Israel-Palestine live: Thousands in state of panic as Israel continues to strike hospitals

An MP from Israel's ruling Likud party and a recent minister on Wednesday called for all of Gaza to be erased from the earth, saying the coastal enclave should be “wiped out”.

Galit Distel Atbaryan, who until two weeks ago was public diplomacy minister, took to Facebook after being shown footage of the 7 October Palestinian attack on Israeli communities.

Distel Atbaryan posted on Facebook that the video prompted her to deliver a message to her fellow Israelis, urging them to cease internal arguments and concentrate on the “monsters” in Gaza.

“Invest that energy in one thing,” she wrote. “Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth.”

Distel Atbaryan said she wished to see “the brave monsters” flee over Gaza’s southern barrier into Egypt, “or let them die”.

Read more: Likud MP calls for Gaza to be 'erased from the face of the earth'

For any serious philosophy nerd, Jewish philosophy is indispensable for understanding the development of human knowledge. 

For years, I’ve been obsessed with Philo of Alexandria, an early Jewish philosopher who treated the stories of scripture as allegories, avoiding the literal interpretation of the Torah common at the time. 

As a youth, the writings of the first century BCE Hellenistic thinker were as revolutionary as the later medieval thinkers Thomas Aquinas and Averroes (Ibn Rushd), who similarly sought to reconcile Greek philosophy and faith. 

Philo was a recurrent topic of discussion with an Israeli friend who left his home country to conduct a doctorate in Jewish theology in Germany. 

My friend left Israel after giving up on the possibility of political reform in his country. As a theologian, he no longer felt affinity to the state of Israel and what it represented. 

“Being Jewish and being Israeli are two independent identities that should not be conflated,” he would tell me.

My friend’s words have reverberated with me since 7 October. 

The theologian was not surprised that a secular and staunchly pro-Palestine man like me could relate to the ideas of Jewish philosophers like Philo, Moses Mendelssohn and Spinoza.  

Being influenced by such thinking is the opposite of supporting a state that has looted lands and unlawfully incarcerated and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians for more than 75 years. One that has treated us Arabs with nothing but insolence throughout its existence. 

“If Philo and Spinoza were alive,” my Jewish friend once told me, “they would’ve found it morally reprehensible to be committed Israelis.” 

For the past few weeks, the world we inhabited has ceased to exist.

All the progress we made in film and culture have proven to be futile and illusionary. The dominant politics of diversity have transpired to be nothing but a phony marketing tool for business leaders eager to attract wider demographics. 

The deliberate silencing of pro-Palestinian voices - Arab, western, and Jewish - in Europe and the US has woken us to a crude reality none of us, including this writer, had the courage to acknowledge. 

Read more: 'Shut up and fall in line': Israel, Palestine and the dawn of a new censorship in Western art

Palestinian fighters have killed 15 Israeli soldiers in Gaza since Tuesday, the military has said. 

Four troops were confirmed dead on Wednesday while the death of 11 others was announced on Tuesday.

At least 14 more soldiers have been wounded, including seven in critical condition, according to Yedioth Ahronoth. 

Jordan's foreign ministry has summoned Amman's ambassador to Israel, the state news agency said.

The move was made in protest against the ongoing war in Gaza, according to the foreign ministry.

Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, said Palestinian fighters killed three Israeli soldiers on Wednesday after carrying out a cross-boundary attack. 

In a brief communique, Izz al-Din al-Qassam said fighters clashed at "point-blank range" with Israeli infantry forces near Erez, northeast of Gaza. 

The Israeli army did not immediately comment and MEE could not independently verify the claim.

Israeli military officials said yesterday that troops were "paying a heavy price" in their ground operations in Gaza amid "fierce battles" with Hamas fighters. At least 13 soldiers have been confirmed killed over the past 24 hours.

The first group of wounded Palestinians crossed into Egypt from Gaza on Wednesday, the first time anyone has been allowed to leave the besieged enclave since Israel began bombing it on 7 October.

The deal was brokered by Qatar, according to an Egyptian security source, Reuters reported.

Under the deal reached between Egypt, Israel and Hamas, up to 80 wounded people and 500 foreigners are set to leave in the coming hours and days.

A prominent union of Muslim scholars has issued a decree calling upon Muslim armies to "urgently intervene" to stop the "genocide" in Gaza.

In a statement on Tuesday, the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) said it was a religious obligation for Muslim armies to protect Palestinians. 

"The ruling regimes and official armies are required by the Islamic Sharia [Islamic law] to intervene urgently to save Gaza from genocide and mass destruction," the statement said. 

"Leaving Gaza and Palestine to be annihilated and destroyed is a betrayal of God and His Messenger."

