Fifty-two children in Palestinian toll

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Israeli strike fells building housing Kuwait TV

GAZA, May 16, (Agencies): Number of martyrs rose up to 181 since start of Israeli attacks on Gaza strip six days ago, Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Sunday.
In a press statement, Ministry spokesman Dr Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement that number of Palestinian martyrs reached 181, including 52 children and 31 women, besides more than 1,200 wounded people.
Al-Qudra added that the death toll rose after the Israeli occupation forces targeted Al-Wehda Street in Gaza City last night, killing 33 people, including 12 women and eight children, also injuring 50 others, most of them children and women.
Moreover, he pointed out that Israeli offensive is intentionally targeting all ways that lead to Al-Shefa’a Medical Cen-ter and several hospitals in order to prevent patients from getting any medical treatment
An Israeli airs trike on Saturday destroyed a high-rise building in the Gaza Strip where the office of Kuwait television, in addition to other media outlets, is located, its reporter in the coastal enclave said.
“The 12-storey Al-Jalaa tower block in Gaza collapsed after repeated missile strikes from the Israeli air force,” Kuwait television reporter Suad Al-Imam told KUNA.
The compound, which houses offices of news media including Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television network, collapsed in plumes of smoke that caused damage to nearby buildings and private flats.
The incident has been widely condemned by journalists as an attack on press freedom.
Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Dr Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah on Sunday addressed the UN Security Council session on Palestine, held in New York, renewing the State of Kuwait strong con-demnation of the crimes and attacks carried out by the israeli occupation forces in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The State of Kuwait renews its utter denunciation of the crimes and offensives carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the city of Jerusalem.
Moreover, Kuwait denounces all Israel’s illegal settlement schemes, its bids to seize Palestinians’ houses and proper-ties, particularly citizens’ assets in Jerusalem, namely in Sheikh Jarrah district, seeking to evacuate the holy city of its population for sake of Judaizing it.
Such practices are illegal and illegitimate breaches and constitute flagrant violation of the relevant international resolu-tions and references that affirm that unilateral measures and decisions aimed at altering the legal and historic status in the occupied territories are invalid and false; they neither create a right nor a commitment.
Sheikh Dr Ahmad indicated how the occupation forces along with settlers mercilessly assaulted children and women to take over their properties.
Policies
Such policies and practices affirm once again that israel is seeking to bolster the occupation and show that it has no de-sire to reach a full and just peace agreement, the Kuwaiti foreign minister noted.
The attacks and crimes perpetrated by the occupation israeli forces are part of a chain of violations by israel, the occu-pation-based power, of the Security Council resolutions 242, 338, 476, 478 and 2334, stipulating that sanctity of Jerusa-lem cannot be desecrated.
Kuwaiti National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim on Wednesday urged the Arab Parliamentary Union (APU) to coordinate with Arab civil society organizations, Red Crescent societies and charitable institutions to launch a wide popular donation campaign to back Palestinians’ steadfastness in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.
This came in Al-Ghanim’s speech before the 31st emergency conference of APU that was held virtually.
He called for exposing the practices of the “Zionist” occupation committed against Palestinians, proposing forming a delegation of the APU to meet with head of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and other bodies to discuss taking measures relating to disclosing these practices.
“What the Zionist enemy has been doing at Al-Aqsa; and Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Amoud neighborhoods for a long time is not new or exceptional,” he said, pointing to Israel’s arrogance and violations of all international conventions.
Violations
Al-Ghanim went to say that Israel’s violations and arrogance have been faced by steadfastness and patience of Pales-tinians, pointing to wide solidarity and support from Arab and Islamic nations, and all world’s nations in this regard.
He pointed out that social media across the globe has been filled with a lot of coverage and comments in a spontane-ous and unorganized campaign to expose the occupation’s practices.
This is an important and vital factor as it simply tells the Palestinians struggling in Jerusalem that they are not alone, he said, adding that despite the occupation’s attempts to impose its influence and violate international law, the con-science of the people globally rejects, denounces and disapproves what is happening.
