The security camera video showed a group of undercover police officers pretending to be doctors and regular people walking down a hallway with their guns ready.
The Israeli army said that the fighters were hiding in the hospital and that one of them was getting ready to do an attack.
Hamas, a group of Palestinians with guns who follow the Islamic religion, is fighting with Israel in Gaza. They say that Israeli forces killed three of their fighters, including one of their own members, after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
Another group with weapons, called Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said two of the people who died were part of their group and were siblings. It also said that one of them has been getting help at the hospital.
The security camera at Ibn Sina hospital recorded a video of the Israeli undercover unit moving quickly through a hallway with their weapons pointed in different directions. Someone took clothes from a person who was kneeling with their hands behind their head, and then covered their head with the clothes.
There is a lot of fighting in the West Bank since the 7 October attacks. Israeli soldiers are arresting Palestinians and there are fights almost every day. Jenin has been a target of raids for a long time because it is a place where militants are strong.
Palestinians from the West Bank have attacked and killed at least 10 Israelis in the West Bank and Israel recently.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that the Hamas suspect who was killed had been planning an attack similar to the October 7th massacre. On that day, a large group of Hamas fighters attacked Israel from Gaza, and around 1,300 people, mostly civilians, were killed. They also took around 250 people as hostages back to Gaza.
The attack made Israel start a fight in Gaza to try to destroy Hamas. The health ministry in Gaza, run by Hamas, says that over 26,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the Israeli attack.
The news agency in the West Bank, Wafa, said that three Palestinians in the hospital were killed on purpose.
As per the hospital staff, around 10 Israeli special forces in regular clothes went to the third floor and used quiet weapons to kill the men.
One of the PIJ members who was killed had been in the hospital for treatment since October 25th.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that Israeli guns hit a group of people waiting for help in Gaza City. At least 20 people were killed and 150 were injured. The Israel army is checking the reports.
The number of people who died and got hurt at a crowded shelter in Gaza went up to 12 dead and over 75 injured. Thomas White, who works for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said this.
The agency did not say Israel was responsible, even though they are the only ones with tanks in the conflict. The Israeli military said it is not sure yet if its aircraft or artillery carried out the strike, but is still looking into it. The building might have been damaged by a rocket from Hamas.
The fighting in Khan Younis in southern Gaza is stopping people from getting to the two main hospitals. This means that hundreds of sick people and thousands of displaced people can’t get help. A third hospital was emptied last night, White said.
The Gaza Health Ministry says that more than 25,700 people have died and 63,000 people have been injured since last October. Seven attacks happened in the south of Israel. The attackers were from Gaza and they killed about 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages.
The Minneapolis City Council passed a resolution asking for a stop to the fighting in Gaza, but it’s not a rule that has to be followed.
Mayor Jacob Frey, who is Jewish, tried but was not able to convince council members to make it less harsh, saying the wording was too critical of Israel. The mayor, who is part of the Democratic party, is thinking about saying no to the decision. Minneapolis is the most recent of many U. STowns ask for a stop to fighting in Gaza.
The people in charge of San Francisco made a decision on Jan. Mayor London Breed said she won’t say no to it last week. Houthi rebels from Yemen go to Russia for discussions.
A group of Houthi rebels from Yemen went to Moscow to meet with the Russian Foreign Ministry. They talked about the fighting in the Red Sea and Yemen, and also the ongoing war in Gaza.
The Houthis’ official spokesperson, Mohammed Abdul-Salem, met with the deputy foreign minister and Russian president’s special envoy for Middle East and Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov. Both sides confirmed the meeting in their own statements.
The Houthis have been attacking ships since November because they are upset about Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The meeting happened one week after some important leaders from the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, met with the Foreign Ministry. This was the second time they visited Moscow since the war started in October. Rewrite this text using easier words:
The United States. and the United Kingdom They have started bombing Yemen to destroy places where missiles are stored and launched by the Houthis. The rebels say they will attack American and British ships too.
“The United States and Great Britain bombed Yemen and Russia strongly disapproved. ” We don’t have any more information right now.
Russia has been working to increase its influence in the Middle East lately, and has become closer to Iran, who supports the Houthis.
Many Palestinians are leaving Khan Younis in large numbers.
Many Palestinians left the city of Khan Younis and headed towards the Mediterranean coast because there is a lot of fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army in southern Gaza.
Two women talked to someone from the Associated Press and said that Israeli soldiers made them leave the Faisal school where they were staying, and they also took many young men into custody.
“Out of nowhere, the Israeli military used microphones to tell us to leave the area in just 30 minutes,” said Amal, a Palestinian mom who recently had a baby and ran away from the school with her newborn.
For weeks, there has been fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants in Khan Younis and it has been going on for four months. On Wednesday, the Israeli army told Palestinians to leave the western part of Khan Younis, the day after it said its forces had surrounded the city completely.
“They said we could go, but we had to walk a while, and they checked the young men on the side,” explained Israa Khashan, who was also staying at the school.
“They took some young men with them and left others, so now we are here and don’t know where to go,” she said.
Many Palestinians who had to leave their homes are now living in tents without basic things they need in Muwasi. It’s a sandy area near Khan Younis that Israel said is safe.
The Israeli military has been arresting young Palestinian men who are old enough to fight in Gaza. Several videos have come out showing Palestinian men who were captured by Israeli forces. They were blindfolded and had their clothes taken off, only wearing their underwear.
United States Senators team up to stop Biden administration action.
More and more Senate Democrats are working together to stop the Biden administration from making it harder for Congress to oversee the U. SgovernmentHelping Israel’s military.
The Democratic Senator did something on Thursday. Tim Kaine mentioned that 21 Democratic senators have agreed to a change in the law, so that Congress would have the same level of involvement in giving military aid to Israel as it does for other countries.
Several actions in the Senate to use U. SpowerMilitary help for Israel to save people in Gaza started with more liberal lawmakers, including independent Sen.
Erdogan, who doesn’t like what Israel is doing in Gaza, said that Turkey gave some papers that are being used in the case against Israel.
Israeli shooting hits a group of people in Gaza City.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said that Israeli gunfire hit a large group of people waiting for aid in Gaza City on Thursday, causing at least 20 deaths.
Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra says that 150 more people were hurt in the attack and that a lot of people are seriously hurt. The number of people who died is expected to go up because a lot of seriously hurt people were brought to Shifa Hospital.
The ministry did not say what kind of weapons were used. The Israeli army is checking the reports.
Israeli soldiers and tanks went into Gaza City when the ground invasion started. They have been fighting with militants there for almost two months. The army says they have mostly beaten Hamas in the north part of Gaza, but there are still some small groups fighting back.
The attack has destroyed many neighborhoods and caused a lot of damage in northern Gaza. It’s making people worry if the Palestinians who left their homes as Israel told them to will be able to come back.
Many people in the north don’t receive much help, even though many of them still live there.
Singer and actor will leave the hospital soon.
Israeli singer and actor Idan Amedi, known for his role in the popular show “Fauda,” is leaving the hospital on Thursday after being seriously hurt in January. While his team was placing bombs to blow up a tunnel in the middle of Gaza.
Six Israeli soldiers died during the mission, and many were hurt because a tank shell exploded the explosives too soon before the soldiers were in a safe place.
“Amedi said that even though I was badly hurt, I still have a strong spirit,” in a news conference before going home for rehabilitation. I won’t let this injury define my life. It’s just another challenge to overcome. I will come back to sing and act, and with help from God, I will also come back to fight for my country.
Amedi, who is 35 years old, has been serving in the Israeli military since Hamas started attacking southern Israel in October. Number 7Israel has brought in about 360,000 reserve soldiers from all different jobs to help in the fight against Hamas.
Amedi said he wants to go back to acting in Fauda after he gets better. “Fauda” shows a group of secret agents from Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet, as they work against Palestinians. Some Palestinians feel that the show makes their difficult situation living under Israel’s control in the West Bank seem less important. Amedi acted as Sagi Tzur, a new secret agent, in the show’s second to fourth seasons. He is also a popular singer and songwriter in Israel.
More people have died after a shelter was hit in an attack – United Nations.
A person from the United Nations says 12 people died and over 75 were injured in an attack on a crowded shelter in Gaza.
Thomas White, a top person at the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees, called UNRWA, said on Thursday that 15 of the injured people were in really bad condition. UNRWA says a building in a shelter holding many Palestinians was hit by two tank shells in Khan Younis on Wednesday. There has been a lot of fighting in the area lately. The building is on fire.
It didn’t accuse Israel directly, because it’s the only side in the fight that has tanks.
The Israeli military said it is not likely that their planes or artillery did the attack but they are still checking. The building might have been hit by a rocket from Hamas.
The fighting in Khan Younis has made it difficult for people to get to the two main hospitals, Nasser and Al-Amal. Many patients and displaced people are stuck there.
White reported that another hospital was cleared out overnight. Some of the patients who left were women who had just given birth by cesarean section.
Britain’s leader asks Israel to stop fighting for a period of time.
A United Nations worker says 12 people have died and over 75 have been hurt in an attack on a packed shelter in Gaza.
Thomas White, a leader at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said on Thursday that 15 people who were hurt are in very bad shape. UNRWA reports that a building in a shelter for many displaced Palestinians was hit by two tank shells in Khan Younis. This city has experienced a lot of fighting lately. The building is on fire, it said.
It didn’t accuse Israel, which is the only side with tanks in the conflict.
The Israeli military said they are still investigating, but they don’t think their planes or artillery caused the strike. The building could have been hit by a rocket from Hamas.
The fighting in Khan Younis has cut off its two main hospitals, Nasser and Al-Amal, leaving hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people trapped inside.
White says another hospital was emptied last night, and some of the people who left were women who had just had c-sections. Britain’s top official asks Israel to stop fighting for a short time.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has told the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that they should stop fighting in Gaza right away for humanitarian reasons, and work towards a long-lasting peace agreement.
Cameron is going to Qatar on Thursday to ask for more help to get into Gaza. A shipment of 17 tonnes (19 tons) of tents from the United Kingdom was supposed to be flown from Qatar to Egypt on Thursday.
The United Kingdom supports Israel, but is starting to criticize how they are fighting against Hamas.
Cameron said that the suffering in Gaza is really bad and it’s hard to imagine how bad it is. We need to do more quickly to help the people stuck in this terrible situation. He is asking Israel to give back water, fuel, and electricity to Gaza. We need to stop the fighting right away so we can bring in help and rescue the hostages. Then we need to keep the peace and not start fighting again.
A statue of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa, who has passed away, wearing a Palestinian scarf has been revealed in Cape Town. It shows his support for the people of Palestine.
The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said the statue will be on display for a short time until the bombing in Gaza stops.
Israel is trying to get rid of Hamas. They attacked Israel on 7 October and killed about 1,300 people. They also took about 240 people as hostages back to Gaza.
The health ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, has said that over 23,350 people, mostly women and children, were killed by Israel in the war.
Archbishop Tutu didn’t agree with how Israel treats Palestinians. He said it was similar to how South Africa treated people during apartheid.
The ruling ANC party has always spoken out in support of the Palestinian cause.
Israel is arguing in court in The Hague against South Africa’s claim that it is committing a genocide in Gaza.
It said South Africa has not been truthful and that it had given a false description of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Azzun residents said the four people who died were between the ages of 18 and 29 and their bodies were taken away by Israeli forces.
A witness told the BBC that the raid took place from before midnight until early morning.
Tensions have been high in the West Bank since Hamas attacks on October 7 sparked war in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently warned that the territory could “explode. ”
The Israeli army said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that in Azzun, “terrorists shot and threw explosives at our forces.
Fighters identified the court house where the team was hiding the terrorist and at the end of the gunfight, they killed four terrorists.
Palestinian news agency Wafa said on Tuesday morning four men “were shot dead in clashes that broke out when Israeli occupation forces stormed the town.
” Citing Palestinian security sources, he said soldiers “fired live bullets, stun grenades and tear gas at local residents. ”
“There have been attacks every day since October 7 even though there are no activists in the area,” one Azzun resident told the BBC.
A total of seven people were killed and there were many arrests.
Children were among the Palestinian victims taken to hospital after Israel’s latest bombing of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Other attacks targeted Deir al Balah and Rafah, towns from which tens of thousands of Gazans recently fled for safety.
The Israeli military has warned that the fighting will continue this year, but the Defense Minister said Israelis evacuated from several communities near Gaza will soon be able to return home safely.
Other Israeli ministers reacted angrily to yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to overturn a controversial law that had weakened their own powers.
Ministers accused the court of exceeding its authority.
However, opposition politicians have hailed the national crisis caused by last year’s controversial judicial changes, which may have contributed to Hamas’s decision to carry out deadly attacks on Sunday. October 7
According to the United Nations, about 150,000 Palestinians are being forced to flee areas in central Gaza, as Israeli forces advance toward refugee camps.
Witnesses and the military wing of Hamas reported that tanks had reached the eastern outskirts of the Bureij camp.
The Israeli army recently expanded its ground offensive against Bureij and the neighboring camps Nuseirat and Maghazi. Israeli bombing also killed dozens of people in Gaza on Thursday, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
Egypt confirmed it had put forward a three-phase proposal to end the fighting, ending with a ceasefire. A Hamas delegation is said to have arrived in Cairo to give feedback on the project.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented cross-border attack by Hamas gunmen into southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed – mostly civilians – and about 240 others were captured hostage.
According to the Health Ministry, more than 21,300 people have been killed in Gaza – mostly children and women – in 11 weeks of fighting.
The Israeli military called for the evacuation of the strip stretching across central Gaza, including the Bureij and Nuseirat camps, and ordered nearly 90,000 residents and 61,000 displaced people from affected areas to move south to the town of Deir al-Balah.
