World
Nowhere to run: Fear in Gaza grows amid conflict with Israel
Screams and flying debris enveloped Umm Majed al-Rayyes as explosions hurled her from her bed in Gaza City. Groping in the dark, the 50-year-old grabbed her four children and ran as Israeli bombs struck their apartment building Wednesday, shattering windows, ripping doors to splinters and blasting away concrete.
While casualties mounted this week in the most severe outbreak of violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip since a 2014 war, al-Rayyes and other Palestinians in the line of fire faced an all-too-familiar question: Where should we go?
“This whole territory is a tiny place. It’s a prison. Everywhere you go, you’re a target,” al-Rayyes said by phone from a neighbor’s house, where she sought refuge with her teenage sons and daughters and a few bags of clothes after the Israeli airstrike that she says came without warning.
In Gaza, a crowded coastal enclave of 2 million people, there are no air raid sirens or safe houses. Temporary United Nations shelters have come under attack in previous years of conflict. In the past two days, Israeli airstrikes brought down three huge towers housing important Hamas offices and some businesses after the Israeli military fired warning shots, allowing occupants to flee.
Read:As ethnic violence rocks Israel, Arabs cite deep grievances
Fighter jets also targeted without warning multiple residential buildings, located in teeming neighborhoods where Israel alleged militants lived. In all, more than 65 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Monday, including 16 children. Among the dead were both militants and civilians, including at least two women and children who died during the apartment building strikes.
At a Gaza City hospital, distraught families told of pulling bloodied relatives from piles of rubble. One woman said her 4-year-old grandson and pregnant daughter-in-law were killed when an Israeli air raid hit their two-story building on Wednesday.
“They bombed them without any warning. The house had nothing but the kids,” Umm Mohammad al-Telbani cried in the hospital morgue.
The Israeli government long has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields against retaliatory strikes; militants often launch rockets from civilian areas and set up command centers inside residential buildings. Yet Israel received heavy criticism for its tactic of bombing buildings during the 2014 war with Hamas.
Recalling the horror of past wars, Gaza residents say they feel nowhere is safe. They also cannot leave the narrow territory, one of the world’s most densely populated places. It has been under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized control in 2007. Along its borders, Gaza is encircled by sensor-studded fences, concrete walls, galvanized steel barriers and the Mediterranean Sea, where Israel restricts boats from Gaza to some 16 nautical miles offshore.
“There is nowhere to run, there is nowhere to hide,” said Zeyad Khattab, a 44-year-old pharmacist in Gaza City, who fled to the family home where he grew up in the central Gaza district of Deir al-Balah with a dozen relatives when bombs pounded his residential high-rise. “That terror is impossible to describe.”
As Hamas and other militant groups fired hundreds of rockets into Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv, killing at least seven Israelis, worries grew that the latest violence could spiral into a protracted conflict. The Hamas barrages sent hundreds of thousands of Israelis running to bomb shelters across the country and hit numerous civilian targets, including a bus and a school in the city of Askhelon that was empty because authorities had ordered all schools closed.
Read:Weary Gaza marks Muslim feast as violence spreads in Israel
The people killed by the indiscriminate fire at Israeli population centers included three women and two children, spreading fear on both sides of the border.
“There is always this undercurrent of anxiety, but this time is different,” Khattab said. Airstrikes shook the walls and windows of his apartment building during the devastating wars of 2008 and 2014, but the building that houses some 400 people collapsed on Wednesday.
In any other year, Palestinians would be thronging the dusty streets of Gaza City this week ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, one of the biggest and most joyous festivals on the Muslim calendar that marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. Markets would be hives of activity as shoppers stocked up on new clothes and pastries for feasts. Beachside restaurants would brim with families. Barbershops would be full of men getting fresh haircuts.
Instead, shops stood shuttered and the city’s streets were eerily empty. Almost nothing moves on the roads except for ambulances and Hamas security vehicles. Bombs thunder in the distance. Plumes of black smoke billow from stricken buildings. Residents walk by rubble-strewn stores and downed power lines, surveying the latest damage to a city already riddled with scars from intense clashes.
“It’s the same atmosphere of 2014,” Saud Abu Ramadan, a freelance journalist in Gaza City, said, referring to the bloody 7-week war that killed over 2,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and inflicted widespread destruction on Gaza’s infrastructure. “Warplanes are buzzing, and people are just trying to keep their heads down.”
This week’s mayhem stemmed from clashes at the most sensitive place in Jerusalem, the revered plateau site of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the iconic golden Dome of the Rock. Analysts long have considered flaring tensions at the compound, sacred to both Muslims and Jews, to be the most dangerous accelerant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Islamic militant groups seized on the violence at Al-Aqsa as the trigger for their hail of rocket fire into Israel. The salvos at times overwhelmed Israeli missile defenses and brought air raid sirens and explosions echoing across Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest metropolitan region, and other areas.
Read:Escalating Mideast violence bears hallmarks of 2014 Gaza war
On Monday, the first night of the fighting, teenage boys in Gaza City clambered onto rooftops, cars and scaffolding to get a better view of the rockets alighting the sky and streaming toward Israeli cities in quick succession. Some cried out with joy, as if at a wedding. Shouts of “God is great!” erupted from the crowd.
