Tatyana Tandanpolie
Wed, November 1, 2023
Wolf Blitzer Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
CNN's Wolf Blitzer confronted an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman on-air about a Tuesday bombing of a crowded refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip that Israel says killed a senior Hamas official who was involved in the Oct. 7 terror attack.
The Times of Israel reported that the IDF indicated the strike had killed the commander of Hamas' Central Jabaliya Battalion, Ibrahim Biari, as well as “several other terrorists and caused underground terror tunnels to collapse, bringing down several nearby buildings.” The report also noted that "at least 50 people were killed in the strike and subsequent collapse" per Palestinian reports.
Blitzer questioned Lt. Col. Richard Hecht of the IDF on the bombing's civilian death toll, asking if Israel still decided to go through with the attack on the Jabalya refugee camp to kill the Hamas official knowing that a number of innocent civilians would be killed in the process.
"But even if that Hamas commander was there, amidst all those Palestinian refugees who are in there in that Jabalya refugee camp, Israel still went ahead and dropped a bomb there attempting to kill this Hamas, Hamas commander, knowing that a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children presumably would be killed. Is that what I’m hearing?" Blitzer asked.
"That’s not what you are hearing, Wolf," Hecht replied. "We, again, were focused on this commander, again, who — you’ll get more data who this man was — killed, many, many Israelis. And we’re doing everything we can. It’s a very complicated battle space. There could be infrastructure there. There could be tunnels there. And we’re still looking into and we’ll give you more data as the hour moves ahead.”
"But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children in that refugee camp as well, right?” Blitzer asked, pressing Hecht further.
“This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. I mean, we as you know, we’ve been saying for days, ‘Move south, civilians that are not involved with Hamas, please move south,’” Hecht responded.
“Just trying to get more information. You knew there were civilians there. You knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees. But you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill this Hamas commander. By the way, was he killed?” Blitzer continued.
“I can’t confirm yet. There’ll be more updates,” Hecht said of the civilian toll before addressing the commander's death.
“Yes, we know that he was killed and about the civilians there. We’re doing everything we can to minimize. I’ll tell you again, sadly, they are hiding themselves within the civilian population. And again, we are doing this stage by stage and we’re going to go after every one of these terrorists who was involved in that hideous attack on the 7th of October, Wolf,” Hecht added.
The Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, and the director of Gaza's Indonesian Hospital said hundreds of people were killed or injured in the attack, the Washington Post reports. Palestinians carried away the injured and dead on blankets and mattresses, and the series of strikes left a deep crater in the area and toppled buildings.
A spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense emergency services, Mahmoud Bassal, told the Post that about 20 buildings were destroyed by the blasts. The precise count of those wounded and dead was not immediately clear amid ongoing rescue efforts.
Tuesday's attack reinforced fears that Israel's use of airstrikes and ground operations will put more civilians in the territory at a higher risk and worsen an already extreme humanitarian crisis.
Though aid convoys have maintained a limited delivery of much-needed supplies, the deliveries fall short of satisfying growing demands. Egypt has been prepping hospitals to treat wounded Gazans, but a stalemate in border negotiations has kept wounded people from crossing.
In a potential turning point, Hamas and Egypt said Tuesday that an agreement was brokered to allow 81 injured people from the territory to pass on Wednesday through the Rafah border, which is the only official route from Gaza that Israel does not control.
Israel's expanding push into Gaza has also become a point of contention for allies like the United States, which has asserted Israel's right to retaliate after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed at least 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers but has increasingly pushed for ways to help civilians caught in the war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a Senate hearing in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, said “humanitarian pauses must be considered.”
António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said in a statement that he was “deeply alarmed by the intensification of the conflict.” International humanitarian law “is not an a la carte menu and cannot be applied selectively," he added.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., admonished Israel and said its attack on the Jabalya refugee camp is "horrible" in a post to X, formerly Twitter.
"Israel has an obligation to protect civilians under the laws of war," Warren wrote. "Hamas’s use of innocent Palestinians as human shields does not excuse bombing a location filled with civilians."
"This is a war crime," Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., tweeted of the attack. "This unspeakable violence must end. The U.S. government cannot keep funding these atrocities. There must be a #CeasefireNOW."
"Make no mistake: these human rights abuses are being carried out with U.S. weapons, U.S. funding, and with 'no red lines,'" added Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. "And now we are set to vote on an additional $14 billion with no restrictions or conditions. The United States Congress should not fund violations of U.S. and international law."
The director of the New York office of the U.N.'s human rights agency declared his retirement in a sharply worded letter pertaining to the war this week, according to the New York Times, accusing the U.N. of abandoning its principles and international law while failing to stop Israel's bombardment of the territory, which he called a "genocide."
