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Wednesday, 31 July 2024
Ismail Haniyeh Assassinated by Israel – What We Know So Far
Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh (Photo: Mohammed Asad, via MEMO)
The Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas announced on Wednesday morning the assassination of the head of its political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, after being targeted by an Israeli raid in Tehran.
Iranian authorities confirmed the assassination and said they are investigating its circumstances.
How did the assassination take place?
Hamas announced in a statement issued at six o’clock this morning Palestine time that Haniyeh was assassinated after being targeted by an Israeli raid on his residence in Tehran after participating in the inauguration ceremony of the new President Massoud Bezshkian.
The Iranian authorities later confirmed Haniyeh’s assassination without clarifying the circumstances of his targeting and said they would announce the results of the investigation as soon as possible.
The Iranian news agency said that the assassination of Haniyeh occurred around two in the morning on Wednesday local time – nine thirty GMT on Tuesday evening – noting that he was staying in a special headquarters for veterans in Tehran.
The agency added that Haniyeh was killed with one of his bodyguards.
On the other hand, Iran’s Fars news agency said that Haniyeh’s residence was targeted in an area north of the capital Tehran.
What weapon was used for assassination?
Iran’s Noor News website said that Haniyeh was targeted by a shell fired from the air, noting that investigations are underway to determine the location from which the shell was launched.
Israel’s broadcaster, KAN, claimed that Haniyeh was killed by a missile fired from a country outside Iran rather than from Iranian airspace.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the incident and said it did not respond to foreign media reports.
(AJA, PC)
For These Reasons Israel Assassinated Hamas’ Political Leader, Ismail Haniyeh – Analysis
Considering the criminal extent to which Israel is willing to go, such desperation could eventually lead to the regional war that Israel has been trying to instigate, even before the Gaza war.
Israel’s assassination of the head of Hamas’ political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, on July 31 is part of Tel Aviv’s overall desperate search for a wider conflict. It is a criminal act that reeks of desperation.
Almost immediately after the start of the Gaza war on October 7, Israel hoped to use the genocide in the Strip as an opportunity to achieve its long-term goal of a regional war – one that would rope in Washington as well as Iran and other Middle Eastern countries.
Despite unconditional support for its genocide in Gaza, and various conflicts throughout the region, the United States refrained from entering a direct war against Iran and others. Though defeating Iran is an American strategic objective, the US lacks the will and tools to pursue it now.
After ten months of a failed war on Gaza and a military stalemate against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel is, once more, accelerating its push for a wider conflict. This time around, however, Israel is engaging in a high-stakes game, the most dangerous of its previous gambles.
The current gamble involved the targeting of a top Hezbollah leader by bombing a residential building in Beirut on Tuesday, – and, of course, the assassination of Palestine’s most visible, let alone popular political leader. Haniyeh has succeeded in forging and strengthening ties with Russia, China, and other countries beyond the US-western political domain.
Israel chose the place and timing of killing Haniyeh carefully. The Palestinian leader was killed in the Iranian capital, shortly after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Israeli message was a compound one, to Iran’s new administration – that of Israel’s readiness to escalate further – and to Hamas, that Israel has no intentions to end the war or to reach a negotiated ceasefire.
The latter point is perhaps the most urgent. For months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done everything in his power to impede all diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the war. By killing the top Palestinian negotiator, Israel delivered a final and decisive message that Israel remains invested in violence, and in nothing else.
The scale of the Israeli provocations, however, poses a great challenge to the pro-Palestinian camp in the Middle East, namely, how to respond with equally strong messages without granting Israel its wish of embroiling the whole region in a destructive war.
Considering the military capabilities of what is known as the ‘Axis of Resistance’, Iran, Hezbollah and others are certainly capable of managing this challenge despite the risk factors involved.
Equally important regarding timing: the Israeli dramatic escalation in the region, followed a visit by Netanyahu to Washington, which, aside from many standing ovations at the US Congress, didn’t fundamentally alter the US position, predicated on the unconditional support for Israel without direct US involvement in a regional war.
Additionally, Israel’s recent clashes involving the army, military police, and the supporters of the far right suggest that an actual coup in Israel might be a real possibility. In the words of Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid: Israel is not nearing the abyss, Israel is already in the abyss.
It is, therefore, clear to Netanyahu and his far-right circle that they are operating within an increasingly limited time and margins.
