Middle East crisis live: northern Gaza ‘smells of death after non-stop Israeli bombardments’, says Unrwa chief | Israel-Gaza war

The smell of death is everywhere in northern Gaza after ‘non-stop Israeli bombardments’, Unrwa chief says

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, has described the toll of three weeks of “non-stop” Israeli bombardments on northern Gaza.

He said his staff are reporting shortages of water, food and medical care, with the “smell of death” everywhere across the territory because dead bodies are being left under rubble or lying on the roads.

“Missions to clear the bodies or provide humanitarian assistance are denied. In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die. They feel deserted, hopeless and alone. They live from one hour to the next, fearing death at every second,” Lazzarini said in a post on X.

🆘🆘 from our @UNRWA staff in northern #Gaza.

Nearly three weeks of non-stop bombardments from the Israeli Forces as the death toll increases.

Our staff report they cannot find food, water or medical care.
The smell of death is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) October 22, 2024

He called for an “immediate truce” even if just for a few hours to enable Palestinian families to flee safely without being killed by Israeli bombardments. “This is the bare minimum to save the lives of civilians who have nothing to do with this conflict,” Lazzarini said.

Unrwa provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, with the agency acting as the backbone of aid operations in Gaza since last October.

Sweeping evacuation orders for the estimated 400,000 people still living in the northern third of the territory, the blockage of aid and food deliveries and the targeting of civilian infrastructure have led to accusations that Israel is committing the war crime of seeking to forcibly displace the remaining population.

Displaced Palestinians ordered to evacuate their neighbourhoods are pictured in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. Photograph: ReutersShare

Updated at 12.39 CEST

Key events

At least 45 people killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since this morning – report

Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that at least 45 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the morning, of which 37 were killed in the northern part of the Strip, where there is a renewed three-week-old Israeli offensive.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, said the humanitarian situation had reached a dire point and called for an “immediate truce” to allow civilians to flee elsewhere.

“In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die. They feel deserted, hopeless and alone,” he said in a statement on X. “I am calling for an immediate truce, even if for a few hours, to enable safe humanitarian passage for families who wish to leave the area & reach safer places.”

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The Lebanese Red Cross said three paramedics have been injured in an airstrike on south Lebanon while on a rescue mission coordinated with UN peacekeepers.

Four ambulance teams were dispatched to the southern city of Nabatieh in coordination with Unifil after a strike there, the Lebanese Red Cross said, adding that “the site was bombed again and three … volunteers were injured and are being transported to hospital”.

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Israel’s army on Tuesday called on residents of a southern Beirut suburb to evacuate ahead of operations targeting what it claims to be Hezbollah’s facilities in the area.

“For your safety and the safety of your family, you must evacuate these buildings and the surrounding ones immediately and move at least 500 meters (yards) away,” the army’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X alongside a map showing two specific buildings to be targeted.

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Updated at 14.37 CEST

Benjamin Netanyahu holds talks with Antony Blinken in Jerusalem

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with Antony Blinken in Jerusalem on Tuesday, after the US secretary of state arrived in the country to push for an end to the war in Gaza.

“Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently meeting in his office in Jerusalem with US secretary of state Antony Blinken”, the Israeli leader’s office said in a statement.

Antony Blinken (L) and Benjamin Netanyahu (R) meeting in Jerusalem. Photograph: Haim Zach (GPO) HANDOUT HANDOUT/EPAShare

Updated at 14.42 CEST

A Hezbollah spokesperson has acknowledged that some of the militant group’s fighters were captured by the Israeli army without giving numbers, adding that Israel “bears responsibility” for their lives.

“On the issue of captives currently held by the enemy, I say: I know that the enemy is not committed to the ethics of war and international conventions but it bears the responsibility of preserving the lives of the captives,” spokesperson Mohammed Afif told reporters, calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross to ascertain their safety.

