11,500 children killed in enclave so far
- UNICEF says about 17,000 children in Gaza are unaccompanied or have been separated from their families during the conflict.
- More than one million displaced Palestinians fear a new Israeli military onslaught after the Israeli defence minister pledged to attack Rafah, an area once described as a “safe zone”.
Al Jazeera’s Wael Dahdouh wins media award
The India-based Kerala Media Academy (KMA) has voted Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh winner of its Media Person of the Year award, Indian media outlet The Hindu has reported.
Dahdouh will be given a prize of 100,000 Indian rupees (US $1204) as part of the award, the Hindu said.
The 53-year-old, who has been the face of Al Jazeera Arabic’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, is currently in Qatar for medical treatment.
Dahdouh lost his wife Amna, son Mahmoud, daughter Sham and grandson Adam in October after an Israeli air raid hit the home they were sheltering in at the Nuseirat refugee camp, after being displaced from their house in Gaza City.
Last month, the veteran journalist’s eldest son, Hamza, also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by an Israeli missile strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
UN chief met with Qatari PM
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman at the UN for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, has told reporters during a briefing that Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met with Guterres during a recent trip to New York.
The meeting was part of the secretary-general’s “ongoing consultations with the Qatari leadership”, and the pair “discussed the efforts underway to end the fighting, to secure the release of hostages and ensure support for humanitarian operations,” Dujarric said.
Guterres was also “brought up to speed” on the latest developments in the ongoing negotiations to put a pause on the fighting in Gaza.
French foreign minister to travel to Middle East to discuss post-war plans
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne will depart on Sunday for a trip to Egypt, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, where he will push discussions over possible post-war plans for Gaza.
“There will be a discussion with his regional counterparts, especially Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, to see how to restart a political perspective in the region,” deputy foreign ministry spokesperson Christophe Lemoine told reporters in a news briefing on Friday.
The trip will also include efforts to defuse tensions on the border between Israel and Lebanon.
Israeli Jews and Palestinians hold antiwar rally in Haifa
The Israeli group Standing Together has said that more than 1,000 Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel convened in Haifa for a conference calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
The Israeli publication Haaretz reported that messages of support from Democratic US lawmakers Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, members of President Joe Biden’s party, were played at the event.
“We are the camp of life against the camp of death … against those who say that there are no innocent people in Gaza … We are calling to release all hostages now, leave Gaza, and end the war and the occupation immediately. Israelis and Palestinians are here to stay. We support every agreement to release hostages and end the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza,” the group’s co-leader Alon-Lee Green said.
French shipping group suspends operations over Red Sea violence
The French shipping company CMA CGM has suspended operations through the Bab al-Mandab Strait amid continuing fighting between US forces and the Houthis.
It is the latest company to pause its use of the shipping route, as the Houthis say they hope to use the disruption of international trade to exert pressure to end the war in Gaza.
Trudeau says Canada looking to impose sanctions on ‘extremist’ Israeli settlers
Canada is considering following the lead of the US, which yesterday imposed sanctions on four Israeli settlers linked to violence in the occupied West Bank.
“We are looking into how to make sure that those responsible for extremist violence or extreme settler violence in the [occupied] West Bank are held to account for it,” the Canadian prime minister told reporters in Waterloo, Ontario.
Al-Quds Brigades claim to have killed and wounded 10 Israeli soldiers in Khan Younis
The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad says in a statement published on its Telegram channel that it fired an explosive shell into a house in the al-Amal neighbourhood of Khan Younis in which 10 soldiers were positioned.
Gallant comments on Rafah ‘sets off alarm bells’
UN human rights high commissioner Volker Turk has expressed concern about recent comments by Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said on Thursday that Israeli forces will push on to Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge.
In a social media post on Friday, UN Human Rights said Turk is “deeply worried by Israel defence minister’s remarks on military push to Rafah. This sets off alarm bells for massive civilian casualties and further displacement to unknown location for over 1.5m already vulnerable Palestinians ordered into Rafah,” by the Israeli military.
