Live blog: Israeli strikes kill 19 in Gaza; hospital in north call for help

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

1100 GMT –– Israeli forces killed at least 19 Palestinians in Gaza, including a rescue worker, health officials said, as troops deepened an incursion along the territory's northern edge, bombarding a hospital and blowing up homes.

Medics said at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the area of Jabalia in northern Gaza earlier, and at least 10 people remained missing as rescue operations continued. Another man was killed in tank shelling nearby, they said.

Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the besieged northern area, said the hospital "was bombed across all its departments without warning, as we were trying to save an injured person in the intensive care unit" on Tuesday.

There were 85 injured people, including children and women, at the hospital, six in the ICU.

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0830 GMT –– Israeli military onslaught on West Bank's Jenin enters 2nd day

The Israeli forces continue their onslaught on the city of Jenin and its camp for the second day in a row.

Local sources reported that Israeli forces raided a large number of homes in the Jenin camp and detained a number of people, including a woman.

As the aggression on Jenin entered its second day, Israel sent military reinforcements accompanied by bulldozers to the city.

The number of Palestinians killed in the onslaught on Monday has risen to five, according to medical sources.

0731 GMT — Lebanese army says soldier dies after Israeli attack on vehicle in south

Lebanon's army has said one soldier was killed in an Israeli attack on a military vehicle, after previously reporting two personnel wounded in the incident in south Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Hezbollah.

One soldier "died of his wounds sustained due to the Israeli army targeting of an army vehicle" in south Lebanon, a statement on X said, a day after the military said three soldiers were killed when Israel struck an army position.

0721 GMT — Hezbollah targets Israeli soldiers near border with Lebanon

Hezbollah has announced that its members have targeted a group of Israeli soldiers near the border with Lebanon.

According to a statement from the Lebanon-based group, its members used rockets to target a group of Israeli soldiers at the Al-Marj military site near the Lebanese town of Markaba.

The Israeli military has yet to comment on the attack.

The latest attack comes a day after the group stated that it had carried out 34 military attacks against Israeli targets in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

0647 GMT — Hamas slams US decision to sanction its senior leaders, calls it 'hostile position' against

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas has slammed the US Treasury Department's decision to sanction its senior leaders, calling it an insistence on the outgoing Biden administration's "hostile position" toward the Palestinian people.

Hamas in its statement described the US move as "a confirmation of the criminal American behaviour biased towards the fascist occupation (Israeli government) and its crimes against our Palestinian people."

It stressed that the sanctions imposed by the US Treasury "are based on misleading and false statements and foundations aimed at distorting the image of the movement's leaders who work for the benefit of their people, their cause, and their right to resist the (Israeli) occupation."

0610 GMT — UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear

The UN Security Council is expected to vote Wednesday on another draft resolution calling for a ceasefire in Palestine's Gaza in its latest attempt to exert pressure to end the war.

But the draft could be blocked by the United States, Israel's main ally.

The latest draft of the resolution demands "an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire" in Israel's war on Gaza and "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages."

The wording has angered Israel and raised fears of a US veto.

0408 GMT — Gaza genocide highlights need for UN reform: Former official

Israel's genocide in Gaza, now in its second year, coupled with the United Nations' failure to take decisive action or implement effective measures has underscored once again the urgent need for comprehensive reform within the global body, according to a former UN official.

Speaking to Anadolu, Hans von Sponeck, a former UN assistant secretary-general and UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, highlighted the need to revise the veto system in the UN Security Council and to expand global representation.

“Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and the brutal above-evil situation that has evolved in Palestine could have been avoided if the permanent members had pulled at the same end of the rope,” Sponeck said. “That hasn't happened. Unilateral approaches didn't work,” he added.

0126 GMT — Level of destruction in Lebanon is 'appalling': UN official

The UN has expressed grave concern over ongoing hostilities in southern Lebanon, with the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations describing the situation as "appalling.”

Noting that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is currently operating under "very challenging and difficult conditions," Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said "UNIFIL remains at all its positions and is carrying out a number of activities" to sustain its presence.

Lacroix noted that the volatile environment has limited the mission’s activities and reported three separate incidents impacting UNIFIL peacekeepers, including clashes, exchanges of fire and air strikes.

0059 GMT — UAE president, Qatari premier discuss truce, de-escalation in Middle East

United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani have discussed intensifying efforts to achieve a cease-fire and comprehensive de-escalation in the Middle East during a meeting in Abu Dhabi.

The meeting, held at Qasr Al Shati Palace, was reported by the UAE’s state news agency WAM.

The two leaders addressed “the strong fraternal ties and cooperation between the two nations aimed at serving the interests of both peoples,” the report said.

They also “explored ways to enhance mutual interests and reinforce security and stability in the region.”

2349 GMT — Jordan’s foreign minister, top UN official discuss ways to halt Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has held talks in Amman with Sigrid Kaag, the UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, focusing on efforts to end the Israeli genocide in the besieged enclave.

The two discussed "efforts to stop the Israeli aggression in Gaza and mitigate the resulting humanitarian disaster,” said a statement from the Jordanian Foreign Ministry.

They also explored ways to enhance cooperation in delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip via Jordan's King Hussein Bridge Border Crossing, which links Jordan with the occupied West Bank.

2300 GMT — Israel bombs Gaza home, leaving 20 Palestinians dead or missing

Israeli warplanes have bombed the home of Joudeh family in old Gaza Street in Jabalia al-Balad, north of Gaza, leaving 20 Palestinians dead or missing, according to witnesses and local reports.

Local media reported 12 deaths from the Israeli bombardment.

The Palestinian Information Center, a local news organisation, said 10 Palestinians remain missing.

Meanwhile, Gaza-based journalist Hossam Shabat, who has been named by Israeli military in a hit-list, was wounded in an Israeli strike, Shabat said in a post on X.

"Tonight, I was deliberately targeted by Israeli forces. After receiving word of a nearby bombing, I jumped into my car to report. Upon arriving at the house packed with terrified people, I could hear their desperate screams for help from the second floor," he wrote.

"The moment I stepped inside, the house was bombed again, and dismembered body parts of the wounded flew around me. Rubble crashed down on me and my colleagues. One first responder was killed and while my colleague and I were injured, many others did not survive."

2300 GMT — Hezbollah fires 'guided missiles' at Israeli troops

Hezbollah has said it fired guided missiles at invading Israeli soldiers as they attempted to evacuate wounded and dead personnel in southern Lebanon.

In a statement, the Lebanese group said it wounded Israeli soldiers in a guided missile attack in the border town of Markaba before firing a second at an infantry unit that came to remove the wounded.

Hezbollah said it then targeted with another guided missile "a third infantry unit" that came to "try to recover the dead and wounded".

2300 GMT — US announces talks with Israel over civilian casualties

Senior US and Israeli officials will meet in early December to address "American concerns" over harm to Palestinian civilians caused by Israel in Gaza, the State Department said, a bid that comes after almost 411 days of Israeli genocide in the besieged enclave.

The United States has regularly voiced concerns to key ally Israel over American-supplied weapons being used in strikes that have killed civilians in Gaza, but it has also continued to supply weapons to Netanyahu regime which has killed tens of thousands and uprooted millions in the tiny enclave.

Critics say US is fully complicit in Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

The State Department has also opened several investigations into Israeli strikes using US-supplied weapons that killed Gaza civilians. But no conclusions have been made public, and US military assistance has continued to flow.

2000 GMT — 'Targeting' of Gaza children by Israeli drones like 'warped video game'

A lawmaker from Britain’s ruling Labour Party has said evidence shown by a retired surgeon, who has been to war zones including Gaza, suggests Israeli troops were targeting Palestinian children by drones was like a "warped video game."

Speaking at the Humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories debate at the Westminster Hall on Tuesday, Labour lawmaker Patricia Ferguson referenced a parliamentary evidence given by retired vascular surgeon Prof. Nizam Mamode, who has returned back to the UK from Gaza and explained how the Palestinian children were deliberately targeted by Israel.

Ferguson told the hall the details of her encounter with the evidence: "I thought I had seen and heard it all, the death, the disease and sheer brutality reported on our TV screens night, after night. But then I went to Professor Mamode's presentation. He spoke calmly and slowly about his experiences in Palestine, using slides and a video diary.

"He demonstrated the symmetrical puncture wounds on a dead child’s body. Wounds in the region of the body's major arteries that were too precise to have been the work of a human sniper. They were the work of drones. Targeted at innocent civilians, and in this case, a child."

For our live updates from Tuesday, November 19, 2024, click here.