Tag: Gaza

Extreme cold in the Gaza Strip and little to no heating and shelter have resulted in the deaths of several Palestinian infants.

At least six Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip have died as a result of freezing temperatures and a lack of adequate housing in the enclave, the health ministry said.

One doctor said on Monday evening that the nursery department received eight cases of children suffering from severe cold who were admitted to intensive care, according to The New Arab’s siter site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. At least three of those children died within hours of their admission, and were only aged between one and two days old.

The Gaza Strip is experiencing extremely cold weather conditions, as well as a lack of heating and shelter as more and more Palestinians return to rubble and destroyed homes amid the ongoing ceasefire.

The number of deaths due to the cold in Gaza has risen to 8, including 7 children, since the first week of 2025.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues to delay the release of Palestinian detainees who were due to be freed last Saturday, while Israeli media reports say that Tel Aviv “intends to pressure” Hamas to advance the date for handing over the bodies of four Israeli captives, as well as extending the first phase of the deal for an additional 42 days.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at Israel during a visit to Pakistan, speaking up in defense of Palestinians in Gaza and condemning ideas of forcibly displacing them from their land

By MUNIR AHMED &
SUZAN FRASER

ISLAMABAD — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Israel during a visit to Pakistan on Thursday, speaking up in defense of Palestinians in Gaza and condemning ideas to forcibly displace them from their land.

Speaking at a business forum, Erdogan accused Israel of failing to keep to a ceasefire agreement, warning that the region was being dragged “toward blood and tears again.”

Erdogan reiterated his opposition to President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza.

“Gaza belongs to our Gazan brothers and sisters and will remain so forever,” he said in a televised speech at a business forum in the capital, Islamabad. Erdogan arrived on a two-day visit on Wednesday night.

“The homeland for which the Palestinians have sacrificed tens of thousands of their children is not up for bargaining,” he added.

Earlier on Thursday, Erdogan held talks on Gaza and bilateral Turkey-Pakistani trade and cooperation with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The two leaders also jointly chaired strategic cooperation talks between their countries and witnessed the signing of 24 agreements and a memorandums of understanding on boosting economic and defense ties.

At the business forum, Sharif said the two nations would try to increase the volume of their annual bilateral trade to $5 billion, from the current $1 billion.

“Alongside Pakistan, we strive to provide every effort possible to support to the just cause of our Palestinian brothers, both within the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and other platforms,” Erdogan also said.

“We must strengthen this determined stance, especially at a time when there are unlawful and morally unacceptable proposals such as tearing our Gazan brothers from their homeland,” he added.

Erdogan was earlier welcomed by people in traditional Turkish and Pakistani dress who lined a key city road decorated with Turkish and Pakistani flags. Erdogan was accompanied on the trip by his wife, Emine Erdogan.

The Turkish leader is also to meet with his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari.

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

Third countries that enable Israel’s “unlawful occupation” of Palestinian territory and assist it despite warnings of war crimes and possible genocide in the Gaza Strip should be considered “complicit”, United Nations experts have warned.

“Israel’s internationally wrongful acts give rise to state responsibility, not only for Israel, but for all states,” Navi Pillay, the head of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, said on Friday.

The commission has published a new legal position paper spelling out specific actions required after a recent advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declaring Israel’s occupation since 1967 “unlawful”.

It also examines the implications of last month’s UN General Assembly vote demanding the occupation end within a year.

The three-person commission, established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged international law violations in Israel and the Palestinian territory, pointed first to Israel’s obligations.

The General Assembly vote meant Israel was under an international legal obligation to cease all new settlement activity and dismantle existing settlements as rapidly as possible, the commission noted.

“Israel must immediately put into place a comprehensive plan of action that will physically evacuate all settlers from occupied territory,” it added.

The commission also demanded that Israel “return land, title and natural resources to the Palestinians who have been displaced since 1967”.

All of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967 and inhabited by about 700,000 Israeli settlers, including occupied East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

More than 500,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlements across the West Bank. Their existence remains a major roadblock to since-halted plans outlined in the Oslo Accords that promised the gradual transfer of Israeli-controlled areas to Palestinians.

Both Israeli army and settler violence in the West Bank has surged since Israel’s war in Gaza began. About three million Palestinians in the territory are subjected to Israeli military rule.

Other countries also have a list of obligations to fulfil, according to the commission.

Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, stated all countries are “obligated not to recognise territorial or sovereignty claims made by Israel over the occupied territories”.

States are required to “distinguish in their dealings between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory”, and no country should “recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or place its diplomatic representatives to Israel in Jerusalem”, she continued.

States must also refrain from rendering “aid or assistance in maintaining the unlawful occupation”, she noted, adding that this included all “financial, military and political aid or support”.

The commission likewise insisted that all states must comply with their “obligations under the Genocide Convention” and follow the provisional measures ordered by the ICJ in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

“The commission finds that all states are on notice that Israel may be or is committing internationally wrongful acts in both its conduct in the military operations in Gaza and its unlawful occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” the position paper said.

“Thus, the commission finds that, unless states cease their aid and assistance to Israel in the commission of these acts, those states shall be deemed to be complicit in those internationally wrongful acts,” it added.

Israel has long accused the independent UN commission of “systematic anti-Israel discrimination”.

The commission has stressed that the UN also needs to do more to ensure Israel complies with its obligations under international law.

It decried the UN Security Council in particular for repeatedly failing to act due to the veto power wielded by one of its five permanent members, implicitly referring to the United States, Israel’s main ally.

“The commission is of the view that, when peremptory norms of international law are violated, the permanent members of the Security Council should not be allowed to exercise their veto as this is contrary to the obligation to uphold peremptory norms of international law,” it stressed.

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GAZA:   (Xinhua)/Flowerbudnews:  — At least 19 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others injured on Sunday in Israeli shelling on a school housing displaced persons in the Nuseirat refugee camp of central Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources.

Local sources and eyewitnesses reported that Israeli artillery fired on the Al-Mufti school, which houses dozens of displaced families in the northern Nuseirat camp.

The ambulance crew and civil defense units quickly arrived at the targeted site, they said, adding flashlight beams and mobile phone lights pierced the darkness caused by a power outage as rescue workers worked to transport the injured.

Paramedics said the rescue team recovered 19 bodies and around 80 injured people, including children and women, and transported them to hospitals in central Gaza.

Also on Sunday, five children were killed by the Israeli army in the west of the Al-Shati camp of northern Gaza, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported.

The Israeli military has not yet commented on these attacks.

The ongoing Israeli offensive follows a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead and around 250 taken hostage. Gaza-based health authorities said on Sunday that the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli airstrikes has reached 42,227.

GAZA:   (Xinhua)/Flowerbudnews– At least 33 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others injured in the past 24 hours as the Israeli army intensified its military operation in the Jabalia refugee camp of northern Gaza, sources said on Saturday.

The Civil Defense Authority in Gaza said in a press statement that Israeli warplanes bombed several inhabited homes in the Jabalia area and its camp.

It added that artillery shelled Jabalia and its outskirts intensively overnight while drones fired at homes and schools housing displaced people.

According to local sources and eyewitnesses, the Israeli army carried out extensive house-to-house bombing operations, causing huge explosions.

Paramedics told Xinhua that medical teams and the civil defense apparatus recovered the bodies of 25 Palestinians, including children and women, and found 96 injured others. They said some missing persons are still under the rubble.

In Gaza City, eight people were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli attack on a house and a gathering of Palestinians, all of whom were taken to hospitals, the sources added.

Doctors Without Borders, a global medical charity, said in a press statement on Friday that thousands of Palestinians are still trapped in the Jabalia area due to Israel’s military operation.

Meanwhile, highlighting Israel’s complete siege on northern Gaza, the Palestinian presidency held the U.S. administration responsible for the ongoing war in Gaza.

In a statement carried by the official news agency WAFA, presidency spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said U.S. support has allowed Israel to continue its “aggression” and to defy international law and all resolutions of international legitimacy.

He urged the U.S. administration to stop backing Israel’s “brutal crimes,” which are leading the region to a “comprehensive explosion” that has unbearable consequences.

Meanwhile, Hamas denounced the killings in Jabalia as “a continuation of the ongoing criminal war of extermination” and “revenge against defenseless civilians with U.S. support.”

Expressing concern over the latest escalation in northern Gaza, the Central Committee of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) stressed the need to implement UN resolutions and called for the “broadest” international action to save people there.

The Israeli army renewed Saturday its orders for residents in large areas of northern Gaza to evacuate their homes as it is pressing on with its fresh military operation in the area that began last Sunday, which it said aims to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee, in a statement on Saturday, called for residents in some areas in northern Gaza to evacuate to the area in southern Gaza designated by the military as a humanitarian zone.

“The army is operating with great force against the terrorist organizations and will continue to do so for a long time. The area, including shelters there, is considered a dangerous combat zone,” he warned.

Israel has been conducting a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, during which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 others taken hostage.

The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza has risen to 42,175, local health authorities said in a statement on Saturday.

GAZA,: (Xinhua)/Flowerbudnews:  — The Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip has been under a tight Israeli siege for the fourth day in a row, as Israeli forces continued escalating attacks in the region, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries and a mass exodus of residents, Palestinian sources and eyewitnesses have said.

Palestinian security sources told Xinhua that the Israeli army imposed a blockade on the Jabalia area, preventing the entry of food, water, and medicine.

According to the sources, the Israeli army is besieging a number of hospitals in the north and conducting raids near them.

On Sunday, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee announced the “encirclement” of the Jabalia area, which came after the army received intelligence indicating the presence of armed elements and infrastructure, as well as “Hamas attempts to restore terrorist structures” in the area.

Israeli warplanes on Wednesday bombed a school and a hospital sheltering displaced people in Jabalia, as well as the refugee camp and some houses, while military vehicles fired at a gathering of Palestinians, including journalists, according to Palestinian sources and eyewitnesses.

The Hamas-run media office in Gaza said in a statement that the Israeli army is committing “crimes” against civilians in the north, especially in the Jabalia refugee camp.

Since Sunday, more than 125 people have been killed, and dozens of bodies are still lying on the streets, as ambulances and civil defense vehicles have been unable to reach them, the statement said, calling on the international community to intervene immediately to protect civilians.

Palestinian medical sources reported that Israeli vehicles targeted the crew of the Hamas-run al-Aqsa Satellite Channel in the west of Jabalia camp, killing its cameraman, Mohammed al-Tanani, and critically wounding its reporter, Tamer Lobad.

This is the third time that the Israeli army has launched a large-scale military operation in northern Gaza, during which the army attempted to force residents to flee to the south of the strip.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said on social media platform X on Wednesday that at least 400,000 people are now trapped in northern Gaza.

“Recent evacuation orders from the Israeli authorities are forcing people to flee again and again, especially from the Jabalia camp,” Lazzarini said. “Many are refusing because they know too well that no place anywhere in Gaza is safe.”

Israel has been conducting a large-scale offensive against Hamas in response to a Hamas attack along the southern Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, which resulted in approximately 1,200 fatalities and around 250 hostages taken.

The ongoing Israeli assaults have raised the Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip to 42,010, according to local health authorities on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the total number of injured individuals in the enclave has reached 97,720.