Seven children are among at least 17 people killed in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in central Gaza, Palestinian officials and a hospital have said. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera has denied Israeli claims that six of its journalists are militants. Listen to The World as you scroll.
Thursday 24 October 2024 16:12, UK
We’re pausing our live coverage, but we’ll be back with more analysis and updates tomorrow.
If you’re just checking in, here are the key developments over the course of the day.
An international conference for Lebanon in Paris has raised $1bn in pledges for humanitarian aid and military support, according to organisers.
The funding was split 80-20 between aid and the security forces, French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.
The latter is aimed at strengthening Lebanon’s armed forces so they could deploy in the country’s south as part of any potential deal to end the war, as was intended after the 2006 conflict.
“Without a strengthened Lebanese armed forces and UNIFIL, there can be no sustainable peace and stability at the border between Lebanon and Israel,” said Middle East expert Rym Montaz, editor-in-chief of Carnegie Europe’s blog Strategic Europe.
“As such, the French efforts are important and crucial for the way forward.”
France’s historic links with Lebanon, a former colony, and its influential diplomacy give Paris momentum to coordinate “a proper response to the massive challenge that the war in Lebanon now poses”.
The conference gathered over 70 nations and international organisations, with the US pledging the lion’s share – $300m.
Germany pledged $104m in humanitarian aid to both Lebanon and neighboring Syria, where displaced people have fled.
Experts have warned that delivering aid could be challenging due to Lebanon’s growing dependence on an informal and cash economy which risks corruption.
The country, where Hezbollah effectively operates as a state within a state, has been without a president for two years while political factions fail to agree on a new one.
A lack of humanitarian aid entering Gaza is leading to food shortages and soaring prices across the enclave.
Those in the enclave describe how a kilogram of sugar that previously cost $1 is now $40, while the prices of items such as cooking oil, oranges, and aubergines have also soared.
Most of the population of Gaza lost their sources of income after the war between Israel and Hamas started last year.
The UN says there is a high risk of famine across the enclave, where one in five people are facing starvation.
The US had led the list of countries calling on Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
The Israeli military body responsible for managing crossings into Gaza, Cogat, said only 5,840 tons of food crossed into Gaza in the first 12 days of October, compared to a total of 75,898 tons in September.
Israel’s military claims that Al Jazeera established a “secure line” with Hamas last year to enable them to communicate in a “classified manner”.
It also alleges Hamas briefed the Qatar-based TV network on how its journalists should describe a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch in 2022.
The instructions included avoiding the use of the word “massacre”, reducing the display of images from the incident, and ensuring that panel members did not criticise Hamas, it added.
The Israel Defence Forces attached several documents to its report, which it says reveals “how Hamas directs Al Jazeera’s media coverage to serve its own interests”.
Al Jazeera is yet to respond to the latest allegations.
Earlier today, the IDF named six Palestinian Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza that it says are also members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad militant groups (see 07.15 post).
Al Jazeera rejected the claims as an attempt to silence its journalists.
For context: Israel has long accused Al Jazeera of being a Hamas mouthpiece and over the past year its authorities have ordered it to shut down its operations for security reasons, raided its offices and confiscated equipment.
The network says it has no affiliation with militant groups and has accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing several of its journalists in the Gaza war.
A worker for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees says the lack of humanity he’s witnessed in northern Gaza is “incomprehensible”.
Sam Rose says it is “essentially impossible” for UNRWA to provide any kind of assistance to civilians trapped in the north of the enclave amid constant Israeli military activity.
Mr Rose describes the scenes in Jabalia, where bakeries have run out of flour – the only food left in the area – and all eight water wells in the area have dried up.
“When we think that this conflict can’t get any worse, sadly, it has the ability to plummet further,” he tells Sky News.
“The lack of humanity that we’re seeing in northern Gaza is, quite frankly, incomprehensible and the inability of the world to do anything about it, equally so.”
The situation could be made even worse, Mr Rose says, if everybody in the north of Gaza cannot access a polio vaccine.
The World Health Organisation has vaccinated more than half a million Palestinian children but has been forced to postpone the final round of its polio vaccination campaign due to the escalating violence in northern Gaza.
