Northern Gaza expected to be “a dismembered and depopulated area” – Day 437

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Northern Gaza expected to be “a dismembered and depopulated area” – Day 437
After an Israeli attack on Gaza City’s al-Tabin School, wounded Palestinians, including children, receive treatment at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital. (Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

At least 32 Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, as the Israeli genocidal war on the enclave continued unabated.

People walk through a destroyed neighborhood in Gaza City on 17 December 2024.
People walk through a destroyed neighborhood in Gaza City on 17 December 2024. (Anadolu/Getty Images)

Stray dogs mauling bodies of lifeless Palestinians in northern Gaza amid Israeli assault, video shows

Israeli forces gave no warning before bombing Gaza City home

In Gaza City, Israeli jets pummeled one of the main residential blocks. 10 Palestinians were killed, including people who were getting ready to sleep. They were targeted without any prior warning.

The strike set the building on fire and Civil Defense workers confirmed that the vast majority of bodies were shredded to pieces.

Following an Israeli strike on al-Tabatibi family home in Gaza City on December 17, 2024, relatives carry the body of a child for burial.
Following an Israeli strike on al-Tabatibi family home in Gaza City on December 17, 2024, relatives carry the body of a child for burial. (Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu)

Eleven-year-old crushed to death while trying to get bread in Gaza

Zeina, an 11-year-old from the Gaza Strip, was crushed and suffocated on November 29 while trying to get bread from a bakery as famine looms over parts of the enclave.

“People barged in all at once, and Zeina was in the middle of the crowd,” her mother told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“The girl fell among the people. They stepped on her. They had no mercy on her. There were footprint traces on Zeina.”

Palestinians will not return to north Gaza, Israeli ‘Generals’ Plan’ in full swing: Report

Israel’s military is inching closer towards the full implementation of the controversial Generals’ Plan in northern Gaza, and will work to prevent the return of displaced Palestinians to the area even after the extermination and siege campaign in the strip comes to an end, Hebrew media reported on 17 December. 

“The ‘Generals’ Plan’ is on its way to implementation, and the northern third of the Gaza Strip is expected to remain sparsely populated – unless a hostage deal changes the picture,” the Ynet news site said. 

The Israeli army, which is “subject to the political echelon – is expected to leave the upper, northernmost third of the Gaza Strip as a dismembered and depopulated area,” the report went to say, added that “all of this, of course, could change if a hostage deal is signed that changes the current reality in Gaza.” 

A Ynet investigation reveals that the Israeli army’s Southern Command is preparing “to prevent Gazans from returning to their homes in Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia, which overlook Israeli settlements such as Netiv Ha’esra, Sderot, Mefalsim, and Erez.” 

It adds that the most significant element of the Generals’ Plan is about to be realized, “systematic cleansing of large areas in the northern Gaza Strip of the enemy one by one, without returning the Gazans to their homes” (continue reading here).

Israeli media is reporting that the Knesset has presented formally for consideration a bill to again allow Israeli citizens entry into the Gaza Strip as government coalition lawmakers prepare to legalize the construction of more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

RECOMMENDED READING: Inside ‘Greater Israel’: myths and truths behind the long-time Zionist fantasy
Extensive damage in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, following Israeli bombardments.
Extensive damage in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, following Israeli bombardments. (AFP via Getty Images)

Hopes for Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal rise

The pace of talks aimed at securing a ceasefire-for-hostages agreement in Gaza appeared to be accelerating, amid claims on both sides that a deal may be within reach, perhaps within days.

Senior Israeli officials, Hamas sources, and US and Arab officials have all expressed optimism that a deal may be close for a phased release of the surviving hostages in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

About 60 living hostages, mainly Israeli and dual nationals, are believed to be still held in Gaza as well as the bodies of 35 others, out of more than 240 who were abducted to Gaza during Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Although details of an emerging deal are being negotiated under tight secrecy, it is understood that it would involve a phased ceasefire that would see an initial cessation of hostilities for 60 days in exchange for the release of surviving hostages, including women, elderly people and those suffering illness (continue reading here).

Defense Minister Israel Katz has now said that Israel intends to treat Gaza the way it treats the West Bank, “security control over Gaza with full freedom of action,” meaning It plans go in and out without reservation or hesitation, it can detain any Palestinian it wants, it can target and assassinate any Palestinian it wants, and it can operate freely.

NOTE: Hamas has rejected this type of arrangement all along. For this reason, some analysts have little hope that the deal will go through.
Mohammad Zaki Daoud Ashqar, and Diaa Sharif Hassan Salmi
Mohammad Zaki Daoud Ashqar, and Diaa Sharif Hassan Salmi (IMEMC)

West Bank: Israeli Soldiers Kill Two Palestinians in Qalqilia

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian young men, on Tuesday, after shooting them while they were present near the Apartheid Wall, east of Qalqilia in the northwestern part of the occupied West Bank.

Media sources identified the slain young men as Mohammad Zaki Daoud Ashqar, 32, and Diaa Sharif Hassan Salmi, 31, after shooting them in the thigh and back respectively.

Sources added that the army denied medical treatment by blocking ambulance crews from reaching the critically injured young men, resulting in excessive blood loss and their subsequent death.

Since October 7th 2023, in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 816 Palestinians (~169 of them children).

