Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 338

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in comments made in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, has reiterated Qatar’s call for an end to the fighting in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

“Ending the war on the Gaza Strip is a fundamental step towards calming the escalating tensions in the region and paving the way for achieving lasting regional peace,” he said.

“We emphasise the need for continued coordination and consultation among countries to ensure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which would contribute to alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people and lead to the release of hostages and prisoners,” added Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Qatar’s foreign minister.

“These efforts should open the door to broader opportunities for achieving regional stability and avoiding the risks of more violent and comprehensive escalation.”

Samah Jaber, head of the mental health unit at the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the “catastrophic impact” of Israel’s occupation in both Gaza and the West Bank.

“The traumatic events created by military violence are affecting every Palestinian and younger minds are more prone to be affected. We see that among children and young people,” she said, speaking from occupied East Jerusalem.

Jaber added that children in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip are being prevented from attending school, which are not only meant to be safe places but also places for cognitive and social stimulation, which “will impact the future of this generation”.

She also said that as soon as a ceasefire is put into place in Gaza, the health and education systems should take priority because “they will create the foundation for a rehabilitation for the Palestinian community affected by war and violence”.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports that there is a “clear concentration” of Israeli forces around the north of the Gaza Strip.

One of the latest barrages of strikes hit a residential house in Jabalia, killing six Palestinians, including a woman and two children, he adds.

Azzoum reports that the attack left behind a swathe of destruction, with civil defence workers trying to recover victims under the rubble.

“We have also been hearing from witnesses on the north of the Strip that they have been getting new evacuation orders — but they are saying that they have no other places to go to and they are just moving between neighbourhoods,” Azzoum reports.

India’s Supreme Court has dismissed a public interest litigation which sought an order for the federal government to halt licenses to Indian firms exporting arms to Israel, Anadolu reports.

“We cannot enter into the nation’s foreign policy domain,” said a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and two other judges.

The bench said the Indian firms, involved in arms export, may be sued for breach of contractual obligations and hence they cannot be stopped from supplying.

“Can we direct that under the UN’s genocide convention you ban the export to Israel. Why this restraint. This is because it impacts the foreign policy and we do not know what the impact will be,” The Press Trust of India news agency quoted the judges as saying.

Read more here.

More than 750 employees working in the field of education have been killed and thousands wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Education said in an updated statement at the start of the academic year, Al Jazeera reports.

It added that by the end of August, more than 11,500 Palestinian school-age children had been killed and tens of thousands more had experienced injuries, physical disabilities and psychological trauma.

The Ministry claims that Israeli forces also deliberately targeted dozens of school and administrative buildings, with 92 per cent of them out of service as a result.

At least 40,988 Palestinians have been killed and 94,825 others injured in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since October 7, the enclave’s health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reports.

Lebanon’s caretaker PM Najib Mikati has invited Western diplomats for an “emergency meeting” at the government palace to discuss Israel’s ongoing “violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and aggressions”, Al Jazeera reports.

Mikati called for the meeting after three civil defence volunteers were killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese town of Froun on Friday.

Mikati said the aim of the meeting is “to hold everyone accountable for stopping the ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon and to pressure the Israeli enemy, which ignores any law and continues to fuel its crimes against Lebanon and the Lebanese people”.

There is concern in Lebanon because there has been an uptick in violence along the border, where Hezbollah and Israel have been trading nearly-daily fire since October, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reports from Beirut, Lebanon.

Caretaker PM Mikati has summoned Western ambassadors to attend an emergency meeting which is still underway. The Lebanese government is not directly involved in this conflict, but it has been trying to reach out to Western nations to find some sort of a diplomatic solution and to restrain Israel.

But the confrontations cannot end as long as the onslaught on Gaza continues because Hezbollah has conditioned a halt to firing to an end to the conflict on Gaza. What Israel wants is security guarantees along the border in order for tens of thousands of residents to return to their homes.

In recent days, Israel has intensified its attacks on what it calls Hezbollah’s assets close to the border. For Hezbollah, too, there has been a sharp increase in the number of rockets it has launched at northern Israel. And there was a drone attack a few hours ago that targeted a residential building in Nahariya.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza are still in “urgent” need of food and livelihood assistance as Israeli attacks on the enclave enter their 12th month.

The WFP said that despite its commitment to deliver aid, the Israeli military’s “evacuation orders are hindering our efforts, and needs are on the rise”.

