Gaza Unrest
Live Reporting
Malala Yousafzai ‘slated’ for musical co-credit with Hillary Clinton
Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has faced a backlash after the premier of a Broadway musical she co-produced with former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, AFP reports.
The musical, titled “Suffs” and playing in New York since last week, depicts the American women’s suffrage campaign for the right to vote in the 20th century.
However, Yousafzai, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, has been condemned by some for partnering with Clinton, an outspoken supporter of Israel’s military offensive against Hamas that has killed over 34,000 Palestinians.
Pakistan has seen many pro-Palestinian protests since the fighting in Gaza began last October.
Whilst Clinton has backed a military campaign to remove Hamas and rejected demands for a ceasefire, she has also explicitly called for protections for Palestinian civilians.
Yousafzai has publically condemned the civilian casualties and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The New York Times reported the 26-year-old wore a red-and-black pin to the “Suffs” premier last Thursday, signifying her support for a ceasefire.
But author and academic Nida Kirmani said on X that Yousafzai’s decision to partner with Clinton was “maddening and heartbreaking at the same time. What an utter disappointment.”
Israel must allow aid to Palestinians ‘without delay’: Biden
President Joe Biden has demanded that new humanitarian aid be allowed to immediately reach Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as key US ally Israel fights Hamas there, AFP reports.
“We’re going to immediately secure that aid and surge it […] including food, medical supplies, clean water,” Biden said after signing a massive military aid bill for Israel and Ukraine, which also included $1 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza.
“Israel must make sure all this aid reaches the Palestinians in Gaza without delay,” he said.
Turkiye accuses US of double standards over Gaza
Turkiye has accused the United States of having a policy of double standards on human rights, saying Washington’s annual rights report failed to reflect Israel’s assaults in Gaza.
According to Al Jazeera, Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement it was deeply concerned that the US report did not “duly reflect the ongoing inhumane attacks in Gaza”.
The report was prepared with “political motives, far from impartiality and objectivity”, it said, calling on Washington to cease its “double-standard policy on human rights”.
In its report, the US State Department said Israel’s war against Hamas had a “significant negative impact” on the human rights situation in Israel.
Jamaica recognises the state of Palestine
The Jamaican government has recognised the State of Palestine, Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith announced in a post on X.
“Jamaica continues to advocate for a two-state solution as the only viable option to resolve the longstanding conflict, guarantee the security of Israel and uphold the dignity and rights of Palestinians,” Johnson Smith said.
“By recognising the State of Palestine, Jamaica strengthens its advocacy towards a peaceful solution.”
Israeli military poised to take Rafah, awaits govt approval, defence official says
Israel’s military has conducted all necessary preparations to take Rafah, which it deems the last Hamas bastion in the Gaza Strip, and can launch an operation the moment it gets government approval, a senior defence official told Reuters.
Israel thanks US Senate for approving military aid
Israel’s foreign minister on Wednesday thanked the US Senate for approving $13 billion in military aid that he said sent a “strong message” to the country’s enemies, AFP reports.
“I thank the US Senate for passing the Israel aid package tonight with an overwhelming bipartisan majority,” Israel Katz posted on social media site X, adding the package was “a clear testament to the strength of our alliance and sends a strong message to all our enemies.”
Iran, Pakistan condemn ‘irresponsible’ Israeli attack on Iranian embassy in Damascus
Iran and Pakistan, in a joint statement, have “strongly condemned the attack on the Consular Section of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, which was an unacceptable violation of the sovereignty of Syria and undermined its stability and security”.
In a statement released by Pakistan’s foreign office (FO), the two countries “agreed that the attack was a violation of international law and the UN Charter, and was illegal under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961”.
“Recognising that the irresponsible act of the Israeli regime forces was a major escalation in an already volatile region, both sides called on the UN Security Council to prevent Israel regime from its adventurism in the region and its illegal acts attacking its neighbours and targeting foreign diplomatic facilities,” the statement read.
EU urges probe into reported mass graves at Gaza hospitals
The European Union has backed a United Nations demand for an independent probe into the reported discovery of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals destroyed in Israeli sieges, AFP reports.
“This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances, because indeed it creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed,” EU spokesman Peter Stano said.
“That’s why it’s important to have independent investigation and to ensure accountability.”
Israeli forces cordon off Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque to Muslims
Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque will be shuttered to Muslims today and tomorrow as Israeli forces reserve the complex for Jewish settlers marking Passover, Al Jazeera reports citing the Wafa news agency.
Israeli troops have ramped up restrictions and closed checkpoints leading to the religious site, which is known to Israeli Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
Access to the religious complex is a flashpoint issue in occupied Hebron, where some 700 Jewish settlers live, with Israeli forces closing it to Muslims for about 10 days each year coinciding with Jewish holidays, according to Wafa.
