Updates

8 May 2024

7 May 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

6 May 2024

Roundtable with student activists hosted by Nora Barrows-Friedman

5 May 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

4 May 2024

Livestream segment with contributor Donya Abu Sitta in Gaza

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

3 May 2024

Livestream segment: Discussion

2 May 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

1 May 2024

Livestream news roundup with Nora Barrows-Friedman

30 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

29 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

28 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

27 April 2024

Livestream segment with contributor Abubaker Abed in Gaza

26 April 2024

Livestream segment with guest Mohamed Abdou

25 April 2024

News roundup with Nora Barrows-Friedman

24 April 2024

23 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

22 April 2024

Livestream segment with guest Paul Biggar

21 April 2024

Livestream segment with contributor Aseel Mousa

20 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

19 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

Activist roundtable hosted by Nora Barrows-Friedman

18 April 2024

Feature discussion with Ghada Karmi and Andrew Feinstein, hosted by Omar Karmi

17 April 2024

16 April 2024

Livestream segment with guest Antony Loewenstein

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

15 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

14 April 2024

Special livestream with guest Mohammad Marandi

13 April 2024

Livestream segment news roundup with Nora Barrows-Friedman

12 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

11 April 2024

10 April 2024

9 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

Livestream segment with guest Yipeng Ge

8 April 2024

Feature interview with Mohammad Marandi

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

7 April 2024

Livestream segment with contributor Abubaker Abed in Gaza

6 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

5 April 2024

Livestream segment: Weekly news roundup with Nora Barrows-Friedman

4 April 2024

Livestream segment: group discussion

3 April 2024

2 April 2024

Livestream segment with guest Abdaljawad Omar

1 April 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

31 March 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

30 March 2024

Feature interview with Lex Takkenberg

29 March 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

28 March 2024

Livestream segment weekly news roundup with Nora Barrows-Friedman

27 March 2024

26 March 2024

Livestream segment with guest Dr. Ben Thomson

Feature interview with Darryl Li

25 March 2024

Livestream segment with guest Ilan Pappé

24 March 2024

Livestream segment with Asa Winstanley

23 March 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

22 March 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

21 March 2024

Livestream segment weekly news roundup with Nora Barrows-Friedman

20 March 2024

19 March 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah and Asa Winstanley

18 March 2024

Livestream segment with guest Huda Ammori

17 March 2024

Livestream segment

16 March 2024

Livestream segment

15 March 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

14 March 2024

Livestream segment weekly news roundup with Nora Barrows-Friedman

13 March 2024

Complete livestream on day 159

12 March 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

11 March 2024

Livestream segment with guest Bryce Greene

10 March 2024

Livestream segment

9 March 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

8 March 2024

Livestream segment with guest Dr. Arham Ali

7 March 2024

Livestream segment news roundup with Nora Barrows-Friedman

6 March 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

5 March 2024

Feature interview with guest Matteo Capasso

4 March 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

3 March 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

2 March 2024

Livestream segment with guest John Mearsheimer

1 March 2024

Livestream segment from Gaza with contributor Abubaker Abed

29 February 2024

Feature interview with guest Steven Salaita

28 February 2024

Livestream news round-up day 145 with Nora Barrows-Friedman

27 February 2024

Livestream segment with Asa Winstanley

26 February 2024

Livestream segment with guest Dr. Thaer Ahmad

25 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

24 February 2024

Livestream segment with guest Craig Mokhiber

23 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer and Ali Abunimah

22 February 2024

How Germany cracks down on Palestinians within

21 February 2024

Livestream day 138 news round-up with Nora Barrows-Friedman

20 February 2024

Livestream segment with guest David Miller

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

19 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

18 February 2024

Livestream segment with David Cronin

17 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

16 February 2024

Feature interview with guest Dr. Mads Gilbert

15 February 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

14 February 2024

13 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

12 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

11 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer and Ali Abunimah

10 February 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

9 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

8 February 2024

Livestream segment with guest Hazami Barmada

Roundtable discussion on ceasefire talks

7 February 2024

6 February 2024

Livestream segment with guest Laila El-Haddad

5 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

4 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

3 February 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

2 February 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

1 February 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

Livestream with guest Chris Gunness

31 January 2024

30 January 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

29 January 2024

Livestream segment with Asa Winstanley

The American Medical Association has urged “medical neutrality” and offered no words of comfort or solidarity for its colleagues in Gaza facing annihilation. By doing so, write Tammy Abughnaim and Emily Hacker, members of Healthcare Workers for Palestine - Chicago, the AMA is ignoring its own policy which condemns “the military targeting of healthcare facilities and personnel and using denial of medical services as a weapon of war, by any party, wherever and whenever it occurs.”

The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza do not have adequate access to clean water. The lack of safe drinking water is especially acute in the south, where the majority of the population is now concentrated, write Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman and Salma Yaseen from Gaza.

28 January 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

Several of Israel’s allies have suspended funding to UNRWA following allegations that 12 of its employees were involved in the 7 October attacks led by Hamas. The Israeli allegations appear to be based off of confessions made by Palestinian detainees, likely under conditions of torture. Human rights experts warn that suspending aid to the main provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza is a violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

27 January 2024

Livestream segment with guest Helena Cobban

26 January 2024

Special livestream episode with guest Susan Akram

“Marwa was passionate about documenting her experiences,” writes Tasneem Elholy, her close friend in Gaza. **”I am now following her example by documenting the terrible thing that happened to her.” **

25 January 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

24 January 2024

Israel is expanding its assault in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, besieging multiple hospitals and forcing the displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians. The Israeli military took its biggest hit yet during its ground invasion when 21 soldiers were killed while planting explosives in two buildings near Gaza’s eastern boundary. Maureen Clare Murphy covers the latest developments on day 110 of the war.

Occupation forces shot a Palestinian child and made sure he was dead before they allowed paramedics to reach him as the Israeli military ramps up attacks in the West Bank.

23 January 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

People here in Gaza have aspirations and dreams they work hard to achieve despite all the political, economic and social obstacles,” writes Sarah Algherbawi, who shares some of the plans big and small she and her friends have put on hold indefinitely.

22 January 2024

Livestream segment with guest Shahd Abusalama

Indiana University’s suspension of tenured faculty member Abdulkader Sinno provides a lesson on how powerful institutions are supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza by suppressing pro-Palestinian speech.

Israel has completely blocked internet communications in Gaza multiple times since declaring its genocidal war, with the latest blackout lasting more than a week. During these blackouts, writes Ruwaida Amer, “we have not been able to keep in touch with our family members in other parts of Gaza or with the outside world.”

The European Union is marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day by hosting a conference along with several pro-Israel lobby groups – an event illustrating the EU’s duplicity and depravity.

21 January 2024

Livestream segment with guest Ahmed Abofoul

Israel is losing its war against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, senior commanders have told The New York Times. Failure on the battlefield has led Israeli commanders “to conclude that the freedom of more than 100 Israeli hostages still in Gaza can be secured only through diplomatic rather than military means.”

20 January 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

At midday on 7 October, Israel’s supreme military command ordered all units to prevent the capture of Israeli citizens “at any cost” – even by firing on them. The military “instructed all its fighting units to perform the Hannibal Directive in practice, although it did so without stating that name explicitly,” according to a new investigative article by two journalists with extensive sources inside Israel’s military and intelligence establishment.

19 January 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

18 January 2024

Livestream segment with guest Haidar Eid

17 January 2024

16 January 2024

A feature interview with Amal Saad

15 January 2024

Livetream segment with Jon Elmer

14 January 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

13 January 2024

Livestream segment with guest Ahmed Masoud

12 January 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

11 January 2024

Livestream segment with guest Michael Lynk

The eyes of the world are turned to The Hague as the International Court of Justice begins hearing the genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa. The landmark two-day hearing is to decide if the court will impose “provisional measures” – such as ordering a ceasefire – while it considers the full case, something that could take years.

10 January 2024

An Israeli airstrike on a car they were riding in killed Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Dahdouh and his colleague Mustafa Thuraya in Khan Younis on 7 January. Palestinian journalists are being killed in unprecedented numbers but receive remarkably little international solidarity, The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah told Al Jazeera English.

Fayza Hajo needs to regularly visit a clinic for diabetes treatment but the journey is now too dangerous and she is unable to buy insulin. The health of people in Gaza with chronic conditions is in jeopardy as the medical system is collapsing rapidly, writes Ruwaida Amer from the territory.

9 January 2024

Ali Abunimah on Inside Story

As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Washington’s allies in the region, Israel increased its attacks around hospitals in central and the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza. The UN said that Israel’s offensive in those areas “results in the killing and injury of many people” and has devastating consequences for tens of thousands of civilians who fled from Gaza City and the north.

Since the beginning of the year, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 21 Palestinians in the West Bank, including three children, the youngest of them 4 years old. Nearly half of those killings occurred on a single day.

Palestine Action has a clear and simple goal: to shut down Israel’s leading weapons maker Elbit Systems. That goal was stressed dozens of times during a recent trial in London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court, reports Mohamed Elmaazi.

Israel is doubling down the lurid claim that Hamas fighters systematically raped Israeli women, girls and even some men on 7 October 2023. The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah debunks a revival of this tale published by The New York Times.

The British Parliament is set to vote on the government’s so-called anti-boycott bill, and the Home Office is deliberating whether pro-Palestine activists should pay the cost of policing demonstrations. A concerted effort is underway to narrow the space in the UK for those who would hold Israel accountable for its genocidal violence.

8 January 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

“In the ebb and flow of life’s moments, a bond flourished, transcending the formalities of mentorship,” the Gaza writer Eman Basher says of her relationship with Refaat Alareer, who was assassinated in December. Their friendship was “a notable shift for someone like me, who seldom forges friendships easily.”

Recent calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir were met with a statement of concern from State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. Washington’s concern rings hollow given that the Biden administration is funding and enabling the violence displacing Palestinians from their homes.

7 January 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

Israeli firms profiting from the slaughter in Gaza will be taking part in London weapons fair later this month. “Such an event would be sinister at any time,” writes David Cronin. “That it is being organized while a genocide is being carried out in Gaza adds a new layer of immorality.”

6 January 2024

in the distance smoke plumb fills sky with residential towers on the right

A residential complex in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israeli raids destroyed at least six towers on 6 January.

Bashar Taleb APA images

“A brilliant mind, a sharp tongue and a mighty pen”: One month after his shocking assassination, friends of Refaat Alareer from all over the globe share their memories of the remarkable teacher and writer.

5 January 2024

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

Israel is deliberating the opening of Erez checkpoint in northern Gaza “under pressure from the United States,” according to Haaretz. Washington is “conditioning its continued support of the fighting on increased aid” to the territory – further evidence for how the US and Israel are using humanitarian aid as a fig leaf for genocide in Gaza.

British-Israeli dual nationals have been allowed to join the Israeli military and commit war crimes in Gaza with impunity. The UK has a responsibility in international law to investigate and prosecute those who have committed these crimes.

“This is how life is in Gaza now,” writes Wejdan Abu Shammala, whose days are spent finding water and baking bread to survive. “The smallest things, the basic necessities of life, now seem like insurmountable wishes.”

“The neighborhood streets, once familiar, were now bathed in the red glare of missiles”:s Donya Ahmad Abu Sitta recalls the day that her family were displaced from their Gaza home. “It felt alien and ominous.”

Anda Ashraf Shaheen was overjoyed after scoring 99.4 on her tawjihi secondary school matriculation exam and chose to stay in Gaza to study software engineering. But two weeks into the semester, Israel launched its war and destroyed Gaza’s universities.

“I want to be a witness to the end of this genocide, not a casualty”: Alaa Abu Shammala on making the difficult decision to leave her Gaza home after her neighborhood was declared a combat zone by Israel.

4 January 2024

A car loaded with belongings with children on the roof giving a victory sign

Palestinian families displaced from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza move south to Rafah on 4 January.

Naaman Omar APA images

Israel is bombing overcrowded areas in central and southern Gaza. In Mawasi, a tiny, desolate area in the south designated by Israel as a “humanitarian area,” 17 people were killed in an airstrike.

The US president expressed profound sorrow over the death of an elderly American woman on 7 October. Biden’s lack of sympathy for the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza reflects the racism of the US ruling class, writes Basem Naim.

“My grandson Jalal was born on 9 November 2023,” writes the baby’s namesake, Jalal al-Hallaq, from Gaza. “He is my first grandchild and, like me, was also born in a time of war, blockade and displacement.”

3 January 2024

Despite his age, 2-year-old Omar understands what happened when he “miraculously dodged death,” Fatema Abderahman writes from Gaza. He stunned his family when he said “whole house is broken, the warplane broke the house, the street is broken, the country is broken.”

Charging a phone and finding an internet connection is a day-long ordeal, writes Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman from Gaza. She recounts spending a whole afternoon attempting to file a story, only to be nearly killed in an Israeli strike on the way home.

Our pens are our weapons against the world’s attempts to silence us,” writes Sara Nabil Hegy, a student of Dr. Refaat Alareer, who was assassinated by Israel in December. “They wanted to silence Palestine, yet they raised thousands of voices in response.”

“The night unfolded as a symphony of anguish”: Eman Alhaj Ali recalls the 24 December massacre in Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, where she and her family live. “Ambulances wailed in the distance and neighbors pleaded for salvation.”

People in Gaza are starving as food prices soar due to Israel’s comprehensive siege. Walaa Sabah interviews a mother who encourages her young children to ration their food: “Instead of starving for two days, they starve one out of every three days.”

2 January 2024

A mother and her children stand talking with rows of tents into the horizon

A makeshift camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah on 2 January.

Bashar Taleb APA images

Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas’ politburo, was killed in a strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Two Qassam Brigades commanders and three Hamas cadres were also killed in the blast. The assassinations attributed to Israel crossed a red line set by Hizballah’s Hasan Nasrallah months earlier.

In 2014, three of Muhammad al-Salak’s children were killed by Israeli shelling in Shujaiya, east of Gaza City, and the father lost his right leg due to his injuries. Days after his wife was shot dead by troops, Muhammad was killed at the age of 48 in the current war, according to his friend Muhammad Abu Bayd, interviewed by Ruwaida Amer for The Electronic Intifada.

Sura Sufyan Mousa gave birth to her son in Rafah, southern Gaza, after being displaced from her home where she left behind a new wardrobe for the baby. During labor, “I felt the weight of death all around me as I saw women giving birth without anesthesia,” she recalls.

Israel has killed 50 people in my Gaza village writes Nawal Soleman Akel, currently in Belgium. Among them are Wissam, who leaves behind a twin; young father Muhammad Abu Latifa; Hamam Abu Taima, whose charred body was identified by the keychain in his pocket; and Rani Muammar, the village doctor, killed along with his wife and their four children.

Ethnic cleansing is Israel’s real war aim in Gaza, and the logical outcome of Israeli policies over many decades. That outcome is not guaranteed, writes The Electronic Intifada’s Omar Karmi, and international pressure is growing along with regional tensions, suggesting Israel is running out of time.

1 January 2024

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

31 December 2023

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah

30 December 2023

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer

29 December 2023

A feature interview with Abdeljawad Omar

South Africa invoked the Genocide Convention and initiated proceedings at the International Court of Justice on Friday in a significant step towards ending the relentless bloodshed in Gaza.

“The Israeli army has executed dozens of older Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in direct shooting operations,” according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. More than 1,000 older people have been killed by Israel in Gaza, representing one in 25 of all deaths in the genocide.

“The situation at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, is horrifying. I work as a doctor here and have never seen anything like it”: a report from inside one of Gaza’s few functional hospitals.

Israel is attacking patients, physicians and hospitals across the Gaza Strip. The World Health Organization says that only 13 hospitals – out of 36, before Israel’s genocidal attacks – are partially functioning.

Khaled El-Hissy, now in Jordan, recalls being evacuated from Gaza’s Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, where he was being treated for leukemia: “Israeli snipers were shooting at anyone who tried to leave. They even shot at ambulances.”

The US military said that its warships shot down a drone and an anti-ship ballistic missile fired from Yemen, as Ansarullah continues its Red Sea attacks in support of Gaza.

28 December 2023

People struggle to save families under the rubble of an Israeli attack in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 28 December.

Bashar Taleb APA images

After being displaced several times, Hanin A. Elholy and her baby son are staying with her grandmother in Rafah. Her husband remained in Beit Lahiya, where their home was destroyed: “I have no news about him at the moment.”

“An F-16 warplane began to fly around for an hour or so until I heard six consecutive explosions,” recalls Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman in Gaza. “The explosions shook our apartment and lit it up.”

27 December 2023

Livestream: Full show from day 82

“My cousin Shaima is extremely worried about her husband Mahmoud,” writes Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman in Gaza. He was taken into detention by Israel while evacuating the north around a month ago.

Gaza can’t breathe due to the smoke from wood-burning fires and toxins from Israeli weapons, writes Abubaker Abed from Gaza: “The World Health Organization has documented 150,000 cases of upper respiratory infection in Gaza as of December.”

Muhammad Afana has seen and survived a lot during his nine years as a paramedic in Gaza: three major Israeli aggressions and the Great March of Return protests. Despite the dangers, he and other paramedics have not abandoned their sense of duty, writes Sewar Elejla.

Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat politician in Britain, called for a ban on weapons exports to Israel during its attack on Gaza 15 years ago. Today he is helping censor Palestine content as a senior figure at Meta.

26 December 2023

Livestream segment with guest Craig Mokhiber.

