Urgent health update: Consequences of war on Gaza and West Bank/East Jerusalem [and now Lebanon] - October 18, 2024
Israeli air, land, & sea bombardment continues across Gaza, causing further civilian casualties, displacement, & destruction of houses & other civilian infrastructure. Collective punishment in the form of a siege preventing all entry into northern Gaza has been in effect since the Iranian missile attack of 10/1. Israel launched a major military operation in Jabalya, displacing over 50,000 people. Muhannad Hadi, Humanitarian Coordinator for the OPT, stressed: “A military siege that deprives civilians of essential means of survival is unacceptable.“
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.
JOURNAL ARTICLES AND RESEARCH FINDINGS
Are hospitals collateral damage? Assessing geospatial proximity of 2000 lb bomb detonations to hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip from October 7 to November 17, 2023. Here
Press Release: New study shows Israel air-dropped 2000 lb bombs within lethal and damage ranges of hospitals in Gaza. Here
With 3.5 million people in need, a doctor exodus, and some regions served by the very military group that Israel seeks to rout, Lebanon’s healthcare system is in crisis. Here
A historian who exposed the New England Journal of Medicine's silence on Nazi atrocities confronted the journal’s treatment of Gaza during a Harvard symposium. The Intercept
FIRSTHAND REPORTS
‘I had to evacuate five times’: a year in the life of a Gaza doctor battling to help victims. Moving from hospital to hospital as conflict spreads, medic describes fear of constant attack while treating children who have lost limbs. The Guardian
‘Postapocalyptic’: British surgeons Ammar Darwish and Nizam Mamode have been to Gaza as part of a medical team organized by the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. They describe fearing for their safety Guardian
Why are chilling testimonies from doctors who have visited Gaza being ignored? People claim the foreign doctors coming back from Gaza are lying. I wish that were the case, because the truth is beyond horrific. Guardian
GAZA
These numbers are cumulative through 10/15:
· Killed: 42,334 (379 this week)
· Injured: 99,013 (1,423 this week)
· Israeli soldiers killed: 353 (5 this week)
· Israeli soldiers injured: 2,345
· Hostages: 101
Israeli Attacks
On 10/6, MSF reported Israel bombed a mosque and school in Deir al Balah, killing 22 and sending 53 injured to Al Aqsa hospital. Many with head, thorax and abdomen injuries were treated on the floor due to the shortage of beds.
On 10/9, OHCHR reported Israel bombed Al Yaman As Saeed Hospital, killing 17.
On 10/13, an UNRWA school (designated as a polio vaccination site) sheltering 6,200 people in An Nuseirat refugee camp was shelled, killing 22 (15 children) and injuring 80.
On 10/14, Israel bombed the courtyard sheltering IDPs at Al Aqsa hospital, in Deir al Balah, burning 4 to death, injuring 40, and displacing 40 families. MSF reported Al Aqsa hospital treated 40 patients (10 children), many for severe burns, and sent 25 to other health facilities due to lack of capacity. UN Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator stated: “There seems to be no end to the horrors that Palestinians in Gaza are forced to endure… There really is no safe place in Gaza for people to go… These atrocities must end.”
· 10/17, The bombing of Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya: 28 were killed, including doctors and several children, and dozens more injured, according to health officials, who warned the final toll was likely to be higher. Another 11 people were killed in two separate airstrikes in Gaza City, and it was unclear how many were killed in other strikes in central and southern Gaza. The attack on the Jabaliya school also caused a fire. “There is no water to extinguish the fire. There is nothing. This is a massacre,” said medic Medhat Abbas.
· In this deadlier than usual week, Israeli forces killed 62 in and around Jabalya, 55 in and around Deir al Balah, 10 in Rafah, and 14 in Gaza City. Bombings, killer drones, and starvation: eyewitnesses describe Israel’s extermination campaign in northern Gaza. Testimonies from the brutal siege on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza describe massive air and ground assaults, including killer quadcopter drones, that are destroying infrastructure and causing catastrophic humanitarian conditions.
· IDF forced captured Gazans to carry out "life-threatening reconnaissance missions to avoid putting Israeli soldiers at risk," according to a New York Times investigation.
Evacuations
· Since 10/7/2023, the Israeli military has issued over 65 evacuation orders (5 since 10/1/2024), covering 84% of Gaza. 75,000 people have been displaced over the past 10 days, mostly in the north; only about 100 people have been allowed to cross from northern Gaza southward.
· 10/12 Israeli airstrikes on northern Gaza left hundreds of thousands with nowhere to go. Roughly 400,000 people were trapped in the latest offensive.
