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Tag: Israel

  • Soldier killed in central Israel stabbing: Army

    An Israeli soldier was killed in a stabbing attack in central Israel on Thursday, the military said, and a police official said the assailant was shot dead.

    The Israeli military identified the victim as 51-year-old Uri Moyal, a command sergeant major, and said on its website he “was killed during an attack at the intersection of Beit Kama”, a kibbutz roughly 55 kilometres (35 miles) southwest of Jerusalem.

    Israeli police commissioner Yaakov Shabtai told reporters at the scene of the attack that the perpetrator was a 23-year-old man who grew up in Gaza until he was 18 but had moved to Israel four years ago and “got married here”.

    Police “immediately arrived at the scene and the initial investigation revealed that a terrorist entered the restaurant on the spot, stabbed a soldier who returned fire at the terrorist and neutralised him,” a police statement said.

    A police official later told AFP that the assailant was killed.

    The Magen David Adom emergency service treated the soldier and transported him to a hospital in Beersheba, in southern Israel, the statement said.

    “We arrived at the scene in large numbers, we saw a great commotion, and next to one of the stores a man in his 50s was lying unconscious and suffering from stab wounds to his body,” Kalman Ginzburg, a senior paramedic with MDA, said in a statement.

    “We immediately put him on mobile ICU and took him to hospital in critical condition while performing resuscitation.”

    The attack came one day after police said two Israeli security personnel were wounded in a stabbing carried out by a 15-year-old Palestinian boy on a bicycle.

    That attack occurred at the Tunnels checkpoint south of Jerusalem, and police later pronounced the assailant dead.

    Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed 31,341 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.

  • Palestinian leader names adviser Mohammed Mustafa as PM

    Palestinian leader names adviser Mohammed Mustafa as PM

    Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has appointed Mohammed Mustafa, a long-trusted adviser on economic affairs, as prime minister, the official Wafa news agency said on Thursday.

    Mustafa’s appointment comes less than three weeks after his predecessor, Mohammed Shtayyeh, resigned, citing the need for change after the October 7 attacks leading to Israeli genocide in Gaza.

    The 69-year-old now faces the task of forming a new government for the Palestinian Authority, which has limited powers in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

    Since 2007, control of the Palestinian territories has been divided between Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

    Mustafa, who studied at George Washington University in the United States, is an independent executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation — dominated by the ruling Fatah movement.

    He has served as deputy prime minister for economic affairs, held a board seat at the Palestine Investment Fund and worked in a number of senior positions at the World Bank.

    He has also advised the Kuwaiti government and the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, the Public Investment Fund.

    Mustafa was also involved in reconstruction efforts in Gaza after Israel’s 2014 invasion.

    ‘Right-hand man’

    Mustafa’s appointment represents an attempt to bolster Palestinian institutions and “close some loopholes in the Palestinian Authority” at a time when Abbas is “under siege and under pressure” from Israel and the United States, Palestinian analyst Abdul Majeed Sweilem told AFP.

    Mustafa would likely be seen as “acceptable to the Americans as he follows a liberal approach,” Sweilem added.

    The White House on Thursday welcomed Mustafa’s appointment, calling on him to deliver “credible and far-reaching reforms” as he prepares his cabinet.

    “A reformed Palestinian Authority is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people and establishing the conditions for stability in both the West Bank and Gaza,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

    Yet Khalil Shaheen, political analyst and writer, said Mustafa’s closeness to Abbas limits prospects for major change.

    “In the end, the man (Mustafa) remains the right-hand man of President Abbas… Abbas wants to say that he supports reforms, but they remain under his control,” Shaheen said.

    The Israeli military offensive after October 7 in Gaza has killed at least 31,341 people, most of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.

    During the war, violence in the West Bank has flared to levels unseen in nearly two decades.

    Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 430 Palestinians in the West Bank since the Gaza war began, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

    The United States and other powers have called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of all Palestinian territories after the end of the war.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has rejected postwar plans for Palestinian sovereignty.

    Shortly after Shtayyeh’s resignation in late February, Palestinian factions including Hamas and Fatah participated in talks hosted by Russia that addressed the war in Gaza and post-war plans.

    Afterwards the factions said in a statement they would pursue “unity of action” in confronting Israel.

  • Israeli general in Gaza criticises political leaders

    Israeli general in Gaza criticises political leaders

    An Israeli general leading troops in Gaza has delivered rare public criticism of the country’s political leadership, demanding it “be worthy” of the soldiers fighting against Hamas in the Palestinian territory.

