Will Israeli Stop Murdering Gaza Journalists?

Palestinian journalist Muhammed Abd Rabbou was killed, Tuesday evening, along with his sister when the Israelis bombed their home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central area of Gaza. 

Videoclips show bereaved Palestinians and his relatives painfully bid farewell to the slain journalist who was killed in a direct Israeli airstrike on his sister’s home.

The Gaza Government Media Office said Israeli forces have killed 172 media workers and wounded 186 others in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since 7 October, 2023. This is while some 51 others have been arrested.

Photojournalist Abed Rabo ascended to martyrdom following an airstrike that targeted an apartment belonging to the Abu Dalal family in the Nusseirat camp market in the central #Gaza Strip one blogger wrote.

A few days before Israeli warplanes bombarded the home of prominent Palestinian political analyst Arafat Abu Zaied in Khan Yunis, killing him along with two of his children.

About 60 media and human rights organizations have called on the European Union to freeze its association agreement with Israel and implement targeted sanctions, condemning Israel for “massacring journalists” in Gaza.

They noted that more than 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, and that the killing of journalists, whether deliberate or reckless, constitutes a war crime.

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West Bank on Fire Against Israeli Occupation

What was a premonition yesterday, today it has become a reality. What did not exceed the level of fear has now become part of daily circumstance.

In Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, Hebron, Tubas, Qalqilya – all cities of the West Bank – it has become necessary for the Israeli occupation army to be no less vigilant than in its battle in Gaza and/or southern Lebanon according to the Palestine Information Center.

Today, the battle is taking place on the sides of Israeli army barracks, checkpoints, and headquarters. The West Bank is today not just a support front for Gaza, but has become part of the front lines against Israeli occupation.

The resistance escalation in the West Bank has been the most feared by Israel since the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Flood Battle in Gaza; it is the closest front to it and therefore the most dangerous to the occupation.

Traditional military measures of searches, raids, arrests, and setting up checkpoints are no longer of any use. The resistance has prepared itself to confront all of this and diversified its method of resistance to the occupation including detonating explosive devices in Israeli vehicles which has never happened before.

The resistance in the West bank has begun to intensify its attacks on the enemy and present its heroism and sacrifices to relieve the pressure on the Gaza Strip, suffering from the scourge of genocide and brutal massacres now for the 327th consecutive day. The number of martyrs and missing persons in Gaza has now exceeded 50,000, together with the destruction of all aspects of life in the Strip.

This is what prompted the West Bank resistance to act supporter to Gaza, with sacrifices of more than 640 martyrs and about 5,400 wounded, in addition to the thousands of detainees, since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Flood.

At the same time, the Israeli government sought to exploit the war in the Gaza Strip to implement its plans for settlement expansion and the establishment of new outposts in the West Bank with the absence of any accountability for these crimes. The extreme rightwing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu sought to impose a new reality in Jerusalem increasing the settlers’ incursions incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, to the point were National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced his intention to build a synagogue on the grounds of the holly mosque.

The Israeli policy of Palestinian assassinations increased in intensity with the escalation of the resistance against the occupation forces. Hardly a day goes by without the West Bank burying one or more of its fighters in a cowardly Israeli targeting, the latest of which was the assassination of 10 martyrs in Jenin and Tubas as part of the extensive aggression announced by the occupation army in the northern West Bank.

In a new criminal move, the occupation army announced, Tuesday, the start of what it called a “large-scale operation” in the cities of the northern West Bank of Jenin, Tulkarm, Tubas, the camps, and several neighborhoods of Nablus. According to Israeli media, the occupation army intends to destroy the infrastructure of the resistance in the northern West Bank through such aggression, describing it as the most violent and extensive since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.

In conjunction with this announcement, the Mujahideen of Qassam Brigades, along with other resistance factions, engaged in an armed clash with the occupation forces in Tulkarm as Qassam Brigades detonated explosive devices in Israeli military vehicles as they stormed the Jenin camp, while targeting a military tower at the entrance to the Al-Arroub camp north of Hebron.

