Starvation kills an 8-year-old girl in Gaza as Israel obstructs aid | Gaza

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Hanan Al-Zaanin, an 8-year-old Palestinian girl, has died from severe malnutrition due to the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where an Israeli blockade is preventing essential aid delivery. According to UNICEF, 3,000 Palestinian children are at risk of death from malnutrition.

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Significant part of Gaza facing ‘famine-like conditions’, WHO says | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza have been diagnosed with malnutrition, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, as Israel continues to severely restrict supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel to the territory.

“A significant proportion of Gaza’s population is now facing catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Wednesday.

“Despite reports of increased delivery of food, there is currently no evidence that those who need it most are receiving sufficient quantity and quality of food.”

Tedros said 8,000 children under five years old have been diagnosed and treated for acute malnutrition in Gaza.

“However, due to insecurity and lack of access, only two stabilisation centres for severely malnourished patients can operate,” the WHO chief added.

Tedros said 32 deaths in the besieged Palestinian enclave have been attributed to malnutrition.

United Nations officials have warned of the risk of famine as Israel continues its war on Gaza. In January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “ensure the delivery of basic services and essential humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza”.

The UN’s top court reasserted that ruling in March, demanding that Israel take “all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay… the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance”.

Some of Israel’s closest allies, including the United States, have also called for more aid to enter Gaza and reach people in need.

Last month, Israel seized and shut down the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which had served as a major gateway for aid and humanitarian workers.

Last month, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of alleged war crimes, including using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”.

A UN-backed independent commission also accused Israel of inflicting hunger on Palestinians.

“In relation to Israeli military operations and attacks in Gaza, the Commission found that Israeli authorities are responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare, murder or wilful killing, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, forcible transfer, sexual violence, torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, arbitrary detention and outrages upon personal dignity,” the panel said in a report on Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier this week that Israel has taken “important steps” in recent months to remove obstacles to aid delivery in Gaza, but he acknowledged that it “can and must do more”.

“It is crucial to speed up the inspection of trucks and reduce backlogs; to provide greater clarity on – and shorten the list of – prohibited goods; to increase visas for aid workers and to process them more quickly,” he said at a Gaza aid conference in Jordan on Tuesday.

Blinken, who announced $404m in new assistance to Palestinians, also called for “clearer, more effective channels” to protect humanitarian workers from military operations.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 270 aid workers in Gaza, including seven World Central Kitchen employees in April – an incident that sparked global outrage.

Aid organisations have been stressing that even the inadequate aid that gets into Gaza often fails to reach people who need it most because of the Israeli offensive.

“The US’s latest humanitarian package for Gaza is a welcome step,” the International Rescue Committee said on Wednesday. “However, the effective delivery of any financial package depends wholly on unfettered access for aid and the ability for aid workers to operate seamlessly.”

Beyond Gaza, the WHO’s Tedros highlighted a growing health crisis in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have killed hundreds of people since the outbreak of the war.

“WHO has documented 480 attacks on healthcare in the West Bank since the seventh of October last year, resulting in 16 deaths and 95 injuries,” he said.

In one major incident, undercover Israeli forces raided a hospital in Jenin and killed three people inside the medical centre.

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UN report on Israel, Hamas: Murder, starvation, gender-based violence | Israel-Palestine conflict

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The Israeli government and Palestinian groups including Hamas have committed war crimes during the war on Gaza, according to a report from the UN Commission of Inquiry. It detailed a long list of offences, including the use of extermination, starvation, indiscriminate attacks, siege warfare, and sexual and other gender-based violence.

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Blinken says some Hamas changes to Gaza ceasefire proposal ‘not workable’ | Israel-Palestine conflict News

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that some of the amendments proposed by Hamas to the United States’ proposal for a truce in Gaza are not “workable”, but efforts to reach an agreement are continuing.

Speaking from Doha alongside Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani on Wednesday, Blinken said Israel’s war on Gaza will continue “as a result” of Hamas’s response.

“Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table. We discussed those changes last night with Egyptian colleagues, and today with the prime minister,” Blinken said. “Some of the changes are workable. Some are not.”

Washington had presented the plan late last month, saying that it would lead to an “enduring” ceasefire in Gaza.

Hamas submitted its response jointly with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Tuesday, describing it as “responsible” and “positive”.

“The response puts the priority to the interest of our Palestinian people, the necessity to completely stop the ongoing aggression on Gaza, and the withdrawal [of Israeli forces] from the entire Gaza Strip,” the group said in a statement.

