tanks

Israeli tanks and heavy combat vehicles were filmed in Gaza on Friday, reportedly withdrawing from parts of the enclave as phase one of the ceasefire plan is set to take effect.

Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Tuesday as they pounded Gaza from the air and ground, as world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York demanded an end to the two-year war.

Residential buildings continue to be flattened as Israel presses ahead with its plan to seize the enclave’s largest city.

Satellite imagery analysed by Al Jazeera shows Israeli army vehicles tightening a stranglehold around Gaza City, surrounding it from several directions. Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows tanks pushing into the Nassr neighbourhood, barely a kilometre from al-Shifa Hospital.

This destruction forms part of a pattern that a UN commission says amounts to genocide.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday warned that Israel’s military actions are “inflicting terror on the Palestinian population of Gaza City and forcing tens of thousands to flee”.

The suffering of Palestinians has drawn the attention of the global leaders, who have used the UNGA platform to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Addressing the UNGA, US President Donald Trump said that the Gaza war should stop “immediately” but dismissed the recognition of a Palestinian state by several Western countries, calling it a “reward” for Hamas.

The US president met leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye, Indonesia and Pakistan on the sidelines of the UNGA. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the meeting was “very fruitful,” adding that a joint declaration from the meeting would be published.

‘Stuck under the rubble’

Israeli strikes have hit civilians across Gaza. One man was killed and others wounded in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, while another strike hit Palestinians queueing for water in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, sources told Al Jazeera.

Medical infrastructure is also being dismantled. Israeli shelling destroyed the main medical centre in Gaza City, injuring at least two medical workers, according to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society.

The charity said that troops prevented the evacuation of equipment and supplies, even as the facility served the wounded, cancer patients and blood donors. Other clinics in Tal al-Hawa and the Shati refugee camp have also been destroyed or besieged.

Hind Khoudary, reporting for Al Jazeera from az-Zawayda, described the devastation: “The situation continues to deteriorate, especially in the heart of Gaza City, where Israeli forces have been using artillery shelling and quadcopters to push more Palestinians to evacuate to the south and central areas.

“There have been endless appeals from Palestinian families saying their relatives are stuck under the rubble, but no one can reach them.”

No safe zones

Tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Gaza City have ended up in the central and southern areas of the enclave, which are under constant bombardment. The Israeli-designated “safe zone” of al-Mawasi has itself been attacked repeatedly, with health officials warning that it lacks the basic necessities of life, including water, food [and] health services, while disease spreads through overcrowded camps.

Experts say the forced movement is itself part of the machinery of genocide: driving families into displacement under fire and stripping them of shelter, food and dignity.

At Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, doctors report that three Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli forces near the supposed safe zone further south. Three children died from malnutrition in southern Gaza, according to hospital sources.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared that famine was under way in northern Gaza and would spread south. Gaza’s Ministry of Health warns that hospitals are now “entering an extremely dangerous phase” due to fuel shortages.

This collapse of health services and the deliberate obstruction of food and fuel deliveries has led to UN experts accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.

West Bank under attack

While global attention remains fixed on the destruction in Gaza, events in the occupied West Bank may carry even deeper implications for the future of the conflict.

Israel has threatened to accelerate annexation plans in the West Bank in the wake of recognition of Palestinian statehood by several Western countries, including France and the United Kingdom.

On the ground, violence has intensified. Armed settlers shot dead Saeed Murad al-Nasan in the village of al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Israeli forces raided multiple towns around Nablus and ordered the indefinite closure of the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge, the only gateway for goods and people between the West Bank and Jordan.

The tightening of settlements, killings and closure of borders are not isolated incidents. Together, they form part of what a UN report on Tuesday described as a systematic effort to secure permanent Israeli control over Gaza and entrench a Jewish majority in the West Bank.

It comes after a UN commission concluded last week that Israel’s policies – forced displacement, denial of return, destruction of infrastructure and the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon – meet the legal definition of genocide.

A Ukrainian assault regiment said on Thursday that it is now using donated M-1 Abrams tanks. This would be the second Ukrainian unit to have received the tanks since they first started arriving in the country two years ago.

The 425th Assault Regiment Skala announced the arrival of the tanks on its Facebook page. Until now, the 47th Mechanized Brigade Magura was the only Ukrainian unit operating these tanks. Skala, deployed to the Pokrovsk region of eastern Ukraine, is fighting some of the toughest battles of the war.

All indications are that Skala is operating Abrams tanks donated by Australia, the first batch of which arrived in Ukraine in July. Of the 31 M1s donated by the U.S., at least 22 have been lost, according to the Oryx open source tracking group. The Abrams losses are likely even be higher, because Oryx only accounts for instances where there is visual proof.

As we reported last October, Australia announced it would provide Ukraine with 49 M1s, a significant boost for Kyiv’s armored units, as they continue to face down Russia’s full-scale invasion. Because the tanks were originally sold to Australia by the United States, Washington had to approve the transfer to Ukraine.

The Australian Army was able to give up its M1A1 fleet because it is receiving 75 new M1A2 Abrams, in the highly capable SEPv3 variant. You can read more about Australia’s $2.5-billion M1A2 acquisition here.

The Australian variants provided to Ukraine “slightly differ from the baseline vehicles,” the Ukrainian Militarnyi media outlet reported.

“They have been upgraded to the M1A1 AIM SA version and received a number of regional modifications to meet customer requirements,” the outlet noted. “These vehicles have a new armor package without depleted uranium. The AIM SA electronics package includes a digital fire control system, thermal imaging and communications equipment better than that of the basic M1A1, as well as a satellite navigation system.”

DU armor is classified and tightly export controlled. Export variants are not equipped with it. The U.S.-supplied Abrams had to be reworked to remove the classified DU armor. Australia’s M1s are export configuration without it by default. You can read read more about DU armor in one of our stories here.

In addition, “the gas turbine engines of the Australian tanks have been reconfigured to use diesel fuel instead of JP-8 aviation kerosene,” which is standard for tanks provided by the U.S., Miltarnyi added. “This should simplify logistics for the Ukrainian army, whose armored vehicles are also standardized for diesel.”

It is unknown yet if these tanks have actually made it to the battlefield. Skala’s video announcing the Abrams’ arrival uses archival video from the 47th Brigade, Militarnyi noted.

The utility of tanks on the drone-saturated battlefields of Ukraine has been questionable, given how vulnerable those on both sides of the fight have been, especially to the highly maneuverable first-person view drones. There were even unconfirmed reports that Ukraine temporarily withdrew its Abrams from the fight after losing so many.  You can see one such encounter in the video below.

Still, they have been playing a role in the fight for Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistics hub and part of a defensive belt of towns in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. That’s where Russia has expended large amounts of personnel and equipment to capture small segments of territory.

“Since late last year, [Ukrainian troops] have been receiving deliveries of refurbished German-made Leopard 1A5 tanks,” Radio Free Liberty reported in February. “Soldiers on the front lines say the updated vehicles are highly maneuverable and give them an edge on the battlefield.”

Leopard variants are still in the fight for Pokrovsk.

“A powerful Russian force numbering 100,000 troops is determined to capture Pokrovsk,” Euromaidan Press reported earlier this month. “But the town is heavily defended by drones, artillery, infantry and even a few Leopard 2A4 tanks belonging to the bad-luck 155th Mechanized Brigade.”

Last week, a video emerged on social media of one of those tanks obliterating a building where a Russian sabotage group was holding out.

It is unclear just how many Abrams Skala has received or how far along its troops are in the training process. However, given the tough fight in Pokrovsk, chances are we will soon see video emerging of these hulking armored weapons entering the fray.

Contact the author: [email protected]

At least 49 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza, medical sources say, as the Israeli military has sent tanks into areas of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza for the first time since Israel began its assault on the besieged territory in October 2023.

Israel on Monday launched the ground offensive on southern and eastern areas of the city that is packed with displaced Palestinians, a day after its military issued a forced displacement order for residents in the areas, forcing thousands of people to flee west towards the Mediterranean coast and south to Khan Younis.

Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several, the Reuters news agency reported, quoting local medics.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said gunfire was audible as Israeli tanks rolled into the area on Monday morning.

“We can see that the entire city is under Israeli attack,” he said. “We did not manage to sleep last night.”

“There has been an ongoing Israeli bombardment. Israeli jets, tanks and naval gunboats continue to strike multiple residential areas. Three more squares were destroyed in the city, and then residential houses were flattened.”

He said many Deir el-Balah residents fled using donkey carts and other modes of transport.

Israel intensifies attacks

In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, an Israeli air strike killed at least five people, including a husband and wife and their two children, in a tent, medics said.

Among those reported killed since dawn on Monday were four aid seekers waiting for food near a distribution centre operated by the United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Five other Palestinians were killed in a separate Israeli bombardment in Jabalia al-Balad in the north.

Earlier, the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that its teams had recovered the body of one person and evacuated three wounded after an Israeli artillery strike on the nearby Jabalia al-Nazla area.

Drone strikes were reported in Gaza City, resulting in casualties, a source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic.

The previous day, at least 134 people were killed and 1,155 injured by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. At least 59,029 people in Gaza have been killed since the war began.

On Sunday, Gaza health authorities reported at least 19 people had starved to death in one day, highlighting the desperate situation under the Israeli aid blockade.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, the World Food Programme’s Palestine representative, Antoine Renard, said the United Nations agency has warned for “weeks” that Palestinians in Gaza are facing starvation.

“You have a level of despair that people are ready to risk their lives just to reach any of the assistance actually coming into Gaza,” Renard said from occupied East Jerusalem.

“[There’s a] soaring number of people facing malnutrition, and we can really see that the situation is really getting to levels that we’ve never seen ever before.”

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said it is receiving “desperate messages of starvation” from inside Gaza, including from its staff, as humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate.

“The suffering in Gaza is manmade and must be stopped. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale,” UNRWA said in a statement posted on X.

Amjad Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera on Monday that 900,000 children are experiencing varying degrees of malnutrition in Gaza.

Twenty-five countries, including the United Kingdom, France and other European nations, issued a joint statement saying the war in Gaza “must end now” and Israel must comply with international law.

The foreign ministers of the 25 countries, including Australia, Canada and Japan, said “the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”, and they condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the statement said.

“The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” it said.

July 14 (UPI) — France on Monday celebrated Bastille Day with the nation’s biggest holiday in the air and on the ground.

The parade in Paris included 7,000 people on horseback and tanks, axe-carrying French Legion troops, 102 warplanes and helicopters.

French President Emmanual Macron reviewed the French Army, Navy and Air Force along the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysses and re-lit the eternal flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe. For the first time, there was included a prison dog, a Belgian Malinois shepherd, Gun, who specializes in weapons and ammunition detection.

At night, fireworks were lit at the Eiffel Tower at an expense of $817,000.

On July 14, 1789, nationals stormed the Bastille fortress and prison, which ignited the French Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy.

This year’s event returned to Champs-Elsees from Avenue Foch because of the Summer Olympics.

Gisele Pelicot, 72, was given France’s highest award of Bastille Day celebrations. Pelicot, who has fought against sexual violence, was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor. She was drugged and raped for nearly a decade by her husband, who was sentenced to prison in 2024 along with 50 other defendants.

Also, nearly 600 people were given a civic award, including musician Pharrell Williams.

The guest of honor was Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subitanto, who represents the world’s biggest Muslim country with more than 240 million, or 87% of the total population. Indonesia had 451 soldiers march in the parade, including a drum band of 189 musicians.

It marked 85 years of diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Also, Finnish troops serving in the United Nations force in Lebanon, as well as those from Belgium and Luxembourg serving in the NATO force in Roman, participated.

Another special guest was Fousseynou Samba Cisse, who rescued six people, including two babies, from a burning apartment on the sixth floor earlier this month.

One day before Bastille Day, Macron announced $7.6 billion in additional military spending over two years amid new threats, including from Russia.

“Since 1945, our freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously,” Macron said. “We are experiencing a return to the fact of a nuclear threat, and a proliferation of major conflicts.”

President Donald Trump was so impressed with Bastille Day in 2017 that he decided to conduct his own military celebration in Washington, D.C., this year on June 14.