"I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues," Craig Mokhiber, the former director and a human rights lawyer, wrote in the Oct. 28-dated letter. "Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it.”
In the letter, which the U.N. confirmed was authentic, Mokhiber accused the U.S. and UK governments and much of Europe of being "complicit," describing Israel's offensive in Gaza and the West Bank — which has killed at least 8,500 Palestinians, including more than 3,500 children since Oct. 7 per the Gaza Ministry of Health, and damaged medical facilities, mosques, schools and residences — as "a textbook case of genocide."
He addressed the letter to Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, who has called for an immediate ceasefire and criticized Israel for blockading Gaza and deploying airstrikes on the territory. Mokhiber, who has spent four decades investigating Palestinian human rights violations and genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi and the Rohingya for the U.N., further accused key parts of the organization of having "surrendered" to pressure from the U.S., the body's top donor, and for fearing the "Israel Lobby."
In response to the letter, the spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights agency, Laura Gelbert Delgado, said on Tuesday, "These are the personal views of a staff member who retires today. The position of the Office is reflected in its public reporting and statements.”
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The Carter Center, founded by Jimmy Carter, the only U.S. president to call Israel's policies in Palestine apartheid, and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, on Tuesday echoed international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza as the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7 reached 8,525, per Common Dreams.
The organization, which was established to champion and fight for human rights globally, quoted the humanitarian and Democratic politician in its statement: "We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children."
"We urge all parties to agree to a ceasefire," the Carter Center added. "We ask for the opening of humanitarian corridors into Gaza and the reinstatement of essential services to the area. We urge the immediate, safe return of all hostages, and we call on both sides to abide by international law."
The Center's call for the ceasefire came as a U.N. official cautioned that Gaza has devolved into a "graveyard" for children since Israel instituted the blockade, which cut access to fuel, electricity, water and food, and began its offensive attacks.
"Hamas is responsible for the horrific October 7 massacre of more than 1,400 innocent people in Israel and the taking of more than 200 hostages," the Carter Center said. "And the innocent people of Gaza are now unfairly suffering from the ongoing conflict and the acute humanitarian crisis that has unfolded."
"Collective punishment is contrary to international law," the organization continued. "So is the murder of civilians."
Hamas on Saturday called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to an exchange of the Israeli civilians the group took hostage when it launched its surprise attack and the Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. Family members of some of the Israeli hostages have echoed that call.
Netanyahu, however — boosted by the Biden administration and U.S. politicians, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — has rebuffed calls for a ceasefire, which UNICEF said on Tuesday could save the lives of 1,000 children in Gaza in just 72 hours.
"The violence must stop now," the Carter Center said. "There is no military solution to this crisis, only a political one that acknowledges the common humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians, respects the human rights of all, and creates a path for both societies to live side by side in peace."
Since the start of the conflict, the U.N. has received widespread criticism from both Israel and Palestinians for what has been described as an inadequate response to the war, whether that be for not being clear enough about Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas or for not being able to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza while the death toll mounts and thousands are displaced.
The U.S. government's stance on the conflict and steadfast support of Israel has also garnered mounting national pushback as more Americans call for a ceasefire in the region.
A majority of Americans, both Democrat and Republican, believe the U.S. government should push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, according to a Data for Progress poll conducted between Oct. 18 and 19 finding that 66 percent support that move.
While Democrats were the most in favor at 80 percent, the majority of Republicans and independents also supported a ceasefire at 56 percent and 57 percent, respectively.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes noted Tuesday that, despite the results of the poll showing that overwhelming public support for the move, “calling for a ceasefire is still a distinctly minority opinion inside Congress as a whole.”
“There’s only 18 members of Congress that have signed on to a resolution calling for a ceasefire. All of them are Democrats,” Hayes said, according to Mediaite, adding, “It does seem at least more popular with the American public than members of Congress.”.
Tue, October 31, 2023
CNN’s sounded incredulous as he spoke with Israel military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht on Tuesday about the bombing of a refugee camp in Gaza that took out a senior Hamas official, but also according to local reports killed at least 50 people.
In a excerpt from the interview shared to social media, Blitzer tried to clarify the Israel Defense Forces’ strategy.
“But even if that Hamas commander was there, amidst all those Palestinian refugees who are in there in that Jabalya refugee camp, Israel still went ahead and dropped a bomb there attempting to kill this Hamas commander, knowing that a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children presumably would be killed,” Blitzer asked Hecht. “Is that what I’m hearing?”
The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday that the bombing killed Ibrahim Biari, who took part in the horrific Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. The bombing also killed “several other terrorists and caused underground terror tunnels to collapse, bringing down several nearby buildings.”
According to the BBC, as many as 120 people may have been killed and up to 400 wounded in the strike.
Hecht initially implied to Blitzer as the CNN anchor pressed the Israeli officer that they were not aware of the presence of innocent civilians before reiterating Israel had warned residents to evacuate northern Gaza while calling the bombing “the tragedy of war.”
“That’s not what you’re hearing Wolf,” Hecht replied. “Again, we were focused on the commander, who you’ll get the data on who this man was, who killed many many Israelis. We’re doing everything we can. It’s a very complicated battle space. — the infrastructure there, the tunnels there. We’re still looking into it and will give you more data as the hour moves ahead.”
Watch video of the CNN interview below.
The post Wolf Blitzer Presses Israeli Officer on Refugee Camp Bombing: ‘You Knew There Were Civilians There?’ (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.
Bel Trew and Maira Butt
Tue, October 31, 2023
Photos reveal scale of devastation after deadly Israeli airstrike on Gaza refugee camp
More than 50 Palestinians have been killed and over 150 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, the director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital has said. He told Al Jazeera he feared the numbers would rise after several residential buildings were destroyed in the bombardment.
The Israel Defence Forces admitted carrying out the strikes saying it had targeted Hamas infrastructure “that had taken over civilian buildings” but claimed those killed were Hamas militants.
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem denied the IDF’s claim, saying it was trying to justify “its heinous crime” against civilians.
Palestinians search for survivors at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in the Jabaliya refugee camp (Reuters)
The blast comes as the Palestinian border authority said late on Tuesday that the Rafah crossing will be opened on Wednesday to allow 81 severely injured Palestinians to be treated in Egyptian hospitals.
Photographs from the scene show the devastation caused by the attack with civilians digging through rubble to recover the dead and wounded.
Mohammed Hawajreh, a nurse with Doctors Without Borders, told The Independent: “Young children arrived at the hospital with deep wounds and severe burns.
“They came without their families. Many were screaming and asking for their parents. I stayed with them until we could find a place, as the hospital was full with patients.”
Several residential buildings were flattened by the strikes (Reuters)
In a statement late on Tuesday night, the Ministry of Health in Gaza warned that the Shifa Medical Complex and the Indonesian Hospital, which are treating the wounded from the Jabaliya strike, were hours away from shutting down as fuel runs out.
It said: “We send a distress call to countries around the world to save 42 children under life support in incubators, 62 wounded and patients under artificial respiration, 650 patients with kidney failure, hundreds of operations in operating rooms, and other patients and wounded.
“We appeal to all gas station owners and our people who have any quantity of fuel or know a place with fuel to supply it to al-Shifa Medical Complex and Indonesian Hospital to save the lives of the wounded and sick.”
As the battle inside Palestinian territory intensifies, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed international calls for a halt to the fighting, which has been raging since Hamas launched attacks on 7 October, killing 1,400 people, according to Israeli authorities.
More than 50 people have been killed with more feared to be under the rubble (Reuters)
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports 8,525 people have been killed, including 3,542 children, in what charity Save the Children says has surpassed the number of children killed in all conflicts since 2019. Almost 1,000 children are missing, according to the charity.
The rapidly mounting death toll has drawn calls from the international community, including the US – Israel’s biggest ally, for a pause to the fighting to allow humanitarian aid through.
Israel has sealed off Gaza and refuses to allow in food, fuel and medical supplies least, it says, they be used by Hamas to wage war.
The US secretary of state Antony Blinken, speaking in Washington, stressed the importance of both security assistance for Israel and humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.
“Without swift and sustained humanitarian relief, the conflict is much more likely to spread, suffering will grow, and Hamas and its sponsors will benefit by fashioning themselves as the saviours of the very desperation they created,” he said.
A World Health Organisation official said that “a public health catastrophe” is imminent in Gaza.
Jabaliya is one of the most densely populated areas in Gaza (Reuters)
Mounds of rubble were seen following the deadly strike (Reuters)
Airstrikes on Monday night outside the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza caused a power cut and doctors said they feared for the lives of 250 injured Palestinians being treated there as fuel runs low.
“Running out of fuel would mean no power and no power would mean the inevitable death of many patients,” Dr Moaeen Al-Masri said.
James Elder, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency in Geneva, warned of the risk of infant deaths due to dehydration. Children in Gaza were getting sick from drinking salty water, he said.
Smoke billows over flattened buildings in Jabaliya (Reuters)
“Protection of civilians on both sides is paramount and must be respected at all times,” the UN chief said in a statement. “International humanitarian law establishes clear rules that cannot be ignored. It is not an a la carte menu and cannot be applied selectively.”
About 940 children are reported missing in Gaza, he said, with some thought to be stuck beneath the rubble of buildings flattened by Israeli airstrikes.
Significantly fewer humanitarian aid trucks than are needed have so far reached the besieged enclave, UN officials said. Aid trucks have been trickling into Gaza from Egypt over the past week via Rafah, the main crossing that does not border Israel.
MORGAN WINSOR, BRANDON BAUR, ZOE MAGEE, DESIREE ADIB and DRAGANA JOVANOVIC
Thu, November 2, 2023
An Israeli fighter jet roared overhead as it dropped a bomb near where Lena Beseiso and her family were hunkered down in the war-torn Gaza Strip.
The 57-year-old Palestinian-American citizen, who has been trapped there for weeks, is now no stranger to the sound of explosions, but the thunderous bang still startled her.
"Right now, the skies above are full of F-16s," Beseiso told ABC News in a series of audio messages on Monday. "It's truly frightening. This is 24/7 and it gets intense at times. They get more vicious."
Beseiso, a Utah resident, said she hadn't been back to Gaza in 12 years when she traveled there in late March with her husband, two of her daughters and a 10-year-old grandson to visit relatives. While there, one of her daughter's passports expired and she said they were unable to obtain a renewal from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem before Gaza's militant rulers, Hamas, launched a terror attack on neighboring Israel on Oct. 7.
"We've been abandoned," she added. "My country should be getting us back home safely. What is everyone waiting for? For us to be another number, another name?"
MORE: Israel-Hamas conflict: Timeline and key developments
When asked for comment about Beseiso's situation, a U.S. Embassy spokesperson told ABC News on Wednesday: "Due to privacy considerations, we are not able to comment on specific cases, but we have made thousands of phone calls and sent thousands of emails to U.S. citizens in Gaza, their immediate family members, and their loved ones who are inquiring with us on their behalf."
Beseiso was on Thursday among the hundreds of Americans who would be allowed to enter Egypt through the border crossing in the south, according to a list released by Egyptian authorities.
It's the latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. The Palestinian militant group, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization, carried out an unprecedented incursion from Gaza into neighboring southern Israel by air, land and sea on Oct. 7, killing over 1,400 people and taking more than 200 others hostage, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
In response to the attack, the Israeli military has carried out wide-scale airstrikes on Gaza, killing more than 9,000 and destroying thousands of homes, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health. In recent days, the Israeli military has also sent ground troops into Gaza while gradually expanding its operations there. Unlike Israel, Gaza has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.
PHOTO: People check the rubble of buildings destroyed in an Israeli strike on the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on November 2, 2023, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement continue.
Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory, is home to more than 2 million Palestinians who have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas seized power in 2007. Human rights organizations have long described the densely populated strip as the world's largest open-air prison, due to Israel's generalized ban on travel for Gaza residents as well as Egypt's restrictive policies at its shared border.
Beseiso said she and her family have been sheltering in southern Gaza for weeks after heeding warnings from the Israeli military to evacuate the north. The part of the 140-square-mile territory that shares a border with Egypt is in the south. But, like so many others, they have been unable to leave Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt through the Rafah border crossing in the south.
"I swear, Hamas is not the one that's not allowing us to leave. They don't even care," Beseiso told ABC News. "We went to the border four times and we were able to travel, but we couldn't go through because Egypt had closed the gate and kept it closed. And as we would be there, Rafah crossing would get bombed by the IDF."
"There are no Hamas or Palestinian officials there," she added. "I have not seen one gunman in the streets or even at the border."
MORE: 'Freaks me out': Americans say they are trapped in Gaza
However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has cited Hamas as the only hurdle blocking the exit of foreign nationals from Gaza.
"The impediment is simple: It's Hamas," Blinken said during a Senate hearing on Tuesday. "We've not yet found a way to get them out by whatever -- through whatever place and by whatever means that Hamas is not blocking, but we're working that with intermediaries."
The Rafah crossing opened on Wednesday, allowing some foreign nationals and injured Gaza residents to exit the enclave for the first time since Oct. 7.
When asked about bombing southern Gaza, where people had been told to move, the IDF has said it is making efforts to minimize civilian casualties and that its airstrikes are precise and aimed at Hamas targets.
It's the nighttime that is most "fearful" for Beseiso because she said they "don't know what's going on." Gaza relies on Israel and fuel imports for its power and, since Oct. 7, Israel has cut off electricity and fuel supplies to the Hamas-run enclave. Much of Gaza is currently without power or internet and the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health has said that fuel is running dangerously low. Israeli authorities, however, have accused Hamas of stockpiling fuel and have so far prevented humanitarian organizations from delivering more.
"No one should have to live in this type of situation. It's just evil," Beseiso told ABC News. "We're all humans. No one should have to live in fear."
PHOTO: Palestinians run for cover after a strike near the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, on Nov. 1, 2023, amid a war between the territory's militant rulers, Hamas, and neighboring Israel.
Omar Alnajjar, a 26-year-old Palestinian who lives in Gaza, said telephone and internet connections were completely cut on Friday night. The communications blackout lasted for about 48 hours, according to Ainajjar, who works as a project manager for Save Youth Future Society, an independent nonprofit investing in creating opportunities for Palestinian youth in Gaza.
