LAST UPDATE | 6 Nov 2023
ISRAELI FORCES HAVE pushed on with intense strikes targeting Palestinian militants in Gaza as the offensive neared one month as the Gaza health ministry says the death toll in the territory has surpassed 10,000.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, as he warned that the bombarded Gaza Strip was becoming a “graveyard for children.”
“The unfolding catastrophe makes the need for a humanitarian ceasefire more urgent with every passing hour,” he told reporters at the UN headquarters.
“These are massacres! They destroyed three houses over the heads of their inhabitants – women and children,” Mahmud Meshmesh, resident of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, told AFP.
“We have already taken 40 bodies out of the rubble,” he said as crowds prayed around corpses wrapped in white shrouds.
Determined to destroy Hamas, whose 7 October attack left 1,400 dead in Israel and saw over 240 hostages taken, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed no letup despite mounting international calls for a ceasefire.
Ground forces have flooded the northern half of the Gaza Strip and tightened an encirclement of Gaza City even as hundreds of thousands of civilians remain there despite Israeli evacuation orders.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip has said the death toll from Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian territory had surpassed 10,000.
The toll of 10,022 deaths was announced in a press conference by health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidreh.
This comes after it earlier said more than 200 people had died in “overnight massacres”.
In a statement, Christian Aid’s Head of Middle East Policy and Advocacy William Bell said that “today’s report of 10,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza is a milestone that should never have been reached”.
“It must be a clarion call to world leaders, to redouble efforts to secure a ceasefire, to enable unfettered access to humanitarian aid, and halt the cycle of conflict,” Bell said, adding that a ceasefire “must be the first step in laying the groundwork for talks on a durable and just peace”.
“As we also mark one month since the horrendous Hamas attack on Israel tomorrow, we must be crystal clear that any ceasefire comes hand in hand with the unconditional and immediate release of all hostages.
Israel’s ally the United States has sent its top diplomat Antony Blinken on a whirlwind Middle East tour that has been marked by strong condemnation of Israel, including on his latest stop Turkey.
The heads of major United Nations agencies issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire inside the territory of 2.4 million people where an Israeli siege has cut off most water, food and fuel supplies.
“For almost a month, the world has been watching the unfolding situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in shock and horror at the spiralling numbers of lives lost and torn apart,” said the statement released yesterday.
“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now.”
Israel’s army said today it had pounded Gaza with “significant” new strikes, having earlier said it had already hit over 12,000 targets.
“We will take the fight to Hamas wherever they are – underground, above ground,” Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus said, repeating calls for civilians to leave the urban war zone.
“We will be able to dismantle Hamas, stronghold after stronghold, battalion after battalion, until we achieve the ultimate goal, which is to rid the Gaza Strip – the entire Gaza Strip – of Hamas.”
The Hamas-run health ministry said yesterday that 45 people were killed in Israeli strikes on a refugee camp in central Gaza, leaving people searching through the rubble.
Israeli troops and Hamas fighters have engaged in house-to-house combat in densely populated Gaza, where the war has sent 1.5 million people fleeing to other parts of the territory.
Netanyahu has remained firm on his position, vowing yesterday that “there won’t be a ceasefire until the hostages are returned”.
Shortly before the latest barrage of strikes, internet and telephone lines were cut, Palestinian telecom company Paltel said.
Israel has distributed leaflets and sent text messages ordering Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to head south, but a US official said Saturday at least 350,000 civilians remained in the worst-hit areas.
Conricus accused Hamas of building tunnels underneath hospitals, schools and places of worship in Gaza to hide fighters, plan attacks and store ammunition – charges the militant group has denied.
Blinken on his regional tour – which took him to the occupied West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq yesterday – has called for “humanitarian pauses” while rejecting Arab countries’ demands for a ceasefire.
He met his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Ankara today.
Ahead of Blinken’s arrival in NATO member Turkey, which is allied to the Palestinians but also has ties with Israel, police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of protesters who marched on an air base housing US forces in Turkey’s southeast.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself was travelling across his country’s remote northeast today, apparently snubbing Blinken.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon said today that a US nuclear-powered Ohio-class submarine was in the Middle East to help prevent war from widening. It has also deployed two carrier strike groups among other assets.
Some Ohio-class submarines are armed with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, while others are configured to carry more than 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the Pentagon did not specify which was in the region.
Turkey has said it is recalling its ambassador to Israel and breaking off contacts with Netanyahu, although Erdogan has said cutting diplomatic ties completely is not an option.
Meeting with Blinken in the West Bank yesterday, Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas denounced “the genocide and destruction suffered by our Palestinian people in Gaza at the hands of Israel’s war machine”.
In Iran, a foe of Israel and the United States, President Ebrahim Raisi has charged that US President Joe Biden’s administration was “encouraging” Israel to “kill and commit cruel acts” against Palestinians.
Raisi is expected to attend a summit in the Saudi capital on Sunday addressing the Israel-Hamas war, a source familiar with the preparations told AFP.
It would be Raisi’s first visit to the Gulf kingdom since the two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations after seven years of severed ties, a deal brokered by China and announced in March.
