Jerusalem, Oct 29 (IANS) Societal order is beginning to collapse in the besieged Gaza Strip after thousands of desperate people raided UN warehouses in search of food, amid continuing bombardment by Israeli airstrikes and a widening ground offensive as the war enters its fourth week, a media report said.

Thomas White, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said on Sunday that wheat, flour and hygiene supplies had been taken overnight from several UN-run centres across the blockaded 41 km by 12 km strip, home to more than 2 million trapped people, The Guardian reported.

“This is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege. The needs of the communities are immense, if only for basic survival, while the aid we receive is meagre and inconsistent,” White said.

Basic services in Gaza have crumbled after three weeks of a near-total siege, leaving people exposed to serious outbreaks of disease as streets overflow with sewage, and food, water and medicine run out, The Guardian reported.

Israel sharply escalated an already devastating aerial campaign on the coastal exclave on Friday night that has killed more than 8,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Under the cover of strikes and artillery, Israeli ground troops have begun moving into the north of the strip, in the areas of Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as the “second stage of war” triggered by Hamas’ rampage across southern Israel on October 7, when it killed 1,400 people and kidnapped 230 hostages, The Guardian reported.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that over the last 24 hours, they had hit 450 targets belonging to Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that seized control of Gaza in 2007, including command centres, observation posts and anti-tank guided missile launch positions, as well as another 150 targets underground in the north of the territory.

Ground fighting was also reported to the east of the Bureij refugee camp and the city of Khan Younis in central Gaza -- approach routes for Israeli incursions in the past, the report said.

Gaza, Oct 23 (IANS) A top UN official said on Monday that fuel requirement for the besieged Gaza Strip is as “urgent as water and food", adding that the two aid convoys that entered the Hamas-controlled enclave over the weekend have barely alleviated the dire conditions.

Speaking to CNN, UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) Communications Director Tamara Alrifai said: “Without fuel, it is not going to be possible to go around Gaza... Or to power the water desalination plant to get clean drinking water or to power hospitals and the lifesaving machines."

Alrifai said humanitarian aid that entered Gaza was “a fraction” of what is needed for over 400,000 displaced people currently taking shelters in schools run by UNRWA, adding the situation is “very, very dire”.

She told CNN that people in Gaza were being forced to ration food, “even counting the minimum required calories per person per day per survival”.

“We are really counting on a continuous and unimpeded access of the trucks from Rafah into Gaza.”

Israel had previously said that fuel won’t be allowed into Gaza.

As the weekend witnessed intensified Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, doctors described “catastrophic” conditions at one central hospital as electricity and fuel supplies run out and crippled medical facilities rapidly become overwhelmed with casualties, reports CNN.

Iyad Issa Abu Zaher, director general of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital, described a “bloody day” for his staff to CNN on Sunday, saying the hospital had received up to 166 bodies and more than 300 injured people.

“It’s impossible for any hospital in the world to admit this number of injured,” he said.

Aid has been piling up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing that connects to Gaza.

The vital passage was briefly opened over the weekend, delivering the first convoy of 20 aid trucks into besieged Gaza on October 21, and another 14 trucks passed through it the following day.

London, Oct 22 (IANS) An apparently fairly important leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Muhammad Qassem Sawalha, lives in London in a flat he bought from the local Barnet Council.

This was disclosed in a sensational headline story in The Sunday Times.  

Hamas carried out a sudden attack on Israel on October 7, killing an estimated 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking approximately 200 Israeli citizens as hostages, who are being held in Gaza. The action has generated one of the worst crises between Israelis and Palestinians, since the partition of Palestine and the controversial creation of Israel on the former's soil in 1948.

Sawalha, 62, reportedly fled to Britain from the Palestinian administered territory of Gaza (now under heavy bombardment by Israeli military forces) in the 1990s, hoodwinking Israeli security with a relative’s passport. He thereafter obtained British citizenship. He was granted a British passport probably in the early 2000s.

In 2004, the United States Justice Department indicted him of illegally financing "terrorist activities" in Israel. The indictment alleged Sawalha continued to work for Hamas even after coming to London. 

In 2006, a BBC programme reported he was "said to have masterminded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy". It further charged that though MI5 – Britain’s internal intelligence agency – knew about Sawalha, they "let him operate freely here (in the UK)".

