Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 442

The European Islamophobia Report of 2023 says Israel’s war on Gaza has “functioned as a geopolitical catalyst of anti-Muslim racism in Europe”, with an increase in hate crimes and a rise in Islamophobic rhetoric and actions by European governments, Al Jazeera reports.

The report, which monitors 34 countries in Europe, said there has been a spike in the number of physical and verbal assaults on Muslims in the wake of the war, including in countries like Norway, Spain and Greece.

Several European governments have also framed pro-Palestine solidarity as terrorism, it said, with countries like Germany, France, and Denmark enforcing restrictive measures, such as banning demonstrations and imposing fines on pro-Palestinian symbols.

Six people were killed and others injured in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza, the civil emergency service said, Reuters reports.

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that eight people have been killed in an Israeli air raid on a school where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City.

Hussam Abu Safia, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, has released a video message describing what he says is an unprecedented attack on the facility.

According to Al Jazeera, here’s what he said:

“The Israeli military has targeted the Kamal Adwan Hospital with different types of weapons without prior warning. We are being directly attacked, the ICU unit, along with the maternity and nursing departments, are coming under fire.

“The bombing is being conducted with tank fire and quadcopters, directly targeting us while we are present inside the hospital departments. We don’t know why we are being targeted at this hour.

“We have been informed that the hospital will be evacuated in the next few hours. This is catastrophic because we are the only hospital providing services here in the north.

“Evacuating the hospital means, evacuating 66 patients and all of the hospital facilities and the medical staff. We had asked the world to intervene immediately and protect the healthcare system from this brutal attack.

“For more than an hour, the shelling continues. We hold the world accountable.”

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that Israeli forces have stormed a number of villages and towns across the occupied West Bank.

They include the city of Tulkarem; villages of Tal and Sarra, west of Nablus; the town of Beita, south of Nablus; and the town of Abu Dis, east of occupied Jerusalem.

The Israeli army is ordering civilians near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza to leave the area via loudspeakers, using threats and intimidating language that the area would be blown up, Al Jazeera reports.

The army has also planted more explosive devices in the vicinity of the hospital, Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground report.

Hamas and two other Palestinian groups have said that a Gaza ceasefire deal with Israel is “closer than ever”, provided Israel does not impose new conditions, AFP reports.

“The possibility of reaching an agreement (for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange deal) is closer than ever, provided the enemy stops imposing new conditions,” Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a rare joint statement issued after talks in Cairo.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has reported that the army will dispose of “unexploded ordinance left behind by the Israeli aggression” this afternoon.

The detonations will take place in the areas of Sultan Yacoub in the western Bekaa Valley, Ghandourieh in Bint Jbeil and Qleileh in Tyre, both in southern Lebanon.

Irish President Michael D. Higgins has said Gaza has “now become a crucible of suffering for children and their families — 45,000 dead, 17,000 of whom are children, and perhaps 11,000 under the rubble”, Al Jazeera reports.

Higgins, whose term will expire in 2025, made special mention of the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and other war zones around the world in his final Christmas address yesterday evening.

He condemned global silence on the killing of civilians, saying: “The silence of many influential figures in the face of gross human rights violations against civilians grants impunity to those who blatantly impose collective punishments on civilians, including starvation, which, as I speak, particularly affects women and children.”

Palestinian groups — including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — have met in the Egyptian capital to discuss Gaza, ceasefire talks and plans for post-conflict Gaza, Al Jazeera reports citing a statement released on the Hamas Telegram channel.

The groups discussed the latest developments related to the formation of a committee “to manage Gaza after the war” yesterday.

Earlier this month, Hamas and Palestinian faction Fatah agreed in Cairo to set up a committee to jointly administer the Strip once the fighting is over.

Under the plan, which needs Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s approval, the committee will have 10 to 15 nonpartisan figures with authority on matters related to the economy, education, healthcare, humanitarian aid and reconstruction, according to a draft of the proposal seen by AFP.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has issued an urgent appeal for medical and food supplies to be delivered to Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Beit Lahiya area, Al Jazeera reports.

The ministry said in a statement that there was continuous gunfire and Israeli shelling near the hospital. “Shells have struck the third floor and the hospital’s entrances, creating a state of panic,” the ministry said.

The ministry also said Israel “is violating the most basic rules of international law and international humanitarian law by targeting medical and health centres and by not allowing rescue and relief for those inside them”.

Israeli forces have opened fire on a group of Palestinians in the West Bank, killing one of them, Al Jazeera reports.

The killing took place as 20 Palestinians were trying to cross the separation wall north of the West Bank, according to a report from Israeli media outlet Ynet.

The incident is being investigated by the Israeli military, the report added.

The Israeli military has reportedly used civilian contractors to demolish Palestinian homes and establish military engineering infrastructure in southern Gaza’s Rafah, Al Jazeera reports.

Civilian contractors were used in the Shaboura neighbourhood of the besieged city bordering Egypt, according to the Walla news website, which had its reporter embedded with the Israeli military in a tour of the area.

“The entire area can be described in one word: destruction. Destruction of infrastructure, roads, and the destruction of buildings,” the Israeli outlet said.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says it has learned of the “forced entry and presence of Palestinian armed actors in its Health Centre in Jenin Camp” in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports.

The organisation said this happened on December 17, adding it has been unable to access the centre and does not presently have control over the facility and its use.

“This forced entry and presence of Palestinian armed actors is a new blatant disregard of UN premises. It has occurred while the Palestinian Security Forces are conducting an operation in and around the camp, ongoing since 14 December,” it added.

Pope Francis has condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as “cruelty”, a day after the territory’s rescue agency said an Israeli air strike killed seven children from one family, AFP reports.

“Yesterday they did not allow the Patriarch (of Jerusalem) into Gaza as promised. Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” he told members of the government of the Holy See.

“I want to say it because it touches my heart.”

Israel has killed at least 21 Palestinians and injured 61 in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s health ministry, AFP reports.

The total death toll since October 7, 2023 has risen to 45,227, the ministry said.

It added that 107,573 people have also been injured in Israel’s war on Gaza.

There have been a string of new Israeli attacks across the occupied territories, Al Jazeera reports citing the Wafa news agency.

Israeli forces shot bullets and tear gas bombs after attacking the southeastern side of Qusra south of Nablus, leaving several people with suffocation injuries, the report adds.

Israeli soldiers also stormed the villages and towns of Beit Rima, Deir Ghassaneh, Aboud, and Kafr Ein, all north of Ramallah, without any arrests or clashes reported.

They also raided the town of Allar, north of Tulkarm, arresting at least one person after raiding his home.

Israel’s offensive on Gaza and the Palestinian people has been carried out alongside an “extraordinary assault” on those defending “human rights, international law and the victims of the barbaric” conflict, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said, Al Jazeera reports.

In an opinion piece published by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Lazzarini said that in the current environment, aid workers with decades of experience working with war-affected people “are suddenly labelled as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers”.

Critics of Israel are being intimidated and harassed, while Israel’s Foreign Ministry pays to splash “inflammatory” propaganda on billboards in the US and Europe, and takes out Google ads to spread disinformation online, Lazzarini said.

“These are well funded efforts to distract from the brutality of an unlawful occupation and the international crimes being committed with total impunity under our watch,” the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said.

“We still have a window of opportunity to avert a cataclysmic future where firepower and propaganda construct the global order, determining where and when human rights and the rule of law apply, if at all,” he said.

A projectile fired from Yemen struck Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv, wounding 16 people, the military and emergency service providers said, according to AFP.

Israel’s military said it had failed to intercept the projectile, which struck a district of Tel Aviv municipality, forcing many residents to leave their homes.

Yemen’s Houthi later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it used a ballistic missile and was directed at “a military target of the Israeli enemy”.

Israeli forces have blown up several residential buildings east of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reports.

Witnesses said Israeli forces blew up residential buildings in the al-Janina neighbourhood as they were supported by gunfire from military helicopters, according to the Wafa news agency.

The head of the Palestinian village council in the occupied West Bank’s village of Madra has said that the Israeli settlers who tried to burn down the local mosque on Friday were fully supported by the Israeli government, Al Jazeera reports citing the Associated Press.

Nasfat al-Khafash, the head of the council, said the settlers arrived early in the morning, setting the mosque on fire and spray-painted stars of David and the words in Hebrew, “the mosque will burn, the temple will be built” and “death to Arabs”.

“These slogans reflect their upbringing and hatred towards Palestinians and Arabs,” al-Khafash told the AP, adding that the settlers received “full support” from the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli military has said it failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, and the ambulance service said 14 people received mild injuries, Reuters reports.

Paramedics were treating 14 people with minor shrapnel injuries and some were taken to hospital, the ambulance service said in a statement.

The Israeli police reported receiving reports of a fallen missile in a town in the Tel Aviv area.