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FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA - FREE PALESTINE
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Special reports: TRIBUTES TO MOTHERS AND CHILDREN Shoroughs' family August 7, 2024: 'My children cry all day from the heat': Life in Gaza’s tent camps... and August 5, 2024: Shorough 'We have nothing left in this world, except our daughter': a young mother on life in Gaza... Alaa al-Nimer  and daughter Nimah July 28, 2024 "My baby girl was born on the street": A traumatic birth in Gaza

July 22, 2024 Ms. Maram Humaid: "A letter to my son: As you turn one today in Gaza, I feel joy and sorrow"  July 12, 2024 Noor Alyacoubi - "I'm fighting to keep my baby alive" and other stories Mothers and children: Boom-And again Boom Special report: July 12, 2024: Scorched Hospitals - Schools -  Housing - Bodies -- fake or fact?

August 12 - 10, 2024 <<AIPAC is growing desperate... and Food for thought: netanyahu following the footsteps of hitler with using the 'scorched earth' tecnique he's feeling his more and more 'walking on hot coals' and more actual news

August 10 - 8, 2024 Opinion by Gino d'Artali: Smotrich should be hung high and more actual news proving why

August 7 - 5, 2024 Food for thought: "The Israelis claim it is a safe zone. Why are they shelling the area now? This is all false propaganda." and "Welcome to Hell" and actual news Click here to go throughout July and earler, 2024

June 14, 2024 Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Hiba Abu Taha sentenced to one year in prison

Related news: August 2 - July 21, 2024 Is Western journalism as envisioned dead and other stories July 11, 2024: Media organizations demand access to Gaza July 2 2024: Arrests of Palestinian journalists since start of Israel-Gaza war   Click here for earlier stories/news

May 23, 2024 In commemoration of Roshdi Sarraj and tribute to Shrouq Al Aila

 
When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali.

France 25 - August 12, 2024 - Video by: Charlotte HUGHES
<<Calls for Gaza truce grow, Hamas urges Biden plan implementation
Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - International pressure mounted Monday for a ceasefire in Gaza, with Britain, France and Germany issuing a joint plea for an end to fighting between Israel and Hamas with "no further delay".
The call came a day after Palestinian militant group Hamas -- whose October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war -- urged mediators to implement a truce plan presented by US President Joe Biden instead of holding more talks. "The fighting must end now, and all hostages still detained by Hamas must be released," French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a joint statement.
"The people of Gaza need urgent and unfettered delivery and distribution of aid," it said.
"There can be no further delay."
International mediators have invited Israel and Hamas to resume talks towards a long-sought truce and hostage-release deal, after fighting in Gaza and the killings of Iran-aligned militant leaders sparked fears of a wider conflict. Israel has accepted the invitation from the United States, Qatar and Egypt for a round of talks planned for Thursday. Hamas said Sunday it wanted the implementation of a truce plan laid out by Biden on May 31 and later endorsed by the UN Security Council, "rather than going through more negotiation rounds or new proposals". Hamas "demands that the mediators present a plan to implement what they proposed to the movement... based on Biden's vision and the UN Security Council resolution, and compel the (Israeli) occupation to comply", it said. Unveiling the plan, Biden had called it a three-phase "roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages", describing it was an Israeli proposal. Mediation efforts since then have failed to produce an agreement. Hamas on Tuesday named its Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar to succeed slain political leader and truce negotiator Ismail Haniyeh, killed July 31 in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel, which has not claimed responsibility. Haniyeh's killing, just hours after Israel assassinated the military chief of Lebanese group Hezbollah in a strike on Beirut, spurred intense diplomacy to avert a wider war in the Middle East.
Three-phase plan
Pressure for a ceasefire grew after civil defence rescuers in the Hamas-run territory said an Israeli air strike on Saturday killed 93 people at a school housing displaced Palestinians. Gaza officials told AFP on Monday that they had identified 75 bodies of Palestinians killed in the strike. AFP could not independently verify the toll which, if confirmed, would be one of the largest from a single strike during the 10-month-old war. Israel said it targeted militants operating out of Gaza City's Al-Tabieen school and mosque with <precise munitions>, declaring that <at least 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were eliminated>. Israeli news website Walla, citing the Israeli military, reported that 38 militants were killed in the strike. The military did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.
Hamas in its Sunday statement cited the Israeli "massacre against the displaced at Al-Tabieen school" and "our responsibilities towards our people and their interests" as the reasons for its announcement on the ceasefire plan.
The Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,897 people, according to a new toll from the territory's health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
The toll includes 107 deaths in the previous 48 hours, according to ministry figures.
Biden said the first phase of the proposed roadmap includes a "full and complete ceasefire" lasting six weeks, with Israeli forces withdrawing from "all populated areas of Gaza" and some hostages freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The second phase would see the remaining living hostages released as the warring sides negotiate "a permanent end to hostilities", followed by "a major reconstruction plan for Gaza" and the return of dead hostages' remains.
'Have to go somewhere'
Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and other regional allies have vowed retaliation against Israel for Haniyeh's killing and that of Hezbollah's military chief Fuad Shukr. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered an aircraft carrier group to hasten its arrival in the Middle East, the Pentagon said Sunday. Austin also ordered the USS Georgia guided missile submarine to the area, a Pentagon spokesman said.
In Khan Yunis, southern Gaza's main city already ravaged by months of bombardment and battles, AFP journalists said hundreds of Palestinians had fled northern neighbourhoods after Israel issued fresh evacuation orders. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that "just in the past few days, more than 75,000 people have been displaced in southwest Gaza", where Khan Yunis is located.
The entire Gaza Strip has a population of about 2.4 million people.
"We have to go somewhere, and we don't know if it will be good or bad," said Majd Ayyad, who was originally displaced from Gaza City.
AFP>>
Source:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240812-calls-for-gaza-truce-grow-hamas-urges-biden-plan-implementation

