tag

The death toll from the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, has risen to 69,169 martyrs in addition to 170,685 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.The ministry reported that since the ceasefire came into effect on October 11, a total of 241 people have been martyred and 614 injured, while 522 bodies have been recovered from the rubble. Adding that over the past 72 hours, hospitals in Gaza Strip received the bodies of 10 martyrs, including 9 recovered from beneath the rubble, in addition to 6 injured individuals.The ministry noted that many victims remain trapped under the debris and along the roads, as ambulance and civil defense teams continue to face severe difficulties reaching them.A ceasefire agreement between Hamas and the Israeli entity came into effect on October 11, following the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from populated areas in the Strip and the beginning of the return of displaced residents to northern Gaza. The truce marked the first phase of US President Donald Trump's initiative to end the war on Gaza.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas discussed via phone the latest developments in Gaza and Sudan, efforts to promote peace and sustainable development across Africa, and strengthening the Egypt-EU bilateral relations.In a statement issued Saturday, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said Abdelatty briefed Kallas on Cairo's efforts to uphold the Sharm El-Sheikh cease-fire agreement in Gaza. He also outlined preparations for Egypt's upcoming hosting of the International Conference on Early Recovery and Reconstruction in Gaza, scheduled for later this month, and expressed hope for active participation from EU member states.On Sudan, both sides emphasized the importance of preserving the country's unity, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national institutions. They also condemned the recent atrocities reported in the city of El Fasher.

The United States will share a draft resolution on President Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza with the 10 elected members of the United Nations Security Council, a US official said. Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas agreed a month ago to the first phase of Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza: a ceasefire in their two-year war and hostage-release deal.The United States has drafted a UN Security Council resolution that would approve a two-year mandate for a Gaza transitional governance body and an international stabilization force in the Palestinian enclave, according to the text seen by Reuters.A resolution needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes by Russia, China, the US, Britain or France to be adopted.It was not immediately clear if the US has yet shared a copy of the draft resolution with Russia and China. The two-page text seen by Reuters would authorize a Board of Peace transitional governance administration to establish a temporary International Stabilisation Force (ISF) in Gaza that could "use all necessary measures" - code for force - to carry out its mandate.

The United Nations said Tuesday it had distributed food parcels to one million people in Gaza since the ceasefire, but warned it was still in a race to save lives.The UN's World Food Programme stressed all crossing points into the Gaza Strip should be opened to flood the famine-hit Palestinian territory with aid, adding that no reason was given why the northern crossings with Israel remained closed."Three and a half weeks into the ceasefire in Gaza, we have distributed food parcels to around one million people across the Gaza Strip," said the WFP's Middle East spokeswoman Abeer Etefa."That's part of the broad operation to push back hunger in Gaza," she told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Cairo.WFP aims to reach 1.6 million people in the territory with parcels, which provide enough food for a family for 10 days.However, to get operations running at the level required, "we really need more access, more border crossings to be opened and more access to key roads inside Gaza," said Etefa.The US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect on October 10.Etefa described how the WFP was scaling up operations in Gaza and opened 44 of the 145 food distribution points it hopes to run.An estimated 700,000 people are now receiving fresh bread daily, supplied through 17 WFP-supported bakeries: nine in south and central Gaza, and eight in the north.The agency is hoping to get 25 up and running.Etefa said while food consumption levels had increased slightly thanks to the humanitarian aid and commercial trucks now allowed to enter, they remained well below pre-conflict levels.Furthermore, at this stage, households are still eating mostly cereals and pulses, with meat, eggs, vegetables and fruit being consumed "extremely rarely".Nour Hammad, WFP's spokeswoman in Gaza, said commercial food prices were still beyond the reach of most families, saying an apple now costs as much as a kilogramme of apples did before the war broke out in October 2023.The WFP said it had only been able to bring in roughly half of what was required to meet the food needs of people in Gaza."The needs are overwhelming," said Etefa, adding: "We are in a race to save lives."She said WFP trucks were still only coming through the Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings, severely limiting the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, and posing a major obstacle to getting aid to the north."We actually haven't been given clear answers on why the northern crossing points are still closed," she said.

Ceasefire allows Palestinians to return home, but violence persistsHamas and Israel exchange hostages and bodiesIsraeli fire killed three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Monday, north of the southern city of Rafah, which remains under Israeli control, according to local health authorities, further testing the fragile US-backed ceasefire.In a statement issued earlier on Monday, the Israeli military said forces identified "terrorists" who crossed the yellow line, which marks areas the army still occupies. It said they were advancing towards troops in southern Gaza, posing an immediate threat, before it struck them.Medics said one of those killed was a woman. The identities of the two others weren't immediately clear. The incident follows days of Israeli strikes on the enclave, provoking mutual accusations between Hamas and Israel over violations of the tenuous ceasefire that halted two years of war.Residents said Israeli forces continued to demolish houses in the eastern areas of Rafah, Khan Younis, and Gaza City, where forces continue to operate.The ceasefire, which came into effect on October 10, has calmed most fighting, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to the ruins of their homes in Gaza. Israel has withdrawn troops from positions in cities, and more aid has been allowed to enter.Hamas turned over all 20 living hostages held in Gaza in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees held by Israel. Hamas has also agreed to turn over the bodies of hostages, a process which is still incomplete and which it says is difficult, while Israel accuses Hamas of stalling.But violence has not completely halted. Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces have killed 239 people in strikes on Gaza since the truce, nearly half of them in a single day last week when Israel retaliated for an attack on its troops.Israel says three of its soldiers have been killed and it has targeted scores of fighters.Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday it received 45 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israel whose bodies were in Israeli custody. Monday's handover raised the number of Palestinian bodies Israel has returned to Gaza to 270.Hamas has so far returned 20 of the 28 bodies of hostages that had been buried in Gaza.

Jordan and Germany said on Saturday that an international force expected to support a future Palestinian police in Gaza under US President Donald Trump's post-war governance plan should have a UN mandate.Under the US-brokered ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, a coalition of mainly Arab and Muslim nations is expected to deploy forces in the Palestinian territory, which has been devastated by the war that broke out on October 7, 2023 with Hamas's attack on Israel.The so-called international stabilisation force is supposed to train and support vetted Palestinian police in the Strip, with backing from Egypt and Jordan, as well as secure border areas and prevent weapons smuggling to Hamas."We all agree that in order for that stabilisation force to be able to be effective in getting the job done, it has to have a Security Council mandate," Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said.Jordan, however, will not be sending its own forces to the Strip."We're too close to the issue and we cannot deploy troops in Gaza," Safadi said, adding his country was nonetheless ready to cooperate with the international force.Safadi was speaking at the IISS Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain alongside his German counterpart Johann Wadephul, who also supported a UN mandate for the force, saying it would "need a clear basis in international law"."We understand that this is of utmost importance to those countries who might be willing to send troops to Gaza and for the Palestinians. Germany would also want to see a clear mandate for this mission," Wadephul said.The idea of the stabilisation force has drawn some criticism, with UN experts last month warning it would "replace Israeli occupation with a US-led occupation, contrary to Palestinian self-determination".The UN has mandated international peacekeeping forces in the region for decades, including UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, which is currently working with the Lebanese army to enforce a November 2024 ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.

Nasser Medical Hospital in the Gaza Strip received Friday the bodies of 30 martyrs released by Israeli occupation forces.According to local sources, cited by the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), the bodies were transferred to the hospital via the International Committee of the Red Cross.This marks the fifth batch of martyrs' bodies handed over by the Israeli occupation since the ceasefire agreement in Gaza took effect.Most of the bodies bore signs of torture, burning, and execution. Many were found with bound hands and blindfolded eyes, their features severely disfigured, making identification by families nearly impossible.The handover is part of a prisoner and detainee exchange deal under the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and the Israeli entity, which came into force on Oct 10.Under the truce, Israel is to return the remains of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli hostage returned by Hamas. Friday's transfer brings the number returned to Gaza to 225. Hamas has already returned 20 surviving hostages.Hamas insists it is committed to the ceasefire plan but is struggling to find the remaining dead because two years of Israeli bombardments have erased Gazan landmarks.Egyptian recovery teams equipped with earth-moving equipment have joined the effort to search for the bodies.

The Israeli military attacked the Gaza Strip for a fourth day on Friday, killing three people, Palestinian health authorities said, in another test of a fragile ceasefire agreement.Residents reported Israeli shelling and gunfire in northern Gaza on Friday, as Israel continued to bombard areas of the enclave despite saying that it remains committed to a ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump.The Israeli military did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.Another Palestinian died of wounds sustained from previous Israeli shelling, the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported.The US-brokered ceasefire, which left thorny issues like the disarmament of Hamas and a timeline for Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip unresolved, has been tested by periodic outbreaks of violence since it came into place three weeks ago.Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Israel retaliated for the death of an Israeli soldier with bombardments that Gaza health authorities said killed 104 people.Gaza's health ministry said the Red Cross had delivered to it 30 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israel during the war, a day after Hamas handed over two bodies of hostages.Under the ceasefire accord, Hamas released all living hostages held in Gaza in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees, while Israel agreed to pull back its troops, halt its offensive and increase aid.Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of all 28 dead hostages in exchange for 360 Palestinian fighters killed in the war. After Thursday's release, it had handed over 17 bodies, while 225 Palestinian bodies have so far been returned to Gaza.Hamas has said that it will take time to locate and retrieve the bodies of all the remaining hostages.Israel has accused Hamas of violating the truce by stalling in the handover.