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Updated at 14.38 CEST

Israeli jets hit a Hezbollah target close to the Rafik Hariri university hospital in Beirut late on Monday but did not target the hospital and it was not affected by the strike, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

During a press conference on Tuesday, the director of the hospital, Jihad Saadeh, said Beirut’s main government medical facility had sustained damage due to an Israeli attack nearby.

“We were subject to an attack yesterday. Whether it was targeted or not, we don’t know, but Israel has no red lines,” Saadeh said.

He said debris, likely from heavy ammunition, damaged the hospital’s solar panels and front facade and shattered its windows. While there were no casualties among the staff, efforts to rescue people in front of the hospital were ongoing.

“We won’t evacuate the hospital following the targeting of hospitals in Dahiyeh – we are the only one left,” Saadeh said.

At least 13 people killed in Israeli airstrikes near Beirut hospital – video

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Updated at 15.02 CEST

The war between Israel and Hamas has devastated the Palestinian economy and left nearly all of Gaza’s population in poverty, with quality of life indicators such as health and education knocked back 70 years, the United Nations development agency said on Tuesday.

Launching a study on the war’s socioeconomic impacts, the UNDP’s Chitose Noguchi said the economy of the Palestinian territories – the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank – was now 35% smaller than it was at the start of Israel’s invasion of Gaza a year ago.

By some measures, the poverty level in Gaza was now approaching 100% as a result of the disruption, with unemployment now at 80%, Noguchi said.

“The state of Palestine is experiencing unprecedented levels of setbacks,” she told a UN press conference in Geneva over a sometimes crackling line from Deir Al-Balah. “For Gaza, reversing development by an estimated 70 years to 1955.”

Even under optimal conditions, with international aid remaining at current levels and flowing into Gaza and the West Bank unhindered, it would still take at least a decade for economic output to recover to prewar levels, she said.

3.3 million Palestinians, 2.3 million of them in Gaza and 1.5 million of them children, need urgent humanitarian assistance, the report said.

The cost of repairing damaged infrastructure was expected to run to $18.5bn, almost the entire annual economic output of the Palestinian territories in 2022, said the report. 625,000 students in Gaza had no access to education at the end of September and 93% of school buildings were severely damaged.

The situation was similar with regard to healthcare. A total of 986 health workers had been killed by the end of September, and less than half of primary healthcare centres were even partially functional.

ShareHezbollah claims responsibility for drone attack targeting Netanyahu’s home last week

Hezbollah claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a drone attack last week targeting the home of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hezbollah “declares its full, complete and exclusive responsibility for the Caesarea operation targeting … Netanyahu,” spokesperson Mohammed Afif told reporters.

ShareSummary of the day so far…

At least 13 people were killed and 57 others injured in an Israeli airstrike on Monday near Hariri hospital, Beirut’s main government hospital, the health ministry said earlier today in a revision of previous figures.

At least 42,718 Palestinian people have been killed and 100,282 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, described the devastating toll of three weeks of “non-stop” Israeli bombardments on northern Gaza. He said his staff are reporting shortages of water, food and medical care, with the “smell of death” everywhere across the territory because dead bodies are being left under rubble or lying on the roads.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, arrived in Tel Aviv for his eleventh trip to the Middle East since the war on Gaza was launched by Israel last October. It is being reported that Blinken is trying to reinstate the stalled diplomatic process for a ceasefire and to urge Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the northern part of the Strip.

Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv in the morning after Hezbollah said it bombed the Nirit area in the city’s suburbs with missiles.

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Updated at 13.34 CEST

We have some more comments from Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who has been speaking to the media in Kuwait. The below is from Lebanon’s National news agency (NNA):

Araghchi told journalists during a press conference: “We are closely monitoring all the US bases in the region and keeping track of their movements. We are also sharing information about the US base in Jordan with the Jordanian authorities.”

The decision to implement a ceasefire rests with the Lebanese government, and Iran will help them to achieve this, the Iranian foreign minister said.

