Israel sends tanks into suspected hostage area
The area is packed with Palestinians displaced during more than 21 months of war in Gaza, hundreds of whom fled west or south after Israel issued an evacuation order, saying it sought to destroy infrastructure and capabilities of the militant group Hamas.
Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques on Monday, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several others, local medics said.
"UN staff remain in Deir al-Balah, and two UN guesthouses have been struck, despite parties having been informed of the locations of UN premises, which are inviolable. These locations – as with all civilian sites – must be protected, regardless of evacuation orders," United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
To the south in Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike killed at least five people, including a husband and wife and their two children in a tent, medics said.
In its daily update, Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 130 Palestinians had been killed and more than 1000 wounded by Israeli gunfire and military strikes across the territory in the past 24 hours, one of the highest such totals in recent weeks.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis incidents.
Israeli sources have said the reason the army had stayed out of the Deir al-Balah districts was because they suspected Hamas might be holding hostages there. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in Gaza are believed to be still alive.
Families of the hostages have expressed concern for their relatives and demanded an explanation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz, and the army chief on how they will protect them.
"The people of Israel will not forgive anyone who knowingly endangered the hostages - both the living and the deceased. No one will be able to claim they didn't know what was at stake," the Hostage Families Forum Headquarters said in a statement.
Gaza health officials have warned of potential "mass deaths" in coming days from hunger, which has killed at least 19 people since Saturday, the Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry said.
HUNGER
A group of 25 Western countries including Britain, France, Canada and New Zealand said on Monday Israel must immediately end its war in Gaza and criticised what they called the "inhumane killing" of Palestinians, including hundreds near food distribution sites.
The countries in a joint statement condemned what they called the "drip feeding of aid" to Palestinians in Gaza and said it was "horrifying" that more than 800 civilians had been killed while seeking aid.
The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, which the United States and Israel backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the UN.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was appalled by an accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza "where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing," Dujarric said.
"He deplores the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition. Israel has the obligation to allow and facilitate by all the means at its disposal the humanitarian relief provided by the United Nations and by other humanitarian organisations."
Health officials say hospitals have been running out of fuel, food aid and medicine, risking a halt to vital operations.
Health Ministry spokesperson Khalil Al-Deqran said medical staff have been depending on one meal a day and that hundreds of people flock to hospitals every day, suffering from fatigue and exhaustion.
In southern Gaza, the Health Ministry said an Israeli undercover unit had on Monday detained Marwan Al-Hams, head of Gaza's field hospitals, in a raid that killed a local journalist and wounded another outside a field medical facility run by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
An ICRC spokesperson said the ICRC had treated patients injured in the incident but did not comment further on their status. It said it was "very concerned about the safety and security" around the field hospital.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel has raided and attacked hospitals across Gaza during the war, accusing Hamas of using them for military purposes, an accusation the group denies. Sending undercover forces to carry out arrests is rare.
The incursion into Deir al-Balah and growing number of deaths appeared to be complicating efforts to secure a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with United States backing.
A Hamas official told Reuters on Sunday that the militant group was angered by the mounting death toll and hunger crisis, and that this could affect the talks on a 60-day truce and hostage deal.
AID WAITING
UNRWA, the UN refugee agency dedicated to Palestinians, said on X it was receiving desperate messages from Gaza warning of starvation, including from its own staff, as food prices have soared.
"Meanwhile, just outside Gaza, stockpiled in warehouses, UNRWA has enough food for the entire population for over three months. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale," it said.
The Health Ministry said on Sunday at least 67 people were killed by Israeli fire as they waited for UN aid trucks to enter Gaza. It said at least 36 aid seekers were killed a day earlier.
Israel's military said its troops had fired warning shots to remove what it said was "an immediate threat." It said initial findings suggested reported casualty figures were inflated.
Israel's military said it "views the transfer of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip as a matter of utmost importance, and works to enable and facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community".
Britain and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and criticised the Israeli government's aid delivery model after hundreds of Palestinians were killed near sites distributing food. Israel rejected the statement "as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas."
