‘Operation Al Aqsa Flood’ Day 77: Palestinians in Gaza face famine, as political prisoner count in West Bank soars

Casualties:

• 20,057 Palestinians killed and 53,320 wounded in the Gaza Strip.* At least 8,000 of those killed have been children.

• 303 Palestinians killed and 4,655 wounded in the West Bank

*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on December 22. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has not been able to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 26,000.

Key Developments:

•  Gaza Ministry of Health: 390 Palestinians have been killed and 734 have been injured over the past 48 hours while communication was suspended in Gaza. Israeli military has given instructions to residents in several areas of the North and Central Gaza Strip—including Khan Younis—to “immediately move to shelters in Deir al-Balah.”
• A new Washington Post investigation finds little proof that Hamas was using the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as a military command center 
• WFP: Gaza is at risk of famine as more than one in four households in currently face extreme hunger.
• WHO: Northern Gaza no longer has any functional hospitals
•   Palestinian Prisoner’s Group: Israeli forces have arrested than 4,655 Palestinians across the Occupied West Bank.
• Clashes across East Jerusalem as Palestinians are once again barred from attending Friday prayers at the Al Aqsa compound.
• After delaying a vote on a UN Security Council draft resolution Thursday night, the United States has indicated that it is ready to agree to “watered down” terms that would increase humanitarian aid access in Gaza
•  EU adopts 118 million euro aid plan for the Palestinian Authority
• Canada announces a temporary immigration visa for relatives of citizens and permanent residents who are trapped in Gaza. It would still be contingent on Israel allowing them to leave.

Israel orders Palestinians in Khan Younis to evacuate, Gaza faces “crisis level” hunger and starvation

Hundreds have been killed across the Gaza Strip over the past two days and the Israeli military has officially given orders residents in several areas of the North and Central Gaza Strip—including Khan Younis, where many displaced people have been sheltering—to “immediately move to shelters in Deir al-Balah.”

“People are asking themselves, where to go,” said Gaza-based journalist Motaz Azaiza in a video report from Al Buriej refugee camp this morning, adding that the city itself is full of people who have already evacuated the north, and might be once again displaced.

“There are sick people, there are wounded people, there are people who can’t leave,” he continued. “They’re asking themselves—what will happen next?”

Israeli shelling continued in Jabalia, where at least 30 people have been killed including 16 people from the al-Bursa family and in Gaza city, where another nine Palestinians were killed after a residential home was bombed. As fuel supplies run out, Northern Gaza no longer has any functional hospitals and doctors are only able to perform basic first aid and pain management.

“Our staff are running out of words to describe the beyond catastrophic situation facing remaining patients and healthcare workers,” WHO representative Richard Peeperkorn told reporters, following a UN mission to the Al Ahli Arab Hospital and the Al Shifa Hospital in North Gaza.

“There are no operating theatres any more due to the lack of fuel, power, medical supplies and health workers, including surgeons and other specialists,”

Despite the lack of resources, junior doctors and nurses continue to provide first aid and treat wounds at Ahli Arab Hospital. However, patients needing more complex surgeries must be transferred to other hospitals to survive—with the loss of hospitals in north Gaza, there are now only nine functional hospitals across the Gaza Strip.

A new report from the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has found that 25 percent of Gaza’s population is facing “crisis level” hunger, with four out of five households in the north and half of households in the south going enduring days without any food. The IPC predicts that, unless there is a ceasefire that allows humanitarian aid to reach people in need, that by February 7^th the entire population of Gaza will be at “crisis or worse” levels of hunger. It is the highest share of people facing acute food insecurity that the IPC has ever classified.

“WFP has warned of this coming catastrophe for weeks,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “Tragically, without the safe, consistent access that we have been calling for, the situation is desperate and no one in Gaza is safe from starvation.”

Food insecurity has also led to more people eating rotting food and drinking salty water, contributing to an increase in health conditions such as diarrhea and dehydration that are exacerbating life-threatening illnesses, amongst a crumbling healthcare infrastructure.

The WFP stresses that this could all be avoided—or at least, ameliorated—with a ceasefire that would allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

“We need sustained access. We need the opening of borders and crossings so food can come in. We need to be able to deliver food where people need it,” a World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson told Al Jazeera. “And we need a ceasefire.”

Mass arrests continue across the West Bank as Israeli forces seal off Bethlehem ahead of Christmas

Mass arrests continued across the West Bank last night, as Israeli forces raided the villages of Beit Rima and Dura and arrested at least 11 people.

The number of Palestinians that have been detained in the West Bank since October 7^th is now more than 4,600 people, with the vast majority of detentions occurring in Hebron. According to the most recent report from the Palestinian Prisoners Society, more than 260 children have been detained, along with 160 women. Six people have died while in custody and several have experienced difficult health conditions that are exacerbated their experience in detention, where many experience torture and other forms of abuse.

Ordinarily, the city of Bethlehem would be welcoming up to 1.5 million tourists and pilgrims who come from around the world to see the birthplace of Jesus this time of the year, but this year the Israeli forces have sealed off the city as they continue arrest raids targeting Palestinians across the West Bank. 

Along with the fallout from the ongoing violent raids, Bethlehem is also feeling the economic impact of the lack of tourists—losses that are estimated to be as high as $200 million across the country, with 60 percent of this loss affecting Bethlehem.

Churches across Palestine have decided to cancel Christmas celebrations, in solidarity with the people of Gaza. One church has even put up a symbolic scene of Jesus in the nativity scene, surrounded by rubble.

“If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble,” Pastor Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem told Al Jazeera, explaining the nativity scene.

Diplomacy: US may back ‘watered down’ version of UN Security Council resolution

The US has indicated that it is ready to back a “watered down” version of a UN Security Council resolution that would call for “urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access” in Gaza. This version—which leaves out a call for the “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities”–-comes after the vote on the resolution has been delayed four times after the US vetoed other proposed drafts. The linguistic change has been criticized as being in line with the Biden administration’s overall refusal to support a ceasefire in Gaza, which, critics argue is prolonging the violence and ensuing humanitarian crisis. 

“In effect, the US is voting for the continuation of the siege, for the continuation of the mass killings in the Gaza Strip. And most importantly, the idea of humanitarian assistance without a ceasefire is absolutely meaningless and illusory,” Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani told Al Jazeera.

A recent poll shows that Israelis now overwhelmingly prefer Biden as the next US president—it is the first time that Israelis have preferred a Democrat over a Republican in at least two decades. Meanwhile, another poll shows that most Americans disapprove of the way that Biden has handled the crisis in Israel and Gaza, with 51 percent of Republicans disapproving of his response, and 33 percent of Democrats disapproving. An additional poll suggests that Biden could win support in Michigan–a key swing state–if he supports a ceasefire in Gaza. 

Meanwhile in the Red Sea, Israel’s Eilat port has seen an 85 percent drop in activity since international shipping companies have started avoiding the route following Yemen’s Houthi group attacking multiple ships in response to Israel’s aggression in Gaza.

“Any escalation in Gaza is an escalation in the Red Sea,” Houthi Major General Yusuf al-Madani said in a statement, following the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announcing a coalition to protect trade in the Red Sea earlier this week. 

“Any country that comes between us and Palestine–we will confront it.”