France 25 - August 12, 2024 - Video by: Charlotte HUGHES
<<As war halts Israel permits, Palestinians return to farming
Bayt Dajan (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Hussein Jamil held a permit to work in Israel for 22 years until the war in Gaza broke out. Now, after setting up a greenhouse in a West Bank village, he swears he'll never go back. Harvesting his tomatoes in the occupied West Bank, the 46-year-old says his former Israeli boss has already called several times to ask him to return. "But I told him that I would never go back to work there," he says in Bayt Dajan near Nablus, the northern West Bank's commercial centre. There, dozens of men have returned to the traditional pursuit of tilling the land, rather than board buses to queue at the heavily guarded checkpoints that lead into Israel. "It's a very useful job and above all safer" than working in Israel, says Jamil, as he tends to his plants with his sons.Israel stopped issuing work permits for Palestinians after the October 7 attack by Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules in the Gaza Strip, which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Israeli reprisals in Gaza have so far left 39,790 dead, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run territory, which does not give a breakdown of civilians and fighters killed.
Jamil was one of 200,000 Palestinians from the West Bank who were working in Israel legally or illegally, according to the Palestinian General Confederation of Labour, and who lost their livelihoods overnight. Salaries in Israel are more than double what Palestinians can make in the occupied territories, according to the World Bank. Many of those workers are now busy in the greenhouses that have sprouted up in recent months on the hillsides where, Palestinian elders say, their ancestors once grew wheat. Working this way, "we are independent and peaceful," says Jamil, adding: "It's much better than working in Israel. Here we work on our land."
West Bank violence
Economic prospects have dived since the war, with West Bank unemployment leaping from 12.9 percent to 32 percent in the final three months of 2023. Some 144,000 jobs have been lost in the territory, many because of rising violence that has prompted the army to block roads, strangling economic activity. Since October 7, at least 617 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli army or settlers, according to an AFP count based on official Palestinian data. At least 18 Israelis, including soldiers, have died in Palestinian attacks in the same period, according to official Israeli data. Every day, around $22 million in income is lost in the West Bank, according to International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates.
In Bayt Dajan alone, 300-350 men worked in Israel out of a population of 5,000. Mazen Abu Jaish, 43, who spent 10 years working in Israel, took his time before deciding to pick up his shovel and rake and set up a tomato greenhouse. "We waited, thinking that we would get our jobs back again after the war," he told AFP. But unlike previous wars in Gaza, which never lasted more than a few weeks, the current conflict is fast approaching its first anniversary. "So we ended up getting together with 35 other people from the village and we decided to start farming rather than keep waiting," says Jaish. Since October 7, 15 hectares of Bayt Dajan have been covered by greenhouses with tomatoes and cucumbers, grown by people who used to work in Israel, municipal officials say. Mohammad Ridwan, a member of the municipal council, sees other advantages as well, as the greenhouses are in Area C -- the West Bank land controlled solely by Israel, and vulnerable to being used for illegal Israeli settlements. Area C makes up 59 percent of the West Bank, and 63 percent of its agricultural land. The Norwegian Refugee Council also says that Israel had denied Palestinians access to 99 percent of the land in Area C, in many cases preventing them from growing their own fields there. "Local unemployed people have found work and above all, we are preserving land in Area C," said Ridwan.
AFP>>
Source:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240812-as-war-halts-israel-permits-palestinians-return-to-farming