This final phase of vaccines aimed to immunise 119,279 children across northern Gaza but relied on humanitarian pauses in fighting to ensure its completion.
The entire campaign could now be at risk if the final phase cannot be completed.
“If only part of the population is vaccinated, and vaccinated with live polio, then when that vaccine is shed into the water system, it can be picked up by other unvaccinated children,” adds Mr Rose.
“Over time, it mutates. And we’re dealing with a completely new strain of the condition against which nobody in Gaza is vaccinated.”
Footage has surfaced online showing blindfolded Palestinians being led away by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers in northern Gaza.
The video, verified by Sky News, shows a group of people in what appear to be hazmat suits being led away by Israeli soldiers near the Indonesian Hospital, north of Jabalia, home to one of Gaza’s refugee camps.
They walk barefoot with their hands tied behind their back as they are ushered on by soldiers.
While Sky News has geolocated the footage, which has been circulating today and is believed to have been taken by an Israeli soldier, it is unclear when exactly it was recorded.
The location tallies up with IDF footage posted yesterday by the military’s Arabic spokesperson on Telegram.
The spokesperson claims 150 “terrorists” were arrested while more than 20,000 Palestinians have fled the Jabalia area.
Israel has intensified its operation in northern Gaza over the past few weeks, claiming it is trying to stop Hamas from regrouping.
Negotiators from the US and Israel are set to meet in Doha to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza, Qatar’s foreign minister has said.
“This painful period in the region should come to an end,” said Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani after meeting with US secretary of state Antony Blinken earlier today.
Mr Blinken, on his 11th visit to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas conflict began last year, said he expects negotiators to meet in the coming days.
“This is a moment to work to end this war, to bring make sure all the hostages are home, and to build a better future for people in Gaza,” he said.
The progress of ceasefire talks have slowed to a grinding halt of late. Sheikh al Thani said last week that neither Israel nor Hamas had engaged in talks for at least a month.
It’s unclear whether either group will have representatives present at upcoming talks, though Sheikh Al Thani says Qatar has engaged in talks with Hamas’s political office in recent days.
Vladimir Putin says only the creation of an independent Palestinian state can help solve “historical injustice” towards its people.
The Russian president was speaking at a BRICS summit in Kazan, where he said the level of confrontation between Israel and Iran has put the Middle East “on the verge of full-scale war”.
“The key demand for restoring peace and stability on Palestinian territories is carrying out the two-state formula approved by the UN Security Council and General Assembly,” he said, adding that this would help solve “the historical injustice towards the Palestinian people”.
“Until this question is resolved, it will not be possible to break the vicious circle of violence.”
For context: BRICS is an intergovernmental organisation. It stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
The informal grouping has in recent years expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, while Saudi Arabia participates as an invited nation.
Its purpose is to bring together the world’s most important developing countries and to challenge the political and economic power of the wealthier North American and Western European nations.
Israel’s military has confirmed it conducted an airstrike on a school used as a shelter in a central Gaza camp that Palestinian officials say killed at 17 people (see 12.08 post).
The Israel Defence Forces said its air force conducted a strike targeting “Hamas terrorists” who it says were operating inside a command and control centre in the area.
It said the centre previously served as the Shuhada al-Nuseirat school, but was now being used by Hamas “to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel”.
“This is a further example of the Hamas terrorist organisation’s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law,” it added.
Lebanon’s economy could shrink by as much as 9.2% if Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah continues until the end of the year, the UN Development Program (UNDP) says.
The conflict has killed more than 2,500 Lebanese and severely deepened the country’s financial crisis.
The UNDP warned that the economic impact of the conflict is expected to be greater than in the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 when GDP dropped between 8% and 10%.
“The impacts of the conflict on the economy and longer-term development in Lebanon are potentially very serious,” the UNDP said in a statement.
“Lebanon now needs committed support from the international community, and the assistance must include both immediate humanitarian aid and more comprehensive support to social, economic and institutional stability.”
In Gaza, where Israel is also engaged in fighting, a UN study suggests it could take 350 years for the economy to return to its pre-war level.
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