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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 1:09:51 GMT -5
(The Guardian) UN estimates tens of thousands have fled northern GazaHere’s a recap of the UN’s estimates on the number of people who have fled their homes in northern Gaza. Overnight, the UN humanitarian office, OCHA, said it believes tens of thousands of people in Gaza have evacuated to the south following Israel’s evacuation warning. Prior to the evacuation order, more than 400,000 Palestinians were internally displaced, OCHA said. Israel’s military has told about 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to leave ahead of an expected ground invasion. Hamas urged people to stay put and defy the Israeli military order. The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has said the order is “extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible”. 'Significant movement of Palestinian civilians' - says Israel militaryIsrael Defense Forces spokesperson Jonathan Conricus is now giving a briefing on its operations. He says yesterday the military issued a demand for Palestinian civilians to move south so that they are not in an area where IDF is “going to enhance our military operations.” There has been “a significant movement of Palestinian civilians towards the south”, he says, and criticises Hamas for telling citizens to stay put, accusing the group of using “civilians as their human shields”. He says “we are not trying to kill or injure any civilians”.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 1:10:31 GMT -5
(The Guardian) More from IDF Spokesperson Conricus. Israeli reserve soldiers have been in formation around the Gaza Strip for several days, he says. “They are all around the Gaza Strip, in the south, in the center and in the north, and they are preparing themselves for whatever target they will get, whatever task,” he says. “Our aim is very clear. The end-state of this war is that we will dismantle Hamas and its military capabilities, and fundamentally change the situation, so that Hamas never again has the ability to inflict any damage on Israeli civilians or soldiers.”
IDF Spokesperson Conricus tells the briefing that the situation on the northern border is “very tense”. Hezbollah fighters fired an anti-tank missile towards Israeli troops, he says. “There was a short battle and the situation eventually calmed down. Afterwards, Hezbollah sent drones into Israel and also fired surface to air missiles against the Israeli aircraft.” he says. “All of those two attempts were successfully intercepted by the IDF, but the situation on the northern border remains very tense and we are monitoring the activities of Hezbollah very closely with additional enhanced capabilities in the north.”
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 1:16:46 GMT -5
(The Guardian) IDF Spokesperson Conricus says he wants to address issues raised in media coverage, saying that “Palestinian civilians in Gaza are not our enemies. We don’t assess them as such and we don’t target them as such”. The evacuation order was aimed at minimising risk to civilians, he says. “It is extremely sad and regrettable that so many media outlets are focusing on our actions instead of putting the responsibility on the entity that governs the Gaza Strip, and that is Hamas,” he says. “They are the ones who initiated this war. They are the ones who targeted our civilians.” He mentions the various officials who have visited Israel, including Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, president of the European Commission and Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of Defense. “European and American leaders are sending a clear message that they stand by Israel, and that they understand that this act of atrocity against Israel is not another round of conflict, and that they fully support our right to defend ourselves against these monsters.” The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has criticised Israel’s evacuation order and warned yesterday that the situation in Gaza has reached a “a dangerous new low”.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 1:17:45 GMT -5
(The Guardian) EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday that Israel’s order for more than one million people to evacuate northern Gaza in a single day was “utterly impossible to implement”. Israel warned residents to evacuate to the south on Friday, before an expected ground offensive. Borrell, speaking at a press conference in Beijing during a diplomatic visit to China, said: I am saying that, representing the official position of the European Union... (the evacuation plan) is utterly, utterly impossible to implement… To imagine that you could move one million people in 24 hours in a situation like Gaza can only be a humanitarian crisis.
The bodies of several Israelis have been retrieved by the Israeli military after its forces entered the Gaza Strip, according to a report by Haaretz. The families of the individuals, who had been missing since Hamas attacks last Saturday, have been notified, it said. The report quotes IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari as saying that troops also found items that might lead to more missing Israelis. During the raids, the Israeli military also “destroyed terrorist infrastructure and squads, including a Hamas unit that fired anti-tank missiles toward Israel.” Israel’s military said earlier this morning that it has confirmed that more than 120 civilians are being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 14:57:37 GMT -5
(The Guardian) 11:06am Summary--Thousands of Palestinians have continued to leave northern Gaza and cram into already crowded schools, homes and makeshift shelters in the south, as Israeli airstrikes pound the blockaded strip ahead of an expected ground invasion. --The US president, Joe Biden, said Washington “is working with the governments of Israel, Egypt, Jordan – and with the UN – to surge support to ease the humanitarian consequences of Hamas’s attack, create conditions needed to resume the flow of assistance, and advocate for the upholding of the law of war.” --The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told troops in southern Israel that “the next stage is coming.” --Lebanon’s Hezbollah took responsibility for firing guided missiles and mortar shells toward Israel. In response, the Israel Defense Forces hit targets in Lebanese territory. Residents of multiple northern Israeli communities have been instructed to take shelter. --The US state department advised US citizens in Gaza to move south toward the Rafah border crossing with Egypt as diplomats try to negotiate a five-hour opening to allow civilians out of the blockaded enclave. --The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) called on the Israeli authorities “to protect all civilians who have been sheltering” in its premises in the Gaza Strip and said that its shelters “are not safe any more”. --The UNRWA also warned that “clean water is running out” in Gaza. --Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the UN and international organisations in Geneva, has insisted that Israel is complying with international humanitarian law. --Thousands of people have joined a pro-Palestine rally in central London over the Israel-Hamas war. --The death toll in Gaza has risen to at least 2,215, with 8,714 wounded, the local health ministry said. --Israel’s death toll is at over 1,300, the Israeli authorities said, with more than 3,360 injured. --Sirens have continued sounding in southern and central Israel.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 14:58:36 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Gaza civilians afraid to leave home after bombing 'safe routes'A convoy of vehicles carrying fleeing civilians from Gaza to the southern half of the strip, which was traveling on a road marked as a “safe route”, has been struck by a deadly airstrike, according to analysis. The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan and Sufian Taha report: The Friday afternoon bombing in Gaza City, which killed a reported 70 people including children and which Hamas blamed on Israel, occurred on Salah-al-Din Road, a main thoroughfare in the overcrowded enclave, home to a trapped population of 2.3 million people.
Forensic Architecture, a London-based research agency, and its partner investigations unit at the Palestinian human rights organisation al-Haq, used aerial photos and social media posts to geolocate the site of the strike, sharing its findings with the Guardian. The BBC’s Verify unit also came to the same conclusion.
Video and pictures of the aftermath of the attack show 12 dead bodies, most of whom are women and children as young as about two years old, and several damaged vehicles.
The Palestinian health ministry said that 70 people were killed on the road, which was filled with traffic as Palestinians tried to adhere to Israeli orders given early on Friday to evacuate the northern half of Gaza.
Shadows and the position of the sun suggest the attack on the civilian convoy occurred at about 5.30pm. At 6.03pm, in social media posts, the IDF identified the exact same road in an infographic as the safe route to follow the Israeli evacuation directive for about half of the strip’s population to travel south of the Gaza River, which is just south of Gaza City.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:00:03 GMT -5
(The Guardian) European Commission to triple humanitarian aid for GazaThe European Commission announced this afternoon that it will triple humanitarian aid for Gaza. The move comes after the EU faced criticism for conflicting messaging from its senior leadership. The commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, spoke with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, today, the commission said. “The commission will immediately increase the current humanitarian aid envelope foreseen for Gaza by €50m,” Von der Leyen said in a statement. “This will bring the total to over €75m.” The commission chief added: “We will continue our close cooperation with the UN and its agencies to ensure that this aid reaches those in need in the Gaza Strip. The commission supports Israel’s right to defend itself against the Hamas terrorists, in full respect of international humanitarian law. We are working hard to ensure that innocent civilians in Gaza are provided support in this context.” UN aid chief: Gaza humanitarian situation "becoming untenable"The UN’s under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “fast becoming untenable”. In a statement issued on Saturday, Griffiths said: “In Gaza, families have been bombed while inching their way south along congested, damaged roads, following an evacuation order that left hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for safety but with nowhere to go.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed and many more have been injured. There is no power, no water and no fuel. Food supplies are running dangerously low. Hospitals, overwhelmed with patients, are running out of medicine …
Even wars have rules, and these rules must be upheld, at all times, and by all sides. Civilians and civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian workers and assets, must be protected. Civilians must be allowed to leave for safer areas. And whether they move or stay, constant care must be taken to spare them.”
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:00:50 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Saudi Arabia is reported to have suspended normalisation talks with Israel, a source tells Agence France-Presse. “Saudi Arabia has decided to pause discussion on possible normalisation and has informed US officials,” the source told AFP, which reports that the source spoke the same day US secretary of state Antony Blinken met in Riyadh with his Saudi counterpart, Faisal bin Farhan. Following the meeting, the Saudi foreign ministry called for “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and its surroundings” and the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:04:40 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Lebanon said on Saturday that Israel had launched a deadly strike on Friday that killed a Reuters journalist and injured six other journalists from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Al Jazeera. The Lebanese army said in a statement that “the Israeli enemy fired a rocket shell that hit a civilian car belonging to a media team, leading to the death of Issam Abdallah”, AFP reports. Lebanon’s foreign ministry called the strike a “deliberate killing” and a “crime against freedom of speech and journalism”. Fatima Kanso, Abdallah’s mother, said: “Israel deliberately killed my son. They were all wearing journalists’ gear and the word ‘press’ was visible. Israel cannot deny this crime,’” Reuters reports. The AFP photographer Christina Assi and AFP video journalist Dylan Collins were among the six journalists wounded. “We were filming smoke billowing from Israeli artillery fire targeting a distant hill in front of us,” Collins told the AFP, adding, “There was no military activity in our direct vicinity and no artillery fire near us.” Al Jazeera has also accused Israel of launching the deadly strike, which injured its reporter Carmen Joukhadar. Joukhadar said she and her colleagues had been filming footage on a hill “in an open-air area, without any military sites near us”. AFP reports Joukhadar running to her car for shelter when the first strike landed. “Then I thought I shouldn’t be close to the car, so I ran and the second strike hit” the vehicle, Joukhadar said. An Israeli military spokesperson said that the military was looking into the circumstances surrounding the deadly strikes.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:05:19 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The Scottish government has announced that it will provide £500,000 towards the UN Relief and Works Agency’s appeal amid the increasingly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. On Saturday, Scotland’s international development minister, Christina McKelvie, confirmed that the funding, saying: Our thoughts are with all the innocent people caught in the middle of escalating conflict in Israel and Gaza. The Scottish government reiterates the call from the first minister and the UN secretary-general for a humanitarian corridor to be established so that urgent assistance can be given to those civilians who are trapped, helpless and cannot leave.”Tamara Alrifai, a UNRWA spokespersonm thanked the Scottish government, saying: “This generous contribution is an incredibly humane gesture towards tens of thousands of people who are in utter distress in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA is very grateful for the show of support by Scotland and will use every penny to help alleviate the suffering of civilian women, children and men in Gaza.”
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:06:14 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Israel has admitted to intelligence ‘mistakes’ in failing to predict Hamas’s attacks last weekend. “It’s my mistake, and it reflects the mistakes of all those making [intelligence] assessments,” Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said at a press briefing, Agence France-Presse reports. “We really believed that Hamas learned the lesson from,” its last major war with Israel in 2021, Hanegbi added. He went on to refuse negotiations surrounding prisoner swaps with Hamas, saying: “There’s no way to negotiate with an enemy we have sworn to obliterate.”
Médicins Sans Frontieres has called on the 'Israeli authorities to ‘show humanity’. In a statement issued on Saturday, MSF condemned Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip “without restraint for a week”. “We are calling for the most elementary humanity to be shown,” it said, adding: Despite Israeli announcements suggesting that there are safe areas for the population trapped in the Gaza Strip, they are in fact exposed to bombardment throughout all the territory, including in the south, where tens of thousands of people have fled following the ultimatum.
The injunction to nearly 1.1 million people to move in a few hours to an already overpopulated territory with precarious access to food, water and healthcare is as absurd as it is intolerable. Our teams are witnessing the fact that drinking water is becoming scarce in the south of the Gaza Strip and the difficulty of obtaining it is adding to the distress of the population. MSF urgently calls for the restoration of sufficient and immediate access to drinking water for the population of the Gaza Strip.
A humanitarian corridor of a few hours decreed today by the Israeli authorities in the north of Gaza has just expired. We are extremely worried about the fate of those who will not be able to move, such as the wounded, the sick and the medical staff, who we fear will be wiped out in view of the statements made by the Israeli military authorities.
MSF is calling for safe zones to remain in the north and for regular ceasefires.
We are also calling for the possibility to flee through the Rafah crossing for those who wish to do so, without prejudice to the right to return. Médecins Sans Frontières has asked for its Palestinian staff who wish to leave to be evacuated."
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:06:43 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:07:43 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Canada’s foreign minister has confirmed death of fourth Canadian in last week’s attacks by Hamas Twenty-two-year-old Shir Georgy went missing following Hamas’s attacks at a music festival near Kibbutz Re’im last Saturday. Her aunt, Michal Bouganim, mourned her niece’s death on Instagram, saying: “It is with great sadness and a broken heart that we announce the murder of our beloved Shir.” Reuters reported Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly said that Georgy’s death brings the total death toll of Canadians to four, with three still missing. Joly also said that she is working on evacuating Canadians in Gaza through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt and out of the West Bank via bus and into Jordan. “Canada has an agreement with Israel to get Canadians out of Gaza … Things are very volatile, obviously, in Gaza, where it is one of the worst places on earth right now to be living in,” Reuters reported Joly said in a phone call to reporters from Jordan.
Conservative American lawmakers including Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis and Georgia’s hard-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have said the US should not accept refugees from Gaza as thousands of them continue to flee amid deadly Israeli strikes. During an event for his 2024 presidential campaign, DeSantis issued scathing words against Gazan civilians, saying: “We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugeesc… If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas but they are all anti-Semitic, none of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.” He went on to say that the neighbouring “Arab states should be taking them if you have refugees”. Greene issued similar words, tweeting: “We cannot take in 1 million refugees from Gaza. We would be importing anti-Semitic people, many who support terrorism.” The UN and numerous humanitarian organisations have called for the safe evacuation of Gazans and warned of a growing humanitarian crisis as they flee deadly Israeli airstrikes which have struck and reportedly killed dozens even in supposedly “safe” routes.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:08:48 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Flights with humanitarian aid have been landing in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula amid efforts to open safe corridors into Gaza. The Guardian’s Julian Borger reports: Two new aid flights arrived on Saturday at El Arish airport in Sinai, 45km from the Gaza border, and another three landed earlier in the week.
One of the flights, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, was carrying trauma medicines and health supplies. “Every hour these supplies remain on the Egyptian side of the border, more girls and boys, women and men, especially those vulnerable or disabled, will die,” the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement.
Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, replied to the WHO chief on social media, insisting that Israel was taking “every feasible precaution available to mitigate unintended civilian harm”, including the dropping of leaflets and sending messages on social media warning people to leave northern Gaza. She blamed Hamas for using civilians as human shields.
Human rights lawyers say the forcible transfer for such a large population and the heavy bombing of residential areas could constitute war crimes, and the Israeli government has yet to allow humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 15:09:38 GMT -5
Thousands of Palestinians displaced due to the ongoing Israeli attacks take shelter inside and around Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza on October 14, 2023. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty Images Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip after the Israeli army issued an evacuation warning to a population of over 1 million in northern Gaza and Gaza City to seek refuge in the south ahead of a possible Israeli ground invasion, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. Photograph: Hatem Moussa/AP
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