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SvennoJ 2 hours ago
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Main points on November 18th

  • At least 50 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since Monday morning, medical sources say, including 17 people who were killed in a raid on a house near Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north.
  • Gaza’s Interior Ministry says at least 20 people were killed in an operation targeting “gangs” that looted United Nations trucks bringing food into the war-torn territory.
  • Israeli forces attacked central Beirut again, carrying out an air raid on a densely populated area and killing at least five people and wounding 31 others.
  • In Israel, Hezbollah rockets killed a woman in a northern settlement, while shrapnel from an intercepted missile wounded six people in Tel Aviv. One of the victims is in serious condition.
  • Hezbollah said in a statement that it had launched an “air attack with a squadron of qualitative attack drones on sensitive military points” in Tel Aviv.
  • The attacks come as Hezbollah mulls over a US-backed ceasefire in Lebanon, with US envoy Amos Hochstein set to arrive in Beirut on Tuesday for talks, despite Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu saying Israel will continue to attack Hezbollah even if a deal is reached.

‘We must occupy northern Gaza entirely’: Israeli finance minister

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the complete occupation of the northern Gaza Strip to force Hamas to release Israeli captives.

“To bring the hostages home, we must occupy northern Gaza entirely and tell Hamas that if they don’t return them, we will stay there forever, costing Gaza a third of its territory,” Smotrich told a meeting of his Religious Zionism Party.

“Reaching an agreement with Hamas to end the war would mean surrender and defeat,” he added. “We will continue until Hamas is eliminated and an agreement is reached under which it surrenders. We won’t stop until our enemies are destroyed and security is fully restored to the state of Israel.”

UN committee chair says Israel’s war on Gaza turns clock back to ‘era of unchecked barbarity’

Peter Mohan Maithri Pieris made the remarks as he formally presented a report by the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices in Palestine, which likened Israel’s policy in Gaza to genocide.

Pieris, who is also Sri Lanka’s UN envoy, told member states at UN headquarters in New York, that “history will not forget our inaction and complicity”.

“Under our watch, we have been permitting the clock to turn back to an era of unchecked barbarity,” he said.

“The very persecution we once vowed would never happen again, now permitted under the guise of technological precision, the manipulation of international law, the insidious disinformation,” Pieris added.

“Our inaction is not only failing to protect innocent lives from the ravages of war, it is unravelling the international legal system itself.”