Israel’s genocidal war completed 130 days on February 13, as international concern and opposition to the Israeli invasion of Gaza continues to grow. Dozens of heads of state from countries across the globe, international bodies, and aid organizations, as well as the Church of England, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, and many other renowned figures and institutions, have for the last two days warned Israel against invading the southern city of Rafah. International aid organizations that operate in Gaza have stated that an invasion of Rafah would be catastrophic for the more than 1 million internally displaced Palestinians who have nowhere else to go.
Read more: There is no place for the Palestinians of Gaza to go
In yet another indication of the increasing opposition to the deadly Israeli bombardment in Gaza, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has also urged countries worldwide to stop supplying arms to Israel. Borrell reportedly was responding to US president Joe Biden’s description of calling Israel’s conduct in Gaza as “over the top”, to which he said, “well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people having been killed. Is [it] not logical? How many times have you heard the most prominent leaders and foreign ministers around the world saying too many people are being killed? If the international community believes that this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe we have to think about the provision of arms.”
Read more: Israel declares war on Rafah, the last safe zone in Gaza
Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment and ground assaults in the last day have reportedly killed and injured dozens of Palestinians in Rafah, the Nuseirat refugee camp, Khan Younis, among other parts of Gaza. Several people have also reportedly been shot dead by Israeli army snipers in the vicinity of the Nasser hospital, with their bodies still lying outside in the open, along with those of others who have been killed in similar fashion in the last few days as Israeli forces continue their 17-day siege of the hospital. The United Nations’ humanitarian agency, OCHA, has said that “reports indicate that several fatalities have been lying on the ground around the hospital, for several days, and have been unreachable due to continued attacks in the hospital’s vicinity.”
Two more journalists were also killed and two others injured in the last two days of the ongoing Israeli bombardment. The two slain journalists have been identified as Alaa Hassan Al-Hams of the local SND News Agency and Angham Ahmed Adwan of Libya’s February channel. The two were reportedly killed in Israeli attacks in Rafah and Jabalia in the last two days. Two other journalists working with Al Jazeera have reportedly been injured today in Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, with latest reports noting that the two have been taken to the European hospital in Khan Younis, one of them currently in a serious condition.
Since the Israeli war on Gaza began last year in October, at least 127 journalists have been killed and many others have been injured.
Meanwhile, the latest numbers from the Palestinian Ministry of Health indicate that the overall death toll in Gaza has risen to at least 28,473 Palestinians killed by Israel, including more than 12,300 children and 8,400 women, along with more than 68,146 injured.
