UNRWA says no aid deliveries into Gaza from tomorrow
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing on Friday.
All communications are down in Gaza because of a lack of fuel, UNRWA said in a statement.
This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys.
From ourš#Gaza team @TomWhite:
There will NOT be a cross-border aid operation at the Rafah Crossing tomorrow.
The communications network in #Gaza is down because there is NO fuel.
This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys. pic.twitter.com/Kaj8z0lE9f
ā UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 16, 2023
Juliette Touma, UNRWAās director of communications, said that from tomorrow, the agency will be unable to send trucks to pick up aid supplies for Palestinians from the border with Egypt.
āWe have been warning about the impact of the siege on peopleās lives,ā Touma told the BBC. āIt seems our calls have fallen on deaf ears.ā
Key events
Israeli military reports finding “operational tunnel shaft” in Shifa hospital complex
Joanna Walters
The Israeli military has said in the last 30 minutes that it uncovered a tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gazaās al-Shifa hospital complex, Reuters reports.
In the Shifa Hospital, IDF troops found an operational tunnel shaft and a vehicle containing a large number of weapons,ā the military said, using the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.
The military also made public videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons.
Ofir Gendelman, a spokesperson for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted a short video clip on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter:
We await further details and reaction. More context on this situation from the Guardianās initial story published a few moments ago.
There is no independent verification of the IDF claim at this time.
UNRWA says no aid deliveries into Gaza from tomorrow
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing on Friday.
All communications are down in Gaza because of a lack of fuel, UNRWA said in a statement.
This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys.
From ourš#Gaza team @TomWhite:
There will NOT be a cross-border aid operation at the Rafah Crossing tomorrow.
The communications network in #Gaza is down because there is NO fuel.
This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys. pic.twitter.com/Kaj8z0lE9f
ā UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 16, 2023
Juliette Touma, UNRWAās director of communications, said that from tomorrow, the agency will be unable to send trucks to pick up aid supplies for Palestinians from the border with Egypt.
āWe have been warning about the impact of the siege on peopleās lives,ā Touma told the BBC. āIt seems our calls have fallen on deaf ears.ā
Patrick Wintour
The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has urged Israel not to be āconsumed by rageā in its response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October.
Speaking from kibbutz Beāeri ā where at least 85 of the 1,200 people killed that day died and from where about 30 of more than 240 people were kidnapped ā Borrell said āIsrael must be defendedābut that āone horror does not justify another: innocent civilians, including thousands of children, have died in recent weeks.
I understand your fears and your pain. I understand your rage. But let me ask you not to let yourself be consumed by rage.
The diplomat also called for the āimmediate and unconditional releaseā of those taken hostage by Hamas that day.
Meanwhile, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, acknowledged splits in Europe on the conflict.
Macron, who was visiting Switzerland, urged an āimmediate truce leading to a humanitarian ceasefireā but admitted that āthere is not a united position, to be honest, at the European levelā.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its soldiers have recovered the body of a hostage seized by Hamas militants on 7 October from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The body of Yehudit Weiss, an Israeli woman who was abducted from kibbutz Beāeri, āwas extracted by IDF (army) troops from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa hospitalā, an IDF statement said, adding:
In the structure in which Yehudit was located, military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs were also found.
The al-Shifa hospital has become a key objective for Israel, because proving their claim that Hamas used it to shield military activities would help counter the international outcry prompted by the Israel Defense Forces killing a large number of civilians.
Writing in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, columnist Amos Harel said the IDF had moved into Shifa to pursue specific goals ā proving their claim that Hamas used medical facilities for military purposes and to search for intelligence about Israeli hostages ā but also because of the hospitalās āsymbolic importanceā. Harel wrote:
The IDF wants to signal that even though the current raid has limited goals, there is no place its forces fear to enter and there is no place Hamas can feel safe.
IDF says body of hostage recovered near al-Shifa hospital
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they have recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, 65, one of about 240 hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October attacks on Israel.
