A "total communication blackout" is underway in Gaza due to fuel shortages, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on Thursday.
"Gaza is again in a total communication blackout, and ... it is because there is no fuel," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a press conference in Geneva.
Lazzarini also warned of a "deliberate attempt to strangle our operation and paralyse the UNRWA operation."
UNRWA noted in a post on X that the communications blackout in the enclave means UN agencies won’t be able to coordinate aid convoys to the enclave, including a planned aid operation at the Rafah Crossing on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, the primary telecom provider in Gaza, Paltel, said that "all telecom services in Gaza Strip have gone out of service as all energy resources sustaining the network have been depleted, and fuel was not allowed in."
From our#Gaza team @TomWhite:
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 16, 2023
There will NOT be a cross-border aid operation at the Rafah Crossing tomorrow.
The communications network in #Gaza is down because there is NO fuel.
This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys. pic.twitter.com/Kaj8z0lE9f
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said that people are embarking on yet another night with an “absence of communication”.
"Israeli forces are relentlessly targeting different areas across Gaza including the north, central, southern parts of the Strip", he said.
The telecommunications blackout is also affecting about 1.6 million Palestinians who have been displaced from Gaza’s north.
Abu Azzoum also added that the people of Palestine "don’t have any communication" with the outside world, and now depend on radios to get the news from the local channels. He further mentioned that “deliberate attacks” by Israeli forces on telecommunication towers are isolating Palestinians.
UPDATES FROM DAY 42 OF THE WAR
NOW ON THE BAY BRIDGE
— JVP Bay Area (@JVPBayArea) November 16, 2023
Dozens are shutting the bridge down during commute hours, DEMANDING a ceasefire in Gaza while Biden is here in San Francisco.
No Gaza genocide, no more bombing, stop killing children. pic.twitter.com/UXx6sVxd6R
We regret to announce that all telecom services in ???????????????? ???????????????????? have ???????????????? ???????????? of service as all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, and ???????????????? ???????????? ???????????? ???????????????????????????? ????????.#KeepGazaConnected
— Paltel (@Paltelco) November 16, 2023
The UN human rights chief decried Thursday serious allegations of violations of international law in the Israel-Hamas war, suggesting an international investigation was needed.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said Thursday he was ringing the loudest possible alarm bell over the "potentially explosive" situation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
"In my view, this creates a potentially explosive situation, and I want to be clear: we are well beyond the level of early warning. I am ringing the loudest possible alarm bell about the occupied West Bank," he said.
The Israeli army on Thursday announced the deaths of two more soldiers in Gaza, raising the number of troops killed in the Palestinian territory to 50 since the war with Hamas militants began. An army spokesman confirmed the new overall toll to AFP, after announcing two soldiers were killed in combat in northern Gaza on Wednesday.
Three gunmen attacked a checkpoint near Jerusalem on Thursday, Israeli police said, wounding several people before the attackers were "neutralised". Four people were wounded, one of them critically, the Magen David Adom emergency medical services said in a statement. The attack came on the 41st day of the war between Israel and Gaza-based Hamas militants.
Saudi Arabia has "strongly condemned" the Israeli forces' storming of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza and the bombing of the vicinity of the Jordan Field Hospital.
"The Kingdom stresses the need to activate international accountability mechanisms regarding these ongoing violations and brutal and inhumane practices by the Israeli occupation forces, against children, women, civilians, health facilities and relief teams," Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Haytham Kallab works as a general practitioner at Khan Younis' Nasser Medical Complex. In a conversation with Al Jazeera, the doctor said he had seen injuries that were "unbelievable and difficult to understand."
"Maybe the hardest case me for was a mother holding her child. The child was dead. She was holding her baby while her legs were broken. She had multiple injuries and had to be resuscitated. I didn’t know whether to take her child away from her. I decided to allow her to keep holding her son. This affected me so I followed up. Then I heard her say she wished she had died rather than had her legs amputated," Kallab told Al Jazeera.
Kallab believes the current war on Gaza is "unlike any other" due to the enormous number of casualties his hospital receives. He says children and women make up the bulk of cases he gets and the nature of cases that come into hospitals is "horrifying".
More than five weeks into Israel’s war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not outlined his future vision for Gaza. He has said many times the war will continue until Hamas is eradicated. But his battle plan for achieving that objective is far from clear. READ FULL REPORT HERE
If necessary fuel supplies are not given right now, the occupied Gaza Strip is expected to experience another complete communication blackout on Thursday, stated Amnesty International, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation.
Two of the biggest local telecom providers, Paltel Group and Jawwal, jointly released a statement today announcing that their primary data servers and switches were gradually shutting down as a result of fuel exhaustion.
As the two biggest operators in the region, Paltel and Jawwal would suffer disastrous effects if they were unable to recover from the blackout until fuel was supplied.
“Israel’s ongoing refusal to deliver sufficient fuel and restore power will bring Gaza’s communications network to a complete halt. It has also severely affected the delivery of vital services to what remains of the crumbling medical facilities treating thousands of ailing victims of the unrelenting assault on Gaza and has hampered the rescue of injured people trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings. This will be further exacerbated by the collapse of communications services, which in itself could amount to a violation of international law,” said Rasha Abdul Rahim, Programme Director of Amnesty Tech.
