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Israel has formally informed the United Nations of its intention to sever ties entirely with the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees in a move the country’s allies and aid workers warn will deepen the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.
The Knesset passed two bills last week banning Unrwa from Israeli territory and prohibiting Israeli state contact with the agency on the basis of allegations that Hamas had infiltrated it.
The ban will take effect in three months but in the first step towards implementing the Knesset vote, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, sent a letter to the UN secretary general and the president of the general assembly officially withdrawing Israel from a 1967 cooperation agreement with Unrwa.
“Despite the overwhelming evidence we submitted to the UN that substantiate[s] Hamas’s infiltration of Unrwa, the UN did nothing to rectify the situation,” Danon wrote on X on Monday.
Israel has taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but has so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation in the territory, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday, as a deadline set by the US to improve the situation approaches.
The Biden administration told Israel in a letter it had 30 days to take specific steps to address the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip, which has been pummeled for more than a year by Israeli ground and air operations that Israel says are aimed at rooting out Hamas militants.
Aid workers and UN officials say humanitarian conditions continue to be dire in Gaza.
“As of today, the situation has not significantly turned around. We have seen an increase in some measurements. We’ve seen an increase in the number of crossings that are open. But just if you look at the stipulated recommendations in the letter, those have not been met,” Miller said.
Miller said the results so far were “not good enough” but stressed that the 30-day period had not elapsed.
He declined to say what consequences Israel would face if it failed to implement the recommendations.
Summary of the day so far...
Here are the latest headlines this evening:
Israel claims to have killed two senior Hezbollah commanders in southern Lebanon in two separate strikes, as it continues its attacks on what it calls terrorist infrastructure. Lebanese authorities have put the death toll from Israeli airstrikes in the country at over 2,800.
Israel’s military has said Hezbollah has fired more than 60 rockets into Israeli-controlled territory during the course of Monday. There were no reports of any casualties
Ten people have been reported killed by Israeli airstrikes inside Gaza. The Hamas-led health authority there has said that 33 people were killed in the previous 24 hours. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict
Palestinian authorities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have said that a massacre was narrowly avoided after an arson attack attributed to Israeli settlers on a building and about 20 cars in Al-Bireh, near to Ramallah. Witness said ten people poured liquid on the cars to torch them. Israeli security forces say they are investigating the incident.
Israel’s foreign ministry has said in a statement it has formally notified the UN that the country will ban the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, from operating inside Israel within 90 days.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that 94,431 children under the age of 10 got a polio vaccine over the weekend, which represents 79% of the target in northern Gaza. At least 90% vaccination of a population is needed to stop the spread of the virus.
Leaks from Netanyahu’s office may have compromised a peace deal, an Israeli court finds. A breakdown in peace negotiations may have been caused by leaked and falsified documents involving a close aide to the prime minister, an Israeli court has said. The leaking of the documents – to Britain’s Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s tabloid Bild – came at a crucial time for hostage negotiations.
Israel have attacked the Syrian capital of Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the strikes hit a house “used by members of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard”, in a farm in the Sayyeda Zeinab area.
The Lebanese health ministry has said that the death toll in Lebanon has crossed 3,000 in the Israel-Hezbollah war, which has been so far going on for 13 months.
The director of the last partially functioning hospital in north Gaza, says he does not understand the purpose behind the bombing. “At this moment, occupation forces are continuing to violently bombard and destroy Kamal Adwan Hospital, targeting all parts of the hospital,” the Gaza Health Ministry told Reuters
Israel acknowledges attack on alleged Hezbollah intelligence headquarters in Syria.
Israel’s military said its air force struck the intelligence headquarters of Hezbollah’s Syrian branch in a strike on Damascus on Monday, an attack that claimed the lives of two people believed to be Hezbollah members.
Warplanes “conducted an aerial operation and struck Hezbollah terror targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Syria”, the military said in a statement.
The Syria branch “includes an independent intelligence gathering, coordination, and assessment network”, the military said, adding that the attack aimed to degrade Hezbollah’s intelligence capabilities.
The strikes hit a house “used by members of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard” at a farm, the The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said.
Syria’s foreign ministry condemned the attack, saying it targeted “civilian areas” south of Damascus.
Syrian state media said the strike occurred at approximately 2:18 pm (British time) and came “from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights”.
Israel has killed at least 16 people and injured 90 others in Lebanon on Monday, according to the Health Ministry’s latest figures.
A ministry statement says fatalities caused by Israeli attacks have risen to 3,002 with 13,492 others injured since October 2023.
Meanwhile Hebollah says it bombed targets in Kidmat Tzvi and the Ayelet Hashahar area in northern Israel.
Israel is bracing itself for another Iranian attack after a crescendo of threatening rhetoric from leaders in Iran warning that the country would retaliate for an Israeli missile strikes last month.
Iran initially played down the impact of the 26 October Israeli strikes on its military facilities, which were in turn a response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel at the beginning of October.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave an initially ambivalent verdict on the Israeli strikes, saying that the attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed” while Tehran weighed a response…
Israel yet to provide evidence to UN that Hamas has infiltrated humanitarian group
Juliette Touma, UNRWA director of communications, said UNRWA received one formal accusation directly from Israeli authorities, alleging 100 staff were associated with Palestinian armed groups. Touma said Israel has not responded to their requests for evidence.
Israel told the United Nations it’s cancelling the agreement that regulated its relations with the UN relief organisation for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) because Hamas was operating within the organisation.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the UN “was presented with countless pieces of evidence that Hamas operatives are employed by UNRWA and about the use of UNRWA facilities for terrorist purposes – yet nothing was done about this”.
The Lebanese health ministry has said that the death toll in Lebanon has crossed 3,000 in the Israel-Hezbollah war, which has been so far going on for 13 months.
Further to our post of 16.02 reporting Israeli strikes in Damascus, AFP has the following:
At least two Hezbollah members were killed on Monday near the Sayyeda Zeinab area south of Damascus, home to an important Shia sanctuary and guarded by pro-Iranian groups, a war monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the strikes hit a house “used by members of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard”, in a farm in the Sayyeda Zeinab area.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon more than a month ago.
Two Hezbollah members were killed and several others were wounded, according to the monitor.
Syrian state media also reported the strikes but said they only caused material damage.
Mehdi Mahfouz, 34, who lives nearby, said he “heard three successive explosions, one of which was very strong. Then I saw a large black cloud of smoke rising.”
The blasts were heard in the neighbouring Jaramana suburb of Damascus, according to an AFP photographer, as ambulances headed to the area.
The director of the last partially functioning hospital in north Gaza says he does not understand the purpose behind the bombing.
“At this moment, occupation forces are continuing to violently bombard and destroy Kamal Adwan hospital, targeting all parts of the hospital,” the Gaza health ministry told Reuters
Hospital director Hossam Abu Safieh said in a statement that the situation was “catastrophic” and that “the army did not contact the hospital before directly targeting it.”
“Several of our staff have been injured, and we are unable to leave the hospital,” he said of the facility in the northern city of Beit Lahia.
“We do not understand the purpose behind this bombing that is targeting the hospital.”
Updated
Key event
Al Jazeera reports that Israel has attacked the Syrian capital of Damascus.
This news comes hours after Israeli special forces captured a man in Syria accused of helping an Iranian network to gather intelligence on targets in Israel, the military said.
“The operation prevented a future attack and led to the exposure of the operational methods of Iranian terror networks located near the Golan Heights. Al-Assi was transferred for further investigation,” the military said in a statement on X
More to follow …
#Syriahttps://t.co/4QtRFnBgoa pic.twitter.com/WIzdMBdPcZ
— Tehran Times (@TehranTimes79) November 4, 2024
Updated
Gaza’s health ministry says it may be making its “last distress call” as the IDF bears down on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza.
The ministry says that Israeli soldiers “continue to bomb and destroy” the hospital, affecting all its facilities.
