Above photo: People pray next to the bodies of Palestinians killed after Israeli strikes, at al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, 05 December 2024. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, at least 25 Palestinians were killed following Israeli airstrikes in the southern and central Gaza Strip. More than 45,000 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Israeli Army, since Israel war on Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023, and the Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank which followed it. Omar Ashtawy/apaimages.
International condemnation grows.
Hamas accepts Egypt’s proposal to form an independent Palestinian committee to run Gaza after the war, while Israel bombs another tent encampment for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis. Amnesty International declares Israel is committing genocide.
Casualties
- 44,580 + killed* and at least 105,739 wounded in the Gaza Strip, 59% of whom are women, children and elderly.
- 806+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
- 3,961 Lebanese killed and more than 16,520 wounded by Israeli forces since October 8, 2023***
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,189.
- Israel recognizes the death of 890 Israeli soldiers, policemen and intelligence officers and the injury of at least 5,065 others since October 7.****
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on December 5, 2024. Rights groups and public health experts estimate the death toll to be much higher.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. This is the latest figure according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of December 4, 2024.
*** This figure was released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, updated on December 1, 2024. The counting is based on the Lebanese official date for the beginning of “the Israeli aggression on Lebanon,” when Israel began airstrikes on Lebanese territory after the beginning of Hezbollah’s “support front” for Gaza.
**** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported on August 4, 2024, that some 10,000 Israeli soldiers and officers have been either killed or wounded since October 7. The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 that the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000, including at least 8,000 who have been permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7 and as of June 18.
Key Developments
Gaza
- Israel kills 20 Palestinians in an airstrike on a tent encampment in the Mawasi area in Khan Younis on Wednesday.
- Palestinian medics at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis tell the Anadolu news agency that bodies of Palestinians killed in Wednesday’s airstrike on Mawasi arrived “burned and some without heads.”
- The Palestinian Civil Defense says that Israeli bombs on Mawasi caused fire to spread in the encampment and destroy tents.
- The Palestinian Red Crescent Society says that Israeli bombs in Mawasi destroyed tents and food warehouses in the encampment sheltering displaced Palestinians.
- Israeli quadcopters kill a 16-year-old teenager and wound three medics at the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza.
- Hamas announces its acceptance of Egypt’s proposal to form an independent committee to run the Rafah crossing point to the Gaza Strip and run reconstruction efforts after a potential end of the war.
- Israeli president Yitzhak Herzog confirms that “intensified negotiations” are taking place to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, according to Israel’s channel 12.
- Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar says that there is “an opportunity to reach a prisoners’ exchange deal” in Gaza, following a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Malta.
- The Israeli army issues an investigation suggesting the possibility that six Israeli captives in Gaza were killed by Israeli fire.
Lebanon
- Hezbollah’s Secretary General Naim Qassem says in a televised statement that the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel is “an executive mechanism” of the 2006 UN resolution 1701, and not a separate or new agreement.
- Hezbollah’s secretary general Naim Qassem says that the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon concerns only the south of the Litani river, and that the relationship between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state is an internal Lebanese issue.
- Hezbollah’s secretary general Naim Qassem says that Hezbollah will “stand by Syria” in the battle against rebel groups who have taken over the cities of Aleppo and Hama since last week.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the ceasefire with Lebanon does not mean the end of the war.
- Lebanon says that Israel has breached the ceasefire more than 60 times since it entered into effect, through airstrikes and gunfire.
West Bank
- Israeli forces raid the city of Nablus and several surrounding towns and arrest 28 Palestinians.
- Israeli forces raid the Al-Arabi hospital in Nablus and abduct a wounded Palestinian.
- Israeli forces force several Palestinian families to leave their homes in the Naqara neighborhood in Nablus during its raid on the city.
- Israeli settlers take over a Palestinian land in the village of Ain al-Hilwa in the northern Jordan Valley, threatening 12 Palestinian families with displacement.
- Israeli settlers burn two Palestinian cars in Huwwara, south of Nablus, and a house in the building and a store in Beit Furik, east of Nablus.
Amnesty International accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza in new report
Leading international human rights organization Amnesty International has concluded, in a report it released on Wednesday, that Israel was responsible for acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza strip.
The group said that it had been analyzing events and statements by Israeli officials for months, concluding that the legal threshold for the crime of genocide has been met. It is the first time that Amnesty has reached such a conclusion during an ongoing conflict.
Amnesty’s chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement on Wednesday that “month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” adding that “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.”
The report comes more than a year after Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks. At the time of the report’s release, the death toll in Gaza had surpassed 44,500, including 60% women, children and elderly, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Amnesty’s report arrives also a year after South Africa filed its case against Israel before the International Court of Justice, for charges of breaching the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. The ICJ ruled that Israel was “plausibly commiting genocide,” and ordered Israel to take measures to prevent it, though according to experts, no such measures have been taken, and Israel has in fact continued its genocidal attacks on Gaza for months after the ICJ ruling.
Amnesty’s own branch in Israel dissociated itself from the findings of its parent organization, clarifying in a long statement that it does not believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. However, it said that the killing and destruction in Gaza has reached “horrifying levels,” and called for investigation into possible crimes against humanity.
Israel, for its part, rejected the report. The spokesperson of the Israeli foreign minister, Oren Marmorstein called Amnesty “fanatical,” in a post on ‘X’, and called the report “fabricated” and “based on lies.”
The report comes a few days after former Israeli chief of staff and war minister, Moshe Yaalon sparked controversy in Israel after saying in a local TV interview that Israel is committing ethnic cleansing in Gaza, especially in the north of the strip, where since early October Israeli forces have killed and injured thousands, and forced tens of thousands more to leave south. Only 70,000 Palestinians remain in the north of Gaza, in comparison to more than 350,000 before October 7 of last year.*
Currently, around 1.8 million Palestinians, more than 98% of the population of the Gaza Strip, have been displaced multiple times during last year. The secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres described the situation in Gaza as “apocalyptic,” and has reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire.
*In previous reports we indicated that the north of Gaza had 700,000 before October 7 of 2023. That number refers to all of the northern part of the strip including Gaza city, and not the area besieged since early October, which does not include Gaza City.