40 Gazans killed in Rafah, as UNRWA and MSF recount Israeli atrocities – Day 139

IsraelPalestineNews: As Palestinians starve, at least 1,000 aid trucks wait for permission to enter Gaza; more reported white flag deaths; flour shipment is back on again; potential public health impact of the current conflict in the Gaza Strip; US investigation finds “low confidence” about allegations for which Secy of State Blinken found “highly, highly credible”; Doctors Without Borders and UNRWA take on Israeli bullying tactics; another Palestinian prisoner dies; story comes to light about Israeli killing an Israeli on October 7th; Thursday’s ICJ summary;

By IAK staff, from reports

Al Jazeera reports: Israeli air strikes on residential homes in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, have killed at least 40 people and wounded over 100 others, in one of the deadliest attacks on Palestinians in days.

The majority of those killed and wounded were women and children.

The homes were reportedly “attacked without any prior warning”.

The Gaza government media office described the attacks as a “heinous massacre,” and said, “We hold the American administration and the international community, additionally to Israel, fully responsible for these ongoing crimes, and we call on the free world to immediately put an end to this war of extermination that the Israeli army is waging against civilians.”

Al Jazeera reports: Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) has condemned an Israeli tank strike on a shelter in Gaza housing the relatives of its staff, killing two women and injuring six others – five of whom were women and children.

Israel act of “targeting a building knowing it is full of humanitarian workers and their families is unconscionable”, MSF’s general director Meinie Nicolai said in a statement.

the building of medical charity Doctors Without Borders [MSF], which was targeted by Israeli tank fire in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 21, 2024

Al Jazeera reports: Satellite imagery recorded on February 21 shows more than 1,000 aid trucks waiting to enter through the Rafah crossing, most of them waiting inside the logistics zone being built east of the crossing.

According to the latest data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only four trucks carrying vital humanitarian aid entered Gaza Wednesday.

Satellite images of the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on February 21, 2024

Al Jazeera reports that it has obtained exclusive video of dozens of Palestinians who attempted to flee south from Gaza City this morning and said they were attacked by the Israeli army.

The families, carrying white flags, made their way along a road the Israeli army has in the past designated for the safe travel.

They were shelled by Israeli army vehicles, which they said killed and wounded a number of them. They then fled back to Gaza City.

“We went out because of hunger, the price of a bag of flour is 3,000 shekels (about $825), and we don’t have money,” said one man who was part of the group, adding, “we don’t know where to go, we are tired … Israel is targeting everyone, even the animals have not been spared.”

Al Jazeera reports: A doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Khalid Abu-Owaimer, was killed today in an Israeli attack in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza.

He was at his relatives’ house when it was shelled. He was one of the few medics to keep working at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, refusing to leave despite intense bombardment last month.

Times of Israel reports: Israel has agreed to a new arrangement that will allow for a massive American shipment of flour for Gazan civilians to move forward after far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked its transfer for over a month, according to a US official.

Under the new arrangement, which will reportedly move forward immediately, the flour capable of feeding 1.5 million Gazans for five months will be ferried into Gaza by the World Food Program, rather than the UNRWA relief agency for Palestinian refugees, the official says.

However, even if the flour does make it to Gaza, it is unclear whether it will be distributed to civilians. After a number of aid convoys have come under Israeli fire recently, Gaza’s police have refused to escort the trucks.

We recommend visiting the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) for more regional news.

A new report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health estimates the potential public health impact of the current conflict in the Gaza Strip, focusing on the deaths in excess of what would have been expected in the absence of hostilities.

Under an immediate permanent ceasefire scenario, 6,550 excess deaths are projected, mainly due to the time needed to improve water, sanitation and shelter conditions, reduce malnutrition, and restore functioning healthcare services.

Under the ‘current status quo’ and ‘escalation of the conflict’ scenarios, the projections rise sharply to 58,260 and 74,290 excess deaths, with traumatic injuries followed by infectious diseases being the main causes of additional fatalities in both cases.

These figures are based on the absence of epidemics; should outbreaks of infectious disease such as cholera occur, the projections rise significantly to 11,580, 66,720 and 85,750 excess deaths, respectively.

A Palestinian man inspects the destruction after an Israeli strike on a residential building in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on Wednesday

The Guardian reports: “US intelligence casts doubt on Israeli claims of UNRWA-Hamas links, report says”

A new U.S. intelligence assessment has come out about the issue of UNRWA employees who allegedly participated in Hamas’ October 7th attack in Israel.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month called Israel’s assertions “highly, highly credible” but according to individuals familiar with the situation, the new report assessed those assertions with “low confidence.”

