Latest news with #YahyaSobeih
Irish Examiner
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Elaine Loughlin: Do you wonder why you're not seeing reports from Gaza?
"Do you realise that there is less news and footage coming out of Gaza? 'That's because the journalists have either been killed or wounded. The ones that are alive are either severely ill or too starved to manage any energy beyond the attempt to secure food and water. 'This is what Israel wanted when they declared a war of attrition back in November 2023. 'The whole world should be reporting what they have learned up to this point. The whole world owes the journalists and people that documented and appealed to stop a warmongering regime.' These are not my words, but those of American-born Palestinian writer and commentator Mariam Barghouti — which I read while trying to find the right words for this column. After more than 18 months, there are no descriptions graphic enough; no warnings from humanitarian organisations on the ground that can encompass the sustained brutalities; no new angles for the international media who have been blocked from accessing the strip to witness the full scale of destruction. Genocide has become normalised. Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis on the Gaza Strip on Monday. Today, the world is now standing by as Israel announces its intention to seize the enclave, take control over aid and force more than two million Palestinian civilians into a small area in the ruins of the south. Photo: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana The horror statistics of bombings, amputations, forced displacement, and death pile up one on top of another — bodies upon bodies — losing meaning and impact. When reporters become bereft of words, the most powerful tools at our disposal, it is easy to despair. But at this point — when Israel has put the world on notice that it intends to expand on the list of war crimes it has already committed — politicians, the media, and the public must not tune out. In the early months of Benjamin Netanyahu's bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the daily death toll was widely reported and easily available through a simple Google search. However, as the lives lost have climbed into the thousands and the tens of thousands, reporting has become more sporadic. Mothers, daughters, sons, friends, and parents are dehumanised in death as they are added to an overall number. The stories of these lives lost are not being told because journalists are not being given permission to enter Gaza, while our Palestinian colleagues are being killed as they heroically go about their work. Journalist killings Shortly after lunch on Wednesday of this week, freelance reporter Yahya Sobeih headed to the Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City — where the Israeli army had just bombed a popular restaurant in a crowded market area. Before leaving, he shared a photo on social media cradling his newborn daughter after becoming a father. When he arrived at the restaurant to record the attack, a second Israeli airstrike hit and killed him. Journalist Yahya Sobeih was killed in the Israeli strike on the Thai restaurant and the market west of central Gaza City. The incident bore all the hallmarks of what is known as a 'double-tap strike', when a second attack on the same location is delayed long enough for responders to flood into the area. 'Enough! Words fail to convey the endless nightmare faced by journalists in Gaza. Yahya Sobeih was torn from his profession and his family by a bomb from the Israeli armed forces,' Reporters Without Borders director general Thibaut Bruttin said afterwards. 'The impunity for crimes committed against these reporters cannot be tolerated, yet the international community continues to fail each day to force Israel to protect Palestinian journalists.' Sobeih's name has been added to the list of reporters killed. He is a statistic, but he was also a father to a daughter who now will never know him. Yesterday, the Committee to Protect Journalists' preliminary investigations showed at least 178 journalists and media workers were among the tens of thousands killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since the committee began gathering data in 1992. The committee is also investigating more than 130 additional cases of potential killings, arrests, and injuries, but many are difficult to document given the restrictions imposed on external observers. Programme director, Carlos Martinez de la Serna, said in New York this week: Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. 'Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: One under international law, and another before history's unforgiving gaze.' 