The new school year in the Palestinian territories officially has begun, with all schools in Gaza shut after 11 months of onslaught and no sign of a ceasefire.

In its ongoing assault on the Palestinian territory, Israel announced new orders to residents of the north Gaza Strip to leave their homes, in response to rockets fired into Israel.

Umm Zaki’s son Moataz, 15, was supposed to begin tenth grade. Instead he woke up in their tent in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and was sent to fetch a container of water from more than a kilometre away.

“Usually, such a day would be a day of celebration, seeing the children in the new uniform, going to school, and dreaming of becoming doctors and engineers. Today all we hope is that the war ends before we lose any of them,” the mother of five told Reuters by text message.

Read the full Reuters story here.

Turkey will discuss the Gaza conflict and ties with the Arab League when its foreign minister attends a ministerial meeting of the group in Cairo on Tuesday for the first time in 13 years, a Turkish diplomatic source said, Reuters reports.

Turkey, which has condemned Israel for its onslaught against Hamas in Gaza and joined steps towards Israel facing genocide charges at the World Court, has had rocky ties with the Arab League in recent years.

While it has mended long-strained ties with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Ankara remains at odds with other Arab League members including Syria.

After the conflict in Gaza started, Turkey joined a joint contact group formed at a summit of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to seek an end to the conflict.

The Turkish source said the invitation to Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan reflected a “growing interest” in Turkey’s regional role and improving ties with Arab League members, adding that Ankara wanted to increase institutional ties and cooperation with the group.

Turkey’s ties with Arab League members can help promote “solutions to current regional problems and concrete future cooperation,” the source said.

The Israeli military has ordered Palestinians in a neighbourhood in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya to evacuate after it said rockets were launched from the area at the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon last night, Al Jazeera reports.

The military’s spokesperson released a map marking the area which has been designated in “blocks”, adding that “the specified area has been warned many times in the past” and it is now “considered a dangerous combat zone”.

The military had earlier said that one of the rockets was intercepted and another fell into the sea.

Syrian state media said that overnight Israeli strikes killed 16 people in central Hama province, while a war monitor reported a higher death toll in the “intense” raids on military sites, AFP reports.

The Israeli military, which has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since its civil war started in 2011, declined to comment on the latest reported attack.

Syrian official news agency SANA, citing a medical source said the number of dead “in the Israeli aggression on a number of sites on the outskirts of Masyaf” was “16 martyrs and 36 wounded, including six critically”, updating an earlier toll of 14.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported “intense Israeli strikes” overnight, providing an updated of toll of 25 dead including “five civilians, four soldiers and intelligence personnel and 13 Syrians working with pro-Iran groups”.

Three more bodies were unidentified, the Observatory added.

Israel posted a budget deficit of 12.1 billion shekels ($3.24 billion) in August, the Finance Ministry said, citing high expenses to finance the conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Reuters reports.

The deficit for the 12 months to August rose to 8.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), from 8pc in the 12 months to July, compared to a target of 6.6pc for all of 2024.

Spending on the conflict, which began last October, has reached some 97 billion shekels.

The ministry said the deficit will continue to increase through the third quarter before moving back to its target.

Tax revenue rose 8.1pc in August is up 1.9pc over the first eight months of 2024.

Stephen Kapos, a Holocaust survivor, and his family have joined many to speak up against the killing of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi during a protest in the occupied West Bank, Anadolu reports.

Eygi was shot by Israeli forces on Friday while participating in a demonstration against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita.

An autopsy report confirmed that she was killed by an Israeli sniper’s bullet to the head, Nablus Governor Ghassan Daghlas said Saturday.

Eygi, 26, had been actively involved in solidarity movements supporting Palestinian rights. Her death has sparked outrage and calls for accountability from both local and international communities.

Read more here.

The UN human rights chief said that ending the nearly year-long conflict in Gaza is a priority and asked countries to act on what he called Israel’s “blatant disregard” for international law in the occupied Palestinian territories, Reuters reports.

“States must not cannot accept blatant disregard for international law, including binding decisions of the (UN) Security Council and orders of the International Court of Justice, neither in this nor any other situation,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a speech at the opening of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

He cited an opinion released by the UN top court in July that called Israel’s occupation illegal and said this situation must be “comprehensively addressed”. Israel has rejected the opinion.

