Source: Mondoweiss.net
UNRWA reports Israel has bombed eight schools in 10 days. The Red Cross warns of “total collapse” of health care in Gaza.
Casualties
- 38,848 + killed* and at least 89,459 wounded in the Gaza Strip. Among the dead, 28,428 have been fully identified. These include 7,779 children, 5466 women, and 2418 elderly people as of May 1. In addition, around 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble.*
- 576+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank including eastern Jerusalem. These include 138 children.**
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
- 682 Israeli soldiers have been recognized as killed, and 4096 as wounded by the Israeli army since October 7.***
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on July 18, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on July 17, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded according to declarations by the head of the Israeli army’s wounded association to Israel’s Channel 12 exceeds 20,000 including at least 8,000 permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7, as of June 18.
Key Developments
- Israel has killed 285 Palestinians, and wounded 614 across Gaza since Thursday, July 11, raising the death toll since October 7 to 38,848 and the number of wounded to 89,459, according to the Gaza health ministry.
- Axios reports that a secret meeting earlier this week took place between representatives of the U.S., the PA, and Israel, to discuss arrangements for the Rafah border crossing.
- Axios: Israel asked for a PA non-official security presence at Rafah border crossing but the PA refused.
- The International Red Cross says that all health facilities in the southern Gaza Strip are on the verge of total collapse.
- Doctors Without Borders: For nine months we have been witnessing death and trauma without end, with each strike unbearable pressure is put on medical teams, and Gaza’s hospitals lack the essential requirements.
- UN says that hospitals in Gaza must not be part of the war.
- Israeli religious party ‘Shas’ urges Netanyahu to accept a prisoners’ exchange deal with Hamas.
- Israel’s finance minister Smotrich says that he wants a deal in which Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar surrenders, and that he will not accept a ceasefire.
- Israeli public broadcasting says that the government refrained from drafting a bill that bans suspects of terrorism from running for office to avoid affecting Itamar Ben-Gvir.
- Israel’s security minister Ben-Gvir storms al-Aqsa mosque accompanied by groups of Israeli settlers.
- The head of Israeli Mossad says that Netanyahu insists in deal talks on having a mechanism to vet returnees to the north of the Gaza Strip, which would take weeks to build.
- Thousands of Israelis protested on Tuesday and Wednesday in Tel Aviv demanding a prisoner exchange deal before Netanyahu’s trip to Washington.
- Iran’s representative at the UN Security Council says that any Israeli attack on Lebanon will be met with a stiff response by countries of the region and the world and that the Security Council’s complacency encouraged Israel to increase its crimes against the Palestinian people.
- UK’s representative at the UN Security Council says that the UK condemns Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank as it undermines the two-state solution and that there is no military solution to the crisis in the Gaza Strip.
- U.S. representative at the UN Security Council says that there are still gaps to breach in the Gaza ceasefire talks and that the U.S. hopes that a deal in Gaza will help lower the tension on the Lebanese front.
- Russia’s representative at the UN Security Council says that Russia supports full UN membership for Palestine, that bloodshed in the Middle East is the result of U.S.’s failed policies, and that Russia rejects Israeli collective punishment in Gaza.
- The New York Times quotes U.S. officials as saying that a Gaza deal will most probably not be reached before Netanyahu’s trip to Washington.
- Families of Israeli captives in Gaza reject Netanyahu’s statements that captives in Gaza “suffer but don’t die,” saying that many have indeed died and demanding him to apologize.
- UNRWA says that Israel has bombed eight of its schools in the past 10 days.
- Lebanon: Israel assassinates a Hamas operative in a strike in the Bekaa valley, in eastern Lebanon.
- Lebanon: Israel bombs the surroundings of the towns of Balida and Yatir in southern Lebanon.
- Lebanon: Hezbollah launches 80 rockets on the northern Galilee in 24 hours, pushing 60,000 Israelis into shelters.
- Nasrallah says that the Lebanese front will remain open until the war on Gaza ends, and that if Israel continues to bomb civilians in Lebanon, Hezbollah will target new Israeli cities.
- West Bank: Israel raids Hebron, Qalqilya and al-Bireh, kills a teenager.
Israel asks for a secret PA presence in Rafah crossing, Netanyahu drags out deal talks ahead of Washington visit
Representatives of the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinian Authority held a secret meeting this week, in which they discussed the management of the Rafah border crossing in the aftermath of the current war on Gaza, Axios reported.
According to reports, Israeli representatives requested that the PA discreetly send security members to take part in the running of the border crossing, to be presented as a non-official local aid committee, which the PA rejected.
Israel reportedly made the same suggestion back in May, which angered PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who, according to Axios, refused the idea of a secret PA presence.
The Israeli army’s radio reported earlier that the Rafah border crossing, the only connection between the Gaza Strip and the outside world which doesn’t go through Israel, was completely unusable after the Palestinian side of it was completely destroyed by the Israeli army, in early May. Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 12 said that the Israeli army intends to rebuild the Rafah crossing point in a different location further to the south, where the borders of Egypt, the Gaza Strip, and Israel meet.
Meanwhile, as the ceasefire talks were announced to continue in Cairo, support for reaching a deal increased in Israel. The Sephardic religious Israeli political party ‘Shas’ urged Netanyahu to reach a deal, while Israel’s war minister Gallant said that the conditions for a deal “have matured.” Throughout the week, thousands of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv demanding a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange deal.
Simultaneously, the head of the Israeli Mossad said that Netanyahu was obstructing the reaching of a deal by insisting on having a mechanism to vet Palestinians who would return to the north of the strip. The head of the Mossad added that such a mechanism would take weeks to establish, delaying the reaching of a deal.
Israel bombs eight schools in 10 days, says UNRWA chief
The commissioner general of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said in a post on ‘X’ that Israel has bombed eight schools in the past 10 days, including six belonging to the agency. UNRWA schools have been used as shelters by displaced Palestinian families since the beginning of the war.
On Wednesday, Israel bombed the al-Razi school in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, which housed at least 8,000 displaced Palestinians. The strike happened while a recreational activity for children was taking place, according to primary testimonies to local journalists. ِAccording to the Palestinian health ministry, 25 people were killed in the bombing. On Tuesday Israel bombed the Abu Areiban school, also in Nuseirat, killing 22 people according to the ministry….