When US President Joe Biden announced the multi-phased proposal on May 31, he said it would include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent cessation of hostilities.

The discrepancy between Hamas’s position and the US proposal is unclear. On Tuesday, Blinken squarely blamed the Palestinian group for the failure to reach an agreement.

“A deal was on the table that was virtually identical to a proposal that Hamas put forward on May 6 – a deal that the entire world is behind, a deal Israel has accepted. And Hamas could have answered with a single word: Yes,” Blinken said.

“Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a number of which go beyond positions that it had previously taken and accepted.”

Israel had rejected the plan that Hamas agreed to early in May, and the Israeli government has not publicly endorsed the US deal.

In his news conference with Blinken, Qatar’s Sheikh Mohammed said talks to bridge the gap between the parties will continue.

“These are not new efforts or dynamics for negotiations. There is always space and ‘give and take’. After all, these are negotiations to reach an agreement. There is no absolute response – yes or no,” he said.

The Qatari prime minister called for a “sustainable solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would see the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Blinken also stressed the need for “durable” peace and building a “more integrated, more stable and more prosperous” Middle East.

“Over the course of what’s now my eighth visit to the region since October 7, everyone that I’ve engaged with has made clear that this is the path they want to pursue,” the top US diplomat said.

“Now, I can’t speak for Hamas or answer for Hamas. And ultimately, it may not be the path that Hamas wants to pursue, but Hamas cannot and will not be allowed to decide the future for this region and its people.”

The Biden administration and Arab countries have been calling for a two-state solution to the conflict, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over the entire area in the west of Jordan – and this is contrary to a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu said in a social media post in January.

Washington, which previously vetoed three United Nations Security Council resolutions that would have demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, provides $3.8bn in military aid to Israel annually.

Earlier this year, Biden signed off on $14bn in additional assistance to Israel as it pursues what it calls “total victory” against Hamas.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been pressing the Netanyahu government to present a plan for post-war Gaza.

On Wednesday, Blinken said the US will soon present its own vision for Gaza after the conflict.

“In the coming weeks, we will put forward proposals for key elements of the day-after plan, including concrete ideas for how to manage governance, security, [and] reconstruction,” he said. “That plan is key to turning a ceasefire into an enduring end to the conflict.”

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UN-backed commission accuses Israel and Palestinian groups of war crimes | Gaza News

An inquiry by a United Nations-backed commission has found that Israel and Palestinian groups have committed war crimes in the vicious war in Gaza, as it also accused Israel of “crimes against humanity”.

Twin reports on the actions of Israel and Palestinian groups, released on Wednesday by the independent Commission of Inquiry (COI), constitute the UN’s first in-depth investigation into the events since October 7. Both sides stand accused of indiscriminate killings and sexual violence.

The use of the term “crimes against humanity”, as in the report against Israel, is usually reserved for the most serious international crimes knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians.

The findings, based on interviews with victims and witnesses, submissions, satellite imagery, medical reports and verified open-source information, were swiftly condemned by Israel, extending the antagonism between the Israeli government and international organisations.

The commission, set up by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, will present the reports to the council next week. They cover the period from the attack on southern Israel by Palestinian groups on October 7 to the end of 2023.

‘Extermination’

The report on Israel’s actions says it committed acts including forced starvation, murder or wilful killing, collective punishment and intentional attacks on civilians. It takes note of “a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Gaza” by the Israeli military.

“The immense numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza and widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of a strategy undertaken with intent to cause maximum damage, disregarding the principles of distinction, proportionality and adequate precautions,” a COI statement says.

“The crimes against humanity of extermination; murder; gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys; forcible transfer; and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment were committed,” it reads.

The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes against Palestinians by Israeli security forces during the period amounted to signs that some forms of such violence “are part of ISF operating procedures”, it adds.

More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza and about 85,000 others injured, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health in the enclave.

‘Deliberate killings, sexual violence’

Israel launched its war in Gaza after the October 7 attack, in which Palestinian groups killed about 1,140 people and took some 240 others to Gaza as captives. Israel has said 116 captives remain in Gaza, of which 41 are reportedly dead.

A woman holds a placard as people take part in a protest demanding the immediate release of captives in Tel Aviv, Israel, June 10, 2024 [Marko Djurica/Reuters]

The report on the actions of Palestinian groups says the military wings of Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups performed deliberate killings and mistreatment of civilians, hostage-taking, and sexual and gender-based violence during the attack. Civilians and members of the Israeli security forces were victims, it notes.

