According to international organizations, the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is getting worse. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Shifa Hospital, the largest clinic in the coastal area inhabited by Palestinians, continues to operate despite the power outage and the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
However, according to the UN, aid workers can no longer respond to emergency calls in the Gaza Strip. The water supply for hundreds of thousands of people has already been interrupted due to a lack of fuel. Israel’s right-wing finance minister recommended “voluntary migration” to residents.
According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, dozens of corpses were buried in a mass grave in an inner courtyard on the grounds of the Shifa Hospital, including around 180 bodies that were already decomposing. The statements could not initially be independently verified. However, contrary to what Palestinian authorities said at the weekend, the clinic is not out of operation, as the WHO announced in Geneva. “For us, it is a functioning hospital because of the heroic efforts of the remaining staff,” said WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris. There are still around 700 seriously ill patients to be cared for. “We’re begging for a ceasefire.”
UN chief calls for ceasefire “in the name of humanity”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed “deep concern” about the situation in hospitals in the Gaza Strip. These recorded dramatic losses of human life, Guterres announced in New York. “In the name of humanity, the Secretary General calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” it said in a statement.
Israel responded with its attacks to the unprecedented terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas in southern Israel with around 1,200 deaths, including at least 859 civilians, according to the latest information from the Israeli police. The terrorists also kidnapped around 240 people in the Gaza Strip.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has risen to 11,500 since the start of the war, according to the administration controlled by the Islamist Hamas. An administration information office said 29,000 people have been injured since then. This information cannot currently be independently verified. However, the United Nations and other observers point out that the figures from the Gaza Strip have proven to be credible in the past.
According to Israeli reports, Hamas operates command centers in or under hospitals. Israeli soldiers found numerous weapons belonging to Palestinian extremists in the basement of a children’s clinic in the city of Gaza. Hamas leader Khalil al-Haja told Al Jazeera that Israel was making false claims. US President Joe Biden called on Israel to spare hospitals from the fighting more than before.
Water supply at risk
According to the UN, two water suppliers in the south of the Gaza Strip stopped working due to a lack of fuel. As a result, around 200,000 people no longer have drinking water, reported the UN emergency aid office OCHA. This also calls into question the distribution of aid supplies that come from Egypt via the Rafah border crossing. Street fighting in the city of Gaza also prevented emergency workers from responding to calls for help from people buried under rubble following Israeli bombings.
Israel’s army once again gave civilians in the northern Gaza Strip a window of opportunity to flee to the south. In addition, an army spokesman on Platform
Israel’s finance minister for “voluntary migration”
In total, almost 1.6 million of the approximately 2.2 million inhabitants of the coastal area are on the run. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) says it currently houses almost half of them in its buildings in the south – including many schools.
Israel’s right-wing extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke out in favor of a “voluntary exodus” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to several countries. “The voluntary exodus and reception of Arab Gazans by the countries of the world is a humanitarian solution that will put an end to the suffering of Jews and Arabs at the same time,” Smotrich wrote on X. Smotrich has already existed in the past of the Palestinian people denied.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Samih Shukri rejected Smotrich’s statements. Fearing a mass exodus, both Egypt and Jordan have refused to accept refugees from the Gaza Strip. This also has to do with the fear that this could ultimately lead to permanent displacement.
Kibbutz peace activist suspected to be hostage is dead
An Israeli-Canadian peace activist who was temporarily suspected of being among the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in the Gaza Strip is dead. Vivian Silver’s body has been found, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said. The 74-year-old from Kibbutz Beeri had been missing since the Hamas massacre on October 7th. Her son Yonatan Zeigen assumed his mother had been kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
Silver was known as an activist for the Women Wage Peace organization. According to her son, she was also one of the volunteers who had been picking up sick children from Gaza at the border for years and driving them to Israeli hospitals for treatment.
Israel’s army also confirmed the death of a hostage in the hands of Hamas. The military listed the 19-year-old soldier, who was reportedly kidnapped, among those killed since October 7th. Hamas’s armed wing claimed she was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on November 9.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is negotiating with Hamas about access to the kidnapped hostages. “We insist on seeing the hostages,” said spokeswoman Fatima Sator on Tuesday in Geneva. “This is part of our dialogue with Hamas.” Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen was in Geneva for talks with the ICRC leadership and UN organizations.
According to the Israeli government, the power of the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip is increasingly collapsing due to the fighting. “The terrorist organization Hamas has lost control of Gaza,” said Defense Minister Joav Galant. “Civilians are looting Hamas bases and they have no trust in their government,” he said on Monday evening. The information could not initially be independently verified. Israeli army ground troops have surrounded the northern city of Gaza for almost two weeks.
USA and Great Britain impose further sanctions against Hamas
The USA and Great Britain have imposed further sanctions on people and entities with links to the Islamist Hamas. The US Treasury Department announced in Washington that what is now the third package of sanctions is aimed at several Hamas officials and mechanisms through which Iran supports Hamas and the militant Palestinian organization Islamic Jihad (PIJ). A financial company based in Lebanon, through which millions have flowed to Hamas in the Gaza Strip in recent years, was also affected.
“Hamas’ actions have caused immense suffering and demonstrated that terrorism does not occur in isolation,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The measures are about “weakening Hamas’s financial infrastructure, cutting it off from external financing and blocking new financing channels.”
