Palestinian Territories:

Palestinian sources said at least 29 people were killed Tuesday in a strike on a school being used to shelter displaced people in Gaza, the fourth such incident in four days, with Hamas blaming Israel for the deaths.

Israel’s military told AFP it had carried out a strike in the area and was reviewing the incident. It has acknowledged carrying out three other strikes since Saturday on Gaza schools being used as shelters.

The strike hit the entrance to Al-Awda school in Abasan, said a source at Nasser hospital in the nearby southern city of Khan Yunis, where victims were taken, adding that 29 were killed and dozens wounded.

The Hamas-run government media office accused Israel of carrying out a “terrible massacre” and also gave the death toll as 29, saying the “majority” were women and children.

“We were sitting at the entrance of the school… suddenly and without warning, rockets were fired,” a witness, Mohammed Sukkar, told AFP about Tuesday’s strike.

The Israel military said the air force had used “precise munition” to strike a “terrorist from Hamas’ military wing” near the school.

“The incident is under review,” the military said in a statement.

Officials in the Hamas-run territory said at least 20 people were killed in the earlier attacks on the schools.

Israel said all three of those strikes had targeted militants hiding in the schools.

On Saturday, an Israeli strike hit the UN-run Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza, killing 16 people, according to the health ministry.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 2,000 people were sheltering there at the time.

The following day a strike on the Holy Family school in Gaza City killed four, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.

The Latin Patriarchate, owners of the school, said hundreds of people had packed the grounds at the time.

Another UNRWA-run school in Nuseirat was hit on Monday. A local hospital said several people were taken in for treatment.

Israel said it had targeted “several terrorists” using the school for cover.

Hamas has denied Israeli claims that it uses schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities for military aims.

According to UNRWA, more than 500 people have been killed in schools and

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

New Delhi:

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) used the ‘Hannibal directive’ during the Hamas attack on October 7, Haaretz, a leading daily, has reported. This directive allows soldiers to use force to prevent kidnappings, even if it puts the lives of hostages at risk, it said.

What is the Hannibal directive? 

The Hannibal Directive is a controversial Israeli military policy that orders the use of maximum force to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, even if it means risking their lives. The policy allows soldiers to open fire without constraints, targeting not only the abductors but also potential escape routes, including junctions, roads and highways, a former Israeli army soldier told Al Jazeera.

The directive was last invoked in 2014 during the Gaza war, resulting in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians and accusations of war crimes. Although the Israeli army denied using the doctrine, it was reportedly revoked in 2016 and used again now.

According to the Haaretz report, the protocol was used by the IDF after the October 7 attack at three army facilities, potentially endangering civilians. A message sent to Israel’s Gaza division at 11:22 am ordered that “not a single vehicle can return to Gaza,” implying that vehicles could be carrying kidnapped civilians or soldiers.  

“Everyone knew by then that such vehicles could be carrying kidnapped civilians or soldiers … Everyone knew what it meant to not let any vehicles return to Gaza,” a source told the Israeli newspaper. 

While the extent of harm to civilians and soldiers is unknown, soldiers’ testimonies and IDF officers suggest it was used widely. The report stated that the Hannibal directive “did not prevent the kidnapping of seven of them [soldiers] or the killing of 15 other spotters, as well as 38 other soldiers”.

On October 7, Hamas captured dozens of Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians. Many of these captives remain in the group’s custody, while others were killed in subsequent Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. According to Israeli authorities, 1,139 people have died in the attacks, with 250 taken captive.

Israel’s onslaught in Gaza has killed 38,000 people and displaced 1.9 million — about 90% of the city’s population — since the beginning of the war.

Israeli forces bombed and battled Hamas in Gaza City on Wednesday as tens of thousands of Palestinians scrambled for a safe haven after the army issued an evacuation order for a vast swathe of the territory’s south.

Apache helicopters and Israeli quadcopter drones flew above Gaza City’s Shujaiya district as heavy gunfire echoed through the streets, AFP reporters said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a US media report saying his generals were urging a Gaza truce even with Hamas undefeated, stressing on Tuesday that “this will not happen”.

Military chief Herzi Halevi meanwhile said Israel is engaged in “a long campaign” to destroy Hamas over the October 7 attack and to bring home the hostages held by Palestinian militants.