Gaza news roundup: Benjamin Netanyahu says he is pushing for “voluntary migration” from Gaza as the military pushes Palestinians to an increasingly narrow coastal area near the Egyptian border. A human rights group documents dozens of field executions and Palestinian Civil Defense crews recover skeletonized human remains from the streets of northern Gaza. Maureen Clare Murphy covers the latest developments on day 82 of the war.

Maghazi refugee camp, where Israel perpetrated a massacre on Christmas Eve, is among the smallest camps in Gaza and boasts a strong community spirit, writes Ghada Abed. Ahed Abu Hameda, a talented artist, playwright and drama trainer, was among those killed.

Dr. Refaat gave us the courage to stand for what we believe in and the courage to question and change our beliefs simultaneously,” recalls Nour Nemer, one of the assassinated teacher’s students. “He taught us to be truly free.”

25 December 2023

Livestream segment with guest Hamman Farah.

24 December 2023

Joe Biden has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “indiscriminate bombing.” But even in private conversations, Biden isn’t pressing Benjamin Netanyahu for a ceasefire, despite the high civilian death toll and the unpopularity of the war among American voters.

Video and witness accounts recently published by Israeli media reveal new details about how Israeli forces killed their own civilians in Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October, Ali Abunimah and David Sheen report.

23 December 2023

Livestream segment with guest Paul Biggar.

22 December 2023

21 December 2023

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer.

20 December 2023

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer.

19 December 2023

18 December 2023

Livestream segment with Ali Abunimah.

17 December 2023

Livestream segment with Asa Winstanley.

16 December 2023

Livestream segment with guest Tarek Loubani.

15 December 2023

Livestream segment with Jon Elmer.

14 December 2023

Palestinian artists describe to Amjad Ayman Yaghi, reporting from Gaza, what the Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, meant to them: “It was a hopeful place for all of us.”

The temporary truce “almost felt like a holiday” and when it was extended, it felt like “we were one step closer to freedom,” writes Batoul Mohamed Abou Ali in Gaza. When it ended, it was a harsh return to a nightmarish reality.

Israeli forces are continuing to bomb, besiege and destroy hospitals in Gaza, waging what a UN health official called an “unrelenting war” on the health system across the coastal enclave. Nora Barrows-Friedman provides an overview of the state of Gaza’s health system and Israel’s siege on al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza.

Ghada Abed, reporting from Gaza, interviews women on the hellish conditions they’re enduring at a school being used as a shelter for displaced people: “When we have water, we prioritize the children as they cannot understand war or starvation.”

A large-scale Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp entered its third day, with at least 10 Palestinians killed. The invasion has included airstrikes and the targeting of civilian homes, while the Israeli military says it has arrested at least one hundred during the raid.

13 December 2023

A small girl pushes a broom over mud beside makeshift tents

A camp for displaced Palestinians in Dair al-Balah on 13 December.

Naaman Omar APA images

Gaza news roundup: The UN General Assembly votes overwhelmingly for a ceasefire; widespread hunger is taking hold throughout Gaza; the Israeli military is mass arresting civilians, including children and women who tell of torture and abuse during days-long ordeals; and the deadly cost of Israel’s siege on the territory. Maureen Clare Murphy covers the latest developments on day 68 of the war.

Living in an asbestos-filled apartment is not the life that Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman, writing from Gaza, had imagined. When she was displaced from her home, she left behind her wardrobe and a part of her sense of self.

While human rights groups and genocide scholars are ringing the alarm bells over Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza, the UN secretary-general’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide has remained silent.

A few people are profiting handsomely from the genocidal war against Gaza. Elbit Systems, a leading Israeli weapons maker, has reported a “considerable increased demand” for its products since the war was declared.

12 December 2023

Gaza’s health system has been shattered, writes former Shifa hospital physician Sewar Elejla. “If the war continues, the catastrophe will get much worse.”

The Israeli military has admitted for the first time to killing Israelis on 7 October. The military correspondent for Ynet reported that the army says there is an “immense and complex quantity” of what it called “friendly fire” incidents that day but claims “it would not be morally sound to investigate.”

Eman Alhaj Ali, writing from Gaza, tells the story of a high school girl displaced by Israel’s bombs: “Rimas is unsure what the future holds, but she knows she wants to return home”

Even before Israel’s current war, the statistics on mental health in Gaza were alarming, writes Abubaker Abed from the territory. Poverty, displacement and the daily witnessing of abject horrors will only compound the traumas faced by Palestinians in Gaza, who will have few resources to turn to.

“You left before I could tell you how much I loved your lectures,” writes Wesam Thabet, one of Refaat Alareer’s students. “We promise you we won’t drop the pen.”

Israel has failed to achieve its military goals in Gaza, writes Hamas politburo member Bassem Naim, while “the heroic resistance continues, with daily reports of losses inflicted on the enemy.”

11 December 2023

Gaza news roundup: Israel committing “horrific crimes” against starving civilians; Israeli military’s significant losses and mass-arrest propaganda; US veto at the UN security council; the State Department’s humanitarian fig leaf; and the pressure builds on the Gaza-Egypt border. Maureen Clare Murphy covers the latest developments on day 66 of the war.

Khaled El-Hissy writes about the loss of his dear friend Mohammed Hamo, The Electronic Intifada contributor who was killed with his father in an Israeli strike on the Sabra neighborhood in northern Gaza. “Mohammed will never die because his spirit is within me.”

A mother and son are taking shelter in a shipping container after being uprooted repeatedly by Israel’s violence. “They do not have proper blankets now that temperatures have decreased,” Aseel Mousa writes from Gaza.

“His was a mission to tell the story of Gaza and its people,” Asem al-Nabih writes about his dear friend Refaat Alareer, the assassinated writer and teacher. “We honor Refaat by continuing that mission.”

In the earlier stages of this war, Khan Younis was depicted as a safe zone by Israel, writes Ruwaida Amer in Gaza. “The ‘safe south’ has become our graveyard,” a displaced man tells her.

10 December 2023

Destroyed buildings in the foreground of densely packed grey cinder-block buildings

Buildings in northern Gaza destroyed by Israeli attacks, seen from Israel, on 10 December.

Abir Sultan EFE

Israel has destroyed Gaza’s landmark al-Omari mosque, the Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center and Palace of Justice. Israel “aims to erase Palestinian culture and history and “weaken the collective identity of Palestinians,” writes Ghada Abed in Gaza.

Amjad Ayman Yaghi reports from Gaza about a young swimmer who lost her arm and her beloved grandfather in an Israeli attack in Deir al-Balah.

9 December 2023

overhead of hundreds of people and makeshift tents dotting the entire frame

Displaced Palestinians who fled Khan Younis set up camp in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, on 9 December.

Mohammed Talatene DPA

The Israeli airstrike that killed The Electronic Intifada contributor Refaat Alareer and several members of his family was “apparently deliberate,” according to a human rights group.

“Why does white America hate us?” asks Gaza writer Haidar Eid: “Palestinians have obviously joined Black and Indigenous people in the ‘political unconscious’ of mainstream America.”

Sahar Qeshta, writing from Gaza, pays tribute to her teacher Refaat Alareer and two cherished friends killed in Israeli strikes: “I cannot see how I will live following their deaths.”

Since 7 October, Israel has attacked a series of historical and cultural marvels in the besieged Gaza Strip. “The targeting of our heritage indicates that Israel is intent on erasing it,” writes Eman Alhaj Ali from Gaza.

8 December 2023

The Biden administration vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza while the State Department is pushing for expedited sale of 45,000 tank shells to Israel.

“If we must live”: Ghada Hania’s tribute to Refaat Alareer, whose poem “If I must die” has been widely shared and translated after his assassination by Israel.

The writer Refaat Alareer, killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, “was no spectator,” writes Louis Allday. Until the end of his life, he fought as a combatant in his own way against the monstrosities and lies of Zionism.

Since 7 October, writes Aseel Mousa, “whenever I’ve been interviewed by Western media outlets, I am always asked one question: Do you condemn Hamas’ attacks against Israel? It’s as if the conflict between Israel and Palestine began on 7 October, not 75 years ago.”

Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman tells the story of her cousin Shaima, who sustained critical injuries in an Israeli strike that massacred her family, including her two young children. Shaima now “fills her hours watching videos of Oday and Huda on her phone.”

To honor Refaat Alareer, “I will fight with my pencil and my poems,” writes Mahmoud Alyazji, one of the assassinated English literature professor’s beloved students.

A child died after his supply of oxygen was cut when Israel attacked al-Nasr pediatric hospital in northern Gaza. “This child was Yahia Shabet, a patient with muscular dystrophy,” writes Sewar Elejla, who had helped care for the boy earlier this year.

7 December 2023

In memory of Dr. Refaat Alareer. We express our shock, anger and deep sadness at the murder by Israeli occupation forces of our friend and colleague Dr. Refaat Alareer in an airstrike in Gaza City.

6 December 2023

Republican Congressman Max Miller, who recently made a genocidal call to turn Gaza into a “parking lot,” joined with Republican Congressman David Kustoff to push through a resolution in the US House of Representatives that “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.”

Israel designated a human rights group as a terrorist organization shortly after the US State Department inquired about a report detailing the rape of a Palestinian child by Israeli prison authorities, a former official revealed.

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, concluded an unannounced visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank on Sunday. Instead of boosting hopes for justice for Palestinians at the world’s court of last resort, the ICC prosecutor’s trip gives more cause for alarm over his failure to prevent the genocide unfolding in Gaza.

“Entire families are being annihilated, leaving us questioning whether we are to have any hope for the future,” writes Ghada Abed from Gaza. “The world has failed us in our darkest hour.”

As it boasts of compassion toward Palestinians, the European Commission has approved an unprecedented funding package for Israel. With a total budget of over $19 million, the package aims to “reinforce EU-Israel bilateral relations.”

Residents search the rubble of destroyed buildings after Israeli attacks in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, on 6 December.

Naaman Omar APA images

More than 100 people were killed and many others injured during heavy Israeli bombardments on multiple residential buildings in the Jabaliya refugee camp early on Wednesday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported. The Israeli army on Wednesday expanded its attacks in southern and central Gaza, with journalist Hind Khoudary reporting for Al Jazeera that there were “non-stop explosions, non-stop artillery shelling and non-stop clashes. Multiple homes were bombed” in the central Gaza Strip overnight.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza evacuated “most patients and staff” in the Kamal Adwan hospital in Jabaliya refugee camp “and the hospital largely stopped functioning and ceased admitting new patients,” OCHA said. The agency added that “20 patients who, due to their situation, could not be evacuated, have remained in the facility.” OCHA warned that out of 24 hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, only two small hospitals are still able to admit patients. Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza, said that the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City “has lost its capacity [to treat patients] in the face of the large number of injuries, and the wounded are bleeding to death.”

Five UN schools serving as shelters for internally displaced people in the Khan Younis area, in the southern Gaza Strip, “were entirely evacuated, following direct orders given by Israeli forces to the managers of these facilities,” OCHA reported. The Israeli military ordered the “immediate evacuation” of an additional area in Khan Younis city and instructed residents to move to other areas in the south, the UN added.

There is no effective protection of civilians,” stated António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, in his announcement that he has invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter. This invocation mandates a convening of the Security Council to address Israel’s attacks on Gaza. “Amid constant bombardment by the [Israeli army], and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible,” Guterres stated. He also reiterated his call for a “humanitarian ceasefire.”

5 December 2023

Weddings are being held without any celebrations as Israel wages its genocidal war, writes Ruwaida Amer from Gaza, with one woman describing becoming “a bride of displacement, a bride without a white veil or a smile to welcome a new life.”

An Israeli air force colonel has admitted the military may have intentionally killed Israelis on 7 October. Colonel Nof Erez told a Haaretz podcast it was a “mass Hannibal” to stop Israelis being taken alive to Gaza.

Bashaer Muammar takes a walk through the once bustling and now desolate central market in Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city: “These vegetables, survivors of Israel’s genocidal violence, stand as testimony to the resilience of their cultivators, reaped before the ravages of war encroached upon their fields.”

Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza and sheltering in Khan Younis describe to Ruwaida Amer their daily struggle to survive, not knowing if their relatives who remained in places like Jabaliya are still alive.

Israel’s ‘safe corridor’ was “evidently part of a plan to confuse and humiliate us,” writes Dima Ashour from the Gaza Strip. “Israel keeps on committing heinous crimes with impunity.”

Families displaced from Khan Younis head southward on 5 December.

Abed Rahim Khatib DPA

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said that since 7 October at least 16,248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, about 70 percent of whom are said to be women and children. Many more are missing and presumed still under the rubble of destroyed buildings awaiting rescue or recovery, the ministry added.

The pattern of Israel’s attacks “that target or impact on civilian infrastructure raises serious concerns about Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law and significantly raises the risk of atrocity crimes,” said the UN human rights office. Meanwhile, more than 400,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip have “become completely without medical services,” the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza stated.

4 December 2023

Israel and its proxies have launched a new propaganda blitz reviving unverified claims that Hamas fighters perpetrated mass rapes of Israeli women during its 7 October military operation.

Palestinians who survived the journey from northern Gaza to the south via Israel’s “safe corridor” describe their hellish experiences to Ghada Abed: “In the safe corridor, anything that moved was targeted,” one man recalled.

“Having already caused mass displacement from the northern part of Gaza,” writes Eman Alhaj Ali from the battered and besieged coastal enclave, “Israel is now focused on eradicating the vibrant communities in the south.”

Getting news about my family has been extremely difficult,” writes a young person from Gaza living abroad. The scant information that does trickle through is thoroughly distressing.

Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman visited numerous pharmacies in Rafah, southern Gaza, searching for medication she needed to treat migraines, but couldn’t find it. “The lack of medicines was ominous,” she writes.

Palestinians released by Israel in exchange for the release of captives held in Gaza are revealing the horrors they endured in Israeli lockup, having been beaten, starved and threatened with rape in retaliation for the 7 October attacks.

Rubble through the centre flanked by destroyed buildings

Heavily damaged and collapsed buildings after Israeli attacks in al-Bureij refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, on 4 December.

Ahmed Ibrahim APA images

PalTel, the main telecom provider in Gaza, announced around 8:30pm that all communications services “have been lost due to the cutoff of main fiber routes. Gaza is blacked out again.” This outage followed partial shutoffs in Gaza City and elsewhere in northern Gaza a few hours earlier, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Humanitarian agencies and first responders have warned that blackouts jeopardize the already constrained provision of life-saving assistance,” OCHA stated.

“Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go,” UN humanitarian coordinator Lynn Hastings warned. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist. Israeli airstrikes expanded in southern Gaza, “forcing tens of thousands of others into increasingly compressed spaces, desperate to find food, water, shelter and safety,” Hastings said. If possible, the UN official added, “an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond. With shelters at full capacity, a collapsed health system, a lack of clean water, no sanitation and poor nutrition “for people already mentally and physically exhausted,” the situation has become “a textbook formula for epidemics and a public health disaster,” Hastings said.

At least 349 Palestinians were killed and 750 were wounded in Israeli attacks, with a large number of victims “still under the rubble,” the spokesperson for the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza said. The Israeli military struck three out of the four partially operating hospitals in northern Gaza between 3 and 4 December: Al Awda Hospital in Beit Lahiya, Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, and Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabaliya, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated. More than 10,000 internally displaced persons are sheltering inside and around Kamal Adwan Hospital. The Israeli military had instructed the World Health Organization “to remove its supplies from two medical warehouses in southern Gaza within 24 hours, ahead of ground operations,” the UN reported.

3 December 2023

“Each time I hear an explosion, I am haunted by images of children who have been killed in this genocidal war,” writes Mahmoud Alyazji from Gaza. “What if one of my nephews or nieces is next?”

Women and girls have to navigate war, water scarcity and menstrual struggles, writes Eman Alhaj Ali from Gaza. Confronted with inadequate access to sanitary pads and tampons, women are resorting to norethisterone tablets designed to postpone periods, despite the potential adverse effects associated with these medications.

Sufyan Tayeh, president at the Islamic University of Gaza and a renowned researcher in psychics and applied mathematics, was killed along with his family in a strike in Jabaliya refugee camp. “It appears that Israel is deliberately targeting academic and cultural leaders,” writes Ghada Abed from Gaza.

Israeli leaders have said they would take their military onslaught to the southern Gaza Strip, bombarding the territory from north to south, disregarding calls by the US secretary of state to abide by the laws of war and “minimize harm to civilians.”

A child standing in rubble between two tall buildings charred and with walls blown out

The ruins of Israeli airstrikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, on 3 December.

Naaman Omar APA images

Israel “committed horrific and massive massacres” in a 24-hour period between the afternoon of 2 December and the afternoon of 3 December, with airstrikes killing at least 316 and wounding more than 660, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza stated. The ministry added that a large number of victims are still under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Israeli forces arrested another four paramedics on 2 December, the ministry reported.

Aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported. OCHA explained that the number and contents of the trucks were unclear as of 11 pm Palestine time. The crossing with Egypt was “open for the evacuation of 566 foreign nationals and dual citizens, 13 injured people and 11 companions, as well as for the entry of 10 humanitarian staff,” OCHA stated.

2 December 2023

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.”

A collapsed building with silhouettes of people walking amid debris

Israeli airstrikes destroyed six residential towers in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 2 December.

Mohammed Talatene 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.

1 December 2023

The truce that “saved people from death” in Gaza has now collapsed, writes Ruwaida Amer in Gaza. During the truce, “it was like we were waiting for death, while praying that it would not come.”