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City flattened three buildings and killed at least 42 people Sunday, Palestinian medics said. Despite the heavy death toll and international efforts to broker a cease-fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya-hu signaled the fourth war with Gaza’s Hamas rulers would rage on.
In a televised address, Netanyahu said Sunday evening the attacks were continuing at “full-force” and will “take time.“ Israel “wants to levy a heavy price” from the Hamas militant group, he said, flanked by his defense minister and politi-cal rival, Benny Gantz, in a show of unity.
The Israeli air assault early Sunday was the deadliest single attack since heavy fighting broke out between Israel and Hamas nearly a week ago, marking the worst fighting here since their devastating 2014 war in Gaza.
The airstrikes hit a major downtown street of residential buildings and storefronts over the course of five minutes af-ter midnight, destroying two adjacent buildings and one about 50 yards (meters) down the road.
At one point, a rescuer shouted, “Can you hear me?” into a hole in the rubble. “Are you OK?” Minutes later, first re-sponders pulled a survivor out and carried him off on an orange stretcher. The Gaza Health Ministry said 16 women and 10 children were among those killed, with more than 50 people wounded, and rescue efforts are still underway.
Earlier, the Israeli military said it destroyed the home of Gaza’s top Hamas leader, Yahiyeh Sinwar, in a separate strike in the southern town of Khan Younis. It was the third such attack in the last two days on the homes of senior Hamas leaders, who have gone underground.
Israel appears to have stepped up strikes in recent days to inflict as much damage as possible on Hamas as interna-tional mediators work to end the fighting and stave off an Israeli ground invasion in Gaza. But targeting the group’s leaders could hinder those efforts. A U.S. diplomat is in the region to try to de-escalate tensions, and the UN Security Council is meeting Sunday.
In its airstrikes, Israel has leveled a number of Gaza City’s tallest office and residential buildings, alleging they contain Hamas military infrastructure. Among them was the building housing The Associated Press office and those of other media outlets.
The latest outbreak of violence began in east Jerusalem last month, when Palestinian protests and clashes with police broke out in response to Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers. A focal point of clashes was the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a frequent flashpoint that is located on a hilltop compound that is revered by both Muslims and Jews.
Hamas fired rockets toward Jerusalem late Monday, triggering the Israeli assault on impoverished Gaza, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians and has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
At least 188 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including 55 children and 33 women, with 1,230 people wounded. Eight people in Israel have been killed, including a 5-year-old boy and a soldier.
Speaking alongside Netanyahu on Sunday, Israel’s military chief, Lt Gen Aviv Kohavi, said Hamas did not anticipate Is-rael’s overwhelming response to its rocket fire. “Hamas made a serious and grave mistake and didn’t read us proper-ly.”
The turmoil has also spilled over elsewhere, fueling protests in the occupied West Bank and stoking violence within Israel between its Jewish and Arab citizens, with clashes and vigilante attacks on people and property.
On Sunday, a driver rammed into an Israeli checkpoint in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah – where the Palestinian families had been threatened with eviction – injuring six officers before police shot and killed the at-tacker, Israeli police said.
The violence also sparked pro-Palestinian protests in cities across Europe and the United States, with French police firing tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators in Paris.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has affirmed its support for Israel while working to de-escalate the crisis. Ameri-can diplomat Hady Amr met with Gantz, the Israeli defense minister, who thanked the US for its support. Gantz said Israel “takes every precaution to strike at military targets only and avoid harming civilians, while its civilians are the tar-gets of indiscriminate attack.”
Hamas and other militant groups have fired some 2,900 rockets into Israel. The military said 450 of the rockets had fall-en short or misfired, while Israeli air defenses intercepted 1,150.
The AP has operated from the building for 15 years, including through three previous wars between Israel and Hamas. During those conflicts as well as the current one, the news agency’s cameras, operating from its top floor office and roof terrace, offered 24-hour live shots as militants’ rockets arched toward Israel and Israeli airstrikes hammered the city and its surroundings.
“We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building,” AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a statement. “This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our jour-nalists at risk.”
In the afternoon, the military called the building’s owner and warned a strike would come within an hour. AP staffers and other occupants evacuated safely. Soon after, three missiles hit the building and destroyed it, bringing it crashing down in a giant cloud of dust.

