live blog
The EU has called for an independent investigation following reports of mass graves in the Gaza Strip. Development Minister Schulze presented an initiative for more jobs in Palestinian areas. All developments in the live blog.
The EU has called for an independent investigation following reports of around 200 bodies in mass graves at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. “This is something that forces us to demand an independent investigation into all suspicions and all circumstances,” said Peter Stano, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. The impression arose that “violations of international human rights may have occurred.” The United Nations had previously called for an international investigation.
On Monday, the Hamas-controlled civil defense authority said it had discovered around 200 bodies in mass graves at the hospital in the past three days. Accordingly, a total of 283 bodies were found on the hospital premises. Several media outlets reported that the terrorist organization Hamas claimed that the Israeli army killed and buried Palestinians at Nasser Hospital. The Israeli army denies the allegations. According to them, the bodies were not buried by Israeli soldiers, but by Palestinians.
The Israeli Air Force has attacked several targets in border areas in southern Lebanon. Hours earlier, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets at the northern Israeli village of Shomera, calling it retaliation for Israeli attacks the previous day that killed a woman and a 10-year-old girl and injured six other people. Al-Manar TV, Hezbollah’s television station, reported 14 airstrikes on the outskirts of the border villages of Aita al-Shaab and Ramia.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed attacks on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah also said it fired two rockets at a building in the northern Israeli village of Aviwim where Israeli soldiers were taking up positions.
A young Palestinian woman was killed in an attempted knife attack on soldiers, according to the Israeli army. She ran towards the soldiers armed with a knife near Hebron in the southern West Bank, the army said in a statement. They opened fire and “knocked out” the woman. There were no injuries among the soldiers. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah said it had been informed of the death of a 20-year-old from gunfire by soldiers north of Hebron.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by the Palestinian and Israeli conflict parties cannot be directly verified by an independent body.
There is a risk of famine in the Gaza Strip in the near future if massive amounts of food are not distributed – this is what the director of the Geneva office of the World Food Program (WFP), Gian Carlo Cirri, warns. “The situation is extremely worrying,” he said at the launch of a report on the world’s hunger crises in Geneva. “We are getting closer to famine every day.” He recalled previously published estimates that a third of children in the Gaza Strip under the age of two are acutely malnourished.
“There is reasonable evidence that all three famine thresholds – food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality – will be exceeded in the next six weeks,” Cirri said. People sometimes eat animal food to survive. A famine can only be averted if there are immediately significantly increased and sustained food deliveries.
The Israeli army has mobilized two additional reserve brigades ahead of a possible deployment in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The military said they were supposed to take on “defensive and tactical operations in the Gaza Strip.” The brigades were previously deployed on Israel’s border with Lebanon. In the last few weeks they have been training for operations in the Gaza Strip.
In a joint statement, Iran and Pakistan call on the United Nations Security Council to take action against Israel. The two countries accuse Israel of illegally attacking neighboring countries and foreign diplomatic institutions. The statement was published by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry. In recent days, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Pakistan.
According to Israeli media reports, the long-awaited Israeli offensive in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip is imminent. Preparations are currently underway to bring civilians who had sought protection in Rafah to safety. This is reported by various Israeli newspapers, including the high-circulation paper “Israel Hayom”.
Speculation about an offensive has been circulating for a long time. Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office nor the Israeli military initially wanted to comment on the media reports. Internationally, Israel had been asked to refrain from an offensive out of concern for the many refugees in Rafah.
Gray areas: Built-up areas in the Gaza Strip, hatching: Israeli army
The federal government wants to continue its cooperation with the controversial UN Palestinian Relief Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip. The Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development announced this in a jointly published statement.
The background is the recent recommendations of a report by the group set up by the United Nations headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. The report’s recommendations must now be implemented immediately. UNRWA’s short-term financial needs in Gaza are currently covered by existing funds, it said.
At a meeting with the new Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, Development Minister Svenja Schulze agreed on an employment initiative that is intended to ensure more stability in the region. “Unemployment in the West Bank has almost tripled and is at 40 percent,” said Schulze.
The aim is to create around 25,000 new jobs and maintain existing jobs within three years, initially in the West Bank and in the Arab-dominated eastern part of Jerusalem. To start with, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is investing 25 million euros this year. Further funding should follow next year.
In its annual report for 2023/24, Amnesty International presents the situation of human rights and the rule of law worldwide and criticizes the Federal Government for its handling of the war in the Middle East. The NGO accuses the Israeli military of committing war crimes in Gaza and criticizes the federal government’s silence on the matter. The Secretary General of Amnesty International in Germany, Julia Duchow, said the German government was contributing to the erosion of the international order.
In view of the catastrophic situation of the people in the Gaza Strip, the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Janez Lenarcic, has called for support to the controversial Palestinian relief organization UNRWA. “I call on donor countries to support UNRWA – the lifeline for Palestinian refugees,” he wrote on the X (formerly Twitter) platform. He welcomed the investigative report on UNRWA published the previous day, as it highlighted “the agency’s many compliance systems and recommendations for their further improvement.”
The US announced construction of a temporary port to deliver aid to the embattled Gaza Strip will begin soon, according to the Pentagon. “All required ships are in the Mediterranean,” said US Defense Department spokesman Pat Ryder. “We are in a position to start construction very soon.”
The US government announced in March that it would set up a temporary port to bring food, water and medicine to the war zone in view of the humanitarian emergency in Gaza as a result of the fighting between Israel and the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas. In view of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, the USA recently called on its ally Israel to quickly expand aid deliveries to the civilian population.
Tents are set up near the neighboring town of Khan Yunis ahead of a planned military offensive in Rafah. The Israeli army has killed two senior members of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. Tuesday’s developments to read.