Cairo:

On October 6, 2023, Palestinian karate champion Mais Elbostami went to bed thrilled after winning a competition in the Gaza Strip. She awoke the next day to a different world.

“I’d won first place,” the shy 18-year-old told AFP from a Cairo suburb, where her family now lives after escaping the war and where she is training in the hope to one day represent her country internationally.

She said she “hadn’t even hung up the medals” she won on October 6 before Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Immediately, she and her family fled south from their home in the northern Gaza Strip as Israel launched a relentless retaliatory military campaign.

Over the past nine months, the war has reduced much of the besieged Palestinian territory to rubble and killed more than 38,000 people, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.

Amid the hell of bombing and displacement, “every hour that passed felt like it aged you by a year”, said Elbostami.

Death was all around her.

“In the first 10 days alone, I lost my coach Jamal al-Khairy, and his granddaughter who used to train with me,” she said.

When the family made it to the Egyptian capital in April, Elbostami had two things on her mind: making sure relatives back home were safe, and getting back to her karate training.

‘Raise the flag’

Despite being trapped in Gaza, Palestinian national team coach Hassan al-Raiy put her in touch with the Egyptian team, and within two weeks she was back on the mat.

“My coaches here in Egypt have practically adopted me, and they’re working with me so I can get good enough to compete in the next championships,” she said.

Whenever she can, she spars on the mat. But with limited resources and gym time, Elbostami has also had to train in the streets and gardens around her house.

She often finds her mind wandering to Gaza’s Mediterranean shore.

“Training back home was different. Every Friday my teammates and I would go and train by the sea,” she said.

Karate is known for its strong focus on discipline and self-control, and this has helped the young karateka to “detach from reality” — living as a refugee from a brutal war — even for a little while.

“My emotions sometimes get the best of me. There are times I can’t get through a full session” without remembering “fleeing on foot as air strikes fell all around us”, she said.

Elbostami tries to focus on her goal — “to represent my country and raise its flag in international competitions”.

‘It’s for my country’

She has a long way to go, and her first stop on that journey is Egypt’s own national championships in August.

“It’s a tough challenge,” she said, because Egyptian karate athletes have historically outperformed their Palestinian counterparts.”

“But it will bring my level up, too.”

Elbostami’s Egyptian coach, Mamdouh Salem, told AFP that the teenager was an “athlete with a lot of potential, dedication and persistence”.

“We’re working on her technique, but ultimately karate is more a game of skill than talent — I expect Mais will excel.”

He said he wants to help her raise the Palestinian flag around the world.

“If we can’t fight with them” in Gaza, “we can at least help them represent their country abroad”, he said, echoing widespread Egyptian solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

Her Gazan teammates, coaches and most of her relatives may remain trapped in Gaza — and she said dozens of them have been killed — but against all odds, Elbostami has survived.

“So I don’t have any excuse to keep me from achieving my goal,” she said.

“I’ll do everything I can to highlight the Palestinian cause. Every championship and every time I represent Palestine, it’s for my country, for the martyrs and for the wounded.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israeli forces carried out deadly strikes on Tuesday on southern Gaza and battled militants after issuing an evacuation order which a UN agency said would impact 2,50,000 Palestinians.

Witnesses reported intense bombing and shelling around Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s main city, from which Israeli troops withdrew in early April after a devastating months-long battle.

A hospital source in the city said shelling killed eight persons and wounded more than 30 others.

The bombardment came after a rocket barrage at southern Israel on Monday morning claimed by the militant group Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas.

This was followed by an order to evacuate most areas east of Khan Younis and in Rafah along the borders with Israel and Egypt.

The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees estimated Tuesday that a quarter of a million people had been impacted since Israel’s army issued a new evacuation order for parts of southern Gaza a day earlier.

“We’ve seen people moving, families moving, people starting to pack up their belongings and try to leave this area,” UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Gaza.

The agency “estimates that around 250,000 people have been impacted by these orders”, she said, adding: “We expect these numbers to grow”.

Her comments came after the Israeli army Monday issued a new evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis and Rafah in southern Gaza.

An AFP photographer saw Palestinians leave eastern Khan Yunis on foot, in cars and on horse or donkey carts, carrying their belongings with them.

Some displaced people with nowhere to go were sleeping on the streets, witnesses said.

Ahmad Najjar, a resident of the town of Bani Suhaila, said the Israeli evacuation order had caused “a large displacement of residents” and spurred “fear and extreme anxiety”.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees estimates that “around 2,50,000 people have been impacted by these orders”, said UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge.

“We expect that almost all of these people will move from this area,” she said.

Six consecutive days of intense battles followed a similar evacuation order issued last week for the Gaza City district of Shujaiya.

An AFP correspondent reported artillery shelling in the northern area on Tuesday, and witnesses said gun battles raged on.

The military said its forces were operating in Shujaiya, central Gaza and Rafah, where aircraft carried out strikes and troops “ambushed an armed terrorist squad” in a car and killed them.

Strikes a ‘daily routine’

Over the past day, the Israeli air force “struck approximately 30 terror targets” across Gaza, said a military statement.

In Shujaiya, Palestinian militants “were eliminated and dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites above and below ground were dismantled, including tunnel shafts”, it added.

In central Gaza, witnesses said strikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp where the Palestinian Red Crescent reported at least one dead, a child.

Mohamed al-Jalees, displaced from Shujaiya to Nuseirat, helped clear the rubble and search for survivors.

“A missile struck our neighbours’ house,” he told AFP. “We rushed to check on them, and some were rescued alive (but) we found a martyred child.”

“I have been displaced here for nine months… This is our daily routine.”

