Rights and Accountability 17 January 2025
Following the announcement of a ceasefire deal, Israeli airstrikes pounded the Al Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City, 16 January.
APA imagesThe following is from the news roundup during the 16 January livestream. Watch the entire episode here.
In the lead-up to the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday, and in the hours following, Israel carried out massacres and campaigns of further destruction across the Gaza Strip.
“The more we hear about a potential ceasefire agreement, the higher the pace of the attacks, the more families are being targeted and killed,” Hani Mahmoud reported for Al Jazeera.
Approximately 60 Palestinians were killed in a series of attacks just hours before the deal was reached.
Gaza’s civil defense stated that the Israeli military intensified its bombardment of Gaza City after the ceasefire announcement.
In the early hours of Thursday, journalist Anas Al-Sharif reported that 30 Palestinians, including children, were killed in Gaza City a few hours after the ceasefire deal was announced.
“The Israeli occupation army extinguished this joy. … Israel doesn’t want the children, women and families who have endured this war during this past period to live in peace, safety and happiness,” he stated.
The attacks continued. The Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza said on Thursday that since the ceasefire deal was announced, 72 people were killed.
Early Wednesday morning, Israel bombed a home in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 12 people, including a 7-year-old boy and three teenagers, according to the Palestinian civil defense.
Israel also bombed a school shelter in Gaza City and a home in al-Bureij refugee camp.On Monday 13 January, a series of Israeli strikes killed at least 33 Palestinians across Gaza, including seven separate attacks on Palestinians in Gaza City.
On 14 January, Israel bombed a shop along the coastal road in Deir al-Balah which sparked a large fire that, driven by strong sea winds, quickly spread to engulf makeshift encampments for displaced people, according to the United Nations.
While no casualties were reported, 67 families lost all their belongings, as their tents were destroyed in the fire.The Israeli army ordered the further forced displacement of people in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, on Wednesday.
The Gaza government media office stated on 12 January that 100 days have passed since Israel began its targeted campaign of destruction and slaughter in the north, leaving approximately 5,000 Palestinians dead or missing, 9,500 wounded and 2,600 abducted.
“During these hundred days, our Palestinian people in the northern Gaza Strip have experienced the most heinous forms of killing, ethnic cleansing, destruction and displacement,” the media office declared.
“The destruction of homes, hospitals, public facilities and infrastructure clearly exposes the intention of the Israeli occupation to deliberately and systematically eliminate the foundations of life in the Gaza Strip, causing a deep humanitarian crisis that exacerbates the suffering of our honorable Palestinian people.”
The media office added: “We affirm that our Palestinian people will remain steadfast in the face of this brutal aggression and that the occupation will not succeed in displacing our people and depriving them of their rights. These crimes will only increase our Palestinian people’s determination to obtain their legitimate rights and regain their seized land.”
Hospitals under attack
The aid group Relief International reported on 10 January that Al-Awda Hospital in Jabaliya, the last barely functioning hospital in the north, came under direct attack by Israeli occupation forces.
The hospital received immediate evacuation orders at the beginning of January, and Relief International said that since then, the hospital has been awaiting clearance for the safe evacuation of patients to Gaza City. The clearance, however, had not been granted.
An Al Jazeera correspondent said on 15 January that Israeli vehicles were beginning to bulldoze the western side of the Indonesian Hospital, which was completely rendered out of service last month.
The United Nations reports that its health partners are “warning of severe fuel shortages that are putting essential services at risk. According to the partners, all hospitals [that are] still partially functioning have exhausted their fuel reserves. They are now relying on piecemeal deliveries of fuel each day to try and sustain the most critical services.”
We continue our reporting on Israel’s abduction and subsequent disappearance of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, in the north of Gaza. The hospital was surrounded and destroyed by Israeli forces on 27 December, after more than 80 days of relentless attacks because doctors refused to abandon their patients and staff.
Al Mezan, a human rights group, announced on Wednesday that it had confirmed that Israel had transferred Abu Safiya to Ofer military prison on 9 January. Israeli authorities continue to bar Abu Safiya from meeting Al Mezan’s lawyer until 22 January.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, representing tens of thousands of pediatricians and pediatric specialists, demanded that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken work to immediately release Abu Safiya, who is a pediatrician.The American Academy of Pediatrics had been under pressure by groups such as Doctors Against Genocide who had demanded the institution take a stand to end the genocide in Gaza and free a fellow pediatrician, and so many other Palestinian doctors, from illegal Israeli detention.
Six journalists killed
Israel killed six journalists in Gaza this past week, bringing the number of reporters and media workers killed since October 2023 to 208.
On 10 January, Saed Sabry Nabhan, who worked as a photojournalist with the Al-Ghad satellite channel, was killed by an Israeli sniper in Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Gaza government media office.
On 13 January, Muhammad Bashir al-Talmas, an editor at Safa, a Palestinian press agency, died after sustaining serious injuries during an Israeli airstrike on the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City. Also on 13 January, Israel killed Ahlam al-Nafed, a journalist and photographer while she was walking to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, according to DropSite News.Al-Nafed had documented the relentless attacks on the Indonesian Hospital.
Two reporters, Aqel Salah and Ahmed Abu Alrous, were killed on Wednesday in separate airstrikes.Salah was killed in an air attack that targeted a group of people in the Beach refugee camp west of Gaza City, Al Jazeera reported.
And Abu Alrous was killed in Nuseirat along with three others in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the vehicle they were in.
Abu Alrous had uploaded a video of himself just hours before he was killed, expressing joy and cautious optimism at the prospect of a ceasefire.
“All good people, we are now in the final moments. We, the people of Gaza, need your prayers,” he said in his video.
Also on Wednesday, journalist Ahmed al-Shayah was killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a food distribution point in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.Highlighting resilience
Finally, as we always do, we wanted to share images of people expressing defiance and resilience in the face of Israel’s campaign of destruction. In the past 24 hours, as the news of the possible ceasefire spread, Palestinians poured into the streets in celebration across Gaza.
Two of the journalists we rely on for news in the north, Anas al-Sharif and Hossam Shabat, were in the streets reporting live for as the ceasefire deal was announced on Wednesday evening.
While being carried on the shoulders of his community, Shabat said that it was a joyful atmosphere and that his eyes welled up with tears.
In central Gaza, a woman spoke to journalist Fadi Thabet, explaining that the people will rebuild Gaza. And finally, a group of children erupted with joy at hearing the news of a looming ceasefire.
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