Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from the northern Gaza Strip on Friday A day after the White House announced that Israel would begin imposing four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the territory to allow people to leave. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said Friday that more than 100,000 residents of Gaza City had fled south in the past two days.
Conditions on the ground continue to deteriorate amid the ongoing Israeli onslaught As night fell over Gaza City on Friday, heavy gunfire, explosions and the buzz of Israeli military drones could be heard. Despite the US announcement, there were no immediate reports of a calming of fighting in the northern Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said there would be “tactical, localized pauses in humanitarian assistance to civilians in the Gaza Strip” but “no ceasefire.”
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that a child is killed every ten minutes in Gaza. “Nowhere and no one is safe,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN Security Council on Friday, adding that Gaza’s health system was “on its knees” and half of its 36 hospitals were not functioning.
French President Emmanuel Macron said there was “no justification” for Israeli bombings of babies, women and the elderly in the Gaza Strip. Speaking to the BBC about the war a day after a humanitarian aid conference in Paris, Macron called for a ceasefire in Gaza and said it would benefit Israel. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas was responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk has called for an investigation into what he described as “indiscriminate” bombing and shelling by Israel in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. “The extensive Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, including the use of high-yield explosive weapons in densely populated areas… is clearly having devastating humanitarian and human rights impacts,” Turk told reporters in Jordan.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “far too many Palestinians have been killed” in the war. While Blinken said the US “recognizes” Israel’s steps to minimize civilian casualties, he said that was not enough. He said the U.S. had proposed additional ideas to the Israelis, including longer “humanitarian pauses” and expanding aid deliveries to Gaza.
Each recorded deadly Israeli airstrike on Gaza since October 7 has resulted in an average of 10.1 civilian deaths. A monitoring group said amid warnings that reported civilian casualties were likely underestimates. The death average is far higher than in the three previous Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
Crowds of people marched through the center of Jenin in the occupied West Bank for the funeral of Palestinians killed in an IDF attack. As the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues, violence in the occupied West Bank is escalating. Nineteen Palestinians were killed across the territory on Thursday in clashes with the IDF.
Israel has killed another seven Hezbollah fighters on its northern border with Lebanon. This brings the total number of deaths of Hezbollah fighters since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th to 78. The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will give his second speech this month on Saturday and outline his latest thinking.
Israel is considering a deal with Hamas to release all civilian hostages held in Gaza. according to a report. One of the proposals currently being discussed was for Hamas to release 10 to 20 civilian hostages in return for a brief pause in fighting, an official said. If the conditions are met, this could lead to the release of around 100 civilians.
Evacuations of foreign passport holders and injured Palestinians in need of urgent medical treatment from the Gaza Strip to Egypt were suspended on Friday. According to Portal, the suspension was due to problems getting medical evacuees from the Gaza Strip to the Rafah crossing. The Rafah border crossing was also suspended on Wednesday due to what the U.S. State Department described as an unspecified “security circumstance.”
British healthcare workers in uniform protested outside Downing Street on Friday to commemorate the nearly 200 doctors killed in Gaza since the bombing of Israel began. The vigil was organized to call on Rishi Sunak to push for an urgent ceasefire.
Organizers of the pro-Palestine march due to take place in London on Armistice Day They expect “hundreds of thousands” of people to take part in what is believed to be the UK’s biggest day of mass protest.