Other parts of the Gaza Strip were reeling from continued fighting nearly nine months into the war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and has led to a dire humanitarian crisis.

Months of on-and-off talks towards a truce and hostage release deal have made little progress, even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared more than a week ago that the “intense phase” of the war was winding down.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that “we’ve heard the Israelis talk about a significant downshift in their operations in Gaza”.

“It remains to be seen.”

The latest order to leave parts of southern Gaza follows an evacuation of Rafah nearly two months ago which had signalled the start of a long-feared Israeli offensive that has uprooted many Palestinians and blocked a key aid route.

‘Failure’

Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive aimed at eradicating the Palestinians militants in Gaza has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The military announced two soldiers were killed in central Gaza, taking to 319 its death toll since ground operations began in late October.

Israeli authorities on Monday released Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital — the territory’s largest medical complex, ravaged by Israeli raids — along with dozens of other detainees returned to Gaza for treatment.

Abu Salmiya said he had suffered “severe torture” during his detention.

“Several inmates died in interrogation centres and were deprived of food and medicine,” he said after his release.

Israel has accused Hamas of using Al-Shifa and other hospitals as a cover for military operations, claims Gaza militants have rejected.

Netanyahu said the release had been made without his knowledge, and that Abu Salmiya belongs “in prison” because Israeli hostages were “murdered and held” in the hospital.

The director’s return to Gaza was “a serious mistake and a moral failure”, Netanyahu said.

According to Abu Salmiya, Israel brought no charges against him during his seven-month detention.

Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said the release was “to free up places in detention centres”.

Those sent back to Gaza “represent a lesser danger” and were not directly involved in attacks on Israeli civilians, it said.

Washington:

A temporary US aid pier has again been removed from the Gaza coast due to high seas and will be towed to an Israeli port, the Pentagon said on Friday.

It is the third time the pier has been detached from the shore because of weather conditions since its initial installation in mid-May, and the effort is also facing difficulties with distribution of assistance once it reaches Gaza.

“Due to high sea states expected this weekend, Central Command has removed the temporary pier from its anchored position in Gaza and will tow it back to Ashdod, Israel,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists, referring to the military command responsible for the Middle East.

She said she does not have a date for the pier’s reinstallation, and that “the commander will continue to assess the sea states over the weekend.”

The pier was first anchored to the Gaza coast in mid-May, but was damaged by bad weather later in the month and had to be removed for repairs.

It was then reattached on June 7, but was moved to Ashdod on June 14 to protect it from anticipated high seas — a situation that is now being repeated.

When the pier has been operational, it has been used to deliver a large amount of aid to the shore.

“Since May 17, Central Command has assisted in the delivery of more than 8,831 metric tons, or approximately 19.4 million pounds, of humanitarian aid to the shore for onward distribution by humanitarian organizations,” Singh said.

But distribution has been a problem, with the UN World Food Program suspending its deliveries of assistance that arrive via the pier earlier this month to assess the security situation.

The move came after Israel conducted a military operation nearby that freed four hostages, but which Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry said killed more than 270 Palestinians.

As a result, aid is piling up in the marshalling yard where it is delivered onshore.

“There’s still some room there, but it’s, I would say majority is pretty full right now,” Singh said.

Gaza is suffering through a war which broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The operatives also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 42 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,765 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that “intense” fighting against Hamas militants in the southern Gaza city of Rafah is nearly over, more than eight months into the devastating war.

“The intense phase of the fighting against Hamas is about to end,” Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 14 network, without providing a clear timeline.

“It doesn’t mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about to end in Rafah.”

Israeli officials have described Rafah as the last Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip, and in early May troops entered the southern city, on the besieged territory’s border with Egypt, despite global alarm over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

The military seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, a key conduit for desperately needed aid into Gaza that has remained shut since then.

Netanyahu’s interview — his first with Israeli media since the war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack — was broadcast as his defence minister arrived in Washington for talks on the Gaza war and surging cross-border tensions with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

On the ground in Gaza City, in the north of the Palestinian territory, Israeli bombardment continued on Sunday with medics and the civil defence agency in the Hamas-ruled territory reporting deadly strikes.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has traded daily cross-border fire with Israel’s army, heightening fears of all-out war particularly over the past two weeks.

Netanyahu said that “after the end of the intense phase” in the Gaza Strip, Israel would “redeploy some forces to the north… primarily for defensive purposes”.

– ‘Civilian administration’ –

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s visit to Washington, which he said would include meetings that are “critical to this war”, follows public statements by Netanyahu concerning US military aid which have added strains to ties with the White House.

Netanyahu has accused Israel’s close ally and biggest military supplier of freezing some arms and ammunition deliveries during the war, which US officials have strongly rejected.

As he prepared to depart for Washington, Gallant said: “Our ties with the United States are more important than ever”.

Netanyahu, who has faced growing pressure from Israeli demonstrators demanding a deal to free hostages still held in Gaza, said he would not agree to any deal that includes a permanent ceasefire — one of Hamas’s key demands in stalled mediation efforts for a truce.

“The goal is to return the kidnapped and uproot the Hamas regime in Gaza,” he said.

When asked about post-war scenarios for Gaza, Netanyahu said it was “clear” that Israel would maintain “military control in the foreseeable future”.

“We also want to create a civilian administration, if possible with local Palestinians” and regional backing “to manage humanitarian supply and later on civilian affairs in the Strip”, Netanyahu added.

Similar proposals Netanyahu had presented to his ministers in February were swiftly rejected by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and prompted US warnings against the “Israeli reoccupation of Gaza”.

Two members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, former military chiefs Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, left the government earlier this month over the lack of post-war plans.

