GAZA CITY: The need to keep water cool in Gaza, where electricity is in short supply and 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, has spurred a resurgence in the traditional Palestinian craft of pottery.
“People are now replacing fridges and cold water in refrigerators with clay pots,” said Bahjat Sabri Attallah, the owner of a pottery factory.
He told Reuters that the industry has seen increased demand amid the destruction wrought by the Israeli military offensive.
But the war has also presented hardships for the potters who today turn the wheels using their feet and shape the clay by hand.
They did not always work this way.
“Whereas we previously worked with clay on (electrical) machines, today we shape clay on machines using our feet instead,” Attallah said.
Wood now powers the factory’s kiln, which previously ran on fuel, he added.
However, food shortages mean the need for pots for cooking is no longer so great.
“Today we have no meat or vegetables, therefore there is no demand for these items,” Attallah explained.
Amid the sweltering summer heat, shopkeeper Mahmoud Khidr said he was keeping drinking water cool by storing it in a clay pot like the ones at the factory.
“Now we have gone back to the old days,” he said.
Aside from the difficulties of finding and storing water, Palestinians face a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food and fuel and the spread of diseases like polio.
The war in Gaza started when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. The death toll of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military campaign has exceeded 40,000, according to Gaza authorities.
Standing in his shop, his clay pot perched atop a refrigerator, Khidr said: “We are suffering from everything.”
Palestinians use clay pots to keep water cool in electricity-short Gaza
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Palestinians use clay pots to keep water cool in electricity-short Gaza
Gaza marks the start of Eid Al-Adha with outdoor prayers among the rubble and food growing ever scarcer
- Israeli offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians
- After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter
With much of Gaza in rubble, men and children were forced to hold the traditional Eid Al-Adha prayers in the open air and with food supplies dwindling, families were having to make do with what they could scrape together for the three-day feast.
“This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,” said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis. “There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses ... The conditions are very, very harsh.”
The Islamic holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia. For the second year, Muslims in Gaza were not able to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the traditional pilgrimage.
The war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 56 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies.
Since then, Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians in its military campaign, primarily women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants in its figures.
The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.
After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter for the UN several weeks ago. But the UN says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because of Israeli military restrictions on movements and because roads that the military designates for its trucks to use are unsafe and vulnerable to looters.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome said Thursday that Gaza’s people are projected to fall into acute food insecurity by September, with nearly 500,000 people experiencing extreme food deprivation, leading to malnutrition and starvation.
“This means the risk of famine is really touching the whole of the Gaza Strip,” Rein Paulson, director of the FAO office of emergencies and resilience, said in an interview.
Over the past two weeks, shootings have erupted nearly daily in the Gaza Strip in the vicinity of new hubs where desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food. Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed according to Gaza hospital officials.
Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid and trying to block it from reaching Palestinians, and has said soldiers fired warning shots or at individuals approaching its troops in some cases.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly formed group of mainly American contractors that Israel wants to use to replace humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the UN, said Friday that all its distribution centers were closed for the day due to the ongoing violence.
It urged people to stay away for their own safety, and said it would make an announcement later as to when they would resume distributing humanitarian aid.
Lebanese army warns Israeli airstrikes might force it to freeze cooperation with ceasefire committee
Lebanese army warns Israeli airstrikes might force it to freeze cooperation with ceasefire committee
- The Lebanese army said it started coordinating with the committee observing the ceasefire after Israel’s military issued its warning and sent patrols to the areas that were to be struck to search them
BEIRUT: The Lebanese army condemned Friday Israel’s airstrikes on suburbs of Beirut, warning that such attacks are weakening the role of Lebanon’s armed forces that might eventually suspend cooperation with the committee monitoring the truce that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The army statement came hours after the Israeli military struck several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs that it said held underground facilities used by Hezbollah for drone production. The strikes, preceded by an Israeli warning to evacuate several buildings, came on the eve of Eid Al-Adha, a Muslim holiday.
The Lebanese army said it started coordinating with the committee observing the ceasefire after Israel’s military issued its warning and sent patrols to the areas that were to be struck to search them. It added that Israel rejected the suggestion.
The US-led committee that has been supervising the ceasefire that ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war in November is made up of Lebanon, Israel, France, the US and the UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
“The Israeli enemy violations of the deal and its refusal to respond to the committee is weakening the role of the committee and the army,” the Lebanese army said in its statement. It added such attacks by Israel could lead the army to freeze its cooperation with the committee “when it comes to searching posts.”
Since the Israel-Hezbollah war ended, Israel has carried out nearly daily airstrikes on parts of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah operatives. Beirut’s southern suburbs were struck on several occasions since then.
The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel began on Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began launching rockets across the border in support of its ally, Hamas, in Gaza. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling and the two were quickly locked in a low-level conflict that continued for nearly a year before escalating into full-scale war in September 2024.
It killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, while the Lebanese government said in April that Israeli strikes had killed another 190 people and wounded 485 since the ceasefire agreement.
There has been increasing pressure on Hezbollah, both domestic and international, to give up its remaining arsenal, but officials with the group have said they will not do so until Israel stops its airstrikes and withdraws from five points it is still occupying along the border in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah says that it has ended its military presence along the border with Israel south of the Litani River, in accordance with terms of the ceasefire deal.
