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100 Palestinians Killed in Weekend of Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza
Victims include 22 members of one family massacred in their Gaza City home.
Apr 27, 2025
Israel Defense Forces bombing killed at least 100 Palestinians including numerous women and children in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, while the IDF also renewed airstrikes on Lebanon as cease-fire talks between senior Hamas and Egyptian officials wrapped up in Cairo without any breakthrough.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli strikes killed at least 51 Palestinians over the previous 24 hours. Among the victims were eight people, including three women and two children, killed in an IDF bombing of a tent in Khan Younis; a man and four children slain in another strike on a tent in Deir al-Balah; and at least six people who died when a coffee shop near the Bureij refugee camp was hit.
The ministry said Saturday that at least 49 Palestinians were killed during the preceding 24 hours, including 22 members of the al-Khour family who were sheltering in their Gaza City home when it was bombed.
The IDF said the strike targeted a Hamas militant. Israel's military relaxed rules of engagement after the October 7, 2023 attack to allow an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
Saed al-Khour, who is grieving the loss of his family, refuted Israel's claim, tellingThe Associated Press that "there is no one from the resistance" among the victims.
"We have been pulling out the remains of children, women, and elderly people," al-Khour added.
Israel's U.S.-backed 569-day assault on Gaza has left at least 183,800 Palestinians dead, injured, or missing. Nearly all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened amid a "complete siege" that is cited in an International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for the pair last year.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces unleashed a wave of bombing attacks in Lebanon in what critics called a blatant violation of a November cease-fire agreement with the resistance group Hezbollah. The IDF bombed targets in southern Lebanon and in suburbs of the capital city of Beirut.
The IDF, which said it warned residents ahead of the Beirut airstrike, claimed it attacked "an infrastructure where precision missiles" were being stored by Hezbollah, without providing any supporting evidence.
Israel says it will continue its assault and siege on Gaza until Hamas releases the two dozen Israeli and other hostages it has imprisoned since October 2023. Hamas counters that it will only free the hostages in an exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a complete withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza, and a new cease-fire agreement. Israel unilaterally broke a January cease-fire last month.
A senior Hamas delegation left Cairo late Saturday following days of talks regarding a possible deal for a multi-year truce and the release of all remaining hostages. The head of Israel's Mossad spy agency was also in Qatar earlier this week for separate cease-fire talks. Qatari mediators said they believed there has been "some progress" in both sides' willingness to reach an agreement.
United Nations agencies and international humanitarian groups—many of which have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war—have warned in recent days of the imminent risk of renewed famine in Gaza as food stocks run out.
"Children in Gaza are starving," the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
said on social media Sunday. "The government of Israel continues to block the entry of food and other basics. [This is a] man-made and politically motivated starvation."
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Israeli Assault on Gaza, West Bank Continues in 'Final Stage' of Cease-Fire Talks
"As a cease-fire in Gaza is near, Israel is expanding its assault on the West Bank," said one expert. "It was always a war on Palestinian existence."
Jan 14, 2025
As negotiators in Qatar navigated the "final stage" of a cease-fire agreement to end the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, Israel's forces on Tuesday continued to kill Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave and the illegally occupied West Bank.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed at least 46,645 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 110,012, with over 10,000 others missing, health officials said Tuesday. The true death toll could be much higher. A peer-reviewed analysis published last week in The Lancetfound that the official tally through last June was likely a 41% undercount.
The Palestinian National Authority's news agency WAFA reported Tuesday that IDF shelling killed at least two civilians at the Nuseirat refugee camp and a correspondent in Gaza City "said that Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, and another house in the Manara neighborhood, south of Khan Younis City, killing several civilians and injuring others."
According to multiple media outlets, Israeli forces also killed at least 13 people in an attack on a home in Deir al-Balah.
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its assault on Gaza and in November the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
In addition to waging war on Gaza over the past 15 months, Israel has stepped up its military activity in the West Bank—where a Tuesday strike on the Jenin refugee camp killed at least six Palestinians and wounded several others. The Times of Israelreported that "the IDF said it carried out the strike in a joint operation with the Shin Bet, without immediately providing further information."
The Israeli newspaper also noted that "on Tuesday evening, as on many previous Tuesday nights, thousands gather for a unity rally of prayer and song held in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square," while hundreds of right-wing demonstrators blocked "an intersection in central Jerusalem, in protest of the ongoing hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas."
According to a draft obtained by The Associated Press, the first part of the three-stage deal would involve a halt to the fighting, both sides releasing captives, displaced Palestinians in Gaza returning home, and more humanitarian aid entering the strip.
Phase two would feature a declaration of "sustainable calm" and Hamas freeing more hostages in exchange for additional Palestinian prisoners and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, AP reported. The third part would include an exchange of bodies, a reconstruction plan for the strip—where civilian infrastructure is in ruins—and the reopening of border crossings.
"The terms of the deal being negotiated are largely consistent with what was on the table last May when outgoing President Joe Biden first announced it. Biden allowed Netanyahu to steamroll him for months—rewarding Israel with billions of dollars in arms transfers and political support after rejecting that cease-fire deal," Jeremy Scahill detailed at Drop Site News.