Al Jazeera - August 11, 2024 - by Rami G Khouri Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut
<<AIPAC is growing desperate
The pro-Israel lobby is finding it harder and harder to confront a growing shift in American public opinion on Israel-Palestine.
As we approach the November elections in the United States, political dynamics related to Israel-Palestine continue to influence key developments in the American political arena. Public opinion is no longer as dominantly favourable towards Israel as it used to be, which worries the Israeli government and its American supporters. This is most apparent in the actions of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the leading pro-Israel lobbying group in the US. Over the past few months, it invested $8.5m in a campaign to defeat progressive Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush in the Democratic primaries in Missouri. Bush, who championed Palestine justice issues in Congress, lost to St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell on Tuesday. This followed AIPAC providing the unprecedented single-contest amount of $17m to defeat another Palestine supporter, Congressman Jamal Bowman, in the Democratic primaries in New York. Responding to this claim, leftist activist Medea Benjamin wrote: "On the contrary, it showed that pro-Israel groups can buy elections and it sent a frightening message to all elected officials that if they criticize Israel, even during a genocide, they may well pay with their careers." She pointed out that while AIPAC's funding of Bush's and Bowman's defeats demonstrate the pro-Israeli lobby's power and resources, they also show that it must now provide ever greater sums of cash to keep Congress Israel-friendly and minimise the impact of progressive members. This reveals how challenging it has become for the Israeli lobby to counter the growing popularity of the Palestinian cause. This makes it look increasingly desperate as it takes measures that are likely to backfire, generating greater resentment among the public and within the political system. Such aggressive funding campaigns by AIPAC and other pro-Israeli forces may soon be perceived as another dimension of foreign interference in US elections, which has grown as a national concern since 2016. Americans who want their government to be even-handed on Palestine-Israel might see greater Israeli funding or social media campaigns to favour certain candidates as inappropriate foreign meddling in US elections. Israel may soon join Russia, China, Iran and Cuba as countries perceived to be tampering in US elections. Another desperate pro-Israel measure that could backfire is the push for legislation to criminalise pro-Palestinian advocacy, punish nonprofit organisations that support the Palestinian cause or deprive universities of federal funds for allowing pro-Palestinian protests. Such legislation can infringe on freedom of expression and First Amendment rights and would further stain pro-Israeli lobbying as a regressive, anti-democratic force in the eyes of many Americans.
Such measures are being pursued because the dominance of the Israeli narrative in shaping public opinion in the US is slowly declining. This is because social media, progressive media outlets and more dynamic Palestinian activism allow Americans today to easily see and assess Israeli genocidal actions in Palestine that are enabled by US government support. This has moved public opinion in a more balanced direction with more Americans sympathising with the Palestinians. According to a March Gallup poll, nationwide this number is 27 percent; among Democrats it is 43 percent and among young people - 45 percent. Views of the war are even more critical of Israel. A Data for Progress poll released in May revealed 56 percent of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide. Another of its surveys released in June showed 64 percent of likely voters support a ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza; among Democrats, the number was 86 percent. A June poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs showed 55 percent of Americans reject sending American troops to defend Israel if it comes under attack by its neighbours. US politicians cannot perpetually ignore such changing public attitudes – especially among Democrats. And it seems they are taking them into consideration.
Last month when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his fourth address to the US Congress, nearly half of its Democratic members were absent. Along with shifting public opinion, other forces are steadily opening cracks in the pro-Israel consensus in US politics. One of them is the National Uncommitted Movement, which during the Democratic primaries asked registered Democrats to vote <uncommitted> to show their rejection of the Biden administration's policies on Israel's Gaza genocide. The campaign gained more than 700,000 votes, many of which came from critical battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. If the movement holds together until November and the election is close, their votes could be enough to sink Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden's successor on the Democratic ticket, who faithfully supported his pro-Israel policy in Gaza.
Harris's campaign - just like Biden's before that - is clearly worried. One sign is her decision to choose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, whose strong pro-Israel and Zionist positions on the pro-Palestine student protests, the campaign to boycott Israel and the Gaza war, among other issues, were discussed in public as possibly hindering Harris’s chances to win. Harris herself has also hinted in her rhetoric that she wants to put some distance between herself and Biden’s staunchly pro-Israel position. She has spoken more firmly about an immediate ceasefire and expressed her concern about Palestinian civilian suffering. She has also told leaders of the Uncommitted campaign whom she briefly met in Detroit last week that she would accept their request to meet and discuss their demand for an immediate US arms embargo on Israel. However, pro-Palestinian and Uncommitted activists insist that to vote for her they must see tangible actions, like an arms embargo on Israel and applying US laws that bar the US from providing military aid to foreign security forces that violate human rights. In recent days, Harris was interrupted during two rally speeches by activists demanding that she break from the Biden policy. Her inadequate responses showed she is struggling to address the progressive Democrats’ demands for a more humane Gaza policy. We will only learn of any substantive changes in her position on Israel-Palestine after the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this month. Whatever the Harris campaign decides to do, it is increasingly clear that for the first time American voters supportive of the Palestinian cause might have enough clout to impact the presidential and congressional elections, and thus Washington’s foreign and domestic policies in the future. This rather sudden transformation of the electoral landscape will give the pro-Israeli lobby new headaches that it will have a hard time addressing.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.>>
Source:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/8/11/aipac-is-growing-desperate

