Gaza & Palestine
Israeli drone strike with two missiles on the Sawarha area in central Gaza Strip
Targeting with two reconnaissance missiles in the al-Sawarah area
Economic affairs specialist Ahmed Abu Qamar:
▪ Gaza’s market is witnessing a striking shift in the function of cash. After cash was scarce and citizens paid high commissions to obtain it, some cash holders today are paying a commission to get rid of it and convert it into bank or electronic balances. This paradox reveals an important change in the market economy: the value of money is tied not only to its face value, but to how easily it can be used and settled. ▪ During the liquidity crisis, the scarcity of cash gave it strong bargaining power, and the fees for "cash-out" reportedly reached a point where the money was split equally between the owner of the money and the cash-out trader. Today, with the expansion of electronic payment and many traders becoming stricter about accepting banknotes - even new ones - some cash is finding it difficult to move within the market. ▪ The fees for converting cash into digital balances - which we can call the term top-up - range from 3% and may reach 10% depending on the quality of the note. This practically means that the citizen is not paying only for a financial service, but also bearing a cost linked to the note’s quality and its suitability for circulation. ▪ Accordingly, we are facing a market that prices liquidity according to its quality and usability, and the more difficult it becomes to accept cash, the higher the cost of converting it into a more tradable form. The most important paradox is that cash does not disappear; rather, it moves from one hand to another, from individuals to the top-up trader and then to a larger trader, before returning to the market in several forms. In contrast, digital payments are expanding because they have become the most accepted by traders monopolizing the import of goods and provide easier settlement, especially amid the small-change crisis and the difficulty of giving change. ▪ The problem is not cash or electronic payment in themselves, but the high cost of moving between them. Therefore, the wider this gap becomes, the more the citizen becomes the party bearing a larger share of the cost of money circulation within the economy.
Israeli artillery shelling targets the northwestern areas of the Gaza Strip
Hamas:
▪ In response to the speech of war criminal Netanyahu before the United Nations General Assembly, which was an empty speech full of lies and miserable slogans, and exposed the depth of the crisis he is living through, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirms the following: ▪ These blatant lies no longer deceive the countries of the world nor the global public opinion, which has now seen the truth of this terrorist occupation through the brutal war of extermination and the policy of starvation and thirsting, which have claimed the lives of tens of thousands of children, women and the elderly, and its continued effort to destroy the foundations of life for more than two million people in the Gaza Strip. ▪ The claim that the Israeli army is the "most moral" does not deceive anyone in this world, which has witnessed massacres, the war of extermination, starvation and thirsting, and the killing of children, women and unarmed civilians in cold blood. This claim is completely inconsistent with what independent UN committees and reports documented, which confirmed that the crimes and acts committed in Gaza rise to the level of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. ▪ What war criminal Netanyahu stated about his brutal war on the Gaza Strip, and his denial of the systematic extermination he carried out in the Strip, is belied by UN reports and by what the world directly witnessed of massacres, starvation and extermination, in addition to the admissions of his soldiers and officers and their celebrations of the killing of civilians, and the calls by occupation ministers and their fascist leaders to kill Palestinians and displace them. ▪ The withdrawal of most state delegations and their refusal to listen to his speech clearly reveal the international isolation that has come to surround Netanyahu and his rogue entity, and embody the growing global awareness of the reality of the criminal occupation, and the expanding circle of solidarity with our Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, to recover their land and holy sites, and to establish their independent state. ▪ We warn against the occupation’s terrorist and criminal schemes in the occupied West Bank, and against Netanyahu’s denial in his speech of the existence of our Palestinian people there, and the granting of legitimacy to settlers’ crimes against its people. We call for confronting these schemes and crimes by all means. ▪ We affirm that allowing a war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court, who led the most horrific war of extermination in modern times, to ascend the United Nations podium to address the world and promote lies whose falsity has been proven, is a political sin; the place of war criminal Netanyahu should be in the prisons of terrorist criminals, so that he is tried before international and humanitarian justice.
Hazem Qassem:
▪The claim by the representative of the Peace Council, Mr. Miladenov, that the ceasefire agreement in Gaza is holding, completely contradicts what is happening on the ground, as there is daily killing and destruction against the people of the Gaza Strip by the occupation government. ▪The occupation army has killed more than 1,400 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and still restricts aid, closes the crossings, prevents the administrative committee from entering Gaza, and continues destruction operations targeting what remains of the homes of the Gaza Strip. These are all systematic violations of the ceasefire agreement.
In front of nearly empty seats… Netanyahu delivers his speech in the UN General Assembly hall
Names of the released prisoners freed moments ago from the occupation prisons, via the International Committee of the Red Cross, who arrived at Nasser Medical Complex through the Kerem Abu Salem crossing: 1.
Fares Mohammed Abokhamsa 50 years old Deir al-Balah 2. Abdul Karim Ashour Ouda 50 years old Gaza 3. Mustafa Tahsin al-Sharafi 37 years old Gaza 4. Maarouf Mohammed Mehrah 29 years old Gaza 5. Bilal Diab Mehrah 49 years old Gaza 6. Mohammed Atef Assaf 34 years old Jabalia 7. Khaled Atef Assaf 37 years old Jabalia 8. Ahmed Hassan Nassar 50 years old Gaza 9. Ahmed Hassan al-Hayek 44 years old Gaza 10. Hassan Ali Awkel 49 years old Jabalia 11. Mazen Matar Toutah 61 years old Gaza 12. Fouad Tawfiq Toutah 23 years old Gaza 13. Nader Mazen Toutah 36 years old Gaza 14. Aayed Jumaa Toutah 53 years old Gaza 15. Adham Amer Dardas 32 Gaza 16. Amr Jihad Abu Alwan 36 years old Khan Younis 17. Ammar Zuhair al-Qaraan 36 years old Deir al-Balah 18. Jibril Nidal al-Kafarna 22 years old Beit Hanoun 19. Ayman Suleiman Abu Draz 62 years old Khan Younis 20. Ahmed Mahmoud Abu Hour 28 years old az-Zawaida 21. Mahmoud Hassan Nassar 42 years old Gaza 22. Mohammed Maarouf Mehrah 60 years old Gaza