Gaza Dispute
Live Reporting
Hezbollah says will accept any Hamas truce decision, abide by ceasefire
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said his group will accept Palestinian ally Hamas’s decision on Gaza truce negotiations, repeating that his movement would stop cross-border attacks on Israel if a ceasefire were reached, AFP reports.
“Hamas is negotiating … on behalf of the whole axis of resistance,” Nasrallah said, referring to regional pro-Iran groups opposed to Israel and the United States.
“Whatever Hamas accepts, everyone accepts and is satisfied with,” he said, adding: “We do not ask [Hamas] to coordinate with us because the battle in the first instance is theirs.”
France says Israeli strikes on Gaza schools ‘unacceptable’
France has condemned Israel’s recent deadly air strikes on schools sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza, declaring such tactics “unacceptable”
“We call for these strikes to be fully investigated,” the foreign ministry said according to AFP, highlighting a strike at a school near the southern city of Khan Younis yesterday.
“It is unacceptable that schools, especially those housing civilians displaced by the fighting, should be targeted,” the ministry statement said.
Gaza airstrike hit as displaced gathered for soccer match
An Israeli missile slammed into a tent encampment in southern Gaza on Tuesday just as displaced people had gathered there to watch a football match at a school, eyewitnesses said on Wednesday.
At least 29 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the strike, according to Palestinian officials, which took place as spectators crowded the school grounds in Abassan east of Khan Younis and hawkers sold smoothies and biscuits.
"They were watching a football match. There were injuries and martyrs. I witnessed this...people thrown around and body parts scattered, blood," a young woman, Ghazzal Nasser, told Reuters in Abassan.
Israel PM says he is committed to Gaza deal if red lines respected
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a US envoy on Wednesday he was committed to securing a Gaza ceasefire deal provided Israel’s red lines were respected, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Netanyahu met US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk in Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s office said.
Israeli army urges all Gaza City residents to leave
The Israeli army has dropped thousand of leaflets on Gaza City urging all residents to leave amid an intensified military offensive on the Palestinian territory’s main city, according to an AFP journalist.
The leaflets, addressed to “everyone in Gaza City”, set out routes out of the city to designated safe areas further south and warned the urban area would “remain a dangerous combat zone” as the army hits Hamas targets.
Israel issued a first formal evacuation order for part of the city on June 27, and two more in following days.
Indonesian hospital running on fumes, faces shutdown
The director of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza has warned that the hospital will be out of service in a few hours due to lack of fuel.
“We warn that the lives of patients are now in danger, and we call on international organisations to intervene to prevent a disaster,” he said in a statement.
The Israeli army has ordered all Palestinian civilians to evacuate Gaza City, claiming that it has attacked UNRWA’s headquarters there. This direction comes just a day after an Israeli airstrike on a school, housing displaced civilians, in Khan Younis. At least 30 people were killed in this attack.
Israeli jets bring the heat, strike central Lebanon
The Israeli military has carried out several air strikes inside Lebanon in the past few hours.
In one attack, it says, it hit a Hezbollah site in Jennata, a village in central Lebanon. The Israeli army claims it was targeting a Hezbollah air defence system.
Attacks have mostly been confined to the southern region near the border. But this isn’t the first time the Israeli military has struck deep inside Lebanon.
Israeli police put their foot down: Arrested protesters demanding a ceasefire deal
Israeli police took into custody at least nine protesters in Tel Aviv who were demanding the government to ensure a deal for the liberty of all captives held in Gaza.
Talks to try to end the war in Gaza are set to resume in Qatar on Wednesday.
After months of deadlock, the Hamas armed group softened its demand on a permanent ceasefire. But critics accused Netanyahu of derailing the talks after his office published on Sunday a list of non-negotiable conditions. One of these includes Israel’s ability to resume operations in Gaza until the destruction of Hamas.
US-built pier will be put back in Gaza for several days to move aid, then permanently removed
WASHINGTON (AP) — The pier built by the U.S. military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled Wednesday to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently, several U.S. officials said. It would deal the final blow to a project long plagued by bad weather, security uncertainties and difficulties getting food into the hands of starving Palestinians.
