Region

Hundreds killed in Sweida bloodshed in JulySuspects filmed several killingsSome later confessed, committee saysDruze deaths spark calls for justiceSyria has interrogated and detained members of its defence and interior ministries suspected of committing abuses against civilians in the predominantly Druze province of Sweida in July, the committee investigating the violence has said.Hundreds of people were killed in Sweida in violence that began between tribes and Druze factions but which worsened after Syrian troops were dispatched to the area. Bereaved relatives accused government forces of committing execution-style killings on camera.Syria appointed a committee to investigate the violence on July 31. Its spokesperson Ammar Izzedin told Syrian and regional media outlets on Tuesday night that members of both the interior and defence ministries had been questioned and referred to the judiciary over their suspected involvement in abuses.Izzedin declined to say how many personnel were detained, but said they were Syrian nationals who carried out the atrocities in an individual capacity.He told regional broadcaster Al-Hadath the committee had confronted the suspects with "the video footage in which they were seen" committing abuses without specifying what they were.Izzedin said the footage was "enough" as evidence since the fighters had filmed themselves, but that several had also confessed to committing the abuses after being shown the videos."They were detained by the interior and defence ministries to be transferred to the judiciary when the investigations are concluded to be publicly tried for the crimes they committed against Syrians," Izzedin said.He told local outlet Syria TV that the committee was keen to act swiftly to arrest the suspects even as it continued its investigative work. He did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for additional comment.Amnesty International urged Syrian authorities on Tuesday to hold members of government forces accountable for extrajudicial executions of Druze men and women on July 15 and 16 in Sweida.In March, Syria's military was accused of mass killings of members of the Alawite minority, to which much of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ruling elite belonged.A Syrian government fact-finding committee said in July that 1,426 people had died in March in attacks on security forces and subsequent mass killings of Alawites, but concluded that commanders had not given orders for the revenge attacks.It said 298 suspects were linked to violations against Alawites and 265 involved in the initial attack on security forces, and said they had been referred to the judiciary.

The State of Qatar has condemned the Israeli occupation's attack targeting the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), considering it a grave violation of the rules of international humanitarian law and Security Council Resolution 1,701. In a statement on Wednesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed the State of Qatar's complete rejection of any aggression targeting the UNIFIL force, which plays a fundamental role in maintaining security and stability in Lebanon, stressing the need for an urgent investigation into this attack and for those responsible to be brought to justice. The ministry expressed Qatar's full solidarity with the Republic of Lebanon in its measures to preserve its security and stability, and reiterated its support for the efforts of the UNIFIL force in carrying out its duties in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) urged the international community on Wednesday to take immediate and deterrent measures to halt the inflammatory calls and dangerous practices of the Israeli occupation forces aimed at deepening settlement activity and annexing the occupied West Bank.In a statement, Secretary General of the GCC Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi said that these inflammatory calls, made by a minister in the government of the Israeli occupation forces, confirm the occupation's continuous and systematic approach of destabilising security and stability in the region, reflecting its insistence on undermining peace opportunities and its blatant defiance of international conventions, as well as its continued violation of all laws and norms.He affirmed the GCC's support for the brotherly Palestinian people in confronting these aggressive statements and practices, and in backing the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, first and foremost the establishment of their independent state on the June 4, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.​

