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SvennoJ on 18 February 2024
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Israel plans to ‘pause fighting’ for 4 hours a day in one part of Gaza at a time

From Sunday to Friday, there will be a four-hour pause in fighting a day, from 10am to 2pm local time. These will be taking place in different parts of Gaza on each day. One part of Gaza on each day will get that lull in the fighting. Most of them are going to be in the Rafah area up until Thursday, and then Friday’s pause in fighting will be in a part of Deir el-Balah area.

The ostensible reason for this is so the people in those areas can get resupplied with food and other essentials. But they would have to be able to get those things. That is the huge dilemma for many Palestinians in Gaza. Where does that food come from? Is there enough of it?

The number of aid trucks going into Gaza at the moment is way down.

Nothing positive about Israel’s planned pauses in fighting

Israel’s pauses in fighting are supposed to allow people to resupply. But we are looking at rubble-filled roads, we’ve seen children looking for scraps of food, and markets are empty in Rafah. If food is available, it is at a very high price. Not everyone has the means to buy food. With no pay for five months, their financial capabilities are drained.

On top of that, the number of aid trucks that have been allowed into the Gaza Strip so far is not enough. Even if there were 300 trucks a day, it would still not meet the needs of an entire population that has been displaced, traumatised and without any essentials. In the northern part of Gaza, there is an actual famine. People have resorted to eating plants and animal feed.

The whole aid mechanism is broken, from the clearance of the checkpoints and the crossings to the fact that the international aid organisations cannot guarantee the safety of their crews on the ground. This means aid does not get to the designated locations.



‘We don’t have a place to go’: Deir el-Balah continues to bleed

At least two people have been killed and six others wounded after Israeli forces hit the al-Twashi family’s house in downtown Deir el-Balah with rockets. Nassr al-Twashi, 18, was among the wounded in the predawn attack on Sunday. Three families were sheltering in the house at the time of the attack.

Al-Twashi said, “We were asleep. My mom started crying. Debris hit us. I was hit by a shrapnel during the night, which pierced my left thigh. “Neighbours were severely injured. Eight houses were directly affected because it’s a very dense neighbourhood.

“It’s normal to me to see such atrocities. I am used to it. But it’s also been raining. Now, we don’t have a place to go and cover from pain. That’s painful.”


The house the family says was hit by the rockets


B’Tselem researchers in Gaza recount the horrors of Israeli abuse

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says its field researchers Olfat al-Kurd, Khaled al-Azayzeh and Muhammad Sabah have lost many family members to Israeli bombings. “Two of them have lost their homes in northern Gaza and are now displaced. Nevertheless, they have worked hard to convey personal stories and difficult sights from the ground, in almost impossible conditions,” the group says.

It shares a video of Palestinians describing the horrific abuse they were subject to in Israeli detention, and others speaking of their struggle to feed their children in a camp for the displaced in Khan Younis.



‘It was like a Judgement Day’: Doctor recalls surviving Israeli raid of Nasser Hospital

Dr Ahmed al-Moghrabi, head of the plastic surgery and burns department at Nasser Hospital, tells Al Jazeera that he considers himself lucky that he escaped from a “death checkpoint” when Israeli soldiers raided the hospital on Thursday. According to al-Moghrabi, Israeli soldiers arrived in the facility at about 1:30am and ordered everyone to evacuate immediately. Half an hour later, they bombed the hospital’s third floor, where al-Moghrabi was staying with his family, colleagues and patients.

“It was like a Judgement Day,” al-Moghrabi said, adding that he managed to take his family away from the hospital along with some of his medical staff, while the rest of the staff was arrested, including a nurse whom he was separated from by Israeli soldiers at the gate of the hospital. “I ask the leaders of this world, how many videos do you have to see of us getting killed? Seeing this real genocide happening in front of your eyes and nothing – just silence?

WHO says about 200 patients remain inside the hospital.

Staff at Nasser Hospital in ‘deep danger’: Canadian doctor

Emergency room physician Tarek Loubani, who has previously worked in Gaza hospitals, says medical services in Gaza have been already at “catastrophic levels”, even before Nasser Hospital went out of commission, as confirmed by the WHO.

“This particular statement [from WHO] says two things. One that the patients, the doctors, the staff, and the refugees inside … are in deep danger of being arrested, tortured and killed. Second, there is one less hospital, one valuable hospital that used to be able to serve patients, that is no longer able to serve patients,” Loubani, associate professor at the University of Western Ontario, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s another lifeline for the people in Gaza they can no longer go to for treatment.” Calling the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza a “genocide”, Loubani lamented the Canadian government’s backing of Israel since the war began. “This is not Israel operating alone. This is Israel operating with the full consent of all of us in a way,” he added. “My Canadian government is abhorrent in its support for Israel. They may say nice words on occasion, but they are complicit.”



Field hospital set up in Rafah amid Israeli attacks



As main hospitals in Gaza are being besieged and put out of order, field hospitals struggle to compensate for the loss of healthcare infrastructure.



India trade union to refuse to handle weapons shipments to Israel

The Water Transport Workers Federation of India, which represents 3,500 workers across 11 key Indian ports, says it will refuse to load or unload weapons to Israel. “[As] port workers, part of labour unions would always stand against the war and killing innocent people like women and children,” the union said in a statement.

“The recent attack of Israel on Gaza plunged thousands of Palestinians into immense suffering and loss. Women and children have been blown to pieces in the war. Parents were unable to recognise their children killed in bombings which were exploding everywhere,” it added.

This is in solidarity with a call by Palestinian trade unions, T Narendra Rao, the federation’s general secretary, told the Wire from Chennai, India.

Israel sends about $7bn in arms to India a year.

In a first, India’s first private drone manufacturing facility has sold more than 20 Hermes 900 medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles to Israel, NDTV reported, citing Shephard Media. Following attacks by Houthis on shipping vessels in the Red Sea, India has been sending other goods to Israel via the Dubai-Saudi land corridor.