Category Archives: Israel-Gaza war

Israel orders remaining residents of Beit Hanoun to leave

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Order triggers new wave of displacement and there are reports of damage to two more Gaza hospitals

Israel has issued new evacuation orders for all remaining civilians to leave Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza as part of a blistering three-month-old campaign that Israel denies is aimed at depopulating a third of the Palestinian territory, amid reports Israeli attacks have damaged two more struggling hospitals in Gaza City.

The Israeli army forcibly evacuated Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia on Friday, leaving the northern third of the strip, which is cut off from the rest of Gaza, with just one small functioning medical centre, al-Awda, in nearby Jabalia. On Sunday, everyone remaining in Beit Lahia was ordered to leave after Palestinian militants launched five rockets from the area that targeted Israeli territory.

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WHO ‘appalled’ by Israel attack on northern Gaza’s last functioning major hospital

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Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahia was partially destroyed and critical patients are at grave risk, the UN body says

The World Health Organization says it is “appalled” by an Israeli raid which it said had shut down and partly destroyed the last major hospital still functioning in northern Gaza.

Israel’s “systematic dismantling of the health system” combined with a siege of the population in the north of the coastal strip over the past 80 days “puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk”, the WHO said.

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Last major health facility in north Gaza ‘out of service’ after Israeli attack

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Gaza officials say staff at Kamal Adwan hospital, including its director, have been detained as WHO reports Israeli forces burned and destroyed key departments

The last major health facility in northern Gaza has been put out of service, the World Health Organization has said, and its director detained according to Gaza officials after an Israeli military operation targeting sites near the Kamal Adwan hospital.

“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” the WHO said in a statement on X.

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Officials claim Israeli military ‘burning’ Kamal Adwan hospital after forced evacuation of patients – Middle East crisis live

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Israel says Gaza hospital is ‘Hamas terrorist stronghold’ and it made efforts to facilitate evacuation of those inside

An estimated 730,000 people living in tents in camps for the displaced in northwest Syria are experiencing dire conditions this winter including from flooding, the UN humanitarian office has said.

The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said yesterday that more than 200 family tents in camps in Idlib and northern Aleppo were damaged by flooding from heavy rainfall on 23 December.

“Since the start of 2024, flooding and strong winds have damaged more than 8,800 family tents – including nearly 2,000 that were fully destroyed – across 260 camps,” OCHA said.

In early December, the UN said about 1.1 million people had been displaced since Syrian rebels launched the offensive that ousted former president Bashar al-Assad. Among those displaced were more than 100,000 people who have fled into Kurdish-administered areas in northern Syria amid escalating factional fighting and fears of retaliatory attacks.

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Officials claim Israeli military ‘burning’ Kamal Adwan hospital after forced evacuation of patients – Middle East crisis live

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Israel says Gaza hospital is ‘Hamas terrorist stronghold’ and it made efforts to facilitate evacuation of those inside

An estimated 730,000 people living in tents in camps for the displaced in northwest Syria are experiencing dire conditions this winter including from flooding, the UN humanitarian office has said.

The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said yesterday that more than 200 family tents in camps in Idlib and northern Aleppo were damaged by flooding from heavy rainfall on 23 December.

“Since the start of 2024, flooding and strong winds have damaged more than 8,800 family tents – including nearly 2,000 that were fully destroyed – across 260 camps,” OCHA said.

In early December, the UN said about 1.1 million people had been displaced since Syrian rebels launched the offensive that ousted former president Bashar al-Assad. Among those displaced were more than 100,000 people who have fled into Kurdish-administered areas in northern Syria amid escalating factional fighting and fears of retaliatory attacks.

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Five Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli strike on van in Gaza

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Men were asleep in marked press vehicle, say witnesses, as renewed hostage negotiations reach impasse

Five Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their vehicle in central Gaza, their employer has said, while Israel has also struck several areas in Houthi rebel-controlled Yemen in air raids.

Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Ayman al-Jadi, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed al-Lada’a were sleeping in their broadcasting truck, marked as press, when it was targeted in a direct strike by the Israeli military, witnesses told Palestinian media. Another 32 people were killed in other Israeli pre-dawn strikes across the territory, the local health ministry said.

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Middle East crisis: one child killed every hour in Gaza, UN says – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our coverage of the Middle East here

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian man in a dawn raid on a refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli officials said. The Israeli military said the man was killed in a “counter-terrorism” operation that resulted in 18 arrests, Reuters reports. Palestinian news agency Wafa said that Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on ambulance crew. We have not yet been able to independently verify any of this information. Meanwhile, medics said at least nine Palestinians, including a member of the civil emergency service, were killed in four separate Israeli airstrikes across the territory today.

At least 45,338 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,764 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

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Israel’s war in Gaza amounts to genocide, Amnesty International report finds

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Human rights group says Israel ‘brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell’ on strip’s 2.3m population

A report from Amnesty International alleges that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the first such determination by a major human rights organisation in the 14-month-old conflict.

The 32-page report examining events in Gaza between October 2023 to July 2024, published on Thursday, found that Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the strip’s 2.3 million population, noting that the “atrocity crimes” against Israelis by Hamas on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, “do not justify genocide”.

The unprecedented scale and magnitude of the military offensive, which has caused death and destruction at a speed and level unmatched in any other 21st-century conflict;

Intent to destroy, after considering and discounting arguments such as Israeli recklessness and callous disregard for civilian life in the pursuit of Hamas;

Killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm in repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, or deliberately indiscriminate attacks; and

Inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, such as destroying medical infrastructure, the obstruction of aid, and repeated use of arbitrary and sweeping “evacuation orders” for 90% of the population to unsuitable areas.

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Australia splits with US to back UN resolution demanding end to Israel occupation of Palestinian territories

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Vote marks a change to the nation’s official stance held for more than two decades

Australia has split with the US and voted with 156 other countries at the UN to demand the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible”.

The vote marks Australia’s return to the position for the first time in more than two decades.

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Hamas and Fatah agree to create committee to run postwar Gaza Strip

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Two main Palestinian factions agree during talks in Cairo that politically independent technocrats will run territory

Hamas and Fatah – the two main Palestinian factions which have been at odds for almost two decades – have agreed in talks in Cairo to create a committee that will jointly run the postwar Gaza Strip.

While Israel had refused to countenance a “day after” governing scenario involving Hamas or the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, the move nonetheless signifies fresh willingness from Hamas to give up its rule of Gaza and could help advance internationally mediated ceasefire talks.

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Middle East crisis: Israel will not differentiate between Lebanon and Hezbollah if ceasefire collapses, defence minister Katz says – as it happened

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Israel Katz says Israel will no longer offer Lebanon an exemption and will enforce ‘maximum impact and zero tolerance’

Israeli media reports that the cabinet is set to meet in the coastal city of Nahariya on Tuesday, a symbolic show of renewed security in the north after the ceasefire deal with Lebanon came into effect.

The move has received some criticism, however, with Hebrew news site Ynet reporting that the heads of local authorities in the north of Israel are angry that they have not been invited to participate.

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Unrwa suspends aid deliveries through main Gaza route after convoy attacked

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Agency says armed gangs looted several trucks carrying food supplies and urges Israel to ensure safe flows of aid

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has suspended aid deliveries through the main lifeline for the Gaza Strip after a fresh attack by armed gangs on a humanitarian convoy, amid a severe food crisis caused by more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

In a statement on Sunday, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, said several trucks carrying food supplies were looted the day before on the road from Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel, now the main aid crossing point into the besieged Palestinian territory. The route had not been safe for months, he said on X, referring to the unprecedented hijacking of nearly 100 aid trucks last month.