Israel minister warns of more Lebanon strikes if Hezbollah not disarmed
- ‘There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel’
- Iran meanwhile condemns Israeli ‘aggression’ against
JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Friday that Israel will keep striking Lebanon until it disarms Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, a day after Israeli air strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel. Agreements must be honored and if you do not do what is required, we will continue to act, and with great force,” Katz said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Iran has condemned the Israeli “aggression” against Lebanon on Friday.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described the Thursday evening strikes “as a blatant act of aggression against Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
WHO urges ‘urgent protection’ of key Gaza hospitals
- The WHO said both hospitals are already operating “above their capacity,” with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a “dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies”
GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Thursday called for the “urgent protection” of two of the last hospitals remaining in the Gaza Strip, warning that the territory’s health system is “collapsing.”
The WHO said the Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital risk becoming “non-functional” because of restrictions on aid and access routes, further damaging a health system already battered by months of war.
“There are already no hospitals functioning in the north of Gaza. Nasser and Amal are the last two functioning public hospitals in Khan Younis, where currently most of the population is living,” the UN agency said in a statement on X.
“Without them, people will lose access to critical health services,” it said.
The WHO added that closure of the two hospitals would eliminate 490 beds and reduce Gaza’s hospital capacity to less than 1,400 beds — 40 percent below pre-war levels — for a population of two million people.
The WHO said the hospitals have not been told to evacuate but lie within or just outside an Israeli-declared evacuation zone announced on June 2.
Israeli authorities have told Gaza’s health ministry that access routes to the two hospitals will be blocked, the WHO said.
As a result, it will be “difficult, if not impossible” for medical staff and new patients to reach them, it said.
“If the situation further deteriorates, both hospitals are at high risk of becoming non-functional, due to movement restrictions, insecurity, and the inability of WHO and partners to resupply or transfer patients,” the organization said.
The WHO said both hospitals are already operating “above their capacity,” with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a “dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies.”
It warned the closure of Nasser and Al-Amal would have dire consequences for patients in need of surgical care, intensive care, blood bank and transfusion services, cancer care and dialysis.
After nearly 20 months of war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Gaza is mired in one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises, with civilians enduring relentless bombardment, mass displacement and severe hunger.
Gaza aid logistics company funded by Chicago private equity firm
- Israel blocked almost all aid into Gaza for 11 weeks until May 19, and has since only allowed limited deliveries in, mostly managed by the new GHF operation
- SRS is run by a former CIA official named Phil Reilly, but its ownership has not previously been disclosed
WASHINGTON: A Chicago-based private equity firm - controlled by a member of the family that founded American publishing company Rand McNally - has an "economic interest" in the logistics company involved in a controversial new aid distribution operation in Gaza.
McNally Capital, founded in 2008 by Ward McNally, helped "support the establishment" of Safe Reach Solutions, a McNally Capital spokesperson told Reuters. SRS is a for-profit company established in Wyoming in November, state incorporation records show. It is in the spotlight for its involvement with the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which last week started distributing aid in the war-torn Palestinian enclave. The foundation paused work on Wednesday after a series of deadly shootings close to its operations and has suffered from the departure of senior personnel.
HIGHLIGHTS
• McNally Capital has economic interest in Safe Reach Solutions
• GHF aid distribution halted after deadly shootings near operations
• U.N. and aid groups refuse to work with GHF, citing lack of neutrality
"McNally Capital has provided administrative advice to SRS and worked in collaboration with multiple parties to enable SRS to carry out its mission," the spokesperson said. "While McNally Capital has an economic interest in SRS, the firm does not actively manage SRS or have a day-to-day operating role."
SRS is run by a former CIA official named Phil Reilly, but its ownership has not previously been disclosed. Reuters has not been able to establish who funds the newly created foundation.
The spokesperson did not provide details of the scale of the investment in SRS by McNally Capital, which says it has $380 million under management.
McNally Capital founder Ward McNally is the great great great grandson of the co-founder of Rand McNally. The McNally family sold the publishing company in 1997.
A spokesperson for SRS confirmed it worked with the foundation, also known as GHF, but did not answer specific questions about ownership.
GHF, which resumed aid distribution on Thursday, did not respond to a request for comment
While Israel and the United States have both said they don't finance the operation, they have pushed the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it, arguing that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
Israel blocked almost all aid into Gaza for 11 weeks until May 19, and has since only allowed limited deliveries in, mostly managed by the new GHF operation. This week GHF pressed Israel to boost civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its distribution sites after Gazan health officials said at least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near one of the food distribution sites on Tuesday, the third consecutive day of chaos and bloodshed to blight the aid operation.
The Israeli military said its forces on Tuesday had opened fire on a group of people they viewed as a threat after they left a designated access route near the distribution center in Rafah. It said it was investigating what had happened.
The U.N and most other aid groups have refused to work with GHF because they say it is not neutral and that the distribution model militarizes aid and forces displacement.
The SRS spokesperson said in a statement that under Reilly's leadership, "SRS brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts in security, supply chain management, and humanitarian affairs."
McNally Capital has investments in defense contracting companies. Among the firms it acquired was Orbis Operations, a firm that specializes in hiring former CIA officers. Orbis did not return calls for comment. Reilly used to work for Orbis.
