Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Oct 15, 2023 12:16:43 GMT -5
‘The next stage is coming’: Israel issues warning as residents flee Gaza assault
Israeli troops in tanks and other armoured vehicles amass in a field near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Saturday October 14. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinian man carries a wounded girl at the site of Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 14 October. Photograph: Reuters
People search for survivors at the site of an Israeli rocket attack in Al-Shati refugee camp in the west of Gaza City on Saturday. A ground offensive by Israel on the enclave is expected soon. Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA
Palestinians in Gaza City — riding donkeys, driving cars and walking — flee northern Gaza on Friday after the Israeli military's warning to leave their homes and move south before an expected ground offensive.
Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images
Palestinians inspect damage to their homes caused by Israeli airstrikes on Saturday in Gaza City. Photograph: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Oct 15, 2023 12:32:57 GMT -5
Israeli tanks head toward the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on Friday.
Ariel Schalit/AP
An emergency responder carries a wounded child in a hospital following Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, on Friday. Israel orders 1 million Gazans to evacuate; U.N. says that’s impossible
Israeli armored personnel carriers head toward the Gaza Strip border Friday. (Ariel Schalit/AP)
Displaced Palestinian families from the northern and central Gaza Strip evacuate toward southern Gaza on Friday. (Loay Ayyoub for The Washington Post)
A large truck carrying dozens of displaced Palestinians from the northern and central Gaza Strip makes its way south on Friday. (Loay Ayyoub for The Washington Post)
Dana Ben Chaim, 34, her husband, Maor, 34, and their children wait to be evacuated with other Israelis in Sderot on Sunday. The couple have six children and Dana is six months pregnant. They have lived in Sderot for 15 years. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
Avi Shai Azouli, a medic, prays near an ambulance at an office of the Magen David Adom, Israel's national emergency service, in Sderot on Sunday. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Oct 15, 2023 12:36:28 GMT -5
Israel has ordered a mass evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from northern Gaza, including 22 hospitals. The Israeli government designated two ‘safe routes’ but thousands are afraid to leave their homes after Israeli bombardment killed fleeing civilians. Doctors in hospitals in northern Gaza are refusing to evacuate and leave patients relying on life-saving medical equipment unable to be transported. Medical facilities in the south are overwhelmed as evacuations continue with fears electricity and fuel could be cut off and leave the heath system to ‘shut down’
Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Oct 15, 2023 12:49:33 GMT -5
Remember that God had chosen Israel from all the peoples on the earth for his own special possession and had given promises to this people unlike that to any other.
For example in Deuteronomy 14:2 Moses reminds the people of Israel,
You are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. And in Isaiah 43:1 we read,
Thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine."
O God, do not remain silent; do not turn a deaf ear, do not stand aloof, O God. See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads.” (Psalm 83:1–2)
Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Oct 15, 2023 12:51:07 GMT -5
A Song. A Psalm of Asaph. 83 O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God! 2 For behold, your enemies make an uproar; those who hate you have raised their heads. 3 They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. 4 They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” 5 For they conspire with one accord; against you they make a covenant— 6 the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites, 7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; 8 Asshur also has joined them; they are the strong arm of the children of Lot. Selah
9 Do to them as you did to Midian, as to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon, 10 who were destroyed at En-dor, who became dung for the ground. 11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna, 12 who said, “Let us take possession for ourselves of the pastures of God.”
Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Oct 15, 2023 12:52:52 GMT -5
The Nazis forcibly remove men, woman, and children from Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 after crushing the Jewish resistance that opposed Nazi Germany’s effort to transport the remaining Ghetto population to the Treblinka extermination camp.
Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Oct 16, 2023 10:12:09 GMT -5
7m ago 11.00 EDT Summary of the day so far … It is 6pm in Gaza and in Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of today’s events …
Israel has activated a plan to evacuate residents within 2km (1.2 miles) of Lebanon, the military said on Monday. It follows exchanges of fire with Hezbollah in parallel to the conflict in southern Israel with Hamas. In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces and the ministry of defence said the plan had been approved by the defence secretary, Yoav Gallant, and included the evacuation of 28 settlements. Residents will be moved to state-subsidised guest houses.
The Israeli military has said it has confirmed that Hamas is holding 199 hostages in Gaza. The hostages were seized on Saturday 7 October when Hamas fighters broke through the Israeli border fence in southern Israel, and attacked a music festival and multiple settlements killing more than 1,300 Israelis.
The Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said “there is a top national priority effort for the issue of the abductees and we are focused on this effort as a national top priority. The IDF is working around the clock to return the abductees,” adding that the IDF had notified the families of all 199. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem, has offered himself in exchange for child hostages.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset that the nation of Israel is united in its goal of victory, while conceding that there would be an investigation into the intelligence and security failures that had allowed Hamas to mount such a devastating attack. He called on the world to unite and fight Hamas.
Gaza’s health ministry says at least 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since 7 October. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has said that Israel has killed 11 Palestinian journalists in its airstrikes on Gaza.
The UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has said “there are not enough body bags for the dead in Gaza”. Its latest situational report noted that Gaza had been without electricity for five days, there was limited access to clean drinking water, and more than 1 million people had been displaced.
The Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, said on Monday that the Israeli government had yet to take a stance that allowed the crossing to open. There has been some movement of UN-flagged fuel trucks Monday morning at the border, but despite speculation of a local ceasefire and a limited opening, the crossing between Egypt and Gaza has remained closed.
The UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Monday he would be travelling to the Middle East on Tuesday to support negotiations on getting aid into the blockaded Gaza Strip. Griffiths said his office was in “deep discussions” with Israel, Egypt and other parties.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it targeted five Israeli positions in northern Israel. The Israel Defence Forces said it was returning fire over the blue line that has demarked the boundary between Israel and Lebanon since 2000.