– War ‘must stop’ –

In Gaza, Israeli forces kept striking targets and battling Hamas.

In Gaza City, medics at Al-Ahli hospital told AFP that at least five people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a facility of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

The Israeli military said its jets struck militants who “operated from within buildings that previously served as an UNRWA headquarters”

There was no immediate comment from UNRWA, whose facilities have come under attack before.

Some UNRWA buildings have been turned into shelters for displaced Palestinians during the war.

An early morning air raid on a family home elsewhere in Gaza City killed at least seven people, the civil defence agency said.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 41 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,598 people, also mostly civilians, Gaza’s health ministry said.

“This war must stop,” said Umm Siraj al-Balawi, struggling to survive in a makeshift shelter amid a field of rubble, with strung-up sheets protecting her young children from the blazing sun.

But despite the needs, “delivery of any meaningful humanitarian assistance inside Gaza has become almost impossible and the very fabric of civil society is unravelling,” the European Union said in a statement.

As the war has raged on, Israeli protesters have taken to the streets week after week demanding greater efforts to bring home the remaining hostages.

In his Sunday interview, Netanyahu said that if his rule ends, “a left-wing government will… establish a Palestinian state”, dubbing it a threat to “our existence”.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah said it had targeted military positions in northern Israel with attack drones, after an Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon killed the commander of another armed group, Jamaa Islamiya.

After the Israeli military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been approved, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah responded that no part of Israel would be spared in the event of a full-scale war.

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Palestinian Territories:

Israel’s military said Sunday it would “pause” fighting around a south Gaza route daily to facilitate aid deliveries, following months of warnings of famine in the besieged Palestinian territory.

The announcement of a “local, tactical pause of military activity” during daylight hours in an area of Rafah came a day after eight Israeli soldiers were killed in a blast near the far-southern city and three more troops died elsewhere, in one of the heaviest losses for the army in its war against Hamas militants.

UN agencies and aid groups have repeatedly sounded the alarm of dire shortages of food and other essentials in the Gaza Strip, exacerbated by overland access restrictions and the closure of the key Rafah crossing with Egypt since Israeli forces seized it in early May.

Israel has long defended its efforts to let aid into Gaza including via its Kerem Shalom border near Rafah, blaming militants for looting supplies and humanitarian workers for failing to distribute them to civilians.

“A local, tactical pause of military activity for humanitarian purposes will take place from 8:00 am (0500 GMT) until 7:00 pm (1600 GMT) every day until further notice along the road that leads from the Kerem Shalom crossing to the Salah al-Din road and then northwards,” a military statement said.

A map released by the army showed the declared humanitarian route extending until Rafah’s European Hospital, about 10 kilometres (six miles) from Kerem Shalom.

AFP correspondents in Gaza said there were no reports of strikes, shelling or fighting on Sunday morning, though the military stressed in a statement there was “no cessation of hostilities in the southern Gaza Strip”.

The decision, which the military said was already in effect, was part of efforts to “increase the volumes of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip” following discussions with the UN and other organisations, it said.

The announcement also comes on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The United States, which has been pressing close ally Israel as well as Hamas to agree to a ceasefire plan laid out by President Joe Biden, on Friday imposed sanctions on an extremist Israeli group for blocking and attacking Gaza-bound aid convoys.

In Gaza City, in the territory’s north, “there is nothing left” to eat, said resident Umm Ahmed Abu Rass.

“What is this life?” she told AFP. “There is no fuel, no access to medical treatment… and there is no food or water.”

“We want to live.”

Israel to ‘cling’ to war goals

The military said the eight soldiers killed Saturday were hit by an explosion as they were travelling in an armoured vehicle near Rafah, where troops were engaged in fierce street battles against Palestinian militants.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a televised briefing that the blast was “apparently from an explosive device planted in the area or from the firing of an anti-tank missile”.

Separately, two soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Gaza and another succumbed to wounds inflicted in recent fighting.

Saturday’s losses were among the heaviest for the military since it began its ground offensive in Gaza on October 27, taking its overall toll since then to 309 deaths.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his condolences following “this terrible loss”.

In a statement, he said that “despite the heavy and unsettling price, we must cling to the goals of the war”.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas following the Palestinian group’s unprecedented October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages. Of these, 116 remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,296 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

World Food Programme deputy executive director Carl Skau said recently that “with lawlessness inside the Strip… and active conflict”, it has become “close to impossible to deliver the level of aid that meets the growing demands on the ground”.

G7 leaders on Friday said aid agencies must be allowed to work unhindered in Gaza, calling for the “rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need”.

‘Wider conflict’ 

Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been pushing for a new truce since a one-week pause in November which also saw hostages released from Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoner held in Israeli jails, and increased aid deliveries into the Palestinian territory.

But as diplomatic efforts have stalled, fears of the war spilling over into a broader Middle East conflict have been rekindled in recent days by an escalation of tit-for-tat violence between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

Hezbollah said intense strikes since Wednesday were retaliation for Israel’s killing of one of its commanders.

Israeli forces responded with shelling, the military said, also announcing air strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure across the border.

The two top UN officials in Lebanon called on all sides to cease fire. “The danger of miscalculation leading to a sudden and wider conflict is very real,” they said in a joint statement.

During a Middle East trip this week to push a Gaza truce plan, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “the best way” to help resolve the Hezbollah-Israel violence was “a resolution of the conflict in Gaza and getting a ceasefire”.

That has not happened.

Hamas has insisted on the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire — demands Israel has repeatedly rejected.

