Palestinians inspect a vehicle in which employees of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli strike, according to WAFA, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: STRINGER

U.S. charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) said Saturday (November 30, 2024) it was “pausing operations in Gaza at this time” after an Israeli air strike hit a vehicle carrying its workers.

The Israeli military confirmed that a Palestinian employee of WCK was killed in a strike, accusing the worker of being a “terrorist” who “infiltrated Israel and took part in the murderous October 7 massacre” last year.

WCK in a statement said it “had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7 Hamas attack” and did not confirm any deaths.

Earlier Saturday (November 30, 2024), Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five people were killed, including “three employees of World Central Kitchen”, in the strike in the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

“All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible”.

WCK confirmed a strike had hit its workers, but added: “At this time, we are working with incomplete information and are urgently seeking more details.”

The Israeli army statement said representatives from the unit responsible for overseeing humanitarian needs in Gaza had “demanded senior officials from the international community and the WCK administration to clarify the issue and order an urgent examination regarding the hiring of workers who took part in the October 7 massacre”.

It also said its strike in Khan Yunis had hit “a civilian unmarked vehicle and its movement on the route was not coordinated for transporting of aid”.

In April, an Israeli strike killed seven WCK staff – an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.

Israel said it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that strike, but the military admitted a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.

The U.N. said last week that 333 aid workers had been killed since the start of the war in October of last year, 243 of them employees of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

A man stares at the still smoking destruction at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighbourhood in Baalbeck in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley on November 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli strikes killed dozens of people on Sunday (November 10, 2024) in Lebanon and the northern Gaza Strip, where the military has been waging a major offensive for more than a month that aid groups say has further worsened the humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people in the village of Aalmat, north of Beirut and far from the areas in southern and eastern Lebanon where the militant Hezbollah group has a major presence. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said a further six people were wounded. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

In northern Gaza, an Israeli strike on a home sheltering displaced people in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya killed at least 17 people, according to the director of a nearby hospital that received the bodies.

Dr. Fadel Naim, director of the Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said the dead include nine women, and that the toll was likely to rise as rescue efforts continue.

The Israeli military said it targeted a site where militants were operating in Jabaliya, without providing evidence. It said the details of the strike are under review.

A separate strike on Sunday (November 10, 2024) hit a house in Gaza City, killing Wael al-Khour, a Minister in the Hamas-run government, as well as his wife and three children, according to the Civil Defense, a first responders organization that operates under the government.

Israeli forces have encircled and largely isolated Jabaliya and the nearby towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun for the past month, allowing in only a trickle of humanitarian aid. Hundreds of people have been killed since the offensive began on October 6, and tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City.

On Friday (November 8, 2024), experts from a panel that monitors food security said famine is imminent in the north or may already be happening. The growing desperation comes as the deadline approaches for an ultimatum the Biden administration gave Israel to raise the level of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on U.S. military funding.

The northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, was the first target of Israel’s ground invasion and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the 13-month-old war, which was triggered by Hamas’ attack into southern Israel. As in other areas of Gaza, Israel has sent forces back in after repeated operations, saying Hamas has regrouped.

The military says it only targets militants, whom it accuses of hiding among civilians in homes and shelters. Israeli strikes often kill women and children.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel after war broke out in Gaza in solidarity with the Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed militant group Hamas.

Israel retaliated, and a series of escalations over several months led to all-out war in September, when Israel carried out a wave of heavy strikes and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as most of his top commanders.

Since then, Israel has struck areas deeper and deeper inside Lebanon, while Hezbollah has expanded its rocket fire from northern to central Israel. The fighting has killed over 3,000 people in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry, and more than 70 people in Israel.

In videos purporting to show the aftermath of Sunday’s strike in Aalmat, some 40km north of Beirut, people were seen pulling the body of a little girl out of the rubble. The house had been flattened, and several cars nearby were also damaged.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants blew holes in the border fence and stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023. They killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and militants in their count but say over half the fatalities were women and children.

Israeli bombardment and ground invasions have left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and displaced around 90% of the population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of people are living in crowded tent camps with few if any public services and no idea of when they might return to their homes or rebuild.

Cease-fire talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have repeatedly stalled since the start of the year, as have parallel efforts by the U.S. and others to halt the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Qatar, which has served as a key mediator with Hamas, said over the weekend that it had suspended its efforts and would only resume them when “the parties show their willingness and seriousness to end the brutal war and the ongoing suffering of civilians.”

U.S. President Joe Biden has stepped up public pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, warning he’s “hurting Israel” and speaking candidly about “come to Jesus” conversations with the leader over the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Despite Mr. Biden’s increased displays of frustration, Israeli officials and Middle East analysts say no signs are emerging that Mr. Biden can push Israel, at least in the short term, to fundamentally alter how it’s prosecuting the conflict that is entering a new dangerous phase.

Read more on Israel-Palestine Conflict

“He has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Netanyahu in an MSNBC interview. “But he must, he must, he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken. He’s hurting…in my view, he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”

The U.S. President had hoped to have an extended cease-fire in place by the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is set to begin Monday. Biden administration officials see a deal on a temporary truce in exchange for dozens of hostages as a crucial step toward finding an eventual permanent end to the conflict.

But with no deal emerging, Mr. Biden acknowledged last week that he has become more concerned about the prospect of violence in east Jerusalem. Clashes have erupted during Ramadan in recent years between Palestinians and Israeli security forces around Jerusalem’s Old City, home to major religious sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims and the emotional epicenter of the Middle East conflict.

Mr. Biden this weekend warned Mr. Netanyahu that an attack on Rafah—where hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans have congregated—would be a “red line” and that Israel “cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.” At the same time, he said that his commitment to Israel’s defense is sacrosanct.

State of Union address

The President’s blunt comments came after he was caught on a hot mic following his State of Union address on Thursday telling a Democratic ally that he’s told Mr. Netanyahu they will have a “come to Jesus” talk about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The U.S. this month began airdrops and announced it will establish a temporary pier to get badly needed aid into Gaza via sea. U.N. officials have warned at least one quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are one step away from famine. The extraordinary measures to get aid into Gaza have come as Israel has resisted U.S. calls to allow more in via land routes.

And in a move that irritated Mr. Netanyahu, Vice President Kamala Harris last week hosted a member of Israel’s wartime Cabinet, Benny Gantz, who came to Washington in defiance of the prime minister. U.S. officials said that Harris, and other senior advisers to Mr. Biden, were blunt with Gantz about their concerns about an expected Rafah operation.

Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday pushed back againstMr. Biden’s latest comments.

“Well, I don’t know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant…that I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts,” Netanyahu said in a clip of an interview with Politico, released by the prime minister’s office on Sunday.

Mr. Biden’s stepped up criticism of the prime minister’s handling of the war has been an intentional effort to signal to Mr. Netanyahu that the U.S. president is running out of patience with the mounting death toll and lack of aid flow into Gaza, according to a U.S. official familiar with the president’s thinking. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

Elsewhere in Israel, the reaction to Mr. Biden’s public venting of frustration was mixed.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he wasn’t surprised by Mr. Biden’s remarks. Lapid on Sunday accused Mr. Netanyahu of pandering to his base and said the prime minister had narrow political interests in mind, like placating the far-right members of his Cabinet.

The U.S. “lost faith in Mr. Netanyahu and it’s not surprising. Half of his Cabinet has lost faith in him as has the majority of Israel’s citizens,” Lapid, who briefly served as prime minister in 2022, told Israeli Army Radio. “Netanyahu must go.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz downplayed Mr. Biden’s comments, saying the U.S. backed Israel’s war aims and that was what mattered. “We must distinguish rhetoric from the essence,” he told Israeli Army Radio.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations and professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, said Mr. Biden’s decision to scale up aid to Gaza and warn Israel about an incursion into Rafah undermined support for Israel’s aims of dismantling Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and freeing the hostages. He said it relieved Hamas of pressure to agree to a temporary cease-fire deal.

He said Mr. Biden’s harsher comments of late came out of a frustration with Mr. Netanyahu over his reluctance to accept the U.S. vision for a postwar Gaza. Mr. Biden has called for Middle East stakeholders to reinvigorate efforts to find a two-state solution, one in which Israel would co-exist with an independent Palestinian state, once the current war ends.

Mr. Netanyahu, however, has consistently opposed establishing a Palestinian state throughout his political career.

Gilboa said Mr. Biden’s remarks were made with an eye on his reelection and were aimed at appeasing progressive Democrats. The president is facing growing pressure from the left-wing of his party to use the United States’ considerable leverage as Israel’s chief patron to force Mr. Netanyahu toward a permanent cease-fire.

More than 100,00 Michigan Democrats cast “uncommitted” ballots in the state’s primary last month, part of a coordinated effort in the battleground state intended to show Mr. Biden that he could lose much-needed support over frustration with his administration’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war.

“Netanyahu earned that criticism, but on the other hand when (Biden) criticizes Mr. Netanyahu personally, he thinks he improves his standing among progressives,” Gilboa said.

But Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that pointed criticism of the Netanyahu government has limited value for Mr. Biden politically.

“Words without deeds are not going to bring those voters back,” Miller said. “The hemorrhaging is going to continue as long as the pictures in Gaza don’t change.”

Gilboa said that even if a different government were running Israel, such as a more moderate figure like Gantz, Mr. Biden would still find a leadership intent on entering Rafah and defeating Hamas.

“They wouldn’t do things significantly different,” he said. “Is there anyone of sound mind here who is willing to leave Hamas in Gaza? That won’t happen.”

Biden administration officials pushed back against the idea that the president has become more outspoken in his criticism of Mr. Netanyahu with an eye on his 2024 prospects.

It’s not lost on Mr. Biden that Israelis across the political spectrum remain as hawkish as Mr. Netanyahu about eliminating Hamas. Still, Mr. Biden believes that by speaking out more forcefully he can sway the Israelis to do more to reduce the death toll and alleviate suffering of innocent Palestinians as Israel carries out its operations, according to the U.S. official.

Mr. Biden, who last traveled to Israel soon after Hamas’ launched its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, said in the MSNBC interview that he was open to travelling to Israel again to speak directly to the Knesset.

Privately, M. Biden has expressed a desire to aides to make another trip to Israel to try to circumvent Mr. Netanyahu and take his message directly to the people. One possibility discussed internally for a presidential trip is if a temporary cease-fire agreement is reached. Mr. Biden could use the moment to press the case directly to Israelis for humanitarian assistance in Gaza and begin outlining a path toward a permanent end to the fighting, officials said.

Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, on February 19, 2024
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Health authorities in Gaza said on February 29 Israeli fire on people waiting for aid near Gaza City had killed more than 70 and wounded 280, with one hospital saying it had received 10 bodies and dozens of injured patients.

A spokesperson for Israel’s military said it had no knowledge of any shelling at that location.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said the incident took place at al-Nabusi roundabout west of Gaza City in the northern part of the enclave.

Medical teams were unable to cope with the volume and severity of injuries from dozens of wounded people who arrived at al-Shifa hospital, Mr. al-Qidra said.

The head of Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza City, Hussam Abu Safieyah, said it had received 10 dead bodies and dozens of wounded patients from the incident west of the city.

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“We don’t know how many there are in other hospitals,” Dr. Safieyah told Reuters by phone.

Hamas warned in a statement that the incident could lead to the failure of talks aimed at a deal on a truce and hostage release.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas sent fighters into Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Videos posted on social media showed trucks carrying many dead bodies. Reuters verified the location of one video to al-Nabulsi roundabout that showed several men who were motionless, as well as several wounded people.

Referring to the incident, an Israeli military spokesperson said: “There is no knowledge of Israeli shelling in the area.”