Israel commits atrocities in many shapes and forms â Day 459
Compilation of news reports â IAK staff
Israeli attacks across Gaza killed at least 50 people on Wednesday, while UNICEF said at least 74 Palestinian children have been killed during the first week of 2025 alone.
âHow many more to go?â: Aid group slams Israel, US over killing of neonatal doctor in Gaza
The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) has denounced Israel for what it called âthe targeting and killing of women and healthcare workersâ after an Israeli air raid killed Dr Thabat Salim, a 30-year-old female neonatal doctor, in the central Nuseirat refugee camp on Friday.
Salimâs death âis more than a tragedyâ, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, the director general of IPPF.
âIt is a devastating indictment of the conditions under which women healthcare providers live and work. She was Palestinian. She was living in Gaza. She was a woman of reproductive age. She was a doctor. She worked in a hospital. She cared for Palestineâs next generation; newborn babies. These factors should have made her a symbol of hope and healing. Instead, they culminated in her murder.â
The Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association (PFPPA) shared:
âDr. Thabat Salim, you were an unwavering white angel at every moment. You moved tirelessly among the ruins of war, doubling your efforts to provide humanitarian aid and services. You were a source of comfort, wiping the tears of mothers and easing the pain of children and patients suffering the horrors of war in Gaza.
3-year-old Gazan child faces life without limbs after deadly Israel strike
Near a makeshift fabric tent that offers little protection from the winter cold, three-year-old Jihad Mahmoud sits on the chilly sand, playing with a friend. Using his hands to move a ball, Jihad struggles with the loss of his legs, amputated following an Israeli air strike on an area designated as a âsafe zoneâ in Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.
More than four months ago, an air strike claimed both his legs and three fingers on his left hand.
Dragging what remains of his legs and relying on his hands, Jihad moves around while his family clings to hope for prosthetics that could restore some normalcy.
Despite his severe injuries, Jihad retains his joyful spirit, often breaking into laughter when his mother plays with him.
The child is one of over 22,000 Palestinians left with life-altering injuries, according to Sigrid Kaag, the UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, as of September 2024. Among them, roughly 4,000 have suffered amputations due to Israelâs genocidal war, according to Gazaâs Health Ministry.
The crisis is particularly dire for children.
âGaza is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history,â declared Lisa Doughten, an official with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in October 2024. âEach day, ten children are losing one or both of their legs,â she added, citing data provided by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Gazaâs only specialized centers â the Hamad Rehabilitation Hospital and the Gaza Prosthetic Center â were forced out of service after being targeted in Israeli air strikes, according to Gazaâs Health Ministry (continue reading here).
Khan Younis hospital registers first death from kidney failure
Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed reported on Wednesday that the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis registered its first patient death from kidney failure.
The kidney failure was caused by the hospitalâs lack of fuel, which is needed to run its dialysis machine, Abed reported.
Earlier on Wednesday, Hamas accused Israel of hindering fuel deliveries to Gazaâs hospitals, and called on the UN to assist the enclaveâs healthcare facilities.
RELATED: Kidney patients face excruciating death in Gaza
Arabs condemn âbiblical Israel mapâ annexing neighboring lands
Palestinian and Arab officials have condemned the publication of a map on the Israeli governmentâs Arabic-language X account which depicts parts of the occupied Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab lands as part of âgreater Israelâ.
The post sparked outrage from Palestinians and Arab countries, who called on the international community to rein in Israelâs expansionist ambitions and prevent it from attempting to seize more Palestinian and Arab territory.
A spokesperson for Jordanâs foreign ministry condemned the post âin the strongest termsâ and described the illustration as âallegations and illusionsâ promoted by Israelâs right wing to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Qatarâs foreign ministry said the map âclaiming to represent historical Israelâ was a âflagrant violationâ of international norms, warning that Israelâs evident aspirations could further hinder the chances of peace in the region.
Doha called on the international community to âfulfill its legal and moral responsibilities by pressuring the Israeli occupation to comply with international legitimacy resolutions and confront its expansionist ambitions in Arab landsâ.
RELATED: Erasing Palestine: the convergence of digital censorship and settler-colonial violence.
Israel continues to violate ceasefire with Lebanon
The Israeli army committed 19 violations of a cease-fire agreement with Lebanon on Wednesday, bringing the total number of breaches since the agreement took effect on Nov. 27 last year to 432.
The violations included incursions, artillery and tank shelling, demolitions of homes and buildings, drone and warplane overflights, and sweeping operations with machine guns.
Israel kills two children in air strike in occupied West Bank
On a quiet morning in the Palestinian town of Tammun, Wednesday, Jan. 8, eight-year-old Rida Ali Ahmed Bisharat and ten-year-old Hamza Ammar Ahmed Bisharat played in the courtyard near their homes, a familiar and cherished spot where they often spent their time.
Nearby, their 23-year-old cousin, Adam Khair Al-Din Ahmed Bisharat, sat peacefully, enjoying a cup of coffee.
