Casualties
- 43,922 + killed* and at least 103,898 wounded in the Gaza Strip, 59% of whom are women, children and elderly, as of October 21, 2024.*
- 784+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
- 3,516 Lebanese killed and more than 14,929 wounded by Israeli forces since October 8, 2023***
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,189.
- Israel recognizes the death of 890 Israeli soldiers, policemen and intelligence officers and the injury of at least 5,065 others since October 7.****
Key Developments
Gaza
- Israel kills 111 Palestinians in less than 24 hours on Sunday in strikes across the Gaza Strip. 72 people were killed in the bombing of residential buildings in Beit Lahia alone. The others were killed in bombings on Bureij and Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip and in the Mawasi area in Khan Younis and in Rafah south of the Gaza Strip.
- Israeli strikes kill 28 Palestinians in the north of Gaza on Monday, including 17 in the surroundings of the Kamal Adwan hospital, including children according to Palestinian health sources.
- The Palestinian Civil Defense said on Monday that it recovered 34 bodies of Palestinians under the rubble of a six-floor building in Beit Lahia, after being bombed by Israel.
- The Palestinian Civil Defense says that Israeli strikes and drone attacks are preventing its teams from saving wounded Palestinians or recovering dead bodies in the north of Gaza, and that it received 70 rescue calls in the past two weeks, which it couldn’t respond to because of Israeli fire. The Civil Defense also said that its teams lack equipment due to the Israeli siege and that they are working with primitive tools and their bare hands.
- The Palestinian Civil Defense says that Israeli strikes killed 85 of its members, wounded 301 and arrested 20, and destroyed 56 of its vehicles and 17 of its centers in the Gaza Strip since October of last year.
Lebanon
- The US special envoy for the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire talks, Amos Hochstein, is expected to arrive on Tuesday to Beirut to discuss the latest US proposal, before heading to Israel to meet Israeli officials.
- Israeli forces conducted seven strikes on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district on Sunday, and continue to shell and airstrike Lebanese border towns.
- Israel kills Hezbollah’s media spokesperson Mohammad Afif and four other Hezbollah members in a strike on an apartment in Beirut.
- Hezbollah launches rocket attacks on three Israeli media gathering points across the border and five Israeli military bases near Haifa over the weekend, including one base in the Galilee for the first time since the beginning of the war.
- Hezbollah’s rockets hit the center of Haifa and the Mount Carmel area; the Israeli army says it intercepted a number of missiles.
- Heavy combat was reported over the weekend between the Israeli army and Hezbollah fighters in the outskirts of the Lebanese border town of al-Khyam, where the Israeli army is attempting to advance into the south of Lebanon. Israeli forces had withdrawn from al-Khyam in early November after a week of combat with Hezbollah fighters in the town.
‘48 Palestine
- Israeli forces demolished on Thursday the mosque and all of the houses in the Palestinian village of Um al-Hiran, unrecognized by the Israeli state in the Negev desert. The village is home to 1,000 Palestinians who have been transferred to the town of Houra, near Beer al-Sabea. Israel plans to build a Jewish-only town in the place of Um al-Hiran, called ‘Drur’.
- Israel’s security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrates the demolition of Um al-Hiran, saying on ‘X’ that he is “proud of a strong state policy against illegal building.”
- The Higher Orientation Committee for the Arabs of the Negev says in a statement that the Israeli government has “declared war” on Palestinians in the Negev, and calls for protests against the demolition of Um al-Hiran this week.
West Bank
- Israeli settlers steal harvested olives from Palestinians in Tel Rumeida in Hebron after physically assaulting a farmer’s family and installing a tent on Palestinian land.
- Israeli settlers set fire to a car and a house in the village of Beit Furik, east of Nablus, during an Israeli army raid on the village.
- Israeli forces storm a mosque in the town of Dura near Hebron and perform mockery dances on its minaret.
- Israeli forces raided the city of Qalqilya, the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, the cities of Tubas, Jericho and Jenin, the peripheries of Jerusalem and the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem over the weekend arresting tens of Palestinians and conducting field interrogations.
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on November 18, 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.
*** This figure was released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, updated on November 14, 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.
Hochstein back in the region amid speculations about a possible ceasefire in Lebanon
The US special envoy for ceasefire talks between Lebanon and Israel, Amos Hochstein, is expected to arrive in Beirut on Tuesday according to a Lebanese official source quoted by Reuters. Hochstein will discuss the latest US ceasefire proposal with Lebanese officials, as Hezbollah has delegated the Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri to represent the group’s positions.
According to the Lebanese source quoted by Reuters, while Lebanon considers the proposal “a foundational framework” for a ceasefire, it still needs long discussions before being accepted.
Israel continues to hold to its condition to amend the UN resolution 1701 that ended the Israeli war in Lebanon in 2006. Amending the resolution would allow Israel freedom of military action in Lebanese territory and airspace – a nonstarter for Lebanon. Lebanon’s official position continues to hold to the implementation of resolution 1701 without amendments, refusing to compromise Lebanese national sovereignty.
Hezbollah’s official position continues to be that a ceasefire takes place first, before any conditions are negotiated around the specifics of a lasting agreement. Hezbollah has also maintained that it rejects the Israeli and US attempts to separate the Lebanese and Gaza fronts, and that Hezbollah will cease its operations once there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has increased its rocket, missile and drones attacks on Israeli targets in recent days, focusing on the city of Haifa which was hit by missiles over the weekend. Israel, for its part, increased its strikes on the Beirut southern Dahiya district, conducting up to seven strikes on Sunday, killing Hezbollah’s media spokesperson Mohammad Afif.
On the ground, Israel continues to conduct limited ground incursions into the border area in the Lebanese south, encountering resistance from Hezbollah fighters. Combats have been centered over the weekend around the strategic town of al-Khyam, where Israeli forces already fought a week-long battle in early November, before completely withdrawing.
