‘We will not disappear’: Palestine’s UN envoy tells Security Council

Riyad Mansour made an impassioned speech, imploring the UN Security Council to take urgent action to tackle the hunger crisis in Gaza.

“Let us pause and understand what it means that Israel has decided and implemented famine as a method of war for the purposes of ethnic cleansing and to advance its colonial objectives,” Mansour told the council.

“Everything we warned against, everything Israel denied, is happening before our eyes,” he added. “We are at the last stages of an orchestrated plan to empty wide areas of Gaza from its Palestinian population.”

Mansour also condemned Israeli plans to annex the occupied West Bank.

“Palestinian people are faced with death, dispossession and displacement yet again, but once again… we will not disappear,” he said. “We are rooted in our land as the olive trees.”

US envoy says Israel ‘restoring aid’ to Gaza amid ‘undisputed humanitarian crisis’

Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UNSC that Israel is “restoring aid deliveries” to northern Gaza, but acknowledged that the situation in the region remains an “undisputed humanitarian crisis”.

She said the US “has made clear to Israel that it must address” the situation.

“An unconscionable number of Palestinian civilians, many women and children, have been killed,” she added.

The statement came even as the UN’s top humanitarian official told the same meeting that Israel is continuing to block aid from reaching the besieged area.

And as we’ve been reporting, the council meeting comes as the US’s deadline for Israel to boost aid to Gaza or face sanctions expired. The US State Department, however, said earlier that Israel has not violated American law.

Israel’s UN envoy says warnings of famine in Gaza are false

Danny Danon, Israel’s envoy, slammed the warnings of famine in Gaza by a UN-backed committee of food security experts as false.

“It is a true masterclass in misinformation, bias and dishonest reporting,” he told the council. “So if you take even a moment to examine its claims rationally that mud slides down to the floor, exposing the emptiness and libel hidden beneath. It is an exercise in slander, disguised as humanitarian concern.”

The report “echoes one of the most unfounded slanderous accusations against the state of Israel throughout this conflict”, he added.

Incoherent babbling doesn't make your lies true.

What happened at the UNSC meeting on Gaza’s hunger crisis?

The Israeli ambassador’s comments to the UNSC were shocking, quite frankly. If you were to listen to Danon, you would think everyone in Gaza has all the food that they could possibly need. Clearly, that is not the case.

And the independent Famine Review Committee that he attacked is a US-backed panel, and all they do is look at food insecurity. They’re not a political organisation and they don’t necessarily have a bias.

The Palestinian envoy said something important. He asked why Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza to see for themselves.

Mansour also told the council that Israel’s intentions are clear. “Israel has decided and implemented famine as a method of war for the purposes of ethnic cleansing and to advance its colonial objectives,” he said.

Slovenia and Guyana – two of the Security Council members that called for this meeting – criticised the lack of international action.

Samuel Zogbar, Slovenia’s ambassador to the UN, said, “Stories of children in Gaza unable to cry due to hunger should force us to act now. Their silence must be deafening for their families, their doctors, their communities”. He added that “the only silence louder is the one of this council not acting to prevent the worst from happening”.

Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, the Guyanese ambassador, called the situation in Gaza “apocalyptic” and said it is “entirely attributable to the persistent violation of international law including international humanitarian law”.

Once again, US fails to follow through on ultimatums to Israel

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had given Israel 30 days to abide by international humanitarian law in Gaza, including increasing aid deliveries to at least 350 trucks a day – or risk no longer being supplied with weapons, as required under US law.

By almost every objective metric, aid agencies say that, in fact, the humanitarian situation has grown worse in that timeframe.

The UN is reporting that just 30 trucks are now entering Gaza daily, the lowest number in a year.

Just a week ago, the State Department noted that Israel had not done enough. But now, citing the opening of two new crossings and the waiving of some customs restrictions in the last few days, the US announced that Israel had done enough to avoid sanctions – even without carrying out most of the specific measures it had called for.

So once again, in this war on Gaza, the Biden administration issued an ultimatum to Israel based on domestic and international law, only for it not to follow through. Though, perhaps for the last time before it leaves office.

The US is full in on the genocide, the ultimatum was merely a way to avoid inconvenient Gaza questions right before the elections.

US ultimatum on Gaza aid a ‘political ploy’ to woo voters

Tariq Habash was the first of US President Joe Biden’s political appointees to resign from the administration due to Washington’s support for the war in Gaza. He told Al Jazeera that the backtracking is no surprise and that it seems the ultimatum – issued just before the US election – was merely an attempt to reassure the Democratic Party base not to worry about Gaza.

