Gaza rescuers says children among 33 killed in Israeli strikes
Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli air strikes on Sunday killed at least 33 people, more than half of them children, after Israel had announced an expanded military campaign.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said 22 of the victims were killed in an attack on several tents where displaced Palestinians were living in Al-Mawasi, in the territory's south.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Asharq Al-Awsat
39 minutes ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israel Says Gaza-Bound Aid Boat Activists Awaiting Deportation
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg and other activists detained aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat have been taken to a Tel Aviv airport for deportation, Israel said Tuesday, after their vessel was intercepted by naval forces. The activist group departed Italy on June 1 aboard the Madleen carrying food and supplies for Gaza, whose entire population the UN has warned is at risk of famine. Israeli forces intercepted the boat in international waters on Monday and towed it to the port of Ashdod. "The passengers of the 'Selfie Yacht' arrived at Ben Gurion Airport to depart from Israel and return to their home countries," the Israeli foreign ministry said on X. "Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority." The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the activist group operating the vessel, said all 12 campaigners were "being processed and transferred into the custody of Israeli authorities". "They may be permitted to fly out of Tel Aviv as early as tonight," it said on social media. Video released earlier by the group showed the activists with their hands up as Israeli forces boarded the vessel, with one of them saying nobody was injured. Türkiye condemned the interception as a "heinous attack" and Iran denounced it as "a form of piracy" in international waters. In May, another Freedom Flotilla ship, the Conscience, was damaged in international waters off Malta as it headed to Gaza, with the activists saying they suspected an Israeli drone attack. A 2010 Israeli commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach the naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead. On Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the blockade, in place for years before the Israel-Hamas war, was needed to prevent Palestinian fighters from importing weapons. - Journalists on board - The Madleen was intercepted about 185 kilometers (115 miles) west of the coast of Gaza, according to coordinates from the coalition. President Emmanuel Macron requested that the six French nationals aboard the boat "be allowed to return to France as soon as possible", a presidential official said. Two of them are journalists, Omar Fayyad of Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Yanis Mhamdi who works for online publication Blast, according to media rights group Reporters Without Borders, which condemned their detention and called for their "immediate release". Al Jazeera "categorically denounces the Israeli incursion", the network said in a statement, demanding the reporter's release. Adalah, an Israeli NGO offering legal support for the country's Arab minority, said the activists on board the Madleen had requested its services, and that the group was likely to be taken to a detention center before being deported. Israel is facing mounting pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies. In what organizers called a "symbolic act", hundreds of people launched a land convoy on Monday from Tunisia with the aim of reaching Gaza. - 'Our children are dying' - Israel recently allowed some deliveries to resume after barring them for more than two months and began working with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. But humanitarian agencies have criticized the GHF and the United Nations refuses to work with it, citing concerns over its practices and neutrality. Dozens of people have been killed near GHF distribution points since late May, according to Gaza's civil defense agency. In Gaza City on Monday, displaced Palestinian Umm Mohammed Abu Namous told AFP that she hopes "that all nations stand with us and help us, and that we receive 10 boats instead of one". "We are innocent people," she said. "Our children are dying of hunger... We do not want to lose more children because of hunger." The 2023 Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 54,880 people, the majority civilians, have been killed in the territory since the start of the war. The UN considers these figures reliable. Out of 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack, 54 are still held in Gaza including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Asharq Al-Awsat
39 minutes ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Egyptian Source Denies Madleen Had Entered its Regional Waters
An Egyptian source denied on Monday claims that the Madleen Gaza-bound aid boat had sailed through Egyptian regional waters before heading to Israel. The activist group on board the vessel departed Italy on June 1 carrying food and supplies for Gaza, whose entire population the UN has warned is at risk of famine. Israeli forces intercepted the boat in international waters on Monday and towed it to the port of Ashdod. The Egyptian source said the vessel had not approached the country's regional waters, "otherwise it would have come under the protection of the Egyptian navy and awaited a decision by the country's authorities over what to do with it." The authorities were not contacted by anyone onboard the Madleen, it stressed. The regional waters are protected by the military and entering them demands permission and coordination, "and this did not happen," it explained. Moreover, Egyptian forces cannot allow the entry of the forces of another country into its waters, it added. Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg and other activists detained aboard the Madleen have been taken to a Tel Aviv airport for deportation, Israel said Tuesday, after their vessel was intercepted by naval forces. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the activist group operating the vessel, said all 12 campaigners were "being processed and transferred into the custody of Israeli authorities".
Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
Trump must tell Netanyahu ‘enough is enough': ex-Israeli PM
PARIS: US President Donald Trump should tell Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu 'enough is enough,' a former Israeli prime minister told AFP, denouncing the continuation of the war in Gaza as a 'crime' and insisting a two-state solution is the only way to end the conflict. Ehud Olmert, prime minister between 2006-2009, said in an interview in Paris that the United States has more influence on the Israeli government 'than all the other powers put together' and that Trump can 'make a difference.' He said Netanyahu 'failed completely' as a leader by not preventing the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the war. He said while the international community accepted Israel's right to self-defense after October 7, this changed when Netanyahu spurned chances to end the war in March and instead ramped up operations. Netanyahu 'has his personal interests which are prioritized over what may be the national interests,' Olmert charged. Analysts say Netanyahu fears that if he halts the war, hard-line members of his coalition will walk out, collapsing the government and forcing elections he could lose. 'If there is a war which is not going to save hostages, which cannot really eradicate more of what they did already against Hamas and if, as a result of this, soldiers are getting killed, hostages maybe get killed and innocent Palestinians are killed, then to my mind this is a crime,' said Olmert. 'And this is something that should be condemned and not accepted,' he said. Trump should summon Netanyahu to the White House Oval Office and facing cameras, tell the Israeli leader: ''Bibi: enough is enough',' Olmert said, using the premier's nickname. 'This is it. I hope he (Trump) will do it. There is nothing that cannot happen with Trump. I don't know if this will happen. We have to hope and we have to encourage him,' said Olmert. Despite occasional expressions of concern about the situation in Gaza, the US remains Israel's key ally, using its veto at the UN Security Council and approving billions of dollars in arms sales. Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Militants abducted 251 hostages, 54 of whom remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 54,880 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, figures the United Nations deems reliable. Along with former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser Al-Qidwa, Olmert is promoting a plan to end decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to create a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. Both sides would swap 4.4 percent of each other's land to the other, according to the plan, with Israel receiving some West Bank territory occupied by Israeli settlers and a future Palestinian state territory that is currently part of Israel. Ahead of a meeting this month in New York co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia on steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state, Olmert said that such a plan is 'practical, is doable, is relevant, is valid and is real.' Olmert spent over a year in prison from 2016-2017 after being convicted in corruption scandals that ended his political career and efforts to forge peace. A longtime political rival of Netanyahu even though they both emerged from the same Likud right-wing party, he also faces an uphill struggle to convince Israeli society where support for a Palestinian state, let alone land swaps, is at a low ebb after October 7. 'It requires a leadership on both sides,' said Olmert. 'We are trying to raise international awareness and the awareness of our own societies that this is not something lost but offers a future of hope.' Al-Qidwa, who is due to promote the plan alongside Olmert at a conference organized by the Jean-Jaures Foundation think tank in Paris on Tuesday, told AFP the blueprint was the 'only game in town and the only doable solution.' But he said societies in Israel and the Palestinian territories still had to be convinced, partly due to the continuation of the war. 'The moment the war comes to an end we will see a different kind of thinking. We have to go forward with acceptance of the co-existence of the two sides.' But he added there could be no hope of 'serious progress with the current Israeli government and current Palestinian leadership' under the aging president Mahmud Abbas, in office now for two decades. 'You have to get rid of both. And that is going to happen,' he said, labelling the Palestinian leadership as 'corrupt and inept.'
