Bushra Rajab recalled waking up “to the sound of people screaming and panicking” after what sounded “like a big explosion”.
“Many people were killed and many were injured. Some of those killed were my relatives,” she said. “There were too many injured people for ambulances to reach. The remains of bodies were all over the place.”
Nearly 80 people have been killed in the latest round of Israeli airstrikes, including nine of a Gaza pediatrician’s ten children, according to local health officials. The strikes hit Khan Younis in southern Gaza, leaving the doctor’s husband wounded and only one child critically injured.
Nine of a doctor‘s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
A senior Palestinian pediatric doctor described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as „unbelievable,“ witnessing children dying from hunger and preventable injuries, scenes he said he had studied in textbooks, but never imagined seeing in real life.
In an interview with ABC News this week, Dr. Ahmmed Al-Farra, head of pediatrics and maternity in Gaza‘s Nasser Medical Complex, said hospitals are collapsing across the region.
Some 170,000 metric tons of aid, including food, sits in trucks a few miles away, just inside Israel.
Nutritionist Rana Soboh says she has been pushed to her wits’ end after seeing two extreme malnutrition cases in Gaza, which is on the brink of famine due to Israel’s aid blockade.
The first was a woman who was rushed to an emergency room after fainting while she breastfed her newborn, who had not eaten for days, the humanitarian worker with MedGlobal told the Associated Press news agency.
(May 16, 2025)
Mahmoud Muqbil, 38, lost at least 15 family members after their homes in Jabalia refugee camp were bombed on Thursday night. Ten were buried, and five remain under the rubble. “The Israeli army has intensified its targeting of hospitals and residential buildings to an extreme degree,” he told +972. “It is terrifying. I’ve been trying to calm my children from the sounds of explosions and airstrikes. The noise they make is indescribable.”
As Muqbil and his family mourned their relatives, his neighbor’s home was also struck in an overnight attack. “The Al-Ghandour family’s home, just two houses away from ours, was also targeted. We heard their screams and cries for help but couldn’t save anyone because the army was targeting anyone who moved in the area,” he recalled.
On Friday evening, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement that its field team documented the killing of over 115 Palestinians in northern Gaza alone in under 12 hours. The strikes, it said, hit at least 10 homes in Tel Al-Zaatar in Jabalia and Al-Salateen neighborhood in Beit Lahia, “destroying them entirely while the residents were inside, killing dozens of civilians, including women and children, in massacres that reflect the intensifying pattern of systematic mass killing against Palestinian civilians.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly endorsed this vision in late March, soon after Israel resumed the war. “Hamas will lay down its weapons. Its leaders will be allowed to leave. We will see to the general security of the Gaza Strip and allow the realization of the Trump plan for voluntary migration,” Netanyahu affirmed. “This is the plan. We are not hiding it and are ready to discuss it at any time.”
Just this week, Netanyahu made this link between the destruction of civilian buildings and forced displacement more explicit. “We are destroying more and more homes — they have nowhere to return to,” he reportedly said at a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. “The only expected result will be a desire for Gazans to emigrate outside the Strip.”
For a little over two months, Israel has prevented all food, goods, and medical supplies from entering the Gaza Strip. The consequences have been catastrophic: According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, over 70,000 children are now hospitalized with acute malnutrition, and 1.1 million lack the daily minimum nutritional requirements for survival.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported that, as of May 5, at least 57 children have already died from malnutrition-related health complications since the start of the war, and another 3,500 under the age of five face imminent risk of death from starvation.
The next day, he asked his mother for something to eat. When she told him the only option was canned meat, he took 20 shekels of his birthday money and said he was going to play football with his friends and buy crisps from a nearby market.
Around 3pm, two Israeli air strikes hit the area, targeting the crowded al-Thailandi restaurant, in Gaza City‘s northern Rimal neighbourhood, and the adjacent market….
Earlier in her 30-minute opening submission to the court, the UN undersecretary general for legal affairs, Elinor Hammarskjöld, opted for a full-throated assertion of the immunities and privileges of the UN and its subsidiary bodies under the UN charter and 1946 convention on UN privileges.
