Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 395

Kamal Adwan Hospital has been targeted by Israeli quadcopters. Injuries have not been confirmed yet, but this is not the first time the hospital has been targeted, Hind Khoudary reports for Al Jazeera.

“There are people still trying to rescue and pull more bodies from the al-Masry family house in Beit Lahiya, where at least 25 Palestinians were killed, including 13 children,” she said.

There have been no ambulances, and no civil defence teams for the past 24 hours after Israeli forces forced them to evacuate, Khoudary said, adding that leaflets have been dropped asking the people in Beit Lahiya to evacuate from that area.

“There is only one hospital working in the northern Gaza Strip, and that is Kamal Adwan. It has no water or medicine,” she added.

A pro-Palestinian activist in France has been sentenced to three years in prison for “glorifying terrorism” on social media, reported, Anadolu Agency reports, citing broadcaster France 3.

Amira Zaiter, an activist from the southern city of Nice, was placed into custody on Sept. 19 for the glorification of terrorism, glorification of crimes against humanity, and hate speech on social media, the channel said.

The founder of De Nice a Gaza organization (From Nice to Gaza) was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, with two years suspended and one year under an electronic bracelet.

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Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reports that the Israeli army has withdrawn several brigades from southern Lebanon amid progress in efforts to reach a deal, Al Jazeera reports.

Citing informed sources, it said officials involved in negotiations assess a deal to be reached with Hezbollah within a week and a half to two weeks.

In the meantime, Israeli forces are waiting for a decision from the political echelon in Jerusalem, the newspaper said.

Iran is not seeking “escalation” but has the right to “legitimate defence”, its foreign minister said in Pakistan, vowing to respond to last month’s Israeli strikes on its military sites, AFP reports.

“Unlike Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran doesn’t seek escalation, however, we reserve our inherent right to legitimate defence,” Abbas Araghchi said during a news conference, alongside his Pakistan counterpart.

“We will certainly respond to the Israeli aggression in a proper time and in a proper manner,” and “in a very measured and well-calculated manner”, said Araghchi who is on a two-day official visit to Pakistan.

Since the strikes, Israel has warned Iran against retaliating, while Tehran vowed to respond.

The death toll from an Israeli air attack on the al-Masry family home in the town of Beit Lahiya in besieged northern Gaza has risen to 25, according to the Wafa news agency, Al Jazeera reports.

The report citing medical sources said the victims included 13 children and that more people are still under the rubble.

The area has been under intense bombardment since October 6, when Israel’s military began a sweeping air and ground assault in northern Gaza, focusing on the towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned Israel’s unrestrained military aggression in the Middle East and its “genocidal actions” against civilians, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“I and my dear brother Foreign Minister both condemned Israel’s unrestrained military aggression in the Middle East, its genocidal actions against innocent civilians and its illegal measures in occupied territories … and constitute the root cause of all tensions in the Middle East,” FM Ishaq Dar said speaking at a joint press conference in Islamabad with the Iranian FM.

FM Dar reiterated Pakistan’s call for establishing a viable, independent and contiguous State of Palestine based on the Pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.

More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza in a rare transfer out of the besieged enclave, a World Health Organisation official said, Reuters reports.

“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.

The patients will travel in a large convoy via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.

Egypt has condemned Israel’s decision to ban the United Nations agency for Palestinians, calling it an “unacceptable disregard” for the UN, its agencies and the international community, AFP reports.

Israel officially informed the United Nations on Monday of its decision to cut ties with UNRWA, following a vote by Israeli lawmakers to bar the organisation, which is seen as vital for Palestinians.

“Egypt strongly condemns Israel’s withdrawal from the agreement governing the operations of UNRWA and its formal suspension of operations,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement posted on Facebook late Monday.

The ministry called the move a “dangerous development” aimed at erasing the Palestinian cause, particularly the issue of refugees and their right of return.

It added that the decision represented “a new chapter in Israel’s blatant and systematic violations of international law and international humanitarian law”.

Sources have told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces are again storming the city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

Sources also reported that Israeli police forces have stormed neighbourhoods in Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem.

France’s foreign minister will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday seeking to press Israel to engage diplomatically to end the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon after the US presidential election is over, Reuters reports.

“The United States plays an essential role in ending the Israeli-Arab conflict,” Jean-Noel Barrot said on France 2 television when asked whether a win for former President Donald Trump could boost Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We are alongside the US, notably on Lebanon, to propose peace formulas to ensure a lasting peace in the region.”

“The war has lasted far too long and the use of force must give way to the use of dialogue and diplomacy,” Barrot said.

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 30 Palestinians since Monday night, Palestinian media and medics said, as the Israeli army tightened its siege on northern areas of the enclave, Reuters reports.

An airstrike damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, where the army has carried out new operations since October 5, and killed at least 20 people late on Monday, news agency Wafa and Hamas media said.

The Gaza health ministry did not immediately confirm the toll. Four other people were killed in the central Gazan town of Al-Zawayda around midnight on Monday, medics said.

Palestinian health officials said six people had also been killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah in the central area of the narrow enclave.

The Israeli military said, without giving details, that its forces had “eliminated terrorists” in the central Gaza Strip and Jabalia area. Israeli troops had also located weapons and explosives over the past day in the southern Rafah area, where “terrorist infrastructure sites” had been eliminated, it said.

Palestinians said the new attacks and Israeli orders for people to evacuate were aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp to create buffer zones.

