Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Two Palestinian children ages 2 and 3 were killed Thursday by Israeli forces in another violation of a ceasefire agreement.
The 2-year-old child was killed, and his mother injured, after their tent was targeted by a bomb in Beit Hanoun; the 3-year-old was fatally shot by an Israeli drone in the Shujaiya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City.
In the past 24 hours, at least 7 bodies were recovered from the rubble across Gaza.
Israel is retaining the corpses of 676 Palestinians, including around 60 children and 9 women, in freezers and burial sites known as “cemeteries of numbers”, says the National Campaign to retrieve Martyrs’ Bodies, a Palestinian advocacy group.
As truce falters, mothers in Gaza again mark children’s names on their bodies
Palestinian aid workers say families in Gaza are unable to pick up the pieces of their lives and plan for a return to normalcy because of the uncertainty over the fate of the ceasefire.
“Our lives can’t be further from normal. Forget about opening a faucet and getting water, or flipping a switch to get light,” said Shorouq, a project manager at the Palestinian organization Maan Development Center. “With the news that the ceasefire is faltering, mothers around me are again writing down names on their children’s forearms.”
The practice is aimed at making sure the children are identified if they are killed in an Israeli attack and buried in a marked grave instead of an unmarked one.
Israel kills three Palestinians a day in Gaza, using snipers, drones, and starvation as genocidal tools
Israel has killed 150 Palestinians—an average of three people every 24 hours—since the ceasefire on 19 January 2025. The Euro-Med Monitor field team has documented Israeli sniper and drone attacks since the ceasefire went into effect, as well as the continued use of the blockade as a weapon of slow death by starvation in the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The ongoing killings by the Israeli army are carried out by snipers and drones, including quadcopter aircraft, which target Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. The deadly attacks frequently occur when residents attempt to return and inspect their damaged homes near the so-called “buffer zone” imposed by Israel along the Strip’s northern and eastern borders.
Israel has engaged in widespread killing and destruction in the besieged enclave for over 15 months and has intensified its genocidal policies by imposing deadly living conditions on Palestinians that result in their slow, systematic killing. Through a complete, illegal siege, Israel is preventing the entry of humanitarian aid and essential supplies while blocking the repair of critical infrastructure and services necessary for survival—all amid an absence of effective international intervention.
Euro-Med Monitor warns of a worsening humanitarian crisis if the blockade persists, with markets now being rapidly depleted of goods. Additionally, numerous relief and food distribution centers have halted operations due to the ongoing closure of the Gaza Strip’s border crossings and Israel’s refusal to allow supplies to enter since 2 March. This has significantly worsened the suffering of civilians, pushing them closer towards famine without the swift intervention of the international community (continue reading here).
More than 50 health centers in occupied West Bank attacked by Israel since January
The World Health Organization (WHO) has authenticated 54 “attacks on health centres” in the occupied West Bank since January, according to the spokesperson of the United Nation Secretary General Stephane Dujarric.
She said the attacks resulted in four deaths and nine injuries since January, and 20 health facilities are now completely out of service due to the Israeli attacks.
Israel has intensified its military operations in the occupied West Bank this year, after the Gaza ceasefire came into effect mid January.
U.S. and Israel look to Africa for resettling Palestinians uprooted from Gaza
The U.S. and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for resettling Palestinians uprooted from the Gaza Strip under President Donald Trump’s proposed postwar plan, American and Israeli officials say.
The contacts with Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland reflect the determination by the U.S. and Israel to press ahead with a plan that has been widely condemned and raised serious legal and moral issues. Because all three places are poor, and in some cases wracked by violence, the proposal also casts doubt on Trump’s stated goal of resettling Gaza’s Palestinians in a “beautiful area.”
Officials from Sudan said they have rejected overtures from the U.S., while officials from Somalia and Somaliland told The Associated Press that they were not aware of any contacts.
Under Trump’s plan, Gaza’s more than 2 million people would be permanently sent elsewhere. He has proposed the U.S. would take ownership of the territory, oversee a lengthy cleanup process and develop it as a real estate project.
The idea of a mass transfer of Palestinians was once considered a fantasy of Israel’s ultranationalist fringe. But since Trump presented the idea at a White House meeting last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed it as a “ bold vision.”
Palestinians in Gaza have rejected the proposal and dismiss Israeli claims that the departures would be voluntary. Arab nations have expressed vehement opposition and offered an alternative reconstruction plan that would leave the Palestinians in place. Rights groups have said forcing or pressuring the Palestinians to leave could be a potential war crime.
Still, the White House says Trump “stands by his vision” (continue reading here).
NOTE: US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that no Palestinians will be expelled from the besieged Gaza Strip even as he continues to pursue his plan to take over the coastal enclave. The above report from Associated Press appeared early Friday morning. Previously, he had made it clear that he wanted Palestinians ethnically cleansed from Gaza.
Trump widely condemned for deploying ‘Palestinian’ as racial slur against Jewish senator
US President Donald Trump this week has been widely condemned for calling Jewish Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “a Palestinian” – a term he has repeatedly used as a slur against the New York senator for not being “loyal” enough to Israel.
On Wednesday, a press member asked Trump about a potential government shutdown. The president warned that the Democratic Party would be blamed if it did not vote for the bill that would block the shutdown from happening, putting Schumer in the spotlight for his position as the minority leader.
