On Sunday, hundreds of irate people protested the arrival of an Israeli airliner by storming the main airport’s landing field in the largely Muslim Russian territory of Dagestan.
According to Russian press reports, demonstrators attempted to storm the Russian carrier Red Wings aircraft and yelled antisemitic chants, forcing Makhachkala authorities to close the airport.
Social media footage showed demonstrators trying to topple a police vehicle, while others were on the landing field waving Palestinian flags and verifying the papers of travellers who had come from Tel Aviv to Makhachkala.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement stating that Israel “expects the Russian law enforcement authorities to protect the safety of all Israeli citizens and Jews wherever they may be and to act resolutely against the rioters and against the wild incitement directed against Jews and Israelis.”
There were no early reports of injuries.
President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stated that antisemitic sentiment is widespread in Russia and comes from its authorities. Ukraine has been battling a Russian invasion since February 2022.
“This is not an isolated incident in Makhachkala,” Zelenskyy stated, “but rather part of Russia’s widespread culture of hatred towards other nations, which is propagated by state television, pundits, and authorities.”
Following rockets fired into Israel on Sunday, the Israeli military said it had hit targets in Lebanon and Syria, continuing hostilities that had started soon after the war. Israel claimed to have killed a jihadist in Lebanon by shooting down a drone.
The Gaza region now has some mobile and internet connectivity again, according to a report released on Sunday by the United Nations humanitarian organisation for Palestinians. Relief convoys into the region were stopped by the blackout, which occurred on Friday after a sharp decline in connectivity. “Tensions and f
The Israeli military has been distributing Arabic-language leaflets to convince Palestinians to surrender and lay down their weapons, in addition to encouraging them to relocate to the southern section of Gaza. The posters said, “Hamas leaders are taking advantage of you.” “They and their families are in safe places, while you die in vain.”
According to White, humanitarian help is sporadically arriving and falls short of its needs. Eighty assistance trucks have reached Gaza from the south through Egypt thus far, but a ban on fuel imports and thorough inspections are slowing them down, he said. “The needs of the communities are immense, if only for basic survival, while the aid we receive is meagre and inconsistent,” he stated.
A physician from Michigan claims to have lost relatives in Gaza.
Ever since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, Emad Shehada has felt despondent and powerless. A sense of hopelessness is “creeping into my soul every day,” he said in an interview with the Detroit Free Press, a USA TODAY Network affiliate.
The 47-year-old pulmonologist hasn’t taken a vacation from his private practise; he claims he has a duty to his patients and that whenever he returns home, “everything comes back.”
Shehad spends his free time nervously watching Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, at home. Occasionally, he switches off the TV out of frustration over what he’s seen, only to turn it back on ten minutes later.
Shehad has lost twenty family members, including cousins and their kids, as a result of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, which have claimed thousands of lives. He worries that his sister Asmaa Shehada, who is taking refuge in her Gaza house with her husband, their two small girls, and roughly fifty other loved ones, will also perish at some point in the future.
“Nowhere is worth going. Families will be targeted together since they are sheltering together, according to Shehada of West Bloomfield, Michigan.
Gaza saw six times as many child deaths as the conflict in Ukraine.
The 18-month-long conflict in Ukraine has claimed the lives of some 500 youngsters, according to Ukrainian officials, whose figures are consistent with the U.N.’s estimate, but they admit the total is imprecise.
Almost 3,200 children have died in Gaza alone in the three weeks since the Israel-Hamas conflict started this month. There have also been 29 deaths in Israel and 33 in the occupied West Bank.
The global nonprofit Save the Children claims that these numbers are from the health ministries of Gaza and Israel. Furthermore, The Associated Press noted that the Gaza agency has withstood independent investigation in prior wars, despite the fact that it is governed by Hamas and that Biden last week questioned its numbers.
Save the Children said on Sunday that the 3,195 recorded deaths of minors in Gaza, where over 40% of the population is under 18, surpass the global total of children lost to armed conflict worldwide in a single year during the previous three years.
