Palestinian group, Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, has announced the start of military the operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel. Thousands of rockets have been fired from the blockaded enclave towards the occupied territories as far away as Tel Aviv, killing over 1,400 Israelis, including both military and settlers. More than 10,000 Palestinians have been so far killed in an exchange of fire between the two sides.
Palestinians flee to the southern region of Gaza from Bureij, Gaza, on Tuesday.
The interior ministry said an Israeli air attack targeted an “inhabited home, near al-Yemen al-Saeed hospital” in the middle of the refugee camp in northern Gaza.
It also reported several injuries in a separate attack in Jabalia.
A home belonging to the Khalil family also was struck in the centre of the refugee camp, the ministry added.
A total of 41 journalists have so far been killed in the Israel-Palestine war which began on 7 October, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement on Wednesday.
Among them are 36 Palestinian reporters killed by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip.
“Nowhere is safe for journalists in the Gaza Strip,” the statement read.
“The Israeli authorities have repeatedly said that their armed forces are ‘not targeting journalists’, but they have not hidden their lack of interest in protecting them either,” RSF added.
More than 50 sites used by the media have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli strikes.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip is a tragedy for journalism,” said Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East desk.
“With their arbitrary air strikes, the Israeli armed forces are eliminating journalists one after the other without restraint, all while their unacceptable comments betray an open contempt for international humanitarian law,” Dagher added.
One journalist has been killed in Lebanon by Israeli air strikes, while four Israeli journalists were killed during the 7 October attacks by Palestinian fighters led by Hamas.
The spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr Ashraf al-Qudra, has announced the latest death toll in Gaza:
UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing Balakrishnan Rajagopal has called the Israeli authorities’ order to evacuate Gaza residents from the north to the south of the enclave an “international crime.”
The expert pointed out that “core international human and humanitarian law norms are brazenly breached” by Israel ordering to evacuate more than a million people from the northern part of the Gaza Strip to the southern part under a blockade and without providing adequate housing and humanitarian aid.
“These actions by Israel constitute international crimes,” Rajagopal said.
“Carrying out hostilities with the knowledge that they will systematically destroy and damage civilian housing and infrastructure, rendering an entire city – such as Gaza city – uninhabitable for civilians is a war crime,” the expert noted.
He recalled that the systematic or large-scale bombing of residential buildings and civilian objects is strictly prohibited under international law.
“Such acts amount to war crimes and when directed against a civilian population, they also amount to crimes against humanity,” the special rapporteur stressed.
Rajagopal recalled that “attacks by Israel on targets within Gaza have destroyed or damaged 45% of all housing units in the Gaza Strip”. He pointed out that “civilian housing in Israel is also not a military object – launching indiscriminate rocket attacks on them from Gaza or elsewhere is a war crime.”
The Gaza Strip cannot be administered by the radical Hamas movement or Israel in the future, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated.
“Gaza cannot be continued to be run by Hamas. That simply invites repetition of October 7. It’s also clear that Israel cannot occupy Gaza. Now, the reality is that there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict,” Blinken said.
He pointed out that discussions are underway on how to secure and establish Palestinian state control over Gaza and the West Bank.
The top US diplomat emphasized that he realized during the talks that Israel “has no intent to reoccupy Gaza”. However, he also allowed for the possibility that the situation might not return to the status quo before tensions escalated on October 7.
An Israeli soldier was killed in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, bringing the death toll in the Israeli ground operation in the blockaded enclave to 31 since Oct. 27, the army announced on Wednesday.
A military statement said the soldier, from the Artillery Corps, was killed in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip. Two more soldiers were seriously injured.
Israel confirmed 31 soldiers have been killed and 260 others injured since it began expanded ground operations in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27.
The number of Israelis injured since the start of the armed conflict with the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 has risen to 7,262, the Israeli Health Ministry announced Wednesday.
“The number of wounded people staying in hospitals now is 342, including 51 in serious condition, and 152 of them are in rehabilitation departments,” it added.
The Israeli death toll, meanwhile, is nearly 1,600, according to official figures.