The United Nations warned that the almost nine-month-old war had “unleashed a maelstrom of human misery” and that the latest evacuation order had plunged yet more Palestinians into “an abyss of suffering”.

Ten days after Netanyahu said the war’s “intense phase” was winding down, the Israeli military again rained down air strikes and artillery fire on militants in the Shujaiya district.

The air force struck “over 50 terror infrastructure sites” across Gaza in 24 hours while ground troops “eliminated terrorists”, located tunnels and found weapons including AK-47 assault rifles, the military said.

Thousands have fled the fighting in Shujaiya, among them Umm Bashar al-Jamal, 42, who was now sheltering in Gaza City’s Yarmouk sports stadium.

“We were displaced five days ago,” she said. “We fled from Shujaiya. We woke up to the sound of tanks. The houses were bulldozed. All our homes!”

The Israeli army — which issued an evacuation order for Shujaiya a week ago — on Monday did the same for a larger area near Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south, raising fears of renewed heavy battles there.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have again taken to the road, many bundling their scant belongings on top of cars or donkey carts as they sought safety elsewhere in the bombed-out wasteland.

– ‘Lives upended’ –

The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 250,000 people had been affected by the latest evacuation order that covers southern areas bordering Israel and Egypt.

Almost all patients in the European Gaza Hospital and the Red Cross field hospital decided to flee following the evacuation order, the World Health Organization said.

Though the European Gaza Hospital itself is not under evacuation instructions, the order has impacted operations.

“Now only three patients remain at the European Gaza Hospital and three at the ICRC field hospital,” the WHO said, citing figures from Tuesday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the southern evacuation order covers 117 square kilometres (45 square miles), “making it the largest such order since October”.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the war had now displaced 80 percent of Gaza’s population.

She also said not enough aid was reaching the besieged territory and that crossings must be reopened, particularly to southern Gaza, to avert a humanitarian disaster.

“Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been plunged into an abyss of suffering, their home lives shattered, their lives upended,” she said. “The war has not merely created the most profound of humanitarian crises. It has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery.”

Amid the war, siege and mass displacement, more than 150,000 people have contracted skin diseases in the squalid conditions, the World Health Organization said.

Wafaa Elwan, a Palestinian mother of seven who now lives in a tent city, said: “We sleep on the ground, on sand where worms come out underneath us.”

She said her five-year-old son, much of whose body was covered in rashes and welts, “can’t sleep through the night because he can’t stop scratching his body”.

– ‘Winds of defeatism’ –

The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel 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 has killed at least 37,953 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that “operational activities continue throughout the Gaza Strip”.

The Gaza civil defence agency said seven people were killed when a strike hit a family house north of Gaza City.

Another strike killed three people in a car at Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Deir al-Balah area, an AFP reporter said.

The New York Times has quoted Israeli security officials as saying top generals see a truce as the best way to secure the release of the remaining hostages, even if that meant not achieving all of the war goals.

Netanyahu strongly rejected this and vowed Israel would not give in to the “winds of defeatism”.

“The war will end once Israel achieves all of its objectives, including the destruction of Hamas and the release of all of our hostages,” he said.

Israeli tanks take position near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said Tuesday that 1.9 million people 80% of the territory’s population were now displaced, adding she was “deeply concerned” by reports of new evacuation orders for Khan Yunis.

The United Nations has estimated that up to 250,000 people are impacted by the Israeli military order for civilians to leave parts of Khan Yunis and Rafah in Gaza, which has a total population of 2.4 million.

“Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been plunged into an abyss of suffering — their home lives shattered, their lives upended,” the UN coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, told the Security Council.

“Over one million people have been displaced once again, desperately seeking shelter and safety, (and) 1.9 million people are now displaced across Gaza,” she said.

“I’m deeply concerned about reports of new evacuation orders issued in the area of Khan Yunis,” Kaag added.

“The war has not merely created the most profound of humanitarian crises. It has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery.”

She said that not enough aid was reaching the war-torn strip, and that the opening of new crossings, particularly to southern Gaza, was necessary to avert a humanitarian disaster.

Kaag said the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt should be reopened, and also pleaded with the international community to do more to fund relief efforts.