In 2009, Sawalha signed a declaration that praised Allah for having "routed the Zionist Jews". He is officially designated by Israeli authorities as belonging to Hamas and will be arrested if he returns to Israel, which is unlikely. He is said to have been a member of Hamas’ politburo between 2013 and 2017.

The British paper indicated it was in 2017 that it was confirmed that Sawalha continued to be involved with Hamas, when he joined the organisation’s official delegation to Russia. The Council of Muftis, a Russian Muslim body, posted on its website that Sawalha was ‘head’ of Hamas’ ‘foreign policy’. He was pictured with Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister.

London’s reputed Metropolitan Police force, popularly known as Scotland Yard, confirmed they received a referral in June 2020 mentioning a breach of the UK’s Terrorist Asset Freezing Act. This accusation was assessed by officers of the Yard's National Terrorist Financing Investigation Unit. In a statement they said: "It was determined that the evidential test was not met. No further action was taken."

The leader of Barnet Council, Barry Rawlings, remarked he was "horrified to think (Sawalha) could be living in our midst". He promised to review the case. 

Britain proscribed Hamas’ military wing on the perception that it was a terrorist outfit in 2001. However, it was not until 2021 that Hamas was banned in entirety. The Sunday Times stated he has kept a low profile since and is understood to divide his time between London and Istanbul.

Sawalha has never been charged with any crimes in or by the UK. He lives in a property he bought for 320,700 pounds in June 2021 with his wife Sawsan, 56. His lawyers told The Sunday Times that its approach to the investigative piece contained a "number of serious false allegations". They maintained: "Mr Sawalha is a law-abiding British citizen."

Jerusalem, Oct 18 (IANS) The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday posted a video on social media which included multiple shots showing the deadly Gaza hospital explosion, saying it was caused by a "failed rocket launch" and not an airstrike.

The IDF posted the 30-second video on X and said : "A failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City.

"IAF (Israel Air Force) footage from the area around the hospital before and after the failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization."

Using images showing fire damage to several vehicles in the hospital parking lot, the IDF video suggests that a fire broke out at the hospital as the result of the failed rocket launch, reports CNN.

The IDF added that there were no visible signs of craters or significant damage to buildings that would result from an airstrike.

Speaking to CNN on Wednesday, IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said the “first packet of information” was “evidence that clearly supports the fact that it could not have been an Israeli bomb".

“There was no collateral or significant damage to the buildings around it. No crater, and nothing that is similar to locations where Israeli bombs have struck."

Conricus also acknowledged that the IDF was slow to release information because it took hours for the Israeli military to “investigate and get to the bottom of the situation”. 

The Islamic Jihad movement however, has denied Israel's assertions that a failed rocket launch was responsible, claiming that it does not use public facilities such as hospitals for military purposes.

In a statement published on Wednesday , the group called the Israeli accusations as “false and baseless".

The Al-Ahli Hospital was sheltering thousands of displaced people when it was bombed on Tuesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement. 

Many victims are still under the rubble, it added.

While Hamas said that some 500 people were killed, the Ministry said the fatalities ranged from 200 to 300.

It was one of 20 hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military.

Out of 35 hospitals in the Hamas-controlled enclave, four are inoperable because of significant damage and direct targeting.

Gaza has a population of roughly 2 million and the raging conflict has displaced some 600,000 people, many of whom have sought safety in hospitals which are already overwhelmed with rising casualties and deaths.

The UN said that essential supplies such as food, water, and vital health medications are depleting in Gaza.

Gaza, Oct 15 (IANS) Israeli tanks have begun positioning themselves on the border fence with Gaza as the military build-up continues amid relentless bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave, media reports said.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced after Israel ordered 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to evacuate to the south amid a looming ground offensive.

At least 2,329 Palestinians, including 724 children, have been killed in Israeli air raids. The number of Israelis killed in Hamas’s military operation stands at 1,300 including 286 soldiers.

The Israeli military says it is striking targets in Lebanon after a missile attack by Hezbollah fighters killed a person in its territory. It comes as Iran warned Israel to cease its “war crimes” against Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.

Daniel Hagari, Israel’s army top spokesperson, says the military will operate “anywhere in the Middle East”.

“We are always looking around us, in the entire Middle East,” Hagari was quoted as saying by Israeli media.

“[The army] will operate anywhere in the Middle East to fulfill Israel’s security aims. We are highly prepared in all arenas,” he added, Al Jazeera reported.