Israel-Hamas war, Day 41 updates | UN urges international probe into war violations

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday called on Israel to take “urgent” action to stop settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Blinken, in San Francisco for an Asia-Pacific summit, made the plea in a telephone call with Benny Gantz, an opposition leader who joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime cabinet.

Blinken “stressed the urgent need for affirmative steps to de-escalate tensions in the West Bank, including by confronting rising levels of settler extremist violence,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said..- AFP

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital complex.

“In the Shifa Hospital, IDF troops found an operational tunnel shaft and a vehicle containing a large number of weapons,” the military said, using the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.

The military also made public videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons. - Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry about efforts to increase humanitarian aid to Palestinians in urgent need, the State Department said on Thursday.

Blinken reaffirmed the importance of concrete steps to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians in all of Gaza and reaffirmed Washington’s rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians, the department said in a statement. - Reuters

The Palestinian health authorities said on Thursday that 11,470 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war broke out six weeks ago.

The vast majority have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. The ministry said 4,707 of the dead were children and minors and that 3,155 were women. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.

In recent days, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank has started updating the Gaza death toll.

Until last week, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza was the main official source for the Palestinian death toll. It stopped publishing updates after key ministry officials based in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital lost electricity and connectivity. Israel troops stormed Shifa on Wednesday and were still searching the large medical complex on Thursday.

Hamas runs the Gaza Strip while its political rival, the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority, runs parts of the occupied West Bank. But the health and education ministries in the two territories continue to cooperate.- AP

A military plane carrying 139 people, mostly Spanish-Palestinian citizens and some of their relatives, from Egypt after being evacuated from the besieged Gaza Strip landed in Madrid on Thursday.

Spain’s acting Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares and acting Defence Minister Margarita Robles welcomed the evacuees on the runway of the Torrejon de Ardoz air base, outside the Spanish capital.

According to the defence ministry, the passengers included 33 men, 39 women and 67 minors - three of them babies under one year of age. Eighty-five of the evacuees held Spanish passports, while the remaining 54 were Palestinian nationals.- Reuters

Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza, residents said Thursday, signaling a possible expansion of their offensive to areas where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded into U.N.-run shelters and family homes.

Meanwhile, soldiers continued searching Shifa Hospital in the north, in a raid that began early Wednesday. They displayed guns they say were found hidden in one building, but have yet to release any evidence of the central Hamas command center that Israel has said is concealed beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital, Gaza’s largest, deny the allegations. Read more

The UN human rights chief on Thursday decried allegations of serious rights violations in the Israel-Hamas war and suggested an international investigation was needed.

Volker Turk said “extremely serious allegations of multiple and profound breaches of international humanitarian law, whoever commits them, demand rigorous investigation and full accountability”. Read more

Jordan will not sign an energy and water exchange deal with Israel, which was planned to be signed last month, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera TV on Thursday.

“We had a regional dialogue about regional projects. I think that all of this.. the war proved will not proceeded,” he added. - Reuters

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group said it fired at Israel in four cross-border attacks.

Israel said it had identified launches from Lebanon toward two Israeli military posts near Yiftah and Metula. Farming communities in the north were evacuated.

Israel retaliated by heavily shelling Lebanese territory and striking the militant sites where the attacks came from.

The military said no one was injured on the Israeli side. Lebanese casualties were unclear. - AP

An Israeli soldier critically wounded in a gun attack at a checkpoint near Jerusalem on Thursday died of his injuries, the army said.

In a statement, the army identified the soldier as Avraham Fetena, 20, who was wounded when three gunmen attacked a checkpoint at the entrance to a tunnel linking the occupied West Bank with Jerusalem. The assailants were shot dead by police. - AFP

An Israeli army official said “information and footage” relating to hostages seized by Hamas was found on computers at the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City during an ongoing special forces raid.

“Soldiers are proceeding one building at a time, searching each floor,” the military official said. Israel says Hamas has command centres buried under the hospital -- a charge Hamas denies.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said the Israeli army had “destroyed the radiology service, and bombed the burns and dialysis departments” at Al-Shifa in the raid. - AFP

All communications services are down across the Gaza Strip due to lack of fuel, Palestinian telecoms provider Paltel said, cutting off the besieged territory from the outside world.

Paltel says the landline connection, mobile network and internet connection in Gaza have all dropped. - AP

The heads of numerous United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organisations said Thursday they would not take part in Gaza “safe zones” declared by only one side in the conflict.

“As humanitarian leaders, our position is clear: We will not participate in the establishment of any ‘safe zone’ in Gaza that is set up without the agreement of all the parties,” they said in a joint statement.

