Hamas says ready to 'immediately implement' Gaza ceasefire

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The U.S. has approved $165 million in weapons sales to Israel to fund heavy-duty tank trailers, the State Department announced Thursday.

The systems include spare and repair parts, tool kits and technical and logistics support. They are not expected to be delivered until 2027.

Earlier this year, the U.S. announced a mammoth $20 billion weapons support package for Israel to include F-15 fighter jets. Like the tank trailers, those systems will not be delivered for several years and will not affect current Israeli military operations amid its 11-month-old war against Hamas militants in Gaza.

The Biden administration has had to balance its continued support for Israel with a growing number of calls from lawmakers and the public to curb military support there due to the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza.

It has curbed one delivery of 2,000-pound bombs amid continued airstrikes by Israel in densely populated civilian areas in Gaza.

Israel's restrictions on aid flows into Gaza and its destruction of food facilities had a direct impact on famine conditions for the enclave’s population throughout the past eleven months of war, a new report has found.

Palestinians have been subject to famine-like conditions and been forced into negative coping mechanisms "symptomatic of famine situations," according to a new report on Gaza’s hunger crisis.

The report by NGO Refugees International sheds light on Israel’s "counter-narrative" of downplaying and denying the existence of a hunger crisis in the devastated Strip, which was promoted by senior Israeli government and military figures.

Aid agencies, including the United Nations, have repeatedly called on Israel to allow full humanitarian access throughout the dense enclave and to drop restrictions on the entry of certain items.

Many Palestinian families have said they only eat one meal a day with parents often skipping meals to let their children eat instead. Others have reported eating animal food and tree leaves out of desperation.

Read the full story below.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reports that its emergency teams have been providing "vegetables, water, and essential supplies" to families in Jenin, located in the occupied West Bank.

On August 28, Israeli forces carried out a large-scale raid on Jenin and its refugee camp. The incursion, along with a siege, left many residents confined to their homes and caused significant damage to the city’s infrastructure.

In collaboration with a campaign from the town of Tammun, the PRCS Disaster Risk Management teams have been distributing vegetables, water, and essential supplies to the affected families in the city of #Jenin and its camp over the past few days. #WestBank #HumantarianAid pic.twitter.com/jCjx2asEMw

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) September 12, 2024

Five Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces in the town of ad-Dhahiriya, one of whom is a child. 

According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Israeli forces, accompanied by military vehicles, raided the town located south of Hebron. During the raid, soldiers fired tear gas at local residents.

In recent weeks, Israeli forces have intensified large-scale raids across the occupied West Bank, resulting in the deaths, injuries, and arrests of Palestinians in multiple towns and villages

Israeli soldiers withdrew from the northern West Bank city of Tubas and the nearby Far’a refugee camp after a large-scale military raid, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The incursion in Tubas lasted about 45 hours, during which troops deployed snipers on rooftops, surrounded the area, and raided homes. Dozens of Palestinians were arrested during the operation.

Wafa, citing the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society in Tubas, reported that 13 more people were detained since Wednesday, some of whom have been released. At least three additional arrests were made in Far’a.

The father of the Turkish-American activist killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Thursday welcomed Turkey’s decision to initiate an independent investigation into her death and called on the United States to do the same.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who held Turkey and American citizenship, was killed last Friday during demonstrations against settlements in the West Bank. A witness who was there, Israeli protester Jonathan Pollak, said she posed no threat to Israeli forces and that the shooting came during a moment of calm, following clashes between stone-throwing protesters and Israeli troops firing tear gas and bullets.

Turkey's Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc announced Thursday that Turkey had launched its own investigation into her death days after the Israeli military said in a preliminary report that Eygi was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers.

Mehmet Suat Eygi, who is based in Seattle but spoke in western Turkey, said he was very happy to learn that Turkey had opened an investigation into what he called the “arbitrary murder” of his daughter.

“I hope that the American government does the same," he said.

The Israeli army said Thursday it had carried out two strikes in southern Syria, one of which killed a fighter of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

An air strike hit "the area of Quneitra", killing Hezbollah member Ahmad al-Jabr, while a second strike hit "the area of Al Rafeed" and "struck a terrorist who advanced terror activities against the State of Israel and operated with Iranian cooperation and direction", an army statement said.

An Israeli airstrike last month demolished the top floor of a guest house in Gaza where World Food Program international staff were staying, the U.N. agency’s director said Thursday, calling the situation “impossibly dangerous” for aid workers trying to feed the Palestinian population.

The previously undisclosed incident occurred on 31 August in the Nuseirat refugee camp, just days after WFP temporarily stopped aid deliveries to northern Gaza and halted staff movements when its team came under fire near an Israel checkpoint.

“It was always dangerous before. It’s become impossibly dangerous now,’’ McCain said.

The World Food Program is in touch with the Israeli Defense Force over the strike on the house where 11 U.N. employees, including 10 WFP staff, were staying. None was injured and they have been evacuated to Jordan, where McCain met with them this week.

McCain said she has a simple message for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Cease-fire, please. Cease fire! Stop! We need to feed these people,'' she said. “It’s not just food. ... It’s water and sanitation also.”

At least three people, including a child, have been killed in a drone strike carried out by Israel on a village in southern Lebanon's Nabatieh, according to Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA).

The strike reportedly targeted two motorcycles in the village of Kafr Jouz, and a passing vehicle was also hit, NNA reported.

The attack has also left at least three others injured, the agency added.

One Palestinian has been killed and a further five wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City's Shujayea neighbourhood, according to Al Jazeera, which added that Gaza's Civil Defence has said that some people still remain trapped under the rubble left by the strike.

The Israeli military has announced that it has destroyed the Hamas' Rafah Brigades, as well as 203 interconnected tunnels. The commander leading the offensive into the city, Brigadier General Itzik Cohen, said that the military found nine tunnels running into Egypt, however all of them had been blocked up, either by the Egypt or by Hamas themselves. 

The Israeli army said Thursday it had carried out two strikes in southern Syria, one of which killed a fighter of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

An air strike hit "the area of Quneitra", killing Hezbollah member Ahmad al-Jabr, while a second strike hit "the area of Al Rafeed" and "struck a terrorist who advanced terror activities against the State of Israel and operated with Iranian cooperation and direction", an army statement said.

An Israeli airstrike last month demolished the top floor of a guest house in Gaza where World Food Program international staff were staying, the UN agency's director said Thursday, calling the situation "impossibly dangerous" for aid workers trying to feed the Palestinian population.

The previously undisclosed incident occurred 31 August in the Nuseirat refugee camp, just days after WFP temporarily stopped aid deliveries to northern Gaza and halted staff movements when its team came under fire near an Israel checkpoint.

"It was always dangerous before. It's become impossibly dangerous now," McCain said.

The World Food Program is in touch with the Israeli Defense Force over the strike on the house where 11 UN employees, including 10 WFP staff, were staying. None was injured and they have been evacuated to Jordan, where McCain met with them this week.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

McCain said she has a simple message for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Cease-fire, please. Cease fire! Stop! We need to feed these people,'' she said. "It's not just food. ... It's water and sanitation also."

While she and staff remain committed to their mission in Gaza, "We're right on the edge as to whether we even stay in there,’" McCain said. "I want to stay in there. I'm not suggesting we're going to pull out. But I have to take a look at what I am asking my people to do."

She emphasized the difficulty of operating in a so-called deconflicted zone that was supposed to be safe for humanitarian workers to operate.

Israel forces "are hitting places where we've been told it was safe, we have been told have been deconflicted and that refugees were safe. And it's not the case. It's not,” she said.

The commander of the Israeli Army's intelligence Unit 8200 has resigned, citing his role in Israeli intelligence failures during the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel.

"Today, due to the state of the war, to the processes of rebuilding the unit's resilience and after completion of the initial investigation processes, I requested to exercise my personal responsibility as the commander of the unit on October 7 to transfer the baton of command to the next commander," his statement read, as quoted by Haaretz.

The office for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied reports that the PM set up a new war cabinet to run Israel's war effort.

"There is no 'new small security forum'" the statement said, as quoted by the Times of Israel, which reported on the alleged new cabinet earlier.

The office added that the PM "holds frequent security meetings, to which he invites different ministers each time in accordance with their area of responsibility." 

