Urgent health update: Consequences of war on Gaza, West Bank/East Jerusalem and Lebanon 11/16/24

Israeli air, land, & sea bombardment continue across Gaza, causing further civilian casualties, displacement, & destruction of houses & other civilian infrastructure. The siege of northern Gaza has choked off all humanitarian aid, and intense ground attacks increase casualties as Israel issues evacuation orders – with nowhere to go.

The extension of the war to the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen is a health and human rights emergency, and an escalation that threatens world war.

Report to UN Security Council: Conditions in Gaza “unfit for human survival”

Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the UN on 12 Nov 24. She denounced illegal and inhumane Israeli activities in Gaza and the West Bank, including attempts to close UNRWA, and urged all UN members to take action to stop it. Here are some strongly worded excerpts; the full text can be found here.

We have condemned the death, destruction and dehumanization of civilians in Gaza who have been driven from their homes, stripped of their sense of place and dignity, forced to witness their family members killed, burned and buried alive…

Most of Gaza is now a wasteland of rubble. What distinction was made, and what precautions were taken, if more than 70 per cent of civilian housing is either damaged or destroyed?

We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes.

Shelters, homes and schools have been burned and bombed to the ground.

Numerous families remain trapped under rubble, because fuel for digging equipment is being blocked by the Israeli authorities and first responders have been blocked from reaching them.

Ambulances have been destroyed. And hospitals have come under attack.

Israeli authorities are blocking humanitarian assistance from entering North Gaza, where fighting continues, and around 75,000 people remain with dwindling water and food supplies.

Conditions of life across Gaza are unfit for human survival. Food is insufficient…

Mr. President, the most basic requirements of humanity are being disregarded.

These are requirements that Members of this Council, and indeed all Member States, set out in international humanitarian and human rights law. They must be respected.

Mr. President, now is the time for Member States to use their leverage to prevent and stop violations of international humanitarian law – through diplomatic and economic pressure, responsible arms transfers and combating impunity.

Now is the time for the Security Council to use its powers under the UN Charter to ensure compliance with international law and full implementation of its resolutions.

Other reports

Health care workers in Gaza ask why the international community ignores their suffering. Israel’s year-long assault has left Gaza’s health care system in ruins. But American medicine is largely silent. Salon

Israel’s goals for the divided Gaza: The Four partitions and the New Settlement Plan. One unrealized goal: the partition of Gaza and the establishment of settlements within it—similar to the pre-2005 situation. E. J. Magnier

Human Rights Watch issued a 154-page report, “‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,” documenting Israel’s war Crimes and crimes Against Humanity in Gaza, Mass Forced Displacement and Widespread Destruction. There is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times. Rather than ensuring civilians’ security, military “evacuation orders” have caused grave harm. Governments should adopt targeted sanctions and other measures, and halt weapons sales to Israel. The International Criminal Court prosecutor should investigate Israel’s forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity. Human Rights Watch

University of California, San Francisco medical professionals, workers, and students throughout the UC system are convening the UC People’s Tribunal for Palestine to charge UC leadership with complicity in genocide and the ongoing Nakba. Mondoweiss

Gaza

(Numbers are cumulative through 11/14/24, per OCHAOPT & Palestinian Ministry of Health. Find more details here.)

Killed: 43,736+ (>274 this week)

Injured: 103,370 (>729 this week)

Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza: 373 (5 this week)

Israeli soldiers injured in Gaza: 2,425

Hostages in Gaza: 101

Israeli attacks

• In and around An Nuseirat, 7 killed and 17 wounded. Then Israeli military operations intensified in An Nuseirat refugee camp and Beit Hanoun on 10/10-11, killing at least 14 (4 children), 30+ injured or missing. Israeli forces ordered hundreds to evacuate.

• In Beit Lahiya, 58 killed (13 children) and others injured, some still under rubble; 72 killed in and around Jabalya, where civil defense and media are prohibited; 36 killed and others injured in and around Gaza City, mostly those sheltering in 3 schools.

• According to UNICEF, Israeli military in October attacked 64 schools, mostly serving as IDP shelters, killing 128 people, including many children.

• Israeli forces have prevented Civil Defense teams from rescuing people trapped under rubble by refusing to allow supplies, refusing permission, and direct attacks. In north Gaza, PCD reports that people who survive bombing and attacks are often left trapped under rubble for days without being evacuated, and then die from hunger.

• UN aid trucks enter north Gaza for first time in 40 days. According to Palestinian reports, the IDF attacked immediately after trucks entered, so it remains unclear whether they reached their destination

Food & Nutrition

• 10/8, a famine alert for north Gaza was issued as a worst-case scenario is unfolding: an intensification of hostilities, growing displacement, and a reduction in humanitarian assistance. The UN Famine Review Committee noted it can be “assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing… Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future.”

• Food scarcity has a devastating impact on pregnant women, increasing the rise of babies born with health complications, and rendering mothers unable to breastfeed; this, in turn, increases risk of infants getting pneumonia, particularly as winter approaches. 42,000 pregnant women are facing crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse levels of food insecurity, 15,000 classified as emergency (IPC Phase 4) and 3,000 facing catastrophic hunger (IPC Phase 5), “a number that could surge to 8,000 as winter sets,” warns UNFPA.

• The drastic reduction in trucks entering Gaza has driven commodity prices up. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reports the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 283% since October 2023. This has worsened nutrition for women and children, who face severely limited access to adequate food, water and hygiene products.

• UNICEF reports child (6-23 months) dietary diversity declined significantly in October compared to previous months: 95% of children eat only 1 or 2 types of food daily.

• 4,107 children were treated for acute malnutrition in October, a marked increase.

• Over the past week, my family and I have resorted to eating canned pet food mixed with poor-quality rice that feels like chewing plastic. We live in Deir al-Balah, and like everywhere else in Gaza, there is nothing to buy in the markets. We typically eat one meal a day, usually some canned food along with olive oil and za’atar. To bake bread we have to use bug-infested flour.

Water & Sanitation

• In October, WASH Cluster partners received only 28% of the 70,000 required liters to meet daily WASH and public health needs (water production and distribution, sewage management, repair and waste management). Private sector water suppliers shut down in Gaza City due to lack of fuel, leaving a critical service gap exacerbated by the large influx of IDPs from north Gaza.

• Israel has denied all requests to allow fuel deliveries for water, sewage and waste management since the beginning of October, greatly harming public health.

• One crucial need in Gaza’s overcrowded shelters is the safe disposal of sewage and waste in a territory where Israel’s destruction of infrastructure has been near total. Muhammad Mansour, 39, said many absorption pits in his shelter west of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip have started to collapse due to oversaturation of the ground with wastewater. Sewage water is present everywhere in Deir al-Balah, Mansour said, flowing freely in between tents in shelters and in streets everywhere. Ahmed Shaheen, an environmental engineer with the Palestinian Water Authority, warns of a possible major health disaster. “Absorption pits can lead to the seepage of sewage into groundwater. Increased humidity and foul odors from these pits can promote the spread of infectious diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever,” Shaheen said.

• Facing a water crisis exacerbated by the war, locals and displaced persons in Gaza testify that they must wait hours in line for buckets of contaminated water, which they boil in order to prevent disease.

Displacement and evacuation

• 10/7, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for Gaza City and North Gaza, affecting 61,000 people. Since October 2023, over 67 evacuation orders have affected 88% of Gaza while only 5 (all in south Gaza) have been rescinded. The displaced are directed to 72.5 sq.km (20% of Gaza) in or around Al Mawasi, an area with a lack of basic infrastructure, services, and constrained aid operations.

• UN estimates 100-130,000 people have been displaced from the north over the past 5 weeks. Between 50-75,000 people remain in North Gaza.

• Between 9/10-11/4, about 44,300 people in southern Gaza received shelter materials; they constitute about 4% of those needing shelter assistance. 

• Skyrocketing prices have made winterization nearly impossible. Prices increased for shovels 300%, plastic rope 345%, and a bag of cement 1,900%.

Aid

• All humanitarian assistance to North Gaza has been denied except for 1 WFP mission on 11/11 and some hospital supplies dropped off during medical evacuations. No fuel has been allowed for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities since 10/1.

• Following that sole aid delivery (to 2 IDP shelters), Israeli forces shelled and surrounded the area, ordering families to leave.

• Every UN attempt to access North Gaza with food and health was denied or impeded during the first 11 days of November.

• Between 11/1-11, of 195 planned missions across Gaza coordinated with Israeli authorities, 31% (61) were denied, 42% (83) were facilitated, 16% (32) were impeded, and 10% (19) cancelled. On 11/10, PRCS reported long delays at military checkpoints led to the death of a patient being transported to Gaza City. Humanitarian operating conditions significantly worsened in October, marking the highest rate of access denial since October 2023. Find more details here.

• Scarcity has made aid distribution points hotspots of violence, particularly for women and girls, those with disabilities, female heads of households, and elderly women. Women report being forced to search for food and water and threatened with violence if they return empty-handed.

Health and hospitals

• North Gaza hospitals are barely functioning. WHO reports access to the Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesian hospitals remains severely restricted. Lack of fuel forces Al Awda Hospital to run its generators only 3 hours daily. Although the 2nd round of the polio vaccination campaign ended, Israeli military activities prevented 6,800-13,700 children in Jabalya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya from getting their 2nd dose.

