DAWN reports:

The U.S. State Department has officially notified Congress of its intent to proceed with a new authorization for weapons to Israel, including 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) guidance kits to Israel, despite extensive evidence documenting the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) use of U.S. weapons to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity, said DAWN today.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also announced his decision not to sanction the IDF’s notorious Netzah Yehuda battalion, despite credible evidence of its systematic and gross human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, in violation of strict U.S. laws requiring the imposition of such sanctions.

“It is mind-boggling that despite the overwhelming evidence of the IDF’s unprecedented crimes in Gaza that has shocked the conscience of the entire world, the Biden administration is greenlighting the transfer of additional lethal weapons to Israel,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director. “It is hard to comprehend how the Biden administration can justify rewarding Israel with new weapons, despite Israel’s persistent defiance of every single plea the Biden administration has made urging a modicum of restraint, and despite the very apparent fact that such sales violate black letter U.S. laws prohibiting weapons to gross abusers like Israel.”

JDAMs, manufactured by Boeing, are kits that turn unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions. The Biden administration had delayed the sale since May 2024, reportedly to pressure Israel not to go into Rafah. Since then, despite multiple requests from the Biden administration for Israel to limit its offensive in Gaza, and the clear orders of the International Court of Justice for Israel to halt its incursion into Rafah, Israel has proceeded to carry out ruthless attacks on civilians throughout the strip. [Continue reading…]

CNN reports:

At least 93 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli strike on a school and mosque in Gaza sheltering displaced people, according to local officials, sparking international outrage.

Gaza Civil Defense said people were performing dawn prayers at the Al-Tabi’in compound in the Al-Daraj neighborhood in the eastern part of Gaza City when it was hit overnight into Saturday. Israel confirmed it carried out the strike, saying Hamas was operating there.

“We recovered at least 90 people who had been killed,” Gaza Civil Defense Spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told CNN, adding that “many of them are torn apart, many are still unidentified.”

Videos seen by CNN of the aftermath of the strike show a large number of bodies strewn on the ground. Witnesses said there was no advance warning of the attack.

“All of these people who were targeted were civilians, unarmed children, the elderly, men and women,” said Fares Afana, director of ambulance and emergency in northern Gaza. [Continue reading…]