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The Guardian
06-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Our days are full of hardship': people in Gaza barely dare to hope for success in ceasefire talks
In Gaza City on Sunday morning, there was only one topic of conversation: the possibility of peace. In the half ruined town, as across the entire territory, few took their eyes off their phones, a television or better informed relatives or friends for more than a few minutes. Um Fadi Ma'rouf, from the now ruined town of Beit Lahia in the far north of Gaza, said she was encouraged by the positive response from Hamas to the most recent US-sponsored proposal of terms for a deal. 'I think this means it will happen. I really hope it goes through because this situation has exhausted us,' said the 50year-old, who has been forced to move nine times during the conflict. Israel has so far rejected Hamas's demands for changes to a 14-point draft agreement circulated last week but on Sunday despatched a negotiating team to Qatar for indirect talks. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is scheduled to meet Donald Trump, who is thought to hope to announce a ceasefire himself, in Washington on Monday evening local time. In Gaza City, the mood was tense and subdued. In the early morning, barefoot children with torn clothes and dirty faces walked the cracked streets carried pots in search of food or scavenged for rubbish that could be used as fuel. Later, many of those living in stifling tents headed to the coast in search of respite from soaring temperatures. 'From time to time, we hear airstrikes, but they are very far away and barely audible,' one Gaza City resident told the Guardian. 'We haven't seen any planes but a warship came very close to the shore but caused no trouble. It didn't open fire.' There have been two previous ceasefires in Gaza, one in November 2023, and a second this year which came into effect in January but collapsed in March when Israel reneged on a promise to move to a second phase which might have led to a definitive end to the conflict. A new Israeli offensive followed and an 11-week total blockade that led to almost the entire population facing the threat of famine. The near 21-month war was triggered by a Hamas raid into Israel in October 2023 in which militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostages. Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, of whom more than half are thought to be dead. The ensuing Israeli offensive has reduced much of Gaza to rubble, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population multiple times and killed more than 57,000, mostly civilians. Ma'rouf said: 'During the last truce, I never expected the war to return. When it did, it was a tragic feeling – indescribable. I lost my sister in this war, along with around 20 other members of my extended family. My greatest fear is losing someone else from my family – one of my children, my siblings, or close relatives.' Nineteen-year-old Shahd Ashour, whose sister's fiance was killed just before the last ceasefire was announced, said she too was remaining cautious. 'My biggest fear now is that the news of the ceasefire turns out to be false – just rumours – and the war and killings continue. I still have hope, but only a little,' she said. Many children share such fears. Lama Al-Mubayyed, 12, told the Guardian she was scared of being 'torn apart, killed, paralysed or losing a limb'. 'I was so happy during the last ceasefire. We felt a bit safe. But when the war returned, I cried a lot because it meant going back to the suffering of tents, the summer heat, and repeated displacement,' Mubayyed said. Aid officials in Gaza said on Saturday that supplies of fuel, essential to run the generators that are the primary source of power in the territory, are now close to being exhausted. Without fresh deliveries, they said, humanitarian operations will collapse, the few remaining hospitals will be unable to function and communications will be cut off. 'We are hopeful about a ceasefire of course, but we need to know how much aid is going to get in and how fast, and who will be able to distribute it. There are a lot of questions that are unanswered,' one humanitarian official in Deir al-Balah said. In recent weeks the flow of aid into Gaza has varied, though it has been little more than a fraction of what is needed, UN officials said. Hundreds have died seeking food from looted trucks or a small number of distribution hubs. Prices for the limited basics available in the few markets vary wildly from day to day, though remain far too high for almost all in the territory to afford. On Sunday, a kilo of flour was selling for the equivalent of $10, a kilo of lentils for $12 and a kilo of rice or pasta for $14. 'The greatest hardship we're facing now – myself and everyone in Gaza – is finding food and water each day,' said Adel Sharaf, 18, who is from Beit Lahia but is now living in a tent after his home was destroyed. Many in Gaza are bracing themselves for bad news. Ahmad, from the al-Shujaiya neighbourhood that has been almost entirely destroyed in repeated Israeli military operations, said he was pessimistic 'because everyone was lying'. 'Every week they hear about a possible ceasefire, and then it falls apart. This is always what happens, just like in previous times,' the 35-year-old said. Abu Adham Abu Amro, 55, said he was afraid to hope because he had already lost 25 family members in the conflict. 'We pray to God that the ceasefire succeeds this time. Our days are full of hardship – struggling to access water and food, dealing with a shortage of resources, and the rise in prices,' Abu Amro, who is from Gaza City, said. 'Right now, I have no fears other than the possibility that the ceasefire won't happen this time.'