    Brigadier General Dan Goldfus, head of the 98th division deployed in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis, also appeared to enter into a row over exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service.

    He was subsequently summoned by the military leadership for his comments, which breached a long-standing taboo on uniformed officers publicly wading into politics.

    “You must be worthy of us,” Goldfus said of his country’s leaders, in comments broadcast on Israeli television on Wednesday.

    He called for Israeli politicians “to push aside the extreme, and adopt togetherness” in the Gaza following October 7 attacks.

    The general vowed that military commanders and soldiers would take responsibility for their actions.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far stopped short of assuming personal responsibility for Israel’s intelligence failures on October 7 and said any official investigations must take place after the war.

    “We will not run from responsibility. We bow our heads in light of our reverberating failure on October 7, but at the same time are leading forward,” the general said.

    Since Israel launched a ground offensive in Gaza on October 27, 249 soldiers have been killed in the Palestinian territory, according to the military.

    Addressing Israel’s political leaders, Goldfus called on them to ensure that “everyone takes part” in enlisting in the armed forces, in an apparent reference to ultra-Orthodox Israeli men being exempt from national service — a contentious political issue.

    Most Jewish men are required by law to serve in the Israeli military, but members of the ultra-Orthodox minority — known in Hebrew as Haredim — have long been given sweeping exemptions.

    Since the October 7 attack, public frustration over the exemption has resurfaced, adding pressure on Netanyahu’s governing coalition, which relies on ultra-Orthodox allies staunchly opposed to drafting Haredi men.

    Neither Netanyahu nor Defence Minister Yoav Gallant publicly responded to Goldfus’s remarks.

    Some lawmakers voiced their approval while others expressed dissatisfaction with the general making political statements of any kind.

    Yoav Segalovitz, a centrist opposition lawmaker, told Kan public radio on Thursday that “a uniformed officer needs to talk only about what’s related to his decisions or take off the uniform”.

    Writing in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, columnist Nahum Barnea said that “with all respect to the heartfelt sentiments of the esteemed officer, fighting in Gaza doesn’t give him the right or the authority to express a position on political matters”.

    Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed at least 31,341 Palestinians since October 7, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.

  • South Africa to arrest citizens fighting alongside Israeli forces in Gaza

    South Africa to arrest citizens fighting alongside Israeli forces in Gaza

    South Africa’s foreign minister Naledi Pandor has said that citizens who are fighting in the Israeli armed forces or alongside them in Gaza will be arrested when they return home.

    Naledi, part of South Africa’s governing African National Congress party, passed the policy statement earlier this week at a Palestinian event. “I have already issued a statement alerting those who are South African and are fighting alongside or in the Israeli Defense Forces: We are ready. When you come home, we are going to arrest you,” Pandor said, to rapturous applause from the audience.


    The minister asked people to protest outside the embassies of what she called the “five primary supporters” of Israel and its military action in Gaza. She didn’t name them but almost certainly was referring to the United States, the U.K., and Germany among others.


    Those with dual South African-Israeli citizenship could be stripped of their South African citizenship, she said further.


    Pandor’s comments represent an apparent hardening of the government’s stance.


    It’s not clear how many South African citizens have fought for Israel during the current war in Gaza. South Africa has a significant Jewish population of around 70,000 people, as reported by the Associated Press.


    The South African government is a vocal supporter of the Palestinian people and a critic of Israel. Back in December, the foreign ministry had said that the South African government was concerned that some of its citizens or permanent residents had joined the IDF to fight in Gaza and warned that they could face prosecution if they hadn’t been granted permission to do so under South Africa’s arms control laws.

    Pandor asked audience members at the Palestinian solidary event this week to make posters with the words “Stop Genocide” and protest outside the embassies of what she called the “five primary supporters” of Israel.

    “Don’t only come to this dinner. Be visible in the support of the people of Palestine,” she said.


    The recent statement by the minister is a proof that the Government may deal with these citizens iron-handedly for going against the state’s policy.

    Read more: All you need to know about South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at ICJ

  • UN aid agency in Gaza hit by Israel, injuries reported

    UN aid agency in Gaza hit by Israel, injuries reported

    The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said one of its aid warehouses in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip was “hit” on Wednesday, wounding scores of people.

    “At least one UNRWA staff member was killed and another 22 were injured when Israeli forces hit a food distribution centre in the eastern part of Rafah” in southern Gaza, the agency said in a statement.

    The health ministry in Gaza Strip earlier had said four people were killed in the “bombing of the warehouse”.

