Category: General

Israeli warplanes on Thursday raided Naqoura – namely Hamoul and Al-Labouneh – and fired two missiles toward the same region.

The enemy warplanes also raided Aita al-Shaab area twice and fired two missiles toward the same region.

Source: National news agency – Lebanon

Cancer patients from Gaza arrived to Turkiye, marking the first instance, since the conflict began, where wounded individuals were granted permission to exit through the Rafah Border Gate for medical treatment.

Two Turkish planes carrying some cancer patients and their companions who were taken out of Gazaand departed from Egypt’s Al-Arish Airport landed at Esenboga Airport in the Turkish capital Ankara early Thursday.

The health status of the patients was monitored throughout the journey by nine specialized medical staff brought from Turkiye. 27 patients were brought to Bilkent Hospital by ambulances to start their treatment.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca returned to Ankara from Egypt with some patients after intensive negotiations in Egypt on Thursday for health aid for Gaza and the transfer of patients and wounded to Turkiye.

It was seen that Minister Koca was closely interested in the patients getting on the ambulance.

Koca told reporters at Esenboga Airport that under the leadership of Pr
esident Recep Tayyip Erdogan and in full coordination with all units of the government regarding the human tragedy that started in Gaza on Oct. 7, they have been trying to stand by the Gazans and alleviate their suffering, and that they will continue these efforts with determination.

Stating that they held many meetings with the senior executives of the World Health Organization and the health ministers of Egypt, Israel, and Jordan since the first day of the process, Koca said that they immediately sent a team of 20 people from the Ministry of Health to the region on Oct. 22.

Minister Koca said that Turkiye also delivered 666 tons of aid to Egypt with 10 cargo planes, one ship, eight fully equipped field hospitals, 20 ambulances, vital ventilators, incubators, and generators, as well as medicines, medical supplies and devices to be used for the needs of Gazans.

Source: National news agency – Lebanon

An Israeli enemy raid has targeted the outskirts of the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura, our reporter said on Thursday.

Source: National news agency – Lebanon

5 persons have been reported injured in 3 road accident within the last 24 hours, the Traffic Management Center said on Wednesday.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

In response to increasing cross-border hostilities, WHO has released a flash appeal for readiness and response in Lebanon.

WHO is asking for funds to increase capacity for mass casualty management and emergency care, to ensure continuity of essential health services for vulnerable and affected populations, and to strengthen disease surveillance and control, among other actions.

WHO takes into account 2 possible scenarios in the appeal: if hostilities are confined to the south of Lebanon, the Organization estimates it will need US$ 6.7 million for readiness and response; if hostilities expand to the entire country, it will need US$ 11.1 million.

The appeal is part of an evolving WHO multi-country funding appeal for the occupied Palestinian territory and neighbouring countries, with an estimated overall funding requirement of US$ 140 million.

Lebanon is experiencing a prolonged economic crisis, which has reduced people’s income and access to health care. Shortages of medicines and catastrophic out-of-pocke
t health costs are common, while more than 40% of the health workforce is estimated to have left the country. It is estimated that 2 in 3 people in Lebanon need humanitarian assistance, including for health.

The ongoing hostilities in southern Lebanon and on the border with Israel and the uncertainty about the future are added burdens on the health system. To date, 77 people have been killed, 331 injured and over 26 000 people displaced within Lebanon. Three attacks on health care have also been reported.

WHO, along with the Ministry of Public Health and other partners, has begun preparing for the potential expansion of conflict. A public health emergency operations centre, led by the Ministry with WHO support, has been activated to coordinate the national response.

Source: National news agency – Lebanon

‘In support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and in support of their brave and honorable resistance, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance on Thursday targeted the Israeli enemy’s Bayad Blida site with appropriate weapons and achieved direct hits.’

Source: National news agency – Lebanon

The following is a briefing to states by UN Human Rights Chief Volker Trk on his visit to the Middle East:

‘A conflagration of violence has been unleashed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory – both in Gaza and the West Bank – as well as in Israel. Given the magnitude of the challenges, I thought it important to provide this informal briefing following my mission to Egypt and Jordan last week, and to offer my recommendations. I am grateful to both countries for having facilitated my visit.