RNZ News
30-06-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Norwegian fund bars US, German arms makers over Gaza war
A picture taken from Jabalia city inside the Gaza Strip shows the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia amid destroyed buildings, in the north of the Gaza Strip, on 28 June. Photo: AFP/ Bashar Taleb Norway's biggest pension fund KLP says it has dropped US group Oshkosh Corporation and Germany's ThyssenKrupp from its investment portfolio for selling weapons and equipment used by Israel's military in Gaza. KLP - which is separate from Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest - said Oshkosh Corporation was supplying trucks to the Israeli military, which adapts them into armoured troop transport vehicles. The fund also accused ThyssenKrupp of agreeing to supply Israel's navy, before the outbreak of the war in Gaza, with corvettes and submarines. "Companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to avoid complicity in violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law," said Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP Asset Management, in a statement. KLP, which managed assets worth $US114 billion in the first quarter, sold its holdings in Oshkosh Corporation valued at 19 million kroner ($US1.9 million). It also sold its investment in ThyssenKrupp worth 10 million kroner. The two companies were excluded on the basis of KLP's criterion relating to the "sale of weapons to states in armed conflicts that use the weapons in ways that represent serious and systematic breaches of international law governing the conflicts", KLP said. The fund emphasised that the two companies had long-established cooperations with the Israeli army, and their deliveries continued after the start of the Gaza war on 7 October, 2023. "The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk state complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide," UN experts warned in June 2024. Meanwhile, Norway's sovereign wealth fund, whose assets are valued at around $US1.9 trillion, is also under pressure to divest further from groups accused of helping Israel wage war on Gaza and continue its settlement policy in the occupied West Bank. - Agence France-Presse
Telegraph
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Hamas tortures Gaza civilians while world distracted
The face of the young man staring into the camera as the crowd streams around him is strong and defiant. In his hands, the 26-year-old holds a banner bearing an incendiary message: ' Hamas does not represent us.' An accompanying video shows him spurring on others, openly fanning the flames of dissent while many of the people around him nervously avert their faces to avoid being identified on camera. That man is Ahmed al-Masri, one of the key organisers in northern Gaza of the protests that rocked the enclave in April and May. This week, pictures emerged of the same man on a stretcher, a frightened and helpless look in his eyes, his legs a bloodied mess. According to multiple sources who spoke to The Telegraph, Mr Al-Masri was abducted by Hamas gunmen in Beit Lahia, near the northern border with Israel, whereupon he was brutally tortured. His feet were deliberately broken with large stones and iron crowbars; he was also shot in the legs. The atrocity is part of an escalating wave of bloodshed unleashed by Hamas against the ordinary Gazans it purports to represent. As the terror group faces an unprecedented squeeze on its military and economic strength by Israel's grinding campaign, it is turning to ever crueller methods to keep control of an increasingly desperate population. Khaled Abu Toameh, a lecturer and expert on Palestinian affairs, said: 'After the protests of the last few months, they began executing and arresting people in order to intimidate the population and to terrorise. 'I think it's working. After a certain point, the protests disappeared.' In recent weeks, reports have multiplied of people being dragged out of aid lines, tortured in basements, or simply executed in broad daylight. One video, published gleefully by Hamas-affiliated social media accounts, showed masked figures using a long metal pole to smash a blindfolded man's kneecaps. His agonised screams and pleas for mercy are too visceral to properly describe. Much of this violence is done in the name of the so-called Sahm unit – meaning arrow in Arabic. Those who make it to hospital are sometimes hunted down and finished off in the wards. In Mr Al-Masri's case, the violence came in several waves, and was centred around a major medical facility. People with knowledge of the situation, too frightened of reprisals to be named, said the young activist was kidnapped and taken to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where he was interrogated and warned not to speak to the media. One said: 'They shot two people in front of him, then they shot him in the feet. 'They broke his feet with large stones and crowbars and threw him out in the sun for an hour. 