Israel’s security cabinet, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, met to discuss several key issues, especially the escalation in the occupied West Bank, the country’s official broadcasting authority said according to Anadolu.

The authority said Netanyahu opened the session, where several topics were addressed, with a focus on the intensifying situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.

During the meeting, Netanyahu also touched on the frequent visits by government ministers to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The broadcasting authority quoted his office as saying that there will be no change to the status quo at the Al-Aqsa compound.

Illegal Israeli settlers beat an elderly Palestinian man after abducting him for several hours Sunday and released him near the Meitar checkpoint south of Hebron in the West Bank, Anadolu reports.

Mohammad Abu Sharikh, the son of 69-year-old Hussein Abu Sharikh, told Anadolu that his father was abducted east of the town of ad-Dhahiriya in the village of Khallet al-Tayaran, where he was tending to his sheep.

“Five armed settlers accompanied by soldiers abducted my father around 6:30 pm and took him to the Tina settlement, where he stayed for four hours and was beaten during that time,” added the son.

He noted that his father was released near the Meitar checkpoint and was then taken to a local medical center, where it was found that he had multiple bruises from the beating.

Syrian state media has said that overnight Israeli strikes killed at least 14 people in central Hama province, raising an earlier toll of five dead and 19 wounded, AFP reports.

“The number of martyrs resulting from the Israeli aggression on a number of sites in the vicinity of Masyaf has risen to 14 martyrs and 43 wounded including six critically,” official news agency Sana reported citing a medical source.

A Syrian war monitor earlier reported at least seven dead.

At least seven people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports citing local media.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa said the Israeli military’s operations against Gaza have now entered their 339th day.

The report highlighted that several areas in Gaza were subjected to heavy airstrikes and artillery fire overnight.

An airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed three people and injured seven others.

Nissim Vaturi, an Israeli legislator from Netanyahu’s Likud party, has said that “it’s a matter of days” before Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah develops into a full-on war, Al Jazeera reports.

Speaking to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster, Vaturi laid out his plan for the war, calling for preemptive aerial bombardment lasting for up to five days followed by a ground invasion.

The legislator, who is also a member of Israel’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, claimed that Netanyahu shared his views.

“Dahiyeh will look like Gaza, there is no other way,” he added, referring to the southern suburb of Beirut.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the “Jordanian citizen” who “opened fire on the Palestinian side” of the Israeli-controlled King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge, killing three Israelis.

According to Al Jazeera, Jordan’s foreign office said in a statement that “initial investigations confirmed that the incident, in which the shooter was also killed, was an individual act”.

Jordan rejects and condemns “violence and targeting civilians for any reason”, it said.

A “just and comprehensive peace that meets all the rights” of the Palestinian people “is the only way to achieve security and stability for all, and to stop the spread of violence and the escalation of conflict in the region”, the statement said.

Jordan is continuing efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, it added.

The statement said that restoring hope through lasting peace will protect the “entire region from the consequences of the continued deterioration that perpetuates despair and extremism, and detonates cycles of violence and killing, the price of which everyone pays”.

Jordan has repeatedly warned of the consequences of Israeli aggression on Gaza, the dangerous escalation against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and attacks on Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.

Hamas has responded to claims in US media that the group presented new conditions to mediators for the release of Israeli captives.

Spokesperson Basem Naim says the US officials who acted as sources for the story have “poisoned the negotiations”.

“Hamas has not presented any new conditions to the mediators, neither on the issue of prisoners nor any other matters. The movement reaffirms its commitment to what was agreed upon on July 2 of this year, which was based on President Biden’s proposal and the UN Security Council Resolution No 2735,” Naim told Al Jazeera.

“We are ready to immediately negotiate the implementation measures for this deal,” he added.

Israeli strikes in central Syria have killed at least seven people, including three civilians, AFP quoted a war monitor as reporting.

Since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes there, targeting pro-Iranian groups in particular.

“The number of dead in the Israeli strikes on the Masyaf region stands at seven, namely three civilians, including a man and his son who were in a car, and four unidentified soldiers,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a vast network of sources inside the country.

The attack also wounded at least 15 others and destroyed military facilities in the area, the Observatory said.

“Thirteen violent explosions rang out in the zone housing scientific research centres in Masyaf where pro-Iranian groups and weapons development experts are present,” the group said in an earlier statement.

The Syrian state news agency Sana had previously reported five killed and 19 wounded near Masyaf, citing a medical source.