Aid volumes entering Gaza had “dropped significantly” since the start of the Israeli operation in Rafah, she added.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said “yesterday’s orders for the evacuations of 117 square kilometers in Khan Yunis and Rafah governorates apply to about a third of the Gaza Strip, making it the largest such order since October.”

“An evacuation of such a massive scale will only heighten the suffering of civilians,” said the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel — which triggered the Israeli offensive — 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 has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Israel has not specifically said there will be a military operation in southern Gaza, but so far nearly every evacuation order has heralded major battles.

Looking beyond the conflict, the UN ambassador for Security Council member Slovenia questioned whether a ceasefire would significantly ease the humanitarian crisis.

“What’s the guarantee that it will be easier to deliver aid? Because there will be still checkpoints there… there will be still no trucks,” said the envoy, Samuel Zbogar.

“There might be still problems, and big expectations, after a ceasefire.”

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.

Palestinian Territories:

Israeli forces carried out deadly strikes Tuesday on southern Gaza after the army again ordered Palestinians to leave areas near the besieged territory’s border with Israel and Egypt.

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

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

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

This was followed by an order to evacuate most areas east of the cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, including the towns of Al-Qarara and Bani Suhaila.

Bani Suhaila resident Ahmad Najjar said the Israeli order has spurred “fear and extreme anxiety”, and “there is a large displacement of residents”.

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.

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.

‘Downshift’ 

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

Other parts of the Gaza Strip were reeling from continued fighting nearly nine months into the war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

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

“We’ve heard the Israelis talk about a significant downshift in their operations in Gaza,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday.

“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 ground offensive.

The fighting since then has again uprooted many Palestinians and led to the closure of a key aid crossing.

The United Nations and relief agencies have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and the threat of starvation the war and Israeli siege have brought for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.

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 operatives 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 Palestinian militants in Gaza has killed at least 37,900 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

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

Speaking after his release, 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.

‘Try peace’

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

Netanyahu, who has faced growing anger from protesters over his handling of the conflict as well as pressure from hardline coalition partners, criticised the release which he said had been made without his knowledge.

The Israeli premier said Abu Salmiya belongs “in prison” because Israeli hostages were “murdered and held” in the now ravaged hospital he runs.

Successive Israeli raids have reduced large parts of Al-Shifa to rubble.

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 freed “represent a lesser danger” and were not directly involved in attacks on Israeli civilians, it said.

In the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Monday, thousands attended an event calling for an end to the war and “a better reality” for Israelis and Palestinians, according to activist Ibrahim Abu Ahmad.

“At any moment, we can start making peace,” said Israeli historian and author Yuval Noah Harari.

“We have already tried to make peace, and we weren’t good at it. So what? We aren’t that successful at making war either, and that doesn’t stop us from trying… It’s time to try peace again.”

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

Beirut:

Hezbollah said it fired “dozens” of rockets Thursday at a military base in northern Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Lebanon, announcing four of its fighters had been killed.

Fears of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah have risen in recent weeks as threats have intensified between the sides, which have traded regular cross-border fire since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas ally Hezbollah said that “in response to the enemy attacks that targeted the city of Nabatiyeh and village of Sohmor”, its fighters bombed “the main air and missile defence base of the (Israeli) northern area command… with dozens of Katyusha rockets”.

It said in separate statements that four of its fighters, one from eastern Lebanon’s Sohmor, had been killed, and claimed two other attacks on Israeli troops and positions, including one with drones.

The Israeli military said in a statement that “approximately 35 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon”.

Air defences “successfully intercepted most of the launches. No injuries were reported,” it added.

It said air strikes “eliminated” three Hezbollah operatives, one in the Sohmor area and two in the country’s south.

The military also said that “two UAVs (drones) that were identified crossing from Lebanon fell” in northern Israel, reporting no injuries.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported Israeli attacks in several areas of south Lebanon on Thursday, and said a strike a day earlier in Nabatiyeh wounded “more than 20” people when a two-storey building was targeted.

Fears have grown the Gaza war could become a regional conflagration if the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, which so far has been largely limited to the border area, expands.

France’s foreign ministry said Thursday that Paris was “extremely concerned” about the fighting, calling “all sides to exercise the greatest restraint”.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to Washington on Wednesday that his country did not want war in Lebanon, but could send it back to the “Stone Age” if diplomacy failed.

