Hamas chief’s sister killed in Israeli strike

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 26 June 2024

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ISRAELI OCCUPIED GAZA - The sister of Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas political leader, has become his latest family member to be killed in an Israeli strike, the terror group said.

Zahr died along with her husband and children overnight on Monday in an attack on Beach Camp, north of Gaza City.

Basem Naim, the Hamas spokesman, said it took the number of family members of the exiled leader who have been killed to around 100.

Based between Qatar and Turkey, Haniyeh has remained safe from assassination throughout the war with Israel. Qatar remains a key player in negotiations to free Israel’s remaining 120 hostages in Gaza.

But Haniyeh’s family remain in the line of fire. In April, his three sons were killed during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Hazem, Amir and Mohammad died along with several of his grandchildren.

Haniyeh said at the time their “martyrdom” was a symbol of hope. “Through the blood of the martyrs and the pain of the injured, we create hope, we create the future, we create independence and freedom for our people and our nation,” he told Al Jazeera.

At the time, the Israeli military said the three sons were military operatives on their way to “carry out terrorist activities in the central area of the Gaza Strip”. There has so far been no comment on the latest attack.

“The blood of my children is not more valuable than the blood of the children of the Palestinian people … All the martyrs of Palestine are my children,” Haniyeh said at the time of his sons’ killing.

Israel is ‘delusional’

Amid ongoing US-brokered negotiations, which have not progressed since a short temporary ceasefire last year, Haniyeh pointed out the futility of Israel targeting his family.

“If they think that targeting my children at the peak of these talks before the movement’s [Hamas’s] response is submitted will cause Hamas to change its positions, they are delusional,” Haniyeh said in April.

In Israel, where Haniyeh’s sister lives in a quiet Bedouin community in the country’s south, his sister Sabah remains under house arrest charged with affiliations with a terrorist group and incitement to unrest.

It followed messages sent, including to her brother, praising the atrocities of Oct 7. More than 1,200 people were killed by Hamas in Israel, with 250 more taken hostage.

Hamas has denied media claims of relocating its Qatari outpost to Iraq. Reports had suggested the Gulf mediators were pressuring the terror group to leave the gas-rich state if progress was not made on ceasefire talks but Mr Naim said “nothing is true”.

An Israeli member of the hostage negotiation team said: “In the last two months, there have been three such discussions about Qatar forcing Hamas to leave, which so far remain empty threats. We can only understand this to be a means of appeasing the US while no progress is being made with the talks to free the hostages.”

Israel kills senior Gaza health official, tanks push deeper into Rafah

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 24 June 2024

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By Nidal Al-Mughrabi

CAIRO - An Israeli air strike at a medical clinic in Gaza City killed the director of Gaza's Ambulance and Emergency Department, the enclave's health ministry said.

The health ministry said the killing of Hani al-Jaafarawi brought the number of medical staff killed by Israeli fire since Oct 7 to 500. At least 300 others have so far been detained.

In a statement, the Israeli military said the strike targeted Mohammad Salah, who it said was responsible for developing Hamas weaponry.

"Salah was part of a project to develop strategic weaponry for the Hamas terrorist organisation, and he commanded a number of Hamas terrorist squads that worked on developing weapons," it said.

More than eight months into the fighting, international mediation backed by the United States has so far failed to bring a ceasefire agreement. Hamas says any agreement must bring an end the war, while Israel says it will agree only temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas is eradicated.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israeli forces which took control of the eastern, southern, and central parts of the city pursued their raid into the western and northern areas, said residents, describing heavy fighting.

On Sunday, residents had said Israeli tanks had advanced to the edge of the Mawasi displaced persons' camp in the northwest of Rafah, forcing many families to leave northward to Khan Younis and to Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, the only city in the enclave where tanks have not yet invaded.

"The situation in Tel Al-Sultan, in western Rafah, remains very dangerous. Drones and Israeli snipers are hunting people who try to check on their houses, and tanks continue to take over areas overseeing Al-Mawasi further west," said Bassam, a resident of Rafah.

"We know about people killed in the streets and we know and we see that dozens of houses had been destroyed by the occupation," he told Reuters via a chat app.
Israel denies targeting civilians and blames Hamas for provoking civilian casualties by fighting among them, which Hamas denies.

The Israeli military said forces continued "intelligence-based targeted operations" in Rafah, locating weapons and rocket launchers and killing militants "who posed threats to them."

In the north of the enclave, where Israel had said its forces completed operations months ago, residents said tanks had pushed back into Gaza City's Zeitoun suburb and were pounding several areas there.

Israel's ground and air campaign in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The Israeli offensive in retaliation has killed almost 37,600 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and has left Gaza in ruins.

Since early May, fighting has focused on Rafah, on Gaza's southern edge where around half of the enclave's 2.3 million people had been sheltering after fleeing other areas.

Netanyahu said the phase of intense fighting against Hamas would end "very soon", but that the war would not end until the Islamist group no longer controls the Palestinian enclave.

In an interview with Israel's channel 14, he said forces based in Gaza would be freed to move to the north, where Israel has warned of a potential full-blown war against Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, which has struck the border region in what it says is solidarity with the Palestinians.

"After the intense phase is finished, we will have the possibility to move part of the forces north. And we will do this," Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel's Channel 14.

Israeli forces strap wounded Palestinian to jeep during raid

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 23 June 2024

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JERUSALEM - Israeli army forces strapped a wounded Palestinian man to the hood of a military jeep during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday.

A video circulating on social media and verified by Reuters showed a Palestinian resident of Jenin, Mujahed Azmi, on the jeep that passes through two ambulances.
The Israeli military in a statement said Israeli forces were fired at and exchanged fire, wounding a suspect and apprehending him.

Soldiers then violated military protocol, the statement said. "The suspect was taken by the forces while tied on top of a vehicle," it said.

The military said the "conduct of the forces in the video of the incident does not conform to the values" of the Israeli military and that the incident will be investigated and dealt with.

Reuters was able to match the location from corroborating and verified footage shared on social media that shows a vehicle transporting an individual tied on top of a vehicle in Jenin. The date was confirmed by an eyewitness interviewed by Reuters.

According to the family of Azmi, there was an arrest raid, and he was injured during the raid, and when the family asked for an ambulance, the army took Mujahed, strapped him on the hood and drove off.

Violence in the West Bank, already on the rise before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, has escalated since then with frequent army raids on militant groups, rampages by Jewish settlers in Palestinian villages, and deadly Palestinian street attacks.