Many people who have been displaced only learned during the truce about what happened to their houses or apartments, writes Amjad Ayman Yaghi in Gaza. “I saw in a video that my house was destroyed,” a displaced man tells him.

Sarah Algherbawi, writing from Gaza, describes feeling powerless as a parent when her children ask if their home has been bombed. Writing was a means of releasing stress during past Israeli aggressions but now “I feel speechless,” she says.

Palestinians are appealing to the Red Cross and Palestinian Civil Defense on social media to rescue and recover their family members trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings, writes Ghada Abed in Gaza. In Rafah, where she is currently seeking shelter, “there is a house with a poignant message written on its wall: ‘Omar and Osama are still under the rubble.’”

During the temporary and now ended truce, Ghada Abed’s family harvested olives from trees in the courtyard of their bombed home in Gaza. “When we started picking the olives during that fragile ceasefire, we noticed that many of them had fallen to the ground. We tried to collect as many as we could.”

When Sahar Qeshta cautiously stepped outside her Gaza home on the first day of the truce, after “one of the longest nights I have ever lived,” she found “a city I could hardly recognize, full of destruction and the sounds of people in pain.”

A massive plume of smoke mushrooms into the sky

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike after the end of a seven-day pause in fighting in Gaza on 1 December.

Ilia Yefimovich DPA

Citing Egyptian and regional sources, Reuters reported that Israel “informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after war ends.” An anonymous US official said that Washington was opposed to any proposal to reduce the size of Palestinian territory.

Israel published a map of purported “evacuation zones” in the Gaza Strip. Minutes before attacks began, the Israeli military reportedly sent SMS messages to people in multiple areas of Gaza warning that it would “begin a crushing military attack on your area of residence with the aim of eliminating the terrorist organization Hamas.” Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, described Israel’s orders as “a grim game of turkey shoot. A move from indiscriminate killing of civilians to organized killing.” The human rights expert noted that “there is no internet or electricity in southern Gaza on a regular basis. How will the population check SMS messages about coming attacks?”

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), said that “we are beyond ‘concerned’ that NO humanitarian aid has been allowed into Gaza today including fuel” after talks to renew a temporary pause in hostilities collapsed and Israeli bombing resumed. The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated that “Israeli occupation forces informed all organizations and entities operating at the Rafah border crossing that the entry of aid trucks from the Egyptian side to the Gaza Strip is prohibited, starting from today until further notice.”

The UN human rights office in Palestine said it was “seriously concerned” over the arrest and detention of more than 3,000 Palestinians across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 7 October, many of them held without charge or trial. Six Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since 7 October, the UN office added – “the highest number of cases reported in such a short time-period in decades.” The UN said that testimonies it has collected “appear consistent with numerous pictures and video clips published in recent weeks on social media by Israeli soldiers, depicting abuse and humiliation of Palestinians.” Palestinian detainees have also reported being “threatened with rape in retaliation for the attacks of 7 October.”

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said that Israel’s orders for Palestinians in Khan Younis to evacuate to Rafah “risks to push the exhausted Gaza population to the border with Egypt and into deportation to Sinai.” Albanese added that “this may result in the largest forcible transfer of Palestinians in a long history of forcible transfers of Palestinians.” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), similarly warned that an Israeli military assault in southern Gaza may push as many as 1 million refugees into Egypt.

The Palestinian Authority foreign affairs ministry called for “urgent international and American intervention to immediately stop the war” after Israel began bombing Gaza following the collapse of a temporary truce. The ministry said that intense bombardment resulted “in the destruction of entire residential blocks, leading to the martyrdom of over 100 civilians and the injury of hundreds more.”

30 November 2023

Gaza news roundup: Israel and Hamas agreed to extend a temporary truce by another day just minutes before the agreement was set to expire. Despite international pressure for an indefinite ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated beforehand that his war cabinet intends to “fight until the end” in Gaza.

Earlier this month, the international council of the Auschwitz museum issued a statement supporting Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip under the banner of “self-defense.” Instead of promoting respect for tolerance, democracy and human rights, Holocaust education appears to be now aimed at providing justification for new atrocities.

The current silence of medical organizations that spoke out on Ukraine amounts to complicity in genocide, writes Sewar Elejla, who worked as a physician at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital. Some medical professionals have even openly supported and celebrated the bloodshed in Gaza, where scores of health workers have been killed.

Conditions at the facilities where displaced Palestinians are taking shelter are shocking, writes Abubaker Abed from Gaza. Classrooms where young people were educated are now “stagnant pools of filth,” a displaced teacher tells him.

Israeli troops shot and killed an 8-year-old Palestinian child from inside a military vehicle in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on 29 November. The boy, whose execution was recorded on security camera video, was among four Palestinians killed during the nearly day-long raid.

29 November 2023

The Israeli military left five Palestinian babies to die in their small beds at al-Nasr Pediatric Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip after soldiers raided it nearly three weeks ago. The tiny infants died starving, cold and alone. The parents of the fragile newborns were apparently told by the Israeli military that the Red Cross would evacuate their babies safely, according to testimonies. But that did not happen.

Children jumping together with their arms in the air at sunset on a beach

Displaced children play on the beach during the pause in fighting in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on 29 November.

Omar Ashtawy APA images

28 November 2023

“I’d try to go to sleep every night, but the explosions kept me awake,” writes Tasneem Elholy from Gaza. “I am not sure what my future looks like.”

Israel bombed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital while I and other cancer patients, many of them children or elderly, were receiving medical care,” writes Khaled El-Hissy from Gaza.

The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, told the captives in Hebrew on 8 October that they would not be harmed and would be released as part of an exchange, according Israeli media reports.

Two men carry a pot of soup cooked in a volunteer kitchen amid makeshift tents

Volunteers cook a meal in a makeshift tent camp in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on 28 November.

Omar Ashtawy APA images

For the fifth consecutive day, prisoners were exchanged between Hamas and Israel as part of their extended humanitarian pause agreement. The Qassam Brigades released footage on their social media channel showing their fighters, along with those of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades, handing over twelve captives held in Gaza to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Israel’s prison authorities said 30 Palestinians were released from Ofer Prison in the West Bank. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club said 15 of those released were women and 15 were children. One was 14-year old Ahmad Salayme, who told al Jazeera, “we are very happy but our happiness is incomplete because we mourn those who are lost, those who are wounded and those who are missing [in Gaza].”

The US House of Representatives voted 412-1 on a resolution “reaffirming the State of Israel’s right to exist.” The resolution states that “denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism; rejects calls for Israel’s destruction and the elimination of the only Jewish State; and condemns the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel.” Thomas Massie, a Republican, said he was voting no because the resolution “equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.” Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American, voted present, saying the resolution “contributes to the ongoing erasure of Palestinians.”

27 November 2023

Palestinians are facing the onset of winter without proper clothing, shelter and blankets. The sense of fear is palpable,” writes Amjad Ayman Yaghi from Gaza.

Saadia Abu Akar built a new home for her family after Israel bulldozed her neighborhood in 2003. Now Israel has attacked that home, too, and destroyed it within seconds, Ruwaida Amer writes from Gaza.

Among the many thousands of people who have been killed was the nephrologist Dr. Hammam al-Louh,” writes Ghada Abed from Gaza. “He had been treating my brother.”

“If grassroots pressure doesn’t force President Joe Biden and the Democrats to rein in Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the warmongers around him, the last seven weeks may be surpassed by even greater horrors.

Makeshift tents hold off increasingly difficult weather for Palestinians sheltering at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah on 27 November.

Omar Ashtawy APA images

Israel and Hamas agreed to extend the combat pause and prisoner exchange agreement by two days, a Qatari mediator told Reuters. Through four days of exchanges, the Palestinians have turned over 69 detainees held in Gaza and the Israeli government has released 150 Palestinians from custody.

The Qassam Brigades released video footage of their fighters handing over 11 captives held in Gaza to the Red Cross, the fourth such exchange since the combat pause and prisoner exchange agreement went into effect on 24 November. 33 Palestinians – 30 children and three women – were released by the Israel Prison Service and an additional 200 trucks have delivered aid to Gaza, as per the agreement signed between Hamas and Israel. According to Haaretz, “Israel police warned the families of Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails as part of the exchange deal with Hamas not to celebrate the return of their loved ones.” The families of the released Palestinian children were summoned by police to issue the warning, Haaretz added.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza announced that al-Shifa Hospital “has been able to reactivate its dialysis department, opening its doors to people in the north in need of such treatment,” according to the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Over the weeks prior to the pause, the hospital sustained extensive damage during bombardments and Israeli operations inside the compound,” OCHA added.

Israel fire has killed nearly 231 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, including at least eight killed by settlers, the UN monitoring group OCHA has reported. This constitutes more than half of all Israeli killings in the area since the beginning of the year. “So far, 2023 has been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since OCHA began recording casualties in 2005,” OCHA said. Sixty Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) has said.

26 November 2023

Israel’s war on Gaza has been a war on Gaza’s hospitals,” writes Dima Ashour in Gaza.

Sewar Elejla tells the harrowing story of Dr. Israa Ahmed’s struggle to survive, trapped under rubble for 13 hours after an Israeli bomb crushed her family’s home.

A Red Cross vehicle flying a white International Committee of the Red Cross flag with passengers drives on a dark road

Red Cross staff transfer detainees held by Hamas to the Rafah Crossing with Egypt, in southern Gaza, on 26 November.

Rizek Abdeljawad Xinhua

The Qassam Brigades released an additional 17 detainees held in Gaza, the Israeli military said. The exchange today brings the number of captives released from Gaza to 58. 39 Palestinians – women and children – have been released from Israeli prison each of the first three days in accordance with the prisoner exchange agreement. The 117 are mostly children, part of a cohort that totals some 250 children and women imprisoned in Israel, more than 80 percent of whom are being held without formal charges against them, held in what Israel calls administrative detention. There are more than 7,000 political prisoners held in Israeli jails and prisons, according to Addameer, the Palestinian prisoners rights group.

25 November 2023

On the second day of a four-day pause in hostilities agreed to by Hamas and Israel, Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinians and injured others who were attempting to return to the north of Gaza from the south. Meanwhile, released Palestinian women and children prisoners were received by overjoyed crowds as they took their first steps of freedom in the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s war on Gaza has actually been a war on Gaza’s hospitals, writes Dima Ashour from Gaza.

Jordan is undergoing its most serious diplomatic rift with Israel since the two countries established formal ties in 1994.

An Israeli witness of 7 October says that a young Israeli girl in Kibbutz Be’eri was killed by Israeli military tank fire. Liel Hatsroni’s death is being used by Israeli politicians to incite and justify Israel’s vengeful slaughter of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza.

People walk and ride bicycles on a road with destroyed buildings from airstrikes

Palestinians return to their daily lives during the 4-day humanitarian pause, Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza on 25 November.

Omar Ashtawy APA images

After a seven-hour delay, the Qassam Brigades said around 11pm local time that they had turned over to the Red Cross 13 Israelis and several foreign workers detained in Gaza. Qassam earlier said in a statement the delay was because Israel had not delivered the agreed upon resources to northern Gaza. According to a Qatari mediator, 13 Israelis would be released along with four foreign nationals; Israel would release 39 Palestinian’s in Israeli prison. Almost all of the Palestinians being released from Israeli prison in this stage of the exchange are children. This was the second batch of prisoners exchanged between the Qassam Brigades and Israel.

24 November 2023

An eerie quiet prevails on the first day of the truce,” writes Eman Alhaj Ali from Gaza. “For those who have lost their homes, the truce offers no solace.”

“This war has been far more painful than any previous war against Gaza,” writes Ruwaida Amer from the besieged territory. “We really hope that this truce will lead to a permanent ceasefire.”

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid enter the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, hours after the start of a four-day truce on 24 November.

Naaman Omar APA images

The first stage of the prisoner exchange proceeded as 39 Palestinians in Israeli prisons were released to scenes of jubilation in the West Bank as crowds filled the streets and surrounded buses carrying the released children and women. Around the same time, 24 captives – 13 Israelis and 11 foreigners – were returned to Israel by the Qassam Brigades and quietly moved to an Israeli air base near Gaza after being handed over to the Red Cross at the border with Egypt.

Al Jazeera reported that the Israeli military’s de facto ceasefire line cuts Gaza in half, with the military blocking the two main north-south roads and preventing Palestinians from returning to the north. Palestinians had immediately tried to go back to their homes when the pause went into effect to check on what’s left, get belongings, and most crucially for many, to find their family and friends and neighbors under the rubble of Israel’s bombardment.

The pause in fighting began at 7am local time and live footage from Al Jazeera showed children in the streets playing and tens of thousands of people on the move throughout the southern Gaza Strip. Reporters and civilians noted the absence of Israeli military drones for the first time in years. Aid trucks were seen moving at the Rafah crossing.

23 November 2023

I hope to see you again, my beloved Gaza,” Mahmoud Nasser writes in a photo essay documenting his journey from the place he calls home and all the memories it holds.

“The question that 2.3 million captives in Gaza are now asking is: What’s next?” writes Khalil Abu Shammala from the coastal enclave.

“There was a sense of relief in the house where I am staying when news of a long-awaited truce – albeit a temporary one – was announced,” writes Ghada Abed from Gaza. “After nearly 50 days of a war that has left communities shattered and lives upended, anything that brings a tiny bit of peace is welcome.”

Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh has continued broadcasting after his wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed by an Israeli airstrike last month. “I refused to let the occupation achieve its goal of shattering this voice,” he said in an interview with Abubaker Abed.

A crowded lot full of children waving their arms in a group activity

Children participate in an activity while sheltering at al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on 23 November.

Omar Ashtawy APA images

In a detailed statement released on social media, the Qassam Brigades laid out the terms agreed upon with Israel for a four-day combat pause and partial prisoner exchange. The English language translation was provided by the Qassam Brigades. The Israeli government has not publicly outlined the exact details on which they voted during a six-hour session approving the deal.

Israeli attacks by air, land and sea intensified over the past 24 hours across Gaza, according to UN OCHA’s daily report. Meanwhile ground battles with Palestinian fighters were reported in northern Gaza, “Jabaliya in particular,” OCHA added, with “many casualties” reported over the past 24 hours, soon before a humanitarian pause and prisoner exchange agreed to by Israel and Hamas.

The anti-poverty group Oxfam International warned that “the collapse of Gaza’s hospitals and healthcare system, coupled with the catastrophic living conditions, is resulting in babies dying of preventable causes.” Oxfam International added that newborns in their first three months of life “are dying of diarrhea, hypothermia, dehydration and infection as mothers have little to no medical support and are living in appalling conditions without water, sanitation, heat or food.” The network of doctors belonging to Juzoor, an organization operating in northern Gaza, said that “premature births have increased by between 25-30 percent, as stressed and traumatized pregnant women face a myriad of challenges” due to displacement, bombing and squalid conditions at overcrowded shelters. Meanwhile, according to Oxfam International, “without essential equipment and medical support, premature and underweight babies have little to no chance of survival.”

Israel bombarded the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, the spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said, adding “we fear for the lives of 200 patients and medical staff.” WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, reported that Israeli warplanes and artillery units targeted the entrances to the hospital and its power generators, “resulting in severe damage and a complete power outage across the hospital.” Tanks are surrounding the hospital, which has been under siege for the past four days.

UN OCHA reported that “three children, including an infant in an incubator, died” in Kamal Odwan hospital in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, on 22 November due to lack of electricity. “The vicinity of the hospital was heavily bombarded that day, reportedly resulting in dozens of fatalities,” OCHA added, noting that Kamal Odwan is one of only two hospitals in the northern half of Gaza “that are still operational and admitting patients, albeit with limited services.”

The government media office in Gaza announced that as of 6:00 pm, “more than 14,800 people have been killed in Gaza, including about 6,000 children and 4,000 women,” UN OCHA reported. “This office, which is under the local authorities in Gaza, has assumed [the ministry of health’s] role following the collapse of services and communications at hospitals in the north.”

Israeli forces arrested the director of al-Shifa hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, while he was evacuating from the northern half of Gaza to the south. Israeli media reported that Abu Salmiya was taken in for questioning by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency that is notorious for abuses against Palestinian detainees. Khalid Abu Samra, an official at al-Shifa, said that “several other senior doctors” were arrested. On 22 November, three paramedics with the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the companion of a patient were arrested by Israeli troops during an evacuation of people from al-Shifa hospital.

In an video message broadcast on day 48 of the war, Abu Obeida of the Qassam Brigades acknowledged the multiple fronts of resistance battling Israel in the past six weeks. He named Ansarullah in Yemen, Hizballah in Lebanon and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, all of whom have launched attacks of various kinds at Israeli and US targets dozens of times each since 7 October, expressly in support of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. The previous day, the Qassam Brigades released a video that showed its fighters battling the Israeli military in Gaza City and hitting several tanks and armored troop carriers, including one scene where a fighter attempts to enter the Israeli troop carrier through its back door.

22 November 2023

“Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map,” White House spokesperson John Kirby claimed this week. Meanwhile, Israeli politicians are calling for a mass expulsion of Palestinians from the territory, saying “that’s the solution for Gaza.”

In the battle that began on 7 October, resistance groups have produced a steady stream of videos documenting the fight.

A retired army major has admitted the military probably killed Israelis on 7 October. The confession, discovered by The Electronic Intifada, is one of the highest level confirmations to date that Israel killed many, if not most, of the civilians that died during the Palestinian offensive.

“No matter the outcome of Israel’s genocidal invasion of Gaza, the Palestinian resistance fighters have already won,” writes susan abulhawa. “They were victorious from that first day when they executed a successful military raid of Israeli targets.”

Does CNN anchor Dana Bash believe Gaza is in Israel? It certainly sounded that way when she wrapped up a segment by referring to “Gaza, which is in the southwest of Israel.”

“After enduring five massive Israel attacks between 2001 – the year I was born – and 2021, I decided to leave Gaza in pursuit of a better future,” Basma Almaza writes from Malaysia. “In my eagerness to escape, it did not occur to me that I could lose everything.”

Winter weather is bringing misery to the displaced, Ghada Abed writes from Gaza. Rain is typically viewed as a divine blessing but today it brings new woes.

Aerial view of dozens of bodies wrapped in blue bags in a shallow trench with men standing near them

Palestinians bury the bodies of 110 victims in a mass grave in Khan Younis cemetery on 22 November.

Mohammed Talatene DPA

In its daily report, UN OCHA said that 190 patients and their companions and “a number of medical teams” were evacuated from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. “The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that the evacuation lasted for almost 20 hours as the convoy was obstructed and subjected to inspection while passing through the [Israeli military] checkpoint that separates northern and southern Gaza, ‘hence putting the lives of the wounded and sick people in danger,’” OCHA added. Around 250 patients and staff remain at al-Shifa, which is no longer functional.

UN OCHA said that “heavy strikes were reported on and around the Indonesian hospital” in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, “hitting the surgery department” shortly before midnight on 21 November. The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza reported around “60 corpses lying near the hospital,” OCHA added. “Earlier in the day, some 500 patients and staff were evacuated from the hospital to a hospital in Khan Younis (in the south), in coordination with humanitarian agencies.”

The area around Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya was heavily bombarded, “resulting in dozens killed,” UN OCHA said, citing media reports. “Since last night, it has admitted more than 60 dead and some 1,000 wounded people,” OCHA added. Kamal Adwan is one of only two hospitals in the northern half of Gaza that is still functioning and admitting patients.

UNRWA confirmed that 15 displaced persons sheltering at a school were killed in a direct strike on the UN facility in al-Bureij refugee camp. “Of them, nine were children and four were women; and another 20 people were injured,” UN OCHA said, adding that around 1,000 people who were sheltering at the school were evacuated after the deadly strike. “Since 7 October, at least 191 people sheltering in UNRWA schools have been killed and 798 reported injured,” OCHA added.

UN OCHA said that only 250 Palestinians moved from northern Gaza to the south via the Salah al-Din road “corridor” while “the Israeli military continued calling and exerting pressure on residents of the north to leave.” The UN group said that this was the lowest volume of people who moved since the “corridor” was opened following Israel’s order to evacuate, which UN agencies urged it to rescind. “The decline is largely attributed to the expectations generated by the humanitarian pause to be implemented from 23 November,” according to OCHA.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that “an interagency plan is being developed to respond” to the situation of unaccompanied children and separated families evacuating from northern Gaza to the south. Israeli forces have also arrested people moving through the Salah al-Din road “corridor.” The UN group said that “one man interviewed by OCHA reported that his wife had been detained and forced to hand over their baby to him. The monitoring team has documented a few similar cases over the past few weeks, including instances where a mother was ordered to leave her baby with strangers.”

The Israeli military named the 70th soldier killed in Gaza since their ground invasion began, including 19 in the past five days, according to their website and social media accounts. The military has only named slain soldiers individually and has still not offered an overall casualty figure.

Israeli forces killed eight Palestinian men in three separate operations across the West Bank” over the past 24 hours, UN OCHA said. Six people were killed in Tulkarm refugee camp “in an operation that involved armed clashes with Palestinians and Israeli airstrikes, resulting in extensive infrastructure and residential damage,” OCHA added. Another Palestinian was killed when Israeli forces opened fire at a vehicle in which he was traveling in Azzun in the Qalqilya area and another person was killed during an arrest raid in Balata refugee camp in the Nablus area. More than 215 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since 7 October, including 53 children, according to OCHA. Four Israelis were killed in attacks by Palestinians, the UN group added.

The Israeli government voted in favor of a deal to release 50 captives held in Gaza in exchange for a four-day pause in fighting that would allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into the territory. Hamas said that the deal was reached after difficult negotiations mediated tirelessly by Qatar and Egypt and would allow the distribution of humanitarian aid including fuel to all areas of the Gaza Strip. The deal would include the release of 50 women and children in Hamas custody in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children in Israeli prison, the resistance group said. Al Jazeera reported that there is a 24-hour period for appeals to Israel’s high court and no prisoners will be released during that time, with the “first exchange of captives and prisoners … expected on Thursday or Friday.”

21 November 2023

After being forcibly displaced by Israeli attacks, nearly 900,000 people are sheltering in facilities run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, in Gaza. Privacy for displaced people staying at schools is nonexistent, and the overcrowded facilities are prone to outbreaks of viruses, writes Alaa Abu Shammala in Gaza.

Israeli lawmakers screamed at the family members of people being held captive in Gaza during a Knesset hearing on Monday. The family members of captives say that advancing the so-called “Death Penalty for Terrorists” bill, and the inflammatory rhetoric used by its proponents, endangers their family members being held in Gaza.

Most Americans on both sides of the political aisle, as well as a vast majority of independents, support a ceasefire in Gaza. Despite this, only 43 Democrats in the US House of Representatives have called for a ceasefire and only two have done so in the US Senate.

Ireland’s enterprise and trade ministry has admitted that it recently issued 100 work permits for Israeli software engineers. As well as refusing to impose economic sanctions on Israel, Ireland’s ruling coalition has rejected calls for other types of action.

A young boy carries the body of a baby shrouded in a white cloth

A child carries the body of his brother, killed in Israeli bombardment, at al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 21 November.

Mohammed Zaanoun ActiveStills

Israeli airstrikes killed four Lebanese civilians in the southern part of the country, including two journalists, as cross-border fire between Lebanese resistance group Hizballah and the Israeli military intensified in recent days. The Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen network mourned its correspondent, Farah Omar, and the photographer who accompanied her, Rabie al-Maamari, who were killed by an Israeli attack in the town of Tayr Harfa in southern Lebanon. A third Lebanese civilian, Hussein Akil, was also killed in the attack.

Hizballah targeted the site of Israeli state-owned weapons manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in the northern town of Shlomi. The resistance group reported said this was in response to the Israeli army targeting a factory in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said that attack was targetings “surface-to-air missile system that had downed an Israeli drone,” The New York Times reported.

20 November 2023

The targeted assaults on places of learning in Gaza are an attack on the right to education,” writes Eman Alhaj Ali from the besieged coastal enclave. “Israel is erasing the places where minds were nurtured and futures were shaped.”

The London School of Economics censored an article by one of its professors about how Israel has influenced Britain’s policies on “extremism.” The Electronic Intifada has published the article in full.

People search the rubble of a bombed building with personal effects strewn about

A civil defense team and civilians conduct a search and rescue operation in the rubble of a building bombed by the Israeli military, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, on 20 November.

Bashar Taleb APA images

The Israeli military continued pressuring residents in northern Gaza to leave southwards through a “corridor” along the main traffic artery, with 25,000 more displaced traveling throughout the day. “Their situation has significantly worsened in the past 24 hours, as they became exposed to the heavy rains,” the UN stated. The monitoring team for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted an increased number of wounded people crossing through the “corridor.”

Israel struck a clinic operated by Doctors Without Borders in Gaza City, “resulting in damage to the building.” Five of the international medical organization’s cars were “burned and crushed by tank shelling,” the UN said. More than 20 people “are in the clinic, and might be in extreme danger and their status is unknown,” the organization warned.

The UN special rapporteur on the rights of people with disabilities called for “unconditional and unrestricted humanitarian aid access” to all civilians in Gaza, “especially those with disabilities who may need assistive tools in addition to food, medicine, and other essential services such as water and sanitation, electricity and healthcare.” Heba Hagrass, who began her term as special rapporteur on 1 November, said that “people with disabilities must not be ‘left behind’ because their families and relief teams are unable to give them the necessary support.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists paid tribute to Palestinian journalist and press freedom defender, Bilal Jadallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in Gaza on 19 November. The press freedom watchdog said that Jadallah “provided indispensable research for CPJ’s May 2023 report Deadly Pattern which found a complete lack of accountability in Israeli military killings of journalists over 22 years.” The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said that Jadallah was “assassinated.” The Committee to Protect Journalists called for an independent investigation and accountability for his killing. At least 43 Palestinian media workers and journalists have been killed in Gaza since 7 October.

“We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I have been secretary-general”, António Guterres, the head of the UN, said during a press conference on climate change. The UN secretary-general rejected a UN protectorate in Gaza and stressed moving towards a “two-state solution” after the war and “to have a strengthened Palestinian Authority to resume responsibilities” in the territory.

“Women and children have disproportionately borne the brunt of the conflict in Israel and Gaza,” according to Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls. Alsalem added that “since 7 October, the assault on Palestinian women’s dignity and rights has taken on new and terrifying dimensions, as thousands have become victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and an unfolding genocide.” She expressed alarm over Israeli officials and public figures calling Palestinian people “children of darkness.” Alsalem said that “such statements make the Israeli government’s intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, absolutely and consistently clear.”

The World Health Organization said it was “appalled” by an attack on the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza that reportedly killed at least 12 people, “including patients and their companions residing at the hospital.” The health facility “continues to be besieged,” WHO added, with no one allowed to enter or leave. Lacking electricity, power, water, essential medicines and supplies, “the hospital is only able to provide basic services, putting the lives of those with severe injuries and other medical emergencies at immediate risk,” the UN agency said.

Amnesty International said that it documented two Israeli attacks in Gaza that killed 46 civilians, including 20 children, that “must be investigated as war crimes.” The two attacks examined by Amnesty are the 19 October Israeli airstrike on the Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza’s Old City and a 20 October Israeli airstrike on homes in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Amnesty said that “Israeli forces have demonstrated – yet again – a chilling indifference to the catastrophic toll on civilians of their ongoing relentless bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip.” Amnesty urged the International Criminal Court prosecutor “to take immediate concrete action to expedite the investigation into war crimes and other crimes under international law opened in 2021.”

19 November 2023

Khalid and Salah Jadallah were twin brothers who “seemed to do everything together,” writes Amjad Ayman Yaghi from Gaza. “They were both killed by Israel in an airstrike on the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City.”

Israel’s national broadcaster Kan published a video of Israeli children singing in celebration and support for the Israeli army’s mass extermination campaign of Palestinians in Gaza. “Autumn night falls over the beach of Gaza, planes are bombing, destruction, destruction,” the children sing in the video. “Within a year we will annihilate everyone, and then we will return to plow our fields.”

Refaat Alareer took shelter in the Rantisi children’s hospital and had seen the basement where the Israeli military filmed an absurd video alleging that Hamas held captives there. “If cooking rice is a Hamas activity, then that was all that was going on in the basement,” Alareer writes from Gaza.

Several men wearing blue flak jackets marked as press stand and kneel next to two shrouded bodies with flak jackets placed on them

Palestinian journalists mourn over the bodies of their colleagues Sari Mansour and Hassouneh Salim, killed in an Israeli airstrike the previous day, during their funeral in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on 19 November.

Omar Ashtawy APA images

In a meeting with lawmakers, Iran’s foreign minister said that Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza are “intelligently mounting pressure” on Israel, adding that “there is a lot of unactivated capacity.” In a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also said that the US was “adding to the intensity and scope” of the “American-Zionist” war.

Physicians with Doctors Without Borders say that the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, is “overflowing with hundreds of patients with burns who must wait for surgical care” after an Israeli airstrike hit an area near the hospital. The doctors reported that 70 people were pronounced dead on arrival. “A total of 122 patients arrived at the hospital in the immediate aftermath of the airstrike,” the international medical organization said. “The medical needs are huge,” said Christophe Garnier, a local project coordinator with Doctors Without Borders. He added that the organization is “ready to scale up its activities” but that they need “basic guarantees of safety and unrestricted access of medical and humanitarian supplies into Gaza.” Garnier said that “a ceasefire is a must, now more than ever, to stop the bloodshed that is happening.”

Dozens of premature infants were evacuated from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City to the neonatal intensive care unit of a maternity hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Thirty-one babies were transferred along with 16 staff and family members, according to UN OCHA, which added that “the newborns’ condition was rapidly deteriorating in their previous location.” Five infants had already died in previous days due to the collapse of medical, fuel and electricity services while Israeli forces besieged the facility. UN agencies and partner organizations are “supporting the identification and registration of the babies to help trace and reunify them with their parents and family members where possible,” the UN said. The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza reported that more than 250 patients who were unable to evacuate remain in al-Shifa hospital.

Approximately 70,000 liters of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt, which is “well below the minimum requirements for essential humanitarian operations,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, and the UN children’s fund UNICEF “distributed 19,500 liters of fuel to water and sanitation facilities [in southern Gaza] enabling them to operate generators and resume their operation.” This amount of fuel is expected to last for around 24 hours, the UN said. In Gaza’s northern half, “all water and sanitation facilities are presumed to be shut down” and there has been no distribution of bottled water since Israel’s ground invasion began late last month, “raising grave concerns about dehydration and waterborne diseases.” The UN stated that apart from the fuel trucks, 69 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Egypt.

Israeli forces continued to order Palestinians in the northern half of the Gaza Strip to move south through a “corridor” between 7:00am and 4:00pm. UN OCHA estimates that approximately 20,000 Palestinians used donkey carts, buses or walked on foot, with some Palestinians being arrested by Israeli soldiers as they moved. The UN estimates that more than 1.7 million people have been internally displaced in Gaza, including nearly 900,000 who are staying in 154 UN shelters. Such shelters “are accommodating far more people than their intended capacity and are unable to accommodate new arrivals,” the UN stated. Thousands of internally displaced persons “are seeking security and safety by sleeping against the walls of shelters in the south, out in the open.” Overcrowding in these shelters “is contributing to the spread of diseases, including acute respiratory illness and diarrhea, prompting environmental and health concerns,” the UN added.

18 November 2023

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.”

a donkey with a cart crowded with people passing bombed out buildings

Palestinians who fled Gaza City make their way through the southern Gaza Strip on 18 November.

Rizek Abdeljawad 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.

17 November 2023

On 8 October, Israeli jets attacked Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman’s street near Gaza City “without warning and while we were still at home.” She says that “I am still in shock that I survived this massacre.”

Canadian lawyers served a notice of intent to seek prosecution of Canadian officials complicit in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. “It is a crime to supply arms to a state with knowledge that they will be used for war crimes and genocide,” the notice explains.

Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev has said that 200 bodies burned beyond recognition in a kibbutz near Gaza were Hamas fighters, not Israeli civilians as Israel originally thought. Regev’s admission adds to mounting evidence that on 7 October Israeli forces went on a panicked, indiscriminate rampage.

Israel using its national anthem as “noise torture” against detainees, including against alleged members of the Nukhba commando unit of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. Videos showing soldiers abusing detainees are aimed at deliberately degrading and humiliating Palestinians “for war propaganda.”

As Israel’s genocide continues in Gaza, it has become clear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s endgame is the total displacement of the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and possibly even the occupied West Bank.

Two men greet on a torn-up road with anti-tank obstacles pushed to the edge of the road

Palestinians walk on a damaged road in the Jenin refugee camp, in the northern West Bank, following an Israeli military raid on 17 November.

Nasser Ishtayeh SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, was informed that as of 18 November, Israel would allow the entry into Gaza of a daily amount of 60,000 liters of fuel from Egypt.” This represents around a third of the fuel needed by the agency – the largest provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza – to support its operations, “including food distribution, and operation of generators at hospitals and water and sanitation facilities,” the UN said. Israel has banned the entry of fuel to Gaza after it imposed a total siege on the territory on 9 October.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its daily report that “no humanitarian supplies were confirmed to have entered Gaza on 17 November … for the third consecutive day.” The UN group said this is because UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, was unable to “receive and distribute additional loads because of its lack of fuel, compounded by the shutdown of telecommunications.”

“For the third consecutive day, Israeli troops, accompanied by tanks, operated within al-Shifa hospital compound in Gaza City,” UN OCHA said. “According to hospital administrators, since 11 November, 40 patients, including four premature babies, have died in the hospital due to the lack of electricity.” Israeli forces, including tanks, were surrounding al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City for the second consecutive day, according to OHCA, preventing medical teams from moving outside to access the injured.

Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, called for “more crossing points into Gaza for aid and commercial deliveries of essentials.” He said that “addressing the scale of needs across Gaza from a single crossing point … is logistically impossible” and added that “at the very least, we need permission to use the crossing point at Kerem Shalom, through which 60 percent of goods were delivered before the hostilities began in October.” Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, likewise called for “full and unobstructed access to vital goods” via Kerem Shalom on Gaza’s eastern boundary, which has a greater capacity than the crossings being used on the Egypt border. Gisha also said that conditions in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula “aren’t conducive to massive, international aid operations. Transport through Sinai is slower and less secure than transport through Israel.”

At least 20 people were reported killed and 140 trapped under the rubble after two Israeli airstrikes on residential buildings in al-Nuseirat, central Gaza, shortly before midnight on 16 November and at around 11 am on 17 November. “Residents were reportedly trying to rescue those trapped with their hands and primitive tools,” according to UN OCHA. Civil Defense rescue and recovery missions have been “largely halted due to the lack of fuel and the communication blackout,” OCHA added.

Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said the attack on al-Shifa hospital is a scandal and mocked what the Israeli military said it found there. In the nine-minute audio message, Abu Obeida said the Israeli military is preoccupied with killing innocent civilians, attacking civilian institutions and invading hospitals. He added Qassam fighters have struck 62 armored military vehicles over the previous four days and told the Israeli public that news of their soldiers’ deaths will reach them eventually. Israel has not been forthcoming with overall casualty figures during their ground invasion of Gaza.

The Qassam Brigades released a pair of videos showing their fighters targeting Israeli soldiers in buildings and on foot in Beit Hanoun, in the northeast of the Gaza Strip. One video shows a group of Israeli soldiers being hit by small arms fire as they are attempting to retrieve another seriously injured soldier. Both videos documented fighting from neighboring and adjacent buildings, suggesting Beit Hanoun is fiercely contested more than three weeks after Israeli troops invaded.

The World Health Organization said it was “concerned about the continued escalation of attacks on health care in the West Bank” after Israeli troops forced at least six paramedics to exit Ibn Sina hospital during an overnight raid in Jenin, in the north of the territory. Videos published by the Palestine Red Crescent Society shows the paramedics with their hands in the air in front off the hospital slowly approaching Israeli military jeeps as troops shout orders at them. The paramedics were searched and detained and ambulances were searched, the UN health agency said, adding that “there have been over 170 attacks on health care in the West Bank alone since 7 October.” Meanwhile, the Palestine Red Crescent Society published a video showing Israeli troops obstructing an ambulance crew in Hebron in the southern West Bank.

Three Palestinians were killed during a massive 11-hour raid involving Israeli airstrikes in Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA and UN OCHA reported. Nine others were wounded, some critically, and Israeli forces used Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to raze infrastructure in the camp. Doctors Without Borders said that “Israeli forces surrounded hospitals across Jenin” during the raid, including Khalil Suleiman Hospital, which the international charity supports. The emergency department at the hospital was unable to receive and treat casualties from Jenin refugee camp “as ambulances were blocked by Israeli forces.”

16 November 2023

My sister-in-law called with some devastating news,” writes Ghada Abed from Gaza. “Our home had been bombed.”

It is catastrophic here. The wounded are everywhere – corridors, stairs, floors and yards.” The doctors at Gaza’s remaining hospitals report from a system on the brink of collapse.

Israel reportedly built a bunker under al-Shifa hospital decades ago when its military occupation included troops stationed inside the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military may well “discover” an underground facility which they themselves built.

In September, Maram Salah left Gaza to pursue her master’s degree in Ireland. But safety abroad is a bittersweet relief, she writes, as “every day I know it is a possibility I will lose [my family] and so many others I care for in Gaza.”

In a highly charged and closely watched vote at Britain’s parliament on 15 November, British opposition legislators failed in a bid to change official UK policy on Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza to demand an immediate ceasefire.

The Biden administration is bringing the Middle East to the brink of a potentially catastrophic regional war,” writes Greg Shupak. “Signs of a wider conflagration abound.”

“After Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza, I’ve always said that I never wanted to leave my house during any war,” writes Ruwaida Amer from Khan Younis. But she and her family fled to a nearby hospital late one night, fearing the seemingly endless Israeli bombardment was nearing their doorstep.

Two men walk amid rubble and remnants of personal belongings

People search through buildings destroyed during Israeli air strikes a day earlier in Nuseirat refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 16 November.

Bashar Taleb APA images

Dozens of independent UN human rights experts called for international action to “prevent genocide against the Palestinian people.” “The failure to urgently implement a ceasefire risks this situation spiraling towards a genocide conducted with 21st century means and methods of warfare,” the experts warned.

A “security source” in Lebanon told Reuters that cross-border fire between Hizballah and the Israeli military was one of the most violent days yet since 7 October. Hizballah said “it had hit eight sites in Israel, including a group of Israeli soldiers, a barracks and other military posts,” Reuters reported, while “Israeli bombardment, including drone strikes, hit at least a dozen villages all along Lebanon’s southern border.” According to the news agency, “more than 70 Hizballah fighters and 10 civilians have been killed in Lebanon, and 10 people including seven troops have been killed in Israel. Thousands more on both sides have fled shelling.”

Palestinian network providers Paltel and Jawwal reported that all telecommunications services in Gaza have stopped, “as all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, and fuel was not let in.” The telecom companies had warned earlier this week that services would stop due to the fuel shortage. The Israeli human rights group Gisha said that without internet or cellular service, “a catastrophic humanitarian situation is about to become even worse.”

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, said that there will not be any humanitarian aid deliveries at Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border the next day due to the lack of telecom services, making it “impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys,” the agency said.

New satellite photos show Israeli airstrikes destroyed the Palestinian Legislative Council building in Gaza City. One day earlier, soldiers with the Golani Brigade raided the complex and posed for photographs inside the government chambers. “It was not clear why the complex was destroyed,” noted The New York Times. The legislative council hasn’t sat in session at the building for more than 15 years.

One dialysis patient died and four others faced imminent death amid a worsening situation inside Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, where Israel is besieging 7,000 people. The hospital’s director, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told Al Jazeera that there is no food, fuel or water and many people are at risk. Already, two injured people and three premature babies have died due to lack of adequate resources and treatment, the al-Shifa director said.

Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, has had no electricity nor water for four days, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Israeli tanks shelled Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, the Palestine Red Crescent Society stated. A “violent attack is underway,” the humanitarian group said, adding that “PRCS teams are unable to move and reach those who are injured.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that thousands of internally displaced people and dozens of medical patients walked “for hours” from Al-Quds Hospital, which is in Gaza City, to the southern areas of Gaza.

At least 223 medical workers have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s bombardment of the territory began on 7 October, according to the Healthcare Workers Watch monitoring group. Among those killed include 72 nurses, 37 physicians, 26 pharmacists, 21 paramedics and 14 laboratory technicians.

15 November 2023

Israel fails to show evidence of Hamas command center at al-Shifa hospital following the military’s raid on Gaza City’s largest medical complex, encircling and besieging it for days and launching heavy attacks in the area.

“As the numbers of dead rise in Gaza, a new urgency develops among the billions of people in the Global South for Palestine,” writes Vijay Prashad. “This will not be forgotten. This will shape the way an entire generation or more will think about the need to end apartheid in Israel.”

The greatest challenge in Gaza at the moment may be finding bread. A photo essay by writer and photographer Mahmoud Nasser documents this daily struggle for survival and how Palestinians are improvising ovens as Israel bans electricity and fuel.

“War is not only having a devastating impact in Gaza,” writes Noura Selmi, who is from the besieged coastal enclave. “It inflames the hearts of Palestinians who live abroad, especially those who have families in Gaza.”

Writing from Gaza three weeks after his family was massacred in an Israeli airstrike, Ahmed Abu Artema calls for the rejection of Israel’s racist doctrine: “This can be a world where genocidal regimes, racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing will fall.”

Palestinians are suing US President Joe Biden and his secretaries of state and defense to stop them from further aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

It seems grimly apt that David Cameron should return to frontline politics at a time when a genocide is being carried out in Gaza, writes David Cronin. In one of the final speeches he gave as prime minister, Cameron described Britain as “Israel’s greatest friend.”

Girl looks out a broken window with blast marks

A Palestinian child looks through a broken window of a house damaged by an Israeli air strike in Rafah, southern Gaza, on 15 November.

Abed Rahim Khatib DPA

More than two-thirds of Americans back a ceasefire in Gaza, while support for Israel has plummeted, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. Just 32 percent of Americans say the United States should support Israel, down from 41 percent a month earlier. At the same time 39 percent said the US should be a neutral mediator, up from 27 percent in the previous survey. The drop in US support seen in the new poll is among both Democrats and Republicans and especially among older respondents. “In a potentially worrisome sign for Israel, just 31 percent of poll respondents said they supported sending Israel weapons, while 43 percent opposed the idea,” Reuters noted.

The Israeli army dropped leaflets ordering Palestinians in areas east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip to evacuate to “known shelters,” according to the daily report from the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

President Biden appears to have admitted that Israel has been bombing Gaza indiscriminately. At a press conference following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco, Biden defended Israel’s lethal siege and assault on Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, saying he had discussed with Israel the need to be “incredibly careful.” The president added, “so, this is a different story than I believe was occurring before, an indiscriminate bombing.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society released a video showing the aftermath of Israeli strikes on their ambulances and medics. A paramedic describes the extensive destruction of ambulances shelled during the Israeli attacks near al-Awda hospital on 11 November.

14 November 2023

Ever since 1948 Palestinians have been refugees and evacuees,” writes Eman Hillis from Gaza. “Both words are replete with suffering.”

We have gone back in time – to the stone age,” writes Alaa Abu Shammala from Gaza. “No water or electricity or internet. Imagine living in the 21st century and you don’t have access to life’s basic necessities.”

The problems arising from the denial of basic necessities has been exacerbated by the immense damage done by the Israeli military’s bombing of Gaza’s water infrastructure, writes Aseel Mousa from Gaza

Palestinian fighters are making effective use of Gaza-made anti-tank weapons in the battles against Israeli military vehicles that have poured into the territory since the ground invasion began.

An Israeli army propaganda video generated global mockery when it turned out that a supposed list of Hamas “terrorists” found at a hospital was nothing more than a wall calendar.

Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip in the south and its attacks on southern Lebanon in the north are not its only fronts. The Israeli military is also waging a relentless war on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Children smiling as they play in front of tents

Displaced Palestinian children play after heavy rain on their makeshift camp at Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital, in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip on 14 November.

Naaman Omar APA images

Families of those held captive in Gaza are marching from the central Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv to the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem to demand the government prioritize the issue and “bring them home now,” The New York Times reported. “We think the Israeli government should pay any price,” said one participant, referring to the range of options believed to be available including a ceasefire, fuel delivery to Gaza or a prisoner exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

There is only one hospital in all of northern Gaza that is “still operational at a minimum level,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs reported. The rest of the hospitals in the area, which includes Gaza City, “have ceased operations due to the lack of power, medical consumables, oxygen, food and water, compounded bombardments and fighting in their vicinities,” OCHA said. Overall, 22 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are “non-functional due to lack of fuel, damage, attacks and insecurity,” the agency added

The health ministry in Gaza reported that al-Shifa hospital staff prepared “for a mass grave inside the compound to bury 180 bodies of patients, which cannot be evacuated due to the intense fighting,” OCHA reported.

More than 100 workers from the UN agency for Palestine refugees have been killed by Israeli military bombardment of the Gaza Strip since 7 Oct. “Mostly in their homes with their families,” according to UNRWA.

The World Health Organization warned that “the evacuation of hospitals in the north, as demanded by the Israeli military, would be a ‘death sentence’ for some patients, because operational hospitals in the south cannot admit more patients,” reported OCHA.

13 November 2023

British home secretary Suella Braverman is the first casualty among Western politicians of Israel’s war on Gaza. Braverman was sacked after demonizing Palestine solidarity protests, fueling far-right threats against demonstrators.

The mass displacement of 2023 proves that the Nakba hasn’t been relegated to the history books, writes Eman Alhaj Ali from Gaza. “When elderly people try to navigate their way through the current crisis, the echoes of the Nakba resonate everywhere.”

“Is killing childhood in Gaza really the goal of Israel’s war?” writes Ruwaida Amer from the bombarded and besieged coastal enclave. “Israel is displaying its inhumanity by robbing children of their right to live in peace.”

Five men and boys stand next to a totally bombed-out two-story home surrounded by debris and other destroyed buildings

Palestinians inspect a destroyed home belonging to the Ghanem family following an Israeli airstrike in Bureij refugee camp, central Gaza, 13 November.

Stringer APA images

Israel’s security cabinet authorized action against the Lebanese news channel Al Mayadeen for “making wartime efforts to harm [Israel’s] security interests and to serve the enemy’s goals,” Reuters reported. Israel’s communications minister Shlomo Karhi reportedly “was working with police on a proposed blocking of Al Mayadeen websites and seizure of equipment linked to the station.” A spokesperson for the communications ministry said that the security cabinet had not discussed shutting down Al Jazeera, despite Karhi saying last month that he would “seek cabinet approval to shut down Al Jazeera’s local operations,” as Reuters added.

US President Joe Biden said that al-Shifa hospital “must be protected” as Reuters reported that Israeli tanks were positioned at the gates of Gaza’s largest health facility. Biden called for “less intrusive action” by Israeli forces, which are armed by the US. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that “we do not want to see fire fights in hospitals” and claimed that the Israeli government “share that view.”

A surgeon with Doctors Without Borders at al-Shifa hospital reported that there is no electricity, food or water in the hospital. “People will die in a few hours without functioning ventilators,” the surgeon said. “In front of the main gate, there are many bodies, there are also injured patients, we can’t bring them inside.” When medics attempted to reach injured people, the ambulance was attacked. “There’s also a sniper who attacked patients, they have gunshot wounds, we operated on three of them,” the Doctors Without Borders surgeon added. The surgeon said that the medical team would only leave the hospital if patients were evacuated first. “There are 600 inpatients, 37 babies, someone who needs an [intensive care unit], we can’t leave them.”

Al Jazeera broadcast footage showing decaying bodies in the courtyard of al-Shifa hospital, where the Israeli military is shooting at anyone who moves. Rohan Talbot, a program director with Medical Aid for Palestinians, said that the charity had “received horrifying footage of dozens of decomposing bodies - seemingly including children - piled up outside Shifa Hospital. The morgue has no power and is overflowing, and it is too unsafe to take them away to bury them.”

Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, said that 32 patients at al-Shifa hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza, had died in the past three days. Al-Qidra told Al Jazeera that al-Shifa hospital was in “the circle of death” with Israeli forces besieging it from all directions. He said that those who took a supposed safe passage indicated by Israel were targeted by sniper and artillery fire. Munir al-Bursh, the director general of the ministry, told Al Jazeera that Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian who exited al-Shifa hospital who had removed his clothing to demonstrate that he was unarmed.

Humanitarian operations by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, will “grind to a halt within 48 hours” after depleting its fuel stocks in Gaza and as Israel bans the transfer of fuel to the territory. “We will not be able to receive aid coming through the Rafah crossing tomorrow,” the agency said. Thomas White, the director of UNRWA in Gaza, announced that a bulk reservoir of fuel in Gaza that the agency had accessed over the past three weeks with Israeli government coordination “is now empty.” A lack of fuel “means no pumping of sewage or waste removal,” posing “a serious threat to public health,” White said. “Disease outbreak will become a reality,” he added.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, said that more than 100 of its colleagues in Gaza had been killed since 7 October. “This is the highest number of aid workers killed in the history of our organization in such a short time,” said Tatiana Valovaya, director-general of the United Nations office in Geneva. UNRWA said that its guesthouse in Rafah, southern Gaza, was significantly damaged by Israeli naval bombardment. “Over the last month, UNRWA recorded collateral and direct damage to more than 60 of its facilities, mostly schools sheltering each thousands of civilians across the Gaza Strip,” the agency said. “At least 66 displaced people were killed as a result and several hundreds injured.” Most of its facilities that were damaged are in the southern half of the Gaza Strip where Israel ordered people in the north to evacuate to.

The Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel warned that Gaza “will go into another telecom blackout if fuel isn’t allowed in by Thursday.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated that hundreds of Palestinians under siege in Gaza City are requesting assistance for numerous people buried under rubble and injured people requiring emergency medical care. Israeli troops are preventing ambulance crews and civil defense teams from reaching people needing assistance, “targeting anyone who tries to move,” resulting in dozens of bodies of those killed in the streets. The humanitarian group called on urgent international intervention “to ensure safe access to ambulances and medical missions to those in need, in accordance with international humanitarian law.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported “heavy gunfire” in the vicinity of Al-Quds Hospital in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City. The humanitarian organization said that a convoy of vehicles accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross dispatched from the south of Gaza to evacuate patients and medical staff at Al-Quds Hospital was forced to turn back “due to relentless bombardment” in the Tel al-Hawa area. Patients, their family members and medical workers “remain besieged in the hospital with no food, water, or electricity,” the Red Crescent added.

12 November 2023

“We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” a member of Israel’s war cabinet announced on national television. Avi Dichter’s comments line up with leaked Israeli intelligence documents showing that Tel Aviv harbors plans for the permanent expulsion of the Palestinian population from large parts of Gaza under the cover of a wartime “humanitarian” evacuation.

“On 6 October, a few of us met to talk about preparing for a friend’s wedding,” writes Deema Aed Yaghi from Gaza. “Within two days after Israel’s genocidal war began, my friend’s home was completely destroyed.”

Palestinian men and a boy cry while sitting next to two shrouded bodies laid on a sheet of plastic

Palestinians mourn next to the bodies of Qassam Brigades leaders Muhammad Jumaa and Hassan Abd al-Al at al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza, 12 November. The leaders were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a home belonging to the Rantisi family.

Abed Rahim Khatib DPA

The UN human rights office, citing the besieged facility’s medical director, said al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City “is currently hosting more than 10,000 displaced persons, patients and medical staff, including those in critical medical conditions.” The office added that “there are reports that already weakened telecommunications and internet services will completely cease in about four days due to a lack of fuel and power. A further and extended blackout of telecommunications and internet connection would deepen the already catastrophic humanitarian conditions.”

The regional directors of three UN agencies – the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN’s organization for children (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization – said “we are horrified at the latest reports of attacks on and in the vicinity of al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Rantisi Naser Pediatric Hospital, Al-Quds Hospital, and others in Gaza City and northern Gaza, killing many, including children.” The agencies added that “attacks on medical facilities and civilians are unacceptable and are a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law and conventions.” The three organizations said that “decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and prevent further loss of life, and preserve what’s left of the health care system in Gaza.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross called “for the protection of civilians in Gaza trapped in fighting, whether they are trying to evacuate or staying where they are.” The humanitarian organization said that civilians were fleeing the north to the south in “precarious and unsafe conditions,” walking for “dozens of kilometers past dead bodies lying on the streets and without necessities like food and water.” The ICRC said that its “teams in Gaza and hotline operators [were receiving] numerous calls from displaced people searching for their family members” and that “the southern area is not equipped to cater to the massive number of people arriving with nothing but the clothes they are wearing, and the quantity of humanitarian aid coming in is largely insufficient.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross’ delegation in Palestine said it was “carefully following up on all the appeals that have come our way in the past two days” and, acknowledging “the deep frustration,” added that its teams “are not sparing an effort on the ground.” The humanitarian organization expressed “profound alarm” over the situation in Gaza, saying that it was “gravely concerned by the precarious and unsafe conditions under which civilians are evacuating from the north.” ICRC added that “we don’t have the logistical capacity and security guarantees to facilitate evacuations, but we’re sparing no efforts to influence those responsible for the protection of the civilians who decide to evacuate and those who stay behind.”

Melanie Ward, the head of the UK charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said that the organization is “deeply concerned by uncritical media reporting regarding the Israeli military’s statement that it will help move premature babies trapped at [al-Shifa] hospital to a ‘safer hospital.’” Ward added that “the only safe option to save these babies would be for Israel to cease its assault and besiegement of al-Shifa, to allow fuel to reach the hospital, and to ensure that the surviving parents of these babies can be reunited with them.” She said that “the transfer of critically ill neonates is a complex and technical process … with ambulances unable to reach the hospital and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely.”

The director of al-Shifa hospital, under attack by Israel in Gaza City, told Al-Araby TV that two its patients in the intensive care unit had died, not all of them as had been initially reported. He warned that if the present catastrophic situation continued, all of al-Shifa’s intensive care patients will die and dialysis patients will die due to the inability to provide dialysis treatment.

Mustafa Sarsour, a journalist inside the al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza City, said that the main building at the campus was hit by gunfire. Sarsour told Al Jazeera that five premature babies died on 12 November due to a lack of supplies and the hospital’s inability to provide treatment. He said that Israeli drones shot at civilians in the hospital courtyard and that Israel’s claims that it had provided safe passages to leave the hospital were false.

The Government Information Office in Gaza said that the death toll in the territory had risen to 11,180 people since 7 October, including more than 4,600 children. The office added that Israeli occupation forces targeted the intensive care unit, surgery building and maternity department at al-Shifa hospital, the largest health facility in Gaza. Twenty-two hospitals and nearly 50 other health facilities in Gaza have been forced to stop serving patients.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society announced that Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City is no longer operational “due to the depletion of available fuel” and subsequent power outage. The humanitarian organization said “the hospital has been left to fend for itself under ongoing bombardment, posing severe risks to medical staff, patients and displaced civilians” sheltering at the facility. The Red Crescent added that it “holds the international community and signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention accountable for the complete breakdown of the health system and the resulting dire humanitarian conditions.”

11 November 2023

Medical facilities in the northern half of Gaza have been “under relentless bombardment” for the past 24 hours, Doctors Without Borders said. At least two neonatal patients and one adult patient at al-Shifa died after the besieged facility’s power generator shut down on 10 November.

“Israel killed my aunt Haleema this week,” writes Tamer Ajrami, who grew up in Gaza, from Belgium. “Hearing that news felt like being struck by lightning.”

Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians, including four children, during a raid on the city of Jenin and its refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank on 9 November. Israeli forces fired live ammunition at Palestinians and destroyed infrastructure in the area.

Israel’s weapons makers will be displaying their lethal products at a fair in Paris next week. Smartshooter – which boasts of developing “one shot one hit” technology – is among the Israeli firms taking part in the Milipol exhibition.

An older woman carrying a cane is supported by two young men as they walk through an alley filled with rubble

A woman is evacuated from a destroyed house belonging to the al-Ghouti family following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza, 11 November.

Abed Rahim Khatib DPA

The power was cut off at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City and the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza after fuel for generators ran out. The generators at Al-Quds Hospital, also in Gaza City, “failed and could not be repaired due to the bombardment and fighting,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its daily report. “Out of the most critical patients, seven are in the ICU and three babies are in incubators,” the UN said. The Palestine Red Crescent Society, which administers Al-Quds Hospital, said that infants at the facility “are facing dehydration due to a shortage of breast milk alternatives.”

Tens of thousands of people in the northern half of Gaza moved southwards through a “corridor” opened by the military for the eighth consecutive day, UN OCHA said. “Most were able to carry only a few belongings,” traveling by foot or donkey carts, arriving “exhausted and thirsty,” according to UN monitors on the scene. “Israeli ground troops have maintained the effective severance of the north from the south, except for the ‘corridor’ to the south,” UN OCHA added.

Israel said that it killed Ahmad Siam, who they described as a mid-level Hamas commander, on 10 November, Israeli media reported. The Israeli military claimed that Siam and other fighters were “killed while hiding” in al-Buraq school in Gaza City. At least 50 people were killed in the Israeli strike on the school, which was being used as a shelter for internally displaced people.

UN OCHA said that “neither the water desalination plant nor the Israeli pipeline are operational” in the northern half of Gaza and no bottled water has been distributed to people staying at shelters for more than a week. “There is serious concern about dehydration and waterborne diseases following water consumption from unsafe sources,” the group said.

Palestinian resistance fighters are confronting the Israeli military in every part of Gaza they have entered, according to Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. In an audio message, Abu Obeida said that since the start of Israel’s ground invasion two weeks ago, resistance fighters have partially or completely destroyed 160 Israeli armored vehicles, including 25 in the last 24 hours.

The Qassam Brigades published two videos of its fighters attacking Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles. In one video, its fighters attack Israeli soldiers who had taken up positions in a house north of Beit Hanoun, in the northeast corner of the Gaza Strip. A second video shows resistance fighters destroying tanks and military vehicles in Beit Hanoun and Tawam, in northern Gaza.

Israel announced that five of its soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Gaza a day earlier. Four of the Israeli soldiers “were killed by a blast from a booby-trapped tunnel” in the Beit Hanoun area, according to The Times of Israel. The troops were not inside the tunnel. Israel says 42 of its soldiers have been killed since its ground invasion started.

10 November 2023

A viral video highlights chaotic and indiscriminate Israeli military aerial attacks on civilians fleeing the Supernova music festival in southern Israel on 7 October. The army published the video, claiming it shows “helicopter gunships striking Hamas terrorists as they streamed across the breached border from Gaza.”

Many men decided to stay and guard their properties” in the northern half of Gaza, writes Sahar Qeshta from the besieged territory. “They do not want a repeat of the Nakba, to spend the rest of their lives with keys to their homes around their necks, unable to return.”

Sewar Elejla, who worked as a doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, describes the impossible situation for the estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, including her friend Nadia.

Israel lobby groups are urging US universities to designate students who are protesting the slaughter in Gaza as supporters of foreign “terrorist” groups. Brandeis University revoked its recognition of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter on campus after students planned to hold a candlelight vigil for the Palestinians killed in Israel’s month-long attacks.

Rana al-Shorbaji writes that her cousin Israa and her husband Yousef saved up for years to buy a home in Gaza, finally moving in during April. It was destroyed in the current war, leaving the couple and their newborn baby without a place of their own.

The trial of eight activists who have sought to disrupt Israel’s arms business within the UK will start on 13 November. Known as the Elbit Eight – after the Israeli weapons firm they targeted – the defendants are members of the group Palestine Action.

A donkey cart crowded with children

Palestinian families fleeing Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza on 10 November.

Majdi Fathi APA images

Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, said that Israel must end its bombing and shelling in densely populated areas and the attacks “must be investigated.” Regarding strikes on and in the vicinity of hospitals, Türk added that “international humanitarian law is clear: it extends special protection to medical units and requires that they be protected and respected at all times.” He said that Palestinian armed groups’ use of civilians and civilian objects as shields “is in contravention of the laws of war. But such conduct by Palestinian armed groups does not absolve Israel of its obligation to ensure that civilians are spared – that the principles of distinction, precautions in attack and proportionality are respected.”

Palestinians at al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital made a plea for international protection as the medical center was besieged by Israeli tanks and ordered evacuated without the presence of the Red Cross or any other guarantor for the protection of civilians. Hundreds of civilians are present at the hospital.

More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, Palestinian officials said. Reuters meanwhile reported that Israel’s foreign ministry has revised its death toll from the 7 October attack led by Hamas fighters, saying that some 1,200 people were killed after reporting for weeks that more than 1,400 had died.

Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, the director of al-Shifa hospital, said that at least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes on al-Buraq school in Gaza City, “where people whose homes had been destroyed were sheltering,” Reuters reported.

The International Committee of the Red Cross urgently called “for the respect and protection of medical facilities, patients and healthcare workers in Gaza,” warning that the healthcare system in the territory “has reached a point of no return risking the lives of thousands of wounded, sick and displaced people.” The Red Cross added that “the ICRC urgently calls for the immediate protection of all civilians, including humanitarian workers and medical personnel. This protection is not only a legal obligation but a moral imperative to preserve human life in these terrible times.”

The spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza reported heavy Israeli bombing in the area of al-Shifa hospital, the largest medical facility in the territory. At least six people were killed in strikes around the hospital’s campus and others were injured. Hamas warned of the repercussions of the escalated bombing around al-Shifa and said that it held the American government responsible. Amateur footage from the scene shows corpses in the yard of the hospital, where medics, patients and family members of patients remain, but no members of the media. Israel claims that Hamas uses al-Shifa as its command center. Omar Shakir, a program director with Human Rights Watch, said that “Israel hasn’t put forward evidence that justifies stripping al-Shifa of its protections, its warning is ineffective as there’s no safe place to go in Gaza and hospitals cannot be free-fire zones.”

In footage broadcast by Al Jazeera, the director of the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza held up shrapnel from an Israeli weapon used against the medical facility and said that the hospital only had enough fuel to operate for 24 hours.

During a visit to India, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that “far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks.” The Biden administration’s State Department has refused to say whether the US recognizes that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to Gaza and the West Bank. During a press briefing on 9 November, reporter Sam Husseini asked what legal framework the US believes applies in Gaza, saying “it’s a free fire zone if you’re not going to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

Israel attacked several hospitals in Gaza between 9 and 10 November: al-Rantisi Pediatric Hospital, Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital, where at least three were reported killed, and the yard of Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, where displaced people are staying and journalists are stationed, was hit as well. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said that one of its paramedic volunteers was injured and two ambulances were taken out of service when Israel targeted the surroundings of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza. Indonesia’s foreign ministry condemned “savage attacks on civilians and civilian objects” after explosions near the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza. Al Jazeera reported that displaced people seeking sanctuary at the hospital and patients fled after “violent Israeli raids” on the vicinity of the hospital.

9 November 2023

Herzi Halevi, the Israeli army chief, praised the Palestinian Authority for its collaboration with occupation forces in the West Bank. Halevi said that the PA “has been working in recent weeks to prevent demonstrations and marches in support of Hamas and its massacre.”

“We have been under constant bombardment for over a month now,” writes Ghada Al-Haddad from Gaza. “How much more must we lose before the attack stops?”

Obscuring Israel’s responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Palestinians appears to be official UN policy. Statement after statement from the organization’s agencies and leaders express horror over specific attacks in Gaza and the mounting death toll, but do not mention Israel.

Young girl stands defiantly amid the ruins of a building

Palestinian children inspect the debris at the Khaled Ibn Al-Walid mosque in Khan Younis after it was hit by Israeli bombardment on 9 November.

Mohammed Talatene DPA

Another 50,000 people fled northern Gaza on foot through the corridor opened by the Israeli military, most carrying only a few personal belongings, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported. Displaced persons interviewed by UN monitors “indicated that they did not know where they would stay overnight.” More than 1.5 million people are now internally displaced within Gaza, OCHA said in its daily report.

Human Rights Watch said that Israeli ground forces were “encircling and moving deeper into Gaza City” and were within two kilometers of al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest medical facility. The rights group added that “civilians who remain in place after an evacuation warning — including those who can’t leave, fear moving, or don’t want to be displaced — don’t lose their protections as civilians under the laws of war. No area is a free-fire zone.” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor chairman, Ramy Abdu, warned of massacres in the vicinity of hospitals in the coming hours because Israel views them as military targets “and acts on this basis.”

US President Joe Biden said that the Israeli military will permit a four-hour pause in combat operations in parts of northern Gaza each day to facilitate the movement of civilians to the south, the Associated Press reported. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesperson, said the “tactical local pauses” are limited in time and area. The UN estimated on 8 November that hundreds of thousands Palestinians remain in the northern areas of Gaza and “are struggling to secure the minimum amounts of water and food to survive.”

Despite President Biden casting doubt on the figures provided by hospitals in Gaza, the death toll from the Israeli military’s bombardment may be higher than the Palestinian Ministry of Health numbers, a US official told Congress. Barbara Leaf, the Biden administration’s assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the number of deaths are “very high, frankly, and it could be that they’re even higher than are being cited,” The Hill reported.

The Israeli military said that Palestinian fighters have launched some 9,500 rockets from Gaza since 7 October, more than the combined total of the 2006 Lebanon and 2014 Gaza wars.

The Palestinian health ministry said that nearly 250 people had been killed in recent hours, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 10,818, including 4,412 children. Some 2,650 people are reported missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings, including 1,400 children.

8 November 2023

More Palestinian civilians are thought to have been killed over the past month in Gaza than civilians reported killed in Ukraine since February 2022. Western officials, particularly those in Washington, have been highly critical of Russia but extremely indulgent of Israel’s actions.

“The destruction of life in Gaza is happening before the eyes and ears of the world,” writes Khalil Abu Shammala, a human rights activist in the territory. “It will remain a stain of disgrace on the forehead of the ‘international community’ and each individual working for that ‘community.’”

Mahmoud Nasser, a Gaza-based photographer and writer, portrays in photos the lives of children who have endured a month of Israeli state terrorism. “Full of love they live, and full of life they die,” he writes.

“My mother wants so badly to believe that Israel has ‘enough’ humanity to not bomb indiscriminately, and I’m too weak to break it to her that Israel doesn’t care,” writes Hend Ghazi Alfarra from Gaza.

Protests in various Irish towns have demanded the expulsion of Dana Erlich, Israel’s ambassador to the country. Rather than expelling her, Fianna Fáil – the largest party in Ireland’s ruling coalition – invited the Israeli diplomat to its annual conference last weekend.

While international attention has been focused on the assault on Gaza, Israel’s military and settlers have been relentless in their violence against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank. Israeli fire has killed 150 Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October, and an additional eight Palestinians were killed by settlers.

Landscape view of hundreds of people walking in a long line stretching back to the horizon

Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in central Gaza on 8 November.

Stringer APA images

Around 50,000 people evacuated northern Gaza to the south through a “corridor” opened by the Israeli military for the fifth consecutive day, UN OCHA said in its daily report. “Most evacuees are moving on foot and [the] Israeli military reportedly forced those evacuees who use vehicles to leave them at the southern edge of Gaza City,” the UN group said. “The evacuees then walk 4 to 5 kilometers down the corridor, with an estimated distance of up to 20 kilometers for those traveling farthest.”

CNN broadcast footage of people streaming to the south on foot, bringing only what they can carry, and waving white flags. Palestinians told the broadcaster that they saw destruction everywhere and dead bodies and body parts along the road.

The hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who remain in the north, including the internally displaced, “are facing a dire humanitarian situation and are struggling to secure the minimum amounts of water and food to survive,” UN OCHA said, adding that “there are indications of negative coping mechanisms due to food scarcity, including skipping or reducing meals and using unsafe and unhealthy methods for making fire.”

The director of surgery at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City reported that “patients who have undergone surgery are at a high risk of infection due to the unhygienic conditions and lack of equipment,” the UN said. “In some cases, wounds have been covered by white flies and their larva, risking tissue damage, bacterial infection, and septicemia.”

Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City halted key services after its main generator shut down and al-Awda hospital, “the only provider of maternity services in northern Gaza, warned about an imminent closure,” the UN said. Al-Quds Hospital “has been isolated from neighboring areas and is facing a severe shortage of food, baby formula, medicine and disposables,” the UN noted. The Palestine Red Crescent Society, which administers Al-Quds Hospital, said that it has become impossible to obtain fuel within Gaza, especially in the northern half. Meanwhile, “areas in close proximity” to Al-Quds Hospital were hit, injuring patients and displaced people and causing damage, the UN added.

More than 100 organizations in Palestine and around the world called for a two-way arms embargo on Israel to prevent the commission of genocide. In the midst of the attacks on Gaza and the West Bank, “the supply of arms and military support to Israel” from the US, Canada, Germany, Italy and the UK has continued, the organizations said, with some states fast-tracking the supply of equipment “in spite of ample evidence of war crimes being committed in Gaza.”

Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, visited Rafah Crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border. He called on all parties to “take constant care to spare the civilian population” and said that “the aid getting through [to Gaza] is a trickle.” Türk affirmed that “Israel’s own obligations as an occupying power also continue to apply in full, requiring it to ensure a maximum of basic necessities of life can reach all who need it.”

The UN special rapporteur on housing said that the systematic and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including rendering Gaza City uninhabitable, amounts to “crimes against humanity.” Balakrishnan Rajagopal pointed to “the precedent set in the 1970s when measures to end apartheid in South Africa were taken by the General Assembly by unseating the South African delegation owing to widespread and systematic violations of human rights, which are inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.”

The Israeli military took a small group of foreign journalists on a 90-minute tour to what Reuters described as the “fringes” of Gaza City. The journalists were taken by the army in a windowless armored vehicle with screens connected to cameras showing the outside, while footage shot during the tour “was reviewed by the Israeli army as a condition for having a journalist embedded,” Reuters said.

Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that their fighters have struck 136 Israeli military vehicles since ground operations began two weeks ago. The group has continually released videos showing dozens of direct hits against Israeli armored vehicles using predominantly Gaza-made anti-tank weapons. In a video message released on social media, Abu Obeida added that Israel continues to thwart efforts by the Qassam Brigades to unilaterally release 12 foreign captives and reiterated that a prisoner exchange was the only way forward with the Israelis held by the group in Gaza.

Israel’s parliament passed an amendment to its Counter-Terrorism Law that introduces “consumption of terrorist materials” as a new criminal offense. Adalah, a group that advocates for the rights of Palestinians in Israel, called it “one of the most intrusive and draconian legislative measures ever passed by the Israeli Knesset which invades the realm of personal thoughts and beliefs and significantly amplifies state surveillance of social media use.”

The Palestinian health ministry said that 10,678 Palestinians in Gaza, including 4,324 children, have been killed since 7 October. Some 2,550 people, including 1,350 children, remain missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings. The ministry stated that 49 percent of Palestinians killed in recent hours were in southern Gaza, “which negates the Israeli occupation’s claim that they are safe areas.”

7 November 2023

“So long as this war continues, the death toll will keep rising,” writes Ghada Hania from Gaza. “And there is a great risk that people will not just be killed by missiles, bombs and shells but also by hunger and thirst.”

“For most of the past month”, writes Aseel Mousa from Gaza, “my family has been displaced … According to claims by the Israeli military, Maghazi is a ‘safe’ area. Yet I am experiencing the most terrifying days of my life.”

Indigenous activists using a canoe blocked an Israel-bound container ship at the Port of Tacoma in Washington state that was said to be a US military supply vessel loaded with weapons. The same ship was delayed by protests in Oakland, California, last week.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s pseudo-religious spin on the “destruction of Hamas” may confuse some, but the Israeli prime minister’s base of political support among militant settlers finds inspiration from these violent biblical texts.

A small truck is seen from the back loaded with men, women and children

Palestinians flee to southern Gaza via Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, central Gaza, 7 November.

Salam Yasser APA images

For the fourth consecutive day, Israel opened a “corridor” along Gaza’s main north-south road for a four-hour window and called on Palestinians in the north of the territory to move south. “UN monitors estimate that up to 15,000 people may have passed, three times the figure estimated on 6 November,” OCHA said. Most people “arrived on foot with minimal belongings,” the UN said, with some displaced people reporting “that they had had to cross Israeli checkpoints to reach the area and had witnessed arrests by Israeli forces.”

The UN said that the humanitarian assistance arriving to Gaza from Egypt only “meets a fraction of people’s needs. Drinking water brought in serves just 4 percent of Gaza’s residents, while desperately needed fuel remains banned,” the UN’s humanitarian affairs agency said. Only 650 trucks have entered Gaza since delivery of humanitarian aid resumed on 21 October. “Prior to the start of hostilities, an average of 500 truckloads entered Gaza every working day.”

In its daily report, UN OCHA said that there are no active bakeries in the northern half of Gaza “due to the lack of fuel, water and wheat flour, as well as the damage sustained by many.” The group said that the situation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City and the rest of northern Gaza “is increasingly dire … as people struggle to secure the minimum amounts of water and food to survive.”

Israel targeted a convoy of trucks carrying medical supplies to Gaza City health facilities, including al-Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals, damaging two vehicles and causing minor injuries to a driver, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said. The International Committee of the Red Cross stated that it was “deeply troubled that its humanitarian convoy in Gaza City came under fire.”

Progressive organizations that mobilize young voters told US President Joe Biden that his support for Israel and its siege on Gaza “could depress turnout in a demographic that’s already notoriously difficult to energize on Election Day,” NBC News reported. The leaders of the organizations, including March for our Lives, United We Dream, Gen Z for Change and the Sunrise Movement, warned in their open letter that “you and your administration’s stance on Gaza risks millions of young voters staying home or voting third party next year.”

According to the Palestinian health ministry, 18 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals and nearly three in every four primary care facilities have “closed due to damage or lack of fuel,” the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Doctors are performing surgeries without anesthesia, including those injured in bombings and women giving birth by cesarean section, the ministry reported.

The Palestinian health ministry said that 10,305 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including 4,237 children, since 7 October. Some 2,350 people, including more than 1,300 children, remain missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings. During that same period, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 163 Palestinians in the West Bank, the ministry added.

In a US television interview, Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would consider “tactical little pauses” in Gaza violence to facilitate the delivery of additional humanitarian aid and the evacuation of captives held in the territory since 7 October. The Israeli prime minister added that there would be no general ceasefire “without the release of our hostages” and that Israel would maintain “overall security responsibility” over Gaza “for an indefinite period.”

6 November 2023

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.

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.

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

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.

A woman with blood on her face holds her hand up to her forehead  while walking in a dusty alleyway with three other people

Wounded Palestinians near the site of a strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 6 November.

Ahmed Ibrahim APA images

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.

5 November 2023

“I was in the schoolyard, trying to cheer myself up, when I heard some devastating news,” writes Batoul Mohamed Abou Ali from Gaza. “Israel had destroyed our home.”

Drone photograph of people standing in the rubble where several buildings once stood in densely built-up area

An aerial view of Palestinians conducting search and rescue operations in the rubble of collapsed buildings following Israeli strikes in al-Maghazi refugee camp, central Gaza, 5 November.

Mohammad Faiq APA images

The heads of several UN agencies and international organizations made a rare joint call demanding “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza. The statement notes that 88 employees of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, have been killed since 7 October — “the highest number of United Nations fatalities ever recorded in a single conflict.”

The UN said that seven water facilities across Gaza “were directly hit and sustained major damage” on 4 and 5 November. These included sewage pipelines in Gaza City, water reservoirs in various areas and water wells in Rafah, southern Gaza. The Gaza City municipality “warned about the imminent risk of sewage flooding,” the UN added.

The World Food Program warned that stocks of certain essential foods in Gaza, “including rice, vegetable oil and pulses, are about to be depleted” in the next few days. “Additionally, retailers are facing significant challenges when restocking available items from wholesalers due to widespread destruction, insecurity and lack of fuel,” the UN added. Food aid entering from Egypt — mainly canned tuna and date bars — are primarily being distributed to displaced people and host families in the southern half of Gaza. Distribution of food aid in the northern half of the territory has almost completely halted with the intensification of Israeli military ground operations.

The Israeli military called on Palestinians in the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, to move south during a four-hour window midday. The UN said that according to its monitoring, fewer than 2,000 people moved due to “the heavy damage sustained by the two main traffic arteries; fear of being hit and potentially killed, as has reportedly happened to people traveling southwards; and lack of information due to the limited connectivity to cellular networks and internet.” Human rights experts say that Israel’s evacuation orders in Gaza amount to forcible transfer and a crime against humanity and that civilians must be protected at all times.

According to the daily report from UN OCHA, at least 65 people were killed in airstrikes targeting residential buildings in three refugee camps: al-Bureij and al-Maghazi in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza (at least 51 fatalities) and Jabaliya in northern Gaza (14 fatalities) between noon on 4 November and early afternoon 5 November. The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said that most of those killed were women and children.

Jodie Ginsberg, the president of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told the BBC that “this is the most dangerous conflict for journalists” that the press freedom watchdog has ever documented. She noted that “no international crews are able to get into Gaza, the only people able to report from Gaza are Gazan journalists and there is literally nowhere in Gaza currently that is safe” for any civilians. Her organization has documented the deaths of 31 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, four in Israel and one in Lebanon since 7 October.

Hamas called on the UN secretary-general to form an international delegation to visit hospitals in Gaza to refute what it said was Israel’s “lies and blatant fabrications” to justify targeting civilians. Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’ politburo, said that Israel was targeting hospitals in an attempt to further displace Palestinians.

Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’ politburo, told Al Jazeera that at the end of last week, “we were on the verge of an agreement” to swap civilians and foreign nations held in Gaza since 7 October for imprisoned Palestinian women and children but Israel backed out of an exchange at the last minute. Al-Hayya accused Israel of exploiting negotiations over the captives to prolong the war and placate the Israeli public.

Minister Amichai Eliyahu was suspended from cabinet meetings after appearing to confirm in a radio interview that Israel has nuclear weapons and that they could drop one on Gaza. Israel has had nuclear weapons since the 1960s, but maintains an official policy of ambiguity.

Communications and internet services are once again down in Gaza. The Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel said that all services in Gaza will be shut down in a week if no fuel enters the territory. “A telecommunications blackout would both cut Gaza’s communication with the outside world, as well as suspend phone and internet services within the enclave itself,” The New Arab reported. Israel cut the supply of electricity to Gaza after Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, announced a complete siege on the territory on 9 October and has banned the transfer of fuel since then.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected growing calls for a ceasefire until captives held by Hamas in Gaza since 7 October are returned, Reuters reported. “We say this to our friends and to our enemies. We will simply continue until we defeat them. We have no alternative,” Netanyahu said.

Turkey and Egypt agreed to transfer some 1,000 cancer patients and injured people requiring urgent care from Gaza to Turkey for treatment, the health minister in Ankara said. The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in northern Gaza, the only cancer treatment center in Gaza, was forced to shut down after running out of fuel to power emergency generators on 1 November.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. Blinken pushed for the widely loathed PA to play a central role in a hypothetical post-Hamas Gaza. “Abbas told Blinken there should be an immediate ceasefire and that aid should be allowed into Gaza,” Reuters reported, citing the Ramallah leader’s spokesperson.

Israel perpetrated 24 massacres, killing more than 240 people, in recent hours, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said. The latest strikes bring the number of Palestinians killed in the territory to nearly 9,800, including more than 4,000 children, since 7 October. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher, with 2,260 people, among them 1,270 children, missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Nearly 25,000 Palestinians have been injured, the ministry added.

4 November 2023

A spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu shared a video purporting to show Israeli military attack dogs going after Hamas fighters “inside their tunnels in the Gaza Strip.” It didn’t take long for it to be revealed that the footage was in fact an old training video.

“I was raised in Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza,” writes Tamer Ajrami, now living abroad, in a love letter to the place he knows so well. Many of the people killed when Israel attacked the camp earlier this week were “my relatives, neighbors and friends.”

A young man with an agonized look on his face holds the body of a toddler while being embraced by two other men

A man carrying a baby rushes into al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City after Israeli strikes hit a home in the Mansura neighborhood of Shujaiya, 4 November.

Bashar Taleb APA images

No foreign passport holders or medical patients left Gaza via Rafah crossing. “Media reports indicated that Hamas, demanding guarantees of safe passage, had prevented people from reaching the crossing, following an Israeli attack on the ambulance convoy leaving Shifa hospital to Rafah on 3 November,” UN OCHA’s daily report stated. More than 1,100 people reportedly crossed from Gaza to Egypt on 2 and 3 November.

UN OCHA’s daily report states that Israeli bombardments have reportedly destroyed multiple solar panels on the roofs of buildings, particularly in Gaza City, in recent days. “Affected facilities include al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals, several water wells and bakeries,” the UN added. “This has eliminated one of the remaining sources of energy, which is not dependent on fuel.”

Israeli airstrikes reportedly hit the entrances of two Gaza City hospitals: Nasser Children’s Hospital and Al-Quds Hospital. “Two people were reportedly killed, dozens were injured and damage was caused to the entrances of these health facilities,” the UN said, adding that around 14,000 displaced people are currently sheltering at Al-Quds Hospital. That facility is administered by the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which published videos of the aftermath of the strike.

“Residents of south Lebanon reported some of the fiercest Israeli strikes yet during weeks of cross-border clashes,” Reuters reported, as Hizballah “said it carried out simultaneous attacks on Israeli positions at the Lebanese border.” A Lebanese security official confirmed to the Associated Press that Hizballah fired for the first time in this conflict the heavier Burkan rocket, which can carry a several-hundred kilogram warhead. Nearly 60 Hizballah fighters have been killed since 7 October and on 3 November, Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese resistance organization, made his first speech since the battle began one month ago.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Israel had perpetrated 10 massacres, killing more than 230 people, in recent hours, bringing to nearly 9,500 the number killed in the territory since 7 October, including 3,900 children. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher, with 2,000 people, among them 1,250 children, missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings. The ministry said Israel was targeting medical staff and wounded people by striking the surroundings of hospitals, including the bombing of an ambulance near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on 3 November.

3 November 2023

“Why did Israel kill Abboud?” asks Ahmed Abu Artema from a hospital bed in Gaza. His eldest son, 13, had just returned home from the corner shop when their home was hit by a missile.

Britain’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign suspended four officers from its Manchester branch – one of its largest and most active – after they posted in support of “Palestinian freedom fighters” in an apparent attempt to quash support for Palestinian resistance.

Videos showing Israelis abusing the bodies of Palestinian fighters have been shared on a Hebrew-language Telegram channel following the Hamas-led operation of 7 October. The videos depict an Israeli stabbing the body of a resistance fighter and contain threats of sexual violence.

A man seen from the back carries a child who looks over his shoulders with wide eyes while clutching a lollipop

Al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, after Israeli occupation forces targeted a nearby residential area, 3 November.

Mohammed Zaanoun ActiveStills

Rafah Crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border opened for the movement of some people for the third consecutive day, “allowing the exit of 300-400 foreign passport holders,” the UN said. More than 3,000 Palestinian workers were returned to Gaza via the Karem Abu Salem checkpoint after being stranded in Israel and the West Bank since 7 October. “The Israeli authorities had held them in custody for most of the period, allegedly interrogating and subjecting people to ill treatment,” according to UN OCHA’s daily reporting. Fewer than 50 trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossed into Gaza via Rafah. Israel continues to bar the entry of fuel, desperately needed to keep hospitals, ambulances and other essential services running.

One of the generators at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City stopped working due to lack of fuel, the UN said. “Another generator is still operating, covering about half of the hospital’s needs,” the UN added. Meanwhile, the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza has already run out of fuel and is “left with small power generators to keep the ventilation system and ICU units running,” according to Palestinian human rights groups. Al-Shifa and the Indonesian hospitals are the largest healthcare facilities in Gaza and “together have 42 newborn babies on life support systems in incubators, 62 patients and persons injured on ventilation systems in ICU and 650 kidney dialysis patients.”

The UN said that “access to drinking water is uncertain” in Gaza’s north. Israel cut the supply of water on 8 October and “most water trucking operations and distribution of bottled water were suspended” to the area after the intensification of Israeli ground operations and most municipal water wells are no longer operating “after depleting their fuel reserves.”

Israel bombed an ambulance near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The ambulance was part of a convoy evacuating injured people. The Israeli military claimed that the targeted ambulance was “being used by a Hamas terrorist cell” but, as Reuters reported, “gave no evidence to support its assertion.” Video footage from the scene published by Reuters showed several people who appear to be injured or killed lying on the road next to several ambulances. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization, said he was “utterly shocked by reports” of the attacks on evacuating patients, leading to deaths, injuries and damage. Medical Aid for Palestinians, citing the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, said that 13 people were killed and 26 were injured in the attack on the convoy.

Representing nearly 70 percent of all fatalities, “women, children and newborns in Gaza are disproportionately bearing the burden of the escalation of hostilities … both as casualties and in reduced access to health services,” warned several UN agencies. “There are an estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, with more than 180 giving birth every day,” according to the UN agencies, which added that the lives of some 130 premature babies hang by a thread as hospitals run out of fuel needed to keep incubators and other medical equipment running.

Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese resistance group Hizballah, made his first speech since Hamas’ surprise attack in Israel on 7 October. During his nearly 90-minute address, Nasrallah warned the US that the conflict could escalate into a regional war if Israel doesn’t stop its assault on Gaza. “You, the Americans, can stop the aggression against Gaza because it is your aggression,” Nasrallah said, adding that the resistance would not be deterred by Washington’s show of military support for Israel. “Whoever wants to prevent a regional war, and I am talking to the Americans, must quickly halt the aggression on Gaza.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made another visit to Israel, during which he said he offered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials “concrete steps” to do more to protect Palestinian civilians. Axios, citing US and Israeli officials with direct knowledge, reported that Blinken told his Israeli counterparts that “agreeing to a humanitarian pause will help the US fend off growing pressure it is facing over its support of Israel’s operation in Gaza and in turn help Israel buy more time for its ground offensive.”

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Israel had perpetrated 16 massacres killing nearly 200 people in recent hours. More than 9,250 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, including 3,826 children. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher, with 2,100 people including 1,200 children missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings. The ministry said Israel was deliberately preventing the evacuation of injured people from hospitals in the northern half of Gaza to the south by blocking roads.

