Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 415

International humanitarian NGO Danish Refugee Council (DRC) has warned that Gazans are at long-term risk from unexploded and unused ordnance in the densely populated Palestinian territory, AFP reports.

“These remnants of war, which fail to detonate upon impact or may have been abandoned during warfare, pose a long-term threat to civilian populations, often causing injuries and deaths long after the fighting ceases,” said DRC’s Corinne Linnecar.

The NGO, which has a presence in the Gaza Strip, said in a report that ammunition, exploded or otherwise, can be found in many populated areas of the territory.

The report said 70 per cent of Gazans have returned to areas where there has been active combat, raising the risk of their coming into contact with explosive material.

With the territory in the grip of a humanitarian crisis and very little aid getting in, Gazans in desperate need of basic goods have “sifted through rubble for essential supplies” where they can also encounter munitions.

Longer-term healthcare services are also nearly non-existent, DRC said.

“Only 19pc of explosive ordnance victims receive emergency first aid, and long-term medical support is virtually non-existent,” the report said, noting that children are especially at risk because they can confuse munitions with toys.

“Israel is using weapons indiscriminately in civilian areas over and over again, in a way that is in violation of international humanitarian law,” Linnecar told AFP.

“The remnants of war will continue to claim lives long after the fighting ceases,” DRC said.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said the Group of Seven democracies are seeking a common position on the arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued last week by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Reuters reports.

“We need to be united on this,” Tajani said after hosting the first working session of a two-day meeting of foreign ministers from G7 nations.

Tajani, part of a coalition government that has itself appeared divided on the ICC issue, said he wanted the G7 to speak with one voice.

“We have talked about it, let’s see if we can have a part in the final communique dedicated to this, we are working to find an agreement,” Tajani added.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said he is “optimistic” for a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, as Middle East tensions dominate a G7 meeting near Rome, AFP reports.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attended the talks in the towns of Fiuggi and Anagni with ministers from Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Japan and host Italy.

“I am optimistic about Lebanon,” Tajani told a press conference as international efforts for a ceasefire intensify — even if it was “more complicated than Gaza”.

“We are strongly committed to strongly pushing Israel and Hamas to end this war in Palestine,” he said.

Read more here.

With an intensive Israeli military operation in Gaza’s besieged north in its 50th day, remaining residents are left “scavenging among the rubble” for food, UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge has told AFP.

Speaking to AFP from Gaza City, where many of the north’s residents have fled since the operation began, Wateridge gave insights gleaned from speaking to displaced Palestinians and colleagues from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

She said UNRWA estimates that between 100,000 and 130,000 people have fled north Gaza since the beginning of the operation, which Israel said aims to keep Hamas from regrouping in the area.

Read more here.

Pope Francis has railed against the conflicts in Ukraine and the Palestinian territories, where he said “the arrogance of the invader prevails over dialogue”, AFP reports.

The 87-year-old’s words, to diplomats at the Vatican, came just days after he called for an investigation into claims Israel was conducting “genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza.

Marking 40 years of a peace deal between Chile and his native Argentina, Francis recalled ongoing conflicts and criticised the arms trade, highlighting “the hypocrisy of speaking about peace and playing at war”.

“This hypocrisy always leads us to failure,” he said in Spanish, adding that “dialogue must be the soul of the international community”.

“I simply mention two failures of humanity today: Ukraine and Palestine, where there is suffering, where the arrogance of the invader prevails over dialogue,” he added in an unscripted remark.

Lebanon’s deputy speaker of parliament Elias Bou Saab has told Reuters that there are “no serious obstacles” left to beginning the implementation of a US-proposed 60-day truce to end fighting between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

“There appear to be no serious obstacles in the way of starting to implement the US proposed ceasefire agreement,” Bou Saab told Reuters.

Bou Saab said the proposal included a 60-day timeline for Israeli forces to withdraw from Lebanese territory, giving time for the Lebanese army to deploy to southern Lebanon.

He said one sticking point on who would monitor the ceasefire had been resolved in the last 24 hours by agreeing to set up a five-country committee, including France, chaired by the United States.

Heavy rains flooded tent encampments of displaced Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, adding seasonal winter misery to communities already devastated by 13 months of onslaught, as Israeli forces stepped up strikes in the enclave.

Downpours overnight inundated tents and in some places washed away the plastic and cloth shelters used by displaced Gazans, most of whom have been uprooted several times during the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Some placed water buckets on the ground to protect mats from leaks and dug trenches to drain water away from their tents.

Many tents used early in the conflict have now worn out and no longer offer protection, but the price of new tents and plastic sheeting has shot up beyond the means of displaced families.

Read the full Reuters story here.

Israel conducted strikes against Beirut and battles raged in Lebanon’s south after the Hezbollah claimed 50 attacks on Israeli targets the day before, AFP reports.

The Israeli army warned in a statement on X it would target Hezbollah “facilities and interests” in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Iran-backed group’s main stronghold.