“There are many injuries among the medical staff and patients. The medical staff cannot move between the hospital departments and cannot save their injured colleagues,” the ministry says.
Fadi was praying on Wednesday afternoon when the ground began to shake. At first he thought it was an earthquake, but then he saw a plume of smoke rising from his house. He rushed home and began to dig. One by one, he pulled family members from the rubble, all eight of them killed in an Israeli airstrike.
“I pulled my brother out of the rubble in pieces. I found his four-year-old daughter’s hand in the branches of an olive tree 20 metres away,” he said. The owner of a gaming cafe in Bednayel, a town on the outskirts of the historic eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, he asked only to be identified by his first name for fear of being targeted by the Israeli drones that circled overhead.
The day before, Fadi’s brother Ali had asked him if his family could stay at his house since they lived next to a petrol station and he feared it would blow up in the event of an Israeli bombing; a local family had burned to death in an earlier Israeli bombing and Ali did not want his wife and two children to suffer the same fate…
Leaks from Netanyahu’s office may have compromised a peace deal, an Israeli court finds
A breakdown in peace negotiations may have been caused by leaked and falsified documents involving a close aide to the prime minister, an Israeli court has said.
The leaking of the documents – to Britain’s Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s tabloid Bild – came at a crucial time for hostage negotiations.
The documents claimed Hamas were going to smuggle Israeli hostages to Egypt, jeopardising any peace arrangement.
Over 100 hostages out of 251 taken by Hamas on 7 October 2023 are still captive and their whereabout remains unclear.
Commentators say the leaks were made to protect Netanyahu who faces a strong possibility criminal charges for allegedly accepting bribes.
Benny Gantz, who until recently was in Netanyahu’s war cabinet, said that if sensitive security information was used for a “political survival campaign”, it would not only be a criminal offence but also “a crime against the nation”.
The leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, argued that if the prime minister was aware of the leaks, “he is complicit in one of the most serious security offenses” and that if he wasn’t aware, he shouldn’t be in office.
Families of the hostages stated that it is “a moral low that has no depth. This is a fatal injury to the remnants of trust between the government and its citizens”.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
It is approaching 5pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City. Here are the latest headlines …
Israel claims to have killed two senior Hezbollah commanders in southern Lebanon in two separate strikes, as it continues its attacks on what it calls terrorist infrastructure. Lebanese authorities have put the death toll from Israeli airstrikes in the country at over 2,800
Israel’s military has said Hezbollah has fired more than 60 rockets into Israeli-controlled territory during the course of Monday. There were no reports of any casualties
Ten people have been reported killed by Israeli airstrikes inside Gaza. The Hamas-led health authority there has said that 33 people were killed in the previous 24 hours. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict
Palestinian authorities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have said that a massacre was narrowly avoided after an arson attack attributed to Israeli settlers on a building and about 20 cars in Al-Bireh, near to Ramallah. Witness said ten people poured liquid on the cars to torch them. Israeli security forces say they are investigating the incident
Israel’s foreign ministry has said in a statement it has formally notified the UN that the country will ban the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, from operating inside Israel within 90 days
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that 94,431 children under the age of 10 got a polio vaccine over the weekend, which represents 79% of the target in northern Gaza. At least 90% vaccination of a population is needed to stop the spread of the virus
A Lebanese MP has accused Israel of attempting to turn areas in the south of the country into “burnt out areas where there is no way to live even after the end of the war and attacks.”
The National News Agency quotes MP Ali Khreis speaking after an inspection of areas in the south. He is quoted as saying:
These southern villages and towns are struggling against the Zionist machine. Lebanon expressed and stated … that we want to implement UN Resolution 1701, and we want the Lebanese army to protect the borders and maintain security and stability, and that the presence of Unifil is an international guarantee for implementing the international resolution.
Israel’s military has claimed that it is carrying out “limited, localized, targeted raids based on precise intelligence in thicketed terrain along the border fence in southern Lebanon, where the Hezbollah terrorist organisation has established itself,” but Lebanese authorities have put the death toll from Israeli airstrikes inside the country at over 2,800 dead.
Before and after satellite photographs have shown the extent of destruction wrought by Israeli attacks on a village in the south of Lebanon. Israel has been accused of breaking international humanitarian law by opening fire on Unifil peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon.
Juliette Touma, global communications officer for Unrwa, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, has spoken to Al Jazeera from Amman in Jordan.
Israel this morning said it had formally notified the UN that it would be banning the agency from operating inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Touma told the news agency:
Who is going to replace Unrwa? When this brutal war finally comes to an end, who will provide education to 400,000 children who go to Unrwa schools, who? What is the plan? We don’t have any answer to that.
We are the only UN agency in the world that runs 700 schools. In the absence of a political solution for Palestinian refugees, there is no alternative to Unrwa.
It’s easy to talk. The question is what are you going to do about the ban and how are you going to fill the void? You meaning the state of Israel.
On Monday last week Israel’s parliament voted to ban the agency from the country within 90 days. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has also banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel, as well as raided its offices in Ramallah.
Lebanon’s media reports that Israeli forces continue to target areas in the south of the country with artillery fire and airstrikes.
Israel’s military has said that as of 3pm local time (1pm GMT), “approximately 60 projectiles that were fired by Hezbollah” had crossed into Israel or Israeli-controlled territory.
In an operational update via Telegram, the IDF claimed to have located and destroyed underground infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and said “troops located terrorist infrastructure, military sites, weapons stockpiles, a missile storage facility, and compounds designated for infiltrating into Israeli territory.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
AFP reports it has spoken to a witness to the arson attack in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah.
Ihab al-Zabin, a resident of the building damaged in the attack, which also saw about 20 cars torched, told the news agency he saw around ten people he identified as settlers “pouring liquids on vehicles in front of the building and then setting them on fire.”
He said “I yelled from my apartment, and at that moment they ran away. When I went down with my neighbours to put out the fire, settlers shot towards us.”
AFP reports that Laila Ghannam, governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, told journalists at the scene “there could have been a massacre in this building”, which residents say housed more than 60 people. She said the attacks were increasing because the settlers were treated by Israeli authorities with “impunity”.
About 490,000 settlers live in settlements considered illegal under international law in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. About three million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank territory.
Israeli media reports that graffiti left nearby during the attack said “war on Judea and Samaria”. Settlers often refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, after two ancient Israelite kingdoms. These terms are also used administratively by the Israeli government.
Rami Omar, head of the local civil defence office, said the incident happened at 3.30am, and an Israeli security official told AFP notification of the incident came at 4am. Israeli police and the Shin Bet have said they are investigating.
Al-Zabin said he saw the arsonists run away towards the nearby Israeli settlement of Beit El.
Reuters reports that three people have been killed by an Israeli strike on a house in Nuseirat camp in Gaza. Citing local medics for the information, it takes the total number of people reported killed today in Gaza to ten.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza.
Seven killed by Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia – reports
Both Reuters and Palestinian news agency Wafa are reporting that medical sources in Gaza have told the agencies that seven people have been killed on Monday by an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza. Numerous people were reported injured with some reported missing.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that 94,431 children under the age of 10 got a polio vaccine over the weekend, which represents 79% of the target in northern Gaza.
At least 90% vaccination of a population is needed to stop the spread of the virus. About 15,000 children are thought to be a zone besieged by Israeli ground forces in Beit Hanoun, Beit Latiya and Jabalia in the northern governorate, and they cannot be reached because of military operations.
The humanitarian pause the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) agreed to did not include that zone. The IDF denies involvement in a blast at a clinic in Sheikh Radwan on Saturday, where six people were reported injured, four of them children, while vaccinations were going on.
The IDF put out a tweet referring to a bomb attack near the Sheikh Radwan clinic by “terrorist organisations” while a humanitarian convoy was passing, saying that six children at the clinic had been injured in the explosion. But the incident it refers to is supposed to have happened on Sunday, not Saturday.