According to the Times of Israel the new cabinet includes Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Knesset Member Aryeh Deri, and is scheduled to meet this evening.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said that Israeli forces are blocking the entry of ambulances into the Tulkarm refugee camp to transport patients to hospital.

🚨The Israeli occupation forces are preventing Palestine Red Crescent Society EMS teams from entering #Tulkarm camp to transport patients to the hospital, despite prior coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
📷Photographer: Issam Rimawi#IHL #NotATarget… pic.twitter.com/vk5nb8Wj61

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) September 12, 2024

Turkey's foreign ministry has said the body of US-Turkish activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was killed in the occupied West Bank during a protest against illegal Israeli settlements last week, is expected to arrive in Turkey on Friday.

In a statement, the ministry said works have been completed by the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate general in Jerusalem.

It blamed the "genocidal [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu government" for her death, vowing that her killing will "not go unpunished".

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc also said on Thursday that her body would be brought to Istanbul via Azerbaijan's Baku before eventually being buried in a funeral in her hometown of Didim in the western province of Aydin.

Tunc added that the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation into her killing.

He said work will be carried out to prepare a report regarding her killing and to include it the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and for the United Nations Human Rights Council.

He also urged the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to take action "immediately".

Tunc said Turkey will issue arrest warrants internationally for those who killed her, adding that there is "evidence" and "footage" showing who shot her in the head.

Pakistan condemned the air strikes by Israeli forces on the Al-Maasi humanitarian zone in Gaza, in which 40 people reportedly died.

"Executed in an area designated as a safe zone for displaced persons by the Israeli occupation forces themselves constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law," foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said while speaking to the media in Islamabad.

"The carnage in Khan Younis without prior warning and in defiance of basic protections demonstrates a disregard for human life and Israel's genocidal designs against the Palestinian people," she added.

Lebanon's Speaker Nabih Berri has said that while his country does not seek war, it is ready to defend itself.

His remarks came during a meeting with the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Beirut to discuss Israel's wars on the region.

"Lebanon does not want war, but it has the right and is able to defend itself," Berri told the EU official after thanking him for his "humanitarian stance" on the conflict.

The meeting comes as the Lebanon-Israel border has seen renewed hostilities, as tensions between Hezbollah and the Israeli military flared once again.

The talks also covered internal Lebanese issues, with Berri highlighting the government's efforts to resolve the presidential vacancy.

The head of European Union diplomacy, Josep Borrell, warned from Beirut that a wider war in the region was "not inevitable", urging for the "full implementation of resolution 1701" of the UN Security Council.

During a press conference at the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Borrell said that while the "worst has been avoided", the "drums of war have not stopped beating".

"The total war in the south of Lebanon with an invasion has not happened (...) but the threat remains," he said.

Germany on Thursday said the deaths of six UN staff in war-torn Gaza are "totally unacceptable" and called on Israel "to protect UN staff and aid workers".

"Humanitarian aid workers must never be victims of rockets," the foreign ministry said on social media platform X. "The death of six UNRWA staff at a school in Nuseirat is totally unacceptable."

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Thursday said he was "outraged" by the killing of six staffers from the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Israeli air strikes on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza.

"The disregard of the basic principles of IHL (international humanitarian law), especially protection of civilians, cannot and should not be accepted by the international community," Borrell wrote on X.

Outraged by the killing of 6 @UNRWA staffers after IL strikes hit - for the 5th time - a school in Nuseirat sheltering 12,000 displaced people

The disregard of the basic principles of IHL, especially protection of civilians, cannot & should not be accepted by the int. community.

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) September 12, 2024

German airline group Lufthansa said Thursday it was extending a suspension of flights to Lebanese capital Beirut until 15 October due to heightened regional tensions.

Services to Beirut had previously been suspended until the end of September.

Lufthansa also said it resumed flights to Tel Aviv in Israel on 5 September, after also suspending them due to tensions.

The German group's carriers also include SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines.

The World Health Organisation said on Thursday it had evacuated nearly 100 people including dozens of children from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates, calling for regular medical transfers out of the enclave to be allowed to resume.

"This was the largest evacuation yet from Gaza since October 2023," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the occupied Palestinian territory told journalists, referring to an operation that took place on Wednesday.

"Gaza needs medical corridors. We need a better organised and sustained system," he said, adding that over 10,000 Gazans were awaiting transfer.

