More injured Palestinian children arrive in the UAE
The 15th group of wounded Palestinian children and cancer patients arrived in the UAE on Friday in implementation of the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan to provide medical treatment for 1,000 injured children and 1,000 cancer patients from the Gaza Strip at the UAE’S hospitals.
Departing from Al Arish International Airport in the Arab Republic of Egypt, the plane landed at Zayed International Airport, carrying 27 patients in urgent need of medical assistance, accompanied by 60 family members.
Upon landing, medical t ea mssw it ly transferred the wounded and those in need of immediate care to hospitals for treatment, while other cases and their companions were transferred to their residence in the Emirates Humanitarian City.
Expressing gratitude, the relatives of the patients thanked the UAE and its wise leadership for this noble humanitarian initiative, which serves as a unique model of solidarity and support among sisterly nations.
They praised the UAE’S swit response as a testament to its commitment to supporting Palestinians during challenging times.
Also during the day, the Joint Operations Command of the Ministry of Defence announced the implementation of the 25th airdrop of humanitarian and relief aid as part of the “Birds of Goodness” operation.
Two C17 aircrat belonging to the UAE Air Force and two C295 aircrat belonging to the Egyptian Air Force participated in the airdrop operation. The airdrop was carried out over inaccessible isolated areas in the northern Gaza Strip via four aircrat carrying 80 tonnes of food and relief aid, bringing the total amount of aid airdrops to 1401 tonnes since the beginning of the operation.
Israel came under mounting pressure Friday to step up aid to Gaza with its military admiting a series of “grave mistakes” when a drone killed seven aid workers in the embatled territory.
Us-based charity World Central Kitchen, whose staff were killed in Monday night’s drone strike, demanded that an independent commission investigate the killings. Britain, which lost three nationals in the strike, called for a “wholly independent review.”
Poland said it had demanded a“criminal inquiry” by Israel ater what it called the “murder” of the aid workers, one of whom was Polish. Israel said Friday it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in the strike, with the military admiting a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement. Israel had announced earlier on Friday it would allow “temporary” aid deliveries into famine-threatened northern Gaza, hours ater Washington warned of a sharp shit in its policy over Israel’s war against Hamas. Germany said Israel had “no more excuses” to delay the entry of aid, ater nearly six months of war.
European Council president Charles Michel said that Israel’s announcement to temporarily open aid routes into Gaza was “not enough” given the scale of the humanitarian crisis there. “Gazan children and infants are dying of malnutrition. Substantial and urgent efforts are required to immediately end hunger as an instrument of war in Gaza,” Michel wrote on X.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said “scatered measures” for Gaza aid were not enough. “We need a paradigm shit.”
The toughened US position followed the killing of the World Central Kitchen workers — an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.
The UN chief said he was “deeply troubled” by reports in Israeli magazine +972 that the military was using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to identify targets in Gaza. “No part of life and death decisions which impact entire families should be delegated to the cold calculation of algorithms,” he said.
The UN Human Rights Council (UHRC) on Friday demanded a halt in all arms sales to Israel, highlighting warnings of “genocide” in its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 33,000 people.
The resolution — which passed with 28 of the council’s 47 member states voting in favour, six opposed and 13 abstaining — marked the first time the United Nations’ top rights body has taken a position on the bloodiest-ever war in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, denounced the resolution as “a stain for the Human Rights Council and for the UN as a whole.”
Relatives of the patients thank UAE and its wise leadership for this noble humanitarian initiative; Israel admits ‘mistakes’ in aid worker deaths; UN rights council demands halt of arms sales to Israel.