Ohio Republicans Vow To Defy Abortion Rights Measure: “No Amendment Can Overturn Our God-Given Rights”

There is no will of the people, the people will be ruled by church doctrine and like it.  Our God can’t lose, sounds like the Middle East to me!  Republicans have simply decided they are above all laws, they have decided anything they don’t like just did not happen.  They have gone full tRump on everything.  Don’t like election results, deny them and ignore them.  Don’t like that you did not get a 100 on that test, just claim you did and attack anyone saying you did not.  Rules not in your favor, change the rules and the majority that do like them be damned because they don’t have rights and will be ruled.   The republicans have gone full ruling class over the ruled population.   No wonder they love Putin.  

“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
― David Frum, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic

The Meidas Touch reports:

Days after Ohio voters passed Issue 1 and codified abortion rights into Ohio’s constitution, Republicans are not accepting the election results.

In a new, unhinged press release issued by the Ohio House Republican Committee, GOP members rant that “foreign billionaires” impacted the election results and call the results tainted by so-called “foreign interference.” It is unclear what they are referring to.

The press release further argues that the results of the election do not invalidate a 6-week abortion ban previously passed by the Ohio Legislature and that “no amendment can overturn the God given rights with which we were born.”

Read the full article.

Photo: Ohio GOP chair Alex Triantafilou.

Via press release from the Ohio GOP:

 



Ohio Legislators will be introducing several bills to address this issue in the coming weeks.

“Foreign billionaires don’t get to make Ohio laws,” said Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester), pointing to millions from billionaires outside America that helped fund Issue 1. Gross added, “This is foreign election interference, and it will not stand.”

“Issue 1 doesn’t repeal a single Ohio law, in fact, it doesn’t even mention one,” said Representative Bill Dean (R-Xenia). “The amendment’s language is dangerously vague and unconstrained, and can be weaponized to attack parental rights or defend rapists, pedophiles, and human traffickers.”

Melanie Miller (R-Ashland) said, “We will continue to be a voice for every child in their mother’s womb who cannot speak for themselves.”

Representative Beth Lear (R-Galena) stated, “No amendment can overturn the God given rights with which we were born.”

To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative. The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.

 

Some of the money used to promote the amendment may have come from outside Ohio, but all the votes in favour of it were from registered Ohio voters.

Unless the Repukes can show irrefutable evidence of vote buying, they really have no recourse (unless they pass another undemocratic law, as they threaten to).

Surprise…surprise…Republican leaders insist upon overturning the will of their constituents and democracy…AGAIN.

Had the Rethugs not managed to write the measure using intentionally pejorative terms and language AND hadn’t lied constantly about what the amendment would create in terms of a guarantee to reproductive rights as well as their now-constant blood-libel “abortion beyond birth” bullshit, the margin would’ve been even higher.

Estimates remain that less than 1/4 of Americans want abortion to be illegal under most or all circumstances.

Apparently the goal posts are inflatable and easily moved from one location to another at will.

Let the states decide. Unless they DON’T agree with us, and then deny that they even decided.

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Republicans hate and reject American democracy, including free and fair elections… because their policies are appalling and they keep losing, but won’t admit that unpopularity is why that keeps happening.

Also, don’t women and girls have “god-given rights”? Apparently not, according to these forced-pregnancy patriarchal misogynists.

Notice how this GQP representative, Beth Lear, made a Freudian Slip when she referred to the “ God given rights with which we were BORN.”

So much for the rights of fertilized eggs, blastocysts, fetuses, and “unborn children.”

She should be careful. Her area is transitioning from rural/small town/exurban to suburban.

And is not far from all the new Intel chips plant, Google, Apple, etc coming to the Columbus area.

edit: They know, so they HAVE to force this shit now.

They look at the likes of Putin and want the same level of power and freedom from any accountability.

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Republicans won’t stop until they have completely destroyed our democracy. These are some seriously scary times we are heading into.

The Christian outlook and hope is for a literal theocracy, but they will settle for a stand-in person instead. The bible has nothing to say about democracy. The only voting that was done was when Roman soldiers cast lots for Jesus’s cloak and the Apostles elected a new member after Judas Iscariot “dropped out.”

There is such a simple solution at hand…If you don’t believe in abortion, gay marriage, or anything else…don’t have one. You see, no one is FORCING you to have one, it is your choice, just like it is their choice to make for themselves. Unique concept, personal freedom, isn’t it?

Besides, aren’t you Christians always ranting about Free Will?

They don’t know the meaning of, “Mind your own business”

As we know, it’s not about saving babies. Sure, there are some True Believers™ who really think they are babies in the womb, and that their god will is very very angry over gays getting married, but for most, that’s just their cover. It’s about control and establishing a theocracy.

 

Let’s talk about Ohio, Kentucky, and trends….

Abortion Rights: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

wow, what a great break down of abortion rights and what it means in the US.   Hugs.  Scottie

I am worn completely out and my day is not done.

Right from the start my day has been on my feet with little pauses.  During those pauses, I quickly posted a few things I felt important.   I got up at 3:30 am.  I feed the cats, did all that stuff, handled a few things on the computers.  Ron got up and informed me he had two appointments he failed to put into the calendar, one a doctor’s appointment and the other a Zoom meeting I needed to set my computer system up for.  Ok, I got a quick shower and started doing the dishes from last night, kept dealing with cats.  Then Ron left for his appointment and called me from the grocery store he stopped at on the way home.  He had forgotten to take the cane he uses, and he was struggling to walk.   I asked if he needed me to come get him.  Nope.

When he got home, I had already set up the computer system, just needed him to sit and do a sound check.  But when he pulled in to the driveway, he couldn’t walk, so I got his cane and helped him inside.   Then I brought the few groceries in.  I put them away.    I got him settled in my Pink Palace and ready for the Zoom meeting with family and his brother in the nursing home.  

As he did that, I started a red spaghetti sauce for supper.  After his meeting He came out and I got him some lunch.  I was struggling my self by now so I took even more medications.  After he ate he went to bed, I finished making the sauce and got my own lunch.  

After eating a great meal of Chicken Supreme with egg noodles and lots of the gravy, I took the remainder out of the large baking dish and put it into smaller containers, then washed all my dishes, his dishes, and the stuff I used to cook the meal.  I then got stuff ready for Ron, who wants to make meatballs for the sauce.

I am beat, I am done.  At this point, I don’t even care if we eat tonight.  I have clenched my teeth so much my own teeth and jaw aches.  My back won’t hold me well, my legs hurt and are so shaky.  I have four open windows with many tabs, I did not answer any comments or read any other people’s blogs.  I keep having pain shocks and muscle spasms, and I am afraid Ron is going to want me to help him more when he gets up.  I have 10 minutes left of The Majority Report with Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland.  Then I will shut the computers down and go to playing Halo.  If you don’t hear from me tonight or you had something you needed a response to, I hope I can get to it tomorrow, but for today I have reached the end of Scotties rope.  I know that has happened a lot lately, but the fact is with Ron hurting himself and us not having access to needed healthcare, and being rather lowering income, hell just say it we are poor now, things are much more demanding on me at this time in my life than ever before it seems.   Plus I also am old, disabled, in bad health, and today very tired.   Hugs, loves, Best wishes.   Scottie

We Ignore Animals’ Cognition at Our Peril…plus a civics reminder/plea

As she always does, Annie wrote a grand post.  The post has a wonderful video and a great message.   However the post also has a lot of great election information, and WordPress is acting weird as always so is preventing her posts from being distributed to her followers.   Please head over to her blog and check out the grand post.   Hugs.  Scottie

It is her body

I reached the end

After days of doing everything I could around the house because Ron was laid up, after struggling to lift the cat on the counter and hold him, then lifting him again to my desk.  I just found out something.  

Yes my pain and struggle to move has been bad since we got up at 3 am, but when I got up to put Odie down I couldn’t stand.  I had to call Ron to pick Odie up from the desk and put him down, Odie struggled against him because of course he would.  Then Ron went to my cane holder and got one of my canes.  I can not stand or walk.  Ron is thinking I will need my walker at this point.  So that is how it is going to be for me for a few days.  I will try to take more medications and let them work, but pain medications don’t heal the body or fix the issue, they cover it so you can ignore it.  That is the real danger of pain medications for most of us, it is not over dosing, it is using it to ignore smart and safe practices to keep pushing your body past the point it can take.  Anyway back to videos and reading, commenting, and blogging.  Hugs, Scottie

Did Prager U Just Accidentally Release a PRO-Trans Documentary?

This is a great video detailing the lies, debunking the myth or the anti-trans line of the mass rush to force kids to transition gender, it goes over the fake studies, provides real information, and shows how several of the detransitioned are still having gender issues, but due to religious pressures from family they try to ignore them.  One person claims to still dream three or more times a week of being a man, thinks of it, hates her body, but knows she has to be a good woman and mother.  The video shows more of the flaws of the anti-trans movement than its claim to validity.  It is longer than some of my viewers like at a bit over an hour.  I watched it about 20 minute segments while doing other things.   It is delivered in a well spoken deliberate non-sensational manner.  Just going over the video and the real facts.  I really hope if you have questions about trans people, are an anti-trans hater, are someone who thinks kids are rushed into being trans and that a large number regret it, please watch the video.  It shows you the proof these are hate myths pushed to cause a regressive return to gender stereotypes.  Most based in a religious foundation of god doesn’t make mistakes, and kids don’t know their gender, they just need to be convinced to be happy with the way the world wants them to be.  Like gay kids are not gay, they just need to be convinced they are straight.  Like one point, it is easy for 15 and 16-year-old girls to get breast implants, but when it is a trans woman wanting them the anti-trans haters call it abuse and mutilation.  That doesn’t make sense.  At one point the video shows the same study that Tildeb tried to push where the claim was a huge percentage of kids were having their breasts removed.  But like I pointed out the report showed the number was small and the ages of the majority were adults in their countries and those younger were for medical reasons other than trans such as cancer.  Such deceptive tactics have to make people wonder what the anti-trans people really are driven by.   Watch the video please, at least get past the first part of jabber about the scary music and into the real substance of the issue.   Thanks.   Scottie

It is 2 pm and I am stressed.

Hi all.  I know I have 4 open windows with so many open tabs of comments and stories on blogs to get to.  But please remember I woke at 3 and was informed by my love of going on 34 years that he was in pain and worried he couldn’t breathe, and maybe in trouble.  Forget coffee, that is an instant wake-up signal.  I already told you all about that.  

So about 10:30 the pharmacy tells up the penicillin prescription was ready. Yes the other was delayed, but I did not care Ron needed that antibiotic and pain relievers, … well we have those in the house right.  

I went to the pharmacy and they were already busy as they always are.  I respect these people so much, they are often understaffed and always over worked.  As I stood in the line, the lady at the desk wanted the pharmacy clerk to do something impossible for them to do, as he patiently explained to her.  Finally she left.  I stepped up.

As I asked him how he was doing and said he should just take a few moments to breathe, he recognized me.  His facial expression and demander changed.  He smiled broadly and took a breath.  Then told me he was OK and that it had just been a hard morning.  By my dogs that love gravy it was about 10:45 and they only opened at 9.  But I have stood in line and seen the abuse heaped on them.  I understood.  

Side note.   I called in one day as it was the day to fill my morphine and the state of Florida on the war of opioid addictions made safe drugs like morphine so hard to get as they made it a top tier drug for restrictions.  So for a simply well known drug given out to World War 2 soldiers, they treat it like heroin or other illegal substances.  I personally think that is because it is so inexpensive compared to newer medications, and big pharma doesn’t like that.  

So I was talking to Daniel and explained I was there to pick up Ron’s new antibiotic penicillin prescription because at 4 am I was in the ER with him.  The Pharmacist heard that and stopped what he was doing and came over to ask me if Ron was ok and what happened.  I explained it.  Then Daniel showed the pharmacist that the doctor had also ordered a pin medication that had yet to be filled, it had been pushed back in their Que to much later.  I jumped to say that was OK, I would come back but Ron really need the other medications, at which point the pharmacist told me he would fill it right then.  I said I did not want him to go to extra trouble, at which point he looked me right in the eyes and said “Scottie for you it is no trouble, give me a minute and I will get it ready”.   Wow, treating people nice really works out.  I moved over and sat in one of the waiting area seats but in about one minute the pharmacist came back with both prescriptions.   