Blinken has said Israel backs the latest plan, but Netanyahu, whose far-right coalition partners are strongly opposed to a ceasefire, has not publicly endorsed it.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

Gaza is a long way from the picturesque foothills of the Yorkshire Dales but the issue could swing UK general election races in northern England, with many local Muslims angry at Labour’s stance.

While Labour is expected to win a thumping national majority on July 4, leader Keir Starmer’s refusal to back an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza has caused a split with once-loyal Muslim supporters.

That rift could influence the result in marginal seats that have a sizeable Muslim population, such as Keighley and Ilkley in Yorkshire.

Around four in five UK Muslims voted Labour in 2019, reinforcing the historic links that were forged after the mass migration of workers from Pakistan in the 1950s and 1960s.

But recent polling suggested around one in five of those voters are set to defect, further weakening the country’s traditional voting blocs.

“It’s definitely an issue… but I’m quite hopeful as the election campaign goes on that I will retain a large part of the Muslim vote where it’s a particular concern,” said Labour candidate John Grogan at his Keighley campaign office, surrounded by boxes of “Vote Labour” posters and flyers.

“Here in Keighley, the mosques are taking a neutral position. In some towns across the north of England, the mosques are saying, ‘don’t vote for either of the main parties’,” he told AFP.

A robust doorstep debate on the campaign trail revealed the depth of feeling, with Grogan stressing to a local resident that Labour in power would “respect the power of the international court” and recognise a Palestinian state.

He also highlighted his vote against the Iraq war while an MP in 2003.

“Keir Starmer is going to be your leader though. Whatever Keir Starmer says is what you follow,” the sceptical voter, who wished to remain anonymous, said from his front door.

“The only one who is speaking at the moment is George Galloway,” he added, referring to the veteran firebrand politician who recently became an MP in a similar seat by running on the issue.

“Well, he’s not going to get things done mate,” replied Grogan. “I want to be in parliament the day that Britain, France and Germany recognise a Palestinian state. We’re committed to doing it.”

While losing support among some in the Muslim community, others pledged their support for Grogan as he walked the streets campaigning, aided by a Bengali cricket team.

‘Very, very angry’

The Conservatives could theoretically hold the seat if enough voters desert Labour for other candidates, such as independent Vasim Shabir, who has made Gaza the focal point of his campaign.

“Gaza has galvanised a lot of people who were either politically apathetic or politically asleep,” Shabir told AFP outside a town centre kebab shop that was flying his campaign flag.

“We want to be disrupters. I want to alter the election,” he added, explaining his goal was to prevent a Labour victory.

Solicitor Shaid Iqbal, a leading figure in the town’s Muslim community, said people were “very, very angry”.

“They’re angry at both parties. But the fact is, Labour more, because they thought that Labour was a party which would stick up for human rights, speak up against atrocities,” he added.

“They’ve let the public down.”

Labour strategists said the issue lost them votes during May’s English local elections, but such is the disillusionment at the ruling Conservatives, the party is still expected to win in Keighley and Ilkley.

However, Shabir said demographic divides within the Muslim community meant that Labour’s relief may be temporary.

“The older generation, who don’t have access to TikTok and social media, are still pretty much loyal to Labour,” he said.

“The younger generation, British-born Pakistanis and Bengalis in this constituency, overwhelmingly do not want to vote for Labour.

“I think they are going to lose the vote for a generation to come,” he said, adding there were “a lot of discussions going on” between independent candidates about forming a new party.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The US imposed sanctions on the far-right Israeli group Tsav 9 today in response to the group’s aggressive actions against humanitarian aid convoys destined for Gaza. These measures, enacted under an executive order signed by US President Joe Biden in February, are aimed at addressing violence and threats to stability in the West Bank.

The US State Department has levied sanctions against the group described as a “violent, extremist Israeli group,” for obstructing convoys delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza and for assaulting trucks. According to the State Department, Tsav 9 members started blocking the crucial Kerem Shalom crossing near the Gaza-Israel-Egypt border at the beginning of the year. They subsequently set fire to trucks and injured drivers and Israel Defense Forces soldiers, exacerbating the hunger crisis within Gaza.

What Is Tsav 9?

Tsav 9, also spelled Tzav 9, emerged in January this year. The group’s name references “Tzav-8,” the emergency call-up order for Israeli military reservists. It was formed by Israeli settlers, army reservists, and families of those taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 attacks last year. These individuals oppose the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, believing that much of the aid is diverted to Hamas.

Since its formation, Tsav 9 has been implicated in numerous violent activities aimed at disrupting aid shipments to Gaza. The group’s tactics include blockading roads, harassing drivers, and vandalising trucks. They have attacked convoys at the Kerem Shalom crossing, setting trucks on fire, and injuring both drivers and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers.

In May, Tsav 9 members looted and burned two aid trucks near Hebron, an act that was part of a broader campaign to prevent essential supplies from reaching Gaza. Footage has surfaced showing the group ransacking aid shipments, dumping food and medical supplies onto the road. These actions have contributed to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where famine conditions have been reported.

International and Domestic Reactions

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan labelled the attacks as “utterly unacceptable,” while Aaron Forsberg, the director of the State Department’s Office of Sanctions Policy and Implementation, reiterated the US commitment to using all available tools to hold perpetrators accountable.

“We’re using the authority to sanction an ever-broadening selection of actors, targeting individuals and entities that threaten the peace, security and stability of the West Bank regardless of religion, ethnicity or location,” Aaron Forsberg said, as quoted by news agency Reuters.

