Hamas-Israel war: Desperate Palestinians are raiding aid trucks, UN official says
Desperate Palestinians are stopping aid trucks and eating food immediately, as a group of Israeli soldiers faces discipline over an offensive act in a mosque. Follow updates. Warning: Graphic
A United Nations official says desperate Palestinians are raiding aid trucks in a bid to find food, as the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) condemns the behaviour of several of their soldiers.
Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini said people suffering from hunger and providing assistance to individuals in shelters is becoming more difficult due to overcrowding outside.
“People are stopping aid trucks, taking the food, and eating it immediately,” Mr Lazzarini said
“Hunger has emerged in the past few weeks, and we are meeting more and more people who have not eaten for a day or two or three days.”
Meanwhile, the IDF as condemned the behaviour of several of their soldiers who were filmed singing and mocking the Islamic call to prayer over the loudspeaker of a mosque in the city of Jenin.
The incident came during three days of raids in the occupied West Bank, during which Israeli troops have killed 12 Palestinians, including one youth shot dead at a hospital, according to Palestinian officials and international health charities.
Footage posted to social media shows the IDF soldiers inside the mosque as one of them recites a Jewish prayer in the style of the Islamic call to prayer from the pulpit.
In another clip, a song associated with the Jewish festival of Hanukkah is heard sung in Hebrew through a loudspeaker in the minaret.
The IDF said the soldiers “will be disciplined accordingly”. It said it would also act in similar cases which have been filmed in Gaza.
The call of Shama Israel from the town of Jenine pic.twitter.com/dsUGcBdzvL
— The Jewish Voice (@JewishVoice) December 14, 2023
In a statement on Thursday, the IDF said the soldiers “acted against IDF codes of conduct within a religious establishment”.
The statement said those responsible “were immediately removed from operational activity”.
It added: “The behaviour of the soldiers in the videos is serious and stands in complete opposition to the values of the IDF.”
The incidents in Jenin are not the first time Israeli soldiers have been upbraided for bad behaviour filmed and posted on social media recently.
Since Israeli forces have been fighting the war in Gaza from the end of October, videos have emerged including showing a soldier smashing up a toy shop, while the person filming laughs; soldiers setting fire to goods in the back of a lorry; and another rummaging through women’s clothes in what appears to be a private residence.
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US SCHOOL TEACHER ARRESTED FOR ‘THREATENING TO BEHEAD’ MUSLIM CHILD
A US school has been teacher arrested after he threatened to behead a Muslim student.
Benjamin Reese, 51, was heard shouting that he would “cut your … head off” at three female students, according to an incident report written by a sheriff’s deputy, CNN reported.
He was also heard saying he would “drag [a student] by the back of my car” and that he would “slit her … throat”.
School surveillance video showed Reese following the three students in the hallway of Warner Robins Middle School in Warner Robins, Georgia, according to the report.
One of the students told the sheriff’s deputy that she had asked Reese why an Israeli flag was hanging in his classroom, saying that she found it offensive because of Israel’s actions in Gaza. After trying to leave the classroom, the student said that Reese tried to stop her from leaving.
Reese was arrested last week and charged with making terroristic threats and cruelty to children in the third degree, according to the incident report, which lists more than 20 witnesses, according to CNN. The teacher has since been bonded out of jail.
BOMBING CONTINUES
Israeli air strikes across Gaza overnight killed at least 67 people, Gaza’s health ministry said.
In Khan Yunis in the south, smoke rose from a grey landscape of rubble which people combed with shovels and their bare hands after a strike. One man sat on the broken concrete, wiping his eyes.
“Around four people are still stuck under the rubble” after an aeroplane hit the building “without a warning”, said Hassan Bayyout, 70.
US TELLS ISRAEL TO WRAP UP ‘HIGH INTENSITY’ FIGHTING IN GAZA
The US is pushing for “high intensity” fighting in Gaza to wrap up within weeks as Israel continues to bomb Gaza.
An Israeli official, speaking anonymously, said the US has pushed for the current phase to wind up by the end of the year, according to the Times of Israel.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said during a briefing that Asked for comment, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan “did talk about the possible transitioning from what we would call high intensity operations — which is what we’re seeing them do now — to lower intensity operations sometime in the near future.”
But Mr Kirby added: “I don’t want to put a time stamp on that. The last thing we want to do is telegraph to Hamas what they’re likely to face in the coming weeks and months.”
The medical facility in Beit Lahia has been surrounded and under heavy fire for days.
At least 18,787 people have died and another 50,897 wounded in Palestine since the war began on October 7, according to Gaza’s healthy ministry.
JEWISH PROTESTERS BLOCK ROADS IN DOWNTOWN BOSTON
Hundreds of Jewish protesters and pro-Palestinian supporters have blocked traffic in downtown Boston to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
The protest group IfNotNow, a Jewish lobby group advocating for the US to end support for “Israel’s apartheid system”, posted video footage and photos from central Boston’s business district where it said 15 lanes of traffic had been blocked.
“Every day without a ceasefire condemns hundreds, maybe thousands, of Palestinians to death. All done ‘to keep Jews safe.’ We cry out as loudly as we can: not in our name,” the group wrote on social media.
“On this last night of Chanukah, we make calls for ceasefire impossible to ignore.”
BREAKING: Hundreds of Jews + allies have shut down all 15 lanes of downtown Boston's biggest intersection.