    Wednesday’s incident comes amid mounting concern about worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where Israel has carried out military operations since October intended to eliminate the Hamas militant group.

    “Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centres in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,” said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.

    He also said the UN had shared coordinates of the facility with the Israeli army on Tuesday.

    An UNRWA spokeswoman said the facility was used “to distribute much-needed food and other lifesaving items to displaced people in southern Gaza”.

    At least 165 UNRWA employees have been killed since the beginning of the war on Gaza, Wednesday’s UNRWA statement said.

    “More than 150 UNRWA facilities were hit, some totally destroyed, among them many schools,” it said.

      ‘How can they bombard us?’ 

     An AFP photographer saw victims of the strike on Wednesday arriving at Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, at least one of whom was identified by other people at the hospital as a UN employee.

    Witnesses said the strike compounded security fears in Rafah, which is overcrowded with 1.5 million mostly displaced people, further marring the normally festive Muslim fasting month of Ramazan which began on Monday.

    “It’s an UNRWA centre, expected to be secure,” said Rafah resident Sami Abu Salim.

    “Some came to work to distribute aid to the people in need of food during the holy month of Ramazan. Suddenly, they were struck by two missiles.”

    Hasan Abu Auda, displaced from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, said people had come to the warehouse “to sustain themselves for their daily meals”.

    “It’s Ramazan today,” he said. “How can they bombard us during the month of Ramazan?”

    Israel’s aggressive military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 31,272 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

    Gaza’s dire food shortages after more than five months of war have resulted in 27 deaths from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children, the ministry says.

    Cumbersome Israeli security checks on all cargoes entering the territory slow down the delivery of aid, and some trucks are sent back when they are found to contain forbidden items, aid workers say.

    Israeli authorities say bottlenecks are caused by aid piling up on the Palestinian side as there are not enough trucks to distribute it.

  • Teenager on bicycle stabs two Israelis at West Bank checkpoint

    Teenager on bicycle stabs two Israelis at West Bank checkpoint

    A 15-year-old boy riding a bicycle stabbed two Israeli security personnel at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday before he was “neutralised,” police said.

    The attack occurred at around 8:15 am (0615 GMT) at the Tunnels checkpoint south of Jerusalem when the teenager arrived on a bicycle, the force said in a statement.

    “When security forces at the crossing attempted to check him, the terrorist drew a knife and began stabbing the forces present at the scene,” the police said.

    “An armed civilian guard immediately engaged with the terrorist, and simultaneously IDF (army) forces at the location responded with precise gunfire neutralising the terrorist.”

    Two security personnel were wounded in the stabbing, the police said. It was unclear whether the attacker had been killed.

    The knife attack comes a day after a 12-year-old Palestinian boy died after being shot by Israeli border police at a refugee camp in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

    Rami Hamdan al-Halhuli, 12, suffered a fatal gunshot wound during clashes between residents of the Shuafat refugee camp and police, who said the child had aimed fireworks at them.

    Hundreds of extra police have been deployed in the Old City of east Jerusalem since the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan began on Monday.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Call for ceasefire at the Oscars

    Call for ceasefire at the Oscars

    Celebrities at the 96th Academy Awards were seen wearing red pins symbolising the call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

    These pins represent the stars’ support to Artists4Ceasefire — an open letter signed by celebrities and people from the entertainment industry, urging US President Biden to call for a ceasefire.

    The signatories near 400 which include Bradley Cooper and America Ferrera, who are both Oscar nominees this year, as well as Cate Blanchett, Drake, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.

    “We’re all calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We’re calling for the safety of everyone involved. We really want lasting justice and peace for the Palestinian people,” Guardian quotes Ramy Youssef from an interview at the red carpet. “We really just want to say, ‘let’s just stop killing children.’ There’s so much there to process and it feels like the easiest way to have the conversations that people want to have is when they’re isn’t an active bombing campaign happening.”

  • Aid boat readied as Israeli attacks in Gaza rage before Ramadan

    Aid boat readied as Israeli attacks in Gaza rage before Ramadan

    Palestinian Territories – A boat laden with food for Palestinians in Gaza was “ready” to set sail from Cyprus, an NGO said Saturday, as Israeli military operations in Gaza raged.

    The sea route aims to counter aid access restrictions, which humanitarians and foreign governments have blamed on Israel, more than five months into the genocide which has left Gaza’s 2.4 million people struggling to survive.

    Hopes were fading fast for a pause in the fighting before Ramadan, which could begin as early as Sunday depending on the lunar calendar, as Israel accused Hamas of seeking to “inflame” the region during the Muslim fasting month.