She said Israel had no right unilaterally to declare UN bodies were not impartial and so deny cooperation or aid, adding: “When the basic elements of this [the charter’s] legal framework are not observed, the very nature of the work of the organisation on behalf of its member states is in jeopardy.”
Shital Kalathiya, wife of bank manager Shailesh who died in the terror attack in Pahalgam, burst out at Union Jal Shakti minister C R Paatil who came to pay homage at the funeral on Thursday.
(…)
There was not a single military man present at the tourist spot in Pahalgam, which had a large number of tourists, and there were no medical facilities either.”
She is heard saying, “VIPs get convoys for security…is there no value of the life of taxpayers?… Army officials at the base camp, instead of extending help, were asking us, ‘Why are you going there (Pahalgam) in the first place?’
She said that Hindus and Muslims were segregated and killed by terrorists who were laughing and taking selfies after the incident. The Baisaran meadow is accessible only by foot and pony. The pony operators rescued several injured tourists.
Paras Jain, a resident of Maharashtra who survived the attack, told The Hindu earlier that the firing continued for 25-30 minutes, adding that there were no security personnel around at the time of the attack. The nearest security camps are located a few kilometres away. While the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is located around 7 km away, the camp of Rashtriya Rifles (RR) of the Army is 5 km away.
Legally, submitting an affidavit is equivalent to providing binding testimony in court and, in exceptional cases, can also open the door to cross-examination.
This past Monday, Ronen Bar submitted a sharply critical affidavit to the High Court against the government and Netanyahu. In it, he claimed that the prime minister made „illegal requests“ at the end of work meetings, after asking that recording devices be turned off.
Editor’s note: The following personal account of Palestinian journalist and MEE contributor Ahmed Aziz, who was in Khan Younis at the scene of the Israeli attack on a journalist tent, was told to Lubna Masarwa. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.
When Israel resumed the war last month, it doubled the size of the buffer zone, pushing it as far as 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) into Gaza in some places, according to a map issued by the military.
The buffer zone and the Netzarim Corridor make up at least 50% of the strip, said Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has been examining Israeli-Palestinian land use patterns for decades.
The testimony collection that follows includes testimonies by soldiers and officers who took part in creating the perimeter and turning it into a zone of total destruction. (…)
The testimonies demonstrate that soldiers were given orders to deliberately, methodically, and systematically annihilate whatever was within the designated perimeter, including entire residential neighborhoods, public buildings, educational institutions, mosques, and cemeteries, with very few exceptions. Industrial zones and agricultural areas which served the entire population of Gaza were laid to waste, regardless of whether those areas had any connection whatsoever to the fighting. In their testimonies, soldiers
describe the systematic way in which the creation of the new buffer zone was planned and executed. One example of this was the way designated areas were divided into defined sections — „polygons“ — within which soldiers were ordered to destroy structures. The military dedicated enormous resources to this endeavor, including the extensive use of bulldozers (excavators, D9 bulldozers, and other heavy equipment), along with thousands of mines and explosives.
(April 2, 2025)
After Israeli businessman Gil Birger revealed that Qatari lobbyist Jay Footlik had asked him to pay Netanyahu aide Eli Feldstein for his work on behalf of Qatar, Feldstein insisted that the funds were actually for his work for the Prime Minister’s Office.
However, Channel 12 reveals the existence of a WhatsApp group between Footlik, Feldstein and Yisrael Einhorn — Urich’s partner at a PR firm who also served as a campaign adviser for Netanyahu.
Feldstein, who formerly worked as Netanyahu‘s military spokesperson, claimed he received a salary from Israeli businessman Gil Birger. According to Feldstein, the payment was arranged through Netanyahu‘s close adviser, Urich.
Urich, however, denied the claim outright, stating he does not know Birger and has never spoken with him.
Birger, for his part, has said that he transferred the funds on behalf of Jay Footlik, a lobbyist for Qatar, citing tax considerations as the motive.
Mar 12, 2025
Kifeya Khraim, International Advocacy Officer, Women‘s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, and Witness #3, Women Human Rights Defender, give testimony during Public Hearings organized by the UN Commission of Inquiry Palestine, East Jerusalem & Israel, on 3 March 2025. The Commission of Inquiry held its third round of Public Hearings to gather testimony from victims of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence committed by the Israeli Security Forces and Israeli settlers.