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Israel kills charity worker in Gaza saying he was Hamas militant

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Palestinian news agency reports that three employees of World Central Kitchen were killed in Israeli strike on vehicle in Khan Younis

The Israeli military has killed a charity worker employed by the World Central Kitchen in Gaza, saying the person targeted in the attack was a Hamas militant involved in the 7 October attacks.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that three employees of World Central Kitchen were killed when an Israeli strike targeted a civilian vehicle in southern Gaza.

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Israeli military to remain in Gaza for years, food minister says

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Avi Dichter, of Israel’s security cabinet, made the comments as reports of the scale of Israel’s military infrastructure in the territory emerge

The Israeli military will remain in Gaza for many years, fighting against fresh Hamas recruits in the territory and could be responsible for delivery of humanitarian aid there, a senior Israeli minister has said.

The comments by Avi Dichter, Israel’s minister for food security and a member of the Israeli security cabinet, confirm an emerging picture of a long-term deployment of Israeli troops inside Gaza, with no immediate Israeli plan for any other administration to govern the territory’s 2.3 million people and begin reconstruction there.

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Aid officials recount violent looting in Gaza as criminal gangs thrive amid Israeli bombardment

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Recent attack on trucks carrying flour has deprived starving civilians of food as territory teeters on edge of famine

Aid officials and witnesses have described the chaotic and violent moments when a huge convoy carrying enough flour to bake bread for two-thirds of the population of Gaza for a week was looted this month.

The officials made clear the attack was undertaken by groups of criminals, not civilians who were now being deprived of food in a territory close to famine.

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Israel says air force struck Hezbollah facility in southern Lebanon; curfews announced amid uneasy ceasefire – as it happened

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This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

My colleagues, Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem, and Oliver Holmes have produced this explainer on what the terms of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire are. You can read more at the link below:

Here is a video report on families returning to homes in Lebanon and northern Israel after the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire took effect:

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Hezbollah keeping ‘hands on trigger’ amid fragile ceasefire with Israel

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Lebanese given conflicting information about whether they can return home, as Israeli army strikes cars and areas along boundary

Hezbollah has vowed to continue resisting Israel and is monitoring its army’s withdrawal from south Lebanon “with their hands on the trigger”, said the militia in its first comments since a ceasefire went into effect on Wednesday.

The Iran-allied Shia group did not directly mention the truce, but said its fighters “remain fully equipped to deal with the aspirations and assaults of the Israeli enemy”. Hezbollah also remained committed to the Palestinian cause, said the statement from its operations centre late on Wednesday.

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Thousands return to southern Lebanon amid uneasy ceasefire

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Displaced people make their way home despite volatile situation and warnings from Israeli military

Thousands of people displaced from war-torn southern Lebanon have begun returning home after a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday, amid fears on both sides of the border about whether the truce would hold.

Israel heavily bombed the capital, Beirut, and the south of the country throughout Tuesday, killing 42 people, until the truce began at 4am local time, while Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, triggering air raid sirens.

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France says Netanyahu is immune from ICC warrant as Israel is not member of court

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Claim comes after Paris signalled it would fulfil obligations as signatory to Rome statute after arrest warrant issued

The French government has claimed that Benjamin Netanyahu has immunity from arrest warrants issued by the international criminal court for war crimes on the grounds that Israel is not an ICC member.

The claim came soon after Netanyahu’s cabinet agreed to a French-backed ceasefire in Lebanon and is in contrast to Paris’s attitude towards last year’s ICC war crimes warrant issued against Vladimir Putin, another leader of a non-member country.

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Israel’s ceasefire with Lebanon makes peace in Gaza ever less likely

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Joe Biden may have revived diplomatic efforts, but after compromising in Lebanon, Netanyahu has even less leeway in Gaza

Joe Biden has revived diplomatic efforts to achieve a truce in Gaza with the hope of building on momentum generated by the newly agreed ceasefire in Lebanon.

There are doubts, however, that such momentum exists outside the Biden administration, which is anxious to use its last few weeks to salvage scraps of diplomatic honour after the bloody past 14 months in the Middle East.

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