Live: Five Palestinian journalists killed, Gaza media office says

Hamas has described the Israeli so-called Generals' Plan, which involves ethnically cleansing the northern Gaza Strip of Palestinians, as one of the most "depraved" and "Nazi" military strategies in modern history.

"The occupation is committing full-fledged genocide in the northern Gaza Strip," the Palestinian movement added.

The Generals' Plan involves ethnically cleansing the northern Gaza Strip of people; and then besieging the region, including stopping the entry of humanitarian supplies, to starve out anyone left, including Palestinian fighters.

For more details on the plan's components, read Middle East Eye's explainer here: 

What is Israel's 'Generals' Plan' and what does it mean for the war on Gaza? 

American air strikes in Yemen overnight did not hit weapons depots belonging to the Houthi movement, and did not affect their capabilities as claimed by the Pentagon, a Yemeni military source told the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV channel.

The source said the use of B-2 stealth bombers in the attacks indicates "panic" in the US military over the possibility of its drones being shot down in Yemeni airspace, after several MQ-9 drones were shot down by the Houthi movement in recent months.

Any American-British aircraft or weapon used to strike Yemen "cannot neutralise the strategic weapons that the Yemeni army has prepared and continues to prepare and develop," the source said.

He added that attacks on Yemen will not succeed in forcing the Houthi movement to stop its support of Gaza and Lebanon.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami warned Thursday of further retaliation against Israel if it attacks Iranian targets, which Israel has vowed to do after Iran's missile attack on 1 October. 

"If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in Iran, we will strike you again painfully," Salami said at the funeral of a Guards general killed in an Israeli strike alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last month.

Reporting by AFP

Palestinian newborn babies in the besieged northern Gaza face a "real humanitarian catastrophe" as Israeli forces continue to block the entry of life-saving fuel and medicine, the Palestinian health ministry has said. 

Filming from inside the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, doctor Hussam Abu Safia said the hospital's nursery suffers a fuel crisis and a shortage of medicine as a result of the Israeli siege, now in its 13th day.

"If fuel and medical equipment don't enter, these babies face the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe," Dr Abu Safia said. 

#فيديو | ⭕وزارة الصحة بغزة: كارثة إنسانية حقيقية تواجه الأطفال حديثي الولادة في حضانة مستشفى كمال عدوان، نتيجة حصار الإحتلال لشمال قطاع غزة لليوم الـ 13على التوالي. pic.twitter.com/UvWQJZvoFx

— وكالة شهاب للأنباء (@ShehabAgency) October 17, 2024

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

Here are the latest updates from the Israeli war on Gaza and Lebanon, now in its 377th day: 

• No aid has entered the besieged areas in the northern Gaza Strip despite "misleading" Israeli claims otherwise, Palestinian media reports have said. Israeli forces continue to besiege Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, blocking the entry of food and medicine, Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza has said. 

• Hezbollah said its fighters hit two invading Israeli tanks overnight in the Labbouneh village, setting them on fire and killing and wounding all soldiers inside.

• The United States pounded Yemen overnight using the strategic B-2 stealth bombers. At least 15 strikes were reported in the capital Sanaa and Sa'dah. The US said the target was "five underground weapons storage facilities" belonging to the Houthi movement, without providing evidence. 

• Israeli air strike targeted the Syrian city of Latakia early on Thursday, according to state news agency Sana. The attack led to a fire and wounded two people. 

Hello Middle East Eye readers. On Wednesday, Israel's military struck the city of Nabatieh in Lebanon, hitting a municipal building and killing 16 people, including the town's mayor.

Wednesday also saw intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, with Israeli media reports saying that five Israeli soldiers were killed over the course of the day.

Meanwhile in Gaza, Israeli forces killed more than 60 Palestinians over the past 24 hours, as the Israeli military continued its siege in northern Gaza.

Israel said that it permitted 50 aid trucks to enter the northern area of the Strip, but Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif said that not a single truck entered the parts of northern Gaza besieged by Israeli forces.

Here's what else happened on Wednesday:

• The death toll in Gaza has now reached at least 42,409, with more than 99,153 wounded and at least 10,000 still missing, likely buried under rubble.

• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he is "looking at" sanctioning Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, as well as the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir.

• France has reportedly banned Israeli firms from participating in an upcoming military naval trade show.

• The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (Unifil) said an Israeli Merkava tank fired at their watchtower near southern Lebanon's Kfar Kela.

• Qatar's prime minister said on Wednesday that there had been no conversations or engagement with any parties for the last three to four weeks to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

• A top Biden official said Washington wouldn't consider withholding weapons from Israel for blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Politico is reporting that the top US official working on the aid situation in Gaza said that Washington wouldn't consider withholding weapons from Israel for blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza.

In August, Lise Grande told aid organisations that the US "could potentially consider other tactics to convince Israel to allow life-saving aid into Gaza" but that withholding weapons was off the table.

Dozens of aid groups have warned that “northern Gaza is being wiped off the map” by Israeli forces amid an ongoing campaign to ethnically cleanse the area of its Palestinian population.

A statement signed by 38 aid groups accuses the Israeli army of carrying out forced displacement under the guise of “evacuation” orders.