However, the United Nations warned on Thursday that they had nowhere to go because Deir al-Balah was overcrowded, with hundreds of thousands of displaced people sheltering there.
The United Nations says Rafah – which has become Gaza’s most populous city – has welcomed about 100,000 new arrivals in recent days as Israeli ground forces move into new residential areas. Omar, 60, said he was forced to leave Bureij with at least 35 family members.
“This moment has come, I wish it never happened, but it seems this move is necessary,” he told Reuters news agency by phone. “Now we are in a tent in Deir al-Balah because of Israel’s brutal war.
” Tom White, Gaza director for the UN humanitarian agency UNRWA, said more and more people were being pushed towards the town of Rafah in southern Gaza, “so there are more and more people in a very small strip of land. ” cannot meet their needs.
On Thursday night, Gaza’s Health Ministry announced that 20 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a building in Rafah that appeared to house displaced civilians.
On Thursday morning, a ministry spokesman announced that 50 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Maghazi, the northern town of Beit Lahia and the southern town of Khan Younis.
The deadliest incident occurred in Beit Lahia, where Palestinian media reported 30 people were killed in the demolition of a block of four buildings.
A local television journalist, Bassel Kheir al-Din, told the Associated Press that 12 members of his family were buried under the rubble of one of the buildings and were presumed dead, leaving nine remaining. Their neighbors are missing.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 10 people were killed when Israeli artillery shelled an apartment near al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, a day after a similar incident outside the facility left 31 people died.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters on Wednesday that the city is “a major terrorist center for Hamas”.
He also said the army fought in the Bureij region for the third day, adding that they “killed many terrorists and destroyed terrorist infrastructure”.
Residents told Reuters that heavy fighting continued on Thursday, with Israeli tanks advancing towards the densely populated Bureij camp from the north and east.
Hamas released a video showing what it said was its warplanes targeting Israeli soldiers and vehicles.
Elsewhere, the IDF said it regretted the “damage to unrelated civilians” caused by an airstrike in Maghazi on Sunday that killed at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Their statement said that the fighters “attacked two adjacent targets where Hamas members were present. ” In Israel, thousands of teenagers participated in marches demanding a new agreement to return more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.
Many protesters came from communities hardest hit by the October 7 attacks. “I come from Kibbutz Kfar Aza,” Shiri Khiyali told the BBC.
“I was there on October 7. My people were kidnapped. We want them back. We want them back now. ” Separately, United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk issued a fresh appeal calling on Israel to end what he called “illegal” killings in the occupied West Bank.
A report says the United Nations has verified the killing of 300 Palestinians in the West Bank by Israeli forces and Israeli settlers since October 7.
A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister called the report ridiculous and said it downplayed major threats to Israel’s security.
In his concluding remarks, Awni bids “peace out” to his initial 1,000 followers, a poignant farewell as he exits the frame of his video. Tragically, within just over a year, Awni’s life is cut short, making him one of the earliest Palestinian child casualties in the conflict.
His family’s home was tragically targeted in an Israeli airstrike on October 7, a harrowing event occurring shortly after a significant escalation of violence when Hamas forces crossed into Israel.
This video, once a beacon of his youthful dreams, has since accumulated millions of views. His silent gameplay videos also attract vast audiences, bringing his YouTube channel close to 1.5 million subscribers.
Remembered fondly by his aunt, Ala’a, as a cheerful and self-assured boy, and affectionately dubbed “engineer Awni” by another relative for his passion for computers, he has posthumously become an emblematic figure. His story echoes the broader narrative of lost youth in the Gaza Strip.
A comment on his video encapsulates a collective sentiment of sorrow and regret: “Please forgive us. I wish we knew you before you died,” a heartbreaking tribute to a young life ended too soon.
“So now folks, let me introduce myself: I am a Palestinian from Gaza, aged 12 years old. The aim of this channel is to reach 100,000 subscribers, or 500,000, or one million,” he says.
According to the health ministry in Gaza, which is administered by Hamas, the conflict has resulted in over 20,000 fatalities, with more than a third being children. Unicef has starkly labeled the region as the world’s most perilous environment for children.
Ala’a, recalling the day of the Hamas offensive and Israel’s subsequent response, feared the worst for her family’s residence in Gaza City. Her apprehensions turned into a grim reality that evening, around 20:20, as she received a flurry of messages informing her that Awni’s family home had been struck.
The residence, a three-storey building located in the Zeitoun area, was home to different branches of the family on each level. Awni resided there with his parents, two elder sisters, and two younger brothers.
Amnesty International, a human rights organization, also recorded the details of this strike in October.
Image caption,Awni (right) with his sisters and brothers, who were all killed
“Two bombs fell suddenly on top of the building and destroyed it. My wife and I were lucky to survive because we were staying on the top floor,” Awni’s uncle Mohammed said.
Both he and a neighbour said they had received no warning. “It was sudden, boom,” the neighbour said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not comment on this specific strike but said it was striking military targets and that Hamas had a “documented practice of operating from nearby, underneath and within densely populated areas”.
It said: “The IDF’s strikes on military targets are subject to relevant provisions of international law, including the taking of feasible precautions and after an assessment that the expected incidental damage to civilians and civilian property is not excessive in relation to the expected military advantage from the attack.”
It added that the IDF “regrets any harm caused to civilians or civilian property as a result of its operations, and examines all its operations in order to learn and improve and ensure all activity was in accordance with operational procedures and the law”.
‘He wanted followers and fans’
Ala’a didn’t want to believe the messages she was receiving. But after connecting to the wi-fi, she saw that a close friend of the family had shared a photo of her brother on social media with the caption: “Rest in peace.” She ran to the hospital.
“They asked me to see the bodies but my husband refused… he wanted me to remember their beautiful faces when they were alive,” she says in a Facebook message, sent from the south of Gaza, where she is now displaced.
Ala’a says 15 members of her family were killed that night, among them Awni.
She describes him as being a calm, helpful boy. His dad was a computer engineer and Ala’a says that for as long as she can remember, Awni would copy his father, pulling laptops apart and then trying to piece them back together.
In photos Awni shared on his own Facebook page, he stands in front of a blackboard holding up a computer motherboard to fellow students, as he leads a technology lesson organised as part of a “little teachers” scheme. Pictures published on his school’s Facebook page show him winning numerous awards.
Shortly after his death, one of his teachers shared a photo with Awni, describing the boy’s “ever-lasting smile”.
Image caption,Awni and his teacher
Outside of school, Ala’a says Awni loved spending time with his family. On one “very wonderful night”, Ala’a says she watched a film with Awni and his siblings, sharing crisps and chocolates.
The last time she saw him was at a family breakfast three weeks before his death, where she looked at her nephew and said: “Awni is becoming a man.”
Mostly, Awni loved computers and gaming, and he idolised the YouTubers who made careers out of his hobby.
“He wanted to be like them – to have followers and fans,” Ala’a says.
Awni started his channel in June 2020. His videos show him playing Pro Evolution Soccer, the car racing game Blur and the first-person shooting game Counter-Strike.
Long captions give details of the games, the companies that made them and the dates of their release.
In a video of Awni with an uncle, the pair promise a “special” range of content on the channel, declaring in unison: “It will be a blast.”
They grin and gesticulate as they take it in turns to talk. They say they plan to expand the channel to include vlogs and interviews.
Image caption,Awni was an ambitious boy who asked lots of questions, family members say
Ashraf Eldous, a distant relative of Awni who works as a programmer and helps run several YouTube channels, says the teenager would frequently contact him asking for advice.
In messages from August 2022, shared with the BBC, Awni addresses “brother Ashraf” as he asks for YouTube tips. He would even take his father’s phone in secret to ask for advice, Ashraf recalls.
Ashraf says the last time he spoke to Awni’s father, he was told: “Take care of Awni. Answer his questions. He’s ambitious.”
“His ambition was to be my competitor or colleague,” Ashraf says. “He created a YouTube channel. It wasn’t that big, it didn’t have any big views. Every start-up is hard at the beginning.”
But after Awni’s death in October, the views mounted when his fledgling channel caught the attention of established YouTubers, including Kuwaiti gamer AboFlah.
In an emotional video now viewed almost nine million times, AboFlah cries and walks away from the camera.
He has just discovered messages Awni had sent him on social media.
One of those message says: “Nothing compares to Palestine’s winter in Gaza; the atmosphere is legendary. We’re drinking sahlab [a sweetened milk drink]. It’s so good. We’re also eating roasted chestnuts. I hope you come to Palestine. Much love.”
In another, Awni writes to AboFlah: “You’re a legend and a role model.”
In the video, as AboFlah weeps, he says: “It’s such a shame for this child to die… This child is one of many others who are even younger than him. If God wills it, they’ll be birds of paradise.”
“What you see is from the heart. I could not stop my tears,” AboFlah tells the BBC, reflecting on the video he uploaded in October.
“It was very touching to hear that he looked up to me as a role model.”
Asked why he thinks Awni has made such a big impact, AboFlah says: “Fans see themselves in Awni. We are all Awni.”
The teenager’s entire family – his four brothers and sisters and mother and father – were killed alongside him. But his surviving relatives say they are proud of the fame he has found after death.
“It’s a gift from God that so many people around the world love Awni,” says Ala’a.
“He used to talk about it enthusiastically, about his channel. He is more happy in heaven now.”
Amid clashes at al-Faraa refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports that four individuals, aged between 17 and 24, have lost their lives.
The UN notes that over 270 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces or, in some instances, by Jewish settlers since the 7 October attacks.
In the ongoing unrest at al-Faraa refugee camp in the West Bank, four Palestinians, aged between 17 and 24, were tragically killed.
The clashes add to the escalating toll, with more than 270 Palestinians in the West Bank having lost their lives since the October 7 attacks, attributed to Israeli forces and Jewish settlers, according to the UN.
The situation remains tense, and concerns persist over the humanitarian impact in the region.
A video on social media shows many Palestinian men caught by Israel while fighting is happening in Khan Younis and in the north of Gaza.
The video, confirmed by the BBC, shows them in their underwear, kneeling on the ground, and being watched by Israeli soldiers.
The men were believed to have been taken into custody in Beit Lahia, a place in the northern part of the Gaza strip.
The media has been informed that some of the men have been let go.
One of the men who was detained is a famous journalist from Palestine. His employers say that Israel is searching and treating people in a disrespectful and embarrassing way.
When asked about the video, a spokesperson for the Israeli government told the media that the men who were arrested were of military age and were found in places where civilians were supposed to have left weeks ago.
In the video, many men are standing in a line on the ground and it looks like they were told to take off their shoes. Their shoes are spread out on the road. Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles are protecting them.
Other pictures show them being taken in army trucks. In the news in Israel, they are saying that the captured people are fighters from Hamas who gave up.
Another photo – which the media has not confirmed as true – depicts men with blindfolds, kneeling in a large hole of flattened sand.
The Israeli Army has not said anything about the pictures, but spokesman Daniel Hagari said that Israeli soldiers and security officers arrested and questioned many suspected terrorists.
“Many of them gave up and surrendered to our soldiers in the last day. ” Information obtained from their interrogations is used to keep on fighting.
On Friday, a spokesperson for the Israeli government told the media that the men were arrested in Jabalia and Shejaiya in the northern part of Gaza, which he said are places where Hamas has a lot of support and power.
“We found men of military age in areas that civilians were told to leave weeks ago,” he said.
Mr Levy said they will ask people to figure out who is really a Hamas terrorist and who is not.
He said the men who were captured were found in places where Israeli soldiers had fought closely with Hamas. They were pretending to be regular people and using regular buildings for their activities.
The BBC talked to a man who said that 10 of his cousins were taken by the Israeli army on Thursday in Beit Lahia.
The man, who wants to keep his identity secret for safety reasons, told BBC Arabic’s Ethar Shalaby that soldiers from the IDF came into the area and used loudspeakers to tell the men to leave their homes and UNRWA schools.
The IDF told women to go to the hospital and said they’d shoot them if the men didn’t come out of their homes.
The man said seven of his cousins have come back home. He doesn’t know what happened to the three who are still in Israeli detention.
On social media, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK said that the video shows Israeli soldiers being rough with people and taking off their clothes at a UN shelter.
“This reminds us of some of the worst times in human history,” said Husam Zomlot.
The Arabic news outlet, also known as the New Arab in English, reported that Mr. al-Kahlout and his family members were arrested by Israeli forces in Beit Lahia.
Al-Araby al-Jadeed criticized the unfair arrest of Mr al-Kahlout on Thursday.
It said that soldiers made the men take off their clothes and gave them embarrassing searches before taking them to unknown places.
The outlet wants people from different countries, journalists, and groups that protect rights and watch out for problems to speak out against Israel’s continuous attacks on journalists in the area.
Mr al-Kahlout’s friend, Palestinian journalist Lamis Andoni, said on Radio 4’s PM show that some prisoners were let go, but not Mr.
Ms Andoni, who is the head editor of Al-Araby al-Jadeed, said that the people who were released told Mr. Kahlout’s family that he had been moved to a military base in Israel called Zikim. The BBC has not confirmed if this is true.
“We don’t know what happened to him. ” The pictures and videos of these men are scary. “I can’t believe it,” she said. She also mentioned that her company was working with Israeli forces through the UN.
Antonio Guterres said that even though Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, this doesn’t excuse Israel from breaking humanitarian laws itself.
He says that the people in Gaza are being pushed around and can’t find the things they need to stay alive. “But in Gaza, there’s no safe place,” he says.
Guterres says that families in Gaza have lost everything and are sleeping on hard floors. He also says that there isn’t enough food and many people are hungry.
He thinks that he strongly disapproves of Hamas’ attacks on 7 October and wants the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas to be released right away.
“He says that even though Hamas has been very violent, it is not right to punish all the Palestinian people for it. “
Israel and Hamas have decided to continue their ceasefire for one more day, just before it was going to end.