Inside Israel, the response to Tsav 9 is mixed. While the group’s actions have sparked international outrage, there is significant domestic support for their opposition to aid shipments to Gaza. Several polls indicate that a majority of Israelis favour limiting or halting humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Tsav 9’s activities are part of a larger pattern of settler violence in the region. Palestinians and human rights organisations have long accused the Israeli military and police of failing to adequately intervene in settler attacks. The recent wave of violence has escalated since the conflict between Israel and Hamas intensified on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli government has faced criticism for its handling of the situation. Its National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has been accused of adopting a lenient approach towards settler violence, while some Israeli security forces are believed to be complicit in tipping off Tsav 9 activists about the locations of aid convoys.

Israeli tanks mounted raids across Rafah in defiance of the World Court for a second day on May 29, after Washington said the assault did not amount to a major ground operation in the southern Gazan city that U.S. officials have warned Israel to avoid.

Israel sent its tanks into the heart of Rafah for the first time on Tuesday, despite an order from the International Court of Justice to end its attacks on the city, where many Palestinians had taken refuge from widespread bombardment.

Editorial | Punishing Hamas: On Israel and the ICJ ruling

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, reiterated its opposition to a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah but said on Tuesday it did not believe such an operation was under way.

Rafah residents said on Wednesday that Israeli tanks had pushed into Tel Al-Sultan in western Rafah and Yibna and near Shaboura in the centre before retreating towards a buffer zone on the border with Egypt, in contrast with offensives elsewhere.

Israel’s military controlled three quarters of the buffer zone and aimed to control all of it to prevent Hamas smuggling in weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi said.

He expected fighting in Gaza to continue throughout 2024 at least, he said, signalling Israel was not ready to heed international calls to agree a ceasefire with the Hamas militants who run Gaza and exchange the hostages they hold for Palestinian prisoners.

The armed wings of Hamas and its allies Islamic Jihad said they confronted the invading forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs and blew up previously planted explosive devices.

Also read | The ICJ ruling on Israel’s Rafah offensive and its implications | Explained

The Israeli military said three soldiers were killed and three others badly wounded in combat in southern Gaza, without elaborating. Israel’s public broadcaster Kan radio said they were hurt by an explosive device set off in a building in Rafah.

Palestinian health officials said several people were wounded by Israeli fire in eastern Rafah and stores of aid were set ablaze. Residents said constant Israeli bombardment overnight destroyed many homes in the area, from where most people have fled after orders by Israel to evacuate.

Some residents reported seeing what they described as unmanned robotic armoured vehicles opening fire from machine guns in some parts of the city.

Internet and mobile signals went down in parts of both east and west amid heavy Israeli air and ground bombardment, the pro-Hamas Shehab news agency, residents and other journalists said. The Israeli military said it could not confirm the reports.

In northern Gaza, tanks shelled several Gaza City neighbourhoods, and forces thrust deeper into Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight biggest historic refugee camps, where residents said large residential districts were destroyed.

Healthcare needed immediately in Rafah and North Gaza, Palestinian Health Ministry says

Gaza’s Health Ministry said several hospitals in areas where the army is operating had stopped functioning. Spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra called for immediate safe pathways for fuel, medical aid and medical teams to Rafah and northern Gaza.

“The Israeli occupation deliberately finished off the healthcare presence in Rafah and the north,” Qidra’s statement said adding that there was no help for people wounded there.

Around a million Palestinians who had taken shelter in Rafah at the southern end of the Gaza Strip from Israel’s offensives elsewhere have now fled after Israeli orders to evacuate, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA reported on Tuesday.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it had evacuated its medical teams from its field hospital in the Al-Mawasi area, a designated civilian evacuation zone, citing “continued artillery and air bombardments” in the vicinity.

The World Court said in its ruling on Friday that Israel had not explained how it would keep the Rafah evacuees safe and provide food, water and medicine. Israel said the order allowed room for some military action to root out Hamas fighters there.

In the nearby city of Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike killed three people overnight, including Salama Baraka, a former senior Hamas police officer, medics and Hamas media said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said one of its staff, Issam Aqel, was killed in an Israeli air strike on his house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, taking to 30 the number of staff killed since Oct 7, at least 17 of them killed on duty.

Israel delivered its latest ceasefire and hostage release proposal to Qatar, and Qatar was to provide it to Hamas on Tuesday, a person familiar with the issue said. There was no immediate word on Wednesday from Hamas, which has said talks are pointless unless Israel ends its offensive on Rafah.

More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza , the enclave’s health ministry said.

Israel launched its air and ground war after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Malnutrition is widespread in Gaza as aid deliveries have slowed to a trickle, with international aid agencies accusing Israel of blocking their distribution attempts and Israel blaming the agencies.

In a further blow to aid efforts, part of a new aid pier put in place by the U.S. military off Gaza’s coast broke off, probably due to bad weather, putting it out of operation temporarily, two U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

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The Rafah refugee camp in Gaza witnessed scenes of horror and devastation in the wake of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday. Tents were engulfed in flames, and the cries of burn victims filled the air after the attack, which the Gaza Health Ministry attributed to Israeli forces targeting displaced Palestinians seeking refuge in camps. 

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that the death count had risen to 45 from the overnight strikes, which ignited tents and sparked widespread condemnation across the globe. The agency described the aftermath as a “massacre,” with many bodies charred beyond recognition and numerous victims suffering severe injuries.

“We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs,” said Mohammad al-Mughayyir, an official from the civil defence agency, as quoted by news agency AFP. “We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women, and the elderly.”

Footage captured by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society showed chaotic scenes as paramedics worked tirelessly to evacuate the wounded, including many children. The night was filled with the sounds of sirens and the anguished cries of survivors.

“We had just finished evening prayers,” recalled one survivor. “Our children were asleep when we heard a loud sound, and suddenly there was fire all around us. The children were screaming… the sound was terrifying.”

