Nearly 400 Civil Defense personnel killed, wounded in the Gaza Strip
Al Mayadeen | November 21, 2024
The Civil Defense in Gaza announced that the number of martyrs among its crews has risen to 87 since the outset of the Israeli war on the Strip, due to direct targeting by the occupation forces.
In a statistical report detailing the toll on its personnel, it revealed that 304 members were injured, while 21 were arrested by the occupation.
The total number of Civil Defense centers and headquarters destroyed or damaged has reached 17, including 14 destroyed and three partially damaged.
Additionally, 56 vehicles were destroyed or damaged. The occupation forces directly targeted Civil Defense centers six times and attacked crews 18 times during field missions. It also confirmed that the occupation destroyed its stock of firefighting, rescue, and ambulance equipment, valued at $1.3 million.
It is worth stressing that the Civil Defense in Gaza Governorate is facing a severe crisis, with most of its vehicles out of service for the 15th consecutive day due to a lack of fuel needed to operate them. The Israeli occupation continues to prevent its system from working and detain its vehicles in the northern Gaza Strip for the 30th day.
The Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip continues to deliberately target Civil Defense teams.
On Wednesday, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip reported that 12 Palestinians were massacred and more than 10 others are missing after Israeli occupation forces bombed a house in Jabalia town, located in the northern Gaza Strip.
As Civil Defense teams worked to rescue survivors, retrieve the martyrs, and search for the missing under the rubble in the al-Sabra neighborhood, they became targets themselves.
Israeli airstrikes hit their teams during rescue operations, resulting in the martyrdom of one paramedic and injuries to three others.
The Civil Defense confirmed that its personnel were directly targeted by Israeli warplanes in the early morning hours. They emphasized that the IOF are deliberately obstructing efforts to rescue trapped civilians, contributing to the increasing death toll.
Heart-wrenching videos have emerged from Gaza, one of which shows a paramedic holding the amputated arm of his colleague, who was killed in a deliberate Israeli airstrike. The harrowing footage captures the emotional moment as the first responder mourns his fallen comrade.
‘Israel’ destroyed huge Gaza areas for crops; 90% of cattle killed: UN
Al Mayadeen | November 21, 2024
More than 90% of livestock in Gaza have perished, and around 70% of cropland has been destroyed or damaged since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, according to a UN study of satellite images.
Over half of the sheep and goat herds have been killed and more than three-quarters of the territory’s famed orchards have been destroyed or damaged, according to a September study.
Last week, Rein Paulsen, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Office of Emergencies and Resilience, stated that local food production in Gaza has been “decimated”, telling the UNSC that vehicle tracks, razing, and shelling have caused significant damage to farmland, infrastructure, wells, and other productive infrastructure, increasing the risk of famine.
Before the outset of the war last year, farms covered around 40% of Gaza, producing enough vegetables, eggs, fresh milk, poultry, and fish to supply roughly one-third of local demand. Many families owned their own olive or fruit trees.
Faraj Jarudat, who was forced to evacuate his farm in northern Gaza, said his three cows and 60 sheep had perished, either due to Israeli bombing or a shortage of feed.
According to Jarudat, friends and former neighbors who visited the site informed him that his trees and houses once stood were uprooted and destroyed by Israeli soldiers. The region near Beit Lahia, where he lived, has seen intense violence in recent weeks.
“The farm and all of our homes – my home and homes of my children – were bulldozed,” he expressed.
Ismael al-Rahal, 49, a farmer from northern Gaza, said only a few of his 65 sheep survived, explaining how he had to move them with him each time he had to flee. He explained to the UN how food prices were extremely high, forcing his family to cut back on their food to feed the sheep.
According to Paulsen, in some areas of Gaza, farmers, fishermen, and livestock owners are risking their lives to continue producing. He told the UN how “the significant levels of damage … are exacerbating the humanitarian and hunger crisis on the ground and increasing the risk of famine. Food supply across [Gaza] has sharply deteriorated while food availability is at an all-time low.”
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels, with widespread displacement and destruction, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland warned on Monday.
Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East, Wennesland sounded the alarm on the dire conditions in Gaza, particularly in the north, describing the situation as marked by a “disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law.”
“As this Council has been briefed repeatedly, the humanitarian situation in Gaza, as winter begins, is catastrophic, particularly developments in the north of Gaza with a large-scale and near-total displacement of the population and widespread destruction and clearing of land, amidst what looks like a disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law,” Wennesland said.
Wennesland highlighted the difficulties faced by humanitarian agencies in Gaza, citing a dangerous operational environment and access restrictions that hinder aid efforts. He stressed the need for unrestricted access to deliver aid and emphasized the importance of a political solution to address the root causes of the violence, warning that without it, the humanitarian situation will not improve.
‘Tortured and left to die’: New details emerge about Israel’s murder of prominent Gaza surgeon
The Cradle | November 16, 2024
A Sky News investigation published on 16 November has revealed new details surrounding Israel’s torture and murder of the famous Palestinian surgeon from Gaza, Adnan al-Bursh, in the Ofer Prison in the occupied Palestinian West Bank last May.
A fellow Palestinian prisoner at Ofer told the British news channel that Israeli guards severely tortured Dr Bursh and then left him to die alone, naked from the waist down, in the prison yard.
The prisoner, who previously knew the doctor in Gaza, provided the new details in a deposition to lawyers from HaMoked, an Israeli human rights organization.
“In mid-April 2024, Dr Adnan Al-Bursh arrived at Section 23 in Ofer Prison. The prison guards brought Dr Adnan Al-Bursh into the section in a deplorable state. He had clearly been assaulted with injuries around his body. He was naked in the lower part of his body,” the prisoner’s deposition states.
“The prison guards threw him in the middle of the yard and left him there. Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was unable to stand up. One of the prisoners helped him and accompanied him to one of the rooms. A few minutes later, prisoners were heard screaming from the room they went into, declaring Dr Adnan Al-Bursh (was dead).”
Dr Bursh was widely regarded as one of the best-qualified and well-known surgeons in Gaza.
When Israel’s war on Gaza began in October of last year, Dr Bursh worked at Al-Shifa Hospital as the head of orthopedic surgery. He worked around the clock, performing surgeries on Palestinians injured by Israel’s horrific bombing campaign.
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1856940110308143197
When Israeli troops laid siege to Al-Shifa in November, the staff was forced to flee.
Bursh fled by foot to the Indonesian Hospital in Bait Lahia to continue serving wounded patients.
He documented his experiences on video, including when Israel shelled the hospital, killing 12 people.
He was then forced to leave the Indonesia Hospital as well and moved to the Al-Awda Hospital in Gaza’s north, where he was abducted by Israeli forces.
After the soldiers surrounded the hospital, “They told [Dr Bursh] that if all men do not come down… they will destroy the Awda Hospital with all the women and children in it,” a fellow doctor at Al-Awda, Mohammad Obeid, told Sky News.
After Dr Bursh left the hospital, Israeli soldiers “called his name out” and then “roughly” took him away, Obeid stated.
Dr Bursh was then taken to the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev Desert.
The facility became notorious this summer after prison guards, doctors, and former inmates gave testimony of prisoners being tortured and raped there.
Dr Khalid Hamouda, a former inmate at Sde Teiman, told Sky News that of the 100 prisoners in the section of the camp where he was held, at least a quarter were healthcare workers.
Dr Bursh was beaten severely at Sde Teiman.
“He thought he may have broken ribs,” Dr Hamouda said. “He was unable to even go to the toilet alone.”
The doctor was then transferred to Ofer Prison in the Israeli prison system but was never charged with any crime or terrorism.
Since 7 October 2023, at least 43 prisoners have died in Israeli jails, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.
Israel fails to meet US aid demands to ease Gaza catastrophe, aid groups say
MEMO | November 12, 2024
Israel failed to meet a series of US demands intended to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by a deadline set for today, aid groups have said according to Reuters.
The United States told its ally Israel in a letter on 13 October that it must take steps to improve the aid situation within 30 days. If not, it could face potential restrictions on US military aid.
“Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza,” a group of eight aid groups including Oxfam, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council said in 19-page report.
For more than a month, Israeli forces have been pushing deeper into north Gaza, surrounding hospitals and shelters and creating fresh waves of displacement.
On Friday, global food security experts released a rare warning of imminent famine in parts of northern Gaza unless immediate steps were taken to ease the situation.
Israel says measures, including the opening of a new crossing into Gaza, have been implemented, however others pertain to its security and have not been put in place.
Washington has not yet commented on whether its conditions have been met. Last week, the State Department said Israel had taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but had so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation.