By killing Haniyeh, a political leader who has essentially served the role of a diplomat, Israel demonstrated the extent of its desperation and the limits of its military failure.
Considering the criminal extent to which Israel is willing to go, such desperation could eventually lead to the regional war that Israel has been trying to instigate, even before the Gaza war.
Keeping in mind Washington’s weakness and indecision in the face of Israel’s intransigence, Tel Aviv might achieve its wish of a regional war after all.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website iswww.ramzybaroud.net
Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Tehran after Israel bombs Beirut
Ismail Haniyeh during a video statement marking the 34th anniversary of the founding of the Hamas movement, December 2021. (Hamas Chief Office)
Hamas announced early Wednesday that Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Palestinian faction’s political wing, was assassinated in Tehran, where he was present for the inauguration of the new Iranian president.
The assassination, in Iran no less, marks a major escalation that will likely have regional ramifications and came hours after Israel bombed Lebanon on Tuesday evening, killing three civilians, according to Lebanese state media. Israel claimed that it killed a senior Hizballah figure in the strike, but the Lebanese resistance group had not issued a statement on the matter at the time of publication.
Israel killed multiple members representing multiple generations of Haniyeh’s family in Gaza since October. Several leaders of Hamas have been assassinated by Israel before Haniyeh, only to be replaced and for the organization’s capabilities to grow.
In January, Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas’ politburo, was killed in a strike in Beirut along with several other cadres and commanders with the group.
Two weeks ago, Israel claimed to have killed Muhammad Deif, the secretive head of Hamas’ armed wing, in a strike in Gaza that killed at least 90 Palestinians in an area it had unilaterally declared as a humanitarian zone.
Israel continued to wage attacks across Gaza by air, land and sea amid heavy fighting and ground incursions on Tuesday.
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday that 37 people had been killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 39,400 since early October.
The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher, with thousands of people missing under the rubble or their bodies not yet recovered from Gaza’s streets.
The Israeli military withdrew from eastern Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, on Tuesday following an incursion lasting eight days and forcing another wave of mass displacement from the area.
Palestinians returned to Khan Younis to find evidence of what the government media office in Gaza described as “horrific massacres” for which it demanded international accountability.
“Palestinian rescue workers and civilians collected dead bodies from the streets of the abandoned battle zone, bringing corpses wrapped in rugs to morgues in cars and donkey carts,” Reuters reported.
The government media office said that the bodies of 255 people had been recovered and more than 30 others were missing.
During the incursion, the Israeli military fired on 31 homes with their residents inside, as well as more than 300 other homes and residential buildings.
The military also razed the cemetery in Bani Suheila and its surroundings on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis:
Nearly all of Gaza under evacuation orders
Israel meanwhile issued new forced displacement orders in al-Bureij, central Gaza, “launching strikes there in apparent preparation for a new raid,” according to Reuters.
“Medics said an Israeli air strike in nearby al-Nuseirat killed 10 Palestinians as they fled from Bureij on Tuesday, and another strike killed four other Palestinians inside Bureij,” the news agency added.
More than 85 percent of the territory of Gaza is under an Israeli so-called evacuation order, the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday.
But there is no safe place for people to go, and no assurance of protection for civilians who choose to stay or are unable to evacuate from designated areas.
Repeated displacement is also making it increasingly difficult for organizations, already contending with Israel’s near-total blockade, to provide aid and services to those who were forced to leave their homes with next to nothing.
Palestinians return to eastern Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, after Israeli forces pulled out on 30 July.
Omar AshtawyAPA images
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said that it was no longer able to restore the functionality of the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis after an Israeli evacuation order was issued on 27 July.
The Palestinian Civil Defense warned that overcrowding among displaced people in Gaza, who have insufficient access to water and sanitation, was leading to the proliferation of diseases, including conditions affecting children’s skin.
By early July, the World Health Organization had recorded nearly a million cases of acute respiratory infection, while other illnesses such as diarrhea, acute jaundice and cases of suspected mumps and meningitis, as well as scabies and lice, skin rashes and chicken pox are spreading among the population.
The UN health agency said on Tuesday that it was very likely that polio has infected Palestinians in Gaza after the health ministry in the territory declared a polio epidemic across the coastal enclave on Monday.