“Many more children remain at grave risk, given the horrifying statistics and the ongoing and growing violence in Gaza,” stated Jason Lee, the organization’s Country Director in the occupied Palestinian territory. “While one child’s death is never enough, these are grave, epic-scale violations.” The only thing that can guarantee their protection is a cease-fire.
Israel attacks hospitals; 14,000 people take refuge, according to Red Crescent
Israeli airstrikes on Sunday damaged the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, which is housing 14,000 displaced Palestinians and treating 400 patients amidst the ongoing bombing, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
The group shared a video on X, the former Twitter platform, showing people in a room with blown-out windows, rubble on the floor, and dust inhaling hard.
“The PRCS post states that the Israeli occupation forces intentionally keep firing rockets close to Al-Quds hospital in Gaza, forcing patients, displaced people, and medical personnel to flee the hospital.” “This has put patients and residents at risk of asphyxia and seriously damaged hospital departments.”
The Red Crescent is the name given to the Red Cross in Muslim regions. The society said that Israeli military had advised it to flee before a bombardment, but they claimed that was not feasible. Spokesman Nibal Farsak stated on X, “We don’t have the means to evacuate,” referring to the difficulty of removing patients from the intensive care unit. “Evacuating them means killing them.”
Israel now has soldiers in Gaza
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi of the Israel Defence Forces announced in a video statement on Saturday that the reaction to Hamas had entered a new phase and that soldiers had been sent into Gaza to engage in what is anticipated to be fierce combat in the tunnels that Hamas uses to operate inside the enclave.
“The best soldiers and commanders—well-trained and prepared—are now operating in Gaza,” Halevi stated. “Currently, the ground forces are engaged in a significant and intricate operation. This war’s goals necessitate a ground operation. Risks are necessary for accomplishments, and every win has a cost, as we all know.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a series of tweets published on X, the website that was once known as Twitter, that Israel is making every effort to reduce the number of civilian casualties during the ground attack. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reported that as a warm-up to the ground invasion, its aircraft struck 150 subsurface targets in the northern Gaza Strip, destroying tunnels and “underground combat spaces” and killing many Hamas members.
“This is the second stage of the war, the goals of which are clear: destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and bringing the captives back home,” Netanyahu said on Twitter. “The IDF takes every precaution to protect civilians from danger. I urge the civilian populace to flee to a secure location in the southern Gaza Strip once more. On the other hand, the enemy’s cynicism has no boundaries. He commits war crimes by feeding its war machine with fuel, utilising hospitals as terrorist command centres, and exploiting civilians as human shields.”
Biden and Netanyahu discuss aid for Gaza, civilian safety, and hostages.
A transcript of their Sunday morning conversation states that President Joe Biden and Netanyahu spoke about Israel’s right to self-defense and the necessity of doing so while preserving the safety of Gaza’s civilian population.
According to the White House, they also discussed the efforts being made to find the hostages and secure their release. It is estimated that over 220 prisoners, including Americans, are being held by Hamas and other militants, most likely in various places.
The issue of aid entering Gaza was also discussed by the leaders; according to Biden, this is not happening as much as he would want. “The President underscored the need to immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza,” according to the transcript.
The president of Turkey refers to Israel’s actions as “war crimes.”
At a sizable pro-Palestinian gathering in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that his nation would legally charge Israel with war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
Erdogan declared, “We will declare you to be a war criminal to the world.” He did not specify the method he would use or the implications of his conduct. “We are getting ready to declare Israel a war criminal to the entire world.”
Israel retaliated by stating that it was removing its ambassadors from Turkey, despite the fact that some had already departed for safety concerns.
Since taking power in 2003, Erdogan, whose ruling party has origins in the Islamic movement in Turkey, has been a vocal opponent of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. As a NATO member, Turkey has a close military alliance with the United States. Israel is close to the United States militarily, despite not being a member of 3,200
Israel and Turkey have long been at odds, but last year, when Yair Lapid, the Israeli prime minister at the time, met with Erdogan at the United Nations, there were indications of a diplomatic thaw. The two nations decided to resume formal contact for the first time since 2010.
In Gaza, “civil order is starting to break down.”
As thousands of desperate people rushed into warehouses and distribution centres to steal food and other supplies as Israeli ground forces moved in, the U.N.’s Palestinian humanitarian agency issues a warning that “civil order is starting to break down” in Gaza.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East’s director of Gaza affairs, Thomas White, stated in a statement on Sunday that the existing mechanism for distributing humanitarian aid isn’t functioning. According to him, up to 50 displaced Palestinians are taking refuge in some of the middle and southern neighbourhoods of the Gaza Strip, where they are cramming into homes.
Since an Oct. 7 attack spearheaded by Hamas killed over 1,400 people on Israeli soil and sparked a war that has killed over 8,000 people in Gaza, according to the most recent tally by the Hamas-run Health Ministry, Israel has been bombarding Gaza. Humanitarian officials claim that Israel forced the inhabitants of northern Gaza to relocate southward as it stepped up its military response, trapping them in a region devoid of enough food, water, or other amenities.
According to White, Gaza people are becoming more and more desperate, as evidenced by the food and sanitary goods they stole on Saturday from warehouses and distribution centres. “After three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza, this is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down,” he said in a statement. “People are desperate, angry, and afraid.”
Israel now has soldiers in Gaza
Gen. Herzi Halevi of the Israel Defence Forces announced in a video statement on Saturday that the reaction to Hamas had entered a new phase and that soldiers had been sent into Gaza to engage in what is anticipated to be fierce combat in the tunnels that Hamas uses to operate inside the enclave.
“The best soldiers and commanders—well-trained and prepared—are now operating in Gaza,” Halevi stated. “Currently, the ground forces are engaged in a significant and intricate operation. This war’s goals necessitate a ground operation. Risks are necessary for accomplishments, and every win has a cost, as we all know.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a series of tweets published on X, the website that was once known as Twitter, that Israel is making every effort to reduce the number of civilian casualties during the ground attack. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reported that as a warm-up to the ground invasion, its aircraft struck 150 subsurface targets in the northern Gaza Strip, destroying tunnels and “underground combat spaces” and killing many Hamas members.
“This is the second stage of the war, the goals of which are clear: destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and bringing the captives back home,” Netanyahu said on Twitter. “The IDF takes every precaution to protect civilians from danger. I urge the civilian populace to flee to a secure location in the southern Gaza Strip once more. On the other hand, the enemy’s cynicism has no boundaries. He commits war crimes by feeding its war machine with fuel, utilising hospitals as terrorist command centres, and exploiting civilians as human shields.”
Israel is “responsible” for keeping Gaza’s residents safe.
According to national security adviser Jake Sullivan, as Israel continues its ground incursion into Gaza, Hamas “is hiding behind the civilian population in Gaza.” According to Sullivan, Israel must defend its people, who are Palestinians in Gaza, in addition to its right to self-defense.
In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Sullivan stated that Israel had a “responsibility under international humanitarian law and the laws of war to do all in their power to protect the civilian population.”
Sullivan stated that the United States “will continue to ask hard questions about how they are thinking this through and how they are proceeding,” but he declined to answer questions regarding Israel’s intentions for the siege of Gaza.
The Pope releases hostages and urges a ceasefire.
During his weekly speech from St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Pope Francis demanded the release of captives and a truce. In addition, he urged the pious to offer prayers for a stop to the hostilities and the entry of relief into Gaza.
Francis reportedly stated, “Stop, brothers and sisters: war is always a defeat—always, always,” according to the Vatican.
Under pressure from the US, Hamas has freed four of the approximately 220 captives it still possesses.
Although they claimed that a ceasefire would aid Hamas, U.S. officials have instead urged for sporadic humanitarian pauses in Israel’s assault on Gaza.
