UN agency for Palestinians says its fuel depot in Gaza is empty; relief operations to end soon

A boy walks with sacks of food supplies through a yard at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on November 14, 2023, where internally displaced Palestinians have taken refuge amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 15 November 2023
Follow

UN agency for Palestinians says its fuel depot in Gaza is empty; relief operations to end soon

  • The onslaught – one of the most intense bombardments so far this century — has been disastrous for Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees says its fuel storage facility in Gaza is empty and that it will soon end relief operations.
Israel has barred fuel imports since the start of the war with Hamas, saying the militant group would use it for military purposes.
The UN agency is struggling to provide basic services to over 600,000 people sheltering in schools and other facilities in the south.
Palestinian authorities on Tuesday called for a cease-fire to evacuate three dozen newborns and other patients trapped inside Gaza’s biggest hospital as Israeli forces battled Hamas in the streets just outside and seized more ground across northern Gaza.
For days, the Israeli army has encircled Shifa Hospital, the facility it says Hamas hides in, and beneath, to use civilians as shields for its main command base.
Hospital staff and Hamas deny the claim. Meanwhile, hundreds of patients, staff and displaced people were trapped inside, with supplies dwindling and no electricity to run incubators and other life-saving equipment. With refrigeration out for days, morgue staff on Tuesday dug a mass grave in the yard for more than 120 bodies, officials said.
The standoff at Shifa and other hospitals comes as Israeli forces control larger swaths of Gaza City and the surrounding northern part of the Gaza Strip, saying they are driving out and killing Hamas fighters.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said in a nationally televised press conference Tuesday night that Hamas has “lost control” of northern Gaza and that Israel has made significant gains in Gaza City. But asked about the timeframe for the war, Gallant said: “We’re talking about long months, not a day or two.”
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas rule in Gaza after the militants’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel in which they killed some 1,200 people and took roughly 240 hostages. But even as its troops control more of a devastated north Gaza, the Israeli government has acknowledged it doesn’t know what it will do with the territory after Hamas’ defeat.
The onslaught – one of the most intense bombardments so far this century — has been disastrous for Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians.
More than 11,200 people, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah. About 2,700 people have been reported missing. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
Almost the entire population of Gaza has squeezed into the southern two-thirds of the tiny territory, where conditions have been deteriorating even as bombardment there continues. About 200,000 fled the north in recent days, the UN said Tuesday, but tens of thousands are believed to remain.
Hamas released a video late Monday showing one of the hostages, 19-year-old Noa Marciano, before and after she was killed in what Hamas said was an Israeli strike. The military later declared her a fallen soldier, without identifying a cause of death.
She is the first hostage confirmed to have died in captivity. Four were released by Hamas and a fifth was rescued by Israeli forces.
PLIGHT OF HOSPITALS
Fighting has raged for days around Shifa Hospital, a complex several city blocks across at the center of Gaza City that has now “turned into a cemetery,” its director said in a statement.
The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. Another 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators, according to the ministry.
The Israeli military said it had started an effort to transfer incubators to Shifa. But they would be useless without electricity, said Christian Lindmeier, a World Health Organization spokesman.
The Health Ministry has proposed evacuating the hospital with the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross and transferring the patients to hospitals in Egypt, but has not received any response, ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said.
While Israel says it is willing to allow staff and patients to evacuate, some Palestinians who have made it out say Israeli forces have fired at evacuees.
Israel says its claims of a Hamas command center in and beneath Shifa are based on intelligence but has not provided visual evidence to support them. Denying the claims, the Gaza Health Ministry says it has invited international organizations to investigate the facility.
The White House’s national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US has unspecified intelligence from a variety of sources that Hamas and another Palestinian militants use Shifa and other hospitals and tunnels underneath them to hide and support military operations and hold hostages.
But Kirby said the US doesn’t support airstrikes on hospitals and does not want to see “a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people are simply trying to get the medical care that they deserve.”
On Monday, the military released footage of a children’s hospital in Gaza City that its forces entered over the weekend, showing weapons it said it found inside, as well as basement rooms where it believes militants were holding hostages. The video showed what appeared to be a hastily installed toilet and ventilation system in the basement.
The Health Ministry rejected the allegations, saying the area had been turned into a shelter for displaced people.
BATTLE IN GAZA CITY
Independent accounts of the fighting in Gaza City have been nearly impossible to gather, as communications to the north have largely collapsed.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces have completed the takeover of Shati refugee camp, a densely built district bordering Gaza CIty’s center, and are moving about freely in the city as a whole.
Videos released by the Israeli military show troops moving through the city, firing into buildings. Bulldozers push down structures as tanks roll through streets surrounded by partially collapsed towers.
The videos portray a battle where troops are rooting out pockets of Hamas fighters and tearing down buildings they find them in, while gradually dismantling the group’s tunnel network.
Israel says it has killed several thousand fighters, including important mid-level commanders, while 46 of its own soldiers have been killed in Gaza. In recent days Hamas rocket fire into Israel — constant throughout the war — has waned. Details of the Israeli account and the extent of Hamas losses could not be independently confirmed.
One Israeli commander in Gaza, identified only as Lt. Col. Gilad, said in a video that his forces near Shifa Hospital had seized government buildings, schools and residential buildings where they found weapons and eliminated fighters.
The army said it had captured Gaza’s legislature building, the Hamas police headquarters and a compound housing Hamas’ military intelligence headquarters. The captured buildings carry high symbolic value, but their strategic value was unclear. Hamas fighters are believed to be positioned in underground bunkers.
Israeli news sites showed pictures of soldiers holding up the Israeli flag and military flags in celebration inside some of the buildings.
DETERIORATING CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTH
Israel has urged civilians in the north to flee south, but southern Gaza is not much safer. Israel carries out frequent airstrikes throughout Gaza, hitting what it says are militant targets but often killing women and children.
Some 1.5 million Palestinians, more than two thirds of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes. UN-run shelters in the south are severely overcrowded.
People stand in line for hours for scarce bread and brackish water. Trash is piling up, sewage is flooding the streets and taps run dry because there is no way to power water systems. Israel has barred fuel imports since the start of the war, saying Hamas would use it for military purposes.
At a tent camp outside a hospital in the central town of Deir Al-Balah, people trudged through mud as they stretched plastic tarps over flimsy tents.
“All of these tents collapsed because of the rain,” said Iqbal Abu Saud, who had fled Gaza City with 30 of her relatives. “How many days will we have to deal with this?”
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which is struggling to provide basic services to over 600,000 people sheltering in schools and other facilities in the south, said it may run out of fuel by Wednesday, forcing it to halt most aid operations, including bringing limited supplies of food and medicine in from Egypt.


