live blog
US President Biden and the Emir of Qatar have spoken about the need to release the hostages in the Gaza Strip. Israel no longer wants to automatically issue visas to United Nations employees. All developments in the live blog.
According to the Health Ministry, which is controlled by the radical Islamist Hamas, 195 people were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip within 24 hours. The spokesman said 16 families were affected. 325 other people were injured. Since the Gaza war began on October 7th, 21,110 people have been killed. More than 55,200 Palestinians were injured. The numbers cannot be independently verified.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by the Palestinian and Israeli conflict parties cannot be directly verified by an independent body.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has blamed the US for continuing the war: “Whenever the world, the UN Security Council and the General Assembly want to stop the war, the US vetoes and refuses to end the war.” If the US government wanted, it could persuade Israel to end the war. Everything that is currently happening is happening with the support of the USA.
Abbas continued to warn against an expansion of the war to the West Bank. “The situation in the West Bank can explode at any time,” he said. In his opinion, Israel’s goal is to eventually expel all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. “Our people have never experienced a war like this, not even the Nakba disaster of 1948,” said Abbas. The term Nakba (catastrophe) refers to the flight and expulsion of Palestinians in the first Middle East war in 1948.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by the Palestinian and Israeli conflict parties cannot be directly verified by an independent body.
Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 against Abbas’s more moderate Fatah. A year later, Hamas violently seized sole control of the Gaza Strip. Israel cleared the area in 2005 and evacuated more than 20 Israeli settlements there. Since the terrorist organization Hamas came to power, there have been de facto two separate governments – one in Gaza and one in Ramallah. Since the beginning of the fratricidal war between the two rival Palestinian organizations, there have been no more parliamentary or presidential elections.
After a suspected Israeli attack in Lebanon with three deaths, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah is said to have also killed a fighter from the terrorist organization. Another person is said to have been injured, the Lebanese news agency NNA reported. Israeli warplanes attacked the border town of Bint Jubail on Wednesday night. The place is considered a stronghold of Hezbollah and was the scene of fierce fighting between the Shiite militia and the Israeli military during the 2006 Lebanon War. The Israeli military is currently checking the information.
Iran’s defense minister has threatened retaliation after the killing of a high-ranking general in Syria. “At the right time and in the right place, we will give a powerful answer to the weak Zionist enemy (Israel),” Mohammed-Reza Ashtiani said, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency. On Monday, Iranian General Sejed-Rasi Mousavi, a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus.
A rocket fired from Lebanon at a church in the northern Israeli border town of Ikrit injured one person yesterday. The bullet did not hit the church itself, but rather an adjacent shed, Israeli media reported. While rescuing the injured civilian, soldiers were hit by a second rocket. Israel’s army blamed the terrorist organization Hezbollah for the attack.
According to media reports, three people were killed in an Israeli attack in Lebanon. According to the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, one of their fighters was said to have been among them. Another person is said to have been injured, the Lebanese news agency NNA reported.
Israeli warplanes attacked the border town of Bint Jubail during the night. The place is considered a stronghold of Hezbollah and was the scene of fierce fighting between the Shiite militia and the Israeli military during the 2006 Lebanon War. The Israeli military is currently checking the information.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health has released further details following an Israeli military operation in Tulkarem in the West Bank that left six people dead. Accordingly, a drone fired a rocket at a house in the city’s refugee district in the morning. According to the ministry, a seventh Palestinian suffered life-threatening head injuries. The Israeli army announced a statement on the incident.
Palestinians in a field of rubble in the refugee district of Gaza.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war, 298 Palestinians have been killed in confrontations with Israeli soldiers and attacks by Israeli settlers, according to the Ministry of Health. Since the beginning of the year, a total of 494 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military operations, confrontations or their own attacks in the West Bank.
According to Palestinian reports, six people were killed in Israeli air strikes on the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said several other people were seriously injured.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the target of the airstrikes was the Nur Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarem. The Israeli armed forces initially did not want to comment on the information.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer discuss postwar plans. According to an official from the US Presidential Office, the issues include governance and security in the Gaza Strip. Discussions also include the release of the remaining hostages and the transition to a new phase of the war in order to maximize concentration on high-value Hamas targets.
While the Middle East war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas rages on, diplomatic efforts to release the Hamas hostages continue in the background. US President Joe Biden spoke to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the White House announced. They spoke of “urgent efforts to release all hostages still held by Hamas, including American citizens.” The ongoing efforts to facilitate access for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip were also a topic of discussion.
Israel no longer wants to automatically issue visas to United Nations employees. In the future, applications from UN personnel will be decided on a case-by-case basis, said government spokesman Eylon Levy. He accused the United Nations of failing to condemn Hamas’ theft of certain aid supplies in the Gaza Strip.
The UN also did not condemn the fact that the militant Islamist group was waging war from hospitals and thus made itself an accomplice in Hamas’ strategy of using people as protective shields. Hamas has rejected the allegations. Israel’s announcement is likely to increase tensions with the United Nations. Israel has long accused the UN of expressing unjustified and disproportionate criticism of Israel in the Middle East conflict.
According to a media report, an Egyptian proposal to end the Middle East war is not yet off the table, despite intransigent statements from both warring parties. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Israel’s war cabinet has forwarded Egypt’s proposal for a gradual end to the war against the Islamist Hamas to a larger group of ministers for consideration. A delegation from the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is also expected to travel to Cairo soon to also discuss Egypt’s proposal. Hamas is not part of the PLO.
Israel is ready to discuss the first phase of Egypt’s proposal, which would see the release of more hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a new ceasefire, the newspaper quoted Danny Danon, a senior member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, as saying.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s PLO also initially said it had rejected Egypt’s proposal after seeing parts of it, the Wall Street Journal reported. However, she now wants to discuss the draft in Cairo.
Israel has interpreted an explosion near its embassy in the Indian capital New Delhi as a possible attack. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the incident occurred on Tuesday morning. Nobody was injured. The Israeli National Security Council spoke of a possible attack attempt.
The Foreign Ministry warned Israeli citizens in India to be cautious. They should not identify themselves as Israelis and avoid busy places where many Israelis tend to gather. As a precaution, you should also keep your travel plans to yourself.
The bodies of 80 Palestinians were returned to the Gaza Strip from Israel on Tuesday and buried in a mass grave there. The Red Cross handed over the remains of people killed in the Middle East war to local authorities in the Palestinian territory, journalists from the AFP news agency reported.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, Israeli soldiers had recovered the bodies from morgues and graves in recent days and brought them to Israel. There they were examined to make sure that there were no dead Hamas hostages among them. The 80 Palestinians were eventually buried in a makeshift cemetery in the Rafah region in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Dutch politician Kaag is to coordinate humanitarian aid for those in need in the Gaza Strip for the UN from January. Israel’s military has called for an evacuation in the central Gaza Strip. Tuesday’s live blog for reading.