Gaza's desperate civilians search for food, water and safety, as warnings of Israeli offensive mount
Deir Al-Balah (Gaza Strip) (AP): Gaza's 2.3 million civilians faced a deepening struggle for food, water and safety Sunday and braced for a looming invasion a week after Hamas launched attack on Israel.
While hundreds of thousands sought to heed Israel's order to evacuate the north, others huddled at hospitals there.
Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of US warships in the region, positioned themselves along Gaza's border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the Hamas.
A week of blistering airstrikes have demolished entire neighbourhoods but failed to stem hamas rocket fire into Israel.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,329 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting erupted, more than in the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted over six weeks.
That makes this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides.
More than 1,300 Israelis have been killed, the vast majority of them civilians killed in Hamas's October 7 attack. This is the deadliest war for Israel since the 1973 conflict with Egypt and Syria.
Israel dropped leaflets over Gaza City in the north and renewed warnings on social media, ordering more than 1 million Palestinians almost half the territory's population to move south.
The military says it is trying to clear away civilians ahead of a major campaign against Hamas in the north, including in what it said were underground hideouts in Gaza City. Hamas urged people to stay in their homes.
The UN and aid groups say such a rapid exodus, along with Israel's complete siege of the 40-kilometre-long (25-mile-long) coastal territory would cause untold human suffering.
The World Health Organisation said the evacuation "could be tantamount to a death sentence" for the more than 2,000 patients in northern hospitals, including newborns in incubators and people in intensive care.
Gaza's hospitals are expected to run out of generator fuel within two days, according to the UN, which said that that would endanger the lives of thousands of patients.
Gaza was already in a humanitarian crisis due to a growing shortage of water and medical supplies caused by the Israeli siege, which has also forced the sole electrical plant to shut down. With some bakeries closing, residents said they were unable to buy bread.
In Gaza City, Haifa Khamis al-Shurafa crowded into a car with six family members, fleeing to the south in the darkness. "We don't deserve this," Shurafa said, before leaving her home city. "We didn't kill anyone."
The Israeli military said "hundreds of thousands" of Palestinians had heeded the warning and headed south.
It gave Palestinians a six-hour window that ended Saturday afternoon to travel safely within Gaza along two main routes, but has not set a firm deadline for the evacuation.
Hundreds of relatives of the estimated 150 people captured by Hamas in Israel and taken to Gaza meanwhile gathered outside the Israeli Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv, demanding their release.
"This is my cry out to the world: Please help bring my family, my wife and three kids," said Avihai Brodtz of Kfar Azza. Many expressed anger toward the government, saying they still have no information about their loved ones.
In a televised address Saturday night, Israel's chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, accused Hamas of trying to use civilians as human shields.
"We are going to attack Gaza City very broadly soon," he said, without giving a timetable for the attack.
Israel has called up some 360,000 military reserves and massed troops and tanks along the border with Gaza.
Israelis living near the Gaza border, including residents of the town of Sderot, continued to be evacuated. hamas in Gaza have fired over 5,500 rockets since the hostilities erupted, many reaching deep into Israel, as Israeli warplanes pound Gaza.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said late Saturday that the US was moving a second carrier strike group, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, to the eastern Mediterranean, in a show of force meant to deter any allies of Hamas, such as Iran or Lebanon's Hezbollah group, from seeking to widen the war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meanwhile met with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh as the Biden administration scrambles to prevent a wider regional conflict.
Prince Mohammed is the sixth Arab leader Blinken has met since he arrived in the Middle East Thursday.
Hamas remained defiant. In a televised speech Saturday, Ismail Haniyeh, a top official based abroad, said that "all the massacres" will not break the Palestinian people.
Hamas spokesperson Jihad Taha told The Associated Press in Beirut that Israel "does not dare to fight a ground battle," because of the captives.
He alluded to the possible entry of Hezbollah and other regional players in the battle should Israel launch a ground invasion but declined to say whether they had made any concrete commitments.
An Israeli airstrike near the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed at least 27 people and wounded another 80, Gaza health authorities said.
Most of the victims were women and children, the authorities said. Doctors from Kamal Edwan Hospital shared footage of charred and disfigured bodies.
It was not clear how many Palestinians remained in northern Gaza by Saturday afternoon, said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. An estimated 1 million people have been displaced in Gaza in one week, she said.
At Gaza City's main hospital, al-Shifa, a crowd of men, women and children that medical officials estimated at 35,000 crammed into the hospital's lobby and bloodied hallways and under the trees on the hospital grounds, hoping the facility would be spared in the coming attack.
"People think this is the only safe space after their homes were destroyed and they were forced to flee," said Dr. Medhat Abbas, a Health Ministry official.
Basic necessities were running out because of the siege, which Israel has said will only be lifted when the captives are returned.
Water has stopped coming out of taps across the territory. Amal Abu Yahia, a 25-year-old pregnant mother in the Jabaliya refugee camp, said she waited anxiously for the few minutes when contaminated water trickles from the pipes in her basement. She rations it, prioritizing her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. She said she is drinking so little herself, she only urinates every other day.
Near the coast, the only tap water is contaminated with Mediterranean Sea water because of the lack of sanitation facilities.
Mohammed Ibrahim, 28, said his neighbours in Gaza City have taken to drinking the salt water.
The Israeli military's evacuation order demands the territory's entire population cram into the southern half of Gaza as Israel continues strikes, including in the south. The Hamas communications office said Israel has destroyed over 7,000 housing units so far.
The UN refugee agency for Palestinians expressed concern for those who could not leave, "particularly pregnant women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities."
The agency also called for Israel to not target civilians, hospitals, schools, clinics and UN locations.
Al-Shifa hospital was receiving hundreds of wounded every hour and had used up 95 per cent of its medical supplies, hospital director Mohammad Abu Selim said. Water is scarce and the fuel powering its generators is dwindling.
"The situation inside the hospital is miserable in every sense of the word," he said. "The operating rooms don't stop." (AP)
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Netanyahu recommends his Cabinet approve Hezbollah cease-fire proposal
Beirut, Nov 26: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he would recommend his cabinet adopt a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah, as Israeli warplanes struck across Lebanon, killing at least 23 people.
The Israeli military also issued a flurry of evacuation warnings — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah down to the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. For the first time in the conflict, Israeli ground troops reached parts of Lebanon's Litani River, a focal point of the emerging deal.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said he would present the ceasefire to Cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting.
Netanyahu said the vote was expected later Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal does not affect Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, which shows no signs of ending.
The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously have not been targeted. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks before a ceasefire, sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, and some cars had mattresses tied to them. Dozens of people, some wearing their pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, kept up its rocket fire, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel.
Lebanese officials have said Hezbollah also supports the deal. If approved by all sides, the deal would be a major step toward ending the Israel-Hezbollah war that has inflamed tensions across the region and raised fears of an even wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's patron, Iran.
The deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor all sides' compliance.
But implementation remains a major question mark. Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted on Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, doesn't provide “effective enforcement” of the deal.
“If you don't act, we will act, and with great force,” Katz said, speaking with UN special envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel's security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France.
“There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire. Otherwise, Lebanon will fall apart,” Borrell told reporters in Italy on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting. He said France would participate on the ceasefire implementation committee at Lebanon's request.
Bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs continues
Even as Israeli, US, Lebanese and international officials have expressed growing optimism over a ceasefire, Israel has continued its campaign in Lebanon, which it says aims to cripple Hezbollah's military capabilities.
An Israeli strike on Tuesday levelled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city's downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
Three people were killed in a separate strike in Beirut and three in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Lebanese state media said another 10 people were killed in the eastern Baalbek province. Israel says it targets Hezbollah fighters and their infrastructure.
Earlier, Israeli jets struck at least six buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs. One strike slammed near the country's only airport, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The airport has continued to function despite its location on the Mediterranean coast next to the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollah's operations are based.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in the suburbs, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where UNIFIL is headquartered.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Associated Press that peacekeepers will not evacuate.
Other strikes hit in the southern city of Tyre, where the Israeli military said it killed a local Hezbollah commander.
The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometres from the Israeli border.
Previous ceasefire hopes were dashed
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest Iranian-backed force in the region, would likely significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It's not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.
Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have been exchanging barrages ever since.
Israel escalated its campaign of bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country's north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon.
After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted there could be last-minute hitches that delay or destroy an agreement.
“Nothing is done until everything is done,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
