Israel’s Gaza invasion - Day 415

  • Israel’s invasion of Gaza Strip, sparked by Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack, surpasses 13 months

  • Hamas’ top leaders including Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Tehran, while Yahya Sinwar killed in southern Gaza

  • Israel seeking to carve out ‘buffer zones’ and has no reason to slow down until Trump takes office in Jan

  • Israel invades Lebanon; assassinates Hezbollah’s Nasrallah, his likely successor

  • Hezbollah launches 200 drones and rockets at Israel

  • ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas leader Deif

Published 25 Nov, 2024 01:55pm

Winter rain in Gaza threatens deluge of sewage: UN agency official

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”.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 03:56pm

Israel says hit Hezbollah command centre in weekend strike

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.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 03:24pm

Around half million people in Gaza at risk in areas of flooding: UNRWA

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.”

Published 25 Nov, 2024 02:46pm

Israeli airstrike that killed 3 journalists in Lebanon ‘war crime’, HRW says

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.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 02:22pm

Israeli strikes hit south Beirut

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.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 01:51pm

Iran’s Khamenei calls for death sentence for Israeli leaders

The supreme leader of Iran, which backs the Hamas and Hezbollah militants 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.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 12:56pm

Clashes reported in south Lebanon

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.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 12:22pm

Gaza’s 130,000 children deprived of food, medicine: Save the Children

About 130,000 children aged under 10 have been trapped for 50 days in areas in northern Gaza that are almost entirely inaccessible to aid workers and not receiving food or medical supplies despite warnings of famine, said the international aid group Save the Children.

Children living in North Gaza and Gaza governates have been almost completely cut off from supplies of food, water, and medicine since Oct 6 when Israeli forces declared the area to be a closed military zone, with the independent Famine Review Committee saying that famine is either imminent or likely already occurring in the area.

Medical supplies to the area have also stopped and about 10,000 children in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun were not reached at all by the recent polio vaccine campaign.

Read more here.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 11:44am

G7 ministers to discuss Middle East

G7 foreign ministers are meeting near Rome for two days of talks with regional counterparts on the Middle East, before turning to Russia and the war in Ukraine, AFP reports.

The group will also discuss the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’s military chief, “and the possible effects on the current crises in Lebanon and Gaza”, Italy’s foreign ministry said.

The first session today will be dedicated to the situation in the Middle East and the Red Sea, notably efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 11:39am

Donkeys offer Gazans lifeline amid conflict shortages

Amina Abu Maghasib’s livelihood rests on one animal: a donkey that pulls the cart she uses to transport people around Gaza, where more than a year of conflict has led to a widespread shortage of fuel for cars, AFP reports.

The lack of fuel and destruction in the territory since the conflict began last year has made donkey-pulled carts one of the few remaining forms of transport. Displaced Gazans fleeing fighting or air strikes pile aboard them to rush to safety with their belongings.

For others, a donkey cart is virtually the only form of transportation.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 09:48am

Palestinians searching through rubble risk death from unexploded bombs: aid group

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is warning that a lack of aid reaching Gaza is forcing Palestinians to search through destroyed buildings for basic necessities, putting them at risk of death or injury from unexploded bombs, Al Jazeera reports.

Seventy per cent of people surveyed in Gaza said they had returned to areas that had seen active fighting, putting them at higher risk from unexploded bombs, a new DRC report found.

Twenty-three per cent knew someone who had been injured or killed by unexploded bombs, including children who had played with them and people mistakenly picking them up when gathering firewood.

Lilu Thapa, DRC’s Executive Regional Director for the Middle East said people in Gaza face the “threat of starvation due to an almost total blockade of aid and goods” alongside the “ever-present danger of unexploded ordnance, a threat that will stay long after the fighting subsides.”

Inaction to reach a ceasefire in Gaza “looks more like absolute indifference by the day”, Thapa added, describing the continued lack of accountability for Israel as a “[stark illustration] of a global double standard”.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 09:46am

‘Catastrophic conditions’ in Gaza’s tent camps as winter arrives

Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents are reporting dismal conditions in the tent camps of southern Gaza as winter brings cold temperatures and rough weather, including heavy rain and high tides.

On the southern coast, higher tides flooded and washed away some tents housing displaced Palestinians, AJA reported.

“Citizens are living in catastrophic conditions due to winter and cold weather,” AJA said.

Published 25 Nov, 2024 09:44am

Kamal Adwan doctor accuses Israel of using a new type of weapon in northern Gaza

Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, has renewed an appeal for global intervention in a letter published in English on Telegram, Al Jazeera reports.

“We are speaking from the centre of the intensive care unit, the only one in the northern Gaza Strip, after enduring over fifty days of siege,” he wrote.

“After the failure of the occupying army to evacuate the north, they have now begun to directly target our healthcare system […] For the past seven consecutive days, we have been bombed directly,” he said.

These include attacks on the hospital’s reception, emergency departments, the electricity generators, the oxygen station and the water network, he said.

The doctor, who was also wounded in an Israeli attack, said, “Everyone here is at risk” and accused Israeli forces of using a new type of weapon against people at the facility.

“Specifically a quadcopter that drops bombs containing tiny fragments that are nearly invisible to the naked eye. These projectiles penetrate the bodies of our workers, causing severe bleeding and damage to internal organs,” he said.

Israeli forces are waging a “campaign of extermination” in northern Gaza, he said. “Once again, we urgently call on the world to stop the bloodshed occurring in the northern Gaza Strip.”