The short break in fighting will continue for another week after Qatar helped negotiate an agreement.
The agreement resulted in many hostages being set free by Hamas in exchange for releasing Palestinians from prisons and providing aid to Gaza.
On Wednesday night, 16 people who were held by Hamas were set free, and 30 Palestinians were also released.
Up to now, 102 Israeli hostages have been let go, and 210 Palestinian prisoners have been set free. Around 140 Israelis are still being held as prisoners.
Israel’s army said the short break in fighting will continue because people are working to free the hostages and follow the agreed plan.
The prime minister’s office said the truce will continue for another seven days. They got a new list of women and children who are being held as hostages, but didn’t say how many names are on the list. Hamas also said that they agreed to extend the truce for another week without giving more information.
The first agreement was supposed to last for four days, but it has been extended two times.
When the deal was made, Israel said they would stop fighting for one more day for every 10 hostages released.
Antony Blinken, who is in charge of US foreign affairs, said that the truce is working and should keep going.
“We have seen in the past week that hostages are coming home and reuniting with their families, which is very good,” he said during a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
“It has also allowed more humanitarian help to reach the innocent people in Gaza who really need it. ”
On Wednesday, Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, said again that they will start fighting again once the truce is over.
“We will keep fighting until the very end, no matter what. ” This is what I believe, and everyone in the government and the army and the public supports it. This is exactly what we will do, he said on Wednesday.
Before the extension was approved, the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the Gaza Strip was experiencing a very serious humanitarian crisis.
He said he was glad to talk about continuing the truce, but he also said we need a real ceasefire for the sake of helping people.
The UN thinks that over 1. 8 million people in Gaza have left their homes in the last seven weeks. Around 60% of them are staying in 156 buildings that are owned by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa.
Earlier this week, a doctor from the World Health Organization said they checked the shelters and found that many people were getting sick. The kids were getting diarrhea 100 times more than usual.
The truce has stopped the Israeli air strikes for now. They started after Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking hundreds of hostages on 7 October.
Since then, Israel has attacked Gaza by air and on the ground and about 15,000 people have been killed. Children make up 40% of the people who have died. This information comes from health ministry officials in Gaza, which is controlled by the group Hamas. Big areas in the north of the Strip have been destroyed or badly damaged.
Charities are using the current break from fighting to bring food and water to the Palestinian people.
The photos below are of the UN giving out bags of flour and fresh water in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the area.
As we have been telling you, around 1. 7 million people in Gaza have been forced to leave their homes and move to the southern part of Gaza to escape the worst fighting.
In an interview with Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician and leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, about what’s happening in Jenin.
He says that Israeli soldiers are coming into Jenin City and the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
Barghouti said that the Israeli forces already broke down two houses and are surrounding many areas.
He says soldiers went into the big hospitals in Jenin and then went into the camp. Barghouti says they are destroying important buildings and utilities.
“It’s very cruel. ” “They just said that the Jenin area is now off-limits because of the military,” he says.
He says that even though there is a short break in fighting in Gaza, Israel is still entering parts of the West Bank.
The Israeli army did a mission in Jenin refugee camp and killed two important people who were part of a terror group, according to Israeli newspapers.
Mediators sought to extend a four-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas after the final exchange between Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
Israel has offered an additional day of pause in fighting for every 10 Israeli hostages released, and Hamas has said it may agree to an extension.
A Palestinian official said another 20 to 40 hostages could be freed. However, the Qatari Ombudsman said Hamas may not have located them or guaranteed their safety.
The Gulf state is also said to be trying to resolve a dispute between Israel and Hamas over who will be among the 11 hostages and 33 prisoners to be released on Monday. The Israeli prime minister’s office said discussions were still taking place”about the next list of people to be released”.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that the agreement would be extended if Hamas “can demonstrate, locate and secure a number of hostages who meet the criteria. ” of the first”.
The group includes women and children. However, he warned that Hamas’s “very complex structure” posed a challenge for Qatari mediators, as the group’s political leaders in Doha had to relay information to and from the military commander in Gaza.
“Typically what we see throughout these negotiations is that information is only provided at the time of any agreement or when it happens. But it never indicated anything before.
” In a separate interview with the Financial Times, Sheikh Mohammed said efforts to extend the ceasefire depended on Hamas identifying more than 40 women and children hostages, believed to have been taken by “civilians and gangs” group arrest. He explained that when the current ceasefire was negotiated, Hamas told mediators that it had protected only 50 of the more than 90 women and children Israel identified as hostages. Four women were freed last month, while Israeli forces operating inside Gaza rescued a female soldier and recovered the bodies of two other female hostages –one soldier and one civilian.
Hamas –considered a terrorist organization by Israel and Britain– has so far released 39 Israeli women and children as part of a deal reached last week. In return, Israel released 117 Palestinian women and girls.
Nineteen foreign nationals, one of whom had Israeli citizenship, were also handed over by Hamas under separate agreements. The pause in fighting also allows for a sharp increase in aid deliveries to Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis is worsening.
On Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the return of the third group of hostages, saying it was “simply soul-stirring.” “In addition, I would say that there is also a model that shows that an additional 10 [hostages] could be released per day.
That is very welcome,” he added. But he emphasized that at the end of the ceasefire, the Israeli army will”try to achieve its goals with all its might: eliminating Hamas, ensuring that Gaza does not return to the way it was and, of course, liberating all our hostages.
” Hamas also said on Sunday that it wanted to extend the pause. A senior Palestinian official familiar with the Doha talks told the BBC that Hamas had informed mediators of its readiness to extend the ceasefire by two to four days as it could secure further releases. 20 to 40 Israeli hostages.
Israel launched a military operation in Gaza and imposed a siege in retaliation for an unprecedented cross-border attack by Hamas gunmen on October7,killing at least 1,200 people and about 240 others. others were taken hostage.
The Hamas-led government in Gaza says more than 14,800 people have been killed in the territory since the war began.
The parents of three Palestinian students who were shot in Vermont have asked the police to look into the attack as a hate crime.
Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ahmed, and Kinnan Abdalhamid were stopped and shot by a man close to the University of Vermont campus, according to Burlington police.
The police are looking into why it happened, but they said the people who were attacked were wearing a traditional scarf and speaking Arabic.
Someone who is thought to have committed a crime has been taken into custody by the police.
The police in Burlington have identified the suspect as Jason J Eaton, who is 48 years old, according to CBS News, which is partnered with the BBC in the US.
The local police chief Jon Mura said that two victims are okay, but the third one is hurt really bad.
Three students went to Ramallah Friends School, a private non-profit school in Ramallah run by Quakers, as said by their family.
Haverford College in Pennsylvania chose Mr Abdalhamid to be one of its students. Two more people have been identified as Mr. Awartani, a student at Brown University, and Mr. Ahmed, who goes to Trinity College in Connecticut.
Rich Price, who is related to one of the victims, said that three men in their 20s were at an eight-year-old’s birthday party.
We never thought something like this could happen in our family’s neighborhood. We didn’t expect them to be walking down the street and experience this.
“A few minutes after they left, we saw police cars with sirens and flashing lights go by our house. ” And we thought, wow, something strange is happening.
“I had no idea it was my nephew and his friends. ”
Before, the families of the victims shared a message through the pro-Palestinian non-profit group Middle East Understanding, according to Reuters.
They said: “We want the police to thoroughly investigate this and consider it a hate crime. ”
“We won’t feel better until the person who shot is punished. ”
After the shooting, the Council on American-Islamic relations said they would give $10,000 to anyone who can help catch the person responsible.
Bernie Sanders, who ran for president as a Democrat from Vermont, spoke out against the recent violence.
Mr Sanders wrote that he is very upset that three young Palestinians were shot in Burlington, Vermont. There is no place for hate here, or anywhere else.
Ambassador Husam Zomlot, who is in charge of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, shared a picture of the three people on social media and said, “We need to stop the hate crimes against Palestinians. “
Now, for more on Israel’s release of Palestinian inmates as part of the hostage arrangement.
Among those thought to have been set free are six ladies; the other individuals are all younger than eighteen. Palestine is frequently imprisoned by Israel without trial or charge.
Images on TV showed a bus full of celebrants transporting the detainees to the West Bank town of Beitunia. It was claimed that other prisoners who had been freed had arrived in Jerusalem in the interim.
Israa Jaabis, a Palestinian woman, was released on Saturday in a trade between Hamas and Israel.
She was locked up in Israel since 2015 because her car broke down near a checkpoint in the West Bank.
There is disagreement about why the breakdown occurred. The Israelis said there was an attempted car bombing, but Arab media said her car engine failed and caused a fire.
Jaabis got hurt in the accident and her face got burned really badly.
She got 11 years in jail but only had to stay for 8 years.
Last year, Jaabis asked the Israel Prisons Service if she could have surgery to fix her nose, but they said no.
Jaabis, who is 38 years old, gave her son Mua’tassim a hug. Mua’tassim is now 15 years old. Jaabis had left him when he was only eight years old.
Yesterday, 17-year-old Mohammad dar-Darwish got a haircut as the first thing he did.
After seven months in an Israeli jail, it was important for him to remember who he was.
Israel let the Palestinian teenager go, along with 38 other women and kids, in exchange for Israeli hostages that Hamas had.
Dar-Darwish was found guilty by a military court for throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers in April. He says he didn’t do it.
On the day he was released from prison, he was told by Israeli prison guards that he was being taken to court.
He said he was very happy when he arrived back in the West Bank and found his father and brother waiting to greet the prisoners.
After the attacks on 7 October, Mohammad said that the guards took away the blankets, cooking stuff, radios, and TVs of the Palestinian prisoners.
“We only got a little bit of food for all of us, so we were always hungry. ” “They couldn’t reach Gaza, so they hurt us. ”
He said that the only way he knew about the war in Gaza was from people who just came to the prison until he was set free.
He said that people who came to jail had new injuries like broken teeth, a hand with a lot of bruises, and a big cut on their head that was not taken care of.
Israel’s prisons follow the law when detaining prisoners. They also have the right to complain if they want to.
I asked Mohammad what he thinks about the Israeli people who were taken by Hamas and used to get him free.
Is he caring or understanding towards them.
“They were staying with Hamas like guests in heaven,” he said, “while we were in prison, suffering every day in hell. “
The prisoners were browsed a rundown of 300 ladies and minors incorporated by Israel.
Under a fourth of those on the rundown have been sentenced – by far most are being hung on remand while anticipating preliminary. The greater part of those recorded are young men – 40% of them younger than 18. There is additionally one young lady and 32 ladies.
Prior, the street by Beituniya designated spot, close to Ramallah, was sharp with the smell of poisonous gas. Gatherings of Palestinian men and young men confronted the Israeli armed force arranging out and about ahead.
The military discharged elastic slugs and nerve gas towards the group, to push them back.
A portion of the youngsters assembled tossed stones and poisonous gas canisters back towards the soldiers.
“It’s an indication of expectation for Palestinians and Israelis that the truce will proceed and the killing will stop,” Mohammed Khatib, who was in the group, told the BBC.
Upon the detainees’ delivery, the transport that moved them crept its direction through an ocean of euphoric Palestinian allies.
Through the windows, a portion of the detainees should have been visible moving, one enveloped by a Palestinian banner. Outside, cell phones were raised to the glass in the midst of ululations and yells of welcome and “God is perfect”.
A couple of in the group waved Hamas banners, however others discussed Palestinian solidarity, a little snapshot of triumph amidst an overwhelming conflict.
For Israel, the delivered detainees are a security danger; for the Palestinians accumulated here to welcome them, they are survivors of Israel’s occupation – and their delivery is an image.
Thirteen Israeli prisoners were delivered by Hamas under the détente bargain. It was affirmed on Friday that they had shown up back in Israel.
The Thai top state leader says that a gathering of Thai nationals kept on lock down by Hamas in Gaza were likewise delivered – separate from the Qatar-intervened détente bargain.
Israel and Hamas arrived at an arrangement recently to deliver 50 of the prisoners held in Gaza during four-day stop in battling.
The understanding ought to see a sum of 150 Palestinians held in Israeli correctional facilities delivered and a critical expansion in helpful guide permitted into Gaza. Nearly 60 trucks conveying clinical supplies, fuel and food entered from Egypt on Friday.
Hamas took in excess of 200 prisoners during a cross-line assault on southern Israel on 7 October in which 1,200 individuals were killed.
Basic freedoms associations say the quantity of Palestinians held without charge in Israeli prisons has shot up since the 7 October assaults.
There are currently remembered to be in excess of 6,000 Palestinians held by Israel on security grounds – many actually anticipating preliminary.
Pretty much every Palestinian family in the West Bank is remembered to have had a relative confined by Israel previously – frequently in correctional facilities inside Israel, making it troublesome or unimaginable for their family members to visit.
Several videos on social media show Palestinians getting shot at while trying to go from the south to the north of Gaza.
In some places, there are lots of people running away because they hear gunshots. At least one man has been killed by a gun and several others are badly hurt.
The Israeli army is checking the reports and will reply to me soon.
The IDF said that Palestinians cannot travel from the bottom to the top of Gaza during the truce.
A father of two who says it seems “like God chose you to survive” is among the Irish-Palestinians whose family is on a list of those who must leave Gaza.
Along with his wife, daughter, and son, Aymen Shaheen hopes to escape the conflict zone by entering Egypt through the Rafah crossing.
He described Gaza as “a hell” and expressed gratitude for his ability to escape.
“We are fortunate to be able to cross the border, but this nightmare will continue for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza,” Mr. Shaheen said to RTÉ, an Irish network.
The family is one of about 40 Irish people in Gaza.
The first group and their family members started crossing over the Rafah border early on Wednesday.
Mr Shaheen was told by the Irish government that his family can cross from Gaza to Egypt.
“They did well,” he said.
