Gaza Archives - Page 23 of 322 - ... on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Pope evokes Gazans facing harsh winter conditions in first Christmas blessing

Spread the love

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Pope Leo XIV delivers the Christmas’ “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the City and to the World”) message from the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, on December 25, 2025. [Isabella Bonotto – Anadolu Agency]

Delivering his first Christmas Mass address from St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV evoked the plight of Gazans facing weeks of harsh winter conditions, alongside refugees and displaced persons worldwide, Anadolu reports.

“Since the Word was made flesh, humanity now speaks crying out with God’s own desire to encounter us. The Word has pitched His fragile tent among us. How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed to weeks of rain, and wind, and cold?” Pope Leo said.

He also drew attention to similar hardships faced by other refugees and displaced persons on every continent as well as homeless people living under “makeshift shelters.”

“Fragile is the flesh of defenseless populations tried by so many wars ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds,” the pontiff said.

He cited the fragility of human life among young people forced to take up arms, saying those on the front lines “feel the senselessness of what is asked of them and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths.”

“Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness,” the pope said.

Israel killed more than 71,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza and destroyed the enclave during its two-year war. A ceasefire was agreed upon in October but Israeli violations have continued unabated.

According to the Gaza government media office, more than 400 Palestinians have since been killed and over a thousand others injured in Israeli attacks.

READ: Channel 13: Witkoff confirm second phase of Gaza deal to start in early January

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides. — Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA

Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. — Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.

Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.

Post author:dizzy
Post published:29 December 2025
Post category:Angela Rayner crap pretend Labour David Lammy Donald Trump Fascism genocide human rights violations Israel Keir Starmer Labour Party Palestine politics Rachel Reeves Wes Streeting Zionism
Post comments:0 Comments

‘Free Them All’: One Year After Dr. Abu Safiya Abducted, Israel Urged to Release Gaza Health Workers

Spread the love

Original article by republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Healthcare workers and allies rally to demand the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all Palestinian healthcare workers held in Israeli jails, in New York City, on January 6, 2025. (Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“We won’t forget him nor the 360+ health workers Israel has abducted from Gaza since October 2023,” said CodePink.

Ahead of Saturday’s one-year anniversary of Israel abducting Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya from the Gaza hospital he ran, advocates demanded the release the scores of health workers still imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces.

“One year ago, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was abducted by the Israeli military along with dozens of other medical staff during a horrific raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza,” Dr. Yipeng Ge, a member of Doctors Against Genocide, said Friday on social media. “Free Hussam Abu Safiya. Free them all.”

RECOMMENDED…

Nearly 2 Months Into ‘Ceasefire,’ IDF Kills 2 More Palestinian Children as Gaza Death Toll Passes 70,000

Displaced Palestinians receive food aid in Nuseirat Camp

Gaza No Longer Officially Facing Famine—But 1.6 Million Palestinians Still in ‘Man-Made Hunger Crisis’

Activist Petra Schurenhofer said on X: “It’s been a year since Israel abducted and illegally detained Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. And since then he has been languishing in an Israeli jail, being subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment. Don’t forget him. And don’t stop calling for his release.”

Abu Safiya, the 52-year-old director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was seized on December 27, 2024 as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops continued their yearlong siege and raids on the facility in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. The IDF claimed without evidence that Kamal Adwan—the last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza at the time—was a Hamas command center.

During a previous Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan, Abu Safiya’s 15-year-old son was killed in a drone strike. Abu Safiya was seriously wounded in a separate drone attack that left six pieces of shrapnel in his leg.

After his capture, Abu Safiya was first jailed at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in Israel’s Negev Desert—where dozens of detainees have died and where torture, rape, and other abuses have been reported—and then Ofer Prison in the illegally occupied West Bank.

Abu Safiya said he has endured torture by his captors—including beatings with batons and electric shocks—and suffered severe weight loss, broken ribs, and other injuries, for which he was allegedly denied adequate medical care.

