Israel tightens security in Jerusalem Old City, and Palestinians prepare for Ramadan soberly with no decorations in respect for the dead, along with heightened security by Israeli police. War and hunger in Gaza overshadows the normally festive holy month as mentions of a secure ceasefire stalled.
According to Rueters, Israeli fire injures 22 and kills five at U.N. food distribution center in southern Gaza. The strike killed a Hamas commander named Mohammad Abu Hasna. Hamas identified one of the five killed as Nidal al-Sheikh Eidthe who was head of an emergency committee for Rafah.
U.S. officials are preparing a pause on funding the main U.N. agency for Palestinians to become permanent. The U.S., along with a dozen other countries, suspended their funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in January after Israel accused 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the deadly Oct. 7th Hamas attack.
On Wednesday an Italian appeals court refused to send a suspected Palestine militant to Israel. They said he risked Inhuman, cruel, or degrading treatment. Israel applied for an extradition of Anan Kamal Afif Yaeesh, but his lawyer opposed it, presenting reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on prison conditions for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