'Genocidal' It is now 15 months since Taoiseach Micheál Martin raised the alarm around the lack of information getting out of Gaza, stating that he feared the world does not yet know the 'extent of the horrors' being carried out by Israel. His words came at a time when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had raided Nasser Hospital, the largest functioning health facility in the Palestinian enclave. Footage showed chaos, shouting, and gunfire in dark corridors filled with dust and smoke. By last month, an Israeli air raid had left the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza non-operational — forcing critically ill patients onto the streets. It is six months since the Taoiseach told my colleague, Paul Hosford, that Israel's actions were 'genocidal'. Today, the world is now standing by as Israel announces its intention to seize the enclave, take control over aid — which has been blocked from entering since March — and force more than two million Palestinian civilians into a small area in the ruins of the south. In the Dáil, Tánaiste Simon Harris admitted: 'Israel is not listening. Nothing that has happened to date has changed the situation here in terms of Israel actually showing restraint, or issuing statements calling for restraint, when there is a government in Israel that plans doing the exact opposite.' International reaction But words and actions do have impact, even if the situation can feel hopeless. This week, in the British House of Commons, Conservative MP Mark Pritchard — a strong supporter of Israel for decades — broke ranks with his party. 'I've been in this House 20 years. I have supported Israel pretty much at all costs quite frankly. But today, I want to say that I got it wrong and I condemn Israel for what it is doing to the Palestinian people in Gaza — and indeed in the West Bank — and I'd like to withdraw my support right now for the actions of Israel.' A small but growing number of Tory members have also come out against official party policy to call for an immediate recognition of the Palestinian state. The international reaction to Israel's war crimes has been too slow. It has allowed for the continued denial of basic medical and humanitarian aid, the forced starvation of a people who were already living in an open air prison for many years, and the targeted murder of civilians and aid workers. We cannot give up Despite being restricted in our ability to fully report on what is going on, we in the media cannot give up. As futile as our reporting may feel, we must not give up. The Irish Examiner has sent reporters to Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan. It has repeatedly spoken to doctors and aid workers on the ground — including UNRWA's senior deputy director John Whyte, who is a guest on The Mick Clifford Podcast this week. This paper has used its front page and social media to platform powerful images from Gaza. It's not enough, but it's something the Irish Examiner will continue to do. In her social media post, Barghouti reminded her hundreds of thousands of followers that Palestinians have said again and again: 'Do it not for us, but for you.' 'Do it because what you see happening to us will be exported to you. I am telling you, actually, do it for us,' she wrote. 'Even if this violence is not exported to you, just do it because it's the right thing to do.'
Egypt Today
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Today
At least 33 killed including children in Israeli strikes on restaurant, market in Gaza
Relatives take a final look at those killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, wrapped in coffins for burial - WAFA CAIRO – 8 May 2025: Two Israeli airstrikes on a crowded restaurant and a market in Al-Wahda Street in Gaza City have killed at least 33 people, including women and children, and wounded over 86 more, according to medics and the Gaza health ministry on Wednesday. Graphic videos posted on social media showed bodies on tables at the Thailandy restaurant, which was operating as a community kitchen, a dead man seated on a chair, and several children lying motionless on the ground covered in blood. The Israeli army asserted that it is examining the reports. At least 92 people, including women and children, have been killed in several Israeli attacks across Gaza on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported, quoting officials. Among the dead are journalists Yahya Sobeih, who recently had a newborn daughter, and Nour Abdu. Abdu was killed while covering an attack at a school turned shelter in Gaza City, which killed 16 people, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital. The attacks come a day after an Israeli strike on a school sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians killed 27 people, including nine women and three children, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Hospital. Since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023, Israeli forces have killed over 52,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. Israel this week approved a plan to intensify its operations in Gaza, potentially seizing the whole enclave and forcibly displacing Palestinians to southern Gaza, while taking control of aid distribution alongside private security contractors.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israeli strikes on Gaza restaurant and market kill 33, health ministry says