Es geht um den Verdacht, ein 18-Jähriger habe einen politisch motivierten Anschlag geplant. Ziel des Anschlags könnte Götschenberg zufolge die israelische Botschaft in Berlin gewesen sein. Der Hinweis darauf sei, wie in der Vergangenheit auch schon häufig, von einem ausländischen Nachrichtendienst gekommen, der die deutschen Sicherheitsbehörden gewarnt habe.
Der 18-jährige Tschetschene mit russischer Staatsangehörigkeit war am Hauptstadtflughafen BER festgenommen und an der Ausreise gehindert worden.
Der Tatverdächtige ist demnach ein anerkannter 19-jähriger Flüchtling aus Syrien, der in einer Geflüchtetenunterkunft in Leipzig leben soll. (,,,)
Die Polizei hatte den mutmaßlichen Tatverdächtigen rund drei Stunden nach der Tat im Umfeld des Mahnmals festgenommen. Während der Polizeimaßnahmen lief er den Angaben zufolge auf die Beamten zu. Ihnen fielen seine blutverschmierten Hände und die Hose auf. Daraufhin nahmen sie den Mann fest, wobei er keinen Widerstand leistete.
(January 30,2025)
“It was shocking and a betrayal to me and every person who was killed on 9/11, their families, and my brothers and sisters in uniform.” She continued, “When as a member of Congress, I learned about President Obama’s, dual programs that he had begun, really to overthrow the regime of Syria and being willing to, through the CIA’s Timber Sycamore program that has now been made public, of working with and arming and equipping Al Qaeda in an effort to overthrow that regime, starting yet another regime change war in the Middle East.”
According to testimonies gathered by Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli army subsequently transferred Dr. Abu Safiya to a field interrogation site in the Al-Fakhura area of Jabalia Refugee Camp. There, he was forced to strip off his clothes and was subjected to severe beatings, including being whipped with a thick wire commonly used for street electrical wiring. Soldiers deliberately humiliated him in front of other detainees, including fellow medical staff. He was later taken to an undisclosed location before being transferred to the Sde Teyman military camp under Israeli army control.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has also received information from recently released detainees at the Sde Teyman military camp, confirming that Dr. Abu Safiya was subjected to severe torture, leading to a significant deterioration in his health. This occurred despite him already being injured by Israeli air strikes on the hospital, where he worked tirelessly until the facility was stormed and set ablaze by Israeli forces.
What was most frightening about that air strike wasn‘t the effect on us, it was that it began as a civilian airliner from Yemenia Airways, carrying hundreds of Yemenis, was about to land. In fact, the plane was taxiing when the air traffic control was destroyed.
Fortunately, that plane was able to land safely, and the passengers were able to disembark but it could have been far, far worse.
The airport is civilian infrastructure. It is where all the international humanitarian aid workers who work in the north of the country enter and leave, so if the airport is disabled it will paralyze humanitarian operations.
It‘s also the airport by which thousands of Yemenis who are unable to get advanced healthcare in the country leave for health facilities in Jordan, Cairo or Mumbai. So, it is an absolute vital humanitarian location. It is essential that all parties to the conflict scrupulously observe international humanitarian law.”
Israeli army officers have revealed that an area along the Netzarim corridor in the Gaza Strip was a designated “kill zone” where “anyone who enters is shot,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Wednesday.
A commander in Division 252 said that “forces in the field call it ‘the line of dead bodies,” because “after shootings, bodies are not collected, attracting packs of dogs who come to eat them.”
“In Gaza, people know that wherever you see these dogs, that’s where you must not go,” the commander is quoted as saying.
Residents in Tadamon said that executions in the area were common. In interviews in 2022, they described at least 10 other incidents of summary killings between August 2012 and January 2014 in Tadamon, Daraya, Moadamiya, and surrounding areas. This evidence suggests that other bodies were buried in and around the area. The area was also the site of armed clashes between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) at numerous points between 2012 and 2013.
