Gaza death toll tops 100 as Israeli air strikes, Hamas rocket fire continue

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Updated 14 May 2021
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Gaza death toll tops 100 as Israeli air strikes, Hamas rocket fire continue

  • Palestinian officials say 27 children are among the dead in four days of Israeli bombardment
  • Seven people have been killed in Israel, its military said

GAZA/JERUSALEM: Palestinian militants fired more rockets into Israel’s commercial heartland on Thursday as Israel kept up a punishing bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip and massed tanks and troops on the enclave’s border.
Four days of cross-border fighting showed no sign of abating, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the campaign “will take more time.” Israeli officials said Gaza’s ruling Hamas group must be dealt a strong deterring blow before any cease-fire.
Violence has also spread to mixed communities of Jews and Arabs in Israel, a new front in the long conflict. Synagogues were attacked and fighting broke out on the streets of some towns, prompting Israel’s president to warn of civil war.
At least 103 people have been killed in Gaza, including 27 children, over the past four days, Palestinian medical officials said. On Thursday alone, 49 Palestinians were killed in the enclave, the highest single-day figure since Monday.

Seven people have been killed in Israel: a soldier patrolling the Gaza border, five Israeli civilians, including two children, and an Indian worker, Israeli authorities said.
Worried that the region’s worst hostilities in years could spiral out of control, the United States was sending in an envoy, Hady Amr. Truce efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations had yet to deliver a sign of progress.
US President Joe Biden called on Thursday for a de-escalation of the violence, saying he wanted to see a significant reduction in rocket attacks.
Militants fired rocket salvoes at Tel Aviv and surrounding towns with the Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepting many of them. Communities near the Gaza border and the southern desert city of Beersheba were also targeted.
Five Israelis were wounded by a rocket that hit a building near Tel Aviv on Thursday.

Three rockets were also fired from Lebanon toward Israel but landed in the Mediterranean Sea, the military said. It appeared to be a show of solidarity with Gaza by Palestinian groups in Lebanon rather than the start of any offensive.
In Gaza, Israeli warplanes struck a six-story residential building that it said belonged to Hamas. Netanyahu said Israel has struck a total of close to 1,000 militant targets in the territory.
Israeli aircraft also attacked a Hamas intelligence headquarters and four apartments belonging to senior commanders from the group, the military said, adding that the homes were used for planning and directing strikes on Israel.
Diplomats said the United States, a close ally of Israel, objected to a request by China, Norway and Tunisia for a public, virtual meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday to discuss the violence.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters such a meeting would be better next week to allow time for diplomacy in hopes of achieving a de-escalation.
Standing beside a Gaza road damaged in Israeli air strikes, Assad Karam, 20, a construction worker, said: “We are facing Israel and COVID-19. We are in between two enemies.”
In Tel Aviv, Yishai Levy, an Israeli singer, pointed at shrapnel that came down on a sidewalk outside his home.
“I want to tell Israeli soldiers and the government, don’t stop until you finish the job,” he said on YNet television.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israeli police clashes with Palestinians near Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
A number of foreign airlines have canceled flights to Israel because of the unrest.




Palestinians gather to pray around the bodies of 13 Hamas militants, killed in Israeli air strikes, during their funeral at the al-Omari mosque in Gaza City. (AFP)

Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, said attacks on militants’ rocket production and launching sites were “disrupting Hamas’ activities,” but still not to the point of stopping the barrages.
“It is more difficult for them, but we have to say in fairness that Hamas is an organized group, one that has the capability to continue to fire for several more days at the places it has been targeting in Israel,” he said on Israeli Channel 12 TV.
He said between 80 and 90 militants had been killed in Israeli attacks.
Zilberman said Israel was “building up forces on the Gaza border,” a deployment that has raised speculation about a possible ground invasion, a move that would recall similar incursions during Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and in 2009.
Israeli military affairs correspondents, who are briefed regularly by the armed forces, have said however that a major ground operation is unlikely, citing high casualties among the risks.




