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Truce Reached in Israeli Aggression on Gaza

Israeli warplanes carried out at least 320 airstrikes across the Gaza Strip. (Photo: via Social Media)

An Egypt-mediated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestinian factions in the besieged Gaza Strip was declared following Israeli escalation since predawn Saturday until predawn Monday.

The Egypt-mediated ceasefire comes after Israeli warplanes carried out at least 320 airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, while about 600 rockets were fired from Gaza towards southern Israel.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza confirmed that 25 Palestinians, including an infant, toddler, and two pregnant women, were killed in the Israeli airstrikes.

In addition, a husband and wife were found to have succumbed to their wounds under the rubble, as a result of the airstrikes.

The ministry also confirmed that at least 154 Palestinians were injured.

It is noteworthy that Israeli airstrikes caused extensive damage to 310 residential buildings, fishing ports, and two universities across Gaza, and completely destroyed 18 residential buildings and family homes, a mosque, several schools, three media offices, and three ambulances.

The Israeli escalation came after Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinians in the 57th “The Great March of Return” Friday protests, during which thousands of Palestinians take to the borders to peacefully protest the 12-year Israeli siege.

The destruction from three Israeli offensives over the past six years, including damage to the enclave’s water, sanitation, energy, and medical facilities, coupled with slow reconstruction due to the blockade led the UN to warn that Gaza could be “uninhabitable” by 2020.

(Ma’an, PC, Social Media)

10:51 am | Posted in Blog | News | Read More »

Kushner Hopes Israel Will Look at ‘Peace Plan’ before West Bank Annexation (VIDEO)

Kushner speaking at US Embassy opening in Jerusalem while the Israeli military massacred protesters in Gaza. (Photo: via Twitter)

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said on Thursday he hopes Israel will take a hard look at President Donald Trump’s upcoming Middle East peace proposal before proceeding with any plan to annex West Bank settlements, Reuters reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had vowed in the waning days of a re-election campaign he won on April 9 to annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in a move that would be bound to trigger condemnation from the Palestinians and the Arab world and complicate the US peace effort.

Kushner, speaking at a dinner of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Middle East peace proposal he has been putting together was close to release and that Israel and the Palestinians should wait to see it before making any unilateral moves.

He said the issue would be discussed with the Israeli government when Netanyahu forms a governing coalition.

Kushner said:

“I hope both sides will take a real look at it, the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, before any unilateral steps are made.”

He added that he had not discussed the issue of settlement annexation with Netanyahu.

Kushner and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt have spent the past two years developing the peace proposal in the hopes it will provide a framework for a renewed dialogue between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The Palestinians have refused to talk to the US side since Trump decided to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

(Middle East Monitor, PC, Social Media)

4:37 pm | Posted in Blog | News | Read More »

EXCLUSIVE: Israel Bombs Residential Areas in Gaza (PHOTOS)

Israel bombs residential areas in Gaza. (Photo: Abdallah Aljamal, The Palestine Chronicle)

10 Palestinians have been killed and 93 others were injured by Israeli forces since the launch of the latest offensive against the besieged Gaza Strip on May 3, 2019. The Palestine Chronicle reporter in Gaza, Abdallah Aljamal is following the development on the ground. He sent us these photos.

(Photos: Abdallah Aljamal, The Palestine Chronicle)

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3:53 pm | Posted in Blog | Images | Read More »

Israel Carries out ‘Massive Strikes’ on Gaza: 24 Palestinians, 4 Israelis Killed (PHOTOS & VIDEOS)

A Palestinian girl cries at the funeral of two young men killed by Israeli army missiles in Gaza. (Photo: Quds)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered “massive strikes” on the Gaza Strip after a two-day escalation that killed 24 Palestinians and four Israelis.

Israeli warplanes and gunboats continued to target the Gaza Strip on Sunday as fighters in the besieged enclave fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel.

A 34-year-old Hamas commander was killed in what the Israeli military described as a targeted strike. An army statement accused Hamad al-Khodori of “transferring large sums of money” from Iran to armed factions in Gaza.

He was the fifth Palestinian reported killed on Sunday. By the end of the day, the number of Palestinian killed climbed to 24 with nearly 200 others wounded.

