Albanese said she hoped the move by Spain was the beginning of more Western countries “taking similar actions” to “stand on the right side of history”.
“Words of condemnation are meaningless without action. In fact, decades of mere words have allowed Israel to escalate its lawlessness towards the Palestinians into genocide,” she wrote on social media.
Palestinian children are facing death and serious injuries from unexploded bombs scattered throughout the Gaza Strip, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA has said in its latest update, Al Jazeera reports.
In the most recent incident on June 29, a nine-year-old girl was reportedly killed, and three others injured, by an unexploded bomb south of Khan Younis, OCHA said. Eight other children have been injured in two other recent incidents involving unexploded bombs, OCHA added.
According to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), at least 10 percent of ammunition potentially fails to function, meaning many of the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of ruin debris in Gaza contain explosives.
Khan Younis resident Ahmed al-Bairam said there was no time to take anything, following the Israeli military’s orders for people to leave the eastern part of the war-torn city in southern Gaza.
“God knows where we will go tomorrow,” he told Reuters, speaking of his latest displacement by the Israeli military.
“We came from the eastern area then we moved to the European hospital, then we went to Rafah, then we came back to Bani Suheila, then we returned to Nasser Hospital and now we just went up the Somood camp,’ Al-Bairam said of his search to find safety for his family from Israeli attacks.
“It is tiring, tiring, tiring. This time we did not take anything with us. There is no time to carry anything,” he said.
“There is no transportation, basically. I have children with me and they all walk.”
The father of 6-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab — whose killing in an Israeli tank attack in January garnered global attention — has also been reported killed in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
US journalist Jeremy Scahill said in a post on X that he had learned of the death from Palestinian journalist and documentary maker Ashraf Mashharawi, who recently spoke with Hind’s mother. Hind’s mother found out her husband had been killed by text message, after the family was separated under Israel’s ongoing Gaza siege, Scahill said.
The Israeli tank attack which killed Hind also killed her three cousins, her aunt and uncle. Two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics sent to rescue Hind were also killed, Scahill said.
The Palestinian Authority has pledged to give greater backing to NGOs in Gaza as it warned that 300,000 families in the beleaguered territory are “marginalised” and need assistance, AFP reports.
The authority held a meeting with about 15 NGOs and aid groups who have complained about increasing problems getting aid into the Gaza Strip and distributing food and other essentials around the territory where Israel has been fighting Hamas for more than eight months.
While the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the occupied West Bank, has virtually no influence in Gaza, the authority’s emergency relief minister Basil al-Kafarna acknowledged the mounting dangers and said: “We are here to support the non-governmental organisations and the agencies for humanitarian relief in the Gaza Strip.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is almost finished with eliminating Hamas’ military capabilities in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reports.
“We are advancing to the end of the phase of eliminating the terrorist army of Hamas, and there will be a continuation to strike its remnants,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office.The Israeli army has ordered civilians to evacuate parts of Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza, AFP reports.
The warning for the Al-Qarara, Bani Suheila and other towns in the two governorates, made on social media and in an official statement, came hours after Israel said 20 “projectiles” were fired into Israel from the Khan Younis region.
