GAZA CITY: Israeli troops on Friday shot dead a Palestinian at the weekly protest along the fence bordering the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, and Palestinians and the Israeli military clashed in a West Bank village earlier in the day.
Tamer Arafat, 23, was wounded in the head in southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah and died shortly after arriving at the local hospital, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The ministry added that 44 protesters were injured with live fire as well as two journalists and two medics.
In what could be a response to the killing, Palestinian militants fired a projectile from Gaza into Israel, the Israeli army said. There were no reports of casualties and no Palestinian group claimed responsibility.
Early on Saturday, Israeli fighter jets carried out several airstrikes in the northern and southern Gaza Strip, targeting what the Israeli military said were a Hamas compound and underground structures. In a statement, the military said the raids were a response to the projectile and incendiary kites that were flown Friday across the border. There were no reports of casualties.
The protests started last March to highlight Palestinian demands of return to ancestral lands in present-day Israel. Hamas took over the demonstrations soon after and diverted them into an outcry against the blockade that Israel and Egypt imposed on Gaza when Hamas seized it in 2007.
Since then, more than 190 Palestinians have been killed during the protests. Israel rejects criticism over the use of lethal fire, saying it defends its sovereignty against mass breach of the border.
Last month, a UN-assigned committee found that Israeli soldiers intentionally fired on Gaza civilians during the demonstrations and they may have committed crimes against humanity.
The Israeli government lambasted the report by the Independent Commission of Inquiry, which was mandated by the Human Rights Council.
Thousands participated in Friday’s protests along several sections of the fence, which occurred shortly after Egyptian meditators met in Gaza City with Hamas’ leadership in a bid to calm the situation. There were no immediate details about the results of the discussions.
Also on Friday, the Israeli military said it detained two Palestinians shortly after they crossed the border from Gaza. They were hiding a grenade and a knife in their clothes, according to the military.
In the West Bank, meanwhile, clashes erupted between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators in Beit Sira village, the site of a confrontation that led to the deaths of two Palestinians earlier this week.
Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli forces, and troops responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported five injured.
Hundreds had gathered to protest the killing of two Palestinians near the city of Ramallah by the Israeli army.
The military called the deadly incident on Monday a “car-ramming attack” that targeted Israeli soldiers. An Israeli officer and policeman were injured in the crash, prompting troops to open fire, killing two Palestinians in the car.
Palestinian officials and residents have disputed the army’s account, contending the road and weather conditions indicated it was a car accident.
Israeli fire kills Gaza protester; clashes in West Bank
Israeli fire kills Gaza protester; clashes in West Bank
- Security officials in Gaza said the strikes had not caused any casualties
- The Gaza Strip has been the scene of mass protests and clashes since late March last year
Israeli forces repeatedly target Gaza aid workers, says Human Rights Watch
- They are among more than 250 aid workers who have been killed in Gaza since the war erupted more than seven months ago, according to UN figures
- Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
JERUSALEM: Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that Israel had repeatedly targeted known aid worker locations in Gaza, even after their coordinates were provided to Israeli authorities to ensure their protection.
The rights watchdog said that it had identified eight cases where aid convoys and premises were targeted, killing at least 15 people, including two children.
They are among more than 250 aid workers who have been killed in Gaza since the war erupted more than seven months ago, according to UN figures.
In all eight cases, the organizations had provided the coordinates to Israeli authorities, HRW said.
This reveals “fundamental flaws with the so-called deconfliction system, meant to protect aid workers and allow them to safely deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance in Gaza,” it said.
“On one hand, Israel is blocking access to critical lifesaving humanitarian provisions and on the other, attacking convoys that are delivering some of the small amount that they are allowing in,” Belkis Wille, HRW’s associate crisis, conflict and arms director, said in Tuesday’s statement.
HRW highlighted the case of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based charity who saw seven of its aid workers killed by an Israeli strike on their convoy on April 1.
This was not an isolated “mistake,” HRW said, pointing to the other seven cases it had identified where GPS coordinates of aid convoys and premises had been sent to Israeli authorities, only to see them attacked by Israeli forces “without any warning.”
EU top diplomat sees US ‘fatigue’ in Mideast
- Josep Borrell strongly criticized Israel’s war campaign, saying Gazans were ‘dying and starving and suffering in unimaginable proportions’ and that it was a ‘man-made disaster’
- Josep Borrell: ‘I see a certain fatigue from the US side to continue engaging in looking for a solution’
On a visit to California, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell again strongly criticized Israel’s war campaign, saying Gazans were “dying and starving and suffering in unimaginable proportions” and that it was a “man-made disaster.”
“I see a certain fatigue from the US side to continue engaging in looking for a solution,” Borrell said in a speech Monday at Stanford University that was publicly released on Tuesday.
“We are trying to push with the Arab people in order to build together, the Arabs and Europeans, to make this two-state solution a reality,” he said in English.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made seven trips to the Middle East since the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas which prompted a relentless Israeli military campaign in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
He has nudged Israel to allow in more aid, pushed against a regional escalation and pleaded for Israel to accept a two-state solution as part of a broader eventual deal that includes normalization with Saudi Arabia.
But the United States vetoed a Security Council bid to give Palestine full UN membership, arguing that statehood can only come though negotiations that address Israel’s security concerns.
The General Assembly last week passed a symbolic vote for Palestinian membership with the United States one of only nine countries to vote against.
The others opposed included two European Union members — the Czech Republic and Hungary. Among EU heavyweights, France voted in favor and Germany abstained.
Borrell acknowledged that the vote showed the European Union was “very much divided” over Gaza, unlike on the Ukraine war, and cited “historical reasons.”
“But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to take a stronger part of responsibility because we have delegated (to) the US looking for a solution,” he said.
Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, in February sharply criticized the US arms flow for Israel, pointing to President Joe Biden’s own words that too many people were dying in Gaza.
Biden last week for the first time threatened to cut military aid to Israel, with one shipment of bombs already halted, if Israel defies US warnings and assaults the packed city of Rafah.
‘Nothing wrong’ with Gaza death toll figures
- Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
GAZA STRIP: The World Health Organization voiced full confidence in Gaza Ministry of Health death toll figures on Tuesday, saying they were actually getting closer to confirming the scale of losses after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.
Gaza’s Health Ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of around 35,000 since Oct. 7, saying that about 25,000 of those have so far been fully identified, of whom more than half were women and children.
This sparked allegations from Israel of inaccuracy since Palestinian authorities had previously estimated that more than 70 percent of those killed were women and children.
UN agencies have republished the Palestinian figures, which have since risen above 35,000 dead, citing the source.
“Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing. “The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward,” he added.
Based on his own extrapolation of the latest Palestinian data, he said that around 60 percent of victims were women and children, but many bodies buried beneath rubble were likely to fall into these categories when they were eventually identified.
He added that it was “normal” for death tolls to shift in conflicts.
“We’re basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn’t it?” Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said at the same briefing. “And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are thousands missing under the rubble.”
Lebanon state media says Israel strike kills two
- The enemy drone strike that targeted a car on the Tyre-Al-Hush main road martyred two people
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s state-run news agency said an Israeli drone strike on a car in the country’s south killed two people on Tuesday evening.
Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire following the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked war in Gaza.
“The enemy drone strike that targeted a car on the Tyre-Al-Hush main road martyred two people,” the National News Agency said, also reporting that ambulances had headed toward the site of the strike.
At least 413 people have been killed in Lebanon in seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also including 79 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.
Hostages’ plight casts pall over Israel’s Independence Day
- The more than seven-month war in Gaza and the absence of the remaining hostages have cast a long shadow over the normally joyous day
- “Like in Pesach (Jewish Passover), I didn’t feel it’s really a holiday of liberation,” Lavi Miran added
TEL AVIV: On Israel’s 76th Independence Day, victory feels far away for many agonizing over the fate of dozens of hostages still held in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
“On one side we’re still here, my daughters are still here, my family’s still here, and Israel is still here,” said Lishay Lavi Miran, from the Nir Oz kibbutz community, less than a kilometer (0.62 miles) from the Gaza border.
“But it’s not really independence because... Omri is over there,” added the 39-year-old, referring to her husband who was kidnapped and taken to the Palestinian territory on October 7 alongside about 250 other hostages.
He is among 128 captives who remain in Gaza, 36 of whom the army says are dead.
On May 14 every year, Israelis celebrate the anniversary of their state’s creation.
But the more than seven-month war in Gaza and the absence of the remaining hostages have cast a long shadow over the normally joyous day.
“Like in Pesach (Jewish Passover), I didn’t feel it’s really a holiday of liberation. I don’t feel now that there is really something to be happy about,” Lavi Miran added.
Batia Holin, from the neighboring kibbutz community of Kfar Aza, expressed similar feelings, saying “there is no independence here.”
Several Kfar Aza residents are still captive in Gaza.
Holin and other residents of the southern Israeli communities surrounding the border with Gaza have been evacuated since the October 7 Hamas attack.
“Even though I am in my country, I cannot be in my home and I will not be able to return for at least three years,” Holin, 71, said. “What kind of independence is this?“
And in northern Israel, where there have been a regular exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, tens of thousands have been displaced.
“They can’t go home and have become refugees,” lamented Holin.
The unprecedented October attack saw militants surge through Gaza’s militarised border and resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel responded with a relentless military campaign in the Hamas-run territory that has so far killed more than 35,100 people, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Israel is “a sovereign country where its citizens are refugees... It’s terrible,” Holin continued, recalling a brief return home to the community where more than 60 people were killed. She shut the door and left.
“That’s it. I don’t have a home anymore.”
Israel was founded in 1948 on the vow of a “Jewish national home” with the promise of safety to Jews, six million of whom were murdered during the Holocaust.
Based on this promise, many migrated to the newly formed state, including Lavi Miran’s grandparents who arrived from Libya and Azerbaijan.
For Palestinians, that period is known as the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, marked on May 15 every year to commemorate the mass displacement of around 760,000 Palestinians during the war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
During the Hamas attack, fighters ransacked Lavi Miran’s home “and took a lot of things. Even after seven months, I can’t touch stuff over there,” she said.
“They trashed all the house. They threw all of our clothes.”
But to her, the priority remains the return of the hostages. She has joined the regular protests by thousands calling on the Israeli government to reach a deal that would bring them back.
On Sunday, during a ceremony marking Memorial Day to commemorate fallen soldiers and civilian victims of attacks on Israel, army chief Herzi Halevi acknowledged he was “fully responsible” for the events of October 7.
“Hamas won the war, because they’re not here,” said Lavi Miran, referring to the hostages.
“Home, it’s just when he comes back,” she continued, referring to her husband Omri, a 47-year-old massage therapist.
“It’s like a nightmare. They’re in hell.”
