CAIRO/JERUSALEM: At least four Palestinians were wounded in an Israeli strike on Sunday on a vehicle on the coastal road west of the Nuseirat camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip, medics told Reuters.
Medics first announced that a young boy had been killed in the strike, but later said they had managed to resuscitate him.
The Israeli military said an Israeli aircraft fired on what the military described as a suspicious vehicle moving toward northern Gaza outside the inspection route laid down by the ceasefire agreement.
“The IDF (Israeli military) is prepared for any scenario and will continue to take any necessary actions to thwart any immediate threat to IDF soldiers,” it said, giving no details on the impact of the strike or any casualties.
Several Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli fire since a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas took effect on Jan. 19. Israel said its forces have opened fire in incidents where “suspicious” figures, sometimes armed, posed a risk to Israeli forces deployed at some areas of Gaza as stipulated by the phased deal.
Hamas has described these incidents as violations of the truce.
During the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 children, women and older male hostages as well as sick and injured, were due to be released. Of these, 18 have been freed so far. More than 60 male hostages of military age will remain captive until a second phase is negotiated.
Negotiations are due to start by Tuesday on agreements for the release of the remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in a second phase of the deal, which is intended to lead to a final end of the war in Gaza.
Later on Sunday, Hamas accused Israel of stalling over the implementation of the humanitarian part of the deal, saying Israel has yet to permit the entry of the needed medical, relief, fuel, and reconstruction supplies as per the agreement.
“We urge the mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire agreement to compel the occupation (Israel) to allow the entry of relief materials according to the agreement, most urgently needed are tents, fuel, food materials, and heavy machinery,” said the group’s spokesperson, Hazem Qassem.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on Hamas’ remarks.
Four Palestinians wounded in Israeli strike on a car in Gaza
https://arab.news/j27te
Four Palestinians wounded in Israeli strike on a car in Gaza
- Israeli military said Israeli aircraft fired on what military described as suspicious vehicle moving toward northern Gaza outside the inspection route laid down by ceasefire
Israeli repression, settlement expansion risk stoking West Bank violence: Experts
- Ex-US envoy to Jordan: Despite Trump’s opposition, ‘de facto reality is one of annexation’
CHICAGO: Israel’s repression and its continued expansion of Jewish-only settlements are pushing Palestinians toward violence, Middle East experts said during a panel discussion attended by Arab News on Tuesday.
Hosted by the Middle East Institute, the panelists included Ron Shatzberg, co-executive director of the Economic Cooperation Foundation; Dr. Tahani Mustafa, visiting fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations; and Yael Lempert, a former US ambassador to Jordan.
“From speaking with Palestinians, the hardship of what they’re going through, I see a potential escalation into violence in the West Bank,” Shatzberg said, adding that the goal of the settler movement and its supporters in Israel’s government is to achieve the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and block Palestinian statehood.
Violence in the West Bank would jeopardize the peace plan of US President Donald Trump, Shatzberg said, adding that accelerated settlement growth is a form of “de facto annexation.”
Mustafa said violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank began long before the Hamas attack on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023.
“It was driving younger and younger generations of Palestinians that saw absolutely no political horizon toward more radical elements like Islamic Jihad and Hamas … In the last few months leading up to Oct. 7, the situation had been more tense than it had ever been in the decade that I’d worked on Palestine before that,” she added.
“Pre-Oct. 7, the levels of violence in the West Bank, land appropriation, Israeli search and arrest operations, settler violence, had been the worst they’d ever been in this conflict. The numbers of (Palestinian) fatalities were outnumbering anything we’d seen in the 15 years prior.”
Lempert said there has been “tremendous frustration” from US administrations at the continued settlement expansion.
Despite Trump publicly declaring that “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank,” the “de facto reality is one of annexation, and no longer creeping annexation but sprinting annexation,” she added. “You see an acceleration that frankly is unrivaled since 1967.”
Shatzberg said Israel erected more than 30,000 new settler housing units just in 2025, fast outpacing the average of 4,000-5,000 each year.
He added that according to recent polling, 47 percent of Israelis oppose annexation while only 32 percent support it. The remainder, 21 percent, support a continuation of the status quo.
