Israel ‘releases all restraints’ on troops; accused of ‘genocide’ in Gaza
Israel has vowed to eliminate enemies “without compromise” as Palestine lashed the bombardment of Gaza at the UN. Warning: Graphic.
Israel’s defence minister has “released all restraints” on the Israel Defence Forces’ troops as fighting against Hamas left thousands dead on both sides since the militants launched a surprise attack.
“Whoever comes to decapitate, murder women, Holocaust survivors — we will eliminate him at the height of our power and without compromise,” Yoav Gallant told soldiers during an inspection of the front line along Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.
It comes as the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations described Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip as “nothing less than genocidal.”
As Israeli forces regained control of villages from Hamas terrorists, the full horror of Hamas’s massacre emerges.
In the village of Kfar Aza alone, the Israeli Defence Forces claim they found more than 40 babies and children dead, some decapitated.
In the kibbutz of Be’eri, Hamas killed 100 people, or about 10 per cent of the population.
More than 1000 Israelis have been killed in the war on Hamas, the Israeli Defence Forces said in the latest operational update, up from 900 previously reported.
Over 2800 Israelis have been injured and 2294 Hamas targets struck, the IDF added, while Gaza officials have reported at least 900 people
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DEATH TOLL RISES
Israel Defence Forces’ Lieutenant Colonel Conricus said 1200 Israelis had been killed, with the deceased “overwhelmingly civilians”.
More than 2,700 are wounded.
The increase has been a result of “discovering bodies of dead Israelis in the various communities that Hamas infiltrated and where they conducted their massacres”, Lt Col Conricus said, “not because there is ongoing fighting”.
AUSSIE WAR COMEDY DROPPED FROM CANNES
An Australian comedy series about hostages taken in a war-torn country has been withdrawn from an annual international television industry conference in Cannes next week.
Produced by Hollywood heavyweight Sean Penn and created and directed by Australian actor and filmmaker Kick Gurry, C.A.U.G.H.T. was produced by Fremantle and screens on Stan in Australia.
The series was being shopped to potential international buyers at Mipcom next week but in light of Hamas militia taking Israeli hostages after their attacks on Saturday, Fremantle will not showcase the series at the conference held in the south of France.
The satirical show follows four Australian soldiers sent to a war-torn country on a secret mission who are captured by freedom fighters and the subjects of a hostage video that goes viral.
Its all-star cast includes American actor Matthew Fox alongside Bryan Brown, Ben O’Toole, Lincoln Younes and Erik Thomson.
“In light of the current situation unfolding in Israel, we have taken the decision not to showcase ‘C*A*U*G*H*T’ at Mipcom this year,” Fremantle said in a statement.
“At this time, our hearts and thoughts are with our colleagues and our partners in Israel, and all those affected.”
ISRAEL CAMPAIGN AGAINST GAZA ‘GENOCIDAL’
Israel on Monday imposed a total siege on Gaza but US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that his understanding was that “the concept of siege is not something that in fact is going to be pursued by the Israeli government.”
He said Washington was in talks with the Israeli government “about their actions in this regard.”
It comes as the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations described Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip as “nothing less than genocidal.”
European Union foreign ministers urged Israel not to cut such essentials, and called for humanitarian corridors for those trying to flee.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said such sieges are prohibited under international humanitarian law.
Medical supplies, including oxygen, were running low at Gaza’s overwhelmed Al-Shifa hospital, said Mohammed Ghonim, a doctor in the emergency room.
‘COVER UP’: HAMAS RESPONDS TO BIDEN
Hamas has described Joe Biden’s comments on Israel as “inflammatory” and part of a plan to “cover up the criminality and terrorism of the Zionist government” against the Palestinians.
In a statement, a Hamas spokesperson said the US President’s statements “coincided with the continuation and escalation of the barbaric Zionist aggression against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the rest of our occupied territories”.
Hamas accused Mr Biden of not having referred “at all in his speech to the massacres committed by the Zionist forces against our people in cold blood and in full view of the world.”
ON THE GROUND IN TEL AVIV
Our Europe Correspondent Danielle Gusmaroli speaks to Aussies in Tel Aviv as the war on Hamas continues.
ISRAEL FIRES BACK AT SYRIA: IDF
Israel’s military said it had responded with artillery fire from the Golan Heights after munitions were launched toward the territory it has occupied since 1967.
“Soldiers are responding with artillery and mortar shells toward the origin of the launching in Syria,” an Israeli army statement said on Tuesday local time, on the fourth day of a war with Gaza-based Hamas militants which has sent regional tensions soaring.
