Latest casualty figures for Palestine and Israel, humanitarian update, hospitals bombed, Biden’s troubles, journalists stand with Gaza
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. For more news, go here and here. Live broadcast news from the region is here.
Some people are led to be skeptical of the Al Jazeera news network. However, the network has won several Emmys, a Peabody and the Overseas Press Association’s Edward R. Murrow award, among many other honors. The New York Times reports that “its reporting hews to international journalistic standards and provides a unique view on events in the Middle East.” it’s important to remember that all news sources may potentially have bias. For example, CNN uses anchors who used to work for the Israel Lobby, who have lifelong attachment to Israel, and who often exhibit pro-Israel spin and omission in their broadcasts. Similarly, Fox News is strongly influenced by Rupert Murdoch, who has a strong attachment to Israel, and who may have fired Tucker Carlson, the network’s most popular host, in part due to the host’s opposition to war and his pattern of failing to exhibit sufficient devotion to Israel).
Latest statistics:
Palestinian death toll: 10,790* (10,607 in Gaza** (including at least 4,412 children and 2,918 women), and at least 183 in the West Bank). *NOTE: The official UN death toll includes 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast. IAK does not yet include those deaths since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation.
Palestinian injuries: 29,397** (including at least 26,905 in Gaza** and 2,492 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to offer an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption. The Associated Press has reported ~32,000 in Gaza, while the UN number is somewhat lower. Our total for Gaza and the West Bank is based on the conservative figure.
It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties. About 1.6 million people have been displaced; 2,650 are missing (1,400 children) and presumed to be under rubble.
Reported Israeli death toll has been reduced to ~1,200*** (3 killed in West Bank, 41 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and ~5,400 injured). The names (1,152) are here.
***NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Israeli soldiers; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
U.S. Postal Workers Union first major national labor union to call for ceasefire: The union, which consists of 300,000 active and retired postal workers and endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, joined more than a dozen other unions to make the call though is by far the most major organization to call for a cease-fire to date:
A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding every day in Gaza. Thousands more innocent civilians stand to die wholly preventable deaths,” it said, calling on the U.S. government, “the primary foreign benefactor of the Israeli government, to use all its power to protect innocent lives and to help bring about peace in the region, and not use our tax dollars for more war.
Evacuation update: On 9 November, over 50,000 people fled northern Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people remaining in the north are struggling to secure the minimum amounts of water and food to survive.
Humanitarian aid: 65 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza on 9 November, bringing the number of trucks that have entered Gaza since 21 October to 821. Prior to the start of hostilities, an average of 500 truckloads entered Gaza every working day. The entry of fuel, which is desperately needed to operate electricity generators to run life-saving equipment, remains banned by the Israeli authorities.
Gaza hospitals under attack: Israeli tanks are surrounding four hospitals from all directions: al-Rantisi Hospital, al-Nasr Hospital, Government Eyes Hospital and the Mental Health Hospital. The area also includes many schools and residential buildings. Thousands of patients, medical staff and displaced people are trapped inside the hospitals without water or food. (11:20 GMT)
Israel has attacked four hospitals in Gaza, including Al Shifa, the enclave’s biggest medical complex. Its director general, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said, “Not a second goes by without bombing close to the hospital…This is a war against the hospitals and a war against all the [Palestinian] citizens.”
Health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said that two children’s hospitals, al-Rantisi and al-Nasser, were also hit by “direct attacks and bombardments” on Friday; explosions overnight also damaged the Indonesian Hospital in the north.
The Al Rantisi Hospital is funded by the US-based Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and is the only medical facility in Gaza specializing in treating children with cancer. On Thursday, the hospital stopped functioning due to lack of fuel, leaving 38 Palestinian children suffering from kidney failure in grave danger. (11:15 GMT)
Humanitarian calamity: Infectious maladies such as diarrhea and chickenpox are soaring in Gaza, the WHO reported on Wednesday, while medical organizations have been warning of the risk of cholera and epidemics. Due to Israeli destruction of infrastructure, Gaza is in a water and sanitation crisis. A lack of clean drinking water, and pollutants proliferating through waterways, have contributed to infections. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are also cramped into shelters, potentially accelerating the spread of diseases.
Transfer of solid waste to landfills has largely stopped across the Gaza Strip, due to lack of fuel and insecurity. Waste is accumulating in the streets and outside IDP shelters, creating a high risk of airborne diseases and infestation of insects and rats.
According to the Director of Surgery at Shifa Hospital in Gaza city, patients who have undergone surgery are at a high risk of infection due to the unhygienic conditions and lack of equipment. In some cases, wounds have been covered by white flies and their larva, risking tissue damage, bacterial infection, and septicemia.
RECOMMENDED READING: This Israel war has no mercy, Gaza rescue workers say
Massive damage in Gaza: The Israeli bombardment has caused damage to more than 50 percent of housing units across Gaza. In a statement, the media office of Gaza’s government said some 40,000 housing units in the besieged enclave were completely destroyed by the Israeli army. It also said about 32,000 tons of explosives had been dropped on Gaza since the start of the war. The estimated preliminary losses in the housing sector and infrastructure are estimated to be $2 billion each, the office said. (08:50 GMT)
Israeli provocation at Muslim holy site: Worshipers attending Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem report, due to Israeli forces’ restrictions and attacks. Prayers today were attended by about 4,000 Muslims, compared to the usual 50,000. Today’s prayers come after a week of tear gas and water cannons outside Al-Aqsa, used as recently as this morning to disperse a crowd of young people, and residents say they are scared to leave their homes out of fear of arbitrary detentions by Israeli forces. These scenes are sure to trouble the entire Muslim world, as they are taking place outside of the third holiest site in Islam. (11:10 GMT)
RECOMMENDED READING: US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year
Arab commentary on Israel’s “4-hour pauses”: After the Biden administration announced a daily “4-hour humanitarian pause” in fighting to enable residents in the north of Gaza to evacuate, many in the Arab world expressed skepticism. For example, journalist Salem Zahran considers this move a strategy to ethnically cleanse Gaza and rescue hostages:
What the White House announced its goal is not ‘humanitarian’ but rather a continuation of the project to empty the north of its people towards the south, not a humanitarian truce, but just tactics in which America takes American prisoners and displace the Israeli Palestinians from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south. (10:30 GMT)
The Hamas resistance group is currently holding about 240 hostages, captured on October 7th for the purpose of a prisoner swap. Israel currently holds 7,000 Palestinians as political prisoners, and has agreed to such a swap in the past.
RECOMMENDED READING: Gaza’s Christians fear ‘threat of extinction’ amid Israel war
West Bank news: The Israeli army has blown up the homes of Mohammad al-Shantir and Saqer al-Shantir south of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. They have both been held in Israeli jails since August, when they were accused of carrying out a shooting attack that killed one settler and wounded another. (9:50 GMT)
Amnesty International report, “>Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests:
Israeli authorities have dramatically increased their use of administrative detention, a form of arbitrary detention, of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank; extended emergency measures that facilitate inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners; and failed to investigate incidents of torture and death in custody over the past four weeks, Amnesty International said today.
Since 7 October, Israeli forces have detained more than 2,200 Palestinian men and women… Testimony from released detainees and human rights lawyers, as well as video footage and images illustrate some of the forms of torture and other ill-treatment prisoners have been subjected to by Israeli forces over the past four weeks…
Over the last month we have witnessed a significant spike in Israel’s use of administrative detention – detention without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely – which was already at a 20-year high before the latest escalation in hostilities on 7 October. Administrative detention is one of the key tools through which Israel has enforced its system of apartheid against Palestinians.
Journalists stand with Gaza, call for integrity in Western media coverage: A US-based group of journalists has issued a statement of solidarity with reporters in Gaza, and calling for fair coverage of the issue. Their statement reads, in part:
We stand with our colleagues in Gaza and herald their brave efforts at reporting in the midst of carnage and destruction. Without them, many of the horrors on the ground would remain invisible.
We join press associations including Reporters Without Borders, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association and the International Federation of Journalists in demanding an explicit commitment from Israel to end the violence against journalists and other civilians…
We also hold Western newsrooms accountable for dehumanizing rhetoric that has served to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Double-standards, inaccuracies and fallacies abound in American publications and have been well-documented. More than 500 journalists signed an open letter in 2021 outlining concerns that U.S. media outlets ignore Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. Yet the call for fair coverage has gone unanswered.
Newsrooms have instead undermined Palestinian, Arab and Muslim perspectives, dismissing them as unreliable and have invoked inflammatory language that reinforces Islamophobic and racist tropes. They have printed misinformation spread by Israeli officials and failed to scrutinize indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza — committed with the support of the U.S. government…
This is our job: to hold power to account. Otherwise we risk becoming accessories to genocide.
RECOMMENDED READING: Israel-Palestine war: Massive rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents in US
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Message from Iranian foreign minister: Iran’s Press TV reported a statement by its foreign minister, made in a phone call with his Qatari counterpart: “Due to the expansion of the intensity of the war against Gaza’s civilian residents, expansion of the scope of the war has become inevitable.” Iran has repeatedly warned of the threat of regional escalation, telling Israel it must pull back from attacking Gaza. (07:40 GMT)
Israeli soldier killed: The Israeli military announced the death of one of its soldiers during fighting in Gaza, bringing the total number of soldiers kiled in Gaza to 41.
The firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups towards Israeli population centers has continued over the past 24 hours, with no reported fatalities. (Information on rocket attacks is here.) It appears that the last time a rocket killed an Israeli was October 7, as reported by Ha’aretz. Ten Israelis were killed – 4 of them Palestinian Israelis.
People have been pointing out how images of Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza look eerily similar to what happened to their ancestors 75 years ago when Israel was created ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/V2fy1t7qCq
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 10, 2023
Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN-OCHA:
"If there is a hell on earth, it is the north of #Gaza… It is a life of fear by day and darkness at night and what do you tell your children in such a situation, that the fire they see in the sky is out to kill them?" pic.twitter.com/OURlSyiKgR
— Wafa News Agency – English (@WAFANewsEnglish) November 10, 2023
SHUT 👏 IT 👏 ALL 👏 DOWN 👏 https://t.co/CKEKcLJQq0
— Palestine Legal (@pal_legal) November 8, 2023
“It’s not just Israel’s genocide; it’s yours, and The Hague isn’t good enough for you” — Irish MEP @ClareDalyMEP has some choice words for Ursula von der Leyen. pic.twitter.com/g9bcWmlp5F
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) November 10, 2023
Who: Israeli forces
What: using a Palestinian as a human shield.
Where: Fawwar Refugee Camp, WB.
When: Today, 10 November.
Why it matters: because Israeli forces often blame Hamas of committing this particular war crime. pic.twitter.com/zCYdLEE6UI— Nida' Ibrahim (@nida_journo) November 10, 2023
About 40,000 housing units in the besieged Gaza Strip were completely destroyed by Israeli forces, say Gaza officials https://t.co/lPxOCpjamh pic.twitter.com/j2BuY6DuPD
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 10, 2023