At least 33 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded in two Israeli strikes on a crowded restaurant and market on the same street in Gaza City, medics and the Hamas-run health ministry say. Graphic videos posted on social media showed bodies slumped at tables the Thailandy restaurant, in the northern Rimal neighbourhood, which was also operating as a community kitchen. Footage from the nearby marketplace showed a small child with a rucksack lying dead in the street. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports. Earlier, hospitals said at least 59 people had been killed in attacks since Tuesday night, most of them at two schools serving as shelters for displaced families. The strikes come as Israel says it is preparing to intensify and expand its military campaign against Hamas after 19 months of war. The two strikes on al-Wahda street in Rimal - one of Gaza's busiest commercial hubs - happened almost simultaneously on Wednesday afternoon, about 100m (330ft) apart. Footage from the scene shortly afterwards showed wounded people being transported on chairs and in the backs of cars. A woman carrying a baby in her arms and accompanied by two other children told Reuters news agency that they were inside the Thailandy restaurant when it was struck. "Everyone died," she said. "The blood was like a lake, oh my baby, pools of blood." Photos shared by local activists, which could not immediately be verified, showed a number of bodies. They appeared to include a boy selling coffee, two parents and their young son, and a market vendor sitting by his small stall. Palestinian journalist Yahya Sobeih was also killed, colleagues said, only hours after his wife gave birth to their first child. In another video, the owner of the nearby Palmyra restaurant, Abu Saleh Abdu, said many children, elderly people and passersby were killed. Addressing the Israeli military, he asked: "What do [you] want to achieve? You haven't bombed any fighters or any weapons. You've only hit civilians." The Thailandy restaurant was destroyed during last year's Israeli ground operation at the nearby al-Shifa hospital, but it had been rebuilt recently using tents and makeshift structures. In addition to selling basic meals, the restaurant was also preparing hundreds of hot meals daily for humanitarian organisations to distribute to poor and displaced people. Gaza's Hamas-run Government Media Office accused the Israeli military of committing war crimes by "deliberately targeting gatherings of civilians and displaced people" in four separate incidents over 24 hours. Hamas accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting gatherings of civilians [AFP] Women and children were among 33 people who were killed when the UN-run Abu Humeisa school in Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, was bombed twice on Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency. Witness Ali al-Shaqra said on Wednesday that 300 families had been staying at the school and that the effect of the strike was like an "earthquake". The Israeli military said it struck "terrorists who were operating within a Hamas command-and-control centre". The military has not yet commented on a strike on the al-Karama school in the eastern Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City on Wednesday morning, which the Civil Defence said killed another 15 people. It comes amid international condemnation of Israel's plans to expand and intensify its ground offensive against Hamas. Israeli officials have said they include seizing all of the territory indefinitely, forcibly displacing Palestinians to the south, and taking over aid distribution with private companies despite protests from the UN and its humanitarian partners. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that his security cabinet had decided on a "forceful operation" to destroy Hamas and rescue its remaining hostages. He said Gaza's 2.1 million population "will be moved, to protect it", and that troops "will not enter and come out". Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its offensive two weeks later after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release its 59 remaining hostages. The renewed Israeli strikes and ground operations have already resulted in hundreds of casualties and the displacement of an estimated 423,000 people, with about 70% of Gaza placed under Israeli evacuation orders, within an Israel-designated "no-go" zone, or both, according to the UN. Aid agencies have also warned that mass starvation is imminent unless the blockade ends. The UN has said Israel is obliged under international law to ensure food and medical supplies for Gaza's population. Israel has said it is complying with international law and that there is no aid shortage because thousands of lorry loads entered Gaza during the ceasefire. Palestinians said a school-turned-shelter elsewhere in Gaza City was hit by an Israeli strike on Wednesday morning [Reuters] Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, who is based in the occupied West Bank, told the BBC that the situation in Gaza was "a real catastrophe". "This cannot continue. It's a siege, famine. No water, no electricity, no hope," he said. Mustafa urged the international community to step up efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas as quickly as possible, warning: "People are dying every day in Gaza, and this should not happen anymore." An Israeli official said on Monday that the expanded offensive would not begin until after US President Donald Trump's visit to the region next week, providing what he called "a window of opportunity" to Hamas to agree a deal. However, a senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said on Tuesday that there was "no point" to negotiations while Israel continued what he called a "starvation war". The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. At least 52,653 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 2,545 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory's health ministry.
