Deadly strikes hit Gaza as Israel says can send Lebanon back to 'Stone Age'

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Palestinian Islamic Jihad's armed wing says it shelled a gathering of Israeli soldiers and vehicles in the Saudi neighbourhood in southern Gaza's Rafah.

Al-Quds Brigades say they used mortars.

Lebanese group Hezbollah says it has attacked the Ruwaisat Al-Qarn site in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms.

Hezbollah says it used rockets and achieved a direct hit.

The Shebaa Farms are Arab territory illegally occupied by Israel.

Israeli forces have attacked the town of Haddatha in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese national news agency reports.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad's armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, says it has destroyed two Israeli military vehicles that went into a minefield in Al-Shejaiya neighbourhood in Gaza City.

Twenty-one cancer patients crossed from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip into Egypt on Thursday through the Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, a medical source in Egypt's El-Arish city said.

"They will be transported to the United Arab Emirates for treatment," the source, who requested anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP.

It is the first evacuation from Gaza since the Rafah border crossing was closed in early May, when Israeli forces took over the Palestinian side of the terminal.

Negotiations to re-open the Rafah crossing, a key conduit for aid and evacuations, have repeatedly floundered.

Cairo has refused to resume operations through the crossing as long as Israeli forces remain in control of the Palestinian side.

Some aid trucks have been diverted to the nearby Karm Abu Salem crossing with Israel, but humanitarian sources say the daily average of trucks entering the Palestinian territory have been less than 90 a day.

The United Nations says a daily minimum of 500 trucks are needed to meet Gazans' basic needs.

Paris is "extremely concerned" about fighting on Lebanon's border with Israel, France's foreign ministry says, calling "all sides to exercise the greatest restraint".

"Violence on the border with Israel is intensifying dramatically," the ministry says in a statement, calling for "implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701" governing the border zone and vowing that France remains "fully committed to prevent any risk of escalation along the Blue Line" between the two countries.

A medical source says 21 Gaza cancer patients enter Egypt via the Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing.

Israeli army data showed that six soldiers were injured in Gaza in the past 24 hours, in addition to 16 in the West Bank, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

According to the data published on the army's website, the number of soldiers injured since the start of Israel's war on Gaza in October has reached 3,944, with 22 hurt in the past 24 hours.

Famine approaches slowly for Gazans, who spend hours in queues for a few ladles of cooked food and the chance to fill plastic containers with drinkable water after nearly nine months of Israel's military campaign in the enclave.

Sometimes there is nothing to queue for in the shattered streets and crowded schools that have been turned into shelters for the vast majority of Palestininans displaced by bombardment.

"We found no water, food or drink as you can see. We walk long distances to search for water that is not even available," said Abdel Rahman Khadourah, looking for somewhere to get water in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Despite concerted international efforts, the global hunger monitor said this week that Gaza remains at high risk of famine, with about a fifth of the territory's population still facing "catastrophic" food insecurity.

On Wednesday Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza said a child had died from malnutrition and dehydration.

In a UN-run school in Khan Younis that has been turned into a shelter for displaced people, Umm Feisal Abu Nqera was sitting cross legged on the floor between mattresses, preparing a small meal for herself and her six children.

She cut tomatoes into a bowl, stirred a small pan of beans and crushed ingredients in a mortar and pestle. Her young daughters lay nearby, playing listlessly. Her husband fed a baby liquefied lentils from a bottle.

"If the charity kitchen did not come here for one day, we would wonder about what we will eat that day," she said. The beans came from the kitchen. Food prices in Gaza are very high and her family has had no income since the war began.

"We are living the worst days of our lives in terms of famine and deprivation," she said, comparing the family's existence before the war, when they were able to feed their children well and even give them pocket money.

"Today your son looks at you and you bleed from within, because you cannot provide him with his most basic rights and the simplest needs for his life," she said.

(Reuters)

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has called for independent investigations after 500 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza since Israel's war on the strip started in October.

It works out as an average of two killed per day, with 2.5 percent of Gaza's healthcare workforce now dead, MAP said in a press release.

"Systematic attacks on healthcare by Israeli forces are exacerbating the worst humanitarian crisis ever seen in Gaza," MAP added.

"More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed and at least 86,000 injured since Israel's assault began, with an estimated 10,000 still trapped under rubble, most presumed dead.

"Instead of being able to safely provide medical care for those in urgent need, Palestinian healthcare workers have themselves come under both indiscriminate and apparent targeted attack by the Israeli military."

The 500th health worker reported killed was Hani Al-Jaafarawi, ambulance and emergency services director for Gaza, in an Israeli strike on a clinic on Sunday.