The Israeli occupation army has ramped up its military operations in the Al Mawasi area of southern Gaza, converting what was euphemistically known as a "humanitarian zone" into a lethal trap to lure the Palestinians and destabilize any place where they are present, transforming any shelter into a target within an extermination campaign that aims to efface Gazans, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med Monitor) has reported.In a statement, Euro-Med Monitor confirmed that the occupation army directly launched firepower at the tents of the displaced people in Al Mawasi, resulting in unnecessary casualties in a daily repeated crime.It stressed that this Israeli firepower is unnecessary for military or security reasons. The displaced tents are coming under precision attack from snipers in this area, as well as air raids and oftentimes artillery shelling. "This area is euphemistically alleged to be a humanitarian zone, and over a million people are ordered to head to this area, the statement continued.The statement further explained that Euro-Med Monitor's legal team has documented repeated incidents of displaced tents being targeted directly throughout the past few days, which resulted in killing dozens of civilians and wounding others with varying degrees of injuries, in addition to destroying their tents and their remaining personal belongings in this last-resort area.The legal team has been monitoring multiple footage showing Israeli forces firing on Palestinians in displacement tents for amusement or competitive targeting. The footage indicates that the firepower was not zeroed in on a specific military target nor justified by any security or operational necessity, but rather exposes a deliberate pattern aimed at maximizing civilian casualties, destroying property, and eroding any sense of safety, the statement stressed. The team asserted that alongside the recorded gunfire, there have been dozens of incidents in which the displaced persons' tents were subjected to aerial and artillery strikes from Israeli gunboats or tanks, targeting civilians within so-called "humanitarian zones," which is literally a deliberate policy aimed at obliterating the very concept of protection, turning places that are supposed to serve as safe havens into hunting and bombardment grounds, where the displaced face the risk of direct killing or slow death from starvation, disease, and the collapse of the health system.Euro-Med Monitor warned against using displacement as a double weapon, stressing that thousands of families in Al Mawasi are experiencing extremely tough humanitarian conditions that lack the simplest life elements, amid a severe shortage of food, fresh water, and medicines, thereby exacerbating health risks and exposing the residents to epidemics and contagious diseases.Many of those displaced people are forced to live either in dilapidated tents or in the open without protection from heat, cold, or rain, amid an aggravated tribulation of children, the elderly, and women due to the lack of essential medical care and services, as these tents continue to punch way above their weight in the midst of no sanitation networks, making them incredibly unlivable and threatening the lives of thousands with slow death, Euro-Med Monitor warned. Euro-Med Monitor further explained that the continuation of this policy lays bare the fact that the Israeli occupation army is bent upon subjecting Gazans to only one of these options: either to die quickly through bombing and direct targeting, or die slowly through deliberate starvation and deprivation of key life essentials.It stressed that these acts are tantamount to a crime of genocide based on international law and expose a methodical orientation to imposing living conditions that aim to decapitate the Palestinians entirely or partially.

17 Palestinians were killed and dozens were injured in raids and shelling carried out by the Israeli occupation forces on Wednesday across the Gaza Strip.In remarks to the Qatar News Agency (QNA), the Palestinian Ministry of Health's Emergency and Ambulance Service in Gaza said that three citizens were killed and several others were injured in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City. It noted that its crews recovered the bodies of four martyrs following another airstrike that targeted a house in the Al Nafaq area, northeast of the city. Seven others were killed and more than 13 were injured in a bombing that targeted the Sheikh Radwan market.For its part, Al Amal Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip said that a citizen was killed as a result of Israeli artillery shelling on the Al Katiba neighborhood in Khan Yunis, while two women were killed and about eight other citizens, including women, were injured as a result of shelling that targeted the Al Iqlimiya area southwest of the Al Mawasi area.Meanwhile, the number of victims of Israel's war of extermination against the Gaza Strip and its population continues to rise, especially as the occupation plans to impose its full control over Gaza City.

