Israel is ‘seizing territory’ and will ‘divide up’ Gaza: war on Gaza Day 544

contact@ifamericansknew.org April 3, 2025 campus protest, execution in gaza, hungary, international criminal court, war reporting, Yemen

The outcome of an Israeli airstrike on Jabaliya after Israel and Gaza reached a ceasefire deal, in the north of Gaza City, Gaza on January 16, 2025 (Hasan N. H. Alzaanin – Anadolu Agency)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

Israeli attacks killed at least 77 Palestinians across Gaza on Wednesday, including 22 people in a strike on a clinic run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Jabalia.

Among the dead are at least 13 members of one family, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a home in the southern city of Khan Younis. An eyewitness said, “We didn’t find a single intact body. Not one had a head.” Among the grim discoveries, she said the headless body of a three-month-old infant was hurled onto a nearby tent by the blast’s force. (More below.)

At least 22 more were killed when Israeli warplanes hit an UNRWA-run health clinic in Jabaliya, Gaza’s government media office said.

Eight Palestinian farmers were also killed in an Israeli airstrike as they were tending their farmland.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed a 33-year-old Palestinian man on Wednesday, injured one, and abducted three others after invading the northern West Bank city of Nablus; also killed was a 15-year-old Palestinian youth in the town of Silat al-Harithiya, northwest of Jenin.

Palestinians carry the wounded, after an Israeli airstrike targeted tents sheltering displaced Palestinians, on April 2, 2025 in Khan Younis, Gaza (Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu Agency)

Israeli strike kills 12 members of Gaza family as offensive widens

An Israeli air strike on Khan Younis has killed at least 12 displaced Palestinians from the same family, relatives told Middle East Eye, as Israel expanded its offensive on Wednesday to seize “large areas” of Gaza.

The Qaoud family had survived over a year of Israeli attacks on Gaza, where they were displaced on several occasions.

Basma al-Qaoud, a relative of the victims, told MEE about the victims: “Yasser was a teacher, Abboud worked in cosmetics, Ismail worked in the old Palestinian Authority anyway. His children are all civilians. One of them was a bride preparing herself for her wedding, and the other was a groom engaged to a woman in Egypt. Another of his children was married and recently got pregnant.”

Two of the victims were three-month-old girls. Another child was three years old.

Israel says it is pursuing Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), but Palestinians say civilians are being deliberately targeted.

News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World

Since the 2000s, national governments and terrorist groups – from Israel, Syria’s Assad regime and the United States to the Islamic State – have found ways to curtail conflict coverage through myriad means, from repressive policies to armed attack. All have killed journalists and helped to foster a culture of impunity, turning conflict zones like Syria and Gaza into “news graveyards.”

The war in Gaza has, since October 7, 2023, killed more journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined. It is, quite simply, the worst ever conflict for reporters.

Worldwide, threats to journalists in conflict zones are increasing. In 2023, a journalist or media worker was, on average, killed or murdered every four days. In 2024, it was once every three days. Most reporters harmed or killed, as is the case in Gaza, are local journalists.

Not only do local reporters face great risk, standing alone in the face of extraordinary violence; this also impairs news coverage and, as a result, the worldwide information ecosystem. The decreasing number of experienced foreign correspondents in conflict zones, due to long term shifts in the global news industry that have led to the de-prioritization of international news coverage and the closure of foreign news bureaus, has likewise crippled critical knowledge and helped facilitate the creation of news graveyards.

Reliable information about wars and conflicts is essential for the wellbeing of local populations and is necessary to enlighten the world on the forces behind wars and the toll on civilians (read the full report here).

All bakeries supported by World Food Program in Gaza closed due to lack of flour, fuel

The UN World Food Program (WFP) early Wednesday announced that all bakeries it supports in the impoverished and war-devastated Gaza Strip were forced to shut down due to the continued Israeli closure of the crossings, depriving the Palestinians in Gaza of basic food and aid items.

“All 25 WFP-supported bakeries in Gaza have shut down due to lack of fuel and flour,” WFP said in a statement on X.

It also warned that its hot meal program for people in Gaza will only “last two weeks maximum.”

“WFP will distribute its last food parcels in the next two days,” the UN organization added.

Gaza civil defense confirms rescue workers ‘bound, executed, buried in mass grave’

The General Directorate of Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip confirmed on 2 April that Israeli forces executed Palestinian first responders and buried them in a mass grave in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, southern Gaza, on 23 March.

The General Directorate reported that the bodies of eight from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six from the Palestinian Civil Defense (PCD), and one UNRWA worker were found eight days later, buried approximately 200 meters from where their vehicles, an ambulance, and a fire engine had also been destroyed.

Some of the bodies were found with their hands bound and with bullet holes visible in their chests and heads. One of the victims had been decapitated, while others had been disfigured and dismembered.

The Directorate said that the executions amount to the “crime of genocide, requiring the free world and international humanitarian and human rights organizations to go beyond mere condemnation, but rather to genuinely intervene and pressure the occupation to implement international humanitarian law.”

It called for the formation of an international commission of inquiry to investigate the crime.

The Israeli military claims it is conducting an investigation into the incident.

NOTE: Israel’s self-investigations consistently whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators. Israeli sources, including the government itself, have a long track record of lying (for example, this and this and this.)

The Israeli military’s self-investigations tend to focus on individuals and individual incidents, ignoring the dangerous, far-reaching policies and assumptions rampant in Israeli thinking:impunity, lethality, and dehumanization.

Staff search for Red Crescent paramedics who were executed by Israeli forces, then buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza (Red Crescent)

Israel is ‘seizing territory’ and will ‘divide up’ Gaza, Netanyahu says

Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is “seizing territory” and intends to “divide up” the Gaza Strip by building a new security corridor, amid a major expansion of aerial and ground operations in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“Tonight, we have shifted gears in the Gaza Strip. The [Israeli army] is seizing territory, hitting the terrorists and destroying the infrastructure,” the prime minister said in a video statement on Wednesday evening.

“We are also doing another thing – seizing the ‘Morag route’. This will be the second Philadelphi route, another Philadelphi route,” he said, referring to an Israeli-held corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border.

“Because we are currently dividing up the strip, we are adding pressure step by step, so that our hostages will be given to us,” Netanyahu added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have seized buffer zones around Gaza’s edges totaling 62 sq km, or 17% of the strip, since the war began in October 2023, according to the Israeli human rights group Gisha.

The Netzarim corridor, named for a defunct Israeli settlement, now cuts off Gaza City from the south of the strip.

Morag was a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis, so the use of the name suggests the new corridor is designed to separate the two southern cities.

The Israeli prime minister’s announcement follows remarks on Wednesday from his defence minister, Israel Katz, who said the Israeli army would “seize large areas” of Gaza, necessitating large-scale civilian evacuations.

Neither Netanyahu nor Katz elaborated on how much Palestinian land Israel intended to capture in the renewed offensive, but the move is likely to complicate ceasefire talks and inflame fears that Israel intends to take permanent control of the strip when the war ends.

US airstrikes destroy water source for 50,000 Yemenis

US military aircraft bombed a reservoir in the Mansouriya district of Al-Hodeidah Governorate in western Yemen, cutting off water to more than 50,000 people, Al-Masirah TV reported on 2 April, and killing at least 3 Yemeni civilians.

“As a result of enemy attacks on the Al-Senif water reservoir and the Water Resources Administration building in the Mansouriya area, more than 50,000 citizens were left without water supplies,” the Yemeni channel stated.

Renewed US bombing of Yemen is compounding an already dire situation made worse after US President Donald Trump cut US humanitarian aid to the country.

NOTE: The Houthis are an Iran-aligned group based in Yemen and have said their attacks are a response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, and the international community’s failure to put an end to it.

They say their attacks on commercial and military ships with potential Israeli links are aimed at pressuring Tel Aviv to end its war on Gaza.

When the ceasefire took effect between Israel and Gaza took effect in January 2025, the Houthis stopped their attacks; when Israel blocked all humanitarian aid and broke the ceasefire, the attacks began again.

RELATED: US sanctions Houthi network for procurement of Russian weapons, Ukrainian grain

The site of a recent US airstrike in Yemen, on March 24, 2025 (Mohammed Hamoud – Anadolu Agency)

US Students Protest for Gaza, Refuse to Cower Amidst Government Threats

On Wednesday, Jewish students at Columbia University in New York having chained themselves to the university gates in protest against the detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. Meanwhile, at Harvard University in Massachusetts, students marched and demonstrated for an end to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and called for their university to divest from Israeli military investments.

After a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk, was abducted by plainclothes ICE agents last week, Harvard and other universities organized solidarity protests.

At Columbia University, students staged a sit-in demanding the release of their fellow student Mahmoud Khalil, who is being held by the Trump regime at an immigration detention center in Louisiana. Their protest came as a federal judge ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to move Khalil’s trial out of New Jersey to Louisiana.

Harvard, according to the MassLive’ paper in Massachusetts, closed its main quad in anticipation of protests and is requiring students to stop at a guard station and present their student IDs to enter. Securitas security guards were then posted at several buildings, including Widener, Johnston, Meyers (Thayer), Sever and Lamont.The Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s daily student newspaper, reported on two campus protests that took place on Thursday.

Numerous colleges and universities witnessed demonstrations and sit-in protests against the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and the arrest of a number of students by U.S. officials due to their anti-genocide stances.

RELATED: Want to Experience Fascism First-Hand? Attend Columbia University

Pro-Palestinian student protesters demonstrate at Columbia University on the third day of ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ after mass arrests by New York Police Department in New York, United States on April 19, 2024 (Selçuk Acar – Anadolu Agency)

ICC Rebukes Hungary for Refusing to Carry Out Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu

International human rights organizations joined the world’s top war crimes tribunal in condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary, expected to begin Wednesday evening—with the leader freely traveling to the European country without fear of being arrested under a warrant issued last year for Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza.

Hungarian President Viktor Orbán said last year that he rejected the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which directed member countries to arrest Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes they have committed in Gaza starting October 8, 2023.

Hungary’s far-right president—who took control of his country’s court system several years ago and has used it to further his own political goals, and who banned LGBTQ+ pride events last month—invited Netanyahu to visit Budapest, while his foreign minister called the warrants “shameful and absurd.”

Fadi El Abdallah, a spokesperson for the ICC, saidWednesday that it is not up to ICC signatories to “unilaterally determine the soundness of the court’s legal decisions,” which member countries are legally obligated to follow, including by making arrests when a suspect who is subject to a warrant sets foot within their borders (continue reading here).

Israeli and Hungarian National flags are raised on the oldest Hungarian bridge, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge in Budapest, on April 2, 2025, as preparations are underway for the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images)

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IMEMC Daily Reports

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – APRIL 1, 2025:

At least 51,347 Palestinians killed, 122,655 injured – including:
at least 50,399 killed in Gaza (~15,500 children)
at least 948 killed in the West Bank (~187 children)
at least 114,583 injured in Gaza
at least 8,072 injured in the West Bank

According to Palestinian authorities, during the ceasefire Jan. 19- March 18 2025, Israeli attacks killed at least 150 Gazans, and Israel committed at least 962 ceasefire violations.

Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 11,000 more are still buried under rubble.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – April 1, 2025: ~1,592 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 407 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

Thursday, 3 April 2025