In Occupied Palestine – 15 December 2024

In Occupied Palestine

Zionism in practice

Israel’s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Land

08:00, 15 December until 08:00, 16 December 2024

[Source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group]

Gaza Strip

Attacks: There are no safe places for the militarily-dominated population in Gaza, who find themselves subjected to airstrikes and other missile attacks on buildings, homes and many essentialfacilities, as well as constant gunfire and invasions by Israeli forces. The Israeli Navy continues to fire missiles, targeting facilities and buildings along the entire Gaza shoreline.

Victims: 52 more people have been killed within the past 48 hours, bringing the total number killed in Gaza since 7 October to at least 45,028. Another 203 have been wounded, bringing that total to 106,962. The daily average number of men, women and children killed in Gaza is at least 103; that of those injured is now more than 245.

Palestine today

Don’t say you didn’t know

Ali Kazak akazak@bigpond.net.au

They destroyed what was inside us: The children of Gaza

Ghazal, a 15-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, has lost her home, memories and essential medical equipment in the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Her story is a window into the larger tragedy of how war has devastated children, especially those with disabilities. From the day the war began, Ghazal’s life was irreversibly changed. “They destroyed what was inside us,” she said, describing how the bombing not only demolished her house but also took away her wheelchair and prosthetic devices – items essential for her survival and dignity. The Human Rights Watch report, They Destroyed What Was Inside Us, documents the staggering toll on Gaza’s children. Recent figures paint an alarming picture:

• Over 17,000 children have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

• Humanitarian groups report that at least ten children lose a limb every day, often due to explosive weapons.

• More than 100,000 children have been displaced, with many separated from their families or caregivers.

For children with disabilities, the situation is even more dire. Mobility aids like prosthetics and wheelchairs have been destroyed en masse. Hospitals, already under siege, lack the resources to replace them or provide urgent care. Under international law, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, children and people with disabilities are entitled to protection during armed conflicts. Yet the realities in Gaza demonstrate how these principles are being openly ignored.

Media freedom watchdog decries Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has denounced Israel’s killing of four Palestinian journalists in Gaza over the past week as the Israeli military intensifies its bombardment of the besieged territory. The United States-based watchdog said in a statement on Monday that the international community has failed to hold Israel accountable for its actions amid the growing death toll of journalists and civilians in Gaza.

With no foreign reporters allowed to work in Gaza, Palestinian journalists have been the only witnesses describing the atrocities to the outside world. And that, rights advocates argue, has put them in the crosshairs of an Israeli military operating without regard to legal and ethical norms. According to the Gaza Government Media Office, Israeli forces have killed 196 Palestinian media workers in Gaza since the start of the war last year. CPJ, which has not included some media workers in its tally, puts the death toll at 133.

‘Can’t Remain Indifferent’: Norway Spotlights Gaza Ahead of World Cup Qualifier Against Israel

The President of the Norwegian Football Federation, Lise Klaveness, said on Saturday that the organisation she leads “stands with the Norwegian government’s call for an immediate halt to the disproportionate attacks on innocent civilians in Gaza,” a day after Norway and Israel were drawn in the same group in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers. “It’s complicated for us, beyond the sporting aspect,” Klaveness added. “We cannot remain indifferent to Israel’s disproportionate attacks on the civilian population in Gaza. Israel is still participating in UEFA competitions, and we must contend with that,” Klaveness said, adding that they “are closely monitoring the situation with FIFA, UEFA, and the authorities in Norway.”

Palestinians recount surviving Israel’s brutal Beit Lahia offensive

Survivors of Israeli incursion in northern Gaza describe drone attacks on schools, lack of food and medicine and dodging bullets. Jacqueline Almasri was feeding her two young children in a schoolyard-turned-shelter in Beit Lahia earlier this month when Israeli quadcopter drones buzzed overhead. Over the past 14 months, Almasri has lived in several shelters after her family home in Beit Hanoun was bombed in the early weeks of October 2023.

Her husband, Mohammed, and her father-in-law were trying to retrieve food and belongings from the remnants of their home when it was bombed again. Mohammed was killed, and his father was severely injured. “My son Amir was just 25 days old when his father was killed. His sister, Mira, was only one-and-a-half years old,” Almasri told Middle East Eye. “It’s unbearable to look after the two children without their father.”

This was only the latest attack in a weeks-old Israel military offensive on northern Gaza, which had left Palestinian civilians with three bitter choices: to be killed by bombardment; starve to death or be forcibly displaced. Only a few days after the Israeli army entered Beit Lahia in October, Almasri had run out of food and water for her family. “I would give most of my food to my children, but they were still hungry, always crying,” she told MEE. “We were drinking salty water. My daughter, Mira, suffered from dehydration, but I couldn’t do anything to help her.” Despite their lack of food, water and medicine and the relentless bombardment and siege, Almasri had refused to leave Beit Lahia, saying she had no other safe place to go.

Lebanon: Israel blows up houses in Tyre, bringing number of ceasefire violations to 227

Israeli occupation forces yesterday blew up houses in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, bringing the number of their violations of the ceasefire agreement to 227. Since 27 November, a precarious ceasefire agreement has been in effect between Israel and Hezbollah, ending the increase in tensions which began on 8 October 2023 and turned into a large-scale war on 23 September when Israel intensified its bombing campaign including of Beirut. The official Lebanese News Agency said: “The Israeli enemy blew up a number of houses in the villages of West Bekaa on the outskirts of Naqoura, Chihine and Al-Jabeen in the Tyre district.”

The Israeli occupation army committed six violations on Saturday, including killing one person. With Sunday’s bombings, the number of Israeli violations of the ceasefire since it came into effect 19 days ago has risen to 227, resulting in a total of 30 deaths and 31 injuries, according to the figures reported by Anadolu news agency, based on announcements from the Ministry of Health and the Lebanese News Agency as of 19:10 GMT yesterday. The Israeli aggression on Lebanon resulted in 4,061 deaths and 16,656 injuries, including many children and women. It also displaced about 1,400,000 people.

From Mount Hermon’s Peaks, Netanyahu Plots His Vision of a Greater Israel

The prime minister since October 7 seems to be angling for a legacy as the leader who expanded Israel’s borders from Gaza in the south to Syria and the Golan Heights in the north. Israel has portrayed its takeover of the demilitarised zone without resistance as a defensive measure, the creation of a security perimeter after the Syrian army abandoned its posts on the border.

The IDF celebrated the operation with photos of the Israeli flag atop Mount Hermon, and tanks in the town of Quneitra, but it obscured the fact that this was on Syrian land. Israel has told the international community that the operation was limited; the army took over just a few positions that overlook the Syrians. But Netanyahu isn’t satisfied with erasing the borderlines and the security agreement for the Golan.

In his testimony at his corruption trial Tuesday, he went further, saying that “something tectonic has happened here, an earthquake that hasn’t happened in the 100 years since the Sykes-Picot Agreement.” The mention of the 1916 agreement between colonial powers Britain and France, which divided up the Ottoman Empire and created the states that exist to this day, wasn’t intended to teach a history lesson to the judges at the Tel Aviv District Court. Netanyahu is implying that the border agreements based on Sykes-Picot are dead and buried. Netanyahu wants to be remembered as the one who created Greater Israel, not just as a political schemer accused of corruption who abandoned 100 hostages in Gaza. That’s why he’ll try to cement Israeli control in northern Gaza. That’s why he won’t rush to withdraw from the newly occupied territory in the Golan. Under certain circumstances, he might even expand it.

Netanyahu: Israel is changing the Middle East

Israel is already “changing” the Middle East, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday, noting that he spoke with US President-elect Donald Trump about the need to “complete the victory.” This comes as the Israeli occupation government approved a plan to boost “population growth” in the illegal settlements located in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, with a budget of more than 40 million shekels (about $11.2 million). The decision coincides with the escalation in Israel’s attacks on Syria following the fall of the Bashar Al-Assad regime. Netanyahu said: “A year ago, I said something simple: We would change the face of the Middle East, and we are indeed doing so. Syria is not the same Syria. Lebanon is not the same Lebanon. Gaza is not the same Gaza. And the head of the axis, Iran, is not the same Iran; it has also felt the might of our arm.”

West Bank

[Palestinian Monitoring Group]

Since midnight on 07 October 2023, Occupation forces have been imposing a complete closure around the whole of the West Bank.

Israeli Army attack – 3 wounded: Nablus – 15:15, Israeli Occupation forces, firing live ammunition, stormed the city as well as the Askar and Balata refugee camps, wounding three residents. Two of the wounded are: Hamza Jamil Muhammad Sarhan and Murad Ismail Muhammad Marshood.

Home invasions: Jerusalem – morning, Israeli Occupation forces demolished six houses, in the town of Anata.

Home invasions: Salfit – 22:20–03:15, Israeli forces raided the city and searched a number of homes.

Home invasions and interrogation: Hebron – dawn, the Israeli Army raided the town of Beit Awa, invading homes and interrogating around 50 residents.

Israeli police and settlers’ mosque violation: Jerusalem – 08:00, Israeli settlers, escorted by Occupation police, invaded the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and molested worshippers.

Israeli Army population–control and pastoral sabotage: Nablus – 08:45, Israeli Occupation forces took prisoner a working shepherd, Zaher Yousef Ayesh Hamza, as he was tending his flock.

Israeli Army agricultural sabotage, population–control and extortion: Jericho – Occupation forces, in the village of al-Nuweimah, bulldozed crops of tomatoes, zucchini and eggplants, as well ascompletely destroying the irrigation network. They then forced the farmers to pay them for the bulldozing and agricultural sabotage.

Israeli Army population–control: Bethlehem – evening, the Israeli Army blocked entrance to the village of al-Manshiya.

Israeli Army population–control: Bethlehem – evening, Israeli troops closed the western entrance to the city of Beit Jallah, as well as the entrance to the Ash Ghurab area, east of Beit Sahour.

Israeli Army armed robbery and population–control: Bethlehem – evening, the Israeli military seized two road-building machines being used to construct a new village road.

Israeli Army population–control: Bethlehem – Occupation forces issued stop-work orders against land reclamation in two Battir village areas as well as the removal of what had so-far been completed.

Israeli Army population–control: Hebron – evening, Israeli soldiers closed the entrance to the Ein al-Hamra area – the only road for residents of the Salaymeh and al-Ja’bari neighbourhoods. They also fenced–off, with barbed wire, the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Occupation settlement development and vandalism: Hebron – evening, Israeli Occupation forces began bulldozing land near the entrance to the village of Deir Razeh, in order to build a new settlement road.

Occupation settler plunder: Tubas – 10:35, Israeli settlers stole 60 hives from a honey bee farm in the North Jordan Valley .

Occupation settler violence causing injury: Tubas – 20:25 Occupation settlers invaded the Khirbet Makhoul area of the North Jordan Valley, stoning the home of a farmer, Yusef Hussein Asmar Bisharat, intending to steal his sheep, and leaving his brother with facial injuries.

Occupation settler land-grab: Hebron – Israelis, from the Shama Occupation settlement, seized around six hectares of land, south of al-Dhahiriya.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner – stun grenades fired: Jerusalem – 00:20–05:05, Israeli Occupation forces, firing stun grenades, raided the town of al-Eizariya, taking prisoner one person.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Ramallah – 08:45-11:05, Israeli forces raided the village of Ein Siniya, taking prisoner one person.

Raid – 2 taken prisoner: Ramallah – 14:15-16:20, the Israeli Army raided Beit Liqiya, taking prisoner two people.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner – armed robbery: Ramallah – 16:00-17:55, Israeli troops raided Silwad, robbing a farmer of his tractor and taking prisoner one person.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner in refugee camp: Ramallah – dawn, the Israeli military raided the al-Jalazoun refugee camp, taking prisoner one person.

Raid – child terrorised: Jenin – 19:50–22:15, Israeli soldiers raided the town of Ya’bad, terrorising a 15-year-old boy, Muhammad Abdullah Lutfi Abu Bakr, and later releasing him.

Raid – 4 taken prisoner: Tulkarem – 03:20–06:45, Israeli Occupation forces raided the city as well as the town of Bal’a, taking prisoner four people.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Qalqiliya – 00:30–02:55, Israeli forces raided the city, taking prisoner one person.

Raid: Nablus – 08:10-09:25, the Israeli Army raided and patrolled the village of Burin.

Raid: Nablus – 15:15-16:55, Israeli troops raided and patrolled the village of Jurish.

Raid: Nablus – 15:45-17:35, the Israeli military raided and patrolled the village of Jalloud.

Raid – stun grenades fired: Nablus – 18:30-20:10, Israeli soldiers, firing stun grenades, raided the town of Sebastia.

Raid: Nablus – 21:00–23:20, Israeli Occupation forces raided and patrolled the village of al-Lubban.

Raid – plunder: Nablus – 00:30–02:30, Israeli forces raided the city and plundered the Gulf currency exchange shop.

Raid – 2 taken prisoner: Nablus – 01:40–03:55, the Israeli Army raided the village of Salem, taking prisoner two people.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Jericho – 22:30–00:10, Israeli troops raided the village of Marj Na’ja, taking prisoner one person.

Raid – plunder: Jericho – 01:30–05:30, the Israeli military raided the city and plundered the Da’na currency exchange shop.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Bethlehem – 00:40–05:35, Israeli soldiers raided Za’tara, taking prisoner one person.

Raid – population-control: Bethlehem – 01:25–05:35, Israeli Occupation forces raided Harmalah and ordered a resident, Raed Ibrahim Abu Nassar, to report for interrogation at Israeli Military Intelligence.

Raid: Hebron – 09:55, Israeli forces, firing stun grenades, raided the town of Dura.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Hebron – 03:00–07:50, the Israeli Army again raided Dura, taking prisoner one person.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Hebron – 06:10-07:55, Israeli troops raided the al-Arroub refugee camp, taking prisoner one person.

Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Hebron – 06:15–07:55, the Israeli military raided the town of Sa’ir, taking prisoner one person.