Palestinian medical sources reported that the death toll in the Gaza Strip, by Israeli occupation forces' fire since dawn today, has risen to 112, including 24 aid seekers. The sources stated that 36 martyrs arrived at Al Shifa Hospital, 5 at Sheikh Radwan Clinic, 13 at Al Ahli Arab Hospital (Al Ma'amadani), 12 at Al Awda Hospital, 6 at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, and 40 at Nasser Hospital. Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli entity has been waging an unprecedented aggression on the Gaza Strip, involving killing, starvation, destruction, and forced displacement, ignoring all international calls and orders by the International Court of Justice to stop the aggression. The Israeli aggression on the Strip has so far resulted in 63,633 martyrs, 160,914 wounded, most of them children and women, more than 9,000 missing, and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Israeli reservists began responding to call-up orders Tuesday, swelling the military's ranks ahead of a planned offensive to capture Gaza City after nearly two years of devastating war. Despite mounting pressure at home and abroad to end its campaign, Israel has recently been stepping up operations as it lays the groundwork for seizing the Palestinian territory's largest urban centre.Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 82 people Tuesday across the Strip, which has been in the grips of a major humanitarian crisis for months. Gaza's civil defence agency said 10 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential building in the southwest of Gaza City.AFP footage from the aftermath of the strike in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood showed Palestinians carrying a dead girl from the rubble of the top floor. "We were sleeping safely in our homes and suddenly we woke up to the sound of bombing and destruction and found most of our neighbours murdered and injured," said Sanaa al-Dreimli. In Tel Aviv Tuesday, a group of reservists refusing to serve in the war who called themselves "Soldiers for the Hostages" held a public event urging their fellow reservists and active-duty soldiers not to report for service.Israeli media has reported that around 40,000 reservists were being mobilised in the first wave. The UN estimates that nearly a million people live in and around Gaza City, where a famine has been declared. Army chief Eyal Zamir told reservists reporting for duty Tuesday they were being deployed to "enhance the strikes of our operation".The military has intensified its bombardment of Gaza City, and has been operating on its outskirts in recent days. "We are already entering places we have never entered before," Zamir said. Weary Palestinians in Gaza City told AFP they felt helpless and desperate ahead of the looming offensive. "There is no place for us to go, and no means to get there.We are exhausted physically and mentally from displacement and from the war," 60-year-old Amal Abdel-Aal, who lives in a tent in the city's west, told AFP by telephone. In a post on X Tuesday, a military spokesman warned Gazans of the upcoming "expansion of combat operations towards Gaza City". "We wish to remind you that in Al-Mawasi enhanced services will be provided, with an emphasis on access to medical care, water and food," Avichay Adraee said, referring to an area in the south that Israel has designated a humanitarian zone but which has been hit by repeated strikes.In mid-August, the UN human rights office said Palestinians in Al-Mawasi had "little or no access to essential services and supplies". Khalil al-Madhoun, 37, who lives in a partially destroyed apartment in western Gaza City said he had travelled twice to the south looking for somewhere to pitch a tent but found no space. "The centre and the south are completely overcrowded," he told AFP by telephone. Most of Gaza's population of more than two million people has been displaced at least once during the war.

An armed group that controls part of western Sudan appealed Tuesday for foreign help in recovering bodies and rescuing residents from torrential rain, after it said at least 1,000 people were killed when a landslide buried a mountain village.Only one person survived the destruction of the village of Tarseen in the mountainous Jebel Marra area of the Darfur region, said the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army.SLM/A, which has long controlled and governed an autonomous portion of Jebel Marra, appealed to the United Nations and international aid agencies to help collect the bodies of victims, including men, women and children."Tarseen, famed for its citrus production, has now been completely levelled to the ground," the group said in a statement. Continuing rains have made travel in the region difficult and could impede any rescue or aid efforts."Nearby villagers are overwhelmed with fear that a similar fate might befall them if the ... torrential rainfall persists, which underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive evacuation plan and provision of emergency shelter," the group's leader, Abdelwahid Mohamed Nur, said in a separate appeal.A statement by the UN's resident co-ordinator put the death toll at between 300 and 1,000, citing local reports.Arjimand Hussain, regional response manager for the development group Plan International, said the last 45km of the route to Tarseen were impassable to motor vehicles and could only be negotiated on foot or by donkey.Nine bodies were recovered by volunteers, said Abdelhafiz Ali from the Jebel Marra Emergency Room, who noted that the village had hosted hundreds of people displaced by fighting.The SLM/A has remained neutral in the battle between the main enemies in Sudan's civil war, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The two foes are fighting over control of Al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur state, which is under siege from the RSF and has suffered famine.Residents of Al-Fashir and nearby areas have sought shelter in Jebel Marra, though food, shelter, and medical supplies are insufficient and hundreds of thousands have been exposed to the rains. Tawila, where most have arrived, is in the throes of a cholera outbreak, as are other parts of Darfur.The two-year civil war has left more than half of Sudan's population facing crisis levels of hunger and driven millions from their homes, leaving them especially exposed to the country's damaging annual floods.Sudan's army-controlled government expressed its condolences and willingness to assist.The prime minister of a newly-installed RSF-controlled rival government, Mohamed Hassan al-Taishi, said he would be co-ordinating with the SLM/A on the delivery of aid supplies to the area.Pope Leo sent his condolences and said he was praying for those affected, according to a Vatican statement.