“People here have been seething,” Adnan Abu Amer, a political scientist at al-Ummah University in Gaza City, said. “They take a pride and happiness in seeing Hamas defend the sanctity of Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem.”
But with the rush of outrage comes the anguish of knowing the conflict’s heavy toll.
“There is so much pain, but thank God the children have been through this before and they’re strong,” said al-Rayyes, who fled her falling apartment in Gaza City. She corrected herself. “They’re pretending to be strong.”
As ethnic violence rocks Israel, Arabs cite deep grievances
As rockets from Gaza streaked overhead, Arabs and Jews fought each other on the streets below and rioters torched vehicles, a restaurant and a synagogue in one of the worst spasms of communal violence Israel has seen in years.
The mayor of the mixed town of Lod, which saw the worst of the violence Tuesday, compared it to a civil war or a Palestinian uprising. Arab experts and activists say the violence was fueled by unrest in Jerusalem that has brought Israel to the brink of another Gaza war, but is rooted in deeper grievances that go back to the founding of the state.
Violence flared again Wednesday night with a wave of apparent revenge attacks. In Bat Yam, a Tel Aviv suburb, a large crowd of ultranationalist Israelis pulled a man from a car who they thought was Arab and beat him until he lay on the ground motionless and bloodied. A hospital said he’s in serious condition without identifying him.
Earlier, a group of black-clad Israelis smashed the windows of an Arab-owned ice cream shop in Bat Yam and ultranationalists could be seen chanting, “Death to Arabs!” on live television during a standoff with Border Police. In the northern city of Tiberias, video uploaded to social media appeared to show flag-waving Israelis attacking a car.
Read:Escalating Mideast violence bears hallmarks of 2014 Gaza war
Israel’s Channel 13 quoted a senior police officer as saying Arabs are suspected of attacking and seriously wounding a Jewish man in the coastal city of Acre amid new clashes there.
In a late night television interview, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, whose figurehead office is meant to serve as the nation’s moral compass, said the country was gripped by civil war and urged citizens to “stop this madness.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on both Jews and Arabs to cease attacks on each other: “It doesn’t matter to me that your blood is boiling. You can’t take the law in your hands,” he said.
Police said they arrested nearly 400 people allegedly “involved in riots and disturbances” across the country Wednesday.
The violence comes at a time when Israel’s Arab minority appeared to be gaining new acceptance and influence. Mansour Abbas, the head of an Arab party with Islamist roots, emerged as a kingmaker of sorts after March elections and was poised to play a key role in a coalition that would oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing allies.
But in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Abbas indicated that coalition talks would be put on hold because of the escalating violence. “If there is a cease-fire, we will return to the political track to form a government,” he said.
In recent days, Arab citizens of Israel have held mass protests across the country over Israel’s policing of a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem and plans to evict dozens of Palestinian families in the city following a legal campaign by Jewish settlers.
Adding to the tensions are increasingly powerful far-right groups in Israel that won seats in March elections and are allied with Netanyahu. In recent days, far-right politicians have visited the tense east Jerusalem neighborhood where the families are threatened with eviction and staged marches elsewhere in the bitterly contested city.
After police broke up a protest Monday night in Lod, a young Arab resident was shot and killed. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the man was with a group of rioters threatening Jewish homes, and that Jewish residents opened fire in a “life-threatening situation.” He said three people have been detained for questioning and police are investigating. Arab residents of Lod disputed the account, pointing out that the slain man was unarmed.
His funeral the next day drew thousands of people and a heavy police presence. Clashes broke out between the two sides, leading to riots in which several vehicles and a synagogue were set ablaze. A 56-year-old Jewish man was severely wounded after Arabs pelted his car with rocks, according to the Magen David Adom emergency service.
The violence soon spread to other mixed communities across Israel. In neighboring Ramle, ultra-nationalist Jewish demonstrators vandalized Arab cars. In Acre, protesters torched Uri Buri, a famous Jewish-owned seafood restaurant. Magen David Adom said 46 people were wounded in the riots.
Read:Israel, Hamas escalate heavy fighting with no end in sight
Rosenfeld said there were several different instances of Arabs attacking Jews, and that 12 police officers were wounded. He said 270 suspects were arrested at 40 locations across the country where vehicles were set on fire and public property was damaged.
“The Arabs don’t want us here, but we’re going to stay,” said Avraham Sagron, a Jewish resident of Lod, as he surveyed the charred entrance of the synagogue, the interior of which appeared largely untouched.
Netanyahu visited Lod and Acre, where he pledged to “stop the anarchy” and restore order “with an iron fist if needed.” He called on Arab and other community leaders to condemn the violence and act to stop it.
Authorities deployed hundreds of police reinforcements to Lod and other areas, including paramilitary border police who usually operate in the occupied West Bank. They also ordered a nighttime curfew in Lod.
Arabs say the violence of the past two days was not directed at Jews, but at religious nationalists with close ties to the settlement movement who have moved into mixed areas in recent years, pushing Arab residents out.
Israel’s Arab minority makes up about 20% of the population and are the descendants of Palestinians who stayed in the country after the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, when an estimated 700,000 fled or were driven from their homes in towns like Lod. They have citizenship, including the right to vote, but face widespread discrimination.