Detection of the virus in sewage samples collected in Gaza represents “a setback” against efforts to completely eradicate the disease worldwide, Christian Lindmeier, a World Health Organization official, said on Tuesday.
Al Mezan, a Palestinian human rights group based in Gaza, warned that more than one million children in the territory “are at risk of dying if not vaccinated” for the highly infectious virus.
“To prevent thousands of deaths, the international community must ensure Israel immediately ends its genocide, including the weaponization of water and sanitation facilities,” the rights group added.
According to WHO, the disease mainly affects children under the age of 5 and one in 200 infections “leads to irreversible paralysis.” Five to 10 percent of those paralyzed die “when their breathing muscles become immobilized.”
Collapse of essential systems
With the collapse of Gaza’s solid waste management system, conditions are ripe for the disastrous spread of diseases transmitted through contamination such as polio and hepatitis A – there have been 40,000 diagnosed cases of the latter since October.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has seen a drop in polio vaccination rates in Gaza from 99 percent to 89 percent, according to a UNICEF spokesperson. The director of the World Health Organization announced that it was sending more than a million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered to children “in the coming weeks,” UN Newsreported.
The virus, “transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the fecal-oral route,” according to WHO, is less frequently transmitted through contaminated water or food.
The “can emerge in areas where poor vaccination coverage allows the weakened form of the orally taken vaccine virus strain to mutate into a stronger version,” UN Newsadded.
The vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 “had been identified at six locations in sewage samples collected last month from Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah – two Gaza cities left in ruins by nearly 10 months of intense Israeli bombardment.”
The spread of disease and epidemics is a predictable result of Israel’s genocidal military campaign, if not the intention.
In yet another case of Israeli soldiers destroying civilian infrastructure for no military purpose, soldiers recently recorded themselves detonating Canada well, the main water facility in Rafah, southern Gaza.
The Tel Aviv daily Haaretzreported on Monday that the facility “was destroyed last week with the approval of the commander of the soldiers … but without the approval of senior officers.”
But blaming lower-ranking soldiers may be an attempt to deter international courts scrutiny of more senior military personnel, while the pattern of behavior on the ground indicates that troops are ordered to destroy essential civilian infrastructure for no military purpose – a war crime.
Younis Tirawi, writing for Dropsite News, recounted that Giora Eiland, an adviser to Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant, described in October a strategy to destroy the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to pump and purify water within Gaza.
Monther Shoblak, the head of the water utility in Gaza, told Tirawi that the Canada well facility had remained functional until Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah in early May, as solar panels allowed it to operate despite Israel cutting off the supply of electricity to the territory in October.
Israel destroyed 30 water wells in the south this month alone, and displaced people have been forced to shelter in overcrowded conditions without suitable hygiene infrastructure or access to sufficient clean water, fuel, food and medicine.
The international charity Oxfam said earlier this month that “Israel damaged or destroyed five water and sanitation sites every three days since the start of this war,” reducing the amount of water available in Gaza by 94 percent to a mere 4.74 liters per person – “less than a single toilet flush.”
Israel attacks Beirut
Israel bombed southern Beirut on Tuesday, with its military claiming that it targeted Fuad Shukr, a senior Hizballah commander. Israel said that Shukr was killed but Arabic-language media said his fate remained unknown late Tuesday.
The area around Hizballah’s Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of the Lebanese capital was also hit, that country’s state news agency reported.
Lebanon’s health ministry said that a woman and two children were killed, though “the search for more missing persons under the rubble continues.”
The Beirut strike took down a whole residential building, and the scale of destruction may have been intended to reinforce the threats made by Israeli leaders to inflict the same genocidal violence in Lebanon that it has in Gaza.
The strike in Beirut on Tuesday was an anticipated “retaliation” from Tel Aviv after a projectile killed 12 children at a sports field in Majdal Shams, a city in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights on Saturday. Israel blamed Hizballah but the Lebanese resistance group denied having any connection to the deadly blast.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, accusedHizballah of crossing a red line, though it is highly unlikely that the Lebanese resistance group would have deliberately targeted Majdal Shams.
A building targeted in an Israeli strike in the southern suburb of Beirut, 30 July.
Bilal JawichXinhua News Agency
Amal Saad, an expert on Hizballah, said that since 8 October, the group “has refrained from targeting Israeli civilians, much less Syrian Druze.”
