‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 258: Threat of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah rises

Casualties 

• 37,431 + killed* and at least 85,653 wounded in the Gaza Strip.*
• 544+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
• Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
• 662 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, and at least 3,860 have been wounded.***

* Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on June 20, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.

** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on June 13, this is the latest figure.

*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded, according to declarations by the head of the Israeli army’s wounded association to Israel’s Channel 12, exceeds 20,000, including at least 8,000 permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7, as of June 18.

Key Developments 

• Israel kills 84 Palestinians, wounds 281 since Thursday, June 13, across Gaza, raising death toll since October 7 to 37,431 and number of wounded to 85,653, according to the Gaza health ministry.
• Fears of all-out war rise as Hezbollah and Israel exchange threats.
• Hezbollah releases 10-minute-long drone footage of Israeli strategic facilities in threat to Israel.
• Washington says that war between Israel and Hezbollah will have devastating consequences.
• Israel bombs south Lebanese towns as Hezbollah mourns one of its fighters and launches dozens of rockets into northern Galilee.
• Israeli army spokesperson says Hamas impossible to destroy as an idea.
• UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission for Palestine concludes that Israel committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including intentional killing of civilians, starvation, and collective punishment.
• First lawyer to visit Sde Teiman detention center and military base reports torture, sexual abuse, and “unimaginable” inhumane conditions.
• Gaza health ministry says 70% of bed capacity in Gaza medical facilities has been lost, with only 272 functioning patient beds for more than 85,000 wounded.

Hezbollah and Israel exchange threats of all-out war, escalate cross-border attacks

CNN quoted from unnamed U.S. officials that Israel informed Washington of its intention of transferring “resources” to its northern border in preparation for a war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

According to reports, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told an Arab official that Israel seems determined to attack Lebanon, while the Arab official told Blinken that Hezbollah will not end its attacks on Israel unless it ends its war in Gaza.

Tensions rose after a week of unprecedented escalation between Hezbollah and Israel. Last week, Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike on southern Lebanon. The Lebanese group responded with the largest rocket attack since October, launching over 250 rockets the northern Galilee in addition to dozens of drone attacks on Israeli positions. Hezbollah’s attacks caused widespread fires.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said that his group was ready for a full-scale war with Israel “if a war is imposed on Lebanon.” Nasrallah’s remarks came in a speech marking a week since the killing of its field commander by Israeli strikes in the Lebanese south.

Nasrallah said that Hezbollah “will fight without restraints and without limits” if Israel attacks Lebanon, adding that Israel’s seaports and airports will be targeted.

Earlier on Monday, Hezbollah released 10-minute-long drone footage of strategic Israeli facilities in the Haifa region, including arms factories, power plants, warship docks, and oil reservoirs.

Hezbollah began to conduct cross-border attacks on Israeli positions across the border on October 8 as Israel began its assault on Gaza. Israel, for its part, began to carry out airstrikes on southern Lebanese towns, killing at least 500 Lebanese and forcing some 100,000 to flee the area. Meanwhile, Between 120,000 and 200,000 Israelis have fled the north since October.

Gaza detainees under ‘unimaginable’ abuse, says first lawyer to visit detention center

Palestinian lawyer Khaled Mahajneh from Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel said that Gazan detainees in Israeli detention centers are facing “unimaginable” conditions, including torture and sexual abuse. Mahajneh made his remarks after visiting the infamous Sde Teiman base in the Naqab desert, where Israel holds hundreds of Palestinian Gazans. Mahajneh is the first lawyer to be allowed to enter Sde Teiman.

Mahajneh, who visited his client, Palestinian Gaza journalist Muhammad Arab, said his client told him that Palestinian detainees have been beaten by Israeli soldiers and prison guards on a daily basis, several of whom have died as a result.

According to Mahajneh, Palestinian detainees in Sde Teiman have been forced to sleep on the bare ground in barracks containing up to 150 detainees each and beaten for taking more than one exact minute in the shower. Detainees have been handcuffed and blindfolded for hours on end and sexually abused, Mahajneh said.

In March, Israeli daily Haaretz reported that 27 Palestinians had died in two Israeli detention facilities, including Sde Teiman. In February, the UN experts said in a report that several Palestinians had been sexually abused in Israeli detention since October.

In mid-May, CNN released an exposé based on the testimonies of Israeli whistleblowers about the horrific treatment of Palestinians from Gaza at the Israeli military base of Sde Teiman, including being strapped down to beds while blindfolded and made to wear diapers, having unqualified medical trainees conduct procedures on them without anesthesia, having dogs set on them by prison guards, being regularly beaten or put into stress positions for offenses as minor as peeking beneath their blindfolds, having zip-tie wounds fester to the point of requiring amputation, among other practices.

On June 6, the New York Times published another story about Sde Teiman based on interviews with former detainees and Israeli military officers, doctors, and soldiers who worked at the prison, bringing new horrors to light about the treatment of Gazan prisoners there. Detainee testimonies repeated many of these same accounts but also included additional disturbing accounts of sexual violence, including testimonies of rape and forcing detainees to sit on metal sticks that caused anal bleeding and “unbearable pain.”

Following October 7, Israel began a crack-down on Palestinian detainees in all prisons, including suspending all family visits. Detainees from Gaza were separated from the rest of the prisoners.

According to the Gaza-based Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners and Detainees, at least 36 detainees from Gaza have died in Israeli detention since last October. Currently, Israel holds more than 9300 Palestinians in its jails, including 74 women, 250 children, and more than 3410 detainees without charges.