Israel is ramping up its attacks on the UN as well, gaslighting the international community in the process.
IDF tells international community to "find additional solutions" to distribute aid in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has claimed there are "logistical limitations" to getting aid into Gaza, and has urged "the international community to find additional solutions," as global bodies warn of the spiraling humanitarian crisis in the region.
"Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza. We’re sending aid into Gaza, to the people of Gaza. We are not the bottleneck," IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari insisted in a video statement on Wednesday.
"On the contrary. We check more aid trucks than can enter Gaza," Hagari said. "There are logistical limitations and challenges posed by the ability of international organizations to distribute aid. Which is why we urge the international community to find additional solutions, for the distribution of aid, alongside establishing field hospitals and temporary shelters, for Gazans."
World Health Organization officials visited several hospitals across Gaza on Monday, detailing "harrowing accounts" of suffering shared by health workers and patients as the conflict widens. Food and health crises have also engulfed the enclave, with humanitarian workers struggling to get enough resources to displaced Gazans.
Hagari reiterated in his video statement that "defeating Hamas is the only option," after Israeli officials warned that the war will continue for several months. "We will continue our important mission, to defeat Hamas, and rescue our hostages. We are committed to freeing our hostage from Hamas and freeing Gaza from Hamas, for a better future for the region," Hagari said.
Israel will stop automatically granting visas to UN workers
Israel will stop automatically granting visas to United Nations workers, a government spokesperson on Tuesday, adding that the country will instead process applications on a case-by-case basis. Speaking at a press briefing, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said: “For too long international officials have been deflecting blame onto Israel to cover up the fact that they are covering up for Hamas.”
Characterizing the announcement as “an update on the deeply problematic involvement of the United Nations in this conflict,” Levy noted that the UN had failed to condemn Hamas for hijacking aid and for waging war out of hospitals. "They have been complicit partners in Hamas’ human shields strategy,” he said. Levy said the UN had let the world down, and that Israel would lead by example to demand greater accountability from the international body.
Context: Israeli diplomats have used their platforms at the UN to denounce the world body since the war began. In late October, UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered an address in which he "unequivocally" condemned Hama's attack but said it didn't happen "in a vacuum," and that the Palestinians had been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation” by Israel, escalating tensions.
Earlier this month, Israel revoked the visa of Lynn Hastings, a United Nations humanitarian coordinator, due to the "bias of the UN." Days later, Guterres invoked a rarely used power at the Security Council in his determined push for a ceasefire in Gaza, causing outrage among Israeli diplomats.
Meanwhile a few days ago
https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-136-un-staff-killed-in-gaza-says-guterres/live-67809478
Israel-Hamas war: 136 UN staff killed in Gaza, says Guterres
In Gaza, ‘People lost everything’: UNRWA
The UN agency’s director of communications Juliette Touma says people’s needs in Gaza are “huge”. “People lost everything and they need everything,” she said. The requirements include basics such as food and water, as well as protection from Israeli bombardment and raids. Their needs are amplified by the winter season, which means more warm clothes and blankets, Touma added.
The UN agency OCHA says there have been 367 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians since October 7.
Israeli demolitions: More displaced in West Bank, East Jerusalem
The total number of people displaced following the demolition of their homes has risen to 393 Palestinians, including 208 children, says the UN agency OCHA.
The demolitions are carried out because of the lack of Israeli-issued building permits in “Area C” of the occupied West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem, which are almost impossible to obtain, the agency said. The monthly average of displacement between October 7 and December 7 represents a 27 percent increase compared with the first nine months of the year.
Palestinian journalist: Israeli intelligence threatened to bomb my house – then did
Hossam Shabat, one of the few remaining journalists in northern Gaza, says he was threatened by an Israeli officer at the beginning of Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip. Shabat, from the northern town of Beit Hanoon that is now mostly destroyed, was at the local hospital when he received a call from an Israeli intelligence officer.
“He told me to delete all my posts on Facebook since October 6 – posts I published about citizens’ support for the resistance and calls for citizens to remain in their homes,” Shabat wrote on X. “The officer continued by saying, ‘get out [of Beit Hanoon] or I will bomb your house’. I refused to leave and my house was indeed bombed and completely destroyed. I left after they besieged us in the hospital while they were targeting it.
“Despite all these threats and the bombing of my house, I am still covering what is happening. Death follows us everywhere. Recently when I re-entered Beit Hanoon, the Israeli warplane fired directly at me.”
Hezbollah and Israel continue to trade fire
Since this morning, there have been five attacks from Hezbollah towards Israeli military targets including an Israeli naval base just south of Naqoura with rockets. Another attack occurred to the east with drones and missiles. There were also different strikes on several other Israeli military targets.
Israeli forces also attacked Lebanese soil with at least four warplanes hitting the area behind me. There’s a pattern right now evolving day after day, which is Israeli forces striking residential areas.
Lebanese-Australian killed in Israeli strike
An Israeli air strike on a residence in southern Lebanon has killed a Lebanese-Australian man, his wife, a Lebanese national and his brother who was a member of Hezbollah, sources told the Reuters news agency. Ibrahim Bazzi, the Lebanese-Australian civilian, was identified by one of his relatives. Australian media quoted a spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as saying it is aware of the report and is seeking confirmation.
Analysis: US troops are in the firing line as fears rise of a widened Middle East war
Analysis from CNN's Stephen Collinson
Escalating attacks on US troops and commercial shipping and incidents often involving Iran and its proxies are causing new concerns that Israel’s war in Gaza could widen into a regional conflagration with grave political and economic consequences.
With American service personnel increasingly in a dangerous firing line and with US and allied naval assets on high alert after multiple drone attacks, the deteriorating situation is leading to a tense holiday period for the White House. The rising possibility of US combat deaths and the worsening security situation from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and stretching through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel represents an unwelcome new foreign crisis as President Joe Biden’s reelection year dawns.
And it is becoming a petri dish for a new geopolitical trend — endless tests of America’s will and credibility by its adversaries and their proxies. Warnings by Israel that its war against Hamas in Gaza will last for months, despite US pressure for a ratcheting down of the intensity of the conflict, threaten to heighten the chances war could spin out of control and drag the US further in.
In Israel you can either join the slaughter or go to jail
Who are the Israeli refuseniks picking jail over the Gaza war?
When Tel Aviv teen Tal Mitnick refused to enlist in the Israeli army, he was put on trial. He was taken to military prison to serve a 30-day sentence on Tuesday. Standing alone in a country on a determined war footing is an agonising decision. But, speaking at Tel Hashomer, a base near the Gaza fence in central Israel, Mitnick staunchly defended his decision.
“I believe that slaughter cannot solve slaughter,” he said. “The criminal attack on Gaza won’t solve the atrocious slaughter that Hamas executed. Violence won’t solve violence. And that is why I refuse.” The solution, he said, would not come from corrupt politicians in Israel or from Hamas. “It will come from us, the sons and daughters of the two nations,” he said.