A league of Muslim nations on Sunday demanded that Israel halt attacks killing Palestinian civilians amid heavy fighting between it and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, even as fissures between countries over their recognition of Israel emerged.
A statement by the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation hewed closely to previous ones issued by the Saudi-based group, including backing the decades-old call for Palestinians to have their own nation with East Jerusalem as its capital.
However, recent normalization deals between Israel and some nations in the group – as well as their own concerns about Hamas – saw diplomats at points instead criticize each other.

“The massacre of Palestinian children today follows the purported normalization,” Iranian Foreign Minister Moham-mad Javad Zarif said. “This criminal and genocidal regime has once again proven that friendly gestures only aggravate its atrocities.”

The past week has seen some of the worst violence across Israel and the Palestinian territory since the 2014 war in Gaza, with militants launching missiles and Israel pounding the blockaded coastal strip home to 2 million people with heavy fire. At least 188 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza with 1,230 people wounded. Eight people in Israel have been killed.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation statement called on Israel to respect Muslims’ access to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, as well as stop settlers from forcibly evicting Palestinian families from their homes.

“The plight of the Palestinian people is the bleeding wound of the Islamic world today,” Afghan Foreign Minister Mo-hammad Haneef Atmar said.

But the videoconference meeting saw some delegates instead turn their fire toward countries like Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, Muslim nations which reached normalization deals last year to recognize Israel. While Egypt and Jordan earlier reached peace deals, supporters of the Palestinians criticized the new countries for recognizing Israel before the formation of an independent Palestinian state.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu joined Zarif in criticizing the normalization, though Israel maintains diplo-matic ties with Ankara.

“There are a few who have lost their moral compass and voiced support for Israel,” he said. “If there are half-hearted statements within our own family, how could we criticize others? Who will take our words seriously?”

Zarif also accused Israel of “genocide and crimes against humanity.”

“Make no mistake: Israel only understand the language of resistance and the people of Palestine are fully entitled to their right to defend themselves,” Zarif said.

Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, didn’t take part in the meeting, which came before consultations at the United Nations over the crisis.

Across the Arabian Peninsula, reactions to the fighting similarly has been mixed. In Qatar, home to the Al-Jazeera sat-ellite network, hundreds turned out late Saturday night to listen to a speech by Hamas’ top leader Ismail Haniyeh. Ku-wait’s parliament speaker reportedly spoke with Haniyeh on Saturday, as did Qatar’s foreign minister.

Meanwhile, in Bahrain and the UAE, government-linked media hasn’t been covering the current flare-up of violence nonstop like other networks in the region.

There are murmurs of dissent though. In Bahrain, civil society groups signed a letter urging the kingdom to expel the Israeli ambassador. In the UAE, where political parties and protests are illegal, Palestinians have expressed their anger quietly, worried about losing their residency permit. Some Emiratis also have expressed concerns.

“The region’s only democracy,” tweeted the Emirati writer and political analyst Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi in writing about Israel’s strike on a Gaza building that housed the offices of The Associated Press and Al-Jazeera.

Hussein Ibish, a senior scholar at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute, said most Gulf Arab leaders fear Hamas’ rocket fire as “cynical, dangerous, unnecessarily provocative and endangering Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza alike.” That takes the pressure off those Gulf leaders to respond, unlike in other confrontations involving the Al-Aqsa Mosque or when Israeli settlers force Arab families out of their homes, he said.

“There won’t be much sympathy for what is widely viewed in the Gulf as Israel’s heavy-handed and disproportionate retaliation,” Ibish wrote, “but it will be much easier for Gulf leaders and many citizens to regard the exchange as a trag-ic conflagration at the expense of ordinary people brought about by two leaderships over which they have neither control nor responsibility.”

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