Compilation of news reports – IAK staff Latest from Gaza
Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya kills scores of Palestinians
An Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya, a town in northern Gaza, killed at least 73 Palestinians on Saturday evening, according to the enclave’s government media office. More than 100 others were wounded and many are missing.
A Sunday update provides a death toll of at least 87.
Israeli forces bombed overcrowded residential areas in Beit Lahiya, where Palestinians had gone seeking shelter. Many women and children were amongst the casualties.
“This is a war of genocide and ethnic cleansing. The occupation has conducted a horrifying massacre in Beit Lahiya,” the media office said.
Residents were given no warnings to leave their homes.
Many people were left trapped under the rubble, with paramedics and civil defense crews unable to immediately reach the area due to the intensity of Israeli bombardment.
More than half of the people who were killed in this incident were, in fact, people who were forced to evacuate from Jabaliya and other parts of the eastern and central part of the northern Gaza Strip as the siege continues and the massive bombardment continues.
Northern Gaza hospitals out of service after intense Israeli attacks
A Gaza health official has told Al Jazeera that all three hospitals in northern Gaza that have been under attack and siege by Israeli forces are now out of service.
“We cannot count the number of those killed. The numbers are terrifying,” the official added.
Israeli soldiers are reportedly blocking rescue teams from accessing areas where injured people are in need of help.
Israel exterminates over 400 Palestinians in north Gaza in less than two weeks
Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency announced on 19 October the recovery of “more than 400 martyrs from the various targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip, including Jabaliya and its camp, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, since the start of the military operation by the occupation army,” all since 6 October, when Tel Aviv intensified its ethnic cleansing campaign.
Dozens of bodies are still scattered in the streets due to continuous shelling.
Two patients die in Indonesian Hospital due to Israeli siege in northern Gaza
At least two patients died Saturday in the intensive care unit of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, as a result of the ongoing siege imposed by the Israeli occupation army, power outages, and the lack of essential medical supplies.
Four engineers targeted, killed en route to repair water infrastructure
The humanitarian organization Oxfam says four water engineers and workers were killed when they were attacked on their way to repair water infrastructure in Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“Despite prior coordination with Israeli authorities their clearly-marked vehicle was bombed,” Oxfam said in a statement.
Analysts have commented on the irony of Israel’s targeting of these civilians, while the head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was killed last week purely by chance.
Israel news
Drone launched from Lebanon strikes Netanyahu’s residence in northern Israel
A drone launched from Lebanon on Saturday struck the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in northern Israel, his office said.
The prime minister’s office in a statement said the drone launched from Lebanon targeted Netanyahu’s private home in Caesarea, northern Israel.
It added that the premier and his family were not at home at the time of the attack.
Separately, Israeli media outlets including the daily Maariv, have labeled the attempted drone strike on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea a “severe security failure.”
The Israeli Air Force has reportedly launched an investigation into how the drone was able to enter Caesarea’s airspace without being intercepted.
Earlier, the Israeli army said three drones were fired from Lebanon, two of which were successfully intercepted, while the third crashed into a building in Caesarea, northern Israel. There were no reported casualties.
West Bank update
Soldiers Kill Two Palestinians
On Saturday night, Israeli soldiers killed a young man after ramming him with their jeeps near Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank’s northwestern part.
Eyewitnesses said the soldiers rammed the young man, Karim Emad Mizyed, 27, with their jeep when they invaded Anabta town, east of Tulkarem.
They added that Karim was riding his motorcycle when a military jeep rammed into him causing him to suffer serious injuries, before succumbing to his wounds.
Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian young man, on Saturday, after he carried out a car-ramming attack at the entrance to the illegal “Ofra” colony, north of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank.
Media sources said that the young man, Yousef Ahmed Adnan Taha, 27, was a resident of Nablus.
No Israelis were injured.
News from Lebanon
US-made munitions level swaths of major Lebanese city
Nabatieh, the second most populated city in south Lebanon, is now eerily silent and devoid of life after a week of punishing airstrikes.
Israeli airstrikes have degraded living conditions, in effect depopulating the city almost entirely. The UN said a quarter of Lebanon was under evacuation orders by Israel. Amnesty International said the evacuation orders raise questions around whether the orders are intended to create mass displacement.
The strikes hit the city’s municipal headquarters and killed members of the city’s crisis cell – including the mayor, Ahmad Kahil, as they were distributing aid. In total, 16 people were killed and 52 wounded in the day’s strikes.
US “would like to see” fewer, smaller Israeli strikes on Beirut
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is calling on Israel to “scale back” some of its strikes in and around Beirut, Lebanon’s capital.
“The number of civilian causalities have been far too high,” he said. “We would like to see Israel scale back some of the strikes in and around Beirut, and we would like to see a transition to negotiations that would allow civilians on both sides to return to their homes.”
NOTE: The Biden administration has been recommending for months that Israel kill fewer civilians in Gaza. Israel has done little or nothing to comply.
The Biden administration has so far not used its leverage as the provider of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel (with one exception), a move that could potentially end the war in short order.
Other news
Another reason to end military aid to Israel
Leaked top secret documents from the Pentagon and the National Security Agency (NSA) outline Israeli preparations for an attack against Iran, CNN reported on Saturday. The documents were published Friday on a Telegram channel, said to be affiliated with Iran, named “Middle East Spectator” that claims it received the information from a source within a US intelligence agency.
According to CNN, leaked top secret documents from the Pentagon and the National Security Agency (NSA) outline, among other things, the existence of a nuclear weapons arsenal in Israel. The cache has for decades been an open secret.
This stockpile is highly controversial, as US foreign assistance laws make Washington’s huge military aid to Israel illegal because Tel Aviv is not a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But successive US presidents since Richard Nixon, including Joe Biden most recently, have agreed with their Israeli counterparts to never acknowledge Israel’s approximately 90–300 nukes.
NOTE: In addition to Israel’s nukes, there is another reason why the US has an obligation to end military aid to Israel: the Leahy Laws require the US to withhold aid to countries that commit Gross Human Rights Violations – but in spite of overwhelming proof of abuse by Israel, our politicians have thus far declined to cut off military support.
The US has made special efforts to create loopholes for Israel, and has bypassed Congressional oversight on at least two major weapons transfers since October 7th, and “quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began.”
Barred From Gaza by Israel, Medical Workers Cry Out for Help
As Israeli bombing of the Jabaliya refugee camp continued Saturday, killing dozens, health workers from both inside and out of the besieged territory are again pleading with world leaders to bring an end to the indiscriminate attacks and imposed humanitarian crisis that witnesses on the ground increasingly say there are no words to describe.
Doctors and other medical staff across Gaza on Saturday staged protests and held press conferences to call attention to the ongoing attacks in northern areas, including the latest targeting of Jabaliya.
At least six medical aid missions currently operating inside the Gaza Strip received orders last week from the Israeli government that they would no longer be allowed access to their patients in the enclave.
FAJR Scientific, which provides surgical expertise and trauma specialists to war-torn regions, is one of the groups that Israel barred from Gaza.
Dr. Khaled Saleh, chair of FAJR Scientific said in a statement that the move by the Israeli government filled him with “deep sadness and concern for the current state of our global family, questioning our shared humanity and ethics.”
“This is a devastating blow to humanity, representing a level of destruction that we have not witnessed since World War II, yet our world leaders turn a blind eye,” he said.
“As a member of the global community,” Saleh continued, “I implore all of you who value compassion, ethics, and the sanctity of human life to stand with us and raise your voices against this unconscionable decision. Together, we must advocate for the voiceless and demand restoration of the fundamental right to access to medical care.”
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