Human Rights Watch began investigating the massacre in October 2021, after receiving a leaked video discovered by a member of a Syrian militia on a laptop and handed to Annsar Shahhoud and Uğur Ümit Üngör, researchers at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, and ARD, a German Public Broadcaster.
“This video, filmed by the perpetrators themselves who laughed as they killed their victims, shows the Syrian government’s callous disregard for people’s lives,” Zayadin said. “This massacre is just one horrific incident in a pattern of state violence and apparent war crimes.”
After countless social media users shredded CNN’s story, a fact-checking organization with ties to the US government has exposed the prisoner seemingly liberated in Ward’s theatrical performance turns out to have been a low level Syrian intelligence official jailed for corruption and abuse charges.
CNN finally addressed the deepening scandal on December 15, declaring that it would investigate the subject of Ward’s piece. However, the network continues to protect the correspondent responsible for the journalistic flim-flam, while rebroadcasting the staged report for its views day after day.
On December 12, CNN published a video report on its website, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter) titled, „CNN Reporter Documents a Shocking Moment of Finding a Prisoner Held in a Secret Syrian Jail, Unaware of Assad’s Overthrow.“ In the footage, CNN’s correspondent Clarissa Ward is seen accompanied by an armed individual as they open a cell in a Damascus prison. The report features a man named „Adel Gharbal“ from Homs, who claims he was arrested three months earlier for having his phone searched and was taken to Damascus, initially held in an unnamed prison before being transferred to the location shown in the video. According to the report, this transfer occurred three days after the fall of Assad‘s regime.
The man, hidden under a blanket despite the gunshots used to break his cell lock, claimed he had not seen sunlight for three months.
Der ehemalige Verteidigungsminister Kim Yong-hyun soll zur Zeit des Ausnahmezustands die Räumung des Parlaments befohlen haben.
Das gab der Kommandeur der Spezialkräfte Kwak Jong-geun bekannt. Demnach sei angeordnet worden, Abgeordnete aus dem Parlament zu entfernen.
Er habe den Befehl jedoch verweigert, sagte Kwak am Freitag Abgeordneten der Demokratischen Partei. Diese hatten die Spezialkräfte besucht, um ihn zu den am Dienstagabend erteilten Befehlen zu befragen.
Palestinian Territory –Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented dozens of deliberate killings and new field executions carried out by Israeli occupation forces against numerous civilians in northern Gaza.
These actions are part of the ongoing escalation and the broader framework of genocide perpetrated against Palestinians for over 13 months.
A retired NHS surgeon who recently returned from working at a hospital in Gaza said he treated children „day after day after day“ who had been deliberately targeted by Israeli drones following bomb attacks.
In harrowing testimony to British MPs on Tuesday, Nizam Mamode said of all the conflicts he had worked in, including the genocide in Rwanda, he and other experienced colleagues in Gaza had „never seen anything on this scale ever“.
He said at least once or twice daily, there were „mass casualty incidents,“ meaning that 10 to 20 people were killed and up to 40 seriously injured. He estimated that at least 60 percent of the people treated at these times were women and children.
(12. November 2016)
Kontext B.N.D.-Gesetz: Die Allermeisten haben weder eine Ahnung was Totalüberwachung aka Massenüberwachung tatsächlich bedeutet, noch welcher Gefahr auch sie dabei ausgesetzt sind, selbst wenn sie sich noch so sehr anpassen und die technischen Möglichkeiten im 21. Jahrhundert über den privaten Konsum hinaus ignorieren. Welche Skrupellosigkeit und geistig-moralischen Verfall die Apparatschiks des elektronischen Polizeistaats bei ihrem Tun an den Tag legen, während gleichzeitig seit Jahren reguläre Polizei, Justiz und Rechtsstaat systemisch verschwinden, zeigen Berichte von Aussteigern, allerdings nicht aus Deutschland.