He wants to travel 4 kilometers (2. 5 miles) to the border with his wife Suha, his 19-year-old daughter Rawan, and 12-year-old son Ibrahim.
“It’s risky, but we have to go. We don’t have a choice,” he said.
He said the situation is still changing, but they will keep working hard to get the rest of the Irish citizens out of Gaza.
Mr Shaheen said that life in Gaza became very difficult when Israel started bombing the area in early October.
The bombing started after Hamas attacked and killed over 1,400 Israelis in the southern part of the country on October 7th.
Hamas runs Gaza’s health ministry. They say over 11,000 people were killed in the Israeli attack, including more than 4,500 children.
“It’s really tough to be honest – tough to find food, tough to find water, tough to find bread. ” “It’s tough for everyone to be in this situation,” Mr.
He said someone told him to bring his family to Rafah. Officials from the Irish Embassy will be there to help them at the Egyptian border.
“He said we only have three days in Egypt and they will also arrange our trip to Ireland. ”
On Wednesday, Mr Martin is visiting Egypt as part of a short diplomatic tour of the Middle East.
He will go to Israel and the areas it controls on Thursday.
His department said: “We think more Irish citizens and their family members in Gaza will be added to the list in the next few days. ”
“We are working very hard to make sure that everyone who wants to leave can do so as quickly as possible. “
Ahed Tamimi, a well-known Palestinian activist, was taken into custody by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank.
Ms Tamimi, who is 22 years old, was kept in custody for one night in the village of Nabi Saleh, reported the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
The military in Israel said to AFP news agency that they believed she was encouraging violence and terrorist actions.
Israeli news outlets said that Ms Tamimi was taken into custody because she made a threatening post on Instagram where she talked about killing Jewish settlers.
“[When comparing], she allegedly wrote that what Hitler did to you was something trivial,” the newspaper Haaretz reported. The statement refers to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany’s killing of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
The post and the account with Ms Tamimi’s name and photo cannot be seen online anymore.
He said she showed”compassion and support for the Nazi people on social media” and promised:”No acceptance of terrorists and people who support terrorism. “
However, Ms Tamimi’s mother, Nariman, said that she didn’t write the post.
As a teenager, Ahed Tamimi came to represent resistance against Israel’s occupation around the world.
In 2015, a teenager who was 14 years old at that time was caught on camera biting an Israeli soldier. The soldier was trying to capture her younger brother.
Two years later, she got arrested because she was caught on camera hitting and kicking an Israeli soldier during a fight near her house. She was given a punishment of eight months in jail by an Israeli court.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society stated that Ms. Tamimi was one of 70 Palestinians who were taken into custody during Israeli raids in the West Bank and East Jerusalem on Sunday night.
SinceOctober7th, there have been a total of 2,150 people detained in that place. This all started when gunmen from Hamas in Gaza attacked Israel,resulting in the death of 1,400 individuals and 240 being held as hostages.
Israel has been attacking Gaza without stopping and they have also sent soldiers on the ground for over a week now in order to try to wipe out Hamas. Over 9,700 people have died in Gaza, according to the health ministry controlled by Hamas.
There has been a sudden increase in violent incidents happening in the West Bank.
The United Nations says that 141 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. This mostly happened when there were fights after Israeli forces searched and arrested people or during protests supporting Gaza.
Two Israelis have died because of Palestinians in the same time frame.
Around 600,000 Jewish people currently live in 140 communities that were established after Israel took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.
Many countries believe that the settlements go against international laws,but Israel disagrees.
In other places, we are listening to Antony Blinken, the top diplomat of the United States, who is speaking in Tel Aviv.
Blinken said that he came back to Israel to work closely with other countries and do everything possible to prevent another attack like the one by Hamas on October 7th from happening again.
He says we need to do some important things to make this happen, like stopping the conflict from getting worse and spreading to other places nearby.
Also, he believes that there should be additional efforts to keep Palestinian people safe, and the way Israel goes about fighting against Hamas is important.
Blinken believes that innocent people should not be punished for the violence caused by Hamas.
He says that we need to send more help to Gaza regularly.
The war between Israel and Hamas is causing problems all over the world. Palestinian and Jewish Americans are feeling more afraid because they are facing more threats and harassment.
Hundreds of people came together for a peaceful event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on 13 October. However, things took a turn for the worse when a man with a gun started shouting offensive words about different races.
People ran in different directions, trying to save themselves, according to Omar Mussa. He was one of the people responsible for arranging the event supporting Palestine at the state Capitol’s stairs.
The 30-year-old Palestinian American said to the BBC that he came to the rally to make us feel afraid and scared. Don’t be afraid to meet with your friends and talk about your thoughts and beliefs.
The man accused of aiming a gun at a group of people and expressing hate towards Islam has been faced with charges of intimidating different ethnicities and making threats of terrorism.
The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee said they have received lots of reports about hate incidents against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Americans. The Anti-Defamation League stated that there has been a significant rise in acts of hatred towards Jewish people, with 107 incidents reported since the conflict started on 7 October.
President Joe Biden expressed strong disapproval of the incidents and emphasized the importance of taking a stand against hate during a recent address in the Oval Office.
However, experts and leaders from both Jewish and Palestinian-American communities are concerned that this pattern will continue as the conflict in the Middle East carries on.
“We are preparing for a difficult and challenging situation – not just because of how intense the conflict is but also because it will last for a long time,” said Brian Levin, the person who started the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
Bomb threats and stabbings
Many important and noticeable events have caused worry across the country.
A six-year-old boy from Palestine who lived in the United States was attacked and killed with a knife last week in a place called Plainfield, Illinois. His mother was also hurt badly. It is said that their landlord singled out the couple because of their religion and the ongoing fighting between Hamas and Israel.
A man in Lombard, Illinois, around 30 miles away, was charged with hate crimes last week. He apparently threatened to shoot two Muslim men.
In New York City, the police report that a man hit a woman in the face in the subway just because she was Jewish. In Utah, some Jewish groups have said they got scary messages.
Sam Spector, a religious leader in Salt Lake City, had been leading a gathering for about an hour on October 8th when he had to abruptly stop due to a threat of a bomb.
MrSpector explained the frightening message that said, “We placed explosives in all Jewish facilities in Utah. ” “It says they will explode soon – you all deserve to die,” the message stated.
Many people had to leave the building, including 20 children in a nearby room.
This was not the first time the congregation at Mr. Spector’s workplace has received a bomb threat. But since the war started this month, he said he has gotten more mean and hateful messages about Jewish people than he has ever gotten before.
He said that people unfairly blame the Jewish and Muslim communities in America for their own strong opinions, even though these communities are just regular people trying to live their lives.
“Enjoy life to the fullest and be cautious. ”
Some Americans are being careful about what they do each day because they are worried about their safety.
Last week, a man from Texas sent Mohammad Abd-Elsalam a message threatening to kill all Palestinians, saying they all deserve to die.
The leader of the Palestinian American Organizations Network, Mr. Abd-Elsalam, said he has started staying away from crowded areas and has told his family to do the same.
“Mr Abd-Elsalam said it’s a lot to handle. ” “You may not know how to handle the war in Gaza, but you also need to worry about your safety here and the safety of our community in the United States. ” Rabbi Spector has increased security at his synagogue recently. They are also planning to spend almost $500,000 to make the temple safer in the coming years.
However, Jewish individuals all over the country are wondering if it’s secure to go to their religious gatherings, according to Niv Elis from the Jewish Federations of North America.
“Right now, he told the BBC that our recommendation is for you to embrace your Jewish lifestyle wholeheartedly and to be cautious. ”
Mr Mussa said that because of increased tensions in the Middle East, there are threats against Palestinians and other Muslim groups. Some people see the entire Muslim community as one group, which is incorrect.
He said that people who wear religious coverings like a hijab are usually the ones who can be easily harmed or taken advantage of.
“He said that people who resemble a minority or who appear to be from another country are singled out. ” “More people are very afraid to walk outside now. ”
Tension that has existed for a long time.
Both Muslims and Jews in the US have experienced discrimination and threats for a long time. But some experts have stated that hate crimes often increase when there are conflicts and tensions occurring in the Middle East.
Jessica Winegar, a teacher who studies people and cultures in the Middle East at Northwestern University, said that the ongoing fighting in Gaza is particularly difficult and tense.
She said that we have never witnessed so much killing in such a brief period. “This conflict has become even more intense. ”
Experts say that the divided nature of American politics made the situation even worse.
The argument about the complicated and ongoing conflict in the Middle East is causing disagreement between the left and right sides of politics in the US. Those who have extreme beliefs are more likely to angrily blame someone else for it.
Ms Winegar said that government officials and local leaders must speak out against hate and show support for innocent people on both sides of the conflict.
Mr Mussa, a Palestinian-American who attended a rally at Pennsylvania’s state Capitol, said that he protested and also expressed his disagreement with Israel’s policies. However, he thinks that the political establishment pays little attention to the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and this has consequences in the US as well.
“This is making people in this country feel empowered to treat us poorly, not see us as equals or Americans,” Mr. Mussa said in an interview with the BBC.
President Biden promised to strongly support Israel after the Hamas attack. He also asked Congress to give an extra $14 billion in aid to Israel. However, he expressed sympathy for the Palestinians who lost their lives in Gaza.
We feel sad for every innocent person who died. “He said that we must not overlook the fact that innocent Palestinians, who simply desire a peaceful life and opportunities, also have basic human needs. ”
And he also understood that the anger in Israel and Gaza can lead to hate crimes in the US, affecting both Jews and Muslims.
And to all of you who are suffering. I wanted to let you know I recognize your pain. You are included. And I want to tell you this: You are all America.
Young people and Muslim leaders in Somalia’s capital city have gathered hundreds of individuals to show their support for the people in Gaza. Many of these people in Gaza are going through difficult times without enough food, water, or a place to live because Israel has blocked off the area in response to violent actions by Hamas fighters.
Some people shouted, “We support Palestine and we are with you. ” at the protest on Friday.
Some people are reading from the Quran, and religious leaders are advising Somalis to pray to Allah to help the Palestinians who are suffering.
South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, and Kenya are some other African countries where people have held protests in support of Palestine recently.
The West Bank, governed by Israel, witnessed six fatalities during confrontations with Israeli soldiers as reported by the Palestinian health ministry.
According to witnesses, Israeli soldiers went into the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm. They are currently fighting with Palestinian gunmen.
Earlier, the Israeli military detained more than 80 individuals in the West Bank. Among them, 63 individuals were identified as Hamas members involved in activities that result in terror.
They arrested five people in Nur Shams and the security forces are still working in the camp to stop terrorism.
The West Bank, which is controlled by Israel, is not connected to the Gaza Strip. Some of it is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, while Gaza is managed by Hamas. According to data from the United Nations, as of last night, at least 61 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 7 October. Over 1,200 people have also gotten hurt.
There have been more fights between people and the security forces of the Palestinian Authority recently. This is because protesters are angry about the war in Gaza and are demonstrating in the streets.
Israeli settlers have been committing more acts of violence, including attacking Palestinians. The Israeli human rights organization called B’Tselem has collected information and evidence of these attacks.
The men in the wedding hall at the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank spend a lot of time on their phones, smoking, and always checking for new updates on their news feeds. They seem very tired, and you can see that they have been through some terrible experiences in the past few days.
These 180 people, who are all men, are refugees from Gaza. They are part of around 18,000 people who live in the area and have permission to work in Israel. They can go back and forth across the border. When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) blocked all entry to Gaza after Hamas’ dangerous attack last Saturday, these men got trapped.
There are people in Khan Younis, which is a town in southern Gaza, facing a serious refugee crisis. They have families but cannot leave the town.
The Israeli military has been continuously attacking Gaza with airstrikes and artillery after Hamas fighters carried out a violent attack and fired many rockets, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,400 people. The scary group also took away about 150 more people last Saturday in their very shocking and violent attack.
The Israeli military wants to destroy Hamas and make sure it can never attack again. But many civilians have been severely affected by the campaign. The health department in Gaza said that in the past eight days, 2,450 people have died. This is even higher than the number of deaths during the entire 2014 war, which lasted for 51 days.
Ismail Abd Almagid’s wife and five kids, four girls and one boy, are in Gaza. Meanwhile, Ismail is staying in a refugee camp. He has videos of all of them saved on his phone. The picture shows a little girl named Misk eating a slice of mango. When he watches the video, tears start flowing down his cheeks.
Tala, the second oldest daughter of someone, got hurt in the war of 2014 while they were staying at their grandparents’ house. “He said, ‘Since she enjoys roller skates, I promised to bring them back when I return. ‘”
Abd Almagid, who is 44 years old, said to CNN that he always tries to stay connected with his wife. However, it has been hard to communicate because Israel stopped the access to electricity, food, and water in Gaza.
My kids want me to pray for them. He said that things are really tough there. “I want to return to Gaza immediately, even though there may be difficulties. Bring me to Gaza, I will go with you now. My life feels incomplete without my family. ”
Currently, there are a lot of people moving from one place to another in Gaza. Many of them are going to a crowded area called Khan Younis.
The Israeli military asked people who live in crowded areas in the north of Gaza, including Gaza City, to move to the southern part of the area. The United Nations said that the instruction, which would affect 1. 1 million people, would have extremely serious effects on people in need of help.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) informed CNN on Sunday that they believe around 500,000 individuals have moved from northern Gaza to the southern area up until now.
When Abd Almagid received permission to work in Israel in October of last year, it felt incredibly fortunate, like winning the lottery. The economy in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas but cut off by Israel and Egypt, has been severely damaged, and almost half of the people do not have jobs, as reported by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
I really wanted this permit because things are really bad in Gaza. The money situation and amount of money owed in the economy is very low. “There are no job opportunities,” he said, mentioning that he has been jobless since he finished school in 2004 when he received the permit.