Israeli ministers want issue of captives in Gaza to be solved ‘naturally and tragically’: Report
The Cradle | November 10, 2024
The Israeli government is waiting and hoping for the captives held by Hamas in Gaza to die while expanding the military occupation of territory in Gaza as part of a broader effort to cleanse the strip of Palestinians and to build Jewish settlements, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 10 November.
The Hebrew media paper reported that “According to every intelligence report that is submitted to the cabinet ministers, the situation of the dozens of abductees who are still alive in the captivity of Hamas is getting worse from week to week.”
“As long as the negotiations are not restarted, the problem of the abductees will be solved naturally and tragically, according to some right-wing ministers. The resistance of those ministers to release hundreds of terrorists will be redundant,” the paper added.
Since Hamas’ Qassam Brigades took around 250 Israeli soldiers and civilians captive on 7 October last year, it has sought to release them in exchange for a ceasefire, the release of thousands of Palestinians held captive in Israeli prisons, and an end to the Israeli siege of Gaza that began in 2007.
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have successfully sabotaged ceasefire negotiations, preferring to extend the war, destroy Gaza, and annex its territory to ultimately build Jewish settlements.
Israeli forces have killed many of the captives, both by bombing the locations in Gaza where Hamas was holding them and by opening fire and killing them directly.
If ceasefire negotiations are not quickly resumed, the remaining 70 captives who remain alive will likely die, providing Netanyahu with the pretext to move forward with the permanent occupation of Gaza.
“The deaths in captivity of another 20-30 hostages will be swallowed up in the sea of mourning for the fallen soldiers, and then, when public anger is channeled against Hamas, the Israeli leadership will not be in a hurry to withdraw from the Gaza territory that the IDF captured from the terrorist organization – ministers and MKs on the right do not hide their ambitions to establish [Jewish] settlements there,” Yedioth Ahronoth wrote.
The Hebrew paper adds that the slow death of the captives and Israel’s increased control over Gaza territory are moving forward in tandem.
“These are actually two trends that are expanding quietly … One is the expansion of the occupied IDF territory and establishment [of military bases] within it. The second is the government’s ignoring of the abductees’ death throes. The two trends, unfortunately, will merge at some point in the future.”
The expansion of territory occupied by the Israeli army is illustrated by the construction of a massive military base in the Netzarim Corridor, Yedioth Ahronoth says.
The corridor was initially constructed as a road to bisect Gaza from north to south. However, in recent months, the corridor has doubled its area to about 56 square kilometers, making it a large Israeli military enclave in the heart of the northern Gaza Strip.
Today, the army is pressuring the approximately 300,000 Gazans remaining in the north of the Gaza Strip to cross to the south, Yedioth Ahronoth says.
“The most important part of this base is the innovative coastal barrier through which, the army hopes, a large mass of the Palestinian population will soon pass to the south of the strip, with the expansion of pressure on the Jabalia area.”
“The army established a large outpost on the beach to identify the tens of thousands it hopes will arrive soon and cross south. This will happen, the army hopes, with the expansion of the ground raid in Jabalia to other areas and neighborhoods in Gaza itself. In the base, apart from the interrogation rooms and the temporary detention cells.”
The Israeli army has been abducting Palestinian men en mass at checkpoints as they move south. The men are then stripped to their underwear and taken on trucks to detention facilities, where they are regularly tortured and raped.
In addition, the army plans to copy the Netzarim Corridor model and implement it at the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border as well, specifically in the area where the Gush Katif settlement bloc was located before the 2005 evacuation plan, Yedioth Ahronoth says.
How Israel invented the Gaza ‘Strip’ during its founding war of ethnic cleansing
If Americans Knew | November 4, 2024
Ilan Pappé, a renowned Israeli historian, challenges common perceptions of the Gaza Strip’s history. He asserts that prior to 1948, Gaza was not known as a “strip” but was a cosmopolitan town with a rich, diverse culture. In a video circulating online from January 2024, Pappe emphasises that the term “Gaza Strip” emerged post-1948, following the Israeli invasion, reshaping Gaza’s identity and geography.