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7 in 2023, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed over 59,000 Palestinians, according to health officials, displaced almost the entire population, and caused a humanitarian crisis.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
21 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Israel 'quite clearly' breaking international law
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Israel has "quite clearly" breached international law by limiting food deliveries to starving civilians in Gaza as he escalates his criticism of the Jewish state. Mr Albanese spoke of his emotional response to images of gaunt and dying children in the Palestinian territory, while acknowledging increased airdrops of aid by Israel was "a start". "It just breaks your heart," he told ABC's Insiders on Sunday. "A one-year-old boy is not a Hamas fighter, and the civilian casualties and deaths in Gaza is completely unacceptable. It's completely indefensible. "Quite clearly it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered, which was a decision that Israel made in March. It's a breach of decent humanity and of morality, and everyone can see that." But the prime minister would not commit Australia to following the lead of France in recognising Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly in September. Any resolution would need to guarantee Hamas, the defacto ruling authority in Gaza which is listed as a terrorist organisation by Australia, had no part in Palestine's future, he said. "We need security for the state of Israel, but you need to have the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians for their own state realised as well," Mr Albanese said. "That will mean security arrangements, it will need agreements as well about the rebuilding of Gaza and the West Bank. It will need the issue of settlements to resolve as well." Recognising a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution in the Middle East is included in Labor's national platform. "Are we about to imminently do that? No, we are not," Mr Albanese said. "But we will engage constructively. The United States as well will have a critical role in this, they have to play a role." Mr Albanese once again called for an immediate ceasefire and for Gaza to release Israeli hostages. But opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the government had failed to lay the blame for the war at the feet of Hamas in a statement condemning Israel's denial of aid on Friday. "What this statement does not do is squarely say to the global community, we would like to see the end of the war in Gaza. And the next sentence should have been, 'and we call on the terrorists Hamas, who commenced this war, and who are ensuring the suffering of the civilians in Gaza, to end this war tomorrow'," Senator Cash told Sky News.
NZ Herald
21 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Israel allows aid airdrops to Gaza as famine looms
Israel has said it would allow food to be airdropped to Gaza and designate humanitarian corridors for UN aid convoys, as thousands of Palestinians face the threat of widespread famine. Before Israel announced that the flights would resume, the United Arab Emirates had said it would restart aid drops and
Newsroom
21 hours ago
- Newsroom
Why NZ must resist the trashing of international law
Opinion: Last week, the foreign ministries of 30 countries, including New Zealand, belatedly issued a joint statement that acknowledged the 'suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths', demanded 'an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire', and warned Netanyahu's government of 'further action' if this was not achieved. However, this statement highlights something even bigger than the escalation of an Israeli-Palestinian conflict which, since the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023, has led to the death of more than 61,000 people – around 59,500 Palestinians and 1710 Israelis – and cost the lives of hundreds of journalists, academics and humanitarian aid workers. The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is a symptom of the post-9/11 erosion of an international rules-based order, enshrined in institutions like the United Nations and norms like multilateralism. The US' illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, China's assertiveness in the South China Sea, Putin's annexation of Crimea and subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as well as recent US trade protectionism are examples of an increasing trend that has weakened the importance of rules in global politics. During this period, the United Nations Security Council, the organ with formal responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, has repeatedly been paralysed by the veto powers of its five permanent members. The biggest offenders in this regard have been Russia, the US and China, three states imbued with a strong sense of national exceptionalism, that have not hesitated to cast a veto or act unilaterally to protect their perceived national concerns even if it undermines international law. It should be emphasised that most states including relatively small players like New Zealand and middle powers like Australia are dependent on an international-rules based order for their prosperity and security. While rules are often seen as an encumbrance by great powers, they are viewed by most small and middle powers as essential in order to conduct their international activities in a relatively safe, equitable and predictable fashion. Nevertheless some observers believe that smaller states like New Zealand are powerless to prevent the slide towards the 'law of the jungle' in the international arena. According to the so-called realist perspective, great powers do what great powers do and 'little' New Zealand has no choice but to quietly accept blatant violations of international law when they are committed by powerful traditional friends like the US or its close allies such as Israel. However, such a perspective exaggerates the role of great powers in the interconnected world of the 21st century. We should recall the founders of the UN in 1945 conferred the right of veto on five great powers of that time to ensure they remained in the organisation and helped solve the world's problems. This logic explains why the Labour New Zealand government, led by Prime Minister Peter Fraser, was prepared to reluctantly concede the necessity of the veto mechanism in the Security Council when the UN was established. Fast forward 80 years. In 2025, it is clear that superpowers such as the US or China cannot run the world – even if they want to – simply because key challenges such as climate change, pandemics, transnational terrorism and financial contagion do not respect borders and are simply too big to be resolved unilaterally or with the assistance of a few allies. This means, despite intensified geopolitical rivalries, small states and middle powers are not doomed to be fast followers and can, if they choose to act strategically in a multilateral fashion, exert some agency and influence on international issues where there is a void in great-power leadership. The precedent of the Christchurch Call in 2020, when New Zealand collaborated with France in a bid to curb online extremism which won the support of more than 55 states, including Biden's America, points to the potential for bottom-up multilateral initiatives in the contemporary era. Confronted with the steady decline of international rules in trade and security matters, smaller powers cannot rely on veto-wielding states in the UN Security Council to reverse this damaging trend. But the New Zealand government does have the option of reaching out to other members of the UN to build international support for a diplomatic initiative to reinvigorate the idea of an international rules-based order. This vision would involve reforming the Security Council to make it a more reliable barrier to war by curtailing the use of the veto by the permanent five states or at least pressing for a new arrangement whereby General Assembly resolutions with more than two-thirds' support become binding and not subject to a veto. Without curbing the use of the veto in the Security Council or significantly increasing the power of the UN General Assembly, certain states will continue to believe they are 'above the law' and the prospect of more barbaric conflicts like Gaza will remain an ever-present possibility in our world.