Al Jazeera - August 11, 2024
<<Israeli army orders Gaza 'humanitarian zone' evacuation
Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee as Israel warns of expanded military action in southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli army orders evacuation of part of Gaza 'humanitarian zone'. The Israeli military has ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza after a deadly air strike on a school-turned-shelter in the north killed more than 100 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. Hundreds of families carrying their belongings in their arms left their homes and shelters in Khan Younis early on Sunday, seeking elusive refuge. Israel has repeatedly ordered mass evacuations as its troops have returned to heavily damaged areas where they had previously battled Palestinian fighters. The vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people has been displaced by the 10-month war, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands have crammed into squalid tent camps with few public services or have sought shelter in schools like the one struck on Saturday in Gaza City. Palestinians say nowhere in the besieged territory feels safe.
The latest evacuation orders apply to areas in Khan Younis, including part of an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone from which the military said rockets had been fired. Israel accuses Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups of hiding among civilians and launching attacks from residential areas. Khan Younis, Gaza's second largest city, has suffered widespread destruction during Israeli air and ground attacks. Tens of thousands of people fled again last week after an earlier evacuation order. Gaza's Ministry of Health says the Palestinian death toll from the war is approaching 40,000 with more than 92,000 wounded. Aid groups have struggled to address the staggering humanitarian crisis in the territory while international experts have warned of famine.>>
View the photo gallery here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/8/11/israeli-army-orders-gaza-humanitarian-zone-evacuation