SOURCE: Middle East Eye Apr 10, 2024 
• How an Israeli war criminal turned Ga…
RELATED: “Israeli communities near Gaza are on stolen land, former owners consigned to the Gaza ghetto” – https://israelpalestinenews.org/israe…
Israel secures victory over the biggest terrorists in Gaza: aid workers
Laura and Normal Island News | November 4, 2024
Israel has finally cancelled its agreement with the only organisation capable of getting significant quantities of food and medicine into northern Gaza: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Israel has decided Unrwa is guilty of “terrorism” because it has been getting food and medicine to civilians designated for extermination, an accusation Unrwa does not deny. Thankfully, Israel put a stop to this terrorism at the start of October and now every civilian in northern Gaza is at imminent risk of death. As everyone knows, the only way to defeat terrorism is to kill enormous numbers of civilians (who have the wrong skin colour and/or religion).
Israel is rightly outraged that Unrwa employs terrorists because the only organisation allowed to send terrorists into Gaza is the IDF. Outrageously, I’m told Unrwa incinerated civilians from Apache helicopters on October 7th, a privilege reserved only for IDF pilots following the Hannibal Directive.
An investigation found no evidence of Israel’s central allegations against Unrwa, but Israel Katz crayoned a picture of an Unrwa worker holding a severed baby’s head. If you question Israel’s evidence, I honestly don’t know what to say to you.
After a year of starving Palestinians, Israel has assured us it will get the necessary aid into Gaza. This is the most sensible move since Dr Harold Shipman decided to administer medicine to his patients. The IDF says it will try to resist gunning civilians down as they queue for aid, but obviously it can’t make any promises. Antony Blinken said that if Israel does attack the aid queues, he expects the killers to investigate themselves. This is a privilege reserved for the only democracy in the Middle East.
Israel has been so angry with Unrwa workers who fed and treated Palestinians that it initially wanted to blow them all up. Thankfully, Israel has shown restraint and only blown up 102 of them. Israel was particularly angry with the people whose job it was to vet Unrwa workers, until it realised that was Israel’s job. This was a tiny bit embarrassing so never mention it again, okay?
While Israel is courageously tackling terrorism in Gaza, British police are doing everything they can to defeat terrorism back home, including beating the shit out of anyone who expresses solidarity with Unrwa. Well, they’ve not done that yet, but I remain optimistic.
The United Nations is now a proscribed terrorist organisation, all criticism of Israel has been banned, and in unrelated news, several government ministers have really nice holiday homes. Mossad has clarified that just because its spies were arrested for blackmailing officials in Italy, does not mean they would behave like this in the UK. Blackmail is unnecessary here because our officials are much more open to bribes.
You will be pleased to know British police are taking their role as enforcers of the Israeli state so seriously that they’ve arrested a Jewish Israeli academic because he explained Israel is fighting an unwinnable war. Professor Haim Bresheeth pointed out that British police have been arresting people for opposing genocide, leaving police with no choice but to arrest him under the Terrorism Act. I literally can’t tell the difference between this professor and ISIS.
Metropolitan police explained they actually arrested Prof Bresheeth for “expressing support for a proscribed terrorist organisation”. Awkwardly, a recording of his speech shows he said no such thing, but anyone who shares the footage online risks being visited by a Hermes drone. Be warned, Mossad has your IP address as part of Twitter’s terms and conditions and those drones don’t have to come far because they are made in Leicestershire
Biden regime violating US law through MENA troop deployments: House Democrats
Al Mayadeen | November 2, 2024
Five House Democrats warned US President Joe Biden that the deployment of American troops to aid “Israel’s” escalating aggression in the Middle East violates US law, reprimanding the Biden administration amid accusations that it was intentionally dismissing domestic law to support Israeli violence in the region.
In the letter, the Democrats, led by representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush slammed the administration’s unilateral decision to share intelligence with the Israeli military and send troops to “Israel” and the Middle East, saying it constitutes direct engagement in the region’s conflicts.
Consequently, the Constitution and War Powers Resolution of 1973, which lists Congress as the sole power that could declare war and approve the deployment of soldiers, are thereby violated.
The letter stresses that US Congress did not authorize the deployment of troops in the region, adding that the Executive Branch cannot introduce US armed forces into conflicts in the absence of an imminent or actual attack on its sovereignty.
The Israeli expansion of the war throughout the Middle East, particularly in Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, was supported by the deployment of thousands of US soldiers in the region. The most recent batch was dispatched to “Israel” to assist with the installation of a $1 billion high-altitude anti-missile system. Additionally, US troops have supported Israeli forces in identifying alleged targets in Gaza.
The lawmakers further stated that the current and any future deployment of US Armed Forces in support of “Israel’s” expanding regional violence qualifies as “hostilities” under the War Powers Resolution and is not in response to an imminent threat to the US. Therefore, these actions lack authorization and fall under Congress’s constitutional authority.
They urged the administration to clarify the extent of US military involvement in “Israel’s” actions and to justify recent strikes against the armed forces in Yemen, additionally highlighting that Congress has the power to withdraw unauthorized troops and halt their participation in the region.
“These destructive wars must end, as must any unauthorized U.S. involvement in them. The American public deserves a say on the issue of war. Thus, Congress’ involvement and debate are necessary,” the letter read.
US deploys B-52s and warships to ME
The United States announced, on Friday, that it would be deploying B-52 bombers, fighter jets, refueling aircraft, and Navy destroyers to the Middle East as part of a realignment of military resources while the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group gets ready to depart the region.
The Pentagon stated that these deployments would occur in the coming months and highlighted the “flexibility of the US military movements around the world.”
“Should Iran, its partners, or its proxies choose to target American personnel or interests in the region during this time, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people,” Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said in a statement.
Over the past year, the United States has deployed as many as two aircraft carriers to the Middle East amid the ongoing Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Gaza.
A massacre within a massacre: How journalists reporting on Gaza deaths are being targeted
By Eva Bartlett | RT | November 2, 2024
In spite of experiencing two Israeli wars on Gaza, I never imagined the horrific scenes coming out of northern Gaza now: Israel is exterminating the population in broad daylight, broadcast for all the world to see.
And no one is doing a damn thing to stop it.
Israel has besieged northern Gaza for weeks days, preventing most humanitarian aid from entering, putting the population of 400,000 already starving Palestinian civilians in the north at severe risk of full starvation. The Israeli parliament has voted to ban UNRWA, the United Nations agency for humanitarian aid, which has been the sole lifeline for many Palestinians.
Israeli forces have also bombarded water stations and wells, as well as cutting off communications with the outside world, depriving people of access to water, and leaving them trapped and isolated.
According to Euro-Med Monitor, in the last two weeks, 500 Palestinians have been confirmed dead in northern Gaza, “and thousands more have sustained injuries. Many remain unaccounted for, either in the streets or buried under the debris.”
As they have done elsewhere throughout the Gaza Strip during more than one year of genocide, Israeli forces are targeting hospitals in Gaza’s north. Euro-Med reported that, “Israeli army forces surrounded the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia. They fired two artillery shells at the hospital, cut off its electricity, and targeted anyone moving in the area.”
The army is firing on medics and other rescuers, as they’ve done throughout 2023-2024, and as they did in 2009, when medics I was with came under Israeli sniper fire, and another medic I knew was killed by a flechette (dart) bomb. By killing the rescuers and destroying the hospitals, Israel ensures maimed Palestinians will go without medical care and probably die.
This is, of course, illegal under international law. But as Israel’s genocidal actions have shown the world, the Israeli government, army and settlers believe laws don’t apply to them. Take the horrific video of an Israeli drone precision-targeting a Palestinian child, killing it, and then bombing the civilians who ran to try to rescue the child. Par for the course for the Israeli army. Were the perpetrator one of the United States’ enemies, there would be calls for no-fly zones, sanctions and corporate media howling 24/7.
Not content to merely murder Palestinian civilians by bombing, sniping and starvation, the Israeli army has reportedly been deploying robots with explosives and leaving booby trapped barrels to remotely detonate.
The scenes which journalists have been able to publish are surreal, like science fiction, with quadcopters policing the streets. A week ago, a friend told me in a message that he had to choose between starving or risking being shot dead by Israel soldiers or quadcopters if he tried to get bread.
Some days ago, he messaged me at 4 in the morning: Israeli tanks were outside his home, the audio he sent was terrifying. He chose to stay in his home rather than endure another Nakba.
I don’t know if he is alive now.
War on journalists
Earlier this month, Palestinian cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi was shot in the neck by an Israeli quadcopter, leaving him paralyzed. Aside from Al Jazeera, for which Fadi worked, most Western media and journalist projection organizations are unsurprisingly silent.
Reporters Without Borders, which I previously wrote about for its downplaying the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel, has no entry on Fadi. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CJP), at least, does. Its entry notes:
“Al Wahidi was critically injured in the neck by a bullet fired from an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft while Al Wahidi and correspondent Anas Al-Sharif were covering an Israeli siege on northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp. Both men were wearing “Press” vests and clearly identifiable as journalists.”