— IfNotNow🔥🕎 (@IfNotNowOrg) December 14, 2023
Business as usual is a death sentence for the people of Gaza. On this last night of Chanukah, we make calls for ceasefire impossible to ignore.@IfNotNowBoston@JVPBostonpic.twitter.com/mbBmxmFU2U
TERROR PLOTS IN EUROPE FOILED
European police have prevented attacks on key Jewish site across Europe, with seven suspected members of the terror group arrested in raids in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
German police arrested three suspected members of Hamas, accused of making preparations for an attack against Jewish targets, prosecutors said.
The three men, along with another suspect arrested in the Netherlands, were said to have tried to gather weapons to be “kept in a state of readiness in view of potential terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe”, German federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Police arrested Egyptian citizen Mohamed B. and two Lebanese-born men, Abdelhamid Al A. and Ibrahim El-R. in Berlin.
In addition, the Dutch national Nazih R. was detained by local police in Rotterdam, the prosecutors said.
The four were suspected of being “longstanding members of Hamas”, and “closely linked” to the leadership of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
Danish authorities said they prevented a terror attack after three arrests in Denmark and a fourth in the Netherlands, as Israel said the suspects in Denmark were acting “on behalf of Hamas”.
Danish police refused to comment on whether there was any link between the arrests reported in Denmark and Germany.
PALESTINE WITHOUT HAMAS A ‘DELUSION’
Hamas’s chief has shunned plans that post-war Gaza will not involve the militant group, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed his nation will “go all the way” in its war against the terror group, with or without approval.
Ismail Haniyeh said in a televised speech that any future in Palestine that excluded the militant group was a “delusion”.
“Any arrangement in Gaza or in the Palestinian cause without Hamas or the resistance factions is a delusion,” Mr Haniyeh said.
His comments came after Mr Netanyahu said he would not allow “the entry into Gaza of those who … support terrorism and finance terrorism”.
Haniyeh, however, said he was open for talks for ending the Israeli assault and “putting the Palestinian house in order both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”.
He said Hamas was ready for talks that could lead to a “political path that secures the right of the Palestinian people to their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital”.
HOSTAGE FAMILIES ‘SHOCKED’ BY ISRAEL PM’S MOVE
Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to abandon talk of a temporary ceasefire with Hamas was immediately seized upon by families of some of the remaining more than 100 hostages being held captive by Hamas somewhere in Gaza.
Mossad Chief Dadi Barnea had proposed to go to Qatar to jump-start negotiations for a new ceasefire and possible hostage release deal with Hamas, but was blocked by the Netanyahu War Cabinet.
The families said they were “shocked” by the decision and demanded clarification and an end to the negotiations deadlock.
They said they were “at their wits’ end with the indifference and stagnation” that leaves them to play a daily game of “Russian roulette in which families are informed about the murder of [loved ones held] hostage in captivity.”
IRAQ MAKES ARREST OVER US EMBASSY ATTACK
Iraq said it had arrested several attackers who fired rockets at the US embassy last week amid high tensions over the Israel-Hamas war and found some had links to security services.
A US spokesperson said “indications are the attacks were initiated by Iran-aligned militias”.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office reported several arrests over the attack and said that “unfortunately, preliminary information indicates that some of them are connected to certain security services”.
The search continued for “all those involved in this attack,” said Sudani’s office in a statement, vowing that “the hand of justice will reach them”.
ISRAELIS OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORT WAR
Polls in Israel in recent weeks show overwhelming backing for the war despite the rising human costs in Gaza, which is not largely reported by media in Israel.
But it is generally considered “collateral damage” is the price Palestinians have to pay.
Only 10 per cent of Israelis thought the army was using too much firepower, according to one Tel Aviv University poll.
The IDF said it would increase air strikes ahead of ground forces’ movements to prevent more soldiers being killed in ground fighting.
Benjamin Netanyahu and his Cabinet has repeatedly made clear it will not accept a Palestinian state and after victory will want to create a “buffer” between what is left of Gaza and Israel.
US DELAYS SALE OF 20,000 RIFLES TO ISRAEL
The White House said it would delay the sale of more than 20,000 US-made M16 rifles to Israel over concerns they would be used in attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The Times of Israel has reported National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right member of the Israeli government, has put “a heavy emphasis on arming civilian security squads” in occupied West Bank.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where violence since October 7 has surged to levels unseen in nearly two decades, the Palestinian health ministry said “a young man died from his wounds” received during an Israeli raid in Jenin, a militant stronghold.
FAMILY OF HOSTAGES MAKES EMOTIONAL PLEA
A relative of two Israeli Arab Bedouins held hostage by Hamas in Gaza has pleaded for their release, saying they had “nothing to do” with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group.
“I urge all who can to help free my brother Youssef and my nephew Hamza because they are sick and have nothing to do with this,” Noaf al-Zayadna said on a visit to Paris facilitated by the Israeli embassy.
Among the hostages still believed to be held in Gaza are at least three Israeli Arab Bedouins, members of a small traditionally nomadic minority whose Palestinian ancestors remained on their land after Israel’s creation in 1948.
Four members of a single Bedouin family from the area of Rahat in the Negev Desert were taken hostage on October 7 as they were working on a farm in Kibbutz Holit, near the border with Gaza.
– with AFP
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