The military later said the air force had “conducted intelligence-based strikes on several Hezbollah command centres” in the area.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported “three strikes on the vicinity of Haret Hreik”, and AFPTV images showed thick smoke rising from the southern suburbs.

The strikes followed heavy raids on the area the night before.

Lebanon’s education ministry suspended classes for schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and a number of surrounding areas, citing “the current dangerous conditions”.

David Lammy has said there “would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues” when asked if the UK would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against the Israeli PM, Al Jazeera reports.

“We are signatories to the Rome Statute; we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir warned on Monday that reaching a ceasefire deal for the war in Lebanon, which is currently under discussion, would be “a big mistake”, AFP reports.

“An agreement with Lebanon is a big mistake,” Ben Gvir wrote in a post on X, adding that ending the fighting now would be a “historic missed opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah”.

“I understand all the constraints and reasons, and still it is a grave mistake,” Ben Gvir wrote, referring to the Iran-backed Islamist movement.

Ben Gvir called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue fighting until there was “absolute victory”.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that a war crimes case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Gaza onslaught was insufficient and that he deserved a “death sentence”, AFP reports.

In his first remarks since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu last week, Khamenei told a Tehran meeting that it was “not enough”.

“They issued an arrest warrant for him, it’s not enough,” said Khamenei, speaking to a group from the Basij paramilitary force which is linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Instead, the Iranian leader called for “Netanyahu’s death sentence” — which the ICC cannot order.

“The death sentence of these criminal leaders should be issued,” said Khamenei.

Israel has said it is moving towards a ceasefire in the war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah but there are still issues to address while the Israeli ambassador to the United States was quoted saying a deal could transpire within days, Reuters reports.

“We are moving in the direction towards a deal, but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said without elaborating.

Read more here

More than 44,235 Palestinians have been killed and 104,638 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, the statement added.

At least four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza as Tel Aviv continued a deadly offensive north of the enclave, a medical source said, according to Anadolu.

The source added that several people were also injured in the strike that targeted the Musabeh area in northern Rafah.

Israeli artillery also shelled the northern side of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, injuring several people, the source said.

Renewed Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday, state media reported and AFPTV images showed, after an Israeli army evacuation warning and heavy raids on the Hezbollah bastion the previous night.

The official National News Agency reported “three strikes on the vicinity of Haret Hreik”, as AFPTV images showed heavy smoke rising from the southern suburbs.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee on social media platform X had earlier said the military would target Hezbollah “facilities and interests” in the southern suburbs, pinpointing several locations.

The Israeli military later said the air force “conducted intelligence-based strikes on several Hezbollah command centres” in the southern suburbs.

The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad, AFP reports.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.

The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.

“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.

The Israeli army has said it had struck a Hezbollah command centre in the downtown Beirut neighbourhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.

“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command centre,” the army told AFP regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 26 people and wounded 67 on Nov 23.

The United Nations Palestinian relief agency UNRWA has said, “In Gaza, the first rains of the winter season mean even more suffering. Around half a million people are at risk in areas of flooding.”

It stated in a post on X, “The situation will only get worse with every drop of rain, every bomb, every strike.”

According to a statement by Human Rights Watch (HRW), an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on October 25, killing three journalists and injuring four others, was “most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime”.

It further said, “Israeli forces carried out the attack using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a US-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit.”

Read more here.

Renewed Israeli strikes have hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, state media reported and AFPTV images showed, after an Israeli army evacuation warning and following heavy raids on the Hezbollah bastion the previous night.

The official National News Agency reported “two consecutive strikes in the vicinity of the Haret Hreik area”, as AFPTV images showed heavy smoke rising from two locations.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee earlier said on social media platform X that the military would target Hezbollah “facilities and interests” in the southern suburbs, pinpointing several locations.

Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said an estimated half a million people in Gaza could be flooded with sewage once winter rains start, Al Jazeera reports citing Wateridge’s comments to the UK newspaper Financial Times.

“When it rains, sewage is going to pile up in lower [elevation] areas,” she told the newspaper, adding that all displaced people “are using some kind of makeshift toilet and essentially trying to just get the sewage away from their shelter. But that doesn’t mean it’s not accumulating near somebody else’s or on the street.”

In winter, Wateridge said, malnourished people “will get sicker because it all works together against their health and wellbeing”.

The supreme leader of Iran, which backs Hamas and Hezbollah fighting Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, has said that death sentences should be issued for Israeli leaders, not arrest warrants, Reuters reports.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was commenting on a decision by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants last week for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence chief and a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri.

“They issued an arrest warrant, that’s not enough… Death sentence must be issued for these criminal leaders”, Khamenei said, referring to the Israeli leaders.

Israel’s military has continued to bombard villages and towns across the Nabatieh governorate in southern Lebanon overnight, amid “fierce” clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters around the town of Khiam, Al Jazeera reports citing Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Israeli forces also subjected Khiam to “huge bombings” as ground troops in Merkava tanks tried to advance on the town. Hezbollah fighters clashed with the troops in a “fierce manner” and hit two of the tanks.