Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 394

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.”

An Israeli airstrike on two houses in the north Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed at least seven people and wounded several others, medics tell Reuters.

Jewish settlers torched 20 cars during an attack on Palestinian property on the outskirts of Ramallah on Monday, residents said, in one of their boldest raids yet in the area that serves as the Palestinians’ seat of government in the occupied West Bank, Reuters reports.

Around a dozen attackers, masked and carrying petrol bombs, targeted the Al-Bireh area, which adjoins Ramallah, at around 3am (0100 GMT), torching the cars in a matter of minutes, they said.

Resident Ihab al-Zaben said he yelled at the settlers but they carried on burning the vehicles regardless.

“When we came down to try to extinguish the fire, they started shooting at us,” he said. The facade of a residential building was left blackened by fires set in cars that had been parked outside.

The Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency were investigating after receiving a report that a number of Palestinian cars had been burned, the Israeli police spokesperson said in a statement.

The Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, condemned “the brutal attack by settler militias”. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for “comprehensive sanctions targeting the entire settler-colonial system”.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry says the international failure to halt the ongoing genocide in Gaza is fuelling widespread settler crimes across the occupied West Bank.

The statement, posted on X, comes after reports of settler attacks in the city of el-Bireh, where settlers burned several Palestinians’ vehicles.

“This assault is viewed as an extension of widespread settler crimes across the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and as a replication of the genocide and forced displacement campaign endured by the Palestinian people in Gaza, which has persisted unabated for 395 days,” it said.

While several foreign states have issued individual sanctions, the ministry said settlers “would not have committed such heinous crimes without the protection and immunity granted by the Israeli political leadership”.

It called on the international community to take more comprehensive measures to “hold all entities responsible for promoting or engaging in settler terrorism and systematic land annexation against the Palestinian people”.

The Israeli military has arrested at least 12 Palestinians, including a teenager, from the occupied West Bank overnight, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has said in a statement, Al Jazeera reports.

The rights group said the arrests took place across the governorates of Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Qalqilya.

It noted that the number of arrests in the West Bank had surpassed 11,600 since October 7, 2023.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Israeli military arrested Mohammed Awad, a media activist in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron.

Muhammad Basem Muhammad Saeed Attia, 14, was also arrested in the same town.

Germany calls on Israel to let more humanitarian aid into north Gaza, where a lack of supplies has led to a “desperate” and “unbearable” situation, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said, Reuters reports.

“We call on the Israeli government urgently to meet its responsibilities under international law,” the spokesperson told a regular news conference in Berlin.

“Israel has the right to self defence against Hamas within the framework of humanitarian international law,” he added.

The spokesperson was responding to a question about an ultimatum set by Washington for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza this month or face potential restrictions on US military aid.

Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 43,374 Palestinians and wounded 102,261 since October 7, 2023, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The toll includes 33 deaths in the previous 24 hours, the statement added.

An Israeli group campaigning for the release of hostages held in Gaza called for an investigation into the alleged leak of confidential documents by an ex-aide to the prime minister, which may have undermined efforts to secure the captives’ release, AFP reports.

“The (hostage) families demand an investigation against all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

“Such actions, especially during wartime, endanger the hostages, jeopardise their chances of return and abandon them to the risk of being killed by Hamas terrorists.”

“The suspicions suggest that individuals associated with the prime minister acted to carry out one of the greatest frauds in the country’s history,” the forum said.

“This is a moral low point like no other. It is a severe blow to the remaining trust between the government and its citizens.”

The Israeli military denied that it had hit a clinic in the northern Gaza Strip where health workers were carrying out polio vaccinations, Reuters reports.

On Saturday, the Gaza health ministry said Israeli fire had hit the Sheikh Radwan clinic as parents brought their children in to be vaccinated. It said four children had been wounded in the explosion, which took place during an agreed humanitarian pause to allow the campaign to go ahead.

The military said it was aware of the reports but said an initial review showed its forces had not carried out any strikes when the incident took place.

“Contrary to the claims, an initial review determined that the IDF did not strike in the area at the specified time,” it said in a statement.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the incident had taken place just after a WHO team was at the clinic and that it had endangered a vital health protection campaign.

A four-day-old child, Mohammed, is the only survivor at the intensive care unit (ICU) of Kamal Adwan’s Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, witnesses told Al Jazeera from the facility, which has been under the Israeli military siege.

Israeli artillery last week targeted the hospital’s facilities, including the ICU, killing several children. Patients have been battling to stay alive amid electricity outages and a severe shortage of basic supplies, including IV solutions.

Mohammed’s family was reported to have been killed and the baby was struggling to survive after the oxygen station that aided his breathing was destroyed.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has criticised what he called the United States’ “destabilising presence” after the deployment of B-52 bombers in the region, AFP reports.

“We have always believed that the presence of America in the region is a destabilising presence,” said Baghaei told a news conference in response to a question about the deployment, adding that it “will not deter (Iran’s) resolve to defend itself”.