(Reuters)

The chief of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called the loss of six UNRWA workers in an Israeli airstrike on a school "terribly tragic" and renewed his calls for a ceasefire in the enclave.

"No words can reflect the true horror and loss of life in Gaza," he said, adding "our hearts go out to UNRWA colleagues. We grieve the loss of another six colleagues." 

"The carnage in Gaza must stop. Ceasefire!"

Indeed, terribly tragic. No words can reflect the true horror and loss of life in #Gaza.

Hospitals, schools and shelters have been repeatedly bombarded, resulting in deaths of civilians and humanitarians.

Our hearts go out to @UNRWA colleagues. We grieve the loss of another… https://t.co/IpLMe6cuhI

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) September 12, 2024

Syrian state media said an Israeli drone strike Thursday killed two people in Quneitra province, in the Syria-controlled Golan Heights, days after major raids elsewhere in the country.

"Two citizens were martyred due to an Israeli drone attack that targeted a civilian vehicle with a missile" on the Damascus-Quneitra road, the official news agency SANA reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said "an Israeli air strike targeted a vehicle" on the same road and reported two dead, one of them "military".

A local security source told AFP that "two charred bodies were removed" from the targeted vehicle.

The Israeli army has yet to comment on the strike.

Gaza's ministry of health has said that in the last 24 hours 34 Palestinians have been killed and 96 have been wounded by Israel's war on the enclave.

The ministry of health added that Israel has killed 41,118 people, with a further 95,125 wounded since the start of the war.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanani has criticised Israel for "targeting" displaced Palestinians in Gaza, following an Israeli air strike on a UN-run school which killed at least 14 people including six UN employees.

"Schools and refugee shelters in the Gaza Strip have become primary targets for daily bombings and missile attacks by the Israeli regime," Kanani said in a post on X on 12 September.

The Iranian spokesman urged the governments of the US, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and "other exporters of bombs and missiles to the Zionist regime" to address the air strike.

Qatar called on the international community to show "courage and political will" to end Israel's ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.

"Establishing a reliable international system for protecting human rights requires the international community to demonstrate courage and full political will to move beyond silence and take on its legal and ethical responsibilities," Qatari delegate Jawhara bint Abdulaziz Al Suwaidi said during the 57th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

This involves "actively intervening to halt aggression against the Gaza Strip, ending the Israeli occupation, and providing necessary protection to the Palestinian people, who are facing genocide under everyone's watch," she added.

US Vice President Kamala Harris called Israel's killing of a Turkish American activist in the occupied West Bank a "horrific tragedy."

"The killing of Aysenur Eygi is a horrific tragedy that never should have happened," she said in a statement on the incident, which took place last Friday.

"Aysenur was peacefully protesting in the West Bank - standing up against the expansion of settlements - when her young life was senselessly cut short," said Harris.

In the occupied West Bank, eight Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes yesterday, according to the Red Crescent and the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported the deaths of five people early yesterday in "Israeli bombings targeting a group of citizens in Tubas." Later, three more deaths were reported near the city of Tulkarem following an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle.

Lebanon's Hezbollah maintained its operations against the Israeli forces, targeting the Biyadh site in Blida in southern Lebanon with "heavy artillery shells" overnight. 

Strikes by the group had resulted in one injury in the Israeli army, according to media reports.

Lebanese media also reported on several Hezbollah strikes on Israeli army sites in northern Israel yesterday. 

Meanwhile, two teenagers were killed yesterday in an Israeli drone strike in the Tyre district in southern Lebanon.

Hamas says that is was ready to "immediately implement" a ceasefire in Gaza based on the proposal presented by US President Joe Biden and agreed upon by the group in May, and Security Council Resolution No. 2735.

In a Telegram statement yesterday, the group reiterated its "flexibility" toward forging a ceasefire deal, hailing the role played by Qatar and Egypt in mediating a truce.

Hamas also said that it had not put forward any new demands, stressing that it also rejected the imposition of any new terms by any side.

The group issued the statement after its negotiators held a meeting with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel in Doha yesterday.

Hamas also rejected any projects related to post-war Gaza, noting that "the management of the strip is an internal Palestinian affair", and welcomed holding a comprehensive national dialogue with all Palestinian factions.