Israel started giving many permits to people from Gaza so they can go into Israel for work. Israel did this to try and stop Hamas from fighting with weapons.
His wife, who studied English, also doesn’t have a job. He said he was going to Israel every second week to work at a bakery.
Most of the men at the Dheisheh refugee camp are in a similar situation. They are the only ones in their families who have a job. The amount of money people earn in Israel is much higher than what they could earn in Gaza.
Marwan Saqer, who is 55 years old, is the only person in his whole family who has a job. He is also the only one who has ever left Gaza.
He was doing a job at a building site in Kafr Qassem, a town of Arab people close to Tel Aviv, when Hamas carried out an attack on Israel. He said that the Palestinian Authority asked him and other people from Gaza to go to the West Bank because their Israeli work permits were canceled.
He said that the Dheisheh people welcomed them very warmly by giving them mattresses, blankets, and basic things they needed, and they also offered them comfort and friendship.
The Dheisheh camp in Bethlehem was made in 1949. At that time, 3,000 Palestinians came to live there because they were forced to leave their homes or run away from villages near Jerusalem.
The number of people living in the camp has increased to over 18,500. They now reside in an area that is one third of a square kilometer in size. This information is provided by the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
In the camp, the walls have pictures of its people who died in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been going on for many years. The custom began in the 1990s to honor and remember them and has continued until today.
The camp is controlled by the Palestinians, but the Israeli army often comes in and captures people and does searches. People who live nearby told CNN that the Israeli military came on Sunday morning and arrested three individuals. 180 people from Gaza have already come to the camp. We expect more people to come in the next few days.
While talking to CNN, Saqer’s phone kept ringing a few times because his son was calling him from Gaza. He answered the call, but it was cut off right away because the signal on the other end stopped working.
We talk, but they only give me some of the truth. He said to CNN that they don’t want to make him more worried.
These men feel very worried and sad because their wives and children are in a dangerous place called Gaza, while they are in a safer place called the refugee camp.
It is hard. We all gather in one place and talk about how we feel. We all feel the same as fathers. We all understand and experience the pain that our children go through,” Saqer said.
The room feels small and crowded, and everyone is feeling nervous. Arguments can happen quickly and easily over things like who gets to use power plugs.
“Saqer said that there are individuals in our group who cry all night, staying awake. ” “We are physically present, but mentally our focus is on Gaza. ”
The police in the middle of Paris used a type of gas that makes people’s eyes and noses hurt and machines that shoot water to stop a rally in support of Palestine. The French government had said that these types of rallies were not allowed.
The Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, stated that people who refuse to follow the rule should be taken into custody because “they could cause problems with how the public behaves. ”
Even though it was not allowed, many people gathered to protest in Paris, Lille, Bordeaux, and other cities on Thursday.
President Emmanuel Macron asked people not to create conflicts within the country.
“He said in a video message that the shield of unity will keep us safe from hate and going too far. ”
European governments have prohibited pro-Palestinian gatherings because they are concerned about an increase in hatred towards Jewish people caused by the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
After a few hours, the police arrested 10 people and used water cannons to break up a large protest in Paris at a place called Place de la République. The protesters were shouting “Israel murderer” and “Palestine will win” while waving flags from Palestine. 10 more people were taken into custody at another protest in Lille.
Groups supporting Palestinian rights said the ban might harm freedom of speech and promised to keep protesting for the Palestinian people.
Charlotte Vautier, who went to the rally, told Reuters that in our country, we have the freedom to speak out and protest because we have laws to protect our rights.
“It’s not fair to forbid something for one side and allow it for the other. ”
At the same time, the police in Berlin, the capital of Germany, have forbidden planned demonstrations supporting Palestine because they fear there might be anti-Semitic remarks and the promotion of violent acts.
The police asked about 60 protesters to go away from Potsdamer Platz on Thursday and they did.
In a video message, President Macron asked the French people to stay together and not let differences within the country create more problems in the global stage.
He said Hamas is a group that wants to kill people in Israel and is considered a terrorist organization.
On Saturday, Hamas attacked Israel and sadly, 13 French citizens were killed in the attack.
President Macron said that 17 French people are missing and are probably being held captive by Hamas in Gaza. He also said that France is doing everything possible, along with Israel and other countries, to bring them back home.
Four kids are missing.
Israel, according to what he said, has the ability to protect itself by getting rid of terrorists. However, it is important for Israel to make sure that innocent people are not harmed because this is something that democratic countries should prioritize.
France has the biggest Jewish community in Europe, with almost 500,000 members. France has a big Muslim community, which is one of the largest in Europe. It is believed that there are around five million Muslims in the country.
On Thursday,Darmanin said that it is important to have police officers visibly present to protect Jewish schools and synagogues.
He said on a French radio show that since Saturday, they had documented 100 acts of anti-Semitism. These acts mostly included graffiti with symbols like the swastika and messages like “death to Jews” and calls for intifadas against Israel.
Some people were caught trying to bring knives into schools and synagogues and they got arrested.
French police are already protecting the houses of important MPs. National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet and MP Meyer Habib, who are both Jewish, have been given extra security measures.
It was found out that Ms Braun-Pivet, who is part of Mr Macron’s Renaissance party, has been getting death threats.
This week, she made the parliament’s lights look like the Israeli flag and asked for a moment of silence before a meeting on Tuesday.
MsBraun-Pivet said that Maryam Abu Daqqa, who is a member of a political group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, will not be allowed to go to a movie showing in parliament next month. The EU considers the militant organisation to be a terrorist group.
Meyer Habib is a representative for French citizens living outside of France, including those in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. He strongly supports Israel and speaks out in favor of it. He said that after the Hamas attack, we are seeing the recurrence of pogroms.
The Hamas attack and its consequences have caused division in French politics.
Many parties have criticized the “terrorist attack” that happened on Saturday and have shown support for Israel’s right to retaliate. However, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party had a less clear response.
The party called the Hamas attack a “violent attack by Palestinian forces”, which made other parties, including left-wing allies like the Socialist and Communist parties, very upset. Germany’s leader Olaf Scholz has said that he will not accept any form of anti-Semitism.
He informed the parliament that a pro-Palestinian group called Samidoun, who were seen distributing candies in the Neukölln region of Berlin to mark the Hamas attack, will be prohibited. He said that we will not accept or allow antisemitism.
MrSholz told members of the German parliament that Germany considers Israel’s security as an important part of its policies. The German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock plans to visit Israel on Friday to show support and unity.
German authorities have reported that in various towns, like Mainz, Braunschweig, and Heilbronn, Israeli flags raised as a support gesture were pulled down and ruined, often within a short time.
The group has 36 members, the most of them are from the St. Helen Catholic parish in Curepipe’s second-largest city.
The parishioners are doing well, according to Father Gérard Mongelard, who is travelling with them. They are currently residing in a hotel in Bethlehem.
They had a flight scheduled for Sunday night to Turkey, from where they were to make their way back home.
However, a lot of airlines cancelled travel after Hamas launched an attack on Israel.
A mom is asking for help finding her daughter, who she thinks was taken away by Palestinian fighters at a festival close to the Gaza Strip.
Shani Louk, a tourist from Germany, was at a peace festival when Hamas fighters suddenly attacked the area.
Her mom said she watched a video of Shani being “asleep in a car” after she was taken away.
Hamas has taken some Israeli people as hostages, including civilians and soldiers, according to the Israeli military.
However, the BBC has not confirmed if Shani was the person held captive in the car.
Shani’s mother showed a picture of her daughter on her phone and said in a video that Shani was taken by Palestinian Hamas along with a group of tourists in southern Israel.
She told us that they sent us a video showing our daughter unconscious in a car with Palestinians, driving around the Gaza Strip.
Can you please send us any assistance or information. Thank you a lot.
More individuals at the festival have gone missing, including a British citizen named Jake Marlowe. However, the Israeli embassy in the UK told the BBC that they are uncertain if Jake Marlowe has been kidnapped.
His mother said to Jewish News that he was working as a security worker at a festival in Kibbutz Re’im, a community in the city of Ofakim, which is close to Gaza.
Videos on social media showed an Israeli woman named Noa Argamani being taken by force and held on a motorcycle by two men.
Gili Yoskovich, who was also there, said to the BBC that she hid under a tree in a field while some people with guns were going around shooting anyone they could see.
Fighting is still happening after Israel was unexpectedly attacked by Hamas this weekend.
The Palestinian fighters fired many rockets at Israel and attacked their fighters on Saturday morning. This caused many people to die and get injured.
According to the health ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, many people have died as a result of Israeli air strikes.
Israeli security forces are currently working to save people who have been captured by Palestinian militants from Gaza. They are also trying to regain control of places that were taken by the militants on Saturday.
The army said soldiers made sure that 22 places in southern Israel were safe, but they are still checking 8 more areas.
A lot of gunmen from Hamas launched a sudden attack on Israel while rockets were being fired. It is said that this attack has caused the deaths of at least 300 people in Israel.
Over 310 people in Gaza have died from Israeli attacks as an act of revenge.
Many people have gotten hurt on both sides, with many being very hurt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the people of Israel on Saturday night that they were about to enter a lengthy and challenging war. He also told Hamas, who is in charge of Gaza, that their hiding places will be destroyed completely.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh stated that they were very close to achieving a big win.
The worst day of violence in Israel in 50 years started early on Saturday, which was a special day for Jewish people called the Sabbath and Simchat Torah festival.
Gunmen used motorbikes, paragliders, and boats to cross the fence separating Gaza and southern Israel.
According to a spokesperson from the Israel Defense Forces, there were many militants involved, and they fired over 3,000 rockets towards different cities and towns in Israel throughout the day.
“They went to many Israeli towns and military bases and searched every house one by one,” said Lt Col Jonathan Conricus during a discussion on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Saturday night.
“They killed Israeli civilians in a cruel and heartless way inside their homes and then took additional Israeli civilians and military people to Gaza. ” “I want to discuss the group of people that include women, children, elderly individuals, and disabled individuals. ” The health ministry of Israel has not yet said how many people died, but Israeli media says that around 300 people have been killed. Over 1,860 other people have gotten hurt.
Yesterday, Israeli security forces saved a lot of people who were being held hostage. Almost 50 of them were trapped in the dining area of a small town.
At least 10 terrorists who had seized control of the police station in the town of Sderot were killed.
On Sunday morning, the IDF informed journalists that there were still eight areas where security forces were searching each house to ensure that they were free from terrorism.
This text could be rewritten as: They include Sderot and the kibbutz of Kfar Aza, where the IDF said soldiers were working to rescue more hostages.
The IDF said that over 400 gunmen were killed and many were arrested during the fighting in Israel.
The text is saying that all people who live near the Gaza border will be asked to leave their homes within 24 hours.
Worries are increasing for a large group of Israeli soldiers and civilians, including women and children, who Lieutenant Colonel Conricus mentioned are currently being held in Gaza.
Family members of the individuals who are missing have been requested to give their personal belongings to the local police stations. This is being done in order to collect DNA samples.
Recently, a man named Moshe Or saw a video on social media where his brother Avinatan and his girlfriend Noa Argamani were being taken by militants into Gaza. Moshe Or told this to Israeli media on Saturday.
“I watched a video where Noa appeared scared and frightened,” he explained. I can’t understand what she is thinking right now. She is very scared and screaming while riding a motorcycle. Some bad people are holding onto her and not allowing her to escape.
Mr Netanyahu told Hamas that Israel blamed them for the safety of the hostages and would take strong action against anyone who hurt them even a little bit.
He also said that the Israeli army would quickly and effectively destroy Hamas’s abilities. He advised people in Gaza to leave their houses and find a safe place to stay. The IDF said that by Sunday morning, they had attacked 426 places that belonged to Hamas. One of the places they attacked was a building owned by the head of Hamas’ intelligence department.
The tall Watan Tower in Gaza City, which housed many of the area’s internet companies, was also destroyed during the night.
Officials from the Palestinian health ministry have reported that in Gaza, 313 people have been killed, including 20 children, and 1,990 others have been injured. The BBC’s Rushdi Abu Alouf in Gaza City says that the mood has completely shifted since Saturday morning, when many Palestinians were happily celebrating on the streets. People are hiding inside buildings because there are explosions going off and smoke going up in the air.
Israel’s security cabinet has stopped providing Gaza with electricity, fuel, and goods.
On Sunday, the IDF announced that they had attacked targets in southern Lebanon and used a drone to strike “terrorist infrastructure” in response to an attack from the Hezbollah movement. The attack happened in the disputed Shebaa Farms/Mount Dov area. Nobody got hurt or injured.
Hezbollah fired rockets and shells at three Israeli positions because they supported the Palestinian resistance. This was done even though Israel and the US warned them not to, as it could lead to a big war in the region.
A Palestinian driver crashed his truck into soldiers at a busy checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing one soldier before being shot and killed by Israeli authorities. This incident is part of ongoing violence in the region.
The violence happened the day after Israeli police shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who had stabbed a man at a train station in Jerusalem. Additionally, Palestinian militants set off a bomb near a group of Israeli soldiers who were protecting Jewish worshippers going to a sacred place in the West Bank, injuring four soldiers.
The unrest is a part of a wave of violence that has been happening for more than a year in the West Bank. It is the highest level of violence seen in this area in around twenty years.
According to Israeli officials, the person driving the car, who is a 41-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank, was going east towards the crossing when he saw the soldiers close to a bagel stand. He turned his vehicle around and crashed into the soldiers, who were wearing their official clothing.
An official from the Israeli military said that the driver had permission to work legally in Israel. He used a car with an Israeli license plate that he did not own to carry out the ramming. The person who spoke cannot be named because of military rules.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that during the attack, one Israeli person died, and later it was confirmed that the person was a soldier in the military. The military said that three more soldiers got hurt. The military officer said that a Palestinian citizen of Israel who sells bagels was also hurt.