“Under the prevalent conditions, proposals to unilaterally create ‘safe zones’ in Gaza risk creating harm for civilians, including large-scale loss of life, and must be rejected.” - AFP

Palestinians in parts of southern Gaza said they received evacuation notices Thursday. The signal that fighting is about to expand in the south comes a day after Israeli forces began searching a north Gaza hospital where they claimed Hamas militants operate — a claim that Hamas and hospital staff deny. - AP

As Israel continues to retaliate by attacking the Hamas terror group in Gaza, India is planning to send more humanitarian assistance to the affected civilians in the region.Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that India has always focused on avoiding civilian casualties.

“This is not about one specific facility,” Mr. Bagchi added, “India has always underlined the need for civilian casualties to be avoided, for humanitarian law to be observed and to encourage any effort to provide humanitarian relief to those caught in the conflict.”

Earlier, India had sent 38 tonnes of humanitarian relief material for civilians in the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, the MEA spokesperson stressed, “We are looking to send more assistance.” - ANI

The United Nations human rights chief said on Thursday widespread outbreaks of disease and hunger seemed “inevitable” in Gaza after weeks of Israeli assault on the densely populated Palestinian enclave.

Speaking at an informal briefing to states at the United Nations in Geneva after visiting the Middle East, Volker Turk said the depletion of fuel would have a “catastrophic” impact across Gaza. It would lead to the collapse of sewage systems, healthcare and end the scarce humanitarian aid being supplied.

“Massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger, seem inevitable,” Mr. Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said. - AFP

Thailand’s government has been given assurances by Hamas that 25 of its nationals held hostage by the Palestinian armed group are “safe”, a member of the kingdom’s hostage release negotiating team said Thursday.

The hostages could be released in days if a ceasefire is agreed between Israel and Hamas, Thai politician Lepong Syed said. - AFP

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for Gaza hostages to be immediately freed, but asked Israel “not to be consumed by rage” in its battle with Hamas militants in the Palestinian territory.

“I ask for their immediate and unconditional release,” Mr. Borrell said on a visit to a kibbutz targeted by Hamas in the October 7 attacks. “I understand your fears and pain... I understand your rage. But let me ask you not to be consumed by rage.” - AFP

After being evacuated from war-torn Hamas-ruled Gaza with the help of Indian missions in the region, Lubna Nazir Shaboo is now looking forward to her homeward journey from Cairo to Kashmir.

Lubna, an Indian from Jammu & Kashmir living in Gaza, and her daughter Karima had crossed the Rafah border on Monday evening and reached the Egyptian capital the next day.

She said the return journey plan was in the works.

She thanked the Indian diplomatic missions in the region — in Ramallah, Tel Aviv, and Cairo — for making the evacuation possible from the war-torn area.

Lubna’s one son and one daughter have been studying in Cairo. - PTI

(RIYADH, Saudi Arabia) Saudi Arabia condemned Israel’s raid on Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, calling it a “blatant violation of international law” in a statement on November 16 from the Foreign Ministry. It also condemned what it said was shelling near another hospital and called on international bodies to hold Israel accountable.

Israel says its troops are carrying out a targeted operation in Shifa, where it has long accused Hamas of maintaining an underground command centre. Hamas and hospital staff have denied the allegations.

Before the war, Saudi Arabia was in talks with the United States over potentially normalising relations with Israel. - AP

(JERUSALEM) Shooters opened fire on November 16 at a checkpoint south of Jerusalem, wounding at least four people, one critically, Israeli police said.

“The attackers arrived by car at the checkpoint on the main road connecting Jewish settlements in the West Bank and southern Jerusalem and opened fire at Israelis,” police said, and at least three shooters were killed by security guards at the crossing. Police and bomb disposal units were searching for the area for suspicious activity or any additional shooters. - AP

(DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip) In the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, an outdoor funeral service was held for 28 Palestinians killed in overnight bombing, their bodies pulled from the rubble of destroyed buildings. Some of the mourners crouched over bodies wrapped in sheets of white plastic. - AP

(CAIRO) The head of UNRWA, the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees, confirmed on November 15 that it has received 23,000 litres (6,000 gallons) of fuel that crossed into Gaza via the Rafah crossing, but called for more to be allowed to enter the besieged territory.

The aid group says Israeli authorities allowed the fuel to enter under the restriction that it can only be used to transport aid into besieged Gaza.

“This fuel cannot be used for the overall humanitarian response, including for medical and water facilities or the work of UNRWA,” Philippe Lazzarini said in an online statement.

