The Gaza health ministry reported that 12 individuals, including children, perished in an airstrike targeting a displacement camp near Khan Yunis late on Tuesday….reports Asian Lite News
Israeli forces persisted in their assault on the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution for an immediate ceasefire.
The Gaza health ministry, controlled by Hamas, reported that 12 individuals, including children, perished in an airstrike targeting a displacement camp near Khan Yunis late on Tuesday.
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Israeli forces also continued their assault on Gaza City’s largest hospital and surrounded two other medical facilities in Khan Yunis, AFP reported. The Palestinian Red Crescent warned of thousands trapped in Nasser hospital, highlighting the perilous situation.
Israel withdraws negotiators
Meanwhile, Israel has recalled its negotiating team from Qatar after Hamas rejected its latest offer on a hostage deal and truce, it was reported. The delegation led by the Mossad chief, David Barnea, had been in Doha for eight days.
Israel has said that it will not relent to many of the demands put forward by the meditators, including Qatar and Egypt on behalf of the Hamas side.
According to sources in the Israel defence ministry, Hamas had again put forward a demand of a total ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli troops and rehabilitation of Palestinians in northern Gaza from the south where they have been staying as refugees since the war broke out.
Meanwhile, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement on Tuesday night said, “Hamas wanted a permanent ceasefire and its decision to reject a US brokered compromise was clear proof of it not interested in continuing talks, and a sad testament to the damage caused by the UN Security council resolution.”
The statement also said, “Israel won’t cave into delusional demands made by Hamas.”
The hawks in the Israeli establishment, including Defence Minister Yoav Gallant were not willing for even a temporary truce. This is owing to the military intelligence reports that Hamas military infrastructure has crumbled and only four battalions were remaining in southern Gaza and that it was only a matter of time before Hamas caves in.
UN says ‘acts of genocide’
A UN human rights expert says she believes Israel has committed “acts of genocide” in Gaza, BBC reported.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, presented her report to UN member states in Geneva on Tuesday.
But Israel has already dismissed her findings.
Albanese concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met”.
“One of the key findings is that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people,” a summary of the report stated.
It was on Monday the United Nations Security Council approved the resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and the “unconditional” release of all hostages held by Hamas following the October 7 attack on Israel.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asserted that the resolution must be implemented and any fall in its imposition would be “unforgivable.”
The draft resolution was put forward by 12 non-permanent members of the international forum, including Algeria, Guyana, Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Korea and Switzerland, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel cancels US visit
The White House has said that it was “perplexed” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to cancel a planned visit to Washington by a delegation comprising senior Israeli officials.
Netanyahu made the decision after the US on Monday abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote on a draft resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza until the end of Ramadan. US abstention, instead of veto, effectively gave the green light to the measure, Xinhua news agency reported.
“We are kind of perplexed by this,” John Kirby, spokesperson for the US National Security Council, told reporters at the White House daily briefing in reaction to the scraping of the Israeli delegation, which was invited by the Joe Biden administration to come to Washington for talks on a possible alternative to a ground operation by the Israeli military in Rafah.
Kirby said in a further explanation that the resolution, even as it got passed, would have “no impact at all on Israel and Israel’s ability to go after Hamas”.
Kirby added that abstaining the draft resolution “does not represent a change at all” in US policy coping with the situation in Gaza.
The US, according to Kirby, is still of the view that a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas should be part of a deal securing the release of those held hostage by Hamas. Meanwhile, the US “continues to stand with Israel as they fight Hamas”, Kirby said.
In what seemed to be the thinly veiled criticism of Netanyahu’s government, Kirby stressed that it is the US, not Israel, that gets to decide its own policy.
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