RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Authority’s ministry for detainees and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club announced on Monday that they had received reports of the deaths of five Gazans in Israeli detention.
Amani Sarahna, a spokesperson for the Prisoners’ Club, confirmed to AFP that two of the five died on Sunday, while the remaining three died earlier.
The club said the five prisoners were arrested during the Israel-Hamas war, some of them while fleeing from the north of the Gaza Strip southwards.
According to the two organizations, 54 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons since the start of the war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Thirty-five of the dead have been from the Gaza Strip, with the rest from the occupied West Bank.
The detainees ministry is an arm of the Palestinian Authority responsible for the welfare of Palestinians in Israeli jails and their families.
The two organizations named four of the dead prisoners as Mohammad Rashid Okka, 44, Samir Mahmoud Al-Kahlout, 52, Zuhair Omar Al-Sharif, 58, and Mohammad Anwar Labad, 57.
An additional prisoner, Ashraf Mohammad Abu Warda, 51, died in Israel’s Soroka Hospital on Sunday, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said.
They did not provide details of how the prisoners died.
In a joint statement, the two organizations accused Israel of “liquidation operations against prisoners and detainees.”
They said the number of prisoners killed in Israeli jails was at a historic high, calling it “the most bloody phase.” According to the statement, 291 Palestinian prisoners have died in custody since 1967, when Israel began occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Currently, more than 10,000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli jails, including 89 women, at least 345 children and 3,428 administrative detainees who are held without trial.
The Israel Prisons Service did not immediately respond to an AFP request for confirmation of the deaths.
Palestinian Authority says five more Gazans die in Israeli detention
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Palestinian Authority says five more Gazans die in Israeli detention
Hezbollah seeks boost in Lebanon vote as disarmament calls grow
- Iran-backed Lebanese militant group aims to maintain political sway after pounding in war with Israel
- Reconstruction aid for Lebanon tied to Hezbollah disarmament, foreign minister says
For Hezbollah, the local vote is more important than ever, coinciding with mounting calls for its disarmament and continued Israeli airstrikes, and as many of its Shiite Muslim constituents still suffer the repercussions of the conflict.
Three rounds of voting already held this month have gone well for the Iran-backed group. In the south, many races won’t be contested, handing Hezbollah and its allies early wins.
“We will vote with blood,” said Ali Tabaja, 21, indicating loyalty to Hezbollah. He’ll be voting in the city of Nabatieh rather than his village of Adaisseh because it is destroyed.
“It’s a desert,” he said.
The south’s rubble-strewn landscape reflects the devastating impact of the war, which began when Hezbollah opened fire in support of Hamas at the start in October 2023 of the Gaza conflict and culminated in a major Israeli offensive.
Hezbollah emerged a shadow of its former self, with its leaders and thousands of its fighters killed, its influence over the Lebanese state greatly diminished, and its Lebanese opponents gaining sway.
In a measure of how far the tables have turned, the new government has declared it aims to establish a state monopoly on arms, meaning Hezbollah should disarm — as stipulated by the US-brokered ceasefire with Israel.
Against this backdrop, the election results so far indicate “the war didn’t achieve the objective of downgrading Hezbollah’s popularity in the community,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center, a think tank. “On the contrary, many Shia now feel their fate is tied to Hezbollah’s fate.”
Hezbollah’s arms have long been a source of division in Lebanon, sparking a brief civil conflict in 2008. Critics say Hezbollah has unilaterally dragged Lebanon into hostilities.
Foreign Minister Youssef Raji, a Hezbollah opponent, has said that Lebanon has been told there will be no reconstruction aid from foreign donors until the state establishes a monopoly on arms.
Hezbollah, in turn, has put the onus on the government over reconstruction and accuses it of failing to take steps on that front, despite promises that the government is committed to it.
DISARMAMENT TERMS
Hage Ali said that conditioning reconstruction aid on disarmament was intended to expedite the process, but “it’s difficult to see Hezbollah accepting this.”
Hezbollah says its weapons are now gone from the south, but links any discussion of its remaining arsenal to Israel’s withdrawal from five positions it still holds, and an end to Israeli attacks.
Israel says Hezbollah still has combat infrastructure including rocket launchers in the south, calling this “blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
A French diplomatic source said reconstruction would not materialize if Israel continues striking and the Lebanese government does not act fast enough on disarmament.
Donors also want Beirut to enact economic reforms.
Hashem Haidar, head of the government’s Council for the South, said the state lacks the funds to rebuild, but cited progress in rubble removal. Lebanon needs $11 billion for reconstruction and recovery, the World Bank estimates.
In Nabatieh, a pile of rubble marks the spot where 71-year-old Khalil Tarhini’s store once stood. It was one of dozens destroyed by Israeli bombardment in Nabatieh’s central market.
