Hamas - The African Mirror

Oct

2023

Gaza families ordered south return home, say nowhere is safe from Israeli bombs

THE Abu Marasa family are returning to Gaza City, having fled after Israel ordered all civilians to go south or face bombardment, saying they would rather die at home after an air strike hit the house next to where they were sheltering. Bombing in the south of the tiny, crowded Gaza Strip killed scores of people overnight, local authorities said, and the Abu Marasa family is one of several Reuters spoke to that have concluded they may as well go back to their homes in the north. More than a dozen members of the family were crowded into a car on…

Oct

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and DAN WILLIAMS

Israeli strikes on Gaza intensify as humanitarian crisis deepens

WORLD

DIPLOMATIC efforts to arrange a ceasefire to let aid reach the besieged Gaza Strip failed and Israel ordered the evacuation of villages in a strip of territory near its border with Lebanon, raising fears the war could spread to a new front. Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules Gaza, after its fighters burst across the barrier surrounding the enclave on October 7, gunning down 1,300 Israelis, mainly civilians, on the deadliest day in Israel's 75-year history. It has put Gaza, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, under a total blockade and pounded it with unprecedented air strikes,…

Oct

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and EMILY ROSE

Israel vows to demolish Hamas as troops prepare to move on shattered Gaza

WORLD

ISRAEL'S Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "demolish Hamas" as his troops prepared to move into the Gaza Strip in pursuit of Hamas militants whose deadly rampage through Israeli border towns shocked the world. Israel has urged exhausted Gazans to evacuate south, which hundreds of thousands have already done in the besieged enclave that is home to more than 2 million people. Hamas, which runs Gaza, has told people to ignore Israel's message. Inside Gaza's narrow and crowded streets, conditions were deteriorating as deaths from Israeli air strikes rose. Bodies were stored in ice cream freezer trucks because moving them to hospitals was too risky…

Oct

2023

By SULEIMAN AL-KHALIDI and MAYA GEBEILY

Arab states say Palestinians must stay on their land as war escalates

WORLD

CALLS for a humanitarian corridor or an escape route for Palestinians from Gaza as a conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has escalated have drawn a blunt reaction from Arab neighbours. Egypt, the only Arab state to share a border with Gaza, and Jordan, which is next to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have both warned against Palestinians being forced off their land. It reflects deep Arab fears that Israel's latest war with Hamas in Gaza could spark a new wave of permanent displacement from the land where Palestinians want to build a future state. "This is the cause of all causes, the…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

South Africa checking if two of its citizens killed in Israel

NEWS

SOUTH Africa's government said that it was checking information from the Israeli embassy that two of its nationals had been killed in attacks by the militant group Hamas and called on Israel to provide Gazans with food and water. The attacks by Hamas inside Israel killed more than 1,300 people, mostly civilians. Israel has since responded with days of retaliatory attacks, pounding densely urbanised Gaza with air strikes and artillery fire and killing over 1,500 Palestinians. "We are currently verifying this," Clayson Monyela, a spokesperson for South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), said when asked about a local…

Oct

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

Gazans bombarded by Israel have no hope and no escape

WORLD

MOST of the 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip have no electricity and no water. And, with hundreds of Israeli strikes raining down on their tiny enclave, they have nowhere to run. The Palestinian territory, one of the most crowded places on Earth, has been under siege since Saturday in a near-constant bombardment that Gazan health officials say has killed more than 1,000 people. The blitz is retaliation for a devastating attack on Israel by Gaza's ruling group Hamas which the Israeli military says killed more than 1,200 people. Gaza's sole power station, which had been working intermittently for…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

Israel-Palestine conflict divides South African politicians – what their responses reveal about historical alliances

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

HAMAS’ brazen and deadly attack on Israel on October 7 elicited varied responses within the South African political scene. These diverse reactions reflect the long history, since before democracy in 1994, of South African engagement with the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The conflict holds symbolic significance for many in the country. ASHER LUBOTZKY, Scholar in Residence, University of Houston As with the war in Ukraine, taking sides on the issue also allows the different parties to highlight their position on the struggle for or against global Western dominance The South African government, led by the African National Congress (ANC), characterised the recent…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

What’s the Israel-Palestinian conflict about? The origin of wars explained

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE fighting between Israel and Hamas, which launched a surprise attack on Saturday, is the latest in seven decades of war and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that has drawn in outside powers and destabilised the wider Middle East. WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF THE CONFLICT? The conflict pits Israeli demands for security in what it has long regarded as a hostile region against Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own. Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the modern State of Israel on May 14, 1948, establishing a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution and seeking a national home…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

Egypt pushing Israel and Hamas to prevent escalation -Egyptian sources

NEWS

EGYPT has been in close contact with Israel and Hamas to try to prevent further escalation in fighting between them and ensure the protection of Israelis taken hostage by Palestinian militants, two Egyptian security sources said. Egypt had urged Israel to exercise restraint and Hamas to hold its captives in good condition to keep open the possibility of de-escalation soon, although successive Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip made mediation difficult, said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity. Palestinian fighters took dozens of hostages in an attack launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, including soldiers and…

Oct

2023

By SAMIA NAKHOUL and JONATHAN SAUL

How Hamas duped Israel as it planned devastating attack

WORLD

A careful campaign of deception ensured Israel was caught off guard when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched its devastating attack, enabling a force using bulldozers, hang gliders and motorbikes to take on the Middle East's most powerful army. Saturday's assault, the worst breach in Israel's defences since Arab armies waged war in 1973, followed two years of subterfuge by Hamas that involved keeping its military plans under wraps and convincing Israel it did not want a fight. While Israel was led to believe it was containing a war-weary Hamas by providing economic incentives to Gazan workers, the group's fighters were being trained and drilled, often…