- Gaza health ministry says 4,800 children among those killed in bombardment since Oct 7
- US Secretary of State meets Palestinian President Abbas in West Bank
- Tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin take to streets to demand immediate cease-fire
KHAN YOUNIS/WEST BANK/CAIRO: Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. The strike came as Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush the territory’s Hamas rulers, despite US appeals for a pause to get aid to desperate civilians.
The soaring death toll in Gaza has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets to demand an immediate cease-fire.
The health ministry in Gaza Strip urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or Egypt on Sunday to ensure the safe exit of the wounded from the enclave.
“We call on the ICRC to provide a safe passage for the wounded, accompany them and ensure their safe arrival to the Rafah land crossing until they are discharged to hospitals in Egypt,” the spokesman for the ministry of health, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said.
In pictures: Massive balls of fire and smoke fill the sky across Palestine's Gaza as Israel pounds the besieged enclave with heavy air strikes after cutting all communications and internet lines pic.twitter.com/fnhcLJ3f1A
— TRT World (@trtworld) November 5, 2023
He said another option could be for Egypt to let Egyptian ambulances enter the Gaza Strip and transport the wounded from the enclave’s hospitals to Egyptian hospitals “to ensure their safe exit”.
Meanwhile, evacuations of injured Gazans and foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing to Egypt have been suspended since Saturday, two Egyptian security sources and one medical source told Reuters.
One of the security sources and the medical source said the evacuations were suspended after an Israeli strike on Friday on an ambulance in Gaza being used to transport injured people.
The Rafah crossing to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula is the only exit point from Gaza not controlled by Israel. Aid trucks were still able to travel into the territory, two of the sources said.
Israel has rejected the idea of halting its offensive, even for brief humanitarian pauses proposed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his current tour of the region. Instead, it said that the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers were “encountering the full force” of its troops.
“Anyone in Gaza City is risking their life,” Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said.
Medical sources say a residential block wiped out in Gaza's Al Shati refugee camp as Israel intensifies bombing of besieged Palestinian enclave pic.twitter.com/bnJoD0lmsO
— TRT World (@trtworld) November 5, 2023
Large columns of smoke rose as Israel’s military said it had encircled Gaza City, the initial target of its offensive against Hamas. Gaza’s Health Ministry has said more than 9,400 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in nearly a month of war, and that number is likely to rise as the assault continues.
Early Sunday, airstrikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least 33 people and wounding 42, said Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry.
He said first responders, aided by residents, were still searching the rubble for dead or possible survivors.
— A.W. Khalwale (@I_am_Khalwale) November 5, 2023
The camp, a built-up residential area, is located in the evacuation zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians in Gaza to seek refuge as it focuses its military offensive in the northern areas.
Despite such appeals, Israel has continued its bombardment across Gaza, saying it is targeting Hamas fighters and assets everywhere. It has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
Critics say Israel’s strikes are often disproportionate, considering the large number of women and children killed in such attacks.
Why is Israel bombing Lebanon?🤔
“We are only defending ourselves against Hamas”.🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/0Lk5Qux62A
— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) November 4, 2023
Egyptian officials said they and Qatar were proposing humanitarian pauses for six to 12 hours daily to allow aid in and casualties to be evacuated. They were also asking for Israel to release a number of women and elderly prisoners in exchange for hostages, suggestions Israel seemed unlikely to accept. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press on the discussions.
Israel has repeatedly demanded that northern Gaza’s 1.1 million residents flee south, and on Saturday it offered a three-hour window for residents to do so. An Associated Press journalist on the road, however, saw nobody coming. The head of the government media office in Gaza, Salama Maarouf, said no one went south because the Israeli military had damaged the road.
Israel asserted that Hamas “exploited” the window to move south and attack its forces. There was no immediate Hamas comment on that claim, which was impossible to verify.
Some Palestinians said they didn’t flee because they feared Israeli bombardment.
“We don’t trust them,” said Mohamed Abed, who sheltered with his wife and children on the grounds of Al-Shifa hospital, one of thousands of Palestinians seeking safety at medical centers in the north.
Swaths of residential neighborhoods in northern Gaza have been leveled in airstrikes. UN monitors say more than half of northern Gaza’s remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, are sheltering in UN-run facilities. But deadly Israeli strikes have also repeatedly hit and damaged those shelters. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said it has lost contact with many in the north.
An Israeli airstrike overnight struck a water well in Tal Al-Zatar in northern Gaza, cutting off water for tens of thousands of people in the area, the Hamas-run municipality in the town of Beit Lahia said in a statement early Sunday.
At least 1,115 Palestinian dual nationals and wounded have exited Gaza into Egypt, but on Saturday authorities in Gaza didn’t allow foreign passport holders to leave because Israel was preventing the evacuation of Palestinian patients for treatment in Egypt, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority.
The UN said about 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70 percent of the population, have fled their homes. Food, water and the fuel needed for generators that power hospitals and other facilities is running out.
Thousands of Israelis protested outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem, urging him to resign and calling for the return of roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas. Netanyahu has refused to take responsibility for the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people.
“I find it difficult to understand why trucks with humanitarian aid are going to monsters,” said Ella Ben Ami, whose parents were abducted. She called for aid to be halted until the hostages are released.
Air raid sirens sounded Saturday evening in southern Israel as Hamas launched rockets into Ashkelon. Rocket fire has continued in the area throughout the conflict, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes.
Among the Palestinians killed in Gaza are more than 3,900 Palestinian children, the Gaza Health Ministry said, without providing a breakdown of civilians and fighters.
The Israeli military said four more soldiers have died during the Gaza ground operation, bringing the confirmed death toll to 28.
WFP chief urges for safe, expanded humanitarian access to Gaza
The UN World Food Programme’s Executive Director Cindy McCain issued an urgent plea on Sunday from the Rafah border crossing for safe, expanded humanitarian access to Gaza as humanitarian needs skyrocket and critical food supplies reach dangerously low levels.
Entry points into Gaza have been virtually sealed except through the Rafah border crossing point. While there has been a steady increase in aid entering Gaza, it is nowhere near enough to meet the exponentially growing needs.
Since the beginning of the current escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, the number of internally displaced people has reached 1.4 million, according to UN refugee agency UNCIEF. Children and families have practically no access to water, food and medicines, and the whole Gaza Strip is living with very little or no electricity, the humanitarian agency reports.
“Right now, parents in Gaza do not know whether they can feed their children today and whether they will even survive to see tomorrow. The suffering just meters away is unfathomable standing on this side of the border,” McCain said as she returned from the Rafah border crossing in Egypt.
“Today, I’m making an urgent plea for the millions of people whose lives are being torn apart by this crisis,” she added.
McCain is concluding a two-day visit to Egypt, during which she met with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and senior government officials and visited the Egyptian Red Crescent’s humanitarian staging hub in Al-Arish.
“We appreciate all efforts to facilitate a steady flow of humanitarian supplies through its border with Gaza, and the work of the Egyptian Red Crescent is remarkable. We need to continue to work together to get safe and sustained access to Gaza at a scale that aligns with the catastrophic conditions facing families there,” McCain noted.
During her visit, McCain explored opportunities for WFP to leverage its extensive expertise in logistics during emergencies to further strengthen collaboration with partners such as the Egyptian Red Crescent and scale up the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza. She applauded the efforts of their volunteers who have worked tirelessly to get lifesaving assistance to their neighbors.
“The crisis in Gaza is not just a local tragedy. It’s a stark reminder that our global food crisis is worsening. Not only does this crisis threaten regional peace and stability, it undermines our collective efforts to combat hunger worldwide,” McCain noted.
Iran says US ‘will be hit hard’ if no cease-fire in Gaza -Tasnim
Iran said that the United States would “be hit hard” if Washington did not implement a cease-fire in Gaza, the country’s Minister of Defense was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Sunday.
“Our advice to the Americans is to immediately stop the war in Gaza and implement a cease-fire, otherwise they will be hit hard,” Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani said.
After a surprise attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, the Israelis have sought to defeat the militant group.
Iran considers the US to be “militarily-involved” in the conflict.
Palestinian Authority could only return to Gaza if ‘solution’ found to conflict: Abbas
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a high-security surprise visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank Sunday, meeting with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, according to photographs released by the Palestinian Authority.
The top US diplomat met with Abbas in Ramallah as global concern grows over rising violence in the occupied territory in tandem with the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza since October 7.
Abbas said Sunday that the Palestinian Authority could return to power in the Gaza Strip only if a “comprehensive political solution” is found for the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Israel has sought to destroy Gaza’s Hamas rulers since the deadly October 7 attacks, raising the question of who would run the Palestinian territory after the war.
“We will fully assume our responsibilities within the framework of a comprehensive political solution that includes all of the West Bank, including east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip,” Abbas told Blinken according to WAFA news agency.
The war erupted after Hamas militants launched an attack on southern Israel that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Since the outbreak of the war, which has seen nearly 9,500 killed in Israel’s retaliatory land, air and sea assault on Gaza according to the Hamas-run health ministry, Blinken has made three trips to Israel and also visited numerous other Arab nations.
West Bank clashes
More than 150 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers and attacks by Israeli settlers since the start of the war, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.
Blinken’s meeting with Abbas, whose secularist Fatah party is Hamas’s rival, came at a time when Washington has heaped political and military support behind Israel.
The United States has advocated that a two-state solution is the only path out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Blinken recently said the Palestinian Authority should take control of the Gaza Strip which is currently governed by Hamas.
The United States and a number of European and Arab countries, as well as the United Nations, have stated alarm at flaring tensions in the West Bank.
The Israeli army said Friday its forces were “operating against Hamas” notably in Jenin and Nablus, in the north of the territory it has occupied since 1967.
Blinken has advocated for “humanitarian pauses” in his tour of the Middle East, to protect civilians and ease aid deliveries in the densely populated Gaza Strip under bombardment.
Blinken has traveled to Ankara in Turkiye on Sunday.
Saudi Arabia condemns Gaza nuclear ‘option’ statement
Saudi Arabia on Sunday condemned in the strongest terms the extremist remarks by an Israeli government minister regarding dropping a nuclear bomb on the besieged Gaza Strip.
The kingdom’s foreign ministry said such remarks show the penetration of “extremism and brutality among members of the Israeli government.”
“Moreover, not dismissing the minister and only freezing his membership constitutes the utmost disregard for all human standards and values,” it added.
On Sunday Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu was suspended from government meetings “until further notice” after suggesting in an interview dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
Eliyahu, an ultranationalist politician and part of Netnayahu’s ruling coalition, told Israel’s Kol Barama radio he was not entirely satisfied with the scale of Israel’s retaliation after Hamas fighters carried out a deadly attack on Oct. 7 inside southern Israel.
When the interviewer asked whether the Israeli minister advocated dropping “some kind of atomic bomb” on the Gaza Strip “to kill everyone,” Eliyahu replied: “That’s one option.”
Netanyahu’s office quickly responded to the minister’s remarks, issuing a statement in which it described them as “disconnected from reality,” adding that Israel was trying to spare “non-combatants” in Gaza.
Following the outcry over his remarks Eliyahu later said in a post on X that his statement about the atomic bomb was “metaphorical.”
Israel has never admitted to having a nuclear bomb.
