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

Aseel Mousa, a Gaza-based freelance journalist working with Middle East Eye, has lived in Tal al-Hawa all her life. Then Israel gave her 24 hours to escape an oncoming onslaught. She describes the chaos and trauma of her forced displacement. Here, Aseel tells her story:

"On Friday morning we didn't have any internet or electricity," she says. "Israel has cut both from Gaza, as well as food and water, as it bombs us relentlessly. Around 6am, my cousin managed to get hold of us on the telephone.

"'Aseel, we saw on the news, and I know you probably don't have internet, that Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee is threatening residents of northern and western Gaza to evacuate to the southern region,' he told me.

"Our situation was already dire. We were incredibly stressed and anxious. I had an evacuation bag prepared with only my passports, my ID and a set of clothes.

Read her full story here: A journalist's terrifying escape to south Gaza

The exterior of the BBC studios in London was sprayed with red paint on Saturday morning in protest against the channel's coverage of the ongoing Israel-Palestine war.

It comes ahead of planned pro-Palestine protests in the British capital later today.

Israeli columnist and journalist Gideon Levy said Israel's order to forcibly eject  1.1m Palestinians in Gaza from their homes within 24 hours is "impossible, illegal, inhuman and impractical".

"In other words, Israel is threatening to commit a war crime the likes of which we have not seen since the Nakba of 1948," Levy said in an op-ed published on Middle East Eye.

"Very possibly, this is all talk and threats; Israel may not ultimately invade Gaza, and a million people may not be evicted. In any case, nearly half-a-million are newly homeless following unprecedented bombings of Gaza neighbourhoods by the Israeli Air Force.

"These are dark days. Dark days for Israelis, who woke up last Saturday to a reality that turned upside-down their conception of their world that they had embraced for years."

Read more: The world cannot stand by and watch this slaughter

Around 90 percent of targets attacked in Israeli air strikes were homes and residential buildings, the Gaza-based civil defence said. 

Israeli troops killed a 15-year-old boy in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said. 

Omar Abdul Rahman Asmar was shot on Friday when Israeli soldiers opened fire on several Palestinians, killing five of them. He succumbed to his wounds a day later. 

Fifty-four Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the war began a week ago.

Israel's army claimed to have kill four Palestinian fighters earlier this week, but the four men were in fact unarmed, Al Jazeera has found. 

Al Jazeera's digital investigations team analysed scenes in a video posted by the Israeli military on 10 October in the Zikim beach area of southern Israel. 

It found that the unarmed men raised their hands to surrender to Israeli soldiers, shortly before they were killed.  

Earlier this week, Euro Med Monitor said the scene of the crime had been doctored and assault rifles were placed next to the bodies. 

The rights group said the killings were "an act of extrajudicial execution that constitutes a war crime". 

Mohammed Abu Rumman, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, argues in a Middle East Eye column that the West has turned a “blind eye” to humanitarian atrocities in Gaza. 

“This is a blatant affirmation that western governments do not see Palestinians as human beings, nor even as animals; they are viewed as something else, perhaps less, and this distinction extends even to children, women, the elderly and the ill,” he writes.

“The Israeli narrative has spread across the West with extreme ease, successfully demonising Hamas as an extension of the Islamic State. Israeli and US officials have drawn comparisons to 9/11, which have been enthusiastically picked up by the western media machine.” 

Read Abu Rumman’s column below:

The West can no longer ignore Gaza's humanity

Israel has killed at least 2,215 people in Gaza over the past week, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Of those killed, 724 are children and 458 are women.

Some 8,714 people have been wounded in the besieged enclave in that time, it added. 

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have killed 54 people and wounded 1,100 others in the occupied West Bank.

A UK-based Palestinian legal centre has warned Rishi Sunak of its intention to seek to prosecute British government officials over alleged complicity in war crimes in Gaza. 

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) issued a notice to the prime minister over the UK providing "military, economic and political support to Israel, which has aided Israel’s perpetration of war crimes". 

It said that Israel's forcible transfer of over 1 million people in north Gaza "may amount to both a war crime and a crime against humanity". 

"The siege of Gaza, restricting electricity, food, water and other basic necessities, constitutes collective punishment, which is also a war crime under the Geneva Convention," it added. 

"Now that war crimes have been carried out, continuation of such support and assistance would mean that UK Government officials would be complicit in the commission of war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity." 

The notice by ICJP has been sent to Scotland Yard's War Crimes Unit. 

Israeli air strikes have killed 324 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

At least 1,000 others have been wounded in that time, it added. 

Egypt has closed off the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip by erecting a barrier, according to a rights group. 

The Egyptian military constructed a concrete barrier on its side of the crossing and deployed military reinforcements along the border, according to Sinai for Human Rights. 

The Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza - the only gateway in and out of the besieged enclave - was targeted by three separate Israeli strikes in the space of 24 hours earlier this week.

Hamas has accused Israel of committing war crimes by ordering hospitals to leave north Gaza.

"The Israeli occupation's threats for Palestinian hospitals to evacuate amount to war crimes," the Palestinian group said in a statement shared on Telegram. 

"The Israeli occupation insists on perpetrating more atrocious crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip by targeting hospitals."

It said that medical facilities were civilian places protected under international law, and urged the UN and international organisations to halt the forcible transfer.

"The Israeli occupation's request to empty hospitals amid escalating war against Gaza emphasises its criminal plans to deprive Palestinians from basic and urgent humanitarian needs - it is a war crime."

It commended the "heroic position" of hospital staff, such as those in Al-Awda Hospital, who declined to leave patients and head to south Gaza. 

A hospital in north Gaza is refusing to comply with Israel's evacuation order. 

The director of Al-Awda Hospital said its staff remained in the facility and would continue to aid patients, as it would be "impossible" to transport the sick and wounded. 

The hospital was initially given just two hours to leave on Friday afternoon, before the deadline was extended until 6am on Saturday. 

The World Health Organisation has condemned the order to evacuate the hospital. 

"We implore Israel to reverse this decision. Moving the patients would put their lives at immediate risk, as well as the lives of the health workers," WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus said.


Good morning MEE readers,

It’s now been over a week since the war between Palestinians and Israelis in Gaza began.

Israel has killed at least 1,950 Palestinians in Gaza air strikes and West Bank shootings, over half of whom are women and children.

More than 400,000 people had already been displaced in Gaza due to Israel's indiscriminate bombardment, before the army ordered the forcible transfer of 1.1 million north of the enclave in 24 hours. That deadline has now passed, ahead of an expected ground invasion.

Here’s a recap of the last few hours:

• Tens of thousands in Gaza have fled to the south, following the forcible ejection order. Scores were killed while making that journey, as Israel carries out air strikes in both the north and south

• Israeli forces shot dead a man in Jericho, as raids were carried out in several West Bank cities. It comes after 14 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank on Friday

• US F-15 fighter jets have arrived in the Middle East, as Washington bolsters support for Israel

• Pro-Palestine protests took place all over the world on Friday, with more expected to take place today. Thousands of Jewish New Yorkers protested for an immediate ceasefire, over 100 of whom were arrested

Middle East Eye is going to continue providing you with up-to-date information around the clock. Be sure to check out our coverage across Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

Israeli forces have shot and killed a 27-year-old Palestinian man in the city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Saturday morning.

The ministry said the man arrived at a hospital in Jericho with a bullet wound to the head.

At least 14 Palestinians in the West Bank were killed on Friday. On Saturday morning, Israeli forces began raids on a number of West Bank cities.