“This felt like a political ploy that this was not something this administration was ever actually serious about enforcing. The reality is, despite missing on pretty much every single metric, we have no intention of enforcing US law,” Habash said.

“The administration is not doing what needs to be done to ensure that lifesaving aid reaches Palestinian civilians,” he added.

‘It reminded me of Hiroshima’: Surgeon tells UK parliament

Nizam Mamode, a British professor of transplant surgery, held back tears while telling a British parliamentary committee about his experience volunteering at Nasser Hospital in the Gaza Strip for one month.

Mamode told the International Development Committee that when he arrived in Gaza, his convoy drove through a landscape that reminded him of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for about 20 minutes.

“Buildings reduced to rubble for miles around as far as you can see, nothing growing, no people, a few looters here and there, but nothing,” he said.

After that, he said he reached an area where about 1.3 million people were living in tents or under shelters made of “pieces of carpet and plastic stuck onto sticks”.

“There’s no running water, no sanitation, no electricity, obviously, and people are having to roll those up and move on at very, very short notice, time and time again. Most people have moved six or seven times,” he said.

Surgeon says he treated children shot by Israeli drones in Gaza

Here’s more from Mamode’s testimony at the British parliament.

The surgeon said many of his memories from his time in Gaza are of drone attacks. “You have this constant whine, which is psychologically, very affecting, because it represents danger and it’s constantly there,” Mamode told the International Development Committee.

“Those drones are surveillance drones, but they are also drones that shoot people regularly. “What I think I found particularly disturbing was that a bomb would drop, maybe on a crowded, tented area, and then the drones would come down and ‘pick off’ civilians.

“The bullets that the drones fire are these small cuboids. And I fished a number of those out of the abdomen of small children,” he said.

US House fails to pass bill that could target pro-Palestine groups

Legislators in the US House have voted down a bill that would have granted the Department of the Treasury broad authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofits deemed to be supporting “terrorism”.

The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, or HR 9495, received 256 votes in favour and 145 against, falling short of the two-thirds majority required to pass.

The Republican-sponsored bill was introduced amid accusations that some Palestinian solidarity groups involved in widespread campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza were “pro-Hamas”.

“Good news! HR 9495 – the ‘Nonprofit Killer Bill’ aimed at silencing Palestine activism – failed to pass in the House tonight,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a social media post responding to the vote.

They'll try again next year...

US forces attack ‘Iran-aligned targets in Syria’

The US’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out attacks against an Iranian-backed group’s “weapons storage and logistics headquarters facility” following an attack on American personnel on Tuesday.

It did not identify the targeted militia, but said the attack on US forces did not cause injuries or damage.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began, armed groups in Syria and Iraq have launched attacks on US forces in protest over Washington’s support for its ally. The attacks have prompted retaliatory US strikes.

On Monday, the US said it carried out attacks against nine targets associated with Iran-backed groups in Syria.

Displaced orphans ‘are on their own’

There is no letup in the attacks across the Gaza Strip. In the early hours of this morning our team member in northern Gaza reported that heavy artillery shelling hit the remaining residential buildings, infrastructure and public facilities in the city of Beit Lahiya, forcing people into further displacement.

This is a continuation of what has been going on for almost 40 days now – the ground offensive and assault by the Israeli military have caused further civilian casualties and displaced 100,000 to 130,000 people.

Here in the central area, overnight attacks hit a tent site in the centre of the city. This tent site was a place for orphans who have been displaced from across the Gaza Strip into the central area as well as housing for the street vendors who are now mostly children.

They are without their families. They are on their own.

The drone attack killed two people, according to the organisers and caretakers of this tent site, who make sure the orphans have a place to sleep and try to meet their needs for survival in these difficult conditions.

Three more people were killed in a residential attack on a Nuseirat refugee camp. They were all transferred to al-Awda Hospital. Wounded in the hospital are at risk of losing their lives because of the lack of medical supplies and proper medical care in the hospital.

_{Palestinians look at the damage following an Israeli airstrike that hit a camp for displaced people in Deir al Balah}

UN condemns ‘acts reminiscent of gravest international crimes’ in Gaza

The UN’s aid chief tells the Security Council that the world is “witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes in Gaza”, where Israel is accused of deliberately starving civilians to force them out of the north.

