Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Two Palestinian teenage boys, were killed on Thursday in Gaza: one, age 15, was shot dead by Israeli snipers; the other, age 14, was killed when an unexploded ordnance detonated.
Palestinian medics and rescue teams retrieved 14 more bodies from the rubble in the Gaza Strip, the Health Ministry reported on Thursday.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians in Tulkarem.
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, most from Gaza, to be released Saturday
The Hamas office responsible for prisoners announced that 36 prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, as well as 333 Gazan prisoners arrested after October 7, are expected to be released tomorrow as part of the sixth phase of the hostage deal.
Sagui Dekel Chen, Iair Horn and Alexander “Sasha” Troufanov have been announced as the three hostages who will be released from captivity in Gaza on Saturday after 498 days in captivity.
Israeli minister announces plans to ‘deport’ Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem
Israel’s interior minister announced plans yesterday to “deport” three Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem, including a freed prisoner and a current detainee, claiming that they are relatives of “terrorists”.
“I have decided to exercise my authority under the law and act to deport three terror supporters, who are family members of terrorists and chose to side with the enemy in time of war and support the harm to Israeli citizens,” Moshe Arbel told Israel Hayom. “Anyone who incites, praises and supports terror has no place among us. I will continue to act decisively against anyone who threatens Israeli citizens.”
The move follows the approval of a controversial law in November 2024, that permits the Israeli government to deport family members of Palestinians accused of “terrorism” to the Gaza Strip or other locations, including Arab citizens of Israel.
NOTE: The use of the word “terrorist” for those who resist occupation and oppression is a political, not fact-based choice. In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, the UN extending that right to the point of armed resistance. Hamas has clearly and openly stated that its enemy is not the Jewish people, but the supremacist ideology of Zionism – the ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people and exiled them to Gaza and other locations.
Israel may ask Hamas to release more prisoners under 1st phase of ceasefire agreement: Report
Israel may ask Hamas to expand the list of Israeli prisoners to be released in the first phase of a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in Gaza, a report said Wednesday.
Israel is exploring the possibility of making the request to the Palestinian group through intermediaries Egypt, Qatar and the US, said Channel 12.
The request reportedly comes after some prisoners were found to be sick and injured.
Under the first phase of the ceasefire deal, 33 Israeli hostages are to be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Many if not most of the released Palestinian prisoners have been in very poor health, having endured torture and starvation.
Israel is currently holding approximately 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in inhumane conditions where many are systematically tortured – 365 of them are children, 15 are women, and over 3,300 are administrative detainees – being held without charge or trial. Administrative detention is intended to be used only in “exceptional” circumstances, but Israel uses it widely. Read more here.
West Bank: Nine Palestinians killed, hundreds of homes bulldozed as Israeli assault on Tulkarem enters 18th day
The Israeli army’s deadly assault on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem has entered its 18th day, as Tel Aviv’s forces have continued to displace civilians, destroy infrastructure, and make arrests in the city and elsewhere in the territory.
Video footage from 13 February showed Israeli bulldozers destroying homes in Tulkarem’s Nour Shams Refugee Camp.
Occupation forces continue besieging the eastern neighborhood of the city, specifically Al-Muqata’a Street and Abu Safiya Junction, seizing residential buildings and turning them into military outposts,” WAFA news agency reported on Thursday.
The camp’s Media Committee announced that 10,500 people have been displaced since Israeli forces began the assault on Nour Shams, marking around 80 percent of the camp’s population.
West Bank: ‘Last nail in the coffin’: Israeli settlers push on with fresh land grab
Israeli settlers are pushing ahead with a largely unnoticed de facto annexation of large areas of rural land in the occupied West Bank that has already seen the almost total displacement of Bedouin in large areas.
Valleys that once sustained groups of Bedouin up to a few hundred are now occupied by ramshackle illegal outposts, sometimes a single house or hut, sometimes a couple of buildings, visible radiating out from the Israeli settlement of Tko’a through the hills and connected to the main settlement by snaking water pipes.
“You can see how empty it is except for a few outposts,” Yoni Mizrachi, a researcher for the settlement monitoring group Peace Now, said, adding that while these illegal outposts framed their activity as “farming” these shacks in reality represented an effort to take control of large rural areas that had succeeded even in the absence of the Israeli military.
“In 2024 I counted 59 new illegal outposts,” said Mizrachi, referring to all of the West Bank. “It was a record year. A new one every week. Before, you might see between zero and 10 to a dozen in an average year.”
“The Bedouin here are the weakest and most vulnerable of the Palestinian communities and they are being displaced as communities and made homeless,” Mizrachi said.
Yehuda Shaul of Ofek, the Israeli Centre for Public Affairs, said: “What’s happening around Tko’a is what is happening elsewhere,” said Shaul. “New areas being cleansed by settler violence.”
Shaul said that in the 12 months before 7 October 2023 “we saw something like 100 Palestinians displaced” but in the months after the Hamas attack it was 1,400. He added that the acceleration of settler activity in the Tko’a area was being accommodated by the current Israeli political climate.
“Three and a half years ago there were around 240,000 dunums Palestinians could not access because of settler violence,” he said. “Today that figure is close to 800,000. That’s 12% of the West Bank.”
“Now the [settlers’] goal is that the Palestinians must be contained in the built-up areas. The open spaces – they say – are ours. They are trying to put the last nail in the coffin [of a meaningful Palestinian state.]”
NOTE: Israel has illegally built around 280 settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are home to more than 700,000 illegal settlers. Israeli settlements and settlers on Palestinian land are a violation of international law, and considered by many Palestinians to be the main barrier to any lasting peace agreement.
