Jerusalem: Israeli warplanes have struck targets across Gaza as well as two airports in Syria and a mosque in the occupied West Bank killing at least 50 people in overnight attacks.
Israel’s military spokesman said the country is stepping up its attacks, and there are growing expectations of a ground offensive. The war, in its 16th day Sunday, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that the death toll has reached 4,385, while 13,561 people have been wounded.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed into Israel. In addition, 203 people were believed captured by Hamas during the incursion and taken into Gaza, the Israeli military has said.
Currently:
1. The father of freed American teenage hostage Natalie Raanan says she’s doing well after her release by Hamas.
2. Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators are marching in London, Barcelona, Los Angeles and other cities.
3. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is ordering further defenses for U.S. troops as tensions in the Middle East continue to grow.
4. In a Gaza City hospital, an orthopaedic surgeon makes do with whatever he can find — clothes for bandages, vinegar for antiseptic, sewing needles for surgical ones.
Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
- Israeli tank "accidentally" fired and hit Egyptian post
The Israeli military said Sunday it "accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post" with a tank, near the border with Gaza, as the army bombards the Palestinian enclave. "A short while ago, an IDF tank accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post adjacent to the border in the area of Kerem Shalom. The incident is being investigated and the details are under review. The IDF expresses sorrow regarding the incident," Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
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A short while ago, an IDF tank accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post adjacent to the border in the area of Kerem Shalom. The incident is being investigated and the details are under review.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 22, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
The IDF expresses sorrow regarding the incident.
">A short while ago, an IDF tank accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post adjacent to the border in the area of Kerem Shalom. The incident is being investigated and the details are under review.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 22, 2023
The IDF expresses sorrow regarding the incident.A short while ago, an IDF tank accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post adjacent to the border in the area of Kerem Shalom. The incident is being investigated and the details are under review.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 22, 2023
The IDF expresses sorrow regarding the incident.
- Netanyahu warns Hezbollah to stay out of war
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops stationed near the border with Lebanon, where the Israeli army and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants also have traded fire during the Hamas-Israel war. A top official with Iran Hezbollah vowed Saturday that Israel would pay a high price whenever it starts a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and said Saturday that his militant group based in Lebanon already is “in the heart of the battle.”
Speaking to troops in the north on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel would react more fiercely than it did during its short 2006 war with Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon. “If Hezbollah decides to enter the war, it will miss the Second Lebanon War. It will make the mistake of its life. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state are devastating,” the Israeli leader said.
- Second Convoy enters Gaza, reports Egyptian media
A convoy of 17 trucks bringing aid to besieged Palestinians crossed into Gaza on Sunday, Egypt’s state-run media reported. The delivery would be the second shipment into the territory in the past two days. Residents of Gaza have been under an Israeli blockade that cut off food, water, medicine and electricity since Hamas militants rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7. The more than 2 million residents of the territory have been struggling under Israeli airstrikes and with dwindling resources since then.
- UNRWA says no humanitarian response without fuel
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says it will run out of fuel in Gaza in three days. “Without fuel, there will be no water, no functioning hospitals and bakeries. Without fuel, aid will not reach many civilians in desperate need. Without fuel, there will be no humanitarian assistance,” Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA Commissioner General, said in a statement Sunday.
A first delivery of aid that was allowed to cross into Gaza from Egypt on Saturday did not include any fuel. “Without fuel, we will fail the people of Gaza whose needs are growing by the hour, under our watch. This cannot and should not happen,” Lazzarini said. He called on “all parties and those with influence” to allow fuel into Gaza immediately, while ensuring that it is only used for humanitarian purposes.
- Tens of thousands of pregnant women in danger
Thousands of pregnant women in the Gaza Strip who are expected to give birth this month are in grave danger because they are not able to reach a medical facility to deliver, an aid agency says. Guillemette Thomas, medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in the Palestinian territories, said women have already given birth in UNRWA schools that have turned into shelters housing tens of thousands of displaced people.
“These women are in danger and the babies are in danger right now,” she said. “That’s a really critical situation.” According to the U.N. population fund, there are 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza. Some 5,500 of them are due to give birth in the coming month, meaning 166 births per day, the U.N. agency said. Earlier Sunday the U.N. health agency said that at least 130 premature babies are at “grave risk” because of a lack of fuel at Gaza hospitals. Thomas said some of them could die within hours.
Reports quoting medical sources in Gaza said more than 50 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes overnight on the enclave, to which Israel laid "total siege" after a cross-border October 7 rampage by Hamas militants.
- UN humanitarian chief unsure when more aid will enter Gaza
The United Nations humanitarian chief says it’s unclear whether more aid will enter Gaza on Sunday. "We had hoped for more today,” Martin Griffiths told Sky News. “I‘m not sure we’re going to get it. We’re deep in negotiation at the moment with the Israelis, the Egyptians, with a huge amount of help, by the way, from the United States. Griffiths said the trucks that entered on Saturday were “a very good start but it’s nowhere near enough.”
He said the main sticking point was the inspection regime for the trucks coming in. He said it should be “efficient, quick, hopefully random, hopefully light.” “If they don’t go today, we certainly expect, assume and plan for trucks to move in tomorrow,” Griffiths said.
- Aid organizations warn of risk to premature babies from fuel shortage
At least 130 premature babies are at “grave risk” because of lack of fuel at Gaza hospitals, the U.N. health agency said Sunday. The babies are being cared for at six neonatal units, according to Medical Aid for Palestinians, an aid group working in Gaza. Doctors have warned that the babies are in imminent danger if fuel does not reach hospitals soon.
In a statement to The Associated Press, the World Health Organization called for “immediate and sustained” access of fuel into Gaza to keep health facilities operating. Melanie Ward, chief executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians, urged world leaders to press Israel to allow the delivery of fuel to Gaza. “The world cannot simply look on as these babies are killed by the siege on Gaza. ... A failure to act is to sentence these babies to death,” she said.
Hospitals in Gaza have been struggling with the large number of wounded from the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian militants which was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon working with Doctors without Borders in Shifa hospital, said the hospital’s generators “are cutting out more regularly now than before.”
He said hospitals in the territory are facing severe shortages of medical supplies, including bandages, medication and other supplies. “You can imagine the amount 14,000 severely wounded patients would consume,” he told the AP.
- Heartbreaking life or death decisions for Gaza doctors
Hospitals across the Gaza Strip are scrounging for fuel stocks to keep the lights on in critical wards and continue to save the lives of the relentless stream of wounded patients. Serious shortages in other supplies, including ventilators, are forcing medical teams to prioritize the lives of those who can be saved for certain over severe cases that require complex care, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel, who works in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he told The Associated Press. “Every day, if we receive 10 severely injured patients, we have to manage with maybe three or five ICU beds available. We have to choose who must face death, or manage them in regular wards or do some limited care because we think as a medical team, between two patients in a life-threatening situation, we have to give the ventilator to the patient who has a higher chance of improving in 24 hours."
Many departments in the hospital are plunged into darkness as medical staff allow electricity only in critical departments where patients risk death without it. On Friday the hospital was on its last stock of fuel, but managed to get another tank from UNRWA’s existing stock on Saturday, said Qandeel. “This amount should last for three to five days,” he said.
The World Health Organization says Gaza’s Health Ministry is reporting that its daily use of medical consumables during the war is equivalent to its monthly consumption before the war. The report said “an imminent public health catastrophe looms” in the setting of mass displacement, overcrowding of shelters and damage to the water and sanitation infrastructure.
- India sends medical aid and relief supplies to Palestinians
India on Sunday sent nearly 6.5 tonnes (7.1 tons) of medical aid and 32 tonnes (35 tons) of disaster relief supplies to Palestinians. An Indian air force plane carrying the materials left New Delhi for Egypt’s El-Arish airport, said Arindam Bagchi, an External Affairs Ministry spokesman.
The aid includes essential life-saving medicines, surgical items, tents, sleeping bags, tarps and water purification tablets among other items, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed condolences and sympathy for those killed and wounded as a result of the attacks in Israel and said that Indian people stand in solidarity with Israel. India has reiterated its position in favor of direct negotiations for establishing a two-state solution.
- Syrian media reports Israeli airstrikes hit airports in Damascus and Aleppo
Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes early Sunday targeted the international airports of the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, killing one person. The runways were damaged and put out of service. The attack is the second this month on the Damascus International airport and the third on Aleppo’s airport as tensions increases in the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war.
Syrian state media quoted an unnamed military official as saying the airports were struck by the Israeli military from the Mediterranean to the west and from Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the south. It said one employee was killed and another wounded in Damascus in addition to material damage. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
- U.S. Defense Secretary orders more defense systems in Middle East
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced late Saturday he was sending additional air defense systems to the Middle East as well as putting more troops on prepare-to-deploy orders.
Austin said the U.S. would be delivering a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery along with additional Patriot missile defense system batteries “to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. troops.” Bases in Iraq and Syria have been repeatedly targeted by drones in the days since hundreds were killed in a hospital blast in Gaza, and the destroyer USS Carney intercepted land attack cruise missiles in the Red Sea shot from Yemen on Thursday.
Austin said he had also placed additional forces on prepare-to-deploy orders, “part of prudent contingency planning” as the U.S. and others brace for the potential of a wider regional conflict and as Israel prepares to launch a ground assault into Gaza. He said he gave the orders after detailed discussions with President Joe Biden on the recent escalations by Iran and its proxy forces across the region.
- Israel strikes West Bank mosque
Israeli Defense Forces said a military aircraft launched a strike early Sunday on the Al-Ansar mosque at the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The IDF said via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants had been using an “underground terror route” beneath the mosque. One Palestinian was killed in the shelling, Palestinian Red Crescent said. Tensions have risen in the West Bank, where dozens of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops, arrest raids and attacks by Jewish settlers.
- Italian premier goes to Israel
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has made a trip to Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, her office said. The meeting Saturday came after Meloni participated in a summit in Cairo focused on ways to de-escalate the raging Israel-Hamas war.
Meloni's office said that in her meeting she reiterated “the right of Israel to defend itself under international law and to live in peace” while also underlining "the importance of guaranteeing humanitarian access to Gaza and a prospect of peace for the region.’’ Her office said she brought “a message of solidary and Italy's closeness” following Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Oct. 7.
- Biden speaks with 2 freed hostages
President Joe Biden has spoken on the phone with two freed Americans who had been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, were released Friday. It was the first such hostage release from among the roughly 200 people the militant group abducted from Israel during its Oct. 7 rampage.
A video of Biden speaking with them by phone was posted Saturday on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter. He told the mother and daughter that he was glad they had been released.
Also read: A tent camp for displaced Palestinians pops up in southern Gaza, reawakening old traumas
Also read: Egypt's border crossing opens to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into besieged Gaza
