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

Anti-Muslim hate crimes and attacks on mosques have been on the rise since the start of the war on 7 October, according to the Germany based DITB organisation. 

The Turkish-Muslim organisation said that an increase in propaganda by far-right politicians, and biassed media coverage of the recent developments, have fuelled anti-Muslim sentiment in the country.

A report conducted by the organisation states that there have been 81 attacks against mosques since the beginning of this year, with nearly half of them recorded after 7 October.
 

Israel has bombed eight hospitals in the past three days, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ministry also said that 18 hospitals in the besieged enclave are now out of service since 7 October. 
 

Air strikes have been concentrated close to the al-Shifa Hospital, where tens of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering and seeking treatment, according to Al Jazeera Arabic. 

The hospital is the largest in the besieged enclave, and is described as being at breaking point due to being over capacity and suffering from a lack of resources. 
 

Israeli forces have killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank during early morning raids. 

According to the Palestinian ministry of health, 15-year old Mohammed Farid Hamdan Thawabta was killed south of Bethlehem. Anas Nasser Mohammed Abu Atwan, a 30-year-old, was also killed south of Hebron. 
 

A top US senator said he is worried about “alarming incidents of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians” as attacks in the occupied West Bank skyrocket.

“I’m pushing for action from the Biden admin to enhance diplomatic efforts in the West Bank,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote on social media platform X.

A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned earlier this month about the escalating violence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, saying that Israeli soldiers and settlers have committed human rights violations and war crimes against Palestinians. 

A group of Jewish students at Brown University in Rhode Island have begun a sit-in, demanding Brown divest its endowment from companies with business interests in Israel. 

“As Jewish students, we’ve had enough of our university co-opting our identities to justify maintaining financial ties to an apartheid state and suppressing advocacy for Palestinian liberation,” said Ariela Rosenzweig, a member of BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now. 

Middle East Eye previously reported that alumni from Ivy League universities have signed a letter in solidarity with current students taking part in pro-Palestine demonstrations amid complaints about a crackdown on their views. 

Students from several leading US universities told MEE that even the most benign efforts to call for a ceasefire, or lead a teach-in to shed light on Israel’s occupation, have been met with attempts to criminalise them, embarrass their families or destroy their career plans. 

The Washington Post has removed a cartoon that pictures a Hamas leader who has bound himself with children and a woman as human shields after public backlash.

The cartoon, by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Ramirez, pictured a Hamas leader dressed in a black suit. The man, who has a hooked nose, grey beard and bushy black eyebrows, says: "How dare Israel attack civilians …" 

The cartoon drew condemnation on social media.

“As well as justifying the killing of Palestinians, this cartoon, published in the Washington Post is racist, Islamophobic, dehumanising & anti-Palestinian,” Journalist Hind Hassan, posted on social media platform X.

“It’s 2023 and this is a cartoon that the @washingtonpost decided was fit for print,” said another user on X. “It includes a portrait of the angry brown man (complete with a big nose), [and] the ugly veiled docile Arab woman.”

David Shipley, editorial page editor of the Washington Post, wrote in a statement the cartoon "was seen by many readers as racist. This was not my intent," adding that he saw the cartoon as "a caricature of a specific individual, the Hamas spokesperson who celebrated the attacks on unarmed civilians in Israel." 

"The reaction to the image convinced me that I had missed something profound, and divisive," he said. 

Israel launched strikes across the Gaza Strip Wednesday night and into Thursday morning using combined air and artillery fire as heavy fighting was reported on the ground between the Israeli military and Palestinian fighters. 

At least 30 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed overnight in a fresh Israeli bombardment of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Israel also launched strikes on Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Wednesday night, using combined fire from Israeli warplanes and ground artillery. The strikes killed at least five people according to Palestinian news outlet Wafa.

At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens injured by Israeli strikes in al-Sabra, east of Gaza City.

Meanwhile, Israel launched fresh strikes near al-Shifa hospital on Thursday.

Local sources told Wafa news that Israeli warplanes fired several missiles around the hospital, the Gaza Strip's largest, with some fragments falling in the hospital’s courtyard.

Republican presidential candidates voiced unequivocal support for Israel in the war during a presidential primary debate on Wednesday, saying Hamas needed to be destroyed.

“Finish the job once and for all with these butchers Hamas,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said. “I said finish them, finish them,” Nikki Haley said.

“Wipe Hamas off of the map,” South Carolina Senator Tim Scott added, while former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie pledged “America is here no matter what it is you need at any time to preserve the state of Israel.”

The war has divided US public opinion, with Washington DC witnessing the largest pro-Palestine rally in history. However, the comments by Republican presidential contenders underscore how support for Israel in the war continues to be a popular stance with a wide swath of the US public ahead of the 2024 election.

Former President Donald Trump, who is not participating in the Republican primary debates, but is leading US President Joe Biden in most major swing states, has also called for Hamas to be destroyed, and said he would impose a travel ban on the group’s sympathisers.

While President Joe Biden is under pressure from many members of his Democratic Party to rein in Israel and push for a ceasefire, the Republican rhetoric underscores the pressure he may face in a general election to continue backing Israel.

The number of Americans who consider Israel a US ally actually jumped after Hamas’ surprise attack, increasing from 32 percent in August  to 44 percent in November, according to a poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

40 percent of Americans say US support for Israel has gone too far, but combined, roughly 60 percent of Americans believe US support for Israel is just right or hasn’t gone far enough. 

Within the Democratic Party however, 58 percent say the support has gone too far, compared with just 18 percent of Republicans.

Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military are battling in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin after Israel launched a fresh attack on the refugee camp. 

According to Arabic media the Israeli military is currently engaging in “armed clashes” with Palestinian fighters in Jenin. 

Fighting broke out after Israeli troops supported by an attack helicopter and bulldozer attacked the camp from multiple directions, according to Palestinian news agency, Wafa news. 

Videos posted on social media platform X showed a large smoke cloud rising as a result of Palestinian fighters targeting the Israeli military with an explosive device. Volleys of small arms fire are also being reported.

Meanwhile, the Lions' Den, a Palestinian armed group, claimed responsibility for carrying out more than 14 shooting attacks in and around Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to Arabic media.

The civilian death toll from Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip "has been too high," a senior US Senator said Wednesday.

Chris Murphy, a Democratic member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the AFP "a more surgical approach would be important and vital" to Israel's war effort.

"I am concerned that if Israel's strategy and end goal is to defeat Hamas, then this pace of civilian casualties, which certainly comes with a moral cost, also comes with a strategic cost," Murphy said. 

Murphy was one of 20 senators who sent a letter Wednesday to US President Joe Biden urging that Israel "abide by the laws of war," including protection of civilians, and to "learn from the mistakes the United States made in our fight against terrorism" two decades ago.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said it is incumbent on people of Arab origin in Germany to denounce antisemitism and Hamas.

The president, whose post is largely ceremonial, said people in Germany with "Palestinian and Arab roots" should not be "instrumentalised" by Hamas and its supporters.

"Speak for yourselves and make a clear stand against terror," he said, adding that Germany's constitution  guaranteed them the freedom to express "pain and despair" at civilian casualties in Gaza, but not terrorism or "calls for the destruction of the state of Israel".

Steinmeier went on to say that because of the Holocaust, Germany and its citizens had “a duty” to protect Jewish life. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust conducted by Nazi Germany during WWII. 

Steinmeier didn’t say that the state had the same special "duty" to protect Christian and Muslim lives.

Good evening, Middle East Eye readers,

Benjamin Netanyahu says again that there are no grounds for a ceasefire, as the death toll nears 11,000 with thousands fleeing the northern part of the Gaza Strip on foot.

The Biden administration and the Israeli government have walked back comments suggesting an Israeli occupation ‘post-Hamas’ with the US calling for the Palestinian Authority to rule Gaza after Hamas.

In other updates:

-Hamas official says no Gaza evacuations into Egypt

-The US carried out more strikes in Syria on Iranian targets and didn’t  rule out further strikes

-Netanyahu again says ‘no ceasefire without release of our hostages’

-Israeli parliament amends counter-terrorism law to criminalise ‘consumption of terrorist publications’

-More than a 100 Democrats called on US President Joe Biden to allow Palestinian tourists, students and workers in the US to remain amid the conflict in the Gaza Strip and “unrest in the occupied West Bank”

-The US conducted strikes against what it said was an Iranian weapons storage facility in Syria in response to a series of attacks against US personnel in the region.

The US carried out a strike on an Iran-linked site in eastern Syria on Wednesday in response to attacks against American personnel, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

”US military forces conducted a self-defense strike on a facility in eastern Syria used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups. This strike was conducted by two US F-15s against a weapons storage facility," Austin said in a statement.

"This precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by IRGC-Quds Force affiliates," Austin said, adding that the United States "is fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities."

The strike marked the second time in roughly two weeks that the US has targeted a location in Syria it said was linked to Iran.

The US says its forces have been attacked at least 40 times in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed forces since the start of October and that 45 troops have suffered traumatic brain injuries or minor wounds.

Washington wants to deter Iran and its proxies from entering the Israel-Palestine war in full force and has dispatched additional troops, air defense systems and naval carriers to the region.

More than a 100 Democrats called on US President Joe Biden to allow Palestinian tourists, students and workers in the US to remain amid the conflict in the Gaza Strip and “unrest in the occupied West Bank.

“In light of ongoing armed conflict, Palestinians already in the United States should not be forced to return to the Palestinian territories, consistent with President Biden’s stated commitment to protecting Palestinian civilians,” the lawmakers wrote.

Led by Senator Dick Durbin, the letter asks the US president to grant residents of Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories deportation relief and access to work permits through programs for people whose homelands are affected by conflicts.

The humanitarian protections would only be available to Palestinians already in the U.S., not those in the war zone or refugees in other countries.