Live: Israel and Hamas claim victory as fragile ceasefire holds
Live Updates
We previously reported some fans of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver were complaining that they could not find a segment in which he condemns media coverage of the ongoing crisis in Israel-Palestine.
HBO has issued the following comment to Middle East Eye:
"All clips from Last Week Tonight are uploaded to the show’s channel and are not available on the general HBO YouTube channel. Typically, only the main story is uploaded and occasionally additional clips are added. The full episode is available to stream on HBO Max."
The show's YouTube homepage shows episodes dating back a month, but his recent clip concerning the situation in Israel-Palestine is not immediately visible.
Middle East Eye’s correspondent in the West Bank says a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli soldiers at Al-Arroub refugee camp north of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
Local sources said the Israeli army prevented ambulances from reaching the man and transporting him to hospitals. He was transferred to a medical facility in the town of Beit Fajjar in a privately-owned car but was announced dead on arrival.
The man was later named as Obaida Akram Jawabra, who was 18.
Israel's anti-missile Iron Dome system has been widely lauded by Western commentators for its purported effectiveness against rockets incoming from Gaza.
However, while Israel claims an interception rate of 90 percent, at least one leading scientist says it could be as low as five.
In this explainer, we answer some questions regarding the system.
At least 10 soldiers in their 20s and 30s blame their cancer diagnosis on their service operating the Iron Dome system.
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 17, 2021
Key questions about Israel's anti-missile system, explained: https://t.co/hVtHMcGtBf
Israeli air strikes have destroyed the Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) building in Gaza.
The organisation has been working on helping victims of Israel’s bombing campaign in the besieged territory, which began last week.
Akram Nasser, the director of QRCS said that the building and large parts of the surrounding area were destroyed.
The Qatari Red Crescent was severely damaged this afternoon due to the shelling of a commercial building where it is located in Gaza city.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) May 17, 2021
Targeting civilian objects is a blatant violation of the humanitarian law.@QRCS @ifrc @ICRC_ilot
“Major destruction in our office as a result of Israeli warplanes targeting two floors of the same building, opposite the Ministry of Health in the Ghazi Al Shawa building,” he said in a tweet.
According to local media, the air strikes in the area resulted in the death of two Palestinians and wounded dozens of others.
Al Jazeera Arabic and Haaretz are reporting that Israeli soldiers have fired "warning shots" at protesters on the Lebanese side of their shared border.
The incident comes two days after a 21-year-old Lebanese man was killed after Israeli forces fired a similar volley of shots.
Protests have been taking place on Israel's borders with Jordan and Lebanon against the bombardment of Gaza and the appropriation of property by settlers in occupied East Jerusalem.
A number of YouTube users are complaining that they are struggling to find a segment from HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
In the viral clip, the British comedian launches a scathing attack on media outlets for creating a sense of parity between Israel's bombing of Gaza and rocket attacks by Palestinian armed groups towards Israeli territory.
"One side is suffering much more," Oliver said in the segment, now shared by multiple accounts on YouTube.
Middle East Eye has reached out to HBO for comment.
WATCH: John Oliver calls out Israeli war crimes on his HBO show. His message to media outlets is they should say what Israel is doing without sanitizing the brutal reality: "Forcing people from the homes they’ve lived in for decades and killing civilians and children." pic.twitter.com/DZ6KUeNNcA
— IMEU (@theIMEU) May 17, 2021
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described his US counterpart Joe Biden as having "blood-soaked hands" after the Democrat approved the emergency transfer of guided missiles to Israel on Monday.
Erdogan, who has previously clashed with Biden over the latter's recognition of the Armenian genocide, also condemned Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz for raising the Israeli flag over Vienna.
"The Austrian state is probably trying to have the Muslims pay the price of their own genocide against Jews," he said, before suggesting the city of Jerusalem should be ruled by members of the three Abrahamic faiths to ensure security and peace.
Senior Gaza health official Dr Yousef Abu al-Rish has said that Israel has destroyed the besieged territory’s only laboratory testing for Covid-19.
The Israeli attack on the Gazan Ministry of Health and the Remal clinic caused several injuries to staff working on the coronavirus-testing hotline, Abu al-Rish added, explaining there was now “a complete halt” on tests.
Officials in the territory, which has been under bombardment for more than a week, have called on the international community to protect health workers from Israeli attacks.