We chatted, I told them how I appreciated them and said I wished I could do more for them, and they all were happy.  But as I turned around to leave, the older woman next inline did something unexpected.  I had thought she would have been upset about my taking their time to talk.  But instead she said to me as she stepped up to the window. “Your kindness to them means far more than you can know.  I do, as I was once on the other side of that counter and you gave them a great gift.”

Wow, what to say.  I am just an old poor crippled man trying to navigate life.  I nodded to her, not sure if I even said anything as she passed me to the counter.  On my way out at the front check out was a tall large woman.   She had a unique and rather colorful tattoo from her chin down to her chest, which the bottom showed a beautiful butterfly.  No one was in her line, and I couldn’t resist complementing her on it.  It is my way.  

I stopped and we got talking.  I told her I loved the butterfly at the bottom and how beautiful it was.  As we talked, I suddenly realized she went from a bored hello thank you for shopping to an open happy explanation to the complicated tattoo.     I said I could see the wonderful butterfly, but I did not understand the rest of the large tattoo.  She explained the symbolism and all the aspects.  I asked if it was painful, to which she said yes.  I told her she was braver than me.  Then I noticed her finger nails.  They were long bright white with tassels and other objects embedded in them and hanging off of her fingers.  Each one was a different spiritual symbol.  I was delighted and we talked for another five minutes about them, with me being very appreciative of the work and her ability to use them in daily life.  

As I was walking out, I turned and looked back.  That lady that seemed so bored and down cast when I first started near her now shined, her head was up and … how do I describe it … well she radiated a light and happiness around her.  I am not a person to believe in woo and the supernatural like my spouse does.  But I sure do believe in emotions and in people.  You treat them bad in public, that changes them and it affects the rest of their day.  You treat someone meanly and they will react that way for a while to others, it is simply how humans are built, when we are unhappy we pass it on.   But by the same measure if we are happy we also pass that on.  

I really loved that woman’s tattoo and her finger nails.  I can not imagine the pain and discipline to let someone around your throat that way with my background.  And the work and patience it must have taken for those fingernails is incredible.  And all so people like me could enjoy them.  Seriously, she wouldn’t have gone through all that if she did not want people to see them.  Anyway, those that can not see the beauty in those things I have little time for.  

Which leads me to the reason I am writing this long post on a normal part of my day.  Something I am sure others do all the time.  It is because I have 4 open windows with so many open tabs of posts, comments, and other things I really want to get to.  But after watching four videos of the Israeli bombing of a captive public in Gaza, I really feel for my own health I need to leave the computers / internet news and instead move my TV out and play Halo.   Really sorry but today my mental health won’t let me work on the open tabs, the comments, the stories, the other things.   And the fear of needing to take my aging 68-year-old lover of 34 years to the ER is still resonating in side me.  I just need a break, something to get away from it all.  It took me so long to do the dishes because he kept offering to help, but he can hardly stand.  

If this is the last post I do today, loves and hugs, and lots of respect and best wishes for all.  I am off to pretend land where I am the Master Chief fighting the forces of evil that want to kill all humans and make the universe bad. In that universe I can stop them and make things better.    Hugs, best wishes.  Scottie

No place of refuge: Israeli strikes hit camps in Gaza

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/GAZA-JABALIA/byprrdygjpe/

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


A man sits above rubble and destroyed buildings as Palestinians search for casualties a day after Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Nov. 1, 2023.

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 ***

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.

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 ***

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 ***

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/GAZA-JABALIA/byprrdygjpe/cdn/Satellite photo of the same area on Nov. 1 shows damage to buildings and a crater left behind from an airstrike.https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/GAZA-JABALIA/byprrdygjpe/cdn/Satellite photo of buildings in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp taken Oct. 31.

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.

Photo of a large crater and destroyed buildings. People are searching amongst the rubble.

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.

Edited by

Daniel Flynn, Jon McClure