Israeli claims about Hamas fighters in hospitals may be ‘grossly exaggerated’: ICC prosecutor

Israeli claims about Hamas fighters in hospitals may be ‘grossly exaggerated’: ICC prosecutor
Palestinians carry a wounded man at a hospital Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Dec. 11, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 12 December 2024
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Israeli claims about Hamas fighters in hospitals may be ‘grossly exaggerated’: ICC prosecutor

Israeli claims about Hamas fighters in hospitals may be ‘grossly exaggerated’: ICC prosecutor
  • Andrew Cayley: ‘I think we’ve been misled about that in the press. There are lies being spoken’
  • ‘Exceptionally good satellite imagery’ shows ‘on a daily basis how these (hospitals) are destroyed’

LONDON: Israeli claims about Hamas using hospitals in the Gaza Strip as bases of operation may have been “grossly exaggerated,” an International Criminal Court prosecutor has said.

Speaking at an event in The Hague, Andrew Cayley, the ICC lawyer leading the investigation into alleged war crimes and breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza, said of the Israeli claims: “We need to be able to demonstrate very clearly what the level of military presence was, if at all, in these hospitals because I think we’ve been misled about that in the press.”

Israel regularly claimed that Hamas fighters were using hospitals as bases for cover and using patients and medics as human shields.

Cayley said the ICC was having “great difficulty assessing” the veracity of the claims “because clearly there are lies being spoken, but that’s really something we do need to get to the bottom of as a prosecution office.”

The former UK chief military prosecutor reports directly to Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, who last month secured arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and senior Hamas figure Mohammed Deif.

At the event, held to discuss attacks on healthcare in Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine, Cayley said damage caused to Gaza’s health infrastructure would be examined as part of the investigation into the war.

“Looking at damage to health facilities, destruction of health facilities, we’ll be coming on to that probably later next year. We’re having to do this in stages simply because of the resources that we have,” he added.

“Airstrikes, sieges, raids on hospitals. Add to that lack of fuel, electricity, food, medicine. That’s why the (healthcare) system has collapsed.”

He said he and his team had interviewed medical personnel who had worked in Gaza, and the ICC had seen “exceptionally good satellite imagery” that showed “on a daily basis how these (hospitals) are destroyed.”

Cayley added that his team are awaiting even better imagery to find evidence “showing either the truth or the falsehood of the usage of these facilities as military combat facilities.”

The World Health Organization said it had evaluated 35 hospitals in Gaza and determined that only 17 of them were even partly operational. Five others were labeled “fully damaged” and 13 “non-functional.”


New page opened for Turkiye following PKK disarmament, Erdogan says

New page opened for Turkiye following PKK disarmament, Erdogan says
Updated 11 sec ago
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New page opened for Turkiye following PKK disarmament, Erdogan says

New page opened for Turkiye following PKK disarmament, Erdogan says

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that a new page opened for Turkiye following the start of a weapons handover by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.

“As of yesterday, the scourge of terrorism has entered the process of ending. Today is a new day; a new page has opened in history. Today, the doors of a great, powerful Turkiye have been flung wide open,” Erdogan said.

Thirty PKK militants burned their weapons at the mouth of a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkiye.


Gaza ceasefire talks held up by Israel withdrawal plans: Palestinian sources

Gaza ceasefire talks held up by Israel withdrawal plans: Palestinian sources
Updated 53 min 4 sec ago
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Gaza ceasefire talks held up by Israel withdrawal plans: Palestinian sources

Gaza ceasefire talks held up by Israel withdrawal plans: Palestinian sources
  • Delegations from both sides began discussions in Qatar last Sunday to try to agree on a temporary halt to the conflict
  • Israel’s refusal to withdraw all of its troops from Gaza was holding back progress on securing a deal

Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza are being held up by Israel’s proposals to keep troops in the territory, two Palestinian sources with knowledge of the discussions said on Saturday.

Delegations from both sides began discussions in Qatar last Sunday to try to agree on a temporary halt to the 21-month conflict sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Both Hamas and Israel have said that 10 living hostages who were taken that day and who are still in captivity would be released if an agreement for a 60-day ceasefire were reached.

But one well-informed Palestinian source said Israel’s refusal to withdraw all of its troops from Gaza was holding back progress on securing a deal.

“The negotiations in Doha are facing a setback and complex difficulties due to Israel’s insistence, as of Friday, on presenting a map of withdrawal, which is actually a map of redeployment and repositioning of the Israeli army rather than a genuine withdrawal,” the source said.

Hamas has said it wants the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, which is home to more than two million people.

The source said, however, that the Israeli delegation presented a map at the talks which proposed maintaining military forces in more than 40 percent of the Palestinian territory.

