
Israeli strikes kill at least 58 Palestinians overnight
JERUSALEM: Israel's airforce killed at least 58 Palestinians in new attacks on Gaza overnight, local health authorities said on Saturday, as the country appeared set to press ahead with a new ground offensive.
More than 300 Gazans have been killed in Israeli strikes since Thursday, according to local health authorities, one of the deadliest phases of bombardment since a truce collapsed in March. The latest strikes came after U.S. President Donald Trump ended his Middle East tour on Friday with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire.
'Since midnight, we have received 58 martyrs, while a large number of victims remain under the rubble. The situation inside the hospital is catastrophic,' said the director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Marwan Al-Sultan.
Israel's military said on Saturday it is conducting extensive strikes and mobilizing troops as part of preparations to expand operations in the Gaza Strip and achieve 'operational control' in areas of the Palestinian enclave.
The escalation, which includes the build-up of armoured forces along the border, is part of the initial stages of 'Operation Gideon's Wagons', which Israel says is aimed at defeating Hamas and getting its hostages back.
An Israeli defence official said earlier this month that the operation would not be launched before Trump concluded his visit to the Middle East.
United Nations experts warn that famine looms in Gaza after Israel blocked aid deliveries to the strip 76 days ago, with UN aid chief Tom Fletcher asking the Security Council this week if it would act to 'prevent genocide'.
Trump on Friday acknowledged Gaza's growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries, as international pressure grows on Israel to resume ceasefire talks and end its blockade of Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 5 that Israel was planning an expanded, intensive offensive against Hamas as his security cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.
Israel's declared goal in Gaza is the elimination of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas, which attacked Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.
Its military campaign has devastated the tiny, crowded enclave, pushing nearly all inhabitants from their homes and killing more than 53,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities.
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Free Malaysia Today
3 hours ago
- Free Malaysia Today
US, China seek to extend trade truce with London talks
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The Star
4 hours ago
- The Star
Tariffs tarnishing jeweller's shine
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The Star
4 hours ago
- The Star
Forlorn Gaza – the world's shame
ON June 4, exactly a month ahead of the country's independence day, the United States vetoed – for the fifth time – a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for 'an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza'. The draft resolution vetoed by the solitary US vote received 14 in favour. It also called for the 'immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza, calling for safe and unhindered access for UN and humanitarian partners across the enclave'. In what appeared to be a move coordinated with the veto, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the US was sanctioning four judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for 'targeting'with arrest warrants Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Earlier, the US had sanctioned the ICJ prosecutor for the same 'crime'. These US actions came as the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, described Gaza as 'worse than hell on earth'. In an interview with the BBC at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, she said 'humanity is failing' as it watched the horrors of the Gaza war. Israel's policy, backed by its US-led Western allies and the acquiescence of the regional Arab governments, has always been aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and its governing coalition leaders have been unequivocal in explicitly stating their military objectives. The systematic destruction of any and all infrastructure that supports human life is near complete, with water, power, homes, schools, universities, and even hospitals bombed to rubble. Of the number of functioning hospitals in Gaza, only two remain. The UN has called for the protection of these last two hospitals, particularly providing emergency services to the Strip, which is being bombed and hit by missiles daily, causing dozens of casualties, young and old. The UN also says the percentage of malnourished children is rising by the day. This malnourishment is due to the Israeli food blockade on Gaza. Israel has brushed aside all aid organisations' protestations to introduce its own 'food distribution' points, where dozens of starving Palestinians, including women, have been killed by Israeli tank-mounted machine gun fire. The Conservative member of the UK Parliament, Kit Malthouse, defied his party's pro-Israel policy to offer the most apt description of what is happening. Speaking in the Commons, he said Gaza has become 'an abattoir where starving people are lured out through combat zones to be shot at'. 'If the situation were reversed, we would now be mobilising the British armed forces as part of an international protection force,' Malthouse said, exposing Western hypocrisy and his own government's inaction. Adding another twist to the food crisis in Gaza is the Israeli Prime Minister's confirmation – after Israeli defence sources had earlier told local journalists that accusations made by the Opposition politician Avigdor Lieberman were correct – about the arming of a group that many believe comprises criminals. Lieberman, according to the BBC, told the state broadcaster that the Prime Minister had unilaterally approved the arming of the Abu Shabab clan and transferred weapons to it. 'The Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with the Islamic State group.' Sources in the know say the group is led by Yasser Abu Shabab, who was an IS commander, and is an Israeli intelligence asset. His band of about 300 men, according to the Israeli Occupation Forces, has been armed to 'protect food trucks' trickling into Gaza. But sources on the ground say the group is doing the opposite, commandeering the trucks and looting the vital food supplies for the malnourished, starving Palestinians. It is this one-sided ethnic-cleansing, being facilitated by the US and its envoy Steve Witkoff, that may be impacting public opinion in Europe at least. Public opinion is shifting, which is also reflected in the robust questioning of the Israeli Hasbara spin doctors in the media. These advocates for the Israeli cause are outraged even by some basic questions a few journalists are beginning to ask because they have had a free pass to spin their lies since October 2023. European government leaders are beginning to express unease – only in words and not deeds, though – in calling the Gaza situation intolerable and unacceptable but stopping well short of any concrete measures such as an arms embargo. This rhetoric too is driven by the changing public mood reflected in a recent YouGov poll across Europe. The poll showed Israel as being viewed most unfavourably since they started polling on this issue in 2016. And Israel's actions in Gaza are seen as disproportionate and unjustified. Even then, US President Donald Trump is likely to be convinced his Gaza Riviera plan is on course and in the end the Palestinians will be displaced. With few friends in the Arab world, whose leaders generously opened up their cheque books for the US president and applied little, if any, pressure to secure an end to the genocide, the Palestinians seem to be on their own. The (resource-starved) government of the ummah's most potent military power may have co-sponsored the vetoed UN resolution, but its powerful elite queued up at the embassy gate for hours to be able to have the honour of celebrating US Independence Day inexplicably on June 4, a month earlier than July 4. The ethnic cleansing in Gaza and, don't forget, the West Bank will continue. The collective conscience of the people around the globe will not be able to stop it on its own. This is the world we inhabit. — Dawn/Asia News Network Abbas Nasir is a former editor of Dawn.