There ARE still hostages being held…..
At least 16 people were killed on Thursday after Israel conducted airstrikes on two school complexes being used to shelter displaced people in the northern Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Civil Defense said.
Israel’s military said that the attacks were intended to destroy Hamas “command-and-control centers” inside the school compounds, which were in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City. The military claimed that it had taken steps “to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
A number of other people were still missing beneath the rubble, said Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense….
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Britain and the European Union have condemned Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right Israeli finance minister, for reportedly saying that it “might be justified” to starve two million civilians in Gaza until hostages held there are returned. Mr. Smotrich has a strong influence over policy as the leader of a party that helps keep Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government in power. “Deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime: Minister Smotrich advocating for it is beyond ignominious,” the E.U.’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said in a post on social media on Wednesday in reaction to his comments. The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, called on the Israeli government to “retract and condemn” the remarks.
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Israel plans to effectively close Norway’s diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in retaliation for Norwegian policies. In late May, Norway, along with Spain and Ireland, officially recognized a Palestinian state, prompting Israeli anger. The Israeli foreign ministry said on Thursday that it would revoke the diplomatic status of the Norwegian mission’s employees in one week. Many European countries, including Norway, maintain both an embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv and a separate envoy based in Jerusalem or Ramallah whose job is to liaise with Palestinian officials.
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A Palestinian warehouse worker for World Central Kitchen was killed in central Gaza, the aid organization said on social mediaon Wednesday, calling him a “humanitarian at his very core.” The organization said it believed that the worker, Nadi Sallout, was off duty at the time, though it said the details of his death were still unclear. In April, seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen were killed in the Gaza Strip when their convoy came under fire. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel acknowledged at the time that it was a “tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people.”….
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Israel on Thursday was a country on tenterhooks, with residents stocking up on food and water and hospitals preparing patients to move underground. The streets were quieter than usual — earlier in the week, officials encouraged Israelis to limit outdoor activity.
It was a country girding itself against an expected attack.
After the assassinations last week of leaders from two Iran-backed groups — Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah military commander, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader — Iran vowed revenge. Israel has said that it killed Mr. Shukr in retaliation for a rocket attack from Lebanon that killed 12 children and teenagers but has refused to comment on the blast that killed Mr. Haniyeh in Tehran.
Speculation over how Iran and Hezbollah might respond has kept the region on edge for days, with all sides issuing threats that have raised the specter of a wider war, and diplomats across the Middle East and elsewhere scrambling to tamp down the tensions.
Israel’s leaders have sought to project confidence, saying they are ready for anything. The country’s security council convened on Thursday night in a command bunker in Tel Aviv to discuss preparations for the anticipated retaliation.
Intelligence has been sparse and frequently changing. But two Israeli officials and a senior Western intelligence official said thatbased on the latest information, Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group, is likely to strike first in a separate attack before Iran conducts its own retaliation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly….
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