Arab citizens speak Hebrew and are well-represented in Israel’s medical profession and universities, but they largely identify with the Palestinian cause, leading many Israelis to view them with suspicion. Lod’s Arabs, who make up about a third of the city’s population, are among the poorest communities in Israel.
“We’re talking about young people who have no horizon, no dreams, who are unemployed and live in a very difficult reality,” said Dr. Nasreen Haddad Haj-Yahya, the director of the Arab-Jewish relations program at the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent think tank.
She said the anger of the last two days was not directed at Lod’s longtime Jewish community but at more ideological recent arrivals.
“It’s not because of who they are. It’s because they are trying to Judaize Lod. They are trying to drive out the indigenous Arab residents,” she said. “The young people see it as a threat to their presence in the land, to their existence.”
Thabet Abu Rass, the co-director of the Abraham Initiatives, which promotes Jewish-Arab coexistence, said the six Arab members of Lod’s municipal council have been sidelined and the city’s budget heavily favors Jews. He accused Mayor Yair Revivo of inciting against Arabs.
Revivo, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, has courted controversy by complaining about the volume of the Muslim call to prayer in Lod and for remarks that appeared to cast its Arab residents as a national security threat.
Read:Gaza militants, children among 24 dead as Israel hits Hamas
“He should be a mayor for everybody,” said Abu Rass, who lives near Lod and has an office there. “He’s not giving equal services for all residents.”
The mayor’s spokesman said he was not available for comment. Earlier, Revivo had urged Arab residents to end the violence, saying: “The day after, we will still have to live here together.”
Israeli officials often hold up the Arab minority as proof of their commitment to tolerance, frequently pointing out that Arab citizens enjoy civic rights and freedoms that many Arab states deny their own people.
Ghassan Munayyer, a Lod-based activist, says the veneer of coexistence conceals deeper disparities, including in housing and infrastructure, comparing its Arab neighborhoods to “refugee camps.”
“The Jews love saying there’s coexistence. They go out to eat in an Arab restaurant and they call it coexistence,” he said. “But they don’t see Arabs as equal human beings who have rights that they have to respect.”
India to begin Covaxin vaccine trials for children
The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has cleared phase II and III clinical trials of Covaxin COVID-19 vaccine for children from two and 18 years, officials said Thursday.
"The National Regulator of the country, the DCGI, after careful examination, has accepted the recommendation of Subject Expert Committee and accorded permission to conduct the Phase II/III clinical trial of Covaxin (COVID-19 vaccine) in the age group 2 to 18, to its manufacturer Bharat Biotech Ltd on 12.05.2021," reads a statement issued by the federal health ministry.
According to the ministry, Covaxin maker Bharat Biotech International Ltd., Hyderabad had proposed to carry out the clinical trials of Covaxin in the age group of 2 to 18.
Read:Indian states asked to stop people from dumping bodies of COVID-19 victims into Ganga
The trials will be conducted in 525 healthy volunteers, the ministry said. In the trials, the vaccine will be given by intramuscular route in two doses at day 0 and day 28.
According to a government statement, the drug regulator accepted the recommendation of an expert committee on vaccines.
India has been seeing a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, according to media reports.
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 23,703,665 on Thursday with 362,727 new cases registered in the past 24 hours, while the death toll swelled to 258,317 with 4,120 deaths since Wednesday morning, the federal health ministry announced Thursday.
Weary Gaza marks Muslim feast as violence spreads in Israel
Weary Palestinians on Thursday prepared for a somber feast marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as Gaza braced for more Israeli airstrikes and communal violence raged across Israel after weeks of protests and violence in Jerusalem.
The latest outburst of Mideast violence has reached deeper into Israel than any since the 2000 Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Arab and Jewish mobs are rampaging through the streets, savagely beating people and torching cars, and flights are being diverted from the country’s main airport.
The last three wars between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers were largely confined to the impoverished and blockaded Palestinian territory and Israeli communities on the frontier. But this round of fighting — which like the intifada, began in Jerusalem — seems to be rippling far and wide, tearing apart the country at its seams.
Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of a month of daylong fasting, is usually a festive time when families shop for new clothes and gather for large feasts.
Read:Escalating Mideast violence bears hallmarks of 2014 Gaza war
But in Gaza residents are bracing for more devastation as militants fire one barrage of rockets after another and Israel carries out waves of bone-rattling airstrikes, sending plumes of smoke rising into the air. Since the rockets began Monday, Israel has toppled two high-rise apartment buildings housing Hamas facilities after warning civilians to evacuate.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007, urged the faithful to mark communal Eid prayers inside their homes or the nearest mosques instead of out in the open, as is traditional.
Hassan Abu Shaaban tried to lighten the mood by passing out candy to passers-by after prayers, but acknowledged “there is there is no atmosphere for Eid at all.”
“It is all airstrikes, destruction and devastation,” he said. “May God help everyone.”
Gaza militants continued to bombard Israel with nonstop rocket fire throughout the day and into early Thursday. The attacks brought life to a standstill in southern communities near Gaza, but also reached as far north as the Tel Aviv area, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) to the north, for a second straight day.
Israel has begun diverting some incoming flights from Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, to the Ramon airfield in the country’s far south, the Transportation Ministry said.
