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Tag: Israel

  • Gaza authorities accuse Israel of stealing organs from 80 Palestinian bodies

    Gaza authorities accuse Israel of stealing organs from 80 Palestinian bodies

    Israel has been accused of stealing organs from 80 Palestinian bodies by Gaza’s authorities.

    “The media office denounces in the strongest terms the Israeli occupation army’s disdain for the dignity of the bodies of our 80 martyrs that Israel had stolen during its genocidal war because it delivered them mutilated,” read a statement.⁠

    “After examining the bodies, it is clear that the features of those killed had changed greatly in a clear indication that the Israeli occupation had stolen vital organs from them,” the statement added.

    Earlier, the bodies of about 80 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army during its ground invasion, were returned to Gaza and buried in a mass grave at Tel al-Sultan Cemetery.

    The Ministry of Health in Gaza received the bodies on Tuesday through the Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem fence crossing in southern Gaza, according to AFP. 

    Health workers in plastic robes removed the bodies, which were covered in blue plastic sealed with zip ties from the truck. The bodies were then brought by a bulldozer for burial in a mass grave.

    ”The UN had informed us in advance of the arrival of several martyrs to the Gaza Strip, estimated to be around 80 bodies,” Marwan al Hams, the director of Mohammed Yousef El-Najar Hospital in Rafah city.

    “The bodies arrived inside a container, some intact, while others were in pieces, and some others had decomposed,” he added. Al Hams noted that the bodies were “transferred to the cemetery for burying” and the health and justice ministries would investigate the bodies for possible “war crimes.”

  • Angelina Jolie slams global hypocrisy on human rights

    Hollywood A-lister and human rights activist Angelina Jolie, has talked about the hypocrisy in the world when it comes to human rights application.

    “The world is suffering from ambivalence on the issue of human rights,” she remarked in a recent interview.

    Jolie lamented the duplicity and discrimination of the world regarding human rights, saying that the scale of human rights is different for everyone, the fact is that the world works on business interests. Her comments come on the heels of her unequivocal demand for a ceasefire of Israeli attacks on Gaza.

    “Human rights can be for some people and some people can never be. Accountability for some people’s crime and not at all for some people, this is the ugly face of the world.”
    The actress said that she does not know of any country in the world which is free from these things.

    “Some people think that the colonial system has ended but the fact is that the control and exploitation of developing countries is still going on,” the actress observed.

    In her statement about Gaza, the Hollywood actress said that what happened in Israel cannot be a justification for bombing the civilian population of Gaza, pointing out that a few trucks cannot meet the aid needs of the besieged population, more than 20,000 of whom have been killed by Israel while the rest are at risk of starvation and disease.

    Angelina Jolie added that Gaza has a total population of two million, half of whom are children, who have been living under siege for two decades.

  • Palestinians feel ‘no joy’ as Israel bombs Gaza on Christmas

    Palestinians feel ‘no joy’ as Israel bombs Gaza on Christmas

    Palestinians said they felt “no joy” this Christmas as Israel bombed Gaza on Monday, with no end in sight to the war that Hamas says has claimed more than 20,000 lives.

    Festivities were effectively scrapped in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, revered as the birthplace of Jesus Christ, with few worshippers or tourists on the usually packed streets.

    In the besieged Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run ministry of health said early Monday Israeli strikes had killed at least 18 people in the southern city of Khan Yunis, the centre of recent fighting.

    At a hospital in the city, Fadi Sayegh — whose family has previously received permits to travel to Bethlehem for celebrations — said he would not be celebrating Christmas this year.

    “There is no joy. No Christmas tree, no decorations, no family dinner, no celebrations,” he said while undergoing dialysis. “I pray for this war to be over soon.”

    Sister Nabila Salah from the Catholic Holy Church in Gaza — where two Christian women were killed by an Israeli sniper earlier this month according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem — struck a sombre tone.

    “All Christmas celebrations have been cancelled,” she told AFP. “How do we celebrate when we are… hearing the sound of tanks and bombardment instead of the ringing of bells?”

    The war broke out when Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7 and killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, and seized 250 hostages, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

    Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas in response and its military campaign, which has included massive aerial bombardment. The campaign has killed 20,424 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

    Pope Francis kicked off global Christmas celebrations on Sunday with a call for peace.

    “Our heart goes to Gaza, to all people in Gaza but a special attention to our Christian community in Gaza who is suffering,” the Catholic leader said.

    Christmas eve strike

    Just ahead of Christmas, the Hamas-run health ministry said at least 70 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on Sunday at the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.

    Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said the “toll is likely to rise” as many families were thought to be in the area at the time of the strike.

    In a separate incident, the ministry said 10 members of one family were killed in an Israeli strike on their house in the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza.

    AFP was unable to independently verify either toll.

    Vast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people have endured dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine due to an Israeli siege, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks.

    Eighty percent of Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN, many fleeing south and now shielding against the winter cold in makeshift tents.

    The head of the UN refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, called for an end to the suffering.

    “A humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza is the only way forward,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “War defies logic and humanity, and prepares a future of more hatred and less peace.”

    World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also renewed calls for a ceasefire, saying: “The decimation of the Gaza health system is a tragedy.”

    ‘No choice’

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the war was exacting a “very heavy price”, as the death toll of soldiers killed in the conflict continued to mount.

    “But we have no choice but to keep fighting,” he said, adding: “This will be a long war.”

    The army said Monday two more soldiers had been killed, taking to 17 the number of troops killed since Friday and 156 since Israel’s ground assault began on October 27.

    Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus indicated that forces were close to gaining control in northern Gaza and that now “we focus our efforts against Hamas in southern Gaza”.

    Two freed detainees and a medic said Sunday that Palestinians held by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip had suffered torture, a charged denied by the military.

    The two men were among hundreds detained by Israeli forces over alleged links with Hamas during Israel’s ground offensive.

    About 20 men released from Israeli custody “have bruises and marks of blows on their bodies”, Marwan al-Hams, hospital director in the southern city of Rafah, told AFP.

  • Israel intentionally starving civilians in Gaza: HRW

    Israel intentionally starving civilians in Gaza: HRW

    The group Human Rights Watch on Monday accused the Israeli government of intentionally starving civilians in Gaza as part of its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory. 

    “The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime,” the New York-based group charged in a report.

    “Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel, while wilfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival,” it added.

    The Israeli government hit back at HRW, accusing it of being an “anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organisation”.

    “Human Rights Watch … did not condemn the attack on Israeli citizens and the massacre of October 7 and has no moral basis to talk about what’s going on in Gaza if they turn a blind eye to the suffering and the human rights of Israelis,” foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat told AFP.

    The deadliest ever Gaza war began with the unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, when the group killed 1,139 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250, according to updated Israeli figures.

    The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says more than 18,800 people, mostly women and children, have died in Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

    Following months of fierce bombardment and fighting, most of Gaza’s population has been displaced and people are grappling with shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine.

    Israel on Friday approved the “temporary” delivery of much-needed aid to Gaza via its Kerem Shalom crossing.

    A humanitarian aid convoy entered Gaza through the crossing on Sunday, the first since Israel approved the move, an Egyptian Red Crescent official said.

    A total of “79 trucks began entering today,” the official, who is not authorised to speak to the media, said on condition of anonymity.

  • Palestinians forced to loot aid trucks as hunger crisis worsen

    Palestinians forced to loot aid trucks as hunger crisis worsen

    Intensified Israeli attacks on Gaza continue after more than two months since the October 7 attacks.

    Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud from Rafah reported on increasing hunger in the Gaza strip as available resources are not enough to compensate for food requirements and other necessities for the locals who are now on “survival mode”.

    A video from Sunday shows Palestinians jumping onto aid trucks to get their hands on food and other supplies in the Rafah area near the border with Egypt.

