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WHO says a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza – as it happened [1]
['Adam Fulton', 'Léonie Chao-Fong', 'Richard Luscombe', 'Ashifa Kassam', 'Reged Ahmad']
Date: 2023-11-10
1d ago 12.49 EST Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from northern Gaza on Friday a day after the White House announced that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the area to allow people to leave. The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, on Thursday said the pauses would allow people to pass along two humanitarian corridors. Despite the US announcement on Thursday, there have been no immediate reports of a lull in fighting in northern Gaza. The Israeli military has said there will be “tactical, local pauses for humanitarian aid for Gazan civilians” but “no ceasefire”. Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip. Photograph: Fatima Shbair/AP Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip. Photograph: Fatima Shbair/AP Palestinians leave from the northern part of the Gaza to flee the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty Images Palestinian woman Um Hussein holds her granddaughter, who she said was born today, while she moves southward after fleeing north Gaza as Israeli tanks roll deeper into the enclave. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
1d ago 12.26 EST Patrick Wintour Israel has killed a further seven Hezbollah fighters on its northern border with Lebanon, taking the total death toll of Hezbollah fighters to 78 since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. The rising death toll in Lebanon and the killing of 18 Palestinians by Israeli security forces in the West Bank on Thursday prompted the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, to declare that a wider regional escalation of the conflict was inevitable. Hezbollah, the Lebanese political and militant group and Iran’s most prominent proxy movement, named the seven fighters in a statement that said they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase Hezbollah often uses to record deaths. The Hezbollah death toll now well exceeds the numbers killed in the 2006 war with Israel, prompting internal debates about its next steps. The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will make his second speech this month on Saturday, setting out his latest thinking. He ended his last one-hour speech on 3 November by saying he was leaving all military options on the table and that this dispute with Israel was of a different order to all its predecessors.
1d ago 12.17 EST One person killed, many children wounded after Israeli snipers target al-Quds hospital, according to Palestinian Red Crescent The Red Cross statement calling for the protection of patients, healthcare workers, medical facilities in Gaza comes as the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PCRS) said Israeli forces opened fire on the intensive care unit at al-Quds hospital in Gaza City. One person was killed and 28 others were wounded in sniper fire by Israeli forces at the hospital, the organisation said. The majority of the injured were children, it said, two of whom are in critical condition. 🚨Israeli Occupation forces opened fire on the intensive care unit at Al-Quds hospital.#AlQudsHospital #NotATarget #Gaza pic.twitter.com/ocIk0d8XLb — PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 10, 2023
Updated at 12.20 EST
1d ago 12.04 EST Destruction affecting Gaza hospitals 'becoming unbearable', says Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that the healthcare system in Gaza has “reached a point of no return” amid escalating violence that have “severely” affected hospitals and ambulances working in the besieged Palestinian territory. In a statement on Friday, the ICRC said attacks on medical facilities and personnel have dealt a “heavy blow” to Gaza’s healthcare system – already “severely weakened” after more than a month of heavy fighting – and which is “taking a heavy toll” on civilians, patients and medical staff. William Schomburg, head of ICRC sub-delegation in Gaza, said: The destruction affecting hospitals in Gaza is becoming unbearable and needs to stop. The lives of thousands of civilians, patients and medical staff are at risk. Children’s hospitals have not been spared from the violence, the organisation says, including the “heavily damaged” al-Nasser hospital and al-Rantisi hospital, which has had to cease its operations. Noting that the al-Shifa medical complex now hosts thousands of displaced families, it said any military operation around hospitals “must consider the presence of civilians, who are protected under international humanitarian law”. The ICRC urgently called for the respect and protection of medical facilities, patients and healthcare workers in Gaza.