“The strong support for the resistance movement among this community, which lives under Israeli occupation, makes it illogical for Hizballah to risk striking in this vicinity,” she added.
Targeting civilians, whether Syrian or Israeli, “wouldn’t be strategically beneficial for Hizballah when it would inevitably lead to all out war – a war which Hizballah has been very keen to avoid as demonstrated by its sub-threshold responses to Israeli strikes on Beirut and on civilians” in Lebanon, according to Saad.
She added the group has been careful to “avoid giving Israel any pretext for waging war” but “it’s entirely expected” that Israel would exploit the tragedy “in order to deflect attention away from its daily massacres of Palestinian children” in Gaza.
Not “a single drop of blood”
Majdal Shams residents chanted “murderer, murderer” at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he attempted to visit the site of the deadly strike on Monday.
Syrians reeling from the unprecedented mass casualty event in Majdal Shams issued a statement rejecting “that a single drop of blood be shed under the name of revenge for our children.”
After the deaths in Majdal Shams, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu canceled the exit of around 150 children from Gaza for medical treatment in the United Arab Emirates “for fear of public backlash,” the human rights group Gisha said.
In response to a petition from human rights groups, Israel’s high court on Sunday ordered the government “to inform it of its progress toward implementing a permanent mechanism for the medical evacuation of sick and injured Gazans,” The Times of Israel [reported]((https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-gives-government-7-days-to-come…).
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, announced that “85 sick and severely injured people,” including 35 children, were evacuated from Gaza to Abu Dhabi for specialized care on Tuesday.
“It is the largest medical evacuation since October 2023,” he said, adding that “63 family members and caregivers accompanied the patients.”
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights saidon Sunday that the ongoing closure of Gaza’s crossings, preventing “the travel of urgent and lifesaving cases,” makes clear “Israel’s commission of genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip.”
“Those who have not been killed by Israel’s war machine are not spared by the complete Israeli siege and closure on Gaza,” the rights group added, “leaving thousands of wounded and sick doomed to certain death.”
Death is all but guaranteed due to Israel’s “deliberate destruction and collapse of the healthcare system and the weakening of its remaining lifesaving resources,” according to PCHR.
Around 14,000 sick and injured patients, most of them children and older people, require care that is not available in Gaza.
PCHR estimates that hundreds of ill people have already died due to lack of access to medical treatment but there are “no statistics available in this regard due to disruptions in official medical monitoring and documentation systems.”
Israel assassinates Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, attempts to assassinate Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr; total killed in Khan Youn is over 250 in 9 days; sexual violence by Israeli prison guards against Palestinians is widespread: Physicians for Human Rights in Israel; general who ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7th promoted to commander of Gaza; 80 patients evacuated for medical treatment, as thousands more wait; humanitarian aid remains stalled at border; Israeli attack on the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza City; West Bank deaths; East Jerusalem evictions catch attention of UN; Congressional aides start a public channel to air grievances about Palestine policy
By IAK staff, from reports.
BREAKING: Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Tehran after Israel bombs Beirut
Electronic Intifada reports: Hamas announced early Wednesday that Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Palestinian faction’s political wing, was assassinated in Tehran, where he was present for the inauguration of the new Iranian president.
The assassination, in Iran no less, marks a major escalation that will likely have regional ramifications and came hours after Israel bombed Lebanon on Tuesday evening, killing three civilians, according to Lebanese state media. Israel claimed that it killed a senior Hezbollah figure in the strike, but the Lebanese resistance group had not issued a statement on the matter at the time of publication.
Israel killed multiple members representing multiple generations of Haniyeh’s family in Gaza since October. Several leaders of Hamas have been assassinated by Israel before Haniyeh, only to be replaced and for the organization’s capabilities to grow.
In January, Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas’ politburo, was killed in a strike in Beirut along with several other cadres and commanders with the group.
Two weeks ago, Israel claimed to have killed Muhammad Deif, the secretive head of Hamas’ armed wing, in a strike in Gaza that killed at least 90 Palestinians in an area it had unilaterally declared as a humanitarian zone.
Qatar PM asks, ‘How can mediation succeed when one side assassinates negotiator?’
Reuters reports: The prime minister of Qatar, which has acted as a mediator in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, suggested on Wednesday that the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh could jeopardise efforts to secure a truce in Gaza.
“Peace needs serious partners & a global stance against the disregard for human life,” he added in a post on X.
Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement that a “dangerous Israeli escalation policy” over the past two days had undermined efforts to broker an end to the fighting in Gaza, and “indicates the absence of Israeli political will to calm [the region] down.”
Israeli army says it assassinated top Hezbollah commander in Beirut attack
Andalou Agency reports: The Israeli military said late Tuesday that it assassinated Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s top military commander, in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
There has been no comment from Hezbollah on the attack so far.
“In a targeted, intelligence-based elimination, Israeli Air Force fighter jets eliminated Hezbollah’s most senior military commander and the head of its Strategic Unit, Fuad Shukr ‘Sayyid Muhsan’, in the area of Beirut,” the army said in a statement.
The army noted that Shukr served as “Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s right-hand man and was Nasrallah’s adviser for planning and directing wartime operations.”
NOTE: Israel’s attack on Hezbollah’s leader is in apparent “retaliation” after a projectile struck a community in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 youths. Israel blamed Hezbollah, which denied the allegation.
Indications in the hours following the incident suggest it may have been an Israeli Iron Dome missile. Kim Ghattas, a writer for The Atlantic and a Lebanon expert, told Times Radio that it is unlikely that Hezbollah ‘deliberately targeted’ the Golan Heights football pitch.
A view of street, filled with debris, following the Israeli attack on a building in Beirut, Lebanon on July 31, 2024. The Israeli army also claimed that it killed key Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s top military commander, in the strike. (photo)
Nine Palestinians killed by Israel while transporting bodies from Bureij camp
Al Jazeera reports: Exclusive footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows the first moments after a group of young men were targeted by the Israeli army while trying to transport bodies from the Bureij refugee camp to the Nuseirat camp on an animal-drawn cart.
Local sources and witnesses told Al Jazeera the men were bombed when they reached Salah al-Din Street.
The attack killed all of the men, nine in total.
Al Jazeera’s video footage shows the bodies of the nine victims lying on the ground, and Al-Awda Hospital said it had received nine victims from Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
In nine days, Israeli army killed 255 people in Khan Younis: Gaza officials
Al Jazeera reports: A statement on Telegram says 255 people have been killed, about 300 people wounded with 31 missing in the nine-day “horrific massacre” carried out on the eastern outskirts of Gaza’s second-largest city.
Thirty-one homes were bombed by the Israeli military while their residents were inside, the office said, adding 320 homes and residential buildings were struck in total. The army obstructed operations to reach dozens of wounded during the attack, it said.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the Israeli occupation’s horrific massacre against civilians and displaced persons in the east of the Khan Younis governorate,” the office said.
Accounts of sexual abuse in Israeli detention are not isolated incidents: medical group says
Middle East Monitor reports: Physicians for Human Rights in Israel (PHRI) reportedly said yesterday it has information about other cases of Palestinian prisoners who had been sexually assaulted by Israeli soldiers in the notorious Sde Teiman detention centre in the Negev desert in southern Israel.
PHRI said a victim of sexual violence was hospitalized three weeks ago and was in a life-threatening condition. He had injuries to the upper part of his body and a serious injury to the rectum.
It confirmed that it knows about other cases of sexual assault that have not been disclosed, either because the victims are afraid to complain to the Israeli authorities or because the authorities did not open an investigation.
“Mounting testimonies indicate these incidents are not isolated. They suggest systematic abuse and violence, and a blind eye to violations. The Sde Teiman torture facility must be shut down urgently, abuse across all prisons must end, and those responsible must be prosecuted,” it added in a tweet.
On Monday, Israeli public broadcaster KAN revealed that a Palestinian detainee was gang-raped by Israeli soldiers at the Sde Teiman. The detainee was taken to a hospital with severe injuries to an intimate body part, which left him unable to walk.
Ten Israeli reservists were detained as a result. However, far-right members of Israel’s cabinet have called on authorities to “take your hands off our fighters” and labelled the reservists “heroes”, while some tried to storm the detention centre they were being held in in an effort to free them.
In recent months, the army has released dozens of Palestinian detainees who bear signs of torture, malnutrition and exhaustion.
Israeli Army Appoints Gen. Barak Hiram – who ordered the killing of Israelis on October 7th – as Commander of Gaza Division
Ha’aretz reports: Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram will assume the post of commander of the Gaza Division of the Israeli army.
