A report from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has found “clear signs of ethnic cleansing” in Gaza by Israeli attacks, Al Jazeera reports.
“In the north of the Strip in particular, the recent military offensive is a clear illustration of the brutal war the Israeli forces are waging on Gaza, and we are witnessing clear signs of ethnic cleansing as Palestinian life is being wiped off the area,” according to the report, titled Gaza: Life in a death trap.
“Our firsthand observations of the medical and humanitarian catastrophe inflicted on Gaza are consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.”
MSF reported that, as of mid-October, only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were partially functioning amid Israeli attacks, and the other 19 hospitals were out of service.
Gaza’s last remaining oncological hospital has shut down due to a lack of fuel and MSF said its teams have had to carry out surgeries without sufficient anaesthesia.
MSF said the prevalence of skin diseases, upper respiratory tract infections and diarrhoea are indicative of the “appalling hygiene conditions” endured by people in Gaza. It said children are missing out on crucial vaccinations against diseases such as polio and measles.
It also reported that, over the first 12 months of the conflict, MSF staff were subject to 41 attacks and violent incidents, including “air strikes, shelling and violent incursions in health facilities, direct fire on its shelters and convoys and arbitrary detention by Israeli forces” and eight MSF workers have been killed.
Israel on Thursday said a report by Human Rights Watch accusing it of committing “acts of genocide” in the Gaza Strip by restricting access to water for civilians was “full of lies”, AFP reports.
“Human Rights Watch is once more spreading its blood libels in order to promote its anti-Israel propaganda… This report is full of lies that are appalling even when compared to HRW’s already low standards,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Israel has been placed on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, and its leaders have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet, the European Union continues to partner with Israeli institutions under its “Horizon” scheme, a programme that funds research and innovation, Al Jazeera reports.
Data collected by the European Commission and analysed by Al Jazeera shows that since Oct 7, 2023, the EU has awarded Israeli institutions more than 238 million euros ($250m), including 640,000 euros ($674,000) to Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a top aerospace and aviation manufacturer supplying the Israeli army.
While guidelines regulating the Horizon framework require funded projects to be “exclusively focused on civil applications”, they acknowledge that a “considerable number of technologies and products are generic and can address the needs of both civil and military users”.
Israel’s latest attacks have killed seven people in Yemen’s port of as-Salif and two others at the Ras Isa oil facility, Al Jazeera reports, citing Yemen’s Al Masirah TV.
The Houthi-affiliated channel said one person was wounded at Ras Isa, while two more were injured at the port of Hodeidah.
The ports of Hodeidah, as-Salif and Ras Isa are all located in the governorate of Hodeidah.
Human Rights Watch has said that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.
“This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to an ‘act of genocide’ under the Genocide Convention of 1948,” Human Rights Watch said in its report.
Israel has repeatedly rejected any accusation of genocide.
Although the report described the deprivation of water as an act of genocide, it noted that proving the crime of genocide against Israeli officials would also require establishing their intent. It cited statements by some senior Israeli officials which it said suggested they “wish to destroy Palestinians” which means the deprivation of water “may amount to the crime of genocide”.
“What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive,” Lama Fakih, Human Rights Watch Middle East director told a press conference.
Human Rights Watch is the second major rights group in a month to use the word genocide to describe the actions of Israel in Gaza, after Amnesty International issued a report that concluded Israel was committing genocide.
Wounded Palestinian children lie on a bed at Kamal Adwan hospital, during the ongoing Israeli military operation, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip on Dec 17, 2024. — Reuters
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon has expressed his hope for a Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal to be secured but also said there were “no guarantees”.
“We hope we can achieve a deal. After many rejections by Hamas, we hope we will have some news before the holiday of Hanukkah and Christmas,” Danon told reporters ahead of the Security Council meeting yesterday, according to Reuters.
“I want to say those mediators who are doing a lot trying to make it happen, but there is no guarantees,” he said.