Anas al-Sharif – who continues to courageously report from northern Gaza – told CJP they’d been in an area “completely far from the areas of operations of the Israeli occupation forces,” and full of residents when, “an Israeli reconnaissance drone fired at us. After the shooting, we tried to move to another safer place and hide from any danger, but a bullet from the plane hit our colleague Fadi Al-Wahidi in the neck, which led to his complete paralysis.”
Wahidi has since fallen into a coma. His colleagues and friends are pleading for some sort of international intervention to allow him to be taken abroad for medical care, to save his life.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported, citing the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), that between 7 October 2023 and 10 October 2024 168 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including 17 women, 360 were injured, and 60 were detained.
The extermination campaign continues
It’s absolutely devastating to watch every day pass with alarming new updates from or on northern Gaza. Like Anas al-Sharif, Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat courageously reports apocalyptic scenes of Israeli bombarding in northern Gaza.
In a live update on X recently, he said:
“We are witnessing genocide and ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, specifically in Jabalia, which is under siege from all directions. Israeli occupation forces are bombing displaced civilians, detaining them, and attempting to ethnically cleanse them. They are targeting shelters for displaced civilians, and bodies are scattered everywhere in the north, along the roads. Thousands of civilians are being forcefully displaced (ethnically cleansed) from the north.”
Meanwhile, in a bout of meaningless theatrics, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin have “demanded Tel Aviv improves the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days or risk losing US military aid and face possible legal action.”
But clearly Israel’s biggest backer is spouting nonsense: there will be no cut to military aid, there will be no legal action, the US will never take a position to force Israel to cease the massacre in Gaza. In fact, giving Israel one month before any supposed repercussion is, in my opinion, giving Israel a green light to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza as quickly as possible.
Israel seems hell-bent on implementing former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s ‘Five Fingers’ project, which envisioned carving Gaza into segments, all under Israeli security control. If this is Israel’s intent, we will see the same bloody scenes from northern Gaza repeated block by block Israel all over the rest of the already brutalized Strip.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Israeli army bombed shelter centers in Gaza Strip 39 times during October: Euro-Med
Palestinian Information Center – October 28, 2024
GAZA – The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented that the Israeli occupation army targeted shelter centers in the Gaza Strip 39 times since the beginning of October 2024, resulting in the deaths of 188 Palestinians and injuries to hundreds more. This marks a serious escalation in crimes targeting civilian gathering places, especially in northern Gaza, aimed at forcibly emptying it of its Palestinian residents.
The Euro-Med Monitor said that its field team recorded the Israeli army’s targeting of schools, hospitals, clinics, and halls used for shelter 65 times since the beginning of August this year, 39 of which occurred in October. During these incidents, 672 Palestinians were killed, and over a thousand others were injured.
The report highlights that 57 of these attacks targeted locations in northern Gaza and Gaza City, while 8 occurred in central Gaza. The attacks include bombings, direct gunfire, and the killing of forcibly displaced individuals and their families, or forcing them to evacuate schools under fire or through orders of forced displacement, followed by burning or destroying these schools to render them uninhabitable and to prevent the displaced from returning.
The Monitor noted that Israel’s systematic policy of destroying shelter centers further tightens the noose on the available options for residents regarding places they can seek refuge, facilitating Israel’s goals of destroying and forcibly displacing Palestinians and altering the demographic makeup of the region, especially in northern Gaza. Various Israeli officials have explicitly expressed their intention to annex and settle in the area.
The Euro-Mediterranean team documented the scattering of dozens of Palestinian families and the separation of their members due to the targeting of shelter places and the subsequent repeated waves of forced displacement, which have compounded their psychological suffering, especially among children.
Targeting shelter places is considered a fundamental part of Israel’s strategy to undermine the social structures of Palestinians in Gaza, continuing to weaken the population psychologically and physically, and eradicating their shared spaces that could provide some degree of psychological and social support.
Furthermore, the targeting of shelter places negatively affects families’ and individuals’ access to humanitarian aid, as many of these sites serve as distribution points for humanitarian assistance from charities. If they are forced to flee to other locations, they may find themselves in areas lacking access to available humanitarian aid, which is already limited in the region, exacerbating the humanitarian situation and increasing the suffering of the population.
