceasefire holds
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya expressed concern on Friday about the escalation of violence in Tripoli, calling on parties to protect civilians and public property
Updated 6 sec ago
Reuters
TRIPOLI: Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah said on Saturday that eliminating militias is an “ongoing project,” as a ceasefire after deadly clashes this week remained in place.
“We will not spare anyone who continues to engage in corruption or extortion. Our goal is to create a Libya free of militias and corruption,” Dbeibah said in a televised speech.
Dbeibah is the country’s internationally recognized leader in the west, based in Tripoli.
After Dbeibah on Tuesday ordered the armed groups to be dismantled, Tripoli was rocked by its fiercest clashes in years between two armed groups. The clashes killed at least eight civilians, according to the United Nations.
The government announced a ceasefire on Wednesday.
It followed Monday’s killing of major militia chief Abdulghani Kikli, widely known as Ghaniwa, and the sudden defeat of his Stabilization Support Apparatus group by factions aligned with Dbeibah.
SSA is under the Presidential Council that came to power in 2021 with the Government of National Unity of Dbeibah through a United Nations-backed process.
SSA was based in the densely populated Abu Salim neighborhood.
GNU’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that nine decomposed corpses were found in a morgue refrigerator in Abu Salim-based Al-Khadra hospital. It said SSA never reported them to authorities. The PM’s media office posted a video of Dbeibah greeting the security force protecting the Prime Ministry Building. It said he later received delegations from elders to discuss Tripoli’s situation and what he called “successful security operation in Abu Salim.”
“The Prime Minister stressed that this operation falls within the state’s fixed vision to eliminate armed formations outside the police and army institutions,” the media office said.
On Friday, at least three ministers resigned in sympathy with hundreds of protesters who took to the streets calling for Dbeibah’s ouster.
Dbeibah did not comment on their resignations. “The protests are annoying, but I’ve put up with them. I know some of them are real, but a lot of them are paid,” he said.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya expressed concern on Friday about the escalation of violence in Tripoli, calling on parties to protect civilians and public property.
Libya has had little stability since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising ousted longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi. The country split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions, though an outbreak of major warfare paused with a truce in 2020.
While eastern Libya has been dominated for a decade by commander Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army, control in Tripoli and western Libya has been splintered among numerous armed factions.
A major energy exporter, Libya is also an important way station for migrants heading to Europe, while its conflict has drawn in foreign powers including Turkiye, Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
State-oil firm NOC said on Friday that its operations at oil facilities are proceeding as normal, with oil and gas exports operating regularly.
CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Sunday that it intercepted a missile that was launched from Yemen toward Israel.
Sirens sounded in several areas in Israel, the military added.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, although they have agreed to halt attacks on US ships.
Israel has carried out strikes in response, including one on May 6 that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.
Syria announces commissions for missing persons, transitional justice
A decree signed by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and released by the presidency announced the formation of an independent “national commission for missing persons”
Updated 18 May 2025
AFP
DAMASCUS: Syria on Saturday announced the formation of a national commission for missing persons and another for transitional justice, more than five months after the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Syria’s new authorities have pledged justice for victims of atrocities committed under Assad’s rule, and a five-year transitional constitution signed in March provided for the formation of a transitional justice commission.
The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and others who went missing remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria’s conflict, which erupted in 2011 when Assad’s forces brutally repressed anti-government protests, triggering more than a decade of war.
A decree signed by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and released by the presidency announced the formation of an independent “national commission for missing persons.”
The body is tasked with “researching and uncovering the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared, documenting cases, establishing a national database and providing legal and humanitarian support to their families.”
A separate decree announced the formation of a national commission for transitional justice to “uncover the truth about the grave violations caused by the former regime.”
That commission should hold those responsible to account “in coordination with the relevant authorities, remedy the harm to victims, and firmly establish the principles of non-recurrence and national reconciliation,” according to the announcement.
The decree noted “the need to achieve transitional justice as a fundamental pillar for building a state of law, guaranteeing victims’ rights and achieving comprehensive national reconciliation.”
Both bodies will have “financial and administrative independence” and act over all of Syrian territory, according to the decrees signed by Sharaa.
In December, an Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad after five decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule and nearly 14 years of brutal war that killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more.
