Lowest level of aid entering Gaza in a year? That's ok, says Biden admin

Palestinians injured or killed in Israeli attacks, including children, are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on August 15, 2024. (Ashraf Amra – Anadolu Agency)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

There are at least 63 known dead across Gaza as a result of Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday.

An Israeli airstrike Tuesday killed several Palestinians as they waited for food aid in Gaza. Others were injured.
Two newborn babies were among six people killed in air raids in the western part of Deir al Balah.

Lebanon said Israeli strikes killed 28 people across the country.

Carrying their belongings, Palestinians flee areas north of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday. (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty Images)

Despite 30-day Gaza aid ultimatum, US says support for Israel will proceed

The United States was unambiguous in a message to Israel last month: Take specific steps within 30 days to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or face consequences.

The deadline has now passed, and the United Nations is warning that famine is “imminent” in parts of northern Gaza. But there will be no consequences for Israel, the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.

Although Israel has not come close to fulfilling the US demands on humanitarian aid – for example, instead of 350 aid trucks a day, an average of 42 trucks entered Gaza daily over the past 30 days – State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters, “We, at this time, have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law.

“The overall humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to be unsatisfactory. These actions that we have seen, we think that these are steps in the right direction. We want to see more steps. We want to see these steps sustained over a significant period of time, and ultimately, we want to see these steps have a result on the situation.”

Hours before Patel made his remarks, several humanitarian groups issued a joint report, concluding that not only did Israel fail to improve the humanitarian conditions in Gaza, but it took “actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza…at enormous human cost for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”

The conditions in the war-ravaged enclave are worse than at any point in a war that started in October 2023, the groups said.

In spite of this, US security aid to Israel will continue to flow.

Israeli rights group Gisha – the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement also says Israel has not met the requirements specified by the US letter.

NOTE: On April 24, 2024, legislation was signed into law giving Israel $49 million per day in military aid.

Scorecard: Israel Fails to Comply with U.S. Humanitarian Access Demands in Gaza

As Infested Flour Becomes a Staple, State Dept “Still Assessing” Israel’s Aid Restrictions to Gaza

UN: 85% of humanitarian aid requests to Northern Gaza blocked or delayed by Israel

People not given time to evacuate homes before bombing

Al Jazeera has confirmed reports that many residential buildings in Beit Hanoon were bombed and flattened while people were still inside. They were not given enough time to evacuate these areas.

For the past months, people in Beit Hanoon could not leave the area because the Israeli military was blocking Salah al-Din Street.

As of today, there’s a sudden surge in the attacks, with many reports of people killed inside these residential homes.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued to target residential homes in Beit Lahiya as well. It’s the same story where people inside were not given enough time to leave.

Acts in Gaza ‘reminiscent of the gravest international crimes’: UN official

The UN on Tuesday highlighted the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, describing it as “a wasteland of rubble” where there are “acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes.”

“Since the escalation of this conflict in October 2023, we have briefed this Council on no fewer than 16 occasions,” Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Acting Emergency Relief Coordinator, told a UN Security Council session on Palestine.

Condemning the toll of the recent escalations, Msuya said civilians have been “driven from their homes, stripped of their sense of place and dignity” and often forced to witness the deaths of their family members.

She recounted the horrific conditions facing injured children, who in some cases have had the words “Wounded Child, No Surviving Family” written on their arms.

Emphasizing that Gaza’s destruction has reached an unprecedented scale, with over 70% of civilian housing damaged or destroyed, Msuya asked: “What distinction was made, and what precautions were taken?”

“We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes,” she stressed.

She noted that the “latest offensive that Israel started in North Gaza last month is an intensified, extreme and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year.”

Palestinians retrieve their belongings from among the ruins in the eastern part of Deir al-Balah, Gaza (Ali Jadallah – Anadolu Agency)

UN humanitarian affairs office reports dismal news

According to the latest data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners, a total of 64 attacks against schools, which mostly serve as shelters, were documented in October, including 25 in northern Gaza, with an estimated 128 people killed as a result, many of them children.

Humanitarian assistance to North Gaza has been largely denied, except for one mission by the World Food Program (WFP) on 11 November and some medical supplies provided to hospitals during medical evacuations missions; no fuel has been delivered to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities in the area since 1 October.

Overall, between 1 and 11 November, every attempt by the UN to access besieged areas of North Gaza with food and health missions was either denied or impeded.

According to Palestinian Civil Defense (PCD), their teams have been continuously receiving appeals about and from people trapped under the rubble of destroyed houses across Gaza but lack the equipment and machinery needed to access and rescue them, reportedly resulting in the loss of the lives of thousands of people since October 2023.

In North Gaza, PCD remains forcibly out of service and reports that people who survive the bombing and attacks often die from hunger, amid severe shortages of food. Many people in the area have been left trapped under rubble for days, without being evacuated, PCD added.

Human Rights Watch met F., age 9, who was experiencing malnutrition; he received treatment after being evacuated from the northern Gaza Strip to the IMC field hospital in Rafah, Gaza, March 24, 2024. (Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

West Bank: Israeli army guns down Palestinian teenager near Nablus

The Israeli army on Tuesday gunned down a Palestinian teenager near a military checkpoint in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, claiming he was trying to stab soldiers.

According to Israeli Army Radio, the Palestinian was “neutralized” by gunfire near a military checkpoint at the Deir Sharaf junction northwest of Nablus after attempting to stab reserve soldiers.

No Israeli soldiers were injured in the incident.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health later identified the victim as 18-year-old Walid Ashraf Muhammad Hussein.

US bill targeting pro-Palestine groups as “terrorist supporters” fails in House

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted on a bill that would have granted the treasury department the power to revoke the tax-exempt status of any non-profit it deems to be a “terrorist supporting organization” –without having to explain why.

The bipartisan Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act failed to pass on Tuesday evening.

NOTE: See the text of the bill here; find out how your representative voted here.

Trump administration latest picks

Trump Says He Will Nominate Fox News Host Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary: Hegseth has called the two-state solution “lip service” and “effectively dead.” Hegseth grew up an evangelical Christian and credits his time in the U.S. military as driving home for him the importance for Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Trump Names Steven Witkoff, Megadonor and Personal Friend, as Mideast Envoy: Witkoff, who is Jewish and has donated millions to Trump’s political efforts, has no experience in diplomacy. He attended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent address to a joint session of Congress, calling it “strong” and saying it was “epic to be in that room.”

“It was a privilege to be there. We were standing every five seconds because that crowd was so for him and for the messaging,” he told Fox News.

Trump picks Iran critic, hawkish Israel supporter Mike Waltz as national security advisor: Waltz also enthusiastically attended Netanyahu’s address.

Marco Rubio as Secretary of State: The Republican Jewish Coalition said of the nomination: “In these extraordinarily dangerous times, Senator Rubio is an outspoken defender of Israel who has always had the Jewish state’s back.”

Trump Names Stephen Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy: Miller, who is Jewish, was a White House senior adviser for policy during Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency and the driving force behind the Republican’s ban on people from certain Muslim-majority nations and elsewhere. Numerous Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, demanded his firing in a letter to then-President Trump, calling him a neo-Nazi and supporter of white supremacists.

Who is Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick as US ambassador to Israel?

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas Governor and an evangelical Christian, is a staunch supporter of Israel and defender of illegal Israeli settlements. He is also a proponent of Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank – although annexation is a violation of international law.

Huckabee, 69, has criticized Biden for even applying mild pressure on Israel to moderate its conduct in its war on Gaza.

“If a person is pro-Israel, how can you be pro-Biden because the Biden administration has made it very clear they will make concessions to Hamas,” Huckabee said in an interview in March on News Nation.

Huckabee has led paid tour group visits to Israel for years, frequently advertising the trips on conservative-leaning news outlets.

David Friedman, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel in his first term, said he was “thrilled” by Trump’s selection of Huckabee.

Huckabee told Israel’s Army Radio that “of course” the annexation of Judea and Samaria is a possibility under a second Trump White House.

Trump has promised to align US foreign policy more closely with Israel’s interests as it wages wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

“He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” Trump said in a statement.

Mike Huckabee speaks during a news conference at the Christians United for Israel’s 10th annual summit on July 13, 2015, in Washington, DC (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.

Middle East Monitor: Israel think tank director acknowledges Amsterdam violence was not anti-Semitism, but anti-Zionism

Mondoweiss: Photo Essay: The silent displacement in the West Bank

+972 Magazine: The not-so-secret history of Netanyahu’s support for Hamas

Over the past year, officials resigned from across the Biden Administration in protest of the President’s immoral, illegal, and harmful policies towards Gaza and Palestine/Israel more broadly.

Today, on the eve of the expiration of the letter Secretaries Blinken and Austin sent… pic.twitter.com/S1b0IfROuK

— Dr. Annelle Sheline (@AnnelleSheline) November 12, 2024

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More families are being forced out of their hometown of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, as the Israeli army tightens its siege and bombardment of the town for the second month, aiming to ethnically cleansing the entire region. pic.twitter.com/09WgNeiIMg

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) November 12, 2024

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – NOVEMBER 12, 2024:

Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – November 12, 2024: at least 44,494* ( 43,712 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 12, 2024: at least 109,558 (including at least 103,258 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 12, 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 3,287, with 14,222 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

Lowest level of aid entering Gaza in a year? That’s ok, says Biden admin – Day 402