The war between Hamas and IsraelDossierThe war between Hamas and Israel is approaching its seventh week this Saturday, November 18th. The Jewish state’s army appears to be turning its attention to the south of the enclave.
from LIBERATION, AFP and Portal
published today at 8:04 a.m
(updated November 18, 2023 at 3:50 p.m.)
In total :
- After four days of Israeli army presence at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the facility was largely evacuated this Saturday morning. The IDF is now also pursuing Hamas members in southern Gaza and has reportedly killed 32 people in two airstrikes on homes.
- Hamas also reports attacks in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. According to the Islamist movement, one of them killed at least 50 people in the al-Fakhoura school, which is run by the United Nations and takes in displaced people.
- According to Hamas, at least 12,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7. According to these unverifiable figures, the deaths registered so far include 5,000 children. On the Israeli side, around 1,200 people were killed on October 7, mostly civilians.
- All information for Friday can be found here.
3:45 p.m
The UN is alarmed by the lack of fuel in the Gaza Strip. The Commissioner General of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), Philippe Lazzarini, estimated this Saturday that the fuel whose import into the Gaza Strip is controlled by Israel represents only “half of the daily needs”. to meet the needs of humanitarian operations on site. In his opinion, Gaza needs much more fuel, otherwise the humanitarian situation could worsen with the closure of “desalination plants, sewage pumps, hospitals, water pumps in shelters, aid trucks, ambulances, bakeries and communication networks.” “Humanitarian organizations should not be forced to make difficult decisions between competing rescue activities,” the Italian-Swiss commissioner said. “Community tensions in a once tight-knit society are likely to increase, making the work of UNRWA and other organizations even more difficult in an environment of unprecedented humanitarian crisis.” That is why he is calling for “the unconditional delivery of fuel” to the Palestinian enclave.
3:02 p.m
The Hamas Ministry of Health reports 32 deaths of the same family, including 19 children, in a strike. Israeli bombing reportedly hit a family home in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. The ministry released on Saturday the list of names of 32 members of the Abou Habal family who were killed in the attack. The ministry previously reported that at least 50 people were killed in another attack on the same camp at a UN school housing displaced people. Unrwa (the UN body that manages the camp) and the Israeli army have been contacted by AFP and have not responded at this time.
2:22 p.m
The march of the families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza left Tel Aviv on Tuesday and reached Jerusalem on Saturday afternoon. The demonstrators demanding that the Israeli state do everything it can to bring back their loved ones must now head to the sidelines of the Knesset.
1:54 p.m
Hamas accuses Israel of carrying out an attack on a refugee school that killed at least 50 people. Dozens of bodies, both adults and children, in the hallways and rooms of a school in the Gaza Strip. Al-Jazeera is broadcasting very clear images this Saturday lunchtime of what appears to be the al-Fakhoura school, a facility in the Jabalia refugee camp north of the enclave that is managed by the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Hamas accuses Israel of carrying out a dawn airstrike on that school, and its health ministry says at least 50 people were killed, figures that could not be independently verified. UNRWA says it has been informed of the incident and is investigating what happened. The Israeli army has not yet issued a statement.
1:23 p.m
Fighting in a high school in the north of the Gaza Strip. The online edition of the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot reports that heavy fighting broke out in new areas of the northern Gaza Strip this Saturday. Anti-Terrorism Unit 217, better known as Douvdevan, notably confronted Hamas men on the grounds of a secondary school. Weapons – a Kalashnikov and 11 grenades – as well as military equipment were found on site.
1:08 p.m
Tanzania announces the death of a student kidnapped by Hamas. Tanzania’s foreign ministry announced on Friday evening the death of one of its two nationals taken hostage by Hamas during deadly attacks against Israel on October 7, without providing further details on the circumstances. It was a 22-year-old student. The Israeli government had identified two Tanzanians, Clémence Félix Mtenga (22 years old) and Joshua Loitu Mollel (21 years old), among the more than 200 people kidnapped by the Islamist movement. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the two young men were in Israel as part of an agricultural internship program.
12:37 p.m
11:41 am
Jordan doubts Israel can destroy Hamas. The Jordanian Foreign Minister expressed this Saturday his doubts about the ability of the Jewish state to achieve its goal of destroying Hamas through its intensive bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip. “Israel says it wants to destroy Hamas. “There are a lot of soldiers here, but I don’t understand how this goal can be achieved,” Ayman Safadi said at the Manama Dialogue’s annual security summit in Bahrain. Israel has vowed to wipe out the Islamist movement since the October 7 terror attack. Since then, Israel has bombed much of Gaza City to reduce it to rubble while subjugating the enclave’s north and intensifying its attacks against Hamas in the south.