Egyptian police crack down on pro-Palestine demonstrations
Egyptian authorities have arrested activists at a protest held in solidarity with Palestinians in war-torn Gaza.
Lawyer Khaled Ali said at least 18 activists, mostly women, were detained when police broke up the protest outside the regional office of the UN Women agency in Cairo’s Maadi district on Tuesday. There was no comment from the government.
Protesters called for the protection of women in Gaza. Although Egypt’s government has condemned Israel’s campaign in Gaza, it has largely banned public demonstrations against the war. Criticism of the country’s ties with Israel, with which it signed a peace accord in 1979, is highly sensitive.
Bodies in Nasser Hospital mass grave ‘unrecognisable’
As the day progresses, we are finding out more shocking details and revelations about the mass grave at the courtyard of Nasser Hospital.
Many of the bodies retrieved inside plastic bags have been largely [decomposed] to the point they are not recognisable at all. Their identities are lost.
Families gathered at the hospital’s courtyard trying to find [the bodies of their] children or other relatives, whom they have been searching for over the past 70 days, are unable to recognise them. There have only been a few cases of parents being able to recognise the bodies of their children from the clothes they were wearing.
Tragedies keep unfolding across the hospital’s courtyard, where the fourth mass grave has been discovered within the past 12 days.
Israel still believes it can live only on the sword’
The resignation of Israel’s military spy chief Aharon Haliva earlier this week over intelligence lapses leading up to October 7 is welcome but says nothing about the state’s deep policy failures that are fuelling insecurity, according to Gideon Levy, a columnist at the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and author.
“I’m not surprised that he [Haliva] is resigning. I’m only surprised he is resigning only now,” Levy told Al Jazeera. “He couldn’t function since October 7. How can he? Who would listen to him?”
However, the security lapse that Haliva is resigning over is only “the small failure” haunting Israel, Levy noted.
“The big failure is still untouched in Israel. Israel did not draw any lessons from October 7. Israel still believes, maybe more intensively, that it can continue with the occupation, continue with apartheid, that we can live on our sword, only on our sword, forever,” the analyst said.
UN demands independent mass grave investigations
The United Nations called for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves uncovered at two major hospitals in war-ravaged Gaza that were raided by Israeli troops.
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman with the UN’s human rights office, demanded independent and transparent investigations into the deaths, saying “given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators”.
Credible investigators must have access to the sites, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters, adding more journalists need to be able to work safely in Gaza to report the facts.
Earlier, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said he is “horrified” by the destruction of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, and reported mass graves in and around the facilities after the Israelis left.
Israeli military claims to hit 50 targets in Gaza in last day
The targets included Hamas launch posts, tunnel shafts and other military infrastructure, said a military statement.
In addition, Palestinian fighters in central Gaza were killed by Israeli tank fire, said the military, without disclosing specific casualty figures.
The Israeli military’s latest wave of attacks in Gaza also killed and wounded numerous civilians, including seven family members sheltering in their home in Rafah, according to Palestinian officials.
Jamaica recognises the State of Palestine
The Jamaican government says it has “taken a decision to recognise the State of Palestine” amid concerns over Israel’s war on Gaza and the “ever-deepening humanitarian crisis” in the Palestinian territory.
“The decision is aligned with Jamaica’s strong commitment to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, which seek to engender mutual respect and peaceful co-existence among states, as well as the recognition of the right of people to self-determination,“ the country’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.
Jamaica’s Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith said her country wanted to see “a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through diplomatic dialogue rather than military actions”.
Famine risk 'very high' in Gaza, especially in north, US official says
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel has taken significant steps in recent weeks on allowing aid into Gaza, the US special envoy for humanitarian issues said on Tuesday, but considerable work remained to be done as the risk of famine in the enclave is very high.
David Satterfield declined to say whether Washington was satisfied by Israel's moves, weeks after US President Joe Biden demanded action to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying conditions could be placed on US support for close ally Israel if it did not implement a series of "specific, concrete and measurable" steps.
Continuous’ shelling of northern Gaza neighbourhoods follows Israeli evacuation order
The north Gaza areas of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and east of Jabalia have come under sustained Israeli artillery shelling, our colleagues in Al Jazeera Arabic report.
The attacks following a warning on Tuesday evening by Avichay Adraee, an Israeli army spokesperson, for Palestinians residents to immediately evacuate designated areas of Beit Lahiya, which he described as a “dangerous combat zone”.
The Israeli army “will use extreme force against terrorist infrastructure and subversive elements in the region”, he warned.
US police arrest Pro-Palestinian Jewish protesters outside Senator’s New York home
Hundreds of protesters were reportedly arrested after holding a demonstration on the “doorstep” of US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s home in New York’s Grand Army Plaza.