The Israeli army claimed that their aircraft had targeted a Hamas compound in Rafah, resulting in the deaths of two senior Hamas operatives, Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar. They acknowledged reports of civilian casualties due to the strike and the subsequent fire, stating that the incident was under investigation.

The airstrike provoked strong reactions from neighbouring Arab nations. Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and Qatar condemned the attack, with Qatar warning that it could hinder ongoing efforts to revive truce and hostage release talks in the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has been ongoing since October 7.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) described the attack as “horrifying” and shared on social media that the images from the site were “yet another testament” to the dire conditions in Gaza. Multiple videos showed fires raging through the camp and people desperately pulling bodies from the rubble.

By morning, the charred remains of tents and vehicles were all that was left of the refugee camp in Rafah known as the Kuwaiti Al-Salam Camp 1. An aid group, Al-Salam Association for Humanitarian and Charitable Works, reported that besides the dozens of deaths and injuries, over 120 tents and several facilities were destroyed.

Bilal al-Sapti, a 30-year-old construction worker from Rafah, recounted the devastation he witnessed. “The fire was very strong and was all over the camp,” he said. “There was darkness and no electricity.” Despite the destruction, his family miraculously survived.

“Many of the dead bodies were severely burned, had amputated limbs and were torn to pieces,” said Dr Marwan al-Hams, a healthcare worker.

The UN reported that one million civilians had fled Rafah since the start of Israel’s assault in early May, despite numerous international warnings against the escalating violence.

The conflict, the deadliest in Gaza’s history, began with a deadly attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, resulting in 1,189 Israeli deaths and 252 hostages taken. Israel’s response has been relentless, with the Gaza Health Ministry reporting over 36,096 deaths, mostly civilians.

Chaim Otmazgin had tended to dozens of shot, burned or mutilated bodies before he reached the home that would put him at the center of a global clash.

Working in a kibbutz that was ravaged by Hamas’ October 7 attack, Mr. Otmazgin — a volunteer commander with ZAKA, an Israeli search and rescue organisation — saw the body of a teenager, shot dead and separated from her family in a different room. Her pants had been pulled down below her waist. He thought that was evidence of sexual violence.

He alerted journalists to what he’d seen. He tearfully recounted the details in a nationally televised appearance in the Israeli Parliament. In the frantic hours, days and weeks that followed the Hamas attack, his testimony ricocheted across the world.

But it turns out that what Mr. Otmazgin thought had occurred in the home at the kibbutz hadn’t happened.

Beyond the numerous and well-documented atrocities committed by Hamas militants on October 7, some accounts from that day, like Mr. Otmazgin’s, proved untrue.

“It’s not that I invented a story,” Mr. Otmazgin told AP in an interview, detailing the origins of his initial explosive claim — one of two by ZAKA volunteers about sexual violence that turned out to be unfounded.

“I couldn’t think of any other option” other than the teen having been sexually assaulted, he said. “At the end, it turned out to be different, so I corrected myself.”

But it was too late.

The United Nations and other organisations have presented credible evidence that Hamas militants committed sexual assault during their rampage. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said Monday he had reason to believe that three key Hamas leaders bore responsibility for “rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity.”

Though the number of assaults is unclear, photo and video from the attack’s aftermath have shown bodies with legs splayed, clothes torn and blood near their genitals.

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However, debunked accounts like Mr. Otmazgin’s have encouraged scepticism and fueled a highly charged debate about the scope of what occurred on October 7 — one that is still playing out on social media and in college campus protests.

Some allege the accounts of sexual assault were purposely concocted. ZAKA officials and others dispute that. Regardless, AP’s examination of ZAKA’s handling of the now debunked stories shows how information can be clouded and distorted in the chaos of the conflict.

As some of the first people on the scene, ZAKA volunteers offered testimony of what they saw that day. Those words have helped journalists, Israeli lawmakers and U.N. investigators paint a picture of what occurred during Hamas’ attack. (ZAKA, a volunteer-based group, does not do forensic work. The organisation has been a fixture at Israeli disaster sites and scenes of attacks since it was founded in 1995. Its specific job is to collect bodies in keeping with Jewish law.)

Still, it took ZAKA months to acknowledge the accounts were wrong, allowing them to proliferate. And the fallout from the debunked accounts shows how the topic of sexual violence has been used to further political agendas.

Israel points to sexual violence on October 7 to highlight what it says is Hamas’ savagery and to justify its wartime goal of neutralising any repeated threat coming from Gaza. It has accused the international community of ignoring or playing down evidence of sexual violence claims, alleging anti-Israel bias. It says any untrue stories were an anomaly in the face of the many documented atrocities.

In turn, some of Israel’s critics have seized on the ZAKA accounts, along with others shown to be untrue, to allege that the Israeli government has distorted the facts to prosecute a war — one in which more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, many of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials.

A U.N. fact-finding team found “reasonable grounds” to believe that some of those who stormed southern Israel on October 7 had committed sexual violence, including rape and gang rape. But the U.N. investigators also said that in the absence of forensic evidence and survivor testimony, it would be impossible to determine the scope of such violence. Hamas has denied its forces committed sexual violence.

Israel was caught off guard by the ferocity of the October 7 assault, the deadliest in the nation’s history. About 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. It took days for the military to clear the area of militants.

There were hundreds of bodies scattered across southern Israel, bearing various signs of abuse: burns, bullet holes, signs of mutilation, marks indicating bodies were bound. ZAKA volunteers weren’t used to dealing with so many bodies.

“You get dizzy at some point,” said Moti Bukjin, ZAKA’s spokesperson. “Some of the bodies are burned. Some are mutilated. Some of the bodies are decapitated. Every house has a story.”

