Renewed Gaza combat thrusts Palestinians between mortal danger and mass displacement

Analysis Renewed Gaza combat thrusts Palestinians between mortal danger and mass displacement
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Updated 02 December 2023
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Renewed Gaza combat thrusts Palestinians between mortal danger and mass displacement

Renewed Gaza combat thrusts Palestinians between mortal danger and mass displacement
  • Nearly three-quarters of embattled enclave’s 2.2 million residents have been forcibly displaced since Oct. 7
  • Overcrowding in camps and shelters for the displaced could lead to spread of disease and shortage of aid

LONDON: A weeklong humanitarian pause in Gaza provided some respite for Palestinians in the beleaguered enclave. But the situation remains overwhelmingly bleak and, after the resumption of combat on Friday, potentially catastrophic.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel on Thursday it must account for the safety of Palestinian civilians before resuming any military operations in Gaza, where the temporary truce allowed the exchange of captives held by Hamas for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

However, with Israeli officials vowing to continue total war against Hamas, presumably both in Gaza and the West Bank, hope for any recovery has been offset by the imminent threat of further violence in the absence of a permanent ceasefire.




Military vehicles manoeuvre next to a fence, as seen from the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. (Reuters/File)

Since Oct. 7, when Israel launched a military offensive in retaliation for a deadly attack by Hamas, Gaza has endured destruction, displacement, and suffering on an unprecedented scale.

Relentless Israeli airstrikes have reduced entire buildings to rubble, flattening more than 46,000 homes and damaging at least another 234,000, according to UN figures.

The onslaught has forced nearly three-quarters of Gaza’s 2.2 million population from their homes, including the vast majority of the north’s residents.

Close to 15,000 Palestinians across the enclave have been killed, 40 percent of whom are children. A further 6,500 are believed to be missing or trapped under the destroyed buildings.

“Northern Gaza is a disaster zone where people feel it was a miracle to survive,” Ahmed Bayram, media adviser for the Middle East at the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Arab News.

“The sheer level of destruction and personal loss stretches beyond anything we have seen in Gaza. More people were killed in the first two weeks of this round of hostilities compared with the most recent large-scale conflict in 2014.”

INNUMBERS

• 1.7m Palestinians displaced inside Gaza as of Nov. 23.

• 7 Days of the duration of truce before combat resumed on Friday.

• 110 Hostages freed by Hamas from captivity.

• 240 Palestinian prisoners released by Israel.

Bayram said an estimated “1.7 million people have been displaced,” adding that “the few hundreds of thousands who remained in northern Gaza have done so because there is simply nowhere for them to go.”

Despite the seven-day suspension of hostilities, official Palestinian bodies and humanitarian organizations have been unable to pin down precise casualty figures, much less the number of people who could not leave northern Gaza.

“It has been very difficult to understand the numbers that remain in the north,” Oxfam’s policy lead Bushra Khalidi told Arab News. “From what we hear, it is between 200,000 and half-a-million still.”

She said an estimated 1.8 million people had been displaced to the south, “and they’re all crammed in this … what we could say, half the size of the original Gaza Strip.”

Following seven weeks of Israeli bombardment and Hamas rocket attacks, the two sides agreed on a four-day truce — which was later extended. The initial Qatar-mediated deal entailed the release of 50 Israeli hostages in exchange for 150 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.




Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip along Salah Al-Din Street. (AP)

On Oct. 13, the Israeli military ordered the residents of northern Gaza to relocate immediately to the south, claiming it was for their safety.

Local media and NGOs operating in Gaza reported that nowhere in the besieged Palestinian enclave was safe — not even the “humanitarian passages” identified by the Israeli military or Israel Defense Forces.

Families crammed their most necessary possessions into small cars and pickup trucks and traveled south in a rush. Others who could not secure vehicles made the journey on foot, shielding their children’s eyes from bodies in the street and hiding from Israeli gunfire as battles raged around them.

The only exit route for civilians escaping Gaza City was Salah Al-Din Road, the area’s main north-south highway that stretches across the entire Gaza Strip.

Israel agreed on Nov. 10 to pause its bombardment for four hours every day, allowing Palestinians in northern Gaza to flee through dedicated corridors.

Consequently, tens of thousands sought refuge in UN-run schools and makeshift tents in eastern Khan Younis, the biggest city in southern Gaza. Many voiced fears they would never return home.

Gaza’s older residents may see history repeat itself as they recall the Nakba, the Arabic term for the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians — the ancestors of 1.6 million of Gaza’s residents — during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

Khan Younis already had a population exceeding 400,000. As displaced families flocked there the already severe humanitarian crisis worsened, as the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli blockade for 16 years.

Khalidi said these evacuation orders should be rescinded, as they represented “a grave violation under international law because it amounts to forcible displacement, and forcible displacement may amount to war crimes.”

In November, in what the chief of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described as a “recipe for disaster,” Israel proposed the establishment of a safe zone in Al-Mawasi camp on Gaza’s southern coast.

Al-Mawasi camp, according to Khalidi, is a 14-square-kilometer area “the size of London Heathrow Airport, where they (Israeli officials) want to cram 1 million people and call it a humanitarian safe zone.”

Dismissing the proposal as “absolutely inhumane,” she said: “But there’s no such thing as a safe zone. Historically, safe zones have been used to actually harm people.”

She noted that attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to some 1 million people in such a small area would be “a logistical nightmare.”

“Another thing about the safe zone is that you are talking about 30,000 to 50,000 injured people, some of whom have severe wounds,” Khalidi added.




Israeli flares light the sky above Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. (AFP)

“We are lacking medical supplies, and there are barely any hospitals running.”

She pointed out that other major concerns included the lack of a functioning water, sanitation, and hygiene system, which would accelerate the spread of infectious diseases such as gastroenteritis and diarrhea. This could “kill more people than bombs have.”

The WHO reported that, since mid-October, there had been more than 44,000 cases of diarrhea in Gaza, a particular risk for young children amid a shortage of clean water.

Conditions in places where Palestinians have taken shelter, such as Khan Younis and Rafah, have been no better — especially as winter weather sets in.

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“Khan Younis and Rafah shelters are bursting with people crammed into small spaces,” Bayram said. “Sick babies, sick children, and sick adults are all at risk of transmissible diseases ahead of what promises to be the worst winter in Gaza’s history.

“There is not enough food for everybody, and even clean drinking water has become a luxury. People have resorted to burning anything made of wood — doors, school desks, window frames — just to cook something their children can eat or make some bread to keep them going for the day.

“There should be no place in this time and age for suffering like this,” he added.




Palestinians check the damage of a house destroyed in an Israeli strike on Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. (AFP)

And while the Hamas-Israel truce allowed Gazans to venture out, to scramble through the wreckage of their homes to look for warm clothes and recover more bodies, the looming threat of a broader Israeli assault persists.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly warned that military operations against Hamas would resume once the temporary ceasefire expired. Now the truce has ended, Israel is expected to expand its ground operation into the south.

In mid-November, the Israeli military dropped leaflets on parts of Khan Younis ordering residents to evacuate.

Bayram said: “There is nowhere left for people to go in Gaza. Some shelters house 50 people at a time. If Israel goes ahead with its ground operation, it means killing off any chance of Gaza ever recovering from this (catastrophe).”

Khalidi pointed out that the Gaza Strip was “as small as East London,” and the borders have been closed and controlled by Israel. “That is why the international community has been very vocal about a (permanent) ceasefire and allowing people to go home,” she said.

 

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Syria’s military ‘temporarily’ withdraws from Aleppo to prepare for counteroffensive

Syria’s military ‘temporarily’ withdraws from Aleppo to prepare for counteroffensive
Updated 8 min 27 sec ago
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Syria’s military ‘temporarily’ withdraws from Aleppo to prepare for counteroffensive

Syria’s military ‘temporarily’ withdraws from Aleppo to prepare for counteroffensive
  • Syrian military confirms rebels enter Aleppo, says dozens of soldiers killed

AMMAN: The Syrian military said on Saturday that dozens of its troops had been killed during an militant attack in northwestern Syria and that militants had managed to enter large parts of Aleppo city, forcing the army to redeploy.

The Syrian military statement was the first public acknowledgement by the army that insurgents led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham had entered the government-held city of Aleppo in a surprise attack that began earlier this week.

“The large numbers of terrorists and the multiplicity of battlefronts prompted our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack,” the army said.

The insurgent attack marks the most significant challenge in years to President Bashar Assad, jolting the frontlines of the Syrian civil war that have largely been frozen since 2020.

The Syrian military statement said that the insurgents had not been able to establish fixed positions in Aleppo city due to the army’s continued bombardment of their positions.

Two Syrian military sources said earlier that Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted insurgents in an Aleppo suburb on Saturday. Russia deployed its air force to Syria in 2015 to aid Assad in the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.

The insurgent force began its surprise offensive earlier this week, sweeping through government-held towns and reaching Aleppo nearly a decade after government forces backed by Russia and Iran drove militants from the city.

Speaking on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow regarded the militant attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty. “We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.


Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire

Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire
Updated 30 min 42 sec ago
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Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire

Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire
  • ‘Military infrastructure’ at the Syria-Lebanon border being used by Hezbollah for weapons smuggling

TEL AVIV: Israeli aircraft struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites along Syria’s border with Lebanon, the Israeli military said Saturday, testing a fragile, days-old ceasefire that halted months of fighting between the sides but has seen continued sporadic fire.
The military said it struck sites that had been used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, which the military said was a violation of its terms. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah also did not immediately comment.
The Israeli strike, the latest of several since the ceasefire began on Wednesday, came as unrest spread to other areas of the Middle East, with Syrian insurgents breaching the country’s largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive that added fresh uncertainty to a region reeling from multiple wars.
The truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, brokered by the United States and France, calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the militants are to withdraw north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border.
The repeated bursts of violence — with no reports of serious casualties — reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that otherwise appeared to hold. While Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire, Lebanon has also accused Israel of the same in the days since it took effect.
Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced in the conflict, were streaming south to their homes, despite warnings by the Israeli and Lebanese militaries to stay away from certain areas.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone attacked a car in the southern village of Majdal Zoun. The agency said there had been casualties but gave no further details. Majdal Zoun, near the Mediterranean Sea, is close to where Israeli troops still have a presence.
The military said earlier Saturday that its forces, who remain in southern Lebanon until they withdraw gradually over the 60-day period, had been operating to distance “suspects” in the region, without elaborating, and said troops had located and seized weapons found hidden in a mosque.
Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations. Israel has made returning the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis home the goal of the war with Hezbollah but Israelis, concerned Hezbollah was not deterred and could still attack northern communities, have been apprehensive about returning home.
Hezbollah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and its assault on southern Israel the day before. Israel and Hezbollah kept up a low-level conflict of cross-border fire for nearly a year, until Israel escalated its fight with a sophisticated attack that detonated hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah fighters. It followed that up with an intense aerial bombardment campaign against Hezbollah assets, killing many of its top leaders including longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah, and it launched a ground invasion in early October.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.


Militants control ‘most of’ Aleppo city, Syria war monitor says

Militants control ‘most of’ Aleppo city, Syria war monitor says
Updated 2 min 54 sec ago
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Militants control ‘most of’ Aleppo city, Syria war monitor says

Militants control ‘most of’ Aleppo city, Syria war monitor says
  • Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport as well as all roads leading into the city on Saturday

BEIRUT: A monitor of Syria’s war said Saturday militants now controlled a majority of Aleppo city, reporting Russian air strikes on parts of Syria’s second city for the first time since 2016.

“Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions... took control of most of the city and government centers and prisons,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that overnight, Russian “warplanes launched raids on areas of Aleppo city for the first time since 2016.”

Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport as well as all roads leading into the city on Saturday, three military sources said, as militants opposed to President Bashar Assad said they had reached the heart of Aleppo.

The opposition fighters, led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, carried out a surprise sweep through government-held towns this week and reached Aleppo nearly a decade after having been forced out by Assad and his allies.

Russia, one of Assad’s key allies, has promised Damascus extra military aid to thwart the militants, two military sources said, adding new hardware would start arriving in the next 72 hours.

The Syrian army has been told to follow “safe withdrawal” orders from the main areas of the city that the militants have entered, three army sources said.

The militants began their incursion on Wednesday and by late Friday an operations room representing the offensive said they were sweeping through various neighborhoods of Aleppo.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Militants opposed to Assad return to city after nearly a decade

• Aleppo airport has been closed, military sources say

• Damascus expects Russian hardware to arrive soon, sources say

They are returning to the city for the first time since 2016, when Assad and his allies Russia, Iran, and regional Shiite militias retook it, with the insurgents agreeing to withdraw after months of bombardment and siege.

Mustafa Abdul Jaber, a commander in the Jaish Al-Izza militant brigade, said their speedy advance this week had been helped by a lack of Iran-backed manpower in the broader Aleppo province. Iran’s allies in the region have suffered a series of blows at the hands of Israel as the Gaza war has expanded through the Middle East.

The opposition fighters have said the campaign was in response to stepped-up strikes in recent weeks against civilians by the Russian and Syrian air force on areas in militant-held Idlib, and to preempt any attacks by the Syrian army.

Opposition sources in touch with Turkish intelligence said Turkiye, which supports the militants, had given a green light to the offensive.

But Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said on Friday that Turkiye sought to avoid greater instability in the region and had warned recent attacks undermined de-escalation agreements.

The attack is the biggest since March 2020, when Russia and Turkiye agreed to a deal to de-escalate the conflict.

CIVILIANS KILLED IN FIGHTING

On Friday, Syrian state television denied militants had reached the city and said Russia was providing Syria’s military with air support.

The Syrian military said it was fighting back against the attack and had inflicted heavy losses on the insurgents in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib.

David Carden, UN Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, said: “We’re deeply alarmed by the situation unfolding in northwest Syria.”

“Relentless attacks over the past three days have claimed the lives of at least 27 civilians, including children as young as 8 years old.”

Syrian state news agency SANA said four civilians including two students were killed on Friday in Aleppo by insurgent shelling of university student dormitories. It was not clear if they were among the 27 dead reported by the UN official.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Moscow regarded the militant attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.

“We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.


Iran to begin enriching uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges, UN watchdog says

Iran to begin enriching uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges, UN watchdog says
Updated 30 November 2024
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Iran to begin enriching uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges, UN watchdog says

Iran to begin enriching uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges, UN watchdog says
  • International Atomic Energy Agency only mentioned Iran enriching uranium with new centrifuges to 5 percent purity
  • Report further raises tensions over Tehran’s program as it enriches at near weapons-grade levels

DUBAI: Iran will begin enriching uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges at its two main nuclear facilities at Fordo and Natanz, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Friday, further raising tensions over Tehran’s program as it enriches at near weapons-grade levels.
The notice from the International Atomic Energy Agency only mentioned Iran enriching uranium with new centrifuges to 5 percent purity, far lower than the 60 percent it currently does — likely signaling that it still wants to negotiate with the West and the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
However, it remains unclear how Trump will approach Iran once he enters office, particularly as it continues to threaten to attack Israel amid its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and just after a ceasefire started in its campaign in Lebanon. Trump withdrew America from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018, setting in motion a series of attacks and incidents across the wider Mideast.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment over the IAEA’s report. Tehran had threatened to rapidly advance its program after the Board of Governors at the IAEA condemned Iran at a meeting in November for failing to cooperate fully with the agency.
In a statement, the IAEA outlined the plans Iran informed it of, which include feeding uranium into some 45 cascades of its advanced IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges.
Cascades are a group of centrifuges that spin uranium gas together to more quickly enrich the uranium. Each of these advanced classes of centrifuges enrich uranium faster than Iran’s baseline IR-1 centrifuges, which have been the workhorse of the country’s atomic program. The IAEA did not elaborate on how many machines would be in each cascade but Iran has put around 160 centrifuges into a single cascade in the past.
It’s unclear if Iran has begun feeding the uranium yet into the centrifuges. Tehran so far has been vague about its plans. But starting the enrichment at 5 percent gives Tehran both leverage at negotiations with the West and another way to dial up the pressure if they don’t like what they hear. Weapons-grade levels of enrichment are around 90 percent.
Since the collapse of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following the US’ unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018, it has pursued nuclear enrichment just below weapons-grade levels. US intelligence agencies and others assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program.
The US State Department said in a statement to The Associated Press it was “deeply concerned with Iran’s announcement that it is choosing the path of continued escalation as opposed to cooperation with the IAEA.”
“Iran’s continued production and accumulation of uranium enriched up to 60 percent has no credible civilian justification,” it added.
Iran, as a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, has pledged to allow the IAEA to visit its atomic sites to ensure its program is peaceful. Tehran also had agreed to additional oversight from the IAEA as part of the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw sanctions lifted in exchange for drastically limiting its program.
However, for years Iran has curtailed inspectors’ access to sites while also not fully answering questions about other sites where nuclear material has been found in the past after the deal’s collapse.
Iranian officials in recent months, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, had signaled a willingness to negotiate with the West. But Iran also has launched two attacks on Israel amid the war.
Kazem Gharibabadi, an Iranian diplomat, said in a post on the social platform X that he met with EU diplomat Enrique Mora, criticizing Europe as being “self-centered” while having “irresponsible behavior.”
“With regard to the nuclear issue of Iran, Europe has failed to be a serious player due to lack of self-confidence and responsibility,” Gharibabadi wrote.
For his part, Mora described having a “frank discussion” with Gharibabadi and another Iranian diplomat. Those talks included “Iran’s military support to Russia that has to stop, the nuclear issue that needs a diplomatic solution, regional tensions (important to avoid further escalation from all sides) and human rights,” he wrote on X.


Fishers at a Lebanese port hope ceasefire with Israel means normal life is returning

Fishers at a Lebanese port hope ceasefire with Israel means normal life is returning
Updated 30 November 2024
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Fishers at a Lebanese port hope ceasefire with Israel means normal life is returning

Fishers at a Lebanese port hope ceasefire with Israel means normal life is returning
  • Israel earlier imposed a siege on southern Lebanon that kept hundreds of fishers on shore, upending their lives and the industry
  • The possibility of renewed Lebanese fishing on the country’s southern coast is helping fuel hope for a brighter future

TYRE, Lebanon: The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah brought hope for normality back to many in southern Lebanon on Friday, including fishermen who have long launched their single-engine wooden boats into the Mediterranean at dawn.
During the last two months of its year fighting Hezbollah, Israel imposed a siege on southern Lebanon that kept hundreds of fishers at this ancient Phoenician port on shore, upending their lives and the industry.
While less important than destruction and displacement, the port siege cut many people off from the key ingredients for traditional Lebanese dishes like sayadiyeh — fish and rice boiled in fish sauce — or fried and grilled fish eaten with dips such as hummus and tabbouleh or fattoush salads.
The loss of fish damaged a deep association with home, but now the possibility of renewed Lebanese fishing on the country’s southern coast is helping fuel hope for a brighter future.
On Friday, a few boats went out close to the shore as fishers in the port worked on the nets of small boats painted white, blue or red.
Hussein Sukmani, 55, said Friday that he was considering going to sea in coming days but was waiting to see how things unfold.
He hasn’t dared set sail since the Israel-Hezbollah war dramatically intensified on Sept. 23. “They were days of fear and horror,” he said. “They were the most difficult days of our lives.”
A week ago, a drone strike killed two young fishers in the city as they prepared their nets on the coast, and some fishermen said Friday that the Lebanese army told them that they if headed out it would be at their own risk .
Among those who sailed near the coast on Friday was Walid Darwish, who returned to the port with two plastic boxes filled with mullet.
“Today is the first time that we sail,” Darwish said, adding that fishers had missed the prime season in October and November.
“We lost it,” he said.
The Israeli army barred any boats from an area 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the border in October and has not said whether the warning is still in effect.
Sukmani said that most of the 700 fishers who work on the 270 boats at the port have not sailed out of concern since then.
The area around the port is a predominantly Christian neighborhood that has been spared much of the airstrikes on other parts of Tyre that leveled buildings in this city.
In peaceful times, the port is a major tourist attraction, beloved by Lebanese and foreigners who come for the views, the restaurants and the beaches.
On Friday, Mohammed Hammoud walked along the coast of Tyre carrying his fishing rod.
“It is enough that someone is able to stand in this beautiful area,” he said, pointing to the white sands. “Fishing is everything for me,” added Hammoud, who went to fish several times in the area north of the city of Sidon that was not part of the siege.
In the old market of Tyre, Gilbert Spiridon watched from inside his shop as people came to buy freshly brought fish. Before the war, it took hours to sell all his fish to people from around Lebanon.
“All I wish is that the war has ended and we are back on track to the old good days,” he said.