Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 403

The right-wing head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Avigdor Lieberman, has accused the government of Lebanon of having “stood by and not taken any action against Hezbollah” for 403 days, Al Jazeera reports.

“Hezbollah’s incessant firing from Lebanon must be stopped,” he said.

Lieberman added that if the Lebanese army does not act against Hezbollah operating from its soil, “Israel will be obliged to severely damage the infrastructure of the state of Lebanon.”

In a move underscoring the incoming administration’s stance on Israel and Palestine, US President-elect Donald Trump has announced his selection of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a self-declared “unapologetic” Zionist, as the next US ambassador to Israel, Anadolu reports.

“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, has been nominated to be the United States Ambassador to Israel,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, the latest Cabinet pick since his victory in last week’s presidential election.

Huckabee, 69, has been a “great” public servant and governor for many years, Trump added.

“He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East,” Trump added.

A UK Labour Party MP has criticised top football governing bodies over impunity enjoyed by Israeli teams amid the ongoing military campaign in Gaza, Anadolu reports.

Zarah Sultana recalled that Russia was swiftly banned from all UEFA and FIFA tournaments after launching its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

However, “after 13 months of genocide … Israel faces no such sanctions,” she noted.

This situation highlights “the racist double standards entrenched in global politics & sports,” the 31-year-old politician wrote on X.

The world’s top sporting governing bodies have been criticised by many for still allowing Israeli teams and athletes to compete in international sporting events while FIFA, basketball’s FIBA and the International Olympic Committee immediately sanctioned Moscow.

At least 43,712 Palestinians have been killed and 103,258 injured in Israel’s offensive on Gaza since October 7 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The toll includes 47 deaths in the previous 24 hours, the statement added.

“Israel, by the standards it set itself, has accomplished the goals that it set for itself,” the US secretary of state tells reporters during a visit to Brussels, Al Jazeera reports.

“This should be a time to end the war,” he added. He also said the US wants real and extended pauses in fighting in Gaza so assistance can get to people who need it.

An attack has hit south Beirut, AFP footage has shown, following a warning by the Israeli army to evacuate parts of the area.

AFPTV footage showed a plume of black smoke rising over the area after a strike, about an hour after Israel’s army told residents of parts of the southern suburbs to leave.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel to implement “real and extended pauses” in fighting in Gaza to allow for the delivery of aid to its besieged population, AFP reports.

“We need to see real and extended pauses in large areas of Gaza, pauses in any fighting, any combat, so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it,” Blinken told reporters during a visit to Brussels, adding that Israel was taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, released a video on Wednesday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7 attack on Israel, AFP reports.

In the video, the hostage identifying himself as Sasha Trupanov spoke about Israeli military operations in Lebanon, and called on Israelis to increase pressure on the government to secure the release of hostages.

At least two people have been killed in an Israeli bombing on Shujayea, in eastern Gaza City, Al Jazeera reports.

Medical sources said that 11 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids on several areas in Gaza since midnight.

Palestinian media reported renewed Israeli artillery shelling on the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City. It said Israeli artillery has also bombed the Nassar Junction in the Jabalia refugee camp.

Russia has asked Israel to avoid launching aerial strikes as part of its offensive against Lebanon’s Hezbollah near one of Moscow’s bases in Syria, a top official said, according to AFP.

“Israel actually carried out an air strike in the immediate vicinity of Hmeimim,” Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy in the Near East, told the RIA Novosti press agency.

“Our military has of course notified Israeli authorities that such acts that put Russian military lives in danger over there are unacceptable,” he added.

Lebanon’s health ministry has said an Israeli strike killed at least six people in a densely-packed area south of the capital Beirut, outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds, AFP reports.

“The Israeli enemy strike on Aramoun killed six people” and wounded 15 others, the ministry said giving a preliminary toll, adding that “body parts were recovered from the site and their identities are being verified”.

The US military has said it had conducted strikes against an allegedly Iran-backed militia group’s weapons storage facility in Syria, Reuters reports.

“These strikes were in response to a rocket attack on US personnel at Patrol Base Shaddadi. There was no damage to US facilities and no injuries to US or partner forces during the attack,” the US military said in a statement.

In Gaza City, an Israeli airstrike on a house killed 13 people yesterday, Reuters quotes Palestinian medics as saying.

In its daily update, the Gaza health ministry said Israeli military strikes had killed 65 Palestinians across the enclave in the past 24 hours.

