Tag: Israel Palestine crisis

United Nations warns Gaza blockade could force it to sharply cut relief operations as bombings rise

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The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned on October 25 that without immediate deliveries of fuel it will soon have to sharply cut back relief operations across the Gaza Strip, which has been blockaded and hit by devastating Israeli airstrikes since Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel more than two weeks ago.

The warning came as hospitals in Gaza struggled to treat masses of wounded with dwindling resources, and health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory said the death toll was soaring as Israeli jets continued striking the territory overnight into Wednesday.

The Israeli military said its strikes had killed militants and destroyed tunnels, command centres, weapons storehouses and other military targets, which it has accused Hamas of hiding among Gaza’s civilian population. Gaza-based militants have been launching unrelenting rocket barrages into Israel since the conflict started.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said the airstrikes killed at least 704 people between Monday and Tuesday, mostly women and children. The Associated Press could not independently verify the death tolls cited by Hamas, which says it tallies figures from hospital directors.

The death toll was unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even greater loss of life could come when Israel launches an expected ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas militants.

In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the U.S. could not verify the one-day death toll. “The Ministry of Health is run by Hamas, and I think that all needs to be factored into anything that they put out publicly.”

Israel said on Tuesday it had launched 400 airstrikes over the past day, an increase from the 320 strikes the day before. The U.N. says about 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are now internally displaced, with almost 6,00,000 crowded into U.N. shelters.

Gaza’s residents have been running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the attack on southern Israel by Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

In recent days, Israel allowed a small number of trucks filled with aid to come over the border with Egypt but barred deliveries of fuel — needed to power hospital generators — to keep it out of Hamas’ hands.

The U.N. said it had managed to deliver some of the aid in recent days to hospitals treating the wounded. But the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the largest provider of humanitarian services in Gaza, said it was running out of fuel.

Officials said they were forced to reduce their operations as they rationed what little fuel they had.

“Without fuel our trucks cannot go around to further places in the strip for distribution,” said Lily Esposito, a spokesperson for the agency. “We will have to make decisions on what activities we keep or not with little fuel.”

Meanwhile, more than half of Gaza’s primary healthcare facilities, and roughly a third of its hospitals, have stopped functioning, the World Health Organization said.

Overwhelmed hospital staff struggled to triage cases as constant waves of wounded were brought in. The Health Ministry said many wounded are laid on the ground without even simple medical aid and others wait for days for surgeries because there are so many critical cases.

The Health Ministry says more than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including some 2,300 minors. The figure includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital last week.

The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel — mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government. Hamas is also holding some 222 people that it captured and brought back to Gaza.

The conflict threatened to spread across the region, as Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian military sites in the south on Wednesday, killing eight soldiers and wounding seven, according to Syria’s state-run SANA news agency.

The Israeli military said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, its jets had struck Syrian military infrastructure and mortar systems in response to rocket launches from Syria.

Israel has launched several strikes on Syria in recent days, including strikes that put the Damascus and Aleppo airports out of service, in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel has been fighting the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah across the Lebanese border in recent weeks.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah met on Wednesday with top Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in their first reported meeting since the war started. Such a meeting could signal coordination between the groups, as Hezbollah officials warned Israel against launching a ground offensive in Gaza.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Iran was helping Hamas, with intelligence and by “whipping up incitement against Israel across the world.” He said Iranian proxies were also operating against Israel from Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. Fighting also erupted in the West Bank, which has seen a major spike in violence.

Islamic Jihad militants said they fought with Israeli forces in Jenin overnight. The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said Israel killed four Palestinians in Jenin, including a 15-year-old, and two others in other towns. That brought the total number of those killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7 to 102.

Across central and south Gaza, where Israel told civilians to take shelter, there were multiple scenes of rescuers pulling the dead and wounded out of large piles of rubble from collapsed buildings. Graphic photos and video shot by the AP showed rescuers unearthing bodies of children from multiple ruins.

A father knelt on the floor of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah next to the bodies of three lifeless children cocooned in bloodied sheets. Later, at the nearby morgue, workers prayed over 24 dead wrapped in body bags, several of them the size of small children.

“Buildings that collapsed on residents killed dozens at a time in several cases, witnesses said. Two families lost 47 members in a levelled home in Rafah,” the Health Ministry said.

In Gaza City, at least 19 people were killed when an airstrike hit the house of the Bahloul family, according to survivors, who said dozens more remained buried. The legs of a dead woman and another person, both still half buried, dangled out of the wreckage where workers dug through the dirt, concrete and rebar.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the proportionate response to the October 7 attack is “a total destruction” of the militants. “It is not only Israel’s right to destroy Hamas. It’s our duty,” he said.

On Wednesday, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said his country will stop issuing visas to U.N. personnel after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Hamas’ attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” It was unclear what the action, if followed through with, would mean for U.N. aid personnel working in Gaza and the West Bank.

“It’s time to teach them a lesson,” Erdan told Army Radio, accusing the U.N. chief of justifying a slaughter.

The U.N. chief told the Security Council on Tuesday that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” Mr. Guterres also said “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

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Hamas attack on Israel prompts South Korea to consider pausing military agreement with North

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South Korea’s Defence Minister said, on October 10, he would push to suspend a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement in order to resume frontline surveillance on rival North Korea, as the surprise attack on Israel by Hamas militants raised concerns in South Korea about similar assaults by the North.


Also Read | What did Hamas achieve from the attack on Israel?

The agreement, reached during a brief period of diplomacy between South Korea’s former liberal President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, created buffer zones along land and sea boundaries and no-fly zones above the border to prevent clashes.

Talking with reporters in Seoul, South Korean Defence Minister Shin Won-sik cited the violence in Israel and Gaza to stress the need to strengthen monitoring on the North. Shin was appointed by President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday.

Shin was particularly critical of the inter-Korean agreement’s no-fly zones, which he said prevents South Korea from fully utilising its air surveillance assets at a time when North Korean nuclear threats are growing.

Relations between the Koreas have decayed following the collapse of larger talks between Washington and Pyongyang in 2019 over the North’s nuclear weapons programme. North Korea has threatened to abandon the 2018 agreement while dialling up missile tests to a record pace, prompting the conservative Yoon to take a harder line on Pyongyang than his dovish predecessor.


Also Read | What is Hamas, the Palestinian militant group?

“While it would take a complicated legal process for South Korea to fully abandon the agreement, pausing the agreement would only require a decision from a Cabinet meeting,” Shin said.

“Hamas has attacked Israel, and the Republic of Korea is under a much stronger threat,” Shin said, invoking South Korea’s formal name.

“To counter (that threat), we need to be observing (North Korean military movements) with our surveillance assets, to gain prior knowledge of whether they are preparing provocations or not. If Israel had flown aircraft and drones to maintain continuous monitoring, I think they might have not been hit like that,” he said.

Shin’s comments are likely to draw fierce criticism from South Korea’s liberal opposition, which has described the agreement as a safety valve between the Koreas as relations continue to worsen.

There haven’t been major skirmishes between the Koreas since the agreement was reached in September 2018. But South Korea last November accused the North of violating the agreement’s tensions-reducing requirements when it fired a missile near a populated South Korean island near their sea border, triggering air raid sirens and forcing residents to evacuate.

In June 2020, North Korea blew up an empty inter-Korean liaison office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong to demonstrate anger over South Korea’s unwillingness to prevent its civilian activists from flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border. North Korean troops also shot and killed a South Korean government official who was found drifting near their sea boundary in September that year.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years as the pace of both North Korea’s weapons demonstrations and the United States’ combined military exercises with South Korea and Japan have both intensified in tit-for-tat.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group will arrive in the South Korean mainland port of Busan on Thursday in the allies’ latest show of force against North Korea.

The Ministry said the Reagan’s Carrier Strike Group 5 conducted joint training with South Korean and Japanese naval assets on Monday and Tuesday in waters near the southern South Korean island of Jeju.

Kim, in turn, has been boosting the visibility of his partnerships with Moscow and Beijing as he attempts to break out of diplomatic isolation and insert Pyongyang into a united front against Washington.

Recent commercial satellite photos show a sharp increase in rail traffic along the North Korea-Russia border, indicating the North is supplying munitions to Russia to fuel President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine,Beyond Parallel, a website run by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a report last week.