    As the aid truck drove by, the locals tried to stop it, climbed up on it, pulling or pushing down containers of food and water, “carrying them off or passing them off to crowds below”.

    Al Jazeera reports that some trucks were guarded by masked people with sticks.

    “The humanitarian situation has become very desperate, not only for the residents of Rafah city but also for the one million displaced Palestinians here who are becoming hungry, thirsty and traumatised as the war pounds on,” said Hani Mahmoud.

    “People are without anything – without a home, without access to food, without water and without medical supplies,” he said.

    “So, the scenes at Rafah crossing are a natural response: When people starve to death, when they are hungry, this is what we will see happening.”

  • Israel faces mounting outrage over Gaza war

    Israel faces mounting outrage over Gaza war

    Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Israel faced mounting international pressure Monday over the rising civilian death toll and destruction of hospitals in Gaza, as it pressed on with its war in the besieged Palestinian territory.

    The United Nations Security Council was set to vote Monday on a new resolution calling for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza.

    The health ministry says more than 18,800 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s campaign in Gaza. It said dozens were killed in Israeli strikes on Sunday.

    Following months of fierce bombardment and fighting, most of Gaza’s population has also been displaced and people are grappling with shortages of fuel, food, water and medicine.

    Fewer than one-third of Gaza’s hospitals are partly functioning, according to the UN, with the World Health Organization denouncing on Sunday the impact of Israeli operations on two hospitals in the north of the territory.

    WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency was “appalled by the effective destruction” of the Kamal Adwan hospital, where Israeli forces carried out a multi-day operation against Hamas.

    Outside the hospital courtyard, which showed tank and bulldozer tracks, Abu Mohammed, who came to look for his son, stood crying.

    “I don’t know how I will find him,” he said, pointing to the debris.

    The Israeli army pulled out of the hospital on Sunday after an operation lasting several days, claiming it had been used as a command and control centre by Hamas.

    Israel said that before entering the hospital it had negotiated safe passage for the evacuation of most of the people inside.

    The WHO also said Israeli bombing had reduced the emergency department at the Al-Shifa hospital to “a bloodbath”.

    The health ministry said an Israeli strike on Sunday hit Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s main city of Khan Yunis, killing one person and injuring seven others.

    And the ministry said Israeli forces had stormed Al Awda hospital in northern Gaza on Sunday and detained medical staff following several days of siege and bombing.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again vowed to “fight until the end” on Sunday, promising to achieve the aims of eliminating Hamas, freeing all hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again become “a centre for terrorism”.

    Near Gaza’s northern border crossing at the Israeli city of Erez, the Israeli army said it had uncovered the biggest Hamas tunnel so far.

    An AFP photographer reported that the tunnel was large enough for small vehicles to use.

    Israel said the tunnel cost millions of dollars and took years to construct, featuring rails, electricity, drainage and a communications network.

    The Israeli army said five soldiers were killed on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 126 in the Gaza Strip since ground operations began in late October.

    Calls for truce

    The Israeli government has come under growing pressure from the international community to pause the fighting and do more to protect civilians.

    The United Nations estimates that 1.9 million Gazans — around 80 percent — have been displaced by the war.

    “I would not be surprised if people start dying of hunger, or a combination of hunger, disease, weak immunity,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

    Gazans have also faced repeated communications outages but on Sunday Gaza’s main telecoms firm said mobile and internet service had been gradually restored.

    French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna was in Israel on Sunday, where she called for an “immediate and durable” truce.

    France separately condemned an Israel bombardment that killed one of its foreign ministry officials in Gaza.

    Qatar, which helped mediate a truce last month that saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 jailed Palestinians, said there were “ongoing diplomatic efforts to renew the humanitarian pause”.

    But Hamas said on Telegram it was “against any negotiations for the exchange of prisoners until the aggression against our people ceases completely”.

    US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Kuwait on Monday as part of a regional trip that will include stops in Israel and Qatar, which brokered a previous ceasefire deal.