The death toll from the relentless genocide that the Israeli occupation has been committing against the Gaza Strip, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, has risen to 63,633 martyrs, in addition to 160,914 wounded.In a statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that 76 martyrs and 281 injured people had arrived at hospitals in the Strip over the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, a number of victims remain buried under the rubble and on the streets, as ambulances and civil defense teams cannot reach them.The ministry added that the death toll and the number of injuries after the occupation violated the ceasefire agreement on March 18 rose to 11,502 martyrs, in addition to 48,900 injured. It noted that 12 martyrs and 90 injured aid seekers arrived at hospitals during the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of martyrs who arrived at hospitals to 2,306 martyrs and 16,929 injured.Meanwhile, hospitals in the Gaza Strip recorded 13 new deaths over the past 24 hours, including three children, due to famine, bringing the total number of people dying from famine to 361, including 130 children.The Israeli occupation continues its war of extermination against Gaza and its people, ignoring calls from the international community to halt the killing machine and open the crossings to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, amid an unprecedentedly tragic humanitarian situation.

With the approach of the new academic year in September 2025, in Gaza the enclave still experiences death, darkness, and blood, with the complete shortage of education, students, schools, and teachers. Approximately 700,000 students are still bereft of education and have become displaced and deprived because of the genocide and ethnic cleansing that the Israeli occupation has been relentlessly committing against the Gaza Stip. While schools worldwide are preparing for this new academic year, the enclave's schools have morphed into piles of charred stones and debris, sinking in a heavy silence overwhelmed by the noise of shells, missiles, and combat aircraft, rather than school bells for morning lineup. Strikingly, Gaza had been embracing 796 schools with 785,000-plus students, but today over 80 percent of schools have turned into ruins, with 156 schools entirely decimated, while 382 schools, universities, and educational institutions have been dramatically damaged. Even UNRWA-run schools, which should have been a safe shelter, were not spared from this devastation. The magnitude of this calamity unveils merely piles of rubble, twisted steel, and shattered concrete now standing where once rose beacons of learning and knowledge, institutions that once delivered a promise of a better future for countless young people. Since the onset of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, more than 17,085 school students and over 1,261 college students have fallen, while upwards of 25,213 school students and 2,671 university students have been wounded, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education covering the period from Oct. 7, 2023, to August 2025. Those students were dreaming of a better future, but today they remain merely numbers and statistics in the reports of hospitals and international organizations. Prior to October 2023, the Israeli occupation had been shattering the educational sector in the Gaza enclave through weaponry and politics, but after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the matter escalated far beyond that, with the occupation forces engaging in effacing the entire educational system. Some UN experts and international organizations have described what is happening in the enclave as an entire scholasticide, implying the deliberate targeting of the educational system's infrastructure, as well as libraries and sites of Palestinian heritage, in addition to the systematic obliteration of education by murdering and detaining teachers and students, a key episode of the entire war of annihilation Israel has been pursuing since 2023

Palestinian medical sources at Al-Shifa Hospital in western Gaza City announced the arrival of 7 martyrs and a number of wounded as a result of airstrikes carried out by Israeli occupation warplanes on the northern part of Gaza City. Nine Palestinians were martyred at dawn Tuesday as a result of airstrikes and shelling carried out by the Israeli occupation, which targeted a residential building southwest of the city. Since October 7, 2023, the occupation forces have launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip, resulting in the martyrdom of 63,557 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, and the injury of 160,660 others. This toll remains incomplete, as a number of victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads, with ambulance and rescue crews unable to reach them.