Disen­ch­antment with both major US political parties is pushing many first-time Muslim voters in Northern Virginia toward abstention or even third-party support, raising concerns for Democrats who traditionally rely on this constituency.

In conversations with visiting Pakistani journalists at a lively shopping plaza in the region, some young Muslim voters cited foreign policy decisions, environmental issues, and unmet domestic needs as reasons for their reluctance to vote for either major party.

The plaza, known for its diverse array of halal restaurants, grocery stores, and pizza shops, has become a central meeting place for Muslims from Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC.

Store owners are preparing for election day by setting up a large screen in one of the restaurants to broadcast results, and offering free tea and samosas to patrons to foster a sense of community.

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The UN agency for supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that Israel’s ban on its operations would lead to the “collapse” of humanitarian work in the war-torn Gaza Strip, AFP reports.

“If this law is implemented, it would be likely to cause the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip — an operation of which UNRWA is the backbone,” Jonathan Fowler, an UNRWA spokesman, told AFP after Israel formally told the United Nations it was cancelling its ties with the agency.

Hezbollah has said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli city of Safed, the latest attack in more than a month of onslaught, AFP reports.

Hezbollah fighters launched a “big rocket salvo” at the city, the group said in a statement.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has shared a photo on X showing its “Stop the bleeding” training in Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem governorate in the occupied West Bank.

“Women learned how to care for wounds, apply tourniquets, and provide basic first aid to their family members and neighbours until they can reach medical care during incursions by Israeli forces,” MSF said.

Israeli forces often block Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from accessing healthcare facilities, especially during military incursions when there are injuries.

The military said Abu Ali Rida was killed in the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera reports.

It said in a post on X that Rida “directed and executed” attacks on Israeli forces and commanded Hezbollah fighters in the region.

The military added that its forces were continuing to operate in southern Lebanon, destroying Hezbollah infrastructure and attacking the group’s fighters.

Hezbollah has made no statement on Israel’s claims.

The Israeli military said it intercepted a “suspicious aerial” target over the occupied Golan Heights and another was making its way to Israel “from the east”, Al Jazeera reports.

The phrase often refers to projectiles fired from the direction of Iraq.

There was no immediate comment from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iran-aligned umbrella group that has stepped up drone attacks on Israel in support of the people of Palestine and Lebanon.

The Israeli military also said it intercepted more “suspicious aerial targets” that crossed from Lebanon.

The Foreign Ministry has officially informed the UN that Israel is withdrawing from the 1967 agreement recognising Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, after the Knesset passed legislation to severely limit the operations of the agency in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Times of Israel reports.

Foreign Ministry Director-General Jacob Blitshtein sent the letter to UN General Assembly President Philemon Yang of Cameroon, informing him that “Israel will continue to work with international partners, including other United Nations agencies, to ensure the facilitation of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not undermine Israel’s security. Israel expects the United Nations to contribute to and cooperate in this effort.”

“UNRWA — the organisation whose employees participated in the October 7th massacre and many of whose employees are Hamas operatives — is part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not part of the solution,” says Foreign Minister Israel Katz. “The UN was presented with endless evidence about Hamas operatives working at UNRWA and about the use of UNRWA facilities for terror purposes and nothing was done about it.”

Katz also notes that only 13 per cent of the aid to Gaza currently goes through UNRWA, and argues the idea that there is no alternative to UNRWA is a fiction.

The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) is reporting that an estimated 472,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria since September 23, following the escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, Al Jazeera reports.

The figure included 32,829 Lebanese refugees and 216,369 Syrians who had fled to Lebanon following the outbreak of the civil war in their country.

The vast majority of those arriving in Syria had fled from southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces have carried out intense attacks on a daily basis.

The World Food Programme has warned that “the lack of food and other vital humanitarian supplies entering the Gaza Strip could soon escalate into famine unless immediate action is taken”, Al Jazeera reports.

The UN agency said it reached only 42 per cent of the 1.1 million people targeted for food assistance in October due to a lack of supplies and access.

“North Gaza remains under siege since early October, with humanitarian agencies unable to reach people in need. Urgent international effort is required to allow the delivery of critical assistance and grant humanitarian agencies access to the area,” it added.

Democrat Kamala Harris has made her closing pitch for the US presidency at a historically Black church and to Arab Americans in battleground Michigan, Reuters reports.

“We must act. It’s not enough to only pray; not enough to just talk. We must act on the plans He has in store for us,” Harris told parishioners at Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ in Detroit.

In a rally in East Lansing, Michigan, she addressed the state’s 200,000 Arab Americans, starting her speech with a nod to civilian victims of Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“This year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon, it is devastating. And as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza,” Harris said to applause.

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A dialogue among Palestinian factions in Cairo has been “positive”, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told the Palestinian fighter group’s Al Aqsa TV, though he added that he did not want to rush to any conclusions.

According to Reuters, Hamdan also said that Hamas had not received any new written proposals regarding a possible ceasefire in Gaza, where the group has been battling Israeli forces for more than a year.