2 November 2023

“We see death at night,” writes Ruwaida Amer from Gaza. “And during the day, the world sees genocide. It does nothing to stop it.”

As the UK continues its support for the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, British schools have been urged to play their part in complying with the murderous narrative by stifling debate.

Rana al-Shorbaji, recently married and now living in Qatar, wishes she could return to Gaza. “All I want is to be there so I can die with my family,” she writes.

“As a 13 year-old child, this war has destroyed me psychologically,” writes Abdallah Ayman from Gaza. “One of the worst scenarios I fear is my family being killed and I surviving.”

Basma Almaza, a Palestinian studying in Malaysia, hasn’t heard from her family in Gaza for three weeks. “I have no knowledge about how they are, even if they are alive,” she writes.

Weapons makers are treating genocide as a business opportunity, with NATO aiding the obliteration of Gaza. Boeing is among the American companies profiting from the holocaust being inflicted on Palestinians.

People stand on the street next to several donkey carts loaded with plastic jugs

Palestinians gather next to carts loaded with tanks of water for sale as drinking water and fuel become increasingly scarce, Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, 2 November.

Naaman Omar APA images

Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for the movement of people for the second consecutive day, “allowing the evacuation of about 60 wounded Palestinians to an Egyptian field hospital, alongside some 400 foreign passport holders,” according to the UN. More than 100 trucks carrying aid entered Gaza via Rafah, but Israel continues to ban the transfer of fuel. “The available aid remains insufficient to cover people’s basic needs,” the UN added.

The main electricity generator at the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza was no longer operating due to lack of fuel, the Palestinian health ministry in the territory said. “This hospital has been receiving hundreds of people injured during the recent hostilities in Jabaliya camp,” according to the UN. A shutdown of hospital services exposes “hundreds of patients with serious injuries to imminent risk of death or lifelong disabilities,” the UN said. Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza is meanwhile “reportedly almost out of fuel.”

Israel confirmed that 19 of its soldiers have been killed during the military’s ground operation in Gaza.

Four UNRWA facilities hosting nearly 20,000 internally displaced people were hit, killing at least 23 and injuring dozens, the UN agency for Palestine refugees reported. “Since the start of hostilities, nearly 50 UNRWA facilities have been damaged and 72 staff have been killed,” according to the UN.

MQ-9 Reaper drones operated by US Special Operations forces have been flying over Gaza since at least 28 October, US officials confirmed. While the US Air Force classifies the Reaper as a “hunter-killer” drone, in this case, they are ostensibly part of the effort to locate American captives in Gaza using surveillance, the US officials said. The drones news comes on the heels of significant military support from the US to Israel, including two aircraft carrier strike groups, the Marine Corps expeditionary unit, the senior US urban warfare generals sent by the Pentagon as advisors to Tel Aviv, along with numerous advanced air defense systems and hundreds of thousands of shells and bombs and continuous heavy airlifts of weapons. The MQ-9 Reaper is the latest part of a very visible, very integrated US role in the Israeli battle plan.

The Palestinian Civil Defense are struggling to carry out their rescue missions due to a lack of fuel, the UN said. “This is particularly concerning as thousands are estimated to be trapped under rubble. The Palestine Red Crescent Society announced that, due to the lack of fuel, it had been forced to reduce the number of ambulances it operates.”

Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, said in an audio message that the group can hardly count their fighters’ operations during the defense of Gaza, they are so many. Abu Obeida said Qassam fighters “have destroyed what amounts to a battalion of tanks” and killed more soldiers than the Israeli military command is announcing so far.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said that the Israeli military had perpetrated 15 massacres in the past 24 hours, with more than 250 fatalities. More than 9,000 people, including 3,760 children, have been killed in the territory since 7 October and more than 2,000 people are missing under the rubble, including 1,150 children.

1 November 2023

Hunger, thirst and disease rip through Gaza: a roundup of social media posts by Palestinians describing their daily struggle to survive under total Israeli siege and constant bombardment.

Stories of despair and displacement from a Khan Younis sanctuary: portraits and testimonies of trauma in Gaza by photographer and writer Mahmoud Nasser.

A crowd of men, women and children press up against a partly shuttered bakery

Palestinians wait for bread in front of a bakery in al-Nuseirat, central Gaza, 1 November.

Naaman Omar APA images

Gaza’s only cancer treatment center is out of service after running out of fuel, health officials said. “The lives of 70 cancer patients inside the hospital are seriously threatened,” said Palestinian Authority health minister Mai al-Kaila. With the closure of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which was bombed on 30 October, 16 out of 35 hospitals in Gaza are now no longer functioning after Israel banned the transfer of fuel and shut off the supply of electricity needed to operate life-saving equipment.

Hundreds of foreign passport holders and dozens of injured people left Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt after the border was totally shut for passengers since 7 October. US passport-holders were apparently not part of the list of people approved to cross, with Utah resident Susan Bseiso telling CBS News that “It’s like they’re holding us hostages — not Hamas holding us hostages, it’s the [Israeli military] soldiers, Egypt and America.” Reuters said that 320 foreign passport-holders had exited Gaza and CBS News reported that at least 81 people were transported in ambulances from Rafah to Egyptian hospitals. A diplomatic source told Reuters that “some 7,500 foreign passport holders would be evacuated from Gaza over the course of about two weeks.”

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza reported nearly 8,800 killed, including around 3,650 children, in the territory since 7 October. More than 2,000 people are reported missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings, including 1,120 children. Health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qedra said that 132 health workers have been killed and 25 ambulances have been destroyed. Al-Qedra announced that the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital had stopped operating after running out of fuel, and that the al-Shifa and Indonesian hospitals would soon follow.

For the second time in five days, the communications networks in Gaza were cut. Paltel said there was a “complete disruption” of their cellular and internet services throughout the territory early in the day.

31 October 2023

The Biden administration still adamantly opposes a ceasefire, despite Israeli officials privately telling them that they looked at “how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II” as a model for its campaign of extermination in Gaza.

A former UK intelligence chair and national security adviser proposed during an interview with the BBC that “moderate Arab countries could come together and promote some sort of stability” in a post-holocaust Gaza. But, Najm Jarrah asks sarcastically, which Arab state would take the pesky Palestinians?

Under the cover of Israel’s war on Gaza, settlers have intensified their attacks in the West Bank, killing at least 115 Palestinians, including 33 children, since 7 October. Fayha’ Shalash reports from Qusra, south of Nablus, where three Palestinians were killed on 11 October.

“I imagine that my ghost is standing beside the ruins of another house in al-Rimal,” writes Haidar Eid, reflecting from the ruins in Gaza. “Ghosts do not cry. My ghost is an exception.”

In an apparent censorship effort, YouTube has age-restricted a viral video distilling the growing body of evidence that at least some of the Israeli civilians killed during the Palestinian resistance assault launched on 7 October were killed by Israeli forces.

Palestine must thrive, not just survive, writes Ghada Hania from the Gaza Strip: “The stories of people killed during this war should serve as a call for justice and liberation.”

Nour Khalil AbuShammala, writing from Gaza, describes the struggle to document her experience: “I am alive, living under bombardment. But something inside me dies every day.”

A crowd of men stand around a crater full of rubble surrounded by bombed-out residential buildings

Palestinians search for survivors following Israeli airstrikes in Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza, 31 October.

Fadi Wael Alwhidi DPA

The UN said that “the 25th day of hostilities witnessed the largest Israeli ground operation to date, primarily in northern Gaza and the outskirts of Gaza City, alongside intense bombardments.” Nearly 60 trucks “carrying water, food and medicines entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt,” the UN added. “This is the largest convoy since delivery of aid resumed on 21 October, bringing the total number of trucks that entered to 217,” but Israel continues to ban the transfer of fuel, which is “desperately needed to operate life-saving equipment.”

Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, said their fighters in Gaza have destroyed 22 Israeli military vehicles in the early stages of the ground war, with the focus of the battle taking place in the northwest. He denied that the captive soldier the Israeli military said they rescued was in the Qassam Brigades’ custody and mocked Benjamin Netanyahu for taking undue credit. The Qassam Brigades have informed mediators of their intent to release foreign captives in the coming days, Abu Obeida said in the video message released on social media.

The Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that it had “documented severe abuse and torture against Palestinian civilians and detainees at the hands of the Israeli army in the West Bank.” The group had obtained and examined footage showing Palestinians, some of them stripped naked, “being brutally beaten with rifle butts or subjected to other violence during their arrest, such as Israeli soldiers trampling on their heads.”

The government of Bolivia announced that it had broken diplomatic ties with Israel. The South American country’s foreign minister Freddy Mamani said that the decision was made “in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive taking place in the Gaza Strip.” Bolivia previously cut ties with Israel in 2009, “also in protest of Israel’s actions in Gaza,” Reuters reported.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sare’e said in a televised statement that the group launched ballistic missiles and drones from Yemen aimed at Israel. Early-warning systems in Eilat, in southern Israel, identified a “hostile aircraft intrusion” which Israel said it downed as it approached from the Red Sea. Sare’e said it was the third time Houthi fighters have targeted Israel from Yemen since the war in Gaza began.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza told Al Jazeera that some 400 people were killed and injured in Israeli military strikes targeting Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the territory. According to Al Mezan, a Palestinian human rights group, the camp is the largest in Palestine and was “established in 1948 to house some 35,000 Palestinians expelled from Yaffa and other villages in southern Palestine.” Today, with more than 116,000 refugees living in an area of around 1.4 square kilometers, Jabaliya refugee camp is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, Al Mezan noted.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said that the “Israel-Hamas war is the deadliest period for journalists covering conflict” since it began keeping records in 1992. The press freedom watchdog stated that “31 journalists were confirmed dead: 26 Palestinian, 4 Israeli and 1 Lebanese,” while eight journalists were reported injured and nine reported missing or detained.

The International Committee of the Red Cross stated that it “fears that the alarming levels of violence in the West Bank may lead to irreversible consequences for its communities. Since January of this year, more than 360 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank and over 2,000 wounded, making it the deadliest year in over a decade.”

The Palestinian health ministry reported as of 10:30am local time that 8,485 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and more than 21,000 injured since 7 October. During the same period, 125 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and around 2,050 injured. The Gaza figures do “not necessarily reflect all casualties given the fact that many victims remain missing under the rubble,” the ministry said.

30 October 2023

Israeli settlers have been organizing attacks against Palestinian herding communities to drive them off their land. Nearly 800 Palestinians have been driven out of their homes and communities since 7 October.

“Thousands of stories are being told in Gaza,” writes Ruwaida Amer from the bombarded and besieged territory, giving some snapshots of life and death amid a feeling of grave uncertainty.

“One consequence of the West’s support for the genocide of the Palestinians is the dissemination of the belief that Israel and the Jews are coextensive, that Jews belong in Israel and nowhere else,” writes Muhannad Hariri. “This belief, with its anti-Semitic roots in the West, is what drove Britain to establish a Zionist colony in Palestine.”

Would Israel be able to get away with the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza without the shameful silence of Arab governments? Or to put it more crudely, Haidar Eid asks from Gaza, would this have happened had the normalization deals not been signed?

A sedan on a major road in front of Israeli military vehicles behind earth barriers

Smoke billows in the background as a car drives through a deserted street moments before being hit by a shell fired by an Israeli tank (top right behind the building) in eastern Gaza City on 30 October.

Bashar Taleb APA images

Abu Hamza, the spokesperson for the Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, said that Israel’s indiscriminate bombing was endangering the lives of captives held in Gaza. In a nearly seven-minute video message, Abu Hamza said Israel was stalling “to escape paying the price,” alluding to a prisoner exchange.

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’ politburo, said that the Israeli military’s claim that it had rescued a soldier held captive in Gaza was false and aimed at blunting the impact of a video released by the Qassam Brigades earlier in the day. That video showed three Israeli women held captive in Gaza in which one of them, speaking in Hebrew, forcefully accuses her government of wanting to kill all the captives. She says “free their citizens, free their prisoners, free us, free all of us” before shouting “now!”

Three prominent Palestinian human rights groups – Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights – said they welcomed the visit made by Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to Rafah Crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border on 29 October. The rights groups urged Khan’s office to “insist that it be granted access to the occupied Palestinian territory to conduct an independent, on-site investigation” and to “immediately issue arrest warrants for the cases of international crimes committed by Israeli authorities and military personnel across the occupied Palestinian territory since 13 June 2014.”

The Washington-based human rights watchdog DAWN stated that the US “should oppose any Israeli actions that could result in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza” and that Congress should “reject a supplementary funding bill that proposes funding humanitarian aid to Palestinians who have been displaced from Gaza to neighboring countries.” Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s director, said the Biden administration is bankrolling ethnic cleansing.

The UN agency for Palestine refugees UNRWA said that 64 of its staff and personnel had been killed in Gaza since 7 October, with 10 of them slain in the past 72 hours. “This is the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in such a short time,” said UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini.

Mousa Khaled Mousa Jabarin, 16 years old, was killed by an Israeli drone-fired missile in Jenin refugee camp during an hours-long raid in the northern West Bank resistance stronghold. Three additional Palestinians were killed, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA: Amir Abdullah Shurbaji, 25, Nawras Ibrahim Zeidan Bajawi Turkman, 28, and Wiam Iyad Ahmad al-Hanoun, 27.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel said that it had urged the health and religion ministers in the country “to prevent the burial of any unidentified bodies and remains collected from the 7 October attack “until receiving approval from the Institute of Forensic Medicine.” The group said there was “growing concern from the families of hostages and missing persons that burials are being hastened for religious reasons without exhausting all identification measures.”

Israel bombed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the only specialized cancer treatment center in Gaza, causing significant damage, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera said that it was “shocked and outraged by the Israeli threat towards Al Jazeera English journalist Youmna Elsayed and her family in the Gaza Strip. Her family received a threat claiming to be from Israeli forces forcing them to leave their homes.” The threat comes only days after the killing of Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Wael al-Dahdouh’s family members after they followed Israel’s general evacuation order affecting more than a million Palestinians in the north half of Gaza.

29 October 2023

A recent interview with an Israeli military spokesperson is emblematic of CNN’s preemptive stenography and its role in helping create a dangerous political atmosphere of rage at Palestinians, according to an analysis by Michael F. Brown.

The Palestinian health ministry said that more than 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed since 7 October, including more than 3,300 children. An additional 1,800 people, including at least 940 children, are reported missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

The deadliest attacks in Gaza over the past 24 hours “were airstrikes targeting residential structures,” the UN said. In Jabaliya, northern Gaza early 29 October, 26 Palestinians were killed and 14 others were missing under the rubble an airstrike targeted a home. Around the same time, another house was hit in Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza, “killing 16 Palestinians and injuring 25 others.”

The UN said that “at least 33 trucks carrying water, food and medical supplies entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt” – the largest aid convoy since 21 October, when limited deliveries resumed after Israel imposed a total siege on the territory. The world body added that “a much larger volume of aid is needed on a regular basis” and that fuel is most urgently required “to operate medical equipment and water and sanitation facilities.”

Two weeks after his death, an initial investigation by Reporters Without Borders determined that Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed in a targeted strike from the direction of the Israeli border while they were clearly marked as press and standing on a hill out in the open in southern Lebanon on 13 October. Other journalists were wounded, including AFP correspondent Christina Assi, who was seriously injured.

A girl on the back of a motorbike turns towards the camera while riding on a narrow road lined by bombed-out multistory buildings

Destruction in Beach refugee camp, Gaza City, after another night of relentless Israeli bombardment, 29 October.

Mohammed Zaanoun ActiveStills

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court visited Rafah crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border and said that he hopes to enter both Gaza and Israel during his current mission. Karim Khan said that “we have active investigations ongoing in relation to the crimes allegedly committed in Israel” on 7 October “and also in relation to Gaza and the West Bank and our jurisdiction goes back to 2014.”

Thirty civil society groups in Israel called for urgent international intervention “to stop the state-backed wave of settler violence which has led, and is leading to, the forcible transfer of Palestinian communities in the West Bank.” They said that settlers have exploited the focus on Gaza to escalate the violent displacement of Palestinians, who are particularly vulnerable during the olive harvest that is currently underway.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said that Israel was striking targets in the immediate vicinity of al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, forcing “medical staff, displaced individuals and patients to evacuate the hospital.” The humanitarian organization published a video showing smoke filling the facility, which it said was significantly damaged by the Israeli strikes. The UN said that the vicinities of both al-Quds and al-Shifa hospitals in Gaza City and the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza were reportedly bombarded “following renewed calls by the Israeli military to evacuate these facilities immediately.”

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization, said that the “report of evacuation threats to al-Quds hospital in Gaza is deeply concerning” and reiterated that “it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives.” Under the laws of war, “healthcare must always be protected,” he said.

The UK charity Save the Children said that the number of children reported killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the number of children killed across all the world’s conflict zones in 2022. Since 7 October, nearly 3,200 children have been reported killed in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank and 29 in Israel, according to Palestinian and Israeli health authorities.

The UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said that several of its Gaza warehouses had been broken into by thousands of people who took “wheat flour and other basic survival items like hygiene supplies.” Thomas White, the director of UNRWA in Gaza, said that people “feel that they are on their own” and called for “a regular and steady flow line of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip.”

Three Palestinian human rights groups – Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights – said the latest Israeli military evacuation order “requires urgent international intervention” in order to protect civilians. A warning leaflet dropped by the Israeli military in Gaza on 28 October declares that “the Gaza District is officially a battlefield” and that the shelters housing displaced people in the northern half of Gaza “are not safe.”