Catastrophic situation in northern Gaza, as Israel terminates UNRWA after 57 years – Day 393
Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Sunday was the thirtieth consecutive day of the Israeli occupation forces’ aerial, ground, and naval bombardment of northern Gaza. The siege has included blocking supplies of food, water, medicine, and fuel, destroying homes, demolishing entire residential blocks, attacking hospitals, and assassinating individuals trying to escape.
Over 1,800 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its siege of northern Gaza.
The Gaza Health Ministry says that 33 Palestinians were killed and 156 wounded in the Strip in the last day.
Devastation, starvation in northern Gaza
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, some 1,800 Palestinians have been killed and around 4,000 others wounded as a result of Israeli army operations in the northern Gaza Strip over the past three weeks.
The spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense agency in Gaza reported that over 100,000 people are without food, water, and medicine; the local medical system is out of service, and the Israeli army is not allowing rescue or recovery operations.
The Israeli army has reportedly prevented the entry of 3,800 aid trucks into northern Gaza.
The Gaza Information Ministry revealed that the Israeli army is “planting explosive barrels, continues to destroy civilian infrastructure, and has halted the vaccination campaign for northern Gaza children as part of its destruction plan.”
Israel’s bombing campaign includes inhabited homes.
The Israeli military operated in the northern Gaza area of Jabalia in May and previously in November, making the current offensive the third campaign in the area since the war began.
Israeli military denies attack on Gaza vaccination clinic
The Israeli military has denied hitting a clinic in the northern Gaza Strip where health workers were carrying out polio vaccinations.
On Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli fire had hit the Sheikh Radwan clinic as parents brought their children for vaccination. 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.
NOTE: Israel’s denial carries little weight: historically, Israel has not proven itself trustworthy. Among Israel’s lies arenumerous atrocity stories about the October 7th attack that have since been proven untrue (more examples here).
In addition, a number of the Israeli soldiers and civilians killed on October 7 were shown to have been killed by Israeli fire – a fact that is absent from the official Israeli narrative.
Previously, Israel has been caught in many lies – for example, this and this and this.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry says it notified UN of termination of cooperation with UNRWA
Following the legislation on UNRWA, the State of Israel officially notified the President of the General Assembly of the termination of cooperation with the agency.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon claimed, “Despite the overwhelming evidence we submitted to the UN that substantiate Hamas’ infiltration of UNRWA, the UN did nothing to rectify the situation.”
He continued, “The State of Israel will continue to cooperate with humanitarian organizations but not with organizations that promote terrorism against us.”
NOTE: Israel has long tried to dismantleUNWRA’s humanitarian support of Palestinian refugees. The 6-page dossier Israel issued, allegedly proving the guilt of twelve UNRWA employees out of a staff of 13,000, is hardly “overwhelming evidence” – in fact, it reportedly offers no compellingevidence.
RECOMMENDED READING BY KENNETH ROTH: Israel’s attempt to destroy UNRWA is part of its starvation strategy in Gaza
West Bank: Israeli forces kill Palestinian teen
Israeli forces killed a Palestinian youth and injured another, on Sunday, in the town of Halhul, north of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank.
Media sources said that occupation forces opened fire at two Palestinian children, on Sunday afternoon, while they were in the Ramouz area near the northern entrance to Halhul town, north of Hebron.
Sources added that soldiers killed the child, Naji Nidal Al-Baba, 16, after shooting him with live ammunition and confiscating his body.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported that its ambulance crews received the body of the slain child from the occupation army, before transporting it to hospital.
The slain Al-Baba was in the tenth grade at the Omar Al-Tamimi Secondary School for Boys.
Israeli settlers attack West Bank village, steal olive harvest
Israeli settlers accompanied by soldiers attacked the occupied West Bank village of al-Mughayer on Sunday, stealing olive harvests, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
Settlers have stepped up attacks against Palestinians and their property amid the crucial olive harvesting season.
The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission reported on Sunday that Israelis had carried out 360 attacks over the past month, mainly around Nablus.
The attacks include the uprooting of 1,401 trees, blocking Palestinian farmers from accessing their lands and theft of olive crops.
Settlers have also stolen harvesting equipment and vehicles of Palestinians.
It is expected that around 80,000 dunams of land with olive trees will be unreachable for farmers, threatening around 15 percent of this year’s crop, according to a report by The New Arab‘s Arabic-language sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed earlier this week.