Los Angeles Times
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 92
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 92 people, including women, children and a local journalist, officials said Wednesday, as Israel prepares to ramp up its campaign in the strip, with the devastating war now entering its 20th month. Two Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday in central Gaza killed at least 33 people and wounded 86, including several children, though the actual death toll is likely higher, according to health officials. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes. The new bloodshed comes days after Israel approved a plan to intensify its operations in the Palestinian enclave, which would include seizing Gaza, holding on to captured territories, forcibly displacing Palestinians to southern Gaza and taking control of aid distribution along with private security companies. Israel is also calling up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers to carry out the plan. Israel says the plan will be gradual and will not be implemented until after President Trump wraps up a visit to the region later this month. Any escalation of fighting would likely drive up the death toll. And with Israel already controlling some 50% of Gaza, increasing its hold on the territory, for an indefinite amount of time, could open up the potential for a military occupation, which would raise questions about how Israel plans to have the territory governed, especially at a time when it is considering how to implement Trump's vision to take over Gaza. The Israeli offensive has so far killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel blames Hamas for the death toll, saying it operates from civilian infrastructure, including schools. Wednesday's strikes included two attacks on a crowded market area in Gaza City, health officials said. Footage posted online reportedly showed the aftermath with men found dead, including one still seated in a chair inside a Thai restaurant used by locals as a gathering spot, and several children lying motionless on the ground, covered in blood. Journalist Yahya Sobeih, who freelanced for several local outlets, was among those killed, according to Gaza's media office. He had shared a photo on Instagram of his newborn girl. Victims of the blasts, some with severe injuries, were taken to nearby Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza health ministry spokesperson Zaher al-Wahidi told the Associated Press. An attack Tuesday night on a school sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians killed 27 people, officials from the Al-Aqsa Hospital said, including nine women and three children. The school has been struck repeatedly since the war began. Earlier, a strike on another school turned shelter in Gaza City killed 16 people, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital, while strikes in other areas killed at least 16 others. In Bureij, an urban refugee camp, paramedics and rescuers rushed to pull people out of a blaze after a large column of smoke and fire pierced the dark skies above the school shelter. The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Trump on Tuesday stunned many in Israel when he declared that only 21 of the 59 hostages remaining in Gaza are still alive. Israel insists the figure stands at 24, although an Israeli official said there was 'serious concern' for the lives of three captives. The official said there has been no sign of life from those three, whom he did not identify. He said that until there is evidence proving otherwise, the three are considered to be alive. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details related to the war, said the families of the captives were updated on those developments. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing the families of the captives, demanded from Israel's government that if there is 'new information being kept from us, give it to us immediately.' It also called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt the war in Gaza until all hostages are returned. 'This is the most urgent and important national mission,' it said on a post on X. Since Israel ended a ceasefire with the Hamas militant group in mid-March, it has unleashed fierce strikes on Gaza that have killed hundreds and captured swaths of territory. Before the truce ended, Israel halted all humanitarian aid into the territory, including food, fuel and water, setting off what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis in 19 months of war. Key interlocutors Qatar and Egypt said Wednesday that mediation efforts were 'ongoing and consistent.' But Israel and Hamas remain far apart on how they see the war ending. Israel says it won't end the war until Hamas' governing and military capabilities are dismantled, something it has failed to do in 19 months of war. Hamas says it is prepared to release all of the hostages for an end to the war and a long-term truce with Israel. Against the backdrop of the plans to intensify the campaign in Gaza, fighting has also escalated between Israel and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthis fired a ballistic missile earlier this week that landed on the grounds of Israel's main international airport. Israel responded with a series of airstrikes over two days, whose targets included the airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa. The Houthis have been striking Israel and targets in a main Red Sea shipping route since the war began in solidarity with the Palestinians. On Tuesday, Trump said the U.S. would halt a nearly two-monthlong campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, after the rebel group agreed not to target U.S. ships. Israel does not appear to be covered by the U.S.-Houthi agreement. The Israeli official said the deal came as a surprise to Israel and that it was concerned because of what it meant for the continuation of hostilities between it and the Houthis. Shurafa and Goldenberg write for the Associated Press. Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv. AP reporter Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.
