‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 19: 700 Palestinians killed in Gaza in 24 hours

Casualties 

Gaza: 6,546 killed; 17,439 wounded 
Occupied West Bank: 104 killed; 1,734 wounded 
Israel: 1,405 killed; 5,431 wounded 

Key Developments

• Gaza’s Ministry of Health announces the death of 700 people in 24 hours, says Israel committed 47 massacres targeting family homes in Rafah, Beit Lahia, al-Faluja, Khan Younis, and Bureij and Shati refugee camps.
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “Attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Israel calls for his immediate resignation.
• UN reports an estimated 1.4m Palestinians already internally displaced from their homes.
• Saudi Foreign Minister: “[Israel] claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, including women, children and the elderly.”
• One-third of hospitals in Gaza and nearly two-thirds of primary health care clinics have shut down due to damage or lack of fuel, UN warns.
• Arafat Yasser Hamdan, 25, is the second Palestinian prisoner to die inside Israeli prison on Tuesday.
• Haaretz reports the comments of released Israeli captive Yocheved Lifshitz to the media about Hamas treating her “well” has damaged the Israeli narrative about the war.
• Hezbollah announced that four of its fighters were killed during military operations in the south of Lebanon.
• Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah meets top Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders

More than 6,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza Strip

The death toll of Palestinians killed in Israel’s deadly bombardment of Gaza Strip surpassed 6,000 people amid urgent calls for a ceasefire and the flow of fuel and humanitarian aid.

On Tuesday evening, Gaza’s Ministry of Health announced the death of 700 people in 24 hours, the majority of them killed in air strikes targeting family homes in Rafah, Beit Lahia, al-Faluga, Khan Yunis, and Buriej and Shati refugee camps.

The ministry said Israel committed 47 massacres against Palestinian families.

Israel has carpet bombed houses and buildings in Gaza Strip, flattening entire residential blocks, burying hundreds of Palestinians under the rubble and debris.

Rescue teams, which lack the proper and sufficient equipment to find missed people, are struggling to pull survivors from under the debris amid Israel’s continued bombardment and electricity outage at night.

One rescue member told Al-Arabiya that they could hear people’s screams from under the crushed concrete of the bombed buildings but couldn’t reach them. 

Since Israel’s war on Gaza Strip, at least 6,546 Palestinians have been killed, including 2,360 children. Nearly 18,000 were injured, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, 98 were killed in Israeli raids. The figure is expected to rise as paramedics find bodies under the rubble.

Wafa news agency reported that 16 people were killed when a number of homes were targeted in Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, southeast of Gaza City.

Also, homes were hit in Jabalia and Nuseirat refugee camps and Qizan al-Najjar area in Khan Yunis.

A Palestinian woman was killed, and others were injured when an Israeli raid was launched at the home of Amer family in Khan Yunis camp, south of Gaza Strip.

Several Palestinians were killed and injured in al-Najma neighbourhood in the city of Rafah, when Abu Saud family’s home was bombed. They were transferred to Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.

Al-Halis family home was also bombed, and nine people were killed and 15 injured, including women and children. Al-Halis’ residential building is located near Al-Quds Hospital in the Tal Al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City.

Wafa reported that Israeli war jets destroyed the homes in Bir al-Naja area in the northern Gaza Strip and in the al-Nasr neighbourhood, killing and wounding scores of people.

The house of Abu Ghaben family in Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, was also bombed in an air strike.

Israel’s air strikes on houses in the east of Gaza City, namely east of al-Zaytoun and al-Shujaiya neighbourhoods, engulfed the area with a belt of heavy fires, Wafa reported.

“Attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”: UN secretary general says

On Tuesday, the UN chief Antonio Guterres renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza Strip, and said that the international law was violated by Israel and the Hamas movement.

Hamas’s attack on settlements outside the Gaza Strip beginning on October 7 left reportedly 1,405 Israeli dead and thousands injured, althoug the exact cause of all those deaths remain unclear.

Guterres said during a UN Security Council that Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum” and asked for civilians to be protected as the flames of war could engulf the region.

“It is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Guterres said.

“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”

“But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” Guterres  said.

Guterres added that “protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel, and then continuing to bomb the south itself.”

Israel has ordered the evacuation of nearly 1.1m Palestinians to the south of Gaza Valley two weeks ago.

An estimated 1.4m Palestinians are already internally displaced from their homes since the Israeli bombardment began on Gaza Strip, according to OCHA.

Guterres’ statement infuriated Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan, who demanded the immediate resignation of the UN chief.

“His statement that ‘the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum’ expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder,” Erdan wrote on X.

“It’s truly sad that the head of an organisation that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views.”

Erdan, who brought with him relatives of Israeli captives to the Security Council meeting hosted by Brazil, called off a scheduled meeting with Guterres on Tuesday.

Arab foreign ministers of Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia denounced at the UN the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza Strip and demanded a ceasefire.

Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi Foreign Minister, said Israel had targeted facilities, schools, hospitals and infrastructure.

“They have claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, including women, children and the elderly. They have injured thousands of civilians,” bin Farhan said.

“The failure of the international community, to this very day, to end this collective punishment by the Israeli occupation forces against the residents of Gaza, and their attempts to forcibly displace them, will not bring us any closer to security and stability,” he added.

Hospitals in Gaza Strip have been warning of fuel shortages which would result in electricity outage and the shutdown of vital facilities.

However, some of these hospitals had already ceased to operate.

On Tuesday night, the UN said “over one-third of hospitals in Gaza (12 of 35) and nearly two-thirds of primary health care clinics (46 of 72) have shut down due to damage from hostilities or lack of fuel.”

Second Palestinian prisoner dies in hospital as West Bank death toll reaches 104

Arafat Yasser Hamdan, 25, became the second Palestinian prisoner to die inside Israeli prison on Tuesday, two days after he was detained by Israeli forces.

The Palestinian resistance movement, the Islamic Jihad, accused Israeli authorities of “executing” Hamdan, as part of the “brutal war against our people in Gaza, the West Bank, and inside the occupation prisons.”

On Monday, Omar Daraghmeh, a 58-year-old Palestinian prisoner was also announced dead inside the Israeli prison at Megiddo prison.

The Palestinian Authority’s Commission for ex-Prisoner’s Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club group said that Hamdan’ death is the second case of its kind in less than 24 hours.

“The martyrdom of prisoner Arafat Yasser Hamdan, 25 years old, from the town of Beit Sira, Ramallah District [in the occupied West Bank], in Ofer Prison,” they announced in a joint statement.

Hamadan was arrested on October 22 as Israeli forces launched a mass arrest raids in several cities and town in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.

“The occupation began a systematic assassination of prisoners,” the Commission and Prisoners’ Club said.

On Wednesday, six Palestinian were killed in the occupied West Bank, bringing the death toll since October 7 to 104 Palestinians.

An Israeli drone launched two missiles on a crowd in the vicinity of the cemetery of Jenin refugee camp, killing four people.

They were named as Mohammed Qadri al-Sabah, Mahmoud al-Fayed, and Mohammed Abu Qatna. Eid Nabil Qasim Mari, a 15-year-old youth, succumbed to his wound later, Wafa reported.

Hamza Sayel Taha, 19, was killed in Qalqilya, and Ahmed Ghaleb Mutair was killed in Qalandiya, during Israeli forces raids, who arrested 72 Palestinians in several towns in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Captive testimony ‘harmed Israeli hasbara’

The testimony given to the media by Israeli captive Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, who was released by Hamas on Monday evening, left many Israeli officials and media pundits “shocked,” according to a report by Haaretz. 

Lifshitz said that Hamas fighters “took care” of them, let them access medical care, and made sure toilets were clean.

“They were friendly in their way. We ate the same food they ate, white cheese and cucumber – that was a meal for a whole day,” Lifshitz has said in her media appearance after being released.

Haaretz reports that both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office and the Hostage and Missing Families Forum were caught off-guard by Lifshitz’s media conference.

“Lifshitz’s statements about the humane treatment of the hostages at the hands of the Hamas terrorists harmed Israeli hasbara,” a source involved in Israel’s wartime public diplomacy efforts told the Israeli newspaper on the condition of anonymity.

“It would have been appropriate at the very least to make it clear to Lifshitz or her family members that messages in this spirit serve the enemy at a sensitive time,” the source continued.

Lifshitz’s family said that she was not briefed by government officials on what to say in the media conference, but that they were asked not to mention being treated well while in captivity. Lifshitz’s family denied the request, according to Haaretz, and encouraged Yocheved to speak freely. 

Hezbollah chief meets top Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders

On Wednesday, the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, announced that four of its fighters were killed during military operations in the south of Lebanon.

Israeli forces said that it targeted six units in the past 24 hours that attempted to cross the fence to north of the occupied Palestine.

Hezbollah has been targeting several Israeli military bases with anti-tank missiles, while Israel launched an artillery and drone bombardments into southern Lebanon.

On Tuesday evening, Hamas armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, said that a special maritime force clashes with Israeli forces at the Zikim military base, south of the city of Ashkelon.

A statement by Hezbollah movement said that the movement Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, met Saleh Al-Arouri, the Head of Hamas Political Bureau, and Ziad Nakhalah, Islamic Jihad’s Secretary-General.

“The recent events in Gaza Strip were assessed since the beginning of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the developments that followed at every level, as well as the ongoing confrontations on the Lebanese border with occupied Palestine,” the statement said.

“An assessment was made of the positions taken internationally and regionally and what the parties of the resistance axis must do at this sensitive stage to achieve a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestine,” it added.