'Then they brought an ambulance and took him to the hospital where they beat him on his feet inside the ambulance.' In another notorious incident earlier this month, Hamas gunmen allegedly taunted victims they had shot up earlier by preventing them entering a hospital, leaving them to writhe around outside. Mr Al-Masri, who runs a pharmacy business, was first taken to the main Al-Shifa hospital, but he has now been moved elsewhere for his safety, according to friends. They are now appealing to anyone who will help to get him out of Gaza, both to escape Hamas and to get proper treatment for his injuries. 'He's in an extremely bad way,' one person said. 'We are trying to do our best for him, but people are terrified of speaking out in case they're next.' Some activists believe Hamas has taken advantage of Israel's conflict with Iran to step up its campaign of intimidation while the eyes of the world are elsewhere. They are doing their best to flood the parts of social media seen by the West with graphic videos and photographs put out by Hamas in the Arabic corners of the internet that are mainly watched by people in Gaza. One, Howidy Hamza, described the victims as being 'killed twice'. First, by Hamas; second 'by a movement that refuses to see them', the pro-Palestine movement in the West, many of whose supporters, including those on university campuses, hold Hamas up as a legitimate organ of resistance. He made the point this week above a video of a blindfolded man being interrogated for alleged 'collaboration with the Palestinian Authority', the body that governs, under ultimate Israeli control, the West Bank. With that accusation amounting to a capital crime under Hamas's rule, it is likely the man was executed. The Telegraph has learnt details of a further killing of a protest organiser, Mohammed Abu Saeed, who led the movement in Khan Younis. Witnesses have said he was shot so many times in the feet that one had to be amputated. At his funeral, Hamas gunmen allegedly opened fire on the procession, killing members of his family. Alongside the physical violence, these smear campaigns against those who demonstrate dissent are a key Hamas tactic. In Gaza, accusing someone of collaborating with Israel is the worst slander. 'It goes back to the time of the British mandate,' said Mr Toameh. 'If you want to smear someone you accuse them of collaborating with the occupier. Thousands have died in the West Bank because of this since 1967.' One activist, who declined to be named, said the terror group had begun trying to entrap people into saying incriminating things by approaching them with fake social media accounts. Although the protests of April and May died out, Hamas faces an enormous challenge to its authority with the introduction of the new aid distribution system. Under a plan agreed by Israel and the US – and opposed by nearly everyone else – a US firm, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), distributes aid from a small number of specially created hubs. It has been condemned as inhumane, and there are almost daily mass shootings, with Israeli troops, who provide an outer ring of security for the US contractors, implicated by eyewitnesses. Despite the system's many cruelties, it does appear to have worried Hamas, which previously intercepted and then sold back huge amounts of aid that arrived into communities by truck. 'Hit with sticks, iron pipes and stones' On June 11, gunmen ambushed a bus carrying Palestinian workers for one of the GHF hubs in an area of Al-Mawasi, near Khan Younis, killing eight. One of the dead was Osama Sa'adu Al-Masahal. His sister, Heba Almisshal, said that after the shooting, 'my brother and his companions were transported to Nasser hospital, but they were not left in peace'. She added: 'The gunmen caught them, threw them at the hospital gate, prevented doctors and nurses from providing any help, and forced people to hit them with sticks, iron pipes and stones.' It was later suggested that Hamas had targeted the workers because it believed them to be associated with a militia tied to Yasser Abu Shabab, the leader of a clan in the south of the strip that is being armed by Israel. As starvation increases, emboldening desperate Gazans into questioning their rulers of the past two decades, the power of these armed families, which long pre-date the terror group, has grown. On Thursday, pictures emerged of the aftermath of a firefight in the Nasser hospital after Hamas gunmen had taken cover from furious family members of a young man they had allegedly just killed. Three of their vehicles were burned. Despite all this, Hamas remains by far the most powerful Palestinian group in Gaza. As the last few weeks have shown, suggestions by hard-line Israeli ministers that ordinary Gazans could simply 'throw off' the terror group – the implication being that maybe they did not really want to – proved to be cruelly wide of the mark. It means the population, more than a hundred of whom died in less than 24 hours on Thursday, continues to be caught between the Israeli war machine and jihadists who use their suffering to justify its case in front of the world.
