Israeli scandals behind humanitarian aid delivery and the Netzarim Corridor – Day 401

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Israeli scandals behind humanitarian aid delivery and the Netzarim Corridor – Day 401
Palestinians, who took refuge at Nuseirat refugee camp due to Israeli attacks, wait in queue to receive food, distributed by a charity organization in Gaza City, Gaza on October 18, 2024. (Moiz Salhi – Anadolu Agency)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff 

The Israeli army killed 20 Palestinians Monday and wounded dozens of others in attacks on central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp then bombed the al-Awda Hospital where victims sought treatment. Israeli tanks advanced into the camp and opened fire on residents and displaced families who tried to flee.

At least 10 civilians were killed in a double missile strike by an Israeli drone on a small tent café, located in the “safe zone” al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

At least 14 people were killed and 15 others injured when an Israeli strike hit an apartment in northern Lebanon where attacks are extremely rare.

Israel’s military also fired artillery and launched quadcopter drones to target Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza as the area’s last functioning health facility struggles to care for the many wounded.

Palestinians are seen around the 9-meter-deep hole left by Israeli air strikes on a tent encampment Khan Yunis, Gaza on September 10, 2024
Palestinians are seen around the 9-meter-deep hole left by after Israeli air strikes on a tent encampment Khan Yunis, Gaza on September 10, 2024 (Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu Agency)

Israel fails to meet US aid demands to ease Gaza catastrophe, aid groups say

Israel failed to meet a series of US demands intended to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by a deadline set for Tuesday, aid groups have said.

The United States told its ally Israel in a letter on 13 October that it must take steps to improve the aid situation within 30 days. If not, it could face potential restrictions on US military aid.

“Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza,” a group of eight aid groups including Oxfam, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council said in 19-page report.

On Friday, global food security experts released a rare warning of imminent famine in parts of northern Gaza unless immediate steps were taken to ease the situation.

Israel says measures, including the opening of a new crossing into Gaza, have been implemented, however others pertain to its security and have not been put in place.

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid cross into the Gaza Strip in Erez West Crossing, Israel on November 11, 2024
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid cross into the Gaza Strip in Erez West Crossing, Israel on November 11, 2024 (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

As Israel claims to be letting aid trucks into Gaza, the Israeli military is actively sabotaging humanitarian aid delivery as soon as it enters the Strip.

Ha’aretz reports that Israeli soldiers deliberately enable Palestinian gangs to steal aid and take advantage of Palestinian desperation by reselling it at exorbitant prices. (That is to say, Palestinians are not perfect victims, only humans.)

Ha’aretz reports on what happens to the trucks that do manage to get into Gaza:

The Israeli military is allowing armed Palestinians to loot aid convoys entering Gaza and to extort protection money from them, say sources in international aid organizations working in the enclave.

The sources told Haaretz that the armed groups are systematically looting a large portion of the aid shipments entering Gaza through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing – yet the IDF has turned a blind eye. And since some of the aid groups refuse to pay protection money, the aid often ends up sitting in warehouses that are under Israeli army control.

Sources working in Gaza say the armed attacks take place just a few hundred meters away from Israeli troops. Some aid groups say attacked truck drivers have even sought help from the IDF, but the army has refused to intervene. Moreover, they say, the army bars them from taking alternate roads that are considered safer.

Truck drivers and officials from international aid organizations charge that the soldiers can see the attacks on the convoys, yet do nothing.

An Israeli military spokesperson said the army attaches “supreme importance to providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip…The IDF acts in coordination with the international aid organizations to provide preemptive solutions and alternative means as part of the joint coordination for transferring the aid to the Gaza Strip.”

Late last month, the Government Media Office in Gaza confirmed that Israel was still preventing the entry of hundreds of thousands of humanitarian aid trucks into the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israel’s defense ministry has told Middle East Eye that there are currently no planning processes in place to send aid into northern Gaza.