The Israeli military says more than 1,600 rockets have been fired since Monday, with 400 falling short and landing inside Gaza. Israel’s missile defenses have intercepted 90% of the rockets. Israeli airstrikes have struck around 600 targets inside Gaza, the military said.
The Israeli army shared footage showing a rocket impact between apartment towers in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikva early Thursday, apparently sparking a large fire. It said the strike wounded people and caused significant damage.
Read:Israel, Hamas escalate heavy fighting with no end in sight
“We’re coping, sitting at home, hoping it will be OK,” said Motti Haim, a resident of the central town of Beer Yaakov and father of two children. “It’s not simple running to the shelter. It’s not easy with the kids.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll rose to 69 Palestinians, including 16 children and six women. Islamic Jihad confirmed the deaths of seven militants, while Hamas acknowledged that a top commander and several other members were killed. Israel says the number of militants killed is much higher than Hamas has acknowledged.
A total of seven people have been killed in Israel, including four people who died on Wednesday. Among them were a soldier killed by an anti-tank missile and a 6-year-old child hit in a rocket attack.
While United Nations and Egyptian officials have said that cease-fire efforts are underway, there were no signs of progress. Israeli television’s Channel 12 reported late Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet authorized a widening of the offensive.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the “indiscriminate launching of rockets” from civilian areas in Gaza toward Israeli population centers, but he also urged Israel to show “maximum restraint.” President Joe Biden called Netanyahu to support Israel’s right to defend itself, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was sending a senior diplomat to the region to try to calm tensions.
The current eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers ignited protests and clashes with police. A focal point was the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built on a hilltop compound that is revered by Jews and Muslims, where police fired tear gas and stun grenades at protesters who threw chairs and stones at them.
Hamas, claiming to be defending Jerusalem, launched a barrage of rockets at the city late Monday, setting off days of fighting.
The fighting has set off violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in Israel, in scenes unseen in more than two decades. Netanyahu warned that he was prepared to use an “iron fist if necessary” to calm the violence.
Read:Gaza militants, children among 24 dead as Israel hits Hamas
But ugly clashes erupted across the country late Wednesday. Jewish and Arab mobs battled in the central city of Lod, the epicenter of the troubles, despite a state of emergency and nighttime curfew. In nearby Bat Yam, a mob of Jewish nationalists attacked an Arab motorist, dragged him from his car and beat him until he was motionless.
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said it thwarted a Palestinian shooting attack that wounded two people. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the suspected gunman was killed. No details were immediately available.
Still unclear is how the fighting in Gaza will affect Netanyahu’s political future. He failed to form a government coalition after inconclusive parliamentary elections in March, and now his political rivals have three weeks to try to form one.
His rivals have courted a small Islamist Arab party. But the longer the fighting lasts, the more it could hamper their attempts at forming a coalition.
Israel steps up Gaza offensive, kills senior Hamas figures
Israel on Wednesday pressed ahead with a fierce military offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing as many as 10 senior Hamas military figures and toppling a pair of high-rise towers housing Hamas facilities in airstrikes. The Islamic militant group showed no signs of backing down and fired hundreds of rockets at Israeli cities.
In just three days, this latest round of fighting between the bitter enemies has already begun to resemble — and even exceed — a devastating 50-day war in 2014. Like in that previous war, neither side appears to have an exit strategy.
But there are key differences. The fighting has triggered the worst Jewish-Arab violence inside Israel in decades. And looming in the background is an international war crimes investigation.
Also read: Israel, Hamas escalate heavy fighting with no end in sight
Israel carried out an intense barrage of airstrikes just after sunrise, striking dozens of targets in several minutes that set off bone-rattling explosions across Gaza. Airstrikes continued throughout the day, filling the sky with pillars of smoke.
At nightfall, the streets of Gaza City resembled a ghost town as people huddled indoors on the final night of Islam’s holiest month of Ramadan. The evening, followed by the Eid al-Fitr holiday, is usually a time of vibrant night life, shopping and crowded restaurants.
“There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide,” said Zeyad Khattab, a 44-year-old pharmacist who fled with a dozen other relatives to a family home in central Gaza after bombs pounded his apartment building in Gaza City. “That terror is impossible to describe.”
Gaza militants continued to bombard Israel with nonstop rocket fire throughout the day and into early Thursday. The attacks brought life to a standstill in southern communities near Gaza, but also reached as far north as the Tel Aviv area, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) to the north, for a second straight day.
The military said sirens also wailed in northern Israel’s Emek area, or Jezreel Valley, the farthest the effects of Gaza rockets have reached since 2014. The Israeli army also shared footage showing a rocket impact between apartment towers in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikva early Thursday, apparently sparking a large fire. It said the strike left people wounded and caused “significant damage.”
“We’re coping, sitting at home, hoping it will be OK,” said Motti Haim, a resident of the central town of Beer Yaakov and father of two children. “It’s not simple running to the shelter. It’s not easy with the kids.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll rose to 69 Palestinians, including 16 children and six women. Islamic Jihad confirmed the deaths of seven militants, while Hamas acknowledged that a top commander and several other members were killed.
Rescuers pulled the bodies of a man and his wife from the debris of their home that was hit by rockets in the latest Israeli airstrikes early Thursday, relatives said.