Yemen's Houthi fighters held a funeral Monday for their prime minister and 11 other senior officials killed in an Israeli air strike that decimated its political cabinet.Twelve coffins draped in flags were displayed at Sanaa's Al-Shaab mosque, as masked gunmen patrolled the area and thousands of mourners flooded in.Houthi prime minister Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser al-Rahawi, nine ministers and two cabinet officials were killed as they attended a government meeting in the Sanaa area on Thursday.It was the highest profile assassination to be announced in Yemen in months of attacks by Israel during the Gaza war. The United States also waged an intense bombing campaign against Houthi targets from March to May this year.The Houthis have repeatedly launched missiles and drones towards Israel throughout the Gaza war.Monday, the Israeli military said it had intercepted a drone launched from Yemen before it entered Israeli territory.On Sunday, the Houthis detained at least 11 United Nations workers as part of a round-up, prompting a protest from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.A Yemeni security source told AFP on Saturday that Houthi authorities had arrested dozens of people in Sanaa and other areas "on suspicion of collaborating with Israel".The Houthis also fired a missile at an Israeli tanker in the Red Sea on Sunday, reprising a campaign they have waged throughout the Gaza war.The missile landed close to the Liberian-flagged Scarlet Ray with a "loud bang", the UK Maritime Trade Operations monitoring agency said.The Houthis, part of Iran's "axis of resistance" of anti-Israeli groups, vowed to step up their attacks on Israel following Thursday's killings.Their campaign of missile and drone strikes at Israel and on shipping in the Red Sea, a major cargo route, has persisted throughout the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians.Last week's Israeli strike wiped out about half of the 22-strong Houthi cabinet, which plays a mainly administrative role.Rahawi, the late prime minister, was from the southern province of Abyan, which is not part of the large swathes of Yemen under Houthi control.The Houthis, who hail from divided Yemen's rugged north, have traditionally reserved the premiership for southerners in an attempt to win hearts and minds.US-based Yemen analyst Mohammed al-Basha said Thursday's strike may signal an Israeli shift towards targeted killings, an approach that gutted the leadership of Gaza rulers Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon.The attack could mark "the beginning of a campaign of targeted assassinations against both civilian and military Houthi leadership, even at informal gatherings", he posted on X, calling it a "bad day" for the group.

