Gaza City Archives - Page 2 of 14

White House Rebukes Israel on Violation of Ceasefire

CrossFireArabia
December 16, 2025

The White House views Israel’s assassination of Al-Qassam leader, Raed Saad, as a violation of the Gaza ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump, two US officials told Axios.

The officials said the White House sent a stern private message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the strike.

Israel murdered Raed Saad on Saturday in Gaza City. Israel calls Saad the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing. The attack murdered four people in total.

US officials said Israel did not notify or consult Washington before the strike.

“The White House message to Netanyahu was clear,” a senior US official said. “If you want to ruin your reputation and show you do not abide by agreements, be our guest. But we will not allow you to ruin President Trump’s reputation after he brokered the Gaza deal.”

An Israeli official confirmed that the White House expressed anger. The official claimed the message was softer and cited concerns from “certain Arab countries.” US officials rejected that account and said the White House was unequivocal that Israel violated the ceasefire.

The development comes as Israel continues to reject moving to the second phase of Trump’s ceasefire agreement to end the genocide in Gaza.

Israeli media reported ongoing resistance inside Netanyahu’s government to advancing the next phase. An Israeli security source told the public broadcaster that implementing the second phase “remains far from achievable.”

Netanyahu is expected to meet President Trump at Mar-a-Lago on December 29.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued daily ceasefire violations on Monday. Naval boats opened heavy fire toward Gaza’s coast. Israeli aircraft launched an airstrike alongside intense artillery shelling east of Khan Younis. Artillery fire also hit areas east of al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

Hamas condemned the Israeli violations and called on mediators and guarantor states to intervene. The movement said Israel seeks to undermine and sabotage the agreement.

Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya reaffirmed commitment to the ceasefire in a recorded speech marking the movement’s 38th anniversary. He said starting the second phase is a top priority to secure full Israeli withdrawal.

Al-Hayya said any international forces in Gaza should focus only on maintaining the ceasefire and separating the two sides at Gaza’s borders. He stressed that resistance and its weapons remain a legitimate right under international law and are tied to establishing a Palestinian state.

Al-Qassam Brigades said Israel’s assassination of Saad represents a blatant breach of the ceasefire. The group said Israel crossed all red lines by targeting its leaders and civilians and by continuing military aggression.

Al-Qassam said Israel is disregarding President Trump’s plan and held him and the mediators responsible. The group affirmed its right to respond and defend itself by all means.

The first phase of the Gaza ceasefire began on October 10 after two years of Israeli genocide that killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and destroyed most civilian infrastructure.

Despite the agreement, Israel continues airstrikes, alters the agreed withdrawal line known as the Yellow Line, and restricts vital humanitarian aid to Gaza’s population according to the Quds News Network.

News

268 Times: Israel Uses Ceasefire to Violate it!

CrossFireArabia
December 14, 2025

Orouba Center for Research and Strategic Thinking released its weekly report on Israeli violations in Gaza. The report covers December 6–12, 2025, and highlights the continuation of large-scale, systematic attacks despite the ceasefire entering its ninth week.

During this period, the center documented 268 violations. The attacks killed 18 Palestinians, including women and children, and injured 56 others. The figures indicate Gaza remains under daily aggression, even as tensions were slightly lower than in previous weeks.

Data revealed a consistent pattern of repeated assaults. These included artillery shelling, airstrikes, direct gunfire, ground incursions, and large-scale demolition of residential buildings. Most violations targeted eastern and northern Gaza.

Gaza City, Khan Younis, and northern Gaza suffered the heaviest toll in terms of deaths, injuries, bombardment, and demolitions.

The report’s ninth-week figures show:

18 killed, including women and children
56 injured
10 ground incursions
43 artillery attacks
24 demolition operations on civilian buildings
41 direct targeting incidents
76 shooting incidents
268 total violations

The center said the daily average reached about 38 violations, showing that Trump’s ceasefire has not translated into a meaningful reduction in Israeli military activity.

Airstrikes and shelling hit residential neighborhoods in Gaza City, Khan Younis, Rafah, and Deir al-Balah, causing deaths, injuries, and widespread destruction. Israeli forces advanced in eastern Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, and Jabalia, bulldozing homes, vandalizing property, and setting up earth mounds. Displaced families inside shelter schools faced continued siege according to the Quds News Network.

Demolition operations included the destruction of entire residential blocks and the use of booby-trapped armored vehicles in urban areas. These attacks forced further displacement and targeted civilian homes and tents of displaced families. Jabalia, Bani Suheila, and Mawasi in Rafah experienced the highest impact.

The humanitarian situation worsened after a recent winter storm. Hundreds of tents flooded, and several homes partially or fully collapsed. Israeli restrictions blocked the entry of relief and humanitarian aid, increasing the vulnerability of displaced families. Children faced the highest risk.

The report also noted ongoing injuries and deaths from unexploded Israeli ordnance scattered across residential and displacement areas.

Orouba Center concluded that the ninth week of the ceasefire shows Israel does not treat the agreement as a political or humanitarian commitment. Instead, it uses it to manage gradual aggression, maintain field pressure, and block any real path toward recovery or stability. Civilians remain under constant threat according to the Quds News Network.

News

UNICEF: 82 Kids Killed in Gaza Since Ceasefire

CrossFireArabia
December 12, 2025

At least 82 children have reportedly been killed in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, UNICEF said on Friday, warning of what it described as a “staggering pattern” of violence.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said: “UNICEF knows that reportedly, now, 82 children have been killed in Gaza since the 10th of October, which, again, is a staggering pattern, and it needs to stop.”

According to Gaza’s media office, at least 386 people have been killed and 980 others injured by Israeli army fire since the truce according to Anadolu.

The UN human rights office also reported more than 350 attacks since the ceasefire took effect, saying: “They were all in the vicinity of the so-called ‘yellow line,’ with at least 121 Palestinians killed, including seven women, 30 children and many other injuries.”

Although a ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, living conditions in Gaza have not improved, as Israel continues to impose strict restrictions on the entry of aid trucks, violating the humanitarian protocol of the agreement.

Israel has killed more than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,000 others in attacks in Gaza since October 2023, which have continued despite the truce.

Opinion

Trump and The Oil Jar

CrossFireArabia
October 8, 2025

By Rashad Abu Dawood

A long time ago when our mom wanted to send us to sleep she would always tell us the story of the ‘oil jar’.

She would start by saying: Should I tell you about the oil jar? We’d say in one voice: Yes, tell us. She would repeat: Should I tell you it or not…the story of the oil can and we would plead again: Yes. But every time, the affirmation would sink lower as we would yawn incessantly till we fell sleep.

https://www.addustour.com/articles/1521982

As we grew up we found there was no story to tell, she would repeat the oil jar tale so that we forget and go to sleep. I remember the story as I follow the news on the Trump’s mysterious 20-point plan on Gaza; there is no point among the 20 that are clear except the one on the handover of the hostages. The rest need astrologers and psychologists to decipher.

And there are others that say the plan is a “Trumpian trap” coordinated with Benjamin Netanyahu to free the hostages from the grip of Hamas while there there is no exact date for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, no time detail for the entry of aid to the enclave to help the starving people and most important there are no guarantees to the Palestinian side that everything would be ok.

The only guarantee is that of Trump; there is no UN, no Russia, no China, the biggest powers on the international scene. There is no Security Council whose Article 7 emphasizes the use of military force against the party that opposes the execution of the agreement.

Unfortunately, the US president is not a man of his word. He says something and says the exact opposite the same day and even in the same sentence. This what is the meaning of “peace through strength?” We understand that peace is derived through negotiations; And what about the meaning of “Hamas must agree are face the gates of hell”.

Gaza has experienced: Trump has not kept to his promises for when the US hostage Eidan Alexander was released last May Trump praised the Hamas step, regarding it as a goodwill gesture towards the US. He saw the release as a “historic day” on the way to end the barbaric war on Gaza.

But what happened to this historic day as described by the US president? The Netanyahu government become a wild beast with the Israeli army killing on average 100 Palestinians a day and with those injured double that number not to say anything about the starvation of tens of thousands.

