Survivors of Hamas attack element their experiences
After the October seventh assaults on Israel, survivors from the world share their painful tales of coping by way of the conflict.
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Family separation, uncertainty about their destiny, a shortage of meals and restricted access to toilet amenities are among the many many hardships Israeli hostages held by Hamas endure, says a former captive freed two weeks in the past.
Sharon Alony-Cunio and her twin women, age 3, made it out after 52 days, however her husband, David Cunio, continues to be being held in Gaza, together with about 135 different Israelis. They had been kidnapped throughout Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage that left greater than 1,200 folks useless in Israel border communities.
In her first media interview since being freed throughout a weeklong truce late final month, Alony-Cunio instructed Reuters captivity was “a Russian roulette. You don’t know whether tomorrow morning they’ll keep you alive or kill you, just because they want to or just because their backs are against the wall.’’
Alony-Cunio, 34, told the news agency one of the girls was taken separately to Gaza and did not rejoin the family for 10 days. The three days before their Nov. 27 release, David was taken away.
“I am petrified I will get bad news that he is no longer alive,’’ she said. “I am torn without my second half, the love of my life, the father of my daughters who ask me every day, ‘Where is daddy?’’’
Alony-Cunio said fellow hostages would sacrifice some of their meager rations of pita bread and sometimes dates, cheese or meat rice for her girls − Emma and Julie − who struggled waiting for a toilet and had to use a sink or trash can.
Their group of hostages was kept above ground instead of in the miles of Hamas tunnels under Gaza, but the interminable days and not knowing whether the Israeli government had given up on them made the anguish of captivity nearly intolerable. Alony-Cunio is advocating for the remaining hostages to be released as soon as possible.
“We are not just names on a poster,’’ she said. “We are human beings, flesh and blood. The father of my girls is there, my partner, and many other fathers, children, mothers, brothers.’’
Netanyahu says dozens of Hamas militants surrendering; Blinken defends veto on UN cease-fire resolution: Updates
Developments:
∎ The 90-year-old father of Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif has been killed in an Israeli strike on his house in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, the media outlet said. The rest of the family had evacuated to a U.N. shelter but the father could not leave due to his age and health, Al Jazeera reported.
∎ The resignations of University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and Scott Bok, chairman of Penn’s board of trustees, have done little to quell the desire for further change at the school, students say. Magill and Bok were accused of failing to adequately denounce antisemitic intimidation and hate speech at Penn. Read more here.
∎ The Israel Defense Forces said it has killed Emad Krikae, describing him as the commander of Hamas’ Shejaiya Battalion. The unit’s former commander had also been “eliminated,” the IDF said.
∎ Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, during talks with Palestinian and Hamas officials, pressed for an end to the fighting and the release of hostages held by militants, Russia’s Tass media outlet reported Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday accused Russia of taking “anti-Israel” positions.
As University of Penn leaders resign, students say ‘a lot still needs to change’
Israel’s overwhelming ground and air attack in Gaza figures to continue for weeks, and a subsequent military campaign of less intensity could go on for months, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant indicated Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.
Undaunted by international pressure for a cease-fire amid widespread devastation and a mounting civilian death toll in Gaza, Gallant would not commit to a deadline for completing the current phase of Israel’s military operation as its seeks to eliminate Hamas’ leadership and its ability to threaten Israel.
“We are going to defend ourselves,” he said. “I am fighting for Israel’s future.”
Gallant stated the subsequent part would give attention to preventing towards “pockets of resistance” and would require Israeli troops to take care of their freedom of operation. “That’s a sign the next phase has begun,” he stated.
The Israeli army continues to be confronting dogged resistance from militants in elements of the battered Gaza City and the city Jabaliya refugee camp, whereas additionally making headway within the southern metropolis of Khan Younis, which has swollen with tens of 1000’s of refugees making an attempt to flee the preventing.
Hunger and illness have gotten even larger components within the rising humanitarian disaster in Gaza, the place 1.9 million of the two.3 million prewar residents have been displaced, largely going to the strip’s south.
The problem of distributing support amid the preventing – together with such requirements as meals, water and medication – is making already dire circumstances downright untenable. The U.N. World Food Programme stated over the weekend that half the folks in Gaza are ravenous, and just one out of each 10 is consuming day-after-day.
The U.N. company for Palestinian refugees, referred to as UNRWA, reported Gazans carrying their useless kids to well being amenities.
“There’s not enough food. People are starving,’’ tweeted Carl Skau, COO of the World Food Programme.
Shelters are overcrowded beyond capacity in the south, where about 1 million Palestinians have sought refuge in 94 U.N. facilities, leading to the spread of infectious diseases.
Nicholas Papachrysostomou, emergency coordinator in Gaza for the aid group Doctors Without Borders, said “every other patient” at a clinic in Rafah has a respiratory an infection. In shelters the place tons of share a single rest room, diarrhea is widespread, notably amongst kids, he stated.
The Israeli company answerable for civilian affairs in Gaza stated Monday it had elevated its capability to examine support shipments sure for Gaza and blamed the U.N. for the lengthy line of vehicles awaiting passage into the war-battered Palestinian enclave.
The U.N. says the preventing makes it too harmful for its staffers to go to work.
The Israeli Defense Ministry’s company, Coordination of Government Activities within the Territories − or COGAT − stated it was able to open a second border crossing to permit support to move into Gaza. Israel has solely been inspecting the vehicles on the smaller Nitzana crossing earlier than coming into Gaza by way of Rafah on the Egyptian border.
“Kerem Shalom (crossing) is to be opened, so the amount of inspections will double,” COGAT stated in an announcement. “But the aid keeps waiting at the entrance of Rafah. The U.N. must do better. The aid is there, and the people need it.”
Israel says it has already been clearing greater than 200 vehicles of support for passage into Gaza every day, however the U.N. has not been capable of course of and distribute the help as quick because it is available in.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly emphasised the dearth of security for U.N. employees and the depth of army operations, resulting in not less than 130 U.N. employees members being killed thus far.
“Some of our staff take their children to work so they know they will live or die together,” he stated.
Israel’s army marketing campaign in Gaza has turned the enclave into essentially the most harmful place on the earth for ladies, the advocacy group ActionAid International says.
“Women and women in Gaza are affected by unprecedented ranges of violence throughout the Israeli army escalation,” says a brand new report by the organization, whose mission is centered on “feminist management.”
Health officers in Gaza have estimated the whole Palestinian dying toll at about 18,000 and say about 70% are girls and youngsters. ActionAid says girls and women are being killed and injured at “horrific” charges, denied their basic rights to meals, water and well being care every day, and uncovered to monumental psychological stress and trauma after two months of “dwelling in terror.”
“It is essentially the most harmful place for ladies now, at this present time, in line with numbers describing the fact and circumstances of girls in Gaza,” ActionAid spokesperson Riham Jafari instructed USA TODAY in an e-mail.
Israeli army says it found an RPG coaching facility hidden inside a mosque in a civilian neighborhood of northern Gaza. Weapons seized included grenades, cartridges and numerous firearms, the army stated in an announcement. Some of the weapons, displayed on the military’s social media, had been present in baggage belonging to civilian organizations, the assertion stated.
The army has defended its lethal and harmful floor invasion of Gaza, claiming Hamas constantly makes use of civilians as human shields and establishes army amenities in civilian buildings. Hamas has denied the claims.
Jordan’s Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh accused Israel of making an attempt to drive Palestinian civilians out of Gaza, calling the trouble a “potential recreation changer.” Khasawneh stated circumstances “counsel that there’s a deliberate try and generate the circumstances for Gazans – coupled with elevated violence within the West Bank deserted to settlers – that may compel folks to contemplate the choice of transferring throughout the border.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the U.N. company for Palestinian refugees, made an analogous declare in an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times.
“The developments we’re witnessing level to makes an attempt to maneuver Palestinians into Egypt, no matter whether or not they keep there or are resettled elsewhere,” he wrote.
The U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday will vote on a decision calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The decision is much like the one the U.S. vetoed within the Security Council final week. But the variations aren’t any member nation has veto energy within the General Assembly, and its permitted resolutions aren’t binding. Egypt sought the decision, anticipated to simply win approval, on behalf of the Arab Group, which incorporates 22 member nations, and Organization for Islamic Cooperation Group, which represents greater than 50 international locations.
Israel is “endangering extra civilian lives, risking additional deterioration of this already-catastrophicsituation, and threatening regional and worldwide peace and safety, making it pressing that theGeneral Assembly convene to handle this disaster,” Egypt and the Republic of Mauritania stated in a joint letter to Assembly President Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago.
