International

Mass grave dug at Gaza hospital as humanitarian catastrophe grows

Published

1 year ago

November 15, 2023

Mass grave dug at Gaza hospital as humanitarian catastrophe grows

The catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip grew worse on Tuesday as much of the focus remained on grim accounts about the state of the collapsed health system after almost six weeks of war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

UN Secretary General António Guterres said he was “deeply disturbed” by the perilous situation at Gaza’s hospitals and, “in the name of humanity,” called for a ceasefire.

Another dire warning came from the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, which said humanitarian operations were grinding to a halt due to the lack of fuel.

In northern Gaza, there was fierce fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants around several hospitals.

Attacks on hospitals and a lack of fuel to generate electricity have claimed the lives of several patients in recent days, including newborn babies, according to Palestinian and UN officials.

Around 180 decomposing bodies on the grounds of al-Shifa, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, have begun to be buried in a mass grave in a courtyard, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

The account could not immediately be verified.

However, it accorded with descriptions of the situation by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which said on Monday it had heard of about 100 bodies that could not be buried at the hospital.

The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday that al-Shifa Hospital was still in operation, contrary to statements made by health officials at the weekend.

“We call it a functioning hospital because of the heroic efforts of the staff remaining,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in Geneva on Tuesday.

Despite the lack of power and attacks, the staff at al-Shifa Hospital are trying everything they can to care for around 700 remaining seriously ill patients. Within the past 24 hours, 20 of those have died, Harris said, referring to figures from the local health authorities.

READ ALSO:

The WHO has its own staff in the north of the Gaza Strip, said Harris.

Like the remaining population, they were having problems getting the basic necessities of food and drink.

The al-Shifa Hospital is not only the largest in the Gaza Strip.

Before the recent Israeli attacks, it was also the best-equipped hospital with the most specialised doctors where the seriously ill patients were treated.

Evacuating them would have been difficult even under the best conditions without conflict in the streets, said Harris, but it was impossible in the chaos of the conflict.

In addition, there is no capacity in the south of the Gaza Strip to receive these patients.

“We are begging for a ceasefire,” Harris said.

Street fighting in Gaza City is also preventing emergency workers from responding to calls for help from people trapped under rubble after Israeli bombardments.

People who can no longer get out of their homes and those who need ambulances for the wounded often wait in vain, OCHA reported, citing the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Israel says Hamas is using medical facilities and civilians as “human shields,” with terrorists operating command centres in or under hospitals, including al-Shifa, making them legitimate targets.

On Monday, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said Hamas weapons and explosives were found at al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital after the site was evacuated on Sunday.

Almost 1.6 million of the approximately 2.3 million inhabitants of the sealed-off Gaza Strip have been displaced since the start of the Israeli attacks on October 7.

Many have taken shelter in hospitals.

Israel’s offensive was prompted by massacres carried out by Hamas and other militants in Israel, which killed about 1,200 people.

READ ALSO:

The groups also kidnapped around 240 people and took them to Gaza.

Three people were injured in Tel Aviv on Tuesday after militants in Gaza once again fired rockets at the city. The city was last targeted by rockets from the Palestinian territory on Friday.

The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has risen to 11,500 since the start of the war on October 7, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. Some 29,000 people have been injured.

The UN’s main agency in the Gaza Strip said late Tuesday that humanitarian operations were ending due to the lack of fuel.

Israel has not allowed fuel into the territory due to fears it could be used by Hamas fighters.

“The humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, on which over two million people depend, is gradually coming to an end because no fuel has been allowed into the Gaza Strip since October 7,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.

“It is very simple. Without fuel, the humanitarian operation in Gaza is coming to an end. Many more people will suffer and will likely die,” he said.

The push to free the hostages held by Hamas has made little progress.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday it still had not been granted access by Hamas to see them.

“We have been insisting to see the hostages,” spokeswoman Fatima Sator said in Geneva on Tuesday.

“It is part of our dialogue with Hamas,” she added.

Angry relatives and friends of the hostages are marching almost 70 kilometres from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, where they are set to arrive on Sunday.

There, they are to march to the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to organisers.

Only four hostages have been released and one was freed in a military operation.

It is unclear how many of the others are still alive.

Mass grave dug at Gaza hospital as humanitarian catastrophe grows

dpa/NAN.

Related Topics:Featured Gaza hospital mass grave

Up Next

BREAKING: UK Court rules against deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda

Don't Miss

Israel killing innocent children in Gaza without justification – Brazil president

International

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

Published

7 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Trends Admin

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

Officials from Canada, Mexico and China have warned US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose sweeping tariffs on America’s three largest trading partners could upend the economies of all four countries.

“To one tariff will follow another in response and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk,” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said.

Trump vowed on Monday night to introduce 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% on goods coming from China. He said the duties were a bid to clamp down on drugs and illegal immigration.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he spoke to Trump in the hours after the announcement and planned to hold a meeting with Canada’s provincial leaders on Wednesday to discuss a response.

A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington DC told the BBC: “No-one will win a trade war or a tariff war.”

The international pushback came a day after Trump announced his plans for his first day in office, on 20 January, in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.