Lebanon counts 12 more Israeli violations of cease-fire

US violating law to fund Israel despite alleged human rights abuses, lawsuit says

The State Department is facing a new lawsuit brought by Palestinians and Palestinian Americans accusing the agency of deliberately circumventing a decades-old US human rights law to continue funding Israeli military units accused of widespread atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, marks the first time that victims of alleged human rights abuses are challenging the state department’s failure to ever sanction an Israeli security unit under the Leahy Law, a 1990s-era law that prohibits US military assistance to forces credibly implicated in gross human rights violations.

The plaintiffs include several Palestinian Americans who are demanding judicial intervention to force the US to comply with the law.

 

With the death toll in Gaza since last October over 45,000 and humanitarian aid to the territory severely restricted, the legal challenge represents an attempt to force the administration to implement a law that has been seen as effective in helping the US to stem human rights violations by foreign military units in central America, Colombia, Nepal, and other countries.

The Leahy Law was designed to prohibit foreign governments from providing US assistance to any security forces that the US identifies as being ineligible due to a gross violation of human rights. But, as one former state official told the Guardian earlier this year: “The rules were different for Israel” (continue reading here).

RECOMMENDED READING: I created the Leahy law. It should be applied to Israel.

US legislators urge Biden to stop arming Israel over Gaza aid blockade

US Congressman Greg Casar says he and 19 other members of the House of Representatives have written to the Biden administration demanding it “withhold offensive weapons from the Israeli military”.

“US law is clear: if the Netanyahu government does not allow sufficient food and medicine to enter Gaza, then the US cannot send weapons,” Casar said in a post on X.

The letter posted online by the Democratic representative from Texas, notes that while the Biden administration has asked Israel to let in at least 350 aid trucks into Gaza per day, it has only let in 42 vehicles daily. And on some days, as few as six trucks have entered, representing a “massive failure that is costing people their lives,” the letter said.

The signatories:

  • Greg Casar
  • Sarah Jacobs
  • Mark Pocan
  • Summer Lee
  • James McGovern
  • Pramila Jayapal
  • Cori Bush
  • Jesus “Chuy” Garcia
  • Jamaal Bowman
  • Veronica Escobar
  • Henry “Hank” Johnson Jr.
  • Lloyd Doggett
  • Ayanna Presley
  • Rashida Tlaib
  • Ilhan Omar
  • Bonnie Watson Coleman
  • Al Green
  • Joaquin Castro

U.S. Defied Spanish Embargo on Arms Bound for Israel 

The U.S. Department of Defense sent over a thousand tons of ammunition to Israel on a ship that stopped at a U.S. naval base in Spain — a violation of Spain’s embargo on ships carrying military cargo bound for Israel, according to researchers from the Palestinian Youth Movement and Progressive International.

The ship, owned by Sealift Inc., was also used for delivering aid to Gaza last spring, when the U.S. carried out its disastrous and short-lived floating pier aid mission.

While partly operated by the U.S. Navy, Naval Station Rota is Spanish territory technically beholden to Spanish law. Moving ammunition bound for Israel through a U.S. Navy base on Spanish soil makes enforcement of the embargo trickier.

Spanish officials put the embargo in place last May to end Spanish involvement in arms sales to Israel. Since then, Spain has prevented more than five vessels from docking at its ports under the policy, including some from the US.

In response to Spain denying entry to ships, the U.S. opened an investigation in early December into whether Spain’s denials of entry to the vessels constitute a violation of maritime trade regulations.

The case is lodged with the Federal Maritime Commission, an independent U.S. government agency that regulates international shipping and can levy astronomical fines — and could potentially hit Spain, a NATO ally, with costs that run well into the millions (continue reading here).

Member of the Israeli army carries a bomb, December 06, 2024, in Israel.
Member of the Israeli army carries a bomb, December 06, 2024, in Israel. (Israeli military (IDF) – Anadolu Agency)

Over 7,000 authors and book workers join ‘historic’ Israel boycott

Over 7,000 writers, editors, translators, illustrators, publishers, agents, librarians, and other book industry workers have now joined the boycott of Israeli literary institutions complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinian people.

Upon its release on October 28th, 2024, the public letter announcing the campaign already constituted the largest boycott against Israeli cultural institutions in history. Now, with thousands more signing on, this letter signals a watershed moment in the international movement for Palestinian rights.

The signatories include winners of the Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Giller Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, Miles Franklin Award, and National Book Award—including three of this year’s winners: Percival Everett, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Shifa Saltagi Safadi—and editors at each of the “Big Five”¹ publishing houses, and many independent publishers.

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STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – DECEMBER 17, 2024:

Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – December 17, 2024: at least 45,873* – 45,097 in Gaza; in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 816 Palestinians (~169 of them children).

Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 11,000 more 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 (45,097), it is reasonable to estimate at least 225,485 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 19,843 of known direct deaths and 99,213 of the total deaths are children.

Since Israel launched an extermination campaign in northern Gaza in early October, over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed or are missing and another 12,000 wounded.

[*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, 2023 – December 17, 2024: at least 113,491 (including at least 107,244 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 17, 2024: ~1,593 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 415*** military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (updated: Dec 11); 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 59 Israeli soldiers – nearly 17% 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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