“As far as I’m concerned, he’s become a Palestinian,” Trump said. “He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore. He’s a Palestinian.”
This is not the first time that Trump has called Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the US, a Palestinian, intended as an insult. Last June, when asked about Israel’s war on Gaza, Trump said that Israel had lost support in the US Congress and that Schumer has “become like a Palestinian” for publicly criticizing Israel.
At another point during his presidential election campaign, Trump also falsely said that Schumer was “a proud member of Hamas”.
Trump’s use of the word “Palestinian” as an insult has received backlash from various civil rights groups as well as from the public on social media (continue reading here).
RELATED: DOJ Deploys ‘Antisemitism Task Force’ to Four US Cities as Part of Crackdown on Pro-Palestine Protests
US envoy ‘sidelined’ by Trump after CNN interview on direct US–Hamas talks: Report
Adam Boehler, the US government’s special envoy for Hostage Affairs, was stripped of his role over statements he made during an interview regarding negotiations with Hamas, according to reports on 13 March.
“The administration has pulled him off of the Hamas hostage file and said that he needs to be further sidelined,” three sources in the US Republican Party were cited as saying by Jewish Insider (JI).
“Look, they don’t have horns growing out of their heads; they’re actually guys like us; they’re pretty nice guys. We’re the US, we’re not an agent of Israel. We have specific interests at play,” Boehler told CNN last week, referring to Washington’s separate talks with the Palestinian resistance movement which were held recently in Cairo.
When asked if there would be further talks with Hamas, he said, “You never know. Sometimes, you’re in the area and you drop by.”
Israeli officials lambasted the envoy. “Anyone who quotes Hamas and negotiates with them directly is making a huge error, one that endangers the hostages,” said Knesset member Simcha Rothman.
After facing backlash following his CNN interview, the envoy said: “I want to be CRYSTAL CLEAR as some have misinterpreted. Hamas is a terrorist* organization that has murdered thousands of innocent people. They are BY DEFINITION BAD people. And as [Trump] has said, not a single Hamas member will be safe if Hamas doesn’t RELEASE ALL HOSTAGES IMMEDIATELY” (read more here).
NOTE: Boehler – who is Jewish – was perhaps the first member of the political class to see Hamas as human beings. In short order, he found himself pulled from his position, forced to retract his words, and compelled to publicly toe the pro-Israel line.
*The use of the word “terrorist” for a group that resists 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.
Nearly 100 protesters arrested at Trump Tower in New York over Mahmoud Khalil’s detention
At least 98 people protesters were arrested Thursday following a sit-in at Trump Tower in New York City, where demonstrators demanded the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, according to reports. The protesters faced trespassing and resisting arrest charges, ABC News reported, citing he New York Police Department.
The protest, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), drew hundreds of activists who packed the lobby, chanting “Free Mahmoud, Free them all!”, “We want justice, you say how? Bring Mahmoud home now!” and “Fight Nazis, not students!”
Many wore red shirts emblazoned with the slogans “Not in our name” and “Stop arming Israel.”
READ ABOUT MAHMOUD KHALIL’S CASE: Columbia complicit in Trump arrest of student leader Mahmoud Khalil
RELATED: BREAKING: DHS Agents Descend on Columbia’s Campus – Again – to Serve Two Warrants
After Arrest of pro-Palestinian Activist, Students Sue Columbia to Stop Release of Protest Records
Columbia University was hit with a federal lawsuit on Thursday by civil rights advocates seeking to block the school from handing over student records to Congress, following the arrest of recent graduate Mahmoud Khalil and crackdown on campus protests.
The suit – filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and attorneys for Khalil on behalf of him and seven other students in the Southern District of New York – seeks to block the university from turning over student records, arguing that the congressional request is overly broad, politically motivated, and intended to suppress speech in support of Palestinian rights.
It also accuses the university of colluding with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in a campaign to suppress protected speech and violate student privacy.
In a press conference Thursday, Amy Greer, the lawyer representing Khalil, accused Columbia of aligning itself with congressional efforts to expose students involved in campus activism.
“This sets a dangerous precedent that undermines academic freedom and student privacy. Our lawsuit seeks to protect the constitutional rights of students who should not be subjected to political intimidation or invasive government overreach. We will continue to fight for the privacy and dignity of all students,” Greer said.
Lamya Agarwala, Supervising Attorney at CAIR, said the request to disclose private records is a tactic to suppress speech in support of Palestinian human rights. “This case aims to prevent Columbia from turning into an arm of the federal government and do its bidding of suppressing speech it doesn’t like.”
RELATED: Who is Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian student activist facing deportation from the US?
MORE NEWS:
Ha’aretz: Israeli Soldiers Violently Assaulted Palestinian Brothers. When They Complained, Military Police Laughed at Them
The Intercept: The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free
IMEMC Daily Reports
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MARCH 13, 2025 (ongoing count):
- At least 49,461 Palestinians killed, 119,858 injured – including:
- at least 48,524 killed in Gaza (~14,550 children)
- at least 937 killed in the West Bank (~187 children)
- at least 111,955 injured in Gaza
- at least 7,903 injured in the West Bank
According to Palestinian authorities, at least 137 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, and Israel has committed approximately 962 ceasefire violations since the ceasefire came into force in November.
WAR STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 (Hamas attack) – JANUARY 22, 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 916 in the West Bank (~183 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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