THE HORRORS of the Israeli regime’s genocidal war in Gaza have continued unabated for 15 months, and the world has watched in silence, the director general of the UN agency for Palestine has stated.
On the last day of 2024, Philippe Lazzarini, the director general of UNRWA, took to his X account to provide new details about the horrors visited upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli regime.
According to Lazzarini, since the start of the campaign of genocide in October 2023, the Israeli forces have killed at least 745 Palestinians in UNRWA shelters and injured another 2,200.
The Israeli regime’s forces have attacked UNRWA buildings and facilities 650 times, ‘damaging or destroying two-thirds’ of these buildings and facilities in the process. ‘The vast majority (of these buildings) were used as schools for children before the war.’
He said since the start of the Israeli offensive ‘258 UNRWA staff members have been killed’.
‘There are at least 20 UNRWA staff in Israeli (regime’s) detention centres, and those … released have described systematic mistreatment, humiliation and torture.’
‘We verify the occupation of our facilities by the Israeli (regime’s) forces,’ and since the intensification of war by the Israeli regime in northern Gaza three months ago, ‘(its forces) have intensified their attacks on our facilities’.
Lazzarini also called for independent investigations into the Israeli regime’s ‘systematic disregard for the protection of humanitarian workers, premises and operations’. ‘This cannot become the new standard and impunity cannot become the new norm’, he added.
‘Hospitals must not become targets,’ the UN official said, referring to the ongoing Israeli policy, especially during the past week in northern Gaza.
Lazzarini called for an end to the siege of Gaza and bringing in ‘much needed humanitarian supplies including for winter’.
Since October 2023, Israel has massacred more than 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza and injured another 108,000, most of them women and children.
- The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has described the Israeli regime as the most dangerous enemy of the press and journalists in occupied Palestine, particularly the Gaza Strip, as they continue to expose Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
‘The ongoing aggressive occupation war against our people in the Gaza Strip has revealed that the Zionist occupation is the most dangerous enemy to the press and journalists in occupied Palestine, as the journalists were truly the prominent tool in exposing the crimes and massacres against our people, and the major means of debunking its false narrative and black propaganda against our people’s legitimate rights to freedom and independence and the bravery of our resistance in defence of our land and sanctities,’ Hamas said in a statement on Wednesday.
Hamas made the remarks a day after the Government Media Office in Gaza held the annual event of ‘Day of Loyalty to the Palestinian Journalist’ to honour the journalists and their efforts in conveying the Palestinians’ struggle amid the occupying regime’s ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
It also hailed the Palestinian journalists who risk their lives to convey the truth, heroism and steadfastness of Palestinian people and the resistance front, as well as the brutal crimes and massacres committed by the Israeli regime across occupied Palestine, especially in Gaza, which has been subject to a brutal war for 15 months.
Another Palestinian journalist has been killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll to 195 since October last year.
Hamas further warned against the grave danger of targeting Palestinian journalists by the Israeli regime, urging national factions and rights groups to work to protect the journalists from murder, persecution, harassment, or arrest.
The resistance group went on to say that the Israeli regime’s crimes against Palestinian journalists will not silence them or deter them from continuing their role, calling for Israeli perpetrators of crimes to be held accountable for their crimes committed against Palestinian journalists.
It also urged all media institutions worldwide ‘to uphold the values of objectivity, honesty, and integrity in reporting the realities of on the ground in Gaza and Palestine, and not to yield to the Zionist media deception and lies.’
Israel has killed dozens of journalists in Gaza since October 2023, when it launched its brutal war on the Gaza Strip and intensified raids across the West Bank. Many journalists have also been reported missing, detained, or injured.
A Palestinian rights organisation says 18 journalists were killed in Gaza by Israeli military forces in November.
The journalists are faced with increased dangers as they report on the conflict amidst Israeli ground assaults and airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and power outages.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.
So far, Israel has killed 45,541 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured 108,338 others.
Some agencies and Western media outlets are desperately legitimising the ongoing Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza, media experts say.
- A new report says violence has surged in Syria under the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rule, with approximately 400 kidnappings and extra-judicial killings since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s government in early December.
Sputnik news agency, citing medical sources, reported on Tuesday that most of the victims who were abducted or killed across Syria were members of the Alawite minority religious group, as acts of revenge continue in the Arab country.
The news agency, citing local sources, also noted that six civilians were kidnapped by unknown gunmen in the Abbasiya neighbourhood of the city of Homs on Monday.
‘Their bodies were found after they were executed by firing squad’ on the outskirts of the city, it said, adding that ‘five of them were from the same family.’
The sources further stated that the bodies of three people who were abducted by an armed group two weeks ago were found in the coastal city of Jableh.
The fate of four young men who were also kidnapped by masked gunmen riding two four-wheel drive vehicles in Homs is also unknown, the sources added.
According to Sputnik, a further 15 people have also been kidnapped in the western port city of Latakia in the past 48 hours.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) also reported that the HTS militant group has carried out a raid in the town of Ras al-Ma’arra in the Damascus countryside, killing its mayor, and arresting 30 people.
On December 8, militants, led by the HTS, took control of Damascus and declared an end to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in a surprise offensive that was launched from their stronghold in northwestern Syria, reaching the capital in less than two weeks.
The HTS has repeatedly claimed it would respect the rights of all sects and religions in Syria.
The situation, however, remains very fragile, with a potential risk of further clashes as sectarian sentiments continue to boil over, amid the ongoing political instability and pressure on minority groups.
Separately on Monday, the UK-based SOHR reported that Daesh terrorists had killed around 753 people during 491 recorded operations in Syria throughout 2024.
The report stated that Daesh continues ‘executing almost-daily military operations and counter-attacks’ in areas controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), while the terrorist group’s cells ‘are still able to exploit opportunities to create a security vacuum and carry out assassinations’.
This clearly indicates that the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group ‘is still alive and kicking,’ it added.
According to the report, these operations included ambushes, armed attacks, and bombing which were concentrated in the northern cities of Aleppo, Hama, Raqqa, the central city of Homs and the eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr, where a total of 646 people were killed.
It further noted that at least 78 of those killed were civilians, including women and children, while 568 were members of defected Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
From being a trusted aide of Daesh and al-Qaeda leaders to heading the HTS militant group that has taken control of Syria, we look at the journey of Mohammed al-Jolani.
Furthermore, another 107 people were killed in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led SDF in Dayr al-Zawr, Hasakah, Aleppo, and Raqqah, the report said.
This comes as concerns are growing over the fate of 10,000 Daesh terrorists imprisoned by the SDF in northeast Syria.
The HTS leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has not commented on the crisis since seizing power in December.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-sponsored militancy since March 2011.
The former Damascus government blamed Western states and their regional allies for aiding terrorist groups to wreak havoc in the Arab country.
