Gaza Strip - The African Mirror

Feb

2024

Algeria pushes UN Security Council to demand Gaza ceasefire

ALGERIA has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a move that the United States - a council veto power - opposes because it says it would only benefit the Palestinian militants. The draft, seen by Reuters on Thursday, also "rejects the forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population" and again demands all parties comply with international law and calls for full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access into and throughout the entire Gaza Strip. Algeria shared the draft with the 15-member council on Wednesday, diplomats said, after the body met to…

Feb

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and MOHAMMED SALEM

Backs to the fence, Gazans fear Israeli attack on last refuge

WORLD

ISRAELI forces shelled the outskirts of the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, where the displaced population, penned against the border fence in their hundreds of thousands, feared a new assault with nowhere left to flee. More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are now homeless and crammed into Rafah. Tens of thousands more have arrived in recent days, carrying belongings in their arms and pulling children on carts, since Israeli forces last week launched one of the biggest assaults of the war to capture adjacent Khan Younis, the main southern city. If the Israeli…

Jan

2024

By BHARGAV ACHARYA and NELLIE PEYTON

South African president hails ruling against Israel as step toward justice

NEWS

SOUTH Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa hailed the World Court ruling imposing emergency measures against Israel over the war in Gaza as a step towards justice and said he expected Israel to abide by it. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide, punish acts of incitement and take steps to improve the humanitarian situation as it wages war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. It stopped short of demanding a ceasefire and has not yet ruled on the core of the case brought by South Africa - whether genocide has occurred…

Jan

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and FADI SHANA

Fighting across Gaza as Israel drops leaflets seeking its hostages

WORLD

ISRAEL pounded targets across the Gaza Strip while its planes dropped leaflets on the southern area of Rafah urging Palestinians seeking refuge there to help locate hostages held by Hamas, residents said. Palestinian fighters battled tanks trying to push back into the eastern suburbs of the Jabalia area in northern Gaza, where Israel had started pulling out troops and shifting to smaller-scale operations, residents and militants said. The Israeli military said aircraft struck militant squads trying to plant explosives near troops and fire missiles at tanks in northern Gaza and said it was striking targets throughout Gaza. In the southern area…

Jan

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and BASSAM MASOUD

Israel presses on with Gaza offensive approaching 100 days of war

WORLD

ISRAEL kept up bombardments in the Gaza Strip as its deadly war on the enclave's Hamas rulers approached 100 days with no end in sight. In the southern city of Rafah, an Israeli airstrike on a house sheltering two displaced families killed 10 people, the Gaza health ministry said. Holding up a photo of a dead girl with a piece of bread in her hand, Bassem Arafeh, a relative, said the families in Rafah had been eating dinner when the house was struck on Friday night. "This child died while she was hungry, while she was eating a piece of bread with…

Jan

2024

By PHILIP PULLELLA

‘Indiscriminately striking’ civilians is war crime, pope says in major speech

WORLD

POPE Francis, tackling conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine in his yearly address to diplomats, said that "indiscriminately striking" civilians is a war crime because it violates international humanitarian law. Francis, 87, made his comments in a 45-minute address to Vatican-accredited envoys from 184 countries that is sometimes called his "state of the world" speech. In it, he also talked about conflicts in Africa and Asia, migration crises in the United States and Latin America, climate change and the persecution of Christians. Expressing concern that the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip could spread…

Jan

2024

By MOHAMMAD AZAKIR, NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and ARAFAT BARBAKH

Israel shells southern Gaza as Hamas deputy buried in Lebanon

WORLD

ISRAELI shelling killed more than 20 Palestinians, including 16 in Khan Younis in a southern coastal area of the Gaza Strip packed with people who had fled from other parts of the enclave, Gaza health officials said. Among the dead were nine children, they said. Separately five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Al-Nusseirat refugee camp, health officials told Reuters. Gaza residents said Israeli planes and tanks had also bombarded two other refugee camps, prompting many to head south. The Israeli military did not comment on the attacks but reported fighting and air strikes…

Jan

2024

By LAILA BASSAM, NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and ARAFAT BARBAKH

Hamas leader’s killing raises fears of wider war, Israel keeps up bombardment of Gaza

WORLD

ISRAELI forces kept up their assault on the Gaza Strip and told civilians to leave a refugee camp in the north of the Palestinian enclave after the war reached into Lebanon with the killing of the Hamas deputy leader in Beirut. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it killed Saleh al-Arouri in a drone strike in the Lebanese capital on Tuesday. But military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces were in a high state of readiness and prepared for any scenario. The assassination was a further sign that the nearly three-month war between Israel and Hamas was spreading across…

Dec

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI, DAN WILLIAMS and AHMED MOHAMED HASSAN

What is Egypt’s proposal for Gaza?

NEWS

EGYPT has held talks between Hamas and its allied Islamic Jihad to try and broker a permanent ceasefire in Israel's war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed tens of thousands, laid waste to the Hamas-governed territory, and displaced the majority of the 2.3 million Palestinian residents. Here are the various proposals Egypt is presenting: RELINQUISH POWER Egypt is proposing that Hamas and Islamic Jihad relinquish power in the Gaza Strip in return for a permanent ceasefire, said two Egyptian security sources. Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials have rejected such a proposal, the Egyptian sources said. Officials of the two…

Dec

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI, BASSAM MASOUD and EMILY ROSE

Israel’s Netanyahu vows no let-up in war against Hamas as Gaza deaths mount

WORLD

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep up the fight against Hamas militants while Palestinians mourned more than 100 people who Gaza health officials said were killed overnight in Israeli airstrikes. Netanyahu visited Israeli troops in the northern Gaza Strip just hours after one of the besieged enclave's deadliest nights in the 11-week-old battle between Israel and Hamas. Retaliating against Hamas for its deadly October 7 cross-border rampage, Israel has been under pressure from its closest ally the United States to shift operations in Gaza to a lower-intensity phase and reduce civilian deaths. But Netanyahu told lawmakers from his…