The Israeli army increased its force on the enclave, invaded Gaza City and today it controls 80 percent of the enclave. We have no choice but to pretend that we believe in Trump and see what’s going to happen next and have to wait to see the outcome of his statements as the fairytale about the oil jar.

This opinion was written by originally written in Arabic.

Opinion

Gaza City, Israeli Lies

CrossFireArabia
September 21, 2025

By Dr Marwan Asmar

The current Israeli military onslaught on Gaza is so fierce that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian have already left the downtrodden city. It is a ramshackle place that is once again becoming a ghost town of debris as once-plush residential towers are now beaten down by Israeli bombs with the stench of gun-powder and sick human flesh that lies hidden below the rubble.

Israel’s latest attempt to invade Gaza City started on 16 September, 2025 and since then it has been bombing the once-dazzling urban conurbation from the air, land, and sea, causing widespread destruction and significant civilian casualties, whilst creating yet another mad wave of displacement to the south of the Strip.

Figures of forced displacement are not precise but the city a, conglomerate of 1.3 million people, has been reduced by much less. The Israeli army likes to boost of its handiwork. After the first week of ariel bombardment, it said 40 percent of the population has left, and today it says that 450,000 people have gone. The Gaza Media Office puts the number at only 270,000.

Despite the Israeli leaflets dropped from the air telling people to leave Palestinian sources still say that around 900,000 are staying put. Many say they are not going anywhere because of the limited space down in the south, and the fact it costs $3000 dollars to get down there, something which they don’t have.

One put it bluntly and callously, accepting fate as it comes. “Since, we are going to die anyway through Israeli bombs, it’s better to die here,” he added. The acceptance of fate however may be related to the fact that some of the people may have moved up to 20 times since the war started on Gaza soon after 7 October, 2023.

Last Thursday, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the Israeli assault, currently centred on Gaza City, is “driving new waves of displacement, forcing traumatised families into an ever-shrinking area unfit for human dignity”.

“The injured and people with disabilities cannot move to safety, which puts their lives in grave danger,” Tedros said. “We call for an immediate end to these inhumane conditions. “We call for an immediate end to these inhumane conditions. We call for a ceasefire.”

Case stories of thick swarves of displaced people speak of hellish conditions as they can be seen on the Al Rasheed Road connecting the north of the Gaza Strip to its southern side. If people can afford they can use transport but many, including whole families of men, women and children are moving on foot, hungry, with no water and many collapsing on the road as some have been moving for hours on end. For night rest, they make do with resting their limbs, again with no food on the sides of the road.

The social media have been rife with stories about forcibly displaced Palestinians on the road. Many of them say they don’t know where they are going, although the end of the road is to Al Mowasi, an area to the southwest of Khan Younis and which the Israeli has designated as a “safe” place but which it keeps bombing from the air whenever it feels like it.

One elderly man called Abu Nader Siam, walks slowly holding a cane in his right hand with his wife, Zakia Siam, at his left. He is exhausted as reported in the UN News.

“I come from the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City. They [Israelis] have left no house or neighbourhood except to bomb it,” he said. “The shelling continues, and they have dropped leaflets ordering us to evacuate. We walked for six hours because we couldn’t find a car or any transportation.”

Zakia Siam spoke about their non-stop journey after the shelling reduced their house to rubble. “We went to the Shujaiya neighbourhood, and then we were displaced to the Sha’af neighbourhood in Gaza City before it was bombed,” his wife said.

“Afterwards, we went to the seashore west of Gaza City and my husband and I stayed there for two nights without a tent. We sat on the sidewalk next to the tents and hid next to one of them, then continued walking.”

Another civilian, Mrs. Um Shadi al-Ashkar, carried a bag of belongings as she headed for southern Gaza. “There is death, shelling, bombing and destruction of houses (in Gaza City),” she said.

“Even if they had dropped leaflets, if there had been no shelling, no one would have left Gaza City, they would have stayed in their homes. But there is death and devastation.”

The fight for Gaza city is in full-swing. The Israeli army knows what its up against, adding it could take months, or even up to a year to completely take over the city from Palestinian resistance groups. Meanwhile, they know the city is a Hamas stronghold which they can’t railroad through their tanks. That is why for the time being they put the ground invasion on hold and bombing the city from the air and sea.