KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Israel pounded targets in crowded southern Gaza on Saturday and ordered more neighborhoods designated for attack to evacuate, driving up the death toll even as the United States and others urged it to do more to protect civilians a day after a truce collapsed.
The prospect of further cease-fires in Gaza appeared bleak, as Israel recalled its negotiators and Hamas’ deputy leader said any further swap of Gaza-held hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel would only happen as part of ending the war.
“We will continue the war until we achieve all its goals, and it’s impossible to achieve those goals without the ground operation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address Saturday night.
At least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting resumed Friday morning following the weeklong truce with the territory’s ruling militant group Hamas, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. Several multi-story residential buildings were hit on Saturday, engulfing neighborhoods in huge clouds of smoke.
Separately, the ministry said the overall death toll in Gaza since the Oct. 7 start of the war had surpassed 15,200, a sharp jump from the previous count of more than 13,300 on Nov. 20. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it said 70 percent of the dead were women and children. It said more than 40,000 people had been wounded since the war began.
“Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating,” US Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters during the the COP28 climate conference in Dubai.
Appeals from the US, Israel’s closest ally, to protect civilians came after an offensive in the first weeks of the war devastated large areas of northern Gaza. Some 2 million Palestinians, almost Gaza’s entire population, are now crammed into the territory’s southern half.
Israel’s military said it had hit more than 400 Hamas targets across Gaza over the past day, including over 50 in Khan Younis city and surrounding areas in the south.
Palestinian Red Crescent spokesman Mahmoud Basal told broadcaster Al-Jazeera that there were more than 300 “martyrs” in Gaza City’s Shujaia neighborhood and that homes were flattened. Israel’s military said it killed Hamas’ Shujaia battalion commander but gave no details on the operation. Residents could not be reached.
In northern Gaza, an airstrike flattened a building hosting families in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya on Gaza City’s outskirts. It left dozens dead or wounded, said residents Hamza Obeid and Amal Radwan.
“The building turned into a pile of rubble,” Obeid said. AP video showed smoke rising as men, some in sandals, picked their way over debris. The Israeli military confirmed it was operating in Jabaliya and said it had found and destroyed Hamas tunnels in the surrounding area.
And a powerful strike hit a cluster of multi-story buildings in Hamad City, a Qatari-funded housing development on the outskirts of Khan Younis. Smoke engulfed the complex. There was no immediate word on casualties.
“Where is it safe? I swear to God, no one knows, where are we going?” asked Zohair al Raai, who said his family received a recorded message saying their building should evacuate.
Also in the south, at least nine people, including three children, were killed in a strike on a house in Deir Al-Balah, according to the hospital where bodies were taken.
Meanwhile, Palestinian militant groups in Gaza said they fired a barrage of rockets on southern Israel. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesperson, said Hamas had launched more than 250 since the cease-fire ended. There were no immediate reports injuries.
During a Saturday visit to Israel and the West Bank city of Ramallah, an International Criminal Court prosecutor said his office is serious in moving forward to investigate allegations of war crimes on both sides.
“Every actor should be without doubts that they must comply with the law now,” Karim Khan told broadcaster Palestine TV. “And if you don’t comply with the law now, don’t complain later, because we are serious.”
With the resumption of fighting, the Israeli military published an online map carving up Gaza into hundreds of numbered parcels and asked residents to familiarize themselves with the number of their location ahead of evacuation warnings.
On Saturday, the military listed more than two dozen parcel numbers around Gaza City and east of Khan Younis. Separately, it dropped leaflets with evacuation orders over towns east of Khan Younis.
One Khan Younis resident said a neighbor received a call from the Israeli army warning that houses in the area would be hit. “We told them, ‘We have nothing here, why do you want to strike it?’” said the resident, Hikmat Al-Qidra. Al-Qidra said the house was destroyed.
The maps and leaflets generated panic and confusion, especially in the crowded south. Unable to go to northern Gaza or neighboring Egypt, their only escape is to move around within the 220-square-kilometer (85-square-mile) area.
“There is no place to go,” said Emad Hajjar, who fled to Khan Younis a month ago. “They expelled us from the north, and now they are pushing us to leave the south.”
Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, said Israel was making “maximum effort” to protect civilians and the military has used leafleting, phone calls, and radio and TV broadcasts to urge Gazans to move from specific areas.
Regev added that Israel is considering a future security buffer zone that would not allow Gazans direct access to the border fence on foot.
Israel says it targets Hamas operatives and blames civilian casualties on the militants, accusing them of operating in residential neighborhoods. It claims to have killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence. Israel says 77 of its soldiers have been killed in the offensive in northern Gaza.