"Palestinian healthcare workers have told me that when they leave the hospital, civilians give them civilian clothing because wearing scrubs is putting a target sticker on their back," said Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, who volunteered in a hospital with MAP in March.

"This is how systematically healthcare has been targeted in Gaza."

MAP advocacy and campaigns director Rohan Talbot said: "Hospitals, medical staff, and civilians all have protected status under international law, law that the Israel military has flagrantly ignored every day through its repeated targeting of healthcare facilities and staff.

"Though now happening at an unprecedented rate in Gaza, attacks on Palestinian healthcare by the Israeli military have recurred over many years, ever-worsening because of chronic impunity.

"This cannot be allowed to continue any longer. Every potential serious violation must be independently investigated and those responsible brought to justice."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may visit Russia in August, Russian state-run RIA news agency reported on Thursday, without providing an exact date for the planned visit.

(Reuters)

Israel stormed a neighbourhood in Gaza City on Thursday, telling Palestinians as the tanks moved in that they must move south, and bombed the southern city of Rafah.

Residents of the Shejaiya neighbourhood in Gaza City said they were taken by surprise by tanks rolling in and firing in the early afternoon, with drones also attacking after overnight bombing.

"It sounded as if the war is restarting, a series of bombings that destroyed several houses in our area and shook the buildings," Mohammad Jamal, 25, a resident of Gaza City, told Reuters via a chat app.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said there were reports of people killed and wounded in Shejaiya but their teams were unable to reach them because of the ongoing offensive. Three people were reported killed there in the earlier bombing, with five killed in the Sabra neighbourhood.

"To all residents and displaced people in the Shujaiya area and the new neighbourhoods… For your safety, you must evacuate immediately south on Salah al-Din Street to the humanitarian zone," army spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on social media platform X.

Residents and Hamas media said the tanks had rolled in before the post and that people from the eastern suburb were running westward under fire as Israel had blocked the road south. There was no other immediate comment from the Israeli military.

(Reuters)

The number of people killed in Israel's war on Gaza has risen to 37,765, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry says.

The ministry adds that 86,429 people have been injured.

It says Israeli forces have carried out three "massacres against the families in the Gaza Strip" with 47 killed and 52 injured people arriving at hospitals in the last 24 hours.

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) says an explosive device was detonated on an Israeli military vehicle during its incursion east of Gaza City's Shejaiya neighbourhood, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

PIJ's armed wing is called Al-Quds Brigades.

Israeli vehicles entered Hassanein Street in Gaza City's Al-Shejaiya neighbourhood, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

It came amid artillery and aerial bombardment.

The Israeli military said a soldier was killed and another seriously wounded in an operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday.

Jenin has long been a stronghold for Palestinian fighters, and the Israeli army routinely carries out raids in the city and its adjacent refugee camp.

Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that a young Palestinian man was wounded in the face by shrapnel during the latest military raid.

Captain Alon Sacgiu, 22, "fell during an operation in the Jenin sector", the military said in a brief statement, without giving details of the circumstances of his death.

Another soldier was seriously wounded and taken to hospital, the military said.

Another child died of malnutrition in northern Gaza overnight, a health official said.

More than eight months into Israel's war on Gaza, aid officials say the enclave remains at high risk of famine, with almost half a million people facing "catastrophic" food insecurity.

"We are being starved in Gaza City, and are being hunted by tanks and planes with no hope that this war is ever ending," Mohammad Jamal, 25, a resident of Gaza City, told Reuters via a chat app.

The death of another girl in Kamal Adwan Hospital late on Wednesday raised the number of children who have died of malnutrition and dehydration to at least 31, a health official said, adding that the war made recording such cases difficult.

(Reuters)

Israeli forces demolished residential buildings in the town of Al-Mughraqa in central Gaza, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says it provides children with recreational activities in Khan Younis.

"These activities are held at [PRCS] headquarters three days a week with the aim of bringing smiles to the children’s faces and providing them relief during the difficult times they are experiencing," the humanitarian organisation posts on social media platform X.

The PRCS Mental Health Department conducts recreational activities with children at its headquarters in Khan Younis. These activities are held at its headquarters three days a week with the aim of bringing smiles to the children’s faces and providing them relief during the… pic.twitter.com/DjOldXCIb7

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) June 27, 2024

Israel said it does not want war in Lebanon but could send its neighbour "back to the Stone Age".

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to Washington on Wednesday that his country could "take Lebanon back to the Stone Age, but we don't want to do it".

"We do not want war, but we are preparing for every scenario," he told reporters.

"Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict massive damage in Lebanon if a war is launched."