Palestinians say water shortages are due to settler attacks UN reports increase in settler vandalism of water infrastructure Israeli military acknowledges reports but no suspects identified Israeli agency COGAT blames Palestinian water theft Shortages force reliance on costly deliveriesPalestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are facing severe water shortages that they say are being driven by increasing attacks on scarce water sources by extremist Jewish settlers.Across the West Bank in Palestinian communities, residents are reporting shortages that have left taps in homes dry and farms without irrigation.In Ramallah, one of the largest Palestinian cities in the West Bank and the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, residents facing water shortages are now relying on public taps."We only get water at home twice a week, so people are forced to come here," said Umm Ziad, as she filled empty plastic bottles with water alongside other Ramallah residents.The UN recorded 62 incidents of Jewish settlers vandalising water wells, pipelines, irrigation networks and other water-related infrastructure in the West Bank in the first six months of the year.The Israeli military acknowledged it has received multiple reports of Israeli civilians intentionally causing damage to water infrastructure but that no suspects had been identified.Among the targets have been a freshwater spring and a water distribution station in Ein Samiya, around 16km northeast of Ramallah, serving around 20 nearby Palestinian villages and some city neighbourhoods.Settlers have taken over the spring that many Palestinians have used for generations to cool off in the hot summer months.Palestinian public utility Jerusalem Water Undertaking said the Ein Samiya water distribution station had become a frequent target of settler vandalism."Settler violence has escalated dramatically," Abdullah Bairait, 60, a resident of nearby Kfar Malik, standing on a hilltop overlooking the spring."They enter the spring stations, break them, remove cameras, and cut off the water for hours," he said.The Ein Samiya spring and Kfar Malik village have been increasingly surrounded by Jewish Israeli settlements. The UN and most foreign governments consider settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law and an obstacle to the establishment of a future Palestinian state.According to the United Nations' humanitarian office, settlers carried out multiple attacks targeting water springs and vital water infrastructure in the Ramallah, Salfit and Nablus areas between June 1 and July 14. The Ein Samiya water spring had been repeatedly attacked, it said in a July report.Israeli security forces view any damage to infrastructure as a serious matter and were carrying out covert and overt actions to prevent further harm, the Israeli military said in response to Reuters questions for this story. It said the Palestinian Water Authority had been given access to carry out repairs.Kareem Jubran, director of field research at Israeli rights group B'Tselem, told Reuters that settlers had taken control over most natural springs in the West Bank in recent years and prevented Palestinians from accessing them.SETTLER VIOLENCEPalestinians have long faced a campaign of intimidation, harassment and physical violence by extremist settlers, who represent a minority of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank. Most live in settlements for financial or ideological reasons and do not advocate for violence against Palestinians.Palestinians say the frequency of settler violence in the West Bank has increased since the October 2023 Hamas storming of Israel.They say they fear the rise in settler violence is part of a campaign to drive them from the land. The UN has registered 925 such incidents in the first seven months of this year, a 16% year-on-year increase.Since the Hamas fighter attacks which sparked the war in Gaza, several Israeli politicians have advocated for Israel to annex the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.Reuters reported on Sunday that Israeli officials said the government is now considering annexing the territory after France and other Western nations said they would recognise a Palestinian state this month. The Palestinian Authority wants a future Palestinian state to encompass West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.Palestinians in the West Bank have long struggled to access water. The Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercises limited civic rule in parts of the territory and relies on Israeli approvals to develop and expand water infrastructure. Palestinian officials and rights groups say that's rarely given.B'Tselem said in an April 2023 report that Palestinians were facing a chronic water crisis, while settlers have an abundance of water."The water shortage in the West Bank is the intentional outcome of Israel's deliberately discriminatory policy, which views water as another means for controlling the Palestinians," B'Tselem wrote in the report.COSTLY DELIVERIESAcross the West Bank, water tanks are common in Palestinian homes, storing rainwater or water delivered by trucks due to an already unreliable piped water network that has been exacerbated by the settler attacks.Cogat, the Israeli military agency that oversees policy in the West Bank and Gaza, said in response to Reuters questions the Palestinian Authority was responsible for supplying water to Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel transferred 90mn cubic metres of water to the Palestinian Authority each year, it said, blaming any shortages on water theft by Palestinians.Along with travelling long distances to collect water, Palestinians have become reliant on costly water deliveries to manage the chronic water crisis that they fear will only grow."If the settlers continue their attacks, we will have conflict on water," said Wafeeq Saleem, who was collecting water from a public tap outside Ramallah."Water is the most important thing for us."

