Israel's Paranoia
Live Reporting
Israel trying to ‘block’ ceasefire agreement: Hamas’s Haniyeh
Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, has spoken to Al Jazeera Arabic about the US-proposed ceasefire deal and prospects for ending the war.
He said Israel attacked the Nuseirat camp and freed four Israeli captives while killing at least 274 Palestinians to block any agreement that would end the war.
Haniyeh also accused the US of being a part of the attack, saying the Biden administration is “no less criminal” than Israel’s leadership.
Antitank missiles fired at northern Israel
Since early this morning, at least six antitank missiles launched from Lebanon have hit settlements in the Upper Galilee region of northern Israel, according to Israel’s Army Radio.
The attacks sparked several fires and damaged a home in the northeastern kibbutz of Menara, but caused no casualties, Army Radio said.
Since the Gaza war broke out, Israel’s military and Lebanese group Hezbollah have traded near daily, cross-border fire, pushing tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border to evacuate.
Many in Gaza back to eating ‘one meal per day’
An extra emergency department has been opened at Deir el-Balah’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, to deal with the massive influx of injured patients.
The hospital, running on just one generator, remains flooded with sick and injured patients, and is performing surgeries on an “hourly basis”, she said.
At the same time, the flow of aid into Gaza has remained scarce, with many people now eating “only one meal per day”.
“This is not only in the south, but also in the north” of Gaza, said Khoudary, adding that markets are largely empty and what food available is hard to afford for most people.
Calls for probe into Israel’s alleged use of depleted uranium in Gaza
Saleh Abdel Shafi, Palestine’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has called on the agency to investigate whether Israel has used depleted uranium in ammunition they have fired in Gaza.
“The amount of ammunition used [in Gaza] has already exceeded the amount of ammunition used in the second world war,” Abdel Shafi told Al Jazeera. “This fact alone should trigger curiosity by the IAEA and other specialised agencies to go into Gaza and do a thorough investigation.”
“So far we haven’t seen any action”.
While depleted uranium ammunition is not considered a nuclear weapon, its emission of low levels of radiation has led the IAEA to warn of possible dangers of exposure.
Israeli bombings worsen water shortages
With many of Gaza’s water wells and pipelines destroyed in the war, accessing water has become a daily struggle for Palestinians in the coastal enclave.
Anas al-Jamal, a pregnant woman in the enclave, tells Al Jazeera she has to leave her home every day to search for water to carry home.
“The water scarcity is severely affecting me because I’m supposed to rest and avoid strenuous physical activity,” al-Jamal said. “We’re really struggling.”
Israeli military claims to kill elite Hamas commandos in central Gaza
In its latest war update, the Israeli military says it has carried out more air strikes and “targeted raids” in central Gaza, killing Hamas fighters and destroying military infrastructure.
Several of the Hamas fighters killed via air strikes were members of the group’s elite Nukhba Forces, according to the Israeli military.
Israel’s latest attacks throughout Gaza have also killed civilians, including women and children sheltering in their homes in Gaza City, according to the Wafa news agency.
‘Trail of destruction’ after Israeli operation in Nuseirat
Anaas Alayan, one resident of the Nuseirat camp, said Israeli special forces committed mass “executions” on the street.
“I went down to the street and found bodies everywhere,” he told Al Jazeera.
The military, which rescued four Israeli captives during the operation, killed at least 274 Palestinians, including at least 64 children during the day-time assault, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The camp is now left with a “trail of destruction”, according to Mahmoud.
Australian police investigating after US’s Sydney consulate daubed with ‘Free Gaza’
Police in Australia are investigating after the US Consulate in Sydney was vandalised early on Monday.
Images shared on social media showed the words “FREE GAZA” daubed in red paint on the consulate’s windows, and inverted red triangles painted over the US insignia on the glass. The building, in the city’s northern suburbs, was cordoned off behind police tape. Sky News reported that the windows had been smashed at least 13 times with a hammer.
Police said security camera footage from the early hours of the morning showed a person in a hoodie spray painting the windows. They also appeared to be carrying a small sledgehammer.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the vandalism.
“People should have respectful political debate and discourse,” he told reporters after being asked about the incident. “Measures such as painting the US consulate do nothing to advance the cause of those who have committed what is of course a crime to damage property.”
Blinken due in Egypt in eighth visit to Middle East since Gaza war began
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to arrive in Egypt in a few hours on his eighth visit to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began,
Blinken is expected to push the US’s latest ceasefire plan – the one its diplomats are trying to move to a vote in the Security Council.
In Cairo, he will hold talks behind closed doors with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a key US partner in peace efforts. He is also expected to discuss ways to open the Rafah crossing, which has been closed since it was seized by Israel a month ago.
Blinken will then travel to Jerusalem for discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US has said Israel has accepted the plan, but Hamas has not formally responded.
Blinken will also visit Jordan and Qatar before returning on Wednesday.
WFP ‘pauses’ delivery of Gaza aid through US-built pier
Cindy McCain, the director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), says the distribution of aid through the US-built pier off Gaza has been “paused” because of concerns about safety amid the latest Israeli assaults on Gaza.
McCain made her comments after she was asked about operations at the pier in an interview with the US broadcaster CBS.
“Right now, we’re paused,” she said on the Face the Nation programme, adding that two of the WFP’s warehouses had also come under rocket fire and one person had been injured.
“I’m concerned about the safety of our people. We’ve stepped back for the moment … to make sure we’re on safe terms and on safe ground before we’ll restart. But the rest of the country is operational. We’re doing everything we can in the north and the south.”
McCain did not say when operations might resume at the pier, which was completed in mid-May but was then damaged in a storm, which meant operations were suspended for two weeks.
US calls for UN Security Council vote on Gaza ceasefire plan
The United States has requested a UN Security Council vote on its draft resolution backing the ceasefire plan it announced at the end of last month.
“Today, the United States called for the Security Council to move towards a vote… supporting the proposal on the table,” said Nate Evans, a spokesman for the US delegation, the AFP news agency reported.
Evans did not specify a date for the vote.
US resumes airdrops of aid into northern Gaza
The US military says it has resumed air drops of aid into Gaza.
A US cargo plane dropped more than 10 metric tonnes of rations into northern Gaza on Sunday.
The airdrop provided “life-saving humanitarian assistance in northern Gaza”, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement. “To date the US has airdropped more than 1,050 metric tons of humanitarian assistance” in addition to aid delivered via a temporary pier attached to the Gaza coast, it said.
“These airdrops are part of a sustained effort, and we continue to plan follow-on aerial deliveries,” CENTCOM added.
The United Nations has said the Palestinian territory has been brought to the brink of famine because not enough aid is reaching civilians. Airdrops are one of the least efficient ways of delivering assistance, but aid trucks have been prevented from crossing into Gaza.
Who is Benny Gantz?
Gantz had appeared unhappy in Netanyahu’s government for some time, and his resignation came three weeks after he laid down a deadline for the prime minister to come up with a clear postwar strategy for Gaza.
Here’s a bit more about the 65-year-old former general:
Gantz is the son of Romanian and Hungarian immigrants who survived the Holocaust and grew up on a kibbutz.
He joined the army at the age of 18 and rose through the ranks to become the commander of Israel’s elite Shaldag commando unit.
He was the army chief of staff from 2011-2015. During the 2014 war in Gaza, more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed.
In 2018, he was the target of a civil lawsuit that accused him of breaching international law by deliberately targeting civilians. A Dutch court rejected the case.
Gantz launched his centre-right National Union Party in 2019 with the explicit goal of removing Netanyahu from power.
The former general was Israel’s defence minister from 2020-2022, and in 2021, Israel launched an 11-day assault on Gaza which left more than 250 Palestinians dead. In August of the following year, a three-day air and artillery attack on Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip left 49 Palestinians dead including some fighters.
Domestically, he has won support for his opposition to Netanyahu’s divisive campaign to cut the powers of the judiciary. Since joining the unity government, however, his party’s popularity has declined.
Gantz resignation will add to pressures on Netanyahu: Analyst
Dov Waxman, professor of Israel studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has been talking to Al Jazeera about the potential impact of Gantz’s departure from the government.
Waxman noted that Gantz’s party, the National Unity Party, wasn’t part of Netanyahu’s original governing coalition, and his decision to join a unity government gave the coalition some measure of “domestic legitimacy”. With Gantz’s resignation, political pressure on the prime minister is likely to grow – both at home and overseas – Waxman explained.
“This was a government that was deeply unpopular even before October 7 but Gantz’s entry into the government stabilised the government and gave it some domestic legitimacy. Without Gantz and his partners, the government will lose that domestic legitimacy and that will increase the pressure on Netanyahu to hold early elections.
“But I don’t think Netanyahu is likely to do that because he knows that, at least according to current opinion polls, his party would lose that election. He and his coalition partners are determined to cling onto power for as long as possible.
“Internationally, particularly in the West and the United States, Gantz was seen, rightly or not, as a kind of moderating influence – the so-called adult in the room – and I think that reduced some of the international pressure that Netanyahu might have faced. Without Gantz being there, I think Netanyahu is likely to face more pressure from the Biden administration and more international pressure because really, frankly, that is the only moderating influence Netanyahu will face now. So, that international pressure, I think, is likely to increase.”
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, has claimed three captives were killed, including a US citizen, in the Israeli raid on Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp in which four captives were freed.
Pro-Palestine protesters surround White House demanding end to Gaza war
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Thousands of Gaza war protesters held a "red line" rally near the White House, voicing anger at what they said is US President Joe Biden's tolerance of Israel's bloody military campaign against Hamas.
Chanting "From DC to Palestine, we are the red line," the demonstrators held a long banner scribbled with the names of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, as the fighting entered its ninth month.
