At random, ten items from news outlets that go to the reality of the continuing assault on Gaza.
1) THE WASHINGTON POST's Kelsey Ables:
After a visit to Rafah, UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said Gazans were “desperate, hungry and are terrified” in comments to reporters in Geneva on Thursday. Lazzarini recalled watching as people in Rafah, which has become crammed with those fleeing Israeli bombardment, “decided to help themselves directly” from aid trucks “out of total despair and eat what they have taken out of the truck on the spot.”
Lazzarini went on to say that such actions have “nothing to do with aid diversion.”
2) REUTERS:
The United Nations on Tuesday demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip where Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas militants.
3) ALJAZEERA:
Ahmed Tobasi, one of the men associated with the Freedom Theatre in Jenin arrested by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday morning, has now been released.
“They treated us like animals. They are trying to hurt us in anyway they can, but its important we stay strong,” he was quoted as saying in a social media post by the Freedom Theatre on Thursday evening.
The post also showed footage of Tobasi’s ransacked home with items strewn everywhere by Israeli soldiers.
Mustafa Sheta and Jamal Abu Joas, employees of the Freedom Theatre who were also detained, remain in custody.
The Jenin theatre has received solidarity from around the world. In a post on Instagram, the Royal Court Theatre in London said it was “horrified to read of the attack” and called for the immediate release of the remaining men.
4) CNN's Kareem Khadder and Eyad Kourdi:
A doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza claims staff and patients were abused by Israeli soldiers after they were taken from the premises to a military screening center nearby.
The doctor, who declined to be named out of fear for his safety, told CNN in a telephone interview that dozens of men at the hospital had complied with an order from the Israeli military on Tuesday to form a line outside the facility.
They were then led about 500 meters away to a what he called a "filtration military camp" in the Al-Birawi area on the outskirts of Beit Lahia.
At that location, he told CNN, they were ordered to remove their clothes and given blue overalls. They were handcuffed and sorted into groups based on their perceived threat level, the doctor claimed.
He claimed the detainees were physically and verbally abused while handcuffed. At one point, the doctor said, when clashes broke out, Israeli soldiers had taken cover behind the detainees.
5) ALJAZEERA:
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man says there has been a “documented, long pattern of Israeli forces targeting, killing, wounding [and] intimidating journalists and not being punished for it”.
Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of Israel-Palestine research at the US-based group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said that has led to a “culture of permissibility”.
“We already see that Israel tends to portray the international media as [being] on the Palestinian side, and so I think you really see soldiers seeing journalists as some sort of representative of their enemy and [they are] not being punished for killing a civilian,” he told Al Jazeera.
6) DW:
There is a level of acceptance that the people of Gaza will be "left to starve or even probably die of starvation," Ahmed Bayram, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told DW on Friday.
"This has to stop," he said, sharing his concern that there is still no sign of a new cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Bayram said only two aid trucks entered Gaza during the previous day (Thursday), which is "nowhere near enough to cover the immense needs on the ground."
Giving an example of how Gaza's infrastructure has collapsed due to the assault by Israel, Bayram noted how just one day of rain had made a desperate situation worse.
"One day of rains in Gaza and the streets turned into a quagmire. Ambulance crews couldn't access people stuck under the rubble. Imagine being stuck under the rubble and there's flooding all over. No one can reach you," he said.
7) THE GUARDIAN:
The Palestinian Football Association says it has documented the killing of 85 Palestinian athletes, including 55 football players and 30 players in other sports, since the start of the war, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. The association said in a report on Thursday that Israeli forces “targeted Palestinian athletes and sports facilities, especially football players and club presidents, administrators, referees and others”, according to Wafa.
8) DEMOCRACY NOW!:
In the Gaza Strip, at least 33 people were killed when Israel’s military struck a U.N. school in Khan Younis being used as a “shelter of last resort” for Palestinians expelled from their homes. Israeli raids also killed and wounded Palestinians at hospitals in Deir el-Balah, Khan Younis and in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. Abu Mohamad Klab was one of those gathered at the morgue in Rafah’s Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital Thursday. They had come to collect the bodies of loved ones killed by Israeli strikes.
Abu Mohamad Klab: “They are looking at the images, but no one is saying anything. The dead are all children, women and old people. They are not from the resistance. They are all civilians. You know the numbers of civilians, so why are you still silent? How long will you stay silent? Enough! Enough with this life!”
The death toll from Israel’s assaults on Gaza and the West Bank since October has topped 19,000. More than a third of those killed are children. An estimated 50,000 Palestinians have been injured.
9) NBC NEWS:
Two women were shot and killed by a member of the IDF inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, according to a statement by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem’s communication office. The statement identifies the women as Nahida and her daughter Samar and alleges that seven more people were shot and wounded inside the church compound.
10) WSWS:
Following the United Nations General Assembly vote Tuesday for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli government has not only pledged to continue the war but made clear its plan for an onslaught against the Palestinians across the whole region. Its leaders know they have full license to do so, whatever cynical votes are cast at the UN or statements made to the press by its imperialist backers.
On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen declared, “Israel will continue the war against Hamas, with or without international support.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told military commanders the war would “continue until the end, until the victory, until the elimination of Hamas” and that “nothing will stop us.”
