‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 99: Yet another Gaza hospital runs out of power, as demonstrators across the globe call for ceasefire

Casualties

• 23,843 killed* and at least 60,317 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
• 385+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
• Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
• 520 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 2,193 injured.**

*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 12. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

**This figure is according to a release by the Israeli military. 

Key Developments

• Israel continues to pummel Gaza, killing at least 135 Palestinians in span of 24 hours, Ministry of Health warns that 1.3 million people taking refuge in Rafah.
• Telecommunications cut in Gaza for at least seventh time, impeding ability of emergency services to reach people injured in airstrikes on time, and limiting information coming out of Gaza.
• Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah officially out of electricity, putting lives of many patients, including newborn babies, at risk.
• Israel responds to accusations of genocide levied by South Africa, Germany requests that International Court of Justice allow it to stand as third party testifying in favor of Israel.
• South Africa states it is unconvinced by Israel’s claims of “self-defense”: “There is nothing justifying the way Israel wages war on Gaza. Self-defense does not justify genocide.” 
• U.S. military bombards Yemen for second day, Ansar Allah rebels vow to continue to apply pressure on Israel via Red Sea. International community split amid fears of regional conflagration.
• Israeli forces kill at least three Palestinians in occupied West Bank, including three teenagers who allegedly carried out attack on illegal Israeli settlement near Hebron.
• U.N. Security Council rejects Israeli calls for forced displacement of Gaza civilians, humanitarian officials beg for a ceasefire.
• Israel continues to shell southern Lebanon, Hezbollah retaliates.
• Thousands take to the streets around world on Saturday with one message: Ceasefire now.

No respite from death and devastation in Gaza

On the eve of 100 days of unfettered violence, and one day after Israel argued in front of the world’s highest court that it was doing all it could to spare civilians in Gaza, the tiny blockaded Palestinian territory continued to face indiscriminate bombardment, injury, death, starvation, cold, and thirst.

According to the official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA, deadly Israeli strikes hit Gaza City, Khan Younis, Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Juhor al-Dik, Zuwaida, and the refugee camps of al-Bureij, al-Maghazi, and Nuseirat since Friday. 

Meanwhile, Palestinian factions reported that ground fighting with Israeli forces was ongoing in the areas of Khan Younis and Beit Lahia.

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that Israeli attacks had killed at least 135 Palestinians and injured 312 more in the span of 24 hours. The ministry toll — which currently stands at 23,843 killed and 60,317 wounded — does not include the thousands of people reported missing and those who have succumbed to hunger, thirst, illness, or cold related to the stringent Israeli-imposed blockade on Gaza since October 7.

“Children in the Gaza Strip face a deadly triple threat to their lives, as cases of diseases rise, their nutrition status plummets, and the escalation of hostilities approaches its fourteenth week,” UNICEF warned on Friday.

Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said on Saturday that more than half of Gaza’s population was now crammed into the southernmost Rafah governorate, where they continue to be bombed.

“The infrastructure, services and health infrastructure in Rafah is fragile and cannot bear the needs of 1.3 million citizens and displaced people,” he wrote in a statement.

Meanwhile, Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital in Deir al-Balah reported that it had run out of fuel on Friday night, leaving its patients, including babies in incubators, in the dark.

“There are children and patients who are at risk of death because the electrical generators have completely stopped,” the hospital’s director warned on Friday. “We hold all competent authorities fully responsible for this disaster if it occurs. We call on the countries of the world to intervene immediately to supply hospitals, especially Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, with fuel before we announce the death of dozens of sick, wounded, and children in intensive care and nursery departments.”

An Al Jazeera correspondent said people who had taken shelter at the hospital now faced the difficult decision of whether to stay put or risk leaving: “It’s very risky for patients who are trying to leave… The hospital is located in an area that is considered to be a battle zone.”

This dire warning came as Palestinian telecommunication companies Paltel and Ooredo announced that all internet and communication services were out of service in Gaza as of Friday night – making it at least the seventh blackout in Gaza since October 7. As a result, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it had lost all contact with its medic crews, making it nearly impossible to dispatch rescue teams effectively to the scenes of bombings.

While mobile clinics have tried to palliate some of the gaps in Gaza’s devastated health care system, international aid deliveries, especially to northern Gaza, have been extremely limited due to Israeli restrictions.

“In particular, [Israeli officials] have been very systematic in not allowing us to support hospitals, which is something that is reaching a level of inhumanity that, for me, is beyond comprehension,” U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Andrea De Domenicom said in a press conference.

Meanwhile, CARE International sounded the alarm regarding the devastating toll of the war on pregnant women.

“From what we hear from our staff and partners, there are women who do not survive childbirth. Premature babies die or will have to live with lifelong disabilities, as they do not receive the necessary medical support. One hundred days of war have brought darkness and destruction, and the suffering, especially of mothers and children, is simply unimaginable,” CARE acting deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa Hiba Tibi said. “The joyous time of having a baby is now overshadowed by dread and desperation given the many dangers mothers and their babies are facing.”