A video on social media showed a white truck being approached by security guards at the second checkpoint while shots were being fired. Palestinian media says the driver’s name is Tahaer Daras and he lives in Deir Ammar close to the city of Ramallah in the West Bank.
The place where the truck crashed into the soldiers is located on a big road that goes from central Israel to the West Bank and Jerusalem, and is close to the city of Modiin in Israel. The checkpoint is usually filled with people going to work and guards or soldiers.
Attacks by Palestinians against Israelis have increased as Israel has stepped up its arrests in the West Bank since last year. Over 30 people have died in Palestinian attacks on Israelis since the beginning of 2023.
These frequent raids that happen almost every night have made tensions rise in the area and have caused some of the worst fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank since the last rebellion by the Palestinians in the early 2000s.
More than 180 Palestinians have died in the fighting, and almost half of them were part of militant groups, says an Associated Press count. Israel claims that the majority of those who were killed were militants, but there were also young people throwing stones to protest the invasions, as well as innocent people who were not involved but still died.
Israel says that the raids are being done to break apart groups of fighters who use violence, and to stop them from being able to plan and carry out more attacks in the future. Palestinians believe that these raids make their security forces weaker, encourage more violence, and strengthens Israel’s hold on the territories they want for their own state in the future.
Israel took control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip during the war in the Middle East in 1967.
Following the alleged murder of a Palestinian man in the West Bank, two Israelis have been detained and are being questioned, along with five other people, according to a statement from the Israel Police on Saturday.
Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are rarely detained. Even if they are arrested, they are nearly never charged.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported late Friday that an Israeli settler had shot and killed a Palestinian man in the village of Burqa, which is located close to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
It is the second time this year that the Ministry has claimed that settlers had killed a Palestinian villager, despite the fact that both Palestinian officials and international observers frequently record settler violence against Palestinians.
According to the ministry, Israeli settlers attacked Qusai Jamal Maatan’s hamlet and shot him in the neck, killing him instantly. He was 19 years old. According to the ministry, two further people were hurt.
Maatan was laid to rest early on Saturday.
In a statement, the IDF stated that they responded in response to reports of “violent clashes between Israeli civilians and Palestinians,” and that “it was reported that during the clashes, Israeli civilians shot towards the Palestinians and as a result, there was a Palestinian casualty.”
The IDF also stated that rocks were allegedly thrown at Israeli civilians, injuring them.
The Shomron (Samaria) Council, which speaks for settlers in the northern West Bank and ordinarily avoids making statements on Shabbat, made no immediate comments.
An Israeli shepherd was being harassed by Palestinian villagers when the settler who shot the Palestinian opened fire, according to a legal assistance organisation that represents settlers.
The shepherd from Oz Zion, a settler outpost, was intimidated by Palestinians from Burqa, which is against both Israeli and international law, according to Honenu, the legal organisation.
Several Palestinians attacked the Israelis with clubs, fireworks, and rocks after the shepherd appealed for additional settlers “to prevent deterioration,” according to Honenu.
According to Honenu, one of the settlers was struck in the head “at point blank range and was seriously injured,” but he was able to defend himself using a licenced rifle he was carrying.
According to Honenu, the man has been placed under arrest and is currently recovering in intensive care at the Shaare Zedek Medical Centre in Jerusalem.
According to Honenu, the second detained Israeli settler assisted in getting him to the hospital.
“My client acted according to the law, and as is required of any licenced firearm holder – to protect his life and the lives of other civilians,” Honenu attorney Nati Rom said.
According to a statement issued by the Israeli military, both Israelis and Palestinians threw stones during the altercation in the West Bank. While Israel Police and the Shin Bet security agency (ISA) continue their investigations, the army has declared the region a closed military zone.
The incident was classified as a “terrorist attack” by the US State Department.
We strongly condemn yesterday’s terrorist act by Israeli extreme settlers that killed a 19-year-old Palestinian, it was stated in a message posted on Twitter, now known as X.
“The US expresses its sincere condolences to his family and friends. We observe that Israeli authorities have detained several people and demand complete responsibility and justice.
Attacks carried out by what they termed to as “organised and armed terrorist settler militias” against unarmed Palestinian civilians of Burqa were harshly denounced by the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates.
The ministry expressed worry about the absence of effective retaliation for settler attacks on Palestinian communities, claiming that these occurrences have given settlers more motivation to commit more crimes. The ministry charged incitement against Israeli government ministers and their supporters.
Two of the parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government are largely backed by settlers, Israelis who live in the West Bank to strengthen their nation’s control over the Palestinian region. International law considers settlements to be unlawful. Israeli claims that the West Bank is “disputed,” not “occupied,” and refutes the assertion that the settlements are unconstitutional.
With roughly 600 such events reported during the first half of the year, the United Nations issued a warning last month about a sharp increase in attacks by West Bank settlers against Palestinians and their property.
According to the UN humanitarian organisation OCHA, 591 settler-related incidents that caused Palestinian fatalities, property damage, or both throughout the area during the first half of 2023 were documented.
Days after an Israeli soldier shot a 3-year-old Palestinian boy in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the boy had passed away on Monday.
Despite efforts to save him, including helicopter transport to an Israeli hospital, Muhammad Haitham al-Tamimi passed away.
Haitham Tamimi, the child’s father, claimed that he was on his way to see his brother when he and Muhammad were shot.
“As soon as I started the car I heard gunshots and I saw the Israeli soldiers out of the military tower,” Tamimi told CNN.
“I looked at Muhammad and couldn’t believe what I saw. He was shot in the head and there was blood all over his body. I took him in my arms and then realized that I’m also shot in my right shoulder. People from the village came quickly, and they took us both with their cars. This is when Israeli ambulances and a helicopter came and took Muhammad to the Israeli hospital.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops were firing back at gunmen shooting at Neveh Tzuf when they hit two Palestinians, a 3-year-old and a man.
IDF and Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency medical teams treated both of the victims, and succeeded in getting the child’s heart beating again, the MDA said at the time.
The child was then transported, ventilated and in unstable condition, by IDF helicopter to Sheba-Tel Hashomer hospital in Israel.
“The IDF regrets harm to non-combatants and is committed to doing everything in its power to prevent such incidents. The incident is under review,” the IDF said early Friday. The military did not immediately have a new statement in light of the death of the child, pointing CNN to the Friday statement.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry Monday condemned the killing of Tamimi as “a heinous crime against humanity,” and demanded “an urgent international investigation into this crime and other crimes of killing Palestinian children.”
The child’s father was treated for his gunshot wound at a hospital in Ramallah and was released on Sunday.
The bullet wound, he said, was not hurting: “I feel no physical pain. the pain in my heart is way too big.”
Palestinian officials reported that an Israeli soldier shot and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in the Aqbat Jaber refugee camp close to the occupied West Bank city of Jericho on Monday as tensions in the area remained high.
The ministry stated that Mohammad Fayez Balhan was “killed by live occupation bullets in the head, chest and abdomen,” and that two further persons had been hurt by live ammunition and taken to a hospital in Jericho for treatment.
Israeli forces claimed they entered the camp to apprehend a “terror suspect.”
“During the activity, violent riots were instigated in a number of locations,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement. “As the soldiers left the area, suspects opened fire toward them, hurled explosive devices and Molotov cocktails. The soldiers responded with live fire and .22 caliber ammunition. Hits were identified.”
Tensions in Israel and the occupied West Bank have spiraled in the aftermath of recent Israeli police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh warned that images of Israeli forces storming the mosque had “created an incredible mood of anger among every Palestinian, wherever they are – in Gaza, in Ramallah, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Syria,” and called on Israel to deescalate the situation.
“There is a mood of anger that is there in the heart and mind of every Palestinian,” he said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
Over the last week, dozens of rockets were launched from Lebanon, Gaza and Syria into Israeli territory, followed by Israeli retaliatory strikes.
On Friday, a vehicle hit a group of tourists in Tel Aviv, killing one Italian national, in what Israeli authorities described as a terror attack. Two sisters, aged 15 and 20, with dual British-Israeli citizenship were also killed Friday in a shooting attack in the West Bank. On Monday, the mother of the women, Lucy Dee, succumbed to wounds sustained during the shooting.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the shooting as a “severe terrorist attack.”
“On behalf of all citizens of Israel, I convey heartfelt condolences to the Dee family on the passing of the mother of the family, Leah (Lucy), who was murdered in the severe terrorist attack in the Jordan Valley last Friday, together with her two daughters Maia and Rina,” Netanyahu said in a statement Monday.
Netanyahu on Friday instructed Israeli police “to mobilize all border police units in reserve and the IDF to mobilize additional forces in face of terrorist attacks,” according to his office. The Israeli military said it was on high alert, calling up an unspecified number of reservists amid what it described as “very volatile times.”
Also on Monday, thousands of Israeli settlers staged a march to Evyatar, an illegal settler outpost in the occupied West Bank that has been a flashpoint for Israel’s settler movement. Far-right Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Givr, among those who have spearheaded a campaign to legalize the outpost, was among the protesters.
Evyatar sits on a hilltop, along a corridor linking Tel Aviv to the Jordan Valley, known locally as Jabal Subeih. Palestinians who say they own land in the site have been holding counter-protests.
Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians close to the nearby town of Beita led to nearly hundreds of injuries, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 216 people were injured in the clashes, including 22 people hit by rubber bullets which, they say, were fired by Israeli forces. Three people were transferred to hospital, it also said.
In a statement, the IDF said “a violent riot” had been instigated near Beita, adding that “rocks were hurled at the soldiers, lightly injuring two IDF soldiers” and “security forces at the scene responded with riot dispersal means.”
Asked about video shared on social media that appeared to show Israeli forces throwing tear gas canisters at journalists in the area, the Israel Police released a statement saying it “appears that the security forces failed to adhere to the established rules and guidelines” in ensuring freedom of the press.
Palestinians in Beita, which is just south of Nablus, say they own the land at Evyatar.
Israeli settlers left Evyatar in 2021 after a deal with the government of then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The buildings remained as part of the government’s deal with the settlers.
“The land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel, belongs to us,” Knesset member Ariel Kallner, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, told CNN. “I think that those who live here, the Arabs and so on, they can live here. But it’s our land.”
Under international law, both the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered occupied territory and settlements there illegal, which Israel disputes.
Nabil Abu Radina, a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the march as an “invasion of settler militias, led by ministers from the Israeli occupation government.” Abu Radina also demanded than “immediate and quick intervention” by the US government to “stop this madness for which the entire region will pay the price.”
The names of two British-Israeli sisters who were killed by gunfire in the West Bank close to an Israeli settlement have been released.
When the car they were riding in with their mother was attacked, Rina and Maia Dee—one of whom was reportedly 15 and the other in her 20s—were inside.
Local authorities claimed that their father, Rabbi Leo Dee, saw the incident from a different car that was pursuing them.
The 45-year-old mother was attacked by Palestinian terrorists and suffered significant injuries.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a statement naming the London-born sisters for the first time earlier today.
He said: ‘On behalf of all the citizens of Israel, I send my condolences to the Di Mafart family for the murder of the two wonderful sisters.
‘In these moments, if the family is fighting for its life, and together with the entire nation of Israel, I pray for its safety, and we all send our condolences and strength to this dear family in this moment of great sorrow.’
In a statement released to the Telegraph, Rabbi Dee said he was ‘confident that justice will be done’.
He told the newspaper: ‘Some people think that a religious government will suppress minority rights and become totalitarian.’
‘But this is not a risk in Israel as religious Jews simply believe in balancing love and justice. For our part, we have felt a warm hug of love from Jews in Israel and beyond and we are confident that justice will be done.’
The attack on the family, who lived in the Efrat settlement near the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, came amid rising tensions and days of fighting at Jerusalem’s most holy site during the rare convergence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter.
On Friday, an Italian man was killed and five British and Italian tourists were injured in a car-ramming attack on a street in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly held a call with his Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, to discuss the ‘appalling’ attacks earlier today.
The Hamas militant group praised both incidents as retaliation for Israeli raids earlier this week on the Al-Aqsa mosque which resulted in dozens of worshippers being injured.
Middle East minister Lord Ahmad said: ‘I condemn yesterday’s attacks in the West Bank, killing two British-Israeli nationals and injuring one other, and in Tel Aviv where an Italian national was killed and British nationals were injured.’
A statement from the Foreign Office said it was ‘saddened’ to hear about the death of the sisters and ‘serious injuries sustained by a third individual’.
It added: ‘The UK calls for all parties across the region to de-escalate tensions.’
An eyewitness to the killing of a Palestinian by Israeli forces, the man was shot simply for punching a police officer.
Last Friday, Ammar Mefleh was killed at close range in the occupied West Bank.
He is the 10th Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in a week.
The video of the shooting sparked a massive online reaction, prompting Israel to issue a diplomatic rebuke to a top UN official who said he was “horrified” by the killing.
Israeli officials praised the officer involved, asserting that he reacted after a Palestinian stabbed a police officer in the face, preventing a “mass terror attack.”
Palestinian leaders described it as an execution “in cold blood”.
Mr Mefleh, 22, was killed in the Palestinian town of Huwara, which lies on a main road frequently used by Israeli settlers and has been the scene of growing violence in recent months.
Incident filmed
This year in the West Bank more than 150 Palestinians have been killed, nearly all by Israeli forces. The dead include unarmed civilians, militant gunmen and armed attackers.
Meanwhile a series of Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis, as well as militant gunfire at troops during arrest raids, have killed more than 30 people including civilians, police and soldiers.
The footage from Friday, shared extensively online, was rare in capturing in detail part of the event that led up to the shooting. The last 13 seconds are caught in a second video from another angle.