UNRWA needs 1,60,000 litres (42,200 gallons) of fuel each day to complete “basic humanitarian operations,” he added. - AP

(ANKARA, Turkey) Turkey’s Health Minister says 26 patients from Gaza and 13 people accompanying them have passed through the Rafah crossing into Egypt on November 15.

Speaking to reporters in Egypt, Fahrettin Koca said Turkish officials hope to evacuate the patients and the people escorting them to Turkey by air later on Wednesday for treatment in Turkish hospitals. Mr. Koca also said that Turkey plans to set up a field hospital close to the Rafah crossing.

Turkey has long offered to treat cancer patients in the country. Mr. Koca described the patients evacuated on Wednesday as “Gazans” and did not specify if any have Turkish nationality. - AP

(ZIKIM, Israel) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told troops at the Zikim military base near north Gaza: “There is no place in Gaza that Israel will not reach.”

Standing next to soldiers at the base, Mr. Netanyahu said: “Do you remember when we were told that we would not break into Gaza? We broke through. We were told that we would not reach the outskirts of Gaza City – we arrived. We were told that we won’t enter Shifa – we entered.”

“There is no hiding, no shelter, no refuge for the murderers of Hamas,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “We will arrive and eliminate Hamas and return our abductees – these are two sacred missions.” - AP

(GENEVA) “Only a quarter of Gaza’s hospitals are still functioning, with about 26 out of 36 institutions now closed. This is either because they have been damaged or because they ran out of fuel,” the World Health Organization said on November 15.

“The United Nations health agency has lost contact with health workers at Shifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Sutrip,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Geneva. He said the Israeli military raid of the institution is “totally unacceptable.”

“Approximately 82 bodies from Shifa were buried in a mass grave on Wednesday, with another 80 bodies left unburied,” said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in the West Bank and Gaza. He said about 45 patients were receiving dialysis and that there were no central supplies of oxygen, water or fuel.

Mr. Peeperkorn said several organisations, including the WHO, were “urgently exploring the possibility of an evacuation of patients and medical staff.” He called for a plan to evacuate about 2,000 critically ill patients out of Gaza over the next three months, possibly to Egypt. - AP

(WASHINGTON) U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on November 15 that the United States did not sign off on Israel’s raid on Shifa hospital.

Mr. Kirby, responding to questions about the timing of the operation and his statement that the U.S. knows Hamas militants shelter in hospitals, said the United States doesn’t expect advance notice from Israel before its military operations.

“We did not give an OK to their military operations around the hospital,” Mr. Kirby said, speaking to reporters from San Francisco, where President Joe Biden was preparing to meet with China’s leader on Wednesday. “We don’t expect the Israelis to inform us.”

Kirby suggested the timing of his announcement about U.S. intelligence findings that Hamas uses hospitals for command and control and for shelter following the Israeli military operation was a coincidence. He said his delivery of some “downgraded” intelligence information “had nothing to do with operational timing.” - AP

(JERUSALEM) The Israeli military displayed what it says are Hamas weapons and military equipment it uncovered in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital.

But so far, its search showed no signs of tunnels or a sophisticated command centre that it has said Hamas maintains on the grounds of the hospital. Hamas and Gaza health officials deny militants operate in Shifa.

The Army on November 15 raided the hospital, Gaza’s largest. After a daylong search, the Army released a video showing several AK-47 automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, protective vests and other equipment used by Hamas. It said many of the items were in duffel bags in the hospital’s MRI department.

“These weapons have absolutely no business being inside a hospital,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said in the military’s video. - AP

(RAFAH, Gaza Strip) A total of 644 people travelled through the Rafah border crossing from Gaza into Egypt on November 15, said Wael Abou Omar, the Hamas spokesperson for the border crossing.

Those included 587 dual nationals, 37 people either injured or sick and 20 of their companions. No more information was immediately available.

Earlier at the Rafah border, dozens of evacuees were waiting patiently with their documentation ready for inspection. Among them was Toqa al-Zaian, a Palestinian with Norwegian nationality, struggling to say goodbye.

“I feel like my body is leaving without my soul, now I am leaving everything behind, my mother, family and everyone I know,” she said. - AP

(United States) President Joe Biden says he believes Israel’s war against Hamas will only stop once the militant group’s ability to kill and injure Israelis is degraded. He also says he is urging Israel to exercise caution as it carries out military operations in Gaza’s largest hospital.