Saraya Al Quds of Islamic Jihad shot down an Israeli drone in the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm while wounding a number of occupation soldiers at sniper positions fortified inside a house. It was also announced the detonation of an explosive device in a military bulldozer in Nablus, achieving direct injuries among its crew.

The occupation is trying to silence the voice of the resistance by committing more crimes in the West Bank but it is not succeeding as the latest military operations  of Al-Qassam Brigades fighters believe the Israeli army is drowning in a quagmire  in Nablus as fierce clashes with enemy forces in Balata camp are heightened.

The occupation’s announcement of the start of a new aggression in the West Bank, after months of escalation, is an official admission that the resistance in the West Bank is very strong, and that the Israelis know as stated by Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz on Wednesday morning:

“The threat in the West Bank must be dealt with like Gaza and a temporary evacuation of people must be implemented, as this is a war on everything.”

With this escalation, it can be said that the occupation has begun a difficult confrontation that may cost it a lot as the West Bank is causing the enemy great pain that has never been witnessed in the history of the conflict with it, and the military escalation with the Palestinian resistance groups may contribute greatly to the changing the scene taking place in Palestine, and on all axes of support.

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Yemen: Ruining Lives Through War

Yemen is facing a nutrition emergency of catastrophic proportions, with three districts plunged into severe crisis and four more teetering on the edge of famine. This escalating disaster demands immediate global action and unwavering humanitarian support to avert further tragedy and safeguard countless lives.

While many countries face food insecurity and shortages, famine is only declared by the United Nations when certain conditions are met, using a scale known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). A famine classification is the highest on the IPC scale, and is declared in an area where at least 20% of the population faces extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition rates exceed 30%, and two out of 1,000 people die from starvation on a daily basis. 

Sever crisis

For the first time, this level has been reported in Yemen by UN experts in three districts. A report published by the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Technical Group in Yemen, covering only areas under government control, found that two districts in Hodeidah Southern lowland and one in Taiz lowland (Makha) falls within Phase 5, which is considered the worst phase of the IPC, and four other districts—Mawza and Al Makha in Taiz lowland, and Hays and Al Khawkhah in Hodeidah lowland—are expected to follow by October 2024.

Yemen’s food crisis is a man-made result of the war there, with the most critical cases emerging along the war-torn country’s Red Sea coast. The protracted and devastating conflict that began in March 2015 continues to destroy Yemen, already one of the poorest countries in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. 

War ruins lives, uproots communities, and wrecks food systems, making it the primary cause of hunger in Yemen. In almost a decade, the conflict and its proxy war have killed more than 150,000 people there, caused economic collapse, and produced one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Today, 21.6 million Yemenis—two-thirds of Yemen’s population—don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and more than 80% of Yemenis live below the poverty line.

War Ruins Lives

As per the IPC report, malnutrition rates in Yemen have significantly worsened due to a combination of drivers, including a lack of drinking water, a shortage of nutritious food, the spread of diseases such as cholera and measles, and broader economic downturn.

The number of acutely malnourished children in the country has increased by 34% compared with last year, including more than 18,500 children under the age of five who are projected to be severely malnourished within the coming months.

Women and girls suffer disproportionately from food insecurity and malnutrition, and coping mechanisms are becoming increasingly desperate. Women eat last and least, giving priority to children and other relatives or using money for other household needs. Around 223,000 pregnant and lactating women are expected to be malnourished by the end of this year. In addition, early marriage has increased since the escalation of the conflict, and girls as young as eight years old are being married off to reduce the number of family members to feed, or as a source of income in order to feed the rest of the family and pay off debts.

Beyond the four districts projected to slip into famine, according to the IPC report, all 117 districts in government-controlled areas are expected to suffer from “serious” levels of acute malnutrition by October 2024.

About half of the country’s population—or 18.2 million people—is in need of humanitarian aid this year, even those hundreds of miles from the front line, because Yemen is critically dependent on imports, humanitarian funding, and incomes that have been knowingly undermined by parties to the conflict.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasises the urgent need for the international community to work towards securing an end to this crisis and an inclusive peace in Yemen, stressing the crucial importance of increased humanitarian support and intervention to mitigate the impacts of the famine and acute malnutrition, especially on the lives of vulnerable individuals like pregnant women and children. Euro-Med Monitor also calls on the parties to the conflict to address the health and nutrition emergencies in Yemen and ensure access to sufficient nutritious food and safe drinking water; and notes that this will require the international community to unlock financial commitments and implement political solutions to safeguard the country’s food security and the overall future of Yemen’s population, revitalize the shrinking economy, and pave the way for peace.

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Arabs Livid Over Ben-Gvir Synagogue View in Al Aqsa

In a dangerous provocation to Muslims in the West Bank, Gaza and the Arab and Muslim worlds, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced that he intends to build a Jewish synagogue within the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. This is a site that is revered by Muslims worldwide.

The Ben-Gvir statement was reported by Israel’s Army Radio, where he claimed that Israeli law grants equal rights to Muslims and Jews to conduct prayers at the holy mosque as reported in the Quds News Network.

Meanwhile Jordan condemned such a statement. Jordan’s Foreign Ministry called it as “a violation of international law and an unacceptable provocation that requires a clear-cut international position condemning it.”

It stated Ben-Gvir’s statement “fuels extremism and endeavors to change the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem and its holy sites through imposing new facts and practices driven by a bigoted exclusionary narrative.”

It stressed that the entire Al-Aqsa Mosque site is an exclusive place of worship for Muslims, and the Jordan-run Jerusalem Waqf Department is the legal entity supervising Al-Aqsa Mosque affairs.

As well, Egypt, Monday, denounced Ben-Gvir’s call to build a synagogue inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, stating what he says heightens tension in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The country’s Foreign Ministry said Israel is legally responsible for adhering to the status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and preserving Islamic and Christian sanctities.

It also demanded Israel comply with its obligations as an occupying power, and “stop such provocative statements aimed at further escalation and tension in the region.”

The ministry added that Ben-Gvir’s statement against Al-Aqsa Mosque further complicates and aggravates the situation across the Palestinian territories, and hinders efforts to reach a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to distance himself from Ben-Gvir. However all he said is that the status quo on the Al Aqsa Mosque remains unchanged.

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Israeli Army Loses Deterrence, Decisiveness – Expert

Military expert Dr Nidal Abu Zeid said the success of the Qassam Brigades in launching an M90 missile towards Tel Aviv after 324 days of war and coinciding with Hezbollah’s bombing of the Glilot intelligence base, confirms the Israeli occupation is now missing the two most prominent features of the Israeli combat doctrine: Deterrence and decisiveness.

Abu Zeid added to Jordan24 that the resistance in Gaza has begun to impose the form of the combat equation, raise and lower the intensity of the fighting as it wishes and impose time and place on the enemy.

He said this means its is succeeding in stripping the occupation of its initiative element.

The strategic expert explained the resistance is still focusing on what is termed as the geographical triangle extending from Tel al-Hawa to Khan Yunis and Yula to Tel al-Sultan in Rafah, and is confining the Israeli military operations to this area.

This, he says has greatly exhausted the occupation forces, especially in light of the combat methods followed by the Palestinian resistance groups.

In this situation, Abu Zeid pointed out this type of fighting means the Israeli army can do two things:

The first is to accept the decision at the political level to continue fighting and this will inevitably leads to the collapse of their offensive posture in Gaza as a result of their losses and the shattering of their military units organizational structure, including its 162nd Armored Division and the 98th Paratroopers Division, now fighting for 224 days nonstop. The second is for the Israeli army to stop fighting and withdraw from the Gaza Strip under the weight of losses.

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