“These actions constitute war crimes and violations and abuses of [international humanitarian and human rights law],” the report says.

“Women were subjected to gender-based violence during the course of their execution or abduction,” it says. However, it adds that reports of rape could not be independently verified. Hamas has repeatedly denied allegations its fighters committed acts of sexual violence during the attack.

The COI says it was “particularly egregious that children were targeted for abduction”.

The report also notes that Israeli authorities “failed to protect civilians in southern Israel on almost every front”.

‘Imperative’

“Israel must immediately stop its military operations and attacks in Gaza,” COI chair Navi Pillay said. “Hamas and Palestinian armed groups must immediately cease rocket attacks and release all hostages. The taking of hostages constitutes a war crime.”

“It is imperative that all those who have committed crimes be held accountable,” he added.

Israel, which refused to cooperate with the team of experts, was swift to condemn the report. Rejecting the findings, it accused the COI of “systematic anti-Israeli discrimination”.

“The CoI has once again proven that its actions are all in the service of a narrow-led political agenda against Israel. Today’s reports confirm what we have repeatedly said: the Pillay Commission will never do justice to the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism,” said Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN Meirav Eilon Shahar.

Israel has consistently accused international organisations, including the UN, of anti-Israel bias and anti-Semitism, with the claims increasing during its war in Gaza.

It reacted with fury last month as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) applied for arrest warrants against top Israeli and Hamas leaders, alleging war crimes.



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A House in Jerusalem holds the memories and grief of Nakba, dispossession | Arts and Culture

Palestinian film director Muayad Alayan has barely begun talking when he’s interrupted, a producer asking him to slightly move so that he can get a better shot.

Alayan smiles, changing his position. Trim, and in his late 30s, he’s been here before. He knows this story. He’s lived it. He stares into the camera and resumes.

Alayan’s latest film, A House in Jerusalem, tells the story of a British Jewish girl and her father moving into a home they inherited from her grandfather in Jerusalem.

However, on another level, it’s about much more than that.

Alayan’s film, released in cinemas in the United Kingdom last month, details the multiple intersecting traumas, occurring across different families and generations and continents, all connecting in the airy, well-lit rooms of the imposing house of the title.

The setting, Jerusalem, a city that has been divided since 1948 and the eastern half of which has been under occupation since 1967, remains a place of divides as deep as the disputes that simmer there.

In the film, the young girl, Rebecca, goes to Jerusalem with her father, Michael, following a family tragedy.

Muayad Alayan’s family were ethnically cleansed from West Jerusalem in 1948 [Courtesy: A House In Jerusalem]

There, she encounters Rasha, the spirit of a Palestinian girl locked within a tragedy of her own, one reaching all the way back to the 1948 Nakba, when more than 750,000 Palestinians were violently ejected from their homes to clear the way for Israeli settlement.

Alayan knows Jerusalem’s tragedy well. He describes how both sides of his family were forced from the city during the Nakba, the memory of that time living on in the stories of lives and neighbourhoods consigned to the past.

You “carry this trauma and, this weight and of the past and the memories with them,” he tells Al Jazeera. During a nighttime drive through West Jerusalem around 15 years ago, Alayan came across a scene that eventually led to his film A House in Jerusalem.

Alayan describes passing through his family’s old neighbourhood, one whose topography he already knew through the stories of his grandfather’s butcher’s shop, where his father had worked – the monasteries, churches and schools that, before 1948, had been their world.

There, he spotted one of the sprawling old houses whose original owners he also knew.

A cab was parked in the driveway.

Rasha (Sheherazade Makhoul Farrell), right, and Rebecca by the well in the garden [Courtesy: A House In Jerusalem]

“This family was getting their luggage out of the van and into the house. It looked like a newly immigrant Jewish family,” he says, describing how he had sat and watched as the parents and their daughter had made their way through the night into the house, the street lamp coating them in an ethereal, almost ghostly light.

“You know, I was like, ‘What if this girl meets the ghosts of the people who lived in this house? What is she being told by her family about this house?’,” he says of the stories families tell themselves about how they come to occupy such imposing and storied properties.

“And what possibly could she find out on her own?”

Memories of the Nakba

Knowing nothing of the history of the region and with her own father consumed by grief, Rebecca – and, by extension, the viewer – is left to chip away at the tragedy of the past on her own.

Over the next hour and three quarters, there follows a poignant exploration of the horrors of the past and how they can reach forward to ensnare the traumas of the present.

Together, themes of grief, loss and powerful longing intersect to create something unique, one that speaks as much to contemporary Jerusalem as it does its past.

Rebecca embarks on a journey to find the truth behind their house’s history [Courtesy: A House In Jerusalem]

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of nationalist flag-waving Israelis marched through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, just a few miles from where Alayan now lives, chanting racist slogans and attacking Palestinians.

To the south, in Gaza, the death toll from Israel’s war on the enclave has surpassed 37,000.

“Thousands and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced in the Nakba in 1948,” Alayan says. “But never, ever did I imagine that the film would be released during such a time when, once again, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are displaced, their homes are destroyed and bombed … thousands of people are killed and injured.”

Portraying this through the eyes of children, for whom the fate of a missing doll outweighs the generations of occupation and injustice, was a deliberate choice.

“Children are, through their innocence, brave,” Alayan says, describing how he used the central character of Rebecca, transplanted from England and with no knowledge of the region’s past, to explore Jerusalem and challenge the narratives believed by many modern Israelis to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 and the continued occupation of Palestinian territory.

“Some are told it was an empty land,” he says. “You know, some are told [the Palestinians] just left and the houses were empty,” he says incredulously.

“I mean, I’ve heard so many different stories,” he adds, recounting how he’s been told more than once that Palestinians weren’t even from Palestine, but from Jordan and Iraq. Now, at least in West Jerusalem, their traces can only be found underground or in water tanks, like the remains of a lost civilization that modernity has erased.

Into this void, Alayan places the two girls: one, Rebecca, who must reach into the past from the present; and another, Rasha, a Palestinian, whose world was never allowed to progress beyond the Nakba. Connecting their lives is the railway line that runs from the house in Jerusalem to the refugee camps of Bethlehem – where many of the Palestinians of Jerusalem ended up.

“The railway used to go in front of my grandfather’s house,” Alayan recalls.

“My father, even when he was in his 70s … could walk on the tracks with his eyes closed, because he remembered them from his childhood,” he says, describing how his father could still recall the distance between sleepers as they snaked their way past the villages of al-Maliha and the remnants of other communities destroyed to make way for Israeli roads and dividing walls.

Alayan sits back in his chair. The producer is silent.

Rasha’s doll that Rebecca rescued from the well, its embroidery still vibrant after more than 70 years submerged [Courtesy: A House In Jerusalem]

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Israeli attack hits Palestinian tent camp in central Gaza | Gaza

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Watch the moment an Israeli strike hit a tent camp on the beach in central Gaza, an area crowded with forcibly displaced Palestinians who’ve fled fighting across the Strip in search of safety. At least one person was injured in the attack.

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Israeli forces kill six Palestinians in West Bank raid | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Attack in Kafr Dan near Jenin comes as the Israeli military intensifies its deadly assaults in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces have killed six Palestinians during a raid in the village of Kafr Dan near Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has said, as Israel intensifies its attacks on the territory amid the war on Gaza.

An Israeli special forces unit entered the village on Tuesday and besieged a home before shelling it, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

The six slain men were aged 21 to 32, according to the Health Ministry. One of them, Ahmad Smoudi, was the brother of a 12-year-old child who was fatally shot by Israeli forces in Jenin in 2022.

The Jenin battalion of the al-Quds Brigades – the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – had said earlier on Tuesday that it was engaged in “fierce” fighting with Israeli troops in Kafr Dan.

The Israeli military said it carried out a “counterterrorism” operation in the village, killing four armed Palestinians. The army added that it used attack helicopters in the assault and sustained no casualties.

Israeli forces killed four Palestinians west of Ramallah on Monday and three others in Jenin on Friday.

The Israeli military has been regularly conducting deadly raids in the West Bank over the past few years – a trend that escalated with the start of the war on Gaza.

According to Palestinian health authorities, Israel has killed 544 Palestinians, including 133 children, in the West Bank since October 2023 when the violence in Gaza broke out. Israel has also detained thousands of Palestinians during that period.

Palestinians in the West Bank have also faced violent attacks from Israeli settlers, who have assaulted farmers and raided Palestinian towns in the past months, often under the protection of the Israeli military.

Rawhi Fattouh, Palestinian National Council, said the Israeli raids in the West Bank was a “continuation of the massacres, ethnic cleansing and genocide targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza”.

“This racist [Israeli] government is looking through all means to detonate the situation in the West Bank and the region and to turn the conflict into a religious, ideological fight that would bring the region into a furnace of violence, killing and massacres,” Fattouh said in a statement.

