Khan Younis has been turned into a ghost town. (photo)
Torture allegations; executions; possible pause in hostilities; new developments on the escape and killing by Israel of Israeli hostages; more evidence of Israeli culpability in October 7th killings; West Bank continues to spiral; former US Congress woman, college dean calls for ethnic cleansing
Number of Gazans killed since the Biden administration vetoed UNSC ceasefire resolution: at least 1,969 (approximately 788 children)
20,000 dead:Gaza’s government media office in the Gaza Strip said Wednesday at least 20,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the war with Israel began.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: “Urgently investigate inhumane treatment and enforced disappearance of Palestinians detainees from Gaza”
Amnesty International is deeply concerned for the fate and whereabouts of Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip detained by Israeli forces amid reports of mass enforced disappearances…..
Photos and video footage verified by Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab show Israeli forces’ inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in Beit Lahia, a city in northern Gaza. The fate and whereabouts of many of these detainees remains unknown.
Other Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, including workers or others with permits to enter Israel, also remain forcibly disappeared. Israeli authorities have confirmed the deaths in custody of at least six Palestinians, including two workers from Gaza in October and November.
“We are currently investigating the reports of mass enforced disappearances of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces. The Israeli military must urgently disclose the fate and whereabouts of everyone that it has detained since 7 October including Nidal al-Waheidi and Haitham Abdelwahed, two journalists from Gaza who have been forcibly disappeared for more than two months…
DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, MD “More than a thousand detainees, including the director of al-Shifa Hospital, are being subjected to brutal torture and severe beatings,” – Dr.Mustafa Barghouti, MD
Mustafa Barghouti, the head of the Palestinian National Initiative party, says testimonies from released Palestinian prisoners from Gaza reveal they had been subjected to torture.
“More than a thousand detainees, including the director of al-Shifa Hospital, are being subjected to brutal torture and severe beatings,” Barghouti said in a statement, adding that a number of elderly and sick prisoners were killed as a result.
“The Israeli interrogators use torture with electricity, waterboarding, hanging stress positions, and psychological pressure.”
The testimonies came from prisoners who said they were held in a makeshift detention camp in Beersheba, also known as Bir as-Sab’.
“The detainees are held in barracks that are unfit for life, exposed to the cold, and are given scarce food,” Barghouti said. “No one, including the Red Cross, is allowed to contact them or know anything about them.”
OHCHR has received numerous disturbing reports from the north of Gaza of mass detentions, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance of possibly thousands of Palestinian men and boys, and a number of women and girls, at the hands of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Most were rounded up as they were attempting to move south or were taken during operations conducted on their homes, hospitals, schools and other places of refuge.
Reports claim that children as young as 12 and persons as old as 70 are among those detained. Most concerningly, there are numerous reports that many of those detained were subjected to serious ill-treatment, which in some instances may amount to torture. This includes allegations that many were forced to strip down to their underwear, were blindfolded and tightly handcuffed, and were filmed and photographed in deliberately humiliating positions prior to being transported, without their clothing and with little food or water, to unknown places of detention. Reports further allege that the IDF instructed remaining civilians, usually women and children, to move south before destroying their shelters, in many cases resulting in multiple displacements. Credible information has also been received that approximately 140 women and girls have been arbitrarily detained and are currently being detained in undisclosed locations. Read full report
A photo, taken by a photojournalist embedded with Israeli forces during operations in Gaza, shows shirtless and blindfolded Palestinian men crammed into an Israeli military vehicle on Dec 8. (photo)
BBC on Israeli bombs: The BBC has spoken to military experts who have described the wide variety of bombs used by Israel – some about 100 lb and others as large as 2000 lb – as having directly contributed to the scale of fatalities in this conflict.
According to US intelligence assessments seen by CNN, in this war, Israel had dropped more than 29,000 bombs on Gaza since the war began and mid-December, with 40-45% of these unguided.
These unguided bombs “can miss their target by up to 30m, which is the difference between hitting a Hamas HQ and an apartment packed with civilians”, says Mr Garlasco, who has worked on three previous wars in Gaza and is now a military adviser for the Dutch peace organization PAX.
Gaza aid delivery ‘increasingly more difficult’: Jagan Chapagain, secretary general and CEO of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, has described the situation in Gaza as “desperate.” He said in a tweet,
In Gaza, the needs are staggering, and the situation is desperate. Aid delivery is becoming increasingly more difficult due to the ongoing shelling and lack of fuel and supplies. I reiterate my call for a safe & unhindered humanitarian space to allow the continuous flow of critical aid.
People bring an injured person to the hospital on a donkey cart, since an ambulance was not available, while performing CPR on him. (photo)
UN office: Israeli forces allegedly killed 11 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza City: The UN Human Rights Office in Gaza says it has received “disturbing information” alleging that Israeli forces summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members in the city’s Remal neighborhood. “This raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime,” it said in a statement, calling for an independent investigation.
The Israeli army “allegedly separated the men from the women and children, and then shot and killed at least 11 of the men, mostly aged in their late 20’s and early 30’s, in front of their family members”, the statement said.
The army “then allegedly ordered the women and children into a room, and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room, reportedly seriously injuring some of them, including an infant and a child.
“OHCHR has confirmed the killings at Al Awda building, although the details and circumstances of the killings are still under verification.”
Israel offers one week pause in latest captive release negotiations: The Wall Street Journal, citing an Egyptian official, reported the offer would be in exchange for the release of 40 captives held in Gaza. That would include all of the remaining women and children, as well as elderly men in need of medical care.
The week-long pause would include a break in ground and air operations in Gaza and would allow more aid to enter the enclave. Hamas officials are demanding a two-week pause, the official told the newspaper.
Al Ahli Hospital targeted: On 19 December, according to the MoH in Gaza, Israeli forces raided the premises of Al Ahli Hospital in the east of Gaza city, destroying the main entrance and reportedly arresting several medical staff and patients.
Nine out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are operational, although only partially. They are functioning at triple their bed capacity, grappling with no electricity and little fuel for backup generators, and confronting critical scarcities of essential supplies. Pictured: Al Shifa Hospital (photo)
Israel’s air strikes intensify in scale and magnitude across Gaza: We are seeing more intensity in the scale and magnitude of the Israeli air strikes that keep pounding the entire Gaza Strip from north to south. In Rafah, southern Gaza, within the past 24 hours, there were more than five air strikes, destroying residential homes and killing many civilians, including women and children.
In the central area of the Gaza Strip, Deir el-Balah and refugee camps became a major target of the Israeli bombardment. Residential homes were destroyed completely and turned into ruins, causing the displacement of a large number of people.
In the northern part of Gaza City, the same scenario keeps repeating itself over and over again. People stranded in that war zone area are subjugated to massive and relentless artillery shelling and more of those air strikes that have made their lives unbearable since the beginning of the war, but have grown more intense within the past few days.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns of a “toxic mix of disease, hunger and lack of hygiene and sanitation.” “Hunger weakens the body’s defenses and opens the door to disease. Gaza is already experiencing soaring rates of infectious disease outbreaks,” he said. (photo)
Children in Gaza access only 10 percent of water needed just for survival: UNICEF: According to humanitarian standards, the minimum amount of water needed in an emergency is 15 liters (four gallons), which includes water for drinking, washing and cooking. For survival alone, the estimated minimum is three liters per day.
Recently displaced children in the southern Gaza Strip are accessing only 1.5 to 2 liters of water each day. “Access to sufficient amounts of clean water is a matter of life and death, and children in Gaza have barely a drop to drink,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Children and their families are having to use water from unsafe sources that are highly salinated or polluted. Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days,” she added.
According to OCHA, 90 per cent of the population regularly go without food for a whole day.
‘New collapse’ in Gaza internet connectivity: NetBlocks says the incident has affected areas in southern Gaza, where telecoms had just been restored in the last few days. Gaza has experienced several communications and internet blackouts since the war began in October.
Humanitarian agencies have warned that blackouts severely disrupt their work in the besieged enclave; residents fear the loss of connection with their loved ones, and can not call for help when they need it.’
Ambulance center in northern Gaza ‘surrounded’ by Israeli army: Israeli forces have “surrounded and besieged” the Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance center in Jabalia from all directions, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says in a post on X.
Many hours later, PRCS reports, “artillery shelling continues in the vicinity of the center, with the sounds of explosions heard…Israeli snipers are positioned on the roofs of surrounding buildings, posing a threat to the safety of 127 individuals, including paramedics, volunteers, and their families,” the PRCS said.
People of Gaza face ‘many months and years’ in poverty: Peter Rademaker of the International Labour Organization (ILO) said that Palestinians in Gaza “will be in poverty for many months and years to come” because of Israel’s war on the enclave.
“[As the war goes on,] many people in Gaza and also West Bank will have no income, no wages…and they will increasingly have to rely on international assistance.” He added, “Today hardly anybody in Gaza is able to earn income from work.”
The aftermath of Israeli army attack on Khan Younis (photo)
Former Congress woman, college dean calls for ethnic cleansing
At least 100 killed from one family in Gaza City: A member of the Salem family says at least 100 of his relatives have been killed after the Israeli army fired four missiles on the house they were sheltering in, near al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City. Speaking to Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul, the survivor, who was not in the home during the attack, held up two pages where he had written the names of his family members.
“The house was struck with four missiles, then the Israeli bulldozers gathered the debris on the streets and dumped it on top of the rubble,” he said. “My cousin told me his sister was run over by a tank. There are 50 others missing – children who I didn’t know.”
A Palestinian baby girl, born 17 days ago during Gaza war, is killed with brother in Israeli strike: She was born amid war, in a hospital with no electricity in a southern Gaza city that has been bombarded daily. Her family named her al-Amira Aisha — “Princess Aisha.” She didn’t complete her third week of life before she died, killed in an Israeli airstrike that crushed her family home Tuesday.
Her extended family was asleep when the strike leveled their apartment building in Rafah before dawn, said Suzan Zoarab, the infant’s grandmother and survivor of the blast. Hospital officials said 27 people were killed , among them Amira and her 2-year old brother, Ahmed.
3-day-old baby saved following Israeli air raid on Rafah; The infant was pulled alive from the rubble of a building destroyed by an Israeli army attack, one of the child’s rescuers told the Reuters news agency. Amin Almasry said two rockets hit the building he was in and among the survivors rescuers pulled out of the ruins was a woman who recently had a Cesarean birth and her baby daughter.
At the central yard of the Jenin Boys School, volunteers from Khan Younis play and sing with the children who come to the school with their displaced families. (screengrab)
Volunteers help children in Gaza deal with trauma amid attacks: Volunteers from Khan Younis have initiated a program that helps displaced children deal with the trauma they have experienced amid the continuing deadly Israeli attacks in the besieged enclave.
“At the moment, we organize play sessions, especially for children, ranging from games to songs, in order to help them flush out the negative energy from their system in Gaza, because of the war and aggression that we are living in,” said Dalia Elweah, a volunteer. “This play activity flushes out negative energy from the children as well as their parents, because parents, when they see their children happy, they feel happier and the parents participate and join in,” Elweah added.
OPINION: Israel is conducting its own ‘Final Solution’ in Gaza: “The unfathomable scope of Israel’s actions in Gaza against Palestinian civilians amounts to war crimes devoid of any humanity. We bear a moral responsibility to demand an immediate end to these atrocities, and accountability and justice for these crimes.
Israel’s actions extend beyond killing, wounding and starving Palestinians; it systematically destroys homes and critical infrastructure…Israel also engages in the public humiliation of Palestinian men during routine searches…Despite the UN General Assembly’s call for a ceasefire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [said] “nothing will stop us.”
