Gaza health ministry: Israeli strikes kill 90 Palestinians in Jabalia refugee camp
Israeli strikes killed 90 Palestinians in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Sunday, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson told Reuters.
Videos posted online of what appeared to be the aftermath of the latest Israeli strike showed Palestinians digging through the rubble for survivors with shovels and their bare hands.
Since 7 October, Israel has attacked Jabalia refugee camp multiple times.
Following one of Israel’s airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp last month, the UN human rights office said that it had “serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes”.
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World Health Organization ‘appalled’ by Israel’s attack on Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital
The World Health Organization said that it is “appalled” following Israel’s deadly raid on Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital over the weekend.
After Israel’s destruction of the only working hospital in northern Gaza through which witness reports emerged accusing Israeli forces of crushing Palestinians, including wounded patients, using bulldozers, WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said:
“WHO is appalled by the effective destruction of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern #Gaza over the last several days, rendering it non-functional and resulting in the death of at least 8 patients.
Many health workers were reportedly detained, and WHO and partners are urgently seeking information on their status.”
We learned that many patients had to self-evacuate at great risk to their health and safety, with ambulances unable to reach the facility. Of the deceased patients, several died due to lack of adequate health care, including a 9-year-old child.
We are extremely concerned for the well-being of the internally displaced people who are reportedly sheltering in the hospital building.
Gaza’s health system was already on its knees, and the loss of another even minimally functioning hospital is a severe blow.
Attacks on hospitals, health personnel and patients must end. Ceasefire NOW.”
.@WHO is appalled by the effective destruction of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern #Gaza over the last several days, rendering it non-functional and resulting in the death of at least 8 patients.
Many health workers were reportedly detained, and WHO and partners are urgently…— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 17, 2023
Gaza health ministry: Israeli strikes kill 90 Palestinians in Jabalia refugee camp
Israeli strikes killed 90 Palestinians in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Sunday, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson told Reuters.
Videos posted online of what appeared to be the aftermath of the latest Israeli strike showed Palestinians digging through the rubble for survivors with shovels and their bare hands.
Since 7 October, Israel has attacked Jabalia refugee camp multiple times.
Following one of Israel’s airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp last month, the UN human rights office said that it had “serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes”.
Israel and Hamas are both open to a renewed deal involving a ceasefire and hostage release, although disagreements on detail remain, two Egyptian security sources told Reuters on Sunday.
According to the sources, Hamas is insisting on setting the list of hostages to be released unilaterally and demanding Israel withdraw its forces behind pre-determined lines.
Israel agreed on Hamas deciding the list and has asked for a timeline and to review the list in order to decide on ceasefire’s time and duration, the sources told Reuters.
However, Israel has refused to withdraw, they said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has said that it is pleased with the partial restoration of communications across the Gaza strip which has allowed it to connect with its colleagues.
The humanitarian organization had lost communication with its operations room in Gaza over the last four days as a result of heavy Israeli strikes across the strip.
🙏We are pleased with the partial restoration of communications to the #Gaza Strip, allowing us to connect with our colleagues there.
👇In this video filmed today in the central operations room in Ramallah we illustrate the difficulty of communication with the #Gaza operations… pic.twitter.com/WV7Dj4ncxO
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 17, 2023
Qatar has recieved another group of injured Palestinians for medical treatment, Qatar’s assistant foreign minister Lolwah Alkhater said in a statement on Sunday.
She added that the group of Palestinians were accompanied by a medical team and vice-chairman of Qatar’s Gaza Reconstruction Committee, ambassador Khalid al-Hardan.
Alkhater went on to say that not all of the patients and those injured by Israel’s deadly raid on Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital – one of the strip’s last remaining functioning hospitals – on Saturday have been found as rescue teams were prevented from reaching it.
حفظ الله الجميع.
بفضل الله ومنته وصول مجموعة جديدة من الأشقاء المصابين من غزة إلى دولة قطر على متن طائرة تابعة للقوات الجوية الأميرية وبرفقة طاقم طبي ونائب رئيس لجنة إعمار غزة السفير خالد الحردان. في سياق آخر أنوّه أنه حتى هذه اللحظة لم يتم العثور على… https://t.co/NgqyTppN8v pic.twitter.com/EBY0yCxnip
— لولوة الخاطر Lolwah Alkhater (@Lolwah_Alkhater) December 17, 2023
The continued bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces has severely limited humanitarian supplies entering the strip where over 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced as a result of Israel’s strikes, UNRWA said.
It added that Gaza is “becoming the graveyard of a population trapped between war, siege and deprivation”.
In a recent statement, Juliette Touma, the spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said:
You cannot deliver aid under a sky full of airstrikes.
Continued heavy Israeli Forces’ bombardments of the 📍#GazaStrip, imposed access restrictions and limited humanitarian supplies detrimentally impedes @UNRWA‘s ability to provide aid.#Gaza is becoming the graveyard of a population trapped between war, siege and deprivation. pic.twitter.com/ZfYU9vO6Qh
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 17, 2023
UNRWA chief on Gaza humanitarian crisis: ‘Everything is absolutely unprecedented and staggering’
In a new interview with Al Jazeera on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a result of Israel’s strikes, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said: “By any account, I haven’t seen anything of this scale.”
He went on to add:
Everything is absolutely unprecedented and staggering. The number of people who have been killed … in forty days, more women and children killed than the number of civilians in the Ukraine war.
The level of destruction, it is said today that more than 60% of the infrastructure has been destroyed. The level of displacement of the population, more than 90% of the population has now been displaced … The number of UN staff which have been killed is absolutely unprecedented …
Conditions are absolutely appalling. The sanitary conditions are terrible … There is hardly clean water … Sewage water [is] appearing in the shelter.”
Helena Smith
Over in Cyprus, president Nikos Christodoulides has hinted there could be movement on plans to get aid to Gaza via a humanitarian sea corridor from the eastern Mediterranean island.
“There are developments on this issue, there may be some announcements today,” the leader told reporters.
A government spokesperson said that an announcement will likely be made later tonight.
Israel has given the initiative its blessing, although it has also insisted that aid shipments be inspected on the ground before they leave Cyprus and again on any vessel due to make the journey.
Earlier today, Christodoulides appeared to imply Israeli inspectors had arrived on the island:
A group of Israelis has come to Cyprus, and a new group will come in the coming days. We are ready, as soon as there is the green light from Israel, to send humanitarian aid. It is a tragic situation especially for civilians, I believe that much more needs to be done to protect civilians, there is no justification for killing civilians and within this framework is our approach to providing untied humanitarian aid.
Cyprus has proposed establishing a maritime aid corridor from its port of Larnaca to the coastal strip. Earlier this week Britain’s minister of state in the foreign, commonwealth and development office, Andrew Mitchell, confirmed that 82 tonnes of humanitarian supplies had been flown out from the UK to the island and were “ready to go” alongside five tonnes of medical assistance also earmarked for Gaza. “As soon as there us the possibility of getting more aid and support into Gaza we will be using those supplies to do exactly that,” he told the House of Commons.
The Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said Greece would also be willing to participate in the sea corridor telling Politico: “The advantage of a corridor is that you can pack much more humanitarian aid in a ship than in a truck.”
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan has asked his US counterpart Antony Blinken for Washington to help halt Israeli attacks across Gaza and the West Bank, Reuters reports a Turkish diplomatic source saying.
According to the source, Fidan told Blinken that the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank are deteriorating as a result of Israel’s attacks.
The source added that Israel should be made to sit at the negotiating table to discuss a two-state solution after a full ceasefire has been achieved, Reuters reports.
Palestinians in Gaza are using eSim cards to navigate through communication blackouts as a result of Israel’s attacks across the strip.
Rasha Aly reports for the Guardian:
Ahmed El-Madhoun has been tweeting videos of the devastation in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas began. In one clip, he asks hospital staff whether the condition of a baby girl, Misk Abu Aisha, is serious. She’s wrapped in pajamas and a blanket El-Madhoun bought for her. The healthcare workers answer that she’s stable.
El-Madhoun sourced the funding for Aisha’s clothes and milk from someone who got in touch via X, formerly Twitter, although only after his phone could pierce the communications blackout that has enshrouded Gaza in the wake of Israel’s invasion.
He credits an Egyptian activist, Mirna El Helbawi, with restoring his access to the internet. El Helbawi has been spearheading a Twitter campaign, #ConnectingGaza, to give Palestinians embedded SIMs (eSIMs), a software version of the insertable chip used to connect a phone to cellular networks and the internet.
To date, El Helbawi and her group, the Cairo-based Connecting Humanity, say they have connected more than 50,000 Palestinians via donated eSIMs.
Read the full story here:
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that the aid that has been received in Gaza “doesn’t meet 10% of the needs”.
It added that since 21 October, 4,367 aid trucks have entered the strip through the Rafah crossing, 60% of which were for the PRCS.
It went on to call for “unconditional continued aid entry” into Gaza where more than 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced as a result Israel’s attacks across the strip.