What happened next shattered the tranquility of the sceneâand the lives of their families forever. A missile, launched from an Israeli drone, struck the spot where the three sat, killing them instantly.
The Israeli military claimed the attack targeted an âarmed cell,â a justification immediately rejected by the local community and witnesses. Residents described the area as a small courtyard surrounded by homes, far from any main road.
âThey were just sitting near their homes, as they always did,â said Jallal Bisharat, a relative of the victims.
âThey were children, playing in their usual spot,â added Yusuf Bisharat, another family member, standing in the devastated courtyard. With his arms outstretched, he described the tight space where the missile struck. âThis was not a battlefieldâit was a place of safety for our children.â
Since the beginning of the Israeli military onslaught against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed 845 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 175 children, and injured 7,000.
Ex-Palestinian prisoner dies after âmedical crimesâ committed by Israel: Prisonersâ groups
The Palestinian Prisonersâ Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisonersâ Society have confirmed the death of former prisoner Ismail Taqatqa (40) from Bethlehem, after he passed away on Wednesday morning in Jordan, five months after his release, due to systematic medical negligence in Israeli prisons.
According to a joint statement by the commission and the society Taqatqa was diagnosed with leukemia after his release on August 29, 2024.
They stated that Taqatqa is the latest known victim of the systematic medical crimes perpetrated by the Israeli prison system against thousands of prisoners who have been subjected to unprecedented systematic torture since the beginning of the genocide war.
Medical crimes and denial of treatment have been the primary tools for executing systematic killings of dozens of prisoners since the war began.
These crimes include imposing harsh and tragic detention conditions, torturing and assaulting prisoners, deliberately causing illnesses by denying them treatment and healthcare, starving them, and turning their need for treatment into a tool of torture.
White House denies Gaza genocide following Sudan determination
The White House rejected successive findings from multiple organizations Wednesday that Israelâs war on the besieged Gaza Strip constitutes genocide, just one day after it said one was taking place in Sudan.
âThereâs no genocide happening from the Israeli side on Palestinians. Itâs clear, as the secretary of state articulated, that what weâre seeing in Sudan is genocide. Itâs the wanton, systematic, direct, deliberate slaughter, rape, murder, torture of people based on their ethnicity or their faith that is genocide, and thatâs whatâs going on,â National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
âThat is not what weâre seeing in Gaza, just not. The IDF isnât waking up every day putting their boots on the floor and saying, âHey, weâre going to go kill some innocent people because they happen to be Palestinian.â
âNow that doesnât mean that there havenât been too many civilian casualties in this conflict, absolutely too many,â he added in reference to the Israeli military.
NOTE: The âwanton, systematic, direct, deliberate slaughter, rape, murder, and tortureâ carried out by Israelâs military is in fact based on Palestiniansâ ethnicity (they are not Jewish) and their faith (they are not Jewish). Israel claims its enemy is Hamas, but its actions and rhetoric are genocidal.
The statement by the White House opposes well-documented findings by globally recognized human rights organizations.
As a Jewish state, Israel must maintain a Jewish majority, which makes non-Jews a âdemographic threat,â and the reduction of Palestinians desirable.
IMEMC Daily Reports
Middle East Eye: Israeli commander killed Palestinian âhuman shieldâ during Gaza operation
Anadolu Agency: UN warns of âvery real threatsâ to Syriaâs sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity
Middle East Monitor: Germany cuts off funding to 2 Israel human rights organizations over criticism of Israeli crimes in Gaza
The New Arab: âWe wonât give in to despair, and we will stay hereâ: Palestinians choose to live in caves to defend their land against Israeli settlers
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 â JANUARY 8, 2025:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 â January 8, 2025: at least 46,851* â 46,006 in Gaza; in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 845 Palestinians (~175 of them children).
Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 11,000 more are still buried under rubble.
According to a report in the Lancet, by multiplying the reported deaths by five, it is possible to reach a conservative estimate of total deaths (including indirect causes like starvation and lack of medicine). Using the latest figure from AFP (46,006), it is reasonable to estimate at least 230,030 total deaths in Gaza since October 7th, 2023.
According to a recent report by the UN Human Rights Office of identified fatalities in Gaza, about 44% were children. It is reasonable to estimate that 20,243 of known direct deaths and 101,213 of the total deaths are children.
Palestinian injuries from October 7, 2023 â January 8, 2025: at least 116,274 (including at least 109,378 in Gaza and 7,000 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 â January 8, 2025: ~1,608 (or 1,581) (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 423*** (or 396) military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (updated: Jan. 7, 2025); 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel) and~10,000 injured.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
ADDITIONAL STATISTICS: Since October 7th, 2023:
- At least 54 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (at least 35 of them from Gaza).
- At least 43 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition (at least 37 of them children)**.
- About 1.9 million of Gazaâs 2.3 million population are currently displaced.
- About 345,000 Gazans are currently experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
*The Ministryâs 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.
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 Gazaâs 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 59 Israeli soldiers â nearly 17% of the total Israeli military deaths â killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents.
â 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.
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