The Israeli military said it intercepted a drone approaching from the east over southern Israel in the Dead Sea area, AFP reports.

“A UAV that crossed into Israeli territory from the east was intercepted by the IAF (Israeli air force),” the military said in a statement, without specifying the drone’s origin.

At least four people were killed during an Israeli military raid and airstrikes on the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry, Reuters reports.

The Palestinian ministry said two people had been killed in the city of Qabatiya and two others in the Tammoun area.

Israeli forces have carried out a drone attack on the village of Muthalath al-Shuhada, south of the city of Jenin, killing at least two Palestinians, Al Jazeera reports, citing Wafa news agency.

One of the victims was a 40-year-old man who died of his injuries after being hit with shrapnel in the attack, Wafa reported, citing the director of Al-Razi Hospital. It said that the Jenin Governmental Hospital received a second body whose identity has not yet been confirmed.

The drone attack came as Israeli forces continued their raid on the nearby town of Qabatiya, which has been ongoing for more than seven hours.

The Israeli military is sending its reinforcements to the town’s entrances, while violent confrontations are taking place at the Martyrs’ roundabout at the entrance to the town, according to Wafa.

Israel has taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but has so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation in the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has said, as a deadline set by the US to improve the situation approaches.

“As of today, the situation has not significantly turned around. We have seen an increase in some measurements. We’ve seen an increase in the number of crossings that are open. But just if you look at the stipulated recommendations in the letter, those have not been met,” Miller said, according to Reuters.

Miller said the results so far were “not good enough” but stressed that the 30-day period had not elapsed.

He declined to say what consequences Israel would face if it failed to implement the recommendations. “What I can tell you that we will do is we will follow the law,” he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pinned blame on Hamas for rejecting a temporary Gaza truce as he also pressed Israel again to allow more aid into the Palestinian territory, AFP reports.

A Hamas official told AFP on Friday that the group had received a proposal from Egypt and Qatar for a short-term truce and rejected it for not including a lasting ceasefire to the nearly 13-month offensive.

In a telephone call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, Blinken “noted that Hamas has once again refused to release even a limited number of hostages to secure a ceasefire and relief for the people of Gaza”, a State Department statement said.

Blinken “emphasised the importance of bringing the war in Gaza to an end, securing the release of all hostages and increasing and sustaining the delivery of humanitarian assistance,” it said.

In hopes of making progress, CIA chief Bill Burns in recent discussions with his Mossad counterpart in Qatar spoke of a short-term ceasefire for the release of some of the hostages, according to a source knowledgeable of the talks.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and urged further actions to substantially increase humanitarian aid in Gaza, Reuters reports, citing a State Department statement.

Blinken “urged further actions to substantially increase and sustain humanitarian aid — including food, medicine, and other essential supplies — to civilians across all of Gaza”, the State Department said after the call.

“The Secretary emphasised the importance of ending the war in Gaza and bringing all of the hostages home, as well as charting a path forward in the post-conflict period that allows the Palestinian population in Gaza to rebuild their lives and advances governance, security, and reconstruction,” the State Department said.

The US government had said in an October 13 letter Israel had 30 days to take specific steps to address the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has been pummeled for more than a year by Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

A US Army soldier who was in critical condition after suffering non-combat injuries while supporting the military’s pier off the coast of Gaza has died, Reuters quotes the US military as saying.

Sergeant Quandarius Davon Stanley, who recently retired from the military, suffered critical injuries in May while supporting operations at sea of the US-built pier designed to increase flows of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the US Army confirmed that Stanley had died, though it did not specify when. He was receiving treatment in a long-term care medical center.

Three US troops were injured during the pier operation, which ended in July, but the other two were minor injuries and have returned to duty.

The health ministry in Gaza has said that Israeli forces are bombarding the last partially functioning hospital in north Gaza, the area of intense Israeli military operations for the past month, AFP reports.

“At this moment, occupation forces are continuing to violently bombard and destroy Kamal Adwan Hospital, targeting all parts of the hospital,” the ministry said of the hospital in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahia.

The Israeli military when contacted said it was checking the reports.

Israeli air strikes have left significant destruction across the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, hitting historic landmarks, government structures, and civilian areas, Al Jazeera reports.

In the nearby town of Douris, a civilian house was also targeted, leading to the complete destruction of the structure, the head of the Baalbek Municipalities Union, Shafiq Qassem Shehadeh, told Reuters.

There was also severe damage caused to the surrounding area, including the municipal building and Christian cemeteries, he added, noting that the residential target had not been on Israel’s list of forced evacuations.

Gaza’s Civil Defense says it has been forced to stop operating across the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip due to ongoing Israeli attacks, as thousands of citizens remain trapped without humanitarian and medical care, Al Jazeera reports.

It added that Israeli forces attacked Civil Defense crews operating in the north, seized their vehicles, forcibly displaced most of their members to the southern part of the Strip and abducted seven of them.

Top UN officials issued a joint statement last week warning that “the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 10 Palestinians in Gaza, with seven dead in an attack on two houses in the north Gaza town of Beit Lahiya and three fatalities in a strike on a house in Nuseirat camp in the enclave’s centre, medics told Reuters.

Several people were wounded in both attacks, they said, adding that Israeli forces had sent tanks into the northeast of Nuseirat camp.

Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were “ethnic cleansing” aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp of their population to create buffer zones.

Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas, who launch attacks from there.