UPDATE: More than 180 killed – Israel death forces IDF prohibit entry of aid trucks via Rafah crossing, the Palestinian Red Crescent says.
UPDATE: Jews Using AI to Generate Targets in Gaza, Increasing Civilian Toll
UPDATE: US supplies Israel with large ‘bunker buster’ bombs: The Wall Street Journal reports that the US has in recent weeks provided Israel with massive quantities of weapons, including 100 BLU-09 bombs, weighing about 2,000 pounds each, about 15,000 other bombs, and 57,000 artillery shells The delivery of these bombs was part of a “surge of arms” supplied to Israel during its war on Gaza. WSJ’s report came as US Secretary of State Blinken urged Israel to protect civilians during its Gaza bombing campaign.
The 7-day truce has ended, and Israeli attacks have begun again: “Combat between Israel and Hamas was renewed on Friday following the expiry of a weeklong truce. An agreement on extending the pause in fighting was not reached before the 7am (05:00 GMT) deadline.
“In the early hours of Israel’s renewed attacks, at least 100 Palestinians were killed – in northern, central, and southern Gaza.”
During the truce:
On Nov. 24 Israeli forces “shot and killed, on Friday, two displaced Palestinians and injured at least eleven more while citizens were trying to reach their homes in the northern Gaza Strip.”
On Nov. 26 Israeli forces “killed one Palestinian and injured eight others in the central and northern regions of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.”
On Nov. 29 Israeli troops had reportedly “opened fire at Palestinians in northern Gaza city, killing two of them.”
Also on Nov. 29, Israeli forces shot dead an 8- and a 15-year-old Palestinian boy during an operation in the Jenin Camp (see Flash Update #54). They did not seem to pose any concrete threat to the Israeli forces when shot at, according to monitoring by the UN Human Rights Office.
On Nov. 30 there was “shelling by the Israeli navy towards the Gaza shore in the south.” Later that day, “Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinian civilians who were attempting to visit their bombed homes near Al-Quds Hospital, in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City.”
(Also that day, in the West Bank “Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian young man, Fadi Mu’ayyad Badran, 21, and injured four others in Betunia town west of Ramallah.”)
Also on Nov. 30: Israeli forces attacked a bus carrying released Palestinian prisoners: Issam Rimawi, a Palestinian photojournalist who witnessed and recorded the incident, said Israeli forces were deployed outside Ofer Prison before the release of the latest batch of Palestinian prisoners. “They were firing tear gas just as the bus carrying the prisoners was leaving,” Rimawi told Al Jazeera in Ramallah. “The prisoners were suffocating, and the driver had to stop the bus until the Red Cross crew came to help them,” he said.
Prisoner exchange During the truce, Hamas had freed 110 captives, including 80 Israelis. In exchange, Israel released 240 Palestinians, including women and children, many of whom have been held in administrative detention for months without charge. However, during the same period, Israel has arrested nearly as many Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as it has released.
On Dec. 1 an hour before the truce was supposed to end “the Israeli military announced that its Iron Dome missile defense system had detected incoming rockets. After that, they ‘intercepted a launch from Gaza’”.
Multiple testimonies collected from Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza reveal the horrors of the Israeli army’s “safe passage”, including: “Testimonies of soldiers ‘sniping children’ from a distance and forcing parents to abandon their corpses.”
Israeli forces have been dropping leaflets in Khan Younis warning civilians to evacuate southwards towards Rafah, on the border with Egypt. The city was also targeted by Israeli air raids on Friday. The evacuation warnings suggest Israel is now planning to further target areas in the south of the Strip after concentrating most of its bombardment on the north of the enclave in the weeks before the truce.
No aid since bombardment resumed: A spokesperson for the Rafah border crossing says the entrance of trucks carrying much-needed aid, fuel and cooking gas from Egypt into the Gaza Strip has stopped because of the resumption of the Israeli bombardment. UN officials described the resumption of fighting as “catastrophic” and said the continuation of aid delivery was in doubt. The quantity of aid delivered through the Rafah crossing had increased during the week-long truce, though aid officials said it was still far less than what was needed.
