- The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that a baby girl has died in Rafah, as concerns mount over a “sanitation crisis” amid rising temperatures in Gaza.
- Fifteen people, including women and children, have been killed in the latest Israeli bombardments of the Nuseirat refugee camp, Khan Younis and Rafah, Al Jazeera’s correspondent and the Wafa news agency report.
- The Israeli army says plans are “moving ahead” for a ground invasion of Rafah despite widespread warnings of the worsening humanitarian crisis in the overcrowded city where more than one million displaced people have sought shelter.
- New York’s Columbia University tells students it will consider divesting from Israel as antiwar campus protests around the world call for an end to funding and political support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
- At least 34,388 Palestinians have been killed and 77,437 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attacks stands at 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.
- Surgeon describes harrowing injuries at Rafah hospitalDr Junaid Sultan, a vascular surgeon who recently returned from a two-week mission in Gaza at Rafah’s European Hospital, has described to Al Jazeera the severe injuries he treated at the strained health facility.Most patients rushed to the hospital after Israeli military attacks suffered from four types of injuries: gunshots, blasts wounds, shrapnel, or burns, said Sultan.
- Gunshot wounds, he said, usually hit major blood-vessels in victims’ knees, arms, shoulders, necks or spines, often leading to crippling disabilities if patients survive.Blast injuries are “notorious” for completely fracturing major bones, Sultan said. He often saw blast victims entering the facility with “dangling limbs”, forcing them to undergo amputations.Shrapnel injuries, Sultan said, can penetrate “any part of the body”, and were often lodged in victims’ thighs, abdomens, chests, or necks.
- Palestinian president, international leaders to meet in Riyadh for Gaza talksThe meetings in the Saudi capital are expected to take place in the coming days on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF).“We do have the key players now in Riyadh and hopefully the discussions can lead into a process towards reconciliation and peace,” WEF President Borge Brende told a news conference, noting that Gaza’s humanitarian crisis would be on the agenda.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will attend the meetings alongside regional leaders, including Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, he said.Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Oman’s crown prince and Bahraini officials will also be there, while Egypt’s foreign minister will update officials on a round of talks Egyptian negotiators held in Israel on Friday in an effort to restart stalled efforts to end the fighting in Gaza and return the remaining Israeli captives.“There is now a bit of momentum for negotiations on the hostages and also a possible ceasefire,” Brende said.
- ‘Gaza is why we’re here’: Students say reason for protests risks being lostThe growing protests sweeping US university campuses have spurred heated debates around freedom of speech, Palestinian solidarity activism in the US, and the use of force to disperse student protesters, among other issues.But the students at the heart of the movement say the reason they began their demonstrations – the pressing need to end Israel’s deadly bombardment of Gaza – risks being lost amid a cacophony of voices and distractions.“Gaza is why we’re here. Gaza is why we’re doing this,” Rue, a student at The New School in New York City who asked to only be identified by her first name due to a fear of reprisals, told Al Jazeera. “The New School encampment is happening because we want to make sure that we are doing what we can to end this genocide.”The students have issued a list of demands to their respective universities, including divesting from any companies that may be profiting from the Gaza war or providing the Israeli military with weapons and other support.“As students who are being taught in class about colonialism, about Indigenous rights, about the effect of non-violent protest across history, it would be extremely hypocritical – or it would totally undermine the point of our education – if we didn’t act,” a 25-year-old PhD student at New York University told Al Jazeera.“At the very least we can show that there was resistance” to what is happening in the Gaza Strip, the student said. “The horrors in Gaza are really beyond imagining. These small acts of resistance, these are small sacrifices – [they] are nothing compared to what is happening on the ground in Palestine.”
- If you’re just joining usHere’s a recap of the latest developments:
- Fifteen people, including eight children, have been killed by overnight Israeli attacks on homes in Rafah and Nuseirat refugee camps.Israeli forces have killed two Palestinians during a raid in Jenin and arrested 20 others in raids throughout the occupied West Bank.The two Palestinians killed in Jenin were left to “bleed out” for an hour while Israeli forces blocked ambulances from reaching them, reports Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi.Beit Lahiya mayor Alaa al-Attar has said Israeli military attacks have wrecked 70 percent of northern Gaza’s water wells and 50 percent of its sewage pumps, worsening sanitary conditions.Pro-Palestine protests are continuing across dozens of US universities for a second week, with students demanding the institutions they pay tuition to divest from Israel.University solidarity protests have also emerged globally – from France and Italy to Australia.
- Palestinians killed in Jenin raid were ‘left to bleed out’Reporting from Ramallah, occupied West BankSo far, across the West Bank, there have been four raids on cities and seven on villages and towns. And just in the last 30 minutes, we’ve heard that west of Ramallah, a village is now being raided by Israeli forces.The raid on Tulkarem ended three or four hours ago. We know that Israeli forces went in and took security cameras off the street in front of Palestinian homes that residents use to monitor the raids.What we assume is that the Israeli military was looking for a commander of the Palestinian resistance fighters’ battalion in Tulkarem. It was widely reported that Israeli forces killed this commander a few weeks ago during a three-day raid on the camp, but when the dust settled from that raid, it turned out that he was still alive, remaining a thorn no doubt in the side of the Israeli forces.In a raid on Jenin, young Palestinians were killed. What we know is that they were left to bleed out for about an hour before ambulances were allowed to arrive and attend to them.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/4/27/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israel-bombards-gaza-as-student-protests-spread