In the recording, the Israeli officer is seen holding Mr Mefleh in a headlock as the pair struggle. Two other Palestinians are in the melee at first, but then step back.
IMAGE SOURCE,HUWARA RESIDENT Image caption, Footage showed Ammar Mefleh trying to grab the police officer’s weapon during the struggle
After Mr Mefleh struggles out of the headlock, he tries to grab the policeman’s rifle. As they wrestle over the weapon the officer takes a hand off it – first to try to hit the Palestinian, who strikes him back – then to reach for his pistol.
Mr Mefleh for a split second has hold of the rifle but almost instantly throws it down or lets go of it, recoiling as he sees the officer raise his pistol. The policeman shoots him instantly, four times.
Following his killing, a popular Israeli news website reported that the officer had “eliminated the terrorist”. The footage was repeatedly circulated on Palestinian social media with people appalled at the killing.
The UN’s envoy to the region, Tor Wennesland, tweeted that he was “horrified by today’s killing of a Palestinian man, Ammar Mefleh, during a scuffle with an Israeli soldier,” calling for those responsible to be held accountable.
“The incident is a terror attack, in which an Israeli policeman was stabbed in his face and the life of another officer was threatened and consequently he shot his assailant,” Mr Nahshon added.
“This is NOT a ‘scuffle’ – this is a terror attack!”
Disputed account
The row drew increased focus on the precise events leading up to his killing.
On Friday evening, Israeli police said the incident began when a Palestinian armed with a knife picked up a rock and tried to break into an Israeli couple’s car. They said the driver, an off-duty soldier, shot the man leaving him injured – thought to be from the bullet or shrapnel glancing his head.
Police said the wounded Palestinian then approached two border police officers on patrol in their vehicle, stabbing one in the face, while the other – the policeman later seen in the video – got out and chased him, leading up to the events captured in the footage and the fatal shooting.
1/5 Terrorist Neutralized in the area of Huwara: Today at approximately 16:00, a Palestinian terrorist armed with a knife tried to break into a vehicle of an Israeli couple in the area of Huwara pic.twitter.com/MwMGAXGWfg
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Police published an image of an officer with his identity obscured with a wound to his face and a close-up picture of a knife lying on a roadside (although one Israeli media report cited the police investigation as saying the knife fell into the police car after the officer was stabbed).
Over the weekend police released footage of the officer who killed Mr Mefleh describing the events: “Me and my team were on a mission patrolling the road [when] the terrorist came and stabbed my driver in the face. Immediately I knew it was a terrorist attack. I got out of the vehicle and went after the terrorist,” said the policeman who is not identified.
“I identified the terrorist and the Israeli civilian vehicle he tried to infiltrate while armed with a knife, and the terrorist immediately confronted me violently,” he said in a further statement.
“[He] tried to steal my weapon. I knew that if he took my weapon there would be a mass terror attack and I took out my pistol. I succeeded in pulling out my gun and shot the terrorist until he was neutralised,” he added.
However, the accounts of four eyewitnesses who spoke to the BBC in Huwara did not match the police version of events.
One said the incident appeared to begin with a confrontation in the street, possibly connected to a road accident that was blocking traffic.
“I was standing over there next to the butchers,” said Nader Allan, who had just left a nearby wedding.
“A settler’s car stopped. I’m not sure if he hit the [Palestinian] guy’s car, or if the guy was walking in the street. They started yelling at each other and I heard a shot. The settler shot the guy in the face. He was bleeding and he fell on the floor,” he said.
Like the other eyewitnesses, Mr Allan said this was the moment the Israeli police officer arrived. A short video taken by one witness shows an officer – who looks similar to the one in the fatal shooting footage – giving directions on a police radio and standing close to Mr Mefleh who is lying with a bloodied face in the street, as passers-by gather.
Another photo shows a similar scene, which appears fairly calm as locals speak on their phones. A witness said people tried to give Mr Mefleh first aid.
IMAGE SOURCE,HUWARA RESIDENT Image caption, Eyewitnesses say Mr Mefleh had been attacked prior to the shooting incident
Another witness, Mahmoud Abed, who works in a kebab restaurant, said he also rushed out when he heard Mr Mefleh being shot at by the Israeli driver.
“We found a guy on the floor with his face covered in blood. A policeman came from far away. He looked at him and kicked him, then the policeman said something on the radio,” he said.
Both Mr Abed and Mr Allan say the wounded Palestinian then got up and confronted the Israeli officer, trying to hit him. They say this is what triggered the confrontation that led to the officer getting him in a headlock, before fatally shooting him.
Another eyewitness, Bahaa Odeh who runs an ice-cream shop, said he heard a commotion and came out to see the policeman holding Mr Mefleh in a headlock, and then saw him kill him.
“Because of how upset I got from what I saw I started shouting at the soldier telling him ‘you’re despicable… there was no danger to your life, why did you kill him?’
“I told him ‘you are a coward… you killed him because he punched you. He has a right to defend himself,’” said Mr Odeh.
Knife claims
As the sense of anger grew in response to Mr Mefleh’s killing, confrontations later broke out between Israeli forces and residents. Mr Odeh was hit by a rubber bullet, leaving him with wounds to his chest and arm.
Image caption, Bahaa Odeh shows his injury from being hit by a rubber bullet
Asked whether Mr Mefleh had a knife, all four witnesses insisted he did not. No weapon is visible in Mr Mefleh’s hands or anywhere in the photo of him lying wounded after being shot by the Israeli driver.
To add to the discrepancy over the sequence of events, on Saturday Israeli police were quoted as saying they were “97% certain” that it was Mr Mefleh who had stabbed the police officer in the car; whereas on Friday their statement contained no doubt over this.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited police as saying they had longer footage of the incident from several different cameras which “strengthens the assessment” that the Palestinian man who was killed was the one who stabbed the policeman.
Israeli police did not respond to questions about the eyewitness accounts compared to those of the officers.
Qatari broadcaster says , the evidence presented refutes Israeli claims that the Palestinian journalist was killed in a crossfire.
The Al Jazeera Media Network has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC)to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the death of veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Abu Akleh, a 25-year Al Jazeera television correspondent, was killed by Israeli forces on May 11 while covering an Israeli military raid on a refugee camp in Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank.
The 51-year-old Jerusalem native and US citizen was a well-known and respected journalist who gave Palestinians a voice through her coverage of Israel’s occupation.
‘A wider pattern’
The request includes a dossier on a comprehensive six-month investigation by Al Jazeera that gathers all available eyewitness evidence and video footage as well as new material on the killing of Abu Akleh.
The request submitted to the ICC is presented “in the context of a wider attack on Al Jazeera, and journalists in Palestine”, said Rodney Dixon KC, a lawyer for Al Jazeera, referring to incidents such as the bombing of the network’s Gaza office on May 15, 2021.
“It’s not a single incident, it’s a killing that is part of a wider pattern that the prosecution should be investigating to identify those who are responsible for the killing, and to bring charges against them,” he said.
“The focus is on Shireen, and this particular killing, this outrageous killing. But the evidence we submit looks at all of the acts against Al Jazeera because it has been targeted as an international media organisation.
“And the evidence shows that what the [Israeli] authorities are trying to do is to shut it up,” Dixon told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera hopes the ICC prosecutor “does actually start the investigation of this case” after the network’s request, Dixon said. The network’s request complements the complaint submitted to the ICC by Abu Akleh’s family in September, supported by the Palestinian Press Syndicate and the International Federation of Journalists.
A new documentary by Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines shows how Abu Akleh and other journalists, wearing protective helmets and bulletproof vests clearly marked with the word “PRESS”, were walking down a road in view of Israeli forces when they came under fire.
Abu Akleh was shot in the head as she tried to shield herself by a carob tree. Al Jazeera producer Ali al-Samoudi was also shot in the shoulder.
The new evidence submitted by Al Jazeera shows “Shireen and her colleagues were directly fired at by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)”, Al Jazeera Media Network said in a statement on Tuesday.
The statement added the evidence overturns claims by Israeli authorities that Shireenwas killed in crossfire and that it “confirms, without any doubt, that there was no firing in the area where Shireen was, other than the IOF shooting directly at her”.
“The evidence shows that this deliberate killing was part of a wider campaign to target and silence Al Jazeera,” the statement said.
Next steps
Lina Abu Akleh, who has campaigned for justice for her aunt through media work and meetings with lawmakers in the US, where her aunt was a citizen, hopes Al Jazeera’s request will push the ICC to launch an independent investigation.
Walid al-Omari, the Al Jazeera bureau chief in Jerusalem and a friend and colleague of Abu Akleh said that it is critical to keep the case alive in public opinion. “We don’t think Israel should escape from accountability.”
Once the ICC has reviewed the evidence it will decide whether it will investigate Abu Akleh’s killing as part of ongoing investigations.
In 2021, the ICC decided it has jurisdiction over the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory. Al Jazeera’s submission requests that the killing of Abu Akleh become part of this wider investigation.
“We’re making a request for an investigation that leads to charges being brought and those responsible being prosecuted,” said Dixon.
Investigations carried out by the United Nations, Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations, and international news outlets concluded that Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli soldier.
The Abu Akleh family has called for a “thorough, transparent investigation” by the US FBI and Department of State to reveal the chain of command that led to the death of a US citizen.
“In short, we would like [US President] Biden to do in Shireen’s case what his and previous US administrationshave failed to do when other American citizens were killed by Israel: Hold the killers accountable,” Lina Abu Akleh wrote in Al Jazeera in July.
In November the US announced an FBI probe into the killing of Abu Akleh, news welcomed by her family.
But, Dixon cautioned, this probe should not be a reason for the ICC not to act.
“They can they can work together with … the FBI, so that this case doesn’t fall between the cracks, and that those responsible are identified and put on trial.”
Debunking shifting narratives
The Fault Lines documentary also looks closely at Israel’s shifting narratives.
Israel initially falsely blamed armed Palestinians for Abu Akleh’s death, but in September said there was a “high probability” an Israeli soldier “accidentally hit” the journalist but that it would not launch a criminal investigation.
Hagai El-Ad, director of Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, which swiftly debunked the false claim by Israel that a Palestinian gunman was responsible for Abu Akleh’s death, told Fault Lines: “They’re also very used to getting away with lying about killings of Palestinians both in the public arena and in the legal arena.”
“The reason why Al Jazeera made this request is because the Israeli authorities have done nothing to investigate the case. In fact, they’ve said that they will not investigate, that there’s no suspicion of a crime,” said Dixon.
Al Jazeera Media Network calls the killing a “blatant murder” and a “heinous crime”.
“Al Jazeera reiterates its commitment to achieving justice for Shireen and to exploring all avenues to ensure that the perpetrators are held accountable and brought to justice,” said the Network.
Some 55 percent of eligible Palestinian voters in Israel participated in parliamentary elections.
Omayya Jabareen spent the morning of the Israeli elections preparing traditional zaatar pastries for breakfast.
Surrounded by family and friends in her home on the winding slopes of Umm al-Fahm – one of the largest Palestinian towns in Israel – the 51-year-old said she does not believe in voting in Israeli elections.
“I’ve never voted, and I didn’t vote this time,” she told Al Jazeera from her home earlier in the week, as the country voted for parliament on Tuesday. “Arab members of the Knesset [the Israeli parliament] are merely a cosmetic face for Israeli dominance and racism.”
The problems faced by the majority of the 1.8 million Palestinians inside Israel, she said, such as crime and overcrowding, are “a result of systematic policies practised against us by the state of Israel. They will remain as long as it remains in existence.”
Whether for political reasons, or a mere lack of interest, Jabareen was one of many Palestinians in Israel who chose not to vote in this year’s elections, which are Israel’s fifth in under four years due to a protracted political crisis since 2019.
The final results came in on Thursday, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud – Israel’s largest party – set to return after being unseated in 2021 after 12 years in power.
This year, Netanyahu ran alongside far-right controversial figures who openly call for violence against Palestinians, including Itamar Ben-Gvir – notorious for his harassment of families in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah and leading raids into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
“I feel bad about the results,” said Kamila Tayyoun, a media officer for the Palestinian political bloc led by Ayman Odeh. The alliance, which ran in the elections and won five seats, is made up of the Arab Movement for Change party and the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, known in Hebrew as the Hadash-Ta’al list.
A Netanyahu government, Tayyoun told Al Jazeera, “Will be very bad on the Palestinian level,” describing it as “racist” and “having a campaign by political parties largely built on the hatred and demonisation of Arabs”.
“The situation is not comforting,” added Tayyoun, who hails from Shaab on the outskirts of Akka (Acre) in the north.
Omayya Jabareen says Palestinian members in the Knesset are just a ‘cosmetic face for “Israeli racism’ [Zena Al Tahhan/Al Jazeera]
A breakdown of Palestinian voter turnout
Voter turnout among Palestinians in Israel has historically ranged between 40-50 percent, and the majority of those who vote do so for parties led by Arab politicians.
In Tuesday’s election, Palestinian voter turnout stood at approximately 55 percent, which, according to analysts, was higher than what was expected, but represented a drop from previous years when Arab parties ran together under the Joint List alliance.
“The Arab lists were divided and ran separately. Campaigning and competition over the last few days before elections, and the fear of Ben-Gvir and his party, increased the level of voting, but not by a high degree,” Saeed Zidani, a political analyst from the town of Tamra on the northwestern outskirts of Haifa, told Al Jazeera.
This year, three Palestinian blocs ran for elections, with two passing the national electoral threshold of 3.25 percent, equivalent to four seats in Israel’s 120-member Knesset. The parties running had to obtain about 157,000 votes to get the four seats.
In terms of the number of votes, Mansour Abbas’s United Arab List (UAL), which was criticised for joining former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s coalition government last year, garnered the most with 190,000 votes. The majority of those votes came from Palestinian Bedouins living in the Naqab (Negev) desert.
