Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 413

At least 44,176 Palestinians have been killed and 104,473 injured since Israel’s military offensive on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Gaza’s health ministry has said, Reuters reports.

The statement said that 120 Palestinians were killed over the past 48 hours.

After a record expansion of Israeli settlement activity, some settler advocates in the occupied West Bank are looking to Donald Trump to fulfil a dream of imposing sovereignty over the area seen by Palestinians as the heart of a future state.

The West Bank has been transformed by the rapid growth of Jewish settlements since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned at the head of a far-right nationalist coalition two years ago.

In recent weeks, Israeli flags have sprouted on hilltops claimed by some settlers in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley, adding to worries among many local Palestinians of greater control of those areas. Some settlers prayed for Trump’s victory before the election.

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Israeli forces have rounded up 15 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over the last two days, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Al Jazeera reports.

Some of those detained are minors and others are former prisoners, the group said.

The arrests took place in the governorates of Hebron, Tulkarem, Jenin, Qalqilya, Bethlehem and Nablus.

An Israeli air strike in central Beirut has killed at least 11 people, bringing down a residential building and jolting residents across the city out of bed, AFP reports.

“The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads,” said Samir, 60, who lives in a building facing the one that was destroyed.

He said he fled his home in the middle of the night with his wife and children.

Gaza’s civil defence has said that 19 people, including children, were killed in Israeli air strikes and tank fire overnight, Al Jazeera reports.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson from the civil defence, told the AFP news agency that more than 40 others were also injured, “in three massacres caused by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip between midnight and this morning”.

People were also killed by tank fire in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, Basal added.

An Israeli air strike in central Beirut has killed at least four people, bringing down a residential building and jolting residents across the city out of bed as Israel kept up its bombing campaign of Lebanon, AFP reports.

Rescue operations were underway at the site of the first strike in the morning, with an excavator removing the rubble of the eight-storey building, and a fire truck and civil defence rescuers stationed nearby as people gathered around the site.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that Beirut “woke up to a horrific massacre”, after Israeli jets hit the building in the working-class Basta neighbourhood.

The NNA said Israeli jets had launched six missiles at the structure, causing “widespread destruction in buildings” nearby. The strike “killed four people and injured 23 others”, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a statement, giving a preliminary toll.

An Israeli drone has targetted and killed two fishermen in Lebanon’s Tyre city, Ali Hashem of Al Jazeera reports.

“This is part of a pattern of strikes that has been taking place in recent weeks here in Tyre and extending towards Beirut’s southern suburb and the Bekaa Valley,” he said.

“Since 2am (12am GMT), we have heard loud artillery shelling, part of the ongoing Israeli ground invasion. It seems overnight the Israelis were able to push towards al-Bayada,” the reporter added.

He added that fierce engagements between Hezbollah fighters and Israelis were taking place. He documented at least two launches of antitank missiles towards Israeli tanks.

The target of Israel’s air strike on a building in the Basta area of central Beirut was a “prominent Hezbollah leader”, Al Jazeera reports citing Israel’s Channel 14.

At least four people have been killed in the attack and dozens injured.

Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesperson, has listed new forced displacement orders for residents of the following southern suburbs of Beirut, Al Jazeera reports.

Al-Hadath, Choueifat and Al-Amrousieh are the mentioned locations.

“You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the [Israeli military] will operate in the near future,” Adraee said in a post on X.

“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately and stay away from them for a distance of no less than 500 metres.”

Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hossam Abu Safia said that the hospital in Gaza was “deliberately hit by Israeli stelling for the second day” and that “one doctor and some patients were injured”, AFP reports.

Separately, the health ministry said that hospitals have only two days’ fuel left before they must restrict services.

Gaza medics said an overnight Israeli raid on the cities of Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, told reporters all hospitals in the Palestinian territory “will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry”.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including 8 in the intensive care unit” at Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza.

Eleven organisations have urged the French government to end “the impunity that has prevailed for years” by committing to enforce arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence chief, Yoav Gallant, by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a joint statement, the groups urged the French government to support the ICC “against the pressure” it is facing and to live up to its obligations under international law and arrest war crimes suspects Netanyahu and Gallant should they travel to France.

“The issuance of these arrest warrants is a major step towards ending the impunity that has prevailed for years in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory,” the organisations said according to Al Jazeera.

“We now expect, more than statements, a resolute action by France to execute these arrest warrants.”

The Israeli military has assaulted an ambulance crew and detained a female ambulance officer in the village of Osarin, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports, citing Wafa news agency.