The army said there had been “a number of launches from Syria into Israeli territory”.
A military spokesman told news outlet AFP it appeared to have been mortar fire.
This was the first exchange of fire between Israel and Syria since Saturday when Hamas carried out an unprecedented assault on Israeli territory from the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Israel also exchanged fire with militants in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.
Israel’s 1981 annexation of the strategic Golan Heights is not recognised by the United Nations
’PURE EVIL’: BIDEN PLEDGES SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL
Joe Biden has compared the “pure, unadulterated evil” of Hamas’s invasion of Israel to “the worst rampages of ISIS”, prompting new American support to rescue hostages and block further rocket attacks.
But the US President’s promise of a broader aid package will be held up by political gridlock in Washington DC, with the Republican coup against the House Speaker last week preventing the Congress from approving extra assistance.
In a major address, Mr Biden said he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that America’s response to such a terrorist attack would be “swift, decisive and overwhelming”, giving him America’s backing for a full-scale ground operation in Gaza.
“The brutality of Hamas, this bloodthirstiness brings to mind the worst, the worst rampages of ISIS. This is terrorism,” the President said
“But sadly, for the Jewish people, it’s not new. So in this moment, we must be crystal clear – we stand with Israel.”
ISRAEL RISKS BLOODBATH
Israel risks a bloodbath if troops go into Gaza, with the densely populated land strip likely to see urban warfare on an unparalleled scale.
Hamas has baited the Israel Defence Force (IDF) to enter the land strip, where it has warned it was prepared for catastrophic street-by-street fighting using up to 40,000 militants.
It has over the years built a network of tunnels, to move weapons and fighters about the territory – unseen by Israeli spy blimps and drones that operate in the area – and IDF suspects militants have an arsenal of weapons in reserve.
The Strip is not even half the size of Canberra but has 2.3 million citizens making it one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
Israel has launched limited ground offensives into Gaza before, most recently in 2014 with a 19-day ground invasion with 2250 Palestinians, including 1462 civilians killed, and 73 Israelis
The Israeli prime minister has threatened to turn Gaza into a “deserted island”.
Hamas has already claimed four hostages had been killed by Israeli bombings of Gaza.
IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said air strikes on Gaza were aimed at rooting out Hamas forces. But with 300,000 reservists and troops massing it was likely an Israeli land force will now move in.
Hamas has already said it would kill a hostage for every innocent civilian house bombed but had also earlier said it was prepared for urban warfare should IDF troops move in.
ISRAEL KILLS 1500 TERRORISTS
Israel said it had largely secured the Gaza border and was evacuating nearby towns where the bodies of 1500 Hamas terrorists had been recovered after days of gruelling battles outside the Palestinian enclave.
The death toll in Israel has meanwhile surged above 1000 from the worst attack in the country’s 75-year history.
At least 830 Palestinians have been killed and 4000 wounded in Israeli air strikes, Gaza’s health ministry said.
Hamas gunmen killed more than 100 people in the kibbutz of Be’eri alone, said Moti Bukjin, a volunteer with the charity Zaka that recovers bodies in accordance with Jewish law. “They shot everyone,” he said.
“They murdered in cold blood children, babies, old people – everyone.”
HAMAS ‘DECAPITATED BABIES’, BURNED ISRAELI’S ALIVE
Babies had been ‘decapitated’ and Israelis “burned alive” by Hamas in the surprise terror attack, an IDF spokesman said in a briefing with reporters.
“We found ourselves under attack by a cruel and vicious enemy that entered our villages and slaughtered women and children in their houses, in their beds, burning them alive, killing them, tying them up and killing them,” he said.
Gruesome images online which appeared to show the charred bodies of children as the IDF swept over the worst hit areas.
“When Hamas came here they decapitated women, they decapitated children. We saw dead babies, girls,” Major David Ben Zion, 37, added to The Independent.
Speaking from the town, i24News reporter Nicole Zedek said a soldier told her they had found women and “babies with heads cut off”.
Israeli mum who escaped Hamas with newborn learns that husband is dead on live TV
At least 40 babies and children were found, while entire families were burned alive in their homes and shot dead.
“No one could expect it to be like this – the horrors I’m hearing from these soldiers,” she said, visibly shaken.
“About 40 babies at least were taken out on gurneys. They are going house to house still taking out dead bodies.”
Major General Itai Veruv whole families were murdered in their homes.
“You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms and how the terrorist kills them,” he told reporters.
“It’s not a war. It’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre.”
ISRAEL SHELLS LEBANON AFTER ROCKET FIRE
Israeli forces launched artillery fire at Lebanon after rocket fire towards Israel, the army said.
“In response to the launches identified from Lebanese territory toward Israeli territory, IDF (army) soldiers are currently responding with artillery fire,” a statement said.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported that “Rockets were fired from … southern Lebanon towards the Galilee” region in northern Israel.
US HOSTAGE EXECUTIONS ‘SERIOUS’
The White House said Tuesday it was taking Hamas threats to execute hostages seriously and had offered “hostage recovery expertise” to Israel’s intelligence agencies.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the White House was closely watching the situation after Hamas warned it would start killing hostages every time Israel strikes a civilian target in Gaza without warning. “You can’t take a threat like that lightly,” Kirby told CNN. “You’ve got to take it seriously because of the barbarity that Hamas has already shown that they’re capable of.”
The United States had offered Israel intelligence and “hostage recovery expertise,” Kirby said.
HOW HAMAS FOOLED WORLD’S TOP SPIES
Hamas pulled off one of the biggest routs of the world’s top intelligence agencies by “going back to the stone age” to avoid surveillance and lull Israel into a false sense of security.
Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli general, said that after Israel’s security services pulled out of Gaza and reduced its ability to gather human intelligence, Hamas found a way to evade the high-tech spy surveillance that had become the main means of intel gathering.
“They’ve gone back to the Stone Age,” Avivi said in an interview, adding they avoided phones and computers and went underground in the rabbit warren of tunnels beneath the Palestinian enclave.
“The other side learned to deal with our technological dominance and they stopped using technology that could expose it.”
‘Back to the Stone Age’: How Hamas fooled the world’s top intel agencies
FRENCH PRESIDENT DENOUNCES ‘BLACKMAIL’
French President Emmanuel Macron has denounced “unacceptable blackmail” by Hamas after the Palestinian militant group threatened to execute some of the around 150 hostages it abducted in a weekend assault. “The blackmail by Hamas after its terrorist acts is odious and unacceptable,” Macron said on a visit to Germany. The French president added that he considered it “likely” that Hamas had outside “help” in its onslaught against Israel.
But he stressed there was “no formal trace” of any “direct involvement” by Iran, at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
‘NOWHERE TO HIDE’: ISRAEL MILITARY
The Israeli chief military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Hamas operatives have “nowhere to hide in Gaza” and “we will reach them everywhere”,
The declaration was made as Rear Admiral Hagari said its air force was carrying out intensive air strikes every four hours, reports Reuters.
AIR STRIKES; 300K TROOPS
Israel has laid siege on the Hamas stronghold of Gaza with more than 2500 air strikes ahead of a suspected mass land invasion involving up to 300,000 troops and reservists.
Before dawn on Tuesday, the Israeli military struck what it said were Hamas targets in Gaza, especially in the Rimal neighbourhood and in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
As well as calling up 300,000 reservists, the Israeli air force confirmed it had sent multiple Hercules transport aircraft to Europe to fly back “hundreds of Israelis” for military service.
WHO CALLS FOR ‘END TO VIOLENCE’
The World Health Organisation called on Tuesday for a humanitarian corridor to be established into and out of the Gaza Strip, which has been placed under total siege by Israel.
“WHO is calling for an end to the violence … A humanitarian corridor is needed to reach people with critical medical supplies,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a press briefing in Geneva.
CCTV TV REVEALS HAMAS BRUTALITY
Footage taken from security cameras shows heavily armed Hamas fighters arriving in Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel on Saturday.
Rescue workers have discovered more than 100 bodies in the community following a prolonged hostage standoff between Israeli forces and Hamas militants.
ON THE GROUND IN TEL AVIV
Our Europe Correspondent Danielle Gusmaroli explains what it’s like as Israelis have fled for safety.
AUSSIES ABDUCTED INSIDE GAZA
An Australian man known only as Yonadav confirmed two grandsons and his daughter-in-law are believed to be among those abducted and being held captive inside Gaza.
Yonadav’s two sons live in Israel and the wife of one Adi Kaplon and their four-year-old and four-month old baby were dragged out of their house by insurgents and remain missing.
PROTESTERS HIT THE STREETS
There was a Pro-Palestine protest in Melbourne on Tuesday, after a another Pro-Palestine protest at the Opera House became heated in Sydney on Monday night.
ON THE GROUND NEAR GAZA
Former Sydney resident Yigal Nisell reveals what is happening on south Israel, near the border of Gaza.