Raz Segal, a prominent Jewish Israeli scholar of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, has said: “It took the Nazis two and a half years… of experimenting with various schemes of forced displacement of Jews” before implementing the “Final Solution”. How long, I wonder, until Israel is done with its own “Final Solution”?
Wartime Israeli changes in occupied East Jerusalem have ‘grave implications’: Three Israeli rights groups say that Netanyahu’s government is using the cover of war in Gaza to create more “facts on the ground in East Jerusalem” that will have grave implications for the city’s political future. The groups – Bimkom, Emek Shaveh, Ir Amim and Peace Now – said the illegal settlement advancements and demolitions of Palestinian homes have continued unabated, while moves to erode the binational nature and multireligious character of the Old City and its environs have intensified.
“These measures not only undermine Palestinian rights to their homes and city, but also further subvert any prospects for an agreed and just political resolution on Jerusalem,” they said in a joint statement.
The following are some of the latest West Bank stories coming out of WAFA, the Palestine News and Info Agency (click links to read the full articles):
A 16-year-old child identified as Mahmoud Mohammad Zaaoul was shot in the neck and killed by Israeli soldiers.
Israeli forces fired poison gas and sound bombs towards schools and civilian homes near Bethlehem.
Two Palestinian youths were shot as their town, Jenin, came under Israeli attack.
Israeli forces seized Palestinian-owned land to build a settler-only road in the town of Tuqu’, southeast of Bethlehem.
Israeli forces began demolishing two residential buildings under construction and a warehouse near Ramallah.
Israeli bulldozers began demolishing residential facilities in a village in the Jordan Valley.
A Palestinian young man was killed by Israeli soldiers after they opened fire at his vehicle, near Hebron.
Over 300 Israeli soldiers seized 10 vehicles and stormed 15 homes in the Al-Laban Al-Sharqiya village, south of Nablus.
Israeli forces prevented citizens from planting olive seedlings in the village of Asira al-Shamaliya, north of the city of Nablus.
2023 is the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since OCHA began recording casualties in 2005.
On the escape and killing by Israel of 3 Israeli hostages: Video footage recovered from an IDF dog recorded on December 10, has revealed the moment when Israeli forces unknowingly freed three hostages, who were mistakenly shot dead five days later. An IDF dog was sent into a suspicious area, and Hamas forces shot the dog. IDF forces then engaged the Hamas fighters, killing them.
Though the dog died, a camera embedded on its body continued to function. That camera eventually caught footage of the three hostages escaping the area, once they saw that their Hamas guards had been killed. The IDF did not recover the recording from the dog until December 18, after which it took some time to analyze it.
More on October 7th: Israeli tank fired at home with captives inside on October 7: A recent report by Channel 12 in Israel has revealed that an Israeli tank fired at a house in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 while captives were inside. According to the TV channel, which obtained a recording of the incident from a police helicopter, Hamas fighters were holding the captives in the house. One captive reported that she was hit by shrapnel during the incident.
RECOMMENDED READING on Israeli military culpability for Israeli deaths on October 7th: this, this, this, this, this
The aftermath of Israeli army attack on Khan Younis (photo)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – DECEMBER 19:
Palestinian death toll since October 7: at least 19,498* (~19,196 in Gaza* (8,663 children), and at least 302 in the West Bank). This does not include an estimated 8,000 more still buried under rubble. Euro-Med Monitor reports 25,612 Palestinian deaths.
*IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although muchevidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation. Israel killed more Palestinians in a little over a month after Oct. 7 than in all the previous 22 years combined.
Palestinian injuries since October 7: 58,659** (including at least 55,000 in Gaza** and 3,659 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to provide an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption.
Reported Israeli death toll since October 7: ~1,139 (7 killed in West Bank, 132 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and 5,431 injured, approximately 36 children).
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