Organised by the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) lobby group, the protest was presented as a “seder on the street” on the second night of the week-long Jewish feast of Passover.
Following speeches from writers, performers and rabbis, protesters moved to block the streets surrounding the Plaza and arrests were made by the New York Police Department, according to the Reuters news agency.
The JVP shared photos on social media of the arrests and police moving demonstrators taking part in a sit-down protest and chanting: “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea”.
According to JVP, the protesters were demanding “the US stop arming and funding the Israeli government as it carries out a genocide” in Gaza.
Gaza protests grow at US colleges, thousands demonstrate in Brooklyn
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Protests against Israel filled streets in Brooklyn and escalated at universities across the United States, some of which included Jewish Passover Seders, as demonstrators demanded an end to civilian casualties in Gaza.
The growing protests follow mass arrests of demonstrators at some East Coast universities in recent days, and show a deepening dissatisfaction in the United States, historically Israel's most important ally, with the course of the war with Hamas.
Israel steps up strikes across Gaza, orders new evacuations in north
(Reuters) – Israeli strikes intensified across Gaza on Tuesday in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, residents said, and the army ordered fresh evacuations in the north of the enclave, warning civilians they were in a "dangerous combat zone".
Strikes by air and shelling from tanks on the ground were also reported in central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip in what residents said late on Tuesday were almost 24 hours of non-stop bombardments.
US Senate passes Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan military aid bill: Report
The Reuters news agency is reporting that the US Senate has backed a $95bn foreign aid package providing security assistance for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
Democrats and Republicans backed the legislation by 79 to 18, far more than the majority needed for passage through the 100-member Senate and for the bill to be sent to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law.
The largest share of the package provides $61bn for Ukraine, followed by $26bn for Israel, while $8.12bn is earmarked to “counter communist China” in the Asia Pacific.
Amnesty International said earlier that Israeli forces in Gaza were committing war crimes against Palestinians with “US-made munitions”, and called for a halt to all weapons transfers to Israel.
Israeli military committing ‘war crimes’ in Gaza with US weaponry: Amnesty International
Paul O’Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said Israeli forces in Gaza are committing war crimes against Palestinian people using “US-made munitions”.
In a post on social media, O’Brien said research by the global rights group shows that war crimes are being committed in the Palestinian territory by Israeli forces and the US must stop sending weapons to Israel.
O’Brien also thanks 37 members of the US Congress who voted no to the Israel arms bill that will see $26.38bn in military aid provided to Israeli forces.
The US military aid package, according to reports, will restock missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling defence systems, boost depleted military supplies amid Israel’s war on Gaza, and provide some $3.5bn for “advanced weapons systems” among other provisions.
Latest Israeli attacks kill four in central Gaza refugee camp
Al Jazeera Arabic reported that four people have been killed in an Israeli bombing near a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip and that Israeli forces have fired artillery shells at the Zeitoun neighbourhood, southeast of Gaza City.
An Israeli air strike also hit a site in az-Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip.
We will bring you more on these overnight attacks as information emerges.
US military to begin construction of Gaza sea platform, aid pier ‘very soon’
The US will soon begin construction of a pier to boost aid deliveries by sea to Gaza, the Pentagon said.
“All the necessary vessels are within the Mediterranean region and standing by,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder told journalists.
“We are positioned to begin construction very soon,” Ryder said.
According to the French news agency AFP, the US plans to establish an offshore platform for the transfer of aid from larger to smaller vessels, and a pier to bring it ashore in the Gaza Strip.
US officials have said the construction will not involve US soldiers on the ground in Gaza, but troops will come close to Gaza as they construct the pier.
Israeli forces will provide security for the construction operation, AFP reports.
Unrwa chief says campaign against its operations is unprecedented
UNITED NATIONS — The head of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees says it has never been under as sustained an attack as it is now in an Israeli campaign to dismantle its activities in Gaza and possibly elsewhere in the Mideast.
In UNRWA’s 75-year history, it has experienced “absolutely nothing comparable” to the “ferocity” and scope of the current campaign against its Gaza operations, Philippe Lazzarini told reporters Tuesday.
It is happening even as many donors have suspended contributions to UNRWA after Israel alleged that 12 employees of the agency participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel, he said. The U.N.’s internal watchdog is investigating those allegations.
Tent compound rises in southern Gaza as Israel prepares for Rafah offensive
(AP) -- Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press appear to show a new compound of tents being built near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip as the Israeli military signals that it plans an offensive on the city of Rafah.
Khan Younis has been targeted by repeated Israeli military operations over recent weeks. Israel has said it plans to evacuate civilians from Rafah during an anticipated offensive on the southern city, where hundreds of thousands of people have taken refuge during the war, now in its seventh month.
