Desperation only grows in Gaza, as crowds swell at protests in Israel
To keep your children halfway clean, when you've been displaced over and over again, forced to live under tarpaulin rammed up against your neighbours.
"We suffer greatly, especially because we live in tents," says Riham Akel, who was displaced from the north and now lives in Gaza City.
"They are made of cloth and plastic that do not protect us from the heat. In addition, there is no electricity, drinking water or water for washing, no fans or air conditioning."
Given Israel's planned takeover of Gaza City - and the evacuation of the 800,000 or so people now living there - it's likely she'll be forced to move again.
In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, the crowds have swelled these past two Saturdays - almost doubling after Hamas published propaganda videos showing two of the remaining hostages starving in captivity - and now this week, Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to push ahead with full security control of the Gaza Strip.
People here just want it to stop.
Yael said: "I feel like a hostage in my own country, as though no one listens to me - 80% of the citizens don't want it anymore."
"When you talk about the government it's not only Gaza," says David Solomon. "They are trying to undermine the democracy in Israel, they're trying willingly to destroy the whole of Israel, they don't care just for another year or two of their survival."
There are also calls for IDF soldiers to refuse to carry out Netanyahu's plan to take over Gaza City.
Another major point of contention is what many see as the failure of the International Red Cross to bring food to the hostages. Food for the Palestinians in Gaza is not much discussed, except for a small group on the fringes.
"We believe that the Israeli public is ignorant on purpose," says Gilad Melzer - holding up a sign saying "Stop Genocide" with a photo of a starving child.
"Some of it wants to stay ignorant and some, the government wants to keep them ignorant of what is going on in Gaza and they're ignorant as well of what is going on in the occupied territories."
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Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have made up his mind, though. He will ramp up the fight, despite international outcry, despite the opposition of his military leadership and despite the tens of thousands who rally each week in Hostages Square, hoping someone in government will bother to listen.
There is a sense of hopelessness here - that the solidarity of numbers still makes so little difference.
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Israel prepares to move Palestinians to southern Gaza as airstrikes continue
Israel has announced plans to relocate Palestinians from combat zones to southern Gaza as it prepares for a military offensive in densely populated areas of the territory. The Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian aid, COGAT, stated that the supply of tents to Gaza would resume on Sunday. While the military offered no comment on the timeline for this mass movement, Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed on social media that "we are now in the stage of discussions to finalize the plan to defeat Hamas in Gaza." Amidst these developments, the families of Israeli hostages, expressing growing frustration over 22 months of war, have called for a "nationwide day of stoppage" across Israel on Sunday. Families of hostages fear the coming offensive further endangers the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, just 20 of them thought to still be alive. They and other Israelis were horrified by the recent release of videos showing emaciated hostages speaking under duress and pleading for help and food. The families and supporters have pressed the government for a deal to stop the war — a call that some former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs have made as well in recent weeks. A group representing the families has urged Israelis into the streets on Sunday. "Across the country, hundreds of citizen-led initiatives will pause daily life and join the most just and moral struggle: the struggle to bring all 50 hostages home," it said in a statement. "I want to believe that there is hope, and it will not come from above, it will come only from us," said Dana Silberman Sitton, sister of Shiri Bibas and aunt of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were killed in captivity. She spoke at a weekly rally in Tel Aviv, along with Pushpa Joshi, sister of kidnapped Nepalese hostage Bipin Joshi, a student seized from a kibbutz. "I miss my best friend," Pushpa said. An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed a baby girl and her parents on Saturday, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said. Motasem al-Batta, his wife and the girl were killed in their tent in the crowded Muwasi area. "Two and a half months, what has she done?" neighbor Fathi Shubeir asked, sweating as temperatures in the shattered territory soared above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius). "They are civilians in an area designated safe." Israel's military said it couldn't comment on the strike without more details. It said it is dismantling Hamas' military capabilities and takes precautions not to harm civilians. Muwasi is one of the heavily populated areas in Gaza where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel plans to widen the coming military offensive, along with Gaza City and "central camps" — an apparent reference to the built-up Nuseirat and Bureij camps in central Gaza. Israel may be using the threat to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages taken in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. Elsewhere, an official at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the Zikim area of northern Gaza, as well as four people killed in shelling. Another 11 malnutrition-related deaths occurred in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory's Health Ministry said Saturday, with one child among them. That brings malnutrition-related deaths during the war to 251. The United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began. Palestinians are drinking contaminated water as diseases spread, while some Israeli leaders continue to talk openly about the mass relocation of people from Gaza. A 20-year old Palestinian woman described as being in a "state of severe physical deterioration" died Friday after being transferred from Gaza to Italy for treatment, the hospital said Saturday. The U.N. and partners say getting food and other aid into the territory of over 2 million people, and then on to distribution points, remains highly challenging with Israeli restrictions and pressure from crowds of hungry Palestinians. The U.N. human rights office says at least 1,760 people were killed while seeking aid between May 27 and Wednesday. It says 766 were killed along routes of supply convoys and 994 in the vicinity of "non-U.N. militarized sites," a reference to the Israeli-backed and U.S.-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which since May has been the primary distributor of aid in Gaza. The U.S. State Department on Saturday said all visitor visas for people from Gaza are being stopped while a review is carried out of how "a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas" were issued in recent days. The Hamas-led attack in 2023 killed around 1,200 people in Israel. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 61,897 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not specify how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Why can't Palestinian students from Gaza take up their university places in Britain?