He called on the international community to intervene and “quell this madness”.

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Hamas and PIJ submit response to UN-backed Gaza ceasefire plan | Gaza News

Hamas has responded to a US-backed proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and an exchange of captives for prisoners with some “remarks” on the plan, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have said.

Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group said in a joint statement on Tuesday that they were ready to “deal positively to arrive at an agreement” and that their priority is to bring a “complete stop” to Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen television channel that the group had “submitted some remarks on the proposal to the mediators”. He did not give any details.

“The Hamas response reaffirmed the group’s stance [that] any agreement must end the Zionist aggression on our people, get the Israeli forces out, reconstruct Gaza and achieve a serious prisoners swap deal,” a Hamas official told Reuters news agency.

The foreign ministries of Qatar and Egypt said in a joint statement that they were examining the response and that they would continue their mediation efforts along with the United States “until an agreement is reached”.

White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said the US had also received and was evaluating the response.

“We are working our way through the Hamas response,” Kirby told reporters.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan reported that Hamas and PIJ leaders said the response that was delivered includes amendments.

“The amendments include a complete withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip, including the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor,” Khan said, referring to the vital border crossing with Egypt.

“The Israelis want one thing … the destruction of Hamas both politically and militarily,” he said. “What this proposal suggests is that Hamas may well survive in some way, shape, or form.”

The response comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the Middle East seeking to secure agreement for the ceasefire plan and plans for post-war reconstruction and governance in Gaza.

Blinken met Israeli officials on Tuesday in a push to end the eight-month-old Israeli air and ground offensive that has devastated Gaza, a day after the US-backed proposal for a truce was approved by the United Nations Security Council.

‘We will believe it only when we see it’

As part of his eighth trip to the Middle East since the Gaza assault began, Blinken also sought steps to prevent months of border clashes between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah from escalating into a full-scale war.

On Monday, Blinken had talks in Cairo with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, a key mediator in the war, in Cairo before proceeding to Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Blinken’s consultations in Israel on Tuesday included one with centrist former military chief Benny Gantz, who resigned from Israel’s war cabinet on Sunday over what he said was Netanyahu’s failure to outline a plan for ending the conflict.

Blinken, speaking later in the day at a conference in Jordan on the humanitarian response for Gaza, announced $404m in aid for Palestinians and called on other donors to also “step up”.

Egypt’s el-Sisi told the gathering on the Dead Sea that nations should force Israel to stop what he called the use of hunger as a weapon and remove obstacles to aid distribution in Gaza.

Biden has repeatedly declared that ceasefires were close over the past several months, but there has been only one, week-long truce, in November, when more than 100 captives were freed in exchange for about 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Biden’s proposal envisages a ceasefire and phased release of captives in exchange for Palestinians detained in Israel, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the deadly assault.

The US is Israel’s closest ally and biggest arms supplier but, along with much of the world, has become sharply critical of the huge death toll in Gaza and the destruction and humanitarian calamity wrought by the Israeli offensive.

In the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Palestinians reacted warily to the Security Council vote, fearing it could prove yet another ceasefire initiative that goes nowhere.

“We will believe it only when we see it,” said Shaban Abdel-Raouf, 47, from a displaced family of five sheltering in the central city of Deir el-Balah, a frequent target of Israeli firepower.

“When they tell us to pack our belongings and prepare to go back to Gaza City, we will know it is true,” he told Reuters via a chat app.

Also Tuesday, the UN human rights office said both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups may have committed war crimes in connection with a deadly raid by Israeli forces that freed four hostages and killed at least 274 Palestinians over the weekend in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.

Meanwhile, Palestinians said Israeli forces operating in the southern city of Rafah blew up a cluster of homes on Tuesday. An Israeli air strike on a main street in Gaza City also killed at least four people, medics said.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 37,100 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Palestinians are facing widespread hunger and looming famine because Israeli forces have largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies by sealing the borders shut.

UN agencies say more than one million people in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by mid-July.

Israel launched the offensive after Hamas’s October 7 attack, in which its fighters stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,139 people and abducted about 250, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on official Israeli statistics.



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World leaders at Gaza aid conference urge Israel, Hamas to back ceasefire | Israel-Palestine conflict

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World leaders at a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza called on both Israel and Hamas to back a ceasefire proposal endorsed at the UN Security Council, saying it is the best way to alleviate suffering. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him that he is committed to getting the proposal “across the finish line.”

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