Israeli fire kills 12 people in Gaza tent encampment housing displaced families, medics say
Medics said the tanks stationed north of Shati camp fired two shells at tents, housing displaced families, killing at least 12 people.
There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident.
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The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
Over 1,400 were killed in sectarian violence in coastal Syria in March, committee says
More than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, were killed in several days of sectarian violence on Syria 's coast earlier this year, a government committee tasked with investigating it said Tuesday. The violence was the first major incident to emerge after the ouster of longtime President Bashar Assad in December. It said there was no evidence that Syria's new military leaders ordered attacks on the Alawite community there, to which Assad belonged. Nearly 300 people suspected of committing crimes including murder, robbery, torture and looting and burning of homes and businesses were identified during the four-month investigation and referred for prosecution, and 37 people have been arrested, officials told journalists. They didn't say how many suspects were members of security forces. The committee's report came as Syria reels from a new round of sectarian violence in the south, which again has threatened to upend the country's fragile recovery from nearly 14 years of civil war. The violence on the coast began on March 6 when armed groups loyal to Assad attacked security forces of the new government, killing 238 of them, the committee said. In response, security forces descended on the coast from other areas of the country, joined by thousands of armed civilians. In total, some 200,000 armed men mobilized, the committee said. As they entered neighborhoods and villages, some — including members of military factions — committed 'widespread, serious violations against civilians,' committee spokesperson Yasser al-Farhan said. In some cases, armed men asked civilians whether they belonged to the Alawite sect and 'committed violations based on this,' the spokesperson said. The committee, however, found that the 'sectarian motives were mostly based on revenge, not ideology,' he said. Judge Jumaa al-Anzi, the committee's chair, said that 'we have no evidence that the (military) leaders gave orders to commit violations.' He also said investigators had not received reports of girls or women being kidnapped. Some rights groups, including a United Nations commission, have documented cases of Alawite women being kidnapped in the months since the violence. There have been ongoing, although scattered, reports of Alawites being killed, robbed and extorted since the violence. Tens of thousands of members of the minority sect have fled to neighboring Lebanon. There have been echoes of the coastal violence in the new clashes in southern Sweida province over the past two weeks. Those clashes broke out between Sunni Muslim Bedouin clans and armed groups of the Druze religious minority, and government security forces who intervened to restore order ended up siding with the Bedouins. Members of the security forces allegedly killed Druze civilians and looted and burned homes. Druze armed groups launched revenge attacks on Bedouin communities. Hundreds have been killed, and the U.N. says more than 128,500 people have been displaced. The violence has largely stopped as a ceasefire takes told. The committee chair said the violence in Sweida is 'painful for all Syrians' but 'beyond the jurisdiction' of his committee. 'Time will reveal what happened and who is responsible for it,' he said. ___ Associated Press writer Malak Harb in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
Gaza is ‘hell on earth' with doctors fainting from hunger, UN says, with snipers operating as if with ‘licence to kill' - Israel-Gaza war live
Update: Date: 2025-07-22T13:36:19.000Z Title: Further to earlier reports,', 'the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) said on Tuesday said it had received dozens of emergency messages from its staff describing grave conditions and exhaustion in Gaza, Reuters reports. Content: Head of UN Palestinian Refugee Agency says aid distribution points are a 'sadistic death trap' Joe Coughlan (now) and Tom Ambrose (earlier) Tue 22 Jul 2025 09.36 EDT First published on Tue 22 Jul 2025 03.01 EDT From 6.54am EDT 06:54 Further to earlier reports, the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) said on Tuesday said it had received dozens of emergency messages from its staff describing grave conditions and exhaustion in Gaza, Reuters reports. Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement: No one is spared: caretakers in Gaza are also in need of care. Doctors, nurses, journalists and humanitarians are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties: reporting atrocities or alleviating some of the suffering. Lazzarini also criticised a Israeli-backed logistics group run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has been supplying aid since late May, when Israel, which controls supplies into Gaza, lifted an 11-week blockade. Lazzarini said: The so called 'GHF' distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies and largely bypasses a UN-led system, that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation. More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the end of May, according to Unrwa estimates, Lazzarini said. The UN said on 15 July it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the GHF and convoys run by other relief groups. The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of GHF sites, while the remaining 201 were killed on the routes of other aid convoys. The Israeli foreign ministry, GHF and Cogat, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, were not immediately available for comment. GHF has previously told Reuters that such incidents have not occurred on its sites and accused the UN of misinformation, which it denies. Updated at 9.24am EDT 9.36am EDT 09:36 Gaza's health ministry said on Tuesday at least 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes in the past 24 hours, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. A six-week-old infant was among 15 people who have died of starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours, local