Injured baby at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah (photo)
By IAK staff, from reports: Al Jazeera reports: more than 12,100 children have been killed in Gaza since October 7th, according to Defense for Children International – Palestine. This number is likely to rise, given there are more than 8,000 people still missing under the rubble.
“Since October 7, an average of 250 children are killed every day as a result of the continuous bombardment by the Jews. This is unprecedented – it has not occurred in any place in the world subject to war,” General Director Khaled Quzmar told Al Jazeera.
OCHA reports: On Monday, a humanitarian aid convoy waiting to move into northern Gaza was hit by gunfire. There were no casualties.
On Sunday, a group of people waiting for humanitarian aid trucks near Al Kuwaiti roundabout in southern Gaza city were reportedly fired at. This marks the fifth time that shooting allegations on people gathering to obtain humanitarian aid supplies have been reported.
In January, 56 per cent of humanitarian aid missions planned for northern Gaza (34 out of 61) and 25 per cent of missions planned for the middle area (28 out of 114) were denied access by the Israeli authorities.
Palestine Chronicle reports: The number of aid trucks that entered Gaza since Israel began allowing humanitarian aid into the strip (October 21, 2023) is 9,831, equivalent to 94.5 per day. These trucks included food, water, relief aid, medical supplies, and medications.
Before the war, about 500 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza per day.
This decrease is taking place even at a time when devastated Gaza is in greater need for life-saving medicine, food, even water, among other critical supplies.
Andalou Agency reports: A food convoy came under Israeli naval artillery fire in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said. No one was injured in the attack.
“We cannot deliver humanitarian aid under fire,” the agency said. “Safe and sustainable humanitarian access is urgently needed everywhere including to the North of Gaza.”
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Rafah: There has been a notable increase of military strikes in the southern city Rafah, especially in the eastern parts, which might be the starting point for a military ground invasion. Israeli forces have already been attacking houses, agricultural lands and key infrastructure in Rafah. As a result, Palestinians here are completely terrified.
People are afraid they won’t be able to return to northern Gaza, Khan Younis or any other place where Israel has operated before, simply because they will find nothing but rubble and destruction.
Rafah has become flooded with the evacuees – in the streets, parks and residential houses and buildings.
People are struggling to get access to even one meal for their family members amid high prices and shortage of basic items despite a UN resolution calling for the increase of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
According to OCHA, it is estimated that Rafah is already hosting over half of Gaza’s population and five times its population prior to 7 October.
The British public broadcaster Channel 4 News said the Israeli intelligence dossier that forms the basis for allegations that UNRWA employees took part in the October 7 attacks “provides no evidence to support its explosive new claim that UNRWA staff were involved in the terror attacks on Israel.”
According to Channel 4 News, the dossier simply states that “from intelligence information, documents, and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and PIJ terrorists operatives who serve as UNRWA employees. More than 10 UNRWA staffers took part in the seventh of October”.
Other news outlets that have obtained the confidential report, including Sky News and The Financial Times (FT), have also expressed doubt about the strength of the evidence presented and also came to the same conclusion.
Rights advocates have warned that defunding UNRWA will worsen the humanitarian crisis for millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza and across the region.
Israel has long tried to dismantle UNWRA’s humanitarian support of Palestinian refugees. Israel’s 6-page dossier allegedly proving the guilt of twelve UNRWA employees out of a staff of 13,000, reportedly offers no compelling evidence – yet powerful countries have halted their financial support for the organization.
WEST BANK: Amnesty International reports: With the world’s eyes fixed on Gaza, Israeli forces have over the past four months unleashed a brutal wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, carrying out unlawful killings, including by using lethal force without necessity or disproportionately during protests and arrest raids, and denying medical assistance to those injured, said Amnesty International.
The organization investigated four emblematic cases where Israeli forces used unlawful lethal force– three incidents in October and one in November – which resulted in the unlawful killing of 20 Palestinians, including seven children.
Researchers remotely interviewed 12 people, 10 of them eyewitnesses, including first responders, and local residents. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab verified 19 videos and four photos in examining these four incidents.
Amnesty International’s research also found that Israeli forces obstructed medical assistance to people with life-threatening wounds and attacked those attempting to assist injured Palestinians, including paramedics. (Read the full report here.)
WEST BANK: Al Jazeera reports: The Israeli anti-occupation group Peace Now has issued a statement condemning an announcement from the Israeli Ministry of Housing over the weekend about a tender for the construction of 62 additional housing units in the settlement of Efrat, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
All Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law.
“The current tender is a clear statement by the Israeli government that settlement construction continues unabated, and any political resolution is far from the goals of this government.”
WEST BANK: Times of Israel reports: On 5 February, Israeli forces shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy at the entrance to Al ‘Eizariya town (Jerusalem). Video footage shows that the boy pulled out a knife to stab a Border Police officer. He was shot in the back as he ran away. Three Israeli police were present, and none of them were injured in the incident.
In an unrelated incident, another Palestinian man was shot and killed in Beersheba, southern Israel, after allegedly attempting to grab the weapon of an Israeli police officer. The suspect may have been intoxicated at time of incident, which officials are not treating as an attempted terror attack.
Electronic Intifada reports: An Israeli entrepreneur who has pitched a plan to a European firm for the territory’s future.
Or Bokobza, an Israeli reserve officer in the Sayeret Matkal elite commando unit, was deployed in Gaza for several weeks during October and November.
Bokobza, who lives in New York City ans is the chief executive of Venn, has participated in “every war since 2005.”
The Gaza Strip – which the plan assumes would be conquered and controlled by Israel – would be divided into two zones. In the northern zone, Palestinian collaborators would be permitted to live in relative comfort, while those who refuse to serve and obey their Israeli masters would be banished to a southern “area of terror.”
The Electronic Intifada has seen a copy of this so-called “day-after plan.”
The pitch reveals an underlying desire to conquer and control every inch of Palestine, including Gaza. (Read the full article here.)
Al-Jazeera reports: A White House-backed, bipartisan bill in the Senate would cut off aid to UNRWA.
Politico reports: Like everyone in the [Biden] administration and any Democrat with a pulse, [Joe Biden is] deeply suspicious of Benjamin Netanyahu, and privately has called the Israeli prime minister a “bad f***ing guy,” according to people who’ve talked to the president.
(Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said, “the president did not say that, nor would he,” adding that the two leaders have “a decades-long relationship that is respectful in public and in private.”)
NBC News reports: US President Joe Biden’s approval ratings continue to drop ahead of the country’s presidential election in November, hitting a record low of 37 per cent, according to new polling data.
One major issue among US voters is Israel’s war on Gaza, with fewer than three in 10 approving of Biden’s handling of the conflict, according to the polling. Further still, only 15 percent of voters under 35 approved of his approach, while 70 percent disapproved.
Reuters reports: Japan’s Itochu Corp’s aviation unit will end its strategic cooperation with Israeli defense company Elbit Systems Ltd by the end of the month after the ICJ ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians and do more to help civilians.
Itochu Aviation, Elbit Systems and Nippon Aircraft Supply (NAS) signed the strategic cooperation memorandum of understanding (MoU) in March last year.
“Taking into consideration the
International Court of Justice’s order on January 26, and that the
Japanese government supports the role of the Court, we have already
suspended new activities related to the MOU, and plan to end the MOU by
the end of February,” Itochu Chief Financial Officer Tsuyoshi Hachimura
said.
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