Israel strikes kill 42 in Gaza ahead of UNSC meet; toll mounts to 188 including 55 kids, 33 women

Agencies
May 16, 2021

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Gaza City, May 16: Israeli strikes killed at least 42 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip Sunday (May 16), the worst reported daily death toll yet in the almost week-long clashes, as the UN Security Council prepared to meet amid global alarm at the escalating conflict.

The heaviest fighting since 2014, sparked by unrest in Jerusalem, saw the rivals again trade heavy fire, with the death toll rising to 188 in the crowded coastal enclave of Gaza since Monday and at 10 in Israel, according to authorities on either side.

Among 188 martyrs there are at least 55 children and 33 women. More than 1,200 others have been wounded. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed at least 13 Palestinians.

Israel said Sunday morning its "continuing wave of strikes" had in the past 24 hours struck over 90 targets across Gaza, where the destruction of a building housing news media organisations sparked an international outcry.

In Gaza, emergency teams worked to pull out bodies from vast piles of smoking rubble and toppled buildings, as relatives wailed in horror and grief.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was "dismayed" by civilian casualties in Gaza and "deeply disturbed" by Israel's strike on Saturday on the tower housing the Associated Press and Al Jazeera bureaus, a spokesperson said.

Israel's army said Sunday that about 3,000 rockets had been fired from the coastal strip towards Israel, the highest rate ever recorded, of which about 450 failed launches fell in the Gaza Strip.

Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system had intercepted over a thousand rockets, the army said, in almost a week during which Israeli residential buildings have been hit, with over 500 people wounded.

"The intensity of the conflict is something we have not seen before, with non-stop airstrikes in densely populated Gaza and rockets reaching big cities in Israel," said the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"As a result, children are dying on both sides."

Pope Francis said the violence risked degenerating further "into a spiral of death and destruction" and said: "Where will hatred and revenge lead? Do we really think we will build peace by destroying the other?"

The bloodiest military conflict in seven years has also sparked a wave of inter-communal violence and mob attacks between Jews and Arab-Israelis, as well as deadly clashes in the occupied West Bank, where 19 Palestinians have been killed since last Monday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted the infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including by pounding a vast tunnel system with some 100 strikes, and by targeting weapon factories and storage sites.

Israeli air strikes also hit the home of Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas' political wing in the Gaza Strip, the army said, releasing a video showing plumes of smoke and intense damage, but without saying if he was killed.

The IDF says it takes all possible precautions to avoid harming civilians and has blamed Hamas for deliberately placing military targets in densely populated areas. One strike on Gaza killed 10 members of an extended family.

The children "didn't carry weapons, they didn't fire rockets", said Mohammad al-Hadidi, one of the grieving fathers.

Some 10,000 Gazans have fled their homes near the Israeli border for fear of a ground offensive, the UN said.

"They are sheltering in schools, mosques and other places during a global Covid-19 pandemic with limited access to water, food, hygiene and health services," UN humanitarian official Lynn Hastings said.

Balls of flame and a cloud of debris shot into the sky Saturday afternoon as Israel's air force flattened the 13-floor Gaza building housing Qatar-based Al Jazeera and the Associated Press news agency, after giving a warning to evacuate.

Al Jazeera's Jerusalem bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, told AFP: "It is clear that those who are waging this war do not only want to spread destruction and death in Gaza, but also to silence media that are witnessing, documenting and reporting the truth."

AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said he was "shocked and horrified" by the attack.

Israeli defence officials said the building housed not only news bureaus but offices of Hamas militants.

AFP Chairman Fabrice Fries said the agency "stands in solidarity with all the media whose offices were destroyed in Gaza" and called on all parties "to respect the media's freedom to report on events".

The UN Security Council was due to meet at 1400 GMT Sunday.

Israel ally Washington, which had blocked a UNSC meeting scheduled for Friday, has been criticised for not doing enough to stem the bloodshed.

US President Joe Biden again underscored Israel's right to defend itself in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also expressed his "grave concern" over the violence as well as for the safety of journalists.

US Secretary for Israel-Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was to hold talks Sunday with Israeli leaders before meeting Palestinian officials to seek a "sustainable calm", the State Department said.

The escalating conflict was sparked by unrest in Jerusalem that had simmered for weeks and led to clashes between riot police and Palestinians, fuelled by anger over planned Israeli expulsions of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of east Jerusalem.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki criticised the countries that had moved to normalise relations with Israel last year, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

"Normalisation and running towards this colonial Israeli system without achieving peace and ending the Israeli occupation of Arab and Palestinian lands represents support for the apartheid regime and participation in its crimes," Maliki told an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

In Gaza, the grieving father Hadidi said he had lost most of his family in a strike Saturday on a three-storey building in the Shati refugee camp that killed 10 relatives -- two mothers and their four children each.

