Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 382

US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and believed that an agreement to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia could be reached before the end of the year.

Graham, who is in Michigan campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, told Reuters that Netanyahu supported work on a deal with Saudi Arabia, adding that the next US administration was unlikely to be able to secure enough votes in Congress after President Joe Biden leaves office on January 20.

“I think the time to do this is on Biden’s watch,” said Graham, who had also met with Netanyahu earlier this month. He said Vice President Kamala Harris was “far more beholden to the left” and had not shown interest in working for such an agreement, but Biden was keen to see a deal get done and would be able to mobilise the needed Democratic votes.

Graham expressed confidence that a solution could be found to ensure creation of a sovereign state in a Palestine that was de-militarized and could not threaten Israel.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” he said, adding that he expected Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to be supportive since absence of a deal would undermine his economic goals.

Israeli strikes on the Syrian capital Damascus and a military site near the western city of Homs earlier today have killed one soldier and injured seven, Reuters the Syrian defence ministry as saying.

The attacks targeted the central Damascus neighbourhood of Kafr Sousa and a military site in the Homs countryside, the ministry said in a statement, adding the strikes caused “material damage” without elaborating.

Earlier in the day, Syrian state media said explosions were heard in Damascus after Israel struck a residential building in Kafr Sousa.

Israel typically does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.

The Israeli military has alleged six Palestinians in Gaza as Al Jazeera reporters who it said were also members of the Hamas or Islamic Jihad, an allegation which the Qatari network rejected as an attempt to silence journalists.

“Al Jazeera condemns Israeli accusations against its journalists in Gaza and warns against [this] being a justification for targeting them,” the network said in a statement.

The Israeli military published documents that it said it had found in Gaza that proved the men had a military affiliation with the groups. Reuters was not able to immediately verify the authenticity of the documents.

The Israeli military said the papers included Hamas and Islamic Jihad lists of personnel details, salaries and militant training courses, phone directories and injury reports.

“These documents serve as proof of the integration of Hamas terrorists within the Qatari Al Jazeera media network,” the military alleged.

Al Jazeera said: “The network views these fabricated accusations as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”

Al Jazeera has said the Israeli actions against it were criminal, draconian and irresponsible and that the latest allegations were “part of a wider pattern of hostility” towards it.

The network says it has no affiliation with fighting groups and has accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing several of its journalists in the Gaza conflict, including Samer Abu Daqqa and Hamza AlDahdooh.

China’s President Xi Jinping has said at the Brics summit that an early ceasefire and an end to the fighting in Gaza are key to easing regional tensions, Reuters reports quoting Chinese state media Xinhua.

Fighting in Lebanon could further destabilize the country’s economy, already devastated by years of crisis, the UN warns, predicting a 9.2 per cent drop in GDP in 2024 if the conflict continues, AFP reports.

“The scale of the military engagement, the geopolitical context, the humanitarian impact and the economic fallout in 2024 are expected to be much greater than in 2006,” when the last Israel-Hezbollah conflict erupted, the UN Development Programme said in an initial evaluation of the economic impact on Lebanon.

“The escalating hostilities in Lebanon in 2024 strike while Lebanon is already weakened by years of political, economic, and social crises,” it said.

Kawthar Dara, an economist in the UNDP country office in Lebanon, warned AFP that if the fighting persists until the end of the year, “GDP is projected to decline by 9.2pc.” She cited two main reasons — companies unable to do business because of Israeli air strikes, and capital destruction, from factories to roads.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that failure by Israel to safeguard civilians in Gaza could create a generational backlash and create more anti-Israel insurgents in the future, Reuters reports.

Speaking to reporters in Rome, Austin said he raises the need to address the humanitarian needs of civilians in every call he has with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant.

In each call, Austin said he cites the need for Israel to be more precise during military operations against Hamas to limit civilian casualties and cites the need to get humanitarian assistance to the civilian population.

“Failure to do that will create a generation of Palestinians that really will continue to resist cooperating with Israel in the future. So you’re actually increasing the numbers of insurgents … if you fail to do that,” Austin said.

“It’s a strategic imperative in my view.”

“The ability to accomplish your goals militarily in terms of achieving the objectives and protecting civilians in the battle space … you can do both of those things. They’re not mutually exclusive,” Austin said.

Seven air strikes have been carried out for the first time in the historic city of Tyre, Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari reports, adding that it is a Unesco World Heritage Site and was once home to nearly 200,000 people.

“From the images we’ve seen, buildings have been completely destroyed and businesses have been lost and damaged,” Jabbari reports.

The Israeli military said it’s targeting command-and-control centres for Hezbollah, as well as hitting the headquarters of the southern front of the organisation, which it says is responsible for carrying out cross-border attacks into northern Israel, Jabbari adds.

Israeli forces have killed the director of the municipal police of the northern Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reports.

Mazen al-Kahlout was shot by an Israeli drone near al-Yaman al-Saeed Hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp.

The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza has released a video that shows Israeli soldiers directly opening fire on emergency responders as they responded to the bombing of a family home in the al-Fakhoura area of Jabalia, in northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

The video shared on Telegram shows emergency responders rummaging through debris at night, only to be forced into cover after being targeted by live ammunition. In the morning, bullet holes could be seen in their vehicles, including a fire truck.

A Hamas delegation led by a top official in the movement arrived in Russia’s Moscow for talks on the conflict in Gaza and efforts to halt it, an official with the group told AFP.

The delegation, led by Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, was set to meet with Russian authorities to discuss “ways to stop the aggression and war on Gaza and the region”, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Hashem Safieddine, the top Hezbollah official widely expected to succeed slain secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli attack, the group said, Reuters reports.

Hezbollah confirmed that Safieddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Safieddine had been running Hezbollah alongside its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem since Nasrallah’s assassination and was expected to be formally elected as its next secretary general, although no official announcement had yet been made.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that its humanitarian teams led by the WHO have arrived at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza to evacuate critical patients, Al Jazeera reports.

“But our request to bring food, fuel, blood and medicines was denied by Israeli authorities,” it said in a post on X.

Richard Peeperkorn, a WHO representative, said it is “incomprehensible” that after more than a year, regular humanitarian missions are being denied.

The Israeli army is prepared to keep fighting in Gaza and Lebanon “for months” after more than a year of onslaught, an Israeli security source said during a briefing with media outlets, AFP reports.

“We are prepared for months, and we will stay as long as necessary to ensure (Israel’s) security,” said the source, referring to the ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Israel has also vowed to respond to Iran’s missile barrage earlier this month.

The source said Israel was not waging “a war against Gaza, nor another war against Lebanon”, but rather against groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

It was “a war against Iran, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, via Iran’s proxies,” the source said.

Israel has succeeded in “eliminating the entire chain of command” of Hamas and Hezbollah, while dismantling “a large part of their military capabilities” the source added.

Hezbollah said it fired rockets at a military base in the Haifa area in northern Israel in response to Israeli raids on Lebanon, AFP reports.

The group said it targeted a military industrial base around Haifa “in defence of Lebanon and its people”.

PM Shehbaz has welcomed Palestinian medical students to Pakistan at a ceremony held in Islamabad.

While delivering an address, he drew a comparison of the situation in Gaza with various other historical atrocities, making a call upon the international community to bring an end to the bloodshed in Palestine and Lebanon and assuring Palestinian students of further support.

“I want to share my sincere feelings with you, my dear students, brothers and sisters, that Pakistan is your second home,” PM Shehbaz says.

“Let me assure you, our heart pumps with yours, we are one family. Your brothers and sisters will look after you here.”

Palestinian students speaking at the occasion thanked PMDC and the various functionaries involved for their help in continuing their medical education. They also asked for help bringing over more students from other disciplines as well and asked PM Shehbaz to make efforts to get an immediate ceasefire.

A Harvard University study has revealed that in the 40 days following October 7, 2023, Israel struck areas “dangerously close” to hospitals in Gaza using US-made MK-84 bombs, Anadolu reports.

Researchers from the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Centre for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University examined craters caused by MK-84 explosions around hospitals in Gaza between October 7 and November 17, 2023.

The proximity of US-made MK-84 bombs used by the Israeli military to hospitals in Gaza was measured as part of the study, published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health. The study, which utilised satellite imagery, included a detailed analysis of 36 hospitals and 592 craters.

The study found that the MK-84 bombs, which have a blast radius capable of killing people within 360 metres and causing injuries and building damage up to 800m away, were detonated “dangerously close” to hospitals in Gaza.

Read more here.

Sri Lanka deployed troops and increased police patrols around a Jewish community centre in a popular surfing town after the US embassy warned its citizens of a possible attack there, AFP reports.

The stepped-up security and warning came after social media posts called for a boycott of Israeli-owned businesses in eastern Arugam Bay.

“The information was that a place called ‘Chabad House’ run by Israelis could be a target and we have taken measures to strengthen security,” said police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa.

He said there had recently been tensions between the Jewish tourists visiting Chabad House and the bay’s Muslim-majority population.

The army and the navy along with police commandos were deployed in the area to step up patrols and man roadblocks, he said.

France is focusing on raising hundreds of millions of dollars in aid at a conference for ravaged Lebanon, but any prospect of a wider diplomatic breakthrough has been stymied by the absence of key players, AFP reports.

The French government nevertheless hopes that the gathering can keep diplomacy alive around the conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has so far claimed more than 1,500 lives and displaced 700,000 people.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told broadcaster RTL that around 70 countries and 15 international organisations would be there, vowing that France “will not let Lebanon down”.

“Everyone we invited said yes,” he added, a list which did not include Iran or Israel.

Read more here.

Leaders of the Brics group have called for Israel to stop targeting UN staff after incidents of Israeli troops firing on UN peacekeepers stationed in Lebanon, AFP reports.

“We strongly condemn the attacks on UN staff and threats to their security and call on Israel to immediately cease such actions,” the group said in a joint statement.

The leaders also stressed that the “territorial integrity” of Lebanon be “preserved. “

World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza after Israeli attacks prevented tens of thousands of children from receiving their second polio doses.

“Having a significant number of children miss out on their second vaccine dose will seriously jeopardise efforts to stop the transmission of poliovirus in Gaza,” he wrote in a post on X.

The WHO earlier said “intense bombardments, mass displacements and lack of access” in northern Gaza have forced the programme to halt.

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strongly condemned the killing of an Iranian medic in Lebanon, calling it a violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, Al Jazeera reports.

Dr Ali Heydari had been based in Beirut “for some time” in order to provide medical assistance to victims of Israeli attacks “based on his human and religious sense of duty”, the ministry said in a statement.

“The act of the Zionist regime in targeting Dr Heydari, who was acting as a medic to treat the wounded and help patients, is a clear violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions that forbid attacks on hospitals and medical centres and doctors and medical professionals, and is considered a war crime,” it said.

The ministry also called on relevant organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to document repeated instances of “gross violations of international humanitarian law” by the Israeli military in Lebanon.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has urged members of the Brics grouping to help “end the war” in Gaza and Lebanon, AFP reports.

“I call on all members of the influential Brics group to use all their collective and individual capacities to end the war in Gaza and Lebanon, “ said Pezeshkian during a speech at the Brics summit in Russia.