A total of seven people have been killed in Israel, including four people who died on Wednesday. Among them were a soldier killed by an anti-tank missile and a 6-year-old child hit in a rocket attack.
The Israeli military claims the number of militants killed so far is much higher than Hamas has acknowledged.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said at least 14 militants were killed Wednesday — including 10 members of the “top management of Hamas” and four weapons experts. Altogether, he claimed some 30 militants have been killed since the fighting began.
More raids conducted early Thursday were aimed at several “strategically significant” facilities for Hamas, including a bank and a compound for a naval squad, the military said.
While United Nations and Egyptian officials have said that cease-fire efforts are underway, there were no signs of progress. Israeli television’s Channel 12 reported late Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet authorized a widening of the offensive.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the “indiscriminate launching of rockets” from civilian areas in Gaza toward Israeli population centers, but he also urged Israel to show “maximum restraint.” President Joe Biden called Netanyahu to support Israel’s right to defend itself and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was sending a senior diplomat to the region to try to calm tensions.
Also read: Netanyahu warns Hamas, says Gaza operation 'will take time'
The current eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers ignited protests and clashes with police. A focal point was the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built on a hilltop compound that is revered by Jews and Muslims, where police fired tear gas and stun grenades at protesters who threw chairs and stones at them.
Hamas, claiming to be defending Jerusalem, launched a barrage of rockets at the city late Monday, setting off days of fighting.
The Israeli military says militants have fired about 1,500 rockets in just three days. That is roughly one-third the number fired during the entire 2014 war.
Israel, meanwhile, has struck over 350 targets in Gaza, a tiny territory where 2 million Palestinians have lived under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas took power in 2007. Two infantry brigades were sent to the area, indicating preparations for a possible ground invasion.
In tactics echoing past wars, Israel has begun to target senior members of Hamas’ military wing. It also has flattened three high-rise buildings in a tactic that has drawn international scrutiny in the past.
Israel says the buildings all housed Hamas operations centers, but they also included residential apartments and businesses. In all cases, Israel fired warning shots, allowing people to flee, and there were no reports of casualties.
The fighting has set off violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in Israel, in scenes unseen since 2000. Netanyahu warned that he was prepared to use an “iron fist if necessary” to calm the violence.
But ugly clashes erupted across the country late Wednesday. Jewish and Arab mobs battled in the central city of Lod, the epicenter of the troubles, despite a state of emergency and nighttime curfew. In nearby Bat Yam, a mob of Jewish nationalists attacked an Arab motorist, dragged him from his car and beat him until he was motionless.
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said it thwarted a Palestinian shooting attack that wounded two people. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the suspected gunman was killed. No details were immediately available.
Still unclear is how the fighting in Gaza will affect Netanyahu’s political future. He failed to form a government coalition after inconclusive parliamentary elections in March, and now his political rivals have three weeks to try to form one.
His rivals have courted a small Islamist Arab party. But the longer the fighting lasts, the more it could hamper their attempts at forming a coalition. It could also boost Netanyahu if another election is held, since security is his strong suit with the public.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
The International Criminal Court has launched an investigation into possible war crimes by Israel and Hamas. In a brief statement, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she had noted “with great concern” the escalation of violence and “the possible commission of crimes.”
The ICC is looking into Israeli actions in past wars in Gaza. Israel is not a member of the court, does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction and rejects the accusations. But in theory, the ICC could issue warrants and try to arrest Israeli suspects while they are traveling overseas.
Conricus, the military spokesman, said Israeli forces respect international laws on armed conflict and do their utmost to minimize civilian casualties. Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group fires rockets from residential areas.
Also read: Gaza militants, children among 24 dead as Israel hits Hamas
Emanuel Gross, a professor emeritus the University of Haifa law school, said Israel should “take into consideration the concerns of the ICC.” But he said he believes the military is on solid legal ground while rockets are striking Israeli cities.
“That’s the real meaning of self defense,” he said. “If you are attacked by a terrorist group, you defend yourself.”
Panel suggests WHO should have more power to stop pandemics
A panel of independent experts who reviewed the World Health Organization’s response to the coronavirus pandemic says the U.N. health agency should be granted “guaranteed rights of access” in countries to investigate emerging outbreaks, a contentious idea that would give it more powers and require member states to give up some of theirs.
In a report released Wednesday, the panel faulted countries worldwide for their sluggish response to COVID-19, saying most waited to see how the virus was spreading until it was too late to contain it, leading to catastrophic results. The group also slammed the lack of global leadership and restrictive international health laws that “hindered” WHO’s response to the pandemic.
Some experts criticized the panel for failing to hold WHO and others accountable for their actions during COVID-19, describing that as “an abdication of responsibility.”
Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University said the panel “fails to call out bad actors like China, perpetuating the dysfunctional WHO tradition of diplomacy over frankness, transparency and accountability.”
The panel was led by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who were tapped by WHO last year to examine the U.N. agency’s response to COVID-19 after bowing to a request from member countries.
“The situation we find ourselves in today could have been prevented,” Johnson Sirleaf said.
Beyond the call to boost WHO’s ability to investigate outbreaks, the panel made an array of recommendations, such as urging the health agency and the World Trade Organization to convene a meeting of vaccine-producing countries and manufacturers to quickly reach deals about voluntary licensing and technology transfer, in an effort to boost the world’s global supply of coronavirus shots.
