The European Union announced today that it wants an "independent" investigation into mass graves on the grounds of the two main hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
"We are asking for an independent investigation into the suspicions and the circumstances of that discovery, because it creates the impression that there could have been human rights violations," said Peter Stano, a spokesman for the European External Action Service (EEAS).
Already on Tuesday, the UN called for an independent investigation into the mass graves discovered in the two main hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said he was "appalled" by the destruction of the largest hospital in Gaza, Al Shifa Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, as well as the discovery of mass graves next to them.
The Israeli army has denied any responsibility and said it is "unfounded to believe" that it buried the bodies of Palestinians.
A civil defense official in the Gaza Strip told AFP on Tuesday that his teams had discovered the bodies of 340 people in mass graves on the grounds of Nasser Hospital since Saturday.
At the beginning of April, Al Shifa Hospital was left in ruins after the Israeli military action.
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been targeted by Israeli military operations in response to Hamas' incursion into Israeli territory on October 7.
According to Israel, Hamas carries out attacks from hospitals and hides weapons there in tunnels, which Hamas denies.
The United States and the European Union have declared Hamas a terrorist organization.
(Radio Free Europe)
Demonstrations against Israel's policies are massing at universities across the US demanding an end to the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Protests are multiplying after mass arrests of demonstrators at several universities on the east coast of the USA, reports Reuters.
At the universities, the protesting students and professors camped out under tents, including some of the Hebrew and Muslim faiths, where they hold lectures, communal prayers and musical performances.
Demonstrators are demanding that university foundations be divested of Israeli interests and that the US end or at least make Israeli military aid conditional on improving the situation of the Palestinians.
In New York's Brooklyn borough, 2.000 people gathered near the home of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, a staunch supporter of Israel and the highest-ranking Jewish politician in the US administration, chanting: "Stop arming Israel!", "Stop funding genocide" and "Let long live Gaza!".
New York police arrested more than 120 protesters at New York University on Monday and more than 100 at Columbia University last Sunday.
Columbia canceled classes at its Manhattan campus on Monday in an attempt to defuse tensions, and said on Tuesday that classes will be "hybrid" — online or in classrooms — for the rest of the year.
Several protesters interviewed by Reuters on that campus see the off-campus incidents as part of provocateurs trying to "hijack the message" of the protests, while other students blame universities for failing to protect their right to protest or stand up for human rights.
Students at the University of California, Berkeley set up tents in solidarity with protesters at other schools.
(Beta)
Some Palestinian civilians fled their homes in northern Gaza today just weeks after returning due to Israeli bombardment that they said was as intense as that at the beginning of the war, according to Reuters.
Much of the shelling was focused, for a second day, on Beit Lahia on the northern edge of Gaza, where the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for four settlements on Tuesday, warning they were in a "dangerous combat zone".
After a week of relative calm, Israel stepped up its attacks overnight on Monday, focusing on areas - particularly in the north - where it had previously withdrawn troops, saying the Palestinian militant group Hamas was no longer in control.
Residents in northern Gaza and the suburbs of Gaza City reported heavy shelling.
"We don't know why all this is happening. Is it because we came home and finally got help after months of starvation and the Israelis didn't like it?" said Mohamed Jamal (29), a resident of Gaza City, near Zeytun, one of the oldest suburbs of Gaza.
"It's like the war has started again. It's like it's just happening, they burned the place," he told Reuters via the "chat" application.
Asked about today's developments, the Israeli army had no comment.
Turkey has accused the United States of running a policy of double standards on human rights, saying Washington's annual rights report does not properly reflect Israel's attacks on Gaza.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was deeply concerned that the US report "does not properly reflect the ongoing inhumane attacks in Gaza".
The report was prepared for "political motives, far from impartiality and objectivity", it said, calling on Washington to end its "policy of double standards with regard to human rights".
He also cited US ties to the Syrian Kurdish militia, the IPG, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization.
Israeli forces have killed more than 34.000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health authorities there, including many civilians and children. The enclave was reduced to wasteland, and extreme food shortages caused fears of starvation.
Israel launched the attack in response to an October 7 attack by the militant group Hamas that Israel says killed 1.200 people. He denies allegations of intentional infliction of humanitarian suffering and targeting civilians, writes Reuters.
Turkey condemned Israel for its campaign in Gaza and called for a ceasefire. She also criticized Western countries for what she called unconditional support for Israel.
In its report, the US State Department stated that Israel's war against Hamas had a "significant negative impact" on Israel's human rights record.
On Monday, the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, dismissed suggestions that Washington might have a double standard over Israel's record.
Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Galan, said Israeli military strikes killed half of Hezbollah's commanders in southern Lebanon during cross-border fighting that flared up alongside the Gaza war since October, Reuters reports.
Israel's military said Israeli warplanes and artillery struck 40 targets linked to Hezbollah fighters around Ait al-Shaba in southern Lebanon, as cross-border attacks continued to escalate in recent days.
Targets are said to include warehouses and weapons and other infrastructure, Reuters reports.
Reuters reports that the Israeli military has made all the necessary preparations to capture Rafah, which it considers the last Hamas bastion in the Gaza Strip, and can launch an operation the moment it receives government approval, a senior defense official told Reuters.
Israel is "making progress" with its attack on Hamas in Rafah, the only city in the Gaza Strip yet to be subjected to a ground offensive in the half-year-old war, and will work to spare Palestinian civilians there, a government spokesman said, according to Reuters.
The Health Ministry of Hamas announced today that 24 people were killed in Gaza in the previous 79 hours.
The statement says that since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas more than six months ago, the total number of dead is 34.262.
Since the beginning of the war on October 7 last year, 77.229 people have been wounded in Gaza.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas has entered its 201th day.
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