Standard protocols for dealing with attacks, which Israel encountered frequently on a far smaller scale in the early 2000s, collapsed. There was confusion over who was dead and who was taken captive, especially in the hard-hit communal farming villages and in the aftermath of the outdoor Nova music festival.

Authorities were concerned that remaining militants might snatch more bodies. ZAKA says it was instructed to gather the dead as swiftly as possible and send them for identification and quick burial, according to Jewish custom. ZAKA said it sent some 800 volunteers to southern Israel, arriving at the music festival late on October 7 and entering the kibbutzim two days later, according to Mr. Otmazgin.

For the first three days, many hardly slept at all. Accompanied by military escorts, volunteers went house to house, wrapping the bodies in white plastic bags on which they wrote the person’s gender, the house number where they were found and any other identifying details. Then they’d say the Jewish mourning prayer and load them into a truck, according to Tomer Peretz, who volunteered for the first time with ZAKA in the days following the attack.

As first responders worked, rocket fire from Gaza boomed overhead. Volunteers paused and crouched when air raid sirens blared. They used anything they could find to move bodies — even shopping carts. “We worked a minute and a half per body, from the moment we touch it to the moment it is on the truck,” said Mr. Otmazgin, commander of special units with ZAKA.

Peretz, a U.S.-based artist, said the volunteers weren’t there to do forensic work; he thought the soldiers who cleared the houses of explosives beforehand were handling that process. But the Israeli military told the AP that the army did not do any forensic work in the wake of October 7.

Mr. Bukjin said police forensics teams were mostly focused on the southern cities of Sderot and Ofakim. Mr. Otmazgin said forensics workers were present in the kibbutzim but spread thin and could not follow standard — and painstaking — protocols because of the scale of the attack. He said forensics teams in the area mostly instructed ZAKA on how to help identify the bodies.

That means that bodies which might have shown signs of sexual assault could have eluded examination. Instead, they were loaded into body bags, sent to a facility to be identified and dispatched for quick burial.

“People seem to have expected that the aftermath of the attack would be like a movie, that immediately the police would come, that everything would be very sterile and very clean. People who don’t live in a war zone do not understand the horrific chaos that took place that day,” said Orit Sulitzeanu, the executive director of The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel.

The group has spent months gathering evidence of sexual violence that occurred that day, sifting through many accounts emerging from the chaotic early days just after the attack. “Some of those stories that turned out not to be true were not lies,” she said. They were, she said, “mistakes.”

Mr. Otmazgin said he was the origin of one of two debunked stories by ZAKA volunteers about sexual assault.

He said he entered a home in Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the hardest-hit communities, where nearly a tenth of the population of roughly 1,000 was killed, and found the body of a teenage girl separated from two of her relatives. Her pants, he said, were pulled down. He assumed that meant she had been sexually assaulted.

“They slaughtered her. They shot her in the head and her pants are pulled down to here. I put that out there. Have someone give me a different interpretation,” he said then, showing an AP reporter a photo he took of the scene, which he had altered by pulling up the teenager’s pants.

Today, he maintains that he never said outright that the girl whose body he saw had been sexually assaulted. But his telling strongly suggested that was the case. Mr. Otmazgin says he told journalists and lawmakers details of what he’d seen and asked if they might have some other interpretation.

Nearly three months later, ZAKA found out his interpretation was wrong. After cross-checking with military contacts, ZAKA found that a group of soldiers had dragged the girl’s body across the room to make sure it wasn’t booby-trapped. During the procedure, her pants had come down.

Mr. Otmazgin said it took time to learn the truth because the soldiers who moved the body had been deployed to Gaza for weeks and were not reachable. He said he recognised that such accounts can cause damage, but he believes he rectified it by correcting his account months later.

A military spokesperson said he had no way of knowing what had happened to every body in the assault’s immediate aftermath. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

Another account with details similar to Mr. Otmazgin’s but attributed to an anonymous combat medic has also come under scrutiny after emerging in international media, including in a story by the AP. But the medic did not disclose where he saw the scene.

The military would not make the medic available for further interviews, so it was not possible to reconcile the two accounts or verify the medic’s.

Yossi Landau, a longtime ZAKA volunteer, was also working in Be’eri when he entered a home that would produce the second debunked story. Mr. Landau would recount to global media what he thought he saw: a pregnant woman lying on the floor, her fetus still attached to the umbilical cord wrenched from her body.

Mr. Otmazgin was overseeing the other ZAKA workers when he said Mr. Landau frantically called him and others into the home. But Mr. Otmazgin did not see what Mr. Landau described. Instead, he saw the body of a heavy-set woman and an unidentifiable hunk attached to an electric cable. Everything was charred.

Mr. Otmazgin said he told Mr. Landau that his interpretation was wrong — this wasn’t a pregnant woman. Still, Mr. Landau believed his version, went on to tell the story to journalists and was cited in outlets around the world. Mr. Landau, along with other first responders, also told journalists he had seen beheaded children and babies. No convincing evidence had been publicised to back up that claim, and it was debunked by Haaretz and other major media outlets.

Mr. Bukjin said it took some time for ZAKA to understand that the story was not true, then asked Mr. Landau to stop telling it. Mr. Otmazgin also told Mr. Landau to stop telling the story, but that wasn’t until about three months after the attack when ZAKA was wrapping up its work in the field. The United Nations said Mr. Landau’s claim was unfounded.