Humanitarian workers are being increasingly targeted in Gaza and in Sudan, where five Red Crescent volunteers were killed this week, the International Committee of the Red Cross's director-general Pierre Krahenbuhl told AFP Friday.Israel has repeatedly launched deadly strikes on Gaza despite a ceasefire agreed earlier in October and reports have emerged of atrocities by paramilitaries during Sudan's brutal civil war."It is now becoming a pattern of violence against humanitarian workers in Sudan, in Gaza, and others, that we find very dramatic," Krahenbuhl said in an interview before the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain."There is a wider erosion of respect for international humanitarian law," which had "clearly not" been respected in either conflict, he added.On Tuesday, the ICRC said five Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers were killed in North Kordofan state, a major battleground of the war that has raged since April 2023.There were also reports of 460 people killed at a hospital in El-Fasher, which recently fell to Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries.The capture of El-Fasher, following an RSF siege of more than 18 months, raised fears of a return to Sudan's ethnically targeted atrocities of 20 years ago.The western city has been cut off from all communications since its fall, but survivors who reached the nearby town of Tawila told AFP of mass killings, children shot in front of their parents and civilians beaten and robbed as they fled."We are dealing with probably one of the most dramatic conflicts of our time," Krahenbuhl said, pointing to attacks against civilians, "the extensive use of sexual violence" and the targeting of medical facilities.Krahenbuhl said Gaza's destruction was beyond anything he had seen before, and warned that aid supplies remained woefully short."In the 25 or 30 years that I've been working in the humanitarian field, I have not seen that level of destruction," he said."Not enough (aid) is coming into the Gaza Strip yet," the ICRC official added. "What people need is, of course, far bigger than what we currently are able to deliver."The basic needs of Gazans are so immense "that what we are starting to do with improved humanitarian access is only the tip of the iceberg".The United Nations also warned this week that although aid had increased since the truce, humanitarian groups faced funding shortfalls and problems coordinating with Israeli authorities.Separately, Krahenbuhl hit out at Israel's order this week banning the ICRC from visiting Palestinians held under a law that allows for their indefinite detention.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said resuming the visits, which were suspended during the Gaza war, would "seriously harm the state's security".But there was "no way in which our visits can pose a security threat or a national security threat", Krahenbuhl said, urging Israel to lift the ban.

Foreign ministers of some Muslim countries will meet in Istanbul on Monday to discuss the Gaza ceasefire and next steps there, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday, voicing concern over whether the ceasefire will continue.Speaking at a press conference in Ankara, Fidan said the gathering would include foreign ministers of countries represented at a meeting with US President Donald Trump in New York in September.That meeting, to discuss the situation in Gaza, was attended by Turkiye, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Pakistan and Indonesia."The topics being discussed currently are how to proceed to the second stage, the stability force," Fidan said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted last week at his opposition to any role for Turkish security forces in the Gaza Strip as part of a mission to monitor a US-backed ceasefire with Hamas.

The Gaza ceasefire violations are very disappointing and frustrating, HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York Wednesday."We were trying to contain it and we mobilised right away after this and in full coordination with the US. We have seen that the US also is committed to the deal."We have been very clear with Hamas and Hamas's response was also very clear to us that they are willing to give up their governance. The open question from their perspective is that this is an obligation on all the factions not on Hamas only."HE Sheikh Mohammed said he expected the ceasefire to hold in Gaza despite a "violation" as Israel carried out strikes in response to Palestinian fire."Fortunately I think the main parties -- both of them -- are acknowledging that the ceasefire should hold and they should stick to the agreement".Gaza's civil defense agency said the Israeli strikes killed more than 100 people, including at least 35 children.HE the prime minister called the Israeli strike on Doha that killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security person not only "a shock but a game-changer for all the region.""I think that the attack itself has shown the US that there are all the red lines being crossed in the region," he said.(Al Jazeera)

Israel said it struck an arms dump in Gaza on Wednesday, hours after the deadliest night of bombing since the start of a US-brokered truce, warning it would continue to operate to take out perceived threats.The military announced it had carried out a precision strike on a site in the Beit Lahia area of northern Gaza where it said weapons were being stockpiled. Israeli troops, it said, would remain deployed in "accordance with the ceasefire agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat".Hamas-run Gaza's civil defence agency told AFP that one Palestinian was killed in the latest strike -- and that 104 -- including 46 children and 24 women -- had died in the previous night's bombardment.The Israeli military launched a wave of bombing after one of its soldiers was killed in Gaza on Tuesday. By mid-morning on Wednesday it said it had begun "renewed enforcement of the ceasefire".Hamas said its fighters had "no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah" and reaffirmed its commitment to the US-backed ceasefire.Both US President Donald Trump and regional mediator Qatar said they expected the ceasefire to hold, but inside Gaza displaced families were losing hope."We had just started to breathe again, trying to rebuild our lives, when the bombardment came back," said 31-year-old Khadija al-Husni, a displaced mother living with her children under canvas at a school in Al-Shati refugee camp."It's a crime. Either there is a truce or a war -- it can't be both. The children couldn't sleep; they thought the war was over."United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said the report of so many dead was appalling and urged all sides not to let peace "slip from our grasp", echoing calls from Britain, Germany and the European Union for the parties to recommit to the ceasefire.In the central city of Deir el-Balah, in a tent near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, 40-year-old Jalal Abbas was close to despair and accused the Israelis of using false pretexts to resume their campaign."The problem is that Trump gives them cover to kill civilians because they mislead him with false information," he told AFP."We want an end to the war and the escalation. We're exhausted and on the verge of collapse."