Six newborn babies froze to death in Gaza, Israeli army killed one Palestinian in West Bank & killed 2 people in Lebanon
By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News):
GAZA
Six newborn babies froze to death in the Gaza Strip amid cold weather in the war-torn enclave, a Palestinian health official said on Tuesday.
“Six infants died from severe cold in Gaza,” Marwan al-Hams, Director General of Field Hospitals in Gaza, told the local Al-Aqsa TV.
He appealed for allowing access to power generators and oxygen stations to help hospitals provide services to Palestinians.
Saeed Salah, Director of the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in Gaza, told Anadolu early Tuesday that nine infants were hospitalized in the past two weeks due to health complications caused by severe cold.
“Of the nine cases, five babies aged between one day and two weeks died,” he said.
He said the nine babies were transferred to the hospital from northern Gaza, where most of the population has been displaced and living in tents following Israel’s destructive war on the enclave.
Salah appealed to the international community to intervene to allow the entry of mobile homes, tents, and fuel into Gaza to provide shelter to thousands of Palestinians.
Hamas blamed Israel’s “criminal policies” for the baby deaths in Gaza.
Gaza’s death toll from Israel’s destructive war since October 2023 has reached 48,348, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
A ministry statement said the body of one Palestinian was recovered from the rubble and another was killed by Israeli army fire in the last 24 hours.
Two more injured Palestinians were transferred to hospitals, taking the number of injuries to 111,761 in the Israeli onslaught, it added.
“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” the ministry said.
The Government Media Office updated its death toll to at least 61,709, saying thousands of Palestinians missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
WEST BANK
A Palestinian Tuesday evening succumbed to an injury he sustained from Israeli army gunfire in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, according to medical sources.
The sources said that Tareq Qassem al-Qassas died of a critical injury he had suffered in the chest after being hit by live ammunition fired by Israeli occupation forces in the course of their aggression in the city.
They elaborated that the occupation forces fired barrages of live ammunition, tear gas, and concussion bombs toward Palestinians in the vicinity of the western cemetery in the city, killing the young man and injuring 11 others.
As part of the 11 gunfire casualties, seven sustained injuries across their bodies from live gunfire shot by the occupying forces, three others sustained shrapnel injuries and another suffered an injury as a result of falling from a high place.
Israeli forces “fired live bullets, stun grenades, and toxic tear gas at civilians near the western cemetery on University Street in Nablus,” according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.
A young man died from a gunshot wound to his chest, and four others were wounded after being struck with live ammunition to various parts of their bodies, added the agency.
The report said the injuries included “three civilians wounded by bullet shrapnel, one injured due to a fall, and dozens suffering from tear gas inhalation, including a 7-month-old infant.”
A Palestinian was injured on Tuesday when illegal Israeli settlers attacked him while he was grazing his livestock in Khirbet Ibziq in the northern Jordan Valley.
The settlement file official in Tubas governorate, Moataz Basharat, said that settlers attacked a shepherd and injured him in the thigh, which necessitated his transfer to the hospital for treatment.
Shepherds in the northern Jordan Valley are subjected to continuous violations by armed settlers, including physical assaults, forcing them to leave their pastures, and attempts to steal their livestock.
Israeli occupation forces demolished a house and several structures in the town of Al-Issawiya, northeast of occupied Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem governorate reported that the occupation forces stormed the eastern area of the town and demolished a house belonging to a local resident, under the pretext that it was built without a license.
The occupation forces also demolished agricultural plastic houses and livestock pens, razed large-tract of lands and retaining walls. Additionally, the soldiers uprooted a number of trees.
The Israeli army staged a new military raid in Nablus on Tuesday, hours after withdrawing from the area, witnesses said.
Clashes erupted between angry Palestinians and Israeli forces, which fired tear gas canisters to disperse protesters, they added.
Paramedics said they treated several residents who suffered temporary asphyxiation caused by the Israeli gas.
The army withdrew its forces from the city at dawn after searching several shops.
A disabled Palestinian was stabbed by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, medics said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its medics transferred a 20-year-old man to a hospital in the northern city of Tubas after he was stabbed in the abdomen by illegal settlers.
No details were provided about the circumstances of the attack.
The Israeli army barred displaced Palestinians from returning to their homes in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Tuesday and threatened to kill a Palestinian journalist during her coverage of events.
