Israel's Paranoia
Live Reporting
Victims of Rafah strikes rushed to Nasser Hospital
Palestinians killed and wounded in recent strikes in Rafah are being brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to video footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency.
The footage, shared on Palestinian social media channels, shows a group of people, some with shirts stained with blood, crying while huddled around the bodies of several men apparently killed.
According to the Wafa news agency, Israeli attacks in Rafah have already killed 12 people since dawn today. Many of those victims, it said, were targeted while trying to retrieve the body of a person killed in Rafah centre.
Israeli drone strike kills seven in northern Gaza
The attack hit a centre where displaced people were sheltering, our colleagues on the ground have reported.
The attack follows our reports of another strike in the Shati camp to the west of Gaza City, which killed at least one person.
In recent weeks, Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked shelters housing displaced people in the north. On May 25, at least 10 people, including numerous children, were killed in a UN-run school-turned-shelter in Jabalia.
More damage to hospitals, schools as Israel takes control of Philadelphi Corridor
The Israeli military is continuing to carry out air strikes and artillery shelling on Rafah city.
At the same time, it is quietly taking over the Philadelphi Corridor in what looks like part of its strategy of building a buffer zone, a demilitarised area on the Egyptian border.
We’re looking at a depth of at least 1km (0.6 miles), extending from the northern part of the Philadelphi Corridor into Rafah city.
This means the majority of residential buildings and public facilities there, including schools, hospitals and privately owned clinics, will be destroyed for this demilitarised area.
2023 was worst year for attacks on healthcare in decade: Monitor
The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition says the year 2023 saw the most attacks on healthcare in war zones since it began documenting such assaults 11 years ago.
The coalition, in a new report, identified 2,562 incidents of violence against or obstruction of healthcare in conflicts in 2023, a figure that marks a 25 percent increase from 2022.
The highest number of attacks – some 761 incidents – were documented in the occupied Palestinian territory. These included Israeli air, missile and artillery strikes on hospitals, field hospitals, and the killing, wounding and arrests of healthcare staff, including doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians, paramedics, ambulance drivers and pharmacists.
“In several cases, entire families that had multiple members who were medical professionals were killed in single attacks, usually while they were at home,” the report said.
Swedish police clear out pro-Palestine encampment
Swedish police have cleared out an encampment outside a southern Sweden university where pro-Palestinian students have been camping since May 16.
Police say that some 40 people are suspected of disobeying law enforcement during the early morning action, and video shows police carrying away people who refused to leave the area outside Lund University.
Swedish broadcaster SVT said there were about 100 people in the camp.
Yesterday, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported that three pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested, and more than a dozen were detained outside the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Gantz expected to withdraw from Netanyahu’s government within days: Report
Israel’s Channel 12 reports that Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, will likely announce his withdrawal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government within a few days.
Earlier this month, Benny Gantz threatened to quit Israel’s coalition government if Netanyahu didn’t come up with a plan for Gaza’s post-war governance within weeks.
The channel also published a report based on a television survey showing Netanyahu had overtaken Gantz as the public’s preferred choice for the PM role. This was the first time in a year that the current PM had been rated higher than Gantz.
Bodies of killed Palestinian medics recovered
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has recovered the bodies of two of its paramedics who were killed in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan area last night.
As we reported earlier, the paramedics – Haitham Tubasi and Suhail Hassouna – were killed when Israeli forces bombed their ambulance, according to PRCS.
“The Israeli occupation forces deliberately bombed the ambulance vehicle despite it bearing the internationally protected Red Crescent emblem,” PRCS said in a post on X.
Since October 7, 19 PRCS medics have been killed in Gaza while on the job, according to the organisation.
UN special rapporteur calls out women leaders’ support for Israel’s war on Gaza
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s expert on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, has taken aim at the EU’s top female leader, Ursula von der Leyen, and recent US presidential hopeful Nikki Haley.
In a post on social media, Albanese said that she was “proud” when women leaders speak. But not always.
“Sometimes, I am painfully ashamed,” she wrote in a post above the tagged social media accounts of the EU Commission President von der Leyen and Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN under then-President Donald Trump.
Von der Leyen has come under stinging criticism for what was described as her “uncontrolled” support for Israel at the start of the war on Gaza, including a letter signed by more than 800 EU officials criticising her apparent “indifference” to the slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Haley, who pulled out of the presidential race in March due to lack of support, was photographed writing “Finish Them!” on an Israeli artillery shell while visiting Israel.
Gaza medics face ‘overwhelming disaster’ as supplies dwindle: WHO
Dr Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) representative in Palestine, said vital medical supplies are fast running out in Gaza’s remaining hospitals as border crossings remain shut due to Israel’s ground assault on Rafah.
“There are 60 WHO trucks standing in El Arish [in Egypt] ready to get into Gaza. So again, this plea: The Rafah crossing needs to be opened not just for medical supplies, but for all other humanitarian supplies,” Peeperkorn said.
“We have distributed an enormous amount of essential emergency medical supplies, but it’s not enough. This is such an overwhelming disaster,” he said.
“When there would be a sustained ceasefire, and there would be entry routes into Gaza which are properly managed. When there is a deconfliction mechanism which actually facilitates and supports, much more is possible,” he added.
Israel claims ‘operational control’ of Philadelphi Corridor
The Israeli military has claimed “operational control” of the Philadelphi Corridor – a strip of land which separates Gaza from Egypt.
“It doesn’t mean that we have boots on the ground across all of the corridor, but it means we can control and we have the ability to cut off the oxygen line that Hamas has used for replenishing and movement in and around that area,” an unnamed Israeli official told the Reuters news agency.
Israeli forces seized the Rafah crossing with Egypt and areas on the Palestinian side of the corridor this month, prompting outrage from Egyptian officials, who said Israel is violating the terms of their 1979 peace treaty.
Israel said it needs control of the corridor to target smuggling tunnels used by Hamas.
Condemnation of Israel at UN Security Council over Rafah attacks
Israel’s attacks on Rafah were widely condemned by UN Security Council members, many of whom referenced the order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) just days earlier to end such military activity.
Algeria, for its part, called on the Security Council to back a concise resolution supporting the ICJ and international law while the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process called on the international community to get behind a framework for Gaza’s recovery.
No vote has been scheduled on Algeria’s draft resolution yet.
France has expressed support for it.
But it has also been working on a more comprehensive solution to ending the conflict and directed at a two-state solution.
Israeli forces conduct raids across the occupied West Bank
Local media is reporting widespread Israeli raids in several locations across the occupied West Bank. They include:
The cities of el-Bireh and Ramallah, where tear gas has been fired amid confrontations with local people
The eastern area of ??the city of Nablus
The city of Tulkarem, where armed clashes have been reported
The city of Tubas, where armed clashes have been reported
The town of Beit Ummar and the Arroub refugee camp, north of Hebron
The village of Husan, west of Bethlehem, resulting in confrontations with local people
The village of Kafr Qalil, south of Nablus
Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles with stones south of Bethlehem
US nurse fired for calling Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide during award speech
A Palestinian American nurse in New York City has been fired after calling Israel’s war on Gaza a “genocide”.
Hesen Jabr made the remarks during a speech after she was honoured by NYU Langone Health for her compassion in caring for mothers who had lost babies.
Jabr, who said that Palestinian mothers are experiencing unimaginable loss “during the current genocide in Gaza” in the May 7 speech, was fired when she reported for her next work shift.
She was told by NYU Langone Health officials that she had “‘put others at risk’ and ‘ruined the ceremony’ and ‘offended people’”, according to an Instagram post from Jabr.
An NYU Langone spokesperson said that Jabr had been previously warned about raising the “divisive and charged issue” at work.
International condemnation of Israel’s Rafah operation ‘increases by the day’
The Israeli military says it has full operational control of the Philadelphi Corridor and that Hamas tunnels have been found that are used to smuggle weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.
While Egypt hasn’t confirmed any of this, the Israeli chief of staff has been speaking from Rafah saying that to get rid of Hamas is a national priority and that they will continue the fight in Rafah until that goal is achieved.
All of this as Israel’s opposition leaders have been meeting in Tel Aviv to discuss a plan to get rid of this current government and as they call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign as soon as possible.
Meanwhile international condemnation and pressure increases by the day against Israel.
Street battles, Israeli strikes rock Gaza's Rafah
RAFAH (AFP) - Street fighting and Israeli bombardment rocked Gaza's far-southern Rafah on Wednesday (May 29), Palestinian residents and officials said, a day after Israeli tanks rolled into the centre of the city near the Egyptian border.
The army pushed on with its mission to defeat Hamas in the war raging since Oct 7, despite a global outcry that intensified after a deadly strike set ablaze a crowded camp on Sunday night.