On October 7th, Hiram ordered a tank commander to break into a home in Kibbutz Be’eri that he knew housed Hamas fighters and Israelis. even at the risk of harming civilians. The tank fired shells at the house, killing 12 Israelis and a number of Hamas members. Two Israelis survived the attack.
When Hiram met with families of the Israeli victims, some of them called on him to resign, or to command another operational division. But, Hiram “insisted that precisely because he was the officer in charge in Be’eri, he is in the best position” to take over in Gaza.
When Hiram was asked what actions should be taken as part of accepting responsibility, he said: “I will correct the mistakes that were made when I take responsibility for the division. I don’t ask for thanks for this.”
NOTE: In January, Hiram ordered Israeli forces to blow up Al-Isra University, which they had used as a military headquarters prior to its demolition. Hiram was officially reprimanded for carrying out the demolition without prior approval from his superiors.
Endless occupation: How Israel has always rejected a Palestinian state
Passing with a 68-9 majority, the resolution “firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of Jordan”.
“If you look at all of the political parties’ platforms, they don’t believe in Palestinian freedom at all,” Palestinian human rights lawyer Diana Buttu told The New Arab.
“When they talk about a state – and very few of them do – they’re not talking about ending the occupation. They’re talking about something less than a state, just something that they can say they’ve gotten rid of Palestinians. But they’re never talking about ending control over Palestinian lives.”
Buttu noted the timing of the resolution’s vote is noteworthy, which came just a day before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was unlawful.
“Israel is sending a very clear message that they will never end the occupation, that it doesn’t matter what the ICJ says, and it doesn’t matter what the world says, they’re going to hold onto it,” Buttu said.
More than 80 patients evacuated from Gaza in biggest operation since war, WHO says
WHO reports: At least 85 sick and severely injured Palestinians from Gaza, including 35 children, were evacuated to Abu Dhabi for specialized care, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
“This extremely complex joint evacuation was supported by the (United Arab Emirates), WHO and partners. It is the largest medical evacuation since October 2023,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X.
The evacuated patients suffered from various severe conditions including cancer, neurological issues and cardiac diseases. They were accompanied by 63 family members and caregivers, Tedros said.
NOTE: The World Health Organization saidlast month that a minimum of 7,000 to over 11,000 Palestinian patients need immediate medical evacuations.
Gaza aid delivery still being ‘drastically impeded’, say aid agencies
ReliefWeb reports: Many aid organizations have supplies approved and waiting to enter the Gaza Strip, but the unloading zone at the Kerem Shalom/Karam Abu Salem border crossing on the Gaza side has been full for weeks due to high insecurity, Israeli military operations and the risk of looting given the soaring needs facing Palestinian families.
Save the Children managed to get four trucks (80 pallets) of medical supplies into Gaza on a convoy after waiting at the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel in the heat for over a month, following hostilities on the Gaza side of the border. The pallets included standard medication such as antibiotics and heart disease medications.
Save the Children’s teams also have 17 pallets of temperature-controlled medicines stuck in El-Arish, Egypt, including four boxes that require continuous refrigeration. Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) system only allows flatbed trucks, not the closed trucks required to transport such supplies, resulting in repeated rejections of such temperature-controlled shipments.
Other aid agencies confirmed that they are facing similar challenges. Oxfam has water tanks, desalination units, tap stands, generators and latrines approved but unable to enter through the crossing, whilst 864 tents procured by the Norwegian Refugee Council that had been at El-Arish port arrived recently at Kerem Shalom but still remain inaccessible due to insecurity and safety concerns.
Israeli attack on Greek Orthodox church in Gaza ‘crime against religions,’ authorities say
Andalou Agency reports: Palestinian authorities on Tuesday called an Israeli attack on the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza City a “crime against religions.”
Damage was reported after two missiles hit the building, where dozens of displaced Palestinian Christians have taken refuge.
A Palestinian official said that more than 600 mosques and all three churches in Gaza have been destroyed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7, 2023.
“These are crimes against religions and religious teachings,” he said. “Israel does not respect anything, and its army used 2,000-pound rockets and bombs (in attacking) churches and places of worship.”
Photos taken by Anadolu showed an unexploded ordnance on the church’s ground.
Saint Porphyrius Church is one of the oldest Christian sites in Gaza. It was built in the 5th century and named after Saint Porphyrius, whose tomb is inside the church.
