Israeli military intelligence chief resigns over Hamas attack – eNews Malaysia

JERUSALEM, April 23 — Israel’s military intelligence chief has resigned after taking duty for failures resulting in the October Hamas attack that triggered months of conflict, the military stated yesterday.

Major General Aharon Haliva stated he’s nonetheless dwelling with that “black day”.

For Palestinians in Gaza, yesterday was a day of recent horror. The territory’s Civil Defence company stated well being staff had uncovered round 200 our bodies over the previous three days of individuals killed and buried by Israeli forces at a hospital in Khan Yunis metropolis.

Asked for remark, the Israeli military stated: “We will come again to you on the matter.”

Haliva is the primary high Israeli official to step down for failing to forestall the Hamas attack which introduced intense scrutiny to Israel’s authorities and military.

“The intelligence division underneath my command didn’t reside as much as the duty we had been entrusted with,” Haliva stated in his resignation letter. “I carry that black day with me ever since.”

In an indication of the anguish nonetheless felt in Israel, households had been urged to depart an empty seat at tables to signify a hostage being held in Gaza when the Jewish Passover vacation started final night time.

Israel estimates that 129 captives seized by Palestinian militants on October 7 stay in Gaza, together with 34 who the military says are useless.

Hamas’s attack resulted within the deaths of 1,170 folks in Israel, largely civilians, in keeping with an eNM tally based mostly on Israeli official figures.

‘Obliterated’

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at the least 34,151 folks in Gaza, largely girls and kids, in keeping with the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry.

A United Nations professional yesterday stated Gaza’s well being system has been “utterly obliterated”.

Israel’s military has accused Hamas of utilizing well being amenities as command centres and to carry hostages — expenses the militants deny.

Intense preventing raged in mid-February within the space of Nasser hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, and Israeli tanks and armoured automobiles surrounded it on March 26.

Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal instructed eNM crews “are nonetheless recovering our bodies from inside Nasser Medical Complex, and since Saturday our bodies of almost 200 martyrs have been retrieved”.

Civil Defence on Sunday initially reported that at the least 50 our bodies of individuals killed and buried on the hospital had been uncovered.

In early April the World Health Organisation stated one other hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza City, had been lowered to ashes by an Israeli siege, leaving an “empty shell” containing many our bodies.

WHO workers who gained entry described corpses solely partly buried, their limbs protruding, and the stench of decomposition.

Israel has in the meantime lashed out at studies that its high ally and military provider the United States was contemplating sanctioning the Israeli military’s ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion over alleged human rights abuses within the West Bank from earlier than the conflict.

“At a time when our troopers are preventing the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit within the IDF (military) is the peak of absurdity and an ethical low,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X.

Artillery hearth

To mark the beginning of Passover, Netanyahu individually posted on X that “our resolve stays unyielding to see all hostages again with their households”.

He stated the “days forward will see elevated military and diplomatic efforts” to safe their launch.

Global opposition has mounted over the civilian toll of Israel’s Gaza offensive which has turned vasts areas into rubble and sparked fears of famine.

The UN says “a number of obstacles” proceed to impede supply of urgently wanted help for Gazans determined for meals, water, shelter and drugs.

An impartial evaluate group on the principle help company within the territory, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, stated yesterday that the physique has “neutrality-related points”.

But it additionally stated Israel had but to supply proof for allegations {that a} important variety of UNRWA workers had been in “terrorist” organisations.

The evaluate group was created in January following Israeli allegations that a number of UNRWA workers had been concerned within the Hamas attack.

“Most alleged neutrality breaches relate to social media posts” which regularly comply with incidents of violence affecting colleagues or family, the evaluate discovered.

An eNM correspondent late yesterday reported intense artillery hearth in Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, north Gaza.

An air strike hit Gaza City’s al-Rimal space, the correspondent stated.

The Israeli military earlier yesterday stated plane had focused “a cell of terrorists posing a direct risk” to troopers in central Gaza.

‘Bitter’ Passover

Doctors at Al-Aqsa Hospital within the central Gaza metropolis of Deir al-Balah instructed eNM that an Israeli air strike wounded six folks.

A mosque in close by Al-Bureij refugee camp was destroyed in a strike. Images confirmed a number of ranges of the constructing collapsed in entrance of a still-standing minaret.

Also in Deir al-Balah, Palestinians made a tent out of a parachute used to airdrop help off the coast.

“When the parachute fell into the ocean, we introduced it in a small boat,” stated Naeem al-Goaan. His sister sleeps within the tent at night time, whereas they use it as a retailer in the course of the day.

In Jerusalem yesterday, two civilians acquired minor accidents in a car-ramming attack, with police arresting two suspects who fled the scene on foot.

Israeli hostage supporters and anti-government demonstrators have protested to name for a deal that may free the captives, and for Netanyahu to stop.

As Passover started, they stored up their actions, burning a symbolic Passover desk outdoors Netanyahu’s home within the coastal city of Caesarea.

Passover can be recognized in Hebrew because the “vacation of freedom,” however Yael Ben Porat, who joined the demonstration, blamed Netanyahu for the October 7 “catastrophe” and for failure to barter the captives’ launch.

“This night time is simply bitter, no freedom,” she stated. — eNM