Israel severs all ties with Gaza, will expel labourers

Issued on: 03/11/2023 – 05:13

4 min

The latest news in brief: 

• WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday said the current fuel shortage in Gaza has put 14 out of 36 hospitals and 2 specialty centres in Gaza out of operation. Underlining the severe humanitarian crisis in the enclave, Ghebreyesus said that “the hospitals that remain open are overloaded with 40% more patients than they are designed to manage”, as he called for urgent access to humanitarian aid for Palestinians.

• Roughly 800 people – including hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports and dozens of injured – have been allowed to leave the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing under an apparent agreement among the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas.

• The total death toll in Gaza rose to 9,061 people and 32,000 others injured, the official spokesperson for the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said on Thursday. The dead include 3,760 children and 2,326 women, the spokesperson said.

• Philippe Lazzarini, General Secretary of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said four of its schools-turned-shelters were damaged by airstrikes in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, reportedly killing at least 24 people. In a statement, Lazzarini said the four facilities that were struck were in the Jabalia Refugee Camp, The Beach Refugee Camp, and two in the Al Bureij Refugee Camp. He said 20 people were reported to have been killed in the strike on the school in Jabalia.

   

   

3:26am: Hezbollah chief to break silence on crisis

Lebanon‘s Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday will break weeks of silence since war broke out between Hamas and Israel, in a speech that could impact the region as the Gaza conflict rages.

Nasrallah’s highly anticipated speech will be broadcast as part of an event in Beirut‘s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, at 3pm (1pm GMT) on Friday, in memory of fighters killed in Israeli bombardments.

On the Lebanese side, more than 70 people have been killed – at least 50 of them Hezbollah fighters but also other combatants and civilians, one a Reuters journalist, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, nine people have died – eight soldiers and one civilian, the army says.

2:19am: Israel to sever ‘all contact’ with Gaza and return labourers

Israel will return Gazans working inside the country to the besieged Palestinian territory, the government said, almost four weeks after it began striking Hamas targets there in response to a deadly cross-border attack.

“Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza,” the Israeli security cabinet announced in a statement late Thursday.

“Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza,” it added, without specifying how many people would be sent back.

Before the Israel-Hamas conflict started, Israel had issued work permits to some 18,500 Gazans, according to COGAT, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs.

12:17am: Two Palestinians killed in West Bank: Palestinian health ministry

Two people were killed during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement early Friday, as fighting there continues alongside the conflict in Gaza.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military told AFP in a statement that the Israel Defense Forces were “currently conducting counterterrorism activities in the area”, without elaborating.

The latest deaths in the West Bank come on top of three Palestinians killed by Israeli fire on Thursday and an Israeli killed in a Palestinian shooting attack, according to first responders.

12:02am: Republicans advance Israel funding without Ukraine, defying Biden

The Republican-led lower chamber of US Congress passed a $14 billion aid package for Israel on Thursday, defying President Joe Biden‘s request to also include more money for Ukraine and other pressing priorities.

The bill, which diverts funding budgeted to the US tax collection agency, is almost certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate, while Biden has also threatened to veto it.

Key developments from Thursday, November 2:

A group of UN human rights experts, including the special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said Thursday that “time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”. “We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide,” the experts said in a joint statement. “The time for action is now. Israel’s allies also bear responsibility and must act now to prevent its disastrous course of action.”

France will send a second French helicopter carrier off the coast of Gaza as it works with Israeli and Egyptian authorities to find a way to provide medical assistance to people affected by the bombings in the besieged area.

The Israeli military said it targeted Lebanon‘s Hezbollah with a “broad assault” on Thursday, as the Iran-backed militant group said it had attacked 19 Israeli positions simultaneously.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday he would ask Israel to take “concrete steps” to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza as he left on a crisis trip. “We will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimise harm to men, women and children in Gaza,” Blinken told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base as he flew out.

Read our blog to see how yesterday’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)