The latest cease-fire talks come as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares for his inauguration next Monday. The Republican has been pushing for a resolution to Israel's assault on Gaza—or at least an appearance of one—before he returns to office.
"The fact that Trump emerged as the decisive player in pushing a potential cease-fire forward is evidence that Biden never used the full powers available to a sitting U.S. president to seal the deal in the summer," wrote Scahill. "While Trump has publicly repeated his threat that he will 'unleash hell' on Hamas if the Israeli hostages are not freed, his pressure has not been solely focused on Hamas; Trump and his aides have made clear to Netanyahu that the president-elect expects Israel to comply with his demands, too."
Netanyahu on Tuesday told hostages' families that "he is willing to agree to a prolonged cease-fire Gaza in exchange for their return," according toHaaretz. Later Tuesday, The Times of Israelreported that the prime minister was meeting with "Israel's hostage negotiation team and with members of Israel's security establishment," and expected negotiations to go through the night.
Even if a deal is reached regarding Gaza, some experts fear the bloodshed will continue there and in the West Bank
"There will possibly be an end to the Gaza war, but there will be now another war in the West Bank," Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian analyst and director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University, told Scahill. "It may not be on the same scale, but it would be as vicious from the settlers, from the Netanyahu government."
Gazan writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada wrote for the U.S.-based Center for International Policy last week that a senior Arab official told him the U.S. president-elect asked the Qataris and Egyptians to finalize a deal before he takes office but the Israeli prime minister "is not budging while at the same time issuing false positive statements of a breakthrough and progress to buy time and pretend to seek a deal until Trump is in office, where Netanyahu can trade the Gaza war for something big in the West Bank."
Sharing on social media a video of the Tuesday strike on Jenin, Middle East expert Assal Rad said that "as a cease-fire in Gaza is near, Israel is expanding its assault on the West Bank. The Gaza genocide is only the most recent atrocity Israel—with the help of the U.S.—has carried out against Palestinians. The same story for 77+ years. It was always a war on Palestinian existence."
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Wyden Probes 'Deeply Concerning' Kushner Firm Payments From Gulf Monarchies
The Senate Finance Committee chair accused the former Trump adviser of "creating significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks."
Jun 12, 2024
U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden on Wednesday announced a new probe into Trump-era White House adviser Jared Kushner's private investment firm Affinity Partners, 99% of whose $3 billion under management comes from foreign sources, mainly the sovereign wealth funds of Gulf dictatorships.
"It is deeply concerning that several Middle Eastern governments are using funds managed by Affinity as a means to pay tens of millions of dollars in fees every year to former President [Donald] Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, creating significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks," Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a letter to Lauren Key, Affinity's chief financial officer.
"These arrangements also raise concerns that Affinity's exclusively foreign-funded private investment funds are being exploited as a loophole by Mr. Kushner and other former U.S. government officials as a means to avoid complying with the Foreign Agents Registration Act and other U.S. laws requiring U.S. persons to disclose payments from foreign governments," the senator said.
Wyden pointed out that almost all of the money under management by Affinity comes from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar:
The largest source of funding for Affinity appears to be a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)... made in June 2021, shortly after Mr. Kushner left the White House. The remaining $1 billion is split between sovereign wealth funds owned by the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar; Terry Gou, a Taiwanese billionaire and politician who is the founder of the world's largest electronics manufacturer; and another investor whose identity has not been publicly reported.
Wyden said the Saudi PIF buy-in "raises concerns that the investment was a reward for official actions Kushner took to benefit the Saudi government, including preventing accountability for the Saudi government ordering the brutal murder" of journalist and permanent U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
"Private investment funds that take money exclusively from foreign politically exposed investors present heightened national security and other risks," Wyden's letter asserts. "From a national security perspective, the U.S. government has recently highlighted how the opacity and lightly regulated status of private funds can present risk to national security."
Wyden is asking Key to list all of Affinity's clients, how much they've invested, and their annual rates of return. The senator is also seeking information about the company's employees; their roles, responsibilities, and compensation; and "whether the individual meets with or liaises directly with representatives of foreign sovereign wealth funds, including the Saudi PIF, as part of their professional responsibilities."
This isn't the first time that Wyden has questioned Kushner's business ties to Gulf dictatorships. In 2022, the senator sought details regarding possible Qatari involvement in a 2018 real estate deal in which Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian firm, paid Kushner Companies for a 99-year-lease on 666 5th Avenue, one of the premier properties in the Kushner family portfolio.
Earlier this year, House Democrats led by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) urged colleagues to hold hearings over Kushner's "apparent influence peddling and quid pro quos" during the period in which he led critical foreign policy negotiations including over the Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and several Middle Eastern and North African nations.
During his White House tenure, Kushner faced repeated calls to resign as Trump's senior adviser, mostly over concerns about possible conflicts of interest related to his business dealings.
Kushner
said earlier this year that he will not accept any official administration position if Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, despite his recent felony conviction and dozens of pending federal and state criminal charges—is reelected.
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