The situation in Gaza keeps on deteriorating
Desperation grows in Gaza as thousands of civilians surround aid convoy for food.
Thousands of desperate civilians in the Gaza Strip surrounded a relief aid convoy at a United Nations center in the Al-Zeitoun neighborhood of northern Gaza, as seen in CNN video footage on Thursday.
The aid convoy consisted of two trucks distributing aid just outside a center of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), where people were seen climbing over them in desperation to get relief aid.
Earlier this week, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expressed “deep concerns” over the rapidly worsening food security situation in the Gaza Strip, saying approximately 2.2 million residents are facing acute hunger.
Incoming aid is below 100 trucks again for all of Gaza, less than 10% of what's needed
Air strikes continue unabated, latest in the South, Rafah
Israeli strikes: Twenty-one people were killed, and dozens injured after an apparent Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Rafah, a director at the hospital receiving the bodies told CNN over the phone on Thursday. A medical source at Al-Kuwaiti Hospital said that 12 children and four women were among the dead. In another apparent Israeli airstrike, 16 people were killed east of Khan Younis in Gaza on Thursday, two medical sources treating civilians told CNN.
Hundreds of Palestinians killed; 100,000 crowd Rafah under Israeli military orders: UN
The latest UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) situation report also notes:
- Half of all pregnant women in shelters in Gaza are suffering from thirst, malnutrition, and no access to medical care, while 50 percent of all displaced children are in danger of dehydration, malnutrition, respiratory and skin diseases, severe cold, and newborn infants are not being vaccinated.
- Some 1.9 million people in Gaza, approximately 85 percent of the territory’s population, have been displaced by Israel’s military onslaught.
It keeps getting worse in the West Bank as well
‘Emboldened’ Israeli settlers in West Bank increasingly attacking in groups – UN official
The UN has released a new report condemning the worsening human rights situation for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians are trapped in a “cycle of fear” as they face Israeli forces and growing Israeli settler violence, the UN said.
Deadliest year for children in West Bank
More than 80 children have been killed in the last 12 weeks in the occupied West Bank, amidst intensified military activities, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). That number is “more than double the number of children killed in all of 2022, amid increased military and law enforcement operations. More than 576 have been injured and others have reportedly been detained.” UNICEF said in a report issued Thursday.
UN envoy calls out surge in Israeli killings of Palestinians in occupied West Bank
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, has pointed out that 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the occupied West Bank so far this year.
While Israel has used “the pretext of ‘eradicating Hamas’” for killing more than 20,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since October 7, Albanese notes that Hamas has no military presence in the occupied West Bank and yet hundreds have been killed, including 79 children.
In a post on social media, Albanese asks if the reason for the unrelenting killings by Israel is because “Palestinian lives do not matter?”
East Jerusalem no better, this is some straight up North Korea bs
Israelis ransack home, arrest relatives of Palestinian man killed after alleged stabbing attack
The Israeli army says that a 23-year-old Palestinian man from the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber allegedly carried out a stabbing attack that injured two people and one of those people is said to be in a more serious condition.
The attacker was allegedly shot and killed by the Israeli military, but afterwards, the Israeli occupation forces raided the village of Jabel Mukaber and then went on to ransack the home of the alleged stabber, and arrested his mother, father and his sister.
This is actually policy for the Israeli military to interrogate immediate family members and friends of Palestinians the army accuses of carrying out attacks, even if they have no involvement whatsoever.
Another policy carried out by the Israeli army that is highly controversial is the demolition of houses of those they accuse of carrying out attacks. It happens after they arrest family members.
Meanwhile
Israel to take no action against soldiers who killed three Israeli captives in Gaza
The Israeli military has completed its investigation into the killing of three Israeli captives, saying the incident could have been prevented but disciplinary action would not be taken against its soldiers as there was “no malice” involved.
The three Israeli captives, Yotam Haim, Samer Talalka and Alon Shamriz, were shot dead by Israeli forces on December 15 in Gaza City after emerging from a building shirtless, waving a white flag, and shouting in Hebrew for soldiers to not shoot them.
Two of the captives were killed immediately on emerging from the building, while the third ran back inside, according to the investigation report. An Israeli commander issued orders for his forces to stop shooting, but two soldiers, who did not hear the command “due to the noise of a nearby tank”, killed the third captive when he emerged a second time from the building.
“The three abductees did not move in a threatening manner and were holding a white flag,” the report concluded. “The Chief of Staff stated that the injury to the abductees could have been prevented. Alongside this, the Chief of Staff clarified that there was no malice in the incident, and the soldiers performed the correct action to the best of their understanding of the incident at that moment,” it added.
To the North, the strikes between Hezbollah and Israel are getting worse as well, Israel also targeting Syria
Israel-Lebanon tensions grow as Hezbollah launches more attacks on northern Israel
Shelling along the Lebanon-Israel border continued Thursday, as Lebanese officials spent the day in meetings with foreign counterparts from France and Britain about the growing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed paramilitary group.
Hezbollah claimed it carried out simultaneous attacks around 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) — targeting multiple "barracks" across northern Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces told CNN that approximately 20 launches were detected on Thursday that were aimed at Kiryat Shmona, a northern Israeli municipality that has been the target of Hezbollah strikes over the last several days.
The municipality claimed two anti-tank missiles were fired at the town earlier in the day.
Hezbollah made six direct missile hits on Kiryat Shmona on Wednesday.
Diplomatic efforts: Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati met with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron in Beirut on Thursday and also spoke with French Foreign and European Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna on a call to discuss the growing clashes in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
Mikati called for "maximum pressure to stop the Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon" during his meeting with Cameron, according to a social media post from the Lebanese government. Cameron said in a post on X that an "escalation of the conflict in Gaza to Lebanon, the Red Sea or across the wider region, would add to the extremely high level of danger and insecurity in the world." The fighting is among various incidents involving Iran and its proxies that have raised global concerns that Israel's war in Gaza could widen into a greater regional conflict.
Syria says it intercepted Israeli ‘air aggression’
Syria’s Defence Ministry said that the country’s air defences intercepted Israeli strikes on areas surrounding the capital Damascus.
In a statement posted on Facebook, the Defence Ministry said that Israel carried out the attack at dawn “from the direction of the Lebanese territory” targeting a number of points in the vicinity of the capital. “Our air defence means repelled the aggression missiles and shot down some of them. The aggression resulted in some material losses,” the ministry added.
Earlier, Reuters news agency reported that Israel struck Syria’s main air defence base, as well as a radar station in the Tel al-Sahn area in the Sweida province of southwestern Syria. Israel regularly attacks sites in Syria that it says are linked to Iran-backed armed groups but rarely publicly acknowledges such raids.
Israel hits air defence base in southern Syria: Reuters
The strikes were believed to have targeted the base, as well as a radar station, in the Tel al-Sahn area in the Sweida province of southwestern Syria, a Syrian military intelligence source and another regional security official familiar with the matter told the news agency.
Last month, another anti-aircraft defence system and radar station in Tel Qulaib and Tel Maseeh in southern Syria were hit in what the senior intelligence sources said was an intensified campaign by Israel to disrupt Syrian air defence systems that Iran was involved in expanding.
Israeli has repeatedly struck Syrian government positions since the beginning of the war, in what military experts have said appears to an effort to slowing Iran’s growing entrenchment in Syria.
This conflict only keeps growing. Blinken is about to travel to the Middle East again. (So probably more bombing as result :/)
Egypt has proposed a 3 stage plan for a truce, no response so far. But at least someone is trying.
https://egyptian-gazette.com/egypt/sis-head-egypts-proposal-includes-3-stage-plan-to-reach-ceasefire-in-gaza/
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-779388
https://thehill.com/policy/international/4377866-what-is-egypts-peace-plan-proposal-to-end-the-israel-hamas-war/
