Author: Steven Sahiounie

Source: Al Jazeera

The main body of the UN has returned following from a brief break. They are expected to soon vote, putting member states on the record on where they stand on the conflict. Here are the two items they will vote on: Source: AlJazeera

There is a big push on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, for Starlink internet services to be provided for Gaza, amid the almost total communications blackout in the enclave. The hashtag “#starlinkforgaza is trending on the platform, with more than half a million posts. Users are trying to appeal to the owner of Starlink’s operator SpaceX, Elon Musk – who also owns X – but he is yet to respond, and it is unclear if Starlink can expand services to Gaza considering the lack of terminals there, and the blockade imposed by Israel. Musk has also shown little…

Al Jazeera’s Safwat al-Kahlout, reporting from Gaza, said the intensity of Israeli air raids in the last couple of hours, coupled with the collapse in communication, is an indication that something “bigger” is about to happen in Gaza. While air raids continue to hit areas in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya, they have also been targeting the eastern side of Gaza City, al-Kahlout said. “This is an indication, from our previous experience … either they are preparing for something bigger – could be a ground operation – or that ongoing negotiations to swap the prisoners is about to achieve…

Israel has stepped up its bombardment of Gaza – resulting in a near-communication black out – while vowing to expand ground operations in the besieged enclave. The escalation comes as UN General Assembly member states were awaiting a vote on a resolution on the conflict. The parallel events show the UN machinations have little relevance to how Israel will proceed, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara has said. “I am personally no longer waiting for the UN resolution to come out,” he said. “I actually don’t care for this UN General Assembly resolution that’s utterly meaningless at this point…

Marwan Jilani, director of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), tells us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank that the health authority lost complete contact with its teams in Gaza about two hours ago. “We’re extremely worried and concerned for our colleagues,” Jilani said, explaining that just before the communications went down, Israeli attacks were reported around two hospitals – one in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and the other in Gaza City. He said 12,000 people are sheltering at al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City. “Apart from the humanitarian catastrophe that has been happening before the world’s eyes the…

Doctors in northern Gaza are sounding the alarm about a humanitarian “catastrophe” as Israel continues its ferocious bombardment of the besieged Palestinian coastal territory for a third week, media reports say. As Israel prepares for its planned ground invasion of Gaza, it has warned residents in the north to flee south to avoid being targeted. That includes hospitals. But health officials at Gaza’s biggest hospitals have insisted the evacuation of the wounded and displaced would be impossible. In Gaza’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa, doctors are faced with a massive influx of casualties, added to the thousands of displaced civilians taking…

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has tied the release of Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip to a ceasefire halting the occupying regime’s relentless bombardment of the besieged territory after Operation al-Aqsa Storm, the largest military campaign by resistance groups against the illegal entity in decades. The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported the development on Friday, quoting a member of a Hamas delegation visiting Moscow as saying that time was needed to locate all the Israeli settlers and soldiers who had been taken captive by Palestinian resistance factions in the surprise attack led by Hamas on October 7. “They seized dozens of people, most…

Iran and Russia must fully utilize their capacities to put an immediate end to Israel’s attacks on defenseless Palestinian people in Gaza and dispatch humanitarian aid to the besieged territory, the Iranian deputy foreign minister for political affairs says. Ali Bagheri Kani made the remark in a meeting with Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Venediktov in Moscow on Friday as the Israeli regime continues its brutal attacks against the defenseless people in Gaza for the past 21 consecutive days. The Russian security official, for his part, said the United States is the root cause of the ongoing…

Iran has censured the inaction of the international community towards war crimes committed by Israel against civilians in the Gaza Strip, saying the world must stand up to counter the Zionist criminals and support Palestinians. “Rise up for the world peace and security in the face of the Zionist criminals and their supporters and defend the oppressed Palestinians in Gaza,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said in a post on his X account on Friday. He warned against the lack of a firm reaction by the international community, including world organizations, governments, and nations, to the crimes of Israel over…