DEADLY IMPACT OF WAR ON MIDDLE EAST
The conflict is also already broadening with a limited artillery exchange by Israel on its southern border with Lebanon killing five Hezbollah militants. An Israeli deputy commander was also killed. It was in the same area where earlier four PIJ militants entered Israel to join the Hamas assault.
The US’ top military officer General Charles Q. Brown warned Iran to not get involved; Iran has long backed both Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah.
The militant assault on Israel is its most deadly in history but threatens to get worse.
RUSSIA CONDEMNS VIOLENCE
Russia condemned violence against both Jews and Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, but criticised the United States for what it said was its destructive approach which had ignored the need for an independent Palestinian state.
The Kremlin called for a return to peace and said it was “extremely concerned” that the violence could escalate into a broader conflict in the Middle East.
Russia, which has relationships with Arab countries, Iran and Hamas as well as with Israel, said the West had ignored the need for an independent Palestinian state within 1967 borders.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned the violence but said the West was shortsighted if it believed it could simply condemn attacks against Israel and then hope for an Israeli victory without solving the cause of instability – the Palestinian problem itself.
“I cannot but fail to mention the destructive policy of the United States which thwarts collective efforts within the framework of the Quartet of international mediators,” Lavrov told reporters after talks in Moscow with Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
The United States, Lavrov said, had sought to “monopolise” dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis and move away from the creation of a Palestinian state in favour to talks about easing the social-economic problems of Palestinians.
PALESTINIAN LEADER TO VISIT RUSSIA
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to visit Moscow, Russian news media quoted the Palestinian envoy to Moscow as saying late on Monday.
“We are awaiting an official statement from the Kremlin, from the Russian side, about when the visit will take place,” Russia’s RBC news outlet said, citing Ambassador Abdel Hafiz Nofal as saying.
“An agreement has been reached that Mr. Abbas will come here to Moscow.”
Separately, he told Russia‘s state television that the two sides maintain “daily contacts.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin last met with Abbas a year ago on the sidelines of a regional conference in Kazakhstan. Abbas last visited Russia two years ago, according to Russian media.
WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH HOSTAGES
Soldiers, children and music festival goers are among at least 150 hostages facing execution after Israel unleashed its “vengeance” on Hamas, which vowed to broadcast prisoner murders in an effort to prevent the destruction of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida said they will start executing hostages for every civilian house bombed without warning, despite claiming prisoners of war were being kept safe under Islamic “religious and moral ethics”.
PIJ claim to be holding 30 hostages.
Already in the last 24 hours four hostages were claimed by militants to have been killed by air strikes.
INNOCENT FACES OF WAR LOST
ON THE GROUND IN ISRAEL
Australian-born Solly Vanuru has shared his heartbreak after his friend Saghi was killed by Hamas fighters.
NETANYAHU VOWS TO ‘CHANGE THE MIDDLE EAST’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “change the Middle East” in retaliation for one of the bloodiest attacks in its history and said the air strikes were just the beginning.
“We have only started striking Hamas,” he said. “What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
HAMAS PREPARED FOR ‘LONG WAR’
A senior Hamas official hit back warning that allies like Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah “will join the battle if Gaza is subjected to a war of annihilation”.
Speaking from Lebanon, Ali Barakeh – a member of Hamas’ exiled leadership – said only a small group of Hamas military commanders knew of the attack and dismissed suggestions Iran was involved.
But he said Hamas may be able to count on its allies if it faces a major setback but currently just 2000 of its fighters had been involved in the latest fighting with another 40,000 in Gaza alone ready to enter the fray.
Barakeh said Hamas was ready to fight a long war with Israel with an arsenal of rockets that “will last a long time”.
“We have prepared well for this war and to deal with all scenarios, even the scenario of the long war,” he said. “We will bring life to a stop in the Zionist entity if the aggression does not stop on Gaza.”
ISRAEL SIEGE ‘PROHIBITED’: UN HIGH COMMISSIONER
Israel’s total siege of the Gaza Strip is banned under international law, the United Nations human rights chief said on Tuesday.
Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said people’s dignity and lives had to be respected as he called for all sides to defuse the “explosive powder-keg situation”.
“International humanitarian law is clear: the obligation to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects remains applicable throughout the attacks,” he said in a statement.
The siege risk seriously compounding the already dire human rights and humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the capacity of medical facilities to operate, especially in light of increasing numbers of injured, the statement said.
“The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” Turk said.
– With AFP
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