Latest news with #MohammedalMughayyir
The Guardian
12-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Palestinians mourn people killed while waiting for food near Rafah aid centre
Gaza civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said 10 people were shot by Israeli forces on Friday while waiting for supplies in the Al-Shakoush area north-west of Rafah, where there have been repeated reports of deadly fire on aid seekers. The latest deaths came as the UN said nearly 800 people had been killed trying to access food in Gaza since late May, when Israel began easing a more than two-month blockade on deliveries
Observer
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Observer
Israeli fire kills 22 as Gazans face deep hunger
GAZA: Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 22 people across the Palestinian territory on Thursday, including 16 who were waiting to collect aid. The distribution of food and basic supplies in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip has become increasingly fraught and perilous, exacerbating the territory's deep hunger crisis. Civil defence official Mohammed al Mughayyir said that the Al Awda Hospital received 10 dead and around 200 wounded, including women and children, "after Israeli drones dropped multiple bombs on gatherings of civilians near an aid distribution point around the Netzarim checkpoint in central Gaza". He said that Gaza City's Al Shifa Hospital received six dead following Israeli attacks on aid queues near Netzarim and in the Al Sudaniya area in northwestern Gaza. The Israeli army said it was looking into the reports when asked for comment. Restrictions imposed on media in the Gaza Strip and the difficulties of access on the ground mean AFP is not able to independently verify the death tolls announced by the civil defence agency. Mughayyir said another six people were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza. The US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) accused Palestinian group Hamas of attacking aid workers en route to a distribution centre on Wednesday, saying at least five people were killed. GHF said a bus carrying its staff to a distribution site near the southern city of Khan Yunis was "brutally attacked by Hamas" around 10:00 pm. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach GHF distribution points since they began operating in late May, according to Gaza's civil defence agency. Israel's refusal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and its targeting of aid distribution points is causing civilians to starve which constitutes a war crime, Sweden's foreign minister said on Thursday. In early June, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said deadly attacks on civilians around aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip constituted "a war crime", while several rights groups including Amnesty International have accused Israel of genocide. Israel has vehemently rejected that term. "To use starvation of civilians as a method of war is a war crime. Life-saving humanitarian help must never be politicised or militarised," Maria Malmer Stenergard said at a press conference. "There are strong indications right now that Israel is not living up to its commitments under international humanitarian law," she said. "It is crucial that food, water and medicine swiftly reach the civilian population, many of whom are women and children living under wholly inhumane conditions," she said. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority said internet and fixed-line communication services were down in Gaza on Thursday following an attack on the territory's last fibre optic cable it blamed on Israel. "All internet and fixed-line communication services in the Gaza Strip have been cut following the targeting of the last remaining main fibre optic line in Gaza," the PA's telecommunications ministry said in a statement, accusing Israel of attempting to cut Gaza off from the world. "The southern and central Gaza Strip have now joined Gaza City and the northern part of the Strip in experiencing complete isolation for the second consecutive day," the ministry said in a statement. It added that its maintenance and repair teams had been unable to safely access the sites where damage occurred to the fibre optic cable. "The Israeli occupation continues to prevent technical teams from repairing the cables that were cut yesterday", it said, adding that Israeli authorities had prevented repairs to other telecommunication lines in Gaza "for weeks and months". The Palestinian Red Crescent said the communication lines were "directly targeted by occupation fores". It said the internet outage was hindering its emergency services by impeding communication with first responder teams in the field. "The emergency operations room is also struggling to coordinate with other organisations to respond to humanitarian cases." Maysa Monayer, spokeswoman for the Palestinian communication ministry, said that "mobile calls are still available with very limited capacity" in Gaza for the time being. Now in its 21st month, the war in Gaza has caused massive damage to infrastructure across the Palestinian territory, including water mains, power lines and roads. — AFP
Observer
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Observer
US eyes new truce talks as 44 Gazans killed
GAZA CITY: US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has presented a new proposal for a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that includes the release of 10 captives, according to media. As per the new draft plan, the captives are to be released in two groups within a week, several outlets reported. Palestinian group Hamas would also have to hand over the bodies of 18 captives still held in Gaza. The bodies of 180 Palestinians would also be handed over. In return, 125 Palestinians sentenced to life imprisonment and 1,111 Gaza residents who have been detained in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023 will be freed. The two-month truce is set to facilitate negotiations between Israel and Hamas on an end to the almost 20-month-long conflict, according to the reports. If Israel and Hamas manage to come to an agreement, the remaining captives are due to be released under the latest proposal. The proposal also stipulates that aid distribution in the Gaza Strip will once again be handled by the United Nations and international aid organisations. Meanwhile, at least 44 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, rescuers said, a day after a World Food Programme warehouse in the centre of the territory was looted by desperate Palestinians. After a more than two-month blockade, aid has finally begun to trickle back into Gaza, but the humanitarian situation remains dire after 18 months of devastating war. Food security experts say starvation is looming for one in five people. Gaza civil defence official Mohammed al Mughayyir said "44 people have been killed in Israeli raids", including 23 in a strike on home in Al Bureij.