An ambulance driver told Wafa that Israeli forces detained the crew members, assaulted and interrogated them, before searching their vehicle and arresting the female paramedic for several hours.

The Israeli military has also conducted raids in other locations across the occupied West Bank, which according to Al Jazeera are: the city of Nablus, the city of Tulkarem, the town of Kafr Abbush, the village of Husan, the town of al-Khader, and the village of Beit Dajan.

The Israeli military has reportedly killed a senior Hezbollah commander who is said to have helped plan an attack on US soldiers in Iraq in 2007, Al Jazeera quotes US outlet NBC as reporting.

Citing an anonymous senior US defence official, NBC reports that Ali Mussa Daqduq — who allegedly played a key role in the Karbala raid, in which fighters disguised as an American security team entered a base, opened fire and killed five US soldiers — was killed in a recent air strike in Syria.

It was not immediately clear when or where in Syria the killing took place, nor whether it targeted Daqduq specifically, the senior defence official told NBC.

Daqduq was captured by US forces but later released by the Iraqi government following the US’s withdrawal from the country, Al Jazeera noted.

A powerful Israeli airstrike has targeted central Beirut, security sources say, shaking the Lebanese capital as Israel pressed its offensive against Hezbollah, Reuters reports.

At least four people were killed and 33 wounded in the attack in Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar broadcaster reported, citing the health ministry.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said the attack had destroyed an eight-storey 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 am (2am 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.

Israeli forces have continued to pound southern Lebanon and the outskirts of the capital Beirut, killing at least five medics, and ground troops clashed with Hezbollah fighters in the south, Reuters reports.

Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday. Lebanese security sources told Reuters Israeli troops had also advanced in a string of villages to the west. They said Israel was most likely trying to isolate Khiyam before attacking the town.

An Israeli airstrike on a residence near Dar Al-Amal University Hospital in Baalbek province, northeastern Lebanon, killed the hospital’s director, along with six of his colleagues, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Friday.

Israeli strikes on two other villages in southern Lebanon killed five medics from a rescue force affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Four Italian soldiers were lightly injured after two rockets exploded at a Unifil peacekeeping force base in southern Lebanon, a spokesperson for Unifil said on Friday.

Italian sources said an investigation was under way. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Italian media that Hezbollah might be responsible for the attack.

Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal spoke to Al Jazeera about the situation in northern Gaza.

He said that several areas in the northern Gaza Strip are being subjected to continuous Israeli bombardment and accused Israel of “deliberately displacing citizens from this region”.

“About 2,300 people have been killed or are missing since the start of the Israeli military operation in northern Gaza in early October,” he said. “The shortage of fuel is a major problem for rescue crews, severely hindering their ability to reach those in need.”

Gazans see little hope that International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders will slow down the onslaught on the Palestinian territory, where medics said at least 24 people were killed in fresh Israeli military strikes, Reuters reports.

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 even if justice were to arrive, 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.”

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The UN aid chief has said that a staggering 281 aid workers have been killed around the world so far this year, making 2024 the deadliest year for humanitarians, AFP reports.

“Humanitarian workers are being killed at an unprecedented rate, their courage and humanity being met with bullets and bombs,” said Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ new under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.

With more than a month left to go of 2024, the “grim milestone was reached”, he said, after 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023.

“This violence is unconscionable and devastating to aid operations,” Fletcher said.

“States and parties to conflict must protect humanitarians, uphold international law, prosecute those responsible, and call time on this era of impunity.”

Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza was driving up the numbers, his office said, with 333 aid workers killed there, most from the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

The British government has indicated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be arrested on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant if he travelled to the UK, AFP reports.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman refused to be drawn specifically on whether UK police would detain Netanyahu, telling reporters he would not “get into hypotheticals in relation to individual cases”.

But he added: “The UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law and indeed international law.”

G7 ministers meeting in Italy next week will discuss the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said, adding that the issue required further analysis, AFP reports.

After her defence minister said that Italy would have to arrest Israel’s premier if he visited, Meloni said she would “delve deeper” into the ICC’s decision and it would be on the agenda of a meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers in Fiuggi, near Rome, on Monday and Tuesday.

Anyone sought by International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants should surrender to the Hague-based court for a fair trial and face justice, said a key UN official one day after landmark arrest warrants were issued for Israel’s premier and former defence minister, Anadolu reports.

“I urge all individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants to surrender to the Court to face justice in a fair trial,” Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, said on X.

“I urge all countries to cooperate with the Court to enforce arrest warrants,” he added.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden has denounced the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister, Anadolu reports.

“The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” said Biden in a statement. “Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”

He said the US “will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”