The panel also suggested that WHO’s director-general — currently Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia — should be limited to a single seven-year term. As it stands, the WHO chief is elected to a five-year term that can be renewed once.
The suggestion to limit the tenure of WHO’s top leader appeared in part designed to ease the intense political pressure that WHO director-generals can face. Last year, the Trump administration repeatedly inveighed against the agency’s handling of the pandemic — taking aim at WHO’s alleged collusion with China.
An Associated Press investigation in June found WHO repeatedly lauded China in public while officials privately complained that Chinese officials stalled on sharing critical epidemic information with them, including the new virus’ genetic sequence.
Clark said the global diseases surveillance system needed to be overhauled — with WHO’s role strengthened.
“WHO should have the powers necessary to investigate outbreaks of concern, speedily guaranteed rights of access, and with the ability to publish information without waiting for member state approval,” she said.
Sophie Harman, a professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the panel’s recommendations were unlikely to be entirely welcomed by WHO’s member countries, and thus, unlikely to be implemented.
“Which states would actually allow WHO in to investigate an outbreak without their permission?” she asked.
Many doctors fatigued after treating COVID-19 patients said any reform of WHO should include an evaluation of its ability to properly assess the science of an emerging health threat.
David Tomlinson, a British physician who has been campaigning for health workers during the pandemic in the U.K., said WHO “failed on the most fundamental aspect” in its scientific leadership of COVID-19. He said WHO’s failure to acknowledge that much coronavirus transmission happens in the air has “amplified the pandemic.”
WHO has said coronavirus spread can happen in limited circumstances in the air but recommended against mask-wearing for the general public until last June.
Clare Wenham, a professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics, said the report overall was good, but questioned its support for the U.N.-backed program for coronavirus vaccines called COVAX, which relies on a “donation” model. Of the millions of COVID-19 vaccines administered to date, developing countries have received just 7%, WHO said this week.
“(COVAX) is not addressing one of the main problems, which is we need to rapidly ramp up production of the vaccines and distribution of vaccines,” she said. “And it’s still working on the model of a finite number that’s only able be produced by a certain few manufacturing locations.”
Overall, she suggested politicians needed to budge more than technical institutions like WHO.
“The problems aren’t technical. The problems are political. The problems are about like: How do you get governments to behave and think about things beyond their own borders?” Wenham said. “I don’t think that has been resolved.”
Indian states asked to stop people from dumping bodies of COVID-19 victims into Ganga
India's federal government has asked states to check the practice of dumping bodies of COVID-19 victims into the river Ganga, as the country struggles in a devastating second wave of infections.
India's federal minister of Jal Shakti (water resources), Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, said his ministry has taken serious note of the practice and given instructions for its prohibition.
Read:India's COVID-19 death toll surpasses 250,000
"We have taken serious note of the issue of dumping dead bodies in River Ganga and instituted measures for the prohibition," Shekhawat said, adding that the government will take steps to "ensure all unidentified bodies are disposed as per the protocol."
Over the past few days in the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states at least 96 corpses were found floating in the river Ganga, officials said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Jal Shakti ministry's National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has urged states along the Ganga to adopt measures to stop people from dumping bodies in Ganga.
In a letter, the NMCG asked local Ganga committees to "ensure strict vigilance along the length of the river within the territorial jurisdiction of the district to prevent and check such future incidences of people dumping dead bodies in Ganga and its tributaries and of any other activity hazardous for river Ganga and health and hygiene of the area."
It has also asked them to submit reports on actions taken in the next 14 days.
Read: 11 die in India hospital due to disruption in oxygen supply
Record high numbers of daily new infections and deaths have been reported in past days in India during the second wave of the pandemic. The federal health ministry on Wednesday reported 348,421 new confirmed cases and 4,205 new deaths in the past 24 hours across the Asian country.
The rising death toll from the pandemic has led to overcrowding of morgues, crematoriums and burial grounds.
India's COVID-19 death toll surpasses 250,000
India's COVID-19 death toll crossed the 250,000-mark as the total number of cases surpassed 23 million on Wednesday, confirmed the federal health ministry.
While the death toll rose to 254,197, the COVID-19 tally reached at 23,340,938.
As many as 4,205 deaths, the highest so far, were registered during the past 24 hours, as a spike of 348,421 cases was recorded since Tuesday morning.
Read:Scientists race to study variants in India as cases explode
There are still 3,704,099 active cases in the country, with a decrease of 11,122 cases in the past 24 hours. This is the second consecutive day when a decrease in active cases was witnessed.
A total of 19,382,642 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country.
As the COVID-19 figures continue to peak, the federal government has ruled out a complete lockdown to contain the worsening situation. Some states have imposed night curfews or partial lockdowns.
Principal Scientific Advisor to India's Federal Government K. Vijay Raghavan recently said a third COVID-19 wave was "inevitable" in the country.
Delhi has been put under a third successive lockdown till May 17. While some school examinations are cancelled, others have been postponed.
India's nationwide vaccination drive was kicked off on Jan. 16, and the third phase of vaccination for people aged above 18 began on May 1. Over 175 million vaccination doses have been administered to the people across the country.