Le Monde - August 11, 2024
<<World leaders 'appalled' by deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school
Gaza's civil defense agency said the Israeli strike on the Al-Tabieen religious school and mosque in Gaza City killed at least 93 people, 17 of them women and children, making it one of the war's deadliest strikes. Friends and foes of Israel on Saturday denounced the August, 10, Israeli strike that killed scores of displaced civilians in a Gaza school, renewing calls for an immediate ceasefire. The attack was the latest of what the UN human rights office called "systematic attacks on schools" by Israel, with at least 21 since July 4 leaving hundreds dead, including women and children.
Israel's military is now disputing the death toll provided by the Palestinian defense agency, saying the school was targeted with <precision munitions> because it <served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility,> adding at said at least 19 <terrorists> had been killed in the strike.
American <needs to get the hostage out>
A White House statement said it was <deeply concerned about reports of civilian casualties> following the strike and was seeking more information. The strike <underscores the urgency of a ceasefire and hostage deal, which we continue to work tirelessly to achieve>, the statement added.
Vice president Kamala Harris, speaking to reporters traveling with her in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday, said of the Israeli strike in Gaza: "Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed." "Israel has a right to go after the terrorists that are Hamas," she said. "But as I have said many, many times they also have, I believe, an important responsibility to avoid civilian casualties." Pressed on the fact that such comments have done little to lower the numbers of civilians in Gaza killed in recent months, Harris said, "First and foremost - and the president and I have been working on this around the clock - we need to get the hostages out." "We need a hostage deal and we need a cease-fire," she said. "And I can't stress that strongly enough. It needs get to done. The deal needs to get done and it needs to get done now."
Calls for "respect of international humanitarian law"
British Foreign Minister David Lammy wrote on X that he was "appalled by the Israeli Military strike on al-Tabeen school and the tragic loss of life," adding that "we need an immediate ceasefire to protect civilians, free all hostages, and end restrictions on aid."
A statement from the French foreign ministry noted that "for several weeks, school buildings have been repeatedly targeted, with an intolerable number of civilian victims."
"Israel must respect international humanitarian law," it added. "Once again we demand the total respect for the provisional measures demanded by the International Court of Justice for the protection of civilian populations," said the Spanish government.
The European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was "horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike. At least 10 schools were targeted in the last weeks. There's no justification for these massacres," Borrell wrote on X.
Reactions in the Arab world
Qatar, a mediator in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, demanded an urgent probe to ascertain the "facts regarding the Israeli occupation forces' continued targeting of schools and shelters for displaced persons".
Egypt, which has diplomatic ties with Israel and is also involved in negotiations between the two sides, said the attack was carried out "in disdain of international and humanitarian law" and showed a "lack of willingness on the Israeli side to put an end to this ferocious war."
Jordan's foreign ministry said the timing was an indication of Israel's efforts to "obstruct and thwart" the latest mediation effort.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said the strike "showed once again that Israel does not respect any of the rules and regulations of international law and moral and human principles." Kanani called for "firm action by Muslim and freedom-loving countries around the world to support the Palestinian nation and its legitimate struggles and resistance against the occupation".
Lebanon's Hezbollah group described the attack as a "horrific massacre" and called for worldwide outrage in solidarity with Palestinians. "Sabotage" of ceasefire negotiations.
"Moscow is deeply shocked by what has happened," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement. "We reaffirm our principled and consistent position on the need for strict compliance with the norms of international humanitarian law. We call on the Israeli side to refrain from attacking civilian objects."
A Turkish foreign ministry statement decried a "new crime against humanity" and said the attack shows "once again" that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "wants to sabotage permanent ceasefire negotiations". "The international actors who do not take measures to stop Israel are making themselves complicit in these crimes," it added.
Le Monde with AP and AFP>>
Source:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/08/11/world-leaders-appalled-by-deadly-israeli-strike-on-gaza-school_6712632_4.html

