Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 608

Antonio Guterres has said that it is “absolutely essential” to keep the vision for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict alive, Al Jazeera reports.

Many analysts say that Israel’s continuous expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories has made the prospect of a future Palestinian state all but non-existent, but Guterres questioned what the alternative would be.

“Is it the one state solution in which either the Palestinians are expelled or the Palestinians will be forced to live in their land without rights? That would be totally unacceptable,” he said.

“I firmly believe that it is the duty of the international community to do everything to keep the two-state solution alive, and then to materialise the conditions to make it happen.”

The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund has said it resumed food distribution in the Palestinian territory, after pausing operations for a day following deadly shootings, AFP reports.

“GHF can confirm that we were open for distribution today,” the group said in an email to AFP, adding it had delivered 1.4 million meals at two separate sites and 8.4 million meals since opening on May 27.

The Netherlands is still supporting the supply chain of Israel’s version of the F-35 fighter jet, more than a year after a court banned direct Dutch exports of F-35 parts to Israel, according to a report.

Research by the Palestinian Youth Movement shared with Al Jazeera shows the port of Rotterdam is regularly frequented by ships carrying F-35 parts for maintenance and assembly. The ships belong to the Danish shipping giant Maersk.

By examining import data and shipping receipts of Maersk and Lockheed Martin, the US weapons manufacturer that designed the F-35, the group found that more than a dozen shipments from Israel travelled through the port of Rotterdam on their way to the US.

Read more here.

Gaza’s health ministry says laboratories across the Strip are in urgent need of additional equipment to conduct tests on the wounded, Al Jazeera reports.

It said laboratories and blood banks in the remaining hospitals were down to 40 per cent of their equipment, which is operated without regular maintenance work.

It added that an estimated 60pc had been destroyed in Israeli attacks.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has accused Israel of carrying out “premeditated genocide” in the Gaza Strip during a trip to Paris, AFP reports.

“It’s a premeditated genocide from a far-right government that is waging a war against the interests of its own people,” he said at a joint press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

While Lula has previously used the term “genocide”, Macron has refused to, saying last month it was not for a “political leader to use to term but up to historians to do so when the time comes”.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has criticised Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip at a press conference with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar in Berlin, again calling for more humanitarian aid to be allowed into the enclave, Reuters reports.

Wadephul also decried the Israeli government’s announcement that it would allow 22 more settlements in the West Bank.

“Germany will continue to deliver weapons to Israel,” he added, saying the country needed to defend itself.

Fadel Naim, a doctor at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, said the medical facility, targeted by the Israeli army for the eighth time this morning, had been reopened just two weeks ago, Al Jazeera reports.

“Suddenly, we heard a big explosion,” Naim said of the drone attack. Six people were killed, including at least three journalists and two of their relatives, and about 40 others were wounded.

Naim, who spoke to Al Jazeera via phone from Gaza City, said the staff decided to continue working. “We have no other choice, we are the only hospital in the northern part of Gaza,” he said.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has said that recognising a Palestinian state now would send “the wrong signal”, AFP reports.

Speaking at a Berlin press conference with his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, he said that “negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be concluded” before the recognition of a Palestinian state.

The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has said it will open two aid distribution centres today, according to Reuters.

The Gaza Health Ministry has said in a statement that the number of people killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, has risen to 54,677, with 125,530 wounded, Al Jazeera reports.

At least 70 people were killed in the last 24 hours, the ministry says, and 189 wounded people were admitted to Gaza hospitals in that same period.

The Israeli-US aid operation has turned Gaza into a “human abattoir”, or slaughterhouse, former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness has said, in a reference to distribution sites operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

“Hundreds of civilians are herded like animals into fenced-off pens and are slaughtered like cattle in the process,” Gunness told Al Jazeera.

The former UN official cast doubt on the reason for the suspension, saying its work had been halted “because it has rightly sparked international outrage and condemnation”.

Asked about the UN Security Council resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza that was shot down yesterday, Gunness said Washington’s veto showed “the complete isolation of Israel and America — not just from the rest of the Security Council, but from the rest of humanity”.

“The international community must impose economic and military sanctions immediately,” he added.

The Israeli military has decided that the “Madleen” boat, which is sailing to Gaza and carrying 12 pro-Palestinian activists, will not be allowed to approach or dock in the Gaza Strip, a senior Israeli defence source tells The Jerusalem Post.

It quoted the source as further saying that Defence Minister Israel Katz was expected to make more decisions today.

The ship is expected to arrive within a week.

It quoted KAN as saying that Israel initially considered allowing the ship to dock in Gaza after security officials determined it did not pose a threat. However, authorities later reversed this decision.

At least 23 people have been killed in Gaza since dawn, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.

The toll combines the number of casualties registered by the Nasser, Baptist, and Shifa hospitals.

At least three of those killed in an Israeli drone strike at the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City were journalists, Al Jazeera reports.

Al Jazeera Arabic named two of the media persons as Ismail Badah and Sulaiman Haja, who used to work for the Palestine Today channel and were killed inside the hospital.

Yesterday, the United States vetoed a UNSC resolution calling for a permanent and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, the release of captives and the entry of aid.

It was the fifth time since October 2023 that the US has blocked a council resolution on the besieged Strip.

In remarks before the start of the voting, Acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea made her country’s opposition to the resolution, put forward by 10 countries on the 15-member council, painfully clear, which she said “should come as no surprise”.

