Israel Steps up Gaza Strikes; Polio Vaccination Halted by Blockade 

21 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians hose down hotspots as they clean up the residue of tents destroyed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City. (Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa)
21 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians hose down hotspots as they clean up the residue of tents destroyed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City. (Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa)
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Israel Steps up Gaza Strikes; Polio Vaccination Halted by Blockade 

21 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians hose down hotspots as they clean up the residue of tents destroyed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City. (Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa)
21 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians hose down hotspots as they clean up the residue of tents destroyed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City. (Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa)

The Israeli military launched one of the biggest waves of strikes in Gaza for weeks on Tuesday, residents said, and health officials issued a new warning that healthcare faced total collapse from Israel's blockade of all supplies. 

Gaza's health ministry said a UN-backed polio vaccination campaign meant to target over 600,000 children had been suspended, putting the enclave at risk of the revival of a crippling disease that once had been all-but eradicated. 

In diplomacy to end the conflict, a Hamas delegation was due to arrive in Cairo for talks. Two sources said the delegation would discuss a new offer which would include a truce for 5-7 years following the release of all hostages and an end to fighting. 

The sources said Israel, which rejected a recent Hamas offer to release all hostages for an end of the war, had yet to respond to the revamped long-term truce proposal. Israel demands Hamas be disarmed, which the group reject. 

Residents said Israeli forces bombed several areas across the enclave from tanks, planes, and naval boats. The attacks hit houses, tent encampments and roads, they added. 

The airstrikes destroyed bulldozers and vehicles being used to lift rubble and help recover bodies trapped under the ruins, officials and residents said. 

Israel has imposed a total blockade on all supplies to Gaza since the start of March and relaunched its military operations on March 18 after the collapse of a ceasefire. 

Since then, Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza land. 

Israel's 18-month bombing campaign has rendered nearly all buildings in the Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and Gaza's 2.3 million people now mostly live in the open under makeshift tents. Since the total blockade was imposed last month, all 25 UN-supplied bakeries making bread have been shut. 

Israel says enough supplies were sent into the enclave during the six-week truce to keep Gazans alive for months. Aid agencies say they fear the population is on the precipice of starvation and mass disease. 

Gaza health ministry spokesperson Khalil Deqran said the blockage of supplies was putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients in Gaza Strip hospitals at risk due. 

If polio vaccines don't arrive immediately, "we anticipate a real catastrophe. Children and patients must not be used as cards of political blackmail," he said. He said 60,000 children were now showing symptoms of malnutrition. 

ISRAEL DENIES BLOCKADE BREAKS INTERNATIONAL LAW 

Israel says its blockade is aimed at pressuring the Hamas group that runs Gaza to release 59 remaining Israeli hostages captured in the October 2023 attacks that precipitated the war. Hamas says it is prepared to free them but only as part of a deal that ends the war. 

"Israel is acting in full accordance with international law," Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X, in response to US Senator Bernie Sanders, who called the total Israeli blockade of Gaza since March a war crime. 

"The humanitarian condition in Gaza is constantly monitored and large quantities of aid were delivered. Whenever it becomes necessary to allow additional aid, it must be ensured that it does not pass through Hamas, which exploits humanitarian aid to maintain control over the civilian population and to profit at their expense," Katz wrote. 

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Palestinian relief agency UNRWA described the blockade as collective punishment of Gaza's people. 

"Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip + a weapon of war. The siege must be lifted, supplies must flow in, the hostages must be released, the ceasefire must resume," Lazzarini said on Tuesday in a post on X. 

Israel says it is still hunting Hamas. 

"We will pursue Hamas from wherever it operates, both in the north and south of the Gaza Strip and even outside of it, anywhere," said Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the Israeli military spokesperson. 

The conflict was sparked by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in 1,200 deaths and 251 hostages taken to Gaza, according to Israeli records. 

Since then, local health authorities report that over 51,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive. 



Syria Announces Commissions for Missing Persons, Transitional Justice

A police vehicle of the interim Syrian government moves through a street by the Saha Mosque in Palmyra in central Syria on February 7, 2025. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
A police vehicle of the interim Syrian government moves through a street by the Saha Mosque in Palmyra in central Syria on February 7, 2025. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
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Syria Announces Commissions for Missing Persons, Transitional Justice

A police vehicle of the interim Syrian government moves through a street by the Saha Mosque in Palmyra in central Syria on February 7, 2025. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
A police vehicle of the interim Syrian government moves through a street by the Saha Mosque in Palmyra in central Syria on February 7, 2025. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

Syria on Saturday announced the formation of a national commission for missing persons and another for transitional justice, more than five months after the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.
Syria's new authorities have pledged justice for victims of atrocities committed under Assad's rule, and a five-year transitional constitution signed in March provided for the formation of a transitional justice commission, AFP said.

The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and others who went missing remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria's conflict, which erupted in 2011 when Assad's forces brutally repressed anti-government protests, triggering more than a decade of war.

A decree signed by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and released by the presidency announced the formation of an independent "national commission for missing persons".

The body is tasked with "researching and uncovering the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared, documenting cases, establishing a national database and providing legal and humanitarian support to their families".

A separate decree announced the formation of a national commission for transitional justice to "uncover the truth about the grave violations caused by the former regime".

That commission should hold those responsible to account "in coordination with the relevant authorities, remedy the harm to victims, and firmly establish the principles of non-recurrence and national reconciliation", according to the announcement.

The decree noted "the need to achieve transitional justice as a fundamental pillar for building a state of law, guaranteeing victims' rights and achieving comprehensive national reconciliation".

Both bodies will have "financial and administrative independence" and act over all of Syrian territory, according to the decrees signed by Sharaa.

In December, the opposition factions toppled Assad after five decades of his family's iron-fisted rule and nearly 14 years of brutal war that killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more.

Tens of thousands of people were detained and tortured in the country's jails, while Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against his own people.

Rights groups, activists and the international community have repeatedly emphasized the importance of transitional justice in the war-torn country.

In March, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration for a five-year transitional period.

It stipulated that during that period, a "transitional justice commission" would be formed to "determine the means for accountability, establish the facts, and provide justice to victims and survivors" of the former government's misdeeds.

This week, prominent Syrian human rights lawyer Mazen Darwish told AFP that lasting peace in Syria depended on the country building a strong judicial system giving justice to the victims of all crimes committed during the Assad era.