CAIRO: Israeli strikes killed at least 34 people in Gaza City overnight, including children, said health officials on Sunday, as Israel presses ahead with its offensive in the famine-stricken city and several countries prepare to recognize a Palestinian state.
Health officials at Shifa Hospital, where most of the bodies were brought, said the dead included 14 people killed in a late-night strike Saturday, which hit a residential block in the southern side of the city. Health staff said a nurse who worked at the hospital was among the dead, along with his wife and three children.
The latest Israeli operation, which began this week, further escalates a conflict that has roiled the Middle East and likely pushes any ceasefire further out of reach. The Israeli military, which says it wants to “destroy Hamas’ military infrastructure” and has urged Palestinians to leave, hasn’t given a timeline for the offensive, but there were indications it could take months.
Several countries to recognize a Palestinian State
Saturday night’s strikes come as some prominent Western countries prepare to recognize Palestinian statehood at the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. They include the UK, France, Canada, Australia, Malta, Belgium and Luxembourg. Portugal’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said it will recognize a Palestinian state on Sunday.
Ahead of the UN assembly, peace activists in Israel have hailed the planned recognition of a Palestinian state. On Sunday, a group of more than 60 Jewish and Arab peace and reconciliation organizations, known as It’s Time Coalition, called for an end to the war, the release of the hostages and the recognition of a Palestinian state.
“We refuse to live forever by the sword. The UN decision offers a historic opportunity to move from a death trap to life, from an endless messianic war to a future of security and freedom for both peoples,” said the coalition in a video statement.
Yet a ceasefire remains elusive. Israeli bombardment over the past 23 months has killed more than 65,000 people in Gaza, destroyed vast areas of the strip, displaced around 90 percent of the population and caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with experts saying Gaza City is experiencing famine.
Israel claims killing a Hamas sniper
Israel didn’t respond to the strikes overnight Saturday. In a statement Sunday, the military said it killed Majed Abu Selmiya, who it said was a sniper for Hamas’ military wing and was preparing to carry out more attacks in the Gaza City area, without providing evidence.
The alleged militant is the brother of the director of Shifa hospital, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, who called the allegations a lie and said Israel was trying to justify the killing of civilians. Dr. Selmiya told The Associated Press that his brother, 57, suffered from hypertension, diabetes and had vision problems.
As the attacks continue, Israel has ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering in Gaza City to move south to what it calls a humanitarian zone and opened another corridor south of the city for two days this week to allow more people to evacuate.
Palestinians were streaming out of Gaza City by car and on foot, though many are unwilling to be uprooted again, too weak to leave or unable to afford the cost of moving.
Along the coastal Wadi Gaza route, those too exhausted to continue stopped to catch their breath and give their children a much-needed break from the difficult journey.
Aid groups have warned that forcing thousands of people to evacuate will exacerbate the dire humanitarian crisis. They are appealing for a ceasefire so aid can reach those who need it.
Families of hostages still held by Hamas are also calling for a ceasefire, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of condemning their loved ones to death by continuing to fight rather than negotiating an end to the war.
Israel kills 34 people in Gaza ahead of UN meeting, where countries will recognize Palestinian state
https://arab.news/cw7v9
Israel kills 34 people in Gaza ahead of UN meeting, where countries will recognize Palestinian state
- Palestinians streamed out of Gaza City, though many are unwilling to be uprooted again, too weak to leave or unable to afford the cost of moving
- Aid groups warn that forced evacuations in Gaza will worsen the humanitarian crisis
UN Security Council members blast Israel’s West Bank plans on eve of Trump’s Board of Peace meeting
- Pakistan denounced Israel’s contentious West Bank settlement project during the meeting as a “clear violation of international law”
- Pakistan is the only country on the 15-member council that also accepted an invitation to join US President Trump's Board of Peace
UNITED NATIONS: Members of the United Nations Security Council called Wednesday for the Gaza ceasefire deal to become permanent and blasted Israeli efforts to expand control in the West Bank as a threat to prospects of a two-state solution, coming on the eve of President Donald Trump’s first Board of Peace gathering to discuss the future of the Palestinian territories.