Read:11 die in India hospital due to disruption in oxygen supply
Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, as over 307 million tests have been conducted so far.
As many as 307,583,991 tests were conducted till Tuesday, out of which 1,983,804 tests were conducted on Tuesday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Wednesday.
Two types of vaccines, the Covishield vaccine and the Covaxin vaccine, are being administered in India. Meanwhile, the country received its first doses of Russian-made Sputnik-V on May 1.
Escalating Mideast violence bears hallmarks of 2014 Gaza war
Rockets streamed out of Gaza and Israel pounded the territory with airstrikes early Wednesday as the most severe outbreak of violence since the 2014 war took on many hallmarks of that devastating 50-day conflict, with no endgame in sight.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers and other militant groups have fired barrages of hundreds of rockets that at times have overwhelmed Israel’s missile defenses, causing air raid sirens and explosions to echo across Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest metropolitan area, and other cities.
Israeli airstrikes have leveled two apartment towers in the Gaza Strip, where 2 million Palestinians have lived under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas took power in 2007. Warning shots have allowed civilians to evacuate the buildings, but the material losses will be immense. Israel faced heavy criticism over the tactic during the 2014 war.
Just after daybreak Wednesday, Israel unleashed dozens of airstrikes in the course of a few minutes, targeting police and security installations, witnesses said. A wall of dark gray smoke rose over Gaza City. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said airstrikes destroyed the central police headquarters in Gaza City, a compound with several buildings.
Read:Israel, Hamas escalate heavy fighting with no end in sight
The death toll in Gaza rose to 35 Palestinians, including 12 children and three women, according to the Health Ministry. Some 233 people were wounded. Five Israelis, including three women and a child, were killed by rocket fire Tuesday and early Wednesday, and dozens of people were wounded.
The Israeli military said militants have fired more 1,050 rockets since the conflict began, with 200 of them falling short and landing inside Gaza. The military said it also shot down a drone that entered Israel from Gaza. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said two infantry brigades were sent to the area, indicating preparations for a possible ground invasion.
Samah Haboub, a mother of four in Gaza, said she was thrown across her bedroom in a “moment of horror” by an airstrike on an apartment tower next door. She and her children, aged three to 14, ran down the stairway of their apartment block along with other residents, many of them screaming and crying.
“There is almost no safe place in Gaza,” she said.
The destruction of apartment apartment towers was among several tactics used during the 2014 war that are now the subject of an investigation by the International Criminal Court into possible war crimes. Israel is not a member of the court and has rejected the probe.
In a brief statement, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she had noted “with great concern” the escalation of violence in the region and “the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute” that established the court.
Conricus said Israeli forces have strict rules of engagement and follow international laws on armed conflict. “We are definitely very mindful of civilian casualties in Gaza and we want to minimize them,” he said. “That’s the priority.”
The latest eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed police tactics during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers ignited protests and clashes with police. A focal point was the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. The conflicts ended after regional and international powers convinced both sides to accept an informal truce.
While the violence has been widely condemned, there is no sign that either side is willing to back down. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to expand the offensive, saying “this will take time.”
Read:Netanyahu warns Hamas, says Gaza operation 'will take time'
The unrest in Jerusalem has spread across Israel itself, with an outbreak of communal violence in mixed Jewish-Arab communities, as Hamas has called for a full-scale Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The last such uprising also began with violence at the Al-Aqsa mosque, in 2000, and lasted more than five years.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the 35 dead include 12 children and 3 women, with another 233 people wounded. Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the targeting of residential neighborhoods left people “in a state of panic.”
In the Israeli city of Lod, a 52-year-old man and his 16-year-old daughter were killed early Wednesday when a rocket had landed in the courtyard of their one-story home. Their car parked outside was wrecked and the interior of the house was filled by debris.
Lod also saw heavy clashes after thousands of mourners joined a funeral for an Arab man killed by a suspected Jewish gunman the previous night. The crowd fought with police, and set a synagogue and some 30 vehicles, including a police car, on fire, Israeli media reported. Paramedics said a 56-year-old man was seriously hurt after his car was pelted with stones.
“An intifada erupted in Lod, you have to bring in the army,” the city’s mayor, Yair Revivo, said. Authorities have declared a state of emergency and ordered the redeployment of nine paramilitary border police companies from the occupied West Bank as reinforcements.
In neighboring Ramle, ultra-nationalist Jewish demonstrators were filmed attacking cars belonging to Arabs. In the northern port town of Acre, protesters torched a Jewish-owned restaurant and hotel. Police said they arrested more than 150 people involved in “disturbances and riots” overnight in northern and central Israel.
Confrontations erupted last weekend at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is the third-holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism. Over four days, Israeli police fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinians in the compound who hurled stones and chairs at the forces. At times, police fired stun grenades into the carpeted mosque.
On Monday evening, Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza. From there on, the escalation was rapid.
In a televised address, Hamas’ exiled leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said Israel bore responsibility. “It’s the Israeli occupation that set Jerusalem on fire, and the flames reached Gaza,” he said.
Hamas has not commented on Israel’s claims that it has killed a number of senior militants. Islamic Jihad confirmed that three senior commanders were killed in a strike on their hideout in a Gaza City apartment building.
