Israel-Hamas war: Israel hits civilian infrastructure as ceasefire calls grow

The Israel Protection Forces have attacked a number of civilian targets within the final week — together with refugee camps and an ambulance convoy — killing more than 200 Palestinians, in response to authorities sources in Gaza, as Israel prosecutes its struggle in opposition to Hamas.

The IDF focused the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, which has a registered population of just over 116,000, at the very least three times in the last week, in addition to Palestinian Purple Crescent ambulances close to the al-Shifa hospital. The IDF claimed accountability for the assaults, saying they had been essential to destroy Hamas’s tunnel-based infrastructure; this comes amid rising requires a ceasefire and mass pro-Palestinian protests in cities throughout the world.

The IDF claims it has thus far killed 10 Hamas commanders chargeable for assaults in opposition to Israeli troops. Hamas is chargeable for the devastating October 7 assaults, which killed greater than 1,400 folks in Israel, principally civilians. Hamas continues to be holding round 240 hostages from as many as 35 totally different nations, together with the US, in Gaza. However the full-throated assist for Israel from the worldwide group instantly following the assaults has light considerably because the humanitarian disaster has grown in Gaza. Political leaders, together with US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have each referred to as for “pauses” within the preventing to facilitate humanitarian support deliveries and civilian evacuation within the territory. Israeli officers, together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have dismissed the calls to prioritize civilian safety of their operations, saying the assaults in Gaza will proceed till Hamas is defeated and the hostages are returned.

The United Nations has condemned each Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israeli assaults on Gaza, with the UN Excessive Fee for Human Rights warning that Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia “are disproportionate assaults that would quantity to struggle crimes.”

The IDF additionally focused a convoy of ambulances exterior the al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza Friday, claiming that its intelligence indicated Hamas militants were using the ambulances. Israel maintains that the hospital covers Hamas’s underground command center, which Dr. Medhat Abbas, director common of the Gaza Well being Ministry, has denied.

The Bureij and al-Maghazi refugee camps had been additionally bombed, on Sunday and Saturday respectively, however the IDF has not commented on these bombings or claimed accountability. The Bureij camp was additionally attacked on Thursday.

World protests present rising demand for a ceasefire

Because the starting of the struggle, Israeli strikes have killed nearly 9,500 Palestinians, together with virtually 4,000 kids, in response to the Gaza Well being Ministry. On Friday protesters in Washington, DC, Berlin, London, and several other different main cities gathered to call for a ceasefire and condemn governments, together with the US, that present Israel with main army assist. Protesters in Washington, DC, laid out small white physique luggage with the names of Palestinian kids killed within the airstrikes and marched with a banner displaying the names of people killed in the airstrikes.

The Washington march served as a pointy rebuke of Biden, whose polling numbers amongst Arab People have dropped precipitously because the starting of the struggle, with many saying they won’t vote for him a second time. An October ballot from the Arab American Institute exhibits Biden’s assist amongst that group of voters plummeting from 59 p.c in 2020 to simply 17 p.c. That disapproval might show a critical barrier to Biden’s probabilities for reelection only a yr from now; as Axios pointed out, the Midwest, and Michigan specifically, had been essential to Biden’s 2020 win. Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan, have a number of the largest Arab American populations within the nation — and their fury over Biden’s assist for Israel might current a significant issue for him in 2024.

On Sunday, Blinken met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who referred to as for a direct ceasefire. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority nominally management the West Bank, the place IDF troopers and armed Israeli settlers have killed at least 100 Palestinians since October 7. The US has rejected requires a direct ceasefire, with Blinken saying {that a} ceasefire would “leave Hamas in place to regroup and repeat attacks.”

Netanyahu on Sunday forcefully rejected requires a ceasefire. “There shall be no ceasefire with out the return of the hostages. This must be fully faraway from the lexicon,” he mentioned at Israel’s Ramon Air Base. “We are saying this to our pals and to our enemies. We are going to merely proceed till we defeat them. Now we have no various.”

Blinken and Abbas met within the occupied West Financial institution as a part of the US push to safe elevated humanitarian entry for Gaza and encourage planning for the Palestinian territories’ post-conflict governance. Although neither the assembly nor Blinken’s go to to the West Financial institution was introduced till after he had left, Palestinian protesters turned out to sentence the Biden administration’s assist for Israel, the Associated Press reports.

Although Israel’s floor invasion of Gaza has simply began, the IDF seemingly has restricted time to perform its targets of destroying Hamas’s army and governing capabilities and returning the hostages, James Jeffrey, former particular envoy to the Worldwide Coalition to Defeat ISIS, told Vox in an October interview. In accordance with Jeffrey, Israel should “actually care, as a strategic army problem, [about] civilian casualties and humanitarian points as a result of that may decide how lengthy you have got American assist. They solely have a lot time, even when it’s an existential battle.”