He has received no compensation, and sees little point in voting. Expressing a sense of abandonment, he said: “The state did not stand by us.”
The situation was very different in 2006, after a previous Hezbollah-Israel war. Aid flowed from Iran and Gulf Arab states.
Hezbollah says it has aided 400,000 people, paying for rent, furniture and renovations. But the funds at its disposal appear well short of 2006, recipients say.
Hezbollah says state authorities have obstructed funds arriving from Iran, though Tehran is also more financially strapped than two decades ago due to tougher US sanctions and the reimposition of a “maximum pressure” policy by Washington.
As for Gulf states, their spending on Lebanon dried up as Hezbollah became embroiled in regional conflicts and they declared it a terrorist group in 2016. Saudi Arabia has echoed the Lebanese government’s position of calling for a state monopoly of arms.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said it was up to the government to secure reconstruction funding and that it was failing to take “serious steps” to get the process on track.
He warned that the issue risked deepening divisions in Lebanon if unaddressed. “How can one part of the nation be stable while another is in pain?” he said, referring to Shiites in the south and other areas, including Beirut’s Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs, hard hit by Israel.
Israel lets food into Gaza even as its forces attack a hospital, Palestinians say
Israeli tanks and drones attacked a hospital in northern Gaza overnight, igniting fires and causing extensive damage, Palestinian hospital officials said on Thursday. Videos taken by a health official at Al-Awda Hospital show walls blown away and thick black smoke billowing wreckage.
The Israeli military said its forces were operating “adjacent” to Al-Awda Hospital and had allowed emergency workers to come try to put out a fire at the hospital, but said only that, “The circumstances of the fire are still under review.”
Pressure from close allies is mounting on Israel following a nearly three-month blockade of supplies into Gaza that led to famine warnings. Even the United States, a staunch ally, has voiced concerns over the hunger crisis. UN agencies say Israeli military restrictions and the breakdown of law and order in Gaza make it difficult to retrieve and distribute the aid. As a result, little of it has so far reached those in need.
The UN says aid has been collected from only about 90 trucks — out of a total of nearly 200 that have entered Gaza since Israel ended its nearly three-month blockade this week.
“The shipments from yesterday is limited in quantity and nowhere near sufficient to meet the scale and scope of of Gaza’s 2.1 million people,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Gaza’s Heath Ministry said Thursday morning that more than 100 people had been killed across the Gaza Strip and around 250 wounded over the past 24 hours. It was not immediately clear if there were fatalities at Al-Awda Hospital.
Here’s the latest:
Israel says it has intercepted missile fired from Yemen
Early Friday, sirens sounded in parts of Israel as its military said it detected a missile launch by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeting the country.
The Israeli military said it intercepted the missile as booms could be heard in Jerusalem.
The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack, but it can take hours or even days for the rebels to acknowledge their assaults.
Lebanese prime minister condemns latest Israeli strikes
The wave of airstrikes came two days before municipal elections are slated to take place in southern Lebanon.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Israel’s attacks “will not deter the state from its commitment to the electoral process,” and called for more international pressure to make Israel stop bombing his country.
Israel carries out widespread strikes in Lebanon
Israel carried out strikes on multiple areas in southern Lebanon on Thursday, some far from the border, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.
It described the strikes as “the most violent in some areas” since a ceasefire deal ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. Residents of northern Israel also reported hearing loud explosions from across the border.
The Israeli army issued a warning ahead of one strike that destroyed a building in the town of Toul, which it described as “facilities belonging to the terrorist Hezbollah.” Video of the strike’s aftermath showed fire and a massive cloud of smoke rising over an area packed with multi-story apartment buildings. Strikes in other areas were carried out without warning.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israel has struck Lebanon almost every day since the ceasefire. Lebanon says those strikes are in violation of the deal, while Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah to prevent it from re-arming.
Netanyahu names a new head of security agency after pushing to oust the previous chief
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced Thursday his decision to appoint Major General David Zini as the next head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service.
Zini is a former army commando and has held a number of top positions in the Israeli military. Netanyahu’s office said that in March 2023 Zini prepared a report warning about the dangers of a surprise attack on Israeli forces along the Gaza border.
Earlier this year Netanyahu moved to fire the agency’s current chief, Ronen Bar, blaming his agency for failures in the lead-up to Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel’s Supreme Court froze Bar’s firing after multiple legal challenges against it, however Bar has since said he will resign in June.
Trump and Netanyahu discuss embassy staffers’ shooting and Iran nuclear deal
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone on Thursday about the shooting that killed two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Washington reception, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Leavitt said the two leaders also discussed “a potential deal” with Iran to stem its rapidly advancing nuclear program. Trump is expected to dispatch special envoy Steve Witkoff to Italy for talks later this week with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi.
