Israeli strikes kill 23 Palestinians, including children, as Gaza ceasefire inches forward
Deir Al-Balah (Gaza Strip) (AP): Hospitals in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians Saturday, one of the highest tolls since the October ceasefire aimed at stopping the fighting.
A day after Israel accused Hamas of new ceasefire violations, strikes hit locations throughout Gaza, including lethal ones on an apartment building in Gaza City and a tent camp in Khan Younis, officials at hospitals that received the bodies said. The casualties included two women and six children from two different families. An airstrike also hit a police station in Gaza City, killing at least 11 and wounding others, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.
The series of strikes also came a day before the Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt is set to open in Gaza's southernmost city. All of the territory's border crossings have been closed throughout almost the entire war. Palestinians see Rafah as a lifeline for the tens of thousands in need of treatment outside the territory, where the majority of medical infrastructure has been destroyed.
The crossing's opening, limited at first, marks the first major step in the second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire. Reopening borders is among the challenging issues on the agenda for the phase now underway, which also includes demilitarising the strip after nearly two decades of Hamas rule and installing a new government to oversee reconstruction.
Still, Saturday's strikes are a reminder that the death toll in Gaza is still rising even as the ceasefire agreement inches forward.
Nasser Hospital said the strike on the tent camp caused a fire to break out, killing seven, including a father, his three children and three grandchildren. Meanwhile, Shifa Hospital said the Gaza City apartment building strike killed three children, their aunt and grandmother on Saturday morning, while the strike on the police station killed at least 11 officers, including four policewomen, and inmates held at the station. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said Palestinians civilians were also killed in the strike.
Hamas called Saturday's strikes “a renewed flagrant violation” and urged the United States and other mediating countries to push Israel to stop strikes.
A military official, speaking Saturday on the condition of anonymity in line with protocol, could not comment on the specific targets, but said Israel carried out overnight and Saturday strikes in response to what the army said were ceasefire violations the day before.
Israel's military, which has hit targets on both sides of the ceasefire's yellow line, has said strikes since October have been in response to violations of the agreement. In a statement on Friday, the military said they killed three militants exiting a tunnel in an Israeli-controlled zone in Rafah.
Gaza's Health Ministry has recorded 509 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since the start of the ceasefire on Oct. 10. 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.
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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.
