The United Nations has denounced Israel’s warning that residents could be expelled from parts of Gaza used to launch kites, calling comments by Israeli officials “unacceptable rhetoric”.
“On the threat of expulsion due to children’s kite flying, I hope we can all agree that this is outrageous,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, told reporters in Geneva.
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Israel has warned Hamas that it would intensify military operations in Gaza over what it said were launches of kites, drones and balloons towards Israeli territory. Hamas has denied responsibility.
Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the kites had been “launched from Gaza by children searching for their innocent childhood amid the rubble”.
Reports said the Israeli military believed Hamas was behind the launches, which carried no explosives and may have been intended to test Israel’s response.
Thick smoke rises over Deir al-Bala after Israeli forces detonated explosives at civilian homes
The latest incidents have brought back memories of earlier waves of incendiary kites and balloons sent from Gaza, which ignited fires across agricultural areas in southern Israel.
“Israel warns Hamas that if the launches towards Israel do not cease immediately, the IDF will take action to intensify targeted operations against those responsible… and will evacuate the population from areas from which kites, drones and balloons are launched,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement on Sunday.
Hamas accused Israel of using the launches as a “pretext” for air strikes in central Gaza on Sunday. Gaza’s civil defence rescue service said three people were killed in the attacks.
Shamdasani said Sunday’s warning was part of a broader pattern of threats from Israeli officials.
“We continue to see unacceptable rhetoric coming from the highest level of the Israeli authorities, showing utter contempt for international human rights and humanitarian law, and advocating and inciting violence amounting to atrocity crimes,” she said.
Israeli settler with army escort smashes Palestinian monument
Knesset member Zvi Sukkot of the Otzma Yehudit party during the Jerusalem Day celebrations in May
In a separate incident, a far-right Israeli lawmaker used a sledgehammer to destroy a Palestinian memorial in the occupied West Bank while accompanied by soldiers, prompting condemnation from Israel’s military and politicians.
Video shared online appeared to show Zvi Sukkot, a settler and activist, breaking apart a monument commemorating “martyrs” in Madama, a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank. Soldiers could be seen standing nearby.
“A few days ago, I demanded that the military take action to remove the monuments commemorating terrorists in the murderers’ villages of Madama and Burin. Unfortunately, they remained in place. So I went there myself and took action to remove them,” Sukkot wrote on Facebook, posting footage of the demolition.
Asked about the incident by AFP, the Israeli military said Sukkot and his aides had made a “tour” of the area, accompanied by IDF soldiers who had been diverted from operational duties to provide security.
“Contrary to the agreed-upon coordination, the participants acted deceptively and manipulatively, without authorisation, departing entirely from the approved framework, and began demolishing one of the monuments in Madama,” the military said.
According to the army, soldiers notified their commanders, who ordered them to halt the activity. “The participants were quickly escorted out of the village,” it said.
The military said it regarded Sukkot’s conduct “with the utmost severity”, describing it as “a misuse of the protection provided by security forces to act entirely outside the scope of the approved framework”.
Israeli settlers and their children attack journalists
Israeli settlers in the West Bank attacked AFP journalists reporting on tensions with Palestinians, injuring at least five people, according to the reporters and medical workers.
A three-person team from the international news agency had gone to Jannatah, near Bethlehem, to cover Israeli activists making solidarity visits to Palestinians facing harassment from settlers. The settlers had recently blocked a road in the area.
An altercation erupted between the settlers and the activists. The Israeli military then ordered the journalists to leave an area it had designated a “closed military zone”. Soon afterwards, two more cars carrying settlers arrived.
Many of the settlers were children, and stones were thrown at the journalists and activists. One AFP journalist said he ducked one stone before a child settler hit him on the chin with a stick, causing minor bleeding.
When the journalists returned, they found both of their parked cars damaged. The rear windshields had been smashed and the tyres punctured.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said five people received treatment for injuries. AFP journalists said they saw at least one Israeli activist being taken away in a Palestinian ambulance.
Netanyahu defends military
Responding to Sukkot’s actions, Benjamin Netanyahu said the military “is the sovereign authority in Judea and Samaria”, Israel’s biblical term for the West Bank.
“Taking the law into one’s own hands, especially when it involves public figures, is a reprehensible practice that prevents the IDF from focusing on its missions of combatting terrorism and incitement to violence,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
The filmed destruction of the memorial came as Israel prepared for elections on 27 October. It also drew criticism from Gadi Eisenkot, who has emerged as Netanyahu’s leading challenger.
“Zvi Sukkot’s behaviour is a disgrace to anyone who presumes to represent the public and be a leader,” Eisenkot wrote on X.
“Mr Netanyahu… is allowing anarchists like Zvi Sukkot and his ilk to do as they please, endangering security in the settlements and damaging Israel’s standing in the world,” he added.
Rami Nassar, head of Madama’s village council, said the memorial stood in the centre of the village and listed the names of people killed in a 1968 battle, during the first and second intifadas, and in the years since.
Israel frequently accuses Palestinians of glorifying attacks against Israelis.
Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has escalated since the Gaza war began with Hamas’s 7 October, 2023 attack on Israel.