    The United Nations has repeatedly warned of looming famine, particularly in north Gaza where no overland border crossings are open.

    In Rafah, in Gaza’s far south, “we can barely get water,” said displaced Palestinian woman Nasreen Abu Yussef.

    Roughly 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge in the city, where Atallah al-Satel said he wanted an end to the genocide.

    “We are just exhausted citizens,” said Satel, who had fled to Rafah from Khan Yunis.

    Spanish charity Open Arms said its boat, which docked three weeks ago in Cyprus’s Larnaca port, was “ready” to embark but awaits final authorisation.

    It would be the first shipment along a maritime corridor from Cyprus — the closest European Union country to Gaza — that the EU Commission hopes will open on Sunday.

    Open Arms spokeswoman Laura Lanuza told AFP that Israeli authorities were inspecting the cargo of “200 tonnes of basic foodstuffs, rice and flour, cans of tuna”.

    US charity World Central Kitchen, which has partnered with Open Arms, has teams in the besieged Gaza Strip who were “constructing a dock” to unload the shipment, Lanuza said.

    With ground access limited, countries have also turned to airdropping aid, although a parachute malfunction turned one delivery deadly on Friday.

    The health ministry in Gaza said three more children had died from malnutrition and dehydration, with the total number of such deaths now 23.

    ‘Only part of the solution’

    Another 82 people were killed in strikes over the previous day, the ministry said, bringing the number of deaths in Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive of Gaza to 30,960, mostly women and children.

    Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas began after the movement’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.

    The UN’s World Food Programme has warned that the volume of aid that can be delivered by sea will do little if anything to stave off famine in Gaza.

    European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, in Larnaca on Friday, said a “pilot operation” would be launched in partnership with World Central Kitchen, supported by aid from the United Arab Emirates.

    A US effort for a “temporary pier” to receive aid off Gaza, which the Pentagon said would take up to 60 days to establish, builds upon the maritime corridor proposed by Cyprus, senior US officials said.

    Humanitarian workers and UN officials say easing the entry of trucks to Gaza would be more effective than aid airdrops or maritime shipments.

    The US military said it airdropped more than 41,000 meals into Gaza on Saturday, and Canada has said it too will join aerial aid delivery missions.

    But a steady flow of relief into Gaza was “only part of the solution”, said International Committee of the Red Cross chief Mirjana Spoljaric.

    The warring sides must do more to “safeguard civilian life and human dignity”, she said, decrying the “unacceptable” civilian death toll.

    ‘Tough’ truce talks

    After a week of talks with mediators in Cairo failed to produce a breakthrough, Hamas’s armed wing said it would not agree to a hostage-prisoner exchange unless Israeli forces withdraw.

    Israel has rejected such a demand.

    On Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Mossad spy agency chief David Barnea had met CIA director William Burns on Friday “as part of the ceaseless efforts to advance another hostage release deal”.

    US President Joe Biden acknowledged it would now be “tough” to secure a new truce deal in time for Ramadan.

    Saturday’s Israeli statement accused Hamas of “entrenching its positions like someone who is not interested in a deal and is striving to inflame the region during Ramadan”.

    Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel was preparing for “all possible operational scenarios” during the Muslim holy month.

    On the ground in southern Gaza, the Israeli army said fighting persisted in the area of Khan Yunis and Hamas authorities reported more than 30 air strikes overnight.

    Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh called for the speedy distribution of aid to Gazans and for the full opening of border crossings “to end the siege of our people”.

    The war’s effects have been felt across the region, including off Yemen where Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who say they are acting in solidarity with Gazans, have repeatedly targeted ships plying the vital Red Sea trade route.

    US and allied forces shot down 28 one-way attack drones fired towards the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on Saturday, the US military said, after one of the largest such rebel strikes.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Gaza Government Says Israel Returned 47 Exhumed Bodies

    Gaza Government Says Israel Returned 47 Exhumed Bodies

    Gaza’s government media office said Thursday that Israel had returned dozens of bodies that had been exhumed from graves in the besieged territory in recent weeks.

    Israeli forces have on several occasions taken bodies from Gaza to Israel for examinations as they look for hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7 attack.

    AFP journalists have previously witnessed the reburial of bodies which Gaza officials said had been exhumed by Israeli forces in November, December and January.

    The 47 new bodies sent back by Israel on Thursday “have been transferred to Al-Najjar Hospital” in Rafah, in southern Gaza, the besieged territory’s crossings and borders authority said in a statement.

    A separate statement from the government media office said they would be “buried in a recently established mass grave” near Rafah.

