Author: Gulf News Week

Israel is ethnically cleansing the central neighborhood of Zeitoun in Gaza by bombing homes and displacement centres.Since announcing plans to invade northern Gaza and expel Palestinians again to the south, Israel has attacked displacement shelters in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitoun, according to an investigation by Sanad, media’s verification unit.Since August 13, Sanad has found that Israel stepped up the bombardment and shelling of Zeitoun, and often directly hit displacement shelters.The siege and ongoing violence have compelled thousands of Palestinians to close their tents in the camps and flee further south, according to satellite imagery obtained by Sanad.Israel is…

The highest number of attacks on aid workers was in Palestinian territory, followed by Sudan, the UN says.United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher has issued a “shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy” as he has shared statistics on the killing of 383 aid workers last year worldwide, nearly half in Gaza.Marking World Humanitarian Day on Tuesday, Fletcher said the killings rose by 31 percent from the year before, “driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives”.“Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on…

Israel is intensifying attacks on Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre, as it plans to seize it.More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in its nearly two-year genocidal war on Gaza, with the population suffering relentless bombardment with nowhere safe in the besieged enclave, Israeli-induced starvation and the daily killing of people desperately seeking food for their families.Israel is intensifying strikes on Gaza City, the territory’s largest – and now destroyed – urban centre, as it plans to seize it and forcibly displace tens of thousands of people to concentration zones in the south. At least 30…

Iran rejects ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’ (TRIPP), says the presence of American companies in the region would be ‘worrying’.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is visiting Armenia for talks on a planned corridor linking Azerbaijan near the border with his country, days after Iran said it would block the project included in a United States-brokered peace accord that puts a potential Washington presence on Iran’s doorstep.The land corridor, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), is part of a deal signed earlier this month in Washington between former foes Armenia and Azerbaijan.US President Donald Trump said…

British PM’s office says it is a crime to fund a proscribed group after award-winning author promises to back the pro-Palestine group.The government of the United Kingdom has warned Irish novelist Sally Rooney against funding Palestine Action after she pledged support to the campaign group banned by the Labour-led government as a “terrorist” group last month.The prime minister’s office said on Monday that “support for a proscribed organisation is an offence under the Terrorism Act” and warned against backing such organisations.“There is a difference between showing support for a proscribed organisation, which is an offence under the Terrorism Act, and…

The fate of the Noufal family echoes the tragedy of Palestinian families slowly being wiped out by genocide.When I heard about the killing of Mohammed Noufal and his colleagues from media, my first thoughts were with his sister, Janat. I knew her vaguely in university; she is a polite girl with a beautiful smile, who was studying digital media at the Islamic University of Gaza and ran an online shop where she sold girls’ accessories.She had already lost several members of her family when she received the news of her brother’s martyrdom. I thought of her and the devastating pain…

On July 27, two brigades from the mostly Shia Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) stormed the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, clashing with police.While the incident could be seen as a power struggle for position, it also indicates a certain degree of daring on the part of the brigades, which ended up killing a police officer.The brigades were called in by Ayad Kadhim Ali after he was dismissed as the head of the ministry’s office in Baghdad’s Karkh district, according to Mehmet Alaca, an expert on Iraq’s Shia militias. Ali is affiliated with Kataib Hezbollah, as are the brigades that attacked the…

Palestinian group tells mediators it approves latest Gaza ceasefire proposal and is ready to resume talks.Hamas has informed mediators that it has approved the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal and is ready to resume negotiations to discuss ending Israel’s war on Gaza, which has now killed more than 62,000 Palestinians and threatens further mass displacement amid manmade starvation.“Hamas, along with the Palestinian factions, relayed their acceptance of the proposal put forward yesterday by the Qatari and Egyptian mediators,” Hamas said in a brief statement on Monday. The Times of Israel and Channel 12 reported that Israel received Hamas’s response.A source familiar…

Barrack said plan to disarm Hezbollah also ‘requires Israel’s cooperation’ to keep up its end of the deal.US special envoy Tom Barrack has asked Israel to withdraw from the Lebanese territory after Beirut approved a plan to disarm the Hezbollah group by the end of the year, in exchange for an end to Israeli military attacks on its territory.“There’s always a step-by-step approach, but I think the Lebanese government has done their part. They’ve taken the first step. Now what we need is Israel to comply with that equal handshake,” Barrack told reporters on Monday, in Lebanon’s capital of Beirut,…

Rights group’s report condemns Israel for ‘systematically destroying the health, wellbeing and social fabric of Palestinian life’.The human rights group Amnesty International has accused Israel of enacting a “deliberate policy” of starvation in Gaza as the United Nations and aid groups warn of famine in the Palestinian enclave.In a report quoting displaced Palestinians and medical staff who have treated malnourished children, Amnesty said: “Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip.”The group accused Israel of “systematically destroying the health, wellbeing and social fabric of Palestinian life”.“It is the intended outcome of plans and policies…