Gaza death toll crosses 8,000; situation more desperate by the hour, says UN chief

News Network

October 29, 2023

Internet services were restored in parts of Gaza on Sunday, October 29, after being cut off on Friday when Israel intensified its military action on the ground, according to internet tracker NetBlocks. Israeli aggression, however, continues to wreak havoc on Palestinian lives in the region, with Al Jazeera reporting that the death toll has crossed 8,000 and more than 20,000 have been injured.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday that the situation in Gaza is becoming more and more desperate “by the hour”. “The situation in Gaza is growing more desperate by the hour. I regret that instead of a critically needed humanitarian pause, supported by the international community, Israel has intensified its military operations,” he said while in Kathmandu, Nepal.

“The number of civilians who have been killed and injured is totally unacceptable. The world is witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe taking place before our eyes,” he continued.

Doctors Without Borders has called for an immediate ceasefire to prevent more deaths in the Gaza Strip. “Northern Gaza is being razed to the ground, while the whole Strip is being hit and civilians have no place to take shelter,” the group said. “The actions of world leaders are too weak, too slow, as a non-binding UN resolution for a humanitarian truce has done nothing to reign in the indiscriminate violence unleashed on a helpless people. Hospitals are flooded with patients, amputations and surgeries are being carried out without proper anesthesia, and morgues are flooded with dead bodies.”

The Palestinian health ministry too has been calling on international actors to step up pressure on the Israeli administration

Netanyahu blames security failure for October 7 – and then retracts

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X (formerly Twitter) blaming Israel’s security agencies for the failures that led to the October 7 Hamas attack – only to later delete that post and apologise.

In the original post, Netanyahu claimed that he had never been warned about the possibility of the Hamas attack. According to Haaretz, he blamed the defense establishment – citing Aharon Haliva and Ronen Bar, the heads of Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security service – for Israel’s failure to anticipate the attack on October 7.

“Under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned about Hamas’ intending to go to war,” the post on the official prime minister’s account stated. “…“every defense official, including the heads of MI and the Shin Bet, believed that Hamas was deterred and sought accommodation. This was the assessment that was presented time and time again to the prime minister and the cabinet by all defense officials and the intelligence community up to the outbreak of the war.”

Several people within the Israeli military and political administration then criticised the post and asked Netanyahu to remove it. Netanyahu went on to just that, posting a new post in which he said, “I was wrong” and “I give full backing to all the heads of the security arms. I am strengthening the Chief of Staff and the commanders and soldiers of the IDF who are at the front and fighting for the house.”

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‘Israel’s sole objective is erasing entire Palestinian presence’

News Network

November 21,2024

Hamas says the Israeli regime’s sole objective lies in “erasing” the entirety of the Palestinian population from across the Palestinian territories.

Khalil al-Hayya, a ranking official with the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement, made the remarks to the Palestinian al-Aqsa TV on Wednesday.

“The occupation targets everyone—it strikes hospitals, civil defense, women, children, and the elderly,” he said, adding that the regime sought to “empty Gaza of its residents, and displace the Palestinian people to fulfill its dreams of building a Zionist Jewish state across all of Palestine.”

The remarks came amid the regime’s October 2023-present war of genocide on the coastal sliver that has so far claimed the lives of nearly 44,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

“This unprecedented aggression in modern times evokes scenes from the dark ages of human history, having crossed all red lines and exceeded every expectation of brutality in the modern era,” the Palestinian official lamented.

He also regretted that the regime had added “systematic and dangerous starvation to its aggression, falsely claiming before the world that it allows 250 [aid] trucks into Gaza daily. In reality, the number of trucks is far fewer.”

Hayya, meanwhile, regretted that “scenes of children torn apart, women screaming over their children, and heart-wrenching destruction have failed to stir enough humanity to stop these crimes.”

He decried the United States for vetoing the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions that are aimed at bringing about a potential ceasefire in the war, saying this indicated Washington’s “partnership in the aggression” and a simultaneous siege that the Israeli regime has been enforcing on Gaza.

Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the official asserted that, despite what the Israeli official is after, Hamas would not hand over the regime’s captives “without [the regime’s] stopping the war.”

He called Netanyahu “the main obstacle” in the way of cessation of the aggression, saying the Israeli premier “blocks any progress for political reasons,” and citing his preventing conclusion of a ceasefire agreement in July.

Hayya also warned that the regime sought to expand the war beyond Gaza, but asserted that its goals are “impossible and will never happen.”

“Today, the enemy exposes its true intentions of extermination and displacement, but it will fail,” he stressed.

“The Palestinian people are resilient and will not surrender, as they believe in their humanitarian and political cause. The enemy and its allies will not succeed in achieving their goals. This steadfast people will endure, and the occupation will not prevail against them.”

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