DEIR AL-BALAH: Palestinian medical officials say two Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 14 people, including two children and a woman, most in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone.
One strike late Monday hit a makeshift cafeteria used by displaced people in Muwasi, the center of the so-called humanitarian zone. At least 11 people were killed, including two children, according to officials at Nasser Hospital, where the casualties were taken. Video from the scene showed men pulling bloodied wounded from among tables and chairs set up in the sand in an enclosure made of corrugated metal sheets.
The strike came hours after the Israeli military announced an expansion of the zone, where it has told Palestinians evacuating from other parts of Gaza to take refuge. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering in sprawling tent camps in and around Muwasi, a largely desolate area of dunes and agricultural fields with few facilities or services along the Mediterranean coast of southern Gaza.
Israel faces a deadline this week for the Biden administration’s ultimatum for it to allow more aid into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on US military funding.
Another strike early Tuesday hit a house in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing three people including a woman, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. The strike also wounded 11 others, it said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on either strike.
Israel’s 19-month-old campaign in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities who don’t distinguish between civilians and militants in their count, but say more than half the dead were women and children. Israel says it targets Hamas militants and blames the militant group for civilian deaths, saying it operates in residential areas and infrastructure and among displaced people.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third believed to be dead.
Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, medical officials say
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Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, medical officials say
- One strike late Monday hit a cafeteria in the so-called Muwasi humanitarian zone west of the city of Khan Younis
Palestinians in West Bank strike to demand end to Gaza war
- A coalition of Palestinian political movements — including rivals Fatah and Hamas — called the strike to protest what they described as “the genocide and the ongoing massacre of our people”
- Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza on March 18, ending nearly two months of ceasefire with Hamas
RAMALLAH: Shuttered storefronts lined empty streets in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Monday, as Palestinians held a general strike demanding an end to the Gaza war.
“I walked through the city today and couldn’t find a single place that was open,” Fadi Saadi, a shopkeeper in Bethlehem, told AFP.
Shops, schools and most public administrative offices were closed across the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
A coalition of Palestinian political movements — including rivals Fatah and Hamas — called the strike to protest what they described as “the genocide and the ongoing massacre of our people.”
It called for the strike “in all the occupied Palestinian territories, in the refugee camps... and among those who support our cause.”
Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza on March 18, ending nearly two months of ceasefire with Hamas. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed almost daily since Israel restarted its military offensive.
“We close today about our family in Gaza, our children in Gaza,” said Imad Salman, 68, who owns a souvenir shop in Jerusalem’s Old City.
“In Jerusalem, in the West Bank, we can’t do something more than what we’re doing here now,” he told AFP.
In Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the usually bustling commercial Salaheddin street was empty.
“This strike is in solidarity with Gaza and what is happening there, and the war being waged against the Palestinian people, whether by (US President Donald) Trump, (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, the Israeli government, or the American government,” said Ahmed, who did not want to his surname.
“This war must stop, the killing and destruction must stop, and only peace should prevail — peace, and nothing but peace.”
A rally is planned Monday in the center of the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters.
“This time, the strike is serious, and the population’s commitment is significant because Israeli aggression now affects all Palestinian households, whether in the West Bank or Gaza,” said Issam Baker, a community organizer in Ramallah.
“We have seen total commitment in support of the strike today throughout the West Bank, which has not happened since October 7” 2023, when the Gaza war started, said a security source from the Palestinian Authority.
Since the start of the Gaza war, violence has soared in the West Bank.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 918 Palestinians, including militants, in the territory since then, according to health ministry figures.
Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 33 Israelis, including soldiers, over the same period, according to official figures.
Dutch tighten controls on military and dual use exports to Israel
AMSTERDAM: The Dutch government said on Monday it had tightened export controls for all military and ‘dual use’ goods destined for Israel.
All direct exports and the transit of these goods to Israel will be checked to see if they comply with European regulations, and will no longer be covered by general export licenses, the government said in a letter to parliament.
“This is desirable considering the security situation in Israel, the Palestinian territories and the wider region,” foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp and trade minister Reinette Klever wrote.
“Exporters will still be able to request permits, that will then be checked against European regulations.”
The government said no military goods for Israel had been exported from the Netherlands under a general permit since Israel started its war in Gaza following the attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
It said that the general license for the export of “low risk information security goods,” such as routers for network security, was frequently used for export to Israel.
It estimated that between 50 and 100 permits for the export of those goods would now have to be requested on an individual basis.
A Dutch court last year ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used to violate international law during the war in Gaza. Israel denies violating international law.
Dossier accuses British serving in Israeli military of war crimes in Gaza
- Report compiled by Hague-based UK lawyers will be handed to Metropolitan Police
- ‘British nationals are under a legal obligation not to collude with crimes committed in Palestine’
LONDON: A group of UK citizens who served with the Israeli military in Gaza will be the subject of a war crimes complaint handed to the Metropolitan Police, The Guardian reported on Monday.
A 240-page dossier compiled by a group of lawyers based in The Hague documents the activities of 10 Brits in Gaza, with complaints against them including alleged targeting of civilians and aid workers, coordinated attacks on hospitals and protected sites, and the forced displacement of people.
The dossier, which covers the period from October 2023 to May 2024 and took six months to compile, will be handed to the Met’s war crimes unit.
The complaint against the 10 Brits, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will be brought on behalf of the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and the UK-based Public Interest Law Centre.
The dossier includes eyewitness testimony from civilians in Gaza. One passage features evidence from a witness who recalled an attack on a hospital, including seeing corpses “scattered on the ground, especially in the middle of the hospital courtyard, where many dead bodies were buried in a mass grave.”