Updated at 12.12 EST
1d ago 11.46 EST Jason Burke The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht has said that the Israeli military was maintaining its focus on Hamas in Gaza despite sporadic attacks on Israel from Lebanon and Syria involving drones. During a press briefing on Friday, Hecht said that in Gaza the IDF last night “took out” two commanders in Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces: one who was involved in the attacks into Israel on 7 October which killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and the head of the Islamist organisation’s sniper teams in the north of Gaza. Rocket fire is continuing out of Gaza aimed at Tel Aviv, he told reporters. Answering questions about the IDF advance towards al-Shifa hospital, in the centre of Gaza City, which is full of seriously wounded or otherwise incapacitated patients, Hecht said the IDF was aware of the sensitivities of the hospitals in Gaza. He said: The IDF does not fire on hostages but if we see a Hamas terrorist we will kill him. The IDF has repeatedly claimed that Hamas is using the hospitals and similar sites to shield military installations, and using ambulances to transport militants.
Updated at 12.03 EST
1d ago 11.40 EST Jason Burke At 8.30 on Friday morning, Jenin’s morgue was crowded. Outside, dozens of young men in black baseball caps, T-shirts and jeans stood quietly, some with their weapons between their knees, their green Hamas headbands tied tight across their foreheads. Older men sat in front of shuttered shops. Inside, a metal door was opened and a corpse wrapped in the green flag of Hamas was drawn out on a stretcher. A teenager with an assault rifle in one hand touched the dead man lightly on the forehead, then helped to shoulder the stretcher and with five others set out through the throng, down the rubble-strewn streets to the home of Hamed Fayed, where the women of the family waited. Moments later, a second body, wrapped in the black flag of Islamic Jihad, was carried out. Then a third body, a fourth, and more. A funeral procession at the Jenin refugee camp on Friday. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA As the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues, a month after the Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, and wounded many more, levels of violence in the occupied West Bank are rising fast. Nineteen Palestinians were killed across the territory on Thursday as clashes took place with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), 14 in the small northern town of Jenin. Casualties were aged from 15 to 40, and included several civilians. Since 7 October, 167 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank; and a further eight, including one child, have been killed by Israeli settlers. Three Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians according to the UN. Read the full story here. ‘Our wish is to be martyred’: grief and defiance at West Bank funerals Read more
Updated at 12.07 EST
1d ago 11.24 EST Ziad, a 35-year-old Palestinian, recounts another day in Gaza when, amid the hunger and the shortages, an interminable queue for breakfast becomes a ‘falafel journey’ for her diary in the Guardian: Thursday 9 November 8am Falafel is one of the most popular traditional foods in Gaza. We call it “the poor people’s food” because it is cheap. Palestinians who travel abroad are surprised at the prices of falafel sandwiches, and I know I speak for everyone in Gaza when I say that we believe the ones made in Gaza are the best. Luckily for us, in the area we evacuated to there were two shops selling falafel. Unfortunately, one closed soon after we arrived because the owner ran out of gas. But we are among the few neighbourhoods that still have the luxury of getting falafel. The remaining shop works two shifts, one in the morning and one from 3 to 5pm. They no longer sell sandwiches, only falafel, since getting bread is very difficult. I usually go in the evening, because until recently we didn’t eat breakfast. I would wait for about 45 minutes to get my order, but it is OK: now you have to wait for everything, if it is available. Today, I decide to get some falafel for breakfast. I thought I went early, but the line is so long. I am told that people start queueing shortly after 6am to secure a spot. I try to count how many people are ahead of me and get tired after 85. I see my friend so we stand together and decide to spend “the journey of getting falafel” together. I send a message to my sister telling her it will probably take me a long time to return. Read the full story here. Gaza diary part 20: ‘A positive feeling – I saw my friend, we talked, we are still alive’ Read more
1d ago 11.19 EST The largest hospital in Gaza, where up to 50,000 people are sheltering, is facing bombardment, the World Health Organization has said. Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned that “far too many Palestinians have been killed” in the war. Night-time footage shows people gathered outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. An explosion can be heard and people are seen shouting and fleeing from the site. Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson, said 20 hospitals in Gaza were out of action and that there was “intense violence” at Shifa. Hospitals in Gaza bombed, says WHO, as thousands continue fleeing south – video report
Updated at 12.08 EST
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[1] Url:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/nov/10/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-benjamin-netanyahu-gaza-fighting-pauses-un-palestine?CMP=share_btn_tw&page=with%3Ablock-654e637a8f08a95ef07ec2be#block-654e637a8f08a95ef07ec2be
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