Trudeau said his country was prepared to work with the US in “constructive ways”.

“This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do,” Trudeau told reporters.

In a phone call with Trump, Trudeau said the pair discussed trade and border security, with the prime minister pointing out that the number of migrants crossing the Canadian border was much smaller compared with the US-Mexico border.

READ ALSO:

Trump’s team declined to confirm the phone call.

But Trump spokesman Steven Cheung added that world leaders had sought to “develop stronger relationships” with Trump “because he represents global peace and stability”.

Mexico’s President Sheinbaum told reporters on Tuesday that neither threats nor tariffs would solve the “migration phenomenon” or drug consumption in the US.

Reading from a letter that she said she would send to Trump, Sheinbaum also warned that Mexico would retaliate by imposing its own taxes on US imports, which would “put common enterprises at risk”.

She said Mexico had taken steps to tackle illegal migration into the US and that “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border”.

The issue of drugs, she added, “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society”.

Sheinbaum, who took office last month, noted that US car manufacturers produce some of their parts in Mexico and Canada.

“If tariffs go up, who will it hurt? General Motors,” she said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told the BBC that “China-US economic and trade co-operation is mutually beneficial in nature”.

He denied that China allows chemicals used in the manufacture of illegal drugs – including fentanyl – to be smuggled to the US.

“China has responded to US request for verifying clues on certain cases and taken action,” Liu said.

“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

President Joe Biden has left in place the tariffs on China that Trump introduced in his first term, and added a few more of his own.

Currently, a majority of what the two countries sell to each other is subject to tariffs – 66.4% of US imports from China and 58.3% of Chinese imports from the US.

Speaking in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Trudeau told lawmakers that “the idea of going to war with the United States isn’t what anyone wants”.

He called on them to not “panic”, and to work together.

“That is the work we will do seriously, methodically. But without freaking out,” he said.

The leaders of Canadian provinces suggested that they would impose their own tariffs on the US.

“The things we sell to the United States are the things they really need,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday. “We sell them oil, we sell them electricity, we sell them critical minerals and metals.”

America’s northern neighbour accounted for some $437bn (£347bn) of US imports in 2022, and was the largest market for US exports in the same year, according to US data.

Canada sends about 75% of its total exports to the US.

Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said on Monday the proposed tariff would be “devastating to workers and jobs in both Canada and the US”.

“To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,” said Ford.

Ford was echoed by the premiers of Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, while a post on the X account of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledged that Trump had “valid concerns related to illegal activities at our shared border”.

The Canadian dollar, the Loonie, has plunged in value since Trump vowed to impose tariffs on Canadian imports come January.

The Canadian dollar dipped below 71 US cents, the lowest level the Loonie has fallen to since May 2020, when Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian goods during his first stint as US president. The Mexican peso fell to its lowest value this year, around 4.8 cents.

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

BBC

International

Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon

Published

8 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Trends Admin

Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will bring a US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon to his government for approval as soon as Tuesday evening.

He said in a televised address that he would put “a ceasefire outline” to ministers “this evening”.

He however did not say how long the truce would last, noting “the length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon”.

But it later learnt that the ceasefire would is for 60 days.

During the period, Hezbollah fighters are expected to retreat 40 kilometres from Israel’s border, with Israeli ground forces withdrawing from Lebanese territory.

“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and attempts to rearm, we will strike,” Netanyahu warned.

Key Israel backer the United States has led ceasefire efforts for Lebanon alongside France.

US President Joe Biden is optimistic the deal will lead to a “permanent cessation of hostilities”.

Biden added that the US would lead another push for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“In full coordination with the United States, we are maintaining full military freedom of action,” Netanyahu said, outlining the seven-front war Israel says it faces in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

Even as Netanyahu spoke about the ceasefire, the Israeli military carried out multiple strikes on heart of Beirut while the army said some 15 projectiles had entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon.

Demonstrators raise placards and Israeli flags during a protest in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in the coastal city Tel Aviv on November 26, 2024, against a possible ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. – Israel’s security cabinet has started discussing a proposed ceasefire deal in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, an Israeli official confirmed to AFP on November 26. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)

The war in Lebanon escalated after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah, which said it was acting in support of Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.

The war has killed at least 3,823 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.

On the Israeli side, the hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.

Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow Israel to focus on “the Iranian threat” and ramp up its fight against Hamas in Gaza.

“With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own,” he said.

“We will increase our pressure on Hamas and that will help us in our sacred mission of releasing our hostages.”

During last year’s Hamas attack, militants took 251 hostages, of whom 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the army has declared dead.

International

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

Published

23 hours ago

November 26, 2024

Trends Admin

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes pounded a densely-populated part of the Lebanese capital and its southern suburbs on Tuesday, hours ahead of an anticipated announcement of a ceasefire ending hostilities between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

A strike on Beirut hit the Noueiri district with no evacuation warning and killed at least one person, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a preliminary toll.

READ ALSO:

Minutes later, at least 10 Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs. They began approximately 30 minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for 20 locations in the area, the largest such warning yet.

As the strikes were under way, Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the air force was conducting a “widespread attack” on Hezbollah targets across the city.