Published 24 Nov, 2024 08:10pm

Number of wounded in Tel Aviv rises to 10

According to the Israeli army, 165 rockets have been fired at Israel from Lebanon since the morning hours. There have been six direct impact incidents in five different locations, including two military installations covering a very large area, Nour Odeh of Al Jazeera reports.

“We’ve seen the impact in the Tel Aviv area, in Haifa and in other areas. All in all, about 10 Israelis have been injured. Most of the injuries are light, but one is described as a severe injury.” the reporter said.

This comes in the context of an escalation that was seen in Lebanon earlier in the past 24 hours. That’s been the equation: a strike on Beirut is met by a strike on Tel Aviv, they added.

There will be consultations of the Israeli cabinet this evening to discuss a possible ceasefire in Lebanon.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 07:36pm

‘Palestinians are unable to get even one meal per day’

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reports that Palestinians are unable to get even one meal per day and even if they find anything in the markets, the goods are very expensive for them to afford.

“We’re talking about a whole population that has been completely relying on food aid, and this is the only way Palestinians would receive food,” Khoudary reports.

“We’re not only talking about food insecurity but also those who have been injured from the overnight strikes who were transferred here to Al-Aqsa Hospital and to other hospitals across the Gaza Strip. There’s no medicine [for them],” she adds.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 07:30pm

Hezbollah says it targeted Israeli intelligence base in Tel Aviv suburbs

Hezbollah says it launched missiles at an Israeli army intelligence base in the Tel Aviv suburbs in the second such attack on and around the city today, Al Jazeera reports.

Hezbollah fighters launched “a volley of qualitative missiles” at the “Glilot base (the headquarters of the 8200 Military Intelligence Unit) … in the Tel Aviv suburbs”, the group said in a statement.

Hezbollah also claims to have fired drones on the Israeli army’s Ashdod naval base, in what has been a very active day for the Lebanese group.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 07:29pm

Israel names Netanyahu ally as US ambassador

The Israeli government says it had approved the nomination of Yechiel Leiter, an ally of Netanyahu, as the country’s ambassador to the United States, Al Jazeera reports.

“The government has unanimously approved the appointment of Dr Yechiel Leiter as ambassador to the United States,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

A former adviser to Netanyahu, Leiter, 65, is originally from the United States and currently lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Leiter is a fierce critic of outgoing US President Joe Biden, slamming “American pressure” during the conflict in Gaza in an interview with private Israeli channel Tov in January.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 07:10pm

Gaza civil defence says hospital chief injured by Israeli drone

Gaza’s civil defence agency says a drone attack overnight seriously injured a hospital chief in an attack on the healthcare facility, and 11 people were killed in Israeli raids on the Palestinian territory, Al Jazeera reports.

Hussam Abu Safia heads the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza, as the war-ravaged territory is in the grip of a dire humanitarian crisis.

Abu Safia suffered an injury to his back and left thigh by metal fragments after an attack on the hospital complex, civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told AFP.

After losing a lot of blood, the doctor was in a “stable” condition, Bassal said, adding an Israeli drone bombed the hospital in Beit Lahiya, north Gaza.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 06:50pm

One killed, 21 wounded in Israeli raid on Lebanon’s Mashghara

The Israeli raid on the town of Mashghara in the western Bekaa Valley yesterday resulted in one death and 21 injuries, Lebanon’s Health Ministry has said on X, Al Jazeera reports.

Israel carried out several deadly attacks on Lebanon over the past week. In a strike on the Basta al-Fawqa neighbourhood in central Beirut yesterday, at least 20 people were killed and 66 injured.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 05:16pm

Gaza health ministry says conflict death toll at 44,211

The health ministry in Gaza has said that at least 44,211 people have been killed in more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas, AFP reports.

The toll includes 35 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,567 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since fighting broke out on October 7, 2023.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 05:13pm

Iran confirms it will discuss nuclear, regional issues with France, Germany and UK on Nov 29

Iran will hold talks with France, Germany and the UK on November 29 about nuclear and regional issues, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has said, Reuters reports.

He did not say where the talks would take place but Japan’s Kyodo news agency earlier reported that representatives of the four countries would meet in Geneva on November 29.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 05:00pm

Israel denounces murder of Israeli in UAE after body found

An Israeli man who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found murdered, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, denouncing his death as a “heinous antisemitic terrorist act”, Reuters reports.

“The state of Israel will use all means at its disposal to bring the criminals responsible for his death to justice,” the prime minister’s statement said.

The UAE foreign ministry did not immediately comment on news that the body of Kogan, who also held Moldovan citizenship, had been discovered. Chabad’s office in the UAE declined to comment.

Chabad seeks to build links with non-affiliated and secular Jews or other sects of Judaism. The group’s branch in the UAE supports thousands of Jewish visitors and residents, according to its website.

Israeli authorities reissued their recommendation against all non-essential travel to the UAE and said visitors currently there should minimise movement, remain in secure areas and avoid visiting businesses, gathering places and entertainment venues associated with Israel and Jewish populations.

Published 24 Nov, 2024 04:50pm

EU top diplomat says Lebanon on ‘brink of collapse’

The EU’s foreign policy chief has warned that Lebanon was “on the brink of collapse” after Israel launched an intense air campaign two months ago following nearly a year of clashes with Hezbollah, AFP reports.

“Back in September I came and was still hoping we could prevent a full-fledged war of Israel attacking Lebanon. Two months later Lebanon is on the brink of collapse,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Beirut.