There are currently 76 Palestinian students in Gaza who, against all odds, have secured places to study at 31 of the UK's top universities. More than 35 of these students have full scholarships, while eight others are waiting for their internet to get back up and running so they can formally accept their unconditional offers. Yet, in spite of their achievements, all of these students are currently unable to take up these hard-earned places, because they are unable to leave Gaza. For a number of them, these places have already been deferred from the last academic year, due to the lack of safe exit routes. One such student, as The Independent previously highlighted, is 22-year-old Dalya Ibrahim Shehada Qeshta. She has been offered a place to study pharmacy at the University of Manchester, while her sister, Dalal, secured a place at the University of Bristol on an aerospace engineering course. Both have family in the UK, but neither can leave Gaza due to physical obstacles and a lack of financial support. In response, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians – an independent organisation of lawyers, politicians, and academics who aim to protect their rights through the law – signed an open letter with campaign groups of health workers and lawyers, calling for the UK government to take immediate action. And last week, nearly 5,000 academics, myself included, also campaigned for the Starmer administration to facilitate the safe passage of these students from Gaza to the UK. Among them are over 600 professors, four vice chancellors and deputy vice chancellors, 12 deans, eight fellows of the British Academy, and eight holders of OBEs and MBEs. The technical issue is two-fold. The UK requires applicants to enrol their biometric data before an application can be processed, yet the UK-authorised biometrics registration centre in Gaza closed in October 2023. While a biometrics deferral protocol was put in place in 2023 for Ukrainians, Palestinian requests for the deferral have encountered a bureaucratic stone wall. Although the government says there are pathways for application, not a single one has been approved, even for scholars with government-issued scholarships. Moreover, if students do secure these biometric deferrals, which would allow them to do their biometric registration in a third country (for instance, Jordan or Egypt), they cannot leave Gaza. Therefore, the government must facilitate both biometric deferral and a feasible exit path. On August 6, another letter signed by over 100 MPs was sent to Prime Minister Keir Starmer calling for urgent action on this issue. Notably, the governments of Ireland, Italy, France, Germany, and Belgium have all evacuated students with university degree offers, as part of wider evacuation efforts to provide urgent medical care, particularly to Palestinian children. 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Throughout May and June, this issue has been repeatedly discussed in parliament, but so far, there has been no change in the requirements for students in Gaza, and there is still no way out. This is despite the UK government's recent announcement that it intends to facilitate the evacuation of children from Gaza for urgent medical treatment. As of last week, only three children from Gaza have arrived for treatment in the UK. In 2024, a group of academics and university administrators of Gaza universities issued an appeal for action. Scholasticide – the systematic destruction of educational institutions, as well as the targeted assassination of students and scholars – continues to ravage what is left of Gaza. If the UK government fails to allow the safe passage of these promising scholars, they will remain complicit in the crime of scholasticide. Over 4,800 UK academics are committed to taking up the call. They share the view of their colleagues in Gaza that education is a fundamental human right. These are testing times, and the government's position on this matter is a measure of its commitment to universal values of human rights, justice, and equal opportunities. Will it practice what it preaches and facilitate entry for these heroic young scholars, or will it continue to abandon them to the tender mercies of the Israeli war machine?
BreakingNews.ie
an hour ago
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