Aid trucks loaded with supplies For Gaza are queued in Al-Arish City after the border closed, on May 8, 2024 in Arish, Egypt.
Aid trucks loaded with supplies For Gaza are queued in Al-Arish City after the border closed, on May 8, 2024 in Arish, Egypt. (Getty)
The Netzarim Corridor, which first started out as a partially paved road to serve as a checkpoint dividing north from south Gaza, is being dramatically expanded. At the same time, the Philadelphi Corridor, at the border between Gaza and Egypt, is being widened, and a new corridor is being added in the north, separating Gaza City from the rest of northern Gaza.
The Netzarim Corridor, which first started out as a partially paved road to serve as a checkpoint dividing north from south Gaza, is being dramatically expanded. At the same time, the Philadelphi Corridor, at the border between Gaza and Egypt, is being widened, and a new corridor is being added in the north, separating Gaza City from the rest of northern Gaza. (Yedioth Ahronoth)

Israel ignores hostages, creates a spacious ‘permanent presence’ in Gaza

The Israeli army has established permanent military installations in Gaza, aimed at setting up a long-term presence and splitting the strip into three separate zones, Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 10 November (summarized and paraphrased below).

Quietly, quietly, as the abductees languish in the tunnels, the Netzarim Corridor has turned from a bargaining chip into an Israeli enclave 8 km long and 7 km wide (nearly 20 percent of the total area of Gaza)…They are starting a similar plan for the expansion of the Philadelphi corridor and the construction of a new crossing.

It was supposed to be a bargaining chip: Israel would withdraw from the corridor, allowing the return of about one million Gazans to their homes in the north, in exchange for the release of the hostages. But the negotiations were stalled again and again.

According to every intelligence report that is submitted to the cabinet ministers, the condition of the dozens of abductees who remain alive in Hamas captivity worsens from week to week. Right wing ministers who are more interested in Gaza than the hostages will allow the hostage situation to be solved in a natural and tragic way.

The deaths in captivity of another 20-30 abductees will be swallowed up in the sea of mourning for the fallen soldiers, and then, when the public’s anger is channeled against Hamas, Israeli settlements can be established in Gaza.

The base includes detention centers, interrogation facilities, arms stores and permanent residences for Israeli soldiers. It has electricity, water and communications facilities.

For the soldiers, there are comfortable living quarters, a barbecue, and a shaded swimming pool – giving a general feeling of a permanent and pleasant place to stay.

Soldiers relaxing in the Netzarim outpost
Soldiers relaxing in the Netzarim outpost (Ynet)

Far-right Israeli minister orders preparations for West Bank annexation

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump taking office in January 2025.

In a statement on Monday, Smotrich voiced his hope that the new administration in Washington will recognize Israel’s push for “sovereignty” over the occupied territory.

“I have directed the start of professional work to prepare the necessary infrastructure to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” he said, using the biblical name by which Israel refers to the occupied West Bank.

NOTE: Annexation of land – that is, the proclamation of sovereignty over the territory of another State – is a violation of international law.

Israeli legislator banned for speaking against ‘slaughter in Gaza’

Jewish Israeli legislator Ofer Cassif says he “will not be silenced” after the Knesset Ethics Committee imposed a “complete parliamentary ban, apart from voting” on him for six months, for remarks he made in support of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

“I will never stay silent on war crimes, famine and the slaughter in Gaza,” said Cassif, a member of the leftist Hadash coalition, in a post on X.

RECOMMENDED READING on other recent Israeli scandals:
The Amsterdam ‘Pogrom’ That Wasn’t: Corporate Media Fails To Tell the Whole Story
Netanyahu’s Aides Are Willing to Rewrite Reality to Absolve Him of Responsibility

Trump taps pro-Israel stalwart to be next US envoy to UN

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – NOVEMBER 11, 2024:

Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – November 11, 2024: at least 44,446* ( 43,665 in Gaza* – 69% are women and children, according to Gaza’s Media Office). [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.]

This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified. This does not include an estimated 10,000 more in Gaza still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children).

In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 781 Palestinians (~167 of them children).

In July 2024, the Lancet said: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.

Ralph Nader earlier estimated 300,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.

  • At least 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons.
  • At least 41 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 – November 11, 2024: at least 109,376 (including at least 103,076 in Gaza and 6,300 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 – November 11, 2024: ~1,574 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 396*** military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (updated: Nov 2); 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 3,243, with 14,134 injuries. An estimated 1.34 million have been displaced.

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.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
 

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