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At least 21,000 children in Gaza have been disabled since the war between Israel and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, a United Nations committee said on Wednesday. About 40,500 children have suffered “new war-related injuries” in the nearly two years since the war began, with more than half of them left disabled, said the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
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The Israeli military moved deeper into Gaza City on Wednesday, with soldiers and tanks pushing into Sheikh Radwan, one of the urban centre’s largest and most crowded neighbourhoods. The military dropped grenades on three schools in the Sheikh Radwan area that had been used to shelter displaced Palestinians, setting tents ablaze, according to residents who spoke to Reuters, who said Palestinians had fled before the bombing.
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The military also detonated armoured vehicles laden with explosives to destroy homes in Sheikh Radwan’s east and bombed a medical clinic, destroying two ambulances, according to witnesses that spoke to Reuters. The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday it would continue to operate against “terrorists organisations” in Gaza and to “remove any threat” posed to Israel.
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Hospital officials told the Associated Press (AP) at least 24 people were killed in strikes overnight into Wednesday. Nasser hospital said it received 10 bodies, including one aid-seeker in Rafah and a child killed by a strike in southern Gaza. Al-Shifa hospital said the bodies of 14 people, including two children and four women, arrived on Wednesday. Additionally, the al-Quds hospital said it received another person killed by Israeli strikes.
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Five adults and one child have died from malnutrition over the past day, the Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday. Hospital officials and Gaza’s health ministry said on Wednesday that the death toll in the territory kept climbing, with people killed in airstrikes while trying to reach aid, or from hunger.
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Site Management Cluster, a joint humanitarian body that coordinates assistance for people in displacement sites, said on Wednesday that Palestinians in and near Gaza City were “reluctant to move due to the fear of not being able to return or exhaustion from repeated displacement”. It said families were trapped by the prohibitively high cost of moving, logistical hurdles and a lack of places to go. Since Israel declared Gaza City a combat zone on Friday, a small fraction – 14,840 Palestinians of the nearly 1 million the UN estimates are in Gaza City – have left their homes in the city as of Monday, most to flee south, it added.
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France has condemned an Israeli drone attack near UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, and called for the security of the Unifil troops to be respected. The peacekeeping force known as Unifil described the Tuesday morning incident as “one of the most serious attacks on Unifil personnel and assets” since the cessation of hostilities in November that ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war. No one was hurt in the attack. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
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Protesters took to Israel’s streets for what they called a “day of disruption” on Wednesday, denouncing the call-up of tens of thousands of reservists for an offensive that has drawn global condemnation and fueled fears in Israel it could endanger hostages still held in Gaza. Protesters were also pictured on top of the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, staging a demonstration and demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages and the resignation of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.
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Europe and the west’s double standards over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza threaten to undermine its global standing, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has warned, describing the response to Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territory as one of the darkest episodes of international relations in the 21st century. In an interview with the Guardian before talks with UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, in London on Wednesday, the socialist leader also said he was pleased that other European nations were following Spain’s lead in recognising a Palestinian state, but accepted Europe’s response had been poor.
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The commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) has warned that Gaza is “becoming the graveyard of international humanitarian law”. In an interview with El País, Philippe Lazzarini, said Unrwa had been “warning about the signs of famine and sounding the alarm bells for months” but that its warnings had “fallen on deaf ears”. Lazzarini added: “We have made the Geneva convention[s] almost irrelevant. What is happening and being accepted today in Gaza is not something that can be isolated; it will become the new norm for all future conflicts.”
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Opposition leaders in Israel condemned the torching of bins, cars and tyres in Jerusalem by anti-government protesters. Yair Lapid, the opposition leader, posted on X: “I condemn the torching of vehicles in Jerusalem, but I condemn much more a government that abandons hostages to their deaths in Gaza.”
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Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Wednesday for the annexation of swathes of the occupied West Bank after a series of governments signalled their intention to recognise a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited control over Palestinian urban areas in the West Bank, swiftly condemned the Israeli minister’s annexation call.
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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) warned Israel on Wednesday that any annexation of the West Bank would constitute a red line for Abu Dhabi that would severely undermine the spirit of the Abraham accords that normalised relations between the two countries. The comments marked the UAE’s strongest criticism of Israel’s conduct since the start of the Gaza war in 2023.
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Israel has launched a new spy satellite that defence officials described as a strategic cornerstone, saying it will strengthen their surveillance capacity across the Middle East in the years ahead. Defence minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that it was “also a message to all our enemies, wherever they may be – we are keeping an eye on you at all times and in all situations”.
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A group of demonstrators disrupted a major cycling race in Spain on Wednesday in a protest against one of the teams participating: Team Israel-Premier Tech. Protesters held banners and flew Palestinian flags at the start of the La Vuelta in Bilbao, Spain. A Spanish left wing party previously called for Team Israel-Premier Tech to be excluded from the race.
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Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a missile launched at Israel, saying they fired two ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv in what they said was an initial response to Israeli attacks on Yemen. The Israeli military said on Wednesday it intercepted the missile launched from Yemen, as sirens were activated in Tel Aviv and several other areas across the country,…