    “The bodies were seized and transferred to Israel under the pretext of examination and verification” to ensure they were not those of hostages held in Gaza, the government statement said.

    Since the start of the war, Israeli officials have exhumed “hundreds” of bodies from graves at hospitals in the Gaza Strip, it said.

    The Israeli army told AFP it was looking into reports about the latest group of returned bodies.

    Hamas took around 250 Israeli and foreign hostages during the October 7 attack, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes 99 of them remain alive in Gaza and that 31 have died.

    The attack resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

    Israel’s genocide in Gaza after October 7 has resulted in the deaths of at least 30,800 people in Gaza, the majority of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is under immense domestic pressure to secure the return of hostages as part of any new truce deal with Hamas.

    That pressure intensified after soldiers killed three hostages in December, mistakenly perceiving them as a threat.

  • Tensions in Israel war cabinet as genocide in Gaza rages on

    Tensions in Israel war cabinet as genocide in Gaza rages on

    Jerusalem (AFP) – Israel’s war cabinet, seen as a symbol of national unity in the assault on Gaza, has been shaken by political rivalry between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and centrist Benny Gantz, analysts say.

    A former military chief and ex-defence minister, Gantz visited Washington Monday before heading to London on Wednesday for high-level talks in a trip which was not authorised by Netanyahu.

    It served to highlight the deep divisions between the two men as international pressure mounts on Israel over the growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, with the genocide entering its sixth month.

    Gantz’s visit to the United States — Israel’s staunchest ally — shows that “his level of trust in Netanyahu is very low,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think tank.

    It demonstrates he wanted to present an alternative view to Washington, he added.

    Gantz, who left the political opposition to join the war cabinet after Hamas’s October 7 attacks in southern Israel, has been at odds with Netanyahu on how to win the release of hostages and draw up an exit strategy from the conflict.

    But his trip to Washington has raised attention in Israel, and drew strong criticism from ministers of Netanyahu’s right-wing party Likud.

    “It looks like some kind of subversion,” said Transport Minister Miri Regev, adding Gantz is “working behind the prime minister’s back.”

    Dudi Amsalem, Israel’s regional cooperation minister and Netanyahu ally, said that Gantz had joined the wartime government “to create unity in an emergency, not to be a Trojan horse”.

    ‘Hate each other’

    “Tensions were always there,” between these “two people who hate each other,” said Reuven Hazan, a political science professor at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

    Five members make up the war cabinet, with Netanyahu, Gantz and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant seen as the main players.

    Hazan said Gantz travelled to Washington and London in a bid to demonstrate that he has the right profile to be a potential future prime minister.

    He met with US Vice President Kamala Harris a day after she delivered some of the most stinging US criticism of Israel since the war began calling for an “immediate ceasefire”.

    She also voiced the US administration’s concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and “urged Israel to take additional measures” to increase the flow of aid.

    Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas after its October 7 attack.

    The withering Israeli bombardment of Gaza has left more than 30,700 people dead in five months of war, and caused widespread destruction. UN agencies have also warned of the growing threat of famine as aid has struggled to reach those in need in Gaza.

    US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu are in an “open conflict” as the White House presses the Israeli leader not to “continue with a massive civilian casualties in Gaza” and “without knowing what to do the day after” the war, said Hazan.

    Gantz ‘comfortable counterpart’

    “Gantz is not where Netanyahu is, he is closer to the American position” on the war’s aftermath, said Hazan.

    He’s a “more comfortable counterpart” for Washington, “is more open to dialogue with moderate partners in the region” and over the role that the Palestinian Authority could play in Gaza after the war, Plesner added.

    Last week Gantz applauded Gallant’s proposal to reform military service in order to include ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are currently exempted for religious reasons.

    But the announcement shook Israeli politics to its core and was perceived in some Israeli media as a challenge from Gallant to Netanyahu, with both belonging to the same party.

    The proposal was a political bombshell and forces the prime minister into a tight corner, as the two main parties representing ultra-Orthodox Jews could topple his precarious coalition at any moment.

    Netanyahu is working on “avoiding an early election” that would benefit Gantz at any cost, said Plesner.

    Recent polls suggest that if there is an election, Gantz’s party will win the largest number of seats.

    “If there is one issue that might get out of hand and lead to a collapse of the coalition (it) is the issue of recruitment of ultra-Orthodox”, Plesner said.

    Gantz has to time his exit from the government in a way that makes Israelis feel he is “looking out for Israel’s interests” and create a perception that “Netanyahu is only looking at his personal interests,” said Hazan.