Israel's Paranoia
Live Reporting
Israeli strike kills senior Hamas figure in south Lebanon
An Israeli airstrike on a car deep inside Lebanon has killed a senior Hamas figure, a source from the Palestinian group and two other security sources have told Reuters.
The strike, on the southern edges of the Lebanese port city of Sidon some 60 kilometres from the frontier, killed Samer al-Hajj, a Hamas security official who works in the nearby refugee camp for Palestinians, Ain al-Hilweh. His bodyguard was critically wounded, the three sources said.
UK calls for Israel and Hamas to agree ceasefire deal
The UK’s foreign secretary has called for Israel and Hamas to “urgently” agree to a ceasefire deal, following a joint statement by the US, Qatar and Egypt calling for negotiations to resume, AFP reports.
“The UK welcomes the tireless efforts of our partners in Qatar, Egypt and the United States,” Britain’s top diplomat David Lammy said in a statement.
He added that London “fully endorses their joint statement calling for the immediate resumption of ceasefire negotiations and a hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas”.
UN ‘shocked’ by Israel minister’s Gaza starvation comment
UN rights chief Volker Turk is “shocked and appalled” by comments by Israel’s finance minister suggesting it might be “justified” to starve the population of Gaza to free hostages, AFP reports.
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights “condemns these words in the strongest terms, which also incite hatred against innocent civilians”, his spokesman Jeremy Laurence told a press conference.
Turk’s spokesman told reporters that “the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime.
EU chief says Gaza ceasefire needed ‘now’
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has said there needs to be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, adding to international pressure for a truce deal between Israel and Hamas, AFP reports.
“We need a ceasefire in Gaza now. That’s the only way to save lives, restore hope for peace and secure the return of hostages,” von der Leyen wrote on X.
“Thus I strongly support the efforts led by the US, Egypt, and Qatar to help achieve the peace and stability the region needs.”
War with Hezbollah ‘both necessary and inevitable’, says Israeli education minister
Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch has given a wide-ranging interview to Israel’s Maariv newspaper, where he said war with Hezbollah is both necessary and inevitable for the sake of Israel’s security, Al Jazeera reports.
“The big question is not whether there will be war, but when and how,” Kisch told Maariv, noting that it will take place when Israel is ready politically and militarily.
63pc of Gaza structures damaged, destroyed: UN estimate
The United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) estimates that 63 per cent of all structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed during the conflict, Al Jazeera reports.
Its findings, based on satellite imagery analyses, classify 156,409 structures as destroyed, severely damaged, moderately damaged or possibly damaged.
Israel targeted 9 Gaza City school shelters in eight days: Monitor
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor says that the Israeli army has intensified its policy of bombing schools used as shelters for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, killing and injuring hundreds of them.
Just yesterday, two attacks on school shelters in Gaza City killed at least 15 Palestinians and injured some 30 others.
In a report, the human rights group said that these attacks over the past eight days have killed 79 Palestinians and injured 143 others, most of them women and children.
The report says that the actual casualty figures are likely much higher, due to the “loss of others under the rubble who cannot be recovered due to the lack of appropriate equipment for rescue crews”.
US army’s Central Command head meets Israeli military chief
Michael Kurilla, the head of the US army’s Central Command, is back in Israel for the second time this week.
Kurilla, who landed in Israel yesterday, met Herzi Halevi, the Israel military’s chief of the general staff, for a “situational assessment” on regional security, as well as with Tomer Bar, a commanding officer with the Israeli air force, the Israeli army said in a post on X.
The Israeli military will “continue to deepen its relationship with the US Armed Forces out of commitment to strengthening regional stability and coordination between the two militaries,” the post added.
Israel agrees to join ceasefire talks
Israel has accepted the invitation to attend the proposed talks in either Cairo or Doha, while Hamas has yet to respond.
Three nations invite Israel-Hamas to resume ceasefire talks
Leaders of three nations including Qatar, Egypt and the United States have invited Israel and Hamas to resume ceasefire talks on August 15.
The regional tension grows amid an anticipated retaliatory strike over Israel’s assassination of Hamas and Hezbollah officials.
Israel shows no restrain: Hits 60 targets in a day
Israel’s military showing no restrain to hit the Gaza areas. It claims that at least 60 targets were taken down from the air over the last day.
These attacks wiped out military sites and weaponry, the military claims.
Furthermore, military also says that military troops aided by air strikes, killed dozens of 'fighters' in Rafah and central Gaza in the last day of fighting.
Scholar calls 'very unfortunate' inviting Israel to Hiroshima nuclear bombing anniversary
ISTANBUL (Anadolu) – An invitation for Israel to attend an annual peace event in Hiroshima to mark the US nuclear bombing of the Japanese city was "very unfortunate," a leading legal scholar said.
"It is very unfortunate that Hiroshima does not grasp the fact it was victimised in a way Palestinian people have been victimised by Israel," said Richard Falk, an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.
US, Qatar and Egypt push urgent talks with Israel and Hamas on Aug 15
CAIRO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leaders of the United States, Egypt and Qatar on Thursday called on Israel and Hamas to meet for negotiations on Aug. 15 in order to finalise a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
The three countries, which have been trying to mediate a deal, said in a joint statement the talks could take place in either Doha or Cairo.
Harris doesn't back Israel arms embargo, aide says
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Kamala Harris does not support an arms embargo on US ally Israel, a top aide said Thursday, in one of the first substantive statements on her Gaza war policy since her July entry to the 2024 White House race.
The comment came a day after the US vice president was heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters at a rally for the first time since she became the Democratic candidate less than three weeks ago.
Skin diseases afflict Gaza's children as war drags on without end
GAZA (AFP) - Like thousands of Gaza children, Yasmine Al-Shanbari, 3, is not only suffering from the upheaval of war all around them. She is ravaged by skin disease and no relief is in sight, with medicine scarce and few hospitals functioning in the Israeli-besieged enclave.
The 10-month-old war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas has left the Gaza Strip with no clean running water, a shortage of aid and medicine and raw sewage everywhere, giving rise to skin diseases and other afflictions.
Israel pounds Gaza as Iran accuses it of seeking to 'expand war'
GAZA STRIP (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Israel kept up its bombardment of Gaza Thursday, killing more than 18 people in strikes on two schools, the emergency services said, as Iran accused it of wanting to spread war in the Middle East.
Western governments pressed efforts to defuse tensions in the region, sky-high after the killing of two top militant leaders in attacks blamed on Israel that the militants and their Iranian backers have vowed to avenge.
Israel kills 40 Palestinians in Gaza airstrikes amid fears of wider war
CAIRO (AFP) - Israeli forces stepped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday (Aug 8), killing at least 40 people, Palestinian medics said, in further battle with Hamas-led militants as Israel braced for potential wider war in the region.
Israeli airstrikes hit a cluster of houses in central Gaza's Al-Bureij camp, killing at least 15 people, and the nearby Al-Nuseirat camp, killed four, medics said. Nuseirat and Bureij are among the densely populated enclave's eight historic camps and are seen by Israel as strongholds of armed militants.
