Israel strikes Gaza, killing 21 including women and children, after saying Hamas violated deal
Deir al-Balah (AP): Israeli strikes pounded Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 21 Palestinians, including two infants, and further rocking a fragile ceasefire deal, hospital officials said.
Israel said it was responding to a militant attack on Israeli soldiers that seriously wounded one.
Deadly Israeli strikes have repeatedly punctuated the truce since it came into effect on October 10, and the escalating Palestinian toll has made many in Gaza say it feels like the war is continuing unabated. Among the Palestinians killed Wednesday were five children, seven women and an on-duty paramedic, according to hospital officials.
“The genocidal war against our people in the Gaza Strip continues,” said Dr Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, in a Facebook post. “Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?”
Israel strongly denies accusations that it is committing genocide in Gaza. The war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led militants poured into southern Israel after a surprise barrage of rockets, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251.
Deadly strikes have continued despite ceasefire deal
---------------------------------------------------------
The deal attempted to halt the more than 2-year-old war between Israel and Hamas. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, it has been marred by repeated flareups of violence.
A total of 556 Palestinians have been killed by Israel and 1,500 wounded since the ceasefire went into effect, according to Gaza health officials, while Israel's military says four Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Israel's military has said its continuing strikes are responses to Hamas violations or militant attacks on its soldiers, but dozens of civilians have died. Eight Arab and Muslim countries, including mediators Egypt and Qatar, recently condemned what they called Israel's “repeated violations” of the deal.
An Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military policy, told The Associated Press that Israel's latest attacks were in response to militant gunfire that badly wounded a reservist soldier Wednesday morning.
Early morning strike kills 11, including two children
------------------------------------------------------
Israeli troops fired on a building in the Tuffah neighborhood in north Gaza, killing at least 11 people, most from the same family, said Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies. The dead included two parents, their 10-day-old girl, her 5-month-old cousin and the children's grandmother.
Mourners gathered in the courtyard of Shifa hospital Wednesday morning for funeral prayers.
“What did this child do? …. Why are they killing the children?" asked a relative of the family, Mohammad Jaser.
“We don't understand why this is happening to us. What do we do? Where do we go? This isn't life,” he said.
Two young children were seen kneeling at the body of their father as a woman told them to bid him farewell. A young girl kissed her father's cheeks.
Strikes on Gaza continue into Wednesday afternoon
-------------------------------------------------------
Later, an Israeli strike on a family's tent in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three people including a 12-year-old boy, said Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. Tank shelling in Gaza City's eastern neighborhood of Zaytoun killed another three Palestinians, according to Shifa Hospital.
A strike on a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis killed at least two people and wounded five others, according to a field hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent in the area. The dead included Hussein Hassan Hussein al-Semieri, a paramedic who was on duty at the time, said the hospital.
Thirty-eight Palestinians were wounded in total by the strikes Wednesday, the Gaza health ministry said.
Passage through Rafah border is minimal
---------------------------------------------
The Rafah border crossing's opening Monday was hailed as a step forward for the fragile ceasefire. But since then, Palestinian passage through the crossing has been marred by delays, interrogations and uncertainty over who would be allowed to cross.
It took the entire day Tuesday for 40 Palestinians to enter Gaza. Around 1 a.m. Wednesday, they finally arrived at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where their families welcomed them. By midday Wednesday, no one else had passed through the crossing.
Three women who crossed into Gaza on Monday told The Associated Press a day later that Israeli troops blindfolded and handcuffed them, then interrogated and threatened them, holding them for several hours before they were released.
Asked about the reports, the Israeli military said that “no incidents of inappropriate conduct, mistreatment, apprehensions, or confiscation of property by the Israeli security establishment are known.”
Ceasefire deal plods forward
-------------------------------
While all fighting has not stopped, some parts of the ceasefire deal have moved forward.
Hamas has released all of the hostages it was holding, and in return Israel has released several thousand Palestinians and is beginning to reopen Rafah. Increased amounts of humanitarian aid have flowed into Gaza and a new technocratic committee has been appointed to administer the territory's daily affairs.
But other key elements of the ceasefire appear to have stalled, including the deployment of an international security force, the disarmament of Hamas and the reconstruction of Gaza. The U.S. has given no timeline on when these parts of the deal will wrap up.
Over 71,800 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
NATO, others turn down US call for help in Hormuz: Trump
Washington (PTI): President Donald Trump on Tuesday said NATO and most of US' other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as the war with Iran entered the third week.
In a social media post, Trump asserted that Iran’s military has been “decimated” and he no longer felt the need for assistance from NATO countries or anyone else.
Last week, Trump had sought help from European nations and others who depend on oil supplies transiting from the Hormuz Strait to safeguard the critical waterway.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the US President said in a post on Truth Social.
Iran's attacks on Gulf nations and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported, have sparked increasing concerns of a global energy crisis and are unnerving the world economy.
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one-way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need,” Trump said.
He said Australia, Japan and South Korea too have turned down his call for help.
“Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military – Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again,” Trump said.
He said that given the scale of recent military successes, the US no longer "need" or desires assistance from NATO countries, adding that it never relied on such support in the first place.
Speaking as President of the United States, the "most powerful" country in the world, "we do not need" help from anyone, Trump said.
The West Asia conflict began on February 28 when the US-Israeli combine conducted airstrikes on Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has effectively been shut following the US and Israel attack on Iran and Tehran's sweeping retaliation.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said that from Tehran's "perspective", the strait is "open". "It is only closed to Iran's enemies, to those who carried out unjust aggression against our country and to their allies.”
Earlier in the day, a second Indian-flagged LPG tanker, Nanda Devi, reached the country after safely sailing from the war-hit Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, the first ship, Shivalik, reached Mundra port in Gujarat.
As of now, 22 Indian vessels remain on the west side and two on the east side of the strait.
Indian authorities are in constant touch with all the relevant stakeholders in the region to secure the safe passage of the remaining ships, officials said.
