ISRAEL DROPS 6,000 BOMBS IN 6 DAYS ON 'CIVILIANS'

NT Bureau, Agencies

Tel Aviv/Gaza Strip: The Israeli army has said in a statement on social media it has so far dropped about 6,000 bombs weighing 4,000 tons on the besieged Gaza Strip since Hamas's attack on Saturday.

The bombardment has so far killed at least 1,417 people – about half children and women – and wounded more than 6,000, according to Palestinian health officials, reports Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the power blackout caused by Israel's "total blockade" of the besieged enclave has prompted condemnation and calls from international rights groups for urgent action as "hospitals risk turning into morgues".

Israel's military said it was conducting a "largescale strike" on targets belonging to Hamas in Gaza on Thursday, but gave no details, as Israel formed an emergency unity government, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting in a war cabinet with centrist former defence minister Benny Gantz.

The move came as the Israeli military pounds Gaza to root out the Palestinian group Hamas, ahead of a possible ground offensive in the Palestinian coastal strip.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said hospitals in Gaza risk turning into morgues without electricity, Gaza's only power plant ran out of fuel and backup generators could stop working in hours, it added, reports BBC. Medical centres have been overwhelmed after Israel imposed a "complete siege" on Gaza and pounded the territory

with air and artillery strikes. Israel has vowed not to restore electricity or allow basic resources and humanitarian aid into Gaza until Hamas releases around 150 hostages.

'Israel is manufacturing a case for genocide'

Calling Hamas attack ‘Israel’s 9/11’ will only help the fanatical Israeli government unleash armageddon on the region, writes Marwan Bishara, a Senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.

He writes, "Like a wellrehearsed orchestra, Western powers condemned the “unprovoked” attacks on civilians and voiced their unconditional support for the fanatical Israeli government to do whatever it takes as long as it takes to “defend” its people against “evil”.

The degree of hysteria and the hypocrisy are as mind-boggling, as they are reckless. In the eyes of the West, it seems, Israel has a “duty” to defend its people, but the Palestinians don’t have the right to protect themselves as if they are people of a lesser god," he said.

Marwan further says, "Such comparisons help demonise Palestinian leaders and dehumanise Palestinian people, paving the way for a genocidal war, starting in Gaza. To be sure, demonising other leaders is ugly politics, but dehumanising a whole people, is racism, pure and simple. In that way, this false and hysterical analogy amounts to a green light for Israel to follow up its unlawful siege and indiscriminate bombardment of the Gaza Strip with an even more horrifying land invasion that would devastate the more than two million Palestinians living there."

Factcheck: Israel has no info on Hamas murdering babies

Israelis have no information regarding "Hamas beheading babies," an IOF spokesperson told Anadolu Agency, following widely circulated fake news on the matter.

The information went viral in Western media outlets and by officials who sought to defame the Palestinian Resistance by reporting on unverified information provided by "Israel's" i24 TV correspondent.

Anadolu contacted the Israeli military over the phone to ask about the claims, with their spokesperson unit saying: "We have seen the news, but we do not have any details or confirmation about that."

Almost a dozen British newspapers — including The Times, Metro, The i, Daily Express, The Scotsman, and Financial Times — have run stories on their front pages Wednesday, citing the i24 claims. Hamas denied claims about it.

"Give us one picture that Hamas killed civilians, that Hamas killed children, that Hamas killed women. We don't kill civilians," Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas's political bureau, told Al Jazeera.

Sadly, while bringing to us the grisly visuals of the massacre, news organisations have thrown caution out the window and added fake news to what is already a tense situation.

India reiterates call for 'sovereign, independent, viable state of Palestine'

India reiterated its call for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state on Thursday, with the Ministry of External Affairs saying there was an “obligation” to uphold humanitarian principles.