Organisations, including ActionAid, Action For Humanity, Oxfam, Medical Aid for Palestinians (Map), Islamic Relief, Christian Aid and other British and international charities, warned against actions that exacerbate Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.

The aid groups said Israel has largely ignored several legally binding orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to halt or prevent actions against Palestinians that may amount to genocide.

These actions include “killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”. 

“There is no evidence that Israel has adhered to these orders, and the killing of Palestinians has only intensified,” the statement read, adding: “Civilians are being starved and bombed in their homes and their tents."

Click below to read the full story.

Israel is ‘erasing northern Gaza’, aid groups warn

The picture of an 11-year-old girl with napalm burns running naked down a road in Vietnam was deemed so shocking in 1972 that it won a Pulitzer Prize, writes Middle East Eye's editor-in-chief, David Hearst.

"The Terror of War" became the iconic image of the Vietnam War.

Today in Gaza and Lebanon, there are so many pictures of burning people, burning tents, bodies piled up on the streets of the Jabalia refugee camp, and dust-encrusted survivors staggering out of the rubble with the lifeless bodies of their tiny children in their hands, but no one even bothers to publish them. 

Images of "The Terror of War" being committed by Israel in Gaza or Lebanon are not entered for Pulitzer Prizes. Nor do they elicit statements of condemnation or disgust from US presidents or British prime ministers.

Editors are too frightened.

To suggest that Israel is deliberately killing children in Gaza is a "blood libel" that reminds British novelist Howard Jacobson of the pogroms of Jews in 13th century England, sparked by rumours that they were eating the remains of Christian children in Matzah bread.

But Israeli forces are deliberately killing women and children in Gaza and Lebanon and domestic opinion in Israel is urging their soldiers on. 

There are no taboos in the debate in Israel about the final solution for north Gaza or south Lebanon. No hang-ups about using words like "extermination''.

This is what Uzi Raby, one of Israel’s most sought-after experts on the Middle East, does. The senior lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University said in a TV interview last month: "Anyone who stays there (north Gaza) will be judged by law as a terrorist and will go through either a process of starvation or a process of extermination." 

To read the full op-ed, click below.

Israel's forever wars in the Middle East will pave the way for its demise

Qatar's prime minister said on Wednesday that there had been no conversations or engagement with any parties for the last three to four weeks to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

"On the prospects of the negotiation ... basically in the last three to four weeks, there is no conversation or engagement at all, and we are just moving in the same circle with the silence from all parties," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told reporters at the end of a summit between the EU and GCC in Brussels.

Reporting by Reuters

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (Unifil) said an Israeli Merkava tank fired at their watchtower near southern Lebanon's Kfar Kela on Wednesday morning.

Two cameras were destroyed and the tower was damaged, Unifil said.

Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif said on X that there hasn't been a single truck of aid entering the areas of northern Gaza currently besieged by Israel's military.

Sharif's tweet comes after Israel announced that it permitted 50 aid trucks to enter northern Gaza from Jordan. Earlier this week, the US warned Israel to boost aid into Gaza or risk a reassessment of US military support.

"I categorically confirm that no truck will enter the besieged areas, including Jabalia camp, Jabalia al-Balad, Jabalia al-Nazla, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia," Sharif said.

"The aid that was brought in was directed only to the south of Gaza City and for propaganda and media purposes, as no truck has reached the besieged areas since the military operation in northern Gaza began."

ما تشاهدونه من صور ومشاهد تتعلق بدخول المساعدات إلى شمال غزة هو تضليل كبير من قبل جيش الاحتلال الإسرائيلي.
أؤكد بشكل قاطع عدم دخول أي شاحنة إلى المناطق المحاصرة، بما في ذلك مخيم جباليا، جباليا البلد، جباليا النزلة، بيت حانون، وبيت لاهيا.
ما تم إدخاله من مساعدات كان موجهاً فقط إلى…

— أنس الشريف Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0) October 16, 2024

The Lebanese health ministry said that the final death toll from the Israeli strike on a municipality building in Nabatieh was 16 people, while a further 52 people were wounded.

Among those killed in the strike was the town's mayor who was conducting an official meeting at the time of the bombing.

A day after the US and Canada imposed sanctions on the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, the organisation responded in a statement, calling the decision an "attempt to repress political organising in support of the Palestinian people’s struggle against genocide, colonialism and occupation".

"It is a coordinated attempt by the enemies of the Palestinian people to stop every form of solidarity with the Palestinian people and political organizing efforts to end Israel’s genocide, crimes against humanity and occupation," the group said.

"Our response to this designation is clear: we will keep struggling to stop the genocide, stop imperialist support for Israel, until the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea," it added.

Palestinian activists in the US have expressed fears that over the past year of the Israeli war on Gaza, the US government has begun increasing the surveillance and repression of pro-Palestinian activities in the country.

So far, the Lebanese health ministry has reported that at least 11 people have been killed in Israeli strikes across the country on Wednesday.

• At least six people were killed in a strike on the city of Nabatieh. Among those six people killed was the city's mayor, who was conducting an official meeting at the time.

• At least two people were killed in a strike on the highway between Baalbek and Rayaak.

• At least three people were killed in a bombing on the town of Qana.