Israeli strikes batter Lebanon, killing five medics

Updated 33 min 38 sec ago
Follow

Israeli strikes batter Lebanon, killing five medics

  • Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire
  • Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes battered southern Lebanon and the outskirts of the capital Beirut on Friday, killing at least five medics, as ground troops clashed with Hezbollah fighters in the south.
Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire.
US mediator Amos Hochstein said earlier this week in Beirut that a truce was “within our grasp.” He traveled on to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz before returning to Washington, according to the news outlet Axios.
His trip aimed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border, which escalated dramatically when Israel ramped up its strikes in late September and sent ground troops into Lebanon on Oct. 1.
Israeli troops have fought Hezbollah in a strip of towns all along the border and this week pushed deeper to the edges of Khiyam, a town some six km (four miles) from the border. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday.
Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Israeli troops had also advanced in a string of villages to the west as well. They said Israel was most likely trying to isolate Khiyam ahead of a major attack on the town.
Israeli strikes on two other villages in southern Lebanon killed a total of five medics from a rescue force affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The more than 3,500 people killed by Israeli strikes over the last year include more than 200 medics, the health ministry said.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Israel’s north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which began firing across the border in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel also mounted more strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a once densely populated stronghold of Hezbollah.
It issued evacuation orders on the social media platform X for several buildings in the area on Friday. Reuters footage showed one of the strikes appearing to pierce the center of a multi-story building, sending the whole structure toppling in a massive cloud of smoke.


