Sameera Casmod | sameerac@radioislam.co.za
7 April 2025 | 14:30 CAT
4-minute read

Israel’s increased attacks on Gaza

After a brief ceasefire, Israel resumed its onslaught on the Gaza Strip on 18 March, with reports of deadly assaults across the entire enclave. Israel has killed over 1 000 Palestinians since, with the death toll rising everyday.

An Israeli airstrike on the Shuja’iya neighbourhood in Gaza at dawn on Friday killed 20 people. Israeli occupation forces (IOF) announced the expansion of its ground operation into the southern quarter of Gaza’s Old City, ordering the expulsion of the neighbourhood’s residents who were forced to leave their homes and belongings behind.

Israel’s evacuation order reportedly read, “A severe and urgent warning to the residents of Gaza City’s eastern district al-Shujaiya in the neighbourhoods of al-Jadidah, al-Turkman, and al-Zeitoun al-Sharqi. The IDF is operating with extreme force in your area. For your safety, you must evacuate immediately.”

Israel bombed a school in Gaza City housing refugees, killing at least 27 people. At the same time, hundreds of thousands in the Rafah area in southern Gaza fled their homes amid Israel’s newly announced plan to divide the enclave.

“The Gaza government media office [said] the Israeli occupation has effectively erased the city of Rafah from the map. The operations continue there,” Moulana Ebrahim Moosa said today during the Palestine Report on Radio Islam International.

Last Thursday, Israel fired three missiles at the Dar al-Arqam school in al-Tuffah neighbourhood, wounding 100 people and killing several children.

Meanwhile, reports have just come in of an Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing at least two and wounding seven others.

Increasing offensive aims to expand so-called “security zone,”

The increasing offensive is part of Israel’s new campaign to divide and conquer the Gaza Strip. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the Morag Corridor and suggested it would cut off the southern city of Rafah from the rest of Gaza. Details of the corridor’s exact location reportedly remain unclear. Morag refers to the Jewish settlement that once stood between Khan Younis and Rafah, and Netanyahu said the corridor would run between the two cities. Israeli media published maps that indicated the corridor running the width of the enclave from east to west.

“This is a further mechanism to divide Gaza into smaller pieces,” Moulana Moosa said.

He also noted that Gazan resistance forces had only fired once in retaliation to Israel’s March attacks. On Sunday night, however, the armed wing of Hamas launched a barrage of rockets from the enclave towards the occupied territories of Ashdod and Ashkelon, resulting in 7 wounded Israeli soldiers as well as significant, extensive damage to buildings and vehicles.

“A year and a half of war, with rockets still being fired, 59 hostages held, and the October 7 government still in place—talking about total victory is meaningless,” Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, said about the resistance.

Israel’s false narrative about medics unravels

A video released by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Saturday disproves Israeli claims that its attack on ambulances was a ‘fight against terrorists’. The video was recovered from the mobile phone of Palestinian medic, Rifat Radwan, who was killed along with 14 of his colleagues in Gaza last month.

The video shows their last moments as Israeli forces shoot the Palestinian medics, wearing highly reflective uniforms and inside a clearly identifiable PRCS ambulance in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood in southern Gaza on March 23.

Israel had claimed that soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, insisting they fired on “terrorists” who were advancing on them in “suspicious vehicles”.

“They claimed that they were vehicles being used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Now footage that was recovered from the mobile phone of one of these responders [who] were buried in a mass grave. It showed that the emergency workers were in uniform, their ambulances were clearly marked and they had their lights on and they were fired on for a long period by Israeli military,” Moulana Moosa said.

Microsoft employees protest at 50th anniversary party over Israel contract

A pro-Palestinian protest disrupted the anniversary celebration on Friday in Redmond, Washington. As Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman was presenting product updates and long-term vision for the Company’s AI assistant product, Copilot, Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad walked toward the stage as Suleyman paused his speech.

“Mustafa, shame on you. You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region,” she said.

Suleyman is a British citizen of Syrian origin.

The demonstration marks the latest backlash over the tech industry’s role in providing artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli military.

Microsoft employee Vaniya Agrawal interrupted another part of the party during which Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former CEO Steve Ballmer and current CEO Satya Nadella were on stage, while some employees demonstrated outside the event on Friday.

Aboussad was later escorted from the room by security. Both Aboussad and Agrawal lost access to their work accounts after the demonstration, a possible indication that
they would lose their jobs.

An investigation earlier this year revealed that Microsoft and OpenAI artificial intelligence models had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon. According to an AP report, five Microsoft employees were expelled from a meeting with Nadella in February for protesting the contracts.

Listen to the Palestine Report on Sabaahul Muslim with Moulana Sulaimaan Ravat.