“Hamas’s delegation will not accept the Israeli maps... as they essentially legitimize the reoccupation of approximately half of the Gaza Strip and turn Gaza into isolated zones with no crossings or freedom of movement,” the source added.

Mediators have asked both sides to postpone the talks until the arrival of US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Doha, they added.

A second Palestinian source said “some progress” had been made on plans for releasing Palestinian prisoners and getting more aid to Gaza.

But they accused the Israeli delegation of having no authority, and “stalling and obstructing the agreement in order to continue the war of extermination.”


‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis

‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis
Updated 12 July 2025
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‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis

‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis
  • Increasingly desperate messages from commercial vessels trying to avoid attack by Yemen militia

LONDON: Commercial ships sailing through the Red Sea are broadcasting increasingly desperate messages on public channels to avoid being attacked by the Houthi militia in Yemen.

One message read “All Crew Muslim,” some included references to an all-Chinese crew and management, others flagged the presence of armed guards on board, and almost all insisted the ships had no connection to Israel.

Maritime security sources said the messages were a sign of growing desperation to avoid attack, but were unlikely to make any difference. Houthi intelligence preparation was “much deeper and forward-leaning,” one source said.

Houthi attacks off Yemen’s coast began in November 2023 in what the group said was in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war. A lull this year ended when they sank two ships last week and killed four crew. Vessels in the fleets of both ships had made calls to Israeli ports in the past year.

“Seafarers are the backbone of global trade, keeping countries supplied with food, fuel and medicine. They should not have to risk their lives to do their job,” the Seafarers' Charity.


Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer

Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer
Updated 12 July 2025
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Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer

Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer
  • The man had himself been deported from Italy, where he had been living without documentation

TUNIS: A Tunisian inmate was sentenced to six months in prison after he was reported to authorities for refusing to watch a TV news segment about President Kais Saied, his lawyer and an NGO said Friday.

The inmate’s lawyer, Adel Sghaier, said his client was initially prosecuted under Article 67 of the penal code, which covers crimes against the head of state, but the charge was later revised to violating public decency to avoid giving the case a “political” dimension.

The local branch of the Tunisian League for Human Rights in the central town of Gafsa said that the inmate had “expressed his refusal to watch (coverage of) presidential activities” during a news broadcast that was playing on TV in his cell.

He was reported by a cellmate, investigated and later sentenced to six months behind bars, the NGO said, condemning what it called a “policy of gagging voices that even extends to prisoners in their cells.”

Sghaier said his client had been held over an unrelated case that was ultimately dismissed, and that his family only learnt of his other sentence when he wasn’t freed as expected.

He acknowledged that his client voiced insults and demanded the channel be changed when Saied’s image appeared on TV, explaining the man blamed the president for “ruining his life” by striking a deal with Italy for the deportation of irregular Tunisian immigrants.

The man had himself been deported from Italy, where he had been living without documentation.

A spokesman for the court in Gafsa could not be reached for comment.

Saied, elected in 2019, has ruled Tunisia by decree since a 2021 power grab, with local and international organizations decrying a decline in freedoms in the country considered the cradle of the “Arab Spring.”

 


US aware of reported death of American after beating by Israeli settlers

US aware of reported death of American after beating by Israeli settlers
Updated 12 July 2025
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US aware of reported death of American after beating by Israeli settlers

US aware of reported death of American after beating by Israeli settlers
  • A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority ministry, Annas Abu El Ezz, told AFP that 23-year-old Saif Al-Din Kamil Abdul Karim Musalat “died after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, this afternoon”

WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Friday it was aware of the reported death of a US citizen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after reports emerged of Israeli settlers fatally beating a Palestinian American.

Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing the local health ministry, said Saif Al-Din Kamel Abdul Karim Musallat, aged in his 20s, died after he was beaten by Israeli settlers on Friday evening in an attack that also injured many people in a town north of Ramallah.

Relatives of Musallat, who was from Tampa, Florida, were also quoted by the Washington Post as saying he was beaten to death by Israeli settlers.

“We are aware of reports of the death of a US citizen in the West Bank,” a State Department spokesperson said, adding the department had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the reported victim.

The Israeli military said Israel was probing the incident in the town of Sinjil. It said rocks were hurled at Israelis near Sinjil and that “a violent confrontation developed in the area.”

Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the state of Israel in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said in March.

Settler violence in the West Bank, including incursions into occupied territory and raids, has intensified since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in late 2023.

Israel’s military offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and led to accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations and says it is fighting in self-defense after the October 2023 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

Israeli killings of US citizens in the West Bank in recent years include those of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinian American teenager Omar Mohammad Rabea and Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.

The United Nations’ highest court said last year Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there were illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible,