GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: There was growing concern Friday over a key Gaza hospital a day after a raid by the Israeli army, with the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry saying several patients had died there due to a lack of oxygen.
The ministry said the power was cut off and the generators stopped after the raid at the Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, leading to the deaths of five patients.
In recent days, intense fighting has raged in the vicinity of the hospital — one of the Palestinian territory’s last remaining major medical facilities that are still operational.
The Israeli army said its forces at the hospital had taken into custody more than “20 terrorists” suspected of involvement in Hamas’s October 7 attack that sparked the war.
It had said the day before that troops entered the hospital acting on “credible intelligence” that hostages seized in the attack had been held at the facility and that bodies of some may still be inside, but it later said it had not yet found such evidence.
A witness who declined to be named for their safety told AFP the Israeli forces had shot “at anyone who moved inside the hospital.”
Gaza’s health ministry also raised fears for four other patients in the intensive care unit and three children, saying it held Israel “responsible for the lives of patients and staff considering that the complex is now under its full control.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders described a “chaotic situation” at the Nasser hospital, saying medics had been forced to flee and leave patients behind, with one employee unaccounted for and another detained by Israeli forces.
Roughly 130 hostages are still believed to be in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Dozens of the estimated 250 hostages seized during the attack were freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a week-long truce in November. Israel says 30 of those still in Gaza are presumed dead.
At least 28,775 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas militants of using hospitals for military purposes, something Hamas denies.
The UN Human Rights Office said Israel’s raid on the Nasser hospital appeared to be “part of a pattern of attacks by Israeli forces striking essential life-saving civilian infrastructure in Gaza, especially hospitals.”
At a press briefing Friday, World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the UN agency was trying to get access to the hospital to bring fuel and assess the situation on the ground.
Israel’s army on Friday reported the death of another soldier in Gaza, raising the number killed in the ground operation to 234.
It said it had carried out “targeted raids” overnight and killed “12 terrorists” in Khan Yunis.
The Gaza health ministry said Friday that another 112 people had been killed in strikes across the territory.
Nearly 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are trapped in Rafah — more than half of Gaza’s population — seeking shelter in a sprawling makeshift encampment near the Egyptian border with declining supplies.
“They are killing us slowly,” said displaced Palestinian Mohammad Yaghi.
“We are dying slowly due to the scarcity of resources and the lack of medications and treatments in the city of Rafah.”
“Everyone is sick, children and the elderly, and there is no medicine,” said Jihan Al-Quqa, who was displaced from Khan Yunis to Rafah.
At the Abu Yussef Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, AFP saw several corpses lined up in body bags while relatives grieved nearby.
US President Joe Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Thursday not to carry out an offensive on Rafah without a plan to keep civilians safe, the White House said.
France, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have also urged Israel not to launch a ground offensive in the city.
But Netanyahu has insisted he would push ahead with a “powerful” operation in Rafah to achieve “complete victory” over Hamas.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Egypt was building a walled camp to receive displaced Palestinians, citing Egyptian officials and security analysts.
In southern Israel, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Gaza, a gunman killed two people at a crowded bus stop on Friday.
Four others were wounded in the shooting near the town of Kiryat Malakhi, according to police.
An AFP photographer at the scene said the gunman had been killed and his body was still at the site of the attack. Police said he had been “neutralized” by a civilian at the scene.
Meanwhile, mediators from the United States, Qatar and Egypt gathered in Cairo this week to try and broker a deal to halt the fighting and see the release of the remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, held talks with CIA director Bill Burns and Egyptian and Qatari representatives in Cairo on Tuesday, before a Hamas delegation visited Wednesday.
But there has been limited signs of progress.
Netanyahu’s office said it had not received “any new proposal” from Hamas about releasing hostages, and Israeli media reported the country’s delegation would not return to negotiations until Hamas softened its stance.
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Alarm over fate of major Gaza hospital after Israeli raid
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Alarm over fate of major Gaza hospital after Israeli raid
- The power was cut off and the generators stopped after the raid at the Nasser hospital leading to the deaths of five patients
- The Israeli army said its forces at the hospital had taken into custody more than “20 terrorists”
Retouched images of Israel’s first lady, distributed by the state, ignite a fiery ethics debate
JERUSALEM: The photos seemed destined for posterity in Israel’s state archives.
In the snapshots, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is joined by his wife, Sara, as well as US Ambassador Mike Huckabee and a group of Israeli soldiers, as they light Hannukah candles at Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews pray. The leaders exchange triumphant looks.
But something is off.
Sara Netanyahu’s skin is poreless, her eyes overly defined and her hair perfectly coiffed — a look officials acknowledge is the result of heavy retouching.
Critics say the issue isn’t the use of photo-editing software, which is common on the social media accounts of celebrities and public figures. They say it’s the circulation of the images in official government announcements, which distorts reality, violates ethical codes and risks compromising official archiving and record-keeping efforts.
“All the pictures to this day in the archives in Israel are authentic pictures of reality as it was captured by the lenses of photographers’ cameras since the establishment of the state,” said Shabi Gatenio, the veteran political journalist who broke the story in The Seventh Eye, an Israeli site that covers local media. “These images, if entered into the database, will forever infect it with a virtual reality that never existed.”
Since the manipulation of images was revealed, the government has taken the unprecedented step of crediting Sara Netanyahu in its releases that include manipulated images. And it’s not clear if official archive will include images of her taken during the second half of last year, when Gatenio said the editing appears to have begun.
The first lady’s personal spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Nitzan Chen, director of the Government Press Office, told The Associated Press that images of the prime minister are never manipulated and that his office would not upload any retouched photos to the official archive.
Personal Photoshop habit enters political realm
Sara Netanyahu, 67, has long used photo-editing software on her images. Her social media account is filled with images in which her face appears heavily retouched.
But the topic raised eyebrows since her Photoshop habit entered the public record.
Gatenio said he first noticed this last July, when the couple visited President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., and again in September, as Sara Netanyahu joined her husband on the tarmac ahead of a trip to New York for the UN General Assembly.
At the time, the prime minister’s office released a video of the send-off along with a photo, credited to Avi Ohayon, an official government photographer.
Comparing the photo to the raw video, Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said the image had been post-processed, bearing local manipulations to smooth the first lady’s skin and remove wrinkles.
Since then, photos showing the first lady meeting with Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, in Washington also appear to have been retouched, Farid said.
“There’s been some Photoshop editing to — let’s call it — ‘beautify,’ lighten, smooth the face,” Farid said.
“Is it nefarious? No. Is it a problem? Yes. This is about something bigger than, ‘she Photoshopped her face to make herself look younger.’ This is about trust. Why should I trust any official photo coming out of that administration?”
Chen, the head of the Government Press Office, said office lawyers are trying to determine how to handle and properly identify photos “processed by people other than GPO photographers.”
He said the Justice Ministry is also examining the “criteria, limitations and possibilities” of the edited images, though he stressed there is nothing illegal about touching up photos. The issue, he said, is being transparent when such changes are made.
For now, his office has decided to add Sara Netanyahu’s name to press releases that include retouched images. Since November, press releases showing photos of her smiling next to Trump and the family of the last hostage in Gaza in Washington, visiting a Miami synagogue and attending a funeral for an Israeli mayor have included this label.
At least one outlet, the Times of Israel, has said it will no longer carry official state photos that appear to have been manipulated. The Associated Press does not publish images that appear to have been retouched or digitally manipulated.
A broader phenomenon
Chen said the prime minister is never edited: “No Photoshop, no corrections, no color. Nothing.”
While his face may not be retouched, the prime minister’s official Instagram account tells another story.
The page has posted a bevy of content that appears to be AI-edited or generated, including a picture of the couple with Trump and first lady Melania Trump celebrating the new year in Washington.
The photo raised suspicions in Israel because it shows Sara Netanyahu wearing a black dress absent from other photos of the event, where she wore a dark red frock. Appearing in the sky above the couples are brightly colored fireworks and American and Israeli flags that Farid said were “almost certainly” generated by AI.
It is now marked with a tag on Instagram indicating that it may have been altered or generated using AI. It is not clear when the tag was added nor by whom.
Netanyahu is not alone. Many world figures, including Trump, use AI-generated image manipulation frequently in their public output.
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, who runs the “Democracy in the Digital Age Program,” at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, called it “part of the populist playbook” and said there was “no question” that Netanyahu was emulating how Trump uses the technology.
Netanyahu’s official Instagram has posted video of Trump and Netanyahu in a B-2 bomber that appears entirely AI-generated. It is captioned “on our victory lap,” referencing the joint Israel-US attacks on Iran last year.
“This is exactly what Netanyahu and his surrounding circle have tried to do for many years,” she said. “Presenting himself as a superhero, his wife as a supermodel, their family as a super loyal family. Even when it wasn’t the case, even at the expense of actual political work, administrative work and social work.”
She said Israel has reached a critical point in official government record-keeping and communications.
“The question of archiving the truth, archiving history, will be one of the questions of our time.”
In the snapshots, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is joined by his wife, Sara, as well as US Ambassador Mike Huckabee and a group of Israeli soldiers, as they light Hannukah candles at Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews pray. The leaders exchange triumphant looks.
But something is off.
Sara Netanyahu’s skin is poreless, her eyes overly defined and her hair perfectly coiffed — a look officials acknowledge is the result of heavy retouching.
Critics say the issue isn’t the use of photo-editing software, which is common on the social media accounts of celebrities and public figures. They say it’s the circulation of the images in official government announcements, which distorts reality, violates ethical codes and risks compromising official archiving and record-keeping efforts.
“All the pictures to this day in the archives in Israel are authentic pictures of reality as it was captured by the lenses of photographers’ cameras since the establishment of the state,” said Shabi Gatenio, the veteran political journalist who broke the story in The Seventh Eye, an Israeli site that covers local media. “These images, if entered into the database, will forever infect it with a virtual reality that never existed.”
Since the manipulation of images was revealed, the government has taken the unprecedented step of crediting Sara Netanyahu in its releases that include manipulated images. And it’s not clear if official archive will include images of her taken during the second half of last year, when Gatenio said the editing appears to have begun.
The first lady’s personal spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Nitzan Chen, director of the Government Press Office, told The Associated Press that images of the prime minister are never manipulated and that his office would not upload any retouched photos to the official archive.
Personal Photoshop habit enters political realm
Sara Netanyahu, 67, has long used photo-editing software on her images. Her social media account is filled with images in which her face appears heavily retouched.
But the topic raised eyebrows since her Photoshop habit entered the public record.
Gatenio said he first noticed this last July, when the couple visited President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., and again in September, as Sara Netanyahu joined her husband on the tarmac ahead of a trip to New York for the UN General Assembly.
At the time, the prime minister’s office released a video of the send-off along with a photo, credited to Avi Ohayon, an official government photographer.
Comparing the photo to the raw video, Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said the image had been post-processed, bearing local manipulations to smooth the first lady’s skin and remove wrinkles.
Since then, photos showing the first lady meeting with Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, in Washington also appear to have been retouched, Farid said.
“There’s been some Photoshop editing to — let’s call it — ‘beautify,’ lighten, smooth the face,” Farid said.
“Is it nefarious? No. Is it a problem? Yes. This is about something bigger than, ‘she Photoshopped her face to make herself look younger.’ This is about trust. Why should I trust any official photo coming out of that administration?”
Chen, the head of the Government Press Office, said office lawyers are trying to determine how to handle and properly identify photos “processed by people other than GPO photographers.”
He said the Justice Ministry is also examining the “criteria, limitations and possibilities” of the edited images, though he stressed there is nothing illegal about touching up photos. The issue, he said, is being transparent when such changes are made.
For now, his office has decided to add Sara Netanyahu’s name to press releases that include retouched images. Since November, press releases showing photos of her smiling next to Trump and the family of the last hostage in Gaza in Washington, visiting a Miami synagogue and attending a funeral for an Israeli mayor have included this label.
At least one outlet, the Times of Israel, has said it will no longer carry official state photos that appear to have been manipulated. The Associated Press does not publish images that appear to have been retouched or digitally manipulated.
A broader phenomenon
Chen said the prime minister is never edited: “No Photoshop, no corrections, no color. Nothing.”
While his face may not be retouched, the prime minister’s official Instagram account tells another story.
The page has posted a bevy of content that appears to be AI-edited or generated, including a picture of the couple with Trump and first lady Melania Trump celebrating the new year in Washington.
The photo raised suspicions in Israel because it shows Sara Netanyahu wearing a black dress absent from other photos of the event, where she wore a dark red frock. Appearing in the sky above the couples are brightly colored fireworks and American and Israeli flags that Farid said were “almost certainly” generated by AI.
It is now marked with a tag on Instagram indicating that it may have been altered or generated using AI. It is not clear when the tag was added nor by whom.
Netanyahu is not alone. Many world figures, including Trump, use AI-generated image manipulation frequently in their public output.
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, who runs the “Democracy in the Digital Age Program,” at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, called it “part of the populist playbook” and said there was “no question” that Netanyahu was emulating how Trump uses the technology.
Netanyahu’s official Instagram has posted video of Trump and Netanyahu in a B-2 bomber that appears entirely AI-generated. It is captioned “on our victory lap,” referencing the joint Israel-US attacks on Iran last year.
“This is exactly what Netanyahu and his surrounding circle have tried to do for many years,” she said. “Presenting himself as a superhero, his wife as a supermodel, their family as a super loyal family. Even when it wasn’t the case, even at the expense of actual political work, administrative work and social work.”
She said Israel has reached a critical point in official government record-keeping and communications.
“The question of archiving the truth, archiving history, will be one of the questions of our time.”
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