Gaza: Palestinians with white flags and raised hands walk from Gaza City south to be bombed | 7/11/2023

7/11/2023

reading time 10 minutes

– At the White House, national security spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday night that the US does not want Israel to reoccupy Gaza, and future control of the Palestinian territory cannot include Hamas, the fundamentalist group that now controls Gaza.

“The reoccupation of Gaza (by Israel) is not the right thing to do,” Kirby said.

But he added that in the future “Hamas cannot be part of the equation” of who will govern Gaza, saying “we cannot go back to October 6”, the day before Hamas fighters crossed the border into southern Israel and killed more than 1,400 Israeli citizens in addition to taking more than 200 hostages back to Gaza where they are still being held.

– The White House is sticking to its line of urging Israel to choose its targets carefully in Gaza, while acknowledging that “many thousands” of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the blockaded territory.

The Biden administration continues to refuse to publicly support the death toll reported by the Gaza Health Ministry, while saying the US does not have a verified death toll to refer to as its own.

Kirby admitted it was “horrifying to see footage of children being pulled from the rubble in Gaza”, many of whom did not survive the Israeli bombardment of the territory.

– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are encircling Gaza City and operating inside it. In a televised statement on Tuesday, Netanyahu said there would be no ceasefire until the hostages were released and called on Gazans to move south “because Israel will not stop”.

– Netanyahu said Israel may consider “small tactical pauses” in fighting to allow aid to enter or hostages to leave Gaza. In an interview with ABC television that aired on Monday night, Israel’s prime minister said: “For an indefinite period, Israel will … bear overall responsibility for security [v Gaze]because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t take that responsibility for safety.”

– Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also said the IDF was operating in central Gaza and “tightening the stranglehold” around the city. In a televised statement on Tuesday, Gallant rejected any humanitarian pause without the return of the hostages.

– Palestinian families waved white flags and held their hands above their heads as they fled past tanks waiting to attack Gaza City. The Israeli army gave civilians inside the besieged city a four-hour deadline to leave on Tuesday, as its forces prepared to retake the largest city in the strip. The IDF said it would allow residents to leave from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time and released a video showing dozens of people along the main road. They fear that hundreds of thousands of people are still trapped.

– The Israeli military says it captured a Hamas military stronghold and blew up a Hamas weapons depot “in a civilian area” adjacent to al-Quds Hospital. Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas uses hospital buildings to conduct military operations. Israeli forces said Monday they had cut off northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory.

– Israel Defense Forces military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that on Tuesday, Israel again shelled Lebanon in response to the attack. The IDF also said it had intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” near the Blue Line, which marks the UN-demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon.

– Since October 7, at least 10,328 Palestinians – including 4,237 children – have been killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israeli military actions, the Gaza Ministry of Health said on Tuesday. According to the spokesperson of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Ashraf al-Qudry increased to 25,965 persons. Journalists have not been able to independently verify the casualty figures that have been published in Gaza.

– On Tuesday, they commemorated 30 days since the Hamas attack on Israel, in which 1,400 people died, with a minute of silence. Vigils were held all over the world. A candlelight vigil was held in Jerusalem on Monday night for each victim, and relatives of the dead gathered at Jerusalem’s Western Wall to commemorate the month of mourning.

– A Palestinian journalist was killed and another injured in an Israeli airstrike in Gazathe official Palestinian news agency reported. Mohammad Abu Hasira was killed along with 42 members of his family “in an Israeli bombardment that targeted his house located near a fishing port west of Gaza City”. the WAFA news agency reported.

– The level of death and suffering in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is “hard to imagine”, said a spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO). “Every day you think is the worst, and then the next day is even worse,” Christian Lindmeier told reporters on Tuesday. “Nothing justifies the horror that civilians in Gaza are going through.” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on all parties involved to agree on a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and “pursue lasting peace”. “History will judge us all by what we do to end this tragedy,” he said.

– Civilians in Gaza are “drinking water from the pool” and children are “crying for lack of bread”, says the international humanitarian organization CARE, which called for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territories. More than half a million people in northern Gaza are at risk of starvation as food supplies are “dangerously” low, ActionAid Palestine has warned. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, called the situation in Gaza a “tragedy of colossal proportions”. A spokesman for the World Health Organization said on Tuesday that more than 160 health workers had died in the line of duty in Gaza.

– UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk began a five-day visit to the Middle East on Tuesday to address human rights abuses in the context of Israel’s escalation in Gaza with government officials and civil society groups. “It was one whole month of bloodshed, constant suffering, bloodshed, destruction, outrage and despair,” Türk said in a statement.

– On Tuesday, at least 320 foreigners and dependents, 100 Egyptians, 262 Jordanians and the first group of Canadian citizens were evacuated from Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. A dozen Palestinian children suffering from cancer were also allowed to leave Gaza on Tuesday to go to Egypt for treatment. In total, more than 400 US citizens, legal permanent residents and other authorized persons were evacuated from Gaza, and more than 100 French nationals and their dependents crossed the Rafah border.

– The German government has decided to release 91 million euros for the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA)

– Scotland Yard does not believe it has reason to support a ban on a planned pro-Palestinian demonstration in central London on 11/11. on Armistice Day, the Guardian newspaper reported. The British government is urging London’s Metropolitan Police to use its powers to ask for a ban on the planned protest on Saturday.

– Palestinian families waving white flags and holding their hands above their heads fled past tanks waiting to attack Gaza City.

The Israeli army gave civilians inside the besieged city a four-hour deadline to leave on Tuesday as its forces prepared to retake the largest city in the strip.

Men, women and children, some carrying their possessions on donkeys, fled their homes past Israeli troops out of the city.

One resident, Adam Fayez Zeyara, said online that Tuesday’s walk was the most dangerous in his life.

“We saw tanks at close range. We saw decomposing body parts. We saw death.”

We fear that hundreds of thousands of people are still imprisoned. Hamas, which has long used the tactic of hiding among civilians, has been accused of preventing people from leaving their homes.

– Israel has repeatedly called on civilians to move south for their own safety, but continued to bombard the entire strip and hit the southern city of Khan Younis on Tuesday, killing 23 people, according to Palestinian medics.

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