The officials said the goal is to clear whatever aid has piled up in Cyprus and on the floating dock offshore and get it to the secure area on the beach in Gaza. Once that has been done, the Army will dismantle the pier and depart. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because final details are still being worked out.
Officials had hoped the pier would provide a critical flow of aid to starving residents in Gaza as the nine-month-long war drags on. But while more than 19.4 million pounds (8.6 million kilograms) of food has gotten into Gaza via the pier, the project has been hampered by persistent heavy seas and stalled deliveries due to ongoing security threats as Israeli troops continue their offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
The decision comes as Israeli troops make another push deeper into Gaza City, which Hamas says could threaten long-running negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release, after the two sides had appeared to have narrowed the gaps in recent days.
U.S. troops removed the pier on June 28 because of bad weather and moved it to the port of Ashdod in Israel. But distribution of the aid had already stopped due to the security concerns.
The United Nations suspended deliveries from the pier on June 9, a day after the Israeli military used the area around it for airlifts after a hostage rescue that killed more than 270 Palestinians. U.S. and Israeli officials said no part of the pier itself was used in the raid, but U.N. officials said any perception in Gaza that the project was used may endanger their aid work.
As a result, aid brought through the pier into the secure area on the beach piled up for days while talks continued between the U.N. and Israel. More recently, the World Food Program hired a contractor to move the aid from the beach to prevent the food and other supplies from spoiling.
The Pentagon said all along that the pier was only a temporary project, designed to prod Israel into opening and allowing aid to flow better through land routes — which are far more productive than the U.S.-led sea route.
And the weather now is projected only to get worse.
The pier was damaged by high winds and heavy seas on May 25, just a bit more than a week after it began operating, and was removed for repairs. It was reconnected on June 7, but removed again due to bad weather on June 14. It was put back days later, but heavy seas again forced its removal on June 28.
Netanyahu nixes Europe stopover, fearing ICC arrest
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled plans to make a stopover in Europe en route to the US.
Earlier, he had considered making a stopover in Europe but canceled due to fears of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant.
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority claimed that the ICC might issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu during his stopover in Europe.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan had requested warrants against Netanyahu and Hamas leaders in May for alleged war crimes
Four killed in latest Israeli attack on Nuseirat, 2 killed in Khan Younis
The Israeli military has bombed a home on Salah al-Din Street, north of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least four people, the Wafa news agency reports.
Earlier, another Israeli military strike on a home in Nuseirat killed eight people, including six children.
Two people have also been killed and six injured following an Israeli strike on a home in the town of Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis, Wafa reports.
An Israeli military strike on a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza has killed eight people, including six children, the Wafa news agency reports.
The US intelligence chief has accused Iran of encouraging protests inside the United States against Israel’s assault on Gaza, including by paying demonstrators.
More than two dozen Gazans killed in Israeli strike as Hamas says truce talks may be in jeopardy
CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian officials said an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza Strip killed more than two dozen people while advancing tanks in Gaza City forced residents to flee under fire as Israel on Tuesday stepped up an offensive that Hamas warned could jeopardise ceasefire talks.
The airstrike hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least 29, most of them were women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society says its teams are receiving “dozens of humanitarian distress calls” from residents in Gaza City, but its ambulance vehicles and medics are unable to reach them.
Negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza will continue on Wednesday in Qatar and on Thursday in Egypt.
United Nations experts claim that Israel is intentionally causing a shortage of food in Gaza, leading to tragic deaths of children from lack of nutrition and water.
An Israeli air strike has killed at least 29 Palestinians in southern Gaza.
The ill-fated people were seeking shelter in tents near a school when the attack was carried out, according to local officials."
The attack is the fourth Israeli strike to hit a school building being used as a shelter in Gaza in four days and comes after Israel issued new mass evacuation orders for parts of Khan Younis and Gaza City, forcing tens of thousands to flee and causing the closure of three key hospitals.