He said his house has some solar energy that allowed him to at least charge his phone and he used a radio to listen to the news, but he said the signal was interrupted by Israeli military drones.
"All we wanted to hear and we seek to hear during these 48 hours on the radio is a cease-fire," Alnajjar told ABC News in a video message on Tuesday. "But nothing happened."
"The only thing [that has] changed is the intensity and the crazy bombing," he added.
Abood Okal, a 36-year-old Palestinian-American citizen and Massachusetts resident, was also visiting family in Gaza with his wife and 1-year-old when the war began. They have been stranded there ever since.
"We've run out of drinking water yesterday," Okal told ABC News in an audio message on Monday. "A desalination station that's nearby, that we've been relying on has run out of fuel to run the generators."
MORE: State Department struggles to explain why American citizens still can't exit Gaza
He said he and his family "roamed the main roads and streets" of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, where they have been staying, to look for trucks or horse-drawn carts carrying tanks filled with drinking water taken from one of the very few desalination stations that are still operational there.
"We stood in line; I think it was for maybe about two hours to fill one gallon," he said. "We're hoping that would last us for the rest of the day today and for most of tomorrow until we could find another place to get drinking water from."
As of Wednesday, less than 300 trucks carrying humanitarian aid, such as food and medical supplies, have been allowed to enter Gaza via the Rafah border crossing since Oct. 7 -- a fraction of the quantity needed, according to the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent societies.
Okal said he has noticed "an increase in artillery shelling" near the eastern side of Rafah where they are sheltering in a house with dozens of others.
"Every once in a while, we would hear heavy caliber gunfire that we believe is fired from tanks," he added. "Our biggest fear now is that the ground invasion is imminent near the neighborhoods where we are."
ABC News' Camilla Alcini, Shannon Crawford and Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
People in Gaza share what life is like amid bombardment of Israel-Hamas war: 'We're all humans' originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Gaza evacuees crossing into Egypt fear for those left behind
Reuters
Updated Thu, November 2, 2023
RAFAH, Gaza (Reuters) -People hoping to leave the Gaza Strip converged on the Rafah crossing to Egypt on Thursday, with those whose names were on a list vetted by Israel gradually passing through while others held up their foreign passports in vain.
The crossing was open for limited evacuations for a second day under a Qatar-brokered deal between Israel, Egypt, Hamas and the United States, aimed at letting some foreign passport holders and their dependents, and some wounded Gazans, out of the besieged enclave.
"I'm not even excited to leave Gaza because we have so many people that we love and care about," said Suzan Beseiso, a U.S. citizen with relatives in Gaza, where she had spent several months.
"Right now I'm between ice and fire. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to see the family I left behind or the friends I left behind. People are dying. Everybody's dying. Nobody's safe. We don't have bomb shelters," she said.
The Palestinian border authority published what appeared to be the list of those approved to leave on Thursday. It included 596 names, classified by country, all checked by Israel.
"Israel has been vetting everyone leaving Gaza through Egypt to ensure there are no Hamas operatives getting out," said Colonel Elad Goren of COGAT, an Israeli Defence Ministry agency that liaises with the Palestinians on civilian affairs.
There were 15 countries on the list. Those with the largest number of names were the United States with 400, Belgium with 50, Greece, 24, Croatia, 23, the Netherlands, 20, and Sri Lanka, 17. The United States said late on Thursday that 79 of its nationals had left.
Those not authorised to cross to Egypt expressed their desperation to escape from densely populated Gaza, which has been under a total blockade and continuous Israeli bombardment for almost four weeks.
Ghada el-Saka, an Egyptian national who was visiting relatives in Gaza when the war started and the crossing was closed, wept and cried out in frustration as she waited in a holding area on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with her weeping daughter, holding up her Egyptian passport.
"Why are you leaving us in this destruction? We've seen death with our own eyes," she said, her voice rising with emotion as tears streamed down her face.
Saka said she had been staying with siblings but the house had been damaged by an Israeli strike that hit a nearby house, and she and her daughter had been living on the street, while her other children were in Egypt.
"I want to pass. We are not animals. I have Egyptian rights, we are Egyptian," she said.
REALITY WORSE THAN TV
Nabih Ayad, lawyer for U.S. citizens Zakaria and Laila Alarayshi who had travelled to Gaza before the war to visit relatives, said 62-year-old Zakaria Alarayshi had multiple health problems and had been cleared to leave but would not do so without his wife, who was not included on the list.
"They're in an absolutely horrific situation," Ayad said. "My client is drinking saltwater. They're losing hope day by day."
