Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
At least 63 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Friday, 35 of those in northern Gaza.
Israeli forces massacre 30, use Palestinians as human shields to evacuate Kamal Adwan Hospital
Israel has slowed medical evacuation from Gaza to a snail’s pace, says World Health Org
The pace of medical evacuations of sick and wounded Palestinians out of Gaza, including several thousand children, is so slow it will take five to 10 years to clear the backlog at the current rate, the World Health Organization has said.
Rik Peeperkorn, the UN global health body’s representative for the West Bank and Gaza, said only 78 of 12,000 patients requiring evacuation had managed to leave recently.
Among the 12,000, according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF, are 2,500 children, some of whom have died during an often months-long wait to leave for hospitals outside.
The Israeli military often takes months to respond to medical evacuation requests, and the number of evacuations has plunged in recent months.
Since the war began on 7 October 2023, 5,230 patients have been evacuated, according to Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson.
But that rate has slowed since May, when the southern Rafah border crossing to Egypt was closed, with only 342 patients having been evacuated, she said, an average of fewer than two a day (continue reading here).
Palestinian Health Ministry reports Israeli attack on ambulance
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza on Saturday released a video showing an Israeli airstrike targeting an ambulance stationed near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
The footage, shared by the Health Ministry, reveals intense gunfire from Israeli forces hitting the ambulance. The video also shows the vehicle’s driver inside at the time of the assault.
The Ministry stated that the attack took place on Friday when Israeli forces opened heavy fire on the ambulance positioned near the hospital.
Ambulance use in northern Gaza has become increasingly rare amid ongoing attacks.
Most ambulances are now inoperable due to repeated strikes and acute fuel shortages, leaving only one or two operational vehicles near the hospital.
Israel plans largest West Bank land grab in decades
Israel plans to confiscate more than 23,000 dunams (around 5,900 acres, or 9.2 square miles) in the occupied West Bank and declare it as “state” territory with the aim of illegal settlement expansion, with the move being described as the largest Israeli land grab in decades.
“More than 23,000 dunams of land for the benefit of the [illegal] settlement in Yosh. We determine facts on the ground and thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state!” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said via X.
According to Israel’s Channel 14, the move is one of the largest land appropriations since the Oslo Accords in 1993.
Since then and up until the end of 2023, about 50,000 dunams in the West Bank have been declared as Israeli “state land.”
Channel 14 notes that as part of the decision, the Maale Adumim settlement east of occupied Jerusalem will be expanded by around 2,600 dunams – aimed at linking it to the Kedar settlement.
Settlements such as Migdal Oz, Susya, and Yafit are also set to be expanded as part of the land grab.
Channel 14 cited Smotrich as saying that the decision is a “historic achievement that contributes to strengthening settlement activity and expanding land designated for infrastructure and settlement projects.”
Soldiers Kill a Palestinian, Shoot Four Others, Near Nablus
Israeli forces killed a Palestinian young man on Friday in the Balata refugee camp, and shot four others in the town of Beit Furik, in the northern West Bank governorate of Nablus.
Media sources said that occupation forces shot and critically injured the young man, Mustafa Ahmad Mustafa Masha, 23; he later succumbed to his wounds.
Sources added that occupation forces invaded, at dawn Friday, the Balata refugee camp, east of Nablus, sparking protests from Palestinian youths.
Israeli soldiers fired live rounds at citizens, seriously injuring the young man, and proceeded to deny him medical treatment by blocking ambulances from reaching him.
Mustafa Masha was a former prisoner who served two years in Israeli prisons before being released on August 21, 2024.
Lebanon records 7 more Israeli violations of fragile ceasefire, total nears 150
The Israeli army committed seven more violations of the fragile Israel-Lebanon ceasefire that took effect on Nov. 27, according to the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA).
The violations included artillery shelling, warplane overflights, an airstrike, gunfire, and incursions.
Lebanon’s state broadcaster reported that Israeli warplanes struck the Arida border crossing in Akkar on Friday, damaging infrastructure and severing the road linking Lebanon and Syria.
Francesca Albanese and the role of the public intellectual during genocide
You, the reader, are the public intellectual. Unfortunately, this message carries immense weight: those who engage with Palestine bear a collective responsibility to confront and end the carnage, the bloodshed, and the ever-mounting rubble.
Yet, in doing so, you will find yourself in the crossfire of a relentless defamation machine — one that thrives, operates, and feeds off the energy of Palestinian blood.
During her tour across college campuses in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, was the target of egregious criticism and mis-characterizations.
The Wall Street Journal is among the many media outlets that have taken part in this defaming effort. On October 30, its own editorial board brandished her as a “Hamas apologist” who has a “long record of trivializing the Holocaust”.
This concerted effort by the WSJ and other established media outlets in the US and UK to attack the Special Rapporteur was yet another reminder that to publicly stand up for Palestine is to endure a process of vilification where character and integrity are defamed and systematically undermined — all to dismantle any semblance of credibility of the message and more importantly its orator (continue reading here).
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Watch the moment an Israeli TikToker racially abuses a young Ethiopian boy before spitting in his face.
In the shocking attack, the Israeli says to the young boy ‘my favourite type of animal is a ni**er,’ before running off laughing. Ethiopians in Israel face racism from the… pic.twitter.com/tK6RYLYtqM
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) December 6, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – DECEMBER 6, 2024:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – December 6, 2024: at least 45,470* – 44,664 in Gaza; in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 806 Palestinians (~169 of them children).
Thousands of those killed have yet to be identified, and an estimated 10,000 more in Gazans are still buried under rubble.
According to a report in the Lancet, by multiplying the reported deaths by five, it is possible to reach a conservative estimate of total deaths (including indirect causes like starvation and lack of medicine). Using the latest figure from AFP (44,664), it is reasonable to estimate over 223,300 total deaths in Gaza since October 7th, 2023.
According to a recent report by the UN Human Rights Office of identified fatalities in Gaza, about 44% were children. It is reasonable to estimate that 19,652 of known direct deaths and 98,261 of the total deaths are children.
[*The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.] Since October 7th, 2023:- At least 49 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (at least 30 from Gaza).
- At least 43 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition (at least 37 of them children)**.
- About 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are currently displaced.
- About 345,000 Gazans are currently experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – December 6, 2024: at least 112,426 (including at least 105,976 in Gaza and 6,450 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – December 6, 2024: ~1,584 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 406*** military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (updated: Nov 29); 39 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel) and~10,000 injured.
The death toll in Lebanon since October 8, 2023 is at least 4,047, of which 3,961 were killed in the final months before the ceasefire; most of the 16,638 injuries also occurred toward the end of the war.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.
**Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.
***The figure does not include the reportedly 56 Israeli soldiers – nearly 16% of the total Israeli military deaths – killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents.
† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
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