As well as damaging clinics and hospitals, the Israeli military has destroyed infrastructure, making it harder for emergency workers to reach the wounded and transport them for treatment.
Israeli air strikes on Gaza have hit a six-storey building near the Remal medical clinic, next to a school, an orphanage and a Palestinian Ministry of Health office, causing severe damage and killing at least two people.
Widespread destruction was caused in the area, according to Middle East Eye’s correspondent on the ground, Mohammed al-Hajjar.
Meanwhile, residents are shaken by the strikes having hit so close to humanitarian facilities.
"No one is safe in the Gaza strip, no one here is safe. In our homes we are being targeted, children are being targeted, women, the elderly, the offices of the Ministry of Health - everything is destroyed. Why have they destroyed the building immediately next to the Ministry of Health?," one person told MEE.
According to local reports, there was no prior warning of the building being targeted. The Remal clinic is one of the most prominent in the area, dealing with a high influx of patients.
One local resident said the area that was struck is well known for housing NGOs and other humanitarian offices.
"We were sitting peacefully, and were shocked by the sound of what felt like an earthquake when the occupation started destroying buildings, all of which are humanitarian buildings and key offices," the local man said.
The strike also hit close to the Reuters bureau in Gaza just days after an Israeli strike flattened the local AP and Al Jazeera bureaus as well as a MEE office.
A large fire has engulfed the al-Istiqlal Islamic cemetery in the mixed Jewish-Palestinian city of Haifa.
According to the imam of the al-Istiqlal mosque, Asaad Mahmoud, there have been no casualties announced yet.
"We do not know yet whether it was deliberate or just an accident," he said.
"The firefighting crew have put out the fire," he added.
Videos shared online showed emergency services attempting to extinguish the blaze.
During the past week, Haifa has seen a surge of violence and attacks aimed at Palestinian protesters, who are demonstrating against Israel’s use of air strikes on Gaza and the storming of the revered al-Aqsa. Numerous videos showed Israeli police beating and arresting protesters.
According to local media, the cemetery has been attacked in recent years, the most recent occasion being an act of arson in 2019. The mosque has particular historical significance as it is considered to be a noteworthy monument in the city.
A Jewish Israeli citizen injured during the recent upheaval in Lod has succumbed to his wounds after spending a week in hospital.
Yigal Yehoshua, a 56-year-old resident of a Jewish neighbourhood within Lod - known as Lydd by Palestinians - was pronounced dead on Monday morning, local time.
Yehoshua was reportedly injured by Palestinian citizens of Israel who were throwing stones at cars in the area following the fatal shooting of 32-year-old Moussa Hassouna, a resident of Lod.
Two Jewish Israeli civilians were arrested in connection with Hassouna's murder, but were later released on bail.
Yehoshua is believed to be the first Jewish Israeli to be killed in the widespread upheaval that has gripped mixed Jewish-Palestinian cities and neighbourhoods across Israel for more than a week.
More than a week of Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip has obliterated a number of buildings, roads and impeded ambulance and emergency services access to vital locations, according to Palestine's Ministry of Information.
The ministry reported that Israeli air strikes damaged more than 1,000 residential units, as well as 36 schools and primary health care clinics.
The ministry estimates that $18m worth of damage has been done to streets and infrastructure in the besieged strip.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has raised concerns over Israel's devastating air operation, which it said has been "incredibly heavy and stronger than previous bombing campaigns".
"Emergency health workers are taking incredible but necessary risks to move around ... our teams were confronted with serious injuries caused by the Israeli police to men, women and children," Hellen Ottens-Patterson, the head of MSF said.
A Palestinian man begs his mother to "not let go" after she became trapped under rubble following an Israeli air strike on Sunday.
Gaza’s government press office warned that Israeli forces intend to bombard the Al-Buraq and the Al-Aqsa schools west of Gaza.
The two schools have been used as shelters amid heavy Israeli bombardment over the past week.
The government’s press office has called on international institutions to protect the two schools and stop the bombardment.
Online, Gaza residents have taken to social media to express fears over the possibility of further bombardment in a densely populated city where many have already been forced to evacuate their homes and offices.
The Islamic Jihad militant group has confirmed that an Israeli air strike killed one of its commanders on Monday.
Israel's military also confirmed that it had killed Hussam Abu Harbeed, Islamic Jihad's northern division commander.
Commenting on Harbeed's assassination, the Israeli army said he was "behind several anti-tank missile terror attacks" against Israeli civilians.