Tens of thousands of people were detained and tortured in the country’s jails, while Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against his own people.
Rights groups, activists and the international community have repeatedly emphasized the importance of transitional justice in the war-torn country.
In March, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration for a five-year transitional period.
It stipulated that during that period, a “transitional justice commission” would be formed to “determine the means for accountability, establish the facts, and provide justice to victims and survivors” of the former government’s misdeeds.
This week, prominent Syrian human rights lawyer Mazen Darwish told AFP that lasting peace in Syria depended on the country building a strong judicial system giving justice to the victims of all crimes committed during the Assad era.
Three killed in strike near displacement camp in Gaza, charity says
Strike hit just 100 meters from main entrance of Hope Camp 4, a site Action for Humanity operates for displaced civilians
Updated 17 May 2025
Arab News
GAZA: A strike near a displacement camp in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, has killed three people, according to the humanitarian organization Action For Humanity.
In a statement released on Saturday, the charity said the bombing occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m. local time, striking just 100 meters from the main entrance of Hope Camp 4, a site it operates for displaced civilians.
The organization said the victims included a displaced resident, a relative of a woman living in the camp, and a member of the family that made the land available for use as a displacement site.
“This was not just an attack on civilians, it was an attack on humanitarian infrastructure,” Action For Humanity said.
“Striking areas where displaced families are seeking safety is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.”
No further casualties or damage were reported among the camp’s other residents, but the group warned of the “deep and lasting” psychological toll on the community.
Action For Humanity said it continues to provide support to those affected and called for the protection of humanitarian sites and safe, unhindered access for aid delivery.
“Our operations in Gaza remain active,” the statement added. “We urgently call for the protection of all humanitarian sites and for immediate, unhindered access to deliver life-saving aid to those in desperate need.”
How Israel’s forced school closures are placing Palestinian students in limbo
Closure of UN-run schools in East Jerusalem draws international condemnation, raises fears of wider educational collapse
With checkpoints, closures and raids multiplying, nearly 800 Palestinian students have lost access to their schools, sparking alarm
Updated 18 May 2025
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: On May 8, the last bell rang for hundreds of Palestinian schoolchildren in East Jerusalem. Israeli forces raided and forcibly closed three UN-run facilities in the Shuafat refugee camp, leaving 550 students in limbo just weeks before the academic year’s end.
The UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, said Israeli forces were also stationed that morning outside three additional schools it operates. Teachers dismissed 250 students early for their safety.
Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, slammed the raids and forced school closures as “a blatant disregard of international law.”
“By enforcing closure orders issued last month, the Israeli authorities are denying Palestinian children their basic right to learn,” he wrote on the social platform X. “UNRWA schools must continue to be open to safeguard an entire generation of children.”
The closures follow similar incidents last month, when Israeli officials, backed by armed police, raided six schools and issued 30-day closure orders. The actions are part of a broader push to enforce new Israeli laws banning UNRWA operations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
An assault on children.
An assault on education.
A sad day in occupied East Jerusalem.
This morning, heavily armed Israeli Forces entered three @UNRWA schools in Shu’fat Camp in occupied East Jerusalem, forcing 550+ girls & boys who were in classrooms out of their schools.…
“Roughly four weeks ago we received notifications from the Israeli Ministry of Education that the three schools we operate in Shuafat refugee camp and another three schools we operate inside East Jerusalem shall be closed,” said Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA Affairs for the West Bank.
He told UN News that students enrolled in the shuttered institutions “have no adequate access to education beyond these schools.”
“This is very concerning for the children, for their families, and it comes while the school year is still ongoing,” he added. “This is unprecedented. It’s a grave threat to the rights of those children.”
Palestinian schoolgirls embrace as they leave a school run by the UNWRA in the Shoafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem on May 8, 2025, as Israeli security forces reportedly prepare to close the school. (AFP)
The Israeli Ministry of Education said it was closing the schools because they were operating without a license.
The enforcement orders that took effect May 8 have now left more than 800 Palestinian children, ages six to 15, without access to education. “Now, nearly 800 girls and boys — some as young as six years old — are left in shock and trauma,” Lazzarini wrote.
