Aid trucks enter Gaza under an agreement with Egypt
The destruction of the southern enclave of Gaza by the Israel-Jawn air strike and the israeli-israeli air strike
Israel opened two land routes in the face of worldwide outrage after seven aid workers were killed in an Israeli air strike, but Northern Gaza has largely been isolated from the outside world.
Israel said it halted aid into the enclave through the portal after taking control of the Rafah crossing. Netanyahu said the operation was necessary to eliminate the remaining battalions of Hamas and destroy its military infrastructure.
Before this month, Rafah had been the last refuge for Palestinians during the war, with so much of Gaza being devastated. The U.N. says more than 800k people have fled since the army expanded its operations in the area. Rafah is still densely populated in the areas that are not under an evacuation order.
Hamas released a video late Saturday that showed a wounded man being dragged through a tunnel after the group claimed to have captured an Israeli soldier. The Israeli military denied any of its soldiers had been captured, and Hamas did not provide any other evidence to substantiate its claim.
Israeli military response to the Ashdod massacre: The slaughter of a Palestinian civilian ship and the international criminal court of justice (ICJ)
Stormy weather sent a strip of docking and a small U.S. military vessel ashore near the southern Israeli city of Ashdod on Saturday. The United States Central Command said that three of its vessels were damaged in rough seas, with two of them anchoring in Gaza and the other in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must take over Rafah in order to eliminate Hamas’ last remaining battalions and achieve its goal of “total victory” over the militants, who have recently regrouped in other parts of Gaza where the military had already operated.
Hamas has resisted making a deal with Netanyahu for the sake of an end to the war and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, something the Israeli public wants Netanyahu to do. Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have ruled that out.
Protesters in Tel Aviv demanded the return of hostages after thousands gathered to demonstrate against the government. Protesters called for Netanyahu’s resignation.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has requested an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with other Hamas leaders, after three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state.
The UN International Court of Justice ordered the Israeli military to end its operation in Rafah, days after the strike. The order was related to one of several provisional measures that South Africa added to a broader case it filed with the ICJ in December against Israel accusing it of genocide. It also ordered Israel to open its border with Egypt to let aid in and allow a U.N. fact finding mission to enter to investigate accusations of war crimes.
Israel is unlikely to obey the orders and will likely oppose the move towards arrest warrants for its leaders. Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense, residential areas.
“People [were] literally burned alive in their tents,” Smith told NPR. This is not something I have seen before in Gaza. Truly one of the most horrific massacres to have occurred in recent days here in Rafah and across the Gaza Strip.”
According to Dr. Smith, the injured were taken to a trauma stabilization center in Tal al-Sultan and then referred to surrounding field hospitals for further treatment. The Israeli military ordered many hospitals in the area to be shuttered in the past few months.
The noise I heard yesterday was huge. I heard an explosion, it sounded like an earthquake,” he told NPR. I jumped out of the window to see injured kids, one without a head… I could not get out of the door.
The Gaza Airstrike: A Report of Human and Natural Paradoxes in the Prevalence of a High-Density Violation
RAFAH, Gaza — The Gaza health ministry said that an airstrike in Rafah on Sunday killed 35 Palestinians and injured dozens more. It said that there are still victims under the rubble and that the majority of those killed were women and children.
Israeli media is reporting that officials say that negotiations are supposed to resume next week. There were some high level discussions in Paris this weekend between the Israeli Mossad’s David Barnea, the U.S. CIA’s William J. Burns and the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahma al-Thani.
The Egyptian army’s spokesman, Col. Gharib Abdel Hafez, wrote on social media that a member of Egypt’s security forces was killed in the incident near the crossing.
“Several hours ago, a shooting incident took place on the Egyptian border. The incident is being reviewed. There is a dialogue with the Egyptian side,” Israel’s military said in a statement.
The number of people in the area has swelled as Gazans fled their homes during the conflict. The Egyptian authorities are worried about the possible exodus of refugees across the border into their country. Since then, most people have fled Rafah to areas farther from the Egyptian border.
In order to prevent tunnels from being built to Gaza into Egypt, Israeli leaders said they needed to control the crossing and buffer zone along Gaza’s southern border.