    Syria strikes

    Israel carried out air strikes near Damascus on Sunday, wounding two Syrian soldiers, the Syrian defence ministry said.

    Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants are exchanging regular fire across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

    Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels, saying they want to pressure Israel, have launched attacks on passing vessels in the vital Red Sea shipping zone, forcing major companies to redirect vessels.

  • Hina Bayat triggers outrage after she says boycott of Israeli products is ‘Nonsense’

    Hina Bayat triggers outrage after she says boycott of Israeli products is ‘Nonsense’

    Senior actress Hina Bayat has landed in a storm of public outrage after terming the campaign of boycott of foreign products against Israel nonsense.

    A clip from a recent interview has gone viral on social media, in which she is seen saying that the boycott campaign is a very strange and nonsensical kind of war going on that involves some of her acquaintances.

    Hina Bayat also described the boycotters as ignorant.

    Social media users criticised her severely.

    A user wrote that social media is a means of raising voices while fast food does nothing but increase belly fat.

    According to some users, Hina Bayat is supporting the boycott campaign and she is mocking those who oppose it.

  • IDF ‘accidentally’ killed three Israeli hostages

    IDF ‘accidentally’ killed three Israeli hostages

    Israeli troops “mistakenly” killed three Israeli hostages in the course of combat with Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Friday.

    The incident took place in Shejaiye, a densely populated area in northern Gaza.

    Israeli forces “mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat,” the military said in a statement. “As a result, the troops fired toward them and they were killed.”

    “During searches and checks in the area in which the incident occurred, suspicion arose over the identities of the deceased,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a briefing on Friday.

    “Their bodies were transferred to Israeli territory for examination, after which it was confirmed that they were three Israeli hostages.”

    Identified as Samer Talalka, Yotam Haim and Alon Shimriz, these captives were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7.

    The three are believed to have escaped their captors or had been “left behind” because of the fighting in the area, Hagari explained what the IDF so far believes.

    Israeli soldiers are now being instructed to “exercise additional caution” when confrontating people in civilian clothes, another IDF spokesperson, Jonathan Conricus, said.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deemed the incident as an “unbearable tragedy”, adding that Israel will “learn the lessons” of the incident.

    “Along with all the people of Israel, I bow my head with deep sorrow and mourn the death of three of our dear sons who were kidnapped,” he said.

  • After losing his family, Wael Dahdouh targeted in Israeli attack

    After losing his family, Wael Dahdouh targeted in Israeli attack

    Al Jazeera journalist Wael Dahdouh is currently in critical condition after being targeted by Israel in a reported targeted attack while he was covering news near Haifa school in Khan Younis.

    Another journalist was also reportedly severely injured in the attack. On October 25, Wael Aldahdouh, one of the most prolific journalists in Gaza, buried his wife, son, daughter, and grandson, who had been killed in an Israeli air raid that hit the house they were sheltering in.

  • CNN’s Clarissa Ward first Western reporter to enter Gaza without Israeli supervision

    CNN’s Clarissa Ward first Western reporter to enter Gaza without Israeli supervision

    CNN’s chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward has become the first Western journalist to have gone into the Gaza Strip without the Israel Defense Forces’ supervision, reporting from sight what she deemed “absolute horror.”

    Ward entered the besieged strip on Wednesday with UAE medical volunteers and visited a field hospital setup by the Gulf country.

    “Even in that brief window, you really got a sense of the absolute horrors that have been taking place in Gaza,” she said speaking to CNN.

    “I can honestly say I don’t think we’ve ever seen it quite on this scale.” she expressed while reviewing the destruction she witnessed.

    International coverage of Gaza depends on reports from Palestinian journalists, aid teams, health workers, and social media because of Israel’s entry bans.

    As of yet, at least 63 journalists have been killed since October 7 in Israeli airstrikes.

    Ward was initially accused of staging a video in which she can be seen trying to seek a safe place from attacks during live coverage near the Israel-Gaza border. CNN, however, rebutted these assertions, contending the authenticity of the video.