Other Palestinian victims included a pregnant woman and her one-year-old niece, who were both killed in Gaza on Saturday.

In the Israeli city of Ashkelon, an Israeli man was killed after being struck by shrapnel from a rocket attack. Two other Israelis, critically wounded in a separate rocket attacks on a factory on Sunday afternoon, later died. A fourth Israel was declared dead later in the evening.

“This morning I instructed the IDF [the Israeli Army] to continue with massive strikes against terrorists in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu, who doubles as Israeli defense minister, said in a statement after consulting with his security cabinet on Sunday.

He said he had also ordered “tanks, artillery and infantry forces” to reinforce troops already deployed near Gaza, a move that raised fears of a ground invasion.

“Hamas is responsible not only for its attacks against Israel, but also for the Islamic Jihad’s attacks, and it is paying a very heavy price for it,” Netanyahu added.

Armed factions in Gaza, otherwise known as the Joint Operations Room, which include the military wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, vowed on Saturday to “extend its response” if the Israeli army continued to target the strip.

“Our response will be broader and more painful in the event [Israel’s] extends in aggression, and we will remain the protective shield of our people and our land,” the Joint Operations Room said in a statement.

The government media office in Gaza said Israeli warplanes carried out about 150 raids, in addition to artillery-shelling targeting 200 civilian landmarks in the Gaza Strip, including residential buildings, mosques, shops and media institutions.

About 200 Palestinians were wounded in the attacks, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

“There was a lot of bombing, the neighbors were affected a lot, the street scene was indescribable, people were afraid and terrified and running, and everyone was looking for their children, nobody was able to see others,” Abu Absa said.

One of the buildings destroyed had housed the Gaza bureau of the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency.

“We call on the international community to act swiftly in order to ease tensions that have increased due to Israel’s disproportionate actions in the region,” a Turkish foreign ministry statement said.

Two of the victims are Falastine Abu Arar, a 37-year-old pregnant mother, and her 14-month old niece Siba, who were killed by Israeli forces. Two Palestinian men, 22-year-old Imad Nseir and 25-year-old Khaled Abu Qaleeq, were also killed by Israeli air raids on Saturday night.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group said the two men killed overnight on Sunday, Mahmoud Issa, 26 and Fawzi Bawadi, 23, were members of its armed wing.

In the early afternoon, two more Palestinians were killed after an Israeli air raid targeted a group of people in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujayea, the health ministry said. The men were identified as Bilal Mohammed al-Banna and Abdullah Abu Atta, said to be in their 20s.

Shortly after, in what Palestinians have called the first targeted assassination since 2014, Israeli air raids hit the car of al-Khoudary, the Hamas commander, in Gaza City. Three other Palestinians were wounded on the attack.

The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov called on all parties to “immediately de-escalate and return to the understandings of the past few months.”

“I am deeply concerned by yet another dangerous escalation in Gaza and the tragic loss of life,” he said. “My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of all those who were killed, and I wish a speedy recovery to the injured.”

The latest flare-up came after four other Palestinians were killed in two separate incidents on Friday.

Two of them were shot dead during the weekly Great March of Return protests near the Israeli border east of Gaza, while an air raid targeting a Hamas outpost killed two members of the movement’s armed wing.

Israel and Egypt have maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza since Hamas won the elections in Gaza in 2006. The siege tightened following clashes between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s main faction, Fatah. The latter was driven out of Gaza in 2007.

Following heavy fighting in late March, Israel agreed to ease the blockade in exchange for a halt to rocket fire. This included expanding a fishing zone off Gaza’s coast, increasing imports into Gaza and allowing the Gulf state of Qatar to deliver aid to the cash-strapped territory.

However, Israel has not delivered on these agreements, and scaled back the expansion of the fishing zone at the end of April.

“Various reported understandings about easing economic restrictions, creating jobs, looking to improving electricity flow in Gaza – there’s been nothing on those lines,” Al Jazeer’s Harry Fawcett said.

About two million Palestinians live in Gaza, whose economy has suffered from years of a blockade as well as recent foreign aid cuts. Unemployment stands at 52 percent, according to the World Bank, and poverty is rampant.