· The director of the besieged Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza is refusing Israeli orders to shut the hospital down and evacuate.
Health care and hospitals
All 3 hospitals in North Gaza– Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and the Indonesian Hospital – are operating at minimum capacity with dire shortages of fuel, blood units, trauma disposables, medications for patients with non-communicable diseases. Ongoing military activities nearby threaten the 285 remaining patients, including 8 children and 5 adults on ventilators in ICU and 161 ER patients. Many patients urgently need advanced procedures, such as neurosurgery and vascular surgery, which cannot be conducted under current conditions. After 3 attempts to reach these hospitals 10/8-10 impeded by Israeli military, WHO finally managed to transfer 19 patients from Kamal Adwan to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and to deliver fuel to Kamal Adwan and Al Awda.
Kamal Adwan hospital remains overwhelmed, receiving 50-70 injured daily. While emergency obstetric care is provided at Kamal Adwan and Al Awda, “the lives of newborns in incubators and women with pregnancy complications are hanging by a thread,” highlights the UNFPA, with over 9,000 pregnant women forced to move yet again due to the latest evacuation orders.
None of the 25 primary health-care centers (PHCs) in North Gaza are functional, and only 5 of 15 medical points provide basic services.
In central Gaza, 7 hospitals, 10 PHCs and 23 medical points remain operational but all are near closure due to shortages of fuel and supplies. WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pleaded for “sustained facilitation of humanitarian missions.”
· “There are half a million scheduled surgeries on the waiting list in Gaza hospitals,” Dr. Abdul Latif al-Hajj, of the health ministry, said. With just 17 out of 36 hospitals still functioning, and then just partially, across the Gaza Strip, all put out of commission in Israeli bombings, al-Hajj estimated that Gaza had lost 70% of their hospital bed capacity, further complicating matters for those needing surgery.
Polio vaccination campaign/infectious diseases
· 10/14, the 2nd round of polio vaccinations began in central Gaza and is planned to move to the south on 10/19 and then to the north, finishing on 10/25. As with the 1st, each round lasts 4 days in each area. WHO reports 92,821 children received the vaccine on Day 1 and 76,394 received vitamin A supplements. WHO and UNICEF are appealing for humanitarian pauses to ensure the safety of children and their families, vaccination teams and health facilities, especially in the north, where evacuation orders “are threatening access to hospitals and protection of health facilities and health and community workers,” they stressed.
· Polio threatens Gaza today; tomorrow it could be cholera. Celebrating the success of the vaccination campaign rings hollow when other dangers facing children in Gaza remain. Because of Israel’s military offensive, we are witnessing conditions that could allow infectious diseases to run rampant throughout Gaza and break out into the rest of the region.
AID and Assistance
The World Food Program (WFP) and the Food Security Cluster (FSS) warned that since 10/12, no food has entered northern Gaza for 10 days, as Israel has closed all crossings. Kitchens, bakeries and food distribution points in the north have been shut down by airstrikes, military operations and evacuation orders. Food cluster partners have distributed all supplies available. While food access had somewhat stabilized in June and July, all progress has been reversed, and “people have run out of ways to cope, food systems have collapsed, and the risk of famine is real.” Even the Biden administration was forced to condemn the Israeli policy of starvation in North Gaza.
10/1-14: of 285 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israel, 49% (141) were denied, 17% (49) were impeded, 30% (85) were facilitated, and 4% (10) were cancelled. This includes 54 coordinated missions in the north, of which only 1 was facilitated.
10/9: a 30 truck convoy (418 tons of food) was dispatched from Amman to Kerem Shalom (Karm Abu Salem) crossing, the 1st convoy to test the new Declaration Form and customs clearance process. See convoy information on this dashboard.
Water & Sanitation
Palestine Water Authority reports that 85% of water and sanitation facilities are out of service, resulting in a drastic reduction in water supply, the discharge of untreated wastewater into the sea, and sewage leakage into populated areas.
WEST BANK, INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM
This week, Israeli forces killed 9 Palestinians (1 child) and injured 104 (9 children). Since 10/7/23, 728 Palestinians were killed: 711 by Israeli forces, 12 by settlers, 7 unclear.
Israeli attacks
Israeli operations in Tubas, Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin killed 9 and injured 104 people.
· 10/17 UN Experts have warned that Palestinian farmers in the West Bank are facing “the most dangerous olive season ever.” Israeli forces shot and killed a 59-year-old Palestinian woman as she harvested olives with her family in the village of Faqqu’a, east of Jenin, in the West Bank. Hanan Abu Salameh was shot in the back, attempts to resuscitate her failed.
· 10/18 a foreign activist was assaulted by Israeli forces as she assisted Palestinian families in harvesting olives near the illegal Israeli settlement of Susiya, located in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron (Al Khalil). A video posted by the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, however, shows a woman being assaulted by a masked settler, as Israeli forces stood by. The settler wielded a wooden club at the activist, hitting her in the ribs.
Food & Nutrition
· 10/9, the World Food Program (WFP) decried large-scale Israeli operations, movement restrictions, and increasing settler violence in the West Bank that increase hunger. More than 160,000 people have lost work permits, leaving families without income. WFP estimates that at least 600,000 people will be made food insecure, compared with 352,000 in 1/1/2023.
Settler Violence
This week, settlers carried out 32 attacks against Palestinians, resulting in 14 injuries (4 children), 10 by settlers and 4 by soldiers, and property damage. Since 10/7/23, OCHA documented 1,492 attacks by settlers against Palestinians, causing 149 injuries, 1,188 cases of property damage, and 155 leading to both. Settler violence displaced 277 households (1,628 people, 794 children) in 40 Bedouin and herding communities.
Incidents since 10/1 relate to the olive harvest, with settlers damaging trees, stealing crops and tools, and preventing Palestinians from accessing land. 600 trees/saplings were burnt, sawn off, had their crops stolen, or vandalized in 15 communities.
Demolitions
This week, Israeli authorities demolished 14 Palestinian-owned structures, displacing 13 (4 children) due to lack of Israeli-issued building permits, almost impossible to obtain. Since 10/7/23, Israeli authorities destroyed 1,799 Palestinian structures across the West Bank, displacing 4,588 Palestinians (1,923 children). For more on demolitions and displacement, see the OCHA demolition dashboard.
ISRAEL
· By September, Israel found itself in the awkward position of relying on UNRWA to facilitate a mass polio vaccination effort in Gaza — primarily to protect its own citizens — while advancing legislation to liquidate the organization.
· Netanyahu said the 130 IOF soldiers who refused to serve without a hostage deal 'had lost, and had actually never had, a national conscience,' as a minister called for their imprisonment.
· With the full support of the Biden administration, Israel is waging a merciless war of extermination against the 400,000 Palestinians remaining in the northern Gaza Strip as the government of Netanyahu is reportedly considering a plan to annex the territory.
· Commander of the police's central unit for ‘Judea and Samaria’ denies the increase in Jewish terror in the West Bank.
· Israeli Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved two bills aimed at ending the activity and privileges in Israel of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Both bills are an amalgamation of a larger number of bills proposed by MKs from both the coalition and the opposition.
· Israel's Supreme Court ordered the state to explain the absence of a plan to evacuate wounded Gazans to a third country.
· Netanyahu's Likud party circulated an invitation to an event near the Gaza border titled "Preparing to Settle Gaza." The event, scheduled for next week, will feature the construction of a sukkah as part of a "city of sukkahs" initiative by the Nachala movement, which is known for establishing illegal outposts in the West Bank.
· The number of Palestinian children in administrative detention—held without charge or trial in Israeli prisons—has quadrupled in the last year. Child administrative detainees now represent 35% of all Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military. At this time last year, that number was 15%. Children held under administrative detention orders have no idea when they will be reunited with their friends and family, and many children suffer from anxiety, depression, and stress.
· Israel’s “clear and continued pattern” of targeting relief and ambulance teams in Lebanon is a serious violation of international law, especially international humanitarian law, per the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. At least 120 medical and relief workers have been killed since the start of Israel’s most recent escalation in attacks on Lebanon, through direct targeting of ambulance and relief crews, according to the rights body.
· Israel has barred entry to medical specialists seeking to support clinics in Gaza, the World Health Organization said, including eight organizations and over 50 specialized personnel. According to the WHO, this marks the first instance in which Israel has denied entire organizations the ability to participate in relief efforts in Gaza.
LEBANON
· Lebanon's Health Ministry said that 2,100 people have been killed and 11,000 wounded in Lebanon since October 8, 2023.
· Hashem Safieddine, the front-runner to succeed Hezbollah's assassinated former head Hassan Nasrallah, was reportedly killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut 10/4. Two senior Hamas leaders in Lebanon were killed in IOF strikes.
· A fourth division has joined its ground offensive in Lebanon. Hezbollah's deputy leader said the organization backs a cease-fire with Israel, and for the first time in the war did not condition it on a truce in Gaza. US is reportedly not pursuing efforts for a cease-fire along the Israel-Lebanon border at this moment.
· A World Health Organization official warned that "there is a much higher risk of disease outbreaks" in Lebanon, "such as acute watery diarrhea, hepatitis A, and a number of vaccine preventable diseases."
· UN peacekeepers' HQ and nearby positions in southern Lebanon have been repeatedly hit amid recent escalation along the Blue Line, UNIFIL said, adding that two peacekeepers were injured by Israeli tank fire. Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said that firing on UNIFIL bases was "totally unacceptable" and clearly flouts international law.
· Lebanon’s hospitals buckle amid Israel’s offensive. UN says “the targeting of health and relief operations is broadening” in Lebanon. Hospitals say they have been forced to close or are struggling to operate.
US
· Biden sends antimissile system and 100 troops to Israel, deepening the US role. The mission marks the first significant deployment of US troops to Israel since the war in Gaza began and comes just weeks before the US presidential election.
· Israel barbarically destroyed Gaza’s education system, acting with disregard for international law and in utter disrespect to civilization. Higher education in Gaza has been reduced to remote education initiatives offered mostly through universities in the West Bank. Most of the teaching support needed is in helping to develop the practical component for STEM and health professional courses. Scientists for Palestine state: We can support the training of future healthcare professionals by helping instructors adapt curricula for virtual environments. This can include recording tutorials, sharing materials, and donating patient simulators for hands-on practice. Additionally, we can work on offering workshops on basic emergency medical response and make them available to all interested students.
· Nearly 100 American physicians and medical professionals who volunteered in the Gaza Strip have called on US President Joe Biden to immediately withhold military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israel to prevent “an even worse catastrophe” in the enclave. “Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets,” the health workers said in a letter addressed to Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris dated 10/2/24.
· In These Times interviewed 18 Jewish professionals with 16 different Jewish organizations across the country, all of whom describe being fired, quitting under pressure, or seeing their roles disappear since October 7 for issues surrounding criticism of Israel or support for a permanent cease-fire. These stories are just a snapshot of what appears to be a growing trend across the Jewish professional world.
· 10/14, New York City: hundreds of Jewish activists and their allies rallied outside the New York Stock Exchange demanding an Israeli arms embargo and an end to war profiteering by companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Police forcibly removed peaceful protesters as they blocked the entrance to the stock exchange, arresting over 200 people. In Washington, D.C. activists with CodePink disrupted an annual conference at the Association of the US Army.
· US warns Israel of military aid cut if Gazans don’t get more supplies within 30 days.
INTERNATIONAL
· French activists and medical workers staged a silent protest at the historic Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris to denounce Israel’s massacres and recent evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza. The protesters dressed in white medical coats sprayed in red. They held Palestinian flags and signs reading: “Solidarity with healthcare workers under blockade. Patients are in danger,” “Israel is killing Palestine’s healthcare workers,” and “There is a massacre in Gaza; healthcare workers will not remain silent.”
· Spain's PM urged other EU members to suspend the bloc's free trade agreement with Israel over its actions in Gaza and Lebanon.
· UN investigators accused Israel of engaging in “relentless and deliberate attacks” on health care facilities, medical workers and wounded civilians in the Gaza Strip and said the actions amounted to war crimes and extermination, a crime against humanity. Their report does not have the force of law.
· 10/11: A Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors, Nihon Hidankyo, won the Nobel Peace Prize as fears grow of a new nuclear arms race. The head of the group has compared Gaza today to Japan when the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Toshiyuki Mimaki, co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, wept as he spoke: “In Gaza, bleeding children are being held [by their parents]. It’s like in Japan 80 years ago.”
· A Belgium-based rights group, the Hind Rajab Foundation, has filed “an unprecedented and historical complaint” with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against 1,000 Dutch- and Belgian-Israeli soldiers for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the Gaza Strip. “These individuals, all of whom have been identified by name, are accused of participating in systematic attacks against civilians during the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” the organization, affiliated with the March 30 Movement, said in a statement this week.
· British counterterrorism police raided the home and seized several electronic devices belonging to The Electronic Intifada’s associate editor Asa Winstanley. Approximately 10 officers arrived at Winstanley’s North London home before 6 am and served the journalist with warrants and other papers authorizing them to search his house and vehicle for devices and documents.
SOURCES
OCHAOPT, PLOS Global Public Health, FXB Center, The Guardian, +972, Haaretz, Palestine Chronicle, Drop Site News, Washington Post, New York Times, Democracy Now, Scientists For Palestine, Electronic Intifada, The Jerusalem Post, In These Times, Palestine Chronicle, Mondoweiss