NYAH, NYAH
By AFP
July 16, 2024
A Palestinian youth walks past piles of smouldering waste at Al-Maghazi Palestinian refugee camp, central Gaza, in the absence of municipal services during the Israel-Hamas war - Copyright AFP STR
Israel renewed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip Tuesday, after its key military backer the United States renewed its criticism of its ally over the high civilian casualty toll of the war.
Residents told AFP of Israeli warplanes striking central Gaza and artillery fire hitting the territory’s south, while medics said they pulled multiple bodies from the rubble of the latest bombardment.
Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told two top Israeli officials that casualties among Palestinian civilians “still remain unacceptably high”.
“We continue to see far too many civilians killed in this conflict,” spokesman Matthew Miller said after Blinken meth Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi.
Washington has been pushing for a truce between Israel and Hamas.
But Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said Sunday that the group was pulling out of indirect talks for a deal in protest at recent Israeli “massacres”, including a massive strike on Sunday that the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said killed at least 92 people.
Haniyeh said Hamas stood ready to return to the indirect talks once Israel “demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal”.
After the latest deadly strikes, medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said they recovered four bodies from a house outside the southern city of Khan Yunis and another from Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza.
The Israeli military said that over the previous 24 hours its air force struck “approximately 40 terror targets” in Gaza. They included “sniping posts, observation posts, Hamas military structures, terror infrastructure, and buildings rigged with explosives”.
It said its troops were also continuing targeted raids in the far-southern city of Rafah and in the central Gaza Strip.
– Prisoner abuse allegations –
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,664 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry.
The Israeli military has also rounded up scores of Gazans, who have made allegations of torture, rape and other abuse in custody that Israeli authorities have denied.
Palestinian lawyer Khaled Mahajna said Monday that prisoners had recounted guards using “electric prods” on inmates’ bodies.
In the case of one prisoner, a “fire extinguisher tube was inserted into his buttocks and the fire extinguisher was turned on,” Mahajna said after visiting detained Palestinian journalists.
The lawyer said prisoners were handcuffed when they ate the meagre meals provided, while detainees reported widespread disease and untreated wounds.
Five Israeli human rights groups have gone to court over conditions at the Sde Teiman desert camp where Gazans are being held. Israeli officials insist they act within international law.
– Mass displacement –
Indirect talks on ending the devastating war have been brokered by Qatar and Egypt, with US support, but months of negotiations have failed to bring a breakthrough.
At the end of May, US President Joe Biden outlined a ceasefire roadmap he said had been drawn up by Israel that triggered an intensification of the talks.
But despite meetings in both Cairo and Doha, there has been no sign of progress on how the roadmap might be implemented.
Critics in Israel, including tens of thousands of demonstrators who have marched to demand a deal to bring home the hostages, have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war.
The war has forced 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.4 million people to flee their homes. Many of have sought refuge in UN-run schools, six of which have been hit by Israeli strikes since July 6.
There have also been near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, a Hamas ally.
On Monday, a Hezbollah fighter and his sister were killed in an Israeli strike on the south Lebanon town of Bint Jbeil, Hezbollah and the state-run National News Agency said.
Israel said its strike hit a Hezbollah arms depot.
What we know about the bomb Israel used on Gaza ‘safe zone’
By AFP
July 16, 2024
Israel's strike on the Al-Mawasi 'safe zone' was one of the deadliest attacks in the war on Gaza - Copyright AFP STR
Laignee BARRON
Israel’s deadly strike on Al-Mawasi, one of the bloodiest attacks in more than nine months of war in Gaza, used massive payload bombs provided by the United States, according to weapons experts.
The bombing of the Israeli-declared “safe zone” transformed the tent city on the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland, with nearby hospitals overrun with casualties.
According to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, the barrage killed at least 92 people and wounded more than 300.
The Israeli military said it targeted two “masterminds” of the October 7 attacks by Hamas that triggered the war. It said a top commander, Rafa Salama, was killed in the strike, but uncertainty remains over Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
AFP videos of the attack showed a white mushroom cloud billowing over a busy street, leaving behind a huge crater strewn with the wreckage of tents and a building blown to bits.
Here is what we know about the weaponry used in the attack:
– US-made JDAM –
Two weapons experts told AFP that a sliver of munition seen in a video of the blast site circulating online was a tail fin from a US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). AFP could not independently verify the video.
The GPS-aided kit converts unguided free-fall bombs — so-called “dumb bombs” — into precision-guided “smart” munitions that can be directed towards single or multiple targets.
The United States developed the kit to improve accuracy in adverse weather after Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
The first JDAMs were delivered in 1997 and, according to the US Air Force, have a 95 percent system reliability.
Trevor Ball, a former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician, concluded from images of the Al-Mawasi strike “it’s 100 percent a JDAM kit” made in the United States.
He said that given the types of bombs compatible with the guidance system and the size of the fin fragment, the JDAM was most likely used with either a 1,000 or 2,000 pound (450 or 900 kilogramme) payload.
He said the fragment could also be compatible with the BLU-109 “bunker buster” warhead, which is designed to penetrate concrete.
Ball said it was not possible to definitively determine where the payload itself was made without “very specific fragments of the bomb body”.
– New delivery –
Repeated use of such large bombs in the densely populated Gaza Strip has sparked humanitarian outcry and heaped pressure on US President Joe Biden to reconsider the munitions supplied to Israel.
On July 12, Israel’s main military backer announced it was ending a pause on supplying 500-pound bombs, though Biden said the 2,000-pound type would be withheld.
The White House has repeatedly voiced frustration over the civilian death toll in Gaza as Israel attempts to eradicate Hamas.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told two top Israeli officials on Monday that the civilian toll was “unacceptably high”, his spokesman said.
Israeli officials said their “precise strike” in Al-Mawasi hit an open area that housed a Hamas compound and not a civilian camp.
When contacted by AFP regarding the weapons used, the Israeli military declined to comment.
Based on Israel’s stated target, Wes Bryant, a retired US Air Force master sergeant and strike and joint targeting expert, said it would have been feasible to avoid collateral damage in the surrounding area.
“My assessment is that any civilians killed in this strike were in the compound -— not in the surrounding vicinity. So the IDF either failed to assess presence of civilians, or… deemed the risk to civilians proportional to the military advantage of taking out the Hamas leaders.”
– ‘Absolute destruction’ –
The strike left Al-Mawasi a scene of “absolute destruction” with no water, electricity or sewage treatment, the Islamic Relief charity said.
It condemned Israel for its willingness “to kill innocent men, women and children in pursuit of its end goals”.
Hamas said that by arming Israel, the Biden administration is “legally and morally responsible” for spawning a “major humanitarian catastrophe”.
It said US-supplied weapons used by Israel included GPS-guided bombs, dumb bombs, bunker busters and JDAMs.
After repeated high-casualty strikes in recent days, a Hamas official said the group was withdrawing from indirect talks for a truce and hostage release deal with Israel.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,664 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
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