Leavitt said Trump believes the talks are “moving along in the right direction.”
UN says Palestinians stole food from aid trucks in Gaza
UN officials on Thursday said that a small number of trucks carrying flour on Wednesday were intercepted by residents and their contents were stolen.
“As far as I know, this was not a criminal act with armed men,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said during a briefing.
He added that the episode “only reflects the very high level of anxiety that people in Gaza are feeling, not knowing when the next humanitarian delivery will take place.”
Over the last several months, Israel has accused Hamas of siphoning off aid and using it to fund its military activities, without providing evidence. The UN has said that there are mechanisms in place that prevent any significant diversion of aid.
Israel says ‘no food shortage in Gaza’ even as UN says the trickle of aid is ‘nowhere near sufficient’
The Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to Gaza, COGAT, said Thursday that the United Nations is currently allowed to bring in “nutrition products, some food ingredients and medical supplies.”
“According to our current assessment, there is no food shortage in Gaza at this time,” COGAT said in a statement on X.
The UN says aid has been collected from only about 90 trucks — out of a total of nearly 200 that have entered Gaza since Israel ended its nearly three-month blockade this week.
“The shipments from yesterday is limited in quantity and nowhere near sufficient to meet the scale and scope of of Gaza’s 2.1 million people,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
The UN has said that around 600 trucks entered during a recent ceasefire, which was the amount necessary to meet people’s basic needs.
Former Israeli leader says only pressure from Trump can end the war in Gaza
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday that the only international leader with enough power to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stop the war in Gaza is US President Donald Trump.
“If at some point the president of the United States, President Trump, will take part and perhaps will summon the Israeli prime minister and say to him in no unclear terms that ‘enough is enough’ — that may be very useful,” said Olmert, an open critic of Israel’s war in Gaza.
“I am against the expansion of the military operations in Gaza, I think that they bring us close to crimes because if there is no purpose and there is not a possible outcome that is worth the cost, then why should we continue?” he said during an interview in his Tel Aviv office.
Olmert said he understands why the EU and countries like Britain, Canada and France sent strong warnings to Israel this week, including threatening sanctions, but believes that ultimately a dressing down from Trump would stop Netanyahu from continuing the war.
Hospitals have special protection under the rules of war. Why are they in the crosshairs in Gaza?
In the Israel-Hamas war, hospitals in the combat zone of hollowed-out northern Gaza have increasingly ended up in the crosshairs. They have also become flashpoints for warring narratives.
Israel claims that Hamas locates military assets under hospitals and other sensitive sites like schools and mosques, and that its fighters use hospitals as shields. Palestinians and rights groups accuse Israel of mounting an all-out attack on Gaza’s health infrastructure to punish the population and force a surrender.
International humanitarian law lends hospitals special protections during war. But hospitals can lose their protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons, the International Committee of the Red Cross says.
Israeli settlers sanctioned by UK spotted at illegal West Bank outpost
- Neria Ben Pazi, Zohar Sabah visited site near Palestinian village of Mughayyir Al-Deir
- Israeli human rights group B’Tselem slams ‘total impunity for soldiers and settlers’
LONDON: Two Israeli settlers sanctioned by the UK this week have taken part in efforts to displace Palestinian families from the West Bank village of Mughayyir Al-Deir.
Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah were both spotted visiting an illegal outpost set up on Sunday near the community of around 150 Bedouins, The Guardian reported.
Ben Pazi’s organization Neria’s Farm was sanctioned on Tuesday after the UK suspended talks with the Israeli government on a free trade agreement over its blockade of Gaza and the extremist language of several of the country’s ministers.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the actions of the Israeli government and suggestions its military would “purify Gaza,” saying it “has a responsibility to intervene and halt these aggressive actions.”
Ben Pazi was sanctioned in 2024 for his role in displacing other Bedouin families in the West Bank.
According to the US State Department, “Ben Pazi has expelled Palestinian shepherds from hundreds of acres of land. In August 2023, settlers including Ben Pazi attacked Palestinians near the village of Wadi as-Seeq,” The Guardian reported.
His violence in the area even led to Israel’s regional military commander, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, banning Ben Pazi from entering the West Bank in 2023.
Sabah was sanctioned by the UK for “threatening, perpetrating, promoting and supporting acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian individuals.”
This included his role in an attack on a Palestinian school, which injured teachers and pupils and hospitalized the principal.
The settler outpost in question, less than 100 meters from Palestinian homes at Mughayyir Al-Deir, was also visited by Zvi Sukkot, an MP with the Religious Zionist Party, who caused outrage last week when he told Israel’s Channel 12: “Everyone has got used to the idea that we can kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody in the world cares.”
