Above photo: Palestinians survey the damage following the Israeli military bombardment of the UNRWA school-turned-shelter for the internally displaced, July 14, 2024. Omar Ashtawy/APA Images.
Hamas confirms that ceasefire talks will continue despite the latest massacres.
While differences rise between Netanyahu and Israel’s negotiating team headed by the security services.
Casualties
- 38,584 + killed* and at least 88,881 wounded in the Gaza Strip. Among the dead, 28,428 have been fully identified. These include 7,779 children, 5466 women, and 2418 elderly people as of May 1. In addition, around 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble.*
- 575+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank including eastern Jerusalem. These include 138 children.**
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
- 682 Israeli soldiers have been recognized as killed, and 4096 as wounded by the Israeli army 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 July 14, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on July 14, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded according to declarations by the head of the Israeli army’s wounded association to Israel’s Channel 12 exceeds 20,000 including at least 8,000 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, as of June 18.
Key Developments
- Israel kills 309 Palestinians, wounds 640 across Gaza since Thursday, July 11, raising death toll since October 7 to 38,584 and number of wounded to 88,881, according to Gaza health ministry.
- Israel commits three massacres against displaced Palestinians in Gaza over the weekend, killing over 131 people, mostly women and children.
- Israel claims to have killed the commander-in-chief of the al-Qassam Brigades, Muhammad al-Deif, in the massacre of al-Mawasi in Khan Younis. Hamas denies the claim and affirms that Deif is alive.
- Netanyahu insists on maintaining Israeli forces in Philadelphi corridor and preventing return of displaced to the north in any coming ceasefire deal.
- Israeli security officials and negotiators slam Netanyahu for obstructing talks, Israeli media reports.
- Palestinian Civil Defense says 500 Palestinian families in Gaza have been erased from the civil registry since October 7 as a resutl of deadly Israeli airstrikes.
- Israel has destroyed 190 UNRWA facilities despite receiving the coordinates for all of them, UNRWA spokesperson tells Al Jazeera.
- Israeli forces kill Palestinian child during raid in village of Deir Abu Mishaal, west of Ramallah.
- Israeli forces demolish two Palestinian houses west of Jericho, occupied West Bank.
- One Israeli border police officer and three soldiers wounded in car-ramming attack in Ramleh; attacker killed.
- Hezbollah attacks Israeli positions in Kufr Shuba hills with drones and rockets as Israel admits one officer killed.
- Israel bombs surroundings of Mays al-Jabal, Ramiya, and Houla towns in southern Lebanon.
- Yemen’s Ansar Allah announces targeting Eilat with drones in response to the Mawasi massacre in Khan Younis.
Israel Commits Three Massacres Against Displaced Families Over The Weekend
Israeli forces have killed at least 131 Palestinians since Saturday in three separate targeted bombings on locations where displaced families had been taking shelter.
On Saturday, Israeli fighter jets and armed drones struck a crowded tent city several times in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, on Saturday morning. The army fired at least nine heavy U.S.-made JDAM missiles on the crowded tent area, according to survivors’ testimonies gathered by Mondoweiss.
Al-Mawasi had been declared a “safe area” by the Israeli army in early May as it began its assault on Rafah, pushing thousands of families who had already fled their homes in the center and north of the strip to flee again to al-Mawasi. More than 80,000 took shelter there as of last week, according to Gaza government numbers.
“My wife was at the hospital with my 6-month-old son, and I was away with my three-year-old daughter when the strikes happened,” Malek Shinbari, a survivor at al-Mawasi and displaced for the fifth time since October 7, told Mondoweiss. “When we returned, our tent was full of shrapnel. We survived by a miracle,” he said.
According to the Palestinian Civil Defense, the Israeli attack destroyed some 1,200 tents that sheltered displaced families in al-Mawasi. The number of wounded exceeded 300 by the end of the day, overwhelming Nasser Hospital, the only functioning medical center in Khan Younis. The hospital, parts of which had already stopped working last week due to the lack of fuel for power generators, announced that it might go completely out of service in the coming hours.
Also on Saturday, an Israeli air strike targeted an improvised mosque in the Shati’ refugee camp, west of Gaza City, where displaced Palestinians held daily prayers. The strike killed 22 Palstinians. Then on Sunday, another strike targeted an UNRWA school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 17 people. The school was used as a shelter for dozens of families.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for UNRWA told Al-Jazeera that Israeli strikes had destroyed 190 of its facilities, despite it giving their coordinates to the Israeli army repeatedly.
For its part, the Israeli army claimed that the bombing of the tent city in al-Mawasi targeted and killed two military commanders of Hamas; Muhammad al-Deif, the commander-in-chief of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, and Rafi Salama, the commander of the Khan Younis Brigade. Hamas denied Israel’s claims, calling them “lies used to cover the horror of the massacre,” and “a confirmation by the occupation government’s intent on continuing the genocide.”
Israel’s repeated targeting of civilian residential areas and shelter centers since October 7 has meant that 70% of Palestinian casualties are women and children. Last week, the Palestinian Civil Defense announced that 500 Palestinian families had been erased from Gaza’s civil registry, as all of their members had been killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Netanyahu At Odds With Israeli Negotiating Team Over Ceasefire Talks
Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas are ongoing, a Hamas official confirmed on Sunday hours after AFP had quoted another unnamed member of the Palestinian faction, who had said that negotiations were “frozen” following the massacre committed by Israeli forces at al-Mawasi.
On Sunday, a Hamas spokesperson told Egyptian media that talks had stopped for several days due to Israel’s “delays and insertion of new conditions from outside the latest proposal.” Also on Sunday, Hamas’ politburo member, Izzat al-Rishq, said in a statement that the talks had not been officially halted.
Netanyahu announced last week new conditions that he considered “non-negotiable” for a ceasefire, including the permanence of Israeli control over the Philadelphi corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border and the refusal of the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.
On Monday, the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar quoted a Hamas official saying that the talks had not stopped “despite the massacre at al-Mawasi,” adding that a new round of talks is expected to begin later this week in Doha, Qatar.
On the Israeli side, Israeli public broadcasting reported that new differences arose between Netanyahu and Israeli chiefs of security and military services over the permanence of Israeli forces in the Philadelphi corridor.
Reportedly, the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, believes that Israel can manage the situation at the Egyptian border in a different way, while Netanyahu insists on keeping Israeli forces there.
The main difference, however, between Netanyahu and the negotiating team, according to Israel public broadcasting, is allowing the return of displaced Palestinians to the north, which contradicts the initial proposed U.S. deal.
For his part, Israel’s Finance Minister and Netanyahu’s right-wing ally, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Sunday that “the heads of the security services have decided to reach a deal and stop the war at whatever price,” warning that he “will never accept a deal, even if it means the end of my political career.”