When asked about Iran’s preparedness for the expected Israeli response to Iran’s 1 October missile attack, Araghchi said: “All the countries in the region have expressed their opposition to an Israeli attack on Iran, especially on its nuclear facilities. We emphasise that Iran will respond in kind if Israel attacks.”

He said Israeli forces are committing war crimes with the help of some western countries, including the US, which he said does not abide by international rules. Attacking nuclear facilities is a major international crime, and threatening to do so is also a crime, Araghchi added.

“They know what response awaits them if they attack our nuclear facilities,” Araghchi was quoted as saying.

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Updated at 13.11 CEST

These pictures of the aftermath of the deadly Israeli airstrike near Rafik Hariri university hospital in southern Beirut have been sent to us over the newswires:

People work at the site of an Israeli airstrike near Rafik Hariri university hospital in Beirut. Photograph: Yara Nardi/ReutersMedical equipment is seen through a broken window of Rafik Hariri university hospital. Photograph: Mohamed Azakir/ReutersAn injured man pauses in the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, facing the city’s main government hospital, in southern Beirut. Photograph: Hussein Malla/APShareThe smell of death is everywhere in northern Gaza after ‘non-stop Israeli bombardments’, Unrwa chief says

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, has described the toll of three weeks of “non-stop” Israeli bombardments on northern Gaza.

He said his staff are reporting shortages of water, food and medical care, with the “smell of death” everywhere across the territory because dead bodies are being left under rubble or lying on the roads.

“Missions to clear the bodies or provide humanitarian assistance are denied. In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die. They feel deserted, hopeless and alone. They live from one hour to the next, fearing death at every second,” Lazzarini said in a post on X.

He called for an “immediate truce” even if just for a few hours to enable Palestinian families to flee safely without being killed by Israeli bombardments. “This is the bare minimum to save the lives of civilians who have nothing to do with this conflict,” Lazzarini said.

Unrwa provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, with the agency acting as the backbone of aid operations in Gaza since last October.

Sweeping evacuation orders for the estimated 400,000 people still living in the northern third of the territory, the blockage of aid and food deliveries and the targeting of civilian infrastructure have led to accusations that Israel is committing the war crime of seeking to forcibly displace the remaining population.

Displaced Palestinians ordered to evacuate their neighbourhoods are pictured in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. Photograph: ReutersShare

Updated at 12.39 CEST

Lebanese state media reported Israeli airstrikes near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre after Israel’s military issued an evacuation call.

AFPTV footage captured smoke billowing after the Israeli military warned residents of al-Haush, just south of Tyre, to evacuate, while Lebanon’s official national news agency reported that “enemy aircraft launched a series of strikes” that targeted the area.

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Updated at 12.26 CEST

Israeli forces have detained at least 28 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said.

According to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, 15 detentions were carried out in al-Arroub camp, north of Hebron, while the rest were in the areas of Ramallah, Salfit, Bethlehem, Nablus and Qalqilya.

These detentions were accompanied by widespread raids, assaults, threats against detainees and their families and the destruction of homes, Wafa reported.

It is estimated that over 11,300 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since last October.

Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the West Bank.

They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.

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Updated at 12.40 CEST

The Israeli army has issued an evacuation order for residents of al-Haush in southern Lebanon.

In a post on X, he wrote:

The IDF is operating within your town and has no intention of harming you. For your own safety, you must immediately evacuate your homes and move at least one kilometer outside the town.

Anyone who is near Hezbollah elements, facilities, and combat equipment is putting his life in danger.

More than 1.2 million residents have been displaced by Israeli attacks in Lebanon, with over a quarter of the country under evacuation orders.

Israel says its war goals in Lebanon include trying to degrade Hezbollah and return northern residents who were evacuated due to attacks by the Iran-backed militant group.

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Updated at 11.43 CEST

Death toll in Gaza reaches 42,718, says health ministry

At least 42,718 Palestinian people have been killed and 100,282 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Of those, 115 Palestinians were killed and 487 others injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, according to the ministry, which has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.

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