I met with senior officials of both Egypt and Jordan, as well as the State of Palestine, and the Secretary-General of the Arab League; many UN colleagues, and representatives of Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian and Israeli civil society. I briefed journalists in Cairo and in Amman, with statements highlighting my key concerns and recommendations. I have also asked to visit Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory – a visit I consider very important.

I visited Rafah and El Arish, where I was struck by the horrific
wounds of many patients at the hospital, including numerous children. I have also heard from a number of Israelis about their anguish, including families of the children and adults abducted by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

Rarely have I heard such disturbing testimony about the catastrophic harm that ordinary people have endured, and which continues to mount. And never in my career of working in many crisis situations around the world have I met such an outpouring of fear, anger and despair.

The people of Gaza, who for years have been profoundly impoverished behind barbed wire fences, are enduring bombardment by the Israeli Security Forces of an intensity rarely experienced in this century.

One in every 57 people living in the Gaza strip has been killed or wounded in the past five weeks, according to figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health. Over 11,100 have been killed, more than 4,600 of them children. 102 of those killed were UN staff members: people whose only goal is to assist civilians. M
ore than 26,000 people have been injured, many severely. And at least 2,000 more people are presumed to be trapped under the rubble of completely destroyed neighbourhoods, where there is no capacity to reach or rescue them. An entire population is being deeply traumatised.

In Israel, according to the authorities, 1,200 people, including many children, were killed in horrific attacks by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 and 8 October. 239 people, including children, were captured and taken to Gaza. And the nation has been thrown into shock.

It is apparent that on both sides, some view the killing of civilians as either acceptable collateral damage, or a deliberate and useful weapon of war. This is a humanitarian and human rights crisis. It represents a breakdown of the most basic respect for humane values. The killing of so many civilians cannot be dismissed as collateral damage. Not in a kibbutz. Not in a refugee camp. And not in a hospital.

As bombardment continues by air, intense urban warfare is also un
derway. In the very few hospitals that are still functioning, doctors operate on screaming children without anaesthetic, using mobile phones for light. WHO has recorded at least 137 attacks on health care in Gaza, with especially severe impact on Al-Shifa Hospital in recent days, where newborns on life support are dying due to power, oxygen, and water cuts, while many other patients of all ages are at risk – as well as medics, and people sheltering on the hospital grounds. And yet international humanitarian law requires special protection to medical units at all times, so that they can continue their life-saving work.

Many ordinary people have been forced to move south, seeking some kind of safety. They are carrying elderly family members, and terrified, sometimes wounded children, moving slowly on a bomb-cratered road. Others are unable to undertake the journey: hundreds of thousands of people – including many children, wounded, and people with disabilities – reportedly remain trapped in northern Gaza, wher
e humanitarian access has become impossible.

The total depletion of fuel supplies is imminent, according to UNRWA, and it would be catastrophic across all of Gaza – leading to the complete collapse of water, sewage and crucial healthcare services, and ending the trickle of humanitarian assistance that has been permitted to date. Massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger, seem inevitable.

Current proposals for a so-called ‘safe zone’ are untenable: the zone is neither safe nor feasible for the number of people in need. I refer you to the IASC statement that will be coming out shortly.

Excellencies,

No-one is above the law, and international humanitarian law is clear.

All parties to every conflict must, at all times, distinguish between civilians and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives. Attacks directed at civilians or protected civilian objects – hospitals, schools, and the markets and bakeries that constitute a lifeline – are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks – for
example, aiming indiscriminate projectiles into southern Israel – are prohibited. Attacks where the likelihood of civilian death, and damage to protected objects, is disproportionate to the concrete and direct military advantage – as constantly risked by Israel’s use of explosive weapons with wide-area effect in densely populated areas of Gaza – are also prohibited. Forced displacement is prohibited. The taking and holding of hostages is prohibited, as is any use of civilians to shield locations from military operations. Collective punishment – as in the case of Israel’s blockade and siege imposed on Gaza – is prohibited.

Extremely serious allegations of multiple and profound breaches of international humanitarian law, whoever commits them, demand rigorous investigation and full accountability. Where national authorities prove unwilling or unable to carry out such investigations, and where there are contested narratives on particularly significant incidents, international investigation is called for.

And it
must be clear that breaches of international humanitarian law – even war crimes – committed by one party do not, ever, absolve the other from compliance with the clear principles of the law of war.

Excellencies,

The crisis extends well beyond Gaza. I am deeply concerned about the intensification of violence and severe discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. In my view, this creates a potentially explosive situation, and I want to be clear: we are well beyond the level of early warning. I am ringing the loudest possible alarm bell about the occupied West Bank.

As I warned last Friday, settler attacks on Palestinians are increasing, and Israeli security forces have stepped up their use of military weaponry in law enforcement operations. Since the beginning of October, at least 190 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces or by settlers. My Office will be issuing a report on these issues, including conditions of detention.

I also share the deep
sense of foreboding of many of my interlocutors about the risk of spill over into the wider Middle East region, if the current trajectory continues.

This crisis is another global shock to our multilateral system – polarising it further, and creating deeper fractures, with unbearable consequences for the solutions that humanity so urgently needs. We must not allow this to happen. Polarisation is a trap. Every one of us needs to strive to find common ground, and a solution.

Let me be clear. The outbreak of conflict is always a failure: A failure to find a peaceful solution. A failure of prevention. A failure to uphold human rights. I feel this deeply. The failure, in this case, has been long-standing, and many parties could count their part of responsibility in it.

But every conflict that has been enduringly resolved, has achieved that resolution through the advancement of justice, accountability and human rights.

Warnings by my Office, and others, about the explosive situation in the Occupied Palestinian T
erritory, in particular Gaza; our careful documentation of human rights violations over many years; and our recommendations for de-escalation, accountability and justicehave been ignored – not only in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, but by States with influence on the parties to this crisis.

The voice of reason, our work to report and document violations, and our advocacy for human rights, will persevere until it is heard.

Today, among both Israelis and Palestinians, entirely separate narratives are building up, parallel to each other and with no connection between them. Profound historical traumas have been revived. I plead for everyone to recognise and acknowledge this depth of pain, and the reality of the humanity and the suffering of the other. This is perhaps my most important recommendation: it is essential that all parties acknowledge that all human lives have equal value.

A vortex of disinformation and dehumanising rhetoric is tugging people away from reason and humanity, blocking th
e work of identifying and clearing the way out and forward.

We must not let rage submerge our moral compass. We must not lose our grip on reality to the myth that pain can be eradicated by unleashing it on a scapegoat. We must insist on the truth. And we must continue to insist on the humanity, and the value, of every life that is affected or destroyed in this fighting.

My Office is not partisan. But yes: I am taking sides. I am on the side of every civilian, Palestinian or Israeli, who is harmed, or who lives in fear. Every one of them has exactly the same rights to live and thrive in peace and in freedom. That is the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Who can win a war in which so many children have been killed? Only extremism. The extremism that will continue grinding up the bodies and the future of the children of both sides – Palestinians and Israelis – and their children’s children, until their future is only despair and bloodshed.

What kind of societies will emerge from this conf
lict? And where is the way out?

Israelis’ freedom is inextricably bound up with Palestinians’ freedom. Palestinians and Israelis are each others’ only hope for peace.

Last night, the Security Council adopted resolution 2712, calling for ‘urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip’, among other key demands on the parties. Such action is critically necessary.

I urge the parties to give effect, immediately, to the Council’s calls. And I urge all those with responsibility to step back from this devastating escalation of death, destruction and grief.

All States with influence must seek common ground, to disempower extremists by offering hope; and to build an enduring peace, through justice and the guarantee of equal rights.

There must be an end to grave human rights violations, notably against children.

All forms of collective punishment must come to an end. All hostages must be released.

International humanitarian and human rights law must be immediately and fully resp
ected, including the principles of necessity, distinction, precaution and proportionality.

There must be a ceasefire on humanitarian and human rights grounds, and an end to the fighting – not only to deliver urgently needed food and water, but to create the space for a path out of this horror.

Rapid and unimpeded humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza, including fuel, and at the scale required, is urgently needed, and must be facilitated – including through Israeli crossings such as Kerem Shalom. My Office will remain deeply engaged, and I stress the importance of full access to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza, for my Office, to ensure full and independent monitoring and documentation, and to coordinate protection work.

I further urge Israeli authorities to take immediate measures to ensure that the security forces comply with their obligations as an occupying power to protect Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including from violence by settlers. Continued, widespread i
mpunity for such violations must stop.

Without genuine accountability, contested narratives cannot be resolved; and people will be unable to contemplate a shared, common future alongside each other. Accountability is the key to opening the possibility of a genuinely different reality.