Also Saturday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received the first convoy of aid trucks through the Rafah crossing with Egypt since fighting resumed. Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority, said 100 trucks entered including three carrying 150,000 liters (nearly 40,000 gallons) of fuel.
Meanwhile the US vice president said in a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi that “under no circumstances” would the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, an ongoing siege of Gaza or redrawing of its borders, according to a US summary.
The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel. Around 240 people were taken captive.
The renewed hostilities have heightened concerns for 137 hostages who, according to the Israeli military, are still held after 105 were freed during the truce. A 70-year-old woman held by Hamas was declared dead on Saturday, according to her kibbutz, bringing the number of known dead hostages to eight.
At a rally of tens of thousands in Tel Aviv, released hostages called for the rest to be freed. In a video address, Yaffa Adar, 85, spoke up specifically for children being held, saying, “I want to see them now — not when I’m in a coffin.”
Hamas and Israel differed on who was still being held.
Hamas’ deputy leader, Saleh Arouri, told Al-Jazeera that any remaining hostages are men, “all of whom served in the (Israeli) army.” That contradicted another top Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, who told The Associated Press on Friday the group was willing to trade more hostages but rebuffed an Israeli demand to release 10 female soldiers.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas violated the truce agreement by refusing to return two children and 15 women.
During the truce, Israel freed 240 Palestinians. Most of those released by both sides were women and children.
Israeli offensive shifts to crowded southern Gaza, driving up death toll despite evacuation orders
https://arab.news/mxf46
Israeli offensive shifts to crowded southern Gaza, driving up death toll despite evacuation orders
- First aid trucks enter Rafah crossing to Gaza since truce collapses
- Hamas said Saturday that 240 people had been killed in the Palestinian territory since a pause in the fighting expired on Friday
Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive
- Destruction of Lubnan Baalbaki’s childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon
- Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, held more than just personal memories
BEIRUT: Lubnan Baalbaki, the conductor of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, watched on his phone screen as an aerial camera pointed to a village in southern Lebanon. In seconds, multiple houses erupted into rubble, smoke filling the air. The camera panned right, revealing widespread devastation.
He zoomed in to confirm his fears: His family’s house in the border village of Odaisseh, where his parents are buried, was now in ruins.
“To see your house getting bombed and in a split second turned into ash, I don’t think there is description for it,” Baalbaki said.
The destruction of his childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel.
The Israeli military has released videos of controlled detonations in areas along the border, saying it is targeting Hezbollah facilities and weapons.
But the bombardment has also wiped out entire residential neighborhoods or even villages. The World Bank in a recent report said over 99,000 housing units have been “fully or partially damaged” by the war in Lebanon.
Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, renowned Lebanese painter Abdel Hamid Baalbaki, held more than just personal memories. It held a collection of Abdel Hamid’s paintings, his art workshop and over 1,500 books. All were destroyed along with the house.
What cut even deeper, Baalbaki said, was the loss of the letters his parents exchanged during his father’s art studies in France. Only a few remain as digital photos.
“The language of passion and love they shared was filled with poetry,” Baalbaki said.
In a book of poems and photographs his father created for his wife following her sudden death in a car accident, the first page reads, “Dedication to Adeeba, the partner of my most precious days, the love bird that left its nest too soon.”
Abdel Hamid painstakingly designed his wife’s tombstone. Later, he was laid to rest beside her in the garden next to the house. For their son, watching his childhood home go up in smoke brought back the pain of losing them.
It was a moment he had feared for months.
Hezbollah began firing missiles into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. For nearly a year, the conflict remained limited.
After the war dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 with intense Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, Baalbaki and his siblings frequently checked satellite images for updates on their village.
On Oct. 26, explosions in and around Odaisseh triggered an earthquake alert in northern Israel. That day, videos circulated online, one of which showed their home being obliterated.
Until a few days before that, the satellite images showed their house still standing.
Now, Baalbaki said, he is resolved to honor his father’s dream.
“The mourning phase started to turn to determination to rebuild this project,” he said.
When the war is over, he plans to rebuild the house as an art museum and cultural center.
226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO
- Over 187 attacks on healthcare workers have taken place in Lebanon over 13 months, says UN health agency
- Fifteen of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning, warns WHO
GENEVA: Nearly 230 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, the World Health Organization said.
In total, the UN health agency said there had been 187 attacks on health care in Lebanon in the more than 13 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Nov.18 this year, “we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total,” Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, said via video link from Beirut.
He said “almost 70 percent” of these had occurred since the tensions escalated into an all-out war in September.
Saying this was “an extremely worrying pattern,” he stressed that “depriving civilians of access to lifesaving care and targeting health providers is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient” — the highest percentage of any active conflict today.
By comparison, Abubakar said that only 13.3 percent of attacks on health care globally had fatal outcomes during the same period, pointing to data from a range of conflict situations, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on health care in Lebanon might be because “more ambulances have been targeted.”
