Palestinians | Pakistan

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military kept up its assault on Gaza City and the wider Gaza Strip on Saturday, dismantling underground shafts and booby-trapped structures in attacks that left 87 Palestinians dead, 70 of them in Gaza City. The civil defence agency said 11 were killed when warplanes struck the Dughmush family in the city’s Al-Sabra neighbourhood. The assault came as 10 countries including Australia, Belgium, Britain and Canada are scheduled to formally recognise an independent Palestinian state on Monday, ahead of the annual gathering at the UN General Assembly. Israel’s intensified military demolition campaign targeting high-rise buildings in Gaza City began this week alongside a ground assault. Its forces, which control Gaza City’s eastern suburbs, have in recent days been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al Hawa areas from where they would be positioned to advance on central and western parts of the city, where most of the population is sheltering. Hamas warns lives of Israeli prisoners are in danger...

A FORMER security contractor for controversial new Israel and US-backed aid distribution sites witnessed colleagues opening fire several times on hungry Palestinians who had posed no threat. Speaking to BBC News, the contractor recalled one occasion when a guard had opened fire from a watchtower with a machine gun because a group of women, children and elderly people were moving away from the site too slowly. Although the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has denied the allegations, claiming no civilians ever came under fire at their distribution sites, the BBC recorded 24 incidents where aid seekers were killed in large numbers. The GHF began its operations at the end of May after an 11-week total blockade of Gaza by Israel, during which no food entered the territory. Since it started, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians trying to retrieve food aid from its sites, the UN and local doctors say. Guards ‘fire into unarmed crowds, then laugh about it’ Describing the incident where guards fired...

Aid agencies, medics warn Palestinians of famine, collapse of medical services

A countrywide shutdown strike, called by Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) to show solidarity with Palestinians, has led to the closure of major commercial centers across various cities in Pakistan.