Israeli troops have abducted and detained people as they moved from northern Gaza to the south. A woman whose husband was detained tells Aseel Mousa, reporting from Gaza: “I saw young Palestinians being arrested by the occupation’s forces without any apparent reason. They were forced to strip.”
Israeli airstrikes destroyed six residential towers in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 2 December.
DPA
Israeli airstrikes destroyed a six-story building in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. “Initial reports by local and international media indicate that more than 100 people, including many [internally displaced persons], were killed and many others are believed to be buried under the rubble,” UN OCHA stated. “The building was hit one and half hours after Israeli forces dropped leaflets ordering residents of this area to evacuate,” OCHA added.
An entire block in the Shujaiya neighborhood east of Gaza City “was heavily bombarded and about 50 residential buildings” were destroyed, UN OCHA stated. The Palestinian Civil Defense reported more than “60 people were killed, saying that its crews were working to rescue or retrieve more than 300 others from under the rubble,” according to OCHA. “Video footage from the area showed people searching for survivors, using their hands and hammers to remove the rubble.”
Two paramedics were killed and several others were injured when Israeli forces struck an ambulance evacuating wounded people near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on 1 December, UN OCHA reported. OCHA, citing the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, stated that “the bed occupancy rate at operational hospitals stands well over capacity.” The health ministry said it is establishing triage extensions at several hospitals to support the admission and referrals of patients. The health ministry said nearly 200 medics have been killed in Gaza since 7 October.
The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate parts of Gaza City and Jabaliya in the northern half of Gaza. The army “instructed residents to move towards the western areas of Gaza City,” UN OCHA reported. “The designated areas cover about six percent of the Gaza Strip and, prior to the hostilities, were home to about 415,000 people, many of whom have already evacuated. The scale and scope of population movements following these orders remains unclear,” OCHA added.
Israeli forces ordered parts of the southern Gaza Strip evacuated, including areas east of Khan Younis, “whose residents were ordered to move further south to Rafah,” OCHA said. “These areas encompass 19 percent of the Gaza Strip (69 square kilometers) [and] were home to about 352,000 people prior to the onset of hostilities.” Thousands of internally displaced persons reached the Rafah governorate on 2 December, “increasing the strain on already overcrowded shelters.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Salah al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas’ politburo, said that there would be no negotiations with Israel or additional prisoner exchanges until after its current aggression on Gaza is over. He said that Hamas has stayed true to its pledges made from the beginning to release foreign nationals and women and children and that the remaining captives being held in Gaza are “soldiers and former soldiers.” “We said from day one that the price for the Zionist prisoners for their release is the liberation of all our prisoners, after the ceasefire,” according to a summary of al-Arouri’s interview posted on Hamas’ Telegram channel.
More than a dozen Palestinian human rights groups pleaded for UN special advisors on the prevention of genocide and responsibility to protect to fulfill their mandate and urgently intervene to prevent the genocide unfolding in Gaza. The special advisors have in the past 56 days issued warnings regarding other situations but have been silent on the “the risk of genocide in Palestine,” the Palestinian groups said.
The Palestinian health ministry said that the number of people killed in Gaza since 7 October has risen to more than 15,200 and another 40,650 have been injured. Around 200 people had been killed and 650 injured since the collapse of the truce, the ministry’s spokesperson added. More than two-thirds of those killed in Gaza were women and children.