Israel has waged three offensives on Gaza since December 2008.

The last war in 2014 severely damaged Gaza’s already weak infrastructure, prompting the United Nations to warn that the strip would be “uninhabitable” by 2020.

(Al Jazeera. PC, Agencies, Social Media)

2:56 pm | Posted in Blog | News | Read More »

Netanyahu: Israel Will Continue Massive Attack on Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: File)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Sunday that he has instructed his country’s armed forces to continue their massive attack on the Gaza Strip, Arutz Sheva reported.

Netanyahu said:

“I instructed the IDF to continue the massive attacks against the terrorist elements and the large number of armored, artillery and infantry forces around the Strip … Hamas bears responsibility for its actions, but also for the activities of the Islamic Jihad and pays a very heavy price.”

Netanyahu then offered his condolences to the family of an Israeli citizen that was killed by a rocket fired from Gaza on Saturday. 

Israeli forces claimed they targeted more than 230 sites in Gaza since Saturday; this has resulted in the death of several Palestinians. Among the Palestinians killed by the Israeli forces on Saturday were a pregnant woman and her 14-month-old daughter.

(TeleSur, PC, Social Media)

2:52 pm | Posted in Blog | News | Read More »

New Israeli Airstrikes Hit Gaza (VIDEOS)

Israeli airstrikes targeted various parts of the blockaded Gaza Strip. (Photo: via Social Media)

Israel’s army on Sunday waged fresh air raids on various parts of the blockaded Gaza Strip for a third day straight, Anadolu reports.

The strikes left at least four Palestinians wounded after an Israeli warplane struck a target near a house in the city of Khan Younis in the southern strip, eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency.

Israeli warplanes also attacked another target in the vicinity of a house belonging to the Aql Palestinian family at the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central strip, damaging the house, according to eyewitnesses.

Since Saturday, ten Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and her infant child, were killed and 83 others wounded by Israeli airstrikes.

The escalation in the Gaza Strip started when four Palestinians were martyred, including a teenager, and 51 wounded on Friday in Israeli army attacks on Hamas-affiliated sites and a separate attack on a rally against the decade-long occupation and siege of the Gaza strip.

The Israeli assaults were met by Palestinian resistance factions launching 250 rockets towards Israeli settlements, killing three people.

Another 83 Israelis have received treatment since Saturday from Palestinian rocket attacks, Israel’s Megan David Adom emergency services said.

Since Saturday, Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have targeted 200 civilian sites including seven residential buildings.

On Saturday, a building where Anadolu Agency’s office in Gaza was located was razed by Israeli warplanes.

No deaths or injuries were reported in the attack.

(MEMO, PC, Social Media)

2:43 pm | Posted in Blog | News | Videos | Read More »

Hamas, Fatah Condemn Israeli Offensive on Gaza

Israeli raids targeted several parts of the blockaded Gaza strip. (Photo: via Social Media)

The Palestinian movements of Hamas and Fatah on Saturday slammed recent Israeli offensives on the blockaded Gaza strip since Friday which have killed at least five Palestinians and left dozens wounded, reports Anadolu Agency.

Hamas on Saturday said the Palestinian resistance will not allow the Israeli occupation to attack the Palestinian people in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

“The resistance’s response [to Israeli raids] carries a message to the enemy [Israel] that it is here” and will not allow Israel to attack our people, Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanoua said in a statement.

For its part, the Fatah movement called on the international community to put an end to the “Israeli aggression” on the Gaza Strip.

In a Saturday statement, Fatah held the Israeli government responsible for the military escalation as well as “the war crimes committed by the occupation army against innocent Palestinian civilians.”

Fatah said:

“These crimes will not go unpunished and prosecuted.”

Israeli raids on Saturday targeted several parts of the blockaded Gaza Strip. Palestinian factions, meanwhile, fired dozens of rockets at Israeli settlements adjacent to the strip.

The escalation started when four Palestinians were killed and 51 wounded on Friday in Israeli army attacks on Hamas-affiliated sites and a separate Israeli attack on a Palestinian rally against the decade-long occupation and siege of the Gaza strip.

(Middle East Monitor, PC, Social Media)

7:20 pm | Posted in Blog | News | Videos | Read More »

Israeli Delegation to Visit Saudi Arabia in 2020 (VIDEO)

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al-Saud. (Photo: via MEMO)

A Jewish-Israeli delegation will accept the invitation of the Muslim World League to visit Saudi Arabia, Hebrew sources revealed yesterday.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted in Arabic:

“For the first time, a Jewish delegation will visit Saudi Arabia in response to the Muslim World League invitation, said the Saudi Secretary-General of the League, Sheikh Muhammad Bin Abdul Karim Issa, who declared the visit will take place in January 2020.”

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have succeeded in leading Arab countries to forge overt relations with Israel. It was reported last year that Riyadh had permitted Air India to use its airspace for flights traveling to Tel Aviv.

Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has also reportedly offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas $10 billion over ten years to force him to accept the US’ peace plan with Israel.

(Middle East Monitor, PC, Social Media)

7:10 pm | Posted in Blog | News | Read More »

Pregnant Mother, Daughter Die in Israeli Bombing of Gaza

Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza. (Photo: via Social Media)

A 14-months-old toddler identified as Saba Mahmoud Abu ‘Arar was killed and her pregnant mother, Falastin, succumbed to her wounds shortly after Israeli warplanes shelled their home to the east of Gaza City, medical sources said.

Abu ‘Arar’s sister was also moderately injured in the shelling.

This brings up the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since yesterday to seven and the injured to at least 69, including three minors.

Earlier today, two minors sustained various injuries and fractures during Israeli shelling of Beit Lahiya town, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Tensions have been on the rise in Gaza after Israel killed four Palestinians yesterday during the weekly border protests.

Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza responded by firing dozens of homemade rockets, estimated at 200, at southern Israeli towns.

(Wafa, PC, Social Media)

6:59 pm | Posted in Blog | News | Read More »

Rockets Fired from Gaza Day after Israel Kills Four Palestinians

The scene in a house in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, following an Israeli air raid. (Photo: Hasan Saleh, Sheab News)

A Palestinian has been killed in an Israeli air raid on the northern Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s health ministry, amid a fresh escalation between Israel’s military and Gaza fighters.

Imad Nseir, 22, was killed in Beit Hanoun after Israeli warplanes targeted multiple areas in the besieged enclave on Saturday morning after dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel.

The latest flare-up comes after Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in two separate incidents on Friday.

The Iron Dome missile system intercepted dozens of projectiles, the Israeli army said, adding that about 90 rockets were fired from the strip. No casualties were reported on the Israeli side, the army also said.

According to Palestinian news agencies, Israeli warplanes targeted an agricultural area in Beit Hanoun, a northern town in the Strip, with multiple air raids following the rocket fire.

Israeli forces at the fence with Gaza also shelled several monitoring outposts east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Gaza health officials also said four Palestinians were wounded in one of the Israeli raids.

Sirens went off in the Israeli cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon, and nearby Zikim beach, located two kilometres north of the Gaza Strip, was also closed off.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket fire from Gaza.

According to the Palestinian Information Center, Hamas spokesperson Abdullatif Al-Qanou’ said: “The resistance will remain present to respond to the crimes of the occupation, and will not allow it to shed the blood of our people.”

The Islamic Jihad movement also released a similar statement, saying “the resistance is doing its duty to protect and defend our people”, adding that it will “respond to the [Israeli] aggression to the fullest extent.”

Meanwhile, the Fatah movement in the occupied West Bank has condemned the escalation on the Gaza Strip and called on the international community to “curb the aggression.”

On Friday, four Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in two separate incidents; two of them were shot dead during the weekly Great March of Return protests near the Israeli fence east of Gaza, while an air raid targeting a Hamas outpost killed two members of the movement’s armed wing.

The Israeli army said it had hit the Hamas base after two of its soldiers were injured by gunfire from Gaza at the Israeli fence.

In an attempt to defuse an escalation between Israel and Hamas, Egypt had summoned senior figures from Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad movement on Friday to its capital Cairo.

(Al Jazeera, PC, Social Media)

12:08 pm | Posted in Blog | News | Read More »
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