Israel continues its genocidal war in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. Update on the situation in Gaza, while the north of the enclave has been brutally besieged and continuously bombarded for 6 weeks.
By Palestine Media Agency, November 19, 2024
KEY FIGURES
in Gaza since October 7, 2023:
43,922 deaths
103,898 injured
1.9 million displacedin Lebanon since October 7, 2023:
3,516 deaths
14,929 injured
1.2 million displaced peoplein the West Bank since October 7, 2023:
784 deaths
including 146 children
19,031 displaced
Massacre in Beit Lahia
At least 111 Palestinians were murdered by Israeli bombing and shooting on Sunday, November 17 alone, the majority of them in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, but also in the refugee camps of Nuseirat and Al-Mawasi, in Bureij and Rafah.
In Beit Lahia, medical sources explain that airstrikes destroyed a 5-story building where several families were taking refuge, as well as two surrounding houses. 72 people were killed, including many of his children.
34 bodies were pulled from the rubble on Monday in Beit Lahia, and many people are believed to still be trapped under the rubble. The rescue teams denounce being systematically hampered in their work and not having been able to immediately access the site, which further led to deaths which could have been avoided. The Palestinian Civil Defense also indicated that its teams lacked equipment due to the Israeli siege imposed on northern Gaza since the beginning of October 2024, and that they were working with primitive tools and bare hands.
Massacre near Kamal Adwan Hospital
At least 28 Palestinians were murdered by Israel on Monday, November 18 alone, including 17 in the bombing of a house surrounding the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza.
The building is the last partially functional hospital in northern Gaza, and has suffered numerous attacks, since the start of Israel's genocidal offensive in Gaza and particularly since the start of the siege. In addition to these victims, the attack caused panic among refugees and endangered people seeking care.
Dr Abu Safiya called for protection of the hospital, which has been repeatedly hit by the Israeli army and the majority of staff arrested and imprisoned. He said the Israeli army recently targeted the facility's emergency department, shutting down the operations unit due to shrapnel and creating panic among patients.
“Targeting the hospital is a crime against the health system, and the world must stop it immediately, as we treat the injured while under constant Israeli bombardment,” he said. “We call on the world to stop the Israeli killing machine and immediately end the targeting of the hospital, which is supposed to benefit from international protection. »
The siege of northern Gaza
The Gaza Health Ministry estimates that at least 2,000 Palestinians have been killed since the siege of northern Gaza began on October 5, 2024, and another 6,000 injured. This assessment does not take into account the deaths due to famine and diseases caused by this same siege.
Many eyewitnesses report that bodies are abandoned in the streets, their loved ones forced to flee and help unable to reach them. Images that we have chosen not to broadcast show that wild animals desecrate these bodies, which decompose in the open air.
On November 9, the United Nations and its partners estimated that between 100,000 and 130,000 people had been displaced from the north into Gaza City, and that between 50,000 and 75,000 people remained in the besieged area. The Palestinian Civil Defense (PCD) estimates that at least 1,300 Palestinians have been murdered since the start of this operation.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA), “six attempts to deliver life-saving aid to besieged areas of the northern Gaza governorate have been blocked” in the past few years alone. last two days. Since the beginning of November, all attempts by the United Nations to access the besieged areas of the northern Gaza governorate with food and health missions to support the tens of thousands of people remaining there have been either refused or obstructed. .
The director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, one of the last to partially operate in the area, warns of the dramatic increase in cases of severe malnutrition, mainly among children. On November 8, the Famine Review Committee (FRC) of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued an alert, warning of an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine in areas to the north from Gaza.
The WHO reports that access to hospitals is also seriously restricted due to heavy fire which prevents Gazans from moving and ambulances from reaching the injured. Since November 3, due to a severe fuel shortage, Al Awda Hospital has been forced to run its generators for only three hours a day, interrupting vital surgeries and other health services, added the WHO.
UN calls Israel's practices genocide
A UN committee affirms that Israel's war methods in the Gaza Strip “correspond to the characteristics of genocide”, denouncing in particular Israel's use of famine as a “weapon of war”.
“Through its siege of Gaza, its obstruction of humanitarian aid, its targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated calls from the UN, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel intentionally causes death, starvation and serious injury,” the committee said in a statement.
The methods of war used by Israel “correspond to the characteristics of genocide”, according to this special UN committee, created in 1968 and responsible for investigating Israeli practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, conquered the previous year by Israel (West Bank and Gaza Strip). Human Rights Watch, for its part, declared that the repeated forced displacement of Gazans constituted a crime against humanity.
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