Amid Western diplomatic efforts to dial down tensions in recent months, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Tuesday visited Beirut and cautioned that “miscalculation” could trigger all-out war, also urging “extreme restraint”.

The violence has killed 485 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 94 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to authorities.

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

Modiin, Israel:

On a Tel Aviv overpass, former spy Gonen Ben Itzhak addresses a small gathering of flag-waving protesters worried about the future of Israel under longest-serving premier Benjamin Netanyahu. Motorists honk enthusiastically to the group from the road as they drive past, and a man on a scooter passing underneath shouts “Traitor!”

A former Shin Bet intelligence agent, Ben Itzhak once handled the son of a Hamas co-founder as an informant, to prevent attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Now he protests on the streets against Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition government.

“Netanyahu is really the biggest danger to the state of Israel, and believe me I arrested some of the biggest terrorists during the Second Intifada,” the 53-year-old told AFP at his home in Modiin, referring to the 2000-2005 Palestinian uprising.

“I know what is a terrorist. I think Netanyahu is dragging Israel into destruction.”

He cites Netanyahu’s recent tensions with US President Joe Biden — he accused him of delaying American arms deliveries for Israel’s Gaza war — as an example of why many believe the Israeli leader must go.

“Biden is the biggest supporter of Israel… and Netanyahu spit on his face,” said Ben Itzhak.

“He’s destroying the very important relationship with the United States.”

 ‘The Green Prince’ 

Ben Itzhak — who joined the security services in the 1990s after premier Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination — has become a leading figure in protests against Netanyahu.

He is part of the “Crime Minister” movement, and once stepped in front of the premier’s motorcade during a 2018 anti-corruption protest.

He ended up being tackled by the very security service he once worked for.

Prosecutors are still pressing ahead with a corruption trial against Netanyahu despite the war, and some protesters have tried to break through police lines to get to his home.

Years before his own protest, Ben Itzhak was the handler for Mosab Hassan Yousef, known as “The Green Prince” and the eldest offspring of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef.

He worked with the Hamas collaborator to follow Palestinian militants to thwart suicide operations, including arresting jailed Fatah figurehead Marwan Barghouti.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel could have been prevented by a double agent like Yousef reporting the plan, and the country’s security elite underestimated Hamas, the former spy believes.

“You need an old asset to call you and to tell you something is going wrong. And it seems like we didn’t have it,” he said.

“We think that our enemy is stupid. In the end, Hamas was smarter. It’s very hard to say.”

Ben Itzhak believes it is time to “change the equation” in Gaza — end the war and rally international support to put Mahmud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in charge.

 ‘Everything is explosive’ 

“The military rules the West Bank, rules Gaza. Enough. We need to find the solution,” he said.

Ben Itzhak accuses Netanyahu of propping up Hamas while seeking to nix any peace process so he can stay in power.

“Netanyahu thinks only about himself, about his criminal problems, how to survive politically in Israel,” he said.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied allegations of corruption, and on Monday reiterated that Israeli forces will eliminate Hamas.

“We will not end the war (in Gaza) until we eliminate Hamas, and until we return residents of the south and north to their homes securely,” he told parliament.

The former agent also claims the Israeli leader has let ultranationalist security minister Itamar Ben Gvir use the police as his own “militia” to disrupt weekly anti-government protests in Tel Aviv.

He questions Netanyahu’s allegiance with the far-right Jewish Power party frontman who was once barred from the Israeli military and investigated by the country’s security services for extremism.

“God… didn’t help us on October 7, the way he didn’t help us in Auschwitz,” he said.

Ben Itzhak said he himself has jumped in front of a water cannon to protect protesters from increasing police brutality, which landed him with a conviction that was overturned in March.

“Today Israel from the inside is destroyed. He (Netanyahu) is destroying everything,” he said.

The more Netanyahu bends to the ultranationalist allies, the weaker Israel’s security, says Ben Itzhak, claiming that they are also taking control of the army and prison service.

“Everything is explosive now,” he said.

“I will tell Netanyahu… resign. This will be the biggest help you can do to the people of the State of Israel.”

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

Nearly 166 million people worldwide are estimated to need urgent action against hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership which measures food insecurity.

That includes nearly everyone in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military launched an offensive in October following an attack on Israel by Hamas militants. More than one million of Gaza’s inhabitants face the most extreme form of malnutrition – classified by the IPC as ‘Catastrophe or Famine.’