“The UAL got the most votes but it lost the most in terms of the influence it was hoping to have,” said Zidani. “Neither Netanyahu nor the other camp needs it any more. Netanyahu can form a government without it, and the opposition cannot form a government neither with it nor without it.”
The third Palestinian slate that ran, Tajamu (also known as Balad in Hebrew), did enjoy increased support and popularity this election, but did not translate that to seats.
The party leader, Sami Abu Shehadeh, who hails from al-Lydd (Lod), had a key role in connecting with the Palestinian street during the May 2021 Palestinian uprising inside Israel, during which widespread confrontations broke out with Israeli forces as a result of forced displacement in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah and a war on the besieged Gaza Strip.
“The Tajamu party gathered their strength and there was increased popular regard for them among Palestinians in this election, despite their loss,” Zidani said, noting that they had needed only 18,000 more votes to pass the national election threshold.
Do Palestinians believe in the Knesset?
Jewish Israeli turnout is believed to have surpassed 70 percent, a significant gap in comparison with Palestinian voter turnout.
Zidani noted that Palestinians have no problem voting – in municipal elections, turnout is regularly higher than 90 percent – but the feeling is different when it comes to the parliament, and turnout is always much lower.
Palestinians make up about 20 percent of the population in Israel and carry Israeli passports. They became an involuntary minority during the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestine from 1947 to 1949 to create a “Jewish state”.
The policies practised against them, described as “discriminatory” by human rights groups, have led to Palestinian areas in Israel suffering from a myriad number of problems, such as restrictions on land ownership, high crime rates, and home demolitions.
Umm al-Fahm, which lies in the northern Triangle area, is the third largest concentration of Palestinians inside Israel – home to 60,000 residents – after Nazareth city in the north, and Rahat city in the Naqab.
It is known for being the home of the now-outlawed northern branch of the Islamic Movement, which split in 1996 from the southern branch – now the UAL – over the decision to participate in Israeli elections.
Considerably less than half of the almost 40,000 eligible voters in Umm al-Fahm participated in elections on Tuesday, according to the results, with participation at the lowest of the three largest Palestinian areas.
Ahmad Khalifa is the head of the popular committee in Umm al-Fahm, and a member of Abnaa el-Balad’s political office – another Palestinian party that boycotted the elections.
Khalifa told Al Jazeera that he believed voter turnout among Palestinians, along with Netanyahu’s return, showed that many Palestinians believed that politics is more than just the parliament.
“Palestinians have understood that the Knesset is not the place we go to solve our larger problems, or where we go to build a national project, and it is not the place where you can prevent fascism or right-wing parties,” Khalifa said.
Khalifa added that, for Abnaa el-Balad, and for the Palestinians who think like them, the events of May 2021, cannot simply be pacified by participation in elections.
“Our political context goes against the project of cornering us into Israeli politics and into the Israeli public as citizens.
“The two-state solution has failed. Israel forced it to fail by increasing settlement building, by taking over Jerusalem, by preventing the return of refugees,” Khalifa continued.
Those who did vote in Umm al-Fahm are not necessarily opposed to Abnaa el-Balad’s reading of the situation – however, they feel that there may be some improvements in day-to-day life, as well as crime and overcrowding.
And on top of that, some feel that the representation of Palestinians in Israel’s highest legislative body is important.
“To me, it’s enough that our candidates … will merely bring up the issue of the Palestinian people and put forth Palestinian national and civil issues here,” Hussein Mustafa Mahameed, a dentist, said.
“[But] as Palestinians in this state, I believe to the utmost extent, that our civil problems will not be solved without solving the wider issue of the Palestinian people,” said Mahameed. “Any government that comes will fight the Palestinian people, and we are part of the Palestinian people.”
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Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on course for victory in the country’s general election, exit polls say.
The projections give his right-wing bloc a slim majority of seats over his centre-left opponents led by current Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
Such a result would mark a dramatic comeback for Mr Netanyahu, toppled last year after 12 straight years in power.
“We are close to a big victory,” he told jubilant supporters in Jerusalem.
The election was widely seen as a vote for or against Mr Netanyahu’s return.
The exit polls suggest Mr Netanyahu’s bloc will command 61 or 62 seats in the 120-seat knesset (parliament). Initial results are expected in the coming hours.
Mr Netanyahu, accompanied by his wife Sara, appeared at his Likud party’s election night venue at 03:00 (01:00 GMT) to thunderous applause.
“We have won a huge vote of confidence from the people of Israel,” he told his cheering supporters.
Since the exit polls were announced hours earlier when voting ended, the room had been a scene of celebration as people jumped up and down, waved flags and chanted Netanyahu’s nickname, Bibi. One man repeatedly blew a shofar, or ram’s horn, a ritual instrument used by some Jewish people at times of special significance.
At his party’s camp in Tel Aviv however, Prime Minister Lapid told his supporters that “nothing” was yet decided and his centre-left Yesh Atid party would wait for the final results.
Mr Netanyahu is forecast to replace Yair Lapid, who toppled him just over a year ago
Mr Netanyahu, 73, is one of Israel’s most controversial political figures, loathed by many on the centre and left but adored by Likud’s grassroots supporters.
He is a firm supporter of Israel’s settlement-building in the West Bank, occupied since the 1967 Middle East war. Settlements there are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
He opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict – a formula supported by most of the international community, including the Biden administration in the US.
Mr Netanyahu is also currently on trial for alleged bribery, fraud and breach of trust – charges he fiercely denies. His possible partners in a Likud-led coalition government have said they would reform the law, in a move which would bring a halt to his trial.
According to the exit polls, Likud stands to be the biggest party, with 30-31 seats, commanding a majority with the support of nationalist and religious parties.
Yesh Atid, which led the coalition which brought down Mr Netanyahu in elections last year, is forecast to win 22-24 seats.
Likud’s ultra-nationalist ally Religious Zionism appears to have won 14 seats, which would make it the third largest party. Its leaders have gained notoriety for using anti-Arab rhetoric and advocating the deportation of “disloyal” politicians or civilians.
“It will be better now,” said Religious Zionism supporter, Julian, at the party’s venue in Jerusalem.
“When [Religious Zionism politician Itamar Ben-Gvir] will be minister of public security, it will be even better – he’ll bring back security to the people of Israel. That’s very important.”
However, political scientist Gayil Talshir, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, warned that if the exit polls “reflect the real results, Israel is on its way to become Orban’s Hungary”, recently branded an “electoral autocracy” by the EU.
If the polls are confirmed, it will stave off the prospect of a sixth election in just four years after analysts predicted deadlock.
It would mark a remarkable turnaround for Mr Netanyahu, whose political future was widely written off after Mr Lapid formed an unlikely alliance of ideologically diverse parties to take power in June 2021, with the uniting aim of making it impossible for Mr Netanyahu to form a government.
At the time, Mr Netanyahu vowed to bring it down as quickly as possible and one year later the coalition government concluded it could not survive and collapsed after resignations meant it no longer had a majority.
He was shot with a bullet to the head, ministry spokesperson Mohammad Awawdeh said.
The killing took place shortly after dozens of Israeli armoured vehicles raided Jenin on Friday at 8 am (05:00 GMT), during which confrontations broke out with Palestinian youths.
A physician in his 40s, Abdullah al-Ahmad, was also seriously wounded by a bullet to the head and is currently in critical condition in Jenin’s public hospital, Awawdeh said.
Videos shared by local journalists appeared to show Israeli forces shooting at ambulance crews.
At least five others have been wounded with live ammunition on Friday morning in Jenin, according to the health ministry.
Earlier on Friday, the state news agency Wafa announced that a Palestinian teenager had succumbed to wounds he sustained during his arrest by Israeli forces last month.
Wafa, as well as the Palestinian Authority’s Detainees Commission, identified him as 17-year-old Mohammad Maher Ghawadreh.
Ghawadreh, from the Jenin refugee camp, died while being treated at the Tel Hashomerhospital in Israel. He was arrested after he allegedly carried out a shooting attack on a bus full of Israeli soldiers in the occupied Jordan Valley, wounding seven, on September 5.
At least 160 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the illegally occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year, including 51 Palestinians during Israel’s three-day assault on Gaza in August, according to the health ministry.
Israel has been carrying out near-daily raids in the West Bank, largely focused on the towns of Jenin and Nablus, where Palestinian armed resistance is becoming more organised.
Local and international rights groups have condemned what they call Israel’s excessive use of force and “shoot-to-kill policy” against Palestinians, including suspected assailants, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in 1967.
Senior Israeli politicians have encouraged “Israeli soldiers and police to kill Palestinians they suspectof attacking Israelis even when they are no longer a threat”, according to Human Rights Watch.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has noted in reports that Israeli forces “often use firearms against Palestinians on mere suspicion or as a precautionary measure, in violation of international standards”.
The UK’s plan to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has been labeled as a “blatant violation of international law” by the Palestinians.
While at the UN, UK PM Liz Trussreportedly informed her Israeli colleague, Yair Lapid, of the review.
Such a move would be highly controversial. The opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem in 2018 was met with outrage across the Arab world.
Mr Lapid tweeted his thanks to Ms Truss for “positively considering” it.
He described Ms Truss as his “good friend”, writing in Hebrew after the pair met on the fringes of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Downing Street has not given any indication of timing but has confirmed that a review is underway.
British officials said they would not speculate on the outcome, adding that Ms Truss was aware of the sensitivity and importance of the location of the British embassy in Israel.
The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest issues in the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Israel sees the entire city as its eternal, undivided capital while Palestinians claim the eastern part as the capital of their hoped-for future state.
East Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, were captured by Israel from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Middle East war and have since been viewed internationally as occupied Palestinian territory.
On Twitter, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, wrote that it was “extremely unfortunate” that Ms Truss had used her first appearance at the UN as prime minister to “commit to potentially breaking international law”.
He said any embassy move would be “a blatant violation” of “the UK’s historic responsibilities”, undermining the two-state solution of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
“Such promise is immoral, illegal and irresponsible!” he said.
It is extremely unfortunate that Prime Minister @trussliz uses her first appearance at the UN to commit to potentially breaking international law by promising a “review” of the location of the British embassy to Israel 1/3 https://t.co/qgC1QnIUhi
Up until now, the UK – like most other countries – has kept its embassy in Tel Aviv, rather than in bitterly contested Jerusalem, holding that it should only move to the holy city after a final peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Britain has a consulate in East Jerusalem.
Ms Truss reportedly raised the idea of relocating the embassy during therecent Conservative leadership campaign.
When US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – fulfilling a campaign promise – it brought international condemnation. It also led to a flare-up in violence in which dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.
At the time, the British PM, Theresa May, criticised the US action.
The only countries to have since followed Mr Trump’s example by moving their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem have been Honduras, Guatemala and Kosovo.
The individuals were not identified in the statement; it just provided their names and ages, but it said they had provided intelligence that had resulted in the deaths of Palestinians.
Human rights groups have previously condemned such executions by Hamas – the militant group which runs Gaza.
Since 2007 when they asserted control over Gaza, the Hamas-run authorities have carried out at least 27 executions, most recently in April 2017.
The two men accused of spying for Israel were arrested in 2009 and 2015 and “convicted by a court of treason and conspiring with foreign parties”, the interior ministry statement said.
Security sources told the BBC that one of those executed was a Hamas policeman who used his weapon to kill his father-in-law and a 13-year-old girl after a family dispute last July.
The crime sparked protests in the Beit Lahia area, north of Gaza, during which houses and shops were burned.
A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli forces following an alleged stabbing attack in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Witnesses told local media on Friday that Israeli troops opened fire at the man in Beit Einun, northeast of Hebron, and barred medics from entering the area after an Israeli soldier was allegedly stabbed.
Shortly afterwards, the Wafa news agency reported that confrontations broke out between the Palestinians and armed Israeli soldiers in the area, which is adjacent to an illegal Jewish settlement.
Israeli soldiers hurled sound bombs and tear gas canisters at the Palestinians who were attempting to reach the Palestinian man. Videos showed him laying on the floor after being shot, with several soldiers preventing people from reaching him.
Witnesses said Israeli soldiers then placed the Palestinian man inside an ambulance, without providing details on the nature of his wounds to which he succumbed.
The incident comes a day after the Israeli army killed two Palestinian men during two separate raids in the West Bank one in al-Ain refugee camp in Nablus and the other in Umm al-Sharayet, a neighbourhood south of Ramallah and el-Bireh.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces for allegedly attempting to carry out stabbing or car-ramming attacks. Palestinian rights groups accuse Israeli forces of deliberately killing Palestinians even though there is no risk to their lives.
Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international laws. Successive Israeli governments have built and expanded settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories a move Palestinians say is aimed at demographic change.
There are between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers living in at least 250 settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, often under heavy Israeli military protection.
Palestinian media has reported that some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel would go on a hunger strike to protest their living conditions.
Israel tightened restrictions after a dramatic jailbreak by six inmates last September, which led to widespread protest.
On Wednesday, a high-profile prisoner ended a six-month hunger strike after a deal with authorities.
Palestinians consider prisoners held by Israel one of their top issues.
There are some 4,500 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian officials. About 700 of them are held without charge under what is known as administrative detention.
Israel says the measure is necessary for its security, but civil liberty groups say the practice is a violation of human rights.
The head of the Palestinian Authority’s prisoners’ committee said a further 1,000 detainees would join the hunger strike if the prisoners’ demands were not met.
The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, said the action was a resumption of a hunger strike postponed in March after an agreement was reached between prisoners and the prison service. It accused the prison service of attempting to backtrack on the deal.
Palestinian prisoners have periodically staged or threatened hunger strikes as a tactic to pressure Israeli authorities to improve their conditions. They say conditions have got worse since six Palestinians were recaptured after tunneling out of a high-security jail last September and going on the run for nearly two weeks.
