LAST UPDATE | 26 Oct 2023
HAMAS HAS RELEASED a list of almost 7,000 names of Gazans it said had been killed in Israeli strikes after the US president cast doubt on its toll figures.
The Palestinian Islamist group says that 7,028 people have now been killed in Gaza since its October 7 attacks which Israel says left 1,400 dead, mainly civilians.
The Hamas list of 6,747 names, released by its health ministry, gave the sex, age and identity card number of each of the victims. It said 281 bodies had not yet been identified.
The ministry said in a statement that the United States had “brazenly cast doubt on the truth of the announced toll”.
“We have decided to announce the details of the names to the whole world so that the truth is known about the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli occupation against our people.”
US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he had “no confidence” in the militant group’s death toll figures.
Israel tanks, troops and armoured bulldozers into the Gaza Strip in a “targeted raid” overnight that destroyed multiple sites before withdrawing from the Hamas-run territory, the army has said.
Black smoke billowed into the sky after a blast in the grainy night-vision footage the military released hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared preparations for a ground war were underway.
On the 20th day of Israel’s deadliest Gaza war yet, that has already killed thousands, the army said its forces had hit “numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts”.
The operation in northern Gaza came in “preparation for the next stages of combat”, it said.
The black-and-white video showed a column of armoured vehicles moving near Gaza’s border fence. Other footage appeared to show an air strike and buildings being struck with munitions, sending debris flying high.
Just hours earlier, Netanyahu had delivered a nationally televised address to Israelis still grieving and furious after Hamas’s bloody 7 October attacks, telling them “we are in the midst of a campaign for our existence”.
The war’s surging death toll is by far the highest since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the small coastal territory in 2005 – a period that has seen four previous Gaza wars.
Entire neighbourhoods have been razed, surgeons are operating without anaesthetic on some of the wounded, and ice-cream trucks have become makeshift morgues.
In chaotic scenes, volunteer emergency crew and neighbours have clawed, sometimes with their bare hands, through broken concrete and sand to pull out civilian casualties.
All too often they recover only their corpses, which have piled up, wrapped in blood-stained white shrouds.
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza,” said Lynne Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories.
Israel has cut off Gaza’s normal supply corridors for water, food and other necessities, and fewer than 70 relief trucks have entered the impoverished territory since the war began.
The UN says 12 of the territory’s 35 hospitals have closed due to damage or insufficient fuel, and its UNRWA agency for Palestinian refugees said it “began to significantly reduce its operations”.
More than 90% of medicine stocks and supplies have been depleted, according to Mohammed Abu Selmeya, head of Gaza City’s Shifa hospital.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, denounced Israel’s Gaza offensive as a “war of revenge” a day after meeting members of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Representatives of Hamas and Iran are in Moscow today for talks, Russia’s foreign ministry said.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Iranian deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani was in Moscow and confirmed reports that a Hamas delegation was in the Russian capital.
US President Joe Biden, a strong supporter of Israel, has joined the calls for it to “protect innocent civilians” and to follow the “laws of war” as it pursues Hamas targets.
Leaders of the EU were today debating whether to call for a “humanitarian pause” in the war to deliver desperately needed aid.
French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking in Cairo yesterday, warned that “a massive intervention that would put civilian lives at risk would be an error”.
Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also urged Israel “to avoid a ground invasion”.
And Jordan’s King Abdullah II said anger at the suffering could “lead to an explosion” in the Middle East.
Representatives from Israel and Arab countries exchanged sharp accusations today at the UN General Assembly, as the body discussed the conflict following the Security Council’s failure to take action.
The matter has exposed deep divisions in the Security Council, with a total of four resolutions gaining insufficient traction or being blocked by a veto in less than two weeks.
Arab countries are hoping that the General Assembly, which has a different power balance and where no country holds a veto, will be able to act, even if any resolution would be nonbinding.
But the back-and-forth today remained heated, with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who spoke on behalf of 22 Arab countries, accusing Israel of “making Gaza a perpetual hell on Earth.”
“The trauma will haunt generations to come,” he said, adding that “the right to self defense is not a license to kill with impunity. Collective punishment is not self defense, it is a war crime.”
“To stop this madness, you have a chance to do something, to give an important signal. Choose justice, not vengeance,” said Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour.
Jordan has circulated a draft resolution that is still under discussion, which is meant to be put to vote tomorrow.
The text focuses largely on the humanitarian situation, calling for an “immediate ceasefire” and “unhindered humanitarian access” to the Gaza Strip.
It also calls on all parties to comply with the “protection of civilians,” but makes no mention of the Hamas attack.
Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan blasted the text.
“The drafters of the resolution claim to be concerned about peace,” he said. “Yet the depraved murderers who initiated this war are not even mentioned in the resolution.”
“The only place this resolution belongs is in the dustbin of history,” he added.
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