Israeli forces bomb a medical centre in Beirut

Israeli fighter jets have carried out a series of attacks on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital at dawn, striking the Dar al-Hawra Medical Centre in Harek Hreik several times, according to the National News Agency (NNA).

The strikes came after Israel’s military issued forced evacuation orders for the area.

Israeli forces hit residential apartment in Lebanon’s Dawhet Aramoun: Report

Lebanese state-run media has reported an Israeli attack on an apartment south of the capital Beirut that has wounded a number of people. “Israeli warplanes launched a strike at dawn targeting a residential apartment in a building in the Dawhet Aramoun area, injuring people,” the official National News Agency said.

Eight people killed in Israeli attack on south of Beirut: Report

Eight people have been killed and a number of others have been wounded in the Israeli raid on a residential building in Dawhet Aramoun, south of Beirut, Lebanese National News Agency reports. The building sustained significant damage that included several floors where fires broke out.

Residents evacuated their homes and took to the streets for fear of more raids. The search is ongoing for missing people under the rubble, the report said.

Israeli raid on Dawhet Aramoun kills 6: Ministry

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health says the Israeli raid on Dawhet Aramoun has killed six people. It said on X that body parts are being removed from the scene and identities are being verified, in addition to 15 others being wounded.

Attack on south Beirut after Israeli evacuation warning: Report

An attack has hit south Beirut, AFP footage has shown, following a warning by the Israeli army to evacuate parts of the area. AFPTV footage showed a plume of black smoke rising over the area after a strike, about an hour after Israel’s army told residents of parts of the southern suburbs to leave.

_{People ride their motorbikes past damaged buildings in the aftermath of Israeli attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs, November 13}

Egyptian FM arrives in Beirut as Israeli strikes hit near airport

Badr Abdelatty has landed in the Lebanese capital, accompanied by a new shipment of humanitarian aid to provide support to the country. As we’ve been reporting, Israel has been bombing Beirut’s southern suburbs this morning after issuing new evacuation orders.

The Egyptian Foreign Minister was giving remarks to reporters on the tarmac at Bierut Rafic Hariri airport, which is very close to the area Israel has been targeting, when the first strikes hit.

“Egypt is providing aid to Lebanon with all it can, and this is the fourth shipment. It is a duty and responsibility,” he said from the airport. “We reject making the election of the president a condition for the ceasefire, and we reject any external impositions in the Lebanese presidential file,” he added.

Lebanon has not had a president since the term of Michel Aoun expired in October 2022. Abdelatty is expected to meet senior Lebanese officials, including caretaker PM Mikati, regarding the ongoing efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon.

_{Aftermath of latest Israeli attacks on southern Beirut}

Israeli forces launch three raids on Beirut’s southern suburbs

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that Israeli warplanes have launched three raids on the southern suburb of Beirut. Earlier, we reported that an Israeli attack in Dawhet Aramoun, south of Beirut, killed at least six people.

Israeli bombing targets towns in southern Lebanon

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that Israeli army artillery has shelled near the towns of Shamaa and Zibqin in southern Lebanon. Israeli warplanes also launched a raid on the town of Majdal Zoun and on the town of Qalila in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, they reported.

Hezbollah claims rocket attack on Israeli soldiers

The Lebanese armed group says its fighters launched rockets at a group of Israeli soldiers east of the Maroun al-Ras village in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate. The attack was carried out at 05:00am (02:00 GMT), Hezbollah said in a statement on Telegram.

Lebanon awaits truce proposals after US envoy expresses hope

Lebanon is awaiting concrete ceasefire proposals, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was quoted as saying, after a senior US official said he saw “a shot” at a truce soon in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

White House envoy Amos Hochstein told Axios that he thinks “there is a shot” at a truce in Lebanon soon. “I am hopeful we can get it.”

His comments point to a last-ditch bid by the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden to secure a Lebanon ceasefire as diplomacy to end the Gaza war appears adrift, with mediator Qatar having suspended its role.

Berri, endorsed to negotiate by Hezbollah, told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that Lebanon had not been informed officially of any new proposals for a ceasefire, which several rounds of US-led diplomacy have failed to secure over the last year.

“What is on the table is only Resolution 1701 and its provisions, which must be implemented and adhered to by both sides, not by the Lebanese side alone,” Berri, who helped negotiate the 2006 truce, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

After attack, north Lebanon villagers worry that Israel targets displaced people

Shredded clothing, broken table legs, torn copies of the Quran, a red “I love you” teddy bear and a book on Aristotle lie amid piles of socks. These, among many other things, are strewn in the rubble of the northern Lebanese village of Ain Yaaqoub in Akkar after a deadly Israeli air raid.

