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28-06-2024
JERUSALEM/ GAZA CITY: Israel’s warplanes, artillery strike densely-populated civilian areas in Gaza’s north, centre and south over previous 24 hours, killing dozens, with Israeli ground troops “systematically demolishing residential homes” in southern city of Rafah: Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Gaza.
“The bodies of thousands of the missing children remain buried under the rubble,” UNICEF deputy chief tells the UN Security Council in a briefing on Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says “significant progress” was made on US support for Israel’s “force build-up” and weapons supply during trip to Washington, DC.
“It’s unbearable,” says Khaled Shakshir, a volunteer hospital technician at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah as equipment, including anesthesia machines, break down.
At least 37,718 people have been killed and 86,377 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks stands at 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.
Over just three days last week, Israeli forces carried out at least 113 “search and arrest operations” in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and more than 80 Palestinians were detained during the June 20-23 monitoring period, the UN reports.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) also reports that 521 Palestinians have been killed as of June 10 in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem by Israeli forces and settlers, with 126 children among the dead.
Restrictions on entering Jerusalem also continue for Palestinians who, since October 23, are not allowed to enter the historic city without Jerusalem identification cards.
On June 22, six Palestinians were shot and injured by Israeli forces and others detained for attempting to enter the city without permits, UNRWA said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has been on a mission in the past few days to shore up bipartisan support in the US for Israel, in advance of what could potentially be an all-out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
One alternative reading of Gallant’s trip is that it is also an attempt to undermine Netanyahu only a month before the prime minister’s own trip to Washington, DC, where he will address a joint session of the US Congress.
Gallant took the opportunity while in the US capital to make a pointed remark that differences between “families” be kept “in-house”, a not-so-subtle dig considering Netanyahu’s public criticism of the Biden administration over recent weeks.
Media reports that Israel is planning to boost the electricity supply to a desalination plant in Gaza so it is able to produce more water for people in the besieged enclave.
Israel will directly supply electricity to the water desalination facility in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to an Israeli plan, the details of which were shown to media. The move comes amid growing international pressure to stop the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza that has left millions with scarce food and water, and as aid agencies warn that famine is imminent in large swaths of the Palestinian enclave.
The desalination facility, established with UN funding in 2017 to provide drinking water to the Deir el-Balah, Khan Younis and al-Mawasi areas, has a capacity of 20,000 cubic metres of water per day but produces only 1,500 cubic metres today due to electricity shortages amid Israel’s war on the territory.
The Israeli military has arrested two men during the storming of the town of Urif, south of the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, local media reports.
Israeli forces have also arrested two men in the town of Beit Daqqu, northwest of occupied East Jerusalem, and one man in the city of Dura, south of Hebron. (Int’l News Desk)
