Description

Photo:
Scene. Published by IMEMC News

Israeli military casulties as of 10/31/2023:
From top-right, clockwise: Asif Luger, Erez Mishlovsky, Ariel Reich, Halel Solomon, Pdaya Mark, Lior Siminovich, Adi Danan, Roei Dawi, Adi Leon, Roei Saragosti. Published by Haaretz

Hamas terrorists cross the Israel-Gaza border fence on October 7, 2023 (Kan TV screenshot; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law). Published by The Times of Israel
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by Palestinian News & Informaton Agency (WAFA)
10/31/2023
Republished by IMEMC News
Nov 1, 2023

Ramallah 10-31-2023 WAFA – The Ministry of Health said that the toll of slain and wounded among our people as a result of the continuing aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has risen to 8,850 and more than 24,000 wounded.

The Health Ministry added during her daily report issued today, Wednesday, that 8,720 Palestinians died in the Gaza Strip, and more than 24,000 were injured, and in the West Bank, the number of slain Palestinians rose to 130, and the wounded to 2,100 since the seventh of this October.

The Ministry stated that more than 73% of the slain Palestinians were children, women, and the elderly.

Palestinian Health Minister, Dr. Mail Al-Kaila, pointed out that the Turkish Friendship Hospital stopped working as a result of the bombing and the depletion of fuel, knowing that it is the only hospital for treating cancer patients, and Al-Shifa Medical Hospital is threatened to stop working completely within less than 24 hours.

Al-Kaila explained that doctors are still forced to perform surgeries without anesthesia, including those who were injured as a result of the bombing and women who give birth by caesarean sections, noting that during the past 24 hours, the bombing targeted health facilities, which led to the destruction of a primary health care clinic in addition to damage caused in two hospitals.

Since October 7, the occupation authorities have prevented patients from leaving the Gaza Strip for treatment in Jerusalem hospitals and within the 1948 territories, including 2,000 patients with cancer.

As of October 29, about 1,950 citizens were reported missing, including at least 1,050 children, who may be trapped or killed under the rubble waiting to be recovered.

The Health Ministry said that the Civil Defense raised the issue of the decomposition of bodies under collapsed buildings, amid limited rescue missions, which raises humanitarian and environmental concerns.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society announced that, due to the fuel shortage, it was forced to reduce the number of ambulances it operates, and all humanitarian agencies and their employees faced significant restrictions in providing humanitarian aid, as humanitarian partners cannot safely reach people in need and the warehouses in which aid supplies are stored.

The ministry added that 117,000 displaced people, in addition to medical and health personnel and thousands of patients, reside in health facilities.

She stated that there are 1.4 million citizens internally displaced in Gaza, with about 629,000 citizens living in 150 emergency shelters designated for UNRWA, where overcrowding is a growing concern, and the average number of internally displaced persons per shelter has reached 2.7 times its capacity, with the most crowded shelter reaching 11. Weak carrying capacity.

It showed that about 34,000 housing units were completely destroyed, 150,000 units were partially destroyed, 15 health facilities and 51 primary health clinics were destroyed, 221 schools were destroyed, including 38 schools completely destroyed, and 42 UNRWA facilities were destroyed, including… This includes the places where the displaced took refuge, and 7 churches and 11 mosques were damaged as a result of the bombing.

The Ministry of Health recorded 130 attacks on the health sector, where 132 health personnel were killed, more than 110 of them were injured, while 50 ambulances were damaged, including 28 that were completely out of work, and 16 out of 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were closed, and 51 out of 72 centers were closed. Primary health care due to damage caused by bombing or fuel shortages. 24 hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip were asked to evacuate (the total capacity of these hospitals is 2,000 beds).

55% of health sector partners have suspended their operations due to significant damage to infrastructure, forcing hospitals to operate with less than a third of what is needed to treat the large number of wounded, and hospitals are still suffering from a severe fuel shortage, leading to strict rationing and limited use of electricity generators for basic functions only.

The Ministry indicated that maintaining and repairing standby generators, which were not originally intended for continuous operation, is becoming increasingly difficult due to the scarcity of spare parts, which seriously affects the most important functions in hospitals and the ability of ambulances to respond.

She noted the possibility of stopping newborn incubators, pointing out that there are 350,000 patients with non-communicable diseases, and 1,000 patients in need of dialysis, as 80% of dialysis machines are in hospitals in northern Gaza.
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19 Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Ground Operation, IDF Confirms
by Yaniv Kubovich for Haaretz
Nov 1, 2023
Updated: Nov 2, 20237:43 pm IST

Total number of Israeli soldiers killed in the Gaza Strip rose to 19. The IDF's operation in the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday took control of a Hamas military stronghold and killed the commander of Hamas' Jabalya Brigade.