Palestinian health officials have said the new Israeli offensive has killed around 350 Palestinians in Jabalia and nearby areas.

Jabalia is home to one of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps.

Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said that one of its doctors working in a north Gaza hospital has been detained by Israeli forces, Reuters reports.

Mohammed Obeid, an MSF orthopaedic surgeon working at Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza, was detained during an Israeli military raid on the site on October 26, MSF said.

“We are extremely alarmed by the detention of our colleague,” it said.

“We call for the safety and the protection of our colleague, and for all medical staff in Gaza who work under impossible conditions and are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”

Palestinian health officials have called for a humanitarian corridor to three hospitals in northern Gaza that have come close to collapse as Israeli troops have cut off the area during almost two weeks of offensive against Hamas, Reuters reports.

Doctors at the Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda and the Indonesian hospitals have refused to leave their patients despite evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military at the start of a major push into the Jabalia area of northern Gaza 12 days ago.

“We are calling on the international community, the Red Cross and the World Health Organisation, to play their humanitarian role by opening up a corridor towards our healthcare system and allow the entry of fuel, medical, delegations, supplies and food,” said Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“We are talking about more than 300 medical staff working at Kamal Adwan Hospital, and we can’t provide even a single meal for them to be able to offer medical services safely.”

The UN Human Rights office in the occupied Palestinian territory says the Israeli military’s repeated strikes have led to massive civilian deaths in north Gaza in the last five weeks while its siege has cut off the population from humanitarian aid, medical care and emergency rescue service, Al Jazeera reports.

Most of the incidents, the OHCHR said in a statement, were strikes on residential buildings where entire families were sheltering, resulting in a high number of fatalities

“The strikes have disproportionally affected women, older people and people with disability, many of whom are reportedly trapped due to restricted movement and attacks on escape routes,” it said.

It also said that the Israeli military has attacked the workers of the Palestinian civil defence department, forcing the department to suspend its operations on October 24, “depriving residents of North Gaza all support in recovering their loved ones who are left to die trapped under rubble”.

The Lebanese armed group says it attacked a logistics base east of the city of Nahariya with a “squadron of attack drones”, Al Jazeera reports.

Earlier, Hezbollah said it had intercepted an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of the western sector, saying “we forced it to leave Lebanese airspace”.

Al Jazeera reports that Israeli forces bombed a residential building where Palestinians were waiting for aid, northwest of Gaza City, resulting in a number of casualties.

Earlier, an Israeli air raid hit the area of the Gaza Sports Club in Gaza City, causing several injuries.

At least 44 people were killed and 88 wounded across Lebanon in Israeli attacks on Monday, the country’s health ministry says, Al Jazeera reports.

It added that at least 3,287 have been killed and 14,222 wounded in Israeli attacks since last year.

Israel is obstructing the delivery of aid to Gaza in several ways in violation to its obligations under international law, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said.

“First and foremost, they are obstructing aid from entering through the crossings,” Shaina Low, NRC’s communications adviser, told Al Jazeera. “Aid is arbitrarily rejected and essential supplies are not allowed in, including timber to help people build shelters as they face winter.

“Sometimes the requests to access those crossings are denied for over a month.”

Once the aid enters Gaza, aid workers must request safe routes through which they can safely distribute the aid.

“Israel often denies requests to move from place to place in order to reach Palestinian families that are in desperate need,” Low said.

A man was shot near Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank has died, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, Al Jazeera reports.

In a statement, the ministry identified him as 18-year-old Waleed Ashraf Mohammed Hussein.

The Israeli army claimed Hussein was “armed with a knife” and “attempted to stab” soldiers at a military checkpoint near the town of Deir Sharaf, northwest of Nablus.

No injuries were reported to Israeli soldiers.

France’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Israel’s ambassador to tell him that an incident in Jerusalem that saw armed Israeli security forces entering a property administered by France should never be repeated, Reuters reports.

The French foreign ministry said in a statement the ambassador had been told the presence of armed Israeli security forces and the arrest of the French officials at the site were “unacceptable”, especially between allies with strong ties.

“Measures will be put in place to ensure that such acts do not recur,” it said without elaborating.

Israel’s foreign ministry has said that every visiting foreign leader is accompanied by its security personnel, a point that had been “clarified in advance in the preparatory dialogue with the French Embassy in Israel”.