BBC - August 11, 2024 - By Robert Greenall
<<Kamala Harris says 'too many' civilian deaths in Gaza
US Vice-President Kamala Harris has condemned the loss of civilian life in an Israeli air strike against a school building in Gaza on Saturday. More than 70 people were killed at the building which sheltered displaced Palestinians, the director of a hospital has told the BBC.
Ms Harris said "far too many" civilians had been killed "yet again" and reiterated calls for a hostage deal and a ceasefire, echoing comments made by the White House. An Israeli military spokesman said al-Taba'een school "served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility", which Hamas denies.
Israel accepts proposal to attend 'urgent' new ceasefire talks
Israel Gaza war: History of the conflict explained
Who are the leaders of Hamas?
Speaking at a campaign event in Phoenix, Arizona, Ms Harris said Israel had a right to "go after Hamas" but also has "an important responsibility" to avoid civilian casualties. Saturday's air strike has been criticised by Western and regional powers, with Egypt saying it showed Israel had no desire to reach a ceasefire or end the Gaza war. Fadl Naeem, head of al-Ahli Hospital where many of the casualties were taken, said around 70 victims were indentified in the hours after the strike - with the remains of many others so badly disfigured that identification was difficult.
Israel's military said it had <precisely struck Hamas terrorists operating within a Hamas command and control centre embedded in the al-Taba'een school>. A statement by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israeli Security Agency said <at least 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists> were <eliminated> in the attack. IDF spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said <various intelligence indications> suggest a <high probability> that the commander of Islamic Jihad's Central Camps Brigade, Ashraf Juda, was at the Taba'een school when it was struck. He said it is not yet clear whether the commander was killed in the attack. The BBC cannot independently verify casualty figures from either side. The Israeli spokesman said the casualty figures released by Hamas officials <do not align with the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike>.
Hamas described the attack as a "horrific crime and a dangerous escalation" in Israel's "war of extermination against the Palestinian people".
US National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said Hamas had been using schools "as locations to gather and operate out of". "But we have also said repeatedly and consistently that Israel must take measures to minimise civilian harm," he added.
Aftermath of Israeli strike on Gaza City school
Israel has attacked several such shelters in Gaza in the past few weeks.
According to the United Nations, 477 out of 564 school buildings in Gaza have been directly hit or damaged as of 6 July, with more than a dozen targeted since.
Al-Taba'een school housed more 1,000 people - having recently received dozens of displaced people from the town of Beit Hanoun, after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes. The building also served as a mosque and the Israeli strike hit during dawn prayers, witnesses said.
Jaafar Taha, a student who lives near the school, told the BBC the sound of the bombing was followed by screaming and noise. "'Save us, save us,' they were screaming," he said. "The scene was horrific. There were body parts everywhere and blood covering the walls." Salim Oweis, spokesman for the UN children's agency, Unicef, told the BBC the attack was "really outrageous". "All those schools are really packed with civilians, children, mothers and families, who are taking refuge in any empty space whether it's a school or it's a mosque, whatever it is, even in hospital yards."
This strike has again drawn graphic attention to a controversial dynamic of the Gaza war. Israel claims that Hamas is using civilian infrastructure to plan and carry out attacks, and that is why it has been targeting hospitals and schools - sites protected under international law. Hamas has consistently denied the accusations. Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in an attack on Israel on 7 October, taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.
That attack triggered a massive Israeli military offensive against Gaza and the current war.
More than 39,790 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli campaign, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.>>
Source incl. video:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0lx2xgn55o

France 25 - August 11, 2024
<<Israeli military orders more evacuations in southern Gaza after deadly school strike
The Israeli military ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza early Sunday after a deadly air strike on a school-turned-shelter in the north on Saturday killed at least 90 Palestinians, according to the territory's civil defence agency. Israel said the strike targeted a militant command post and killed at least 19 fighters.
Summary:
The Israeli military ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza early Sunday after a deadly air strike on a school-turned-shelter in the north on Saturday killed at least 90 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.
At least 39,790 Palestinians have been killed and 92,002 injured in Israel's war in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The Hamas-led October 7 attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 1,190 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures. Some 250 people were taken hostage, with about 120 remaining in Gaza. Many have been declared dead by Israeli authorities.>>
Read more and video here:
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240811-%F0%9F%94%B4-live-israeli-military-orders-more-evacuations-in-southern-gaza-after-deadly-airstrike-on-school