Wounded Palestinians evacuated by ambulance were receiving care in Egyptian hospitals, including the one at Al Arish, on the coast of Sinai about 50 km (30 miles) from Rafah. Several were accompanied by relatives who waited outside the hospital.
Among them was Tamer al-Daghmeh, who said his brother had lost his right leg in an Israeli strike.
"He was in intensive care for three days. They requested urgent transfer to Egypt," said Daghmeh.
Israel's Goren said 51 Palestinians in need of medical care had left Gaza for Egypt on Wednesday. He did not give a figure for Thursday.
For people on the official list, the evacuation process appeared orderly, with a series of checks on both sides of the Rafah crossing. Relief was tempered by mixed emotions.
"I want to say that what is aired on TV is just 5% of what we go through in reality," said Shams Shaath, a U.S. passport holder whose name appeared on the list.
"We've seen people displaced, children who lost their parents, burnt and decapitated bodies. I'm one of the people who lost their houses," he said.
Egypt's foreign ministry said nearly 7,000 people holding nationalities of more than 60 countries were expected to leave. Diplomatic sources said the process may take up to two weeks.
The latest war in the decades-old conflict began when Hamas fighters broke through Gaza's border with Israel on Oct. 7. Israel says they killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages in the deadliest day of its 75-year history.
Israel's ensuing bombardment of the small Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people has killed at least 9,061 people, including 3,760 children, according to health authorities in Gaza, which is run by Hamas.
Harrowing images of bodies in the rubble and hellish conditions inside Gaza have triggered appeals for restraint and street protests around the world.
Ceasefire needed to allow humanitarian aid to reach all war victims in Gaza | Opinion
William Lambers
Thu, November 2, 2023
An aerial view shows humanitarian aid trucks arriving from Egypt after having crossed through the Rafah border crossing arriving at a storage facility in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday.
A ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war is desperately needed to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip of Palestine, which is facing catastrophic conditions. The war has claimed thousands of Israeli and Palestinian lives since the Hamas militant group launched terror attacks in Israel on Oct. 7. Israel responded by attacking neighboring Gaza, where Hamas is based.
Civilians in Gaza are in danger of bombs and starvation as Israel continues its assault. Palestinian civilians are being displaced from their homes and suffering from shortages of food, water, medicine and other basic supplies.
On Oct. 24, the UN reported the highest single-day death toll in Gaza. A total of 704 Palestinians, including 305 children, were killed. Most of the Palestinian casualties are women and children.
Sean Callahan, the president of Catholic Relief Services, said, "The situation of civilians in Gaza is extremely alarming and desperate, and we need to act now to prevent a total humanitarian catastrophe."
There must be a ceasefire to allow aid to reach all war victims. President Joe Biden brokered an agreement between Egypt and Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. But these aid deliveries are nowhere near enough given the size of the emergency and the ongoing conflict.
"There needs to be a sustained halt to the violence. Aid cannot be distributed under the bombs. Time is not a luxury the people of Gaza have," said Hiba Tibi, West Bank and Gaza Country Director for CARE.
A joint statement from UN relief agencies, including the World Food Program and UNICEF, said: "We call for a humanitarian ceasefire, along with immediate, unrestricted humanitarian access throughout Gaza to allow humanitarian actors to reach civilians in need, save lives and prevent further human suffering. Flows of humanitarian aid must be at scale and sustained, and allow all Gazans to preserve their dignity."
Save the Children and other charities are also calling for a ceasefire immediately. A ceasefire is needed for humanitarian aid deliveries and to allow peace talks to end the conflict between Israel and Palestine. There must be the safe return of all Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel.
War is not the road to peace between Israel and Palestine. Decades of conflict have proven that. War always leads to more war. Only diplomacy, backed by robust humanitarian aid, can lead to peace between Israel and Palestine.
Distribution of medical aid and medicines to Nasser Medical Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, which recently arrived through the Rafah crossing on October 23, 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Two weeks after a deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel that sparked a retaliatory siege of Gaza, in which thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced, aid trucks have started entering the Palestinian territory via Egypt carrying food, water and medicines. The UN agency UNRWA, or the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, says the initial aid is a "drop in the ocean" of what is needed.
The United States must lead efforts to get the ceasefire and to increase the humanitarian aid.
Hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed with casualties. The war is also leading to a hunger crisis. The UN World Food Program needs access as well as increased funding. The WFP has been short on funds for its relief operation in Palestine all year, even being forced to cut rations in Gaza this summer. Now as the war erupts, food shortages are worsening.
WFP states in its latest Palestine report, "As needs are soaring, WFP is revising its needs upwards and estimates that it will require at least USD 100 million for the next 90 days to sustain its emergency response to over 1 million affected people at pace and scale."
War always leads to hunger. Right now a ceasefire is needed to save civilians from bombs and starvation.