(…)
“Ich nahm eine Funktion an, in der Leute ´Ziele´ genannt wurden, und diese Leute die uns wirklich interessieren sind in keinem Sinne Terroristen, sondern eher generell normale Menschen – die uns interessieren wegen ihrer Funktionen, so dass wir mehr Geheimdienstinformationen über sie bekommen können und mehr Zugang erzielen. Wir nutzen unsere Möglichkeiten über diese Menschen zu unserem Vorteil, um es uns leicht zu machen. Wir nutzen die Einwirkung / die Wucht (“impact) die wir auf deren Leben haben. Manchmal beinhaltet dies das Leben, oder die Seele einer Person wirklich zu verletzen. Ich meine Erpressung, bei Dingen die sie vor Leuten um sich herum verbergen müssen. Ich kann Menschen wirklich das Leben zerstören. Es gab mir das Gefühl omnipotent zu sein.
Als ich diesen Job begann, war ich überrascht von dem Ausmaß meiner Verantwortung. Ich hatte das Gefühl über wichtige Dinge ein Mitspracherecht zu haben. Ich konnte Dinge in Gang setzen, die das Leben (Anm.: es folgt die Bezeichnung der ausspionierten Ortsansässigen) betrafen – ich konnte meine Einheit dazu bringen alle möglichen Maßnahmen zu ergreifen. Die Einstellung war ´Warum nicht? Wir können, also lasst es uns tun.´ Ich dachte, dass das, was ich tun konnte verrückt war. Wir waren die Chefs.”
Ein ex-Spion von 8200 berichtet, wie Soldaten unter seiner Ausbildung systematisch moralisch korrumpiert wurden, um sie zu “vergiften” und die Skrupellosigkeit im Apparat weiter auf Standard zu halten. Bei Razzien “beschlagnahmte” persönliche Gegenstände von Individuen – “Photos von Kindern, Uhren, Familienfotos, Fussballtrophäen, Bücher”, bis hin zu Juwelen – wurden nicht nur zur Mitnahme angeboten, sondern in den Ausbildungsräumen zur Schau gestellt.
“Die Idee war die Auszubildenden (“students”) zu vergiften.“
(…)
“Die einzige Schlussfolgerung die gezogen wurde, dass es in dieser Einheit so etwas wie einen illegalen Befehl nicht gibt. Es sind nicht wir, die entscheiden was moralisch ist und was nicht. Heute erkenne ich, dass dies das ist, was auch der Bomberpilot sagt: `Es ist nicht an mir zu sagen was moralisch ist und was nicht.` Jeder reicht die Verantwortung an Andere weiter.”
The Prime Minister‘s Office denied these allegations, saying: „Prime Minister Netanyahu did not receive a warning about the war in Gaza not on the date in question not before October 7. On the contrary, all security officials made it clear that Hamas is deterred and strives to reach an agreement. Also, a few days before October 7, the Shin Bet assessed that Gaza‘s stability is expected to be maintained for a long time.“
The Shin Bet did not comment on the Prime Minister Office‘s response.
In the weeks that followed, Lapid continued, he viewed classified intelligence provided to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that indicated that deterrence had indeed eroded. He also viewed highly classified material made available to him as a former prime minister. On September 18, 2023, there was “a further warning. For me, what was written there was unmistakable: Israel’s deterrence has eroded dramatically; our enemies think they have a rare opportunity to harm us,” Lapid said.
“During the months leading up to the disaster, the prime minister and cabinet ministers received a series of serious, unprecedented warnings. From the middle of 2023 there were more and more voices within the terrorist organizations that said that the moment they had been waiting for had arrived,” he says.
Lapid recalls asking Bar “if these warnings were also brought before the prime minister and cabinet ministers, and the answer was: ‘Of course they were.‘”
„I want to refute the statement that is made time and time again by the current government that, somehow, the political echelon was not aware that Hamas was not deterred,“ Lapid told the paper.
„It was indeed informed. I was informed,“ he said, adding that the intelligence material he saw „was of course, also seen by the prime minister and ministers of the Cabinet.“
„It was clear what they [Hamas] wanted,“ he said.
In a heated exchange, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Yair Lapid clashed over the handling of Hamas’ October 7 attack. Lapid accused Netanyahu of ignoring critical warnings that eroded national security, claiming the PM failed to act despite knowing a violent eruption was looming. In response, Netanyahu fired back, accusing Lapid of ‚spreading lies.‘ Watch for more.