France 25 - August 11, 2024
<<Addictions on the rise in wartime Israel
Beersheba (Israel) (AFP) - At 19, Israeli man Yoni has to put aside his plans to join the military and instead enter rehab for drug abuse that has worsened since Hamas's October 7 attack. Health professionals said Yoni's case is not an exception in wartime Israel, noting a surge in drug and alcohol abuse as well as other addictive behaviours. Yoni, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his privacy, told AFP he had started taking drugs recreationally before, but "after the war it seemed to really get worse". "It's just a way to escape from reality, this whole thing," said the resident of Beersheba in southern Israel who lost a friend, Nir Beizer, in the Hamas attack that sparked the ongoing Gaza war. Psychiatrist Shaul Lev-Ran, founder of the Israel Center on Addiction, said that "as a natural reaction to emotional stress and as a search for relief, we've seen a spectacular rise in the consumption of various addictive sedative substances." A study carried out by his team, based in the central city of Netanya, found "a connection between indirect exposure to the October 7 events and an increase in addictive substances consumption" of about 25 percent. Lev-Ran told AFP they have identified a rise in the use of "prescription drugs, illegal drugs, alcohol, or addictive behaviour like gambling". One in four Israelis have increased their addictive substance use, according to the study, which was conducted in November and December on a representative sample of 1,000 Israelis. In 2022, before the war, one in seven struggled with drug addiction. Contacted by AFP, the Palestinian Authority said there was no equivalent data on addiction and mental health for the Palestinian territories.
'Shock'
The October 7 attack, when Palestinian militants stormed into southern Israel and attacked towns, communities, army bases and an outdoor rave, caused a real "shock" in Israeli society, Lev-Ran said. The study found that "the closer individuals were to the trauma on October 7, the higher the risk" of addictive behaviours.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still captive in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,790 people, according to health ministry of the Hamas-run territory, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
The Israel Center on Addiction study found an increase in addictive substance consumption among survivors of the October 7 attack, but also among Israelis displaced since then from communities near the Gaza border or in the north, near Lebanon. "Some who had never consumed addictive substances started using cannabis, some used substances but increased their use, and some were already treated for addiction and relapsed", said Lev-Ran.
'Forget'
Lev-Rab said Israel was already "at the outset of an epidemic in which large swathes of the population will develop an addiction to substances". The study found that the use of sleeping pills and painkillers has also skyrocketed, by 180 percent and 70 percent respectively. The psychiatrist gave the example of one of his patients, a man who demanded "something" to help him cope and be able to sleep while his son was fighting in Gaza. At a bar in Jerusalem, Matan, a soldier deployed to the Palestinian territory who gave only his first name for privacy concerns, told AFP that using drugs "helps forget" the harsh reality. Yoni said that in the early months of the war, his friends and him would take "party drugs like ecstasy, MDMA, LSD" recreationally "in order not to be bored and not to be afraid". Then, Yoni started taking drugs "alone at home", which he said eventually led him to realise "that I need to go to rehab". Once out, he wants to complete his military service, Yoni said, to "prove to myself, prove to the family, that I am indeed capable of more, and (can) contribute to the community like everyone else".
AFP>>
Source:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240811-addictions-on-the-rise-in-wartime-israel