Some settler groups, moreover, have a history of violence against Palestinians, often with the assistance of Israeli military forces.
In a landmark advisory opinion on July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
145 Democrats demand Trump retract Gaza comments
Over two-thirds of House Democrats signed a letter to President Trump urging him to retract his “dangerous” comments proposing the U.S. “take over” the Gaza strip, Axios has learned.
Trump said at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week that the U.S. “will take over the Gaza Strip,” “own it” and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
He doubled down this week by saying Palestinians wouldn’t have the right to return to Gaza, saying of the region: “I would own this.”
The letter, which was first obtained by Axios, says, “We are alarmed that an American president would advocate for the forcible removal and permanent displacement of two million people.”
They argued that such a move would “not only be morally indefensible,” but damage the U.S.’ global standing, put American troops in harm’s way and lead to increased terrorism.
The letter was signed by 145 of the 215 House Democrats, led by Reps. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.).
Vatican condemns Trump’s plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza
The Vatican’s secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, has criticized US President Donald Trump’s proposal to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza.
“The Palestinian population must remain on its land,” Parolin stated at the Italy-Vatican summit, according to ANSA news agency.
“This is one of the fundamental points of the Holy See: no deportations,” he added, reaffirming the Vatican’s opposition to forced displacement.
‘No to ethnic cleansing’: over 350 rabbis sign US ad assailing Trump’s Gaza plan
More than 350 rabbis, alongside additional signatories including Jewish creatives and activists, have signed an ad in the New York Times in which they condemn Donald Trump’s proposal for the effective ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
The ad, which was signed by rabbis including Sharon Brous, Roly Matalon and Alissa Wise, as well as Jewish creatives and activists including Tony Kushner, Ilana Glazer, Naomi Klein and Joaquin Phoenix, says: “Trump has called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish people say no to ethnic cleansing!”
The ad follows Trump’s proposal to “take over Gaza” and leave 2 million Palestinians who have survived Israel’s deadly onslaught against the narrow strip with “no alternative” but to leave their homes.
Zionist rabbis tell Trump he is ‘God’s emissary in the global battle against evil’
Dozens of Israeli rabbis have sent a message to US President Donald Trump, in which they claimed that he is “God’s emissary in the global battle against evil” and that settlements bring peace to the entire world. This was said in a letter sent to Trump by rabbis from the Torat Ha’aretz HaTova organization, according to Israel Hayom on Wednesday.
“Trump was chosen by God for this significant role,” said the rabbis, who praised his efforts in support of the US, Israel and the free world. “The current fight against radical terrorism is not just a regional conflict, but a battle for the survival of moral and just values worldwide.”
The signatories claimed that “We are currently in the midst of Judaism’s war against radical Islam, which is in fact a battle of the free world against cruel violence, which hates civilization and the moral values that all nations have inherited from the Bible.”
They ended their letter by telling Trump, “We pray in the Land of Israel and in Jerusalem that God will protect you and those around you, that His blessing will rest upon your work, and that you will bring peace and prosperity to the entirety.”
Explainer: Breaking down Trump’s executive order targeting Palestine activists
On January 29 President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at canceling the visas of foreign students who participated in protests opposing the Gaza genocide across college campuses last year.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” said Trump in a fact sheet released alongside the order. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
“Selectively enforcing immigration laws to punish political speech violates the First Amendment. The president should not be in the business of policing speech on college campuses,” said Ben Wizner, Director of the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at the ACLU in a statement to Mondoweiss. “The administration has many tools at its disposal to combat rising antisemitism that don’t involve targeting people who participate in this country’s political debates.”
“The implications of this executive order go far beyond the Palestine movement,” said Palestine Legal Director Dima Khalidi in a statement. “It encourages government agencies to find ways to target any dissent from Trump’s agenda, and aims to enlist universities themselves as its censors and snitches. It is imperative that universities protect the rights of their students, refuse to cooperate with Trump’s efforts to silence and criminalize dissent, and end the McCarthyite crackdowns of students speaking out for Palestinian rights” (continue reading here).
MORE NEWS:
Washington Post: Israel likely to strike Iran in coming months, warns U.S. intelligence
Middle East Eye: Why Trump’s plans are an ‘existential threat’ for Jordan
Mondoweiss: Poll: Just 9% of Democrats sympathize with the Israelis more than the Palestinians
IMEMC Daily Reports
As US President Donald Trump suggests turning the Gaza Strip into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’, MEMO looks at Gaza’s Blue Beach Resort, which had an Olympic-size swimming pool, chalets on the beach and views of the Mediterranean. It was completely destroyed during Israel’s… pic.twitter.com/s1LCR2nqWs
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) February 14, 2025
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – FEBRUARY 13, 2025 (ongoing count):
At least 63,312 Palestinians killed, 118,638 injured – including:
- at least 62,403 killed in Gaza (~20,600 children)
- at least 909 killed in the West Bank (~180 children)
- at least 111,676 injured in Gaza
- at least 7,000 injured in the West Bank
WAR STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 (Hamas attack) – JANUARY 19, 2025 (Ceasefire):
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 19, 2025: at least 48,143 – including at least 47,283 in Gaza (~20,600 children), and 860 in the West Bank (~177 children). Palestinian injuries: at least 118,472 – including at least 111,629 in Gaza, and 7,000 in the West Bank.
Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 11,000 more are still buried under rubble.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 19, 2025: ~1,616 (or 1,590) – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 436 (or 405) military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
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