“I think it’s going to stop when Hamas no longer maintains the capacity to murder,” Mr. Biden said on November 15. Mr. Biden said he had discussed with Israeli leaders their need to “be incredibly careful” as the Army searches Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, which Israel says Hamas uses as a military complex. Both Hamas and hospital officials deny that claim.

Mr. Biden maintained that the “only ultimate answer here is a two-state solution” with Israel and Palestinians living side by side. Mr. Biden made his comments at a news conference after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative conference in California. - AP

(JERUSALEM) Requests for gun permits in Israel have skyrocketed since Hamas’ bloody October 7 incursion, according to a press release from the Ministry of National Security.

“More than 2,36,000 new requests for permits have been filed since the attack — a figure equal to the number filed over 20 years,” the statement said.

A sense of insecurity gripped Israel following the attack and the Army’s hourslong delay in responding, leading to a rush to buy guns. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage after Hamas militants breached Israel’s border fence and fanned out across the country’s south.

Armed civilian security squads entered the breach in the Army’s absence to fight off some of the attackers. Shortly after, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir said he would expand and arm such squads with 10,000 assault rifles that would be distributed particularly in border towns, mixed Jewish-Arab cities and West Bank settlements. Mr. Ben-Gvir has a long record of anti-Arab rhetoric, and Palestinians feared these guns would be used against them.

“Some 1,700 permits are being issued every day after the Ministry of National Security eased restrictions,” the report said. By comparison, an average of 94 were issued daily in November 2022, and an average of 42 a year earlier. - AP

(JERUSALEM) The Israeli military says its forces have entered Gaza’s Shifa hospital, the site of a lengthy standoff.

The Army had surrounded the facility as part of its ground offensive against Hamas, claiming the militant group conceals military operations in the hospital complex. But with hundreds of patients and medical personnel inside, it had refrained from entering.

Early Wednesday, the Army said its forces were carrying out “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” in the hospital. It gave no further details but said it was taking steps to avoid harm to civilians.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it had warned “the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours. Unfortunately, it did not.” Hamas has denied the Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital for cover. - AP

Israeli fighter jets have struck the house of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, the Israeli military said on Thursday.

Haniyeh’s house was “used as terrorist infrastructure and often served as a meeting point for Hamas’ senior leaders to direct terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF.

- Reuters

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Israel cannot leave a vacuum in Gaza and would have to maintain a strong force there for the near future to prevent Hamas from re-emerging in the strip, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

“If we pull back, then who will take over? We can’t leave a vacuum. We have to think about what will be the mechanism; there are many ideas that are thrown in the air,” Herzog said in an interview with the Financial Times.

- Reuters

Israeli forces on November 15 raided Gaza’s largest hospital, a beleaguered facility filled with hundreds of patients, including newborns, that is at the heart of clashing narratives around the war and a potent symbol of Palestinian suffering.

Israel viewed Shifa Hospital as a key target in a conflict that has killed thousands of Palestinians and unleashed widespread destruction in Gaza. The war between Israel and Hamas erupted after the militant group killed some 1,200 people and seized around 240 captives in a surprise October 7 attack.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has called on PM Benjamin Netanyahu to step down immediately, without waiting until the end of the country’s war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

He siad, “Netanyahu should leave immediately... We need change, Netanyahu cannot remain PM. We cannot allow ourselves to carry out a long campaign under a PM who has lost the people’s trust.”

- AFP

After encircling Shifa for days, a hospital that employs some 1,500 people and has more than 500 beds, as per the Palestinian news agency, Israel faced pressure to prove its claim that Hamas had turned the hospital into a command centre and used patients, staff and civilians sheltering there to provide cover for its militants. The allegation is part of Israel’s broader accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields. Israel released video late Wednesday of weapons it said it found in one building, but so far its search showed no signs of tunnels or a sophisticated command centre.

Although, Hamas and Gaza health officials deny militants operate in Shifa, Palestinians and rights groups say Israel has recklessly endangered civilians as it seeks to eradicate Hamas.

- AP

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday adopted its first resolution since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to address the escalating crisis for Palestinian civilians during Israel’s aerial and ground attacks.

The vote in the 15-member council was 12-0 with the United States, United Kingdom and Russia abstaining. The U.S. and U.K. abstained because of the resolution’s failure to condemn Hamas’ surprise cross-border attacks into Israel on October 7, and Russia because of its failure to demand a humanitarian ceasefire, which Israel and the United States oppose.

- AP

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he had made it clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a two-state solution was the only answer to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and that occupying Gaza would be a mistake. Mr. Biden told reporters he was doing everything in his power to free hostages held by the Hamas militant group in Gaza, but that did not mean sending in the U.S. military.

- Reuters