Israeli Arrogance
Live Reporting
Death toll from Rafah attack rises to 18
Eighteen people have been killed in an overnight Israeli bombing of a house in Rafah, with nine children among the victims, according to our colleagues reporting on the ground.
Israeli shelling in the Nassr neighbourhood, northeast of Rafah, has also caused casualties.
The attacks in Gaza’s southern district, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians are displaced, come despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the first such resolution to pass in the nearly six-month war.
No let-up in Israeli attacks despite UNSC resolution
From Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza
We are currently inside the emergency department at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
The hospital is packed with wounded people after Israeli forces targeted a house in az-Zawayda in central Gaza. This is the first attack after the resolution passed by the UN Security Council. We see women, we see children wounded.
Eyewitnesses tell us that children and babies were killed in the attack.
After the UN resolution passed, Palestinians thought that they won’t be bombed in the Gaza Strip. But still, Palestinians continue to be killed and wounded.
Hezbollah announces death of member
The Lebanese Hezbollah group has said on Telegram that one of its fighters has been killed.
It said Hussein Ali Dabouq, who was born in 1994, came from the town of Chabriha in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire around their mutual border since the early days of the war in Gaza.
ABC Australia staff’s concerns over Gaza bias revealed
Staff at Australia’s national broadcaster warned that its coverage of the war in Gaza relied too much on Israeli sources and used language that “favoured the Israeli narrative over objective reporting”, according to internal communications.
An undated three-page summary of an editorial meeting, which Al Jazeera obtained via a freedom of information request with the ABC, sheds new light on bias claims that convulsed the outlet.
According to the document, staff detailed concerns that coverage displayed pro-Israel bias, such as by accepting “Israeli facts and figures with no ifs or buts” while questioning Palestinian viewpoints and avoiding the word “Palestine” itself.
Meeting between US, Israeli defence chiefs still on despite tension
A meeting is scheduled between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, on alternatives to a ground invasion of Gaza’s Rafah where 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, the Pentagon said.
The meeting will take place later today despite rising tension between Washington and Israel after the passing of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The US’s failure to block the resolution – Washington abstained from the vote rather than use its veto power to block its adoption – prompted Netanyahu to cancel a visit to the US by an Israeli delegation to discuss the planned Rafah operation.
Austin and Gallant will still meet, however.
Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said he expects the meeting to cover “ways to go about addressing the threat of Hamas, while also taking into account civilian safety”.
Israel rejects UN expert’s genocide accusations
The Israeli mission in Geneva has rejected the UN expert’s accusation of genocide, labelling the allegations as “outrageous” and an “obscene inversion of reality”, according to the AFP news agency. The mission also described the report as “simply an extension of a campaign seeking to undermine the very establishment of the Jewish State”.
Hamas leader to head to Iran today: Report
Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, will travel to Tehran today to meet with Iranian officials, report’s Iran’s state-owned Press TV.
This will include a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
We’ll bring you more on this as we have it.
Israel continues weeks of ‘re-clearing’ operations in north Gaza: Monitors
At least seven armed Palestinian groups are battling Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip and Israel has carried out “multi-week operations” to “re-clear” areas in the north of the territory where Palestinian fighters are based, war monitors report.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP), two US-based military think tanks, said Israeli forces are also conducting a “second round of clearing operations” in the west of Khan Younis in the south of Gaza.
The focus of the Israeli “re-clearing” operation is Khan Younis’s al-Amal neighbourhood, the ISW and CTP said in their latest battlefield report.
On Sunday, Palestinian fighters in Gaza fired eight rockets at southern Israel’s Ashdod, the first reported attack on the city since mid-January, as well as rockets fired at Israel’s Beeri region. On Monday, rockets were fired at Sderot city, the latest ISW/CTP report states.
UN expert says Israel using concepts such as ‘human shields’ as legal cover for genocide
More on Francesca Albanese’s report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
The UN expert said Israel has deployed concepts from international humanitarian law – such as human shields, collateral damage and safe zones – as legal cover to commit war crimes in Gaza.
For instance, the UN rapporteur said, Israel has sought to portray all of Gaza’s population as human shields, with Israel’s top-ranking political and military leaders consistently framing Palestinian civilians as either Hamas operatives, “accomplices”, or human shields among whom Hamas is “embedded”.
“Israel has de facto treated an entire protected group and its life-sustaining infrastructure as ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorist-supporting’, thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage, hence killable or destroyable,” she wrote.
“In this way, no Palestinian in Gaza is safe by definition. This has had devastating, intentional effects, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroying the fabric of life in Gaza and causing irreparable harm to its entire population.”
What was the UNSC vote on a Gaza ceasefire?
The 15-member UN Security Council (UNSC) voted 14-0 to approve a ceasefire resolution for Gaza.