Palestinians walk after performing Eid al-Fitr prayers amidst debris near the Al-Sharouk tower. (AFP)

Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida responded to the troop buildup with defiance, urging Palestinians to rise up.
“Mass up as you wish, from the sea, land and sky. We have prepared for your kinds of deaths that would make you curse yourselves,” he said.
So far some 1,750 rockets have been fired at Israel, of which 300 fell short in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said two of its schools were hit on Tuesday and Wednesday “within the context of air strikes by Israel,” and that at least 29 classrooms were damaged.
School is in recess in Gaza, and classes have also been suspended in many parts of Israel, including in one town where an empty school was hit by a rocket on Tuesday.




Palestinians carry the body of a child found in the rubble of a house belonging to the Al-Tanani family, that was destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in town of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip on Thursday. (AP)


British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for an “urgent de-escalation” of violence and French President Emmanuel Macron urged a “definite reset” of long-frozen Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also appealed for an end to the fighting.
The hostilities have fueled tension between Israeli Jews and the country’s 21 percent Arab minority who live alongside them in some communities.
Jewish and Arab groups attacked people and damaged shops, hotels and cars overnight. In Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, dozens of Jews beat and kicked a man thought to be an Arab as he lay on the ground.
One person was shot and badly wounded by Arabs in the town of Lod, where authorities imposed a curfew, and over 150 arrests were made in Lod and Arab towns in northern Israel, police said.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called for an end to “this madness.”
Although the latest unrest in Jerusalem was the immediate trigger for hostilities, Palestinians are frustrated by setbacks to their aspirations for an independent state in recent years, including Washington’s recognition of disputed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
On the Israeli political front, Netanyahu’s chances to remain in power after an inconclusive March 23 election appeared to improve significantly after his main rival, centrist Yair Lapid, suffered a major setback in efforts to form a government.


Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

Updated 19 February 2025
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

  • The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.

An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.

 


Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

Updated 18 February 2025
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

  • The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.

An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.

 


More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

People walk past shops in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 19 February 2025
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More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

  • “Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

GENEVA: More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad, including 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.
Assad was toppled in December in a rebel offensive, putting an end to his family’s decades-long grip on power in the Middle Eastern country and bookmarking a civil war that broke out in 2011, with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions from their homes.
The Islamist-led rebels whose offensive ousted Assad have sought to assure the international community that they have broken with their past and will respect the rights of minorities.
“Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.
“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though, otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.
At a meeting in Paris in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Turkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”
The meeting’s final statement also pledged support for Syria’s new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
 

 


Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

Updated 19 February 2025
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Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it struck weapons which it said belonged to the former Syrian administration in southern Syria.

 


Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

Updated 18 February 2025
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Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

  • France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco

ALGIERS: Algeria on Tuesday denounced a visit by French Culture Minister Rachida Dati to Western Sahara, after Paris recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory, as “objectionable on multiple levels.”
The vast desert territory is a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati, who described her visit as “historic,” launched with Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid a French cultural mission in the territory’s main city, Laayoune.
An Algerian foreign ministry statement posted on social media Tuesday said the visit “reflects blatant disregard for international legality by a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”
“This visit reinforces Morocco’s fait accompli in Western Sahara, a territory where the decolonization process remains incomplete and the right to self-determination unfulfilled,” it said.
Dati’s trip, a first for a French official, “reflects the detestable image of a former colonial power in solidarity with a new one,” the statement added.
The United Nations considers Western Sahara to be a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said Rabat’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
In October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” to the Western Sahara dispute.
In November 2020, the Polisario Front said it was ending a 29-year ceasefire with Morocco after Moroccan troops were deployed to the far south of the territory to remove independence supporters blocking the only road to Mauritania.
The Polisario Front claims the route is illegal, arguing that it did not exist when the ceasefire was established in 1991.