Israel's Bigotry
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Top German diplomat warns Israel-Hezbollah in danger of ‘slipping into’ war
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has warned that “another war would mean a regional escalation on a scale that we can hardly imagine”.
Baerbock told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk public radio a day after meeting with Lebanese and Israeli leaders in Beirut and Jerusalem that there was a need for global powers to mediate a decrease in tensions at the Lebanese-Israeli border.
“… More rockets are flying, large parts on both sides do not want this war, but we are slipping into it,” she said.
Baerbock also called for an “urgently needed” ceasefire in Gaza, saying “this will also calm the northern front”.
Lebanese leaders in Beirut appear to view it the same way, but unfortunately the government has “no effective access on the ground, not even to Hezbollah”, Baerbock said, making efforts by mediators like the US and France all the more important.
Six senior Israeli figures call on US Congress to ‘disinvite’ Netanyahu: Report
Ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and four other senior political figures have published a joint letter in the New York Times, calling on the leaders of the US Congress to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from giving a speech to US lawmakers on July 24.
“Congress has made a terrible mistake” by inviting him, the letter said, adding that “Netanyahu’s appearance in Washington will not represent the State of Israel and its citizens”.
The address “will reward his scandalous and destructive conduct toward our country”, the claimants said, stressing that the prime minister “failed to come up with a plan to end the war in Gaza or free dozens of hostages”.
“Congressional call for him should have been conditional on resolving these two issues, as well as calling for new elections in Israel,” the letter concluded.
Level of destruction in northern Gaza defies imagination
The Israeli air attack on a residential building in Beit Lahiya has killed at least 15 Palestinians. Dozens of injured have been transferred to al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City for treatment.
On top of the house that was targeted, the bombardment also damaged civil infrastructure and nearby homes. The civil defence says the level of destruction left behind defies imagination.
We’ve also heard that a civil defence crew managed to rescue 13 Palestinians from Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood after another house there was targeted. Those Palestinians have likely been injured and are getting essential medical treatment.
At the same time, we continue to see a surge in military attacks in the south of the Gaza Strip, including in Khan Younis. A number of Palestinians have been reported injured after Khuza’a town in eastern Khan Younis was attacked.
‘The suffering is unforgivable’
Footage shared online, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows dozens of Palestinians in Gaza’s Jabalia camp lining up with bowls before an aid distribution point.
One resident said they had waited three hours to get a “small amount of soup”, which they said would not be enough to feed the 15 people waiting at home.
“The suffering in northern Gaza is unforgivable,” said another resident queueing for food. “Since the 1948 war, there has been no such famine. If it were not for these simple [aid] projects, we would have lost our lives with hunger.”
Israeli military claims strikes on Hezbollah posts in southern Lebanon
According to Israel’s military, its warplanes hit several Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon overnight, including an observation post in the area of Matmoura and additional infrastructure in Shebaa.
In a post on X, the military shared purported footage of the strikes.
The attacks are part of escalating cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah during the Gaza war, which have raised fears of all-out war.
Norway pension fund divests from Caterpillar Inc due to Israeli military sales
The largest pension fund in Norway has announced it will no longer invest in Caterpillar Inc over the US construction equipment manufacturer’s sales to the Israeli military, Reuters news agency reports.
KLP said it had excluded Caterpillar from its portfolio over concerns the Israeli military is using its heavy machinery to carry out human rights abuses and violate international law, including the demolition of homes and infrastructure, in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
KLP said it had engaged in dialogue with Caterpillar over several months, but did not receive satisfactory assurances on the issue, resulting in a June 17 decision to divest shares worth 728 million Norwegian crowns ($69m).
Averting famine in Gaza requires more than food: World Food Programme economist
WFP chief economist Arif Husain has said the world needs to take action now to avert famine in Gaza where nearly all of the territory’s 2.3 million people face acute hunger.
Husain referenced the example of Somalia’s famine in 2011 in which 250,000 people died, the AP news agency reports.
“Half of those people died before famine was declared,” Husain told reporters on Tuesday, explaining that averting famine requires more than just food – it also requires clean water, sanitation, healthcare and medicine on a sustained basis.
Husain said the threat of famine in northern Gaza was averted because aid was able to get in, including commercial deliveries.
But there is now concern in southern Gaza where Israeli military operations are taking place and the main Rafah crossing from Egypt is closed, he said.
He said that if the UN and aid organisations have access to places where aid is needed, “we can improve this situation, but if we don’t have access, then it is not possible”.
Israel still targeting UN shelters in Gaza, says human rights monitor
Israeli forces are demonstrating a “deliberate policy” of “denying stability” to displaced Palestinians by repeatedly bombing and setting fire to UN-run shelters in the Gaza Strip, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has said.
Euro-Med cited several recent attacks on UN schools and shelters as examples, including:
Israeli planes bombed the Abdel Fattah Hammoud school in central Gaza on June 25, killing eight people.
Israeli aircraft bombed the “Asmaa C” school in the Shati camp, also on June 25, killing seven people.
Israel bombed a school housing thousands of displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp on June 6, killing 40 people, including women and children.
Israeli forces set fire to shelters in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip last month.
“Targeting shelter centres flying the UN flag” shows Israeli forces are “refusing to take any precautions to prevent civilian deaths”, Euro-Med said.
Senior UN officials have told Israel that the world body’s agencies will suspend aid operations across Gaza unless urgent steps are taken to better protect humanitarian workers.
The head of UNRWA has said the agency only has a guaranteed budget until the end of August and has a “shortfall of about $100-140m” to reach the end of the year.
No humanitarian aid has entered Gaza for about 50 days, the director-general of Gaza’s Government Media Office, Ismail al-Thawabta, has claimed.
US pushing Israel to avoid war with Hezbollah
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is pressing Israel to avoid a major war against Lebanon's Hezbollah, with top American officials urging a diplomatic solution in order to prevent another Middle East crisis.
Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah are exchanging fire on a near-daily basis, and the Israeli army said last week that plans for an offensive in Lebanon were "approved and validated."
