Israel-Hamas war updates: Air strikes kill 15,523 Palestinians and wound 41,316 in two months
The death toll in Gaza from air strikes has surged to a shocking new figure, as Israel’s military withdraws from the north and shifts focus to the south. Follow updates. Warning: Graphic
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Shocking figures show more than 15,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in the last two months, including 6000 children.
The death toll, via the Gaza health ministry, is expected to be higher with thousands still stuck under the rubble and at least 41,000 seriously wounded.
The Israeli military said it had carried out around 10,000 air strikes since the war started.
It comes as Israel continued strikes on Gaza and international concern deepened over mounting civilian deaths on the third day of fighting after a truce ended.
Israeli air and artillery strikes hit Gaza’s northern frontier with Israel on Sunday local time, throwing thick clouds of smoke and dust into the sky.
The heavy bombardment has also been on the south of Gaza, the same area where Israel told Palestinians to flee to for safety.
Hospitals in southern Gaza overflowed with dead and wounded, some crying out in pain.
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“I am running out of ways to describe the horrors hitting children here,” James Elder, a spokesman for the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF, said in a video from Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis.
“This is the worst bombardment of the war right now in south Gaza. I am seeing massive child casualties,” he said in a remarks on the social media platform X.
Nine-year-old Huda, who was wounded in the head, arrived at the Deir al-Balah Hospital with an International Committee of the Red Cross convoy bringing casualties from northern Gaza.
“She doesn’t answer me any more,” her father Abdelkarim Abu Warda said, sobbing.
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‘RUNNING OUT OF WAYS TO DESCRIBE HORROR HITTING CHILDREN’
A spokesman for UN’s children’s agency Unicef James Elder has posted several videos from Gaza, including one of him inside Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israel had told Palestinians to flee to Khan Younis for safety in the early weeks of the war, but has now told them to flee to specific smaller areas as it intensifies its campaign in the south.
Mr Elder said: “I feel like I am running out of ways to describe the horrors hitting children here.
“I feel like I’m almost failing in my ability to convey the endless killing of children here.”
Another intense evening of attacks here in Khan Younis, in #Gazapic.twitter.com/682rHFai4l
— James Elder (@1james_elder) December 3, 2023
AT LEAST NINE KILLED NEAR RAFAH BORDER
An Israeli strike has hit a residential building in al-Tanour neighbourhood, east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, resulting in multiple deaths.
Several people were also injured in the strike that hit the building belonging to a Palestinian family.
Images show widespread destruction from the shelling as well as the search and rescue efforts carried out by civil defence staff and residents of the area.
A video posted by Palestinian photographer Mahmoud Bassam showed the aftermath of the deadly strike as rescuers pulled out the wounded.
HAMAS SAYS IDF WITHDRAWING FROM NORTH GAZA
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military arm, says Israeli forces have withdrawn from the northern part of Gaza.
It called their operations there “failures” and that as much as 70 per cent of the Israeli military contingent in the north is now gone.
Israeli forces continue to push everybody from the north to the south while dropping leaflets saying their next target will be Khan Yunis.
That will begin to become the major area of operations which has caused chaos for civilians.
ISRAEL WARNED AGAIN BY CRIMINAL PROSECUTOR
In a video address following his visit to Israel and Palestine, International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan said: “If Israel doesn’t comply [with international law] now, they shouldn’t complain later.”
“In Gaza, there is no justification for doctors to perform operations without light, for children to be operated upon without anaesthetics. Imagine the pain.
“I was crystal clear, that this is the time to comply with the law. If Israel doesn’t comply now, they shouldn’t complain later.”
US WARSHIP, COMMERCIAL SHIPS UNDER ATTACK
Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels said they had attacked two ships off the Yemeni coast, adding the “Israeli” vessels were targeted over the war in Gaza.
A US defence official told AFP that Washington was “aware of reports” regarding attacks in the Red Sea, and hours earlier a maritime security group said a UK-owned ship had reportedly been hit by rocket fire.
In a statement posted on social media, the Huthis said they carried out an “operation against two Israeli ships in the Bab al-Mandab Strait,” a strategic waterway connecting the Red Sea to The Gulf of Aden, targeting one with a “missile and the second ship with a drone”.
The Huthis identified the vessels as Unity Explorer and Number Nine, saying the attack came after the two ships “rejected warning messages” from its forces.
The Huthis said they would continue to target Israeli vessels “until the Israeli aggression against our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip stops”.
A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “we’re aware of reports regarding attacks on the (US Navy’s) USS Carney and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and will provide information as it becomes available.”
A White House official seemed to downplay the incident to Fox News, saying that the American destroyer specifically did not come under attack in the Red Sea.
The US official further told Fox News there are no injuries or damage to the USS Carney.
Earlier on Sunday, maritime security firm Ambrey said, citing reports, that an unnamed Bahamas-flagged vessel was “struck by a rocket” while sailing south around 35 nautical miles off Yemen’s western coast.
“The affected vessel was issuing distress calls relating to piracy/missile attack,” the UK-based company added.
It noted reports that “an international naval asset in the vicinity of the incident” was likely proceeding to the ship’s location.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency, run by Britain’s Royal Navy, said it had received “a report of Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) activity including a potential explosion … originating from the direction of Yemen”.
It advised vessels in the area to “exercise caution”.
HAMAS COMMANDER KILLED
Israel killed Hamas commander Wessam Farhat, who helped orchestrate the terrorist organisation’s October 7 attacks, the IDF and Israel Security Agency said in a press release.
Israeli Air Force fighter jets killed Farhat in an air strike after the IDF received intelligence on his whereabouts, the report said.
Farhat, who commanded Hamas’ Shejaiya Battalion, planned the attack on the kibbutz of Nahal Oz and an IDF post on October 7, killing six IDF soldiers, according to the release.
The commander took control of his battalion in 2010.
Footage shows the strike on the commander of Hamas's Shujayya battalion, Wissam Farhat.https://t.co/KM31XvtKkupic.twitter.com/3wDLItvZW8
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 2, 2023
He was also responsible for a 2002 terrorist attack on Mechinat Atzmona and a 2011 attack on a civilian bus in Nahal Oz.
“Since the beginning of the war, the IDF and ISA have significantly degraded the Shejaiya Battalion’s capabilities, including the elimination of their senior commanders and the striking of terror infrastructure and weapons,” the statement read.
It comes as the Israeli Air Force killed five Hamas terrorists overnight using remotely piloted aircraft.
IAF fighter jets and helicopters destroyed terror tunnel shafts, command centres, and weapons storage facilities, the branch shared.
The IDF’s naval troops also eliminated “terrorist infrastructure, vessels belonging to Hamas’ naval forces and weapons.”
DRAMATIC FOOTAGE SHOWS HAMAS SOLDIERS APPROACHING BY SEA
Dramatic new footage has shown Hamas operatives landing on Zikim Beach on October 7. The IDF had managed to stop most of the Hamas vessels and divers, though some terrorists made it ashore, killing at least 17 civilians and around two dozen soldiers.
Footage shows the Hamas sea infiltration at the Zikim beach on October 7. The Navy had managed to thwart most of the Hamas vessels and divers, though some terrorists made it ashore, killing at least 17 civilians and around two dozen soldiers. pic.twitter.com/9WU7n2FWSq
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 2, 2023
500 TUNNELS IN GAZA ‘DESTROYED’, SAYS IDF
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said that troops have discovered more than 800 tunnel shafts in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the ground offensive targeting the Hamas terror group that began in late October.
The military said that around 500 of the tunnels have already been destroyed, either by setting off large explosive charges inside or by sealing them.
According to the IDF, many of the tunnels connect Hamas’s “strategic assets.”
The military said it has also destroyed hundreds of kilometres’ worth of tunnels, in addition to the shafts.
“The shafts were located in civilian areas, and many of them were located near or inside educational institutions, kindergartens, mosques, and playgrounds,” the IDF said.
In some of the tunnels, soldiers found Hamas weaponry.
“These findings are further proof of the cynical use that the Hamas terror organisation makes of the civilian population as a human shield, and as a cover for its terror activity,” the IDF added.
FREED HOSTAGES BREAK SILENCE ON ‘HELL’
Israeli hostages released from Gaza spoke publicly for the first time and urged their government to secure the release of the remaining captives held by Hamas – by whatever means necessary.
The hostages spoke in a video broadcast before a crowd of thousands at a rally in central Tel Aviv, revealing the horrors they had to endure in Hamas captivity, and urged decision-makers to free all of the remaining women and children before it was too late, the Jerusalem Post reports.
Danielle Aloni who was freed along with her five-year-old daughter after being held hostage for 49 days said that she felt like she was in a “horror movie,” and said each day spent in captivity was “an eternity.”
“People can die because they simply decided to murder them.”
“Our daughters saw things that children at that age — or of any age — don’t need to see,” she said.
The freed hostages urged the government to take all action necessary to secure the remaining captives’ release.
Yocheved Lifschitz, 85, who was released by Hamas in October, outside the parameters of the truce deal, said “the moral obligation of this government is to bring them home immediately, without hesitation”.
Lifschitz said she hardly slept while held against her will in Hamas underground tunnels and got very sick from the food she was given there.
“The oxygen in the tunnels is running out,” Lifschitz warned.
“The food wasn’t plentiful to start with, and as time passed, the food dwindled,” added 84-year-old Ditza Heiman, who was released last Tuesday.
Holocaust survivor Yafa Adar, 85, who spent 49 days as a Hamas captive, plead for the immediate release of all remaining hostages.
“I was in that hell, I’m asking, begging, from all decision-makers to get the children out, get everyone out. It’s not easy, not for them and not for the families.”
LEADERS SPEAK OUT ON ATROCITIES
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed the total destruction of Hamas was the only thing that would end the war that has claimed thousands of lives.
Mr Netanyahu said the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip would continue “until we achieve all its aims”, including returning all Israeli hostages and eliminating the Islamist movement.
In his first press conference since the expiry of a seven-day pause in the fighting with Hamas, he said: “Our soldiers prepared during the days of truce for total victory against Hamas”.
His comments come amid growing international concern about the civilian death toll and the damage of a prolonged Middle East war.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Israel’s aim of eliminating Hamas risked unleashing a decade of war.
“I think we’re at a point where the Israeli authorities are going to have to define their objective and desired end state more precisely,” Mr Macron said at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai.
US Vice President Kamala Harris sharply rebuked the rising civilian toll in Israel’s eight-week war.
“Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” she told reporters at the UN climate talks.
“Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.”
During an unprecedented attack on October 7, Hamas fighters broke through Gaza’s militarised border into Israel, killed about 1200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 240 Israelis and foreigners hostage.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas in response and unleashed an air and ground campaign that has killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, the Hamas authorities who run Gaza claim.
“What is the total destruction of Hamas, and does anyone think it’s possible? If it is, the war will last 10 years,” Mr Macron said.
LLOYD AUSTIN’S PLEA TO ‘PROTECT CIVILIANS’
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged Israel to protect civilians, saying that shielding non-combatants is necessary for victory in the urban fight.
Mr Austin told the Reagan National Defense Forum in California that he had “learned a thing or two about urban warfare” while fighting in Iraq and leading the campaign against the Islamic State.
“The lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians,” he said.
But Israel and Hamas both brushed off the international calls to renew the expired truce as air strikes pounded militant targets in Gaza and Palestinian groups launched volleys of rockets.
Smoke again clouded the sky over the north of the Palestinian territory, whose Hamas government said 240 people had been killed since a pause in hostilities expired early Friday and combat resumed.
The Israeli army said it had conducted more than 400 strikes in Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed.
‘ROCKET BARRAGES’ HIT ISRAELI CITIES
Hamas and Palestinian group Islamic Jihad announced “rocket barrages” against multiple Israeli cities and towns including Tel Aviv, and Israel said that two of its soldiers had died in combat, the first since the end of the truce.
At least seven people were killed in an Israeli bombing early Sunday near Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, the Hamas-run government said.
Israeli strikes also hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza late Saturday, killing at least 13 people, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
An estimated 1.7 million people in Gaza — more than two-thirds of the population — have been displaced by war, according to the United Nations.
“I cannot find words strong enough to express our concern over what we’re witnessing,” the head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Sunday on X, formerly Twitter.
Fadel Naim, chief doctor at the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, said his morgue had received 30 bodies the day after the ceasefire ended, including seven children.
– with AFP
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