Mr. Otmazgin said it has been difficult to rein Mr. Landau in, both because he vehemently believes in his version and because there is no way to stop journalists from engaging with him directly. Both Mr. Otmazgin and Mr. Bukjin attributed Mr. Landau’s continued belief in the false account to him having been deeply traumatised by what he saw in the aftermath of October 7.

AP journalists attempted to reach Mr. Landau multiple times. While he answered initial inquiries, he was ultimately unreachable.

Almost immediately after October 7, Israel began allowing groups of journalists to visit the ravaged kibbutzim. On the trips, journalists found ZAKA volunteers onsite to be some of the most accessible sources of information and some shared what they thought they saw, even though, as Mr. Bukjin notes, “we are not forensics workers.”

“They pretend to know, sometimes very naively, what happened to the bodies they are dealing with,” said Gideon Aran, a sociologist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University who wrote a recent book on the organisation.

Mr. Bukjin said that the group’s usual media protocols faltered and that volunteers, who he said typically were vetted by him before being interviewed, were speaking to journalists directly. “The information is wild, is not controlled right,” said Peretz, the first-time volunteer. He said he took photos and video of what he saw even though he was told not to and was interviewed repeatedly about what he witnessed.

Other first responders also offered accounts — of babies beheaded, or hung from a clothesline, or killed together in a nursery, or placed in an oven – which were later debunked by Israeli reporters.

ZAKA is a private civilian body made up of 3,000 mostly Orthodox Jewish volunteer workers. Beyond its work in Israel, the group has also sent teams to international incidents, including the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the 2002 attacks in Mombasa, Kenya. As part of its role to ensure burial according to Jewish law, its volunteers scour crime scenes for remains in order to bury each body as completely as possible.

Aran, the sociologist, said October 7 was unlike anything the organisation had previously witnessed. ZAKA’s main experience with victim identification before October 7 was limited to distinguishing militant attackers from their victims, not determining who was a victim of sexual assault, Aran said.

After untrue accounts of sexual assault filtered into international media, the process of debunking them appeared, at times, to take centre stage in the global dispute over the facts of October 7. On social media, accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers question the very occurrence of sexual violence.

The loud debate belies a growing body of evidence supporting the claim that sexual assault took place that day, even as its scope remains difficult to ascertain.

The U.N. team investigating sexual violence said it saw “credible circumstantial information which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualized torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”

That included photos and videos showing a minimum of 20 corpses with clothes that had been torn, revealing private body parts, and 10 bodies with indications of bound wrists and or tied legs. No digital materials showed sexual violence in real time, the report said.

The investigators described the accounts that originated with Mr. Otmazgin and Mr. Landau to be “unfounded.” Regarding Mr. Otmazgin’s original account, they said the “crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad and the bodies moved, explaining the separation of the body of the girl from the rest of her family.”

Mr. Otmazgin said he publicly corrected himself after discovering what had transpired, including to the U.N. investigators he met. He showed the investigators — and later an AP reporter — photos and video, including one of a deceased woman who had a blood-speckled, flesh-coloured bulb in her genital area, as well as several bodies of women with blood near their genitals and another who appeared to have small sharp objects protruding from her upper thigh and above her genitals.

More evidence is emerging as time goes by. A released hostage has described facing sexual violence in captivity in an account to The New York Times, and a man at the music festival said he heard a woman screaming she was being raped.

On Monday, releasing arrest warrants for top Hamas and Israeli officials, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that hostages taken from Israel have been kept in inhumane conditions, and that some have been subject to sexual violence, including rape, while being held in captivity.”

The U.N. report shines a light on the issues that have contributed to the skepticism over sexual violence. It said there was “limited crime scene processing” and that some evidence of sexual assault may have been lost due to “the interventions of some inadequately trained volunteer first responders.” It also said global scrutiny of the accounts emerging from October 7 may have deterred survivors from coming forward.

In the fraught global discourse surrounding October 7 and the war it sparked, sexual violence has been a particular point of tension.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as prominent figures such as former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and top technology executive Sheryl Sandberg, have called out what they saw as global indifference toward Israeli women who were sexually assaulted in the attack.

Some critics of Israel’s war, meanwhile, have raised questions about the weight of the evidence, using debunked testimonies, including from ZAKA volunteers, to do so. The site oct7factcheck.com, which says its aim is to combat “atrocity propaganda” that could “justify military or political actions,” has repeatedly challenged investigations in mainstream media about sexual violence.

The site, which is run by a loose coalition of tech industry employees supporting Palestinian rights, says it has not yet reached a conclusion on the occurrence of gender-based violence. It has alleged that ZAKA members are “behind many of the October 7 fabrications.” The site has also highlighted other debunked accounts, including about a baby found in an oven and a hostage giving birth in captivity.

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a U.S. policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank, said a long history of what he calls Israeli disinformation and propaganda has fueled global scepticism over the claims. The debunked ZAKA stories, he said, contributed to the sense that Israel exaggerated accounts of atrocities committed by Hamas to dehumanise Palestinians as its military continues its deadly offensive.

“Skepticism of all claims made by the Israeli military, a military that is being investigated for genocide at The Hague, are not only justified but should be encouraged,” he said. “That’s why Palestinians, and much of the international community, are asking for thorough scrutiny.”

Dahlia Scheindlin, a commentator on Israeli affairs, said those downplaying the atrocities committed by Hamas have seized on the debunked ZAKA accounts as “ammunition” to show that Israel fabricates or that October 7 wasn’t so bad, rather than examining all the available evidence to build a more comprehensive picture of what happened.

At the same time, any false accounts, even if produced without malice, lead to further polarisation and pulls the focus away from victims, she argues. “Every bit of misinformation, disinformation — good faith or bad faith, mistakes or lies — is extremely destructive.”