The high-level UN session in New York was originally scheduled for Thursday but was moved up after Trump announced the board’s meeting for the same day and it became clear that it would complicate travel plans for diplomats planning to attend both. It is a sign of the potential for overlapping and conflicting agendas between the United Nations’ most powerful body and Trump’s new initiative, whose broader ambitions to broker global conflicts have raised concerns in some countries that it may attempt to rival the UN Security Council.
Pakistan, the only country on the 15-member council that also accepted an invitation to join the Board of Peace, denounced Israel’s contentious West Bank settlement project during the meeting as “null and void” and said it constitutes a “clear violation of international law.”
“Israel’s recent illegal decisions to expand its control over the West Bank are gravely disturbing,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said.
The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Indonesia also attended the Security Council’s monthly Mideast meeting after many Arab and Islamic countries requested last week that it discuss Gaza and the West Bank before some of them head to Washington.
“Annexation is a breach of the UN Charter and of the most fundamental rules of international law,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said. “It is a breach of President Trump’s plan, and constitutes an existential threat to ongoing peace efforts.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that attention was not on the UN session and that the focus of the international world would be on the Board of Peace meeting.
Saar also accused the council of being “infected with an anti-Israeli obsession” and insisted that no nation has a stronger right than its “historical and documented right to the land of the Bible.”
Bigger ambitions for the Board of Peace
The board to be chaired by Trump was originally envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing his 20-point plan for Gaza’s future. But the Republican president’s new vision for the board to be a mediator of worldwide conflicts has led to skepticism from major allies.
While more than 20 countries have so far accepted an invitation to join the board, close US partners, including France, Germany and others, have opted not to join yet and renewed support for the UN, which also is in the throes of major reforms and funding cuts.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said there is an opportunity for the UN’s most powerful body to help build “a better future” for Israelis and Palestinians despite the “cycle of violence and suffering” over the more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas.
“Gaza must not get stuck in a no man’s land between peace and war,” Cooper said as she opened the meeting.
Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, appeared to criticize countries that had not yet signed on to the Board of Peace, saying that unlike the Security Council, the board is “not talking, it is doing.”
“We are hearing the chattering class criticizing the structure of the board, that it’s unconventional, that it’s unprecedented,” Waltz said Wednesday. “Again, the old ways were not working.”
The Security Council is meeting a day after nearly all of its 15 members — minus the United States — and dozens of other diplomats joined Palestinian ambassador Mansour as he read a statement on behalf of 80 countries and several organizations condemning Israel’s latest actions in the West Bank, demanding an immediate reversal and underlining “strong opposition to any form of annexation.”
In the last several weeks, Israel has launched a contentious land regulation process that will deepen its control in the occupied West Bank. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said it amounts to “de facto sovereignty” that will block the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Outraged Palestinians, Arab countries and human rights groups have called the moves an illegal annexation of the territory, home to roughly 3.4 million Palestinians who seek it for a future state.
‘A pivotal moment in the Middle East’
The UN meeting also delved into the US-brokered ceasefire deal that took effect Oct. 10. UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo and Israeli and Palestinian civil society representatives gave briefings for the first time since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that launched the war.
Hiba Qasas, a Palestinian who is founding executive director of Geneva-based Principles for Peace Foundation, and Nadav Tamir, a former Israeli diplomat who is executive director of J Street Israel, both said they represent a strong coalition of Israelis and Palestinians who believe the only way to end the conflict is through a two-state solution.
“Israel cannot remain the democratic homeland of the Jewish people if Palestinians are denied a homeland of their own. Our futures are interdependent,” Tamir said.
DiCarlo of the UN said this is “a pivotal moment in the Middle East” that opens the possibility for the region to move in a new direction. “But that opening is neither assured nor indefinite,” she said, and whether it will be sustained depends on decisions in the coming weeks.
“The Board of Peace meeting in Washington, D.C., tomorrow is an important step,” she said.
Aspects of the ceasefire deal have moved forward, including Hamas releasing all the hostages it was holding and increased amounts of humanitarian aid getting into Gaza, though the UN says the level is insufficient. A new technocratic committee has been appointed to administer Gaza’s daily affairs.
But the most challenging steps lie ahead, including the deployment of an international security force, disarming Hamas and rebuilding Gaza.
Trump said this week that the Board of Peace members have pledged $5 billion toward Gaza reconstruction and will commit thousands of personnel to international stabilization and police forces for the territory. He didn’t provide details. Indonesia’s military says up to 8,000 of its troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission.