Palestinian houses stand badly damaged during the ongoing Israeli military operation, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Dec 18, 2024. — Reuters
The brother of an Israeli man held hostage in the Gaza Strip by Hamas has criticised the United Nations Security Council for inaction and urged it to “send a resonating message that terror will never prevail”, Reuters reports.
Michael Levy’s brother Or was taken hostage and Or’s wife was killed when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023. Levy was the first person from a hostage family to brief the 15-member Security Council, which has met dozens of times on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza over the past 14 months.
“Your silence is deafening, your inaction is suffocating. For everyday this council fails to act, the message to the world is clear — that some lives are worth saving and others are not,” he said. “I refuse to accept a world where my brother’s life can be used as a bargaining chip and be forgotten.”
Muhammad Saleh, director of Al Awda Hospital in Gaza’s Jabalia, has said Israeli shelling in the vicinity damaged the facility, wounding seven medics and one patient inside the hospital.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment, Reuters said.
In the Central Gaza camp of Bureij, Palestinian families began leaving some districts after the army posted new evacuation orders on X and in written and audio messages to mobile phones of some of the population there, citing new firing of rockets by Palestinian fighters from the area.
A bed is damaged inside Kamal Adwan hospital, during the ongoing Israeli military operation, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip on Dec 18, 2024. — Reuters/Stringer
The United Nations’ senior expert on torture has visited the Israeli kibbutz communities attacked on Oct 7, 2023, for the first time to offer support to families of Israelis abducted by Hamas fighters to the Gaza Strip.
Alice Jill Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, spoke to Reuters as talks gained momentum in Egypt and Qatar on a ceasefire deal and the release of hostages and Palestinians detained by Israel.
Dr Alice Jill Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, visits Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the Israeli communities ravaged during the deadly Oct 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel on Dec 18, 2024. — Reuters
“I’m very hopeful for a deal. I’ve been calling for a long time for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages. This is an unlawful act under international law. It’s an atrocity. It’s a war crime,” she said in an interview.
“I am hopeful that the families will be able to see their loved ones as soon as possible and that there will be peace restored in this region.”
On her visit, Edwards described the scene as both eerie and uneasy, a mix of flowers and greenery amid broken windows and shattered glass, the result of fire bombings that October day 14 months ago.
Edwards said she had written to the Palestinian Authority about independent and verifiable reports of sexual torture and violence that occurred on Oct 7. She said she would also speak to Israeli authorities about credible allegations of torture and mistreatment of Palestinians in Israeli detention.
The United States, joined by Arab mediators, has sought to conclude an agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt the 14-month-old conflict in the Gaza Strip, where medics said Israeli strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians yesterday, according to Reuters.
A Palestinian official close to the negotiations said that mediators had narrowed gaps on most of the agreement’s clauses. He said Israel had introduced conditions which Hamas rejected but would not elaborate.
Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya while six were killed in separate airstrikes in Gaza City, Nuseirat camp in central areas, and Rafah near the border with Egypt.
In Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, medics said four people were killed in an airstrike on a house. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military spokesman.
Later yesterday, medics told Reuters that an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia killed at least 10 people.
A Palestinian man tries to extinguish a fire inside a house near Kamal Adwan hospital, during the ongoing Israeli military operation, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip on Dec 17, 2024. — Reuters/Stringer
UN Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East Khaled Khiari says a ceasefire in Gaza is “long overdue”, Al Jazeera reports.
“The continued collective punishment of the Palestinian people is [unjust],” Khiari said in a briefing to the UN Security Council in its monthly Israel-Palestine meeting, adding that civilian casualties by Israeli forces are “horrific”.
“The widespread devastation and deprivation resulting from Israel’s military operations in North Gaza, especially around Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon, are making the conditions of life untenable for the Palestinian population there.
Israeli UN envoy Danny Danon told reporters that Israel wants all the captives released at the same time, but he’s not sure it will all happen in one stage, Al Jazeera reports.
“We hope it will be in one stage, because we want to see all the hostages back home,” Danon said.
“Maybe it will not be in one stage, and basically it will be similar to what we saw in the past, more than a year ago, that you have a ceasefire, a long one … During that ceasefire, hostages will be released, and we’re talking maybe on the humanitarian aspect of women, and they seek in the older hostages,” he added.
Israeli forces have closed the entrance to the village of Marda north of Salfit, in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports.
Local sources told the Wafa news agency that Israeli soldiers blocked the western and only entrance to the village, firing live ammunition at Palestinians who attempted to enter or exit.
No injuries were reported following the incident.
The eastern entrance to the village has been closed by Israeli forces for several months as Marda village has been subjected to repeated attacks and raids by Israeli forces.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says while Washington is “wary about making predictions or promises” about the possibility of a ceasefire in Gaza, adding the current negotiations are “close”, Al Jazeera reports.
“With enough pushing from the outside mediators and a commitment from Israel and Hamas, we can get it done,” Sullivan told ABC News.
“Netanyahu made clear at this moment that Israel is ready to do this deal. So the final piece of the puzzle, from my perspective, is for Hamas, ultimately, to come forward with a commitment on the release of hostages in that first phase in the multi-phase deal,” he said.
Sullivan explained that if they can get that done, “we can have a ceasefire, we can get hostages home, and we can get a surge of humanitarian assistance in Gaza”. He added that the current obstacles to the deal were the names of captives and prisoners that would be released in the first phase.
A new report has revealed that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, enforces unjust policies against Palestinian content, deleting posts or restricting visibility under claims of policy violations while turning a blind eye to hate speech and incitement against Palestinians, Al Jazeera reports.
The report published by 7amleh — The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media — includes testimonies from Palestinian influencers, journalists and media outlets who have faced Meta’s discriminatory practices.
It exposes Meta’s “silencing Palestinian content and suppressing the Palestinian narrative, particularly during the ongoing genocide in Gaza”, the report’s authors say.
More than 15 million inciting posts in Hebrew against Palestinians were documented across social media platforms since October 2023, as recorded by 7amleh’s AI-powered language model.=
A threatened Israeli ban on all UNRWA operations in Gaza and the West Bank would not impact the legal status of Palestinian refugees, the agency says.
“UNRWA as a structure in the life of Palestine refugees is irreplaceable,” agency spokesperson Tamara Alrifai told Al Jazeera.
“Having said that if UNRWA were forced to shut down its schools, health centres, and all its services tomorrow, Palestine Refugees remain Palestine Refugees. This is a legal status.”
The Israeli military is blowing up or demolishing several residential buildings in southern Lebanon, as its forces continue to occupy border villages, Al Jazeera reports.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has said explosions were heard in the city of Tyre, as well as the village of Harfa, the town of al-Jebbayn and the village of Chihine. The Israeli military also targeted buildings in the town of Naqoura for the third day, it reported.
The Israeli military has issued forced evacuation orders to several neighbourhoods in central Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp, Al Jazeera reports.
Avichay Adraee, an Israeli army spokesman, published a map of the zones that must be cleared, claiming that rockets were fired at Israel from this area and the Israeli forces had to respond.
“For your own safety, move immediately to the humanitarian zone,” he said.
There are no safe zones in the Gaza Strip, according to local and international organisations.
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 45,097 Palestinians and wounded 107,244 since October 7, 2023, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry has said, Reuters reports.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says an international medical team urgently needed at Kamal Adwan Hospital has not been allowed to deploy as Israel continues its siege in northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, also condemned the repeated attacks on the medical facility. “The fear endured by the hospital’s staff and patients in recent days is indescribable — and unacceptable,” she wrote on X.
The representative for the UN health agency said the hospital was without surgical or maternal care capacity.
WHO was instead able to deliver supplies to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Balkhy said.
A woman from Gaza is among 15 Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces across the West Bank, according to prisoners’ groups quoted by the Wafa news agency.
The Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and the Prisoner’s Society said that the woman from Gaza was in the West Bank for medical treatment, according to Wafa.
The report said the arrests were made in the governorates of Hebron, Jericho, Tulkarem, Ramallah, Qalqilya and Jerusalem.
