Category Archives: Palestinian Territories

Israel tells civilians to evacuate after taking control of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City

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Casualties reported after raids on complex, where hundreds are reportedly sheltering and IDF claims is being used by Hamas

Israeli forces are in control of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, after an overnight raid on the medical complex, and have told thousands living nearby to evacuate towards the south of the Palestinian territory.

Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said early on Monday that troops were “conducting a high-precision operation in limited areas of Shifa hospital based on … intelligence information indicating the use of the hospital by senior Hamas terrorists to command attacks”.

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Palestinian groups ‘relieved’ after Australia reverses visa cancellations for people fleeing Gaza

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Some visas reinstated after further security checks but Amnesty urges government to provide clarity on vetting processes

Palestinian groups and refugee advocates say they are “so relieved” that the federal government has reversed visa cancellations for people fleeing Gaza, after several were stranded on their way out last week.

Some of the visas have been reinstated after further security checks, but advocates have urged the government to provide further clarity on the vetting processes, to give assurance to other Palestinians with Australian visas who manage to get out of Gaza.

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Netanyahu vows to press ahead with assault on Rafah

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PM acknowledges international pressure is increasing but says it will not stop Israel achieving its goals

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with sending Israeli troops into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, rejecting deep international concerns over the risks to more than a million Palestinians who have sought shelter there.

The prime minister said no amount of international pressure would stop Israel from realising all of its war aims.

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Middle East crisis: Palestinian foreign ministry accuses Israeli government of ‘blind revenge’ – as it happened

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Comments come after Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israeli military would go ahead with plans for operations in Rafah

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said Israeli forces released Tamer Fouad Salim Al-Qarm, a PRCS volunteer, yesterday after a “36-day detention during the occupation’s raid on al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis”.

The PRCS added in its post on X that Israeli troops continue to detain 13 PRCS members and volunteers, “whose fate remains unknown to this moment”.

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How the uncommitted movement rocked Biden over Gaza

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The success of this agile grassroots group underlines the discontent over the war – and represents a warning for Democrats

People in Michigan, and across the country, had been protesting for months over the Gaza war and the US government’s role in it, marching in the streets, showing up at the president’s public events, and pressuring their elected officials to support a ceasefire.

But it didn’t seem as though Joe Biden was listening to a groundswell of Democrats who opposed the war and US media coverage of the protests, and of the war itself, seems to be waning, too.

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Severely injured patients trapped in Gaza’s hospitals as evacuations are halted

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Destruction of buildings, too few ambulances and having to work in ‘red zones’ all adding to trauma

There have been no medical evacuations from northern Gaza for more than a month so severely injured people are trapped in damaged hospitals where they cannot get adequate treatment, a leading medical charity has warned.

Ambulances need urgent access to take the most vulnerable patients for specialist care, said Patrick Münz, head of mission in Gaza for German medical charity Cadus.

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Gaza ceasefire hopes rise after Hamas abandons key demands

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Israeli negotiators are heading to Qatar after the group dropped calls for a permanent end to hostilities and agreed a 40-day pause

Israeli negotiators are expected to arrive in Qatar on Sunday amid intense new efforts to bring the war in Gaza to at least a temporary halt, after Hamas abandoned key ceasefire demands last week following a series of setbacks.

In recent days, the militant organisation has been disappointed by the failure of its calls for a wave of protest during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, angered by the appointment without consultation of a new prime minister by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and suffered the possible death of a key military commander in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

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Middle East crisis: ceasefire talks ‘expected to resume on Sunday’ – as it happened

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Source tells Reuters that discussions would cover issues including prisoner-hostage exchanges and humanitarian aid

Record numbers of Palestinian detainees are filling Israeli prisons where they face “systemic abuse” and torture, rights advocates warned, calling for international action, reports AFP.

Members of several Israeli NGOs travelled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the UN about a major “crisis” inside the country’s prisons.

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Top senator calls on Biden to ‘use all levers’ to pressure Israel over Gaza

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Democrat Chris Van Hollen says Biden must cease giving arms to Israel until it lifts restrictions on aid and does more to protect lives

Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.

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‘Everyone has friends in jail’: how Palestinian prisoners became central to Gaza ceasefire talks

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Hamas seeks scaled-back release it can portray as victory as Israeli government weighs conflicting pressures over hostages

In a cafe on a dusty roundabout in the small West Bank town of Silwad, men sit and play cards, one eye on the large TV screen showing the latest news from Gaza. When there is any mention of a possible ceasefire deal – and so the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails – there is silence.

“Nobody tell us anything officially. We see on the news about a deal. So we just know that my brother might be released,” said Akhram Hammad, a 45-year-old blacksmith whose sibling Tayyer is serving multiple life sentences for shooting dead seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians at a checkpoint not far from Silwad in 2002. “It would be really good and everybody would be really happy; otherwise, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”

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Authors withdraw from PEN America festival in protest over Israel-Gaza war

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Group of more than a dozen writers decry organization’s inadequate response to ‘genocide’ being committed by Israel

More than a dozen prominent authors and literary figures have withdrawn from PEN America’s flagship World Voices Festival in protest of what they see as an inadequate response by the organization to the “genocide” being committed against Palestinians by Israel in Gaza.