The union added that countries bordering Palestine -  Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon - have a greater obligation to act, saying that it was one of the "greatest sins before God Almighty" to leave Palestinians to fend for themselves.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has released updated casualty figures from the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

At least 8,796 people have killed since 7 October, including 3,648 children and 2,290 women, according to officials.

Around 2,000 people are still missing, including 1,100 children. The vast majority of these people are believed to be dead and buried under rubble.

At least 22,219 people have been wounded.

A senior British opposition politician has said that Israeli air strikes on a refugee camp in Gaza on Tuesday, which killed at least 100 Palestinians, can be "legally justifiable".

David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary and member of the Labour Party, made the claim on BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme when asked if the attack was "proportionate". 

He replied by saying Israel claimed to have targeted a Hamas commander and that it was required to explain how the strike could "qualify as proportionate" because the "heartbreaking and horrific images" from the attack were "troubling".

“When it comes to ethics, it’s clear to me that it’s wrong to bomb a refugee camp but clearly if there is a military objective it can be legally justifiable. It’s for Israel to explain its actions," he added.

The Israeli army has killed and wounded scores of people in a new "massacre" targeting the crowded Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Wednesday. 

It is the second attack on the camp in less than 24 hours.

Several air strikes hit the residential area of Faluja in the camp on Wednesday, according to Al Jazeera. 

Scores of people killed or wounded are arriving at the Indonesian hospital in Gaza City. 

Jabalia is the largest of the Gaza Strip's UN refugee camps housing people forcibly expelled by Zionist militia and Israel in 1948.

The number of journalists killed in ongoing hostilities is the highest since the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) began tracking the deaths of journalists covering conflicts.

At least 26 Palestinians and one Lebanese journalist have been killed in Israeli shelling, the CPJ said. At least four Israeli journalists were killed during attacks by Palestinians. 

An additional eight journalists have been wounded and nine others reported missing or detained.

“CPJ emphasises that journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties,” Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator, said on Tuesday. 

The Israeli army told Reuters and Agence France Press news agencies last week that it cannot guarantee the safety of their journalists.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has said the United States sought to pressure the country over its stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.

In remarks delivered to the country’s parliament, Ibrahim said “the Malaysian envoy to the United States was called by the American authorities, who questioned our stance on the conflict, especially the violence inflicted by Israel on Gaza.

“Our ambassador firmly stated our position,” he added, according to the Straits Times.

The US had apparently taken umbrage at Malaysia’s refusal to condemn Hamas.

“I was informed by the foreign ministry that Malaysia received a demarche from the US Embassy twice, on 13 October and 30 October, where Malaysia was asked to use diplomatic channels to urge a country to not take advantage of the conflict by using a proxy to get involved in the Gaza conflict,” he added.

That country in question is widely assumed to be Iran, the Straits Times said.

Israel’s war on Gaza is taking a devastating toll on Palestinian civilians with disabilities, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday.

Daily bombardment, blockade, and a major ground offensive mean that some of the most vulnerable Palestinians are facing increased hardship fleeing attacks, and in accessing what’s left of Gaza’s healthcare system.

HRW interviewed more than a dozen Palestinians living in Gaza with various levels of disabilities.

Many described the fear of leaving homes adapted to meet their accessibility requirements, including access to their wheelchairs, walkers or hearing aids.

Many of the Palestinians with disabilities in the strip are also the victims of previous Israeli assaults. Their numbers have only swelled in the latest onslaught by Israel.

“The Israeli military’s major ground offensive in Gaza adds immeasurably to the serious difficulties for people with disabilities to flee, find shelter, and obtain water, food, medicine, and assistive devices they desperately need,” said Emina Cerimovic, senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The United States and other Israeli allies should press Israel to take all necessary steps to protect people with disabilities and lift the blockade.” 

Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, said on Wednesday that seven civilians held by the group in Gaza were killed in the Israeli bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday, which killed at least 100 Palestinians. 

In a brief communique, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades said three of those killed were foreign passport holders. 

The Palestinian group previously said around 50 people out of around 200 in its custody had been killed in the relentless Israeli shelling since 7 October. 

Middle East Eye could not independently verify the claim. 

Israel confirmed at least 240 people are held captive by various Palestinian groups in Gaza.

The Israeli army said that it had bolstered its defences in the Red Sea with navy missile boats. This follows several missile and drone attacks from Yemen heading towards Israel.

The Israeli military said the vessels were deployed “in accordance with the assessment of the situation, and as part of the increased defence efforts in the area".

On Tuesday the Israeli military said that it had intercepted a missile and two drones launched from Yemen towards Israel.

Another target was intercepted on Wednesday morning in the Israeli Red Sea city of Eilat.

The US military is also deployed in the Red Sea and two weeks ago it intercepted a number of missiles and drones from Yemen.

The deployment also means that the Israeli army is now spread over four fronts: in Gaza, the West Bank, the Israeli-Lebanese frontier and now the Red Sea.