I want to thank Ten Bears for the link to this article. Look Israel is destroying entire city blocks full of people, civilians, children just to get one or two people they don’t even know are there. How is that in any way justifiable? The police suspect a criminal in an apartment building so they bomb the entire building killing everyone in the complex? Do you support that? How many civilian Palestinians need to die to equal the harm that was done by Hamas? 10,000 civilian Palestinians dead to the Israeli 1,400 dead. And the Palestinian death toll keeps rising. Bibi says no cease fire or humanitarian pause is because Israel might lose the world’s support to keep destroying Gaza and taking the land. Hugs. Scottie
Palestinians inspect the destroyed home of the Barhoum family after an Israeli bombing. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa
The Israeli air force says it has once again attacked hundreds of targets in the Gaza Strip and killed several Hamas commanders.
Around 450 targets were bombed from the air in the past 24 hours, the army said on Monday morning. These included tunnels, military installations and launching pads for anti-tank missiles.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said troops had taken over a military complex on the ground. According to the military, “several Hamas terrorists” were killed during the operation.
Observation posts, training areas and tunnels are said to have been located on the site. The information could not be verified independently.
The Islamist Hamas movement, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, is classified as a terrorist organization by the EU and the US.
The military also reported attacks by the Israeli navy on command centres, anti-tank missile launching posts and other Hamas observation posts.
Hamas member Jamal Mussa was killed during the operations. He is said to have been responsible for “special security operations” and to have “carried out a shooting attack” on Israeli soldiers in the border area in 1993. The statement did not specify whether any soldiers were killed.
The current fighting started after the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement launched a terrorist attack from the Gaza Strip against Israel on October 7, killing 1,400 mainly civilians and taking some 240 people hostage.
Israel then launched a retaliatory bombing campaign to eliminate Hamas that has killed at least 9,770 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry there.
Palestinian children inspect the destroyed home of the Barhoum family after an Israeli bombing. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa
Palestinians bury their relatives, who were killed in the Israeli raids on the Maghazi refugee camp, in mass graves. Mohammed Talatene/dpa
23-year-old Democratic voter Atong Chan got into a heated exchange after she challenged Democratic primary candidate Dean Phillips on his opposition to a ceasefire.
During an appearance on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, an IDF official admitted to intentionally striking the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza where hundreds of civilians were located. I discuss the details of that event, the response from Democratic leadership, how Biden’s position is affecting his poll numbers, a reaction from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, and a lot more.
A clear rational straight forward description of what Israeli military is doing. Please look at the before and after photos of entire cities, or entire city blocks flattened. Remember all the buildings had children, half the population of Gaza is children! One of the Israeli government claims there are no civilians in Gaza, just terrorists. All the people are dehumanized so that the military has support to kill all the people. Why is Israel attacking the West Bank, where there is no Hamas in charge? Simply because they can kill Palestinians with world support and get more of the land. The world, the US must stop this, must use all pressure to stop Israel. Please listen to the video. Hugs. Scottie
While countless human rights groups call for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, Hillary Clinton, and many in power like her, are on the wrong side of history.
The republicans are on a non-stop attack on her, but she is correct. They just don’t like that her message is the truth, and it is correct. Hugs. Scottie
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) chokes up while condemning the resolution to censure her that the House is considering:
“Speaking up to save lives, Mr. Chair, no matter faith, no matter ethnicity, should not be controversial in this chamber.” pic.twitter.com/4ob7W6NZIB
what a thing to wake up to, a morning news feed about a man who was helpful, involved, loving, caring, preached acceptance and caring for others. He worked hard in the community, helping the best he could during crises. He had something he did that was found out, something he said he did as a hobby With his wife in the privacy of their own home and on social media under a pseudonym. It involved only them from all the stories I have read and I want to read more of them but first I want to share what hate has caused. The online accounts were not offensive or harmful, just someone role playing a part of themselves online. Talking with others who had the same interests and feelings, not harmful to anyone.
See what happen next was due to hate and intolerance. Refusing to see the good of someone, of who they are, because they are different from you in some way you don’t like. Hatred of them not because they harmed you but don’t live just as you do.
Bubba like to dress up as a woman. I must say he looked really good as a woman. He smiled more as a woman than when dressed as a man. But several anti-LGBTQIA hate groups claimed he was a drag queen or trans and to them all drag queens / trans people no matter how much good they do are evil, are sin, need to be erased from society. For something that did not affect / or effect them in any way except, someone was a bit different and enjoyed doing something a bit different from what the anti-trans haters did. These people made it a point to try to turn the community against this good man. They doxed him, exposed his private life to the public, pictures of him in drag, all his home information was doxed to a country wide network of haters who went to work online. The contacted other Baptist organizations to rile up dislike and hate, to get the main church bodies to turn against his smaller church in an attempt to get him removed as pastor. They claimed publicly in meetings and online that he was unfit to lead the community he had been doing so for so long and well. They tried to create an angry outraged mob to attack this man and make his life hell on earth. Just because he put on a dress, a wig, and make up. He had social media accounts in the female persona and according to what I read they were not offensive in any way. That was his sin. That was his great crime. The result they got was he took his own life. He killed himself due directly to them, the haters, the anti-drag, the anti-trans. Are they happy now? Do they think by removing someone who cared about others and worked hard to help his community is better not being there? What did they gain except spreading hate and hardship? What about the surviving members of his family, his wife, his three children, all the others? What has this great religious purge gave them, except more hardship, the loss of a loved one, grief? Yes that is what their hate brings, grief. They spread it thick, far, and wide. That is what their hate does. Don’t help them, please don’t help them. Love, acceptance, tolerance, patience with, for, and to others is what we need to spread. And trust me it will not be a one way street. Hugs. Scottie
Below I will post several videos I have seen. I ask you to please watch them if you can, and to read the Joe My god story and the comments. Best wishes, hopes for a better future for all of us when the hate stops. Hugs
The Alabama Policy Institute is an anti-LGBTQ hate group that has appeared here many times for its lawsuits against same-sex marriage and for its support of Alabama’s leading anti-LGBTQ figure, former Alabama Supreme Court justice and US Senate candidate Roy Moore. They last appeared here in 2021 when they joined a lawsuit to block an LGBTQ rights ordinance in Alabama’s capital. 1819 News takes its name from the year Alabama became a state.
This didn’t have to happen.
After @1819News published pictures of Smith Station Mayor Bubba Copeland wearing women’s clothes and makeup, the official took his own life. https://t.co/Drp0CKTHn2
BREAKING: Alabama mayor and pastor Bubba Copeland commits suicide just days after a conservative news outlet with close ties to Steve Bannon and Breitbart published private photos of him wearing women’s clothing.
Copeland addressed his Baptist congregation on Wednesday night, stating that he was the victim of an “internet attack” and declaring, “Yes, I have taken pictures with my wife in the privacy of our home in an attempt of humor because I know I’m not a handsome man nor a beautiful woman either. I apologize for any embarrassment caused by my private, personal life that has come publicly.”
Unfortunately, bigoted Baptist leaders in Alabama issued a damming statement saying they had “become aware of the alleged unbiblical behavior.”
Today, Copeland took his own life, according to police. They did not release any further details. One of his close friends responded to the tragic news by declaring, “I am so angry right now and heartbroken. I witnessed a good man be publicly ridiculed and crucified over the last few days…to the point that he just took his own life today. I knew he was suffering so I reached out to him yesterday and offered him support and encouragement. He was appreciative and acknowledged that he had been going through some “dark days” over the last few days. I just want to ask you people who thought it humorous to publicly ridicule him, ‘Are you happy now?’ What crime did he commit?”
Other friends of Copeland noted that he didn’t hold bigoted views “toward transgender people or people who enjoy cross-dressing,” so there was simply no need for the conservative news outlet to out him.
The mayor of an Alabama town and pastor of a local church killed himself after a right-wing news website called 1819 News (praised by Steve Bannon) cruelly doxxed him as transgender.https://t.co/qE3uWogGGT
This pastor committed suicide not too far from here today.
We must end LGBTQ+ persecution.
ARTICLE: The secret life of Smiths Station Mayor and Baptist pastor F.L. 'Bubba' Copeland as a 'transgender curvy girl': 'It’s a hobby I do to relieve stress' https://t.co/WedLbd5vFJ
There’s a story making the rounds about an Alabama preacher/mayor who secretly dresses in drag and adopts the persona of a trans woman on social media.
The secret life of Smiths Station Mayor and Baptist pastor F.L. 'Bubba' Copeland as a 'transgender curvy girl': 'It’s a hobby I do to relieve stress' #alpolitics By @CraigMonger1819https://t.co/TBul39wPW8
Reread the title. How can shooting captives in a prison be justified. If the police / prison guards herded all the prisoners in to a small places and started to mow them down with gun fire, it is about what Israel is doing to Gaza. Hugs. Scottie
Israeli air strikes devastated parts of the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza this week, flattening buildings in a densely populated area where, Palestinian authorities say, at least 195 civilians were killed and scores more are still missing.
Israel says the attacks successfully targeted Hamas military leaders, their fighters and the tunnel network they dug beneath civilian areas and used for operations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has pledged to destroy Hamas – the Palestinian Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip – in retaliation for its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
The strikes at the Jabalia camp – the largest of several refugee settlements in Gaza – have fuelled international concern at the mounting humanitarian toll of Israel’s offensive.
In the wake of the first airstrike on Oct. 31, which left deep craters filled with broken concrete and twisted metal in the midst of Jabalia’s tightly packed buildings, the Office of the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk said in a tweeted statement that the scale of the destruction and the high number of civilian casualties aroused “serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes.”
Turk had previously said on Oct. 7 that he was “shocked and appalled” at the killings of civilians, hostage-taking, and rocket attacks on Israel by Palestinian armed groups.
Hamas gunmen rampaged through Israeli border areas on Oct. 7, in the deadliest day of the nation’s 75-year history. Israel says around 240 people were taken as hostages into Gaza, where they are believed to be held in Hamas’ extensive tunnel network.
*** There is a drawing of the area and the places of strikes and other stuff talked about. I am unable to copy and paste it here. Please go to the link above to see the information. Hugs. Scottie ***
Erez crossing
Jabalia
camp
Refugee
camps
Evacuation
zone border
GAZA
STRIP
ISRAEL
Airstrike
Rafah
crossing
Jabalia camp
Satellite map of the Gaza Strip, showing the eight refugee camps. The Jabalia refugee camp is highlighted and the site of an airstrike within the camp shown.
Israel’s ensuing bombardment of the small Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people has killed more than 9,000 people, according to health authorities in Gaza. Food and water are scarce, and medical services are collapsing.
At least five other refugee camps in the coastal enclave have been hit during Israel’s ongoing offensive, according to satellite images analysed by Masae Analytics. An Israeli military spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the images.
The United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians said that schools used as shelters by thousands of people have been damaged in the Jabalia, Beach and Al Bureij camps, and nearly 50 of its buildings and assets have been affected across the 360 sq km Gaza Strip. The U.N. agency said that more than 70 of its staff have been killed.
Israel has held Hamas accountable for the civilian death toll in Gaza, saying that it is using Gazans as human shields. Israeli officials note they have repeatedly warned residents to evacuate northern Gaza in recent days.
Reuters has used satellite images, pictures and videos shot by its journalists in Gaza to piece together an account of this week’s attacks in Jabalia.
GAZA STRIP
3
4
2
6
1
5
Evacuation zone
Beach camp
2
Rafah camp
Jabalia camp
3
1
90,713
2023 Population: 133,326
116,011
Buildings damaged
in refugee camps
as of Oct. 29
0.5 km
N
Maghazi camp
Bureij camp
Khan Younis camp
6
5
4
88,854
46,629
33,255
Maps of six refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, the Rafah, Jabalia, Beach, Khan Younis, Bureij and Maghazi camps. Estimated damage to buildings within each camp is shown. All have significant numbers of damaged buildings.
At 1.4-square kilometres, Jabalia is the largest of eight refugee camps in Gaza and is home to some 116,000 registered refugees, many of whom are dependent on food, medicine and other aid provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
The densely packed camp was set up in 1948 to shelter the wave of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes amid the fighting that accompanied the creation of the modern state of Israel. Palestinians lament this as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Israel contests that it drove Palestinians away, saying it was attacked by neighbouring Arab states.
The Jabalia camp decades ago evolved from its original temporary tents and huts into a maze of concrete and breeze-block buildings separated by shoulder-width alleyways.
Living conditions are poor: conflict and years of Israeli-led blockade on Hamas-run Gaza have led to high unemployment, poverty, contaminated water and a shortage of building supplies for new homes.
*** Below is a chart / drawing of the area and where the camps are that are being struck. Again it wouldn’t copy over, to see them please go to the link above. Hugs. Scottie ***
Jabalia
camp
Schools and
kindergartens
Hospitals
and clinics
Mosques
Airstrike
250 m
Map of the Jabalia camp with building footprints shown. Buildings which contain schools or kindergartens, hospitals or clinics and mosques are all highlighted. There are many of all categories both within and around the camp. The site of an airstrike within the camp is also shown.
The camp has long been a flashpoint for tensions. Jabalia was where the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation erupted in 1987 after an Israeli truck driver crashed into a vehicle carrying Palestinian workers, some of them from the refugee camp.
Ever since it has been a hotspot. In 2008, Israeli ground forces went into Jabalia when Hamas began firing longer range rockets into Israel, killing more than 60 Palestinians during the military operation.
In 2009, an Israeli air strike killed senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan and members of his family in an airstrike on his home in the camp.
Reuters live footage at 1224 GMT on Tuesday Oct. 31 showed the first sign of the air strike on the Jabalia refugee camp: the camera shakes and then captures a plume of black smoke rising over northern Gaza. Details in the camera shot – a water tower, minaret, solar panels – matched satellite images of the area and confirmed the blast was in the Jabalia camp.
First reports of the airstrike appeared online around 1235 GMT, a few minutes after the blast was seen in Reuters footage.
Standing at the edge of one of the craters in the wake of the attack, Abdel Kareem Rayan, a resident of the camp, held a paper listing the names of the 15 family members that he said he lost. “They were innocent, just staying (in the camp). What wrong did they do?” he said.
Smoke billows above a building. People and medics rush to the scene of an Israeli attack that hit the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza on Wednesday, Nov. 1.
*** There is a video of the bombing and people running with injured people / children while others rush to help. But it wont post here, to see it please go to the web site at the link above. Hugs. Scottie ***
Professor Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a defence and security think tank headquartered in London, said that the Reuters images of the Oct. 31 attack showed “multiple sizeable bomb craters.”
Bronk said that, while it was hard to do an exact weapons identification from photographs, the craters were consistent with the Israeli Air Force’s standard guided air-to-surface Joint-Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) – specifically GBU-31 2000lb or GBU-32 1000lb JDAMs.
“The primary use for the GBU-31 family of 2000lb JDAMs in U.S. service is for striking relatively deeply buried targets or for demolishing large structures,” he said, adding that U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan generally tried to use munitions with significantly smaller warheads such as Hellfire missiles or the GBU-38 family of 500lb JDAMs in densely populated areas. “However, these munitions lack the capacity to reliably penetrate and destroy structures several stories underground.”
Israeli defence officials have said aircraft were involved in the attack. A military spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the munitions used. The Pentagon declined to comment on the assessment.
*** Below is a single image of a complex tool on the orginal post that takes the before of the city and as you move the slider shows you the complete under devestation of that same city now. Hugs. Scottie ***
Oct. 31
Nov. 1
Satellite imagery shows that the location of the strike was near the intersection of Al Mouhawel and Al Almey streets.
Israel’s military said the Oct. 31 attack killed a significant military leader of Hamas: Ibrahim Biari, commander of the Jabalia Battalion and a ringleader of the Oct. 7 attack on Israeli towns and kibbutzim.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that Biari was also “the dominant leader” of Hamas fighters operating in northern Gaza from a network of tunnels beneath the camp.
“He was killed while situating himself inside the Jabalia Camp – with dozens of additional terrorists around him in the same area – which contains a headquarters and other operational facilities located in buildings within the civilian camp,” Hagari said on Nov. 1.
Hagari said the strike caused the collapse of the tunnels and underground military infrastructure, which in turn brought down additional surface structures.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denied there was any senior commander present in the camp. Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said seven civilian hostages were killed in the strikes on Jabalia, including three foreign passport holders. Reuters was unable to verify that independently.
The second airstrike hit on Wednesday Nov. 1 in the Falouja neighbourhood of Jabalia refugee camp, approximately half a mile from the site of Tuesday’s explosion.
The blast flattened several big apartment buildings. The Interior Ministry in Gaza said the strike had destroyed an entire residential block, which Reuters was unable to confirm.
As the wounded were being carried from the scene on blankets and in the arms of residents and rescue workers, one local man told Reuters he said been praying in a local mosque and had rushed out when he felt the blast. “It is a massacre,” said the man, who did not give his name, as emergency workers tried to free survivors from the rubble by hand.
Israel’s military said the second strike killed Muhammad A’sar, head of Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit.
According to the health ministry and the Hamas government media office, at least 195 people were killed in the two airstrikes on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, which left 120 missing and more than 700 wounded.
A third Israeli airstrike hit the Jabalia refugee camp on Nov. 2, Reuters reported. The bombardment hit the UNRWA-sponsored Abu Hussein school, where many displaced Gazans were residing, according to eyewitnesses and a statement from the U.N. agency. Injured camp residents were rushed to the Indonesian hospital. Reuters was unable to determine the number of casualties.
Palestinians search for casualties a day after Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Nov. 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri
Israel said it has so far killed 10 Hamas commanders responsible for planning the Oct. 7 attack. Hamas – designated as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States, among others – called in its 1988 founding charter for the destruction of Israel.
On a visit to Israel on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated that Israel has a right to “do everything possible” to ensure that there would be no repetition of the Oct. 7 attack.
But he called called for a humanitarian pause: “It is very important when it comes to protection of civilians who are caught in the crossfire of Hamas’s making, that everything be done to protect them and to bring assistance to those who so desperately need it, who are not in any way responsible for what happened on Oct. 7.”
Speaking shortly after Blinken, Netanyahu said: “We are proceeding with all our might, and Israel refuses any temporary ceasefire that does not include the return of our kidnapped hostages.”
Top photo
A man reacts as Palestinians search for casualties a day after Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Nov. 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri
Note to analysis
Building damage provided by Masae Analytics change detection analysis based on Copernicus Sentinel-1 data. The analysis uses satellite images to estimate areas within the Gaza Strip affected by bombings since the Israeli campaign began. Analysis is further reviewed for false positives (areas that appear damaged in the analysis, but are not) and false negatives (areas that do not appear damaged, but are) by cross checking with other high resolution satellite imagery, media reports and other sources.
Medical vehicle. More dead people. Is that allowed in war. NO! but Israel is doing it and getting away with it. All they have to say to excuse what they do is Hamas. Say it to all the kids killed, all the women bombed, over 10,000 Palestinians civilians killed, a third of them children. But Hamas, it is OK Hamas attacked us and killed about 1,400 people. Maybe 40 were children. But Hamas … but never show proof it was Hamas where they targeted. Just leave the area Israel says as they bomb the only ways out. This is the deliberate killing of a people to drive them out of a land and to somewhere else, and that is terrorism in the highest level. Hugs. Scottie
November 3, 20238:01 PM EDTUpdated 14 hours ago
GAZA, Nov 3 (Reuters) – An Israeli air strike on an ambulance being used to evacuate the wounded from besieged northern Gaza killed 15 people and injured 60 others on Friday, the Hamas-controlled enclave’s health ministry said.
Israel’s military said it had identified and hit an ambulance “being used by a Hamas terrorist cell”. It said Hamas fighters were killed in the strike, and accused the group of transferring militants and weapons in ambulances.
Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq said allegations its fighters were present were “baseless”. Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, said the ambulance was part of a convoy that Israel targeted near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.
Qidra said Israel had targeted the convoy of ambulances in more than one location, including at al-Shifa Hospital gate and at Ansar Square a kilometer (0.6 miles) away.
In a statement on the incident, Israel’s military gave no evidence to support its assertion that the ambulance was linked to Hamas but said it intended to release additional information.
“We emphasize that this area is a battle zone. Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety,” the military said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify either side’s account.
[1/4]Palestinians pull an ambulance after a convoy of ambulances was hit, at the entrance of Shifa hospital in Gaza City, November 3, 2023. REUTERS/Anas al-Shareef
Video shared on social media, which Reuters has verified, showed people lying in blood next to an ambulance with flashing lights on a city street as people rushed to help.
Another video showed three ambulances standing in a line, with about a dozen people lying either motionless or barely moving next to them. Blood was pooled nearby.
World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post he was “utterly shocked by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients”, adding that patients, health workers and medical facilities must be protected.
Earlier on Friday, Qidra said ambulances would send critically injured Palestinians who urgently need to be taken to Egypt to be treated from besieged Gaza City to the south of the enclave.
Israel, which has accused Hamas of concealing command centres and tunnel entrances in al-Shifa hospital, ordered all civilians to leave the north of Gaza last month and its military encircled the area on Thursday.
Despite its order for civilians to leave northern areas of Gaza, Israel’s military has continued to bombard the south of the strip as well.
Hamas and al-Shifa hospital authorities have denied the facility is used as a base by militant fighters.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams, Alistair Bell and by Sandra Maler
Israel has some of the best precision bombs / missiles that can hit pinpoint targets. They got them from the US. They know it is against the rules to hit US humanitarian sites, it is off limits to hit shelters. Yet they are doing it and waving it in the world’s face. They know they can keep gaslighting the US public and threaten US politicians with loads of lobby money and threats of primaries. This is sick! We need to put pressure on the US government at all levels to stop this. Hugs. Scottie
U.N. agency says evacuees hurt when one of its schools was hit
Blinken to meet Arab leaders demanding ceasefire
US says it has ‘indirect engagement’ in efforts to free hostages
GAZA/AMMAN, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Palestinians reported a deadly Israeli strike on a U.N.-run school in northern Gaza serving as a shelter on Saturday ahead of talks in Jordan at which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken heard Arab demands for a ceasefire in the enclave.
Witnesses said the strike hit Al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia, where thousands of evacuees were living. At least 15 people died and dozens more were wounded, said Gaza health ministry official Mohammad Abu Selmeyah.
Reuters pictures of the aftermath showed broken furniture and other belongings lying on the ground, patches of blood spilled on the ground and over food and people crying.
“I was standing here when three bombings happened, I carried a body and another decapitated body with my own hands,” a young boy said in video obtained by Reuters, crying in despair. “God will take my vengeance.”
Nearby, a resident comforted a woman in shock.
One man asked angrily: “Since when has it become normal to strike shelters? This is so unfair.”
Juliette Touma, director of communication for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), confirmed to Reuters that the U.N-run school, which is in the Gaza City area, had been hit.
She said there were children among the casualties, but that UNRWA had not yet been able to verify the exact death toll.
“At least one strike hit the schoolyard where there were tents for displaced families. Another strike hit inside the school where women were baking bread,” Touma said by phone.
The ministry of health in Gaza said another Israeli missile strike killed two women at the door of the Nasser Children Hospital. Several more people were injured, it said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on either incident.
Israel’s ground forces encircled Gaza City on Thursday after stepping up a bombing campaign it says aims at wiping out Hamas, after the militant group which runs Gaza killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 hostage in an Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel.
Gaza health officials said on Saturday that more than 9,488 Palestinians have been killed so far in the Israeli assault.
Israel last month ordered all civilians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City where it says Hamas militants are hiding in tunnels, and head to the south of the enclave.
It has continued to bomb the whole enclave, saying the militants are hiding among civilians, and many people have stayed in the north, where they say they now feel trapped.
The military said it would enable Palestinians to travel on a main Gaza Strip highway, the Salah a-Din road, on Saturday between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. (1100 GMT and 1400). “If you care about yourself and your loved ones, heed our instruction to head south,” it said in a social media post in Arabic.
U.S. Special Envoy David Satterfield said in Amman that between 800,000 to a million people have already moved to the south of the Gaza Strip, while 350,000-400,000 remain in northern Gaza City and its environs.
BLINKEN HEARS CEASEFIRE DEMANDS
In what appeared to presage a widening of Israel’s ground offensive, the military issued footage showing armoured bulldozers churning up northern Gaza areas in what it described as “creating access routes for forces”.
[1/6]A Palestinian child reacts following a strike at a UN-run school sheltering displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip November 4, 2023. REUTERS/ Anas al-Shareef
A combined tank and combat engineering unit carried out a “pinpoint raid” in the southern Gaza Strip “to map out buildings and neutralise explosives”, it said.
Israel’s military also said it was striking what it described as “a number of Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon” following fire from there, part of the biggest flareup since 2006.
A Lebanese source familiar with Hezbollah’s attacks said the group had fired a powerful missile not yet used in the fighting and that it had hit an Israeli position across the border from the villages of Ayta al-Shaab and Rmeich.
Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group is backed by Iran, as is Hamas. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday warned that conflict could spread if Israel continued bombing Gaza.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati emphasized the urgency of a ceasefire in Gaza when he met Blinken in Amman on Saturday, Lebanon state news agency said.
Blinken, in turn, emphasized his efforts to halt military operations for humanitarian reasons and to address the issue of prisoners.
Blinken was also meeting the Saudi, Qatari, Emirati and Egyptian foreign ministers on Saturday.
The Arab leaders were set to stress the “Arab stance calling for an immediate ceasefire, delivering humanitarian aid and ways of ending the dangerous deterioration that threatens the security of the region”, the Jordanian foreign ministry said ahead of the meeting.
Washington has maintained robust military and political support for Israel, while calling on its ally to take steps to avoid civilian deaths and address Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
AMBULANCE HIT
Gaza health officials had said 15 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on an ambulance on Friday evening that was part of a convoy carrying injured Palestinians at Gaza’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa.
Israel’s military said it had hit an ambulance “being used by an Hamas terrorist cell” and killed a number of Hamas fighters.
The Palestinian health ministry challenged Israel to provide proof that the ambulance was carrying militants. Israel said it would release more information. It has accused Hamas of concealing command centres and tunnel entrances in al-Shifa, something Hamas and the hospital denies.
Gaza’s living conditions, already dire before the fighting, have deteriorated further. Food is scarce, residents have resorted to drinking salty water, medical services are collapsing.
ISRAEL SAYS NO PAUSE UNLESS HOSTAGES ARE FREED
Hamas has prepared for a protracted war in Gaza and believes it can hold up Israel’s advance long enough to force a ceasefire, two sources close to the organization’s leadership said. They said it also seeks concessions like the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages.
A senior Biden administration official said on Friday the U.S. had “indirect engagement” aimed at freeing the hostages.
Foreign nationals have been leaving Gaza, but the official said Hamas initially conditioned the release of foreigners on wounded Palestinians being able to exit as well, but one-third of the Palestinians on the list turned out to be Hamas members.
Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq on Saturday urged Arab leaders and people to pressure Israel and the United States by cutting diplomatic ties, expelling ambassadors and leveraging oil and economic interests to support the Gaza Strip’s people.
The United States has dismissed growing international calls for a ceasefire but has sought to persuade Israel to accept localized pauses, an idea rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he met Blinken on Friday.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Simon Lewis and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman, Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Writing by Daphne Psaledakis and Ingrid Melander; Editing by Rami Ayyub, Diane Craft, Michael Perry and William Mallard, Philippa Fletcher
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