The summit is being organised by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-member bloc of majority Muslim countries based in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah.
It is planned to take place one day after an emergency meeting of Arab League leaders on the war, also in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
“President Raisi will attend the summit of the OIC in Riyadh,” the source familiar with planning for the summit told AFP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to discuss the plans with the media.
The OIC has repeatedly spoken out against attacks on civilians in Gaza.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s government has recalled its ambassador and diplomatic mission to Israel in condemnation of the bombardment of the Gaza Strip, calling it a “genocide”.
The government also threatened action against the Israeli ambassador to South Africa over recent remarks he made about the the country’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, a minister in the South African government, said: “The South African government has decided to withdraw all its diplomats in Tel Aviv for consultation.”
Ntshavheni also said the position of the Israeli ambassador in the country was “untenable”.
Deepening the desperation in the crowded territory, the sole border crossing into Gaza from Egypt, the Rafah crossing, was closed yesterday for a second day.
Hamas suspended the evacuations of foreign passport holders after saying Israel had refused to allow some wounded Palestinians to be evacuated.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed the closure, saying more than 1,100 people had been allowed out in the two previous days.
The Rafah crossing has reopened today to allow the evacuation of foreigners and dual nationals from the Palestinian territory, the Hamas government said.
Six ambulances carrying wounded Palestinians arrived in Egypt today through the Rafah crossing, a border official told AFP. The patients were undergoing medical examinations at the border before being transferred to hospitals, the official said, adding the passage of foreigners trapped in Gaza was also expected to resume today.
There are around 40 Irish passport holders currently in Gaza and so far none have been able to leave.
Minister Helen McEntee told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that there is no list of evacuees for today.
“We don’t have any further information as to what number we might be on a list or where Irish citizens might be on that list,” she said.
McEntee said “there has unfortunately been a delay in citizens being released”.
She added: “We are using every diplomatic channel open and available to us to try and make sure that they are released.
“Everybody is concerned at what we’re experiencing and what we’re witnessing on an hourly basis in Gaza.
“But we need to make sure that we do everything we can to call for that humanitarian ceasefire as well to allow citizens to leave and humanitarian aid to get in”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs has said that “there are an estimated 8,000 foreign and dual nationals and immediate dependants in Gaza who are seeking to leave”.
“The evacuations are being managed country by country on a phased basis. It will take some time for this process to be completed,” the spokesperson said.
“We continue to urgently seek to have Irish citizens included on the list in the coming days. Our Embassies in Cairo and Tel Aviv are in regular communication with the authorities in Egypt and Israel,” they said.
“We are also in regular communication with Irish citizens on the ground and are updating them directly as we have confirmed information.”
The Irish-Israeli child Emily Hand, who was feared dead in the 7 October Hamas attacks, is now thought to be alive and being held hostage in Gaza, reports from Israel have claimed.
Emily, who is eight years old, had been on a sleepover in the Kibbutz Be’eri when it was raided by Hamas just over a month ago. She has dual Irish and Israeli citizenship as her father Thomas is originally from Dublin.
The war has exacerbated tensions in the West Bank, where more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces and settlers since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Hamas has admitted to firing rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel today, triggering Israeli airstrikes on the Lebanese side of the border.
The Qassam Brigades said in a statement that its militants fired 16 rockets on the town of Nahariya and the southern outskirts of the city of Haifa in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Haifa is the furthest city targeted by rockets from the Lebanese side since the start of the Israel-Hamas war nearly a month ago.
The Israeli army said approximately 30 rockets were fired from the Lebanese side targeting northern Israel, adding it was responding by shelling the origin points of rocket launches.
The exchange lasted about half an hour and Israel’s Iron Dome could be clearly seen intercepting rockets from Lebanon. Relative clam prevailed afterwards.
About three hours later, Israel’s air force carried out airstrikes on “Hezbollah targets” inside Lebanon, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that details would follow later.
Strong explosions could be heard in the area.
The exchange of fire came as Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah said its fighters attacked at least three Israeli military posts along the border around sunset on Monday.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported a drone strike on the outskirts of the village of Aramta near the southern city of Jezzine — a Hezbollah stronghold that is about 20 kilometres north of the border. This is the third such attack since the latest round of fighting began.
In Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, a female Israeli soldier was “seriously” wounded today in a knife attack before “border police forces neutralised the terrorist by shooting”, police said.
The Israeli military said today it had arrested Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi, 22, in a raid in her West Bank town of Nabi Salih on suspicion of “inciting violence and terrorist activities”.
Tamimi became prominent at age 14 when she was filmed biting an Israeli soldier to prevent him from arresting her younger brother, and for later slapping another Israeli soldier.
A large portrait of her was painted on the Israeli separation wall with the West Bank.
When AFP inquired about the reasons for her arrest, a security source forwarded an Instagram post, which has circulated widely on social media and is attributed to the young activist.
According to the post, written in Arabic and Hebrew, she called for the massacre of Israelis in explicitly violent terms, referring to Hitler.
With reporting by Diarmuid Pepper, Niall O’Connor, Lauren Boland, David MacRedmond and Press Association - © AFP 2023
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