Half of the hotel rooms in Israel are being used to house families evacuated from communities near the Gaza Strip, the head of the Israel Hotel Association said on Monday.
Israel and Hamas have made claim and counter-claim about whether Israel has resupplied water to Gaza. Israel says water was being supplied near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. Hamas interior ministry spokseperson Eyad al-Bozom said it was not.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has arrived back in Israel, his second visit since the Hamas attack. US citizens are boarding an evacuation ship at the port of Haifa which will take them today to Limassol in Cyprus.
US president, Joe Biden, has cancelled a planned trip to Colorado, opting to stay in Washington DC to focus on national security meetings.
Leaders of all 27 countries in the EU have called for the “immediate and unconditional” release of all the hostages. The leaders will tomorrow meet over video link at an emergency summit called over the weekend as fears across the EU rise over the volatility of the region. In a strongly worded statement European Council president, Charles Michel, said the EU defended Israel’s right to defend itself but said it must be “in full compliance with international law and international humanitarian law”.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Monday in a televised press conference that “Iran considers that the US is already militarily involved in the conflic”.
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has called for a ceasefire, saying: “The UN security council must take action, and the major powers should play an active role. It is imperative that a ceasefire be put in place, that the two sides be brought back to the negotiating table, and that an emergency humanitarian channel be established to prevent a further humanitarian disaster.”
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has said that six British nationals have been killed in Israel, and a further 10 are missing, some of whom are believed to have been killed. He described the Hamas attack as a pogrom.
Visiting a Jewish school in north London, Sunak said “Israel has been very clear that Hamas is the entity that’s responsible for this and what they want to do is ensure that their people are safe and that this doesn’t happen again, and that the focus of the attention of self-defence is on Hamas. I’ve raised with the Israeli prime minister the need to minimise the impact on civilians as best we can. I’ve raised the humanitarian situation. We will continue to do that with other allies around the region as well.”
Denmark has decided to send a navy frigate to join Nato’s naval force in the eastern Mediterranean to prepare for possible evacuations. Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will travel to Israel on Tuesday.
As usual when war breaks out it's the children who suffer the most, on both sides. Same deal in Ukraine.
Once Hamas is wiped out another radical Islamic hate group will take over & it will be the same old same old.
Muslim boy killed and woman wounded in Illinois hate crime motivated by Israel-Hamas war, police say
CHICAGO (AP) — An Illinois landlord accused of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old Muslim boy and seriously wounding his mother was charged with a hate crime after police and relatives said he singled out the victims because of their faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas.
In recent days, police in U.S. cities and federal authorities have been on high alert for violence driven by antisemitic or Islamophobic sentiments. FBI officials, along with Jewish and Muslim groups, have reported an increase of hateful and threatening rhetoric.
In the Chicago-area case, officers found the 32-year-old woman and boy late Saturday morning at a home in an unincorporated area of Plainfield Township, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) southwest of Chicago, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on social media.
Relatives and a Muslim civil liberties and advocacy group identified the slain boy as the wounded woman’s son.
Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Oct 16, 2023 10:49:28 GMT -5
12m ago
16.33 BST
Jason Burke
Jason Burke
Analysts have suggested China is looking to offset concern in the Islamic and Arab worlds about Beijing’s treatment of the Muslim ethnic Uyghurs in the north-western Chinese region of Xinjiang.
The Middle East supplies much of China’s oil needs and is a nexus in the belt and road initiative, President Xi Jinping’s ambitious infrastructure project to connect markets around the world and so extend Beijing’s influence.
Since the war began, Chinese state media have been critical of Israel and blamed the US, Israel’s strongest supporter, for fanning tensions in the region. There has also been an increase in antisemitic content on the heavily policed Chinese internet, according to Yaqiu Wang, the research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at the US-based not-for-profit organisation Freedom House.
19m ago
11.26 EDT
Jason Burke
Jason Burke
China and Russia have hardened their positions towards the conflict in Gaza in recent days, as the war between Israel and Hamas aggravates existing geopolitical tensions and underscores the growing gulf between the cold war allies and western powers such as the US, UK and France.
The Chinese foreign minister said over the weekend that Israel’s bombing campaign had gone “beyond the scope of self-defence” and that it “should stop collective punishment of the people of Gaza”.
On Friday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, raised the possibility that an intensified siege of Gaza by Israel may resemble that of Leningrad by German armies during the second world war, a reference likely to cause deep offence in Israel.
Russia’s top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in Beijing on Monday before an expected visit by Putin, which will raise western concerns about increasingly close links between the two powers.
China has historically backed the Palestinian cause for decades, as did the USSR throughout the cold war. More recently, both powers have sought to balance closer ties with Israel with their broader diplomatic efforts to win allies in the Arab world and more broadly.
Russia is seeking support for its continuing war in Ukraine while China is looking to build a broader coalition of developing countries to extend Beijing’s influence and reinforce its efforts to compete with the US on the global stage.
29m ago
16.16 BST
Andrew Sparrow
Andrew Sparrow
Rishi Sunak, addressing the Commons, highlighted three things the UK government was doing.
It was deploying RAF aircraft and the Royal Navy to stop the supply of further arms to the region and to help with the humanitarian effort, he said.
He said the government was increasing the spending on humanitarian aid by £10m.
And he said British diplomacy would be doing what it could “to sustain the prospects of peace and stability in the region”, he said.
He said he had spoken to Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, earlier today.
For more updates from the UK, do follow our UK politics live blog.
Rishi Sunak tells MPs six Britons killed and 10 missing after Hamas ‘pogrom’ on Israel – UK politics live
