Above photo: Israel artillery units during a military drill near the southern Lebanese border, August 28, 2023. Atef Safadi/EFE via ZUMA Press/APA Images.
Israeli settler violence continues to terrorize Palestinians in the Jordan Valley.
U.S. envoy arrives in the region to deescalate tensions along Lebanon’s southern border.
Casualties
- 41,226 + killed* and at least 95,413 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 32,280 of the slain have been identified, including 10,627 children and 5,956 women, representing 60% of the casualties, and 2,770 elderly as of August 6, 2024. Some 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble*
- 704+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes 146 children.**
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
- The Israeli army recognizes the death of 708 Israeli soldiers and the injury of 4096 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 September 16, 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 September 16, 2024.
*** 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
- The Gaza branch of the Palestinian Health Ministry says the death toll surpasses 41,226, with 95,413 wounded since October 7, including 33% children, 18.4% women, and 8.6% elderly; at least 115 Palestinian children born and killed by Israeli forces since October 7.
- Israeli drone attack kills Palestinian journalist Abdallah Shakshak on Saturday in Rafah, who reported for the Arab Manara Media company. The number of journalists killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023 reaches 170, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.
- Israeli police officer injured in a stabbing attack near Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. Israeli police kill a Palestinian man, accusing him of the attack, and later raid his family home and arrest ten of his family members.
- Kan reports a verbal clash between Netanyahu and war minister Gallant over the idea of a large military operation against Lebanon; Israeli daily Haaretz says Netanyahu is seeking to dismiss Gallant over his opposition to a larger offensive against Lebanon.
- U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein arrives in Israel on Monday to propose an agreement to end escalation between Israel and Lebanon.
- Israel refuses a U.S. proposal to define borders with Lebanon ahead of Hochstein’s visit.
- Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says time has come to dismiss Gallant.
- Israeli media reports say Israel told Washington that if Hochstein fails in achieving a breakthrough with Hezbollah, it will have no choice but war.
- Yemen’s Ansar Allah announces the targeting of the the center of Israel with a supersonic missile. Israeli army says its air defenses failed to intercept the Yemeni missile, which fell in an open area between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
- Israeli media reports say 2.3 million Israelis rushed to shelters during the missile attack from Yemen; nine Israelis injured in the stampede.
- Netanyahu threatens Yemen’s Ansar Allah, vowing the Yemeni group would “pay a big price.” Ansar Allah vows to continue attacks until Israel ends its war on Gaza.
- Israeli daily Haaretz quotes an unnamed foreign diplomat saying that Netanyahu’s insistence on maintaining forces in the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border remains the main factor obstructing a ceasefire deal, says there is no basis for continuing to maintain an Israeli presence at the border.
- ِAssociated Press quotes Israeli military official saying that the Israeli army found only nine tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt along the border, and that it is not known when were they closed.
- Israeli settlers attack school for Palestinian Bedouin children in the eastern slopes of the Jordan Valley, tie up the school principal and injure seven people, including teachers and students.
Israel Threatens Lebanon Again As Hochstein Arrives In The Region
The U.S. envoy to the Middle East Amos Hochstein began a visit to Israel on Monday in a new attempt to diffuse tensions between Israel and Hezbollah as the Israeli cabinet is scheduled to meet today to discuss a plan to “enlarge the objectives of the war” on the Lebanese front.
Israeli media reported that the U.S. presented a new proposal to define the border line between Israel and Lebanon, which Israel reportedly rejected ahead of Hochstein’s arrival.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Kan channel reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clashed verbally with his war minister Yoav Gallan during a cabinet meeting over the Lebanese border options, as Gallant opposes a war in the north. Other Israeli media outlets reported that Netanyahu was considering dismissing Gallant from the government.
The new Israeli wave of threats comes as the daily exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel enters its eleventh month. On Sunday, Israeli reports indicated that some 60 rockets were fired from southern Lebanon toward the upper Galilee, where the Israeli mayor of the city of Safad said that the city was “collapsing” after it has become a constant target of Hezbollah’s fire. For its part, Israel carried out airstrikes on the southern Lebanese towns of Kufr Kila, Rashia al-Fukhar, Idaiseh, and Mahmoudieh.
In a speech in Beirut on Sunday, Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General, Naim Qassim, said that the group had “no plan to initiate a war,” warning, however, that an all-out war would produce “enormous losses for us [Lebanon] and for them, too [Israel].” Qassim added that “if they [Israel] think that such a war would bring 100,000 displaced Israelis back to the north, then we tell them to prepare to receive hundreds of thousands more displaced people.”
Israeli Settlers Attack A School In The Jordan Valley
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Monday that seven Palestinians were injured by Israeli settlers during a settler attack on a primary school in the West Bank’s eastern slopes in the Jordan Valley.
Video footage reported to be from the incident showed a group of Israelis armed with sticks pouring into a school yard as a young girl in uniform ran away in panic. Palestinian sources reported that the Israeli army arrested two school teachers who had confronted the settlers.
The eastern slopes of the Jordan Valley, known as the Mu’arrajat area, has been the scene of settler attacks that have displaced some 18 Bedouin communities since October of last year. The area connects the central West Bank to the Jordan Valley and has been at the center of Israel’s settlement expansion efforts in recent years.
Last week, Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Yima and Awarta near Nablus escorted by the Israeli army, where they performed Jewish prayers at an archeological site in Awarta’s old town.
Since October 7, Israeli settlers have killed 18 Palestinians and forcibly displaced 20 Palestinian rural communities, making 4,571 Palestinians homeless. These forcible displacements have concentrated in the eastern slopes of the Jordan Valley and Masafer Yatta in the south Hebron hills.
According to a report by the Israeli Knesset’s security committee back in November, Israeli settlers possess more than 165,000 firearms. They represent a voter base for Israeli hardline Jewish supremacist politicians at the Knesset and in Netanyahu’s government, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom are themselves settlers.