Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Friday was the twenty-eighth consecutive day of the Israeli occupation forces’ aerial, ground, and naval bombardment of northern Gaza. The siege has included blocking supplies of food, water, medicine, and fuel, destroying homes, demolishing entire residential blocks, attacking hospitals, and assassinating individuals trying to escape.
Over 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its siege of northern Gaza.
In northern Gaza, two Israeli attacks on residential buildings killed 84 Palestinians, including over 50 children.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s Baalbek-Hermel region killed 52 people and wounded 72.
RECOMMENDED READING: Israel has all but ended medical evacuations from Gaza
Go here to read about “the type of bomb that makes a two-story house disappear underground”
Go here to read about “the growing evidence that some victims are completely vaporized in some Israeli airstrikes…Even the concrete melts and turns to ashes because of these bombs”
Save the Children statement following massacre in northern Gaza that included 50 children
According to the Government Media Office, at least 84 people – 50 or more of them children – were killed when Israeli strikes destroyed two multistory buildings in northern Gaza.
No civil defense crews, medical services or other relief services are available in the area amid an Israeli siege and continuing bombardment.
The attacks yesterday were the latest in a series of strikes on northern Gaza that the UN has described as causing an apocalyptic situation.
Save the Children’s Regional Director, Jeremy Stoner, said:
How many times must children in Gaza face mass slaughter? What will it take for world powers to say ‘enough’? Intervention isn’t just a plea; it’s a legal obligation for which all must be held accountable.
At least 50 children have been killed in an Israeli attack on homes in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, according to media reports. Rescue workers are unable to reach the area, leaving desperate neighbors digging through the debris with their bare hands. However, as Israel has systematically destroyed the health system, any survivors requiring medical care simply face a suspended death sentence.
Every war is a war on children. In Gaza, casualties have escalated from including children, to mostly women and children and, as in this latest attack, to mostly children. Children should never be considered acceptable “collateral”, but here they’re not unfortunate bystanders caught up in conflict – they are directly under attack.
The principle of protecting civilians in conflict, especially children, is a cornerstone of international law and our shared humanity. In Gaza, this appears to have been abandoned, replaced by an onslaught that has reduced thousands of children’s lives to statistics in a horrific toll of human suffering.
Yet behind the numbers, every single child killed isn’t just a life extinguished, but a parent’s, a sibling’s, entire universe. And that kind of loss can never be quantified.
If the international community does not intervene soon, an entire generation of children in Gaza will be erased, along with their futures. There must be a ceasefire, and aid must be allowed to reach people. All states have a legal obligation to prevent the crime of genocide.
ALSO READ: Stop the assault on Palestinians in Gaza and on those trying to help them: statement from the leaders of 15 United Nations and humanitarian organizations
47 Palestinians brutally massacred in latest Israeli attacks in central Gaza
In another devastating series of Israeli airstrikes late last night night, 47 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, with many of the victims being women and children. The strikes targeted the city of Deir al-Balah, the Nuseirat refugee camp, and the town of Al-Zawaida in central Gaza.
Medical sources reported that the bodies of the deceased were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Numerous others have sustained injuries due to the horrific Israeli bombardments on various residential areas.
WAFA correspondent said that many victims were killed in Nuseirat, where Israeli airstrikes hit several homes, including those sheltering displaced families from other regions.
Eyewitnesses reported that following the initial strikes, residents rushed to help those affected, only to be targeted again by subsequent bombings. Search and rescue operations are ongoing, as efforts continue to locate missing individuals trapped under the rubble.
Another Palestinian journalist killed in Israeli strike on Gaza City
Gaza media office has confirmed journalist Bilal Rajab, of al-Quds al-Youm TV channel, was killed in an Israeli bombardment in the Strip.
Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic earlier reported that a strike in the vicinity of the Firas market in Gaza City had killed three people, among whom local sources said was Rajab.
The office said the total number of journalists and media workers who have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, now stands at 183.
It called on the international community to intervene to stop the killing of Palestinian journalists reporting on the war in Gaza, which is the deadliest conflict for media workers.
New Israeli massacres rock ancient Lebanese city, as UN warns Lebanon’s cultural heritage in ‘deep peril’
Israel resumed heavy and deadly airstrikes on Lebanon’s ancient city of Baalbek and other areas of eastern Lebanon, as the UN warns heritage sites are in serious danger as a result of Israeli attacks.
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert warned on 1 November: “Recent evacuation orders for the cities of Baalbek and Tyre forced tens of thousands of Lebanese to flee en masse…Ancient Phoenician cities steeped in history are in deep peril of being left in ruins. Lebanon’s cultural heritage must not become yet another casualty in this devastating conflict.”
Baalbek has a history dating back at least 11,000 years, and is most famous for its Roman ruins. The southern city of Tyre – a major Phoenician port city between the 9th and 6th centuries BCE – has been continuously inhabited for more than 4,000 years and was a key maritime and trade hub in the Mediterranean under different empires.
Both cities have UNESCO World Heritage status.
NOTE: As of 17 September 2024, UNESCO has verified damage to 69 culturally significant sites in Gaza: 10 religious sites, 43 buildings of historical and artistic interest, two repositories of movable cultural property, six monuments, one museum and seven archaeological sites. Other reports give a much higher number of affected sites.
RECOMMENDED READING: Lebanese journalists defy Israeli threats to expose the truth
New Israel bill seeks to bar Palestinians from running for legislature
A bill that is largely seen as discriminatory against Palestinian citizens of Israel has passed its first reading following a vote in the Israeli Knesset.
The bill, introduced by Likud Member of the Knesset (MK) Ofir Katz, would amend Section 7a of the ‘Basic Law: The Knesset’ and introduce a new clause titled “Expansion of Grounds for Preventing Election Participation.”
The clause expands the ability of the Knesset to disqualify candidates, or parliamentary lists, from running for election, largely by widening what can be considered support for armed struggle against Israel.
According to the Knesset’s website, the bill will enable the Knesset to bar those who show “support for armed struggle, even if the support is for the armed struggle of a lone terrorist”.
“It is further proposed to stipulate explicitly in this section that displays of sympathy or support will be considered sufficient for the purpose of this section, even if they were not made in an ongoing fashion.”
NOTE: The use of the word “terrorist” for a group that resists occupation and oppression is a political, not fact-based choice. In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, the UN extending that right to the point of armed resistance. Hamas has clearly and openly stated that its enemy is not the Jewish people, but the supremacist ideology of Zionism – the ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people and exiled them to Gaza and other locations.
US announces new Middle East military deployments
The Pentagon said it is carrying out new military deployments to the Middle East, including additional ballistic missile defense destroyers and several long-range strike bombers.
The forces will begin to arrive in the coming months as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group prepares to depart, according to Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder.
Lawmakers send letter to Biden questioning US role in Israel’s regional war
A group of lawmakers sent a letter to President Joe Biden questioning the involvement of the US armed forces in the Israel’s expanding regional war across the Middle East:
American military involvement in these wars has not been authorized by the United States Congress, as required by the Constitution and U.S. law.
The American people have made it clear that they want to see an immediate ceasefire, an end to these wars, and the return of hostages, not deepening American involvement in potentially endless regional war.
The Executive Branch cannot continue to ignore the law without Congressional intervention. In the absence of an immediate ceasefire and end of hostilities, Congress retains the right and ability to exercise its Constitutional authority to direct the removal of any and all unauthorized Armed Forces from the region pursuant to Section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution.
The lawmakers asked Biden for a “detailed account” of the US military’s involvement to “command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany” Israeli forces currently engaged in hostilities in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, the West Bank, Syria, or elsewhere in the Middle East.
The letter was signed by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Congresswoman Cori Bush, Congressman Andre Carson, Congresswoman Summer Lee, and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
(For more detail, read this from Zeteo.)
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❝One thing that I’ve talked about lot since I got back was shooting of children, widespread shooting of children❞
Despite having treated wounded in conflict zones all over world, Dr Feroze Sidhwa, trauma surgeon, was shocked by what he saw in Gaza Strip https://t.co/wszvfCz7dy pic.twitter.com/Z2qOfhnhm1
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) November 1, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – NOVEMBER 1, 2024:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – November 1, 2024: at least 44,081* ( 43,314 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 – and at least 767 in the West Bank (~166 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more in Gaza still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 49,032 Palestinian deaths.
Lancet: “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 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 25 from West Bank).
- 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.
- Almost 500,000 Gazans are currently experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – November 1, 2024: at least 108,319 (including at least 102,019 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 1, 2024: ~1,572 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 394*** military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (most recent: Nov 1); 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 2,897, with 13,150 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.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
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