A military helicopter shot civilians at the Supernova rave where 364 people were reportedly killed, according to an Israeli police investigation revealed by Haaretz. The investigation appears to be the first direct Israeli official acknowledgment that its forces killed some of their own civilians on and after 7 October.
“The maximalist goal of eradicating Hamas is not Israel’s ultimate aim” in Gaza, writes Maureen Clare Murphy. “Declaring such an impossible goal gives Israel – and its chief sponsor, the US – time and a pretext to wage an open-ended genocidal war on the Palestinian people.”
Palestinians who fled Gaza City make their way through the southern Gaza Strip on 18 November.
Xinhua
The Washington Post reported that “Israel and Hamas are close to agreement on a US-brokered deal that would free dozens of women and children held hostage in Gaza in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting.” The paper said the agreement was “a detailed, six-page set of written terms” that would halt combat operations “for at least five days while an initial 50 or more hostages are released in smaller batches every 24 hours.”
Brett McGurk, Middle East advisor to US President Joe Biden, said there would be no “significant pause” to hostilities or “surge in humanitarian relief” until “hostages are released.” Speaking at a security conference in Bahrain, McGurk said that the release of women and children held by Palestinian fighters in Gaza since 7 October would yield “a significant pause … and a massive surge of humanitarian relief,” adding that the “onus is on Hamas.” Writing for the Israeli publication Walla, journalist Barak Ravid said that McGurk and the Biden administration “adopted the Israeli position.” Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza on 9 October in what the UN human rights chief described as an act of collective punishment prohibited under international humanitarian law. Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said during a visit to Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border late last month that blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza may constitute a war crime.
The Israeli military ordered people to leave al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest health facility, forcing the evacuation of some 2,500 internally displaced persons, in addition to patients and medical staff, according to UN OCHA. The World Health Organization led “a joint UN humanitarian assessment team” on a “very high-risk” mission to al-Shifa that it said was “deconflicted” with the Israeli military “to ensure safe passage along the agreed route.” WHO said “the team was able to spend only one hour inside the hospital, which they described as a ‘death zone’ ” with “signs of shelling and gunfire” evident and a mass grave at the entrance to the facility. WHO added that after Israel ordered the evacuation of the facility, 25 health workers and nearly 300 patients remain at al-Shifa, including “32 babies in extremely critical condition, two people in intensive care without ventilation, and 22 dialysis patients whose access to life-saving treatment has been severely compromised.” Most of the patients “are victims of war trauma” with severe and complex injuries, many of whom “have severely infected wounds due to the lack of infection control measures in the hospital and unavailability of antibiotics.” The UN health organization said that it is “urgently developing plans for the immediate evacuation of the remaining patients, staff and their families” and called for an “immediate ceasefire.”
Three schools serving as shelters for displaced people in the northern half of Gaza were hit on 17 and 18 November, killing dozens. More than 50 people were killed in a strike on Tel al-Zaatar school in Beit Lahiya and dozens were killed at the UNRWA-administered al-Fakhoura school in Jabaliya refugee camp. Graphic video of the aftermath of the strike shows scores of lifeless bodies of people who sought shelter at the UN school. It is not the first time that al-Fakhoura was hit this month. According to the UN, more than 70 internally displaced persons were killed and nearly 600 injured while sheltering at UNRWA facilities across Gaza since 7 October. In January 2009, more than 40 Palestinians, including 14 children, were killed when Israel shelled the school.
In its daily report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that “123,000 liters of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt.” OCHA added that Israel confirmed that it “would start allowing the entry of a daily amount of nearly 70,000 liters of fuel … which is well below the minimum requirements for essential humanitarian operations.” The fuel will be used to support UNRWA food distribution and for “the operation of generators at hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, shelters and other critical services,” OCHA said.
A Palestinian child was among the five killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting the Fatah faction headquarters in Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus. Defense for Children International-Palestine said that Israeli combat aircraft carried out the attack, adding that “this is the first airstrike in Nablus by an Israeli warplane since 2005, during the second intifada.” The UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territories described the strike as “an apparent extrajudicial killing.”
Israeli forces are reportedly arresting some of the thousand of people who are moving through the military’s designated “corridor” along Gaza’s main north-south traffic artery. Internally displaced people interviewed by UN OCHA “reported that Israeli forces had established an unstaffed checkpoint where people are directed from a distance to pass through two structures, where a surveillance system is thought to be installed.” Palestinians say they are being “ordered to show their IDs and undergo what appears to be a facial recognition scan.” OCHA added that “the movement of unaccompanied children, as well as separated families, has been increasingly observed.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), said that “following long weeks of delay, the Israeli authorities approved only half of the daily minimum requirements of fuel for humanitarian operations in Gaza.” The amount allowed by Israel “is far from enough to cover the needs for desalination plants, sewage pumps, hospitals, water pumps in shelters, aid trucks, ambulances, bakeries and communications networks to work without interruption,” Lazzarini said, adding that “humanitarian aid cannot be conditional and must not be used for political or military agendas and gains.”
In an op-ed in The Washington Post, US President Joe Biden argued for a two-state solution and “a future free from Hamas.” Biden warned against a “forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza” and called for Gaza and the West Bank to be “reunited” under a “revitalized Palestinian Authority.” These words, and his being prepared to apply “visa bans” against extremist settlers “attacking civilians in the West Bank,” are seemingly meant to counteract the rapid loss of support among young people and people of color due to his partnership in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza that has killed at least 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
The Israeli military acknowledged the deaths of five of their soldiers killed in fighting in northern Gaza and eight others seriously wounded. Israeli officials have now individually named 56 dead in the ground invasion of Gaza, but they have still not offered overall casualty counts for their troops. In a video message a day earlier, Abu Obeida of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, the largest Palestinian fighting force in Gaza, said the numbers were being under-reported and the Israeli public would eventually get word of those killed in battle.
An Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinians in Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The attack targeted the headquarters of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party in the camp. Fatah’s armed wing “claimed the five dead as its fighters,” Reuters reported. After the airstrike, “Israeli occupation forces returned to the camp with a bulldozer” and demolished a home and destroyed roads, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.