Medical sources have confirmed that the number of people killed in the Israeli air attack on Jabalia refugee camp located in the northernmost part of the Gaza Strip has now risen to at least nine.
The death toll from overnight air raids is continuing to rise this morning, as Israeli bombings are reported across the Gaza Strip.
In recent days, Jabalia saw a series of massive bombings that killed many people.
Three Palestinian rights groups have warned that people in Gaza are facing imminent genocide along with mass forced displacement and ethnic cleansing, calling for an immediate ceasefire in the besieged coastal enclave.
“The Israeli military offensive has caused the largest mass displacement of Palestinians in such a short period of time since the 1948 Nakba: around 1,500,000 Palestinians, or about 65 percent of Gaza’s population, are now internally displaced inside Gaza,” Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said in a statement.
The groups added the displacement has been caused by Israeli “evacuation orders” and relentless bombardments, with Israel’s military offensive causing “the largest mass displacement of Palestinians in such a short period of time since the 1948 Nakba”.
“As we write, the threat of mass forced displacement into Egypt and ethnic cleansing of more than two million Palestinians lingers imminent,” they warned.
“It is imperative that the international community take immediate action to stop Israel’s revengeful military campaign against Gaza [and] prevent the attempted forced displacement of Palestinians.”
Israeli forces have killed twice as many Palestinian children in the besieged coastal enclave over the past month, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.
That is more than the total number of Palestinian children killed in the West Bank and Gaza combined since 1967, the group said.
DCI-Palestine added that in additional to children killed in Gaza, about 1,350 children are missing under the rubble, “most of whom are presumed dead”.
The United States has said it was still not drawing any red lines for Israel, which has killed upwards of 10,000 people during a yet-ongoing war against the Gaza Strip.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby made the remarks at a press briefing on Tuesday.
In late October, the official had said that the US administration was not drawing any red lines for Israel despite mounting civilian fatalities from the war.
Kirby was asked during the presser, “Is that still the case that the administration has no red lines?” to which he answered, “That’s still the case.”
“It’s also true that airstrikes continue, and it’s also true that civilians keep dying from these airstrikes,” he added.
The current catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip threatens to decline further, European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic warned on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Lenarcic stressed the need for a cease-fire in the ongoing conflict in Gaza for humanitarian aid to enter into the Palestinian enclave as it faces Israeli bombardment, blockade, and ground attacks.
“Otherwise, the catastrophe in Gaza may turn into apocalypse,” he continued.
Since the beginning of the conflict, only 500 truckloads of aid have entered Gaza, he noted, adding that this was the amount Gaza received daily before the current conflict began.
As such, Lenarcic remarked, a pause of at least a couple of days is needed to resupply Gaza with humanitarian aid.
He emphasized that fuel was particularly needed in Gaza.
“Bakeries, water pumps, hospitals cannot function without fuel. It’s also badly needed for humanitarian associations and their workers there,” Lenarcic stressed.
The CIA is working with Israeli intelligence on plans to rescue hundreds of hostages from Hamas, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
CIA Director Bill Burns discussed the hostage release effort with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi on Tuesday as part of the CIA director’s visit to Israel, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters.
Israel is Burns’ first stop as he travels to multiple countries in the region to meet with intelligence counterparts.
Intelligence materials, operational planning as well as other efforts to help with the hostages’ release were presented during the meeting between Burns and Halevi.
“Each hostage has their own intelligence file that’s being monitored,” Hagari told reporters Tuesday.
“We’re making our efforts along with the ISA (Israeli Security Agency), the Mossad, we’re together assessing the situation every day to see what we need to adjust, change and plan, in order to fulfill our task – to bring them (hostages) home,” Hagari added.
The IDF estimates 240 Israeli hostages are being held by Hamas in Gaza, including civilian men, women and children.
The group has released just four hostages – two elderly Israeli women and an American mother and daughter – while the IDF last week claimed troops had rescued an Israeli soldier.
Israel has insisted there will be no ceasefire until the hostages are freed.
US Vice President Kamala Harris spoke late on Tuesday with Israeli President Isaac Herzog as the war in Gaza reached the one-month mark.
Harris stressed the importance of protecting civilian life and respecting international law.
“The Vice President emphasized the importance of protecting civilian lives and respecting international humanitarian law. She emphasized the imperative to further increase the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” Harris said, according to a readout from the White House.
Harris also raised concerns about Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank, adding there is a need to “hold extremist settlers accountable for violent acts”.
While the US vice president called for protecting civilians and respecting international law, Washington has given unconditional support to Israel’s response to the 7 October attack by Hamas.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel will “retain complete freedom of action to respond to any situation in the Gaza Strip” once the war ends.
Speaking at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday, Gallant stated that “at the end of this ‘campaign’, Hamas, as a military organization or governing body in Gaza, will cease to exist”.
“There will be no security threat to Israel from Gaza, and Israel will retain complete freedom of action, to respond to any situation in the Gaza Strip that poses any kind of threat,” Gallant added.
Gallant’s comments echo those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Monday said in an interview with ABC News that Israel will have the “overall security responsibility” in Gaza for an “indefinite period” after the war ends.
Taken together, the comments shed light on the Israeli government’s plans for post-war Gaza. Government officials have not yet elaborated on how Gaza would be governed should they succeed in eliminating Hamas.
US President Joe Biden warned Israel last month that re-occupying Gaza would be a mistake.
Gallant also stated that the war’s top priority was to “eliminate this phenomenon called Hamas”, and that he was personally focused on “victory in the war” and returning Israeli hostages home.
Israel’s foreign minister has said neither Hamas nor Tel Aviv would govern Gaza when the current conflict comes to an end.
“We don’t want to govern Gaza,” Eli Cohen said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“We don’t want to run their lives. We just want to protect our people,” the minister added.
He stated that instead an international coalition comprised of the US, the European Union and Muslim majority countries, or local political leaders in Gaza, would take power.
A total of 637 foreign nationals were evacuated from Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah border crossing on Tuesday, an Egyptian border official told a journalist working for CNN in Rafah.
The total is the highest daily number since the evacuations began last week. The Rafah crossing had been closed since the war began last month, but was opened last week as part of a deal brokered by Qatar between Israel, Hamas and Egypt, in coordination with the US.
In addition, 15 wounded Palestinians arrived in Egypt for treatment through the crossing, the official added.
According to a CNN tally, this brings the total number of wounded Palestinians with severe injuries sustained from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza who have been transferred to Egypt to 116.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said 89 staff members of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began a month ago.
More UN aid workers “have been killed in recent weeks than in any comparable period in the history of our organization,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“I join in the mourning of 89 of our UNRWA colleagues who have been killed in Gaza – many of them with members of their family,” he added.
UNRWA also announced on Tuesday that at least 26 members had been injured.
“We are beyond devastated. Our colleagues will be greatly missed, and they will not be forgotten. We share this grief with each other and with the families,” the agency said on X.
The medical condition of 140 injured people transferred from Gaza to Egypt to receive treatment is “serious”, Egyptian health ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghaffar told Egyptian government-affiliated ON TV on Tuesday.
The tally includes 55 children under the age of 18, plus 35 women, Abdel Ghaffar said.
More than 30 surgical operations are conducted daily, and some cases need several specialties to treat burns and other injuries, he added.
The number of injured people evacuated is “undoubtedly low,” the spokesperson said.
“We are ready in terms of medical teams and hospitals to receive higher numbers, but this is what we have received so far,” he added.
On Saturday, the Egyptian Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar stated that numerous children have suffered extensive burns, with some cases involving burns covering up to 60% of their bodies.
Some doctors in Gaza have been performing operations, including amputations, without anesthesia, a World Health Organization spokesperson stated Tuesday.
“Nothing justifies the horror being endured by civilians in Gaza,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said during a press briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, stressing their “desperate need for water, fuel, food and safe access to health care to survive.”
Lindmeier reiterated the United Nations’ calls for “unhindered, safe and secure access” for some 500 trucks of aid a day — not only across the border but also “all the way through to the patients in the hospitals,” where surgeries including amputations were being performed without anesthesia.
The level of death and suffering is “hard to fathom,” he added.
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