Fissures are exploding in the US Democratic Party over Israel’s genocide in Gaza and it may cost them the next presidential election, writes Michael F. Brown.

• The Electronic Intifada

Israel detained and tortured Palestinian workers from Gaza who were present lawfully in the country when the events of 7 October unfolded. For the duration of their captivity, workers were “cut off from the world,” according to the Israeli human rights group Gisha, and allowed no legal representation.

• The Electronic Intifada

“We do not sleep at night,” writes Sahar Qeshta from Gaza. “We are living a nightmare with our eyes wide open.”

• The Electronic Intifada

Conditions are so bad “that I fear … a major outbreak of disease,” writes Alaa Abu Shammala from Gaza. “You can’t imagine how much rubbish is now piled up” beside hospitals, where displaced people have gathered in large numbers.

• The Electronic Intifada

The UN issued a plan outlining “the minimum necessary to scale up humanitarian operations” to prevent further loss of life in Gaza and support “500,000 of the most vulnerable in the West Bank.” The world body said that “an estimated $1.2 billion is required to deliver existing humanitarian services amid ongoing hostilities.”

The UN agencies UNRWA and UNICEF distributed limited amounts of locally stored fuel to 120 municipal water wells across Gaza, “including in the north, enabling the wells to resume operations,” according to UN OCHA. “The water extracted is brackish and therefore meant only for non-drinking domestic uses.”

With 1.5 million people in Gaza internally displaced, and nearly half of them sheltering in some 150 facilities belonging to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, “overcrowding remains a major concern,” according to the UN. “The Khan Younis Training Center, the most overcrowded UNRWA shelter, hosts more than 22,000 [internally displaced persons]: the space per person is less than two square meters, while at least 600 people are sharing one toilet,” the UN added.

In its daily report, UN OCHA said that for the third consecutive day, the Israeli military called on Palestinians in the northern half of Gaza to move south along a designated corridor during a four-hour window midday. “UN monitors estimate that some 5,000 people passed,” with damage on roads making the main crossing junction accessible only by foot. “Entire families, including children, elderly people and persons with disabilities reported walking long distances, carrying their personal belongings by hand,” the UN added.

Lebanon’s UN envoy told the Security Council that its failure to “clearly condemn” Israeli crimes in southern Lebanon “will enable Israel to continue pursuing its policy of deliberately killing children and families, in particular, and civilians, in general.” On 5 November, three Lebanese girls and their grandmother were killed in an Israeli drone strike on the car in which they were traveling; in October, Lebanese journalist Issam Abdullah was killed by Israeli shelling targeting a group marked as press. In the letter to the security council, the Lebanese diplomat said that Israel’s goal “is to drag Lebanon into war in order to divert the world’s attention from the crimes being committed in Gaza.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society warned that Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City will run out of fuel within 48 hours “and life-saving equipment, neonatal incubators and intensive care units will cease to function.” The humanitarian group reported “a severe shortage of medical supplies, medicines and a significant lack of food and drinking water for medical staff, patients and the wounded” at the facility, where more than 14,000 displaced people are sheltering.

Human Rights Watch called on Israel’s key allies – the US, UK, Canada and Germany – to “suspend military assistance and arms sales” to the country. “Providing weapons that knowingly and significantly would contribute to unlawful attacks can make those providing them complicit in war crimes,” the New York-based group said. “Iran and other governments should cease providing arms to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, so long as they systematically commit attacks amounting to war crimes against Israeli civilians,” Human Rights Watch added.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that a convoy of ambulances transporting patients from al-Shifa hospital arrived at Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt. The convoy of ambulances included two ICRC vehicles – a demand made by both Egypt and the authorities in Gaza to ensure safe passage after Israel bombed an ambulance in a convoy traveling to Rafah on 3 November. “Dozens of of foreign passport holders” also left Gaza via Rafah on 6 November after a two-day suspension, Reuters reported.

The Financial Times reported that war has “sent shockwaves” through Israel’s $488 billion economy, “disrupting thousands of businesses, straining public finances and plunging whole sectors into crisis.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised “vast transfers of cash to endangered companies and regions,” the publication added, noting that the 350,000 Israeli reservists called up to fight represent 8 percent of the country’s workforce.

South Africa and Chad said they would recall their diplomats from Israel for “consultation.” The African states are the latest to recall diplomats from Israel after Honduras, Colombia, Chile, Jordan and Bahrain called back their ambassadors. Turkey announced that it would recall its ambassador on 4 November ahead of the US secretary of state’s visit to Ankara. Bolivia cut diplomatic relations with Israel last week over what it said were “crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people.”

The Palestinian health ministry said that more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including 4,100 children, and a total of 155 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 October. More than 27,000 have been injured in Gaza and 2,250 in the West Bank. The actual number of fatalities in Gaza is likely much higher with thousands of people missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings.