It’s been more than a month since Israel began its offensive in Rafah targeting, it says, Hamas’ remaining battalions. Fighting has been raging around the southern city, which was a crucial hub for aid distribution across the strip – and the only possible route out of Gaza. Now, with mounting concern about rising levels of hunger, Israel has announced daily tactical pauses to increase the flow of aid. But for some it’s already too late.
The Associated Press reports: He is among the very last survivors of his Gaza family, a clan so close they knew without thinking how blood and marriage bound them across generations and city blocks. Then, branch by branch, 173 of Youssef Salem’s relatives were killed in Israeli airstrikes in a matter of days in December. By spring that toll had risen to 270. Bones and flesh strewn over the ruins of family homes. Blond curls of a young cousin peeking…
The New York Times reports: The $230 million temporary pier that the U.S. military built on short notice to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza has largely failed in its mission, aid organizations say, and will probably end operations weeks earlier than originally expected. In the month since it was attached to the shoreline, the pier has been in service only about 10 days. The rest of the time, it was being repaired after rough seas broke it apart, detached to…
📽️ Watch the documentary “Gaza before 7 October”, which captures the resilience of healthcare workers in Gaza, before the war erupted in October 2023, and the unfathomable loss and devastation that followed.https://t.co/PEzJvxAWuz — MSF International (@MSF) June 17, 2024 Most of the footage in this documentary was filmed in May 2023, some five months before the war that has now engulfed Gaza. The purpose of the original documentary project was to explore the impact of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, which…
The Israeli military on Sunday announced a daily “tactical pause” in its attacks on Rafah to allow humanitarian relief to enter the Gaza Strip, after systematically blocking aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. While a full ceasefire is still vital, “any pause in the bombing is good news for children,” says UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, speaking to Democracy Now! from Rafah. “The physical and psychological exhaustion they face is almost impossible to capture,” he says, characterizing…
Adam Shatz writes: When Ariel Sharon withdrew more than eight thousand Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, his principal aim was to consolidate Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank, where the settler population immediately began to increase. But ‘disengagement’ had another purpose: to enable Israel’s air force to bomb Gaza at will, something they could not do when Israeli settlers lived there. The Palestinians of the West Bank have been, it seems, gruesomely lucky. They are encircled by…
The Intercept reports: Around 9.30 PM in late February, a white Mazda pulled up near a game cafe in the Jenin refugee camp on the northern edge of the West Bank, where a crowd of boys and young men often gathered to socialize. As the car stopped, a few people walked by on the narrow street. Two motorbikes weaved past in different directions. “Everything was fine at the time,” according to an eyewitness sitting nearby in the camp’s main square….
UN News reports: Almost 3,000 malnourished children are at risk of dying before their families’ eyes in Gaza, where the eight-month-long war continues, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as spokesperson James Elder told UN News on Saturday about the situation on the ground in the besieged and bombarded enclave. Speaking from Gaza, Mr. Elder described a dire landscape, with a focus on child malnutrition and the devastating impact of the ongoing conflict amid growing concerns of famine….
Al Jazeera reports: The United States has imposed sanctions on a “violent extremist” Israeli group for blocking and damaging humanitarian aid convoys to Gaza as the risk of famine increases in the besieged Palestinian territory. The administration of President Joe Biden on Friday targeted Tzav 9, a group whose stated aim is to prevent any assistance from entering Gaza. It accused the group of looting and setting fire to aid trucks. “The provision of humanitarian assistance is vital to preventing…
Lana Tatour writes: Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza is one of the worst crises of modern times. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians are dead, and millions are homeless or displaced. The war in Gaza clearly calls for a new and different international response—a break from the past. Yet Western policymakers, including those in Washington, continue to push a sham peace process and a two-state solution that has long been a mirage. Western policies have only made the situation worse…
The Guardian reports: More grave violations against children were committed in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel than anywhere else in the world last year, according to a UN report due to be published this week. The report on children and armed conflict, which has been seen by the Guardian, verified more cases of war crimes against children in the occupied territories and Israel than anywhere else, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, Nigeria and Sudan. “Israel and…
The New Arab reports: Around 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza are living in fear of the fate of their unborn children as Israel’s genocidal war and its deliberately created famine spares no one. Yasmin Abdulrahman fled to southern Gaza in March just days after the death of her newborn baby, who lived only 11 days before succumbing to malnutrition. He had been born after four months of near-famine conditions across the Strip. Yasmin recalls that she spent over 30 hours…
Gallup reports: A record-high 32% of U.S. voters say they would only vote for a candidate for major office who shares their views on abortion. The importance of a candidate’s abortion stance to one’s vote is markedly higher among pro-choice voters than it was during the 2020 presidential election cycle, while pro-life voters’ intensity about voting on the abortion issue has waned. Also, voters’ greater intensity on the issue today compared with 2020 is explained mainly by Democrats, while Republicans…
We speak with U.S. Army Major Harrison Mann, the first military and intelligence officer to publicly resign over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Mann left his role at the Defense Intelligence Agency after a 13-year career, saying in a public letter explaining his resignation that “nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel … has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.” Mann submitted his resignation on November…
Committee to Protect Journalists: The Israel-Gaza war has taken an unprecedented toll on Gazan journalists since Israel declared war on Hamas following its attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. As of June 11, 2024, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 108 journalists and media workers were among the more than 38,000 killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992. Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including…
More than 50,000 ISIS suspects and their families are being held in a constellation of some 27 detention facilities across Syria, by the US backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Officials warn the prisons and camps present a major security threat that needs to be dealt with. Human rights groups describe them as legal black holes and a stain on the world’s conscience. CNN’s Clarissa Ward travelled to Syria and gained unprecedented access to some of the detention centers.