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Israeli army kills 4 Palestinians, including child, in Gaza

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Displaced Palestinians in the Jabalia al-Nazla area in northern Gaza are trying to survive in makeshift tents set up among the rubble of destroyed homes on February 09, 2026. [Saeed M. M. T. Jaras – Anadolu Agency]

Four Palestinians, including a child, were killed and another wounded Friday by Israeli gunfire and shelling that targeted areas in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, in a new violation of a ceasefire in force since Oct. 10,  Anadolu reports.

Ismail Aql, 12, was killed after Israeli forces opened fire near the Khalifa School in northern Gaza, which shelters displaced civilians.

Another Palestinian, Ayman Ahmed al-Nabih, 54, was killed in Israeli shelling that targeted the Tuffah neighborhood in eastern Gaza City. His body was transferred to the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the city center.

Witnesses told Anadolu that Israeli artillery shelled the area where al-Nabih was present, which lies outside the Israeli army’s deployment zone under the ceasefire agreement.

In the Tuffah neighborhood, 22-year-old Rizq Iyad al-Sharafa was wounded when an Israeli drone targeted a gathering of civilians near the al-Sharafa roundabout, east of al-Mahatta Park, according to a medical source.

READ: Israeli raids surge across West Bank amid regional war with Iran

Earlier, Abdelwahab Asaad Qanbour, 32, was killed in Israeli shelling that targeted the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City. His body was also transferred to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

Witnesses said an Israeli drone struck Qanbour while he was near Salah al-Din Street in Shujaiya, in an area outside Israeli troop deployment zones.

Since the Gaza ceasefire took effect, Israeli violations involving shelling and gunfire have killed 636 Palestinians and wounded 1,704 others as of Thursday, according to Palestinian sources.

The deal was reached after two years of a genocidal war launched by Israel on Oct. 8, 2023. The war left more than 72,000 Palestinians dead and 172,000 wounded, while destroying roughly 90% of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, with reconstruction costs estimated by the United Nations at about $70 billion.

READ: Israel’s Smotrich threatens to bombard Lebanese capital to resemble Gaza’s Khan Younis

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

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Continue ReadingIsraeli army kills 4 Palestinians, including child, in Gaza

UN Rights Chief Demands International Probe of Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals

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

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk speaks during a press conference in Cairo, Egypt on November 8, 2023.
 (Photo: Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images)

“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law,” said Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

The United Nations’ human rights chief on Tuesday called for an international investigation into mass graves discovered at two Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces recently assailed and destroyed, further imperiling the enclave’s barely functioning healthcare system.

Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement that he was “horrified” by the discovery of mass graves at the Nasser and al-Shifa medical complexes, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reduced to ruins.

More than 300 bodies were reportedly discovered in the mass grave near the Nasser facility in Khan Younis, Gaza, and eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers executed civilians during their two-week-long raid of al-Shifa last month.

Türk demanded an “independent, effective, and transparent” probe into the killings and mass graves, adding that “given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators.”

“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law,” he added. “And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat is a war crime.”

“Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price.”

The IDF’s destructive attacks on Nasser and al-Shifa were part of a broader Israeli assault on Gaza’s healthcare system. An analysis released Monday by Save the Children found that the rate of monthly Israeli attacks on healthcare in Gaza since October has exceeded that of any other conflict around the world since 2018.

The group estimated that Israel has launched an average of 73 attacks per month on healthcare in Gaza—and at least 435 attacks total since October.

“After six months of unimaginable horror, the healthcare system in Gaza has been brought to its knees,” said Xavier Joubert, Save the Children’s country director in the occupied Palestinian territory. “Healthcare workers are risking their lives daily to give Palestinian children a chance at survival. The constant attacks on healthcare are simply unjustifiable and must stop. Palestinian children must have unimpeded access to services, including healthcare and education.”

Türk also used his statement Tuesday to condemn Israeli forces’ killing of women and children in airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah in recent days. The human rights official noted that Gaza doctors rescued a baby from the womb of her mother as the latter succumbed to head injuries from an Israeli strike.

“The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed—this is beyond warfare,” said Türk. “Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war.”