Seven-month-old Majd Salem is one of them.

Born on Nov. 1, three weeks after Israel launched the offensive, the child was being treated for a chest infection in the neonatal ICU at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on May 9. The nurse caring for him said he was suffering from severe malnutrition.

Majd was born at a healthy weight of 3.5 kg (7.7 pounds), said his mother, Nisreen al-Khateeb.

By May, when he was six months old, his weight had barely changed to 3.8 kg, she said – around 3 kg less than would be expected for a baby his age.

Majd, whose eyes keenly followed visiting reporters in the ward, had to be given antibiotics for the infection and fortified milk to boost his weight, his mother said. Reuters was unable to trace them after May 21, when the hospital was evacuated following an Israeli raid.

One in three children in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished or suffering from wasting, according to the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, citing data from its partners on the ground. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, said their records showed 33 people had died of malnutrition in Gaza including 29 children, but added that the number could be higher.

COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Israel’s foreign ministry in late May issued a detailed statement questioning the IPC’s methods of analysis, which it said omitted measures Israel had taken to improve access to food in Gaza. The IPC declined to comment.

The plight of Gaza’s children is part of a bigger trend. Globally last year more than 36 million children under 5 were acutely malnourished, nearly 10 million of them severely, according to the Global Report on Food Crises, a collaborative analysis of food insecurity by 16 international organizations.

The food shortage in Gaza, while particularly widespread, comes amid a broader spike in extreme hunger as conflicts around the world intensify.

Two other countries – South Sudan and Mali – each have thousands of people living in zones listed on the IPC website as facing famine. Another 35 – including Sudan, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo – have many people in the IPC’s next-most acute category of food deprivation.

The IPC, a grouping of United Nations agencies, national governments and non-governmental organizations, is expected to update its assessment of the picture in war-torn Sudan in the coming weeks. A preliminary projection reported by Reuters earlier this month said as many as 756,000 people in Sudan could face catastrophic food shortages by September.

Gaza’s hunger crisis is also a product of war. The Israeli military invaded the Strip in response to the Oct. 7 cross-border assault by Hamas on Israel. More than 37,000 Palestinians and nearly 1,500 Israelis have been killed since then, Gazan and Israeli tallies show.

The Israeli assault has destroyed swathes of Gazan farmland. In the early days of the war, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza. It later allowed some humanitarian supplies to enter but is still facing international calls to let in more.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, in seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, last month accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, among other alleged crimes. Netanyahu, calling that move “a moral outrage of historic proportions,” said Israel is fighting in full compliance with international law and taking unprecedented measures to ensure aid reaches those in need.

Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, which Hamas strongly denies. Israel has also said any distribution problems within Gaza are the fault of the international agencies.

Even when children survive, nutrition experts say food deprivation in the early years can do lasting damage.

A child’s brain develops at its fastest rate in the first two years of life. So even if they don’t starve to death or die from illness due to their weakened immune system, children may face delays in growth and development, said Aashima Garg, adviser on nutrition at UNICEF for the Middle East and North Africa.

“While they may be alive, they may not thrive that well in childhood and beyond,” she said.

Three families in Gaza told Reuters about their day-to-day diets, and four global health experts explained how such deprivation affects the growing body. Damage done in weeks manifests over years, they said.

“It can have a long-term impact on their immune system, their ability to absorb good nutrition, and on their cognitive and physical development,” said Hannah Stephenson, global head of nutrition and health at Save The Children, a non-profit.

FIRST DAYS

Gaza has the most households globally in the most extreme stage of food poverty, according to the IPC, which classifies levels of hunger in five categories, the worst of which is famine.

Households in North Gaza, where Majd lives, are already suffering a full-blown famine, Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the World Food Programme, said on May 5.

It can take months for the international measurement system to declare a famine. But the first damage to a child’s body is counted in days.

Nine out of 10 children aged 6 months to 2 years in Gaza live in severe child food poverty, a UNICEF survey in late May found. This means they are eating from two or fewer food groups a day, which UNICEF’s Garg said means grains or some form of milk.

This has been the case since December 2023, with only a slight improvement in April 2024, she said. As many as 85% of children of all ages did not eat for a whole day at least once in the three days before the survey was conducted.

