‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 304: Israel kills Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank as it braces for response to assassinations 

Casualties 

• 39,583 + killed* and at least 91,398 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 28,903 Palestinians have been fully identified, and around 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble.*
• 606+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank including eastern Jerusalem. These include 140 children.**
• Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
• 690 Israeli soldiers and officers have been recognized as killed, and 4096 as wounded by the Israeli army, since October 7.***

* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on August 4, 2024. Rights groups and public health experts estimate the death toll to be much higher.

** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on August 4, this is the latest figure.

*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Israeli daily Yediot Ahranot reported on August 4, 2024 that some 10,000 Israeli soldiers and officers have been either killed or wounded since October 7. The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 the number of wounded Israeli soldiers 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 has killed 138 Palestinians and wounded 335 across Gaza since Thursday, August 1, raising the death toll since October 7 to 39,583 and the number of wounded to 91,398, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
• Israel bombed three schools sheltering civilians in two days, between Saturday and Sunday in Gaza City, killing 47 Palestinians, 80% of whom were women and children according to the Palestinian Civil Defense.
• WHO says it will send 1 million polio vaccines to Gaza days after announcing it detected a spread of the disease in the strip.
• Israel suspends army vacations in preparation for expected Iranian and Hezbollah retaliatory attacks.
• According to Israeli media, Israel’s negotiating team returned from Cairo a day after arriving, following differences with Netanyahu.
• Netanyahu adds new conditions to the ceasefire deal negotiations, including deporting released Palestinian prisoners, according to Israel’s Channel 13.
• Thousands of Israelis protest in front of Israel’s war ministry to demand a ceasefire and prisoners’ exchange deal and early elections, amid police arrests.
• Israeli families of captives in Gaza say that Netanyahu “gave up on the captives to stay in power,” demanding members of Israel’s negotiating team speak out on Israel’s real stand from the deal negotiations.
• For the first time in months Hamas’s military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, launched a rocket strike from Gaza on Ashdod, hitting an Israeli factory directly.
• U.S. Central Command chief General Michael Kurilla arrived in the Middle East on Saturday to coordinate efforts to defend Israel against an expected Iranian attack.
• The Pentagon says that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will lead forces deployment in the Middle East in preparation for an Iranian attack on Israel.
• West Bank: Israel has killed 12 Palestinians in the West Bank in the past four days.
• West Bank: Israeli settlers injure four Palestinians and torch dozens of olive trees in the villages of Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, and Sourif, south of Hebron.
• West Bank: Palestinians attack an Israeli settlers’ bus station west of Bethlehem with Molotov cocktails, provoking a fire in the station.
• Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reports that 10,000 Israeli soldiers and officers have been either killed or wounded since October 7 during its assault on Gaza and that 1,000 soldiers join the war ministry’s rehabilitation services every month.
• Israeli doctor Yoel Donchin says on the Israeli ‘Kan’ channel that during his work at the Sde Teiman Israeli detention center, he examined a Palestinian prisoner showing injuries of sexual abuse that he reported he was unable to treat, due to their severe nature.
• Israeli doctor Guy Shalev, director of Physicians for Human Rights, says on the Israeli ‘Kan’ channel that his organization has information about some ten other cases of sexual abuse in Sde Teiman and about more cases in Israeli detention centers, calling it “a phenomenon.”
• Lebanon: Hezbollah attacks the headquarters of the Israeli army’s 91st division with drones. Israel admits one soldier and one officer were wounded.

Israel kills 47 Palestinians in strikes on three schools sheltering civilians in Gaza

Israeli forces bombed three schools sheltering civilians in less than 48 hours, killing 47 Palestinians in Gaza City over the weekend.

On Saturday, Israeli warplanes struck twice the Hamama school in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, west of Gaza City, killing 16 people. The school was crowded with displaced families who took shelter in it. The Palestinian Civil Defense said that the strike wounded dozens of Palestinians, some of whom were critically wounded. According to the civil defense, Israeli forces struck the school a second time while civil defense teams were recovering the wounded.