The council’s findings, in a roughly four-page report, were circulated within the U.S. government last week, those familiar with the document said.

NOTE: UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Monday that the agency is still waiting for Israel to share evidence of its claims.

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli attack on a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2024

On Thursday, Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), gave a briefing to the United Nations Security Council, calling on them to demand an immediate and sustained ceasefire in Gaza, Palestine. The following is an excerpt. The full presentation can be found here.

We, along with the world, are closely watching how this Council and its members have approached the conflict in Gaza.

Meeting after meeting, resolution after resolution, this body has failed to effectively address this conflict. We have watched members of this Council deliberate and delay while civilians die.

We are appalled by the willingness of the United States to use its powers as a permanent Council member to obstruct efforts to adopt the most evident of resolutions: one demanding an immediate and sustained ceasefire.

Three times this Council has had an opportunity to vote for the ceasefire that is so desperately needed and three times the United States has used its veto power, most recently this Tuesday.

On Thursday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini sent a letter to the president of the UN General Assembly about the dire situation in Gaza, including the scandal manufactured by Israel regarding UNRWA employees’ alleged involvement in the October 7th attacks, and subsequent withdrawal of funding by donor states. The following is an excerpt. The full letter can be found here.

In just over four months in Gaza, there have been more children, more journalists, more medical personnel, and more UN staff killed than anywhere in the world during a conflict.

It is with profound regret that I must now inform you that UNRWA has reached a breaking point, with Israel’s repeated calls to dismantle it and the freezing of funding by donors at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza…

Since the ICJ ruling, there has been a concerted effort by some Israeli officials to deceptively conflate UNRWA with Hamas, to disrupt UNRWA’s operations, and to call for the dismantling of the Agency:

The Israeli Land Authority has demanded that UNRWA vacate its Kalandia Vocational Training Center in East Jerusalem (assigned to UNRWA by Jordan in 1952) and pay a “usage fee” of over US $ 4.5 million.

A Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem has taken steps to evict UNRWA from its HQ of 75 years in East Jerusalem.

Visas for most international staff, including those in Gaza, have been limited to one or two months.

The Minister for Finance has stated that he will revoke UNRWA’s tax exemption privileges.

Customs authorities have suspended shipment of UNRWA goods.

An Israeli bank has blocked an UNRWA account.

Hundreds of UNRWA local staff have been refused access to Jerusalem since October to reach UNRWA’s HQ, schools, and health centers.

A Bill has been tabled at the Knesset to exclude UNRWA from UN privileges and immunities.

A second Bill, first tabled in 2021, seeks “to implement Basic Law: Jerusalem Capital of Israel, by preventing any activity by UNRWA in Israeli territory”.

On 31 January 2024, the Prime Minister said UNRWA was “in the service of Hamas”.

Many Israeli officials have called for donors to cease funding UNRWA, which undermines education, health, and other services essential to Palestine Refugees’ human rights.

Al Jazeera reports: With large swathes of Gaza’s population displaced and facing severe food insecurity amid Israel’s ongoing assault, education has become an afterthought as parents struggle to protect their children from hunger, displacement, and bombardment.

“There’s a total absence of education in Gaza right now. Almost no child is going to school, and instead, parents are focusing on their children’s survival. They want to make sure that they live another day,” Alexandra Saieh, head of humanitarian policy at Save the Children International, told Al Jazeera.

“Even if the war were to end tomorrow, education can’t just resume. More than half of Gaza’s schools have either been destroyed or are too damaged to even function,” she added.

An aerial view of a destroyed UNRWA school following Israeli attacks hit the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza on December 12, 2023. Israel has targeted schools, hospitals and residential areas during its 96-day military campaign

WAFA reports: Palestinian prisoners’ organizations have confirmed the death of a Palestinian detainee from Gaza in the Israeli prison of Ramla.

According to available information, the detainee had a pre-existing mobility disability prior to his arrest. He was transferred to Ramla prison about a month ago, arriving in critical health due to torture by Israeli occupation forces, as reported by a lawyer who recently visited Gaza detainees at Ramla prison.

Ten Palestinian detainees have now died in Israeli prisons since October 7, including three from Gaza, one of whom remains unidentified.

NOTE: Testimonies obtained from released detainees indicate that Israel continues to commit horrific crimes, including torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, against thousands of Gazans detained and held incommunicado in undisclosed locations, some for over four months. Human rights experts fear that detainees face summary execution in sites where conditions are chillingly similar to those established by US forces in Abu Grahib and elsewhere. Read more here.