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 19, officials sayScholars say Israel is committing genocide in GazaIsrael pushing ahead with plan to take control of enclaveIsrael pushed tanks deeper into Gaza City and detonated explosives-laden vehicles in one suburb as airstrikes killed at least 19 people on Monday, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.The reports came as the president of the world's leading genocide scholars' association said it had passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.There was no immediate response from Israel on the accounts of the Gaza City offensive or on the statement from the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Israel has in the past denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide.Israel is pushing ahead with a plan to take full control of the whole Gaza Strip, starting with Gaza City, with the goal of destroying Hamas and rescuing the remaining 48 hostages after nearly two years of war.Residents said Israeli forces sent old armoured vehicles into the eastern parts of the overcrowded Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, then blew them up remotely, destroying several houses and forcing more families to flee.In leaflets dropped over Gaza City, Israel's military told residents to head south immediately, saying the army intended to expand its offensive westward."People are confused, stay and die, or leave towards nowhere," Sheikh Radwan resident Mohammad Abu Abdallah told Reuters."It was a night of horror, explosions never stopped, and the drones never stopped hovering over the area. Many people quit their homes fearing for their lives, while others have no idea where to go," the 55-year-old said over a chat app.The Israeli military issued a statement saying its forces were fighting Hamas across the enclave and over the past day had struck several military structures and outposts that had been used to stage attacks on its troops.The Gaza health ministry said at least 98 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave in the past 24 hours.It added that nine more people, including three children, have died of malnutrition and starvation over the past day, raising deaths from such causes to at least 348, including 127 children.Israel disputes the hunger fatality figures given by Gaza's Hamas-run government, arguing that the deaths were due to other medical causes.Local health authorities said the 19 people, including women and children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on houses in Gaza City. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on those reports.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet late on Sunday to discuss a new offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as the bastion of Hamas.Israel's military has warned its political leaders that the planned Gaza City offensive could endanger hostages still being held by Hamas. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in past weeks.

Resolution backed by 86 percent of scholars who votedIsrael rejects accusations of genocide in GazaResolution calls for Israel to cease acts deemed genocidalThe world's biggest academic association of genocide scholars has passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday. Eighty-six percent of those who voted among the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) backed the resolution declaring Israel's "policies and actions in Gaza" had met the legal definition set out in Article II of the 1948 UN convention on genocide.Israel's Foreign Ministry called the statement disgraceful and "entirely based on Hamas' campaign of lies". Israel has in the past strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says they are justified as self defence. It is fighting a case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague that accuses it of genocide.Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, after fighters from Hamas attacked Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages.Since then, Israel's military action has killed 63,000 people, damaged or destroyed most buildings in the territory and forced nearly all its residents to flee their homes at least once. A global hunger monitor relied on by the United Nations says parts of the territory are now suffering a man-made famine.The three-page resolution calls on Israel to "immediately cease all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza, including deliberate attacks against and killing of civilians including children; starvation; deprivation of humanitarian aid, water, fuel, and other items essential to the survival of the population; sexual and reproductive violence; and forced displacement of the population."It also states that the Hamas attack on Israel which precipitated the war constituted international crimes."This is a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide," the association's president, Melanie O'Brien, a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia who specialises in genocide, told Reuters."There is no justification for the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, not even self defence," she added.The 1948 UN Genocide Convention, adopted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews by Nazi Germany, defines genocide as crimes committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such". It requires all countries to act to prevent and stop genocide.Since the genocide scholars' association was founded in 1994, it has passed nine resolutions recognising historic or ongoing episodes as genocides.The IAGS publishes a journal and holds regular international conferences of scholars studying genocide, and is considered the largest academic group in the field. Another group, the International Network of Genocide Scholars, also holds conferences and publishes a journal but does not issue similar resolutions.Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, welcomed the resolution's "prestigious scholarly stance", which he said "places a legal and moral obligation on the international community to take urgent action to stop the crime, protect civilians, and hold the leaders of the occupation accountable".Sergey Vasiliev, a professor of international law at the Open University in the Netherlands who is not a member of the association, told Reuters the resolution showed that "this legal assessment has become mainstream within academia, particularly in the field of genocide studies".Several international rights groups and some Israeli NGOs have already accused Israel of committing genocide. Last week hundreds of UN staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk wrote to ask him to explicitly describe the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.

The ongoing Israeli onslaught on all areas across the Gaza Strip has killed 41 Palestinians since dawn Monday. Medical sources in Gaza reported that 15 martyrs were brought to Al Shifa Hospital, 1 to Sheikh Radwan Clinic, 6 to Al Maghazi Hospital, 4 to Al Awda Hospital, 4 to Al Aqsa Hospital, and 11 to Nasser Hospital. Among those martyrs, 9 were waiting for aid, of whom 6 were in the southern enclave and 3 in the central, the sources added. Based on the latest figures, the death toll from the Israeli unremitting aggression against the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023, has soared to 63,557, with 160,660 reported wounded.The Israeli occupation forces resumed their offensive on the Gaza Strip after breaching the ceasefire deal on March 18, following a two-month let-up, and pounded various parts of the enclave, which is already facing an unprecedented humanitarian calamity after 22 months of war.

Nine more people, including three children, have died due to famine over the past 24 hours across Gaza, announced the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.This brings the total number of victims of famine and malnutrition to 348, including 127 children.Medical sources said on Monday that the death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 63,557, the majority of whom are children and women, since the start of the Israeli aggression on Oct. 7, 2023.The medical sources added that the death toll has risen to 160,660 since the start of the aggression, while many victims remain under the rubble, unable to be reached by ambulance and rescue crews.They indicated that 98 people were killed and 404 others were wounded and during the past 24 hours. The death toll and injuries since March 18, when the Israeli occupation violated the ceasefire agreement, has reached 11,426 and 48,619 wounded.The sources explained that the number of slain aid-seekers over the past 24 hours reached 46, with 239 injured.This brings the total number of martyred aid-seekers taken to hospitals to 2,294, and the total number of injured to 16,839.

The death toll from the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, since Oct. 7, 2023, has soared to 63,557, with 160,660 reported wounded. A statement by Gaza's Ministry of Health on Monday stated that the Strip's hospitals received 98 martyrs and 404 injuries during the latest 24-hour reporting period. The statement added that the recorded casualty toll since the Israeli occupation breached the ceasefire deal on March 18 reached 11,426 martyrs and 48,619 wounded. The toll among those who were killed while queuing for aid and received by hospitals in the past 24 hours reached 46 martyrs and 239 injured, bringing the total number of those who died while trying to make a living and received by hospitals to 2,294, with 16,839 wounded, the statement said. Over the past 24 hours, Gaza's hospitals recorded 9 deaths, among them 3 children due to starvation and malnutrition, thereby raising the total number of war-of-starvation victims to 348 cases, including 127 children.

A massive explosion at an ammunition depot in the Libyan city of Misrata on Monday left 16 people injured, according to the Libyan News Agency (WAL).Ambulance and Emergency Service spokesman Osama Ali said all of the injured suffered minor wounds and are in stable condition.The agency added that the explosion was fully contained, noting that fires had broken out as a result but were being dealt with by specialized teams.

Medical sources in Gaza said that 90 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on various areas of the Strip since dawn Sunday. Twenty-one Palestinian civilians were killed and dozens more were injured this evening as a result of several airstrikes launched by the Israeli occupation army on homes and tents of displaced persons and aid seekers in various parts of the Gaza Strip. Local sources said that a man and his wife were killed after being run over by an Israeli tank in the town of Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Another citizen was killed by Israeli occupation forces' fire in the Morag aid area, south of the city. In the central Gaza Strip, four civilians were killed and others were injured as a result of Israeli shelling targeting a group of civilians in the center of Deir Al Balah. Two people were also killed when the Israeli occupation forces shelled a house east of Al Maghazi camp, while a woman was killed in Israeli artillery shelling that targeted the Al Masdar area south of the camp. Two people were killed when Israeli warplanes targeted a group of citizens near Al Thawra Street in the Al Rimal neighborhood, west of Gaza City, while two others were killed when an apartment building near Al Tabbaa Tower in the same neighborhood was bombed. Today, the death toll from the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has risen to 63,459 martyrs, in addition to 160,256 injuries since Oct. 7, 2023. The Israeli occupation resumed its aggression against the Gaza Strip after violating the ceasefire agreement on March 18, following a two-month pause. The attacks targeted various areas of the Strip, which is already facing an unprecedented humanitarian tragedy after 22 months of war.