Everyone can be advocate for a ceasefire to save Gaza. Write to President Biden urging diplomacy to get the ceasefire and peace talks started. You can support humanitarian relief agencies by donating and encouraging Congress to increase funding for food and other humanitarian aid.
We must break the vicious cycle of violence between Israel and Palestine. Diplomacy, backed with humanitarian aid for everyone in need, is the only road to peace in the Middle East.
William Lambers of Delhi Township is an author who partnered with the UN World Food Program on the book "Ending World Hunger."
Israel says it has encircled Gaza City; UN team talks of 'grave risk of genocide'
Updated Thu, November 2, 2023
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams
GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces on Thursday encircled Gaza City - the Gaza Strip's main city - in their assault on Hamas, the military said, but the Palestinian militant group resisted their drive with hit-and-run attacks from underground tunnels.
The city in the north of the Gaza Strip has become the focus of attack for Israel, which has vowed to annihilate the Islamist group's command structure and has told civilians to flee to the south.
"We're at the height of the battle. We've had impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. He gave no further details.
Amid heavy explosions in Gaza, Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters his country's "troops completed the encirclement of Gaza City, which is the focal point of the Hamas terror organization."
Brigadier General Iddo Mizrahi, chief of Israel's military engineers, said troops were encountering mines and booby traps.
"Hamas has learned and prepared itself well," he said.
Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas, said in a televised speech on Thursday that Israel's death toll in Gaza was much higher than the military had announced. "Your soldiers will return in black bags," he said.
Israel has said it has lost 18 soldiers and killed dozens of militants since ground operations expanded on Friday.
Hamas and allied Islamic Jihad fighters were emerging from tunnels to fire at tanks, then disappearing back into the network, residents said and videos from both groups showed.
In one Hamas military video, a fighter surfaces in a Gaza field and places an explosive device on a tank. An explosion is audible as the fighter, who appears to be wearing a body camera to document the incident, sprints back to the tunnel and fires an anti-tank missile toward the tank.
There was no letup in the suffering of Palestinian civilians, with U.N. experts saying they were at "grave risk of genocide".
Palestinian civilians have suffered shortages of food, fuel, drinking water and medicine.
"Water is being used as a weapon of war," said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA.
'WE ARE GETTING SICK'
In Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, nine-year-old Rafif Abu Ziyada said she was drinking dirty water and getting stomach pains and headaches.
"There is no cooking gas, there is no water, we don't eat well. We are getting sick," she said. "There's garbage on the ground and the whole place is polluted."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left for the Middle East after saying he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza.
Over a third of Gaza's 35 hospitals are not functioning, with many turned into impromptu refugee camps.
"The situation is beyond catastrophic," said the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, describing packed corridors and many medics who were themselves bereaved and homeless.
"We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide," seven U.N. special rapporteurs said in a statement in Geneva.
"We demand a humanitarian ceasefire to ensure that aid reaches those who need it the most."
U.S. national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday that temporary, localized humanitarian pauses would not prevent Israel from defending itself.
"What we're trying to do is explore the idea of as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid out and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages," he told reporters at a briefing.
In his meetings in Israel and Jordan on Friday, Blinken said he would also discuss the future of Gaza and laying the groundwork for future Palestinian statehood.
The latest war in the decades-old conflict began when Hamas fighters broke through the border on Oct. 7. Israel says they killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 hostages in the deadliest day of its 75-year-old history.
Israel's ensuing bombardment of the small Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people has killed at least 9,061 people, according to Gaza health authorities.
'WE ARE NOT ANIMALS'
The Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt was opened for limited evacuations for a second day under a Qatari-brokered deal aimed at letting some foreign passport holders, their dependents and some wounded Gazans out of the enclave.
Palestinian border official Wael Abu Mehsen said 400 foreign citizens would leave for Egypt via the Rafah crossing on Thursday, after some 320 on Wednesday.
Dozens of critically injured Palestinians were to cross too. Israel asked foreign countries to send hospital ships for them.
"I want to pass. We are not animals," said Ghada el-Saka, an Egyptian at Rafah waiting to return home after visiting relatives. "We've seen death with our own eyes," she added, describing a strike near her siblings' house that had forced her and her daughter into the street.
Suzan Beseiso, a U.S. citizen with relatives in Gaza, said she was not excited to leave Gaza "because we have so many people that we love and care about".
"Right now I'm between ice and fire. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to see the family I left behind or the friends I left behind. People are dying. Everybody's dying. Nobody's safe."
Gaza border officials said the Rafah crossing would reopen on Friday for evacuations.
Egypt's foreign ministry said nearly 7,000 nationals of more than 60 countries were expected to leave, and diplomatic sources said the process may take up to two weeks.
In central Gaza, an air strike destroyed clusters of houses in the Bureij refugee camp, residents and Gaza officials said, with 15 bodies pulled from the rubble.