Desperation in the health sector: Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, has appealed to “every living conscience” to allow the opening of the Rafah crossing amid an “extremely catastrophic” humanitarian crisis. “The medical aid that entered Gaza during the truce is only enough for one day,” al-Qudra said in a statement. “The health sector in Gaza is out of service in every sense of the word,” he said.
RECOMMENDED READING: Jailed without charge: How Israel holds thousands of Palestinian prisoners
Farmers banned: The Israeli Army Radio says that agricultural work has been banned in areas close to the separation barrier with Gaza. It said in a post on X that the new rule is valid in the areas within 7km from the fence due to the resumption of hostilities. (09:00 GMT)
Israel has for years prevented Gazan farmers from accessing their farmland, and/or from growing crops, using military aggression, poison, and other methods.
The Israeli military has published a map splitting the Gaza Strip into hundreds of small zones, which it will use to notify Palestinian civilians of active combat zones. The military may use this map to call on Palestinians from specific areas to evacuate when the IDF’s ground offensive expands to the Strip’s south, instead of demanding mass evacuations as it did in the northern part of Gaza. Mondoweiss comments:
While Mondoweiss could not individually count the zones identified on the map, it saw areas labeled as high as 2,280. If there are indeed this many numbered zones mapped out in Gaza, which is only 365 square kilometers, it would make the average zone a mere 160 square meters — making it difficult for Palestinians to keep track of where they are on this map, while making it easy for Israeli forces to argue that civilian deaths are justified if Palestinians do not comply with their evacuation orders.
The Committee to Protect Journalists states:
The first month of the Israel-Gaza war is now the deadliest month for journalists since CPJ began documenting journalist fatalities in 1992.
As of December 1, CPJ’s investigations showed at least 57 journalists and media workers were among more than 16,000 killed since the war began on October 7…This deadly toll is coupled with harassment, detentions, and other reporting obstructions in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and beyond.
West Bank news:
Israeli army raids have continues on a daily basis across the West Bank. The total number of people “arrested” since October 7 is now more than 3,390, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS). At least 248 Palestinians, including more than 50 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7. More than 2,750 have been injured.
Arrests, torture: In a joint statement, the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Commission of Detainees Affairs said Israeli forces have carried out “extensive acts of torture and brutal beatings”, as well as vandalism and destruction of the homes of Palestinians in the West Bank. (03:12 GMT)
RECOMMENDED READING: Israel executes 8-year-old in broad daylight
On 30 November, two Palestinian men were shot and killed by Israeli forces. One was killed during confrontations with Palestinians who gathered to welcome released detainees near the Israeli prison of Ofer in Ramallah. The second Palestinian was killed after he rammed and injured two Israeli soldiers near Tubas.
An Israeli civilian died from friendly fire in Jerusalem. He was shot by off duty soldiers who mistook him for a gunman in Thursday’s bus stop attack. The two actual shooters, Palestinian brothers, were killed.
RECOMMENDED READING: Why Israeli claims have no credibility outside of the West
Israel and US news:
Israeli officials knew about Hamas’ plans a year in advance. The New York Times reports:
Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.
The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people…
Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision…The plan also included details about the location and size of Israeli military forces, communication hubs and other sensitive information, raising questions about how Hamas gathered its intelligence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli security establishment.
The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.
A CNN report claiming sexual violence on October 7 relied on non-credible witnesses, some with undisclosed ties to Israeli government. “CNN’s Jake Tapper failed to adhere to professional and ethical journalism standards in a story claiming to offer proof of sexual violence by Palestinian fighters on October 7.”
Controversial Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says he met the prime minister and called on him to “cut off” all talks with “the Nazi enemy” and truce negotiators. In a series of tweets on X, the far-right politician welcomed “the return of the released hostages” but said “the idea of a truce has run its course”. “Agreeing to further halt [in fighting] would be a terrible mistake that only conveys weakness… We must sever all ties and negotiations with Hamas and the mediators and look at the enemy only through the sight of a gun,” Smotrich added.
RECOMMENDED READING: Palestine advocates decry MSNBC’s cancellation of Mehdi Hasan news show
US support for Israel ongoing: During a meeting in Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could count on US support. But, he said that such support requires Israel’s “compliance with international humanitarian law,” and “urged Israel to take every possible measure to avoid civilian harm,” the US Department of State said.
To prevent a further significant increase in civilian casualties, Blinken “stressed the imperative of accounting for humanitarian and civilian protection needs in southern Gaza before any military operations there,” the department said.
Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator, said, “The Americans are apparently saying, ‘Hey, we’re with you on you continuing your military mission, but can you do it differently’ – that sounds like a disingenuous position to me. Why would anyone have faith that Israel will do this differently.”
RECOMMENDED READING: Why the West can’t conceive of a Palestinian right to security
Biden threatens to get tough on extremist settlers: The Biden administration has informed Israel that Washington will impose visa bans in the next few weeks on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, a senior State Department official said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet have let them know that the United States will take its own action against an undisclosed number of individuals.
Pro-Israel lobby presses for US military support for Israel – “House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger (R-Tex.) introduced the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, which would provide $14.3 billion in emergency funding for military assistance to Israel” on top of the $3.9 billion this year.”
Granger’s campaign committee received over $71,000 from AIPAC and its affiliates in 2023. Many other lawmakers advancing recent bills and resolutions in support of Israel received political contributions from AIPAC within the past year and during the 2022 election cycle, many of which were made in the form of earmarked individual donations to the committee.
In addition to pouring money into political contributions and advertising, AIPAC spent over $2.2 million on in-house federal lobbying efforts in the first three quarters of 2023 — about $260,000 more than the amount they spent by quarter three of 2022…
Ceasefire over in #Gaza. Attacks v near this hospital. Bombing consistent. Has humanity given up on the children of Gaza?! 😔 pic.twitter.com/dsyvQeBEWx
— James Elder (@1james_elder) December 1, 2023
❄️With the onset of winter, the suffering of 1.7 million displaced people intensifies due to the aggression on the #Gaza Strip.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 30, 2023
📍In this video, we show you a glimpse of the hardships experienced by the displaced people in the PRCS Al-Amal City in Khan Younis, southern #Gaza… pic.twitter.com/3ZurapFj4M
I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) December 1, 2023
I still hope that it will be possible to renew the pause that was established.
The return to hostilities only shows how important it is to have a true humanitarian ceasefire.
I trust Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC will visit surivors/families of ALL victims of Oct7 attacks (& onwards),incl 1200 victims in ISR, nearly 20,000 victims in Gaza,& 220+ victims in West Bank, + victims of preOct7 attacks (as ICC has jurisdiction since 2014).#SettlementsAreWarCrimes https://t.co/PfV4rfANbp
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) November 30, 2023
Statistics as of Nov, 30:
Palestinian death toll: OCHA reports at least 14,577* (~14,329 in Gaza** (including at least 6,150 children and 4,000 women), and at least 248 in the West Bank). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble. Euro-Med Monitor reports 20,360 Palestinian deaths.
*IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation. Israel killed more Palestinians in a little over a month after Oct. 7 than in all the previous 22 years combined.
Palestinian injuries: 39,093** (including at least 36,000 in Gaza** and 3,187 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to offer an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption.
It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties. in Gaza**. About 1.8 million people have been displaced (nearly 80% of the population); 7,000 are missing (4,700 women and children) and presumed to be under rubble.
Reported Israeli death toll ~1,200 (7 killed in West Bank, 75 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and ~5,431 injured, approximately 30 children).
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Jewish Green Shirts; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers.
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