Observer
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Observer
15 killed in Israeli attacks
GAZA CITY: Gaza's civil defence agency said on Saturday that 15 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Palestinian territory including five in one strike in Gaza City. "Fifteen people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza since dawn," civil defence official Mohammed al Mughayyir said. Five people were killed in an air strike on a tent in Gaza City at dawn he said. Elsewhere in the territory, where Israel's army resumed its offensive in March following a two-month truce, four people were killed in an Israeli bombardment in Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip. One child was killed in gunfire by the Israeli navy on the coast of Rafah, in the south of Gaza, Mughayyir added. AFP images showed mourners alongside bodies wrapped in white shrouds, which relatives said belonged to a single family killed in the Gaza City strike. "Three children, their mother and her husband were sleeping inside a tent and were bombed by an (Israeli) occupation aircraft," family member Omar Abu al Kass said. The strikes came "without warning and without having done anything wrong," added Abu al Kass, who said he was the children's maternal grandfather. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the strike. The new German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, who was due to visit Israel, called for "serious discussions for a ceasefire" in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation "is now unbearable". Wadephul is scheduled to meet with his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, on Sunday, followed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's October 2023 attack, which killed 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israeli retaliatory war has killed at least 52,810 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable. — AFP
Observer
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Observer
Israeli air strike kills 29, including children
GAZA: Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 29 people on Friday in the Palestinian territory, devastated by war and under a total Israeli aid blockade for two months. Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after the collapse of a ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting. Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, civil defence official Mohammed al Mughayyir said. Another six people were killed in a separate strike targeting the Al Masri family home in the northern city of Beit Lahia, he added. In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more, the civil defence agency reported. Elsewhere across the Gaza Strip, at least eight additional fatalities were reported in similar attacks, the agency said. Since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, at least 2,326 people have been killed, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming. On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the "verge of total collapse". "This situation must not — and cannot — be allowed to escalate further," Pascal Hundt, ICRC Deputy Director of Operations said in a statement. A youth draped in a blanket looks on as people look for survivors in the rubble of a building hit in an Israeli strike in the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on Friday. — AFP Meanwhile, Reuters said that a ship bound for Gaza carrying humanitarian aid and activists was bombed by drones in international waters off Malta early on Friday, its organisers said, alleging that Israel was to blame. The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the allegation by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an international non-governmental group. The Maltese government said the vessel and its crew were secured in the early hours of the morning after a nearby tug assisted with firefighting operations. Türkiye's foreign ministry said Turkish nationals were on board at the time of the incident and it was working with Maltese authorities to transfer them to a safe location. "We condemn in the strongest terms this attack on a civilian ship," it said, noting that there were "allegations that the ship was targeted by Israeli drones". "All necessary efforts will be made to reveal the details of the attack as soon as possible and to bring the perpetrators to justice," it said. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said she was in Malta and had been supposed to board the ship as part of the Freedom Flotilla's planned action in support of Gaza, which is under blockade and bombardment by Israel. BREAK THE BLOCKADE A spokeswoman for the NGO, Caoimhe Butterly, said the attack took place as the ship was preparing for activists to board from another vessel. A transfer at sea had been planned rather than the ship going to harbour, for bureaucratic reasons, she said. Thunberg said the attack had "caused an explosion and major damage to the vessel, which made it impossible to continue the mission". "I was part of the group who was supposed to board that boat today to continue the voyage towards Gaza, which is one of many attempts to open up a humanitarian corridor and to do our part to keep trying to break Israel's illegal siege on Gaza," she said in a Zoom interview. Thunberg and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said there were 30 people on board, not 16 as the Maltese government said. The coalition said it had been organising a non-violent action under a media blackout in order to avoid any potential sabotage. The Gaza war started after Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages to Gaza in the October 7, 2023 attacks, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's offensive on the enclave killed more than 52,000, according to Palestinian health officials. Since March 2, Israel has completely cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the enclave and food stockpiled during a ceasefire at the start of the year has all but run out, according to international aid agencies. — Agencies