WEST BANK – WAFA reports: Two Palestinian citizens were killed and four others were injured tonight in an Israeli airstrike targeting a civilian vehicle in the Jenin refugee camp, north of the occupied West Bank, according to medical reports. One of the injured is in critical condition. One of the dead was 17 years old, the other in his 20s.

Israeli forces raid Jenin refugee camp in Jenin, West Bank, on November 29, 2023

WEST BANK – Al Jazeera reports: Bahaa Fuqaha, the deputy mayor of Sinjil near Ramallah, says that Israeli forces have detained 2 children in the village, age 10. They were reportedly playing outside their house and have been accused of throwing rocks towards Israeli forces – a claim that Fuqha says is false.

Fuqaha described their detention as “barbaric”.

NOTE Israel has a long history of detaining, imprisoning, and even torturing Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank.

Ha’aretz reports on an October 7th Israeli death: 24-year-old Ofek Atun and his girlfriend escaped death at the Supernova rave where Israeli forces had fired on civilians – only to be fatally shot by an Israeli soldier who thought he was a Hamas fighter when he reached what he thought would be the safety of Kibbutz Alumim, a nearby colonial settlement. He was shot multiple times and died instantly.

Atun’s girlfriend was also shot, but survived, and was instrumental in piecing the story together.

Electronic Intifada muses: Would this story have come out if she had been killed, or would there have been another attempted cover up – similar to the failed effort to hide how Israeli forces shelled a home killing a number of Israeli civilians at Kibbutz Be’eri?

NOTE: Israel’s packaging of Hamas as barbaric butchers has been losing momentum in alternative media, starting shortly after the October 7th events. An honest look at eyewitness reports, photos, and videos makes it clear that Israeli soldiers did some of the killing that day. Similarly, claims peddled by Israel and repeated by US mainstream media of Hamas committing horrific atrocities have turned out to be nonfactual war propaganda. Read about it here.

Protesters hold a Palestinian flag as they gather outside the International Court of Justice (ICJ). January 26, 2024

Summary of International Court of Justice proceedings, Thursday

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen reports: There is a consensus today. Countries from the West, the East, the North, the South, all agree on one thing: that this occupation is illegal and that is has to stop, that it turns Palestinians into second-class citizens, that discriminatory rules apply to the Palestinian people, imposed by Israel.

Today we have heard already from 31 countries making their arguments here at the highest court. What also stood out is that all the countries who have been speaking today, countries like Jordan, Ireland, and China, have been countering the arguments brought by the United States, that this isn’t the right forum to have an opinion, that the highest court shouldn’t rule on this matter because it’s a bilateral matter between Israel and the Palestinians.

But countries are saying that this court is now in a position to speak, because all of the negotiations, all of the diplomatic efforts that we’ve seen over the years, have completely failed.

The Biden administration should condemn the sadistic, bloodthirsty rhetoric of this Israeli official and immediately stop bankrolling and arming the genocide the Israeli government is committing in Gaza. This is not the first time the Israeli government has expressed its… https://t.co/Q5dUKbO3md

— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) February 22, 2024

Birzeit University condemns the abduction of Saleh Hasan, the Student Council President, and Omar Zalloum, the Secretary of the Sports Committee in the council; by the Israeli Forces dressed in civilian clothing. 1 pic.twitter.com/I2VS7qzFld

— Birzeit University (@BirzeitU) February 22, 2024

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#Gaza: "84% of health and education facilities are either damaged or destroyed"- Tor Wennesland, UN Special Coordinator pic.twitter.com/UGn8X4iutu

— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) February 22, 2024

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – FEBRUARY 22:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – February 22: at least 29,811* (29,410 in Gaza* (over 12,660 children, 8,570 women), and at least 401 in the West Bank (100 children). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 36,671 Palestinian deaths.

About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.

About 2.2 million are facing Crisis, Emergency, or Famine levels of food insecurity.

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – February 22: at least 73,976** (including at least 69,465 in Gaza and 4,511 in the West Bank).

It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – February 22: ~1,387 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~574 were civilians, 373 or 337 were security and/or military forces, ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 236 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza;, 12 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

NBC reports: “According to the latest available IDF data… nearly 1 in 5, or 17%, of all Israel’s losses have come not at the hands of Hamas but from mishaps on its own side.”

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

For more news, go here and here. Broadcast news from the region is here.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org