BBC News
26-05-2025
- BBC News
Israeli strikes across Gaza kill 24, medics and officials say
At least 24 Palestinians have been killed in two separate Israeli air strikes overnight, including a strike on a school sheltering displaced families in central Gaza, according to medics and civil defence strike targeted Fahmi Al-Jargawi School in Gaza City, which had been housing hundreds of displaced people who fled the northern town of Beit Lahia, currently under intense Israeli military assault.A spokesperson for Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said 20 bodies, including children, were recovered from the school - many of them severely burned - after fires engulfed two classrooms turned into living Israeli military has been contacted for comment. "Flames were everywhere. I saw charred bodies lying on the ground," said Rami Rafiq, a resident living across from the school, in a phone call with BBC. "My son fainted when he saw the horrific scene."Video footage shared online showed large fires consuming parts of the school, with graphic images of severely burned victims, including children, and survivors suffering critical reports said among the dead was Mohammad Al-Kasih, the head of investigations for the Hamas police in northern Gaza, along with his wife and before the school strike, another Israeli air strike hit a home in central Gaza City, killing four more people, the Hamas-run health ministry twin attacks are part of a broader Israeli offensive that has escalated in the northern part of the enclave over the past week. On Friday, an Israeli strike on the home of a Palestinian doctor in Gaza killed nine of her 10 children. Dr Alaa al-Najjar's 11-year-old son was injured, along with her husband, Hamdi al-Najjar, who is in critical nine children - Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra - were aged between just a few months old and 12. The Israeli military has said the incident is under review. Meanwhile, the Red Cross said two of its staff were killed in a strike on their home in Khan Younis on killing of Ibrahim Eid, a weapon contamination officer, and Ahmad Abu Hilal, a security guard at the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah "points to the intolerable civilian death toll in Gaza", the ICRC said, repeating its call for a ceasefire. On Sunday, the head of a controversial US and Israeli-approved organisation that sought to use private firms to deliver aid to Gaza resigned. In a statement by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, executive director Jake Wood said it had become apparent that plans to set up distribution hubs would not meet the "humanitarian principles" of independence and imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March that lasted 11 weeks before it allowed limited aid to enter the territory in the face of warnings of famine and mounting international military body Cogat said on Saturday morning that 388 trucks carrying aid had entered Gaza since Monday. The UN says much more aid - between 500 to 600 trucks a day - is 20 countries and organisations met in Madrid on Sunday to discuss ending the war in Gaza. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called for an arms embargo on Israel if it did not stop its launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken least 53,939 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.
Asharq Al-Awsat
23-05-2025
- General
- Asharq Al-Awsat
No One Spared: How Gazans Struggle to Find Food
As the clock strikes noon, Waheed Abu Sabeeh calls out to his seven-year-old daughter, Bisan, handing her a small pot and urging her to hurry. Just a few dozen meters from their tent, a charitable kitchen offers a lifeline: a single serving of cooked food in Gaza's al-Shati (Beach) refugee camp. Abu Sabeeh, 47, was displaced from his home in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. He now lives with his wife and five children in a makeshift tent no larger than four square meters, pitched near an UNRWA school-turned-shelter in western Gaza City. Like thousands of others driven from their homes by war and poverty, Abu Sabeeh has little to feed his family. 'We survive on what the charity kitchen gives us,' he says, his voice weary. 'If it weren't for them, my children would sleep hungry.' Each day, Bisan, who should be in a classroom, joins a long queue of women, children, and men, clutching empty containers. The charity serves up modest portions of lentils, beans, peas, or rice, around 400 grams per person, with no extras. For nearly 90 minutes each day, sometimes even longer, seven-year-old Bisan waits in line under the sun, clutching a small pot outside a charity tent in Gaza's al-Shati refugee camp. On other days, she heads out early, hoping to beat the crowds. 'I go get the food to help my family eat because we have nothing at home,' she says in a soft, innocent voice. The food she brings back rarely stretches beyond one modest meal. On days when the kitchen runs out, the family makes do with bits of zaatar or hummus, sometimes without even bread. Her father used to run a small children's goods shop in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. But Israeli airstrikes destroyed his store and home nearly a year ago, leaving him and his family with nothing but a tent and the daily uncertainty of survival. 'Bisan waits for hours to bring back just a few spoonfuls,' the father told Asharq Al-Awsat. 'Sometimes she comes back empty-handed. Sometimes she gets caught in fights with other children, all pushing for food.' According to Bisan's dad, her behavior has changed. 'She's louder now, more aggressive,' he said. 'She pushes to the front. She shouts. She's learned that if she doesn't fight for it, she might not eat.' In Gaza, Mothers Wait Hours for a Ladle of Lentils Every day, 51-year-old Faten al-Masri clutches a cooking pot and joins a long line of people hoping to receive a small portion of lentils or rice from a charity kitchen in Gaza's devastated al-Rimal neighborhood. Originally from Beit Hanoun in the north, al-Masri and her 13-member family have been living in a tent for months, displaced by war. With no flour available, they eat whatever the kitchen provides, often without bread or any other accompaniment. 'Some days, I wait more than three hours just to get a little food,' she told Asharq Al-Awsat, her voice heavy with exhaustion. 'There's no flour, no extras. Just whatever they're offering. That's all we have.' Despite her chronic diabetes and the pain of standing for long periods, al-Masri says she has no choice but to endure the wait. 'My children are busy - one fetching water, another looking for something else,' she said. 'I go because I must. I'm sick, but I can't let my family go hungry. We have nothing.' Her words echo the desperation felt across the Gaza Strip, where hunger, displacement, and the collapse of basic services have forced even the elderly and infirm to queue for survival. Charity kitchens across Gaza - once a critical lifeline for displaced families - are now buckling under mounting pressure, with some scaling back portions and others halting operations entirely, Asharq Al-Awsat has observed. Once able to feed hundreds daily, several kitchens have begun rationing the limited supplies they receive. Others have shuttered altogether, unable to keep up with the soaring demand and dwindling resources. These kitchens are operated by a mix of international organizations, UN agencies, Arab charities, and local youth-led initiatives. But aid workers warn the situation is spiraling into what they describe as 'more than catastrophic,' as war, displacement, and a deepening blockade leave thousands at risk of starvation. Ali Matar, who helps run a charity kitchen in western Gaza, an area now crammed with displaced families from the north, says the food crisis is reaching a breaking point. 'There's a clear shortage of canned goods, rice, lentils, and other staples,' Matar told Asharq Al-Awsat. 'Suppliers are running out, and that's severely affecting our ability to cook and distribute meals. Hunger is tightening its grip on Gaza.' The soaring cost of what little food remains, such as beans, peas, and rice, is making it increasingly difficult for donors to sustain operations. Matar said the strain is pushing some humanitarian groups to shut down their kitchens entirely, as their storage shelves lie empty. 'Some of the Arab-funded and charitable organizations are now pooling resources just to keep cooking,' he said. 'But if this crisis isn't addressed soon, the consequences will be catastrophic. We could see dozens dying of hunger every week.' Under mounting international pressure to halt its military campaign in Gaza and allow aid in, Israel recently said it would permit the entry of 'essential' humanitarian supplies. Aid groups, however, say the announcement comes too late with assistance blocked since March 2 and needs growing exponentially.