"They are striking our children -- children -- without prior warning," said the devastated father, whose five-month-old baby was wounded in the explosion.

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News Network
March 16,2024

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Budget carrier Air India Express has launched a new fare family, offering travelers the option to save on flight tickets by traveling light, with an increased baggage allowance of up to 40kg or no check-in luggage at all.

The new fare categories, applicable to flights to and from the UAE and other international destinations, are:

•    Xpress Lite
•    Xpress Value
•    Xpress Flex
•    Xpress Biz

Xpress Lite offers cabin baggage-only fares, making it the most economical option for passengers traveling with the airline.

Xpress Value fare includes 15 kg check-in bag fares, while Xpress Flex offers unlimited changes with no change fees. Xpress Biz features business class seats, complimentary meals, and priority services.

A subsidiary of Air India and a part of Tata Group, the airline introduced Xpress Lite on February 20 for UAE passengers who prefer traveling without check-in baggage.

Xpress Biz fares are accessible on all the new Air India Express Boeing 737-8 aircraft. Travelers can benefit from increased baggage allowances of 25kg for domestic flights and 40kg for international flights when booking Xpress Biz fares. This fare offers priority check-in, baggage, and boarding services.

Air India Express is already operating aircraft with Biz seats across 70-plus routes in India.

In a previous interview with a news channel Aloke Singh, managing director of Air India Express, stated that the carrier was looking to increase capacity to the Gulf region, including the UAE, as well as to provide better connectivity to Gulf travelers.
 

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News Network
March 26,2024

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There is no let-up in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire.”

Israel carried out air raids and artillery strikes on several parts of Gaza on Tuesday, hitting residential buildings and gatherings of displaced people, “killing and wounding hundreds of people”, the Palestinian Information Center said.

Among the victims are 15 people, including four women and children, who were killed in an attack on a house in the neighborhood of Mosbeh, north of Rafah.

Media reports also said that fighting on the ground continued unabated.

That’s while the UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution for an “immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The resolution was put forward by the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favor of it.

After the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on social media platform X that failing to implement the resolution “would be unforgivable.”

Palestinian resistance movements have welcomed the resolution, but Israel’s minister for military affairs Yoav Gallant said Israel will not stop its attacks in Gaza. 

“We will operate against Hamas everywhere – including in places where we have not yet been,” Gallant said.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, also said in a post on X that the attacks will continue until all the captives taken by Hamas during its October 7 blitz are released.

Israel unleashed its war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 32,300 Palestinians and injured over 74,000 others.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.

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News Network
March 14,2024

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The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says at least five people, including a staff member, were killed and 22 others wounded after Israeli forces targeted a food distribution centre in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini in a statement on Wednesday said that the strike hit one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the eastern part of Rafah.

“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,” Lazzarini said.

“Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict," he continued.

He said the attack was carried out even though "the Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday."

Lazzarini further urged the protection of the UN, its staff, and its premises and called for an independent investigation.

Israel acknowledged an airstrike on a food aid distribution center in southern Gaza, which it claimed targeted and killed a high-ranking member of Hamas. 

Meanwhile, the statement by the UNRWA head added that since October 7, at least 165 team members have been killed while in the line of duty and more than 400 people sheltering in UN buildings also lost their lives due to Israel's attacks.

More than 150 of the agency’s facilities, including schools and shelters, have been hit in the war, with some destroyed, and UNRWA staff have reportedly been mistreated and humiliated while in Israeli detention centers, according to the UNRWA.

Six aid seekers killed in Israeli attack

Separately, the health ministry in the Gaza Strip said six people were killed in the latest attack on Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City.

The Wafa news agency said some 83 people who were wounded in the attack have been transferred to the al-Shifa Medical Complex in the city.

Over the past weeks, Israeli forces have increased their offensives on the Kuwait Roundabout, an area where large groups gather to wait for aid deliveries.

Israeli forces killed 11 people waiting for food aid at the roundabout on Monday night.

The Israeli military has restricted the delivery of humanitarian supplies to northern Gaza for weeks, and thousands of children are going without sufficient food and medication.

The prevention of aid convoys comes as humanitarian officials have already issued a dire warning, stating that unless a ceasefire is implemented and aid is significantly increased, the toll of malnutrition and disease is expected to rise, leading to an alarming loss of lives.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 31,272 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 73,024 others.

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