"A massacre, a massacre," people cried as they gathered corpses in blankets.
Israel was talking to medical agencies about setting up field hospitals in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, an Israeli official said on Thursday.
Israel's latest strikes have included the heavily populated area of Jabalia, set up as a refugee camp in 1948.
Gaza's Hamas-run media office said at least 195 Palestinians were killed in the two hits on Tuesday and Wednesday, with 120 missing and at least 777 people hurt.
Israel, which accuses Hamas of hiding behind civilians, said it killed two Hamas commanders in Jabalia.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Dan Williams, Emily Rose, Maytaal Angel in Jerusalem, Clauda Tanios in Dubai; additional reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Stephen Coates, Andrew Cawthorne, Nick Macfie and Cynthia Osterman; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Howard Goller)
Charles Lister
Wed, November 1, 2023
Houthi fighters take part in a military operation at the weekend in solidarity with the Palestinian people - EPA
Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on Oct 7 has understandably been described as Israel’s “9/11” moment.
Leaving more than 1,400 people dead, it was in fact many times worse than al-Qaeda’s terror attacks in the US two decades ago. In the wake of those attacks in 2001, fuelled by a desire to destroy terrorist threats and assert strength on the international stage, the US invaded Afghanistan and later Iraq.
While those wars raged, eventually leaving at least 400,000 dead, the terrorism threat metastasised, growing in scale, scope and sophistication across the globe.
In the wake of Hamas’s attack, Israeli officials declared their intent to “eradicate” Hamas, declaring war on Gaza’s “human animals”. In six days, 6,000 bombs were dropped on Gaza, the most densely populated region of the world.
For comparison’s sake, at the most intense moments of the counter-ISIS campaign in Syria and Iraq in 2015 and 2016, an average of 2,500 bombs were dropped per month, in a territory 100 times larger than the Gaza Strip.
Three weeks later, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, more than 8,000 people lie dead in Gaza, 40 per cent of them children and 30 per cent women – 88 per cent of whom have been publicly identified.
Palestinians carry the bodies of Hamas fighters killed by Israeli forces on Monday - JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Meanwhile, 63 per cent of Gaza’s population has been displaced and 15 per cent of all residential buildings destroyed, the UN says.
According to Save the Children, more children have been killed in the past three weeks than in every conflict zone in the world since 2019 – 99 per cent of them in Gaza.
While Israel’s aim is to “eradicate” Hamas, it is likely this scorched earth campaign could give birth to a Hamas 2.0 – something far more deeply rooted and more extreme.
The sheer brutality and indiscriminate nature of Hamas’s attack on Oct 7 gave rise to a now widespread claim that “Hamas = ISIS.” On social media, #HamasIsISIS” has been trending, while political leaders in Israel, the US and across Europe have all equated the two movements as one and the same.
A closer study of Hamas suggests such comments are misplaced. Hamas is a political Islamist movement whose activities are self-described as “resistance” and are based around an explicitly nationalist agenda. To ISIS, Hamas are apostates, worthy of death – plain and simple.
In Gaza, Hamas has routinely cracked down upon jihadist cells whose ideology is more extreme and global in nature, including ISIS. Next door in Syria, ISIS openly fought and killed opposition groups that had enjoyed Hamas support, labelling them unbelievers. Their violence may be similar, but as movements, they could not be more different.
Terrorism in general can never be “eradicated”, especially when a terrorist group has roots within a cause perceived more widely to be credible and just. ISIS had none of that – its ideological basis was unanimously condemned and the world mobilised to combat it.
Yet while Hamas does not in any way represent the Palestinian cause, Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza risks legitimising Hamas’s narrative – that armed resistance is the only viable path forward. Populations across the Muslim world have taken to the streets, decrying the devastation in Gaza, something not seen in the region on such a scale for a long time.
Israel’s newly launched ground incursion will likely deal a powerful blow to Hamas, but the group will survive and could morph into something even more violent than before. Worse still, the intense Israeli response in Gaza and the profound sense of international disinterest in its costs to civilians risks engendering a whole new generation of terrorism across the Middle East and beyond.
Already, the FBI has indicated that ongoing violence in Gaza looks set to spawn the most significant domestic terrorism threat in years. That will be even more true in Europe.
As violence continues to escalate and Iranian-directed militants across the region continue to target American troops and Israel itself, pressure is beginning to build towards calls for de-escalation. Human rights groups meanwhile, are calling out inconsistencies in Western policy – unanimously condemning Russia’s targeting of residential buildings or Bashar al-Assad’s sieges in Syria, but turning a blind eye to similar events in Gaza.
The Palestinian issue used to be a potent rallying cry for jihadists the world over, but that fell away in recent years. Current events risk placing it right back at the forefront again, and this time around, it won’t be so locally contained.
Charles Lister is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute
