Palestinians fight in hard-hit areas of Gaza while deal emerges to deliver medicine to hostages

A picture taken from Rafah shows fire erupting over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, during Israeli bombardment on January 16, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken from Rafah shows fire erupting over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, during Israeli bombardment on January 16, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
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Updated 17 January 2024
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Palestinians fight in hard-hit areas of Gaza while deal emerges to deliver medicine to hostages

Palestinians fight in hard-hit areas of Gaza while deal emerges to deliver medicine to hostages
  • Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is worsening, with 85 percent of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians having fled their homes and UN agencies warning of mass starvation and disease
  • Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have resumed their attacks on container ships in the Red Sea following a wave of US-led strikes last week

RAFAH, Gaza Strip: Palestinian militants battled Israeli forces in devastated northern Gaza and launched a barrage of rockets from farther south on Tuesday in a show of force more than 100 days into Israel’s massive air and ground campaign against the tiny coastal enclave.
The fighting in the north, which was the first target of Israel’s offensive and where entire neighborhoods have been pulverized, showed how far Israel remains from achieving its goals of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war.
In other developments, France and Qatar, the Arabian Gulf nation that helped mediate a previous ceasefire, said late Tuesday that they had brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas to deliver medicine to Israeli hostages in Gaza, as well as additional aid to Palestinians in the besieged territory.
France said it had been working since October on the deal, which will provide three months’ worth of medication for 45 hostages with chronic illnesses, as well as other medicines and vitamins. The medicines are expected to enter Gaza from Egypt on Wednesday.




An Israeli fighter jet releases flares as it flies over the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (AP)

It was the first known agreement between the warring sides since a weeklong truce in November.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is worsening, with 85 percent of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians having fled their homes and UN agencies warning of mass starvation and disease. The conflict threatens to widen after the US and Israel traded strikes with Iranian-backed groups across the region.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas’ military and governing capabilities to ensure that the Oct. 7 attack is never repeated. Militants stormed into Israel from Gaza that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing around 250 people. With strong diplomatic and military support from the United States, Israel has resisted international calls for a ceasefire.
Nearly half of the hostages were released during the truce, but more than 100 remain in captivity. Hamas has said it will not release any others until Israel ends the war.
STRIKES AND COUNTERSTRIKES ACROSS THE REGION
The longer the war goes on, the more it threatens to ignite other fronts across the region.
Iran fired missiles late Monday at what it said were Israeli “spy headquarters” in an upscale neighborhood near the sprawling US Consulate in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Iraq and the US condemned the strikes, which killed several civilians, and Baghdad recalled its ambassador to Iran in protest.
Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have carried out dozens of attacks on bases housing US forces, and a US airstrike in Baghdad killed an Iranian-backed militia leader earlier this month.




Israeli anti-war and anti-government demonstrators hold a rally in Tel Aviv, on January 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group in Gaza.  (AFP)

Elsewhere, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have resumed their attacks on container ships in the Red Sea following a wave of US-led strikes last week. The US military carried out another strike Tuesday. Separately, it said two Navy SEALS are missing after a raid last week on a ship carrying Iranian-made missile parts and weapons bound for Yemen.
Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group have exchanged fire along the border nearly every day since the war in Gaza began. The strikes and counterstrikes have grown more severe since an Israeli strike killed Hamas’ deputy political leader in Beirut this month, raising fears of a repeat of the 2006 war.
MILITANTS KEEP FIGHTING IN GAZA’S HARD-HIT NORTH
In Gaza, the Israeli military said its forces located some 100 rocket installations and 60 ready-to-use rockets in the area of Beit Lahiya, a town on the territory’s northern edge. Israeli forces killed dozens of militants during the operation, the military said, without providing evidence.
Mahmoud Abdel-Ghani, who lives in Beit Lahiya, said Israeli airstrikes hit several buildings on the eastern side of the town.
Hundreds of thousands of people fled northern Gaza, including Gaza City, following Israeli evacuation orders in October. Israel shut off water to the north in the opening days of the war, and hardly any aid has been allowed into the area, even as tens of thousands of people have remained there.
Residents reached by phone Tuesday described the heaviest fighting in weeks in Gaza City.




Ziad Mansour, a neighbour of the Abu Aweidah family, sits next to writing painted on a wall amid the rubble of the family's house, which was destroyed in a deadly Israeli strike amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, in Rafah, Gaza Strip, January 9, 2024. (REUTERS)

“The bombing never stopped,” said Faris Abu Abbas, who lives in the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood. “The resistance is here and didn’t leave.”
Ayoub Saad, who lives near Shifa Hospital downtown, said he heard gunfire and shelling overnight and into Tuesday and saw dead and wounded people being brought to the hospital on carts.
After weeks of heavy fighting across northern Gaza, Israeli officials said at the start of the year that they were scaling back operations there. The focus shifted to the southern city of Khan Younis and built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
But there too, they have encountered heavy resistance. The military said at least 25 rockets were fired into Israel on Tuesday, damaging a store in one of the strongest bombardments in more than a week. Israel’s Channel 12 television said the rockets were launched from the Bureij camp in central Gaza.
A SPIRALING HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that the bodies of 158 people killed in Israeli strikes have been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours, bringing the war’s overall death toll to 24,285. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths but says around two-thirds of those killed were women and children.
Senior UN officials warned Monday that Gaza faces widespread famine and disease if more aid is not allowed in. While they did not directly blame Israel, they said aid delivery is hobbled by the opening of too few border crossings, a slow vetting process, and continuing fighting throughout the territory — all of which is largely under Israel’s control.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said UN agencies and their partners “cannot effectively deliver humanitarian aid while Gaza is under such heavy, widespread and unrelenting bombardment.” At least 152 UN staffers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.
Israeli officials say they have placed no limits on humanitarian aid and have called on the UN to provide more workers and trucks to accelerate delivery.
Israel completely sealed off Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and only relented under US pressure. The US, as well as the UN, have continued to push Israel to ease the flow of aid.
Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because it fights in dense residential areas. Israel says its forces have killed roughly 8,000 militants, without providing evidence, and that 190 of its own soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive.

 


Lebanon says at least four killed in Israeli strike on central Beirut

Lebanon says at least four killed in Israeli strike on central Beirut
Updated 29 sec ago
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Lebanon says at least four killed in Israeli strike on central Beirut

Lebanon says at least four killed in Israeli strike on central Beirut
  • Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said at least four people were killed in an Israeli strike in the heart of Beirut on Saturday, with rescue operations still ongoing.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Basta Al-Fawqa in Beirut killed four people and injured 23 others,” the ministry said in a statement, giving a preliminary toll. Rescuers were still “removing the rubble”, it added.

A powerful Israeli airstrike targeted central Beirut on Saturday, security sources said, shaking the Lebanese capital as Israel pressed its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

At least four people were killed and 23 wounded in the attack in Beirut’s Basta neighborhood, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar broadcaster reported, citing the health ministry.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said early on Saturday that the attack resulted in a large number of fatalities and injuries and destroyed an eight-story building. Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

Israel used bunker buster bombs in the strike, leaving a deep crater, said the agency. Beirut smelled strongly of explosives hours after the attack.

The blasts shook the capital around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT), Reuters witnesses said. Security sources said at least four bombs were dropped in the attack.

It marked the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting a central area of Beirut, where the bulk of Israel’s attacks have targeted the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. On Sunday an Israeli airstrike killed a Hezbollah media official in the Ras Al-Nabaa district of central Beirut.

Israel has killed several leaders of its long-time foe Hezbollah, Tehran’s most important ally in the region, in air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon in September, following nearly a year of cross-border hostilities ignited by the Gaza war, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.

The conflict began when Hezbollah opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas after it launched the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

A US mediator traveled to Lebanon and Israel this week in an effort to secure a ceasefire. The envoy, Amos Hochstein, indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.


Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive

Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive
Updated 23 November 2024
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Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive

Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive
  • Destruction of Lubnan Baalbaki’s childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon
  • Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, held more than just personal memories

BEIRUT: Lubnan Baalbaki, the conductor of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, watched on his phone screen as an aerial camera pointed to a village in southern Lebanon. In seconds, multiple houses erupted into rubble, smoke filling the air. The camera panned right, revealing widespread devastation.
He zoomed in to confirm his fears: His family’s house in the border village of Odaisseh, where his parents are buried, was now in ruins.
“To see your house getting bombed and in a split second turned into ash, I don’t think there is description for it,” Baalbaki said.
The destruction of his childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel.
The Israeli military has released videos of controlled detonations in areas along the border, saying it is targeting Hezbollah facilities and weapons.
But the bombardment has also wiped out entire residential neighborhoods or even villages. The World Bank in a recent report said over 99,000 housing units have been “fully or partially damaged” by the war in Lebanon.
Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, renowned Lebanese painter Abdel Hamid Baalbaki, held more than just personal memories. It held a collection of Abdel Hamid’s paintings, his art workshop and over 1,500 books. All were destroyed along with the house.
What cut even deeper, Baalbaki said, was the loss of the letters his parents exchanged during his father’s art studies in France. Only a few remain as digital photos.
“The language of passion and love they shared was filled with poetry,” Baalbaki said.
In a book of poems and photographs his father created for his wife following her sudden death in a car accident, the first page reads, “Dedication to Adeeba, the partner of my most precious days, the love bird that left its nest too soon.”
Abdel Hamid painstakingly designed his wife’s tombstone. Later, he was laid to rest beside her in the garden next to the house. For their son, watching his childhood home go up in smoke brought back the pain of losing them.
It was a moment he had feared for months.
Hezbollah began firing missiles into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. For nearly a year, the conflict remained limited.
After the war dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 with intense Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, Baalbaki and his siblings frequently checked satellite images for updates on their village.
On Oct. 26, explosions in and around Odaisseh triggered an earthquake alert in northern Israel. That day, videos circulated online, one of which showed their home being obliterated.
Until a few days before that, the satellite images showed their house still standing.
Now, Baalbaki said, he is resolved to honor his father’s dream.
“The mourning phase started to turn to determination to rebuild this project,” he said.
When the war is over, he plans to rebuild the house as an art museum and cultural center.


226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO

226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO
Updated 23 November 2024
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226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO

226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO
  • Over 187 attacks on healthcare workers have taken place in Lebanon over 13 months, says UN health agency
  • Fifteen of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning, warns WHO

GENEVA: Nearly 230 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, the World Health Organization said.
In total, the UN health agency said there had been 187 attacks on health care in Lebanon in the more than 13 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Nov.18 this year, “we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total,” Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, said via video link from Beirut.
He said “almost 70 percent” of these had occurred since the tensions escalated into an all-out war in September.
Saying this was “an extremely worrying pattern,” he stressed that “depriving civilians of access to lifesaving care and targeting health providers is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient” — the highest percentage of any active conflict today.
By comparison, Abubakar said that only 13.3 percent of attacks on health care globally had fatal outcomes during the same period, pointing to data from a range of conflict situations, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on health care in Lebanon might be because “more ambulances have been targeted.”
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics ... killed.”
The conflict has dealt a harsh blow to overall health care in Lebanon, which was already reeling from a string of dire crises in recent years.
The WHO warned that 15 of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, stressed that “attacks on health care of this scale cripple a health system when those whose lives depend on it need it the most.”
“Beyond the loss of life, the death of health workers is a loss of years of investment and a crucial resource to a fragile country going forward.”


226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7: WHO

226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7: WHO
Updated 23 November 2024
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226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7: WHO

226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7: WHO
  • Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient”

GENEVA: Nearly 230 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, the World Health Organization said.
In total, the UN health agency said there had been 187 attacks on health care in Lebanon in the more than 13 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Nov.18 this year, “we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total,” Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, said via video link from Beirut.
He said “almost 70 percent” of these had occurred since the tensions escalated into an all-out war in September.
Saying this was “an extremely worrying pattern,” he stressed that “depriving civilians of access to lifesaving care and targeting health providers is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient” — the highest percentage of any active conflict today.
By comparison, Abubakar said that only 13.3 percent of attacks on health care globally had fatal outcomes during the same period, pointing to data from a range of conflict situations, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on health care in Lebanon might be because “more ambulances have been targeted.”
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics ... killed.”
The conflict has dealt a harsh blow to overall health care in Lebanon, which was already reeling from a string of dire crises in recent years.
The WHO warned that 15 of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, stressed that “attacks on health care of this scale cripple a health system when those whose lives depend on it need it the most.”
“Beyond the loss of life, the death of health workers is a loss of years of investment and a crucial resource to a fragile country going forward.”

 


Little hope in Gaza that arrest warrants will cool Israeli onslaught

A Palestinian little girl queues for food in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP)
A Palestinian little girl queues for food in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP)
Updated 23 November 2024
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Little hope in Gaza that arrest warrants will cool Israeli onslaught

A Palestinian little girl queues for food in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP)
  • Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave

GAZA: Gazans saw little hope on Friday that International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders would slow down the onslaught on the Palestinian territory, where medics said at least 21 people were killed in fresh Israeli military strikes.
In Gaza City in the north, an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia killed eight people, medics said.
Three others were killed in a strike near a bakery, and a fisherman was killed as he set out to sea. In the central and southern areas, nine people were killed in three separate Israeli air strikes.

FASTFACT

Residents in the three besieged towns on Gaza’s northern edge — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave, their main offensive since early last month.
The military claims it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from waging attacks and regrouping there; residents say they fear the aim is to permanently depopulate a strip of territory as a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
Residents in the three besieged towns on the northern edge — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.
An Israeli strike hit the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the area, injuring six medical staff, some critically, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
“The strike also destroyed the hospital’s main generator and punctured the water tanks, leaving the hospital without oxygen or water, which threatens the lives of patients and staff inside the hospital,” it added.
It said 85 wounded people, including children and women, were inside, eight in the ICU.
Gazans saw the ICC’s decision to seek the arrest of Israeli leaders for suspected war crimes as international recognition of the enclave’s plight. But those queuing for bread at a bakery in the southern city of Khan Younis were doubtful it would have any impact.
“The decision will not be implemented because America protects Israel, and it can veto anything. Israel will not be held accountable,” said Saber Abu Ghali as he waited for his turn in the crowd.
Saeed Abu Youssef, 75, said that even if justice arrived, it would be decades late: “We have been hearing decisions for more than 76 years that have not been implemented and haven’t done anything for us.” Israel launched its assault on Gaza after militants stormed across the border fence, killed 1,200 people, and seized more than 250 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023.
Since then, nearly 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, much of which has been laid to waste.
The court’s prosecutors said there were reasonable grounds to believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war, as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum have denounced the ICC arrest warrants as biased and based on false evidence, and Israel says the court has no jurisdiction over the war.
Hamas hailed the arrest warrants as a first step toward justice.
Efforts by Arab mediators backed by the US to conclude a ceasefire deal have stalled.
Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.