Israeli incursion into Lebanon health center kills two medics
According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, two paramedics were killed in an Israeli raid on a health center in al-Bazouriyeh, near Tyre, in the south of the country.
Israeli media: 50,000 troops fail to capture a single village in Lebanon
Israeli occupation forces have failed to capture even a single village in southern Lebanon, reportedly despite deploying over 50,000 troops in a month-long ground invasion. The current offensive involves five divisions—three times the size of the force deployed during the failed 2006 war—but has yielded no significant territorial gains.
The report attributes Israel’s setbacks to Hezbollah’s “effective tactical strategies,” including layered defenses and precision attacks on Israeli armored units. Colonel Jack Neriya, a former advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, said Hezbollah fighters are allowing Israeli troops to advance before trapping them in ambushes, which has posed challenges even for “elite” units. “This ambush tactic has created extreme challenges for Israeli forces, including elite units such as Golani and other commandos,” he said.
Hezbollah claimed it has destroyed 42 Merkava tanks, four bulldozers, two Hummers, an armored vehicle, and a troop carrier since the invasion began. The Lebanese resistance movement also reported over 95 Israeli soldiers killed and 900 wounded. Israeli forces have struggled to map Hezbollah positions and counter elusive drones.
Last month alone, Yedioth Ahronoth reported, 64 Israeli soldiers and 24 settlers were killed amid ongoing hostilities. Additionally, Hezbollah’s attacks, involving thousands of missiles and drones, have triggered 14,000 warning sirens in Israel.
Despite heavy support from artillery and air power, Israel’s military campaign has made little headway. The Israeli outlet noted that this ongoing failure could lead to higher Israeli casualties than in any war since the late 1940s.
FLASHBACK: Gaza Genocide
THIS WEEK LAST YEAR, If Americans Knew wrote:
More than 50 Democratic National Committee employees signed open letter calling on Dem leaders to urge President Joe Biden to seek a cease-fire in Israel’s escalating war against Gaza.
ONE YEAR LATER, the US is still waiting.
US Legislation to expel Palestinians: US Rep. Ryan Zinke introduced a bill that could prevent Palestinians from entering the United States, and also expel those who already reside there.
ONE YEAR LATER, the bill has 18 cosponsors and is tied up in committee.
Call for genocide in Gaza: In a tweet that X hid, Knesset member Galit Distel-Atbaryan declared: “Erase Gaza from the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters rush to the southern border and flee into Egypt, or die. And let them die badly. Gaza should be wiped off the map…Jewish wrath to shake the earth around the world. We need a cruel, vengeful IDF here. Anything less is immoral.
Call for nuking Gaza: Israeli politician Amihai Eliyahu said one of Israel’s options is to drop a nuclear bomb on the Strip, and charged that “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza.”
ONE YEAR LATER, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has a database of over 500 statements by prominent Israelis that call for genocide. The ICJ has declared that Israel is plausibly committing genocide.
US, Israel, and international law: The Washington Post reported: “The United States provides the Israeli army with military and intelligence support, and is therefore required by the Geneva Conventions to ensure that bombing raids in Gaza do not breach international law.”
Israeli doctors urge the bombing of Gaza hospitals: After assurances from prominent Israeli rabbis, a group of Israeli doctors declared that any and all Gaza hospitals are “a legitimate target for annihilation.”
ONE YEAR LATER, “Israel and US deliberately gutting international law in Gaza” and “Today there are no fully functional hospitals in all of Gaza.”
MORE NEWS:
Al Jazeera: A Gaza child’s last will
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – NOVEMBER 3, 2024:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – November 3, 2024: at least 44,142* ( 43,374 in Gaza* – 69% are women and children, according to Gaza’s Media Office). [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.]
This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 768 in the West Bank (~166 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more in Gaza still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children).
In July 2024, the Lancet said: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.
Ralph Nader earlier estimated 300,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.
- At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 25 from West Bank).
- At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition (at least 37 of them children)**.
- About 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are currently displaced.
- Almost 500,000 Gazans are currently experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – November 3, 2024: at least 108,561 (including at least 102,261 in Gaza and 6,300 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – November 3, 2024: ~1,574 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 396*** military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (most recent: Nov 2); 39 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel) and~10,000 injured.
The death toll in Lebanon since October 8, 2023 is at least 2,897, with 13,402 injuries. An estimated 1.34 million have been displaced.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.
**Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.
***The figure does not include the reportedly 56 Israeli soldiers – nearly 16% of the total Israeli military deaths – killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents.
† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
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