health officials said, with malnutrition now killing Palestinians faster than at any point in the 21-month war. The infant died at a hospital ward in northern Gaza, the health officials said, naming him as Yousef al-Safadi. Three of the others were also children, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. The other two children were not named. Palestinian health officials say at least 101 people have died of hunger during the conflict, including 80 children, with most of them in recent weeks. Israel controls all aid supplies into the war-ravaged settlement, where most of the population has been displaced multiple times and faces acute shortages of basic necessities. There has been international condemnation of mass killings of civilians and dire shortages of aid in Gaza, but no action that has yet stopped the conflict, or significantly increased supplies. Israel's military said that it 'views the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of utmost importance', and works to facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community. It has denied accusations it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza and has accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of stealing food, an allegation Hamas denies. Tank shelling killed another 16 people living in tents in Gaza City on Tuesday, as Israeli troops launched attacks across the strip, health officials said. The Israeli military said it wasn't aware of any incident, or artillery in the area at that time. 9.21am EDT 09:21 Here are some of the latest photos of Gaza coming to us through the wires: 9.06am EDT 09:06 European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the images of civilians being killed in Gaza during humanitarian aid distributions are 'unbearable' and reiterated the EU's call for the safe and swift slow of humanitarian aid and respect for international law. She said in a post on X: Civilians cannot be targets. Never. The images from Gaza are unbearable. The EU reiterates its call for the free, safe and swift flow of humanitarian aid. And for the full respect of international and humanitarian law. Civilians in Gaza have suffered too much, for too long. It must stop now. Israel must deliver on its pledges. 8.51am EDT 08:51 Haroon Siddique Haroon Siddique is the Guardian's legal affairs correspondent. An intelligence assessment before Palestine Action was banned under anti-terrorism laws found that the vast majority of its activities were lawful, a court has heard. Raza Husain KC, appearing for Huda Ammori, a co-founder of the group, said Yvette Cooper's decision to proscribe the group on 5 July was 'repugnant' and an 'authoritarian and blatant abuse of power'. In written submissions for Monday's high court hearing, Husain and Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC said: 'On 'nature and scale', the home secretary accepts that only three of Palestine Action's at least 385 actions would meet the statutory definition of terrorism (… itself a dubious assessment).' Husain said it was for the court to consider 'whether that's sufficient or whether it's de minimis (too small to be meaningful) for a group that's been going for five years'. He added that the vast majority of the group's actions were assessed by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre to be lawful. You can read more of Haroon Siddique's piece here: UK ban on Palestine Action is an abuse of power, high court told 8.36am EDT 08:36 The head of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City said on Tuesday that 21 children had died across the Palestinian territory in the past three days 'due to malnutrition and starvation', Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, head of the hospital, told reporters: These deaths were recorded at hospitals in Gaza, including Al-Shifa in Gaza City, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah and Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis... over the past 72 hours. UN secretary general António Guterres warned on Monday evening that 'the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing' in Gaza, and that there were growing reports of children and adults with malnutrition. Abu Salmiya told reporters that new cases of malnutrition and starvation were arriving at Gaza's remaining functioning hospitals 'every moment'. He added: We are heading towards alarming numbers of deaths due to the starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza. After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on 2 March this year, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May. But stocks accumulated during the ceasefire gradually depleted, leaving the territory's more than 2 million inhabitants experiencing the worst shortages since the start of the war in October 2023. World Food Programme director Carl Skau, who visited Gaza City in early July, called the situation 'the worst' that he had ever seen. Last Sunday, Gaza's civil defence agency reported that at least three infants died from 'severe hunger and malnutrition' in the past week. Updated at 8.48am EDT 8.23am EDT 08:23 The head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) said on Tuesday that its staff members as well as doctors and humanitarian workers are fainting on duty due to hunger and exhaustion, describing the situation in Gaza as 'hell on earth'. The Unrwa estimates that 1,000 starving people have been reported killed while seeking food aid since the end of May. Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini also called the Israeli-backed logistics group run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation a 'sadistic death trap'. He said snipers opened fire randomly on crowds at aid sites as if they are given a 'licence to kill'. The GHF responded by claiming the UN was 'refusing' to deliver aid in Gaza that could help end the desperation in the region. Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people in Gaza, Palestinian health officials said on Tuesday, as Israel pushed on with a new incursion in Deir al-Balah, which had largely been spared heavy fighting during the 21-month war. The expansion of Israel's ground invasion comes as Israel and Hamas have been considering terms for a ceasefire for Gaza that would pause the fighting and free at least some hostages. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the Israeli military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Deir al-Balah on Monday, compromising its operations in Gaza. The WHO said its staff residence was attacked three times, with airstrikes causing a fire and extensive damage, and endangering staff and their families, including children. Amnesty International on Tuesday called for a war crimes investigation into Israel's deadly air attack on Tehran's Evin prison during last month's 12-day war. The strike, confirmed by Israel, killed 79 people, according to a provisional tally by Iranian authorities. At least 1,062 people died in Iran in its 12-day war with Israel last month, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday, Reuters reports. There were 102 women and 38 children among the dead. The previous official death toll was 935. Iran said on Tuesday that 27 inmates are still at large after an Israeli airstrike last month targeted Evin prison in the north of the capital, Tehran, local media reported. Regarding the possibility of reimposing international sanctions on Iran, state media quoted the country's deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi as saying on Tuesday that the Iranian government feels the 'snapback' mechanism lacks any legal ground. He was speaking ahead of a meeting on Friday with three European states known as the E3 – Britain, France and Germany. The E3 have said that if no progress is reached by the end of August over Iran's nuclear programme, they will invoke a 'snapback' mechanism – a process that would reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 deal in return for restrictions on Iran's nuclear programme. Government offices in at least 10 Iranian provinces, including the capital, have been ordered to close on Wednesday in a bid to conserve water and electricity, as temperatures in parts of southern and south-western Iran soared above 50C (122F). At least 10 provincial capitals recorded temperatures above 40C on Monday, including Tehran, which reached 40C for the first time this year, the meteorological agency said. 8.08am EDT 08:08 The Israeli-backed logistics group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has responded to earlier claims made by the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) about the emergency messages it claimed to be receiving from its staff on the conditions in Gaza, Reuters reports. The GHF told Reuters in a statement: UN has enough aid sitting in Gaza that they refuse to deliver and that could help end the desperation and help reduce or eliminate the violence around all aid distribution efforts if they would collaborate with us Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), told reporters on Tuesday that claims that the UN has stopped working are 'manifestly incorrect'. The GHF also claimed that the 'deadliest attacks' on aid distribution in Gaza have been linked to UN convoys. Updated at 9.23am EDT 7.52am EDT 07:52 All options are on the table if Israel does not deliver on its pledges to facilitate humanitarian aid in Gaza, the European Union's top diplomat said on Tuesday. 'The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible,' EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote in a post on X, adding that she spoke with Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar 'to recall our understanding on aid flow and made clear that IDF must stop killing people at distribution points.' Earlier this month, Kallas said Israel had agreed to expand humanitarian access to Gaza, including increasing the number of aid trucks, crossing points and routes to distribution hubs. 'All options remain on the table if Israel doesn't deliver on its pledges,' Kallas said. 7.44am EDT 07:44 Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people in Gaza, Palestinian health officials said on Tuesday, as Israel pushed on with a new incursion in an area that had largely been spared heavy fighting during the 21-month war. The expansion of Israel's ground invasion comes as Israel and Hamas have been considering terms for a ceasefire for Gaza that would pause the fighting and free at least some hostages, AP reported. The latest round of talks has dragged on for weeks with no signs of breakthrough, though negotiators have expressed optimism. With Israel expanding its control over large chunks of Gaza, an expected pullback of troops is a major point of contention in the talks. Updated at 8.13am EDT 7.16am EDT 07:16 Israeli displacement orders, followed by intensive attacks, on Deir al-Balah in Gaza will lead to further civilian deaths, the head of the UN human rights office said on Tuesday. 'It seemed the nightmare couldn't possibly get worse. And yet it does... Given the concentration of civilians in the area, and the means and methods of warfare employed by Israel until now, the risks of unlawful killings and other serious violations of international humanitarian law are extremely high,' Volker Turk, the head of the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights said on Tuesday in a statement. Updated at 8.13am EDT 6.54am EDT 06:54 Further to earlier reports, the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) said on Tuesday said it had received dozens of emergency messages from its staff describing grave conditions and exhaustion in Gaza, Reuters reports. Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement: No one is spared: caretakers in Gaza are also in need of care. Doctors, nurses, journalists and humanitarians are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties: reporting atrocities or alleviating some of the suffering. Lazzarini also criticised a Israeli-backed logistics group run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has been supplying aid since late May, when Israel, which controls supplies into Gaza, lifted an 11-week blockade. Lazzarini said: The so called 'GHF' distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies and largely bypasses a UN-led system, that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation. More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the end of May, according to Unrwa estimates, Lazzarini said. The UN said on 15 July it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the GHF and convoys run by other relief groups. The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of GHF sites, while the remaining 201 were killed on the routes of other aid convoys. The Israeli foreign ministry, GHF and Cogat, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, were not immediately available for comment. GHF has previously told Reuters that such incidents have not occurred on its sites and accused the UN of misinformation, which it denies. Updated at 9.24am EDT 6.33am EDT 06:33 The intelligence service of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has warned Iranian citizens of an increase in recruitment attempts by enemy intelligence agencies, state media reported on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Entangled in a decades-long shadow war with Israel, which was able to assassinate numerous military commanders and nuclear scientists in its 12-day air war on Iran last month, Iran is ever more concerned about infiltration by the Israeli Mossad spy agency. 