UN reports heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon

Updated 22 November 2024
Follow

UN reports heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon

  • “We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said
  • Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment”

BEIRUT: Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hezbollah fighters on Friday in different areas in south Lebanon, including a coastal town that is home to the headquarters of UN peacekeepers.
A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL told The Associated Press that they are monitoring “heavy clashes” in the coastal town of Naqoura and the village of Chamaa to the northeast.
UNIFIL’s headquarters are located in Naqoura in Lebanon’s southern edge close to the border with Israel.
“We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said. Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment.”
Several UNIFIL posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.
The fighting came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and a Hamas military leader, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
The warrant marked the first time that a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global court of justice.
Israel’s war has caused heavy destruction across Gaza, decimated parts of the territory and driven almost the entire population of 2.3 million people from their homes, leaving most dependent on aid to survive.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel has also launched airstrikes against Lebanon after the Hezbollah militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack last October. A full-blown war erupted in September after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.


Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages

Updated 22 November 2024
Follow

Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages

  • All hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours“

GAZA: The Hamas government’s health ministry warned Friday all hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours” for lack of fuel, blaming Israel for blocking its entry.
“We raise an urgent warning as all hospitals in Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry,” Marwan Al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, said during a press conference.


Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers

Updated 22 November 2024
Follow

Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers

  • Practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court
  • The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention

JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities will stop holding Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank under administrative detention, or incarceration without trial, the defense ministry announced Friday.
The practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court, and is often used against Palestinians who Israel deems security threats.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was “inappropriate” for Israel to employ administrative detention against settlers who “face severe Palestinian terror threats and unjustified international sanctions.”
But, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now, it is one of only few effective tools that Israeli authorities to prevent settler attacks against Palestinians, which have surged in the West Bank over the past year.
Katz said in a statement issued by his office that prosecution or “other preventive measures” would be used to deal with criminal acts in the West Bank.
B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group, said authorities use administrative detention “extensively and routinely” to hold thousands of Palestinians for lengthy periods of time.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that eight settlers were held under the same practice in November.
Yonatan Mizrahi, director of settlement watch for Peace Now, said that although administrative detention was mostly used in the West Bank to detain Palestinians, it was one of the few effective tools for temporarily removing the threat of settler violence through detention.
“The cancelation of administrative detention orders for settlers alone is a cynical... move that whitewashes and normalizes escalating Jewish terrorism under the cover of war,” the group said in a statement, referring to a spike in settler attacks throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past 13 months.
Western governments, including Israel’s ally and military backer the United States, have recently imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers and settler organizations over ties to violence against Palestinians.
On Monday, US authorities announced sanctions against Amana, a movement that backs settlement development, and others who have “ties to violent actors in the West Bank.”
“Amana is a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement and maintains ties to various persons previously sanctioned by the US government and its partners for perpetrating violence in the West Bank,” the US Treasury said.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank — which Israel has occupied since 1967 — is home to three million Palestinians as well as about 490,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.


UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician 

Updated 22 November 2024
Follow

UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician 

  • Emily Thornberry: Britain has ‘obligation under Rome Convention’ to arrest Israeli PM if he enters country 
  • Court: ‘Reasonable grounds to believe’ Netanyahu responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity in Gaza

LONDON: The UK will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, a senior British politician has said.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on Thursday for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, alongside his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, pertaining to the Gaza war.

Emily Thornberry — Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, and former shadow foreign secretary and shadow attorney general — told Sky News: “If Netanyahu comes to Britain, our obligation under the Rome Convention would be to arrest him under the warrant from the ICC.

“(It is) not really a question of should — we are required to, because we are members of the ICC.”

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has refused to be drawn on whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on British soil, saying it “wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment.”

She told Sky: “We’ve always respected the importance of international law, but in the majority of the cases that they pursue, they don’t become part of the British legal process.

“What I can say is that obviously, the UK government’s position remains that we believe the focus should be on getting a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Netanyahu’s arrest warrant is the first to be issued against the premier of a major Western ally by an international court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

His office denounced the warrant as “anti-Semitic,” adding that Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions.” Israel is not an ICC member and rejects the court’s jurisdiction.

US President Joe Biden called the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous,” adding: “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he plans to invite Netanyahu to visit Budapest, adding that the arrest warrant will “not be observed” by his government.

The Italian and French governments, however, have indicated that Netanyahu will be arrested if he visits either country.

The ICC said on Thursday it has “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

The court also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel says Al-Masri, believed to have been the mastermind behind the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, was killed in Gaza earlier this year.

The ICC said it issued the warrant for his arrest because of insufficient evidence to prove his death.