11:06 a.m
The head of European diplomacy is thinking about the outcome of the conflict. Only the Palestinian Authority will be able to govern Gaza after the end of the war between Hamas and Israel, emphasized Josep Borrell, responsible for foreign policy for the European Union, this Saturday. “Hamas can no longer control the Gaza Strip,” he said during the Manama Dialogue, an annual foreign and security policy conference in Bahrain. “So who will control Gaza? I think there is only one person who can do that: the Palestinian Authority,” Borrell said.
10:49 am
“We live side by side, but we no longer share anything.” This is how we know a country is at war: by the sad silence that reigns on its universities as classes resume around the world. In Haifa, a city in northern Israel that is a symbol of coexistence between Jews and Arabs, most neighborhoods have been almost deserted since October 7. If there is no racist incident, authorities and residents are preparing for a likely war with nearby Lebanon. Our special correspondent’s report.
10:21 am
Al-Shifa Hospital almost completely evacuated? According to an AFP journalist, this Saturday morning hundreds of people left the largest health facility in the Gaza Strip, which had been under siege by the Israeli army for several days. The Hamas Ministry of Health, whose claims cannot be verified, said that “120 wounded” and premature babies could not be evacuated. Officials at the facility had previously said 450 sick and injured people were unable to leave the site. The Israeli army claims it did not issue an evacuation order but was “responding to a request” from the hospital director. The health facility has so far accommodated 2,300 people, patients, nursing staff and refugees.
10:01 am
The blur in Al-Shifa Hospital. Contrary to what an AFP journalist present at the scene said, the Israeli army claims it did not order the evacuation of the largest health facility in the Gaza Strip, but rather complied with “the request of the director of the hospital for extension and support” of the evacuation efforts and their “facilitation” in a “safe way”. The IDF also states that “medical personnel will remain at the hospital to assist patients who cannot be evacuated.” According to hospital officials quoted by AFP, 450 patients are still within the walls and unable to travel. At the same time, according to an Agence France Presse journalist on site, hundreds of people left the restaurant on foot.
9:36 a.m
A rare and deadly Israeli attack on Nablus in the West Bank. Five Palestinian fighters from President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement were killed early Saturday in a rare airstrike on Nablus, the major city in the northern occupied West Bank, Palestinian Red Crescent and Fatah sources said. For its part, the Israeli army announced that it had eliminated “a certain number of terrorists in Balata,” the refugee camp in Nablus that hosts 24,000 people, according to the UN, which manages the camp. Balata is known for harboring young fighters who are members of the armed wings of the various Palestinian movements, led by Fatah, which was founded by Yasser Arafat and currently leads the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. There are also Islamic Jihad and Hamas Islamic Jihad fighters.
9:05 a.m
A Globalized Conflict Between Colonial Past and Present, by Rony Brauman. What the press calls the “Hamas-Israel War” is widely perceived in all parts of the world as a colonial conflict waged under the auspices or with the approval of the United States. Our platform.
8:46 a.m
The Israeli army calls for a quick evacuation of Al-Shifa Hospital. IDF soldiers, on site for the fourth day, allegedly used a loudspeaker to order the evacuation of the largest health facility in the Gaza Strip “within an hour,” an AFP journalist reported on site on Saturday morning. The Israeli army also reportedly called the director of the hospital, Mohammed Abou Salmiya, and requested “the evacuation of the patients, the wounded, the displaced and the nursing staff, as well as asking everyone to walk to the coastal road” west of Gaza City borders the hospital, within an hour this chief doctor contacted AFP. There are currently 2,300 patients, caregivers and displaced people in Al-Shifa Hospital, according to the United Nations. The Jewish state assures that Hamas uses it as a military base.
8:16 a.m
New deaths following a strike in the south of the enclave. Six Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Deir Al-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday morning, health officials told Portal. Previously, a bomb attack in the city of Khan Yunis also killed 26 people.
8:01 a.m
Fuel begins to enter Gaza. After a green light from Israel, a first shipment of fuel arrived in the Palestinian enclave on Friday evening to restart the power generators of hospitals and telecommunications networks in the besieged area. At the request of the United States, Israel authorized the daily entry of two fuel trucks into the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which is responsible for the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border, said 17,000 liters of fuel had been delivered to power the Gaza telecommunications company’s generators. Israel has so far refused to allow the fuel to pass, saying it could benefit Hamas’ military activities.
7:52 am
Israel is targeting the south of the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA and the director of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes, 26 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern Gaza town early Saturday morning. In the hours before, Israel had dropped leaflets urging people to evacuate. “We are asking people to move. I know it’s not easy for many of them, but we don’t want civilians to get caught in the crossfire,” Mark Regev, close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday. Such a decision could force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have fled northern Gaza to move closer to the Rafah crossing, just like the 400,000 residents of Khan Younes.
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