• Health conditions continue to deteriorate: 9 in 10 children <5 are affected by infectious diseases; 25% of women experience skin conditions or other health issues; 11,000 acute respiratory infections were reported the 1st week in November; acute jaundice syndrome and bloody diarrhea continue to rise, warns WHO. UNFPA reports a rise in premature births and maternal deaths, with 155,000 Pregnant & BW deprived of pre- and post-natal care. WHO reports: “[e]very day, hundreds of women give birth in traumatic, unhygienic and undignified conditions.”

• To support the influx of displaced people, 2 new surgical Specialized Care Teams deployed to the Public Aid and Al Ahli Arab hospitals in Gaza City. Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) supplies and equipment were delivered to support 20,000 people and 15 health facilities. Also, the NGO Juzoor for Health and Development opened 1 of 3 new medical points while UNRWA (with admirable optimism) is re-opening a health center that closed in October 2023.

• Dr. Khaled Al Serr, a surgeon at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, recently endured six months as a prisoner in the Israeli military court system. In late March, Israeli forces stormed Nasser Medical Complex for the second time during this ongoing genocide. Soldiers forced medical staff, including Al Serr, to evacuate. Despite wearing his white doctor’s coat and a stethoscope around his neck, clearly identifying him as a medical professional, Al Serr was detained. “They made us strip our clothes and tied our hands and blindfolded us…It was humiliating, but worse than that, they treated us like criminals. We were just doctors trying to save lives.”

• Dr. Hatem Edhair, head of the neonatal unit at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, told The Electronic Intifada that Israel’s continued assault is having a dramatic effect on pregnant women in Gaza and their newborns. “More than 170 cases of congenital deformities in newborns were recorded during the last third of the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, a worrying statistic,” he said of cases at Nasser hospital alone, the largest in central and southern Gaza. Israel’s use of internationally banned weapons in its attacks on the Gaza Strip has been documented by the rights group Euro-Med Monitor, including the use of cluster and phosphorus bombs.

Education

• 14 new Temporary Learning Spaces (TLS) were established in informal IDP sites in Khan Younis, serving 2,500 students by providing basic literacy, math, recreational and mental health promotion activities. The Education cluster mapped 53 new initiatives led by 554 volunteer teachers between 10/27-11/9, benefiting over 9,900 children.

• Israeli attacks on schools, parents, children, and teachers have generated fear and impeded emergency education efforts. As of 11/5, 11,119 students and 441 education personnel have been killed; 17,115 students and 2,491 personnel injured.

WEST BANK AND EAST JERUSALEM

This week, Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians.

Killed since October 2023: 783+ (including at least 146 children) and injured: >6,490

Find more detail here.

Israeli attacks

• This past week, Israeli forces killed 11, including 3 in airstrikes, and injured 52 (16 children). In Qabatiya, they shot and killed 4 Palestinians, preventing Red Crescent paramedics from reaching the injured for half an hour. Then they bulldozed a house, displacing 3 families (12 people). In Jenin, they killed 1 person, blew up a house, and caused significant damage to infrastructure and 7 residences, displacing 11 families (53 people, 22 children). Military operations displaced 7 families (26 people) in Tulkarm refugee camp and 4 families (11 people) in Nur Shams camp.

• UN Human Rights Office condemned Israeli forces’ “mass arrests, ill-treatment, and gratuitous humiliation of Palestinians during raids in refugee camps and towns across the West Bank… [A] pattern of unnecessary, disproportionate and otherwise unlawful force used...despite in many cases there being no apparent threat to public order or the security of the occupying forces.” In October, 696 were detained (41 last week, including 2 children), an increase in the monthly average of 612.

Settler violence

This week, settlers carried out 39 attacks against Palestinians, causing 6 injuries and property damage. Since 10/7/23, OCHA documented 1,639 attacks by settlers against Palestinians, causing 170 injuries. Settler violence displaced 290 households (1,697 people, 823 children) in Bedouin and herding communities. For more info on casualties, displacement and settler violence since January 2023, see the OCHA West Bank snapshot.

• Since 10/1, 203 settler attacks on the olive harvest occurred in 79 communities, injuring 69 Palestinians and destroying 1,600 olive trees. Typically, Palestinian families are granted 1-day access to harvest. When attacked by settlers, they call Israeli police for assistance, but they usually expel the Palestinians and grant the settlers impunity.

• 11/7, an Israeli group demonstrated against the UN, damaging vehicles transiting UNRWA’s Sheikh Jarrah compound, one of a series of attacks on UNRWA in Jerusalem.

Demolitions

• This week, Israeli authorities demolished 30 Palestinian-owned structures for lack of Israeli-issued building permits, displacing 62 people (half children). Since 10/7/23, Israeli authorities destroyed 1,843 Palestinian structures across the West Bank, displacing 4,644 Palestinians (1,958 children). For more on demolitions and displacement, see the OCHA demolition dashboard.

• Israeli authorities demolished 9 homes in highly contested Silwan, displacing 42 people.

Movement and access

Israeli forces reopened the Birzeit/Atara gate in Ramallah on 11/7 for a few hours daily. Closed since 10/7/2023, it severely restricts the movement of tens of thousands of Palestinians, creating congestion limiting access to employment and services.

Lebanon

Updated on 11/15 by Lebanese Health Ministry: Since 10/8/23, 3,445 killed by Israeli forces, 14,599 injured.

• Terror in Nabatieh: On the front line of Israel’s war on Lebanon. First responders make daily sacrifices to save people, while victims of Israeli strikes speak of immense pain and trauma. Middle East Eye

• Israeli forces have bombed Beirut multiple times, announced second phase of ground invasion of south Lebanon.

• Hezbollah targeted Tel Aviv, Haifa and Nahariya with rocket barrages, killing two Israelis in Nahariya.

Israel

• Editorial in Haaretz: Netanyahu's Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza Is on Display for All to See. The Israeli military is conducting an ethnic cleansing operation in the northern Gaza Strip. The few Palestinians remaining in the area are being forcibly evacuated, homes and infrastructure have been destroyed, and wide roads in the area are being built and completing the separation of the communities in the northern Strip from the center of Gaza City.

• ‘Yes, it is genocide’ in Gaza says Israeli professor of Holocaust studies, Amos Goldberg, professor of Holocaust History at the department of Jewish history and contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

• Israeli army has admitted for the first time that it intends to prevent Palestinian residents of northern Gaza to return to their homes. Civilians fleeing north Gaza are arriving in Gaza City and staying in newly established refugee camps. The camps are already overflowing.

• Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich says Israel is 'a step away' from annexing the West Bank after Trump's election victory.

US

• Biden administration gave Israel 30 days to increase the flow of aid, warning that aid shipments into Gaza in September had reached an alarmingly low level. Despite a U.S. deadline to allow more aid into Gaza, Israel was still letting significantly less food and supplies into the territory than in the months before the warning, and facing no consequences. NYT

• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and "reviewed steps that Israel has taken to improve the dire humanitarian situation inside Gaza" according to a State Department statement. If the U.S. officially designates Israel as non-compliant with the 30-day deadline, it could suspend arms supplies, or choose not to veto UN Security Council resolutions against Israel.

• Biden Administration will continue to arm Israel, even as it failed to meet the U.S. deadline on allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza. When the 30-day deadline arrived on November 12, a group of humanitarian organizations published a report finding that Israel had failed to deliver on most, if not all, of the criteria outlined by the U.S. in the October letter.

• 11/4/24, activists in New York City joined the Free Global Youth Movement’s hunger strike demanding an end to the genocide, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement in Gaza. The action follows a call for solidarity from a group of Jordanian hunger strikers pressing for an end to their country’s complicity in the siege on Gaza. The NYC hunger strike began with a vigil outside the United Nations.

• In his first interview with Israeli media since being named as President-elect Donald Trump's next U.S. ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee discussed American support for full Israeli control over the West Bank. "Of course," Huckabee said, "There has never been an American president that has been more helpful in securing an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel… and I fully expect that will continue

• Democratic lawmakers rallied (without support from 52 of their colleagues) Tuesday evening to vote down a bill that would have granted Trump broad powers to censor and punish his political opponents. The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act — would allow the Treasury Department unilateral authority to revoke the tax exempt status of any nonprofit it designates as a “terrorist supporting organization.”

• In just 24 hours, JVP Action members, supporters, and partner organizations sent over 20,000 emails to the House of Representatives, demanding they oppose legislation that would have granted the incoming Trump administration unchecked power to shut down nonprofit organizations it doesn’t like. With tens of thousands of us taking action across the country, eleven “no” votes from the first time this bill was voted on last spring became one hundred forty-five — and the bill was blocked.

• Activists at UC Davis say is time to end the decades-old exchange between the U. of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the Koret School of Veterinary Medicine at the Hebrew University. In April 2024, multiple UC Davis veterinary faculty members participated in a university-sanctioned “research retreat at the Koret School. Students and veterinary residents complained about the blatant disregard for Palestinian life and the insensitivity of the program. The school refused to suspend the program or condemn the genocide.

International

• International aid groups including Oxfam and Save the Children said that Israel failed to meet the U.S.'s deadline to "surge" humanitarian aid into Gaza. They said that "Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria" but "dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza."

• Human rights advocates around the world reacted angrily to U.S. State Department determination that Israel is not violating humanitarian law—even as its forces annihilate Gaza and block aid from entering the embattled Palestinian enclave.

Sources

OCHAOPT, Salon, Middle East Eye, New York Times, Human Rights Watch, Mondoweiss, Middle East Monitor, Intercept, Haaretz, Electronic Intifada, JVP Action