Israel bombs Palestinian families in northern Gaza school
The Cradle, May 25 2024
Israeli jets bombed the An-Nazla elementary school in northern Gaza near Jabalia camp on May 25, killing at least 10 Palestinians, among them several women and children. One displaced woman whose daughter was injured in the attack told Al-Jazeera:
The children were playing in the schoolyard, and suddenly we were bombed. It seems unnatural that we lived.
An-Nazla School has been serving as a shelter for hundreds of refugees. According to eyewitness reports, a group of Palestinians were filling up gallons of water when Israeli jets bombed the school.
Occupation troops are also regularly blocking ambulances and rescue teams from reaching the sites of the massacres. The spike of Israeli violence in northern Gaza comes one day after the International Court of Justice ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah, where the army has also massacred dozens over the past 24 hours. More than 900k Palestinians have fled Rafah over the past three weeks after Israel violently took control of the city’s only border crossing and “expanded” its military offensive. Israeli troops earlier advanced towards Rafah’s Kuwaiti Hospital and struck residential buildings in its vicinity.
In response to the onslaught, the Palestinian resistance has also intensified its operations against the invading army, with Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) Quds Brigades announcing several successful strikes on Israeli tanks and squadrons. As clashes rage across the strip, Israeli media reports say talks in Paris between CIA Director William Burns, Mossad chief David Barnea, and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abd’ul-Rahman al-Thani have been “successful” and mediated talks to reach a ceasefire in Gaza will restart “this week.”
At least 35,903 Palestinians have been killed and 80,420 wounded by the Israeli army in Gaza since Oct 7, the enclave’s Health Ministry reported on Saturday. Famine conditions are also spreading across the enclave, as hundreds of trucks carrying food aid have not been allowed to enter Rafah since the start of the month. Aid deliveries entering via the US-built pier in central Gaza have also remained minimal, as the $320m structure continues to pose security and operational risk:
Rafah crossing remains shut as Gaza food aid rots
The Cradle, May 25 2024
Food supplies waiting to enter Gaza from Egypt have begun to rot as the border crossing remains shut to aid deliveries following Israel’s assault on Rafah, Reuters reported on May 25. Trucks carrying food, medicine, and other supplies are stuck on the road between the Rafah crossing and the Egyptian town of al-Arish, 45 km to the west. According to a UN document seen by Reuters, more than 2k aid trucks were waiting to enter Gaza as of May 16, 1,574 of which were carrying food supplies. But it is already too late to save some of the food. One truck driver, Mahmoud Hussein, told Reuters his goods had been loaded on his vehicle for a month and are gradually spoiling in the sun. Some food is being thrown away or sold cheaply to locals. He said, sheltering under his truck for shade from the hot sun:
Apples, bananas, chicken and cheese, a lot of things have gone rotten, some stuff has been returned and is being sold for a quarter of its price. I’m sorry to say that the onions we’re carrying will at best be eaten by animals because of the worms in them.
Aid deliveries through Rafah, the main entry point into Gaza, ended after Israel took control of the Rafah crossing as part of its assault on the city beginning three weeks ago. The assault has so far displaced over 800k Palestinians already living in tents following their displacement elsewhere in Gaza due to Israeli bombs. The International Court of Justice ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its Rafah offensive amid the ongoing case accusing Israeli officials of carrying out a genocide in Gaza. Egyptian officials and sources told Reuters that Israeli military activity endangers humanitarian operations and that Israel needs to hand the Rafah crossing back to Palestinians for aid to fully resume.
The US is seeking to place an EU mission in control of the Rafah crossing rather than return it to Palestinian control. On Friday, Egypt and the US agreed to send aid via Israel’s nearby Kerem Shalom crossing until legal arrangements are made to open Rafah from the Palestinian side, but this is not enough to ease the backlog of trucks as Palestinians continue to live in danger of starvation. Just over 900 truckloads of food and aid have entered Gaza since the start of Israel’s Rafah offensive on 7 May, compared to at least 500 trucks daily that the UN says are needed to avert famine. Khaled Zayed, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent in the area, said:
The amount of aid waiting in Egypt’s northern Sinai was now very large, and some had been stuck for more than two months. Some aid packages require a certain temperature … We coordinate on this with specialists who are highly trained in the storage of food and medical supplies. We hope the border will reopen as soon as possible.
Israel responds to ICJ ruling to halt Rafah assault by massacring dozens
The Cradle, May 25 2024
Israel escalated its attacks on civilians in Gaza on May 24 in response to the International Court of Justice ruling ordering Israel to cease its military operation in Rafah. Friday’s ruling by the ICJ came as part of an ongoing case to determine if Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The ruling is a provisional measure to halt Israeli military action in response to its ongoing attack on Rafah, which has killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced hundreds of thousands who had already been displaced by Israeli bombing in Gaza’s north.
Netanyahu denied the allegations in the case brought by South Africa that Israel was carrying out genocide in Gaza as “false, outrageous and morally repugnant.” He claimed operations in Rafah would not be conducted in a way that “may inflict on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” However, Israeli warplanes launched violent and unprecedented raids on Rafah just moments after the ICJ issued its order to halt the military operation against the city, Al-Mayadeen reported.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported on Friday that Israeli forces committed six massacres against families in Gaza, killing 57 and injuring 93, bringing the number of dead since the start of the war in October to 35,857. The ministry stressed that several victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, where ambulances and civil defense crews cannot reach them.
Al-Mayadeen reports that air strikes targeted the Al-Shaboura camp in the center of Rafah, while artillery targeted multiple areas, including near two hospitals, the Martyr Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital and the Kuwait Specialized Hospital in the center of Rafah, as well as the Khirbet Al-Adas, Al-Madkha Street, Al-Geneina neighborhoods. Israeli warplanes also struck the Al-Mawasi area in the city of Khan Yunis, which led to a number of dead and wounded. Israel had designated the Al-Mawasi area as a safe zone where those sheltering in Rafah should flee ahead of the Rafah assault, which began two weeks ago.
In central Gaza, civil defense crews recovered the bodies of eight Palestinians, including children and women, from a house belonging to the Al-Naji family, which was bombed by Israeli warplanes on Jaffa Street behind the Hamza Mosque, east of Gaza City. An Israeli air strike targeted the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City. According to Amnesty International, any refusal to halt operations by Israel in Rafah following the ICJ order means it is committing genocide. A statement issued by the rights group said:
With this order, the International Court of Justice, the UN’s principal court, has made it crystal clear: the Israeli authorities must completely halt military operations in Rafah, as any ongoing military action could constitute an underlying act of genocide. Unequivocally, the ground incursion and the associated mass forced displacement it has caused pose further irreparable risk to the rights of the Palestinian people protected under the Genocide Convention and further threaten their physical destruction in whole or in part.
Niqnaq 