In late January, two Israeli laws banning UNRWA in the occupied Palestinian territories took effect. While implementation was initially slow, the second half of February saw the first moves to forcibly close several agency facilities in East Jerusalem.
For children whose schools were forcibly closed, the affected classrooms were more than just places of learning — they were sanctuaries in the midst of conflict and uncertainty.
“When we see school closures in places like the West Bank, it not only means that children are missing out on their right to learn, but they are also being stripped of a sense of security and normalcy,” said Alexandra Saieh, head of humanitarian policy and advocacy at Save the Children International.
“It also helps them in terms of their long-term physical and mental wellbeing,” she told Arab News. “It improves future prospects, and it also ensures that Palestinian society continues to prosper.
“So, when children miss out on schooling, it impacts future generations of Palestinians.”
Palestinian Bedouin students play at a primary school near the village of Kafr Malik in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on September 21, 2023. (AFP)
The Israeli Ministry of Education said earlier it would place the students affected by the closures into other Jerusalem schools.
Parents, teachers and administrators say closing the main schools in East Jerusalem will force their children to go through crowded and dangerous checkpoints daily, and some do not have the correct permits to pass through.
Now, with the threat of broader closures looming over nearly 50,000 Palestinian refugee students in the West Bank, the future of their education — and childhood — hangs in the balance.
The Israeli government’s opposition to UNRWA predates this year’s legislative changes. Officials have long criticized the agency’s school curriculum, accusing it of promoting incitement, and have objected to its continued recognition of refugee status for Palestinians displaced during the 1948 war.
Tensions escalated after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel alleged that around 10 percent of UNRWA staff in Gaza, or about 1,200 individuals, were affiliated with Palestinian militant groups involved in the assault, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Palestinians check the destruction at a UNRWA school housing displaced people, following an Israeli strike in the Bureij refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip, on May 7, 2025. (AFP)
UNRWA, however, has strongly denied the accusations, saying it has not received any supporting evidence from Israel or any UN member state.
A series of investigations found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA, but stressed Israel had not provided conclusive evidence for its main allegation. It also said last August that nine staff working for UNRWA would be dismissed because they may have been involved in the attacks.
Saieh said Palestinian children’s right to education is “under siege, not just in Gaza, of course, where we’ve seen a total destruction of the education system, including the destruction of schools, the killing of both teachers and students, but also in the West Bank.”
Since October 2023, Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have either entirely or partially destroyed almost all school buildings by July 2024, according to the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster.
IN NUMBERS
• 50k+ Refugee children in occupied Palestinian territories who go to UN schools.
• 96 UNRWA schools in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in total.
As of August 2024, OCHA reports figures from Gaza’s health authorities that identify these attacks have killed 10,627 children and 411 teachers. But until today, the Israeli onslaught has killed at least 52,800 Palestinians in Gaza, more than 17,000 of them children, according to the local Education Ministry.
While the closure of schools in East Jerusalem before the academic year’s end is unprecedented, disruptions to education in the West Bank have been a regular part of life for decades.
In the West Bank, Saieh highlighted that Palestinian children’s access to education is “under continued threat of disruption due to Israeli military operations, and, of course, the threats that UNRWA faces due to an Israeli government ban on its ability to work in many places, including in refugee camps.”
She noted that “students and teachers are often blocked from reaching their schools by constant movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities through the proliferation of checkpoints across the West Bank and other roadblocks as well as violence.”
School children call it a day at a UN-run school in Balata camp east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on February 6, 2025. (AFP)
These daily obstacles, Saieh said, take a heavy psychological toll on students and educators alike.
“In parts of the West Bank, especially where there are checkpoints and roadblocks, there is a great deal of fear, anxiety, and stress associated with the journey to and from school — affecting both children and teachers,” she said.
The impact, she added, extends beyond missed classroom time. Disruptions not only erode children’s emotional well-being and sense of safety, but also impacts “their ability to learn in the future” and “their relationships with families and teachers.”
Children participate in an activity aimed to support their mental health, at UNRWA's Tal al-Hawa Elementary Girls School in Gaza City on April 30, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
Citing data from the Education Cluster in the West Bank, Saieh noted that from October 2023 to March 2024, children in some areas were forced to reduce in-person school attendance to merely two days a week due to escalating insecurity and access restrictions.
In September last year, the Education Cluster and the West Bank Protection Consortium raised alarm over a Sept. 16 Israeli settler attack on the Arab Al-Kaabneh Basic School in Al-Muarrajat, northwest of Jericho.
“In the first three months of this year, we’ve seen attacks by Israeli forces and settlers on education rise
Palestinian students attend a training course on trade at a school run by the UNRWA in the Qalandia refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on November 14, 2024. (AFP)
significantly,” Saieh said, warning that such incidents “deepen barriers to safe education for children.”
She added that the Palestinian Ministry of Education has documented thousands of Israeli attacks on schools over the past year.
“These attacks include breaking into schools, smashing windows, desks, electronic devices, the use of firearms in the vicinity of schools, the detention of students and staff, and delaying and harassing students and teachers on the way to work,” she said.
Palestinian students are evacuated in buses from a school in coordination with deployed Israeli forces during an army raid in Qabatiyah south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on September 19, 2024. (AFP)
Similarly, teachers are not immune to the rising tensions. “Teachers often face immense obstacles just getting to the classroom,” Saieh said. “We know that teachers have been often blocked from reaching schools due to Israeli movement restrictions and violence, so they are also under threat.”
She emphasized that Israeli military raids near schools, settler violence, and the destruction of educational infrastructure all hinder teachers’ ability to do their jobs. “We’ve seen teachers alongside students being subjected to violence as well.”
On top of these security threats, many educators face financial hardship. Saieh noted that many Palestinian teachers are not receiving full salaries, making it difficult to retain staff and provide consistent education in the occupied Palestinian territories.
These challenges unfold in a broader context of ongoing occupation. Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. In 1980, it annexed East Jerusalem — a move not recognized by most of the international community — and considers the entire city its capital.
Palestinian school girls attend class at an UNRWA school in the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem on May 6, 2025.
Palestinians, however, view East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.
Today, about 230,000 Israeli settlers live in East Jerusalem alongside some 390,000 Palestinians.
Most of the international community considers Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank illegal under international law, a stance supported by a recent advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice. Israel rejects this interpretation.
On May 2, the ICJ concluded public hearings on Israel’s legal responsibilities toward allowing UN agencies and humanitarian groups to operate in the occupied Palestinian territories. A formal opinion, requested by the UN General Assembly in December, is expected after several months of deliberation.
This ongoing tension is reflected in Israel’s recent closure of UN-run schools in East Jerusalem, a move that has drawn condemnation from the international community.
The British Consulate in Jerusalem, in a statement on X, said the UK, Belgium, Denmark, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Turkiye, and others “strongly oppose the closure orders issued against six UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem.”
1/3 strongly oppose the closure orders issued against 6 @UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem. These closures, which took effect today, would deny 800 Palestinian children their right to education. pic.twitter.com/bwCAMzaLH7
Noting that “UNRWA has operated in East Jerusalem under its UN General Assembly mandate since 1950,” the consulate stressed that “Israel is obliged under international humanitarian law to facilitate the proper working of all institutions devoted to the education of children.”
“Education is a right, not a privilege,” the consulate added in its statement. “Palestinian children, like all children, deserve safe, uninterrupted access to school. We stand in solidarity with students, parents, and teachers.”
Saieh of Save the Children called on the international community to protect UNRWA.
We’re appalled by more reports that Israeli airstrikes have killed children in Gaza this week, including strikes on hospitals & displacement camps
Children are owed extra protections. Every day without a ceasefire & entry of aid in #Gaza is a day they are bombed & starved pic.twitter.com/DBgNzYOPS5
— Save the Children International (@save_children) May 16, 2025
“UNRWA provides critical education services to Palestinian children in the West Bank,” she said. “UNRWA schools are critical for children’s learning, and ensuring that UNRWA is able to continue to operate is essential to ensuring that children are able to continue to learn.”
She also highlighted the deep desire of Palestinian children to attend school. “Palestinian children want to go to school. We hear this consistently from the children we work with across the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Saieh further stressed the value Palestinians place on education. “Palestinian society, as a whole, highly values education. Historically, Palestinians have had some of the highest literacy rates globally, and they continue to prioritize sending their children to school.”
