Gaza Turmoil
Live Reporting
Israeli launches ‘unprecedented brutal attack’ on Nuseirat: Gov’t Media Office
Gaza’s Government Media Office says the Israeli forces have launched “an unprecedented brutal attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp,”leaving dozens of people killed and wounded in the streets.
“[It] continues its aggression against all areas of the Central Governorate, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital [in Deir el-Balah] is in a catastrophic situation,” it said.
Israeli forces launched “a barbaric and brutal aggression” in the camp, directly targeting civilians, the office said, adding that ambulances and civil defence cannot reach the area due to the intensity of the bombing.
The office warned that Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is the only hospital in the Central Governorate currently working on only one electric generator; if the sole generator stops, “a real disaster” will ensue.
“This hospital provides health services to a million people and displaced persons, and it cannot accommodate this large number of martyrs and injuries,” it said.
It called on the international community, the UN and all international organisations “to intervene immediately and urgently save the hospital and save the health situation in the Central Governorate.”
“We hold the [Israeli] occupation and the American administration fully responsible for this catastrophic crime in which the blood of dozens of innocent civilians was shed,” it said.
“We call on the international community and all international organisations to stop this brutal aggression continued by the ‘Israeli’ occupation, and we demand that they stop the genocidal war immediately and urgently.”
Israeli army issues statement about Nuseirat operation
The Israeli army has said in a short statement that it is targeting “militant” infrastructure in the Nuseirat area, where Gaza’s Health Ministry reported dozens of casualties.
Images from central Gaza show children and women being rushed to the hospital.
It is unusual for Israel’s military to inform about its actions while its operations are still under way.
Palestinian resident forced to self-demolish home in occupied East Jerusalem
Local media have published scenes of the “self-demolition” of a Palestinian residential building consisting of several floors with a bulldozer, in the town of Jabal Mukaber in occupied East Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities had forced the Palestinian resident to self-demolish, according to local media.
Almost 3,000 Palestinian children have lost limbs in Israel’s attacks on Gaza
Doctors in Gaza say as many as 3,000 Palestinian children have lost limbs in Israel’s war on the enclave.
The war is creating a generation of traumatised amputees. Thousands of children across the Strip have lost one or more limbs since the onslaught began. Many are undergoing amputations without anaesthetic.
Maimed by an Israeli drone, Sham is one of thousands of child amputees in the Strip.
“Sham was standing near the door, and a piece of shrapnel hit her hand. I ran outside and found her hand, hanging by a thread,” her mother said.
It took hours for her to be seen by a doctor as not a single hospital in Gaza is fully functioning. Despite the horror of her experience, Sham was one of the luckier ones. Her amputation was performed with anaesthetic.
“The situation is way beyond the medical staff’s control given the substantial number of injuries and the lack of medical equipment and resources that are required to deal with these cases,” Dr Mohammed Shaheen, resident orthopaedic surgeon at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said.
Antiwar activists briefly detained for protest outside German embassy in Israel
Four antiwar activists have been arrested for what police described as disturbing public safety, while a fifth was arrested for assaulting a police officer after a protest outside the German embassy in Tel Aviv on Friday.
Earlier, we reported that a group of German and Israeli antiwar activists had tied themselves together at the embassy’s entrance in the Israeli city, as they called on the German government to push for a ceasefire in Gaza and to stop its supply of arms to Israel.
Police initially told the detained protesters that they would remain in custody until Tuesday, at which point they would face a judge, Haaretz newspaper reported. But following an appeal from the protesters’ representative, a judge ruled their arrests were carried out illegally and ordered their release.
Lack of accountability allows Israel to use ‘excessive force’ in West Bank: NRC chief
Failing to hold Israel accountable for its use of “excessive force” against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank has allowed its armed forces to violate international humanitarian law, says Norwegian Refugee Council chief Jan Egeland.
Egeland said that while all eyes are currently on Rafah, focus should not be taken off what Israel is doing in the West Bank where on Thursday, Israeli military helicopters used heavy machine guns in the Jenin refugee camp.
According to the UN, Egeland said in a post on social media, between June 2023, and May 15, 2024, Israel carried out 64 air strikes in the occupied West Bank which killed 123 Palestinians and injured 203.
“The failure to hold Israel accountable has allowed its forces to violate IHL [international humanitarian law] without consequence,” he said.
More than 250 killed in five days; Israeli missile targets flour mill as children starve: UN
Between Monday and Friday afternoon, 252 Palestinians were reported killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and 753 were injured, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest situation report on the Palestinian territory.
Intense Israeli air strikes have targeted the Nuseirat, Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, OCHA said.
A World Food Programme warehouse in Deir el-Balah was damaged on Thursday when an Israeli missile hit an adjoining flour mill, forcing the UN’s food agency to temporarily suspend operations at the site.
On the same day, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that nine out of 10 children in Gaza are experiencing severe food poverty, and are surviving on two or fewer food groups each day.
Military operations in Gaza “have significantly destabilized humanitarian aid flows, forcing UN and partners to reorganize the entire operation”, OCHA reports.
Palestinian armed groups target Israeli forces along Netzarim Corridor
Palestinian fighters used mortar shells on Friday to target Israeli paratroopers operating along the Netzarim Corridor – an Israeli-built road that cuts Gaza’s north and south and allows Israel’s troops to deploy rapidly and control the movement of people in the territory.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP), two US-based defence think tanks, also said Palestinian fighters fired a “thermobaric rocket” that targeted Israeli soldiers located in a house east of Deir el-Balah on Friday, and mortars were fired at Israeli troops operating in the east of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
Palestinian fighters also carried out two “indirect fire attacks” on Israel from Gaza on the same day, according to the latest ISW/CTP joint report.
Houthis say they targeted two vessels in the Red Sea with drones and missiles
The Houthis have targeted two vessels in the Red Sea using drones and missiles, a spokesperson from the Yemen-based group has claimed.
Yemeni armed forces spokesman Yahya Saree said the ships, named the Elbella and AAL GENOA, were targeted for “belonging to companies that violated the law prohibiting entry to the ports of occupied Palestine”.
“The operations of our forces are in line with supporting the Palestinian people and responding to the crimes of the Zionist regime against the refugees in Rafah and the American-British aggression against Yemen,” he said.
Saree did not provide a date for the attacks, but described them as “successful”. There has been no independent confirmation of the incidents.
Houthis say they targeted two vessels in the Red Sea with drones and missiles
The Houthis have targeted two vessels in the Red Sea using drones and missiles, a spokesperson from the Yemen-based group has claimed.
Yemeni armed forces spokesman Yahya Saree said the ships, named the Elbella and AAL GENOA, were targeted for “belonging to companies that violated the law prohibiting entry to the ports of occupied Palestine”.
“The operations of our forces are in line with supporting the Palestinian people and responding to the crimes of the Zionist regime against the refugees in Rafah and the American-British aggression against Yemen,” he said.
Saree did not provide a date for the attacks, but described them as “successful”. There has been no independent confirmation of the incidents.
Two shot as Israeli military raid Jericho’s Aqabat Jabr refugee camp
The Israeli military has raided the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Jericho, the Wafa news agency reports.
Two men were shot during the raid, while nine people, including workers from Gaza, have been transported to hospital for treatment after Israeli forces beat them, Wafa reports.
Israeli military raids have been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank in the following locations:
The Ain as-Sultan refugee camp, in Jericho
The town of Shuyoukh, north of Hebron
The towns of Silat ad-Dhahr and Faqqua in the Jenin governorate
The town of Salem, east of Nablus
Fencing erected as pro-Palestine protesters set to surround the White House
Plans by Pro-Palestine protesters to surround the White House in Washington, DC, this weekend, have prompted additional security measures to be added, including anti-scale fencing.
The activists, from groups including CODEPINK and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), are demanding an end to Israel’s war on Gaza and US support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The groups announced on Friday that they would be gathering today to mark eight months of war in Gaza.
“In preparation for the events this weekend in Washington, DC, that have the potential for large crowds to gather, additional public safety measures have been put in place near the White House complex,” a US Secret Service spokesperson said, according to the Reuters news agency.
The White House says it is still awaiting an official response from Hamas to the latest ceasefire proposal for the Gaza conflict, laid out last week by President Joe Biden.
Israel pounds Gaza refugee camp as war enters ninth month
GAZA STRIP (AFP) - Israeli forces bombarded a Gaza refugee camp Friday after a deadly strike on a UN school there, as the war sparked by Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel entered its ninth month.
Efforts to mediate the first ceasefire in the bloody conflict since a week-long pause in November appear to have stalled a week after US President Joe Biden offered a new roadmap.
