GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed more than 20 people across the Palestinian territory on Friday, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations in New York.
It comes as the Israeli military presses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City, from which hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee.
The civil defense agency — a rescue force operating under Hamas authority — reported at least 22 people killed since dawn across the territory, including 11 in Gaza City.
Israel’s military said in a statement Friday that the air force had over the past day “struck over 140 targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including terrorists, tunnel shafts (and) military infrastructure.”
AFP footage from the Al-Shati refugee camp near Gaza City showed heavy damage to buildings after an air strike.
Buildings stood with facades blown off by blasts, while people including a barefoot young girl searched through rubble for belongings. Toppled poles created a web of powerless electric wires on the ground.
Israel launched its ground offensive on the territory’s largest city on September 16. The military on Thursday said that 700,000 Palestinians had fled the urban hub since late August.
The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said that the displacement of 388,400 people had been recorded since mid-August, most of them from Gaza City.
On the ground, Palestinians struggle to meet their basic needs after nearly two years of war that has left the territory devastated and bereft of basic goods.
“We just want the bare minimum to survive, and here in Al-Mawasi, we don’t even have that,” said Khaled Abu Alba, a Palestinian from Gaza City who has been displaced to a designated humanitarian area in south Gaza.
“Even for water, we wait for hours just to get a single bucket,” the 35-year-old added.
Um Youssef Al-Shaer, 50, who is also displaced in Al-Mawasi after fleeing northern Gaza, told AFP that the area had become overcrowded as more and more Palestinians sought refuge there.
“We are piled on top of each other in a single tent — me, my husband, our six children, and my husband’s elderly parents — 10 people in a small tent,” she said.
“There’s no room to sleep in that cramped space... There’s no privacy.”
On Friday, Netanyahu ordered troops to broadcast his speech at the UN headquarters to Gazans from loudspeakers mounted on trucks on the Israeli side of the border, his office said.
Over nearly two years, Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed at least 65,549 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, figures the UN considers reliable.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Civil defense says over 20 killed in Gaza ahead of Netanyahu’s UN speech
https://arab.news/jxp7g
Civil defense says over 20 killed in Gaza ahead of Netanyahu’s UN speech
- The civil defense agency reported at least 22 people killed since dawn across the territory
- Israel’s military said in a statement Friday that the air force had over the past day “struck over 140 targets throughout the Gaza Strip “
Trump warns Iran of ‘very traumatic’ outcome if no nuclear deal
- Speaking a day after he hosted Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he hoped for a result “over the next month”
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump threatened Iran Thursday with “very traumatic” consequences if it fails to make a nuclear deal — but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was skeptical about the quality of any such agreement.
Speaking a day after he hosted Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he hoped for a result “over the next month” from Washington’s negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program.
“We have to make a deal, otherwise it’s going to be very traumatic, very traumatic. I don’t want that to happen, but we have to make a deal,” Trump told reporters.
“This will be very traumatic for Iran if they don’t make a deal.”
Trump — who is considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to pressure Iran — recalled the US military strikes he ordered on Tehran’s nuclear facilities during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in July last year.
“We’ll see if we can get a deal with them, and if we can’t, we’ll have to go to phase two. Phase two will be very tough for them,” Trump said.
Netanyahu had traveled to Washington to push Trump to take a harder line in the Iran nuclear talks, particularly on including the Islamic Republic’s arsenal of ballistic missiles.
But the Israeli and US leaders apparently remained at odds, with Trump saying after their meeting at the White House on Wednesday that he had insisted the negotiations should continue.
- ‘General skepticism’ -
Netanyahu said in Washington on Thursday before departing for Israel that Trump believed he was laying the ground for a deal.
“He believes that the conditions he is creating, combined with the fact that they surely understand they made a mistake last time when they didn’t reach an agreement, may create the conditions for achieving a good deal,” Netanyahu said, according to a video statement from his office.
But the Israeli premier added: “I will not hide from you that I expressed general skepticism regarding the quality of any agreement with Iran.”
Any deal “must include the elements that are very important from our perspective,” Netanyahu continued, listing Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for armed groups such as the Palestinian movement Hamas, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“It’s not just the nuclear issue,” he said.
Despite their differences on Iran, Trump signaled his strong personal support for Netanyahu as he criticized Israeli President Isaac Herzog for rejecting his request to pardon the prime minister on corruption charges.
“You have a president that refuses to give him a pardon. I think that man should be ashamed of himself,” Trump said on Thursday.
Trump has repeatedly hinted at potential US military action against Iran following its deadly crackdown on protests last month, even as Washington and Tehran restarted talks last week with a meeting in Oman.
The last round of talks between the two foes was cut short by Israel’s war with Iran and the US strikes.
So far, Iran has rejected expanding the new talks beyond the issue of its nuclear program. Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, and has said it will not give in to “excessive demands” on the subject.