On Sunday, Israeli strikes targeted two schools sheltering civilians at the same time; the Nasr school and the Hasan Salameh school, in the western Gaza city, killing at least 30 Palestinians. Both schools were sheltering displaced families. The Palestinian Civil Defense said that 80% of the victims were women and children.

The Israeli army said in a statement that it had intelligence that Hamas used the Hamama school as a headquarters, without providing any evidence.

The Gaza government office said in a statement on Sunday that Israeli forces have targeted 172 sheltering centers in the Gaza Strip since October 7, killing 1,040 Palestinians. According to the UN, 86% of the Gaza Strip has been impacted by Israeli ‘evacuation orders’, ordering the majority of Gaza’s population to move to limited ‘safe zones’, which have also been targeted by Israeli strikes.

Israel has killed 12 Palestinians in the West Bank since Thursday

Israeli forces continued to escalate their attacks on the West Bank, killing 12 Palestinians since Friday, August 2, raising the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since October 7 to 606, including 140 children.

On Friday, August 2, the Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the death of Tamer Saqr, 21, an ambulance volunteer from Nablus, after succumbing to wounds caused by an Israeli bullet in the head, received during an Israeli raid on the city, a week ago.

The Palestinian death toll in the West Bank jumped on Saturday, after two Israeli drone strikes in Tulkarem during a raid in the city. In a first strike, Israeli forces targeted a car traveling east of Tulkarem, killing four Palestinians. Later in the same day, another Israeli strike killed five Palestinians in a hilly area near Tulkarem. The nine men were identified as Haitham Bledi, 33, Ahmad Mahajnah, 20, Jamal Abu Haniyeh, 19, Ali Bakr, 20, Abdel Jaber Sabbagh, 21, Yazan Shafea, 22, Momen Masharqah, 25, Thaer Hmeidi, 22, Momen Qaraawi, 22.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – PIJ mourned four of the men as its fighters. The armed wing of Hamas mourned one of the other five men as one of its fighters. The Israeli army said that all of the men killed were fighters.

On Sunday, Israeli forces killed Ammar Odeh, 34, from Salfit in the northern West Bank, after a stabbing attack that killed two Israelis in Holon, south of Tel Aviv. The Israeli police said that Odeh was the perpetrator of the attack.

Early on Monday, the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin announced the death of Wafaa Jarrar, 50, after succumbing to injuries caused by Israeli forces during her arrest from her home in Jenin, two months ago. Israeli forces had arrested Jarrar during a raid on Jenin last May, and later transferred her to an Israeli hospital for treatment of injuries caused during her arrest. Both of Jarrar’s feet were amputated due to her injuries, and the Israeli army issued an administrative order against her.

Israelis accuse Netanyahu of sabotaging ceasefire talks as Israel braces for Iranian attack

Thousands of Israelis protested late on Saturday in several locations, including in front of Israel’s war ministry to demand a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal and early elections. The protests came after Israel’s negotiating team returned from Egypt after differences with Netanyahu, according to Israeli media.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu of ‘giving up on the hostages despite the will of all parties to reach a deal.” Israel’s Channel 13 reported that Netanyahu has added new conditions to the deal that would sabotage it. These conditions include, according to reports, the deportation of some 150 high-ranking Palestinian prisoners who would be released outside of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army announced suspending all army vacations amid preparations for an expected attack from Iran and Hezbollah, in response to last week’s assassinations of Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in Beirut, and Hamas’s politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Israeli media reported that Israel’s internal security service ‘Shabak’ is preparing underground shelters for the government in case of a potential all-out war with Iran. The Israeli government also ordered factories in the northern areas, near Lebanon’s border, to reduce the quantities of flammable and explosive chemical materials.

On Saturday, the chief of the U.S. Army’s central command, General Michael Kurilla, arrived in the Middle East to coordinate efforts to face an Iranian attack, similar to the interception of Iranian drones and missiles during Iran’s response to the Israeli strike on its embassy in Damascus, last April.

Both Iran and Hezbollah have pledged a “harsh response” against Israel, after the assassinations that took place in the space of a few hours, provoking an unprecedented escalation, and bringing the possibility of a regional war in the Middle East closer than ever.