Without fuel, hospitals and desalination plants in Gaza can't operate, and supplies won't be delivered.@unicefchief is calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, unrestricted humanitarian access, and the safe release of all abducted and detained children. pic.twitter.com/dNB36Niy6C
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) November 15, 2023
More than five weeks into Israel’s war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not outlined his future vision for Gaza. He has said many times the war will continue until Hamas is eradicated. But his battle plan for achieving that objective is far from clear. READ FULL REPORT HERE
More than five weeks into Israel’s war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not outlined his future vision for Gaza. He has said many times the war will continue until Hamas is eradicated. But his battle plan for achieving that objective is far from clear. READ FULL REPORT HERE
Almost 1.6 million people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since 7 October
Nearly 813,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are now sheltering in 154 UNRWA installations across all five governorates of the Gaza Strip, including in the north.
About 653,000 IDPs are sheltering in 97 facilities in the Middle, Khan Younis and Rafah areas.
Nearly 160,000 IDPs were sheltering in 57 UNRWA schools in the northern and Gaza areas as of 12 October 2023, before the evacuation order was issued by Israeli Authorities.
UNRWA is not able to access these shelters to assist or protect IDPs and does not have information on their needs and conditions.
Two UNRWA schools in the Middle area were directly hit by strikes, resulting in damage to buildings and injuries among the internally displaced people (IDPs) sheltering in one of the schools.
One UNRWA school in Rafah sustained collateral damage and three IDPs in the school were injured after a strike hit a building nearby.
Doctors Without Borders says the UN Security Council's resolution from today on "extended humanitarian pauses must lead to more meaningful action."
"A population, in its entirety, has been besieged and deprived of the basic means to survive, including access to lifesaving medical care. All while Council members deliberated," said MSF President Dr Christos Christou.
"The unacceptably jumbled and sluggish process finally led to the adoption of a text that does not come close to reflecting the severity of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Today’s resolution fails to acknowledge just how necessary a sustained cessation of hostilities is to save lives and to enable humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian pauses, extended though they may be, are not enough.”
US President Joe Biden said Wednesday he was "mildly hopeful" that there would be a deal to free Hamas-held hostages in Gaza, as he affirmed he had asked Israel to be "incredibly careful" in its military moves around hospitals in the strip.
Biden noted the "pause the Israelis have agreed to" before cutting off his thought and saying "I'm going to stop. But I am mildly hopeful."
Israeli troops on Wednesday stormed into Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, searching for traces of Hamas inside and beneath the facility, where newborns and hundreds of other patients have suffered for days without electricity and other basic necessities as fighting raged outside. pic.twitter.com/Lzo9eXPWzL
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 16, 2023
#UPDATE US President Joe Biden says he is "mildly hopeful" that there will be a deal to free Hamas-held hostages in Gaza, as he affirmed he had asked Israel to be "incredibly careful" in its military moves around hospitals in the strip.
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 16, 2023
"I don't want to get ahead of myself here… pic.twitter.com/SqGBKELs5v
Israel is continuing its operation at Gaza's largest hospital Thursday, targeting what it maintains is a Hamas command centre concealed in the complex sheltering more than 2,000 civilianshttps://t.co/XYSud25hwO pic.twitter.com/PbnOh6zDYX
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 16, 2023
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down "immediately", without waiting until the end of the country's war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Four days after Hamas's surprise October 7 attack on Israel, Netanyahu and another opposition leader, Benny Gantz, announced an agreement to form an "emergency government" for the duration of the war. Lapid said at the time he would not be joining, accusing Israeli leaders of an "unpardonable failure" for not preventing the attack.
Still, Lapid, who led Israel's coalition government before Netanyahu was returned to power in elections last year, has not previously called for the prime minister to resign since the fighting broke out, according to Israeli media.
In his interview with N12, Lapid did not call for early elections, but rather a no-confidence vote in parliament that would allow for the formation of a new government led by another member of Netanyahu's Likud party.
Israel renewed its operation at Gaza's largest hospital Thursday, targeting what it maintains is a Hamas command centre concealed in a complex sheltering more than 2,000 civilians. The situation in Gaza's other hospitals is also dire, with the WHO saying 22 of 36 are not functional due to a lack of generator fuel, damage or combat.
Gaza's health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said Thursday that Israeli bulldozers had "destroyed parts of the southern entrance" of the hospital.
Both Israel and its top ally the United States say Hamas have a command centre below the Al-Shifa complex, without providing any proof to back their claims. The Palestinian militant group and directors at the hospital have denied the charge.
Before Israeli forces first stormed the hospital complex on Wednesday, UN agencies estimated that 2,300 patients, staff and displaced civilians were sheltering at Al-Shifa.
"The protection of newborns, patients, medical staff and all civilians must override all other concerns," UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said. "Hospitals are not battlegrounds."
A journalist in contact with AFP, trapped inside Al-Shifa, said that Israeli soldiers, some wearing face masks, shot in the air and ordered young men to surrender when they first burst into the facility.
About 1,000 male Palestinians, hands above their heads, were in the courtyard, some of them stripped naked by Israeli soldiers checking them for weapons or explosives, the journalist said.
Witnesses have described conditions inside the hospital as horrific, with medical procedures performed without anaesthetic, families with scant food or water living in corridors, and the stench of decomposing corpses filling the air.
The UN Security Council adopted its first resolution since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, calling for "urgent and extended humanitarian pauses" in Gaza to address the escalating crisis for Palestinian civilians during Israel's aerial and ground attacks.
The vote in the 15-member council was 12-0
Israel immediately rejected the resolution, while the US, UK and Russia abstained
