Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
At least 58 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
At least 11 members of same family confirmed killed in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah
It was another bloody morning.
Gazans woke today to the sound of Israeli fighter jets producing sonic booms, terrifying everybody in Deir el-Balah. This area was the epicenter of Israeli air raids for hours.
Al Jazeera received confirmation from Gaza’s Health Ministry that a house was hit in the western part of Deir el-Balah city. The initial death toll we have received is 11. All of the victims are from the same family. Their house was attacked with no warning.
Gaza medic deaths just the latest in Israel’s long history of changing its story over civilian killings
The Israeli military’s changing account of its killing of 15 Palestinian medics and civil defense workers is part of a long familiar pattern in high profile cases involving the killing of civilians.
Often, at first, the IDF denies involvement. Sometimes – in the context of Gaza – it suggests one of Hamas’s own rockets fell short, causing the casualties.
Otherwise, it might allege that those killed were either combatants themselves, or collateral damage from the targeting of combatants.
And the case of the Gaza medics is only the latest incident when Israel has altered its account of a high profile killing.
The killing of the celebrated Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who worked for Al Jazeera, while covering a protest on the West Bank in 2022, saw a similar shifting of explanations (continue reading here).
RELATED: Shireen Abu Akleh’s death exposes Israel for what it is – a murderous regime
Israel Preparing to Turn Rafah – One-fifth of Gaza – Into Part of Buffer Zone
The Israeli military is preparing to incorporate the southern Gaza city of Rafah and its surrounding neighborhoods into the buffer zone it is establishing along the border.
The area, located between the Philadelphi route to the south and the Morag route to the north, was home to around 200,000 Palestinians before the war. In recent weeks, however, it has been left almost entirely deserted following widespread destruction caused by the Israeli military.
Following the end of the cease-fire, the army called on the remaining civilians to evacuate and move to the designated humanitarian zone along the coastline, around Khan Yunis and the Muwasi area.
Until now, the military has refrained from incorporating large cities like Rafah into the buffer zone. According to defense officials, the move to include Rafah came after the government’s decision to resume the war in February, and against the backdrop of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that Israel would seize large areas of Gaza.
In some respects, it appears the army is seeking to replicate in the south the methods it employed in northern Gaza (continue reading here).
Israel estimates ‘only a quarter of Hamas tunnels destroyed’ since war began
According to officials speaking to Israeli outlet Mako, despite more than 18 months of onslaught on the Gaza Strip, there still remains an extensive tunnel network through the territory, including from Egypt.
The Mako report quoted experts as saying that Israel’s control of the Philadelphi Corridor – a 14km-long, 100 meter-wide demilitarized buffer zone that runs along the entirety of the border between Egypt and Gaza – failed to stymie the construction of tunnels.
In February, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Philadelphi Corridor would remain a buffer zone despite the continuing proliferation of tunnels.
“I saw with my own eyes quite a few tunnels penetrating Philadelphi,” Katz said.
US State Dept skirts question about probe into Palestinian-American teen’s killing
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce was asked whether the Trump administration is calling on Israel to investigate the killing of a Palestinian-American teenager by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
14-year-old Omar Mohammad Rabea was fatally shot on Monday near the West Bank town of Turmus Aya.
“We are certainly aware of that dynamic,” Bruce told reporters, without directly answering whether Washington had called on Israel to investigate.
“We sent condolences to the families involved; these were teenagers. There is an investigation that is going on. We are aware of the reports from the [Israeli army] that this was a counter-terrorism act,” she said during a briefing.
“We need to learn more about the nature of what happened on the ground, but we’re aware of that, yes.”
NOTE: This follows the pattern of the Biden administration: acknowledging the fact that an incident happened, asserting the pro-Israel perspective, declaring there is not enough information, and claiming that Israel is “investigating.”
Israel’s self-investigations – on the rare occasions when they do take place – consistently whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators.
RELATED:
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Yemen Strike JD Vance Called “Excellent” on Signal Reportedly Killed a Newborn
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How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza
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The State Department Says Israel Isn’t Blocking Aid. Videos Show The Opposite.
Trump freezes over $1bn in funds for US universities over Israel protests
The Trump administration has blocked more than $1bn in funding for Cornell University and $790m for Northwestern University, citing civil rights investigations, Reuters reports.
A US official, speaking anonymously, said the suspended funds cover grants from multiple federal departments, including health, education and defense.
This crackdown follows a warning to 60 universities over what the Trump administration claims is antisemitism on university campuses. However critics argue that in reality the administration working alongside pro-Israeli and Zionist groups is seeking to silence pro-Palestinian voices.
Last week, the government began reviewing $9bn in grants to Harvard, and last month, it scrapped $400m for Columbia – ground zero for last year’s pro-Palestine protests.
Trump has accused student demonstrators of being antisemitic and backing Hamas. But protesters, including Jewish activists, argue the administration is conflating criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza with hate speech.
NOTE: Pro-Israel organizations consistently work to silence Palestine advocacy on campus – a free speech violation. Strategies include blocking prestigious appointments of and events with supporters of Palestinian rights, threatening to withhold major donations, and more.
