Rights and Accountability 21 November 2024
Palestinians walk past vast piles of rubble in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, 19 November.
APA imagesThe following is excerpted from the news roundup during the 20 November livestream. Watch the entire episode here.
Israel’s campaign of systematic slaughter, destruction and starvation in north Gaza is now in its seventh week, while airstrikes and massacres continue across all areas of the Gaza Strip.
This video footage filmed on Monday by Phillipa Greer, a top legal official at the UN agency for Palestine refugees, shows some of the extent of Israel’s genocide and carnage in north Gaza:
A series of airstrikes over the last week in north Gaza has killed dozens of Palestinians as Israel bombed entire residential blocks and leveled multi-story apartment buildings.The Gaza government media office stated on 17 November that at least four separate massacres were carried out by Israeli soldiers, killing more than 70 Palestinians from six families in Beit Lahiya.
On Monday 18 November, Israelis raided a house near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the city, killing at least 17 people.
The hospital, which has been under relentless Israeli attacks since early October, was bombed again on Tuesday.
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza stated that Israeli forces specifically targeted the hospital administration “directly and without any reason, as the occupation opened heavy fire towards the hospital director’s office, and the occupation also targeted the families of the medical staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital. Two doctors in the hospital received their families completely exterminated – the occupation killed their wives and children in a crime that shames humanity.”
That attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital followed the targeting and destruction of Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, the health ministry added. Israeli forces reportedly sent in “robots carrying tons of explosives, and destroyed the only government hospital in the Rafah governorate.”
The health ministry added that al-Najjar Hospital “provided health and medical services to 300,000 people, and provided health services during the genocide to one and a half million displaced people and citizens before the invasion of Rafah governorate.”
Also in Rafah this week, Israeli forces destroyed and set fire to the Badr Mosque. According to the Gaza government media office, 815 mosques have been completely destroyed by the Israelis, 151 mosques have been heavily damaged and three churches have been destroyed.
In central Gaza, Israel bombed residential buildings in Nuseirat and al-Bureij refugee camps this week, bombing homes and killing dozens of people.In Gaza City, Israel bombed homes and schools that had been used as shelters for displaced families.
Two separate attacks on Gaza City schools took place this past week. Journalist Hossam Shabat documented the aftermath of an Israeli attack on the Salah al-Din school, which incinerated people’s belongings.
Shabat also documented the attacks on the Abu Assi school a few days later, saying that “no day passes without a massacre or an attack. In this area, we saw severed heads and bodies torn apart, their remains unidentifiable.”Early Wednesday morning, Hossam Shabat was wounded in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza.
He posted on X (formerly Twitter), “After receiving news of a nearby bombing, I drove my car to offer assistance. When I arrived at the house full of terrified people, I heard their desperate screams from the second floor asking for help. The moment I entered, the house was bombed again, and the remains of the wounded were scattered around me. The rubble fell on me and my colleagues; one of the civil defense crews was killed, and while my colleague (photographer Muhammad Muhanna) and I were injured, many others did not survive.”
Shabat later stated that after a difficult night, he put his press vest back on again and returned to work.“We cannot sit back and relax while our people are being annihilated,” he said. “In recent days, this shield has become like my shirt that I cannot take off.”
Field executions in north Gaza
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor issued a collection of eyewitness testimonies of field executions by the Israeli army in north Gaza.
The group’s field team documented the killing of a 58-year-old man and his 21-year-old son, shot inside their home in Beit Lahiya in front of their family last week.
Euro-Med also reported that Israel has once again carried out a flour massacre in Gaza City.
On 13 November, Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians who gathered to collect humanitarian aid northwest of Gaza City, after approximately 50 days of Israel’s complete prevention of all food, water and medical aid to northern Gaza areas.
Initial reports indicate that there were around 200 people gathered in the area at the time of the attack, 70 of whom were killed and injured.
According to Euro-Med, “Israeli army forces opened fire on dozens of Palestinian civilians waiting for aid trucks on the sea road northwest of Gaza City on Wednesday, 13 November at around 10 am. The Israeli forces killed and injured dozens of them when they attempted to seek refuge inside a nearby house, and then bombed the building, destroying it. Many more individuals are now missing and presumably trapped beneath the debris.”
The United Nations reported on Monday that because of “critical shortages of flour, all eight UN-supported bakeries in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis have been operating at diminished capacity for weeks. Four bakeries in central Gaza have already shut down. The remaining four will be forced to close within days without additional supplies.”
Gaza security forces intervene against Israel-supported gangs
In related news, Gaza’s interior ministry launched an operation to intervene against organized gangs inside Gaza who have been stealing food and looting humanitarian aid trucks.
These gangs, who are longtime political rivals of the Hamas political party and its leadership, collaborate with and are protected by the Israeli army, which effectively allows and encourages the aid to be looted.
On Monday, Gaza police killed at least 20 members of one of these gangs, two days after approximately 100 aid trucks were hijacked and looted after crossing into south Gaza.
According to Drop Site News, “The trickle of goods that are allowed in are being increasingly targeted by armed criminal groups, who either force truck convoys to pay exorbitant extortion fees or simply rob the aid. Much of this is facilitated by the Israeli military, who have systematically targeted Palestinian security forces charged with protecting the convoys, and then have allowed armed gunmen to attack aid convoys in areas under its control.”
Over the last 13 months of this genocide, Israel has routinely hunted, targeted and killed members of the Gaza police and security forces who were providing protection for and coordinating the movements of the aid trucks to distribution warehouses.
The Washington Post obtained an internal United Nations memo that stated that the gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israeli army. One gang leader, the memo said, established a “military-like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the [Israeli army].”
Journalist killed
A journalist was killed in north Gaza last week.
According to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, Mohammed Saleh al-Sharif was targeted and shot by an Israeli quadcopter drone in Jabaliya refugee camp on 16 November.
Wafa reported that “al-Sharif, who had recently been forced to evacuate his home in the Tel al-Zaatar area of east Jabaliya due to the ongoing Israeli bombardment, had sought refuge with a relative” in nearby Beit Lahiya.
“A few days later, al-Sharif and his cousin returned to their home to assess the damage, but as they approached, an Israeli drone targeted them. His cousin was killed instantly, and al-Sharif was left wounded, bleeding for more than two hours before succumbing to his injuries.”
Wafa noted that Israeli forces have prevented civil defense teams and ambulance services from operating in north Gaza for several weeks.
The family of Fadi al-Wahidi, a cameraman for Al Jazeera who was shot in the neck by an Israeli soldier in early October, have announced that they have begun a hunger strike to demand that al-Wahidi be granted a permit to travel for critical medical treatment. He has been in a coma for more than a month.Al-Wahidi’s mother, who is reportedly struggling with cancer herself, is also joining the hunger strike. Nearly 190 journalists have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.
Settlers rampage in West Bank
In the occupied West Bank this week, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians in a Bedouin community near Duma, forcing 16 people, including nine children, to be displaced after threatening to burn them alive, according to the UN.
Dozens of Israeli settlers invaded the village of Beit Furik, in the northern West Bank over the weekend. According to reports, the settlers burned homes and cars while Israeli soldiers blocked the roads surrounding the village and stood by to protect the violent settlers.
A days-long Israeli raid into the city of Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp beginning on Monday has injured nine Palestinians and caused significant damage to the city’s infrastructure.According to the Wafa news agency, Israel used live ammunition and armed drones to shoot and injure people, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that one of their medical teams was used as human shields by Israeli forces, which detained the team inside a home.
Airstrikes across Lebanon
Turning northwards toward Lebanon, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that an Israeli airstrike hit central Beirut on Monday, following “multiple strikes the previous day on the same area without prior warning, triggering new waves of displacement.”
Residents and displaced people “who had sought refuge in the area were forced to flee once again. According to national authorities, at least five people were killed and dozens injured in the 18 November strike,” the UN added.
“Eastern and southern parts of Lebanon continue to be targeted as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, resulting in more casualties and extensive damage to civilian infrastructure,” the UN said.The Israeli airstrikes on Monday followed days of attacks on Beirut and villages in the south of Lebanon.
Last week, Israel targeted the civil defense center in Baalbek, killing at least a dozen paramedics and medical personnel, and launched airstrikes against the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry. At least 29 people were killed in Israeli attacks across Lebanon on Saturday alone, according to the health ministry.On Sunday, Israel bombed areas of Beirut. A strike on the commercial district in Mar Elias killed at least two and wounded more than 20 others.
Hizballah’s spokesperson Mohammad Afif was assassinated in Beirut on Sunday as well.According to a correspondent for Al-Mayadeen news channel, the Israeli strike killed at least five people.
Also on Sunday, Israel attacked the ancient city of Tyre, or Sour, killing at least 11 people and wounding nearly 50.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that even if there were a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hizballah, Israel would still continue to bomb Lebanon, further rendering the word ceasefire utterly meaningless.
Highlighting defiance and resilience
Finally, as we always do, we wanted to share videos of people expressing defiance and resilience in the face of Israel’s widening campaign of destruction.
A community barber in the north of Gaza offered free haircuts to the local children in Beach refugee camp this week.
And young musicians in Gaza, who named themselves the Freedom Band, played a classic Palestinian song together.
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