“The United States has taken the very clear position since this conflict began that Israel has the right to defend itself, which includes defeating Hamas and ensuring they are never again in a position to threaten Israel,” she told the council.

Washington was the only country to vote against the measure, while the 14 other members of the council voted in favour.

Watch the video by Al Jazeera below:

The Palestinian group has condemned the US decision to veto a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, saying it was the latest sign of Washington’s “blind bias” towards Israel, Al Jazeera reports.

“We strongly condemn the US administration’s defiance of the will of the entire world, as 14 of the 15 countries on the Security Council supported the resolution,” it said. “This arrogant stance reflects its disregard for international law and its complete rejection of any international effort to stop the Palestinian bloodshed.”

Hamas added that the move gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “green light” to “continue his brutal war of extermination against innocent civilians”.

It also argued that the UNSC’s inability to deliver aid to Gaza “raises fundamental questions about the role of international community institutions and the validity of international laws and conventions”.

A medical source at Ahli Hospital said at least three people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, Al Jazeera quotes a medical source at Ahli Hospital as saying.

In addition, at least six people were killed in south Gaza’s Al Mawasi when an Israeli drone attacked tents housing displaced people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the bodies of two of its citizens killed in the October 7, 2023 attack and held in Gaza have been returned to Israel, AFP reports.

“In a special operation by the (security agency) and the (military) in the Gaza Strip, the bodies of two of our hostages held by the murderous terrorist organisation Hamas were returned to Israel: Judy Weinstein-Haggai and Gad Haggai from Kibbutz Nir Oz, may their memory be blessed,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

“Judy and Gad were murdered on October 7 and abducted to the Gaza Strip,” he added.

Pakistan has strongly condemned the “provocative storming” of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the escalating Israeli atrocities.

“These reprehensible acts, including violations at multiple entrances of the mosque, are a direct assault on the sanctity, historical character, and legal status of the revered Muslim holy site,” a statement by the Foreign Office said.

“Such reprehensible actions not only deeply offend the sentiments of Muslims worldwide but also risk igniting further unrest in an already volatile environment,” it added, highlighting that the moves were clear violations of international law.

“The ongoing targeting of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza by the Israeli occupying power is a matter of deep concern. The killing of nearly 100 Palestinian civilians in the last 24 hours alone, including those waiting near food distribution sites, shows the continued impunity with which Israeli occupying forces continue to commit crimes against humanity,” the FO noted.

Pakistan called upon the global community to take “urgent and meaningful action to stop these atrocities and to hold Israeli occupying forces accountable for their blatant and systematic violations of international law”.

Gaza’s civil defence agency has said Israeli strikes killed at least 10 people in the battered Palestinian territory as the military keeps up an intensified offensive, AFP reports.

“Ten martyrs so far resulting from Israeli strikes since dawn,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that they had targeted an area where displaced civilians were sheltering in the southern city of Khan Yunis and houses in Gaza City and the central town of Deir el-Balah.

A US- and Israeli-backed group operating aid sites in Gaza has pushed back the reopening of its facilities set for today, as the Israeli army warned that roads leading to distribution centres were “considered combat zones”, AFP reports.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) closed its aid distribution centres after a string of deadly incidents near sites it operates that drew sharp condemnation from the United Nations.

The GHF said late on Wednesday that its facilities would not open at the regular time today, without clarifying when they would resume service.

“Our distribution sites will not open early tomorrow morning as in previous days due to ongoing maintenance and repair work,” it wrote on social media. “We will share information about opening times as soon as work is complete.”

The Israeli army warned against travelling “on roads leading to the distribution centres, which are considered combat zones”.

The GHF said it was working to make aid distribution “as safe as possible” and urged those travelling to its sites to “follow the routes designated” by the Israeli army.

An online campaign calling on the public to write letters demanding that Israel not harm the Madleen or the activists on board has racked up more than 498,000 submissions, Al Jazeera reports.

Organised by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, participants in the campaign are asked to “put Israel on notice” by sending a prepared letter to Israeli officials as well as the UN and foreign governments.

The letter states: “Any interception, attack, sabotage, or interference with the Madleen or its civilian passengers and crew will constitute a deliberate, knowing, and unlawful attack on civilians and a violation of international law.”

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition states on its website: “We are putting them on notice”.

“But this letter alone will not stop an attack on those trying to deliver aid to the Palestinian people of Gaza. Your voice and action are what make this protection real,” it states.

UN Security Council members have criticised the United States after it vetoed a resolution calling for a ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza, which Washington said undermined ongoing diplomacy, as per AFP.

Hamas condemned the “disgraceful” US veto, reiterating assertions of “genocide” in Gaza. The veto “marks a new stain on the ethical record of the United States of America”, the group said in a statement, accusing Washington of “legitimising genocide, supporting aggression, and rationalising starvation, destruction, and mass killings.”

Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN, Asim Ahmad, meanwhile, said the failed resolution would “remain not only a moral stain on the conscience of this council, but a fateful moment of political application that will reverberate for generations”.

China’s ambassador to the UN Fu Cong said: “Today’s vote result once again exposes that the root cause of the council’s inability to quell the conflict in Gaza is the repeated obstruction by the US.”

“The Council was prevented from shouldering its responsibility, despite the fact that most of us seem to be converging on one view,” said France’s ambassador to the UN Jerome Bonnafont.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, said after the UNSC vote he would now ask the General Assembly to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire.