Israel-Hamas war: UN official says southern Gaza has become ‘apocalyptic’
The UN’s top aid official says Israel’s bombing has ended any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations. Warning: Graphic
The UN’s top aid official says Israel’s military campaign in southern Gaza has created “apocalyptic” conditions and ended any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations.
UN emergency relief co-ordinator Martin Griffiths said he was speaking on “behalf of the entire international aid community” in saying the continuing offensive had robbed aid workers of any significant means of helping the 2.3 million people of Gaza, other than to call for an immediate end to the fighting.
“What we’re saying today is: that’s enough now. It has to stop,” he said.
“This is an apocalyptic situation now, because these are the remnants of a nation being driven into a pocket in the south.”
The latest toll from the Hamas-run government media office said 16,248 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, had been killed.
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It comes as 25 people died in a strike on a school where displaced people were sheltering.
Ambulances, trucks and other vehicles delivered bloodied, dust-covered casualties to Khan Younis’s Nasser hospital, including children.
“The situation is getting worse by the hour,” said Richard Peeperkorn, the World Health Organisation’s representative in the Palestinian territories, urging “a sustained ceasefire” after almost two months of war.
“We are close by humanity’s darkest hour,” Peeperkorn told reporters via video link from Rafah in southern Gaza.
Meanwhile the families of hostages have called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign.
In an excerpt broadcast on Channel 12, the mother of a hostage reportedly shouted at defense minister Yoav Gallant: “I’m not prepared to sacrifice my son for your career … My son did not volunteer to die for the homeland.”
IDF SLAMMED FOR CIVILIAN DEATH REMARKS
The United Nations and a US Congressman have described the remark by an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson to evaluate civilian deaths in Gaza in “ratios” as “tasteless”.
On Monday, IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told CNN that a ratio of two Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza for every Hamas militant is a “tremendously positive ratio” given the challenges of urban combat.
US Representative Seth Moulton, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who served in Iraq, said the IDF were “dead wrong” with their comments.
“By that number, Israel so far killed about 5000 Hamas terrorists but in the process they’ve recruited about 100,000 new adherents. And this is bad news for Israel,” Mr Moutlon said.
UN secretary general spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said:“We’re not in the business of establishing those kinds of ratios, which I think are tasteless, to say the least.”
US ANNOUNCES VISA BANS ON ISRAELI SETTLERS
The US State Department officially announced that it will impose travel bans on Israeli settlers involved in attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.
More than 260 Palestinians have been killed and 3200 injured since October 7 in the Israeli-occupied region.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote: “Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security, or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities. Immediate family members of such persons also may be subject to these restrictions.”
He added that violent attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians are “unacceptable.”
“Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have the responsibility to uphold stability in the West Bank. Instability in the West Bank both harms the Israeli and Palestinian people and threatens Israel’s national security interests,” he said.
IDF ISSUES RARE APOLOGY
The Israeli military (IDF) has issued a rare apology after an IDF strike killed a Lebanese soldier and injured three others on Tuesday, saying it had been targeting Hezbollah militants on its northern border with Lebanon.
In a post on X, the military said: “Earlier today, IDF fighters acted to neutralise a tangible threat detected from Lebanese territory.
“The threat was detected from a launch and observation complex of the terrorist organization Hezbollah near Al Awadi on the Lebanese border.
“A report was received in the IDF that a number of soldiers from the Lebanese army were injured during the attack. Lebanese army forces were not the target of the attack. The IDF regrets the incident, which is being investigated.”
ISRAEL’S JUSTIFICATION FOR ‘MASSACRE’ OF CIVILIANS IS ‘MADNESS’
The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese has said nothing “other than pure madness” could be a justification for Israel’s “massacre of civilians” in Gaza.
In a post on social media accompanied by harrowing video footage of grievously wounded and deceased Palestinian infants and children receiving medical treatment on the floor of a hospital in Gaza, Albanese had this blunt message:
“This massacre of civilians must be stopped. There is nothing, absolutely nothing (other than pure madness) that can justify THIS.”
“No more functioning hospitals. No more medications. No more words.”
No more functioning hospitals.
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) December 5, 2023
No more medications.
No more words.
This massacre of civilians must be stopped. There is nothing, absolutely nothing (other than pure madness) that can justify THIS. https://t.co/RORFfmsedc
CNN REPORTER’S FAMILY KILLED
Relatives of a CNN reporter have been killed in Gaza and his childhood home was demolished in two different Israeli air strikes.
According to CNN, its producer Ibrahim Dahman has been covering the war in Gaza since October 7. After almost a month, he fled to Egypt with his family.
He received news that an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza had killed at least nine of his relatives at his aunt’s house.
On the same day, his childhood home in Gaza City was also destroyed due to a strike on a nearby building.
“I will never be able to forget every stone and corner of the house in which I was born and raised and in which my children were born,” he told CNN.
FREED HOSTAGES CONFRONT ISRAELI PM
Recently released hostages and relatives of Israelis still held by Hamas in Gaza have confronted Benjamin Netanyahu at an angry meeting in which some of those present reportedly called on the Israeli prime minister to resign.
A one-week truce in fighting between Israel and Palestinian armed group Hamas saw 105 hostages return from the Gaza Strip, including 80 Israelis – mostly women and children – exchanged for 240 Palestinians jailed by Israel.
Israel on Tuesday said 138 hostages still remain in the narrow Palestinian territory.
In a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some Israeli cabinet members, released hostages and family members called for immediate action for the release of remaining captives.
Reuven Yablonka, whose son Hanan Yablonka is still being held by Hamas, told the Hebrew daily Maariv that “there was chaos and yelling” at the meeting in which some representatives of the hostage families reportedly walked out as Netanyahu read from pre-prepared remarks.
Israeli media reported the sit-down as being tense.
One woman, who said that she and her husband had been separated days before she was returned to Israel, challenged Netanyahu over reports that Israel is considering using seawater to flood the network of tunnels where Hamas leaders – and the remaining hostages – are believed to be sheltering.
“He was taken to the tunnels, and you talk about washing the tunnels with seawater. You prioritise politics over the hostages,” the woman said, according to Haaretz.
Dozens of protesters, meanwhile, gathered outside a government building in Tel Aviv to call for a permanent ceasefire and the liberation of the remaining hostages.
“This cycle of revenge must end,” Barak Heymann said.
“And Israel is responsible right now to stop the fire, to bring (back) the hostages and to look for a solution.”
25 DEAD AFTER GAZA SCHOOL HIT
Hamas health ministry says strike on south Gaza school kills 25
At least 25 people were killed in a strike that hit a southern Gaza school sheltering Palestinians displaced by war, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
Witnesses said dozens of injured people, as well as bodies recovered from under the rubble of Ma’an school in Khan Younis had been taken to the city’s Nasser hospital.
Mohammed Salou, whose sister was killed in Tuesday’s strike, told AFP: “My cousin called me and told me to come because my sister’s body was lying in a schoolyard, and we couldn’t retrieve it.”
He eventually managed to take the body to hospital, he said.
Salou said he believed “it was not the school itself which was targeted, but rather the area around it”.
Many Palestinians have found refuge in schools or hospitals since the start of the Israeli offensive in October, believing they were relatively safe from attacks.
ISRAEL TO FLOOD TUNNEL NETWORK
Israel is planning a massive operation to pump thousands of cubic metres of water per hour from the Mediterranean Sea into the terror tunnel network beneath Gaza to flush out Hamas.
The drastic plan to flood the subterranean network comes as Israel reported the heaviest fighting since the start of the ground offensive, which has now killed 80 Israel Defense Force soldiers.
HAMAS DRUGGED HOSTAGES TO SMILE ON RELEASE
Israel claims that Hamas drugged hostages before they were released so they appeared “calm, happy and upbeat”, although no evidence proves these claims.
Dr Hagar Mizrahi, head of the Health Ministry’s medical division, claims Hamas masked the abuse and terror of more than 50 days in captivity by administering the tranquilliser drug Klonopin, used to treat psychosis.
The use of drugs was first raised to Israel’s Knesset Health Committee, who urged the Health Ministry to release an official report of the drugging and other medical findings of the released hostages.
ISRAEL PLANNING TO FLOOD TUNNELS
Israel is considering flooding Hamas tunnels deep beneath the Gaza Strip with seawater, according to US officials.
Five large seawater pumps, each capable of moving water from the Mediterranean Sea, were constructed a mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp that could flood the tunnels within weeks, the officials told the Wall Street Journal.
About 800 tunnels have been identified beneath Gaza, but Israel believes the network is much bigger.
“We are not sure how successful pumping will be since nobody knows the details of the tunnels and the ground around them,” the source said. “It’s impossible to know if that will be effective because we don’t know how seawater will drain in tunnels no one has been in before.”
An IDF civil engineer told the UK’s Financial Times that, in response to the use of “bunker busters” in 2021, Hamas likely built multiple layers of underground tunnels, with the lower levels housing the most significant infrastructure.
“The lesson Hamas likely learned from the 2021 air strikes … was to dig deeper and to encase the tunnel system with reinforced concrete,” Yehuda Kfir, an expert in underground warfare, is quoted as saying.
“Hamas likely built different layers of tunnels: An upper ‘defensive’ level with booby traps, very narrow and the blast-proof doors we’ve already seen, and a lower ‘offensive’ level that is deeper and wider and holds things like logistics centres, living quarters and weapons stores.”
WOMEN REMAIN CAPTIVE TO SILENCE RAPE
Hamas kept women captive because they didn’t want the world to know about rape and sexual violence, the US said.
The seven-day truce ended last week after refused to release the remaining 18 women believed to be held in Gaza, the majority of which were taken from the Israel music festival.
“It seems one of the reasons they don’t want to turn women over that they’ve been holding hostage and the reason this pause fell apart is they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody,” said Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the US Department of State.
IDF ‘RAIDS’ HAMAS’ GENERAL SECURITY HQ
Israel says it raided the general security headquarters of Hamas in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza.
The operation was conducted after the area was encircled by IDF troops in recent days.
Weapons, equipment and intel were found during the joint operation with Israel’s Shin Bet security agency.
HEAVIEST FIGHTING OF WAR
The Israeli Defence Force has reached the centre of Khan Younis in what has been described as the heaviest fighting since the ground offensive into Gaza was launched.
“We are in the heart of Jabaliya, in the heart of Shejaiya and from this evening, also in the heart of Khan Younis,” said Major General Yaron Finkelman, head of the Southern Command.
“This is the most intense day [of battles] since the start of the [ground] manoeuvre, in terms of terrorists killed, the number of engagements and the use of fire from the ground and the air.”
TERROR INFRASTRUCTURE EMBEDDED IN JABALIYA
The IDF says troops raided Hamas posts found in civilian structures in Jabaliya and Shejaiya, where they took out “terror infrastructure both above and ground and below”.
“In the past day, infantry, armour, engineering and air forces have co-operated to fight terrorists face-to-face, and many terrorists were assassinated,” the army said in a statement.
80 ISRAELI SOLDIERS KILLED IN GAZA
The Israeli army said that 80 soldiers had been killed since the start of its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
After weeks of heavy bombing, Israel launched a ground offensive in the territory on October 27 aimed at destroying Hamas in retaliation for an attack that Israeli officials say killed around 1200 people, most of them civilians.
‘NOT POSSIBLE’ FOR SAFE ZONE IN GAZA: UN
The United Nations has warned that it is impossible to create so-called safe zones for civilians to flee to inside the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s bombing campaign.
Israel had initially focused its offensive on the north of the territory, but the army has now also dropped leaflets on parts of the south, telling Palestinian civilians there to flee to other areas.
“The so-called safe zones … are not scientific, they are not rational, they are not possible, and I think the authorities are aware of this,” James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Cairo.
IDF ADVANCES ON HOSPITAL IN GAZA
According to CNN, Israeli troops have advanced on the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza.
“The situation is very dangerous and [there is] heavy fire gunfire. The Israeli tanks and vehicles are advancing towards the hospital and are one block away,” journalist Mahmoud Al-Sabbah, who is at the hospital, said.
Journalist Anas Al-Sharif, who is also present, told CNN the situation is very difficult and there was artillery fire and air strikes.
“The entire medical system has collapsed inside the hospital, and whoever gets injured ends as a martyr inside the hospital,” Al Sharif said.
US TO PUT TOGETHER NAVAL TASK FORCE
The United States has announced it was looking to put together a naval taskforce to escort ships through the Red Sea, with Houthi rebels in Yemen vowing to launch more maritime attacks on Israeli-linked ships.
Meanwhile, a diplomatic delegation from France was on its way to Lebanon to quell rising rocket attacks on Israel.
There has been an escalation in hostilities between Hamas ally Hezbollah and Israel on Lebanon’s southern front.
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Originally published as Israel-Hamas war: UN official says southern Gaza has become ‘apocalyptic’
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