6.18am EDT 06:18 Iran said on Tuesday that 27 inmates were still at large after an Israeli airstrike last month targeted Evin prison in the north of the capital, Tehran, local media reported, according to the Associated Press (AP). The airstrikes were part of Israel's 12-day bombardment of Iran that killed about 1,100 people, while 28 were left dead in Israel in Iranian retaliatory strikes. Judiciary's news website, Mizanonline, quoted spokesperson Asghar Jahangir as saying 75 prisoners had escaped after the strike, of which 48 were either recaptured or voluntarily returned. He said authorities will detain the others if they don't hand themselves over. Jahangir said the escapers were prisoners doing time for minor offences. Updated at 8.16am EDT 6.06am EDT 06:06 Amnesty International on Tuesday called for a war crimes investigation into Israel's deadly air attack on Tehran's Evin prison during last month's 12-day war. The strike, confirmed by Israel, killed 79 people, according to a provisional tally by Iranian authorities. It also destroyed part of the administrative building in Evin, a large, heavily fortified complex in the north of Tehran, which rights groups say holds political prisoners and foreign nationals. Amnesty International, an international non-governmental organisation that campaigns to protect human rights, said in a statement that the Israeli attack 'deliberate' and 'a serious violation of international humanitarian law'. The airstrikes should therefore be 'criminally investigated as war crimes', it said. Amnesty said: The Israeli military carried out multiple air strikes on Evin prison, killing and injuring scores of civilians and causing extensive damage and destruction in at least six locations across the prison complex. The organisation based its assessment on what it said were verified video footage, satellite images and witness statements. There was nothing to suggest that Evin prison could justifiably be seen as a 'legal military objective', it said. The victims of the 23 June attack on the prison included administrative staff, guards, prisoners and visiting relatives, as well as people living nearby. Between 1,500 and 2,000 prisoners were being held at the time in the prison. 5.43am EDT 05:43 Government offices in at least 10 Iranian provinces, including the capital, have been ordered to close on Wednesday in a bid to conserve water and electricity, as temperatures in parts of southern and south-western Iran soared above 50C (122F), Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. At least 10 provincial capitals recorded temperatures above 40C on Monday, including Tehran, which reached 40C for the first time this year, the meteorological agency said. The heatwave comes amid a sharp drop in rainfall – the worst in 60 years in the capital, according to Tehran's provincial water supply company. The drought has seen the water levels of dams supplying Tehran drop to 'their lowest level in a century', the company said, advising people to use a tank and pump to cope with ongoing water disruptions. Many residents across Tehran reported water outages lasting several hours in the past few days. 'The water crisis is more serious than what is being talked about,' president Masoud Pezeshkian warned on Sunday, adding that the country would 'face a situation in the future for which no solution can be found' if current trends continue. He said: Measures such as transferring water from other places to Tehran will not solve the problem fundamentally 5.28am EDT 05:28 The head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) said on Tuesday that its staff members as well as doctors and humanitarian workers are fainting on duty due to hunger and exhaustion, Reuters reports. Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement, shared by his spokesperson at a press briefing in Geneva: Caretakers, including UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, are also in need of care now, doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them, UNRWA staff are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties. Lazzarini described the situation in Gaza as 'hell on earth', adding that nowhere was safe. The Unrwa estimates that 1,000 starving people have been reported killed while seeking food aid since the end of May. After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on 2 March, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May. In a post on X on Monday, Unrwa said that shortages in the Palestinian territory had caused food prices to increase by 40 times, while the aid stockpiled in its warehouses outside Gaza could feed 'the entire population for over three months.' Updated at 8.10am EDT 5.20am EDT 05:20 The Roman Catholic church's most senior cleric in the Holy Land said on Tuesday that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was 'morally unacceptable', after visiting the war-torn Palestinian territory, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa told a news conference: We have seen men holding out in the sun for hours in the hope of a simple meal. It's morally unacceptable and unjustified.
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
Palestinians killed at Gaza refugee camp after shelling by Israeli tank
An Israeli tank shelled an encampment in Gaza City overnight. Gaza's health officials say at least 12 people were killed and dozens more wounded. Medics said the tanks were stationed north of al-Shati camp and fired two shells at tents housing displaced families. There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident
