“No one is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to turn.” The resumption of hostilities on December 1 and the advance of Israeli troops towards the south of the Gaza Strip bring “an even more hellish scenario (…) to which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond,” warned Lynn Hastings, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinian Territories, in a press release on Monday evening, December 4. The coordinator describes: “Shelters without space, a health system on its knees, a lack of clean drinking water, no sanitation and inadequate food for a mentally and physically exhausted population: a perfect recipe for epidemics and public health disasters.” Follow our Live stream.
The World Health Organization accuses Israel of demanding the evacuation of a medical supplies warehouse in Gaza. “The WHO has received notification from the Israeli Defense Forces to remove our supplies from our medical camp in the southern Gaza Strip within 24 hours as ground operations would render it unusable,” the WHO chief announced on Monday. WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who asked a publication about “to withdraw this order”. The Israel Defense Authority, which monitors civilian activities in the Palestinian territories, declined to submit such a request another post.
Hamas doesn’t want female hostages to testify about their treatment, US says. Israeli authorities said Friday they were resuming their military offensive because Hamas had not released all of its female hostages. “It appears that one of the reasons why (Hamas members) do not want to release the women they are holding hostage and why this breach has been nixed is because they do not want these women to tell the story, what happened to them during their detention.” Matthew Miller, spokesman for the US State Department, told reporters on Monday.
Thousands demonstrate in Ottawa in support of Israel. Several thousand people gathered in front of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa on Monday. Dozens of buses had been chartered from Montreal or Toronto, where large Jewish communities live.