Speculation about a possible North Korean plan to refill Russia’s munition stores drained in its protracted war with Ukraine flared last month, when Kim travelled to Russia to meet Mr. Putin and visit key military sites. Foreign officials suspect Kim is seeking advanced Russian weapons technologies in return for to boost his nuclear programme.

North Korea is expected to make its third attempt to launch a military spy satellite this month following consecutive failures in recent months, as Kim stresses the importance of acquiring space-based reconnaissance capacities to monitor U.S. and South Korean military movements and enhance the threat of his nuclear-capable missiles.

In an editorial published on Monday, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper called for South Korea to take lessons from Israel’s failures to prevent the attack by the Hamas militants while strengthening its readiness against potential North Korean aggression.

“Israel, surrounded by enemies and terrorist forces, is reminiscent of (South) Korea’s current security situation. Even the Mossad failed to detect signs of the attack and Israel’s all-weather air defence system Iron Dome exposed a hole,” the newspaper said. “The government must be thoroughly prepared for North Korea’s possible military provocations when the United States and other allies focus their attention on the Middle East.”

The inter-Korean military agreement is one of the few tangible remnants from Moon’s ambitious diplomacy with Kim. Moon’s efforts helped set up Kim’s first summit with former U.S. President Donald Trump in June 2018.

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What did Hamas achieve from the attack on Israel?

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Police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on October 7, 2023. The rockets were fired as Hamas announced a new operation against Israel.
| Photo Credit: AP

On October 6, 1973, when Egyptian and Syrian troops launched a coordinated attack on Israeli forces stationed in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, Israel was totally caught off guard. Just six years before, Israel had defeated Arab armies and seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, Sinai Peninsula and Gaza from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria — all in six days. Israel’s policy makers as well as military pundits then believed that Israel had established credible deterrence against its rivals in the region. Then came the combined Egyptian-Syrian attack, shattering this theory.

Parallels are already drawn between the Yom Kippur war and the attack Hamas launched from Gaza on Israel on October 7. In 1973, after the initial shock, Israel got itself together and recaptured the lost territories. But the fact that Egypt launched such a massive attack, causing heavy casualties, remained etched in Israel’s collective psyche. In five years, Israel signed the Camp David Agreement with Egypt, agreeing to hand over Sinai in return for normalisation. Egypt’s risky bet paid off in the medium term.

Israel-Palestine conflict October 9 updates

Hamas’ goal 

Will Hamas achieve anything for the Palestinian cause from its attack on Israel? If the Yom Kippur war was fought between national Armies, here, Israel is facing an Islamist militant group. Also, if, in 1973, the fighting mostly took place in Sinai and Golan — territories captured and occupied by Israel — Hamas launched attacks into Israeli towns on its southern border and fired thousands of rockets, killing some 700 Israelis, including many civilians. A furious Israel has already declared war on Hamas and is mobilising troops. What’s awaiting Gaza is fire and fury. While it’s unclear whether Hamas would make any strategic gains in the medium term, like Egypt did, the key question here is whether Hamas actually wanted to extract any strategic gains or concessions from Israel. What was the goal of Hamas’s attack?

After the Oslo process, which promised a two-state solution, froze in the mid-1990s, there has been no major movement in the peace efforts. The late Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and the Middle East Quartet (the UN, the U.S., the EU and Russia) made separate proposals in the millennium aimed at reviving the two-state solution, but those proposals reached nowhere. During this period, divisions between the Palestinian leadership factions widened further, plunging the territories into armed battles between Fatah and Hamas. Israel saw international focus shifting away from Palestine, regional Arab countries coming forward to have ties with it and Palestinian resistance getting weakened by the year. So Israel took a status quoist approach — continue occupation without compromise. 

Unsustainable status quo

It pulled back from Gaza unilaterally in 2005, following the violent first intifada. But from 2007 onwards, Israel (along with Egypt) has imposed a permanent blockade on the enclave. In the West Bank, Israel has set up hundreds of security checkpoints and huge security barriers, limiting the Palestinian movements. Jewish settlements mushroomed in the West Bank (which are segregated by barriers from Arab inhabitants) and pro-settlement politicians rose to power. The Palestinian Authority, which is dependent on foreign aid, or Fatah remained largely helpless

Also read | Breaking the Israel-Palestine logjam

There were frequent isolated violent attacks by the Palestinians, mostly knife attacks, which were met with instant retribution — in almost all cases the attacker would be shot dead and their houses would be demolished. Over the years, Israel managed to build a security order that neutralised large-scale Palestinian violence through force, checkpoints and barriers, while the occupation and blockade of the Palestinian territories continued. The status quo, without any progress in their quest for statehood, was unsustainable for the Palestinians, but preferable for the Israelis — until October 7.

Collapse of deterrence 

Hamas’s coordinated attack on Saturday seems to have punctured holes in this security model and Israel’s aura of invincibility. For a country that’s proud of its intelligence prowess and military superiority, which it never hesitated to use against its enemies, the failures on October 7 is likely to haunt Israel’s policymakers for years, if not decades. It’s an old axiom in conflict studies that deterrence doesn’t hold in asymmetric conflicts, which was proved right once again. But if deterrence doesn’t hold against Hamas, Islamic JIhad and other non-state actors such as Hezbollah, what shall Israel do next to ensure its security?    

Hamas also showed that the Palestine issue remains at the centre of West Asia’s political problems, irrespective of the geopolitical realignments that are recently under way in the region, be it the Saudi-Iran detente; the Qatar-Saudi patch-up; the Turkey-Saudi/UAE reengagement, the reaccommodation of Syria into the Arab fold; or the Israel-Saudi talks.

So the objective of Hamas’s attack was the attack itself, which drilled holes into Israel’s security model and brought the Palestine issue back to the fore of West Asian geopolitics. But for that, it has taken a huge risk. By massacring hundreds of Israeli civilians, Hamas has gone back to its original tactics used in the 1990s and early 2000s, which earned it the terrorist tag. Its regional backers would come under heavy international pressure. The unprecedented attack would also invite a ground offensive from Israel, besides massive air strikes that are already under way. Israel would target Hamas’s military and social infrastructure. Hundreds more Palestinians would be killed. When Israel launched a ground invasion into Lebanon in 2006, Hezbollah fought back for 30 days, finally forcing Israel to reach a ceasefire. Does Hamas have the wherewithal to resist Israel for long in the tiny besieged Gaza strip? Only time would tell. 

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Netanyahu tells Israel ‘We are at war’ after Hamas kills at least 232 in an unprecedented attack

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 The ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land and sea, catching the country off guard on a major holiday.

Several hours after the invasion began, Hamas militants were still fighting gunbattles inside several Israeli communities in a surprising show of strength that shook the country. Israel’s national rescue service said at least 200 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded, making it the deadliest attack in Israel in years.

The Soroka Medical Center in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba said it was treating at least 280 casualties, with 60 in serious condition.

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There was no official comment on casualties in Gaza, but Associated Press reporters witnessed the funerals of 15 people who were killed and saw another eight bodies arrive at a local hospital. It was not immediately clear if they were fighters or civilians.

Social media was replete with videos of Hamas fighters parading what appeared to be stolen Israeli military vehicles through the streets and at least one dead Israeli soldier within Gaza being dragged and trampled by an angry crowd of Palestinians shouting “God is Greatest.”

Rockets are fired toward Israel from Gaza, on October 7, 2023
| Photo Credit:
AP

Videos released by Hamas appeared to show at least three Israelis captured alive. The military declined to give details about casualties or kidnappings as it continued to battle the infiltrators.

“We are at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address, declaring a mass army mobilization. “Not an ‘operation,’ not a ‘round,’ but at war.”

“The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” he added, promising that Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”

The serious invasion on Simchat Torah, a normally joyous day when Jews complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll, revived painful memories of the 1973 Mideast war practically 50 years to the day, in which Israel’s enemies launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Comparisons to one of the most traumatic moments in Israeli history sharpened criticism of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who had campaigned on more aggressive action against threats from Gaza. Political commentators lambasted the government over its failure to anticipate what appeared to be a Hamas attack unseen in its level of planning and coordination.

There were reports of many more casualties on both sides, but authorities did not immediately release details. Israeli media reported that dozens of people were hospitalized in southern Israel. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported injuries among “many citizens” without giving numbers and loudspeakers on mosques broadcast prayers of mourning for killed militants.

The Israeli military struck targets in Gaza in response for some 2,500 rockets that sent air raid sirens wailing constantly as far north as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. It said its forces were engaged in gunfights with Hamas militants who had infiltrated Israel in at least seven locations. The fighters had sneaked across the separation fence and even invaded Israel through the air with paragliders, the army said.

Israeli TV broadcast footage of explosions tearing through the Gaza-Israel border fence, followed by what appeared to be Palestinian gunmen riding into Israel on motorcycles. Gunmen also reportedly entered on pickup trucks.

It was not immediately clear what prompted Hamas to launch the attacks, which would have likely required months of planning.

But over the past year Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, announced the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.” The Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam, and is located on the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.

“Enough is enough,” Deif, who does not appear in public, said in the recorded message, as he called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight. “Today the people are regaining their revolution.”

In a televised address, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that Hamas had made “a grave mistake” and promised that “the state of Israel will win this war.”

The attack comes at a time of historic division within Israel over Netanyahu’s proposal to overhaul the judiciary. Mass protests over the plan have sent hundreds thousands of Israeli demonstrators into the streets and prompted hundreds military reservists to avoid volunteer duty — turmoil that has raised fears over the military’s battlefield readiness and raised concerns about its deterrence over its enemies.

The infiltration of fighters into southern Israel marked a major escalation by Hamas that forced millions of Israelis to hunker down in safe rooms. Cities and towns emptied as the military closed roads near Gaza. Israel’s rescue service and the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza appealed to the public to donate blood.

“We understand that this is something big,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesman, told reporters. He said the Israeli military had called up the army reserves.

Hecht declined to comment on how Hamas had managed to catch the army off guard. “That’s a good question,” he said.

Ismail Haniyeh, the exiled leader of Hamas, said that Palestinian fighters were “engaged in these historic moments in a heroic operation” to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

In the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, just 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Gaza Strip, terrified residents who were huddled indoors said they could hear constant gunfire echoing off the buildings as firefights continued even hours after the initial attack.

“With rockets we somehow feel safer, knowing that we have the Iron Dome (missile defense system) and our safe rooms. But knowing that terrorists are walking around communities is a different kind of fear,” said Mirjam Reijnen, a 42-year-old volunteer firefighter and mother of three in Nahal Oz.

Israel has built a massive fence along the Gaza border meant to prevent infiltrations. It goes deep underground and is equipped with cameras, high-tech sensors and sensitive listening technology.

The escalation comes after weeks of heightened tensions along Israel’s volatile border with Gaza, and heavy fighting in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Saturday’s wide-ranging assault threatened to undermine Netanyahu’s reputation as a security expert who would do anything to protect Israel. It also raised questions about the cohesion of a security apparatus crucial to the stability of a country locked in low-intensity conflicts on multiple fronts and facing threats from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.

Hezbollah congratulated Hamas on Friday, praising the attack as a response to “Israeli crimes” and saying the militants had “divine backing.” The group said its command in Lebanon was in contact with Hamas about the operation.

Israel has maintained a blockade over Gaza since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. The bitter enemies have fought four wars since then. There have also been numerous rounds of smaller fighting between Israel and Hamas and other smaller militant groups based in Gaza.

The blockade, which restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, has devastated the territory’s economy. Israel says the blockade is needed to keep militant groups from building up their arsenals. The Palestinians say the closure amounts to collective punishment.

The rocket fire comes during a period of heavy fighting in the West Bank, where nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military raids this year. In the volatile northern West Bank, scores of militants and residents poured into the streets in celebration at the news of the rocket barrages.

Israel says the raids are aimed at militants, but stone-throwing protesters and people uninvolved in the violence have also been killed. Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets have killed over 30 people.

The tensions have also spread to Gaza, where Hamas-linked activists held violent demonstrations along the Israeli border in recent weeks. Those demonstrations were halted in late September after international mediation.

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