On Thursday, it was announced that reserve officer Lt. (res.) Yuval Zilber, 25, from Ramat Gan, Lt. Col. Salman Habaka, 33, from the Druze village of Yanuh-Jat who commanded the 53rd battalion of the Armored Corps., and Sergeant 1st Class Yair Nifosy, 20, from the northern Israeli town of Adi, and was a member of the Paratroopers Brigade's 101st Battalion, were killed in the battles in the northern Gaza Strip.
. . .

The IDF named the fatalities as:

Staff Sgt. Roei Wolf, 20, from Ramat Gan; Staff Sgt. Lavi Lifshitz, 20, from Modi'in-Maccabim-Reot; Capt. Ariel Reich, 24, from Jerusalem; Sgt. Asif Luger, 21, from Yagur; Staff Sgt. Adi Danan, 20, from Yavne; Staff Sgt. Halel Solomon, 20, from Dimona; Staff Sgt. Erez Mishlovsky, 20, from Oranit; Staff Sgt. Adi Leon, 20, from Nili; Sgt. Ido Ovadia, 19, from Tel Aviv; Sgt. Lior Siminovich, 19, from Herzliya; Staff Sgt. Roei Dawi, 20, from Jerusalem; and 1st Lt. Pdaya Mark, 22, from Otniel; Staff Sgt. Roei Saragosti, 22, from Nahal HaRoa; Staff Sgt. Itai Yehuda, 21, from Rishon Lezion; Staff Sgt. Shay Arvas, 20, from Holon; Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Shalev Zion Sharabi, 22, from Teneh Omarim; Lt. (res.) Yuval Zilber, 25, from Ramat Gan; Lt. Col. Salman Habaka, 33, from Yanuh-Jat.

. . .

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IDF estimates 3,000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel in Oct. 7 onslaught

Tally doesn’t include Gazans who crossed the breached barrier later; some 200 terrorists were detained, one admits to gunning down kids, burning homes in new interrogation clip

By EMANUEL FABIAN and GIANLUCA PACCHIANI for The Times of Israel
1 November 2023, 7:57 pm

A new IDF assessment of Hamas’s October 7 massacre suggests that around 3,000 terrorists invaded southern Israel to carry out the murderous rampage through Gaza border towns, The Times of Israel has learned.

Previously, the military had estimated that some 2,500 terror operatives took part in the unprecedented assault, which claimed the lives of some 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians butchered in their homes or at a music festival. The terrorists also seized at least 245 hostages of all ages, under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities.

The 3,000 figure in the latest assessment only includes armed terror operatives and not the waves of Gazan citizens who took advantage of the enormous gaps in the fence to also make their way inside later in the day.

The Israel Defense Forces has said that during the first two days of fighting, its forces killed around 1,000 terrorists in Israeli territory and captured another 200, and that there are many bodies of terrorists still scattered around the border area, and it intends to collect and tally them when it’s possible to do so without endangering soldiers’ lives.

One of the apprehended terrorists has provided a grim description of himself and others gunning down children and families in Kfar Aza on October 7, in a new clip from his interrogation published Wednesday by the Shin Bet security agency.

The man, Amer Abu Ghosha, is a member of the Nukhba, the commando unit of Hamas, though he said neither of his parents had known he was a Hamas member, and that they wouldn’t have approved of it.

“Our only mission was to kill,” the man told the interrogator, “not to kidnap. Kill every person we see and return to Gaza.”

Abu Ghosha said his group of terrorists headed for Kfar Aza in a jeep, and entered the community after one of them blew up the gate with an explosive device. Once inside the town, the group of terrorists went house by house, setting them on fire and gunning down whomever they came across with their Kalashnikov rifles, or launching grenades at them.

At one point, Abu Ghosha described entering a house and hearing the voices of crying young children inside the safe room, and shooting at the room’s door. He recalled the voices eventually stopped, and inferred the children — and likely their parents — had died.

“We shot until we didn’t hear noise anymore,” he said.

Abu Ghosha and some of the other terrorists later engaged in an armed confrontation with IDF soldiers who entered the house through the windows, and were eventually forced to turn themselves in.

Asked why they killed women and children, Abu Ghosha responded: “They told us all the settlers were soldiers.”

Kfar Aza is within Israel’s internationally recognized borders, but Hamas has vowed to eradicate the Jewish state and views all its residents as illegitimate.

Abu Ghosha also acknowledged that no Muslim teachings permit the deliberate killing of children.

When asked what the difference is between Hamas and the Islamic State terror group, the man said he had been shown videos by the interrogators of some of the horrors perpetrated by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians, and commented: “There is no difference. I saw videos that are worse than ISIS.”

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