Over 200 dead in strikes on refugee camp, Khan Younis

Thousands of Iranians have held rallies across the country against Israel’s unrelenting bombardment of Gaza Strip following the shock attacks by Hamas last month, AFP reports. The demonstrations in the capital Tehran and other cities were held in “support of the oppressed children of Gaza” under the slogan “Palestine is not alone”, according to local media. In Tehran, crowds of demonstrators waved Palestinian flags, while others held banners reading “Down with America” and “Down with Israel”, according to AFP journalists. Others burnt Israeli flags while some waved the flags of the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, Iran’s ally, which has been engaged in border skirmishes with Israel since Oct 7. “The Zionist regime (Israel) can no longer see peace and security,” Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said in a speech during the Tehran rally. Similar demonstrations took place in other major cities including Shiraz, Kerman and Isfahan.  

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, has said he was “receiving horrifying images and footage of scores of people killed and injured” in the strike on Al-Fakhura School.

“These attacks cannot become commonplace, they must stop. A humanitarian ceasefire cannot wait any longer.”

 

The Los Angeles Times’ editorial board has said “it is time for a ceasefire” in Israel’s military offence against Gaza. In an editorial, it stated, “It is time for the Biden administration to assert strong and sustained pressure on the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to stop attacks that have reportedly already killed more than 11,000 Gazans.” Terming Israel’s operation as “decidedly non-surgical”, the LA Times emphasised that when the “so-called humanitarian pauses in the bombardment and ground operations are too brief to realistically permit innocents to flee […] such pauses are “so deficient as to be meaningless”. The publication highlighted that the displaced people who moved to the south from northern Gaza Strip are now “trapped” as they can neither enter Egypt nor Israel.

“Remaining mindful of America’s mistakes, it is incumbent upon the Biden administration now to avoid complicity with Israel’s. We are past the time to excuse the horror in Gaza.”