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Photos:
Jabalia, 11/6/2024. Published by IMEMC News

People make their way amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israeli bombardment, at the Jabalia camp for displaced Palestinians on August 31, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group. Photo by Hadi Daoud apaimages. Published by IMEMC News

Dr. Almed al-Namnan. Published by IMEMC News

Displaced families fleeing Israeli army operations in Jabalya in northern Gaza take the main Salah al-Din road towards Gaza City at the end of October. Credit: AFP. Published by Haaretz

Smoke rising following an Israeli bombardment in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip last week. Credit: AFP. Published by Haaretz

Kfir Brigade soldiers in the Gaza Strip last December. Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit. Published by Haaretz

Children carrying an aid package provided by UNRWA in Deir al-Balah on Tuesday. Credit: Ramadan Abed/Reuters. Published by Haaretz

Israelis demonstrate after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Tuesday. Credit: REUTERS. Published by Haaretz

Yoav Gallant speaks to members of the press shortly after he was sacked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday. Credit: REUTERS. Published by Haaretz

Video of Pope Francis: "I continue to receive very serious and painful news from Gaza. Unarmed civilians are subjected to bombings and shootings. A mother and her daughter were ki!!ed by Israeli snipers while going to the restroom. It is terrørism."
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by IMEMC News
Nov 7, 2024

On Wednesday November 6, 2024, Israeli forces continued their ongoing relentless assault on the 2.2 million civilians in northern, central and southern Gaza for the 397th straight day.

Update 11:59 pm Nov. 6, 2024:

Israeli forces continued their assault from before dawn, all day and all night in northern and central Gaza. Four Palestinians, including a father and his son, were killed and others were injured on Wednesday evening in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the new camp, north of Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Correspondents with the Palestinian Wafa news agency said Shadi Al-Sanea and his young son Hussam were killed, and 17 others were injured in an airstrike launched by the Israeli occupation aircraft on the house of the Al-Sanea family in the Al-Rahma neighborhood in the new camp, north of the Nuseirat camp. They were transferred to Al-Awda Hospital, while search operations are still ongoing for missing persons under the rubble.

Five Palestinians were killed on Wednesday evening when the Israeli occupation forces bombed a group of Palestinians in the Tal al-Zaatar area, north of the Gaza Strip.

Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, reported that five Palestinians were killed and a number were wounded as a result of the Israeli occupation bombing of a group of citizens in the Tel al-Zaatar area, north of the Gaza Strip.

Four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air force drone attack on a group of Palestinians in Gaza City on Wednesday afternoon.

Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that they transferred 4 bodies and a number of wounded people after an Israeli drone bombed a group of Palestinians in front of the ambulance and emergency headquarters in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, west of Gaza City, to the Baptist Hospital in the city.

From journalist Hossam Shabat: Israeli occupation forces kidnapped men from north Gaza, blindfolded them, numbered them, executed many, and kidnapped the rest to unknown locations.

Israeli occupation forces have continued their aggression, by land, sea and air, on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, which has resulted in the killing of at least 43,374 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children, and the injury of 108,511 others, in an incomplete toll, as thousands of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and rescue crews cannot reach them.

Among the slain Palestinians are at least 17,289 children, 11,815 women, 2,421 elderly people, 183 journalists, 85 emergency responders, 986 medical staff, and 203 UNRWA staff.

The British Lancet Medical Journal and other experts estimate the death toll in Gaza is much higher – and could be above 200,000, when counting both direct and indirect deaths related to the Israeli war on Gaza.

This most recent escalation of Israel’s ongoing military occupation of Palestine began October 7th 2023 when 1,143 Israelis were killed, including 767 civilians and 376 armed soldiers. Around 500 Israeli soldiers have been killed between October 7th and now – both in Gaza and on the Israeli border with Lebanon.

Updated from Nov 6, 2024 at 11:12 am – Report from Gaza:

A mother and her three children were killed on Wednesday when the Israeli occupation forces bombed a house in the town of Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip.

Local sources reported that the Israeli occupation’s warplanes bombed a house belonging to the family, which led to the death of the mother and her three children. The sources noted that her husband is currently imprisoned in the Israeli torture prison camps, where thousands of Palestinians are currently being illegally detained.

The Israeli occupation aircraft also launched an air strike in the vicinity of the western roundabout in the town of Beit Lahia, while the occupation artillery fired its shells at Jabalia and the Beit Lahia project.

The Israeli military issued a statement that “This time there is no intention to allow the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes … there are no more civilians left north of Gaza City”. This is despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians remain in northern Gaza, and there is literally nowhere for them to go.

The Environment Quality Authority said that the Israeli occupation army dropped more than 85 thousand tons of bombs on the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the aggression on October 7, 2023, which exceeds what was dropped in World War II.

It added in a statement issued today, Wednesday, on the occasion of the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Military Conflict, that the occupation’s continuous bombing of the Gaza Strip has caused the destruction of vast areas of agricultural land and the contamination of the soil with toxic chemicals that will hinder agriculture for decades.

The Environment Quality Authority pointed out that the occupation used all types of weapons and shells in its ongoing aggression, most notably white phosphorus, which is prohibited by international law under the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons, which targets environmental components, causing serious environmental damage that threatens the lives of humans and living organisms.
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IDF's Destruction of Northern Gaza Reveals the Government's Plan: We're Here to Stay

The IDF has expelled residents from the northern quarter of Gaza and is preparing to keep hold of the area. This raises concerns that, contrary to his declarations, Netanyahu plans to realize the resettlement vision of his extreme-right partners – even at the cost of the hostages' lives

by Amos Harel and Yaniv Kubovich for Haaretz
Nov 6, 2024

A few hours before polls opened on Tuesday in the U.S. presidential election, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone with Yoav Gallant, who was still defense minister at the time. In the short announcement released by the State Department, only one sentence was devoted to the U.S. commitment to protect Israel from the attack being threatened by Iran.

The rest of the text was devoted to a problem in the Middle East that is greatly preoccupying the Biden administration at the moment: the Israel Defense Forces activity in northern Gaza and the disruptions in bringing humanitarian aid into the Strip.

About three weeks ago, Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin sent a sharply worded letter to Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, demanding that Israel take steps within 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in the Strip. They warned that the absence of such assistance is likely to have serious implications on the transfer of American weapons to Israel.

Since then, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has secretly ordered the IDF to ensure the transfer of 250 aid trucks a day to the Strip, as per the American demand – a level of assistance the army is incapable of providing.

Meanwhile, to the chagrin of the outgoing administration, the governing coalition has passed laws to close the UNRWA offices. But Blinken is primarily concerned about the situation on the ground in Gaza. In his announcement, he said he has urged Israel to adopt activities that will increase the amount of aid to civilians – "food, water and other crucial supplies" – throughout the enclave. Blinken also called for an end to the war in Gaza, the release of all the hostages and the creation of a track that would enable the Palestinians there to rebuild their lives and rehabilitate the Strip.

The conversation between Blinken and Gallant took place about a month after the start of the IDF operation in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza. A senior IDF officer who spoke to journalists on Tuesday said that his forces are close to subduing Hamas opposition in the camp. He said there have been about 1,000 terrorists killed in battles and about 700 residents suspected of membership in terror organizations have been captured.

About 55,000 civilians were evacuated from the camp and only a few hundred remain, along with small groups of armed Hamas members. A few thousand civilians remain in the cities north of Jabalya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia. The officer said the forced evacuation was carried out to protect the population from harm, and that it was preceded by attempts by Hamas to scare the residents – by shooting, wounding and killing those who tried to flee.

In light of the reports coming from the field, concern and criticism arose in the United States and Europe surrounding IDF activity, including over the mass killing of civilians (the army claims that Hamas is deliberately inflating the numbers) along with destruction of infrastructure. In the background were also reports in Israel about the so-called Generals' Plan drawn up by former senior officers, which called for forced expulsion of the entire Palestinian population from northern Gaza to the southern half of the Strip, south of the Netzarim corridor (the Nahal Aza area), which is held by the IDF. It also called for preventing the entry of humanitarian aid to the north.

The IDF has rejected any connection to the Generals' Plan, which has been the subject of international criticism. In fact, though, it has been implementing a considerable part of it. The residents haven't moved south to Netzarim, but in effect have been evicted from the northern quarter of the Strip south of Jabalya, and perhaps even from up until the Shati refugee camp, which is somewhat further south.

This activity has been accompanied by mass destruction of homes and infrastructure from Jabalya northward, some of which doesn't seem to be directly related to the fighting. These are almost irreversible changes that will take the Palestinians years to repair, if they manage to at all. That's the impression received after a visit to the area on Tuesday.

Closer to their goal
Between the southern Kibbutz Nir Am and the town of Sderot just on the other side of Route 34, along the shoulder of the road and under the bridge that trains run on, an encampment of tents has been erected. At first glance, it looks like a Scouts camp. At the entrance there's a large sign that reads Elai Aza ("To Gaza"). Elai Aza has already received its own entry on Hebrew-language Wikipedia, according to which this is "an illegal settlement that has been built near Kibbutz Erez by right-wing activists who want to establish settlements in the Gaza Strip."

Until recently, the idea of returning to settle in Gaza was restricted to the extremists on the right. Lost "hilltop youth" – radical, often violent young settlers – left the illegal farms and outposts in the West Bank and arrived at the Gaza border to create provocations and put pressure on the political leadership to rebuild the Jewish settlements that were evacuated during the 2005 disengagement from Gaza. But what seemed like a delusional idea of an extremist gang until a year ago has in recent months become a focus of pilgrimage by far-right rabbis, lawmakers and activists.

Even after traveling a few hundred meters inside the Strip, it's easy to see that the activists in the encampment are closer to fulfilling their vision than the general public thinks.

In Al-Attara and Beit Lahia there isn't a single house that people could return to and live in. The area looks like it was hit by a natural disaster. There are no civilians to be seen among the ruins. As part of the attempt to remove them, the army fires artillery into the area at night. Those who want to return can't do so, because the army prevents it. The bottom line is that it makes no difference what the IDF calls its actions. The army has begun the stage of cleansing the northern Strip while it prepares to hold onto the area for a long time to come.

All along the way, trucks and engineering equipment work to destroy the buildings near the roads. In their place, they're paving broad arteries designed to enable safer and easier movement for the forces in the area. Col. Yaniv Barot is the commander of the Kfir Brigade, which has received responsibility for the Al-Attara and Beit Lahia area.

Barot says his mission is to continue to locate and eliminate terror infrastructure and Hamas activists. But he says that in the course of the most recent operation, no underground infrastructure, heavy war materiel or weapons production sites were found. The forces are now searching homes in an attempt to find armed men and war materiel.

The situation on the ground proves that the IDF is in effect bisecting the northern Strip. During the first stage, the IDF bisected the whole of the enclave, in the Nahal Aza region. Now it's the northern Strip. The residents don't have permission to return to the areas that have been evacuated, even in places where the army's activity has ended.

The Kfir Brigade was reinforced by the 71st Battalion of the 188th Armored Brigade, which has been fighting on the Lebanese border since January. The fact that the IDF is bringing down maneuvering forces, and a tank battalion in particular, from the north for the purpose of holding the area in the south may signal the political leadership's intentions to reach an end to the fighting in the north and to prepare for a long stay in the south.

Quiet understandings
In general, the IDF's moves are evidence of an attempt to establish facts on the ground for the long term. In the army, as we know, there's nothing more permanent than the temporary. Along with the increasing tension with the international community – which is expected to increase further during the Biden administration's "lame duck" period, unrelated to the results of the presidential election – continued activity in the northern Strip could land a death blow to an agreement. It would increase the risk to the Israeli hostages being held in the Strip: 101 civilians and soldiers.

The IDF isn't operating in a vacuum, but according to quiet understandings with the political leadership. There's a growing impression that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is deliberately playing into the hands of his far-right partners, even though he declared several months ago, in an interview on Channel 14, that he doesn't support the rebuilding of settlements in Gaza.

But that's the only thing in the war that interests Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit at the moment, even at the price of the lives of the hostages. The fact that they aren't applying similar pressure on continuing the war in Lebanon – Netanyahu is making optimistic predictions about the possibility of ending it within a few weeks – testifies to their real order of priorities.

Netanyahu has surrendered to the settlers' pressure because in his opinion, there's no other choice. He hopes that the political alliance with them will help him remain in power and at the same time postpone his testimony in his criminal trial, which is expected to begin in early December. For the purpose of the postponement, he's also mobilizing the threat to his life – something he makes sure to stress ever since Hezbollah launched a drone at his private home in Caesarea in mid-October.

Meanwhile, he and his office are gradually becoming mired in other problems. It's not clear if they directly endanger his rule, but they are certainly increasing the tension and fears among his aides and advisers. As part of the Shin Bet security service's investigation of the matter of leaked sensitive intelligence information from the IDF's Military Intelligence, and the use of it for the campaign against the hostages' families, one of the spokesmen in the Prime Minister's Office, Eli Feldstein, is still being detained. It's possible that other aides will be investigated.

On Tuesday, the gag order was lifted on the information that the police are conducting an investigation in the Prime Minister's Office relating to events from the start of the war. In the background is the report in Yedioth Ahronoth about a complaint to the police filed by Netanyahu's military secretary at the time, Brig. Gen. Avi Gil, on suspicion of attempts to alter the minutes of wartime cabinet meetings.

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