The body was recovered from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the IDF said on Thursday. It was brought into Israel for identification and the family were informed, it said.
Weiss, a mother of five, was abducted from kibbutz Beāeri on 7 October, the Times of Israel reported. Her husband, Shmulik Weiss, was found murdered in the safe room of their home.
The IDF did not provide further details on the cause of death. The IDF statement reads:
The body of Yehudit Weiss, who was abducted by the Hamas terrorist organisation, was extracted by IDF troops from a structure adjacent to the Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip and was transferred to Israeli territory. In the structure in which Yehudit was located, military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs were also found.
The IDF āsends its heartfelt condolences to the familyā, it said, adding: āWe will not cease from the mission until it will be completed.ā
The Israeli military has accused Hamas of hiding evidence that would confirm the organisation used al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as a command and control centre.
Israeli special forces moved into al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday morning and continued to search the sprawling complex in the centre of Gaza City on Thursday.
An IDF spokesperson said on Thursday:
It is important to emphasise that from the moment the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) publicly exposed the use of hospitals for terrorist activity a few weeks ago, Hamas has persistently worked to conceal infrastructure and cover up evidence.
Hamas and medical administrators have strenuously denied the allegation the hospital was a command centre, and the health ministry in Gaza said the Israeli military did not find any weapons in the hospital. A British doctor working at Shifa said the charge was an āoutlandish excuseā.
āThe soldiers are proceeding one building at a time, searching each floor, all while hundreds of patients and medical staff remain in the complex,ā an IDF spokesperson said.
The operational activity is being carried out in a discrete, methodical and thorough manner, based on ongoing field assessments and informed by questioning taking place in the field.
The IDF said that āafter searching some of the hospital complex buildingsā, troops had found weapons as well as āintelligence materials, military technologies and equipment, command and control centres, and communications equipment, all belonging to Hamasā.
Norwayās parliament has adopted a resolution calling on the government to be ready to recognise an āindependentā Palestinian state.
Passed with an overwhelming majority in parliament, the declaration paves the way for full recognition of Palestine as its own state, but not right now.
The proposition said the assembly āasks the government to be ready to recognise Palestine as an independent state when recognition could have a positive impact on the peace process, without making a final peace accord a conditionā, AFP reported.
Iceland, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic and Romania are among countries to have already given legal recognition to a Palestinian state.
The general manager of the Palestinian telecommunications company, Paltel, said he has urged international bodies to persuade Israel to allow fuel to enter Gaza in order to restore telecommunications to the besieged territory.
Earlier today, Paltel announced that all communication services ā landlines, mobile phones and internet connections ā were down due to a lack of fuel.
We regret to announce that all telecom services in ššš³š ššš«š¢š© have š šØš§š šØš®š of service as all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, and šš®šš„ š°šš¬ š§šØš šš„š„šØš°šš š¢š§.#KeepGazaConnected
ā Paltel (@Paltelco) November 16, 2023
The Paltel chief executive Abdulmajeed Melhem told the Associated Press:
Since the outbreak of the war, there has been no electricity. Therefore we have relied on alternative sources to operate the generators. If they [Israel] allow the entry of fuel, this problem will be solved.
Sewage is now flowing through the streets of Gaza, the director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugeesā affairs (UNRWA), has said.
UNRWA has warned that many of its services in the Gaza Strip have already been closed due to a lack of fuel, including dozens of water wells, two water plants and sewage pumping stations.
All communications are down in Gaza tonight, after the main telecommunications companies confirmed no telecom services were working, because of the lack of fuel.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said Gaza was in a ātotal communication blackoutā and that he feared the blackout could heighten panic in the Gaza Strip and erode civil order.
UN chiefs reject unilateral proposals to create ‘safe zones’ in Gaza
The heads of several United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organisations have said they will not take part in the establishment of any āsafe zonesā in Gaza that are declared by only one side of the conflict.
A joint statement signed by nearly a dozen heads of UN agencies, including the UNās humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, human rights chief, Volker TĆ¼rk, childrenās fund chief, Catherine Russell, and head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reads:
As humanitarian leaders, our position is clear: We will not participate in the establishment of any āsafe zoneā in Gaza that is set up without the agreement of all the parties, and unless fundamental conditions are in place to ensure safety and other essential needs are met and a mechanism is in place to supervise its implementation.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled from northern to southern Gaza in recent weeks towards an area offering only marginally more safety. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have established what it calls āhumanitarian corridorsā even as Israeli strikes continue in the south of Gaza, and refugees are forced to flee amid an Israeli blockade of food, water and fuel.
The signatories of the joint statement on Thursday said that none of the humanitarian organisations they represent have been involved in preparing for the arrival of displaced people in any prospective āsafe zoneā ā or āhumanitarian zoneā ā in Gaza.
The joint statement on Thursday said proposals to unilaterally create āsafe zonesā in Gaza ārisk creating harm for civilians, including large-scale loss of life, and must be rejectedā, adding:
No āsafe zoneā is truly safe when it is declared unilaterally or enforced by the presence of armed forces.
Pictures and videos posted online of yesterdayās ceasefire protests in Washington DC showed Capitol police scattering candles, which were laid out to mourn the 11,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes.
At one point, video showed a Capitol police officer appearing to spit on the candles after kicking them around.
Capitol police clashed with dozens of demonstrators outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters on Wednesday evening where several Democratic representatives, including the house minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, were inside for a campaign reception.
Capitol police said that approximately 150 people were āillegally and violently protestingā and that one person was arrested āfor assault on an officerā.
Organisers of the ceasefire demonstrations said that more than 90 non-violent protesters were injured by Capitol police.
My colleague Maya Yang is covering the aftermath of the ceasefire demonstrations on our US politics live blog.
Gaza hospital completely shut down, announces hospital director
The Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza has been completely shut down and about 45 patients who urgently need surgery have been left in the reception area, the hospital chief Atef al-Kahlout has told Al Jazeera.
āThe Indonesian hospital has completely stopped serving and operating,ā Kahlout said, Reuters reported. He added:
Due to our clinical inability to accommodate patients from Gaza and the north, we announce that the hospital has completely stopped operating.
There have been reports of shooting at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza today, as an Israeli military official confirmed its commandos have been combing through the complex.
A BBC journalist reported one of its contacts saying:
Soldiers are everywhere, shooting in all directions.
He said soldiers had āstormed all departmentsā of the hospital, destroying the southern part of the buildingās wall and dozens of cars.
He also said armoured bulldozers had been brought in to the complex.
A dialysis patient died while Israeli forces raided al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, according to a spokesperson for the Palestinian ministry of health in the besieged enclave.
The patient died when the dialysis machines stopped working when the power was cut off, Ashraf al-Qudra said today.
He warned that a number of premature babies at Shifa were in mortal danger because there was no electricity to power their incubators, NBC reported.
There was also no food and no water for the remaining 650 patients or approximately 7,000 displaced people who were sheltering at the complex, he said.
The Gaza health ministry spokesperson described the situation at Shifa as āvery dangerousā, and said Israeli troops had destroyed all the cars in the parking lot and refused to allow medical staff to leave.
He also said Israeli claims about the presence of weapons at the hospital were a ālieā, adding:
The Israeli story about the presence of weapons in the al-Shifa complex is false and does not deceive anyone. The Shifa complex and Gazaās hospitals are humanitarian institutions and we will not allow them to be used as a theatre for military operations.
‘Violent attack’ at Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital, says Palestinian Red Crescent Society
Al-Ahli hospital in the Gaza Strip is currently under siege by Israeli tanks, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) have said.
In a statement posted to social media, the PRCS said a āviolent attack is underwayā at the hospital in Gaza City. It said it teams were unable to move and reach injured people.