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics ... killed.”
The conflict has dealt a harsh blow to overall health care in Lebanon, which was already reeling from a string of dire crises in recent years.
The WHO warned that 15 of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, stressed that “attacks on health care of this scale cripple a health system when those whose lives depend on it need it the most.”
“Beyond the loss of life, the death of health workers is a loss of years of investment and a crucial resource to a fragile country going forward.”
Israeli airstrike hits central Beirut, destroying buildings
- Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it
BEIRUT: A powerful Israeli airstrike targeted central Beirut on Saturday, security sources said, shaking the Lebanese capital as Israel pressed its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
At least four people were killed and 33 wounded in the attack in Beirut’s Basta neighborhood, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar broadcaster reported, citing the health ministry.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said early on Saturday that the attack resulted in a large number of fatalities and injuries and destroyed an eight-story building. Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The blasts shook the capital around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT), Reuters witnesses said. Security sources said at least four bombs were dropped in the attack.
It marked the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting a central area of Beirut, where the bulk of Israel’s attacks have targeted the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. On Sunday an Israeli airstrike killed a Hezbollah media official in the Ras Al-Nabaa district of central Beirut.
Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon in September, following nearly a year of cross-border hostilities ignited by the Gaza war, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
The conflict began when Hezbollah opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas after it launched the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
A US mediator traveled to Lebanon and Israel this week in an effort to secure a ceasefire. The envoy, Amos Hochstein, indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.
226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7: WHO
- Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient”
GENEVA: Nearly 230 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, the World Health Organization said.
In total, the UN health agency said there had been 187 attacks on health care in Lebanon in the more than 13 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Nov.18 this year, “we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total,” Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, said via video link from Beirut.
He said “almost 70 percent” of these had occurred since the tensions escalated into an all-out war in September.
Saying this was “an extremely worrying pattern,” he stressed that “depriving civilians of access to lifesaving care and targeting health providers is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient” — the highest percentage of any active conflict today.
By comparison, Abubakar said that only 13.3 percent of attacks on health care globally had fatal outcomes during the same period, pointing to data from a range of conflict situations, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on health care in Lebanon might be because “more ambulances have been targeted.”
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics ... killed.”
The conflict has dealt a harsh blow to overall health care in Lebanon, which was already reeling from a string of dire crises in recent years.
The WHO warned that 15 of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, stressed that “attacks on health care of this scale cripple a health system when those whose lives depend on it need it the most.”
“Beyond the loss of life, the death of health workers is a loss of years of investment and a crucial resource to a fragile country going forward.”
Little hope in Gaza that arrest warrants will cool Israeli onslaught
- Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave
GAZA: Gazans saw little hope on Friday that International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders would slow down the onslaught on the Palestinian territory, where medics said at least 21 people were killed in fresh Israeli military strikes.
In Gaza City in the north, an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia killed eight people, medics said.
Three others were killed in a strike near a bakery, and a fisherman was killed as he set out to sea. In the central and southern areas, nine people were killed in three separate Israeli air strikes.
FASTFACT
Residents in the three besieged towns on Gaza’s northern edge — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave, their main offensive since early last month.
The military claims it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from waging attacks and regrouping there; residents say they fear the aim is to permanently depopulate a strip of territory as a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
Residents in the three besieged towns on the northern edge — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.
An Israeli strike hit the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the area, injuring six medical staff, some critically, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
“The strike also destroyed the hospital’s main generator and punctured the water tanks, leaving the hospital without oxygen or water, which threatens the lives of patients and staff inside the hospital,” it added.
It said 85 wounded people, including children and women, were inside, eight in the ICU.
Gazans saw the ICC’s decision to seek the arrest of Israeli leaders for suspected war crimes as international recognition of the enclave’s plight. But those queuing for bread at a bakery in the southern city of Khan Younis were doubtful it would have any impact.
“The decision will not be implemented because America protects Israel, and it can veto anything. Israel will not be held accountable,” said Saber Abu Ghali as he waited for his turn in the crowd.
Saeed Abu Youssef, 75, said that even if justice arrived, it would be decades late: “We have been hearing decisions for more than 76 years that have not been implemented and haven’t done anything for us.” Israel launched its assault on Gaza after militants stormed across the border fence, killed 1,200 people, and seized more than 250 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023.
Since then, nearly 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, much of which has been laid to waste.
The court’s prosecutors said there were reasonable grounds to believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war, as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum have denounced the ICC arrest warrants as biased and based on false evidence, and Israel says the court has no jurisdiction over the war.
Hamas hailed the arrest warrants as a first step toward justice.
Efforts by Arab mediators backed by the US to conclude a ceasefire deal have stalled.
Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.
