Casualties
- 43,391 + killed* and at least 102,347 wounded in the Gaza Strip, including 59% women, children, and elderly, as of October 21, 2024.*
- 779+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
- 3,103 Lebanese killed and more than 13,856 wounded by Israeli forces since October 8, 2023***
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,189.
- The Israeli army recognizes the death of 890 Israeli soldiers and the injury of at least 5,065 others 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 November 7, 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. This is the latest figure according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of November 7, 2024.
*** This figure was released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, updated on November 7, 2024. The counting is based on the Lebanese official date for the beginning of “the Israeli aggression on Lebanon,” when Israel began airstrikes on Lebanese territory after the beginning of Hezbollah’s “support front” for Gaza.
**** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot 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 that the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000, including at least 8,000 who have been 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 and as of June 18.
Key Developments
Gaza
- Israeli army says it is close to completely “evacuating” the population of north Gaza and that they will not be allowed to return to their homes.
- Israel says it will expand its offensive in north Gaza to include Beit Lahia.
- Israeli forces kill at least 20 Palestinians in north Gaza in the past 24 hours while bombing a marketplace in Beit Lahia and several houses in Jabalia.
- Israeli forces bomb Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.
- Israeli strikes target the upper floors of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, forcing patients to flee to the lower floors.
Lebanon
- Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem says political moves will not end the war and “only the battlefield will deter Israel.”
- Qassem says only “indirect negotiations through the Lebanese state” will result in end of the war.
- Hezbollah launches rocket barrage directly at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport for the first time, one rocket strikes airport’s perimeter.
- Israel bombs Tyre, Saida, Baalbek, and Lebanese towns and villages in the south and the Beqaa Valley.
- Lebanese authorities say 70% of the population of Baalbek has fled the city.
- Lebanese authorities say that 1 in 4 Lebanese have been displaced since the beginning of Israel’s offensive on the country in early October.
West Bank
- Israeli forces raid Tulkarem and Jenin, clash with Palestinian fighters.
- Israel kills 11 Palestinians in West Bank since Monday, including seven in Jenin.
- Two Israelis injured in a car-ramming attack north of Ramallah. Palestinian car driver killed by Israeli forces.
- Israeli settlers take over five dunams of Palestinian farmland in northern Jordan Valley in the West Bank.
- Israeli settlers steal Palestinians’ olive harvest in the village of Yasuf near Salfit in the northern West Bank.
Israeli army says it is staying in north Gaza
Israel announced on Thursday that it will expand its offensive on north Gaza, which has been ongoing since October 5. According to the Israeli army, military operations that have largely taken place in Jabalia refugee camp will expand to Beit Lahia.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson of the Israeli army, Yitzhak Cohen, said in a press briefing that the army has come close to the complete “evacuation” of the population of north Gaza. The army spokesperson said that Palestinian residents of the north will not be allowed to return to their homes. This declaration marks the first official Israeli admission of the intent to permanently expel Palestinians from north Gaza.
To read the full story, click below:
Part 2 of post here.
Tank officers have also confirmed they applied their own interpretation of the directive when firing on vehicles returning to Gaza, potentially with Israelis on board.
“My gut feeling told me that they [soldiers from another tank] could be on them,” tank captain Bar Zonshein told Israel’s Channel 13.
Captain Zonshein is asked: “So you might be killing them with that action? They are your soldiers.”
“Right,” he replied, “but I decided that this is the right decision, that it’s better to stop the kidnapping, that they won’t be taken.”
Investigative journalist Ronen Bergman wrote for Yedioth Ahronot newspaper that the military had enacted the Hannibal Directive at midday on October 7.
“The IDF instructed all its fighting units in practice to follow the ‘Hannibal Directive’, although without clearly mentioning this explicit name,” he said.
“The instruction is to stop ‘at all costs’ any attempt by Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza, using language very similar to the original ‘Hannibal Directive’, despite repeated assurances by the security establishment that the procedure has been cancelled.”
Bergman’s investigation found 70 vehicles were destroyed by Israeli aircraft and tanks to prevent them being driven into Gaza, killing everyone inside.
“It is not clear at this point how many of the abductees were killed due to the activation of this [Hannibal] order on October 7,” he wrote.
What part of that did Australian ABC misrepresent?
The IDF showed miles of vehicles on the roads that had obviously been destroyed by air attacks. I pointed out at that it would have required combat capabilities Hamas had never displayed before, or since and some unseen means of transporting all of the munitions such an attack would have required. Israeli reports said that the majority of vehicles had Israeli victims inside. Road clearing operations began immediately and most were gathered at car cemeteries, like the one at Tekuma, before the survey of the 70 vehicles mentioned in the Bergman report. The video provided by the IDF spokesman for Yoav Zeitoun’s article showed dozens of illegal IAF air attacks on civilians and civilian vehicles that were not engaged in hostilities.
Re: I did address the report about the meeting with the PM.
You merely stated she wasn’t killed by the helicopters that she witnessed attacking Israelis. Your account of the two-day battle at Be’eri is imaginary. So, not a substitute for an independent forensic investigation. The UN Commission Report cited a examples, including a helicopter attack that killed a woman fleeing the music festival and the victims from one house, not those inflicted on all of the houses during the two days of operations.
Deliberately killing civilians to prevent them from being taken as prisoners of war is not the result of “fog of war” or chaos. It is a war crime or crime against humanity of murder, not attributable to Hamas.
And on Day 398 Israel passes a law so broad it could be used to deport anyone criticizing the government –
Israel passes law to deport relatives of attackers, including citizens….The Israeli parliament has passed a law allowing the government to deport the family members of people convicted of terrorism offences, including Israeli citizens….The controversial legislation, proposed by a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, applies to first-degree relatives, meaning the parents, siblings or children of those found guilty of committing or supporting terrorism….The law allows for the deportation of the family members of those who had advance knowledge and either failed to report the matter to the police or “expressed support or identification with an act of terrorism”….Relatives of those who published “praise, sympathy or encouragement for an act of terrorism or a terrorist organisation” could also be deported….Dr Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst, told the BBC there was “no question” the law was intended to apply to Israeli Arabs and Palestinians….Eran Shamir-Borer, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and a former international law expert for the Israeli military, said that if the legislation reached the Supreme Court, it would likely to be struck down….“The bottom line is this is completely non-constitutional and a clear conflict to Israel’s core values,” Mr Shamir-Borer told the Associated Press news agency…
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mlp9xdxl1o
France24, Reuters, Haaretz, and The Hill are all carrying reports that “Nearly 70 percent of people killed in Gaza women and children, UN finds”
The UN Human Rights High Commissioner is calling for an overdue reckoning for atrocity and human rights crimes.
The Palestinians should ask if they can stay in north Gaza if they give all the hostages back.
Palestinians get another wakeup call on the imperative for setting the record straight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k78oK0HmzU0