- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- Israel said a soldier was killed in Gaza on Wednesday
- Around 7,500 foreigners have to be evacuated from the Gaza Strip
- Strikes in Jabalia camp could be war crimes, says UN commission
- US Secretary of State Blinken will visit Israel and Jordan on Friday
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 2 (Portal) – More foreigners prepared to leave the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday as the Hamas-led government said Israeli attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp had killed at least 195 Palestinians be a war crime.
At least 320 foreign nationals on an initial list of 500, as well as dozens of seriously injured Gazans, entered Egypt on Wednesday as part of a deal between Israel, Egypt and Hamas.
Passport holders from Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, the United Kingdom and the United States took part in the evacuation.
Gaza border officials said the crossing would reopen on Thursday to allow more foreigners to leave. A diplomatic source said about 7,500 foreign passport holders would leave Gaza within about two weeks.
Israel is pushing for an offensive against Hamas militants and has bombed Gaza by land, sea and air to wipe out Hamas following the Islamist group’s cross-border rampage in southern Israel on October 7. Israel said Hamas killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians. and took more than 200 hostages.
At least 8,796 Palestinians in the narrow coastal enclave, including 3,648 children, have been killed by Israeli strikes since October 7, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
In the early hours of Thursday, explosions were heard around the al-Quds hospital in densely populated Gaza City, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. Israeli authorities had previously ordered the hospital to evacuate immediately, something U.N. officials said was impossible without endangering patients.
Two Hamas commanders killed, Israel says
Israel said its attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday killed two Hamas military leaders in Jabalia, the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Israel said the group has command centers and other “terrorist infrastructure under, around and in civilian buildings that intentionally endanger civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
The Hamas-run media office in Gaza said on Thursday that at least 195 Palestinians were killed in the two Israeli strikes on Jabalia and 120 were missing under the rubble. At least 777 people were injured, it said in a statement.
Palestinians searched through rubble on Wednesday in a desperate search for trapped victims. “It’s a massacre,” said one witness.
U.N. human rights officials said attacks on the camp could amount to a war crime.
“Given the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction following Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights wrote on the social media site X
[1/5]Palestinians search for victims a day after Israeli attacks on houses in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, November 1, 2023. Portal/Mohammed Al-Masri LICENSE
The Israeli military said a soldier was killed in Gaza on Wednesday. Fifteen were killed on Tuesday.
Amid growing international calls for a humanitarian cessation of hostilities, conditions in the coastal enclave are becoming increasingly desperate under Israeli onslaught and the tightened blockade. Food, fuel, drinking water and medicine are in short supply.
Dr. Fathi Abu al-Hassan, a U.S. passport holder waiting to enter Egypt on Wednesday, described the hellish conditions in Gaza with no water, food or shelter.
“We open our eyes to dead people and we close our eyes to dead people,” he said.
Hospitals are struggling as fuel shortages led to closures, including Gaza’s only cancer hospital. Israel refused to allow humanitarian convoys to carry fuel, saying Hamas militants would divert the fuel for military use.
Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said the Indonesian hospital’s main power generator had stopped working due to a lack of fuel.
The hospital switched to a backup generator but was no longer able to power mortuary refrigerators and oxygen generators. “If we don’t get fuel in the next few days, we will inevitably fall into a catastrophe,” he said.
US DIPLOMAT TRAVELS TO ISRAEL AGAIN
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to leave on Thursday for his second visit to Israel in less than a month. He plans to meet Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Friday to express solidarity but also reiterate the need to minimize casualties among Palestinian civilians, his spokesman said.
Blinken will also stop in Jordan, one of the few Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel. On Wednesday, Jordan withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv until Israel ends its attack on Gaza. Israel said it regretted Jordan’s decision.
In Jordan, Blinken will emphasize the importance of protecting civilian lives and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to ensuring that Palestinians are not forcibly expelled from Gaza, a growing concern in the Arab world, the spokesman said.
He will continue talks led by Egypt and Qatar on the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
Also on Thursday, the US House of Representatives could pass a bill with support from Republicans that would provide $14.3 billion in aid to Israel.
But it is unlikely to become law because it faces stiff opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House has threatened a veto. President Joe Biden wants a $106 billion bill that would fund Ukraine, border security and humanitarian aid, as well as money for Israel.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Emily Rose; additional reporting from Portal bureaus; writing by Cynthia Osterman and Stephen Coates; Edited by Grant McCool, Robert Birsel
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.
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