The main cause of acute malnutrition in North Gaza is a lack of diversity in the diets of children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, according to a report in February 2024 from the Global Nutrition Cluster, a group of humanitarian agencies led by UNICEF.

This deficient intake, both prior to and during pregnancy and breastfeeding, harms both mothers and infants.

Abed Abu Mustafa, 49, a father of six, was still living in Gaza City in early April. He said people there already had eaten “almost every green plant we could find” and he hadn’t had meat or chicken for at least five months.

In Rafah in the south, Mariam, 33, a mother of five, has been living in a school along with two dozen of her relatives. She described a typical meal for her family before the conflict and what they are currently eating, shown below.

Before the war, Majd’s mother said an average family meal consisted of rice with chicken or meat, along with vegetables such as okra, cauliflower or peas. During the war, flour scarcity forced the family to make bread from animal feed. Recently, bread and canned goods like tuna and beans started to reappear, but these are not widely available.

Unable to find food to feed herself and forced to flee Israeli bombardment early in the war, Khateeb said she had found great difficulty in breastfeeding Majd.

She said she could find neither good quality baby formula nor clean water to mix it, so she fed him various types of powdered feed mixed with rainwater or brackish water from Gaza’s polluted wells, causing diarrhoea.

“There is no chance to get proper food to have breastmilk, there is no meat, no proteins, no calcium, none of the elements that produce good milk for the child,” she said.

Garg, the UNICEF adviser, said the nutrition of breastfeeding mothers in Gaza was severely compromised, and with it their ability to produce milk.

“They are not eating fruits and vegetables. They are not eating meat. They are not having much milk,” she said. This lack of nutrients translates into poor quality breast milk. Diluted formula is not safe and risks diarrhoea, which itself can be deadly.

Moderately malnourished mothers can still breastfeed, with their bodies effectively sacrificing their own nutritional needs to save the child. But severely malnourished women struggle.

Ahmed al-Kahlout, the nurse who heads the unit, said Majd’s infection was due to malnutrition.

“There is no immunity, so any disease that the child catches in the shelters … afflicts the child with these severe lung infections,” he said.

Susceptibility to infections typically increases after two weeks with insufficient food.

The body’s consumption of its fat reserves eats away muscle tissue, which is why aid workers in the field use basic tape measures to assess the gravity of children’s conditions.

The tapes measuring Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) have been used for decades. If the upper arm’s circumference is 11.5 cm (4 1/2 inches) or smaller for a child between 6 months and 5 years old, the child is assessed as having severe acute malnutrition, according to standards drawn up by the United Nations.

MUAC screening data across Gaza since mid-January found more than 7,000 children aged 6 months to about 5 years were already acutely malnourished as of May 26, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said.

This is how that looks.

Gaza has the most people at risk of starvation, but according to the IPC classifications, many millions are one step behind the enclave in food poverty.

The IPC categorises the severity and scale of food insecurity and malnutrition. Readings of 3, 4 or 5 on the five-category scale require urgent action.

Households in Phase 3 are in “Crisis,” the IPC says. They have high or more than usual acute malnutrition, or can meet their minimum food needs but only by selling assets or through crisis measures.

Phase 4 is an “Emergency.” Households have either “very high” acute malnutrition and death rates or are only able to make up for the lack of food by taking emergency measures and selling assets.

Phase 5 is “Catastrophe” or “Famine.” Households have an extreme lack of food and/or other basic needs and starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident. An entire area is only classified as in Famine if high food insecurity comes with certain levels of acute malnutrition and mortality.

For the IPC, areas in Famine meet at least two of the following three criteria:

* the area has at least 20% of households facing an extreme lack of food,

* About one in three children there suffer from acute malnutrition,

* Two adults or four children out of every 10,000 die each day due to outright starvation, or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

The IPC report issued in March projected that the entire population of the Gaza Strip would fall into Phases 3 to 5 between March and July. U.N. officials told Reuters they expect the next IPC analysis on Gaza to be released on June 25.

South Sudan and Mali are the other two other countries with households projected to fall into the same Phase 5 category as Gaza, based on the IPC’s latest published analyses.

Overall, the three countries with the largest numbers of people at Phase 3 and above are Nigeria (25 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (23.4 million) and Sudan (17.7 million), according to the IPC website.

The IPC said its latest analysis of Sudan, conducted in December, was too outdated to include in the tables Reuters used for this chart.

As a consequence of severe malnutrition, various complications arise.

This is the impact of starvation after just three weeks. Like many children in Gaza, Majd’s lack of adequate food dates back months.

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

Cairo:

Israeli forces pounded Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday, as well as other areas across the enclave, killing at least 45 Palestinians as troops engaged in close-quarter combat with Hamas group operatives, residents and Israel’s military said.

Residents said the Israelis appeared to be trying to complete their capture of Rafah, which borders Egypt and has been the focus of an Israeli assault since early May.

Tanks were forcing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the east, south, and centre.

Firing from planes, tanks, and ships off the coast caused more people to flee the city, which a few months ago was sheltering more than a million displaced people, most of whom have now relocated again.

The Gaza health ministry said at least 25 Palestinians had been killed in Mawasi in western Rafah and 50 wounded. Palestinians said a tank shell hit a tent housing displaced families.

“Two tanks climbed a hilltop overseeing Mawasi and they sent balls of fire that hit the tents of the poor people displaced in the area,” one resident told Reuters over a chat app.

The Israeli military said that the incident was under review. “An initial inquiry conducted suggests that there is no indication that a strike was carried out by the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) in the Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi,” it said.

Earlier, the military said its forces were conducting “precise, intelligence-based” actions in the Rafah area, where troops were involved in close-quarter combat and had located tunnels used by Hamas.

Over the past week, the military said, troops targeted a university that served as a Hamas headquarters from which Hamas operatives fired on soldiers and found weapons and barrel bombs. It did not name the university.

In the central Gaza area of Nusseirat, the military said soldiers killed dozens of operatives over the past week and found a weapons depot containing mortar bombs and military equipment belonging to Hamas.

Some residents said the Israeli onslaught on Rafah had intensified in the previous two days and that the sounds of explosions and gunfire had hardly stopped.

“Last night was one of the worst nights in western Rafah: Drones, planes, tanks, and naval boats bombarded the area. We feel the occupation is trying to complete the control of the city,” said Hatem, 45, reached by text message.

“They are taking heavy strikes from the resistance fighters, which may be slowing them down.”

STRIKES ON KHAN YOUNIS AND GAZA CITY

More than eight months into the war in Gaza, Israel’s advance is now focused on the two last areas its forces had yet to seize: Rafah on Gaza’s southern edge and the area surrounding Deir al-Balah in the centre.

“The entire city of Rafah is an area of Israeli military operations,” Ahmed Al-Sofi, the mayor of Rafah, said in a statement carried by Hamas media on Friday.

“The city is living through a humanitarian catastrophe and people are dying inside their tents because of Israeli bombardment.”

Sofi said no medical facility was functioning in the city, and that remaining residents and displaced families lacked the minimum daily needs of food and water.

Palestinian and U.N. figures show that fewer than 100,000 people may have remained in the far western side of the city, which had been sheltering more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people before the Israeli assault began in early May.

In nearby Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike on Friday killed three people, including a father and son, medics said.

In parallel, Israeli forces continued a new pushback into some Gaza City suburbs in the north of the enclave, where they fought with Hamas-led operatives.

On Friday, an Israeli air strike on a Gaza City municipal facility killed five people, including four municipal workers, the territory’s Civil Emergency Service said. Rescue teams were searching the rubble for more missing victims.

In the nearby Beach camp, an Israeli air strike on a house killed at least seven people, medics said.

Palestinian health officials said at least 45 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Friday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its Gaza office was damaged when heavy-calibre projectiles landed nearby, in an area where hundreds of displaced Palestinians are living in tents.

“This grave security incident is one of several in recent days; previously stray bullets have reached ICRC structures,” the organization said in a post on X on Friday. “We decry these incidents that put the lives of humanitarians and civilians at risk.”

Israel’s ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas-led operatives barged into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The offensive has left Gaza in ruins, killed more than 37,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and left nearly the entire population homeless and destitute.

The United Nations said on Friday it is Israel’s responsibility – as the occupying power in the Gaza Strip – to restore public order and safety in the Palestinian territory so humanitarian aid can be delivered, amid warnings of imminent famine.

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