The Israeli military on Wednesday released footage of an airstrike on what it said was the house of Salih Dahman, a “high-ranking operative” in Hamas, where weapons were stored.
Earlier, the military said it struck a building where Hassan Qahwaji and Wael Issa, two senior members of Hamas’ military intelligence wing, were present. Hamas activists tweeted that the two were killed in the strike in Gaza City, along with a woman and her son.
Netanyahu said Israel had attacked hundreds of targets. The fiercest attack was a set of airstrikes that brought down an entire 12-story building. The building housed important Hamas offices, as well as a gym and some start-up businesses. Israel fired a series of warning shots before demolishing the building, allowing people to flee and there were no casualties.
Israeli aircraft heavily damaged another Gaza City building early Wednesday. The nine-story structure housed residential apartments, medical companies and a dental clinic. A drone fired five warning rockets before the bombing. Israel said the building housed Hamas intelligence offices and the group’s command responsible for planning attacks on Israeli targets in the occupied West Bank.
Read:Gaza militants, children among 24 dead as Israel hits Hamas
Fighter jets struck the building again after journalists and rescuers had gathered around. There was no immediate word on casualties. The high-rise stood 200 meters (650 feet) away from the Associated Press bureau in Gaza City, and smoke and debris reached the office.
Soon after the bombing, Hamas announced that it would resume its attacks, and fired 100 rockets at the Israeli desert town of Beersheba. Hamas said the renewed barrage was in response to the strike on the building.
Diplomats sought to intervene, with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations working to deliver a cease-fire. All three serve as mediators between Israel and Hamas.
The U.N. Security Council planned to hold its second closed emergency meeting in three days Wednesday on the escalating violence, an indication of growing international concern. Council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, said the U.N.’s most powerful body did not issue a statement because of U.S. concerns that it could escalate tensions.
Scientists race to study variants in India as cases explode
A potentially worrisome variant of the coronavirus detected in India may spread more easily. But the country is behind in doing the kind of testing needed to track it and understand it better.
On Monday, the World Health Organization designated the new version of the virus a “variant of concern” based on preliminary research, alongside those that were first detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil but have spread to other countries.
“We need much more information about this virus variant,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19. “We need more sequencing, targeted sequencing to be done and to be shared in India and elsewhere so that we know how much of this virus is circulating.”
Read: Indian COVID variant: Why is it more deadly? How is it affecting the neighboring countries?
Viruses mutate constantly, and the surge in infections here has resulted in more opportunities for new versions to emerge.
But India was slow to start the genetic monitoring needed to see if those changes were happening and if they were making the coronavirus more infectious or deadly.
Such variants also need to be monitored to see if mutations help the virus escape the immune system, potentially leading to reinfections or making vaccines less effective. For now, the WHO stressed that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing disease and death in people infected with the variant.
Indian scientists say their work has been hindered by bureaucratic obstacles and the government’s reluctance to share vital data. India is sequencing around 1% of its total cases, and not all of the results are uploaded to the global database of coronavirus genomes.
When there isn’t enough sequencing, there will be blind spots and more worrisome mutations could go undetected until they’re widespread, said Alina Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who is tracking global sequencing efforts.
Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said: “It has all the hallmarks of the virus that we should be worried about.”
First detected in the coastal Maharashtra state last year, the new variant has now been found in samples in 19 of the 27 states surveyed. Meanwhile a variant first detected in Britain has declined in India in the past 45 days.
Indian health officials have cautioned that it is too soon to attribute the nation’s surge solely to such variants. Experts point out that the spread was catalyzed by government decisions to not pause religious gatherings and crowded election rallies.
Read:Across faiths, US volunteers mobilize for India crisis
Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies microorganisms at Christian Medical College at Vellore in southern India, said researchers need to figure out if the variant is capable of infecting those who previously had COVID-19 and, if so, whether it could result in severe disease.
“I don’t get why people don’t see this as important,” she said.
Sequencing efforts in India have been haphazard. The country uploads 0.49 sequences per 1,000 cases to GISAID, a global data sharing effort, Chan said. The U.S., which had its own troubles with genetic monitoring, uploads about 10 in 1,000, while the U.K. does so for about 82 per 1,000 cases.
Late last year, Indian government institutions were ordered to buy domestic raw materials wherever possible, in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of turning India “self-reliant.” This proved impossible, since all materials for sequencing were imported, resulting in more paperwork, said Anurag Agarwal, the director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology. The obstacles were most pronounced between September and December, he said, but his lab was able to find workarounds and continued sequencing.
Other labs didn’t, and scientists said that should have been when India ramped up its sequencing, because cases were declining at the time.
Even after a federal effort started in Jan. 18, bringing together 10 labs that can sequence 7,500 samples weekly, the actual work didn’t start until mid-February due to other logistical issues, said Dr. Shahid Jameel, a virologist who chairs the scientific advisory group advising the consortium.
By then, India’s cases had begun spiking.
Read:11 die in India hospital due to disruption in oxygen supply
Jameel said India has sequenced around 20,000 samples, but only 15,000 were publicly reported because some were missing vital data. Until late last month, a third of the samples sent by states were unusable, he said.
And now, the raging virus has infected many of the staff in the labs doing the work.
“Many of our labs are facing this problem,” he said.