Israel-Palestine war: First week ends with over 2,500 Palestinians, 1,400 Israelis killed

Kauthar Bouchalicht, a member of Dutch parliament, announced on early Sunday morning that she is stepping down from her position due to her party’s stance on the ongoing Israel-Palestine war.

"This is no longer the party I decided to become an MP for, this is no longer the party I want to be an MP for," Bouchalicht said in a statement she published on Instagram.

The 29-year-old politician said that over the past week she had had internal discussions about her party, GroenLinks, and its position on Israel and Palestine.

"Not only was the previous history such as the Nakba consistently not mentioned, but even the illegal occupations of recent years were not mentioned," she said.

She said she will continue to vote for GroenLinks, which she added was one of the few parties in The Netherlands that has spoken of Israel's violations of human rights.

Hamas said three of its fighters from Lebanon were killed on Saturday in an Israeli air strike after they detonated a section of the Israel-Lebanon border fence.

Israel's military said earlier its aircraft had struck a group of people who it believed had intended to launch anti-tank missiles towards Israel.

Hello MEE readers.

It is now the early hours of Sunday morning in Gaza. A full week has transpired since Palestinian armed groups based in Gaza launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, and Israel responded with a full-force bombing campaign and full siege. Israel is now in preparations for a large-scale ground invasion after forcing residents in northern Gaza to leave their homes and flee to the south.

Here are the key points you need to know from the past several hours:

• More than 1,000 Palestinian Christians in Gaza are sheltering in churches in the besieged strip. One of those sheltering said: "They [Israel] have the skies, but we pray to the one above the skies."
• According to a report from Axios, Iran told Israel on Saturday that it didn't want to get involved in the Gaza war, but if Israel's operations continued, particularly if there was a ground invasion, Tehran would have to act. Iran's foreign minister said a ground invasion of Gaza was a "red line" for the Islamic Republic.
• Thirty-five thousand Palestinians are sheltering in a hospital in Gaza ahead of an expected Israeli ground operation.
• A close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife posted incendiary remarks on Facebook, saying it's not enough to flatten Gaza, and that Israel needed to torture the Palestinians living there. The torture techniques she recommended included pulling out their nails and skinning them alive.
• At least 279 Israeli soldiers have been killed by Palestinian fighters since 7 October, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.

We at Middle East Eye are doing our best to continue providing you with up-to-date information around the clock. Internet connectivity in Gaza has dropped by nearly half as of Friday, and we've lost contact with our correspondents there.

You can also find our coverage across Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.

Israel has launched an air strike against Syria's Aleppo airport that put it out of service, the Syrian defence ministry said.

"The Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, targeting Aleppo International Airport, which led to material damage to the airport and it being out of service," the ministry added.

The 1,100 Palestinian Christians in Gaza are sheltering in churches in the besieged strip, as Israel forces residents to flee their homes, according to Al Jazeera's Rania Zabaneh. 

"They [Israel] have the skies, but we pray to the one above the skies," Zabaneh reports one of those seeking shelter as saying.

Iran told Israel on Saturday that it did not want to become involved in the Gaza war, but said that if Israel's operations continued and particularly if there was a ground invasion, it would have to act.

Two sources with knowledge of the situation told Axios that Iran had relayed the message through the UN.

According to the sources, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with UN Envoy to the Middle East Tor Wennesland on Saturday in Beirut, where the latter urged Amir-Abdollahian to help prevent a spillover of the conflict in Gaza and Israel to the wider region.

The minister said that he had no desire for a regional war and wanted to try to help with the release of hostages in Gaza.

But he also said there were a number of red lines for Iran, including a ground operation by Israel in Gaza.

The Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza was hit this evening by Israeli air strikes, Jerusalem's Anglican Archbishop Hosam Naoum wrote on Facebook. 

"Two floors were damaged partially and 4 people were injured," according to Naoum, who included pictures of the damage.

The US State Department has confirmed the deaths of 29 Americans in the Hamas attack on Israel that began on 7 October.

There are also at least 15 American citizens and one permanent resident unaccounted for, the department said.

US President Joe Biden has held separate phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Netanyahu told Biden that "unity and determination" were needed to achieve Israel's military goals against the Hamas movement.

According to Abbas' office, the Palestinian leader told Biden that he completely rejected the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

The World Health Organization (WHO) "strongly condemns" Israel's repeated order for 22 hospitals to eject over 2,000 in-patients being treated in northern Gaza.

"Evacuation orders by Israel to hospitals in northern Gaza are a death sentence for the sick and injured," the group said.

"The forced evacuation of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe," it continued. 

"Forcing more than 2,000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence."

Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders (MSF), is calling on Israel "to show humanity" in the wake of its "ultimatum" to the Palestinian population of Gaza.

"Despite Israeli announcements suggesting that there are safe areas for the population trapped in the Gaza Strip, they are in fact exposed to bombardment throughout all the territory, including in the south, where tens of thousands of people have fled following the ultimatum," the group said in a statement.

"As the Israeli army has been bombarding the Gaza Strip without restraint for a week, we are calling for the most elementary humanity to be shown."

"The injunction to nearly 1.1 million people to move in a few hours to an already overpopulated territory with precarious access to food, water and healthcare is as absurd as it is intolerable," it continued.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak accused "those trying to stir up tensions online and on our streets" of antisemitism in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Undeterred by warnings against waving the Palestinian flag, thousands of protesters poured onto the streets of central London on Saturday to demand that Israel halt its bombing campaign and siege of the Gaza Strip as it prepares for a possible ground invasion of the tiny Palestinian enclave.

Israeli shelling has killed two Lebanese civilians in the southern village of Shebaa, its mayor has said.

Meanwhile, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group said that one of its fighters in south Lebanon was killed by fire "either in Israeli strikes or in clashes".

At least 279 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Hamas movement's attack launched on 7 October, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.

During that same period, 126 Israelis were captured by Hamas, he added.

A 16-year-old Palestinian who had been shot by Israeli forces during clashes in Tulkarm on Friday has died of his wounds, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

The boy was identified as Muhammad Adwan. He has become the sixth person killed in clashes in Tulkarm since Friday.

At least 20 Palestinians were killed on Friday in clashes in the occupied West Bank.