Fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters continued in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood, trapping thousands of people without access to food or medical care.
A senior Hamas official said there’s been no progress in ceasefire talks, but the Palestinian group remains ready to “deal positively” with any proposal that includes a “permanent ceasefire”.
The Arab League, the European Union, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar slammed Israel’s decision to legalise five settlements as an Israeli minister promised to bring “a million” new settlers into the occupied West Bank.
At least 37,834 people have been killed and 86,858 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks is estimated at 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.
115,000 Palestinians from Gaza have fled to Egypt during war: Report
The number includes several thousand sick and wounded Palestinians who were medically evacuated, The Washington Post reported, citing the Palestinian embassy in Cairo.
The rest reached Egypt with assistance from foreign embassies or through a private Egyptian travel agency, which charges large sums to coordinate their exit, the Post added.
“Most remain in limbo, with no legal status and nowhere else to go,” it reports. “They are members of a new diaspora of Palestinians, a people already haunted by memories of displacement.”
When former Guantanamo detainee Asadullah Haroon looks at pictures of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, the memories of his own abuse and torture in US detention centres come flooding back.
“This is the worst form of oppression,” he says. “When you are labelled as a terrorist you cannot defend yourself in any way. Without a doubt, it’s the same process; they are torturing the people in the same way. I think the Americans have made this and the Israelis are implementing it.”
Haroon, who won his case against the US government for illegal imprisonment in 2021, was held without charge in the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba for 16 years following his arrest in 2007. Without a doubt, he says, Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are enduring similar treatment to that he experienced.
“It’s like in the first days when I was arrested, I was beaten to an extent that I was standing; I couldn’t sit down or if I was sitting down and beaten up, I couldn’t get up. Same with insomnia and I was assaulted for several days. A lot of the prisoners were bitten by dogs. We were provided very little medical care.
“Physical torture was really bad, but the worst was mental torture in different forms. I believe there isn’t much of a difference in the torture of prisoners of Palestine, Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib.”
