Israel-Palestine live: Week three ends with over 7,000 Palestinians killed

Israeli air strikes have targeted an area close to the al Wafa hospital in Gaza, wounding at least two Palestinians. 

The full extent of the damage is still being assessed. 
 

Michael Eisen, the editor in chief of eLife, a UK-based nonprofit publication focused on scientific research, said he was “replaced” in his role for retweeting an article from The Onion which calls out the indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians. 

In a post on social media platform X, Eisen said: “The Onion speaks with more courage, insight and moral clarity than the leaders of every academic institution put together. I wish there were a The Onion University.”

The tweet was in response to a satirical article published by The Onion, titled “Dying Gazans criticised for not using last words to condemn Hamas”.

Online, many have criticised the decision to replace Eisen for “expressing the sentiment that Palestinians are human”.

Residents in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp say that supermarkets are quickly being emptied of stock as survivors scramble to get hold of food.

“We are not terrorists, America! We just want to live… we came here to get milk or biscuits or anything, and air strikes struck the supermarket,” one resident told Al Jazeera Arabic.

The supermarket in Nuseirat has been targeted at least three times before, since the start of the war on 7 October, leaving it heavily damaged. 

It is one of the few remaining markets in the densely populated area that still has stock of food items, with only one other bakery still functioning in the camp. 

Israel imposed a full siege on Gaza on 9 October, cutting off all electricity, fuel, food and water to the besieged enclave. 
 

The European Union's support for Israel's war on Gaza has seen the emergence of splits, confusion and seemingly the making of policy on-the-go.

When European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has increasingly put herself forward as the face of the EU on the global stage, offered her full-throttled support for Israel, EU parliamentarians condemned her lack of mandate to speak on foreign policy matters. 

"President von der Leyen's approach has been entirely one-sided and she has entirely failed to show leadership and lead a coherent response to the crisis," Grace O'Sullivan, an Irish Green Party member of the European parliament, told Middle East Eye.

In a rare show of protest, some 800 EU staff wrote a letter to von der Leyen objecting to what they said was unjustifiable bias towards Israel and a failure to even mention the need for Palestinian statehood, which is official EU policy. 

For the full story, click on the link below.

Read more: The EU's rush to defend Israel 'undermines its moral authority'

Mohammed Zakkout, the director general of hospitals in Gaza, says that eight out of 24 hospitals in Gaza have now stopped working.

"The problem with Israel is that it doesn't differentiate; civilians have been killed everywhere. If the al-Shifa hospital totally stops working this will mean mass death of over 1,000 people. There are patients who have kidney failure who need urgent care,” he told Al Jazeera Arabic.

“There is still no electricity or water anywhere in Gaza… any water that is available is unclean and contaminated.”  

During his conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said that Israel is “not looking for a confrontation on our northern border,” and that “if Hezbollah will drag us into war, Lebanon will pay the price.”

Herzog also said that Iran is an “empire of evil,” which is backing Hezbollah and working to destabilise the region. “Hezbollah is playing with fire,” Herzog reiterated.

Meanwhile, Macron reaffirmed his support for Israel during the visit, saying that he will stand with Israel “today and tomorrow.” 
 

Palestine’s Health Ministry said that “at least three massacres,” were carried out overnight in Gaza. 

On Tuesday morning, Palestinians woke up to scores of people killed in the Al Shati and Jablaia refugee camps as well as the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.

Khaled Meshaal, a senior Hamas leader, said that civilian hostages held in Gaza since the start of the war on 7 October will be released, if Israel “stops the aggression.”

In an interview with Sky News, he said: “let them stop this aggression and you will find the mediators like Qatar and Egypt and some Arab countries and others will find a way to have them released and we'll send them to their homes.”

"We want to stop the random bombardments, the total destruction, the genocide so that the al Qassam soldiers can take them from their places and hand them to the Red Cross or whoever,” he added, saying that “we need the right conditions to allow them to be released."

According to Meshaal, 22 hostages have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza.

Israeli air strikes have killed at least 110 Palestinians in Gaza in overnight bombardment of the besieged enclave. 

According to Al Jazeera Arabic, around eight neighbourhoods have been entirely levelled. Their initial estimates state that at least 24 kilometres squared have been destroyed.

The al-Shati and Jabalia were heavily bombed on Monday evening, along with the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.

Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, said that “Israel shouldn’t be given a green light for unconditional killing,” in a speech on Tuesday morning.

He also warned that the “dangerous escalation” of the war “threatens the region and the world.”

The Emir said that Israel must abide by international laws, and immediately end its full siege on Gaza.
 

At least 10 British nationals have been killed since the start of the war on 7 October, and a further six remain missing, according to British Minister Victoria Atkins.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, and is set to meet Israeli-French nationals who have lost family members since the start of the war. 

He is also set to meet Israeli  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minister Isaac Herzog.

Macron is expected to call for the “preservation of the civilian population” in Gaza, the presidency says, amidst heavy Israeli bombardment in Gaza. 
 

Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital has lost power after running out of fuel, putting premature babies at risk of death.

Footage on social media showed people using phones in the hospital for light as injured were brought in. Middle East Eye couldn’t independently verify the videos.

Doctors have warned that premature babies who rely on electricity-powered incubators to stay alive in the Gaza Strip were in "grave danger” because of the fuel shortage.

Israel has imposed a complete siege on the Gaza Strip and has ruled out sending fuel into the besieged enclave.

At least 110 Palestinians, including children and women, have been killed by overnight Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip as fears grow of a looming ground invasion.

Strikes have been reported in northern Gaza’s al-Shati refugee camp, al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza and southern Gaza in Rafah and Khan Younis.

The Biden administration is drawing up contingency plans to evacuate hundreds-of-thousands of US citizens from the Middle East, in case the Israel-Palestine war escalates into a regional conflict. 

The main focus of their concern is Israel and Lebanon, both home to sizeable numbers of dual US citizens.

The administration estimates about 600,000 US citizens were in Israel and another 86,000 in Lebanon when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, according to the Washington Post.

But the officials are also looking into how to evacuate US citizens from other Middle Eastern countries amid mass protests against Israel and the US across the region.

The officials told the Washington Post that such a wide-scale evacuation was a worst-case scenario but it would be "irresponsible not to have a plan.”