Beneath all this, at least one body remains under the rubble of what was a two-storey apartment building, Red Cross rescuers say. Metres away, charred, unrecognisable body parts litter the ground.

Monday night’s Israeli air strike on Ain Yaaqoub in this remote, far northern corner of Lebanon killed at least 14 people, says Walid Semaan, head of the Lebanese Red Cross. It was nothing less than a “massacre”, according to people in Ain Yaaqoub, taking out not only the apartment building but many more homes around it as well.

Evacuation orders force more people into displacement in Lebanon

Israel is issuing forced evacuation orders for highly populated areas, which means many people are still fleeing.

Authorities have been accommodating the displaced in shelters, many of which are schools. The school year was supposed to start a month ago, but it was delayed because of the war.

There are 1,250 government schools in Lebanon and 505 of them are being used as shelters. Four-hundred schools have been closed because they have been damaged or are in the conflict zone.

About 20 rockets fired from Lebanon towards Galilee region: Israeli army

Most of the rockets have been intercepted, but some impacts have been detected, according to the Israeli army. It said on X that rocket alerts were activated in the upper Galilee and western Galilee areas of Israel.

Hezbollah claims to have confronted two Israeli drones

The Lebanese armed group says its air defence unit has confronted two Israeli drones – a Hermes 450 and a Hermes 900 – in the Lebanese airspace with surface-to-air missiles, forcing them to exit. Hezbollah also claimed to have launched rockets at two groups of Israeli soldiers in the Sasa and Kfar Vradim settlements in northern Israel.

Hezbollah claims to have attacked Israeli logistical base near Nahariya

The Lebanese armed group says its fighters have launched rockets at a logistical base for the 146th Division in the Israeli army. The attack came at 2pm (11:00 GMT) north of the town of Sheikh Danun, the northernmost coastal city in Israel, Nahariya, Hezbollah said.

Hezbollah claims first attack on Israeli war ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv

The Lebanese armed group says it carried out its first air attack on Israel’s Kirya military base. Hezbollah said the base was the headquarters of the Israeli war ministry and general staff, as well as its war management room and the air force’s war control and supervision authority.

The group claimed the attack was carried out with a squadron of attack drones and the targets were hit accurately.

Hezbollah claims to have attacked northern Israeli military base

The group says its fighters launched rockets in two separate attacks on the headquarters of Israel’s Ramim Battalion in the barracks located in northern Israel’s Hunin village. The attacks came 15 minutes apart, Hezbollah said in a statement on Telegram.

Hezbollah claims attack on military base in northern Israel

The Lebanese armed group says it has carried out an air attack on the Amos military base in northern Israel with a squadron of attack drones. Hezbollah said the site is Israel’s transportation formation base in the northern region and a central axis in the readiness of the technology division. The base is located near the Israeli city of Afula.

Israel carries out series of air attacks across southern Lebanon: Report

An Israeli drone has carried out a raid with a guided missile, targeting a motorcycle in the southern Lebanese town of Yahmar al-Shaqif, according to the country’s state-run National News Agency (NNA). It also said that two air strikes were carried out by Israeli warplanes in the town of Tebnine and two more in the town of Burj Qalaouiyah.

Also in southern Lebanon, Israel’s warplanes launched a raid on the city of Bint Jbeil and the town of Ainata, followed by a raid on the town of Sultaniya, the NNA reported.

A building was destroyed when Israeli warplanes bombed the vicinity of the Communist roundabout in the town of Kfar Reman, the report said. At least three people were injured in a drone attack in the town of al-Shaitiyah, according to NNA.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says 78 people killed on Tuesday

At least 78 people were killed and 122 wounded on Tuesday in Lebanon, the Ministry of Health has said in its latest update. The total toll since the beginning of the hostilities on October 8 now stands at 3,365 killed and 14,344 injured. The ministry said 216 children were among the casualties, as well as 308 medical workers.

Translation: The Public Health Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Public Health issued the daily report on the outcome of the Israeli aggression against Lebanon. It indicates that the Israeli enemy’s raids yesterday, Tuesday, November 12, 2024, resulted in 78 dead and 122 wounded.

Israeli army says six soldiers killed in southern Lebanon

The Israeli army has issued a statement saying six soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon, as the military continued its ground operation.