The group of writers, which includes Naomi Klein, Michelle Alexander, Hisham Matar, Isabella Hammad and Zaina Arafat, sent a letter to PEN America asserting it had “betrayed the organization’s professed commitment to peace and equality for all, and to freedom and security for writers everywhere” by failing to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.

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Biden says Schumer made ‘good speech’ in breaking with Benjamin Netanyahu

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President also condemns US surge in Islamophobia in comments that could portend broader shift in sentiment towards Gaza war

Joe Biden on Friday said Senator Chuck Schumer made “a good speech” that reflected many Americans’ concerns when he publicly broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the war in Gaza.

While the US president announced no changes in his administration’s policy towards Israel, his views on the speech Schumer made Thursday from the floor of the US Senate, where the New York Democrat is the majority leader, could portend a broader shift in sentiment.

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Netanyahu approves Rafah attack plans as aid ship reaches Gaza

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Israeli PM’s decision may be intended to put negotiating pressure on Hamas, observers say, after his cabinet discussed truce proposal

Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for an attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter, officials in Israel have said.

The decision was made as a ship towing a barge loaded with food arrived off Gaza on Friday. It was a test run for a new aid route by sea from Cyprus into the devastated Palestinian territory, where famine looms after five months of Israel’s military campaign.

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Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu’s office ‘approves plan for Rafah operation’

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Reuters reports that Israeli military is preparing to evacuate the population of Gaza border town

Reuters has a breaking news line about the Gaza aid ship, the Open Arms, that set off from Cyprus on Tuesday. According to the news agency, witnesses have reported that the ship is close to Gaza’s coast now.

More details soon …

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Palestinians who had Australian visas cancelled mid-flight are ‘collateral damage’, charity group says

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At least 70 people have had to cancel or postpone travel while one man remains stuck in an Istanbul airport

Palestinians fleeing Gaza with valid Australian visas only for them to be cancelled mid-flight or at airports have been described as “collateral damage” for the federal government’s failures.

One charity group helping Palestinians to leave the war zone, the Palestine Australia Relief and Action (Para) group, said it has already had to cancel or postpone the upcoming flights of at least 70 people, including sick and elderly, and is frustrated by the lack of clarity.

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Israeli forces kill 20 Palestinians waiting for aid, Gaza health ministry says

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Israeli military denies reports after officials say eight people killed in separate strike on aid distribution centre

Gaza’s health ministry has said Israeli fire killed 20 people waiting to receive desperately needed aid in the besieged Palestinian territory, but the Israeli military said the reports were “erroneous”.

Gaza officials said the attack occurred as a crowd gathered to receive aid from a truck at the Kuwait roundabout, a key interchange used by humanitarian convoys carrying food into northern Gaza. More than 150 people were wounded, they added.

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Charity hopes to send second food aid ship to Gaza in next few days

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Pallets with 50% more supplies than first boat, Open Arms, being loaded in Cyprus

The charity sending food aid to Gaza on a ship travelling across the Mediterranean from Cyprus is loading a second boat with supplies, which it hopes will set off in the coming days.

Pallets containing 300 tonnes of food aid – 50% more than the first shipment – are expected to be screened and loaded by the end of Thursday, but there is no indication yet when it will leave the port of Larnaca.

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Schumer faces backlash after calling for new Israeli elections to oust Netanyahu

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Senate majority leader says Israeli prime minister has ‘lost his way’ and warns that country risks becoming ‘a pariah’

Chuck Schumer, the US Senate leader and a top ally of Joe Biden, on Thursday broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the invasion of Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections, in comments that upset its ruling party and allies on Capitol Hill.

The shift by Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States, came as he continued to press lawmakers to pass a military assistance package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, the countries Biden has named as America’s top national security priorities.

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Revealed: How the global oil industry is fueling Israel’s war on Gaza

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Analysis shows how jets and tanks are being kept fueled despite interim ICJ ruling warning Israel to prevent genocidal acts

Israeli jets and tanks bombarding Palestinians are being fueled by some of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel companies – and US tax-payers, according to research.

Israel relies on crude oil and refined products from overseas to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles.

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Ship carrying aid nears Gaza as Cyprus puts second vessel on standby

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Where Spanish-flagged vessel Open Arms will dock, and how supplies will be distributed, is still unclear

A ship carrying aid is nearing Gaza about 48 hours after it left Cyprus, with further aid preparations being made aboard a second “much bigger” vessel. It came as the EU foreign policy chief said starvation was being used as a weapon of war.

After the 240-mile voyage, the ship will dock at a jetty being built by the World Central Kitchen (WCK), the organisation that will distribute the aid.

Guardian Newsroom: The unfolding crisis in the Middle East On Wednesday 20 March, 7-8.15pm GMT, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the fast developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

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