ISRAEL TARGETING TWO HOSPITALS
Raids spark fear for patients, displaced people, with Al-Shifa area in ‘hellish conditions’
ISRAEL’S army yesterday said it was battling Hamas around two Gaza hospitals, reporting some 20 fighters killed in the past day in close-quarters combat and airstrikes.
Israel has launched raids on and near several Gaza hospitals since the war erupted in October, claiming that fighters have used them as bases, charges denied by the Palestinian fighters.
Palestinians living near Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, have reported hellish conditions, including corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men, who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.
Israel labelled the raids underway yesterday around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital and in the Khan Younis neighbourhood surrounding Al-Amal Hospital “precise operational activities”.
The raids have sparked major fears for patients and displaced people in the facilities.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Al-Amal Hospital had all of its entrances surrounded by military vehicles and that staff were prohibited from leaving.
The military said its operation in the Al-Amal neighbourhood included “raids on several terrorist infrastructure sites in the area and located explosive devices, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and military equipment”.
“Over 20 terrorists were eliminated in the Al-Amal area over the past day in close-quarters combat and aerial strikes,” the army said.
The Al-Shifa raid is in its eighth day and the military reported detaining some “500 terrorists affiliated with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations” and locating weapons in the area.
On Sunday, the Red Crescent said military vehicles had also surrounded
Nasser Hospital, about 1km from the Al-Amal medical centre, but the situation at Nasser yesterday was unclear.
UNSC VOTES ON CEASEFIRE
The United Nations Security Council was yesterday set to vote on a new draft resolution on an “immediate” ceasefire in Gaza, after Russia and China vetoed an earlier text proposed by the United States.
The council has been divided over the Israel-Hamas war since the Oct 7 attacks, approving only two of eight resolutions, both dealing with humanitarian aid to the devastated Gaza Strip.
Permanent council member and key Israel backer the US has unequivocally supported Israel’s right to defend itself following Hamas’ unprecedented attacks.
But with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepening, the US has tempered its support for Israel over its conduct of the war against the Palestinian group.
The Gaza war began with a Hamas attack on Oct 7 that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel has vowed to destroy the group, which also seized about
250 hostages, of whom Israel believes around 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 presumed dead.
The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Sunday put the total death toll in the territory at 32,226, most of them women and children.
Yesterday, China said it supported the new draft resolution.
“China supports this draft resolution and commends Algeria and other Arab countries for their hard work in this regard,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
The new text, according to the version seen by AFP on Sunday, “demands an immediate ceasefire” for Ramadan, “leading to a permanent sustainable ceasefire”.
It also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages as well as the “lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale”.
THE FATE OF RAFAH
A key source of tension between Israel and the US has been the fate of Rafah, where around 1.5 million Palestinians have sought shelter since the start of the war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a major ground operation in Rafah was not necessary to deal with Hamas and “there is no place” for civilians
there to get out of harm’s way.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to go ahead with a Rafah invasion even without Washington’s support.
In Rafah, a 10-year-old lamented the pain of losing her home and the uncertainty she faces.
“I have the right to live as a little girl, like anywhere else in the world, in a safe place,” Rama said at the makeshift camp that has become her home.
“I used to go to school safely, but now we don’t go to school because of the bombing, and when I go out of our home, I am very scared.”
U.N. AGENCY ‘LIFELINE OF HOPE’
Yesterday, UN chief Antonio Guterres defended the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, describing it as a “lifeline of hope and dignity”.
During a visit to the Wihdat refugee camp in the Jordanian capital Amman, Guterres said it would be “cruel and incomprehensible” to halt UNRWA’s services to Palestinian refugees.
His remarks come as the agency faces a financing crisis after several key donor countries cut off funding following Israeli accusations that several UNRWA staff in Gaza were involved in the Oct 7 Hamas attack.
On Sunday, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Israel had definitively barred the agency from making aid deliveries in northern Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest.
The agency employs some 30,000 people in the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, providing healthcare, education and basic services.
“We must strive to keep the oneof-a-kind services that UNRWA provides flowing because that keeps hope flowing,” Guterres said during his visit to the camp.
“In a darkening world, UNRWA is the one ray of light for millions of people. I see that hope here. Now more than ever, we must not take away that hope.”
He sought to “honour the 171 women and men of UNRWA who have been killed in Gaza — the largest number of deaths of UN staff in our history”.
SINGAPORE SLAMS EMBASSY
Yesterday, Singapore made the Israeli embassy in the city-state take down an “insensitive” social media post about the Palestinians over the weekend after warning it could inflame tensions.
The post reportedly said Israel was mentioned 43 times in the Quran, but Palestine — the name Palestinians give to what they hope will become their independent, sovereign state — was not.
Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said he asked Singapore’s Foreign Ministry to tell the Israeli embassy to remove the post made on Sunday after learning about it, which the mission did.
“That post on the Israeli embassy social media page is completely unacceptable. I was very upset when I was told about it,” Shanmugam said, according to a transcript.
“It is insensitive and inappropriate. It carries the risk of undermining our safety, security and harmony in Singapore.
“Posts like these can... inflame tensions, and can put the Jewish community here at risk. The anger from the post can potentially spill over into the physical realm.”
Singapore has condemned the Hamas attacks on Israel, but also said Israel’s military response “has now gone too far”.