The Euro-Med Monitor reported that its field team documented, on the afternoon of Sunday, October 27, the Israeli air force bombing the “Asma” school, which shelters thousands of displaced individuals in the Shati Camp west of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of 11 Palestinians, including 4 journalists, among them two women, and injuries to dozens more. This bombing came eight days after the Israeli air force targeted the same school, killing eight Palestinians and injuring others.
The field team also documented the bombing of the “Shuhada al-Nuseirat” secondary school for boys, which shelters thousands of displaced individuals in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 18 Palestinians, including 12 children and 3 women, and injuries to 52 others.
A review conducted by the Euro-Med field team revealed that none of the victims were militants, among whom was Professor Ashraf Yaqub Al-Jadi, 54 years old, the dean of the nursing faculty at the Islamic University of Gaza.
The Monitor noted that the Israeli occupation army evacuated no fewer than 10 schools housing thousands of displaced individuals in northern Gaza, burning most of them. This evacuation followed quadcopter aircraft sending of Palestinian detainees, ordering those inside to evacuate and head to checkpoints established by the Israeli occupation army.
The occupation forces also unexpectedly bombed some of these schools, as happened with the Jabalia Preparatory School, where 10 displaced individuals were killed on October 21, and the Zaid bin Haritha School, where 7 displaced individuals were killed on October 22.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor renewed its call on all countries to fulfill their international responsibilities to stop the crime of genocide and the serious crimes being committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, to protect civilians there, to ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the decisions of the International Court of Justice, to impose effective sanctions on Israel, and to halt all forms of political, financial, and military support provided to it, including an immediate cessation of arms sales, exports, and transfers to Israel, as well as export licenses and military assistance.
It also called for accountability and prosecution of countries complicit and partners with Israel in committing crimes, especially those supplying Israel with any forms of support or assistance related to these crimes, including providing aid and engaging in contractual relationships in military, intelligence, political, legal, financial, media, and other fields that may contribute to the continuation of these crimes.
The Monitor demanded the activation of all available accountability and prosecution pathways at the international, regional, and local levels, including serious and joint efforts to activate the pathway of universal jurisdiction to hold accountable the perpetrators of crimes against Palestinian civilians before the national courts of countries that recognize this jurisdiction.
South Africa submits 750 pages of evidence in genocide case against Israel
The Cradle | October 28, 2024
South Africa’s legal team on 28 October submitted hundreds of documents to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) offering “undeniable evidence” of acts of genocide committed in Gaza by the Israeli army and statements by authorities that carry genocidal intent.
“The evidence will show that undergirding Israel’s genocidal acts is the special intent to commit genocide, a failure by Israel to prevent incitement to genocide, to prevent genocide itself, and its failure to punish those inciting and committing acts of genocide,” a statement from Pretoria says.
“South Africa’s Memorial is a reminder to the global community to remember the people of Palestine, to stand in solidarity with them, and to stop the catastrophe. The devastation and suffering has been possible only because despite the ICJ and numerous UN bodies’ actions and interventions, Israel has failed to comply with its international obligations,” the statement added.
Officials say that the submission, also called a memorial, is presented in more than 750 pages of text, in addition to over 4,000 pages of annexes.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, officials said they are confident that the hundreds of pages of evidence are “more than enough” to sustain their case. “The problem we have is that we have too much evidence,” Ambassador Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa’s representative to The Hague, told the Qatari news organization.
Some of the evidence submitted includes public statements made last week by senior members of the Israeli government at a conference named “Preparing to Settle in Gaza,” which was organized by the extremist Nachala Settlement Movement and promoted by Israel’s ruling Likud party.
“[We will] tell them, ‘We are giving you the chance, leave from here to other countries’,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said during the conference. “The Land of Israel is ours,” he stressed.
Israel is currently trying to expel tens of thousands of Palestinians who remain in northern Gaza as part of an extermination campaign that seeks to transform the region into a military zone under the General’s Plan.
On 26 January, the ICJ ruled it was plausible that Israel had breached the Genocide Convention and ordered the government to ensure that its army refrained from genocidal acts against Palestinians. In response, Israel significantly intensified its ethnic cleansing campaign, including blocking the entry of humanitarian aid to the strip.
International NGO Oxfam on 1 October reported that the Israeli army has killed more children and women in Gaza during the past year than in the equivalent period of any other war this century.
‘Major massacre’: Scores killed as Israel attacks hospital, homes in Gaza
Press TV – October 25, 2024
Israeli forces have stormed the last operational hospital in the besieged north Gaza after bombing it and killing children inside, according to doctors and media reports.
Medical sources announced that at least 63 Palestinians were killed in the early morning Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. “A large number of the martyrs are women and children,” they said.
The attack on the Kamal Adwan hospital, located in Beit Lahia northwest of Jabalia, was launched around 2 a.m. local time Friday, shortly after a WHO delegation left the hospital.
It began with airstrikes targeting the hospital and its courtyards, including the medical oxygen generator, said Dr. Munir al-Bursh, the director general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.
The bombing led to the death of children inside the hospital and wounded medical staff.
Israeli troops then raided the hospital around two hours later, calling on all patients, including people in intensive care, to gather in the courtyard.
They detained the young men sheltering in the hospital and interrogated them. According to Al Jazeera, the troops abducted famed teenage Palestinian activist and journalist Aboud Battah from the hospital.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip that have been under a suffocating Israeli siege for three weeks. They have received little to no aid, medicine, food and fuel since the blockade on the north began.
The other two, the Indonesian hospital and al-Awda hospital, have ceased operations in recent days due to the ongoing Israeli attacks.
Kamal Adwan remained operational at minimal capacity, offering life-saving services to newborn infants in neonatal intensive care units and other patients in ICUs.
Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, decried the situation.
“Instead of receiving aid, we receive tanks… which are shelling the [hospital] building,” he said, speaking from the Intensive Care Unit where the injured and medical staff are huddled after Israel started its bombing.
“Where is the law? Which law in the world allows for a hospital to be directly targeted?”
The Israeli military launched a new onslaught on north Gaza on 5 October, described by rights groups and experts as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse the area of Palestinians.
It began after a controversial proposal named the “Generals’ Plan” was presented to the Israeli regime, which would see areas north of the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts Gaza in two, emptied of its residents so Israel could establish a “closed military zone”.
According to the plan, anyone who chooses to stay would be considered a Hamas operative and could be killed.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, estimates that about 400,000 people remain in Gaza’s north, including Gaza City.
Residential houses bombed in Khan Yunis
In southern Gaza, Israeli airstrikes targeted residential homes in the al-Manara neighborhood of Khan Yunis, leading to the deaths of at least 38 Palestinians on Friday.
The airstrikes were coupled with a ground incursion by Israeli forces, supported by heavy air and artillery cover.
Eyewitnesses described scenes of extensive destruction, with entire homes reduced to rubble in residential zones where families had taken shelter.
In the Qizan al-Najjar area of Khan Yunis, two Palestinians were killed and several others were injured when their homes were hit by artillery shells.
Three Palestinians were killed, and others wounded as Israeli artillery targeted the Maan neighborhood east of Khan Yunis.
The deaths reported by health officials were the latest in Khan Yunis, where people have in recent days lined up for bread outside the city’s only bakery in operation.
The strikes come a day after the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel had accomplished its objective of “effectively dismantling” Hamas.
Homes blown up in Jabalia
More than 150 Palestinian people were killed or injured in a “major massacre” in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza after Israeli forces blew up 11 residential houses in al-Hawaja area on Thursday evening.
“There is talk of more than 150 martyrs and wounded,” the Palestinian Civil Defense agency said.
It said the final death toll could rise as rescue efforts were disrupted due to the Israeli bombings and restrictions imposed by Israeli forces who laid siege to northern Gaza for three weeks.
“Citizens are sending distress calls to head to the place to help transport the wounded,” a statement by the agendy read.
According to the statement, the targeted homes belonged to the following families: Najjar, Abu al-Ouf, Salman, Hijazi, Abu al-Qumsan, Aqel Abu Rashid, Abu al-Tarabish, Zaqoul, and Shaalan.
On Thursday, at least 18 people were killed in an attack on the Nuseirat Martyrs School in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Gaza’s Government Media Office noted that the school housed thousands of displaced people. The attack brings the number of displacement centers targeted by Israeli forces to 196.
Eleven children were also killed in the Israeli bombing of al-Maghazi Services Club in the neighboring Maghazi refugee camp, said the director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, Ismail Al-Thawabta.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed nearly 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured about 100,600 others.
Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.
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