While Israel seems little concerned with the deliberate devastation of Gaza’s health care and its effects on tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that it had reached an agreement to have vital medication transferred to the estimated 132 hostages held by Palestinian groups in Gaza since October 7.

U.S. continues to bomb Yemen as Ansar Allah vows to continue fighting for Palestine

Yemen has risen to the top of news coverage since Thursday, when the U.S. and the U.K. struck dozens of areas in the impoverished country, in retaliation for the attacks waged by Ansar Allah (commonly known as “the Houthis”) on maritime trade in the Red Sea. U.S. forces carried out more strikes on Sanaa on Friday night.

The Ansar Allah movement has repeatedly said it is deliberately applying pressure on this important trade route in order to inflict economic losses on Israel and support the Palestinian people as they face unbridled Israeli violence. Their attacks on ships passing in the area have so far not caused any casualties.

U.S. President Joe Biden called Ansar Allah a “terrorist” group on Friday, condemning its “outrageous” actions in the Red Sea. U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps meanwhile warned that the world was “running out of patience” with Iran, which he held responsible for instigating the actions of its allies in Yemen.

The British and American incursion has not been universally embraced, however, as European countries and regional powers like Saudi Arabia have been reportedly split over this move, which some experts have called a “dangerous” escalation of violence in the region.

The military leader of Ansar Allah, Mahdi al-Mashat, vowed that his movement would not be deterred.

“We will continue to prevent Israeli ships or those headed to occupied Palestine, regardless of the cost, and we hold the Americans and the British responsible for militarizing international navigation,” he said in a statement. “The solution lies in stopping the American-supported Israeli aggression against our brothers in Gaza, not in aggression against Yemen.”

“We say to our brothers in Palestine and our people in Gaza that our blood is not more precious than yours, and we are at peace with our conscience knowing that we are actively participating with you,” he added.

Israeli forces kill at least four Palestinians in the West Bank

Back in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces continued to wage deadly raids in a number of Palestinian refugee camps and towns, as Palestinian factions claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israeli targets.

Israeli forces killed three Palestinian teenagers — identified as cousins Ismail Ahmad Abu Jahisha, 19, Mahmoud Arafat Abu Jahisha, 16, and Uday Ismail Abu Jahisha,16 — after they reportedly infiltrated the illegal Israeli settlement of Adora west of Hebron overnight, injuring one soldier.

Israeli forces then raided the Abu Jahishas’ hometown of Idhna, detaining and beating relatives, and confiscating at least 30 vehicles. 

Armed clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian residents were meanwhile reported in Azzun, al-Fara’a, and Nour Shams refugee camps, injuring several, while Palestinian factions claimed a number of small-scale attacks in the areas of the Zawata, Shaked, and Kfar Etzion settlements, as well as the Jalameh checkpoint.

Israeli forces meanwhile shot, beat, and killed 19-year-old Khalid Ahmad Zubeid in the small town of Zita in the Tulkarem governorate.

More overnight raids were reported in the Jenin and Bethlehem governorates.

Germany sides with Israel, protesters the world over call for ceasefire

In the rest of the world, the International Court of Justice hearings continue to reverberate. After Israel rejected any accusations of genocide and insisted it was conducting a war of “self-defense,” Germany requested to join the case to intervene as a third party on Israel’s case — a reportedly unusual step that would need to be approved by the court.

The Palestinian Authority expressed its “dismay” at Berlin’s decision, which it said “revealed an unyielding German readiness to shield Israel from any form of international accountability, irrespective of the court, the substance of the case, or the scope of the misery it inflicts. It is deeply regrettable. We urge the German government to reconsider.” 

Meanwhile, South Africa, which presented the case to the ICJ, said it stood firm in its assertions and was not convinced by Israel’s claims of innocence.

“There is nothing justifying the way Israel wages war on Gaza. Self-defense does not justify genocide,” South African Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola said on Friday. “The State of Israel today has failed to disprove South Africa’s compelling case that was presented before the ICJ yesterday. We stand by the facts, the law, and all the evidence we have submitted.”

Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council held another meeting on Friday regarding the situation in Gaza, during which humanitarian officials reiterated what, at this point, is a well-known warning: nowhere in Gaza is safe.

“The unacceptably high civilian casualty rate, the nearly complete destruction of essential civilian infrastructure, the displacement of an overwhelming percentage of the population and the abominable humanitarian conditions in which 2.2 million people are being forced to endure raise very serious concerns about the potential commission of war crimes, while the risk of further grave violations, even atrocity crimes, is real,” OHCHR Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris told the council.

Far from the halls of power, supporters of Palestine around the world were taking to the streets this weekend, calling for an immediate ceasefire.

While protesters gathered on Friday in Jordan and Yemen, at the time of writing, thousands of people were marching on Saturday in New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Turkey, Hungary, Pakistan, the U.K., and other locations. These widespread global protests continue to take place despite the Islamic Human Rights Commission’s report to the UN on Friday detailing the “alarming level of repression” of pro-Palestine activists in the U.K., France, and Germany.