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SvennoJ on 19 January 2024
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As Biden and Netanyahu keep 'fighting' over "the day after" the war on Gaza and the West Bank only continues to get worse

Highest levels of violence in occupied West Bank: UN official

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN refugee agency for Palestinians, has warned that the occupied West Bank is witnessing its highest levels of violence yet, in what he described as “a tragic cycle of pain and suffering”. In a post on X, he said that since October 7, the numbers, duration and intensity of the Israeli army’s operations “have significantly increased especially in refugee camps”.

Lazzarini said that increased settler violence is causing Palestinians to flee their homes in search of safety. “Number of Palestinians killed last year tripled in comparison to 2022, when we thought we saw the worst,” he said. “Among those killed, at least 90 children only in past 100+ days. It is hard to keep up with the lives lost given how pervasive violence has become.”




The aftermath of Israeli raid in West Bank’s Tulkarem





Gaza hospital overwhelmed with injured

The aerial bombing campaign is now concentrated on the centre of Gaza where two more reported killed arrived at al-Shifa Hospital, a non-functioning health facility which over the past few weeks has been turned into an evacuation centre.

Seven more people from the Maghazi refugee camp have just arrived at Al-Aqsa Hospital, where most of the medical interventions have been directed to. There are also reports of several others injured in Nuseirat camp.

There’s a tsunami of injuries that have been channelling through Al-Aqsa Hospital, an overwhelmed facility right now with people literally waiting on the floor for medical staff to intervene and save them.

Brother of Mohammed al-Durra, icon of second Intifada, killed in Gaza

Local media are reporting that Ahmad al-Durra was killed yesterday by Israeli forces in Bureij refugee camp, 23 years after his brother Mohammed captured the world’s attention when he was killed by Israeli soldiers in the lap of his father, Jamal.

Mohammed al-Durra, who was 12 when he was killed, became a symbol for the second Intifada (2000-2005) during which more than 3,000 Palestinians were killed across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. In October, Israeli forces also killed two of Jamal al-Durra’s brothers, a sister-in-law and a niece.





Pattern of systematic field executions in Gaza: Monitor

Muhammad Shehada, of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor in Copenhagen, told Al Jazeera his organisation believes there is a pattern of a “systematic” killing taking place on the ground. “In at least 13 of field executions, we corroborated that it was arbitrary on the part of the Israeli forces,” said Shehada, chief of programmes and communications at the group.

Members of the organisation who visited crime scenes and gathered testimonies from witnesses and family members of those who were killed, as well as reports from the health ministries in Gaza, say any sense of protection for civilians by the Israeli army has been dropped and that soldiers in general have a sense of impunity.

“We believe that the IDF has dropped restraint in its conduct in Gaza, enabling soldiers to confidently conduct these atrocities, without fear of accountability, which is why we’re seeing them in multiple neighbourhoods and parts of the Gaza Strip,” he said, referring to the Israeli army.

Palestinian woman recounts abuse, killings by Israeli soldiers

Um Odai Salem, wife of a Palestinian man who was among at least 11 shot dead by Israeli forces on December 19, told Al Jazeera of abuse she says she and her daughters endured before her husband’s “execution”. “They [Israeli forces] beat me and my daughters,” she said. “They put us women in one place and threatened us with guns and knives. They made us strip. They searched us, insulting us with the most terrible words. They took our names and filmed us.”

She said the Israeli soldiers did not listen to their pleas that they were all civilians, and proceeded to “execute” all the men they rounded up outside. After the men were killed, Israeli fire hit the apartment Um Odai and her daughters were sheltering in, one of her daughters told Al Jazeera, killing her three-year-old sister, Nada.

UN official says Gaza detainees ill-treated and humiliated

A UN human rights official has called for an end to Israel’s ill treatment of Palestinian detainees in Gaza, saying he had met men who had been held for weeks, beaten and blindfolded with some released in nappies. “These are men who were detained by the Israeli security forces in unknown locations for between 30 to 55 days,” Ajith Sunghay told reporters by video link from Gaza.

“There are reports of men who are subsequently released but only in diapers without any adequate clothing in this cold weather.” Several videos shared by the Israeli army show hundreds of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear, sitting outdoors in the cold, sometimes blindfolded. In a few videos, women and children were also seen. The videos were taken at locations across Gaza, including Beit Lahiya, Shujayea and Jabalia.

According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, multiple freed prisoners said that after being made to curse themselves and disparage Palestinian groups and political figures, they were transferred in trucks to open-air detention facilities where they endured beatings and other forms of mistreatment.