Graphic images have revealed the brutality of the massacre by Hamas — with CT scans exposing the harrowing final moments of some victims.
As Sunday dawned in the Middle East, the Israeli military followed through on a promise to intensify its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, its stated aim being to minimise the threat to its soldiers when they begin an anticipated ground invasion.
Israel has repeatedly warned residents of northern Gaza, of whom there are more than a million, to move south for their safety. According to the United Nations, more than half of the Gazan population is now internally displaced.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians are believed to still be in and around Gaza City in the north, as they’re either unwilling or unable to leave.
Read on for the latest news.
A former European Union envoy to Gaza is being slammed for allegedly empowering Hamas to use paragliders, the very devices employed by the Palestinian terrorists to invade Israel and kill more than 1400.
Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, a German diplomat, crowed on video in July that he was conducting “the first Gaza paragliding flight in history” as he soared over Gaza’s coast while shouting, “Free Palestine!”
The giddy then-EU envoy told Palestinians in the footage that once they’re free, “You can do exactly the same thing.”
But rather than seeing Palestinians enjoy recreational paragliding as he advocated, such gliders were instead used by Hamas to kill Israelis on October 7.
Israel has since declared war on Hamas and launched devastating airstrikes on Gaza, prompting Mr von Burgsdorff to condemn the Jewish state, claiming it “doesn’t matter what Hamas did”, Israel Hayom reported.
“It cannot be that Israel has carte blanche because terrible acts, cruel and shocking acts happened to 1000 or even 1200 Israelis,” Mr von Burgsdorff said during a recent radio interview. “This is not the excuse you can use to flatten Gaza.”
The former diplomat found himself in the middle of the debate raging around the Israel-Hamas war after the video resurfaced of him taking to the skies over Gaza in July, claiming Palestinians could enjoy things such as paragliding and kayaking if Israel ended its blockade.
Israel’s foreign ministry condemned the spectacle at the time as a form of “provocative” propaganda that only serves to empower Hamas.
“The European diplomat forgot a long time ago that he represents the European Union and its member states,” the ministry said in a statement.
“[He] continues to represent the Palestinian narrative and to be a propaganda tool in the hands of the terrorist organisations that control Gaza.”
A rep for the EU delegation to the Palestinians told Reuters that the paraglider used in the stunt belonged to von Burgsdorff.
Von Burgsdorff left his post in Gaza in August but has continued to voice his opposition to Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territory, most recently involving its airstrikes.
With more than 4700 Palestinians killed since October 7, the diplomat said in the radio interview that nothing justified “the use of such deadly force without distinction and proportionality as far as the Palestinian population in Gaza is concerned.
“It cannot be that Israel is threatening to bomb corridors and shipments carrying humanitarian equipment. It cannot be. It is another war crime if it happens,” he added.
He did not condemn Hamas’ attack in Israel that targeted hundreds of innocent civilians, many of them women and children, and also involved the kidnapping more than 200 people, including at least a dozen Americans.
Mr von Burgsdorff could not be immediately reached for comment.
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