We have issued numerous detailed recommendations to address the underlying drivers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most recently in my speech to the Human Rights Council in March. It is urgent that their implementation begin.

In the fog of war it is particularly important to support including with financial resources, civil society, who act as eyes and ears.

Finally, it is clear that the Israeli occupation must end. It is essential to ensure the rights of Palestinians to self-determination and to their own State. And it is essential to acknowledge that Israel has a right to exist.

My Office will continue to do our utmost to assist all parties to step back from the precipice to which extremism and violence have led. Our
strongest assets will remain our principled independence, and our consistent standing on the international laws and standards that can ensure enduring peace, through respect for every human life.’

Source: National news agency – Lebanon

The Turkish Embassy in Beirut on Thursday issued the following statement:

‘First Lady Emine Erdogan addressed a press conference following the ‘United for Peace in Palestine’ Summit, held with the participation of the spouses of the heads of state and government and special representatives from numerous countries.

First Lady Erdogan said: ‘Respected members of the press, I would like to extend my warmest greetings to you. I stand before you on the occasion of the First Ladies summit, where we have united for peace in Palestine. Once again, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all First Ladies, my sisters, who have taken a stance against this atrocity against the conscience of humanity by attending the summit. It is my sincere hope that this historic summit serve as a means to institute tranquility and peace in Palestine and our region. As a result of the summit, we make the following joint call on the entire world today from Istanbul:

We, as the first ladies and representatives of countries,
came together in Istanbul, on November 15, 2023, to draw the attention of the international community to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to call for an end to the tragedy endured by civilians, especially children, women, the patients and the disabled, for the establishment of a just and lasting peace, and to mobilize the international community to take action against these atrocities, which may amount to war crime.

We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian tragedy in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza and the West Bank, especially East Al Quds, due to the war that has unfolded since October 7, 2023. We draw attention to the fact that the humanitarian crisis caused by the blockade and embargo imposed on Gaza, which is incompatible with international law, prevents civilians from accessing basic needs and has turned into a real human rights violation. We emphasize that the massacre of more than 11 thousand civilians, mostly children and women, in the tragedy in Gaza since October 7 co
nstitutes one of the gravest violations of international law.

We highlight the need to take urgent action to ensure the safety of pregnant women, children, babies and patients who are under inhumane conditions and face the threat of massacre. We wish for a two-state solution where both Israelis and Palestinians can raise their children in peace and security. In this context, we, as the First Ladies and the representatives of countries, call on the entire world for: Immediate and collective action to stop the ongoing massacres in Gaza; immediate cessation of Israeli attacks targeting all civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, hospitals and other medical facilities, refugee camps, United Nations facilities and places of worship; urgent ceasefire that will end the hostilities and the provision of unhindered, sufficient and safe humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza; firm rejection of any attempts to forcibly displace the Palestinian civilian population, emphasizing the grave impact of displa
cement under the current circumstances of conflict on women, children and elderly; immediate and full compliance by all parties with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law. I call on every human being of good conscience to support our global call. Thank you.’

Source: National news agency – Lebanon

The following is a statement issued by the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine:

‘The only result that the Zionist enemy achieved from the invasion of the Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza is the accumulation of his failure, and the displayed impotence of his intelligence capabilities whose reputation has been permanently stained.

It has become clear to the world that the Zionist entity, government and army, is waging a war of retaliation that seeks no purpose other than to destroy and to massacre civilians and patients, in an attempt to cover up its military, security, intelligence, and field failures.

The U.S. administration, and primarily the White House and the Pentagon, share the weight of the intelligence scandal that befell the Zionist entity, and it has been shown once again that they are mere echoes of Zionist claims, and they only provide cover for the war crimes committed by the entity at the expense of Palestinian blood.’

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

National News Agency correspondent in Tyre reported that the Burj al-Mulouk area, west of Al-Hush, was being subjected to enemy 155-caliber artillery shelling.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

National News Agency correspondent in Tyre reported that the enemy artillery shelling targeted Wadi Qatmoun in the outskirts of the southern town of Rmeish.

NNA correspondent in Marjeyoun reported that the enemy’s artillery shelling targeted the outskirts of Birk al-Mulouk, Marjeyoun Plain, Houla, Rab Thalatheen and Markaba.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

Aita al-Shaab is currently being subjected to Israeli enemy artillery shelling, our reporter said on Wednesday.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon