Above photo: Smoke and dust rise after an attack by the Israeli army on an apartment in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the central part of Gaza City, on November 28, 2024. Saed Abu Nabhan/APA Images.
Israeli bombings erased 1410 Palestinian families from the civil registry, reports the Palestinian health ministry.
Casualties
- 44,330 + killed* and at least 104,933 wounded in the Gaza Strip, 59% of whom are women, children and elderly, as of October 21, 2024.*
- 796+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
- 3,7678 Lebanese killed and more than 15,669 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 November 28, 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 November 24, 2024.
*** This figure was released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, updated on November 25, 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
- The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza says that Israeli bombings have completely exterminated 1410 Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip since October 7 of last year, erasing them from the civil registry.
- UNRWA says that survival conditions in the north of Gaza are diminishing for 60,000 to 70,000 people in the north of Gaza.
- UNRWA says that Israeli forces have rejected nine attempts by the UN to deliver aid to the north of Gaza, and obstructed 82 in the past month.
- Israel kills 18 including five children Palestinians and wounded 57 on Thursday in 12 strikes and quadcopter fire on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, including on an aid distribution center.
- Israel killed 30 Palestinians in a strike on a school sheltering civilians in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City on Wednesday.
- The Gaza Government Media Office says that rainfall floods damaged 10,000 tents, representing 81% of the tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in 543 tent encampments across the south and center of the Gaza Strip.
- The Gaza Government Media Office says that displaced Palestinians need a quarter of a million new tents.
- Israeli drones drop bombs on the surroundings of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of Gaza.
- The EU chief diplomat Joseph Borrell says that two million Palestinians are “living through hell” in the Gaza Strip, with no health care, education, or infrastructure, being displaced constantly like “playing ping-pong with their lives,” and calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Lebanon
- Thousands of displaced Lebanese return to their towns and villages in the south of Lebanon and to their homes in bombed areas of Beirut as the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel enters into effect.
- Netanyahu says that the aim of the ceasefire is to separate the front of Lebanon and Gaza and isolate Hamas.
- Hezbollah’s political council deputy-chief Mahmoud Qamati says that Hezbollah does not trust Israel and will remain vigilant to Israeli attempts to sabotage the ceasefire.
- Qamati says that Hezbollah will proceed first to provide housing to Lebanese who lost their homes and then to rebuild destroyed homes, and that Hezbollah is preparing for the funeral of its assassinated secretary-general Hasan Nasrallah and the head of its executive council Hashem Safiyyudin, expecting the funerals to be “popular referendums on the choice of resistance.”
- Qamati also says that Hezbollah considers the ceasefire to be only about the war on Lebanon, and that Hezbollah will give its position on the support of Gaza later.
- Netanyahu says that Israelis will not return to the north before the end of the 60-day period stipulated by the ceasefire deal.
- Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Miqati says that Lebanon will respect the ceasefire deal and deploy the Lebanese army in the south.
- The speaker of Lebanon’s parliament announced a special session on January 9 to elect a new president after two years of presidential vacancy.
- The Lebanese army begins to deploy in the south and says it will proceed to clear the territory from unexploded bombs.
- The Israeli army opens fire at Lebanese returning to areas in the south of Lebanon from which Israeli forces haven’t withdrawn yet.
West Bank
- Israeli forces raid the campus of Birzeit University and arrest four students on Tuesday.
- Israeli forces conduct a 10-hour-long raid on the city of Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank, clashing with Palestinian fighters and wounding two Palestinians.
- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issues a constitutional decree appointing the Palestinian National Council, Rauhi Fattouh, to assume the role of president in case of Abbas’s absence, for a period of 90 days before holding elections.
- Israeli settlers destroy 100 olive trees, some as old as 70 years, in the village of Yasuf east of Salfit, on Wednesday.
- Israeli settlers attack Palestinian farmers and steal their olive harvest in the village of Salem, east of Nablus, on Thursday.
- Israeli settlers storm the village of Hamsa in the Jordan Valley and steal solar panels, according to local human rights reports, on Wednesday.
Israeli siege of north Gaza enters 55th day, 60,000-70,000 Palestinian lives at risk
The UN agency for the relief of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Thursday that survival conditions are diminishing for 60,000 to 70,000 remaining Palestinians in the north of Gaza, as the Israeli siege of the area enters its 55th day.
The UNRWA added that Israeli forces have obstructed 82 attempts by the UN to deliver aid to the north of Gaza in the past month, and rejected nine petitions to be allowed to deliver aid in the area where 700,000 Palestinians lived before October 7 of last year. The Israeli siege and bombing campaign in the north of Gaza that started in early October was coupled with raids into shelter centers and forcing people to leave. Currently, only 70,000 Palestinians remain in the north of Gaza, under continuous siege and bombing.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces besieged another school sheltering civilians in Beit Lahia, in the north of Gaza, and forced Palestinians to leave it, according to local media reports. Israeli drones also dropped bombs on the surroundings of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, which was forcibly evacuated a month ago by Israeli forces. The hospital came back to function with only two doctors including its director, who was injured by Israeli fire earlier this week. Around 100 Palestinian patients and their families continue to take shelter in the hospital.
Meanwhile, Israel continued its strikes on the rest of the Gaza Strip. On Thursday, Israeli artillery and war planes bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, including a strike on an aid distribution center in the camp. Israeli strikes also targeted the Mawasi area in Khan Younis, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are concentrated. These strikes come as thousands of displaced Palestinians have lost their tents in the central and southern Gaza Strip because of floods. On Wednesday, the Gaza Government Media Office said that 10,000 tents, representing 81% of the tents in the Strip have been damaged.
On Thursday, the European Union’s chief diplomat Joseph Borrell said that “two million Palestinians are living through hell in Gaza,” noting that “Netanyahu’s government is stepping over international law,” and that “the Israeli society has been colonized by far-right extremism.”