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

Continue ReadingUN Rights Chief Demands International Probe of Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals

Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza not acceptable, says UN Chief

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Original article by Abdul Rahman republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

The UN Security Council meets on the situation in the Middle East, including Palestine (Photo via United Nations)

Participants in the UN Security Council highlighted need for a ceasefire in Gaza and a long term solution to the Palestinian question as necessary for peace

On January 23, speaking during the two day extended meeting of the UN Security Council on Palestine, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres underlined that “Israel’s clear and repeated rejection” of a two-state solution is unacceptable. He also warned that this refusal and “denial of the right to statehood to the Palestinian people would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and security.”

Most of the countries which participated in the two day proceedings demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and a two-state solution, claiming it necessary for regional and global peace.

Invoking ever deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza, Guterres termed it “collective punishment” executed by Israeli forces, asserting that “nothing can justify it.”

More than 25,700 Palestinians have been killed, over 63,000 have been wounded, and nearly 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced due to relentless bombings and ground offensives carried out by Israeli armed forces since October 7.

Israel has maintained that its war in Gaza is in response to Palestinian resistance forces, mainly Hamas, attacking inside its borders on October 7, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed and nearly 250 Israelis were taken as hostages.

Speaking in the meeting, Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, claimed that until persons involved in the October 7 attacks are handed over and hostages are released, war in Gaza will not end.

Most of the members of the UN Security Council repeated the call for an immediate ceasefire and called for better delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, also noted that the Israeli leadership’s repeated rejection of a two-state solution is unacceptable, and demanded that it must be rejuvenated by granting Palestinians full membership to the UN.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, earlier this month, rejected the calls for a Palestinian state, calling it untenable and a threat to Israeli security.

The need for a two-state solution was raised by the Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki, who denounced the war in Gaza as Israel’s “premeditated effort to inflict maximum pain on the Palestinian population.”

“No home, hospital, school, mosque, church or UNRWA shelter is safe from Israeli bombardments, 2,000 pound bombs dropped with no care whatsoever for civilian lives,” he noted.

South Africa, which has taken Israel to the International Court of Justice for its genocide of Palestinians, maintained that there cannot be selective implementation of international law and Israel must face consequences for its repeated violations of the same.

US positions provide a carte blanche to Israeli crimes

Speaking during the meeting, the US representative Uzra Zeya claimed the centrality of a two-state solution. She claimed that the US has been making efforts to prevent greater civilian casualties in the Israeli war in Gaza. However, US policies in Gaza were heavily criticized by both the permanent members of the UNSC and others as detrimental to peace.

Chinese ambassador Jun condemned the repeated use of veto by the US in earlier UNSC meetings on ceasefire resolutions, identifying them as impeding all efforts to peace.

The US had vetoed resolutions proposing a ceasefire in the UNSC in previous months and tried to excuse Israeli bombings in Gaza as the Zionist state’s right to self defense.

Jun hoped that all members of the international community must prioritize ceasefire in Gaza, and ways to stop the spread of the war in the region.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that the UNSC must take steps to prevent further destabilization in the region, which has been caused by US policies which vetoes ceasefire resolutions and provides carte blanche to Israeli acts of “collective punishment of Palestinians.”

Lavrov emphasized that until a ceasefire is implemented the talks about future solutions to the conflict are useless.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian warned the US against violating Yemeni sovereignty by carrying out repeated air strikes against it. He alleged that it is a trap laid down by Israel with the objective of expanding the war in Gaza to the regional level.

Abdollahian proposed that a referendum among all Palestinians must be held to find a permanent solution to the Palestinian question.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib emphasized that all stakeholders, including the US, should see that Israel wants to expand the war across the region, and underlined that his country does not want war.

He emphasized that “what happened on October 7 did not happen in a vacuum” and if no attempts are made to secure a lasting solution “it will happen again,” as there is no peace in the region until there is justice for Palestinians.

Speaking in the meeting on Tuesday, the Saudi delegate Waleed El-Khereiji said that because of the “Israeli war machine,” tensions in the region, including in the Red Sea and Yemen, are increasing. He demanded that the Security Council make sure that Israel stops its violations of international law.

On Sunday, in an interview with CNN, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhad al-Saud denied any possibility of normalization of relations with Israel, as proposed by the US, until there is a road map for a two-state solution and an independent Palestinian state. “What we are seeing is Israelis crushing Gaza, the civilian population of Gaza. This is completely unnecessary, completely unacceptable, and has to stop.”

Original article by Abdul Rahman republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsrael’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza not acceptable, says UN Chief