Typically, any move by university administration that defies the standard pro-Israel position is followed by an apology like the one Sonoma State University’s president Mike Lee issued – an apology that recognizes only the sentiments of pro-Israel students and ignoring the actual issues of free speech and divestment from Israel.
Pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses have overall been peaceful and non-confrontational, and have notably included a significant number of Jewish students. When there has been violence, it has come from pro-Israel counter-protesters and police.
The silencing of pro-Palestine campus protest violates students’ and professors’ rights to free speech.
It is also notable that pro-Israel orgs regularly sponsor trips to Israel for influencers and the influence-able – trips that invariably provide a whitewashed view of Israel and no exposure to the Palestinian narrative, and by withholding the truth, “buy” new Israel partisans.
RELATED:
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Harvard plans to borrow $750m after federal funding threats
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Princeton University protesters shut down former Israeli prime minister’s event
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Campus Police Are Using Israeli Spy Tech to Crack Down on Student Protest
Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours and barely mentioned Gaza. That’s no surprise
It was not until hour 13, more than halfway through his oratorial marathon, that Cory Booker engaged at any length with the subject of Israel and Palestine. It was not about the war. Instead, he was condemning the Trump administration’s attacks on free speech at universities and its summary deportation of legally resident foreign students who “espouse certain views on topics like Israel and Palestine”.
The senator recounted the abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Turkish Tufts University graduate student who was surrounded on the street by masked plainclothes agents, handcuffed and hustled into an unmarked vehicle, then shipped to a hellish Louisiana detention center, where she faces deportation – all apparently because she co-wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper urging the college to divest from Israel. “Her arrest,” said Booker, “looks like a kidnapping that you might expect to see in Moscow rather than in the streets of Boston.” True.
Denouncing censorship, the senator self-censored. “Certain views on topics”: he neglected to specify which views. He didn’t say that punishment is being meted out exclusively to critics of Israel and never to its supporters, or that those supporters are supplying homeland security with the names of the critics – in other words, collaborating in the very violations of constitutional rights that he decries.
The atrocities Israel has been committing in Gaza since the temporary ceasefire collapsed are arguably the worst yet. Trump is cheering Bibi on like a fan at a wrestling match. His support of Israel’s policies is not only unconsciously racist, like Biden’s, but blatantly racist. Yet few Democrats are saying – or, more importantly, doing – anything to stop him.
In fact, a few days after the speech, Booker voted against Bernie Sanders’ resolutions to block $8.8bn in arms sales to the Netanyahu government. Only 14 of his colleagues voted in favor (continue reading here).
RELATED: Israel’s genocide aims to revive the old Zionist dream of Gaza without Palestinians
Ben-Gvir to Embark on Official Visit to U.S. After Being Boycotted by Biden Administration
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir will travel for an official visit to the U.S. after Passover, after the previous administration boycotted him and U.S. State Department even considered imposing sanctions on him at the time.
Ben-Gvir’s office told Haaretz that he is expected to meet during the visit in Washington with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem.
Ben-Gvir also plans to visit Miami and New York, where he is expected to meet with members of the Jewish community and activists from his party, Otzma Yehudit.
MORE NEWS:
Middle East Monitor: Belgium PM: We will not arrest Netanyahu
Anadolu Agency: 1,700 millionaires left Israel amid Gaza war: Report
The Intercept: Trump Appears to Be Targeting Muslim and “Non-White” Students for Deportation
Anadolu Agency: Microsoft fires engineers over protesting AI supply to Israeli military
IMEMC Daily Reports
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – APRIL 8, 2025:
- At least 51,647 Palestinians killed, 123,410 injured – including:
- at least 50,695 killed in Gaza (~15,600 children)
- at least 952 killed in the West Bank (~187 children)
- at least 115,338 injured in Gaza
- at least 8,072 injured in the West Bank
According to Palestinian authorities, during the ceasefire Jan. 19- March 18 2025, Israeli attacks killed at least 150 Gazans, and Israel committed at least 962 ceasefire violations.
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 – April 8, 2025: ~1,592 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 407 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.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- 17,000 Gazan orphans: Crisis most catastrophic in modern history
- Ms. Rachel targeted by pro-Israel group for calling to feed starving Palestinian children
- Weeks after returning home, residents again flee under IDF fire
- IDF kills American 14-year old boy visiting his West Bank family
- In Gaza’s hospitals, treatable patients face ‘slow, quiet death’
- Pro-Israel group targeting UPenn is tied to trustee’s family
- Key October 7 “mass rapes” witness denounced by Israeli reporter
- 17-year-old Palestinian starved to death in Israeli prison
- The Gaza paramedic killings: a visual timeline
- Congress must keep weapons out of Israel if Trump likes it or not
- Susan Abulhawa’s reply to PEN America’s complicity with genocide
- The U.S. has become a two-tier country: Israel partisans on top
- Israel’s Genocide Has Killed More Journalists Than WWI and WWII Combined: Report
- ‘Every Atrocity Imaginable’: Litany of Israeli War Crimes Continues
- Inside Israel’s ‘torture’ jails where Palestinians held without charge tell of brutal treatment
- Announcement: If Americans Knew Video Countering Israeli Propaganda
- Israel’s latest vision for Gaza has a name: Concentration camp
- The US is disappearing dissenters in broad daylight
- The Zionist Destruction of American Higher Education
