Israel-Gaza War, Live | Israel focuses its offensive in the north of the Gaza Strip with hand-to-hand combat and carries out a new incursion in the south

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The Israeli army continues its offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, where it has launched new bombardments and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Hamas militants. Israel is trying to take control of Gaza City, the enclave's largest city and where, according to Israel, the militia's center of operations is located. Israeli forces have claimed that their troops have killed Hamas members who emerged from the Strip's extensive tunnel network early this morning. According to the militia, at least 15 people have been killed in an Israeli bombardment of a UN-run school in Jabalia, Gaza's largest refugee camp, which had already been hit several times this week in attacks that have killed more than 200 Palestinians. According to Israel, its soldiers have also carried out a new incursion into the southern part of the Gaza Strip, killing several militants. In addition, the UN has condemned Israel's bombardment on Friday of an ambulance convoy near al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza and a refuge for some 20,000 displaced people. "I am horrified," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has said.

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Palestine Red Crescent denounces Israeli attack on gates of Al Shifa hospital

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El País

Rafah prepares to open for fourth day in a row to continue evacuations of foreigners from Gaza

The Rafah border crossing, which connects the Gaza Strip with Egypt, is preparing to open on Saturday for the fourth consecutive day to continue the operation to evacuate foreigners and Palestinians with dual nationality who had been trapped in the enclave since the start of the Israeli military offensive four weeks ago. According to the Hamas-held Gaza General Crossing and Border Authority, which has de facto controlled the Strip since 2007, nearly 600 people are expected to leave the border crossing today, the only one not controlled by Israel to enter or leave the Palestinian enclave.

According to the list published by the agency on its official Facebook account, 380 Americans, 112 Britons, 50 French and 50 Germans are now allowed to escape Gaza. There is no Spaniard. So far, only two citizens with Spanish passports have been able to leave Gaza, but they received permission as workers from a UN agency and Médecins Sans Frontières, respectively.

Since the evacuation operation began last Wednesday — for the first time since the outbreak of the conflict the border crossing was opened that day — more than 700 foreigners and twice as many nationals have left the Gaza Strip, which is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe, according to the count of the Gazan authorities and the UN. At the same time, Egypt is also continuing to receive seriously injured Palestinians for treatment in hospitals in North Sinai province, where Rafah is located.

ACT.4 NOV 2023 - 11:29

El País

Shelling kills 15 people in Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, Hamas says

An Israeli army airstrike on a UN-run school serving as a shelter for evacuees in the Jabalia refugee camp, the largest in the Gaza Strip, has killed 15 people, Hamas said.

"There are 15 martyrs and the number is likely to increase," said Abu Salamiya, a member of the Islamist militia and an official in Gaza's health ministry. (Reuters)

ACT.4 NOV 2023 - 11:32

El País

Palestinian workers crossed into Gaza from Israel yesterday through the Kerem Shalom crossing. / MOHAMMED TALATENE / DPA

The UN puts the number of Gazan workers expelled by Israel to the Gaza Strip on Friday at more than 3,000

More than 3,000 Gazans who were in Israel on work permits were expelled by Israeli authorities and sent to the Gaza Strip on Friday amid the war between the Islamist group Hamas, the United Nations said Saturday. "On November 3, 3,026 Palestinian workers who had been stranded in Israel and the West Bank since the start of hostilities were returned to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing," a border crossing in the far south of the Strip near Egypt, the United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) said in a statement. for its acronym in English). "The Israeli authorities held them in custody for most of the period, allegedly interrogating them and subjecting them to ill-treatment," the agency said.

Consulted by the Efe news agency, neither the government nor the Israeli army have offered information on the matter. The more than 3,000 Gazans arrived exhausted and dehydrated in the southern Gaza Strip, an area facing a deep humanitarian crisis due to the displacement of some 1.5 million people, the collapse of hospitals and shortages of drinking water, food, medicine and electricity, amid constant Israeli bombardment.

These Palestinians, who were branded with a numbered ankle bracelet, have reported that the Israeli authorities arrested them without charge, held them incommunicado, without sufficient food, under physical and psychological abuse, and stole their few belongings before being transported by buses to the border blindfolded and with their hands tied.

Some 18,500 Palestinians from Gaza had work permits in Israel, according to figures from the Israeli Defense Ministry's agency that manages civil affairs in Gaza and the West Bank (COGAT). Following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on 7 October, many of them were displaced to the occupied West Bank, while at least 4,000 were detained and interrogated to determine whether any were linked to the Islamist group.

According to humanitarian organizations, these thousands of Gazans had their permits revoked and were held in military bases and Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank in "an illegal act of revenge." "Israel is cutting off all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza. Gaza workers who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza," Israel's Security Cabinet said in a statement late Thursday.

Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,400 people and marked the start of a war that has left more than 9,250 Palestinians dead in the Strip, mostly children and women, by Israeli bombardments. (Image: EFE)

ACT.4 NOV 2023 - 10:52

El País

New exchanges of fire on the Israeli-Lebanese border

The Israeli military has claimed that militants of the Shiite militia party Hezbollah have tried to launch several missiles from inside Lebanon into Israeli territory on Saturday, but has assured its troops have prevented the attack and hit the "terrorist cells". "The Israeli Defense Forces have also destroyed a Hezbollah base," Avichay Adraee, one of Israel's military spokesmen, said in a tweet on the social media X. In the tweet, Adraee posted a video of the Israeli army's missile attack on the alleged militia base. In addition, the Israeli Armed Forces have claimed in another message on X that they have prevented a number of boats from crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory in the areas of Dvornit and Yakinton.

The border between Lebanon and Israel is experiencing its most tense moment since 2006, when Israeli troops and the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah fought a 34-day war. Although this escalation is still considered low-intensity, the death toll is also unprecedented since 2006, most of them in the ranks of Hezbollah, considered the most powerful paramilitary formation in the Middle East.

Since the conflict between the Israeli army and Hamas broke out over the militia's attack on Israeli territory on October 7, more than 70 people have been killed on both sides of Lebanon's so-called Blue Line, a border demarcated by the UN and still guarded by its troops after the 2006 war. in which the Lebanese army did not participate.

On Friday, in a long-awaited speech, the leader of the Hezbollah militia party, Hassan Nasrallah, dismissed the risk of an imminent regional escalation. He warned only that his involvement in the war – potentially wide-ranging, but for the moment moderate – will depend on how Israel acts in Gaza and on the Lebanese border itself.

ACT.4 NOV 2023 - 10:18

El País

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Lebanon's acting Prime Minister Najib Mitaki (right) on Saturday at a meeting in Amman. / JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS

Lebanon's PM insists on the importance of a ceasefire in Gaza in a meeting with Blinken

Lebanon's interim Prime Minister, Najib Mitaki, met on Saturday in Amman, the capital of Jordan, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to whom he insisted on the importance of diplomatic efforts towards a ceasefire in Gaza, according to the Lebanese news agency. In addition, Mitaki has told the head of US diplomacy that Israeli aggression against southern Lebanon, an area where the Shiite militia Hezbollah operates and where there have been exchanges of fire between its members and the Israeli army, must also stop.

The Lebanese prime minister highlighted his country's commitment to international law and United Nations resolutions, specifically 1701, a text that defends the cessation of hostilities in southern Lebanon and the withdrawal of Israeli forces behind the so-called Blue Line, a border demarcated by the UN and still guarded by its troops since Israel fought a war with Israeli forces in 2006. of Hezbollah — the Lebanese army did not participate in it. Since then, the two countries have technically remained at war.

For his part, Blinken has highlighted his efforts to halt military operations in Gaza for humanitarian reasons and to secure the release of the hostages captured by Hamas in its October 7 attack on Israeli territory, which number more than 240.

The U.S. secretary of state yesterday called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do "more to protect civilians" in Gaza and the West Bank. At a press conference in Tel Aviv on Friday, Blinken insisted on Washington's support for Israel ("it not only has the right, but the obligation to defend itself," he said), although with hundreds of deaths a day — more than 9,200 in the Strip since October 7 due to Israeli bombings, according to Hamas — he urged Benjamin Netanyahu's government to "do more to protect Palestinian civilians" in its offensive and "everything it has to do." as much as possible" to allow the entry of humanitarian aid through Egypt, which is limited to dozens of trucks a day, without fuel, a good that both the generators of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip need to operate and the desalination plants to make the water drinkable.

The head of U.S. diplomacy also had words for the West Bank, where ultranationalist settlers have expelled hundreds of Palestinians from their homes and the death toll is unprecedented in two decades. There, too, Blinken said yesterday, "civilians must be protected" and "extreme violence against Palestinians stopped."

The U.S. secretary of state will also meet today in Amman with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as Palestinian representatives.

ACT.4 NOV 2023 - 09:46

El País

One of the generators at al-Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest, is out of work due to lack of fuel, according to the United Nations

Raquel Martí, the executive director in Spain of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said this morning that one of the generators at the Al Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza, which is overcrowded with patients and serves as a shelter for some 20,000 displaced people, stopped working on Friday. "Another generator is still working and covers approximately half of the hospital's needs," Martí wrote in a tweet on the social network X.

On Friday afternoon, the Israeli army bombed an ambulance convoy near the hospital, killing more than a dozen people and wounding at least 60. Israel acknowledged yesterday that it attacked an ambulance because it was used by the militia. According to Hamas, it was transporting wounded people to Egypt.

Israeli forces have been insisting for days on the evacuation of this center, located in Gaza City, the largest city in the Strip, as they claim that it houses the command center of the Islamist militia in the basement.

According to the UN, since the Israeli military offensive and blockade of Gaza began in retaliation for Hamas' October 7 attack, 14 of the 35 hospitals with inpatient capacity have ceased to function and 51 of the 72 (71%) primary health care centers in Gaza have closed due to damage or lack of fuel. a material that Israel does not allow to enter the enclave and that is necessary for both hospital generators and desalination plants to function.

In addition, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of the Middle East and North Africa, the Israeli army also shelled areas near the Al Quds hospital, also located in Gaza City, on Friday. "The buildings surrounding the hospital were destroyed and their equipment destroyed, and this has greatly affected the health service provided to sick and wounded Palestinians," Mahmoud Abu Musabih, director of Ambulance and Emergency Services at Al-Quds Hospital, said in a tweet from the NGO. "The situation is difficult in the Gaza Strip and the health system is in ruins and threatened with total paralysis. This can lead to the collapse of the health situation if countries do not intervene to save the situation," he added.

ACT.4 NOV 2023 - 08:41

El País

Israel continues its offensive in the northern Gaza Strip with hand-to-hand combat and conducts a new incursion into the south

The Israeli army has continued its offensive in the north of the Strip this morning, where it is fighting hand-to-hand with Hamas militants and trying to take control of Gaza City, the largest city in the Palestinian enclave and where, according to the Israeli Armed Forces, the Islamist militia's center of operations is located. On 7 October, members launched an attack on Israel that claimed the lives of more than 1,400 people. "During the night hours, IDF troops have operated in the northern part of Gaza, especially in an area where there were numerous attempts to attack our army forces through tunnels and military compounds," Avichay Adraee wrote on X. one of the spokesmen of the Israeli army. "The troops were able to eliminate saboteurs working in the area and discover tunnel entrances that had been used for terrorist purposes," he added.

According to Andraee, the Israeli military clashed with 15 Hamas militants in the northern Gaza area. "The forces eliminated several of the terrorists and directed tanks to destroy three Hamas reconnaissance sites," he said. The military spokesman also said that Israeli troops had made a new incursion into the southern part of the Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million displaced people are gathered. "Armored vehicles and engineering forces inspected some buildings and neutralized explosive devices. The forces clashed with another cell of terrorists that emerged from a tunnel opening, but the soldiers eliminated the terrorists," he said.

Israeli bombardments have killed more than 9,200 people in Gaza since Oct. 7, most of them children and women, according to the Strip's Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas' political wing.

Since the start of the escalation and citing security concerns, Israel has repeatedly ordered civilians living in the north of the narrow enclave to move south, causing the displacement of some 1.5 million Gazans — more than half of the total population — amid severe fuel shortages. food and drinking water. However, Israeli forces have continued to bombard the southern part of the Strip, where living conditions for Gazans are increasingly critical due to overcrowding, collapsing hospitals and shortages of clean water, food, medicine and electricity.

Meanwhile, Hamas and other Palestinian militias have not stopped firing rockets into Israel, sounding sirens even in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, although most of the projectiles are intercepted by air defense systems.

ACT.4 NOV 2023 - 09:01