The WHO says there was a blast near its convoy on Sunday to evacuate patients and health workers from besieged hospitals in the north, but it said the convoy was not affected.
The Guardian is asking the IDF for further clarification.
Updated
Germany urges Israel to allow more aid into north Gaza to help the “unbearable” situation in the region.
A spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said: “We call on the Israeli government urgently to meet its responsibilities under international law.
“Israel has the right to self-defence against Hamas within the framework of humanitarian international law.”
The spokesperson’s comments were in response to the ultimatum the United States imposed on Israel to improve humanitarian assistance. If Israel fails, Washington has said it will restrict military aid.
Updated
Kamala Harris pledged that as president she would ‘do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza’ in her final rally in Michigan on Sunday, as she tried to appeal to the state’s large Arab American and Muslim populations.
She said she would also work to bring home hostages, ensure Israeli security, end the suffering of the Palestinian people and ensure their ‘dignity, freedom and self-determination’
Reporting for Haaretz, Bar Peleg writes that another arrest has been made on Monday in Israel after a joint investigation by the police, internal security services and the army into a suspected “breach of national security.”
Peleg writes:
An Israeli Court ruled on Sunday evening that the leak of military intelligence from the IDF to the prime minister’s office, and subsequently to foreign media outlets, could have harmed the security services’ ability to secure the release of the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
The court allowed the publication of the name of Eli Feldstein, the spokesperson in Netanyahu’s circle who is suspected in the case. It was also revealed that the three other detainees being questioned are members of the security establishment.
Peleg says that the Shin Bet have made a further arrest today.
Israel claims to have killed another senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon
Israel’s military has issued a statement in which it claims to have killed “a commander in the Hezbollah Radwan force’s anti-tank missile system.”
Naming him as Riad Rida Ghazzawi, the IDF claimed he “planned and executed a significant amount of terrorist attacks, including firing anti-tank missiles at Israeli civilians and at IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon.”
Israel’s military has been staging incursions inside Lebanon since 1 October, claiming to be targeting Hezbollah.
Lebanese authorities have reported over 2,800 dead in Israeli attacks on Lebanon in the past month.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to leave their homes in northern Israel due to repeated rocket fire from inside Lebanon. At least 50 rockets have been fired so far today according to IDF statements. A large number of people have also been displaced from their homes in Lebanon by the fighting.
Earlier today Israel also stated it had killed a Hezbollah commander in the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, who it named as Abu Ali Rida. The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel’s military has claimed to have intercepted “a number of suspicious aerial targets that approached Israeli territory from east” on Monday.
33 killed and 156 injured by Israeli strikes on Gaza in last 24 hours – ministry
Gaza’s Hamas-led health ministry has issued updated casualty figures, reporting that 33 Palestinians were killed and 156 more injured by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.
The ministry claims this takes the total death toll in the Gaza Strip since Israel began its military campaign against Hamas in October last year to 43,374 killed with 102,261 wounded.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Germany has called on Israel to let more humanitarian aid into north Gaza, where a lack of supplies has led to a “desperate” and “unbearable” situation, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said on Monday.
“We call on the Israeli government urgently to meet its responsibilities under international law,” Reuters reports the spokesperson told a regular news conference in Berlin, adding “Israel has the right to self defence against Hamas within the framework of humanitarian international law.”
Earlier on Monday Israel announced that it had formally instructed the UN that it would be banning the Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa from operating inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that thousands of people in Halhul, north of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, gathered today for the funeral of a 14-year-old child shot by Israeli security forces.
Wafa reported that a general strike spread through Halhul during the funeral for Naji Nidal Al-Baba.
Some news sources have given the child’s age as 16.
In a statement the UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) group has said that all three hospitals in northern Gaza are under attack.
In the statement is said:
All three remaining hospitals in northern Gaza are under attack. Kamal Adwan hospital has come under direct artillery fire, resulting in the serious injury of a child. Al Awda hospital has also been shelled, and Indonesian hospital hit by drone strikes. The Israeli military is killing and injuring hundreds of Palestinians a day and the patients in need of lifesaving care in northern Gaza are now left helpless under siege.
These latest attacks by Israeli forces are part of a sustained assault on Gaza’s health system, amounting to war crimes and the crime of extermination. Israel is making Palestinian survival in northern Gaza impossible as part of a policy of sustained pressure and forcible expulsion. The international community must not allow this brutality to go unchallenged.
An earlier statement today by the Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza said that all three hospitals had been put out of operation.
The statement from the Gaza’s government media office, reported by Al Jazeera and Israeli media, said the “northern district is devastated due to the ongoing Israeli aggression.”
It claimed that about 1,800 Palestinians had been killed and about 4,000 others wounded as a result of IDF operations in the north of the Gaza Strip over the past three weeks. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
It accused the Israeli army of “continuing to destroy civilian infrastructure”, and halting the vaccination campaign for children in northern Gaza “as part of its destruction plan.”
It described the area as “disaster-stricken”. The claims have not been independently verified.
A statement on Friday signed by the heads of UN agencies, including the UN children’s agency Unicef and the World Food Programme, and other aid groups, warned that “The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”
Israeli media is reporting that about 50 rockets have been fired into Israel from the direction of Lebanon so far on Monday. A barrage of 20 rockets was aimed at Western Galilee, with 30 aimed at Upper Galilee. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their homes in northern Israel, with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government setting their ability to return safely as a war aim for its campaign in Lebanon which it says targets Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s National News Agency is reporting new Israeli air strikes on the south of the country.
Israel’s military has issued further details of the interceptions carried out this morning. It says that “four UAVs fired from both Lebanon and the east were intercepted by the IAF,” stating that two were intercepted outside of Israel.
Here are some of the latest images sent over the news wires from Gaza, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli media reports that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet today with opposition leader Yair Lapid for a security briefing.
Palestinian Authority foreign ministry condemns reported torching of cars in occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry has issued a statement condemning the reported burning of cars by Israeli settlers in Al-Bireh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In a statement, the ministry said it condemned the “brutal attack” in “the strongest terms”, saying that “it considers it an extension of the crimes of settler gangs throughout the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and a copy of the manifestations of the genocide and displacement of our people in the Gaza Strip.”
It continued:
The ministry affirms that the Jewish terrorist elements who stormed Al-Bireh would not have committed this heinous crime had they not felt protected, supported and immune from the political level in the occupying state, especially the ministers of the extreme Israeli right who openly incite against Palestinian citizens, their land and their property in full view.
Senior members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government have repeated stated their intention to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and their desire to encourage further illegal settlements inside the West Bank.
Al-Bireh is to the north-east of Ramallah.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that caretaker minister of the interior Bassam Mawlawi will convene a central internal security council meeting at noon to, it says, “follow up on security developments in light of the continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon.”
The caretaker minister is expected to make public remarks after the meeting.
Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting that one person has been injured after Israeli security forces opened fire near Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and also reports that Israel has detained one man in Beitunia, west of Ramallah.
Israel formally notifies UN it is to ban Unrwa from operating in Israel
Israel’s foreign ministry has said in a statement, reported by AFP, that it has formally notified the UN that the country will ban the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, from operating inside Israel.
Unrwa operates 96 schools in the Israeli-occupied West Bank serving 45,000 students, as well as 43 health centres, food distribution services for refugee families, and psychological support services, according to the agency’s website. It has played a crucial logistical role in facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza, as well as providing shelters for displaced Palestinians.
“On the instruction of foreign minister Israel Katz, the ministry of foreign affairs notified the UN of the cancellation of the agreement between the state of Israel and Unrwa,” the foreign ministry said.
Israel has alleged that 12 Unrwa employees took part in the Hamas attack inside southern Israel on 7 October 2023. The agency fired several staff members as a result of an independent inquiry, but says that Israel’s wider accusations of staff in Gaza supporting Hamas are unfounded.
In Monday’s statement, Katz said “Unrwa, the organisation whose employees participated in the 7 October massacre and many of whose employees are Hamas operatives, is part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not part of the solution.”
Unrwa’s mandate is to provide life-giving services to anyone who has “lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict”, a mission widened after the 1967 war, when the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories began.
Foreign minister Katz disputed that cutting off Unrwa would damage the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which has been besieged by Israeli forces and subjected to aerial bombardment for over a year. Nearly all of the territory’s 2.4 million people have been displaced from their homes at least once.
“Even now, the vast majority of humanitarian aid to Gaza is delivered through other organisations, and only 13 percent of it is delivered through Uurwa,” Katz said.
“The state of Israel is committed to international law and will continue to facilitate the entrance of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in a manner that does not harm the security of the citizens of Israel.”
Israel is yet to provide any proposal for how the functions of Unrwa would be replaced. Israel has been repeatedly accused of breaching international humanitarian law in its response to the 7 October attack.
During a recent visit to the region, US secretary of state Antony Blinken cautioned Israel that the US was watching “very carefully” for progress being made on stepping up the amount of aid being delivered to Gaza.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said “the state of Israel will continue to cooperate with humanitarian organisations but not with organisations that promote terrorism against us.”
Palestinian media sources are reporting that between 15 and 20 cars were set alight in Al-Bireh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, is quoted by news agency Wafa described the incident as a crime by “terrorist settler militias.”
The Times of Israel reports that Israel’s police force has said it has opened an investigation.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that overnight Israel has continued its assault on Gaza, stating that “local sources reported hearing successive explosions north of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, while the occupation’s warplanes targeted the city of Rafah in the south.”
It said there were dead and wounded after the attacks.
Wafa reports that one child was injured according to medical sources from the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. They told the news agency “artillery shelling targeted the hospital wards, the nursery, the hospital yard and the water tanks.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel claims to have intercepted 'suspicious aerial targets' from the east
In a message on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed that on Monday morning it had intercepted what it termed “a suspicious aerial target” that crossed into Israeli-controlled territory “from the east”.
There were no reports of any casualties. In the same message the IDF said it had also intercepted “a suspicious aerial target in the Upper Galilee area” that had crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
Emanuel Fabian, who reports for the Times of Israel, posted to suggest that two drones had headed towards Israeli-controlled territory from Iraq.
Four drones launched at Israel, two from Iraq and two from Lebanon, were shot down by the Israeli Air Force this morning, the IDF says.
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 4, 2024
Israel says it has killed a Hezbollah commander inside Lebanon
In a message on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed to have killed a Hezbollah commander who it names as Abu Ali Rida. It said he commanded the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon.
The IDF described him as being “responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF troops.”
In the operational update, Israel said:
IDF troops continue to conduct limited, localised, targeted raids in southern Lebanon, dismantling terrorist infrastructure, locating weapons, and eliminating terrorists.
Huge swathes of Lebanon’s population have been displaced from their homes by Israel’s military action against Hezbollah. According to Lebanese authorities, more than 2,800 people have been killed inside Lebanon by Israeli attacks. Tens of thousands of Israelis in the north of the country have also been displaced from their homes by near constant rocket frie from Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces inside Lebanon.
Welcome to the Guardian’s continued coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. Here are the latest headlines …
In a strike inside Lebanon, Israel has claimed to kill a Hezbollah commander responsible, the IDF said, for “planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF troops”
Israel’s military said that on Monday morning it had intercepted what it called “a suspicious aerial target” heading towards Israeli-controlled territory from the east
A polio vaccination centre and the car of a UN aid official involved in this weekend’s vaccination campaign came under fire despite a promised “humanitarian pause” in Israeli bombardment, the UN has said
At least 43,341 Palestinian people have been killed and 102,105 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is at the centre of a new political storm related to a hostage deal in the Gaza war after the arrest of several people in connection with an alleged leak of classified documents from his office
Updated