The account added that a bulldozer being used to demolish part of the hospital “ran over a dead body in a horrific and heart-wrenching scene desecrating the dead.”
Raji Sourani, director of the PCHR, said: “This is illegal, this is inhuman and enough is enough. The government cannot say we didn’t know; we are providing them with all the evidence.”
PILC legal director Paul Heron said: “We’re filing our report to make clear these war crimes are not in our name.”
The 2001 International Criminal Court Act says it “is an offence against the law of England and Wales for a person to commit genocide, a crime against humanity, or a war crime.”
Michael Mansfield KC, the lawyer leading the group, said: “If one of our nationals is committing an offence, we ought to be doing something about it. Even if we can’t stop the government of foreign countries behaving badly, we can at least stop our nationals from behaving badly.
“British nationals are under a legal obligation not to collude with crimes committed in Palestine. No one is above the law.”
Sean Summerfield, a barrister who also worked on the dossier, said: “The public will be shocked, I would have thought, to hear that there’s credible evidence that Brits have been directly involved in committing some of those atrocities.”
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023.
Netanyahu and Trump to talk tariffs, Iran and Gaza
- Analysts said Netanyahu would seek to secure an exemption from the tariffs for Israel
- Netanyahu will also discuss the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, and the “growing threat from Iran,”
WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington on Monday to meet Donald Trump, whom he will likely ask for a reprieve from US tariffs while seeking further backing on Iran and Gaza.
Netanyahu becomes the first foreign leader to meet Trump in the US capital since the “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement sent global markets crashing.
He was also due to discuss the war in Gaza, following the collapse of a short-lived truce that the United States had helped broker.
Arriving in Washington direct from a visit to Hungary, Netanyahu’s chief objective was to try to persuade Trump to reverse the decision, or at the very least to reduce the 17 percent levy set to be imposed on Israeli imports before it takes effect.
Upon arrival, Netanyahu met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, according to his office.
Before leaving Budapest, Netanyahu had said his discussions would cover a range of issues, including “the tariff regime that has also been imposed on Israel.”
“I’m the first international leader, the first foreign leader who will meet with President Trump on a matter so crucial to Israel’s economy,” he said in a statement.
“I believe this reflects the special personal relationship and the unique bond between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time.”
Analysts said Netanyahu would seek to secure an exemption from the tariffs for Israel.
“The urgency (of the visit) makes sense in terms of stopping it before it gets institutionalized,” said Jonathan Rynhold, head of political studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv.
Such an exemption would not only benefit Trump’s closest Middle East ally but also “please Republicans in Congress, whose voters care about Israel, but are unwilling to confront Trump on this at this point,” he said.
Israel had attempted to avoid the new levy by moving preemptively a day before Trump’s announcement and lifting all remaining duties on the one percent of American goods still affected by them.
But Trump did not exempt Israel from his global salvo, saying the United States had a significant trade deficit with the country, the top beneficiary of US military aid.
The Israeli leader’s visit is “also a way for Netanyahu to play the game and show Trump that Israel is going along with him,” said Yannay Spitzer, a professor of economics at Hebrew University.
“I would not be surprised if there is an announcement of some concession for Israel... and this will be an example for other countries.”
Netanyahu will also discuss the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, and the “growing threat from Iran,” his office said.
Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, and the weeks-long ceasefire with Hamas that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had brokered collapsed.
Efforts to restore the truce have failed, with nearly 1,400 people killed in renewed Israeli air and ground operations, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.
Palestinian militants in Gaza are still holding 58 hostages, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
On Iran, Trump has been pressing for “direct talks” with Tehran on a new deal to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.
But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai said Tehran’s proposal for indirect negotiations was “generous, responsible and wise.”
There has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might attack Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached.
Baghai also said that Iran was ready to respond in case of attack.
“Should the threats against Iran be realized, they would precipitate a swift, immediate and global response from Iran’s side,” he said.
Lebanon health ministry says one dead in Israeli strike in south
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike in the country’s south killed one person Monday, the latest such raid despite a delicate truce between Israel and Hezbollah, and after a US envoy visited.
The “Israeli enemy” drone strike on the town of Taybeh near the border “led to the death of one citizen,” the health ministry said in a statement.
An Israeli security source said the Israeli military “struck a Hezbollah terrorist” in the Taybeh area.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said the strike hit “in front of a motorcycle repair shop” in the town, in south Lebanon’s Marjayoun district.
Israel has continued to launch strikes on Lebanon since a November 27 ceasefire that largely halted more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of total war.
Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Sunday killed two people in south Lebanon’s Zibqin, as the Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah operatives in the area.
Israeli strikes last week also targeted other south Lebanon locations and even Hezbollah’s south Beirut bastion.
The NNA also reported Israeli strikes on prefabricated homes in south Lebanon’s Naqura area on Sunday. Such homes have usually been set up for returning residents whose homes were destroyed in the conflict.
The truce accord was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
Visiting US deputy special envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus discussed the situation in south Lebanon and economic reforms with senior Lebanese officials at the weekend, with talks also addressing Hezbollah’s disarmament.
In an interview with Lebanese television channel LBCI broadcast on Sunday, Ortagus said Washington continued to press Lebanon’s government “to fully fulfil the cessation of hostilities, and that includes disarming Hezbollah and all militias,” adding it should happen “as soon as possible.”
Hezbollah was left severely weakened in the latest conflict with Israel.
