Israeli strikes kill 23, mostly in ‘apocalyptic’ northern Gaza
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Israeli forces have carried out a major air and ground assault on north Gaza since Oct 6.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
CAIRO – Israeli forces stepped up their bombardment of Gaza on Nov 3, killing at least 23 people.
Over half the deaths were in the northern parts of the enclave, where the Israeli army has waged a month-long campaign that the United Nations says has led to “apocalyptic” conditions.
Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were “ethnic cleansing” aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a camp to create a buffer zone.
Medics said at least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on houses in Beit Lahiya town and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps and the focus of the army’s new military offensive.
The rest were killed in separate Israeli air strikes in Gaza City and the southern areas.
Since Oct 6, Israeli forces have carried out a major air and ground assault on northern Gaza, centred on the Jabalia area, vowing to stop attempts by Hamas militants from regrouping.
Israel’s military on Nov 2 said dozens of militants were killed around Jabalia “in aerial and ground activity”.
Troops were also operating in central Gaza and Rafah in the territory’s far south, it added, while witnesses said Israeli drones and boats opened fire on Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.
“The situation unfolding in northern Gaza is apocalyptic,” said a joint statement by UN agency heads.
“The area has been under siege for almost a month, denied basic aid and life-saving supplies while bombardment and other attacks continue,” the heads of the humanitarian, health and other agencies said.
“The entire Palestinian population in northern Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”
Cogat, the Israeli army’s Palestinian civilian affairs agency, said it facilitated the launch of the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza on Nov 2, and that 58,604 children have received a dose.
But the Gaza health ministry said Israel’s military offensive in northern Gaza was stopping its personnel from vaccinating thousands of children in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.
It said one clinic came under Israeli fire while parents brought their children for the anti-polio dose on Nov 2, where four children were injured.
The head of the World Health Organisation said in a statement the incident took place despite a humanitarian pause agreed upon by the two warring parties, Israel and Hamas, to allow the vaccination campaign.
“A @WHO team was at the site just before. This attack, during humanitarian pause, jeopardises the sanctity of health protection for children and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X on Nov 2.
“These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must be absolutely respected. Ceasefire!” he said.
At the southern Lebanese front, meanwhile, the Israeli military on Nov 3 called for the evacuation of the Baalbek area in eastern Lebanon, warning that it was ready to strike Hezbollah targets there and in nearby Douris.
The latest evacuation call came as Israel’s Home Front Command activated sirens at regular intervals along the border as dozens of projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory since the morning of Nov 3.
After nearly a year of tit-for-tat exchanges over Israel’s northern border, which Hezbollah said were in support of Hamas, Israel on Sept 23 escalated its bombing campaign against targets in Lebanon
Hezbollah has since fired more deeply into Israel.
A strike in Israel’s Sharon area north of Tel Aviv wounded 19 people, police said early on Nov 2, after the army reported three projectiles fired from Lebanon into central Israel.
Four of the wounded were “in moderate condition”, the Israeli police said.
Hezbollah said it had again launched rockets at Israel’s Glilot intelligence base near Tel Aviv.
AFP images from Tira, a predominantly Arab town about 25km north-east of Tel Aviv, showed the upper wall blown out in what appeared to be a residential building.
Several cars below were crushed.
Israel’s military said a strike around the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Nov 1 killed two fighters “responsible for firing over 400 projectiles at Israel over the last month alone”.
Late on Nov 1, Lebanon’s health ministry said 52 people had been killed in Israeli strikes in the country’s east, attacks for which the Israeli army had not issued evacuation warnings.
Since the war escalated Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,911 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures.
Israel’s military says 37 soldiers have been killed in Lebanon since it began ground operations on Sept 30.
According to Israeli figures, at least 63 people have been killed on the Israeli side since October 2023.
Fears the war could engulf the entire Middle East intensified with tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and Iran.
On Oct 26, Israel bombed military targets in Iran,
“The enemies, both the USA and the Zionist regime, should know that they will definitely receive a tooth-breaking response to what they are doing against Iran, the Iranian nation, and the resistance front,” supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.
He was referring to Iran-aligned groups which also include those in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
Analysts say Israel inflicted severe damage on Iranian air defences and missile capacities and could yet launch more wide-scale action against Iran.
On Nov 2, the Israeli military said it had intercepted three drones over the Red Sea, after reporting seven drones had been launched from “several fronts” late on Nov 1.
Iraqi pro-Iran groups later on Nov 2 said they carried out a drone attack on Israel’s southern port town of Eilat.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have repeatedly attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea, are transforming themselves into a “powerful military organisation” due to “unprecedented” military support from outside sources, particularly Iran and Hezbollah, according to a UN report published on Nov 1.
Ahead of the US presidential election on Nov 5, United States officials have been pushing for a resolution of the Lebanon war.
On Nov 1, the Pentagon announced the deployment of additional resources to the Middle East, including ballistic missile defence destroyers and long-range B-52 bomber aircraft, serving as a warning to Iran.
The capabilities will begin to arrive “in coming months”, a Pentagon spokesman said.
Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 43,259 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the UN considers reliable. AFP, REUTERS