Ahmad Sulaiman, a 58-year-old father of 11 children who lives close to the settler outpost, said intimidation had started against his community.
“I haven’t slept since they came, and the children are terrified,” he told The Guardian. “The settlers told me: ‘This is our home.’” He added: “There is nothing I can do. They have guns and other weapons.”
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says around 1,200 Palestinians have been forced from their homes in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023.
Yonatan Mizrachi, co-director of Settlement Watch, said the boldness of settlers despite international sanctions “shows the settlers’ lack of fear, and the understanding that they can do what they like.”
B’Tselem spokesperson Shai Parnes said: “Israeli policy to take as much land as possible hasn’t changed. But what has been changing under this current government is the total impunity for soldiers and settlers.”
Iran and the US holding a fifth round of nuclear negotiations in Rome with enrichment a key issue
- US officials up to President Donald Trump insist Iran cannot continue to enrich uranium at all in any deal that could see sanctions lifted
- Talks seek to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions
ROME: Iran and the United States prepared for a fifth round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program Friday in Rome, with enrichment emerging as the key issue.
US officials up to President Donald Trump insist Iran cannot continue to enrich uranium at all in any deal that could see sanctions lifted on Tehran’s struggling economy. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi early Friday insisted online that no enrichment would mean “we do NOT have a deal.”
“Figuring out the path to a deal is not rocket science,” Araghchi wrote on the social platform X. “Time to decide.”
The US will be again represented in the talks by Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Michael Anton, the State Department’s policy planning director. While authorities haven’t offered a location for the talks, another round in Italy’s capital took place at the Omani Embassy there. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi is mediating the negotiations as the sultanate on the Arabian Peninsula has been a trusted interlocutor by both Tehran and Washington in the talks.
Enrichment remains key in negotiations
The talks seek to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions the US has imposed on the Islamic Republic, closing in on half a century of enmity.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
“Iran almost certainly is not producing nuclear weapons, but Iran has undertaken activities in recent years that better position it to produce them, if it chooses to do so,” a new report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency said. “These actions reduce the time required to produce sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a first nuclear device to probably less than one week.”
However, it likely still would take Iran months to make a working bomb, experts say.
Enrichment remains the key point of contention. Witkoff at one point suggested Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67 percent, then later began saying all Iranian enrichment must stop. That position on the American side has hardened over time.
Asked about the negotiations, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said “we believe that we are going to succeed” in the talks and on Washington’s push for no enrichment.
“The Iranians are at that table, so they also understand what our position is, and they continue to go,” Bruce said Thursday.
One idea floated so far that might allow Iran to stop enrichment in the Islamic Republic but maintain a supply of uranium could be a consortium in the Mideast backed by regional countries and the US There also are multiple countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency offering low-enriched uranium that can be used for peaceful purposes by countries.
However, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has maintained enrichment must continue within the country’s borders and a similar fuel-swap proposal failed to gain traction in negotiations in 2010.
Meanwhile, Israel has threatened to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities on their own if it feels threatened, further complicating tensions in the Mideast already spiked by the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Araghchi warned Thursday that Iran would take “special measures” to defend its nuclear facilities if Israel continues to threaten them, while also warning the US it would view it as being complicit in any Israeli attack. Authorities allowed a group of Iranian students to form a human chain Thursday at its underground enrichment site at Fordo, an area with incredibly tight security built into a mountain to defend against possible airstrikes.
Talks come as US pressure on Iran increases
Yet despite the tough talk from Iran, the Islamic Republic needs a deal. Its internal politics are inflamed over the mandatory hijab, or headscarf, with women still ignoring the law on the streets of Tehran. Rumors also persist over the government potentially increasing the cost of subsidized gasoline in the country, which has sparked nationwide protests in the past.
Iran’s rial currency plunged to over 1 million to a US dollar in April. The currency has improved with the talks, however, something Tehran hopes will continue as a further collapse in the rial could spark further economic unrest.
Meanwhile, its self-described “Axis of Resistance” sits in tatters after Iran’s regional allies in the region have faced repeated attacks by Israel during its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government during a rebel advance in December also stripped Iran of a key ally.
The Trump administration also has continued to levy new sanctions on Iran, including this week, which saw the US specifically target any sale of sodium perchlorate to the Islamic Republic. Iran reportedly received that chemical in shipments from China at its Shahid Rajaei port near Bandar Abbas. A major, unexplained explosion there killed dozens and wounded over 1,000 others in April during one round of the talks.
Gaza civil defense says 16 killed in Israel strikes
GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed 16 people on Friday across the territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.
The toll from “Israeli strikes in various areas of the Gaza Strip since midnight totals 16 dead,” agency official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir told AFP.