Le Monde - August 10, 2024 - By Jean-Philippe Remy (Jerusalem, correspondent)
<<Israeli strike on school turned shelter dampens ceasefire hopes
Israel said the former school was a 'hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders.' Over 90 people were killed, many of them women and children.
There was no chance of not provoking carnage. One of the nature and scale that stick in memories. By deciding to hit a school complex in the Daraj district of Gaza City, which had been transformed into a shelter and was therefore full to bursting with displaced people, and by choosing to act during the dawn prayer, which brings believers together in the space set aside for this purpose, the Israeli army caused the deaths of more than 93 people, and wounded hundreds of others on Saturday, August 10.
According to the Gaza Civil Defense, three "missiles" (or bombs) hit the building and its vicinity. The school was sheltering around 250 displaced persons, the majority of whom were women and children. Civil Protection spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal reported that several strikes targeted two floors of the Tabeen school and the adjacent mosque with three missiles. "So far, there are more than 93 martyrs, including 11 children and six women," he said. Dozens of people were injured, some of whom are in intensive care, and "there are many unidentified body parts," he added.
Even on the scale of the destruction suffered by Gaza - where some 40,000 deaths have been counted since the start of the war in October 2023 by the Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas but whose figures are considered reliable – the images filmed after the strikes are bound to leave their mark. A basement littered with debris and intertwined bodies, stripped bare by the blast, covered in blood. To explain this strike, the Israeli army insists on the presence of Hamas officials, notably a <Hamas command and control center embedded in the Tabeen school.> The army also claims that this school, <a hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders,> constituted a base from which the Islamist group could launch attacks and that <prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and intelligence information.>
The limits of the 'elimination policy'
While some senior Israeli officers had, for some months now, started to think that the military intervention in Gaza had reached a kind of plateau and could only lead to a form of stalemate unless there was a ceasefire, the political establishment has decided otherwise. The army is therefore continuing the war, and believes it has scored decisive points recently by multiplying its targeted strikes, to demonstrate that the continuation of the conflict is possible.>>
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https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/08/10/israeli-strike-on-school-turned-shelter-dampens-ceasefire-hopes_6712340_4.html

Le Monde - August 10, 2024 - By Julien Bouissou
<<French companies singled out for their activities in Israeli settlement
On July 19, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's colonization of Palestinian territories since 1967 to be 'illegal.' This could have repercussions for French groups operating there.
The July 19 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israeli colonization of Palestinian territories has been "illegal" since 1967 will not be without consequences for French companies, part of whose activities are linked to this presence, according to several law experts interviewed.
Three French corporations are logged in a database created by the United Nations in 2020 that lists companies that have "directly and indirectly, enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the settlements." The list is drawn up by the High Council for Human Rights, following a resolution passed in 2016 by the UN Human Rights Council. It only scrutinizes some sectors and, at the time of its last update in June 2023, listed 97 companies, the majority of them Israeli. They include Altice International, owner of phone operator SFR; the world's number two in rail construction, Alstom; and Egis, which specializes in engineering for the construction and operation of infrastructure, and in which Caisse des Depots holds a 34% stake.
"When the ICJ states the Law, we can consider that it is the Law, so it's an important opinion which the French courts will inevitably seize upon if there are appeals against the companies in question," said Alain Pellet, professor emeritus at Universite Paris-Nanterre and former president of the United Nations International Law Commission.
Duty of care
Even if companies are not subject to international law, they can be taken to court, on the basis of the duty of care. The principle, created in French law in 2017, is also applied by a European directive put in place in July, non-compliance with which can result in a fine. It puts the onus on most big companies to ensure that their activities do not infringe on human rights and respect environmental protection anywhere in the world, including with their customers and suppliers.
"The ICJ calls on states to adapt their legislation to prevent colonization and the support of the occupying power in these territories," said Philippe Valent, a criminal lawyer at the Paris bar. "For Europe, this means imposing compliance rules on companies and deciding on a package of sanctions. But that's unlikely at this stage." Companies could be prosecuted on grounds other than participation in "illegal" colonization, according to the ICJ ruling. "It notes other forms of violation, such as discriminatory practices," said Valent. "So, for example, an inhabitant of the occupied territories who considers himself a victim could, assisted by an NGO, try to use it to prove the offense committed before a court in France." >>
Read more here:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/08/10/french-companies-singled-out-for-their-activities-in-israeli-settlement_6712118_19.html

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