A year has passed since the detention of my father,
In this white coat, he walked alone amidst death, destruction, and in front of tanks—not because he was fearless, but because his oath and his humanity were greater than any fear. He refused to abandon the children and the… pic.twitter.com/8NtuIGBeYf
— Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya د.حسام أبو صفية (@HussamAbuSafiya) December 26, 2025

Israeli authorities deny these accusations. However, there have been many documented and otherwise credible reports of health and medical workers being tortured by Israeli forces—sometimes fatally, as in the case of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, who headed the orthopedic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

According to Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, al-Bursh was “likely raped to death,” a fate allegedly suffered by multiple Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Abu Safiya remains in Israeli custody, despite having not been charged with any crimes. Israeli courts have extended his detention multiple times under so-called “unlawful combatant” legal provisions.

In January, Abu Safiya’s mother died of a heart attack that MedGlobal, the Illinois-based nonprofit for which Abu Safiya worked as lead Gaza physician, attributed to “severe sadness” over her son’s plight.

According to United Nations agencies and other experts, Israeli forces have destroyed or damaged nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals in hundreds of attacks since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. More than 1,500 Palestinian health workers have been killed.

Last year, an independent United Nations commission found that “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”

Israel is currently facing an ongoing genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation.

Albina Abu Safiya, the imprisoned doctor’s wife, pleaded last week: “Save my husband before it is too late. His only ‘crime’ was saving the wounded and tending to the wounds of children.”

Post author:dizzy
Post published:27 December 2025
Post category:Angela Rayner crap pretend Labour David Lammy Donald Trump Fascism genocide human rights violations Israel Keir Starmer Labour Party Palestine politics Rachel Reeves Wes Streeting Zionism
Post comments:0 Comments

New freedom flotilla to sail for Gaza in the spring

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-freedom-flotilla-sail-gaza-spring

DESPERATE SITUATION: Mohammed al-Neder, 21, mourns over the body of his 4-month-old brother Ahmed, who was killed by Israeli fire, during his funeral at Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City

THE Global Sumud (steadfastness) Flotilla will launch its largest fleet yet in a bid to get aid into Gaza next spring, it has announced.

The group, which organised the 40-plus-vessel flotilla which earlier this year became the first to get within 70 nautical miles of Gaza since Israel began blockading the Palestinian territory in 2009, said it plans a new mission with over 100 ships and 1,000 participants.

…

Despite an official ceasefire agreed as of October 10, Gaza remains gripped by a humanitarian crisis, with insufficient food and shelter in a harsh winter. Israel insists it is meeting the ceasefire condition of allowing 600 lorryloads of aid in a day, but these are vetted by Israeli military agency Cogat and it admits 80 per cent are private-sector vehicles, many carrying commercial goods which residents of Gaza — where the economy has been destroyed by the war and the preceding 17-year illegal siege — cannot afford.

“This mission is also not only about those at sea. It is about the millions around the world who are ready to say ‘enough is enough’,” the flotilla organisers said.

“Together, we rise against apartheid, racism, imperialism, colonialism, ecocide, and all systems of oppression.”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-freedom-flotilla-sail-gaza-spring

Post author:dizzy
Post published:24 December 2025
Post category:Angela Rayner crap pretend Labour David Lammy Donald Trump Fascism genocide human rights violations Israel Keir Starmer Labour Party Palestine politics Rachel Reeves Wes Streeting Zionism
Post comments:0 Comments

Gaza civil defense continues search for bodies under rubble in Khan Younis

Spread the love

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Civil defense teams continue searching with heavy machinery for the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks and trapped under rubble in the al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Yunis, Gaza, on December 20, 2025. [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency]

Civil defense teams in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis are continuing efforts to recover the bodies of Palestinians trapped beneath rubble following Israeli attacks, as the Gaza Strip remains under blockade, Anadolu reports.

The bodies of those killed in the strikes and left buried under collapsed buildings throughout the war are being searched for by civil defense crews using heavy machinery.

Remains recovered after prolonged periods beneath the rubble, including dismembered body parts and bones, are being collected by the teams for later identification.

Israel has killed nearly 70,700 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,000 in Gaza since October 2023 and reduced the enclave to rubble.

According to the latest data from Gaza’s Government Media Office, the conflict has resulted in the complete destruction of 268,000 housing units, with 148,000 severely damaged beyond habitability and 153,000 partially damaged.

A ceasefire agreement brokered between Hamas and Israel on October 10 of last year halted large-scale military operations. However, reports indicate that Israel continues demolitions in areas under its control, and the Israeli military has been accused of hundreds of violations of the agreement, including bombardments and killings.

READ: 30 bodies recovered from Palestinian family under destroyed home in Gaza

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Post author:dizzy
Post published:21 December 2025
Post category:Angela Rayner crap pretend Labour David Lammy Donald Trump Fascism genocide human rights violations Israel Keir Starmer Labour Party Palestine politics Rachel Reeves Wes Streeting Zionism
Post comments:0 Comments

UN chief warns Gaza hunger gains are ‘fragile’ as 1.6M still face extreme food insecurity

Spread the love

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Displaced Palestinians, who struggle with hunger, wait to receive hot meal, distributed by charity organizations, in al-Mawasi region of Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 17, 2025. [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency]

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday warned that while famine in the Gaza Strip has been averted, the humanitarian situation remains extremely fragile, with more than 75% of the population facing acute food insecurity and critical risks of malnutrition, Anadolu Agency reports.

“Famine has been pushed back. Far more people are able to access the food they need to survive,” Guterres told a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York. “Gains are fragile, perilously so.”

He said 1.6 million people in Gaza, more than 75% of the population, are projected to face “extreme levels of acute food insecurity and critical malnutrition risks.”

“And in more than half of Gaza, where Israeli troops remain deployed, farmland and entire neighborhoods are out of reach. Strikes and hostilities continue, pushing the civilian toll of this war even higher and exposing our teams to grave danger,” he said.

Guterres also renewed calls for “a durable ceasefire,” saying: “We need more crossings, the lifting of restrictions on critical items, the removal of red tape, safe routes inside Gaza, sustained funding, and unimpeded access, including for NGOs.”

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released its news findings on Friday, noting that famine conditions in the enclave have been temporarily offset following a reduction in hostilities and improved access for humanitarian and commercial food deliveries. The latest report, however, warned that the overall situation in Gaza remains critical.

The UN chief also touched on Israel’s refusal to move onto the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan until the return of the remains of a final deceased hostage.

“It is essential to move to phase two, and I don’t think that we should have any pretext to avoid it,” said Guterres.

“It’s very important to move with the peace process as a whole. And it’s not only phase two. It’s to make sure that phase one, and namely the ceasefire, are fully implemented,” he added.

READ: Egypt, Russia stress need to sustain Gaza ceasefire agreement

ICJ ruling on occupied West Bank ‘must be implemented’

On the situation in the West Bank, Guterres warned that “we cannot lose sight of the rapidly deteriorating situation” in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.

He stressed that Palestinians face “escalating Israeli settler violence, land seizures, demolitions and intensified movement restrictions.”

“Tens of thousands have been displaced following operations by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank,” he added.

Guterres emphasized that provisional measures indicated by the International Court of Justice “are binding and must be implemented.”

He also reaffirmed his support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), calling it “an indispensable role in serving the Palestinian people.”

Saying that the crisis in Palestine is “born of human decisions,” the UN chief urged for an end to “perverse and prolonged suffering.”

“Palestinians need a horizon of hope. The ceasefire must be implemented in full. The endless cycle of violence must be broken,” he said.

READ: WHO chief says over 10,600 patients evacuated from Gaza, warns many still waiting

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.