Powerful new explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday (October 5, 2024) as Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon, also striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in the north for the first time as it targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters.

Israel war live updates – October 6, 2024

Thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees, continued to flee the widening conflict in the region, while rallies were held around the world marking the approaching anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.

Evacuation order in Dahiyeh

The strong explosions began near midnight and continued into Sunday (October 6, 2024) after Israel’s military urged residents to evacuate areas in Dahiyeh, the predominantly Shiite collection of suburbs on Beirut’s southern edge. AP video showed the blasts illuminating the densely populated southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. They followed a day of sporadic strikes and the nearly continuous buzz of reconnaissance drones.

Israel’s military confirmed it was striking targets near Beirut and said about 30 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with some intercepted.

The strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s only international airport, and another building formerly used by the Hezbollah-run broadcaster Al-Manar. Social media reports claimed that one of the strikes hit an oxygen tank storage facility, but this was later denied by the owner of the company Khaled Kaddouha.

Shortly thereafter, Hezbollah claimed in a statement that it successfully targeted a group of Israeli soldiers near the Manara settlement in northern Israel “with a large rocket salvo, hitting them accurately.”

On Saturday (October 6, 2024), Israel’s attack on the northern Beddawi camp killed an official with Hamas’ military wing along with his wife and two young daughters, the Palestinian militant group said. Hamas later said another military wing member was killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. The aftermath showed smashed buildings, scattered bricks and stairways to nowhere.

Israel has killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began, in addition to most of the top leadership of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah as fighting has sharply escalated.

At least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes in less than two weeks. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group away from shared borders so displaced Israelis can return to their homes.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ October 7 attack, calling it a show of support for the Palestinians. Hezbollah and Israel’s military have traded fire almost daily.

Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and others. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief war in 2006. Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground clashes that Israel says have killed 440 Hezbollah fighters.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Damascus that “we are trying to reach a cease-fire in Gaza and in Lebanon.” The minister said the unnamed countries putting forward initiatives include regional states and some outside the Middle East.

Mr. Araghchi spoke a day after the supreme leader of Iran praised its recent missile strikes on Israel and said it was ready to do it again if necessary.

On Saturday (October 5, 2024) evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel has the duty and the right to defend itself and respond to these attacks, and it will do so.” On Lebanon, he said ”we are not done yet.”

Israel’s military earlier Saturday (October 5, 2024) said about 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Most were intercepted, but several fell in the northern Arab town of Deir al-Asad, where police said three people were lightly injured.

At least six people in Lebanon were killed in more than a dozen Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday, according to the Lebanese state-run National News Agency.

Nearly 375,000 people have fled from Lebanon into Syria in less than two weeks, according to a Lebanese government committee.

Associated Press journalists saw hundreds continuing to cross the Masnaa Border Crossing on foot, crunching over the rubble after Israeli airstrikes left huge craters in the road leading to it on Thursday. Much of Hezbollah’s weaponry is believed to come from Iran through Syria.

‘Don’t want to die at the hands of Netanyahu’

“We were on the road for two days,” said Issa Hilal, one of many Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are now heading back. “The roads were very crowded … it was very difficult. We almost died getting here.” Some children whimpered or cried.

Other displaced families now shelter alongside Beirut’s famous seaside Corniche, their wind-flapped tents just steps from luxury homes. “We don’t care if we die, but we don’t want to die at the hands of Netanyahu,” said Om Ali Mcheik.

The Israeli military said special forces were carrying out ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. It said troops dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.

Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the Health Ministry there, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. Almost 90% of Gaza’s residents are displaced, amid widespread destruction.

Palestinian medical officials said Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza on Saturday (October 5, 2024) killed at least nine people. One in the northern town of Beit Hanoun killed at least five, including two children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Another hit a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four, Awda hospital said.

Israel’s military did not have any immediate comment but has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.

An Israeli airstrike killed two children in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighborhood, according to the civil defense first responders’ group that operates under the Hamas-run government.

Israel’s military warned Palestinians to evacuate along the strategic Netzarim corridor in central Gaza that was at the heart of obstacles to a cease-fire deal. The military told people in parts of the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps to evacuate to Muwasi, a coastal area it has designated a humanitarian zone.

It’s unclear how many Palestinians are in those areas. Israeli forces have often returned to areas in Gaza to target Hamas fighters as they regroup.

A surface-to-surface missile that was launched from Yemen towards Israel is intercepted by Israel’s Arrow system outside of Israeli territory according to the Israeli military, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, September 27, 2024
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel’s military says it has intercepted a missile fired from Yemen that set off air raid sirens across the country’s centre.

Air raid sirens rang out across Israel’s populous central area, including the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv.

Israel-Hezbollah conflict: All you need to know about the escalating cross-border tension

Another missile from Yemen landed in central Israel about two weeks ago.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday (September 26, 2024) vowed to carry out “full force” strikes against Hezbollah until it ceases firing rockets across the border, dimming hopes for a ceasefire proposal put forth by US and European officials.

Israel carried out a new strike in the Lebanese capital, which killed a senior Hezbollah commander, and the militant group launched dozens of rockets into Israel. Tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese people living near their countries’ border have been displaced by the fighting.

Netanyahu spoke as he landed in New York to attend the annual U.N General Assembly meeting, where US and European officials were putting heavy pressure on both sides of the conflict to accept a proposed 21-day halt in the fighting to give time for diplomacy and avert all-out war.

Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week as Israel dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities. Israeli leaders say they are determined to stop the group’s cross-border attacks, which began after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.

Israel’s “policy is clear,” Netanyahu said. “We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force. And we will not stop until we reach all our goals, chief among them the return of the residents of the north securely to their homes.” Just before his comments, the Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah drone commander, Mohammed Hussein Surour, in an airstrike in the suburbs of Beirut. Hezbollah later confirmed Surour’s death.

The Health Ministry said two people were killed and 15 wounded in the strike. Associated Press photos of the scene showed a gutted apartment in a residential building in Dahiyeh, the mainly Shiite suburb where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

Until recently, Israel had rarely targeted sites in Beirut during the low-level conflict with Hezbollah that has been ongoing since October. However, in the past week, Israel has struck Beirut’s southern suburbs several times.

Over the past week, Israel has carried out several strikes in Beirut targeting senior Hezbollah commanders. One strike in eastern Lebanon on Thursday killed 20 people, most of them Syrian migrants, according to Lebanese health officials.

Israel hit 75 sites early Thursday across southern and eastern Lebanon and launched a new wave of strikes in the evening, the military said. Throughout the day, Hezbollah fired some 175 projectiles into Israel, the Israeli military said. Most were intercepted or fell in open areas, sparking some wildfires, though one rocket hit a street in a town near the northern city of Safed.

Israel has talked of a possible ground invasion into Lebanon to drive Hezbollah — an Iranian-backed Shiite group that is the strongest armed force in Lebanon — away from the border. It has moved thousands of troops to the north in preparation. Some 100,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in the past week, streaming into Beirut and points further north.

Israeli military vehicles transported tanks and armored vehicles toward the country’s northern border with Lebanon a day after commanders issued a call-up of reservists. Several tanks arrived in Kiryat Shmona, a hard-hit town just several miles from the border.

The escalation has raised fears of a repeat – or worse – of the 2006 war between the two sides that wreaked destruction across southern Lebanon and other parts of the country and saw heavy Hezbollah rocket fire on Israeli cities.

Israel flatly rejected on Thursday (September 26, 2024) a push led by key backer the United States for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, as it vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants “until victory”.

Israeli aerial bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon has killed hundreds of people this week, while the militant group has hit back with barrages of rockets.

“There will be no ceasefire in the north. We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” Katz said in a post on social media platform X.

Moments earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying he had “not even responded” to the truce proposal, and that he had ordered the military “to continue the fighting with full force”.

The United States, France and other allies issued a joint statement calling for a 21-day halt in the fighting, with President Joe Biden, his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and other allies meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The situation in Lebanon has become “intolerable” and “is in nobody’s interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon,” the statement said.

On the ground, there was no let-up in the violence.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said it had struck “approximately 75 terror targets” in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon and the south, both Hezbollah bastions that have seen a huge exodus people fleeing their homes in recent days.

One strike near the ancient city of Baalbek killed at least nine people, Lebanon’s health ministry said, as the official National News Agency described the overnight bombing of the area as “the most violent” of recent days.

“It was indescribable, it was one of the worst nights we’ve lived through. You think there’s just a second between life and death,” said Fadia Rafic Yaghi, 70, who owns a shop in Baalbek.

The Israeli military also said around 45 rockets had been fired from Lebanon, adding that some had been intercepted while others had landed in unpopulated areas.

Hezbollah said that it had targeted defence industry complexes near the city of Haifa in northern Israel, saying it was “defending Lebanon and its people”, after rocketing the same complex previously this week.

Possible ground offensive

Israel earlier this month said it was shifting its focus from Gaza, where it has been fighting a war with Hamas since the October 7 attack, to securing its border with Lebanon.

Hamas ally Hezbollah has been fighting Israeli troops across the Lebanon border since October, forcing tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.

Netanyahu announced earlier this month that ensuring the safe return of Israelis to their homes in the north was a priority.

He delayed his departure for New York until Thursday, where he is due to address the General Assembly.

On Wednesday, Israel’s army chief told soldiers to prepare for a possible ground offensive against Hezbollah, as two reserve brigades were called up “for operational missions in the northern arena”.

“We are attacking all day, both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said.

Exodus

For many on both sides of the border, the violence has sparked bitter memories of the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

According to the UN, Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has forced 90,000 people to flee their homes in traditional Hezbollah strongholds to safer areas elsewhere in the tiny Mediterranean country.

Hezbollah had on Wednesday said it targeted Israel’s Mossad spy agency headquarters on Tel Aviv’s outskirts — the first time it has claimed a ballistic missile firing in almost a year of cross-border clashes sparked by the Gaza war.

Tel Aviv resident Hedva Fadlon, 61, told AFP: “The situation is difficult. We feel the pressure and the tension… I don’t think anyone in the world would like to live like this.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Middle East was facing a “full-scale catastrophe” and warned Tehran would back Lebanon by “all means” if Israel escalated its offensive.

Editorial | ​Rogue state: On Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah 

The Israeli military said Wednesday it had hit more than 2,000 Hezbollah targets over the previous three days, including 60 Hezbollah intelligence sites.

Israeli strikes killed at least 558 people on Monday — by far the deadliest day of violence in Lebanon not just in the latest escalation, but since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Israel’s bombardment on Wednesday killed another 72 people and wounded 400 more, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Gaza link?

Prior to the current escalation, diplomats had said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to calming regional tensions, including in Lebanon.

But Qatar, a key broker in the stalled talks to end the Gaza war, said it was unaware of a “direct link” between the two.

“I’m not aware of a direct link, but obviously both mediations are hugely overlapping when you are talking about the same parties, for the most part, that are taking part,” foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,495 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

As the world’s attention focuses on the deadly war in Gaza, less than 80 miles away scores of Palestinian teens have been killed, shot, and arrested in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has waged a monthslong crackdown.

More than 150 teens and children 17 or younger have been killed in the embattled territory since Hamas’ brutal attack on communities in southern Israel set off the war last October. Most died in nearly daily raids by the Israeli army that Amnesty International says have used disproportionate and unlawful force.

Amjad Hamadneh lost son Mahmoud when the 15-year-old’s school dismissed students at the start of a May raid.

“He didn’t do anything. He didn’t make a single mistake,” says Amjad Hamadneh, whose son, a buzz-cut devotee of computer games, was one of two teens killed that morning by a sniper.

Also Read: Indian-origin Israeli soldier killed amid escalating tensions in West Bank

“If he’d been a freedom fighter or was carrying a weapon, I would not be so emotional,” says his father, an unemployed construction worker. “But he was taken just as easily as water going down your throat. He only had his books and a pencil case.”

It is clear from statements by the Israeli military, insurgents and families in the West Bank that a number of the Palestinian teens killed in recent months were members of militant groups.

Many others were killed during protests or when they or someone nearby threw rocks or homemade explosives at military vehicles. Still others appear to have been random targets. Taken together, the killings raise troubling questions about the devaluation of young lives in pursuit of security and autonomy.

The Israeli army said in a statement to The Associated Press that it has stepped up raids since Oct. 7 to apprehend militants suspected of carrying out attacks in the West Bank and that “the absolute majority of those killed during this period were armed or involved in terrorist activities at the time of the incident.”

On the June afternoon that 17-year-old Issa Jallad was killed, video from a neighbor’s security camera shows, he was on a friend’s motorbike with an Israeli armored vehicle in close pursuit. Days later, a poster outside his family’s home in Jenin showed him cradling an assault rifle and declared him a holy warrior.

But the grainy tape, reviewed by AP days after the raid, and others from nearby cameras do not explain where he fit in the conflict. The Israeli army said that its soldiers had spotted two militants handling a powerful explosive device. When the pair tried to flee, troops opened fire and “neutralized them.”

But an Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, says its review of multiple security camera videos showed Jallad and his friend posed no threat.

“We all expected to be in this situation,” said the teen’s brother, Mousa Jallad. “It could happen to any of us.”

Jenin’s refugee camp has long been notorious as a hotbed of Palestinian militancy, raided repeatedly by Israeli forces who have occupied the West Bank since seizing control in their 1967 war with neighboring Arab States.

The embattled territory was already seeing deadly clashes before the war began. But Israeli forces, which police about 3 million Palestinians while assigned to protect 500,000 Jewish settlers, has significantly stepped up raids in the months since.

Youths represent almost a quarter of the nearly 700 Palestinians slain in the West Bank since the war began, the most since the violent uprising known as the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. More than 20 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been killed in the territory since October.

A military spokesman said the Israeli army makes great efforts to avoid harming civilians during raids and “does not target civilians, period.” He said human rights groups focus on a few outlier cases.

Military operations in the West Bank are fraught because forces are pursuing militants, many in their teens, who often hide among the civilian population, said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani.

“In many cases many of them are 15, 16 years old who are not wearing uniforms and might surprise you with a gun, with a knife,” he said.

Critics say the crackdown is shaped by retribution, not only military strategy.

When sirens erupted at the start of the May raid, Amjad Hamadneh says, he called Mahmoud on his cellphone and was relieved to hear that the brothers had reached their school. But then Mahmoud’s twin brother, Ahmed, called back to say that the principal had dismissed classes. As students poured into the street, the brothers were separated in the chaos.

Four bullets hit Mr. Mahmoud as he fled, and another pierced his skull. He was the third student from his school killed in a raid since the war began.

A former classmate, Osama Hajir, who had dropped out of school to work, was also killed, along with a teacher from a nearby school and a doctor from the hospital down the street.

“Now when I hear the sound of sirens I go to my room and stay there,” says Karam Miazneh, another classmate, who was shot during the raid but survived. “I’m still in fear that they will come to shoot me and kill me.”

Immediately after the May raid, a spokesman for the army said it had carried out the operation with Israeli border police and the country’s internal security agency, destroying an explosive device laboratory and other structures used by militants. But police recently declined to comment, and three weeks after the AP asked the military to answer questions about the May raid, an army spokesman said he was unable to comment until he could confer with police.

When Amjad Hamadneh heard his son had been wounded, he sped through Jenin’s twisting streets, drawing gunfire as he neared the hospital. But Mahmoud was already gone.

Nearby, Osama’s father, Muhamad, broke down as he leaned over his son’s body. Months earlier he’d snapped a photo of the smiling teen beside graffiti touting Jenin as “the factory of men,” tirelessly cranking out fighters in the resistance against Israel. Now, he pressed that same, still-smooth face between his hands.

“Oh, my son. Oh, my son,” he sobbed. “My beautiful son.”

Since Mahmoud Hamadneh was killed, his siblings ask frequently to visit his grave. His younger sister now sleeps in his bed so her surviving brother, Ahmed, will not be in the room alone.

“I feel like I cannot breathe. We used to do everything together,” Ahmed says. His father listens closely, despairing later that such grief could drive the teen into militancy. If the risk is so clear to a Palestinian father, he says, why don’t Israeli soldiers see it?

“They think that if they kill us that people will be afraid and not do anything,” he says. “But when the Israelis kill someone, 10 fighters will be created in his place.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah at Kuwait international airport in Kuwait City.
| Photo Credit: AFP

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on My 12 appealed for an immediate halt to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the return of hostages and a “surge” in humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.

“I repeat my call, the world’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid,” Mr. Guterres said in a video address to an international donors’ conference in Kuwait. “But a ceasefire will only be the start. It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war,” he added.

Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on May 12 after it expanded an evacuation order for Rafah despite international outcry over its military incursion into eastern areas of the city, effectively shutting a key aid crossing.

“The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and rendering huge numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatised,” Mr. Guterres said.

His remarks were played at the opening of the conference in Kuwait organised by the International Islamic Charitable Organization (IICO) and the UN’s humanitarian coordination organisation OCHA.

On May 10, in Nairobi, the UN head warned Gaza faced an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.

Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’ unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Palestinians prepare to evacuate, after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of Rafah, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 11, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel ordered new evacuations in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on May 11 as it prepared to expand its operation, saying it was also moving into an area in northern Gaza where Hamas has regrouped.

Fighting is escalating across the enclave with heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of Rafah, leaving the crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and forcing more than 110,000 people to flee north.

Israel’s move into Rafah has so far been short of the full-scale invasion that it has planned.

The United Nations and other agencies have warned for weeks that an Israeli assault on Rafah, which borders Egypt near the main aid entry points, would cripple humanitarian operations and cause a disastrous surge in civilian casualties. More than 1.4 million Palestinians — half of Gaza’s population — have been sheltering in Rafah, most after fleeing Israel’s offensives elsewhere.

Army spokesman, Avichay Adraee, told Palestinians in Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya cities and the surrounding areas to leave their homes and head to shelters in the west of Gaza City, warning that people were in “a dangerous combat zone” and that Israel was going to strike with “great force”.

Heavy fighting is underway in northern Gaza, where Hamas appeared to have once again regrouped in an area where Israel has already launched punishing assaults. Battles erupted this week in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City, in the northern part of the territory. Northern Gaza was the first target of the ground offensive. Israel said late last year that it had mostly dismantled Hamas in the area.

At least 19 people, including eight women and eight children, were killed overnight in Central Gaza in three different strikes that hit the towns of Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir al Balah, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah and an Associated Press journalist who counted the bodies.

Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.

Much of Gaza has been destroyed and some 80% of Gaza’s population has been driven from their homes.

File photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on April 30 to launch an incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering from the 7-month-long war.

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel would enter Rafah to destroy Hamas’ battalions there “with or without a deal.” Israel and Hamas are negotiating a cease-fire agreement meant to free hostages and bring some relief to the Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

“The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the questions. We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate Hamas’ battalions there — with a deal or without a deal, to achieve the total victory,” Netanyahu said in a meeting with families of hostages held by militants in Gaza, according to a statement from his office.

Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to achieve “total victory” in the war and has faced pressure from his nationalist governing partners to launch an offensive in Rafah, which Israel says is Hamas’ last major stronghold.

Hopes have risen in recent days that the sides could move toward a deal that would avert an Israeli incursion into Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are sheltering.

The international community, including Israel’s top ally, the U.S., have raised an alarm over the the fate of civilians in Rafah if Israel invades.

Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected stopping the war in return for hostage releases, and says an offensive on Rafah is crucial to destroying the militants after their Oct. 7 attacks on Israel triggered the conflict. His government could be threatened if he agrees to a deal because hard-line Cabinet members have demanded an attack on Rafah.

A Palestinian man walks past shuttered shops during a general strike in Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on October 18, 2023, a day after a rocket hit a Gaza hospital killing hundreds.
| Photo Credit: ZAIN JAAFAR

Two Data Points published last week explored the impoverished nature of the Palestinian territories, especially Gaza, and how Israel controls employment, trade, water and electricity in both Gaza and the West Bank. This third and concluding part of the series on the Israel-Hamas conflict also explores how Israel controls the economy of the Palestinian territories, but focuses only on Israel’s control of exits and entry points, which determines trade and movement of men for employment and other needs.

With entries and exits by air and sea banned, only three crossings — two controlled by Israel and one by Egypt — are available for movement in and out of Gaza. In 2022, 4.24 lakh people were allowed to exit from Gaza to Israel or through Israel to the West Bank. The total estimated population of Gaza in mid-2022 was 20 lakh. In other words, one in five people were allowed to exit once in 2022. The more than 4 lakh exit permits issued in 2022 is the highest in about two decades; the previous high of 5.21 lakh was recorded in 2004. These numbers pale in comparison to the 60 lakh exits recorded in 2000.

Chart 1 | The chart shows the exits of people from Gaza to or through Israel (M=million, k=1,000).

Chart appears incomplete? Click to remove AMP mode

As can be seen in Chart 1, the exit of people permitted to Israel or through it took a dive in the 2000s and remained low in the 2010s due to escalation of hostility at various points in time. In 2008, only 0.26 lakh permits were issued, the lowest ever. In 2006, after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections and started controlling Gaza, Israel stopped most workers from entering the country. This is significant because Gaza lacks industries and most workers found employment in Israel or its settlements. Due to lack of permits, Gaza’s labour force participation rate dwindled in the following years reaching 35% in 2021, among the lowest in the world, as recorded in the Data Point last Monday. Of those who are looking for jobs in Gaza, half are unemployed. These are direct consequences of the decline in exit permits.

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Not just workers, but patients from Gaza who need to cross Israel to access services in the West Bank get delayed for their appointments. In 2022, only two out of every three applications submitted for referral patients to exit Gaza were approved by the time of appointment. Given that Gaza has only 13 hospital beds per 10,000 population, which is among the lowest in the world, this restriction assumes more significance.

Chart 2 | The chart shows incoming goods to Gaza in terms of truckloads from Israel (k=1,000).

The Data Point published last Wednesday showed that in 2021, half the exports from Palestinian territories went to Israel and over 80% of its imports came from Israel. Therefore, restriction of goods movement can impair the Palestinian economy. Data show that in 2022, over 74,000 truckloads of goods were allowed into Gaza by Israel, the lowest since 2014. Chart 2 shows that goods to Gaza from Israel reduced to the lowest levels immediately after the Israeli blockade in 2007. Goods which Israel may consider as having a military use are denied entry.

Gaza’s import dependency on Israel for petrol, diesel, and cooking gas was high before 2018. With Israel scaling down fuel and gas exports to Gaza post-2018, Egypt has taken its spot.

Chart 3 | The chart shows petrol and diesel (in litres) which came into Gaza from Israel and Egypt.

There is severe restrictions on exports as well. In 2009, this was as low as 24 truckloads compared to 5,834 in 2022. While the number of truckloads allowed out of Gaza has improved in the last few years, the latest conflict could affect this.

Chart 4 | The chart shows outgoing goods from Gaza to or through Israel.

Source: “Movement in and out of Gaza in 2022” report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

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Some of Latin America’s largest countries came out on Wednesday to condemn Israel’s attacks on a densely populated refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, widening the diplomatic rift between the region and the Middle Eastern country.

Argentina, home to Latin America’s largest Jewish community, Peru and Mexico lambasted the Israeli attacks, which the Gaza government in the Hamas-controlled territory said had killed nearly 200 people.

The criticisms come a day after Bolivia cut diplomatic ties with Israel over its bombardment and siege of Gaza and mounting civilian casualties, while Colombia and Chile recalled their ambassadors to the country.

-Reuters

Northern Ireland may be thousands of miles from the Middle East but signs of the current heightened conflict can be seen on the streets of the British province.

Palestinian and Israeli flags flutter in pro-Irish and pro-U.K. neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland, tapping into its own history of conflict and division that still affects everyday life despite a 1998 peace deal that largely ended violence.

The growing number of flags displayed are supplemented by murals and graffiti showing support for either the Palestinians or Israel, depending on which side of Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide they are located.

On the Falls Road, a main artery in the mostly pro-Irish western districts of Belfast, Pat Sheehan, a lawmaker with Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the paramilitary IRA, explained that local people feel “empathy” for Palestinians.

“If there’s any nation that can understand the difficulties that the Palestinians are living under now it’s the Irish,” Sheehan told AFP in front of a freshly painted pro-Palestinian mural.

“Ireland has suffered colonialism and occupation for 800 years, there have been many armed uprisings against British rule, and we see Palestinians suffering under similar colonial occupation.”

Nearby, across a so-called peace line — one of many barriers of concrete and metal that still divide Belfast neighbourhoods 25 years after the Good Friday peace accords — Israeli flags now adorn the pro-UK Shankill Road area in response.

“The unionist community in Northern Ireland has a long-standing affinity and affiliation to the cause of Israel,” said Brian Kingston, a lawmaker with the largest pro-UK party, the Democratic Unionist Party.

“We see Israel as having suffered terribly from terrorism over the years just like we have,” said the bespectacled 57-year-old, who previously performed the largely ceremonial role of Lord Mayor of Belfast.

– AFP