The US used its power of veto to block three earlier ceasefire resolutions but abstained from voting on Monday and allowed the resolution to pass as a result.
The resolution “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire” and the “immediate and unconditional release” of captives.
Is the resolution binding?
UNSC resolutions are legally binding for the UN’s 193 member nations, though without enforcement, they can be flouted.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the resolution to be implemented, saying a “failure” to do so “would be unforgivable”.
How has Israel reacted?
The US abstention from the vote angered Israel, which has cancelled a visit to Washington, DC, by an Israeli delegation that was to discuss US concerns regarding a planned ground invasion of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials, including war cabinet member Benny Gantz, said the resolution had little meaning and “no operational significance”.
“We will always do what is right for Israel’s security,” Gantz wrote on social media.
UN expert accuses Israel of genocide: What you need to know
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, has issued a damning report on Israel’s war on Gaza, saying there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is committing genocide in the Palestinian enclave.
Here’s what you need to know:
Albanese said evidence – gathered from organisations on the ground, investigative reports and consultations with affected people – suggested that Israel has committed at least three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention.
These are “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group’s members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
On the first point, Albanese noted that Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. A further 12,000 are reported missing, presumed dead under the rubble.
More than 70 percent of the recorded deaths have been women and children and Israel has failed to prove that the remaining 30 percent – adult males – were active Hamas fighters, she said.
Israel’s heightened blockade of Gaza is also resulting in deaths by starvation, including that of 10 children daily.
On the second point, Albanese noted that Israeli forces have wounded more than 70,000 Palestinians and detained thousands of Palestinian men and boys, subjecting them to torture and mistreatment.
On the third point, Albanese said Israel has destroyed or severely damaged most of Gaza’s life-sustaining infrastructure, including hospitals and agricultural land.
Israeli minister quits Netanyahu's unity government, saying he was sidelined
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A veteran Israeli minister who joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's emergency unity government after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack said on Monday he had resigned after not being included in the highest-level war cabinet.
Gideon Saar joined the unity government along with several other members of the opposition to help manage the war on Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli envoy claims Israel-Brazil diplomatic crisis over Gaza is cooling
Israel’s ambassador to Brazil has claimed that a diplomatic crisis between the two countries has now begun to calm down, the Reuters news agency reports.
Relations between the countries fractured when Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a speech at the African Union last month that the only historical precedent for the scale of death in Gaza was Nazi Germany’s genocide of Jews.
In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Lula was not welcome in Israel until he apologised for his comments – which he has not done.
But Israel’s ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Zonshine, has now said in an interview with Reuters that “we are trying to lower the flames, and we are hopeful”.
“It will take time to get back to full relations,” he added.
Blinken tells Gallant that ‘alternatives’ to Rafah ground invasion exist: Report
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant that “alternatives exist” to the Israeli military carrying out a ground invasion of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Such alternatives would better ensure Israel’s security and protect Palestinian civilians, Blinken told Gallant during a meeting on Monday, the Reuters news agency reports, citing the US State Department.
Israel’s looming attack on Rafah has raised fears of a catastrophe as more than 1 million Palestinian are now sheltering in the area.
US Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview on Sunday that it would be a “huge mistake” for Israel to launch a ground attack on Rafah and warned of “consequences” if such an operation were to go ahead.
UNSC chamber bursts into applause as Gaza resolution is adopted
The UNSC has approved a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as well as the immediate and unconditional release of all captives.
The US abstained from the vote, while the remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution.
In a rare break of decorum, the chamber erupted into applause as the resolution was adopted.
Hamas has said that it is sticking to its original position in ceasefire talks, despite Israel not responding to any of its demands set forth during this round of negotiations.
The German government says it is providing $48m to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied West Bank.
Struggling for a can of food: starving Gazans scramble for aid drops
GAZA CITY (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – A military plane banked over the war-ravaged ruins of Gaza City dropping dozens of black parachutes carrying food aid.
On the ground, where almost no building within sight was still standing, hungry men and boys raced towards the beach where most of the aid seemed to have landed.
UN Security Council votes for 'immediate' Gaza ceasefire, US abstains
UNITED NATIONS (United States) (Agencies) - After more than five months of war, the UN Security Council for the first time Monday demanded an "immediate" ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The United States was the only member to abstain.
Drawing unusual applause in the normally staid Security Council, all 14 other members voted in favor of the resolution which "demands an immediate ceasefire" for the ongoing Islamic holy month of Ramazan.
Netanyahu cancels Israeli delegation to US over UN Gaza vote
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday (Mar 25) said he will not send a delegation as planned to Washington after the United States refrained from vetoing a UN Security Council proposal calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office, said that Washington's failure to block the proposal was a "clear retreat" from its previous position, and would hurt war efforts against Hamas, as well as efforts to release over 130 hostages in Gaza captivity.
