Saudi Arabia to ease lockdown in phased manner

Itamar Ben Gvir, a notorious far-right Israeli minister, has suggested that some Palestinians could be “killed” instead of being kidnapped during the savage war in Gaza.
 
The minister made remarks during an Israeli war cabinet meeting where he questioned the necessity of the detention of a large number of Palestinians.

“Why are there so many arrests? “Can’t you kill some? Do you want to tell me they all surrender? What are we to do with so many arrested? It’s dangerous for the soldiers.” Ben-Gvir was quoted as asking the Israeli military's chief of staff Herzi Halevi.

The minister also reportedly demanded that the army shoot Palestinian women and children in the besieged Palestinian territory to “protect” the Israeli forces.

Halevi briefed ministers who attended the cabinet meeting on the military campaign in Gaza and highlighted that hundreds of Palestinians had surrendered to the occupying forces.

Ben Gvir recently also called for the execution of Palestinian prisoners to ease overcrowding in the jails. The minister said that applying the death penalty to Palestinian detainees was the “right” solution to tackle the problem of prison overcrowding.

Israel soldiers have abducted more than 5,000 of Palestinians during their ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

The Gaza media office has said that Palestinian prisoners were undergoing "the worst kinds of torture" in Israeli jails.

Palestinian rights group Addameer earlier this month said Israel was holding 9,500 Palestinian political prisoners, not including those taken from the Gaza Strip.

Israel has arrested thousands of Palestinians since 7 October. Those detained, often without charge, describe regular beatings and a solitary daily meal designed simply to keep them alive.

Palestinians taken prisoner or hostage from both the West Bank and Gaza have given testimonies detailing horrific and sadistic abuse and torture by their Israeli jailers including beatings, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and rape, breaking of limbs, burns, being stripped naked, and forced drug taking.

Austrian police authorities have arrested the director of a Palestinian news agency based in the Gaza Strip, which is aligned with the Hamas resistance movement, following spurious allegations and intense pressure from the Tel Aviv regime’s officials.

Gaza Now News Network wrote in a post published on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “the occupying Israeli regime is trying hard to prosecute anyone connected to the Palestinian media as part of attempts to silence the voice of wounded Gaza and stop disclosure of the Palestinian nation’s sufferings and the massacres being committed against women, children and the elderly.”

It added, “The latest of such attempts was the prosecution of Palestinian-born journalist Mustafa Ayyash. Austrian police stormed his house, tampered with his personal belongings, confiscated electronic devices, arrested him and his wife, and took him for interrogation.”

Gaza Now noted that the Austrian police hacked its WhatsApp account, which is followed by 300,000 users, and closed it down. They also shut the news network’s Facebook pages and accounts, which are followed by some eight million users.

It underscored that Israeli officials threaten Ayyash from time to time with prosecution and assassination, and hamper the activities of the news network on social media platforms.

This comes as the Israeli military had earlier targeted Ayyash's family and killed scores of his relatives in a series of airstrikes in late November ahead of a temporary ceasefire.

The Permanent Observer of Palestine at the United Nations Salah Abdel-Shafi and Chairman of Hamas Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh mourned the death of his family.

Back on March 27, US and UK authorities unveiled sanctions against two people and three companies related to Gaza Now over alleged fundraising efforts “in support of Hamas.”

The Treasury Department said in a statement that Gaza Now, whose popular Telegram channel has more than 1.8 million followers, and its founder started fundraising for Hamas after the movement’s Operation al-Aqsa Storm against Israel on October 7.

The US also slapped sanctions against Aozma Sultana, the director of two companies that allegedly gave “thousands of dollars to Gaza Now and advertised Gaza Now as a partner during a joint fundraiser shortly after the large-scale surprise attack.”

Separately, the UK Treasury announced a full asset freeze against two individuals suspected of providing financial support for Gaza Now.

“All funds and economic resources in the UK belonging to or controlled by Sultana and Ayyash have been frozen,” they added.

Some 62,000 Israeli settlers have fled areas in the northern sector of the 1948 Israeli-occupied lands amid fear of strikes by Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement in retaliation for the bloody onslaught on Gaza, latest reports have revealed.

Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television news channel, citing Israeli media outlets, reported on Sunday evening that the number of settlers that have evacuated the area as a result of Hezbollah’s operations now stands at a staggering 62,000.

The report noted that 30,000 of the settlers have evacuated northern occupied Palestine on their own as fears are mounting among the residents that Hezbollah fighters continue to carry out daily operations with no signs that they are deterred by any action the Israeli army is taking.

Israeli media outlets further noted that 40% of the evacuees are considering no return to the region.

Moreover, 38% of those who voluntarily left the area, no longer intend to return to their previous places of residence in the northern occupied territories.

This comes as Hezbollah targeted a facility housing Israeli soldiers in the Shomera settlement earlier on Sunday with a barrage of rockets.

The Lebanese resistance group also struck surveillance devices newly installed around the Dovev military barracks, completely destroying the hardware.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it attacked the deployment positions of Israeli soldiers south of the Jal al-Alam site, using heavy-caliber Burkan (Volcano) missiles.

In another statement, the resistance group announced that its fighters struck surveillance equipment at the Misgav Am military site, which Israeli forces had lately re-positioned.

Surveillance equipment at the al-Malkiya base was also targeted and destroyed, it said, adding that the operation was carried out with a salvo of rockets.

The Israeli regime has repeatedly attacked southern Lebanon since October 7, when it launched a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed at least 34,097 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

In retaliation, Hezbollah has launched near-daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions.

At least 349 people have been killed on the Lebanese border, including 68 civilians.

Hezbollah has already fought off two Israeli wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. The resistance forced the regime to retreat in both conflicts.