The army continued its assault on the city of Jenin and its camp for the 35th day, the city of Tulkarem and its camp for the 29th day, and its incursions into the Nour Shams camp for a 16th day as part of a larger offensive in the northern West Bank.
An Anadolu cameraman captured scenes of Palestinian families attempting to return to Jenin surrounded by a heavy Israeli military presence, including tanks stationed in the area.
On Sunday evening, Israeli tanks entered the Jenin refugee camp in a military escalation not seen since 2002.
Abir Gazawi, a Palestinian woman displaced from the camp for 35 days, told Anadolu that she tried to return to her home in the camp to collect some belongings ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan which begins in early March, but the Israeli army prevented her from doing so.
“I tried to enter the camp today with 10 of my friends to gather some belongings and personal papers before Ramadan, but we were surprised by a huge presence of the occupation forces,” she said.
Gazawi added that the army detained her and her friends for an hour and a half before preventing them from entering, noting the extensive destruction in the camp.
She also noted the dangerous attempts by some Palestinians to return amid the heavy presence of Israeli forces.
She shared that for the second year in a row, she would not be observing Ramadan in the usual manner due to the Israeli aggression.
“My children were martyred a month before last year’s Ramadan, and this year, Ramadan will be without children and without homes,” she said.
The Israeli army demolished three more Palestinian houses and two mobile homes on Tuesday in the northern West Bank and East Jerusalem amid military escalation in the occupied territory, according to witnesses.
Witnesses said a house was bulldozed in the village of Kafr al-Dik, west of Salfit city, for the alleged lack of a building permit.
The Israeli army has demolished four buildings in the same village since the start of this year.
Israeli forces also demolished two houses in the Jabal al-Mukaber area and Al-Issawiya town in East Jerusalem, according to residents.
In the Silwan town in the same city, Israeli forces razed two mobile homes for Palestinians whose houses were demolished by Israel a few months ago.
According to Palestinian and Israeli rights groups, the Israeli authorities intentionally demolish and restrict construction permits to Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.
Tuesday’s demolitions came as the army continued deadly raids in the northern West Bank, where over 60 people have been killed and thousands displaced since last month.
According to Palestinian figures, the Israeli army demolished 126 Palestinian structures in January, including 74 inhabited homes and 29 agricultural facilities in the West Bank.
LEBANON
An Israeli drone strike Tuesday killed two people and injured two others in the Baalbek district of eastern Lebanon, according to media reports.
Lebanon’s National News Agency, NNA, said the airstrike was carried out on the Shaara area in Janta, located in the Baalbek district near the eastern Lebanon mountain range.
The Israeli army has continued to violate a Nov. 27 ceasefire agreement with Lebanon with more than 1,033 breaches reported by Lebanese authorities, including the deaths of at least 81 victims and injuries to 279.
The two parties agreed to a truce in November following more than a year of cross-border hostilities, including an all-out war that lasted for two months.
SYRIA
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the military will remain in southern Syria for the foreseeable future.
“In Syria, Israeli forces will remain stationed at the summit of Mount Hermon,” referring to Jabal al-Sheikh in the occupied Golan Heights.
“In the adjacent buffer zone, we will stay for the foreseeable future. We will not allow the presence of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or any new Syrian military forces south of Damascus,” he said via satellite at a Washington conference hosted by the pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC.
Netanyahu further declared that “southern Syria will be a demilitarized zone.”
The Israeli army says its jets attacked military targets in southern Syria, including “headquarters and sites containing weapons”.
“The presence of military means and forces in the southern part of Syria pose a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel,” the military said in a statement.
In 1974, Israel and Syria struck a ceasefire agreement that determined the Golan Heights would be a demilitarised buffer zone.
But shortly after the fall of al-Assad last December, the Israeli military moved into the buffer zone and has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian military assets.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed the military attacked southern Syria.
“The Air Force is attacking strongly in southern Syria as part of the new policy we have defined of pacifying southern Syria. And the message is clear: we will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon,” his spokesperson said in a statement.
[Photo: Israeli armored vehicles and bulldozers move through a muddy street during a raid, demolishing buildings and damaging infrastructure at Jenin Refugee Camp in Jenin, West Bank, on February 25, 2025. Photojournalist: Issam Rimawi/AA]
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