A view of the damaged historical Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church, where civilians took shelter, after Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Gaza on October 20, 2023. [Ali Jadallah – Anadolu Agency] (photo)
West Bank: Palestinian in Nablus succumbs to critical injury from Israeli army gunfire
WAFA reports: A Palestinian Tuesday evening succumbed to his critical injury from Israeli army gunfire in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, according to security and medical sources.
They said that Ramadan Hussein Mohammad Sadeq died of his critical injury after being shot with live rounds fired by Israeli occupation forces in the head, chest and back.
Sadeq, 45, was shot by the gun-toting soldiers while in front of his house in the Nablus city neighborhood of Khallet al-Amoud.
During the raid, the soldiers fired barrages of live ammunition and tear gas canisters towards civilians’ houses.
Sadeq was rushed to a hospital in a critical condition. Attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful and he died afterwards.
West Bank: Palestinian north of Hebron succumbs to injury from Israeli army gunfire
WAFA reports: A Palestinian minor Tuesday evening succumbed to his injury from Israeli army gunfire near the Beit Einun village junction, north of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, according to security sources.
Mohammad Murad Mohammad Jaradat, 14, a resident of Sair, died of his injury he sustained after being hit by live rounds fired at close range on him by Israeli forces.
The soldiers left Jaradat bleeding on the ground and prevented Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) medics from reaching him.
Mohammad Sadeq (L) and Mohammad Murad Mohammad Jaradat (photo)
UN concerned over Palestinian families in East Jerusalem facing eviction
Al Jazeera reports: The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says it’s concerned that more than 80 Palestinian families face eviction from their homes in Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem due to “unlawful” and “discriminatory Israeli laws against Palestinians”.
In a statement, it said 87 Palestinian families, totaling 600 to 680 individuals, are facing legal proceedings initiated by Israeli settlers to evict them from their homes in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood.
It said the “systematic settlers’ campaign” aims to “uproot Palestinians from their homes, take over their property and implant Israeli settlers in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem”.
“International humanitarian law prohibits Israel from imposing its own laws in occupied territory, which includes the application of Israeli laws to evict Palestinians from their homes,” the UN said.
Aides in Congress Create Dissent Channel to Protest Support for Israel
New York Times reports: Since Israel began its military offensive in Gaza last fall, hundreds of congressional aides have spoken out in protest of the United States’ support for the war — many of them breaking with their bosses to do so.
Acting anonymously to protect their coveted positions on Capitol Hill, they have written letters, circulated petitions, posted on social media and, in some cases, walked off the job to push for a cease-fire and an end to the shipments of U.S.-made weapons to Israel.
They argue that members of Congress have refused to heed Americans’ objections — expressed through hundreds of thousands of calls, letters, emails and in-person visits to their offices — to the war and Israel’s conduct in it.
On Sunday night, a group of at least a dozen junior staff members escalated their objections by launching a website where they and their like-minded colleagues can publish anonymous memos criticizing U.S. policy on Israel and the war in Gaza — including their own bosses’ positions — without risking retaliation.
Organizers say the forum, known as the Congressional Dissent Channel, is modeled after the State Department’s dissent channel for Foreign Service officers. That channel was created during the Vietnam War— another conflict that opened bitter political divisions in the United States and galvanized a protest movement, particularly among young Americans.
But while that channel is a classified internal government system in which named authors offer dissenting views that are distributed carefully and confidentially, the new website is the opposite: a public platform where anonymous congressional aides can air their criticisms and spotlight private discord within their offices.
It is being created by the same group of staff aides that organized a pro-Palestinian staff walkout on Capitol Hill last week when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spoke to a joint meeting of Congress, and which planned an anonymous flower vigil outside the Capitol in November to demand a cease-fire.
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STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – JULY 30:
Palestinian death toll from October 7 – July 30: at least 39,991* (39,400 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.]
This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 591 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children).Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths.
Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.
Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.
At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank).
At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – July 30: at least 96,416 (including at least 90,996 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – July 30: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.
Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%.
*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that muchevidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.**
Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.
† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
![A view of the damaged historical Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church, where civilians took shelter, after Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Gaza on October 20, 2023. [Ali Jadallah – Anadolu Agency]](https://israelpalestinenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/7-31-c-300x200.jpg)
