Israeli attacks on Gaza and West Bank ongoing

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The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said six staffers were killed after two Israeli airstrikes hit a school in central Gaza on Wednesday, marking what it said was the highest death toll among its staff in a single incident.

"Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people," UNRWA said on X.

"This school has been hit five times since the war began. It is home to around 12,000 displaced people, mainly women and children," UNRWA added.

The Palestinian Hamas group said on Wednesday that its negotiators reiterated its readiness to implement an "immediate" ceasefire with Israel in Gaza based on a previous U.S. proposal without new conditions from any party.

The Palestinian Hamas group said that its negotiation team, led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya, met Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel on Wednesday to discuss the latest developments in Gaza.

A lack of accountability for the killing of United Nations staff and humanitarian aid workers in the Gaza Strip is "totally unacceptable," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday.

Describing Israel's retaliation against Hamas in Gaza - where local health officials say some 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began - Guterres said there have been "very dramatic violations of the international humanitarian law and the total absence of an effective protection of civilians."

"What's happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable," he said.

Two Palestinians were killed in a strike in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

The Israeli military said its aircraft had conducted a strike in Tulkarm, in the West Bank.

Israel's military said a soldier was killed Wednesday when the driver of "a Palestinian truck" rammed into "forces conducting operational activity" in the occupied West Bank.

The suspected assailant was "neutralised" by Israeli forces "and an armed civilian" at the scene of the attack near the Jewish settlement of Givat Assaf, north of Ramallah, an army statement said.

It later identified the dead soldier as 24-year-old Staff Sergeant Geri Gideon Hanghal.

The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 and is separated from the Gaza Strip by Israeli territory, has seen a surge of violence during nearly a year of the Gaza war, though Palestinian car-ramming attacks have been rare.

The Biden administration on Wednesday issued sanctions on a Lebanese network it accused of smuggling oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to help fund the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

The sanctions target three people, five companies and two vessels that the US Treasury Department said were overseen by a senior leader of Hezbollah's finance team and used profits from illicit LPG shipments to Syria to aid generate revenue for the group.

Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley Smith, in a statement, said Hezbollah "continues to launch rockets into Israel and fuel regional instability, choosing to prioritize funding violence over taking care of the people it claims to care about, including the tens of thousands displaced in southern Lebanon." 

(Reuters)

At least 14 people were killed in an Israeli air strike which hit a school sheltering displaced families in central Gaza on Wednesday, according to local reports.

Palestinian civil defence said at least 18 people were wounded with its teams still searching for survivors under the rubble.

The strike hit an UNRWA run school known as al-Jouni, the latest in a series of strikes on schools hosting displaced Palestinians.

Gaza's health ministry said earlier today that 64 people had been killed in the past 24 hours.

Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded 95,029 since Oct. 7, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said on Wednesday.

The toll includes 64 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry.

ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan has urged the body to expedite arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas leaders in a bid to end the war on Gaza, as the death toll in the besieged enclave continues to rise.

Khan requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, on 20 May but is still waiting for approval from the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber I.

A request for Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was also issued but his assassination in July has essentially voided this, while there are questions about whether Deif is still alive.

Khan said the “ongoing criminality” and “worsening situation in Palestine" has added urgency to this issue as the death toll in Gaza passes the 41,000 mark and an Israeli military assault on the West Bank intensifies.

“The prosecution respectfully requests that the Chamber issue its decision on the applications for the warrants of arrest against Yahya Sinwar, [Mohammed] Deif, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Yoav Gallant with utmost urgency,” Khan wrote.

Read more here.

A group of Israeli settlers set fire to an olive grove and cut trees down belonging to a Palestinian farmer, according to an Israeli rights organisation.

Yesh Din an Israeli human rights NGO working in the West Bank said that early on Wednesday "five masked settlers equipped with saws" arrived at the olive grove owned by a farmer from Burin.

It said that the CSC (Civilian Security Coordinator) arrived at the scene but did not intervene to stop the settlers attacking the trees and called on the Israeli military to  investigate and prevent such attacks.

The assault, just weeks before the olive harvest, is the latest in a series of aggressions against Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank, who have faced land grabs, attacks on livestock and vandalism of property by Israeli settlers.

[1] At around 6 am this morning, five masked settlers equipped with saws arrived from the direction of the Yitzhar Yeshiva (the buildings under renovation) to an olive grove owned by a Palestinian farmer from Burin, where they cut down and burned dozens of trees. >> pic.twitter.com/BYygRdivKJ

— Yesh Din English (@Yesh_Din) September 11, 2024

Israeli forces forced hundreds of Palestinians to leave homes in Tulkarm camp in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, after the town came under a major raid yesterday.

Faisal Salama, head of the popular committee in Tulkarm camp, who also serves as deputy governor of Tulkarm, told The New Arab's Arabic language sister side Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the Israeli army storms home "in order to turn them into military barracks, while a number of young men who are inside those homes are used as human shields".

Salama said that some 100 people were fled to the governorate headquarters in Tulkarm, while  others arrived at the government hospital in Thabet and mosques nearby to seek refuge.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, speaking alongside visiting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, said Wednesday that both governments opposed any widening of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

"In light of the escalation that the region has been going through, we have spoken a lot about the importance of stability; this stability threatened by the Zionist aggression in Gaza," Sudani said.

"We have stated more than once our rejection of any extension of the conflict," he added, underlining the two governments' "common positions" on the war.

Read more about the visit here.

Gaza's health ministry said on Wednesday that 92 percent of children under the age of ten had received a first polio vaccine since a massive vaccination campaign was launched last month.

It said that 49 percent of girls and 51 percent of boys have had the first dose, despite disruptions and safety fears with fighting ongoing.

Vaccinations have been taking place across the Strip in coordination with UNICEF and the World Health Organization which have called for a pause in fighting. Health officials have also urged for a full ceasefire in Gaza, saying the vaccines will not protect children from bombs.

A United States diplomatic facility in Baghdad came under attack late on Tuesday but there are no reports of casualties and a damage assessment is underway, a US embassy spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday.

Security sources told Reuters two rockets had fallen at around 11 pm on Tuesday near US forces stationed near Baghdad airport at the Camp Victory base.

"At approximately 23:00 on Tuesday, September 10, there was an attack at the Baghdad Diplomatic Services Compound, a US diplomatic facility," the US embassy statement said.

"Fortunately, there are no reported casualties, and we are assessing the damage and its cause. Our assessment is ongoing," it said.

Kataib Hezbollah, one of Iraq's Iran-backed armed factions, said the timing of the attack was clearly designed to disrupt a visit to Iraq by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian that began on Wednesday.

(Reuters)

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like the fatal shooting of an American protester against settlement expansion never happen again, calling her death "totally unacceptable."

In a statement, Biden said while Israel has taken responsibility for her death, the US government expects continued access as the investigation continues over the circumstances of the shooting. Israel has said her death was accidental. 

Biden claimed on Monday that the bullet "ricocheted" off the ground and hit 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, in contradiction to eyewitness accounts.

(Reuters)

The Israeli army said on Wednesday that one Israeli man was injured in a car ramming attack east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The army said it set up roadblocks in the area by Givat Asaf outpost east of Ramallah. It said that the "terrorist was neutralised at the scene".

The number of settler outposts across the West Bank has risen in recent months alongside violent attacks by extremist ultranationalist groups who consider the Palestinian territory as Jewish land. Outposts are considered illegal under international law and by the UN.

Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar on Tuesday congratulated Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on his re-election, thanking him for supporting Palestinians.

Sinwar "renewed his appreciation for the Algerian role in standing by the Palestinian people and defending their rights in international forums," Hamas said on its official Telegram channel.

He also congratulated "the Algerian people's renewed confidence in (Tebboune) to lead the country, wishing God to grant him success and assistance, to serve Algeria and its people," the Palestinian militant group added.

In power since 2019, Tebboune was re-elected on Sunday with nearly 95 percent of the vote.

Algeria has since January been a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, where it is the only representative of Arab countries.

It has submitted several draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire in the 11-month war in Gaza, ruled by Hamas, all of which have been blocked by Israel's main ally the United States.

Anti-war protesters and police clashed outside a defence exhibition in Australia's second-largest city of Melbourne on Wednesday, with dozens arrested as police used sponge grenades, flash-bang devices and irritant sprays to control parts of the hostile crowd.

Police were pelted with rocks, horse manure and bottles filled with liquid as they tried to protect attendees of the expo, some of whom were assaulted by protesters, a Victoria state police spokesperson said in a statement.

Two dozen police officers required medical treatment and 39 people had been arrested for offences including assaulting, obstructing or hindering police, arson and blocking roads, Shane Patton Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police told a press conference.

About 1,200 people attended the protest outside the venue hosting the biennial Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition, authorities said.

Many chanted pro-Palestine slogans through loud speakers and waved Palestine flags while others had signs and flags representing other conflicts and causes, video showed. Dumpsters were pushed towards police lines and one protester climbed on top of a truck that was stopped at traffic lights.

The Israeli army announced on Wednesday that two soldiers were killed and seven injured during a helicopter crash in south Gaza in Rafah which was "not caused by enemy fire".

In a statement, the army said an 'Yanshuf' helicopter which was evacuating an injured soldier crashed while landing in an army base in Rafah.

"An initial inquiry conducted indicates that the crash was not caused by enemy fire. The cause of the crash is still under investigation. There is no change to the IAF's operational activities."

The Israeli army said its jets struck "30 Hezbollah launchers and terror infrastructure" in south Lebanon overnight Tuesday and early into Wednesday.

It struck the areas of Jibbain, Naqoura, Deir Seryan and Zibqun and al-Dahira.

Lebanon's National News Agency said heavy strikes had sparked forest fires, describing a "belt of fire" caused by the bombings with local residents reporting feeling terrified as buildings shook.

Palestinian officials say Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 20 people, including 16 women and children.

An airstrike early Wednesday killed 11 people, including six siblings ranging from 21 months to 21 years old, according to the European Hospital, which received the casualties. The dead from the strike near the southern city of Khan Younis included three other women, a child and a man, according to the hospital.

A strike late Tuesday on a home in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed nine people, including six women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the Civil Defense first responders. The Civil Defense says the home belonged to Akram al-Najjar, a professor at the al-Quds Open University, who survived the strike.

An Israeli airstrike has killed five Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials say.

The Israeli military said it targeted a group of militants in the northern city of Tubas early Wednesday.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank confirmed the toll but does not say whether those killed by Israeli fire are militants or civilians.

Israel has stepped up its military raids across the territory in recent weeks and says it is working to dismantle militant groups and prevent attacks. Palestinians say such operations are aimed at cementing Israel’s seemingly open-ended military rule over the territory.